There was no charade in that statement.
"The latest reports are in from Ceta," Dahno said, stepping off the disk of the float elevator later that day. His broad face shone with cheerfulness and he was moving quickly, more energetic than at any time since his injury.
"I've had them scanned in so you can look them over on your screen," he added, waving a hand in the direction of Bleys' desk.
"I will," Bleys said, smiling back at his brother, "but why don't you summarize it for me, first?"
"The Families arc sending six of their young people here to us for training," Dahno said, grinning. "They're convinced of our abilities and they think they can learn them. It'll be a great opportunity for us to set up future control of the Families."
"It'll be interesting to meet them," Bleys said. "I've believed for some time that the reason the Families are ruled by their elderly members is because the younger generations don't care about what happened to Prince William. We'll make good use of them."
"Also," Dahno continued, "they've given Pallas Salvador the chair of the Malik Shipping Line, as well as directorships in three other major companies; and they've placed more of our Others into nine other directorships in five other major companies. Pallas Salvador says it's no gesture on their part: she's already moved Others into a number of key positions in several of those companies—enough that we're running short of people."
"I presume Pallas Salvador is carrying out our end of our bargain?"
"She says she's already given orders to divert three shipments of metals intended for the Dorsai—they'll be Most,' officially, and the shipping company's records will only show that the cargoes left Coby on Malik vessels and haven't been heard of since. Meanwhile, the Dorsai's escrow will be frozen until the matter is cleared up— which will drag out for a very long time.... The Families are very pleased; it's something they never thought of."
"How did she manage to set that up so quickly?" Toni asked.
"Pallas Salvador is neither innovative nor particularly persuasive," Bleys said, "but she can be an efficient administrator, once she's given the outline of a plan."
"She's going to have her hands full," Dahno said. "We'll probably need to put someone else in to run the organization there."
"No," Bleys said. "She's possessive. I don't think she'd react well to that. We'll give her several more deputies, but we have to make it clear to her she's still in charge."
"Overly possessive subordinates grow to be a problem," Dahno pointed out, oblivious of his own shortcomings.
"That's true," Bleys said, "but for the moment—and probably for a long time to come—we'll need her efficiency to cement the alliance—"
"By giving the Families everything they want, of course," Dahno interrupted. "For now."
"All right." Dahno nodded. "But those people are smart, and I don't want us overlooking something, and finding we've been gulled. Going along with them makes sense for now, if you think she can be depended on not to try to push too far—the Families'll be watching for tricks."
"Pallas Salvador has strict orders not to take any action that might spook them," Bleys said, "and I'll be watching her closely. For the moment, doing exactly what the Families want—weakening the Dorsai and the Exotics—is just what we want; so we lose nothing by seeming to cooperate, and in fact we gain from use of their power and connections."
"Can you keep close tabs on Pallas Salvador and still run the rest of the organization? Or do you want me to take an extra hand?"
"We'll all be taking those 'extra hands,'" Bleys said. "Our plan is growing faster than expected, and we'll all have to take on more work—become more efficient."
"The only reason I'm not fighting you over this alliance," Dahno said, "is because I don't see how its failure can hurt us. I don't trust the Families—I know you don't either—and they don't trust us. But if this deal falls apart all we lose is our organization on Ceta, and we can live with that." He had regained some of his apparent cheerfulness.
"Are you trying to warn me about something?"
"Maybe I am," Dahno said. "I've said it before: you've taken this organization very far, very quickly. But this unrestrained growth is dangerous! We're far short of the trained people we need just to keep control of what we've gained, and I just don't see any way the two of us—even with Toni's more-than-able assistance—can keep everything going... it's becoming a gigantic juggling act, and you and I can't be everywhere at once, making every decision and keeping an eye on every one of our people."
"You're absolutely right," Bleys said. "But there are a few things we can do to take some of the load off ourselves."
"I don't think I like the sound of that," Dahno said, his eyes narrowing. "Come out with it: what've you decided to do without telling me, this time?"
"It takes too much time to pump out well-trained Others from your training program," Bleys said. "You've produced able people who've served us well, but we're short on numbers."
"We can't change that!" Dahno protested. "We've expanded the program as far as it can go without being diluted by the lack of individualized attention."
"I'm not so sure about that," Bleys said. "But you're right about one thing: whether we can expand the program or not, it would take time to build the system, and we just don't have it."
"We can't speed up the process," Dahno said; "what's in the pipeline is what we'll have, for a while."
"That means we have to compensate for the lack of trained Others," Bleys said, "by making our trained people work harder, and moving the untrained recruits into more responsible positions."
"How can you get our people to work harder?"
"You should know, brother," Bleys said. "You're the one who taught them all to be ambitious."
"Ambition? You mean you have something more to appeal to them with?"
"Certainly: more power."
"What kind of power?"
"More control on their worlds," Bleys said. "More worlds to control. And more of a voice in running our organization."
"You can't be suggesting we give up our control!"
"I am," Bleys said. "Some of it, anyway."
As his brother remained silent, Bleys spoke again, more softly.
"War is coming," he said. "Under the surface, it's already here. It won't necessarily be a war of soldiers and ships; but it's going to be a war of ideas. It'll be a war between Hal Mayne and myself—and the peoples lined up with each of us—and it'll be a war for the minds of every other human being."
He paused, turning to look briefly at Toni, and then looked back at his brother.
"I know you don't believe it. But this war has already started, and I have to do everything I can. I have to rush my side into getting ready. Because Hal Mayne's already out there setting up, and he's going to be hard enough to beat without giving him a head start. He's going to be a very dangerous foe once he builds his side to its full strength."
Dahno was not through with his opposition to Bleys' ideas, but by the next morning he seemed to change his stance; and he agreed readily to Bleys' proposal for another convocation of the senior Others' leadership.
"Firdos, would you send me all the files on our own people?" Bleys said.
"Do you want just the files on the people who've passed through training here?" the staffer asked. "Or do you want the information on the other-planet recruits, too?"
"All of them, I think," Bleys said. "I know there'll be a lot of them, but I need to find particular sorts of people."
"We have more information on those who went through our training course here, of course," the staffer replied. "And that includes some psychological profiles—is that the kind of thing you're after?"
"It's not the only information I need," Bleys said, "but it'd be very useful."
"We won't have as much information on the people recruited by the off-planet organizations," Firdos pointed out. "But we could tell them to send more information, if you'd like."
"Yes, would you do th
at, please?"
CHAPTER 24
The holder of the position of First Elder of the Government of the United Sects of Harmony and Association, like his superior, the Eldest, had his own official offices and official residences—to be exact, one on each of the two planets.
In the political life of the Friendly worlds, more often than not there was no Eldest to rule both planets—that political phenomenon required that the same candidate receive a majority of the votes cast on each of the two planets. In those periods in which no candidate received such a double majority, the two planets were individually governed by the candidate who had received the plurality of the votes cast on that world, and matters affecting both planets were—in theory—handled by the two planetary governments working as a team.
Both planets had a capital city, along with official residences and government office buildings; and on the infrequent occasions when an Eldest ruled both worlds, he and his government generally moved back and forth between the two planets, spreading his presence to both worlds in the most expedient political fashion. There were plenty of available facilities, since residences and offices on each world had been emptied by the last election and were available at the Eldest's discretion.
Since his election Eldest Darrell McKae had chosen to spend most of his time on Harmony, even though his career had begun on Association. The reason for this was unclear, but some suggested that the Eldest, feeling Harmony was the weak point in his electoral base, was intent on strengthening his hand on that planet.
Bleys, however, suspected McKae was avoiding Association both to cut down on encounters with his original supporters—since his election the Eldest had become more open in his taste for wine— and to avoid having to face his failure to curb the activities of the First Elder he had appointed. And Bleys was sure McKae preferred to avoid that First Elder, Bleys himself—who was more often on Association than on Harmony.
On those occasions when Bleys came to Harmony he had no need to find either accommodations or working space, since each planet had a complete set of offices for both the Eldest and the First Elder. However, there were things Bleys preferred not to do within the confines of government-provided facilities; and on this trip he delayed only long enough, after his arrival on the pad in Citadel, for a trip to the Others' Harmony offices, before traveling to Healing Waters.
Healing Waters was a small city that nestled between two small rivers at the point where they nearly joined before emptying into Revelation Bay, a shallow, island-dotted body of water largely useless for ordinary commercial purposes. It was a picturesque warm-zone city given over to vacationers—to the limited extent the Friendly planets had citizens wealthy enough to afford that luxury. This gave Bleys an excuse to be there—need for a restful vacation— as well as the insulating effect of distance from the capital and any who might be interested in his doings.
As the time for Amyth Barbage's appointment neared, Bleys was sitting under an awning at a large table that had been moved to the deck of the penthouse suite of the city's most luxurious hotel. He had chosen this hotel because he expected to be joined by the senior Others he had secretly invited to a meeting that might well be critical to his plans.
Being on the hotel's roof minimized the risk of being overheard in his dealings. He had been able to bring only one of the security technicians who normally scanned any room he stayed in for listening devices; to bring a larger staff on a supposedly routine and restful trip might have attracted Dahno's notice.
In the past, Bleys had always been able to persuade his fellow Others to go along with his ideas; that was, in fact, the base on which his control rested. He anticipated no difficulty now in persuading his invitees to support him in the plan he intended to present—to the select group here and now, and to the larger group that would be attending the meeting that was to start next week on Association.
But he had never had to try to create such a consensus of opinion in the face of active opposition from his half-brother.
Whenever their ideas had conflicted in the past, Bleys had managed to work in secret well enough to present Dahno with a situation in which their subordinate Others were already in strong agreement with Bleys' ideas, leaving Dahno little option except to go along. But open opposition by Dahno at the meeting on Association would present the gravest of dangers to Bleys' plans: no matter how well Bleys persuaded the Others at this secret meeting to take his side, it was more than possible his brother, with a few days to work on them, could turn them around. For it was Dahno who had recruited and trained them; it was Dahno who had managed to win some sort of place in their hearts.
Bleys had an unrivaled ability to show people how going along with him would benefit them, but Dahno had the better ability to get people to follow him just because they liked him.
On the lower floors of the hotel, suites had been emptied in preparation for the arrival of the invited leaders, but none had shown up yet; Toni was back in Citadel, waiting to meet them on arrival, to divert them here.
"The Militia officer Captain Amyth Barbage is in the foyer, Great Teacher," a voice said over the intercom speaker. The voice belonged to one of the staff people from the Harmony Others' offices. Having brought only a skeleton staff on this trip, Bleys had been forced to co-opt a few people from the Harmony office—but he was finding that strange voices on the intercom, and strange faces carrying out his orders, made him a bit uneasy. It seemed unlikely that mere staff people would somehow decide to report to Dahno on what little they might learn about Bleys' doings here; but Bleys had to question everyone's loyalties, if Dahno had had time to work on them.
The leader of Harmony's Others, Kinkaka Goodfellow, was also a possible danger. He had spent his whole career here,
always in easy observation range of the Others' home office on Association; it was more than possible his first loyalty was to Dahno. Bleys had diverted the Harmony leader by tasking him with preparation of a delicate report to be presented at the coming meeting on Association. It was Bleys' belief that Goodfellow would be intensely preoccupied for the entire time before that meeting: Kinkaka Goodfellow was a consummate bureaucrat.
Bleys could perhaps have borrowed people from the First Elder's offices here on Harmony, but he had even less reason to be sure of their loyalty—here came Barbage now.
The man looked, if anything, even thinner and colder than when Bleys last saw him, in the cells in Ahruma, less than six months ago. Bleys had been wondering how Barbage might have been affected by Hal Mayne's escape. Most men would have been humiliated by that unfortunate event, but Bleys was somehow sure Amyth Barbage would never be humiliated by anything at all.
"I am here at thy command, Bleys Ahrens," Barbage said, as always using the antique-sounding canting speech practiced by certain of the ultra-religious on the two Friendly planets. He had stopped three meters from the table and come to attention, which Bleys knew was a deliberate reminder that Bleys, as an officer high in the government, was one of Barbage's superior officers, and thus able to command him regardless of Bleys' own merits. In the captain's twisted logic, a reminder to a superior officer that his rank was all that required Barbage to obey him always carried the hidden message that Barbage was superior in non-military matters; for Barbage considered himself to be one of the Elect, those guaranteed salvation and special consideration by God.
At the same time, Bleys found it meaningful that the Militia officer had not used Bleys' title, but addressed him by name. Barbage seemed to be presenting a mixed message, and Bleys decided that it was some kind of challenge.
"Be at ease, Amyth Barbage," Bleys said. In turn he had used the Militia officer's name rather than his rank, believing it would remind the man that for all his high political rank, Bleys professed to hold an even higher position—one Barbage himself had seemed to acknowledge in the past, when he had addressed Bleys as Great Teacher.
Barbage, however, provided Bleys with no hint of a reaction to Bleys' words, but merely snapped cri
sply from his position of attention to a position of at ease that in fact displayed no hint of actual relaxation, but looked like the previous stiffness, differently arranged.
There's no point in sparring with this wan. He's as harsh and unsparing as ever, ana1 there's no forgiveness in him, whether for others or for himself
Bleys wondered briefly whether Barbage might think he had just won a point from Bleys; but he shrugged, mentally, and set the idea aside. He was not playing any game in which points mattered.
"Would you like something to drink, Captain?" Bleys asked mildly. "Or even something to eat?—I'm not sure how far you've had to come today."
"I have not come far," Barbage said. His words seemed to be a refusal of any refreshment, which was hardly surprising, coming from this ascetic individual. Barbage's eyes were held level, his gaze passing over Bleys' head, as if he refused to recognize the First Elder. "I have been awaiting thy arrival in this fleshpot of a city for two days."
A reproof! This is progress, of a sort.
"I know you would never approve of a city of pleasure like this, Captain," Bleys continued, his tone as mild and unreproachful as before. "But I didn't call you here to afflict you with the atmosphere in this place. Rather, my duties have required that I come here, and it was efficient to call you to me here."
"I am always at thy command, Great Teacher," Barbage said, "and of course at the call of the First Elder, as well."
That's as much as he can possibly unbend, Bleys thought, eyeing the officer. Yes. He will do it.
"I called you here, Captain," Bleys said, "because there is a need for you—one I felt it best to convey to you in person. And I've chosen you because I'm convinced you're the best man for this task—not only because of your own abilities, but because of your past history with and knowledge of Hal Mayne."
Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 Page 25