"So in fact they didn't have the effect you found, that brought you here?"
"Not directly," Bleys said. "You're correct to say that individuals can't have such effects on planetary scales. But it's also true that every organization—every government and business—can only act if the individual people running them take some action .. . otherwise, they're just dead social machinery."
She frowned, thinking.
"I don't understand," she said at last.
"Let me give you an example," he said. "I don't know exactly what they did, but it must have been close to this .. ." He paused, thinking.
"Suppose you have one hundred million interstellar credits to spend on trying to ruin Exotic trade with Freiland," he said finally. "That amount won't go far, if applied directly. But if you use it to bribe key Freilander officials, the effect of that sum can be multiplied, since such officials usually have control over even larger economic and political capital. . . . For instance, a bribe of five million credits to a Freiland Space Force procurement officer might lead him to give billions of credits' worth of contracts—for supplies, for ships, for military consultants—to someone other than the Exotics and the Dorsai."
"I see!" she said. "That's what you meant when you referred to 'leveraging their positions,' earlier."
"Yes," he said. He smiled. "Do you see something familiar in that concept?"
"Yes," she said, thoughtfully. "It's exactly what you've been doing to take over the worlds."
"But in more ways than economic," he said, nodding. "Economic assets were all they had," she said.
"That's right," he said. "Again, they were in the right place at the right time: they were in a position to corrupt individuals in positions of power, during an era in which the interstellar system was decay-ing."
"The only thing that can really stop such corruption is an overriding sense of morality," she said, "and you've been saying for some time that that's been dying away."
"Corruption multiplies itself," he said. "The race has been under stress ever since it went into space, and the resulting corruption will kill it unless I can lead it back to Old Earth and make it face the need to renew its sense of morality and responsibility."
"So you'll be using their corruption to fight future corruption," she said. "It's a concept the aikido masters would have recognized."
CHAPTER 21
The first thing Bleys did, upon arrival back on Association, was to check the great Mayne-map, as Dahno called it, on the wall of his private lounge. He realized immediately it had been updated in his absence.
"The Dorsai!" he exclaimed, more to himself than to Toni, entering the room behind him. "I should have known he'd go there next— he's been making the rounds of all the groups that aren't in our camp." He raised a hand to massage the side of his head.
"Well, that seems logical," Toni said. "But why didn't he stay with the Exotics longer? Surely that would have been safer?"
"In the short run, perhaps," Bleys said. "But this is no longer about safety—Hal Mayne's or anyone else's. I told Dahno that Hal Mayne is actively campaigning against us, and this proves it."
"How?"
"The only reason for him to go to the Dorsai would be to try to enlist them in the fight against us," Bleys said.
"Is it likely the Dorsai would listen to a lone and unknown young man?" she asked. "They have a reputation for being pretty hard-headed."
Bleys remembered again that she was partly Dorsai herself.
"You haven't met Hal Mayne, have you?" he said. "I wouldn't put it past him to be able to get the Dorsai to listen very seriously to him. And they'd be right to see us as a threat to them. But in any case, I don't think he went there entirely by himself."
"You mean someone from the Exotics is traveling with him?"
"In a way, perhaps," Bleys said. "I don't know that. But I think he went with, at a minimum, their blessings. In fact"—he nodded to himself, the idea catching fire in his head even as he spoke it—"I'd say it's probable he carried some kind of introduction or message from the Exotics, asking the Dorsai to take him seriously."
"I see your thinking," she said. "We know the Exotics are inclined to help him because they've already done so—and if they weren't agreed on the need to take some sort of action together, he'd still be there, trying to move them."
"Exactly," Bleys said. He turned to a desk, where he could use a screen to get access to all of the Others' information files, including data that had arrived while he was off-planet.
"Let's see if we have any more detail."
"We were lucky to learn of Mayne's trip at all," he told Toni a short time later. "One of our people going to Sainte Marie was making a connection at a pad on Mara, and just happened to see Mayne passing through. He managed to observe which ship Mayne boarded. Sheer accident."
He paused to think for a moment, massaging his temples, his eyes closed.
"We need to be able to monitor travelers better," he said. "We haven't had any need for that up to now, except for trying to track Mayne himself—for that matter, we haven't had the people to put into a time-consuming effort like that. But we're entering a new stage, and we're soon going to have more of that kind of resource."
"So now we'll try to watch for him to leave the Dorsai?" she said.
"We will, yes," Bleys said. "But I'd say he's already left there."
"What makes you say that?"
"He only had one thing to do on the Dorsai," Bleys said, opening his eyes. "And he's busy." She raised an eyebrow.
"He's taken the next step," Bleys explained, his eyes returning to the great map. "Now he's recruiting his army. The war is on."
Later that day Dahno appeared. He had been back on Association for more than two weeks, and was fully recovered from his wounds. But Bleys had been quietly told that his brother, on his arrival back at Others' headquarters, had sequestered himself in his suite.
"Come up if you'd like," Toni said when Dahno called. "But Bleys is asleep and I won't wake him."
Dahno came up anyway, arriving via the interior float elevator within minutes, his face petulant. Toni thought he looked a bit drawn, underneath a layer of irritation.
"Why can't I see him?" Dahno barked. "He shouldn't be asleep. I checked to see if your flight resulted in any transit-lag, and none of you should be having that problem! I’m not tired!"
She refrained from commenting on his logic.
"He's got one of those headaches he gets ever since he was damaged by the Newtonians," she said. "They nearly blind him with pain, but he won't use blocks."
"War!" Dahno jumped as the door behind Toni was thrown open, the single word seeming to leap out at them. They saw Bleys framed in the doorway, draped in shadow; behind him the hallway that led to his bedroom seemed like some ancient cave.
Clad only in a pair of the shorts he habitually slept in, Bleys stumbled through the doorway into the light of the lounge, eyes half-closed. His forehead seemed moist and creased, and his jaw muscles were tightened.
"It's going to be war," he said, more quietly. "Would you close the curtains and dial down the lights, please?"
While Toni did what he asked, Bleys walked across the room to take his seat in front of the Mayne-map. His movements seemed stiff, but after he had looked up at the map for a few moments, his voice was calm when he spoke.
"Dahno, we've spoken in the past about using military force to get what we need from the Exotics," he said. "But we haven't gotten around to really thinking about building up forces like that."
"You know I'm against it," Dahno said, his voice louder than it needed to be. "Why should we bother? We can get more than we need to overawe the Exotics from the armed forces of the planets we control."
"Don't you sec, that won't be enough," Bleys replied. "Why not? The Exotics have no military of their own." "But what have they always done in the past, when they were threatened?"
"They hired the Dorsai, of course," Dahno said. "But they haven't—" He b
roke off as his eyes, following Bleys' gaze, fastened on the new line on the Mayne-map.
"Yes," Bleys said. "I thought the Exotics probably asked the Dorsai to listen to Hal Mayne, but I was a little slow off the mark— in fact, they probably had him carry a message asking for the Dorsai's help."
Dahno stepped over to look down at his brother.
"Are you sure?" he said. His voice was low and serious; but without waiting for an answer, he raised it in protest: "We can't fight that. That's not our game!"
"I told Toni, earlier, that I thought Hal Maync went to the Dorsai to try to recruit them," Bleys said. "But I didn't really believe they would respond quickly—not until it was too late; and so I didn't think it through far enough."
"What do you mean?" Toni asked.
"You yourself told me the Dorsai are—I think you said 'hard-headed,'" Bleys said. "I assumed that while they might well listen to Mayne, they wouldn't take any sort of action on the basis of his word alone. But if the Exotics have made some sort of financial offer to the Dorsai—for instance, if they've agreed to underwrite some action Mayne might propose to them—then it's suddenly a much more dangerous situation for us."
"It certainly is!" Dahno said. "War is nothing I ever intended! And particularly not war with the Dorsai—no one can beat them!"
"Well, let's stop and look the situation over," Bleys said mildly, looking up at his brother. He had not seen Dahno since his brother left Favored of God three weeks earlier, and what he saw—now that he took a moment to look more closely into his brother's face— startled him. But Bleys showed no reaction.
"What's there to think about?" Dahno said, his voice rising. "We can't match the Dorsai!" "Why not?"
Dahno looked at his brother, silent, as if unable even to comprehend the question.
"Why not?" Bleys repeated; and he sat up straighter, his movements more fluid and all signs of pain erased from his face and posture.
"Brother," Bleys said, "we knew all along the Exotics and the Dorsai would never give in to our leadership, even in the face of the greatest economic and political pressures we could muster. But our planning was based on the assumption we could neutralize the abilities of those three planets to oppose us on the other Younger Worlds—in other words, that they would play the game on the field we chose—and let time work for us."
"Yes," Dahno said, his voice not as loud as a moment before, but still carrying an edge. "I even talked about using force to take whatever resources the Exotics might deny us—but I was talking about some time well in the future. If the Dorsai come into this on the Exotics' side, we can't ever do that, and might very well lose our control of the planets we've already got!"
"You mean it might scare our allies into deserting us," Bleys said.
"I'd say that's a certainty!"
"You're no military expert, brother," Bleys said. "Neither am I, for that matter. But everything I've ever read tells me that no military force—even the Dorsai—can just pick up and launch an attack without a certain amount of preparation time. We've got time, at the very least."
"Time to what?"
"Time to build up our own forces," Bleys said.
"You want to raise an army to oppose the Dorsai?" Dahno said, his voice incredulous. "That's insane! How many people would ever join us to do that?"
"Oh, it would be a mistake to tell them, ahead of time, what we're doing," Bleys said. "Nor do I mean we just raise an army and space force and nothing more. No."
He leaned back in his chair, looking at the Mayne-map, which also doubled as a map of the whole of human civilization.
"In fact, we're merely elaborating on our original plan," he went on. His voice was still quiet, almost detached. "Even if the entire population of the Dorsai came out in force, it couldn't really stand up to the combined opposition of, say, nine worlds."
"Nine worlds?" Dahno asked. "You're including—let's see—Ceta, Freiland, Sainte Marie, and, um, Coby?—with the five worlds we already control?"
"Right," Bleys said.
"It doesn't matter!'''' Dahno said, his voice, recovered from his momentary startlement, again loud, and edgy. "Can't you see that? Even if we did manage to get control of nine worlds, and even if that control didn't disintegrate at the first threat of a war with the Dorsai—" He stopped for a moment, as if the words were exploding out of his mind so fast that he had lost his place in the argument. He took a deep breath.
"Bleys," he said—his voice was lower and softer, as if he had remembered finally to employ the persuasiveness that had been surprised out of him earlier—"even if we could raise enough of a military force to beat the Dorsai, it would ruin us!"
"I'd rather not get into a shooting war with anyone," Bleys said. "And I really believe our non-military assets will assure us of victory, and an overwhelming one—to the point where realism will make our opponents lay down their arms."
"The Dorsai don't surrender," Dahno said, scowling.
"Even if that were true," Bleys said, "they've never had to fight a war in which they didn't have a place to stand."
He swiveled in his chair, to an angle from which he could look at both of his companions. Toni and Dahno, he saw, each wore a puzzled frown, yet he perceived a vast difference in the unspoken message each face was conveying.
"One thing the Dorsai have never adapted to," Bleys continued, "is non-military conflict. We aren't armies in the field, trying to take and hold territory, so we don't present a military target along the lines of anything they've had to deal with before. Whatever action they take will have to be outside their experience."
"What kinds of actions are you suggesting they might try?" Toni asked.
"Oh, perhaps precision pre-emptive attacks on military bases of the planets we control," Bleys said. "But that would alienate the populations of those worlds, which would be a great plus for us. I think they'll realize that—and if they don't, the Exotics certainly will."
"What does that leave?"
"Not much," Bleys said. "Underground actions, such as sabotage. Or even assassination campaigns."
"Are you serious?" Dahno yelled, shaken.
"They wouldn't go in for assassination," Toni said calmly.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not," Bleys said. "People always tend to throw their principles aside when they feel sufficiently threatened. But it's not going to be a real danger to us in any case, because we'll be well protected."
"By who?" Dahno asked.
"By the peoples of the worlds we control," Bleys replied. "We, and all of our Others, can have so many bodyguards it would take a heavily armed military unit to break through them. And any attempt to try that would be dealing us a winning political position."
Dahno looked sour.
"How do you reach that conclusion?" he said.
"Think about it," Bleys answered. "They can't act for a while yet. In the meantime, we'll be convincing the peoples of the Younger Worlds that we're peaceful philosophers seeking only the good of mankind—that's what I've been doing on my speaking tours for years. You know we can persuade at least a fair portion of the masses of that notion, especially if we tie it to something else they want, like a bigger piece of their planets' economic pies or to stick a finger in the eye of Old Earth."
"Oh, we can do that, all right," Dahno said. "Most of our top Others already have major establishments and sizable personal followings of their own . .. but how does that help if the Dorsai decide, say, to come after you—or me, or any of our top people?"
"The Dorsai aren't fools," Bleys said. "They can't afford to be seen as aggressors, and they'll know that being seen attempting to kill us would energize those who believe in us, and swing a lot of those on the fence over to our side. And if the Dorsai have any doubts on that score, the Exotics would certainly confirm it for them— because, after all, it's true." He paused as a new thought came to him.
"In fact," he continued, "we may want to think about manufacturing an assassination attempt... at the right time, of course."
"Will a few economic incentives, even coupled with jealousy, work on enough people?" Dahno asked, ignoring Bleys' speculation. "People are complex, you know that; and many of them have totally differing motivations."
"That's certainly true," said Bleys. "But it was never my intention we would stop with such a simplistic program."
He stood up, and strode over to the Mayne-map, looking up at it from its left side.
"There are all these worlds full of people," he said, "and it seems like a huge task to try to motivate them all, I know. But in fact, we don't have to motivate them all."
He looked sideways as Dahno approached the other side of the map. Toni kept her station in the middle of the room, watching.
"There are all sorts of keys to those people," Bleys said, "and we can use them all, trying one key after another until enough of them are emotionally aroused and intellectually confused to follow our lead—because whether they're motivated by simple greed, or religious fanaticism, or jealousy, all of it comes down to the desire to believe that they're better than the people on the other side, who they want to believe are undeserving of their luck, or crafty conspirators, or disbelievers...." He waved a hand across the face of the map.
Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 Page 22