Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11

by Gordon R Dickson; David W Wixon

  With that Barbage's eyes came down, to focus, burning, on Bleys' face, an intensity in them that would have made other people want to raise their hands.

  "Surely he hath left this planet, Great Teacher," Barbage said. He spoke slowly, but there was an edge to his voice. "Is it that he hath gone to Association—"

  "No, Captain," Bleys said, interrupting the question. "He's now well beyond your reach." He gazed directly into the officer's black eyes. "But a way to reach him may yet be available to us, if you can carry out the task I have in mind."

  "What is that task, then, Great Teacher?" Barbage's head had drawn back just a little, as if he were preparing to spring forward and bite Bleys.

  "Hal Mayne is gone, Captain," Bleys repeated, "but the outlaws of his Command are, I think, still at large."

  And now Bleys saw a light kindle behind those dark eyes.

  "I shall find them for thee, Great Teacher," Barbage said. His eyes turned down for an instant; then rose to look at Bleys directly once more.

  "Alive?" he asked, his light baritone voice carrying a cold message.

  "Alive," Bleys said. "Particularly their leader, the woman Rukh Tamani. But I warn you to be very careful of her: I have met her, and I tell you she is dangerous."

  "I know of the woman," Barbage said. "She is indeed strong in her evil. It will avail her nothing." The look in his eyes was ugly to see.

  "Nevertheless, I will give you some help," Bleys said, reverting to a more formal tone. "You will shortly receive notice that you've been promoted, and given command of three companies of Militia and the authority to commandeer any Militia forces in areas into which your pursuit may take you."

  Several of the senior Others arrived over the course of the next few hours, sent along by Toni after she had met them in Citadel and peeled them away from their entourages.

  Bleys had asked Toni to meet the invitees because he had confidence in her ability to smooth over hurt feelings that might result from the unexpected change in their plans. The leaders would almost all be arriving in their own ships—a sign of the wealth and power they were becoming used to—and they would not have been expecting to be separated from their staffs and households; nor to have their entourages confined to their ships, incommunicado, for the duration of this secret conclave.

  Bleys found he need not have worried about Johann Wilter's reaction. The leader of the Cassida organization looked as dapper as ever, but his gaze was still steady and he brushed aside Bleys' apologies for the methods used, saying he was certain that whatever Bleys planned would be well worth any inconvenience. This man, Bleys saw, was not going to let himself be distracted by a momentary infringement on his status.

  Wilter was accompanied by Support Hayakawa, an Association-born Other who, although Wilter's senior deputy, was clearly under his boss's thumb.

  Ana Wasserlied, leader of the New Earth organization, was another matter entirely. She had come without any of her deputies, and her angular body, superbly dressed as always, was radiating resentment over having been met by Toni, separated from her entourage, and made to come around the planet in a rented shuttle.

  "Ana, thank you for coming," Bleys said, offering his hand. "I apologize for making you uncomfortable with this alteration in your schedule, but when you hear what I've brought you here to discuss, I believe you'll understand."

  The woman uttered polite reassurances, but her blue eyes burned and her posture remained stiff and unforgiving.

  By the end of the following day, six more leaders had arrived: Hammer Martin from Freiland, and two of his deputies, Joachim Suslov and Aries Foley; Kim Wallech and Astrid Croce from Sainte Marie; and Pallas Salvador from Ceta. Only Pallas Salvador had come in on commercial transportation.

  Each was greeted personally, and warmly, by Bleys, and encouraged to simply relax and enjoy the facilities of a city meant for diversions, while they acclimated to a different time frame. Most seemed happy to do so, but Johann Wilter and Hammer Martin, although compliant, displayed a certain impatient eagerness to get on with whatever they had been called here for.

  "They're going to be our best allies," Bleys told Toni, who had come in along with Pallas Salvador after meeting the Cetan leader when she disembarked in Citadel. "They live for their jobs and their power, and they'll be eager to expand. But we'll have to do something about Ana Wasserlied, and I might need you to help me distract her."

  "Distract her? Are you planning to replace her?"

  "I think that may have become necessary. But I can't do it before this meeting, and probably not before the one on Association. I made a mistake in calling her here, I'm afraid." He shook his head. "I still believe she'd be willing to go along with my plans, under ordinary circumstances, but she's allowing her resentment over what she sees as an imposition on her status—being brought here in the way she was—to blind her."

  "In other words, she's lost sight of the overall plan," Toni said.

  "Yes. We'll have to come up with a list of possible replacements," Bleys said. "But the priority now is to keep her from learning the purpose of this meeting—I can't count on her not to talk about what I want to do here."

  "To Dahno, you mean."

  Bleys nodded.

  "Perhaps a couple of innocent meetings, apparently in preparation for the more formal meeting on Association," Toni suggested. "You could say your idea was to bring our most important Others here so they could get to know each other better, in a pleasant, relaxing setting—it would fit with your acknowledged intention to set up a group leadership structure. And there's the fact that Pallas Salvador, who isn't well known to any of the others, has suddenly become an important figure; this could be presented as a way to let the top people get to know her."

  "And with a couple of joint meetings out of the way," Bleys said, "I could have individual meetings—and have Ana's first. I'll set her up with some plausible story, tell her she'll be contacted further; and then send her back to New Earth."

  "Leaving her out of the Association meeting altogether?" "Yes," Bleys said.

  "Won't that seem strange to the rest of the leaders?" Toni asked. "And suspicious to Dahno?"

  "Can you think of an alternative?"

  "Well, it's possible," Toni said, looking thoughtful, "that a few days of special treatment here—particularly some special attentions from the other leaders—might make her more amenable . . . there's a plausible basis for a plan like that in the fact that she was invited here at all. A few days of feeling she's part of the elite group might work wonders on her."

  "That's a good idea," Bleys said. "She's always been able, and if we can just get around her attitude problem, she could continue to be useful. But that kind of plan would require, among other things, enlisting the other leaders in our little act." He paused, thinking.

  "Come to think of it, that could even be made to work to our advantage—once they're enlisted in working together on one objective, they'll be more amenable to working together on other things."

  "It'll give them a sense of having gained additional power already," Toni said. "That'll make them more supportive, too."

  "Yes," Bleys said. "The more they feel they have to gain by going along with me, the less likely it becomes they can be persuaded otherwise by Dahno."

  Two days later, during a break in his meeting schedule, Bleys unobtrusively left the hotel, traveling across town in an automated cab to a small restaurant. He got out of the cab there, but did not enter the restaurant; rather, he signaled for another such cab; and by the time it arrived, the woman he had once known as Gelica Costanza had emerged from the restaurant to join him.

  "Thank you for coming, Deborah," Bleys said, while programming the cab to head for a destination on the other side of the city. Locked in a small, moving room, they talked without fear of observation.

  "Are things going well on Ceta?" Deborah asked.

  "Very well," Bleys said. "You played your part to perfection at the meeting with the Families, even to setting
yourself up for a reprimand. I can't thank you enough."

  "Believe me, it was my pleasure," Deborah said. "Or I should say, our pleasure. All of my Others—sorry, New People—were happy to have a chance to strike back at the Families; and your deal with them allowed us to finally leave the planet, and with enough resources to be able to set up comfortably elsewhere."

  "It may not look like much of a 'strike' at the Families," Bleys said. "Anyone looking at the situation would say we've given the Families just what they want."

  "We know better," Deborah said. "We've been inside your organization; we know we've fed the Families a poison pill."

  "You have an interesting way with words, Deborah," Bleys said.

  "I doubt I hurt your feelings," she said. "Remember, I've seen close up how logical a thinker you are. You're not the kind to let an emotional reaction alter your plans."

  "You don't have very much experience to base that judgment on," Bleys said.

  "Oh, I'm not calling you an unemotional machine," she said. "But I'm confident I've seen the truth." "Are you interested in seeing more?" She smiled.

  "I figured you had another job for me," she said. "Tell me about it."

  "Are you sure you want to hear it?" Bleys said. "The last time you helped us, you and your friends ended up having to leave Ceta, losing your careers and a lot of your assets."

  "We'd wanted to leave, anyway," she said. "We were never really at home there, particularly after the Families began leaning on us. No more than we'd ever been anywhere else."

  "I know you've settled on New Earth, now," Bleys said. "Are all of your New People comrades there with you?"

  "Almost all of them," she said. "We've been family for a long time, and we're looking for a way to keep working together—my generation, anyway. The younger ones are a little restless."

  "No retirement?"

  "Not us," she said. She smiled. "Are you going to give us that work?"

  "Maybe," he said.

  He was still explaining what he had in mind when their cab reached its programmed destination, so he reprogrammed it for a trip back across town.

  They talked on, through trip after trip across the small city.

  CHAPTER 25

  Most of the Others who had been called back to Association had not been on the planet since their graduation from Dahno's training program, and they seemed to revel in returning as wealthy, elite members of interstellar society; until they came to Dahno, most had been young, poor, and without useful social or political ties.

  They were impressed by the fleet of spacecraft now owned by the organization, as well as by the luxurious facilities Dahno and Bleys had moved the organization into. They all well remembered the elderly building in which they had once been trained and lodged.

  Invitees began arriving a couple of days before the conference's scheduled beginning, and Bleys, Dahno and their staff were kept busy finding ways to make their guests' stays as enjoyable as possible; Association's entertainment facilities were limited at best.

  Eventually all were on hand, and the meeting could begin.

  On the evening before the official opening of the convocation, Bleys hosted a small party for a group of the invitees, people he had picked, after dealing with them for a day or two, as most likely to be influenced by what he had to say. All were second- or third-level Others.

  Late in the evening, when most had taken enough food and drink to become congenial, but not yet drunk, Bleys, holding a brandy snifter, moved across the room to settle himself on a sofa near which several conversations had been taking place. The conversations died away even though he spoke no word; their eyes were all on him.

  "Please, you shouldn't call me Great Teacher? Bleys said, in response to a question from Prosper Fulton, one of the delegation from Cassida. "We Others are all, in our way, family, and I like to think of us as brothers and sisters."

  That drew smiles, and there was some movement, as if they all felt a momentary impulse to draw together in a closer group.

  "It's a family, then, that I'm proud to be a part of," Fulton said now, glancing about the circle of Others who had gathered around Bleys. "But if you don't mind, I feel you and Dahno arc the elder brothers of our family. I know both of you have different tasks than those of us who spend our time on the worlds we've been sent to ... I guess I just wanted to ask for some idea of what you see as our current situation, and where you think we're headed."

  Eyes in the circle became serious above their smiles, but Bleys laughed.

  "You're trying to get a preview of my speech for tomorrow morning's opening," he said. "Were you planning to sleep in?"

  "I think what Prosper may be asking," Ameena Williams said, from her place behind the sofa where Prosper was sitting, "is for something personal from you—I mean, I've heard you speak many times, during your visits to New Earth, about our abilities as leaders of the human race, and the importance of our task of taking up that leadership position and using it to lead the race to greatness. But when it's put that way, it seems a little cold, or maybe distant; so we'd like to hear something from you about your own personal vision: about what you personally want, and why you personally are involved in this."

  Bleys frowned down at the snifter in his hand, as if trying to see a vision in the brandy there. The silence held, and at last he looked up.

  "I have been blessed," he said at last in a formal tone; and as he looked up into their faces he could see that the words chimed agreeably with most of them. All of those here had been raised on one of the Friendly planets, and found religiously themed speech comfortable and familiar.

  He looked back down into his snifter, giving the impression of one too shy to let his soul show from his eyes.

  "I'm just like most of you," he went on. "I grew up a virtual outsider on this very planet, feeling that no one understood me, that I didn't belong. But I was lucky to have a brother who felt much the same way, and then doubly lucky—or blessed—to find a group of people who understood how I felt." He looked up, to see their emotions naked before him.

  "At first I thought of us all as a kind of large family," he went on; "a family that would care, and would take care of each other." He cautiously scanned them as he spoke, trying to judge the effects of his words.

  "But I think I've learned of something even larger, even better," he continued. "I've learned that we Others aren't really completely separate from the rest of the human race. Yes, we have abilities they don't have, and we sec things a bit more clearly than they do. Above all, we have a unity of purpose they've never had, or perhaps once had, but lost." He shook his head.

  "My own 'personal vision,' I think you called, it, Ameena? I guess I'd have to say it's to know that every person I will ever meet is as able and competent as we Others are—to let the entire human race have a feeling of comradeship and caring like that we feel when we're among ourselves."

  "Is that even possible?" Peter Cossey said from the end of the couch. "Isn't it true we're so advanced over the average human being we can never be completely on a level with them?"

  "That may be," Bleys said. "For now. I think that will change over the course of time—if we're willing to reach in that direction."

  "Are you suggesting we need to change what we've been aiming to do?" Prosper Fulton said now.

  "No, I don't think so," Bleys said. "In fact, I think it's a natural outcome of what we've been doing."

  "You mean," Ameena Williams said, "you believe our leadership of the race will over the long term result in all of them lifting themselves up to our level?"

  "That's exactly what I think," Bleys said. And he watched a few tentative smiles blossom.

  "Well, then," Ameena said, her dark face displaying puzzlement,

  "am I wrong in thinking that many of the rest of the race are opposed to us, and may even be prepared to fight us?" Eyes swung to Bleys for an answer.

  "You're not wrong," he said. "In fact, some are already preparing for war."

&nbs
p; "War?" someone asked from the other side of the room. "How can we deal with that? And how does that help us do what we want to do?"

  "War is certainly the last thing we want," Bleys said. "Please don't take my words to mean I'm seeking out anything like that. But I think you all know that war often results when people have conflicting ideas. I suspect you've all seen that in your own lifetimes—" They all nodded. "—and sometimes it's just unavoidable."

  "War—with who?" Prosper Fulton asked.

  "War, I suspect, on multiple levels," Bleys said. He looked about the circle once more, checking for emotions that could give him feedback on the effectiveness of his words.

  "Most of you are working on worlds already under our leadership," he went on. "On those worlds you're finding that some are beginning to resort to force to resist the direction in which we're trying to lead their societies ... but it may well go beyond that." He paused, as if thinking. "They're finding allies in the Exotics and the Dorsai."

  "The Exotics and the Dorsai?" Burton Taney asked, as if appalled.

  "Those, yes," Bleys said. "Those two cultures—I'm sorry to say I don't see any way they can ever be brought to see what we're trying to do ... it's as if they have their own visions for the future of the race, and they're incompatible with ours."

  "But we can't win a war against the Dorsai!" Sami DeLong said.

  "On the contrary," Bleys said, "they can't win a war with us." There were murmurs of puzzlement all about him.