“I need to get into the Cassidan mind—into DeNiles’ mind, particularly,” Bleys said. “Action provokes reaction, and reaction reveals attitudes and patterns of thought.”
He turned to Henry.
“Can you and Toni together take over Dahno’s usual job of seeing about setting up the equipment to do the recording, then? Not only here, but as we move around?”
Henry nodded.
“Then there’s no reason not to get started right away,” Bleys said.
The scene of Bleys’s speech the following day in the park of a city named Cartusa, a thousand kilometers to the west, was a little different in appearance from those of his outdoor speeches on New Earth and Harmony. Once more there was the small temporary building which housed the equipment to project his image above its flat roof; and to broadcast his words out to the individual receivers the people listening would be wearing.
The weather was good this day, and the scene was a very shallow, bowl-like, grassy depression in an area surrounded by low mountains. The one great difference was that the audience this time was tiny, compared to those who had come to listen to him on both New Earth and Harmony; less than three thousand people. But there was an audible reaction to be heard, even inside the projection building, when his oversize, projected figure appeared above the building’s flat roof.
A gust of emotion went through him at the sound. Abruptly, he made the decision to scrap the speech he had planned—the carefully tailored speech that would both appeal to his audience and lead DeNiles to reveal himself in greater depth.
Relatively few as they were, these people outside there were those who had come to listen to him on a world which really did not welcome him, or promise to be tolerant of those who did. It was important, not only to them but to himself, that they should hear what he really had to tell them. This was the living message, the truth—something that even Henry would admit was not fed to him by Satan, if only he had some way to explain to Henry’s satisfaction his decision and what he was about to do. He still could think of no way to do this; but he would feel better speaking as he had just now decided to do.
Let them believe, he said earnestly inside himself, let them listen and understand. This much, at least, of me is real and vital to them. He began to speak.
“Cassidans,” he said, “you who are here already know that it’s the whole human race I’m interested in; and in particular that means in every individual alive today of the race. But I’ve a special message for you who belong to this world; and it’s not the same message I’ve given and will give to people on the other Younger Worlds.”
He paused.
“It’s simply,” he said, “that for you, the struggle toward a better future is at first going to be harder than for those on any of the other Younger Worlds.”
There came an audible, swelling murmur, beyond the building’s walls.
“Please don’t feel offended or angered by my saying this,” Bleys went on, when the noise died away. “The fact that it will be harder means that in the end you may well develop further. The need for a greater-than-average strength often means that such a greater strength will develop.
“In this sense, it’s no different from the physical development your bodies could gain by exercise.”
Bleys paused to let these last words sink into their minds.
“Stop and think,” he said. “Aren’t the Younger Worlds on which people have made the most individual progress, those where they had to struggle most for the bare minimum of survival? The Friendlies and the Dorsai struggled against impoverished worlds. The Exotics struggled against a world that was not impoverished; but which, even after terraforming, possessed a climate in which only a small amount of the planet’s territory was practical for human residence and work.”
He paused again.
“As a result,” he said, slowly and deliberately, “these peoples were all—in different ways—compelled to become interested in the same sort of inner development that I’m interested in myself; but which they needed and unconsciously reached for—to make themselves into a special people, whose skills and talents would find a special market on the other Younger Worlds. Each in their own way—Friendlies, Dorsai and Exotics—found that development, and that market; and in the process, developed not merely uniquely successful societies, but uniquely successful, individual people."
“To understand consciously how they did it, you have to stand back from both the past and the possible future; and look at both, as well as at the present, with an unprejudiced eye. If you can once manage that, you’ll see that the human race has always tended to be obsessed with the problems of its own generation; whereas the instinctive inner drive of the race has treated such as only passing roadblocks on the way to survival and growth. So that in the end it has dealt with and survived them, to emerge stronger than ever, and still on its route to a greater people and a greater existence.
“These three Splinter Cultures had to struggle for what they wanted. Now you’ll have to struggle, but in a different way. Struggle developed them in ways they did not foresee—not the least of which was in an emphasis on particular senses and awarenesses. To put it simply, to survive, they developed attitudes which made them stronger and equipped to go on to further struggles—no longer against their environments, but from the limitations of their own minds and bodies."
“Open your minds, then, to the ways in which human capabilities can be extended—extended to the point where the developed abilities of these people have seemed to put them beyond competition from other humans. Let’s talk about that for a little while, and then let’s talk about what is possible with your own struggle. For, even though your struggle has brought you to a successful society and comfortable planet, it has exercised—and given you the beginnings of—the interior strengths that you’ll necessarily need as the rest of the race develops further yet, as we all move into the inevitable future…”
As he talked on, Bleys found himself caught up in his own words as usual. Literally, he warmed to his subject; and literally, he began to feel a response from the crowd in the sounds of it through the walls of the building around him.
Whether it was the audible reactions that were useful to him, or not, he had discovered long ago that he preferred to speak without any written preparation of what he was going to say.
The crowd was always like an actor’s audience, varying from occasion to occasion. It was possible—literally possible—to feel them growing warmer, responding to what he was saying; or feel their temperature dropping, as their interest flagged and pulled away from him.
This day again, as it had so far every time he had held one of these outdoor talks, he felt the warmth steadily growing—not universally from every person in the crowd, but from such a large majority of those standing and listening that their warmth swamped and all but obscured the occasional minor notes of contradiction and exception that flowed from those few individuals who would not accept what he had to say.
He finished at last on a high, hopeful note; and afterwards left the building, walking some fifty meters or so to the vehicles that waited to carry him and his own party away.
He, Toni and Henry were, as usual, surrounded by Henry’s soldiers on the way out, a living envelope of trained men who kept at a safe distance those who always wanted to crowd close enough to touch him, to speak to him personally. This time, Bleys noticed, there was an additional outer enclosure of Cassidans in civilian clothes. But these moved very much like trained bodyguards, or military, and acted as a sort of double protection.
He thought little of it until he was almost at the car; and then suddenly there was a swirl in the crowd. The warm crowd voices immediately around him were suddenly torn by screams; and he saw over their heads that the swirl was moving through the packed people very swiftly as something or someone plowed in his direction. Bleys had a brief glimpse of a man naked from the waist up and wielding a massive two-edged, broad-bladed sword with both hands. People we
re falling and scrambling away from him on either side as he literally slashed his way toward Bleys.
He was almost upon them when his eyes suddenly went wide, then closed. The sword dropped from his hands. He fell and lay without movement. The outer envelope of apparent civilians gathered around him, and Henry’s Soldiers drew tightly back around Bleys, Toni and Henry. But Bleys pushed his way through both them and the civilian guards beyond, to look down at the man.
He was a large, thick man, but not an impressive one. A generous amount of fat bulged over the front of his belt, and he had a noticeable double chin. It was not the hard fat of an athlete who might simply be carrying extra body weight, but the upper body of a man who had probably been physically lazy for some years. He was undoubtedly middle-aged, and Bleys’s first thought that the civilian guards had killed him was relieved when he saw the naked chest moving deeply and quietly, although the eyes remained closed.
“You just knocked him out?” Bleys asked one of the civilian guards, who seemed to be in command and was standing directly over the fallen man. The man he had spoken to turned to him. He was a slim, wiry individual, in light gray business clothes, with a receding hairline and mousy brown hair beyond it; but he held, barrel-down, a weapon that looked like a small void pistol. He gave the very impression of athleticism that the man on the ground lacked.
“Yes, Bleys Ahrens,” the man answered. His eyes looked unwaveringly into Bleys’s. “He’s a hura. The psychomedicians will take care of him.”
In fact, one of the mobile clinical vehicles, with medicians and various kinds of equipment aboard, was already making its way through the crowd toward Bleys and the others around the fallen man.
“What’s a hura?” Bleys asked.
“Hura?” the guard answered. “It’s a”—he apparently had to think for a moment—“it’s short for… juramen-tado,” he said, “an ancient word from one of the Old Earth languages. It means someone who gets despondent to the point where he runs wild and tries to kill everyone he can get close to. He’s curable. The psychomedicians will deal with him. I’m sorry your occasion here was interrupted by something like this.”
Beyond the man with the sword Bleys could see other figures on the ground, scattered farther back. Men and women who were plainly medicians were busy with most of them. The ones they ignored lay in complete stillness.
“Does this happen often?” Bleys asked.
“No,” said the civilian leader. “That’s to say, it’s not common. Happens more nowadays than when I was a boy. But”—there was almost a note of pride in his voice— “we’re the only Younger World where it happens.”
“I see,” said Bleys.
He turned away to rejoin Toni and Henry, who had followed him. Together they reached their limousines and climbed inside.
“Toni,” said Bleys, some little distance in complete silence on the way back, “use the car phone, will you? Call our contact for the Other Headquarters here and see if Johann Wilter can meet us back at my suite in our hotel.”
Chapter 23
“As far as I know,” said Johann Wilter, “there’ve been huras around ever since the first colonists set themselves up on this world. I can check if you like.”
Johann (he pronounced it Yo-han) was slim, dark-skinned and intense, in a city-going bush jacket, narrow trousers and boots, all of different shades of light blue. A white scarf fluffed itself into a knot under his chin in the opening between the two lapels of his bush jacket. He looked like a lightweight twenty-year-old until you met his eyes. Then it became plain he was anything but lightweight and a good ten years older. He had the steadiest gaze Bleys had ever encountered. Bleys had never actually tried to stare Johann down, on the two occasions in which they’d met before—when Johann had made brief trips to Other Headquarters on Association. But he had a feeling that Johann would die before his eyes would waver. His calm and gentle demeanor said “Don’t worry about me.” His eyes said simply “Don’t push.”
The combination of the two messages made more than a few people uncomfortable around him, but Bleys was not one of them.
Curiously enough, the ancestry Johann claimed was Chinese. Bleys had seen him direct a long, hard glance at Toni as he had come into the suite. Toni had returned it with a smile. Bleys was interested; and more than half willing to bet that Johann had decided that whatever oriental ancestry Toni might have, it was not Chinese.
“I think that’s a good idea,” Bleys said now. He was holding a writing pad in his lap as they sat in the main lounge of his suite; and writing on it as he talked—his hand moving independently of his words as if his mind was operating on two entirely different trains of thought at the same time. “I’d like to know as much about them as possible. Did there used to be fewer of them? Or, to put it another way, have they increased with time? Have they increased beyond the proportion you’d expect, in the general population?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” said Johann. “As I say, I’ll check. That army-type man you spoke to was right, though, when he said that Cassida is the only world that has them.”
“Army man?” Bleys said. “I thought there was something military about those extra civilian-dress guards that Henry hadn’t arranged for. I’d like to know who sent them out there.”
“Undoubtedly the Board,” said Johann.
“Undoubtedly?” Bleys echoed. “Do the army—I mean the General Military Forces—here on Cassida belong to the Board?”
“Oh, no,” said Johann. “But they do have at least one member on the Board at all times, usually two or three.”
“Is Pieter DeNiles a former army officer?” Bleys asked.
“The Secretary of the Board?” said Johann. “Not as far as I know. He appeared more or less out of nowhere about half a dozen or maybe ten years ago. But he’s always been in government, somewhere in the shadows. I don’t think anyone knows much about him. I can try to find more on him, too, if you like.”
“It won’t do any harm for you to find out what you can about him,” said Bleys. “But the huras are more interesting to me at the moment. Now, you’ve been doing a fine job of running the Other organization here. But it always was small; and the people heading up the organizations for us on other worlds have been much more successful doing extra recruiting than your group has, since I asked all of you to do it. Any particular reason?”
“Absolutely,” said Johann. “We Cassidans aren’t as recruitable. We’re not hungry.”
Bleys was deeply interested this time. His personal opinion was that Cassidans were deeply hungry—for a freedom, a status, or a relief—from something they could not name. He opened his mouth to speak, but Toni was before him.
“Hungry?” she said, pouncing.
Johann looked at her. “Most people on this World want security, and they’ve got it here,” he said, “unless they’re absolutely unwilling or unable to fit into the planet’s work somehow. If they can do a nice secure job and end up a little better off than when they started out, they’re happy. No one’s starving for want of basic needs—even the people in the rural areas and tiny towns far out in the wilds. Even if they were, there would be government aid for them. These are the least hungry people on any of the Younger Worlds. Except, perhaps, the Exotics. But I suppose you could say that the Exotics are hungry to discover things, so it’s not the same thing.”
“That’s curious,” said Bleys. “I touched on that fact here, more or less, in my talk earlier today. Are you saying that your organization here and what I have to tell them doesn’t offer to fill any need they have? Do you mean to say that, as far as you know, they’ve no needs at all?”
“No—not at all!” said Johann. “What we’ve got to offer is something all Cassidans want, if they’ll just admit it to themselves. Of course, as individuals, they’ve got other wants, too. Maybe that’s why these people who turn hura go into their fits of depression and end up running wild, killing people—always with some kind of direct tool like a knife or a sword. In
fact, a sword’s the usual weapon.
They seem to get more satisfaction from that than from using any kind of kill-at-a-distance tool, like a void pistol, needle gun or power rifle.”
“Yes. But, you know,” said Toni, “it was a very odd sword that man carried this afternoon. It could have been cut out of some stiff, paper-like material, except it was thicker, obviously harder, and a sort of dark brown color. But it was crude, the way somebody who knew nothing about swords might merely cut a broad-bladed, scimitar-like weapon out of a large chunk of wood.”
“Oh, the answer to that is easy enough,” said Johann. “That kind of weapon can be made by the common tools you’ll find in anyone’s home. In fact, if you have a controller hooked up to your tools, all you have to do is simply draw what you want and give the controller some specifications—say, you want edges as sharp as a razor on the part below the hilt, for example—and the machines’ll turn it out for you, exactly according to your drawing and what you told it to make. What you saw today, and almost always, is of ordinary ‘made’ material. You probably use the generic word—what is it—‘plastic’ on Association?”
“No,” said Toni, with a slight edge to her voice, “we call it ‘made’ material, too.”
“Apologies,” said Johann. “Anyway, there’s all sorts and kinds and colors and so on, of ‘made’ material available for people who want to work with their tools at home. Some persons just like to make things themselves—you understand?”
“Certainly,” Bleys answered. “Now, on another topic. If you’ve been worrying about our expenses here,, don’t. We’ll take care of any amount your treasury can’t handle. But get me as much data as possible on the huras, including anything they’re all known to eat or drink—and particularly solid figures showing whether or not they’ve been increasing in number and proportion among the population. Also, whether the incidence of their running amok is getting more frequent. And find out everything you can about DeNiles for me.”
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