Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11

by Gordon R Dickson; David W Wixon

  Bleys looked at his brother for a long moment, before replying.

  "Is this because you got hurt on Ceta?"

  "No!" Dahno said. He paused.

  "No," he said again, more quietly. "Although maybe you could say that injury opened my eyes, made me think a little more. But past is past, and doesn't worry me. The future, though, is another matter."

  "And the future now looks different to you? Different from how you used to see it?"

  "Yes," Dahno said. "You think long-term—I know that. And I think short- and medium-term—you've always known that."

  "But you've gotten more than you ever thought possible—you told me that yourself—by joining me," Bleys said. "And the long-term results you don't believe in can only come about long after we're both dead and forgotten.... It's the chance of war, isn't it?"

  "In a way," Dahno said. "I'll admit that when you first estimated that the Exotics would hire the Dorsai to oppose us, it frightened me. But I began to realize you could be right—that the rest of the Younger Worlds could successfully oppose the Dorsai, and possibly Old Earth as well."

  "But?"

  "But even victory in your war would destroy the whole structure of the Worlds as we know them," Dahno said. He shook his head, as if trying to scatter some haze obstructing his vision.

  "I know you probably think I've always been motivated only by money and power," he went on—and then, unexpectedly, he chuckled. "Even I believed that, until I was forced to think about the situation. But I realized, lying there recovering in Favored of God, that I wanted more than that."

  "So what else do you want?"

  "Do you know—I'm still not sure," Dahno said. His smile became somewhat sheepish. "Put that way, I guess I sound pretty confused. But I'm starting to think I need to find some other purpose in life."

  Bleys looked at him for a long moment.

  "And my purposes aren't good enough for you?" he said at last. "I just said I don't believe in them!" Dahno said, his smile fading.

  "All right, all right," Bleys said, raising a hand as if holding his brother off. "I can't say you didn't give my way a try. So what do you want to do?"

  "I want out," Dahno said.

  "What does that mean?"

  "I just want out of my responsibilities to the Others," Dahno said. "I want to just be able to go off and do whatever strikes me as interesting." He smiled. "And I want to take enough credit to let me do what I want."

  His expression became more serious.

  "I brought in a lot of that credit, after all."

  "Yes, you did," Bleys said. He shook his head, but he did not mean the motion as a negation.

  "I think you're making a mistake," he said. "But if that's what you want, I'll go along with it—as long as I can be sure you won't interfere with what I'm doing."

  Dahno laughed.

  "What could I ever say that would make a guarantee you'd believe?" he said. "You know me better than anyone, after all." Bleys just watched his face.

  "But because you know me," Dahno went on, "don't you know that I don't want to play in your league?" Another one of his Old Earth expressions?

  "But my 'league,' as you call it, includes everything, don't you see that?" Bleys said. "I can't help that. It's just the way it is."

  "But you can leave me alone, can't you?" Dahno asked.

  "I said earlier you're no threat to my plans," Bleys said. He shook his head. "I think even if you were trying to oppose me, it wouldn't make much difference."

  Dahno raised his head, his eyes narrowing, but Bleys held up a hand to stop him.

  "I know how that sounds," he said; "I didn't mean it as an insult. I was speaking in terms of the historical forces—I've told you about them before."

  "I know," Dahno said, subsiding. "You're reminding me again that none of us really has much weight when it comes to those forces of yours."

  A small bell tinkled from across the plaza, and Dahno raised his head and looked behind him.

  "I've got to go," he said, rising abruptly to his feet.

  As he strode away he looked back over his shoulder. His face was veiled and distant.

  CHAPTER 33

  Bleys lay on his bed in a Lima hotel room, in a darkness relieved only by the ceiling's artificial starscape. This ceiling was unusual, because it offered him not just a variety of clear sky settings, but also clouds; and he had chosen a sky that included the planet's moon, Luna, as a thin crescent passing between and behind occasional thin clouds.

  This was the kind of sky his distant ancestors had slept under. He wondered what influence skies like this might have had on the way humanity developed; perhaps they encouraged people to wonder, to dream, to imagine.

  It didn't help him sleep, though; and after a while he rose. Although his mind was churning with the need to articulate some of his thoughts, he was unable to write. He sat there for a long moment, looking at the piece of hotel stationery before him.

  Was someone watching him, even now?

  Since the day he realized that anyone with the proper equipment to penetrate his security could read his thoughts in his notes, he had not often indulged his habit of writing notes to his own memory, even though he always coded the notes as he wrote them. Any code could be broken eventually.

  Still, the process had been soothing to him, as if it allowed him to get a grasp on situations his mind was having trouble dealing with.

  His hand put the stylus back down, atop the paper. All the best hotels pledged that their rooms were checked frequently for spy devices; but hotels were not likely to be watching for someone as clever as Dahno. It did not escape Bleys' memory that it was Dahno who had made all of Bleys' travel arrangements.

  Pulling on a casual evening suit, Bleys went down to the street, hoping to elude any surprised pursuit by hypothetical watchers. He pointed his wristpad at an automated taxi just dropping a fare at an entertainment facility down the block, calling it to him; and went to another luxury-class hotel. There he checked into a single room, explaining that his luggage would be along shortly and paying the bill in advance. Dahno would be able to trace his use of the credit chip, but not quickly enough to set up surveillance inside the room.

  In the room, with a glass of ginger ale already forgotten at his elbow, he began to write.

  I'm surprised to find that I still haven't figured out what Dahno is up to. I came to Old Earth suspecting him of clandestine dealings with some of my Others—dealings perhaps as simple as efforts to safeguard himself from possible future dangers. Those would not concern me overmuch: if Dahno, or others in the organization, want more power, more wealth, it doesn't matter, as long as it doesn't endanger my own plans.

  The problem is, I have no way of determining what my brother's motives really are—because I can't rely on anything he lets me see.

  I'm used to seeing my brother displaying reactions; in almost every case, they're covering his true motives, his real plans.

  He can't ever be completely open—I think because he can never bring himself to trust anyone. His obsession with ensuring his own independence demands that he always have an ace in the hole— which means that no matter what motive or plan he may reveal, there's always a deeper layer.

  When he tells me he merely wants to retire, and that he's no danger to my plans, it's only part of the truth. Which may as well be a lie.

  He tells me he cares for me, his brother; I know he's telling the truth, but it's not the whole truth—he's shown before that in time of crisis he'll abandon me to save himself.

  Bleys paused, rereading his encoded thoughts on the paper before him. He wondered if he had not just written an epitaph for a portion of his life.

  For all that he alluded to a need to have some purpose in his life, I don't think Dahno has yet seen that the weakness in his character is that he has no goals, no purpose. In his deep-rooted selfishness, he lives only for the near-term; he thinks farther into the future only in terms of its potential for danger, and he has no ro
om or time or concern for others.

  I say this knowing full well that at times he has displayed generosity, and has even risked his life to help someone else. But my brother is a complex person, and while the cheerful, charming Dahno is a real person, so is the Dahno who cares only to get his own way, in everything.

  He has always insisted that he's nothing like our mother, but in fact, he's very like her, and only seeks to gratify his own needs.

  His needs arc for autonomy, which requires power and wealth, and a challenge, a game he can play to test himself against life. He's too intelligent to be truly sybaritic, to be lured by fame, money, sex, or the more normal vices.

  Perhaps it would be accurate to say that he's lured by the feeling that comes when one plays God. But at the same time, he's careful to avoid taking on so great a challenge that he'd be likely to lose. Losing isn't godlike.

  In short, Dahno would like to live in a world in which he's perpetually manipulating people, sitting at the center of his spider's web and controlling events by the strings he pulls in secret. And he's too short-sighted to see that even that must grow wearying, eventually— and that there's nothing more behind it.

  Without realizing the full implications of what I was doing, when I took control of the organization he had built, I took away his main tool. His only real choices were to contest my control, or move to a new field.

  Old Earth may be that new field. He's leaving the Younger Worlds behind.

  The problem for both of us is that Old Earth has to be involved in my plans.

  Dahno wants his own kingdom of challenges and rewards. He feels like a god, and I'm the other god in the mix (he thinks; he doesn't believe in Hal Mayne). So I must represent a threat to him.

  Bleys wrote on, the words pouring out from his subconscious, as if they had been penned in there. The bubbles in the ginger ale were slowing down.

  Within his range, my brother is a deep thinker. He'll have planned well, and set up plans and sub-plans, layer upon layer—I may never know all the contingencies he's prepared for, all the details. But I see now why he was so diligent about carrying out that program of disinformation, by which I thought we were deceiving the Exotics, the Final Encyclopedia, and any other interested party, about our true origins and our intentions. Even years ago he was looking ahead, looking at the possibility he might want to bury his past in confusion and start over.

  The muscles of his hand were tired and stiff from the precision with which he had formed the block capitals he generally used for his notes. He felt drained, as if he had managed to sweat some fever out of his system.

  He leaned back in his chair and reached for the glass of ginger ale. It had gone flat, but he had written so quickly the ice had not completely melted. He drained the glass, feeling its coolness pass down his throat and pool in his stomach.

  He rose from the chair and stretched, yawning in a release from tension. Suddenly he felt he could sleep. He fed the sheets of paper into the disposal slot, and turned to leave; and paused—and sat down once more, picking up another sheet.

  I've missed writing these notes. Perhaps the stress of being isolated, in a dangerous situation, makes me need to do so again.

  Until this evening, I had no trouble suppressing the habit. That may be due to my evolving relationship with Toni: I'm talking with her more and more—and with myself, less and less.

  This suggests a potential problem. My resolve has always been that no emotional involvement or other human failing would be allowed to divert me from my life's work. Toni seems to have no intention of diverting me from that purpose, but the danger of that happening really lies less in her than in myself—the danger that I might let myself weaken.

  I told her once I had moments of weakening. What I didn't tell her was that she was partly the cause of some of them.

  It took this trip, with its separation from Toni, and Henry, and all the others who revolve around me—and the smell of danger—to open my eyes.

  I tell myself there's no need to drive any of them away, that I'm strong enough to keep my inner self controlled—but am I deceiving myself with wishful thinking, when I say that?

  I can trust Toni, and Henry. I can even trust Dahno, within limits.

  It's myself I have to guard against.

  Before he left the room, Bleys wrote another, shorter note—one he did not destroy. Rather, he folded it over several times; and then carried it with him as he descended to the street. He made two calls from a public terminal, one of which brought him another automated cab.

  Back in front of his original hotel, the folded paper was lying on the floor of the cab as Bleys stepped out; and as he did so, a blond woman in evening dress hurried up to engage the cab. Bleys politely held the door for her before entering his hotel.

  When Dahno showed up the following morning, Bleys insisted on going someplace where they could talk safely; and after a certain amount of verbal sparring, Bleys eventually found himself sitting on a patch of bare dirt in a small park, his back to the trunk of a large tree. A small part of his mind registered, and regretted, that it was not a palm tree, but he dismissed the thought.

  Two meters in front of him Dahno, still on his feet, leaned against the back of an ancient stone monument, the meaning of which Bleys had not attempted to figure out. At one time the monument might have been the only feature standing out on this piece of ground, but the tree that had gained a start near it now overshadowed it completely, and under its branches, between its trunk and the monument, the brothers were, in effect, in a small room of their own.

  Dahno had not been willing to sit on the ground; and in fact, Bleys thought, he looked uncomfortable even standing.

  "Thanks for agreeing to talk, brother," Bleys said. "Can anyone overhear us?"

  "How can I tell?" Dahno said, apparently sulking. "You insisted on finding a place neither of us could have rigged in advance, but that means none of our security gear is here."

  "Except what we're both carrying," Bleys said. "I didn't want to risk trying to bring the Newtonians' bubble device through customs—but you know I was asking who you have out there."

  "All right," Dahno said, after a short silence. "I do have people 'out there,' as you put it. I'm not sure how many actually managed to keep up with our movements, but I'm sure some made it, at least." He smiled wryly, and stood upright, as if he had forgotten his discomfort.

  "I don't know where they are, though." "Will you send them away?" Bleys asked.

  "I don't think so," Dahno said, his eyes narrowing a little. Then he smiled again.

  "You wouldn't believe me even if I said I would, so what's the point?" He laughed.

  "Any more than I'll believe it if you tell me you don't have anyone out there," he went on, "so why don't we just get to it?"

  "Because neither of us wants anyone else to hear what we're going to talk about," Bleys said.

  For a long moment Dahno just looked across at Bleys, an abstracted look on his face—behind which, Bleys knew, his brother's mind was racing.

  "I don't think I want to hear it," Dahno said, finally. "I don't think you can afford not to," Bleys said. "You're too smart to turn down information." "You've got information for me?" "If you're willing to trade."

  "Trade?" Dahno paused. "What do you want to know?" "As a preliminary matter," Bleys said, "what happened to you when we were on Ceta?" "I got shot!"

  "I'm not talking about that," Bleys said. "I mean, when that armored car was burned, you tried to get those wounded soldiers out.

  And then you came back, into the line of fire to pick up that wounded soldier I'd been helping...."

  Dahno was silent.

  "Tell me why," Bleys said finally.

  "I don't remember why," Dahno said at last. "I barely remember it at all."

  In California that night, in a hotel room he had picked, Bleys wrote his mind to himself once more.

  He was lying. More to himself than to me.

  I thought I knew my brother, an
d so I tried to pick at the motivations for his humane acts, figuring he might be disarmed, and reveal something more about himself. But there was another layer of him I hadn't seen before. I'd known for years that the Dahno who is a massive, jolly giant who cares for nobody, for nothing, was a mask, and that there were other Dahnos beneath it. But I never realized until today that those other Dahnos are tormented—tormented by the fact that they're /wtthe uncaring giant.

  Under stress, Dahno himself saw that the other Dahno was a fraud. And now he's having trouble finding out what he is.

  There was no talking to him, after I pressed him.

  CHAPTER 34

  It was just after two in the morning when the small rivet in the underside of Bleys' wrist control pad extended itself from its socket, to press against his skin. It began to vibrate silently, but did so for less than three seconds before Bleys' right hand had reached across to stop it.

  Before the rivet had retracted itself Bleys was moving across the bedroom of his hotel suite, seeing only by the light of the city's sky-glow beyond the windows. He snatched up a small cloth bag with twin handles as he moved through the lounge to the suite's main door.

  He paused before the door only long enough to reach up and depress a tiny button on a device he had earlier inserted into the socket of a wall-mounted light. The thin line of light at the bottom of the door vanished; and when he silently opened that door, the hallway was pitch black—not even the emergency lights were on.