Did Hal still write poetry, he wondered? Or had he set it aside to deal with the dangerous realities of the universe? Or, indeed, had Bleys' own actions killed that seed in the boy?
Bleys thought not. He found it unlikely he could kill anything at all in Hal Maync, beyond his body ... far from killing the seed of artistry, might he not have strengthened the character of the artist?
Still thinking, he absently reached out to raise the shutter over the viewport—to open himself once more to the stars. If Hal still wrote poetry, a look at it might tell Bleys a great deal about the changes that had come upon the boy. Or perhaps Hal still painted— there had been some primitive examples of that art, too, in the boy's room, evidencing early attempts to come to grips with perspective and balance—
The port was open now, and his eye was caught by the great blue and white globe of Old Earth, close by as they killed velocity to drop to the lower orbit in which Favored of God was parked. That globe almost filled the viewport, so that the stars he wanted to see were crowded out, only a stray few visible around the misty edges of the planet, as if paying court, and existing only by the great globe's sufferance.
He stared at the huge, dominating planet for long minutes, his thoughts of his human antagonist forgotten.
And he returned to Favored of God, to order that the ship take him elsewhere.
CHAPTER 37
It had always been a question whether the Friendly worlds constituted one Society, two societies—or thousands of them. The vast majority of the two planets' original settlers had been made up of the most ardent members of a wide variety of Old Earth's religious communities—communities that generally had two major things in common: a shared belief in the existence of a Deity, and a shared willingness to argue over the smallest detail of the remainder of their beliefs.
On both Friendly worlds, over several centuries, the various communities splintered, clashed, splintered again—to the point where religious discord was the norm and the greatest achievement of the two planets was their sheer ability to exist as a society despite that culture of serial schism. In that fractured environment, the institutionalization of every man and woman's right and duty to dissent, if his or her conscience so directed, existed in permanent conflict with every other person's duty to correct heresy—as well as with the government's need to preserve peace and order.
In that atmosphere, even revolt was fractionalized, and every attempt to create some sort of overriding controlling body for the rebellious was doomed to failure. So every rebellion—they were unending—started out as, and remained, a matter of individuals who cooperated only as far as their varied beliefs led them.
But in a society in which dissent was as institutionalized as the government itself, rebellion could thrive, because even the most staid and satisfied of citizens had a certain antipathy for authority. And because the government was as conflicted as its citizens.
It was astounding that the Commands—roving bands of armed rebels, part guerrilla and part pilgrim—could work together at all; and, indeed, at times they, too, splintered. But for the most part each Command was a rebellion unto itself; and their only contact with each other was in the form of the news passed along informally over the networks of resisters who happened to know and trust each other. Only rarely had two Commands cooperated, for a limited time, for a common objective.
Nonetheless, each Command's very existence was an asset to every other Command, for their existence dissipated the pursuing government's resources, while energizing every Command's power base, that lay in the pool of nearly secret, unorganized sympathizers scattered throughout the lands the Commands roamed.
When Favored of God rose up out of its orbit, to push itself away from Old Earth's star in preparation for its first phase-shift of the trip home, Bleys was in his cabin; and he stayed there through that shift, through the calculation period after that shift—and through the second shift of the trip. He was writing notes to himself, and destroying them.
At last, a day and a half into the journey, near the end of the third calculation period, he left his cabin.
Prepared to fend for himself in satisfying his finally returned appetite, his first stop was the ship's kitchen. But his entrance to that facility was intercepted by Shira, who—apparently an apt student of her captain's commanding style—all but physically drove Bleys out of her way and to the lounge he had so far been avoiding while she prepared another meal for him.
For the rest of the trip he lost himself in the stars, either in the lounge or in his cabin, eating only when Shira brought him a tray; but once back on Association, he felt refreshed and alert, finally— and again lost himself in the myriad details of his work.
The Others he still led were, for the most part, carrying on their efforts to tighten the Others' control of nine worlds, to weaken the power of three other worlds, and to mobilize financial and military forces for the conflict he now felt to be inevitable; and that alone required more of his time than any single person should have to provide.
Still, Dahno's mysterious doings on Old Earth, and the attempt to have Bleys himself arrested there, demanded thought; and he spent many hours pacing up and down the length of his lounge.
His encounter with Hal Mayne, Bleys told himself, had served a valuable purpose: it had confirmed for him his growing belief that war not only had to come, but was in fact highly desirable—that a successful war could advance his plan many times faster than years of political maneuvering.... It was as if he had managed to slough off an old layer of skin, abraded by the searing meeting with the young Earthman: his intellectual energies, Bleys felt, had once again been cleansed of the clogging effects of delusion and emotion.
When the Militia officer Amyth Barbage arrived to report on his capture, three weeks earlier, of the Harmony outlaw Rukh Tamani, Bleys felt as if he were looking at the man with new, piercing eyes.
It was not the first time a meeting with Barbage had coincided with a change in Bleys' own perception of himself; shortly after Bleys had recovered from the worst of his struggle with the DNA invader the Newtonians had injected into him, Barbage had come for a meeting; and the Militia officer had, somehow, seemed to recognize that Bleys was different. It was a change Bleys himself had noticed only days before—a feeling that he had been charged with some new, and dark, upwelling of power. A power that fixed him more firmly on his course, and made him surer of his will to carry it through.
It had brought to his mind those archangels who had sided with Lucifer.
When he became aware of the change, Bleys went to a mirror, expecting to see a different appearance; but the mirror failed to reflect the change he felt. So he had been surprised when Barbage not only seemed to recognize that change, but to welcome it, with a kind of glee Bleys would never have expected could lie under that normally harsh, severe disposition.
Once again, this time, Barbage seemed to sense a change in Bleys. But this time the officer's face seemed to betray puzzlement, even uncertainty—something very rare for that self-designated member of God's Elect.
"True to thy prediction, Great Teacher," Barbage said, "the woman Rukh Tamani proved a formidable foe—not only in her own abilities to outthink and outfight many of the Militia's commanders, but in her ability to pass her satanic energies along to her cohort. Indeed, it seemed that every time my forces managed to take or kill members of her group—her Command, as these children of perdition style themselves—legions sprang up to replace those losses."
"Surely this is no surprise, Colonel," Bleys said. "The woman was able, after sabotaging the Core Tap, to shut the city down, captivating its populace with her words while appearing boldly in their midst to address the people in broad daylight—"
"Words of defiance, Great Teacher!" Barbage's face, recovered from its uncertainty, became ugly, and he nearly spat the words "—born of an evil that knows no fear, and must be destroyed!"
"But no more, Colonel," Bleys said, calmly and softly. "You've had her i
n a cell for three weeks now, I believe?"
"It is so, Great Teacher."
"Tell me how you managed to take her."
"It cost us dearly," Barbage said, "for thy order was that she be taken alive. But God at last favored us and delivered her into our hands."
"How did that come about?" Bleys asked.
"God led me to change my tactics," Barbage said. "Once we managed to learn what general area her group was in, we tried unsuccessfully to drive her force before us, into traps we laid, but God did not vouchsafe us success."
"That has been tried before," Bleys said, "and those people usually managed to evade the Militia, in the end."
"It is so, Great Teacher," Barbage said. "But God revealed to me that the work to repair the Core Tap—the very one Tamani and her people sabotaged earlier—had been proceeding apace, and was nearly completed. With God's help I realized that such as these Forsaken would feel a need to return. Thus, I directed that the word be given out that repairs had been completed and that work on the Core Tap was about to resume."
"And so you drew her into a trap, then?"
"Indeed," Barbage said. "We made an estimate of the time it would likely have taken for her to hear the news and come to the city; and then we made a sweep, picking up all the dregs who mingle in the population." He smiled, coldly.
"Thanks to thy foresight, Great Teacher, for the first time there existed a unified force under the command of a single officer of sufficient rank to have his orders obeyed, and sufficient numbers to block more routes than in the past—and with diligence and alacrity the mistakes that had always sabotaged the efforts of other commanders were avoided. Thus, we arrested hundreds of those unfaithful we believed to be in sympathy with her. And with the forces entrusted to me, we were able to close down all the city, and the nearby countryside besides; and keep them closed so that none could get away. Until eventually, one of those we had arrested broke, and gave us a location in which we could seek Tamani."
"I congratulate you, Colonel," Bleys said. "But tell me now: have you learned anything from the woman about Hal Mayne?"
"Although put to the test," Barbage said, "the woman continues to deny knowing anything new of Hal Mayne."
"Do you believe her?"
"I do, Great Teacher," Barbage said. "I believe she is one of those who, if she knew anything about Mayne, would merely seek to maintain silence, rather than tell an outright lie. Moreover, a lack of knowledge on her part is logical, since Mayne hath not been on the planet and the Commands have no access to off-planet communications."
"That we know of," Bleys corrected him.
"It is so, Great Teacher," Barbage acknowledged; but his eyes burned.
"I accept your opinion," Bleys said. "But tell me—what about the remainder of her Command?"
"We found none, Great Teacher," Barbage said. "The woman said she came to the city alone; and indeed, all those found near her were locals long suspected of being sympathetic to the disaffected."
"Still, she must have other information that can be of use," Bleys said. "Names of collaborators, methods of communication, and so on?"
"Undoubtedly, Great Teacher. I intend to return to Ahruma at once and redouble my efforts with her."
"Very good, Colonel," Bleys said. "Please keep me informed."
"Would it please thee to see her, when next thou comest to Harmony?"
The question brought back sharply Bleys' memory of the slim, beautiful woman he had met briefly on her own ground, one day on Harmony.
"No," he said.
Henry MacLean was disturbed. He had just completed an hour-long cross-country obstacle run, and his time had been beaten by a goodly number of his Soldiers. Being bested did not bother him; he had never been the swiftest of any group. What bothered him was that he was almost exhausted, and it was taking him longer to recover than he expected of himself.
He was still better at the skills that required calm and the ability to focus oneself, such as shooting or spotting out-of-place people or items in an environment. But he was concerned that he was losing muscle tone. It was now more than two years since he had left the farm, and he did not feel the workouts he took part in, as part of his Soldiers' maintenance program, did as much for him as the farm-work had.
Perhaps it was that he was in his fifties now; his body must age, as did everyone's. But he wondered if he might be losing some of his ability to do the tasks he had set for himself.
He had known, when he came to Bleys, that he was deficient in many areas; but he had never had any doubts about his physical abilities.
Henry had never had the sort of formal martial arts training Bleys and Toni practiced, but he had picked up a lot of tricks and techniques in his youth, as a Soldier of God; and those were in turn built on the foundation of skills developed in the country wrestling of his youth.
So when he organized Bleys' Soldiers, he was aware of the need to keep them in condition; an entire floor of the Others' headquarters building was devoted to that, and what could not be done well there was carried on in courses in the countryside.
Nor did he neglect the mental side of fitness: he had been little educated in his youth, but with the facilities Bleys could provide he had devoted a portion of every day to instruction in various technical and scientific fields—and made sure his Soldiers did the same.
What it came down to was that although he was older than most of his Soldiers, it was important to him to keep himself in the same shape he demanded of them.
He had never thought of himself as one of those who could send others out to fight while conserving their own strength—those whose value lay in their experience and intelligence. There had always been a part of him that suspected that such people put their souls in greater danger than did the common fighter.
Did he still feel that way, now that he seemed to be taking such a role? It might be a good idea to do some thinking about the meaning of his past life.
"Bleys, wake up!" Toni's voice pierced the darkness, but Bleys was already awake—he had roused when her breathing changed as her wristpad awoke her. "What is it?"
"An urgent message from Harmony," she reported. "Rukh Tamani has escaped from the Militia."
Bleys sat up, and waved a hand for some light.
"Details?" he said. "How long ago did this happen?"
"I'm still being fed information," she said. "It sounds as if it occurred about four days ago. There was a raid on the prison."
"Four days!"
"Yes," she said.
"W7hy did it take Barbage so long to report this?" he asked, intending that she direct the question to whoever she was in contact with.
"The report isn't coming from Barbagc," Toni said after a moment. "It seems he's vanished." "Was he killed?"
"Apparently not," she replied. "There were a lot of casualties—I gather there are some wild stories about some huge man hunting people down in the corridors—"
"Mayne!" he said.
"No identification was made. However, Barbage was seen after it was all over—and when he disappeared, no one who was left knew you had any particular interest in the woman; so the report took a while to get up the chain of command to us."
Bleys was silent.
"The Militia are asking if you want to order them to seal all the spaceports, to prevent Tamani from getting off the planet," she said. She waited for him to reply.
"No," Bleys said finally. "It's certainly too late."
He rose, and padded in his bare feet out of the bedroom and down the hall to his lounge. He did not turn on a light; he was not sure what his reaction to the news really was, and he did not want Toni to see his face while he explored it.
CHAPTER 38
Delivered Out of Egypt, despite its longer name, was a much smaller ship than either Favored of God or Burning Bush. The vessel had been called Poker Face IV as it came out of the shipyard on Old Earth's moon, Luna; and its size was well adapted for the in-system routes it was meant to run betwe
en the numerous ports and pads in its home solar system.
Now, having only recently become one of the steadily growing fleet owned by the Others, it had been chosen for this trip precisely because it was new to their service, which meant that its presence somewhere was less likely to alert people that Bleys Ahrens was in the area. Bleys also hoped that anyone trying to find him would be distracted by Favored ‘s trip to Newton, where it remained in orbit while Toni and Henry gave the impression that Bleys was conducting business in the privacy of the ship.
The disadvantage to Delivered's smaller size, however, was that its passageways were narrower, and had less overhead, than those in the larger ships. Moreover, its cabins were smaller, its facilities sparser and its passenger lounge less than half the size of the one Bleys used as his office aboard Favored.
The lounge was still the largest space on the ship, however, outside of the engineering areas, and so Bleys was spending almost all his time there; but he was getting sick of the place.
Delivered, using the assumed name Fanons Friend, had been in orbit at Mara for nearly six days now, pretending to have suffered a malfunction that seriously contaminated its environmental support systems—badly enough that after spending the first few days trying to fix the problems themselves, the crew had been obliged to call for help in the form of a local expert.
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