Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09

by Gordon R. Dickson

  The result had been that every one of them now believed himself invincible. They were given vacations and days off to go into Moseville for recreation, now that they were older; but always in ordinary civilian clothes, and under the condition that they in no way betrayed what they really were. The Hounds took eagerly to this idea; but just to make these days off safe, Bleys had read in the files, Dahno had had each one on his first few trips observed by hired private observers from cities that were neither Ecumeny nor Moseville, to see if in any way they gave away what they were, or boasted about their background.

  None of them had.

  On the other hand, unfortunately, as Bleys had said, they were now essentially a loaded weapon itching to be used. Just lately, Ahram had said, they had been training for a specific assassination exercise, although he volunteered no information as to whether this was merely an in-house training exercise, or if they were actually going to be given a live subject, as they had been when they were sent in to reinforce their training against civilians in Moseville.

  By and large, most of the files concerned themselves with merely the cost and record keeping of the organization.

  Having squeezed most of the juice of important information out of the files, Bleys closed his eyes, tilted his seat back and dropped into a light doze, which was not broken until his ship sat down at Ecumeny. He paid off pilot and airship, and took an autocab back to the apartment; where he climbed into bed and abandoned himself to serious sleep.

  He woke later than his usual hour the following morning, but with his mind in that sudden state of crystal clarity that sometimes follows a good night's sleep, once body and mind together have fully come to.

  The most immediate item on his program now was to deal with Norton Brawley.

  He called the man's office while he was making breakfast. His call was answered by a female voice who turned out to be a receptionist; and who passed him on to a male voice.

  "Norton Brawley's office," said the male voice, "how can I help you?"

  "This is Bleys Ahrens," said Bleys, "tell him I want to see him here at the apartment in fifteen minutes."

  There was a moment of astonished silence at the other end.

  "Who did you say you are? What did you say?" said the male voice.

  "Bleys Ahrens. He's to be here at the. apartment in fifteen minutes. Just get the word to him," said Bleys.

  The male voice, when it spoke again, seemed to have recovered some of its composure.

  "I'm afraid legalist Norton Brawley wouldn't be able to see you within fifteen minutes under any circumstances, let alone out of his own office—"

  "That's up to you," said Bleys; "whether it's your doing or his, if he isn't here in fifteen minutes I'll have to assume that he no longer wishes to maintain his former connection with us. Good-bye."

  "—Wait a minute. Wait a minute," said the male voice, "who did you say you were?"

  "Bleys," said Bleys, enunciating very clearly, "Ahrens."

  "And where did you say you were, at a place called the Apartment?"

  "The apartment I share with Dahno Ahrens," said Bleys. "He'll know where it is."

  "I don't see—it's completely impossible, of course—" the male voice at the other end stopped suddenly, "Dahno Ahrens? But you're not Dahno Ahrens."

  "I'm sorry," said Bleys, "but I can't waste any more time talking to you. He's either here in the next fifteen minutes or not. Good-bye."

  He hung up.

  He went back to making his breakfast. He was sitting down to eat it when the annunciator chimed. "Yes?" he said, raising his voice slightly, but not leaving the table.

  "Norton Brawley."

  Bleys pressed the door release on the nearest control pad, which happened to be the one on the sideboard, without getting out of his chair. Every once in a while he was a little amused at the length of reach of his own adult arms. This was one of those times. He went back to eating as the door opened and a man in his late thirties or early forties and wearing dark business clothes, tall by ordinary standards but not by Bleys', came in.

  His face was oval, his eyebrows and hair jet black and straight, and his skin was a dark olive color which made him look Mediterranean in ancestry.

  It was a bit unusual, in that most of the European immigrants to the Friendlies had been northern rather than southern Europeans. He had a dapper look, somewhat marred by a slight sheen of sweat on his brow and a slightly flustered look.

  "Norton Brawley!" said Bleys, without getting up from the table. "You made it in good time. I'm just about through here. Will you have a cup of coffee with me in the lounge?"

  "I—I—" Norton Brawley pulled himself together visibly and stood even straighten "Certainly, Bleys Ahrens." "Black?"

  "If you don't mind," said Norton Brawley.

  Bleys stood up, and saw the other man's eyes widen a little at the sight of his height. Bleys smiled inwardly. It was always very shocking for a man who considered himself generally taller than most other men to run into someone who overtopped him not by a little but by a great deal.

  "Take a seat in the lounge, then," said Bleys. "I'll bring the coffee in, in a second."

  Norton went out of sight out of the dining area into the lounge. Bleys disposed of his tray and everything on it and drew two cups of black coffee, which he took around the corner into the lounge.

  He handed one of these to Norton, and, with the other, sat down himself in a facing chair.

  "Sorry to break you away from your work so suddenly," said Bleys genially, "but I've got a small crisis I wanted to talk to you about."

  "If you mean Dahno's leaving and being off-planet now, I already knew that," said Norton, somewhat stiffly; "he phoned me as soon as he made the decision."

  "Not as soon as he made the decision, Norton," Bleys corrected him gently. "He made the decision when he was with me."

  "Ah . . .oh," said Norton. He reached for his cup, which so far he had not touched, and drank from it. "I didn't know that."

  "How could you?" said Bleys. "However, since he left me in charge I've had to make a quick review of things, just to make sure I had all the strings in my hand, so to speak. I find myself a little concerned about this assassination exercise, after seeing the Hounds themselves yesterday."

  Norton drank from his cup again, holding it so tightly that his hand almost trembled.

  "Why don't you give me your opinion of it?" went on Bleys.

  He had nothing more than a guess that the Hounds might be put shortly to active use. But he had already read enough from Norton in the way of reaction and body signals, to know that this guess might have some basis in reality.

  "I don't know how much Dahno told you about this . . ." Norton hesitated. His fishing for more information from Bleys himself was obvious.

  "Don't concern yourself about that," said Bleys, waving the question aside with a hand, "just talk about it on the assumption that I, of course, know everything about it. Give me your opinion as if you were telling me about it for the first time. You see, I know Dahno's opinion, I know what's in the files and his secret files; and I'm sure the Hounds to be engaged in it haven't any idea whether it's simply another practice, or the real thing. Let's not waste any time now. Your opinion?"

  For the first time since Norton had walked in, there was a hardening of Bleys' voice on the last question; a bit of a whip-crack, demanding an instant answer rather than asking for one.

  "I'm sorry," said Norton hastily. "I didn't understand you'd have anything to do with it."

  "Who else?" said Bleys. "Go on, now."

  "Well, I don't see how there can be any problem to it," said Norton, falling back into what were obviously something like his ordinary office tones of judicious judgment. "Leaving the speech, any guards McKae's got are going to be relaxed. Also, with our men wearing ordinary clothes as well as whatever badges or emblem the Arise! people have handed out to their own ranking members, the odds have to be overwhelming that everybody will assume that McKae
was the victim of enemies in his own church."

  "That's providing," said Bleys, "that all our Hounds get away without being caught, questioned and revealed as belonging to our organization."

  "Well, they don't belong to our organization," said Norton; "actually they know nothing about it—even Ahram. They know about Dahno's public face, that's all. But even Dahno's safely off-world now."

  "Are you positive," asked Bleys, "that the Hounds are fully prepared? It looked to me as if they could use some more time in practice when I was out at their place yesterday."

  "What gave you that idea?" said Brawley. "They looked perfectly all right both to Dahno and myself even a week or more ago, when we last saw them. Also, McKae's speech itself is still three weeks off. If there's something you want sharpened up on their training, I'm sure that can be done."

  "What's been done about getting them to where the speech is going to be held?" Bleys asked.

  "Why," said Brawley, "of course, they'll be flown in, in private atmosphere ships with our own men driving them—the ships, that is. Then they change to five cars, six Hounds to a car, and move down into the area of the main auditorium here, a good hour ahead of time. Particularly with the badges, they ought to be able to get inside the building, so that they're behind McKae when he leaves. If they shoot him down on the steps it can't help but look like a fight of factions within his church itself. That sort of thing happens all the time. Church members get definitely lined up on one side or another."

  "And then the Hounds just slip away to the cars, correct?" Bleys said.

  "Exactly," answered Norton, smiling.

  "And what if the police have any reason to investigate the ground cars on their way in, or what if any of our Hounds are caught, trying to get away from the scene after the shooting?" Bleys said.

  "Surely, Bleys Ahrens," said Norton, "you must know all mat. As far as the police are concerned, we've arranged through our connections on the city force, that the cars are to be let through no matter what the situation is. As far as other police at the scene, or the church members, or McKae's own guards—I believe our intelligence tells us that he'll only have guards who're simply self-trained individuals. Men who've perhaps had a little experience in wars between the churches. He'll be counting on the mass of people in his church for his main protection; and his so-called 'security' people'd be no match, man on man, for our Hounds, anyway."

  "It does sound excellent," said Bleys, in a thoughtful tone of voice, "provided nothing unexpected goes wrong. I still think the Hounds involved in that could stand a little more practice, though."

  "Well, that's easy enough to arrange, Bleys Ahrens." said Norton. "Do you want me to take care of it?"

  "Yes," said Bleys, still thoughtfully, "perhaps you'd better do that rather than I, since they've had more contact with you than with me and they probably only know you and Dahno at all well."

  "Certainly, absolutely. I'll take care of it the moment I get back to my office," said Norton. "I'll phone out there."

  "Better go in person," said Bleys; "I'd like you to impress on them the urgency that I feel about their being in top training."

  "If that's what you want," said Norton, rising, "but I do think you may be concerning yourself a little more over this than is necessary."

  "Better safe than sorry," said Bleys.

  "But what I don't see," said Norton as Bleys walked with him to the door of the apartment, "is why you consider this something of a crisis. You could simply have called me and given me the message to take out to them."

  Bleys smiled down at him.

  "I thought perhaps I ought to impress you, too, with my own feeling of concern and urgency," said Bleys. "I hope I've done that."

  "Indeed you have, indeed you have," said Norton. He offered his hand to Bleys and they clasped. "Yes, it probably was wise for you to see me now as soon as possible, if you're feeling this way about it. But I do promise you there'll be nothing to it when the time comes."

  Bleys let him out and closed the door behind him; then went back to sit down in the chair he had been occupying when they were talking. What was facing him was obvious. He would have to look into McKae's church and at McKae's top people, somehow. He had to get a much clearer picture of McKae's vulnerability.

  He had fished for most of the information he wanted from

  Norton Brawley and got it. But it had been information he was not particularly happy to have. Norton, clearly, was no more able to plan and put together the kind of thing the Hounds were to be sent on, than anyone in the Hounds, themselves.

  In short, the necessity was to avoid the risk of bringing the name of the Others into newsprint exposure as assassins. The militia would not be long in making that connection, once Ahram had pointed Norton Brawley out to them. The publicity would bring the name to total and utter ruin—which he, Bleys, could not afford now or in the future. Particularly, with the plans he had for it on a much more advanced scale.

  Clearly he would have to do something about the situation, himself. He got up and went down to the exercise room in the apartment building, to give his body something to do, while his mind had time to work out the situation.

  The answers he wanted were buried in the back of his head, and took time to surface, as he had expected they would. He had been under a great temptation today, with Norton, to plunge into an investigation of McKae's church, trusting that his mind would sort out what needed to be done as he went along.

  However, experience with his own ways of thinking had taught him better than that. He was always best when he had a chance to let his unconscious ponder the situation until it began to come up with all the answers on it.

  Two days after his talk with Brawley, it had.

  Chapter 32

  The new and small, but active Arise! congregation in an old Ecumeny church, abandoned and outgrown by whatever other church had owned it originally, paid little attention at first to one of the newest worshipers, except to remark on his exceeding height. Tall as he was, his clothes were still a little too big on him; and were old and shabby, giving the impression that he had not perhaps eaten as regularly lately as he should.

  Eventually, at his second meeting, when some of the other members of the congregation ventured to make his acquaintance, he admitted that he was out of work at the moment. He had grown up on a farm not too far from Ecumeny and was taking his time trying to find something in the city that he thought he would like to stay with. His name, he said,.was Bleys MacLean.

  Bleys had given some thought to what name to call himself. Sooner or later, if he got close to McKae, he would be checked back on. To a large extent, he intended to tell the truth, using Henry's farm as his background and with only the small difference that Henry was his father, rather than his uncle. He felt fairly safe with this. The members of a congregation of a country church were very clannish toward any outsider— particularly an outside investigator.

  They might not have liked Bleys, and might still not like him, but that did not mean that they would correct someone who was inquiring about him under an altered name. They would simply go along with the fact that Bleys' last name was MacLean and if necessary direct the person to Henry.

  Henry, who was even more protective of his family than the congregation was of one of its former members, would give away nothing. So, Bleys felt fairly sure that his background as a country boy growing up on Henry's farm would hold up under any investigation McKae's people might give his background.

  "And what brought you to our Church?" another member of the congregation asked.

  "I heard our Great Teacher Darrel McKae speak; and I realized at once that it was him I should be listening to," said Bleys.

  "Oh, you heard Darrel McKae himself?" said the man who had just spoken. "What church of ours was that at?"

  Bleys swayed a little, uncomfortably, and looked down at his large, worn boots as if embarrassed. He seemed to have a permanent stoop to his shoulders; as if he was continually and apol
ogetically trying to get down to the level of the people to whom he talked. Outside of this, he gave the impression of not being too bright.

  "Actually," he said, "it wasn't a church. It was on the floor of the Chamber. I was in the visitors' gallery, there."

  They stared at him a little.

  "The visitors' gallery?" said the man who had been doing all the talking so far. "What were you doing in the visitors' gallery? You need a special pass even to get into the Chamber building."

  Bleys looked even more embarrassed.

  "I found a pass in the street," he said; "it was only for one day, and someone must have thrown it away; but the pass was for the same date as that day, so I put it on and went inside, just to see what I could see. The guard on the door of the gallery wasn't too happy about someone like me visiting"—Bleys smiled awkwardly—"but he let me in. Our Great Teacher was talking about the Core Tap and how the people who worked on it had to be Godly people, people who were steady church attendants, no matter what world they came from."

  "Quite right, too," said a woman who was part of the group, "he really told them! Read it in the newsprint."

  "And that made you go looking for one of his churches?" asked the same man who had been asking so many of the questions.

  "Yes," said Bleys, "I saw one church, but it was pretty grand. I thought I'd look for something a little more . . . homey. Like the church we used to have out near the farm."

  "So you came to our church. Quite right," said the woman. "God and the truly religious have little use for mere size and ornament!"

  There was a general agreement from those in the group standing around Bleys.

  "And I like it here very well," added Bleys.

  "And we're happy to have you, Bleys MacLean," said the same man. "You'll find friends here. You'll find True Faith-holders, every one of us!"

  "Thank you, thank you," murmured Bleys, "I try hard to be a True Faith-holder myself."

  "Have you met our Teacher, yet?" said the man.

  Bleys shook his head.

  "Well, come meet him, then," said the man, taking Bleys by the arm and literally pulling him forward. Bleys hung back for a second, then followed. The other church members with them tagged along.