Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09

by Gordon R. Dickson

  close enough to be identified as basically that, and not something else.

  As far as making an attempt to ingratiate himself with Henry . . . clearly Henry's religion was everything to him and his family. Bleys had been informed by Ezekiel that things were like this with all those who lived on Harmony and Association, and belonged to one of the innumerable churches mere—which were at the same time always at each other's throats over religious ritual and doctrine.

  He felt instinctively that he had scored a strong point with Henry, by his quotations from the Bible on the trip home. But, where to go from there was a question. Here, in his own house, on his own land, Henry seemed complete and invulnerable to persuasion, except along religious lines; and those lines were the only route now to the kind of freedom that Bleys wished and needed to gain for himself.

  Basically, he wanted escape from all people and all restrictions, as he had wanted escape from his mother; and the chance to find a life for himself, in surroundings much more like those he had been used to during his first eleven years. The thought of living out his life in the surroundings of this rough cabin, with its rough table and homemade food, repelled him. But he had been ready to risk his life to escape from his mother; and he would not shrink from anything that turned out to be necessary.

  There was a deep hunger in him-for something he could not even put into words, but which he knew he would finally recognize when he found it—if he simply kept searching for it and working to understand it. This he knew: it was bigger than what anyone else he had known—including his mother—had ever dreamed of having.

  Now, for the first time, he could feel a solid hope that he could find it here, on Association. But first and foremost, it must mean freedom for him, in all respects . . .

  The voice of Henry jarred him out of his thoughts.

  "Bleys," his uncle was saying, "what schooling have you had?"

  Bleys' mind leaped to find answers to that question. In effect, he had had no real schooling. From time to time, there —-had been tutors in one subject or another when his mother thought of it. But, since he and she were generally on the move,, it was troublesome and time-consuming to find someone for a short period. Anything else, from his mother's point of view, was unthinkable. As a result Bleys had educated himself, more than been educated; and his education had been oriented toward those things that interested him, or would impress the people before whom he showed off for her approval.

  Now he tried to think of things in which his own reading might have trained him enough so that he could get by with giving the impression he had a knowledge of them; as he had hastily pretended to-have a knowledge of the Bible. Mentally, he scrambled for subjects that would make him valuable to Henry.

  "I can read and write, of course," he said, reaching for the most obvious topics first, "and of course I know arithmetic, up into algebra and geometry. I know a little bit of practical mathematics, like the basics of surveying, and figuring how tall a tree is from its shadow and so forth. There's a formula—if your house was built of boards instead of logs, Uncle, I could probably make an estimate of how many board feet of lumber there were in it. Then I know something about chemistry, too, and mechanics—"

  "What do you mean by mechanics?" interrupted Henry.

  "Oh, how engines and things like that are put together." He took a chance on an outright lie. "I had some training in shop too, which helped."

  "Shop?" demanded Henry.

  "That's where they show you how to take apart and put together motors and things. It teaches you how to make them," said Bleys.

  "Is that so?" said Henry; and Bleys thought that for the first time he heard interest in his voice. "What other things have you learned?"

  Bleys found himself running out of ideas and educational topics, particularly any that might interest Henry. Henry would clearly not be interested in music, literature, or ancient Earth history, and such things.

  "I was taught something about first aid, and medicines," said Bleys, "but not much. But I really am quite good at arithmetic, Uncle. I can add up figures without making mistakes, and keep records."

  "Can you now?" said Henry.

  He sat for a minute, obviously thinking. Then he went on.

  "We're not a bunch of storekeepers here," he said finally, "but there are some records that could be kept. I've kept them myself, but if you're capable of helping me with that, Bleys, it'd be a good use for you to put yourself to, as well as your other duties"—Bleys' hopes sank fearfully at the thought of what "other duties" might be—"I'll think about this; and we may talk some more about it. Is there anything else you've got to tell me about subjects you've been schooled in?"

  It occurred to Bleys it was best not to claim to know too much.

  "Maybe, Uncle," he said, "but I can't think of any more, right now. If I remember I'll tell you."

  "I'll say one thing for you, Bleys—and your cousins"—he looked from Joshua to Will—"should take note. You're willing to be helpful. And this is the right attitude."

  "Thank you, Uncle," said Bleys, with relief.

  He had been unsure whether an emphasis on a sense of duty would necessarily recommend him to Henry. But from what he had learned about the Friendlies beforehand and from what he had seen of Henry himself, it seemed possible. The thought occurred to him, abruptly, that Henry might want to send him off to some local school; and that would be the last thing Bleys wanted.

  Any time spent in local schooling by him would be a waste of time; and, beyond that, pure misery, since he would almost surely know more about many things than those already there. Even if he did not, he would learn all they had to teach children of his age in a few weeks; and he cringed at the thought of trying to fit in with the other students.

  "Very well, then," said Henry, shoving back his chair and standing up. "Will, Joshua—get to your evening chores. Bleys, come along with me."

  He headed out the front door. Bleys, following him, snatched off a peg the jacket Henry had given him earlier. Henry smiled his wintry smile again, watching Bleys struggle into it as they went down the front steps together.

  Henry led him to one of the outbuildings, unlatched the rope loop that held the door, and let them inside, carefully closing the door behind them as if on something precious.

  The room was dimly lit and about big enough to hold two of the goat-carts they had ridden out in, without the goats. Henry reached up on a shelf, took down a lamp with a tall glass chimney, its transparent base three-quarters full of a pale, oily liquid, and with a wick extending upward into the chimney. He removed the chimney and set the wick alight before replacing the chimney.

  The glow it cast was yellow but bright. Bleys saw that they had stepped into some kind of workshop. In the center of the floor was the engine block of an internal combustion engine. Bleys recognized it from a history book as one of the simplified varieties that had been especially designed for the Younger Worlds when colonization was first started. It had three cylinders and according to what Bleys had read about it, had been designed to run on just about anything combustible that had been made into a liquid. Even wood and ordinary weeds, ground powder-fine, could be utilized by it as fuel.

  This particular block had a lubrication pan below, but no head above it. Its three cylinders gaped empty. On a shelf to one side sat the three pistons that would fit into the holes, and some other parts. Bleys stared at it all, puzzled; then suddenly understood.

  Henry, like a great many of the poor colonists Bleys had read about, was gradually building an engine that could be used to drive a homemade tractor or car, buying it part by part as he could squeeze.out the funds for it.

  "Do you recognize this from that class of yours? What did you call it—'Shop'?" Henry asked him.

  "I—think so. Yes, Uncle, I do," said Bleys. "There're different models of course. To know which one this is I'd need to look at its plans."

  "I've got those here," said Henry. He reached to the back of the shelf behind where
the pistons were standing on end, and came up with a sheaf of working plans printed on sheets of plastic, two by three feet in size. He spread them out on an empty section of the bench and put the lantern down beside him. "Here they are. Look, at them and tell me if you know this particular model of engine."

  Bleys looked. The closest he had come to any plans like this had been to see reproductions of them in a book on mechanics. He had been attracted by what he saw then, as he was by everything, but particularly stories and mathematics.

  Still, anything new fascinated him. All that was new showed him things, proved things to him. The stories reported and informed. So did the plans. So did the mathematics.

  But the mathematics had the additional attraction of proving something. He had been particularly delighted with a volume on solid geometry. He had seen a beauty between the solid, three-dimensional shape, represented on the screen of his reader, and the proof for that shape being as it was.

  Now, he looked at the plans for the motor with interest. They were not the plans he had seen in the book on mechanics; but they were close enough so that he could make a ready identification between them and those he had looked at before. Essentially, the engine had been designed so that it could be

  put together by anyone with a minimum of intelligence and the patience to work with his or her hands. The instruction lists were simple and clear as far as the assembly of the motor went.

  "Yes, I think I recognize it, Uncle," he said again. He looked once more over the parts that were arrayed on the bench. "You aren't missing too much from what's needed to put it all the way together and get it working. The largest piece missing is the head for the block and the bolts to put it down on the gasket. Or do you already have the gasket here—?" He began searching among the parts on the bench top.

  "No," said Henry, "heads, bolts and gaskets are all in short supply. There're a few, but the price is high, particularly for gaskets. I'll get one yet before the year is out, one way or another."

  "With that, and just a few more smaller parts," said Bleys, half to himself, "the engine can go together and run." He looked up at Henry. "Can I help you put it together, Uncle?"

  "Yes," said Henry, "I think you can. I think you know enough so that your help will be useful, Bleys. But that's something for the future."

  He turned away from the block, blew down the chimney to blow out the flame of the lantern, and put the lantern itself back up on the shelf. They stood in the shed, lit now only by the last of the twilight that was glimmering through its windows. Henry led the way back to the house.

  When they had stepped inside, the table had been cleared and Will was busily washing the dishes.

  "Bleys, help your cousin Will wipe those dishes," said Henry, "then the both of you—to bed."

  He turned and left them, going in through the doorway on the other end of the wall from the entrance that led to their bedroom. Obviously that end, Bleys thought, must lead to his personal bedroom.

  Bleys walked over to the bench with the washbasin where Will was working, and Will handed him both a dish holding soap and a towel.

  "Josh will be in shortly," he said, "he's busy settling down the stock."

  "The stock—they're the goats, like the ones pulling the cart?" Bleys asked, as he took dish and towel and began to dry the dish.

  "Oh yes," said Will, "but the ones that Father uses to pull the cart and other things like that have to be specially trained. The rest are just for milk and cheese; and meat for us when we can spare one to slaughter for food."

  Bleys nodded. .

  With Will he finished cleaning up the dishes, washing the pan they had washed the dishes in, drying it, and hanging it up on a peg on the wall. Together they carried out the slop water, which was the dishwater poured out into a bucket, plus whatever other water had been used in making the dinner and cleaning the table both before and after the meal.

  "You'd better learn all this," Will said, "because you'll be doing it from now on, I think. Now that you're here, Father will want me outside helping with the rest of the place."

  He showed Bleys where the wash water could be dumped, pointed out the privy, and brought Bleys back inside to their bedroom. The single bunk on the wall that must be the separating wall between their room and Henry's still held only the bare mattress. But some blankets, sheets and a pillow had been neatly piled in the center of this.

  "Joshua will be in, in just a bit, and show you how to make the bed," Will said, climbing up into his own bunk and beginning to undress. He dropped his shoes from the height of the bunk; clearly, it seemed to Bleys, enjoying the large thump they made as each hit the floor. The rest of his clothes Will put into a net that was suspended from two pegs on the inner wall of his bunk. When he was done he climbed back down onto the floor again, knelt beside Joshua's bunk, and began to pray.

  Bleys stood beside the one that was to be his own, uncertain , as to whether he should start to try making the bed by himself. Everything he had met in his life had fascinated him; and the activities of the chambermaids cleaning the hotel rooms they had been in had been equally interesting. He had had one of them teach him how to make a bed and he thought he could duplicate that process now without Joshua's help.

  But at that moment Joshua did come in, taking off his heavy outer jacket and hanging it on a peg just inside the wall of the bedroom, rather than one of the pegs by the door.

  "Did you ever make a bed before?" he asked Bleys, coming over to join him.

  "Yes, I have," said Bleys.

  "Well I'd like you to watch me closely anyway," said Joshua. His voice was gentle; and in general since Bleys had first met him, he had seemed pleasant and unusually considerate. "Father wants things done just so. We wash our bedding on Saturday and hang it inside the house to dry, if it's raining outside like it is today. You'll have to take care of your own bedding, usually, but sometimes you'll be washing everybody's bedding. It just depends. Now as far as making it goes, watch me."

  Bleys watched. There were apparently no springs to the bed, only the mattress, which was of a heavy cloth stuffed with something that he hoped was soft. Joshua began by first covering this with a sort of bag, which he referred to as the mattress cover, then put on the bottom sheet.

  "This is God's corner," Joshua said, folding the end of the overhang from the sheet neatly and tucking it in under the bed so that it made a right angle triangle where the side turned into the end. "You'll make God's comers on all four comers of the bed with everything that needs to be tucked in."

  He went on to put down and tuck in a top sheet, fold it back, lay the pillow on top and then cover it with several thick blankets, that looked as if they might have been home-knitted. They were all of a dark gray-black color. On these, too, he made God's comers. Bleys looked at them with pleasure. Their neatness and regularity appealed to him, and the hint of a solid, makable thing through which their God could be touched struck a resonant note in him.

  "The first two or three days for sure," said Joshua, "Father'11 be in to see whether you made your bed properly. After that he may just look in at any time. So you want to make sure that the bed is properly made, always."

  CHAPTER5

  The day after his arrival, when Bleys woke up, he saw everyone else getting into what were better clothes—and could well be their best clothes. By the time Bleys was awake enough to fully understand the situation, Will was already dressed, his bunk made, and he was out of the room. Joshua, looking remarkably adult in black jacket and trousers made of rather stiff, but obviously not very expensive material, was finishing up his own bed-making.

  Bleys clambered out of his own bunk, still wearing his pajamas (the other two boys had worn nightshirts) and went over to Joshua.

  "What is it?" Bleys asked, "what's going on?"

  "It's church day," said Joshua briefly.

  "I don't have anything black with me," said Bleys. "What should I wear? I'm supposed to come with you too, aren't I?"

  Joshua pa
used, straightened up from his bed and looked at him with a strange look that matched his clothes.

  "That isn't for me to say," he answered, briefly; and,

  turning away, pulled the top blanket of his bed tight, then went out the door.

  Not for Joshua to say? Bleys could only guess that must mean it was for Henry alone to say. Hurriedly he put on the darkest trousers, shirt and jacket he owned, in equal haste went outside. Henry and the others were already climbing into the goat cart, which had its animals already waiting in harness.

  Bleys came up to the cart and stood waiting to get Henry's attention. But Henry merely glanced at him briefly, walked around the cart, and got in. The reins flipped and the goat cart turned out of the yard heading for the road and leaving Bleys behind.

  He stood, watching them go. He had expected that if there was to be any going to church, he would automatically be taken along—commanded to go with them, if anything. But instead they had left him behind without explanation.

  He felt curiously ignored. The last thing he had thought of wanting to do was endure a service in a Friendly church. But at the same time, it was almost as if he had been rejected by Henry and his family.

  It made no sense. Plainly, Henry was the one to give him an explanation. But also, Henry had made no effort to do so and Bleys had no idea of whether he had been supposed to ask his uncle or not.

  He turned slowly back into the house and found some porridge had been left in the all-purpose cooking pot, set to one side of the morning fire to keep warm. There was one place still set at the table. He sat down at it to eat his porridge, wonderingly.

  What should he do? He could simply ask Henry, or he could wait for some cue from the other before asking; or he could wait until Henry chose to tell him in a time of Henry's own choosing. The more he thought about it, the more he thought that in his situation it was best to do nothing but wait and see what would develop. Even the boys, clearly, did not want to be asked.