They weighed and measured him. They sliced him up into small transparent slices to be examined on the screen of a microscopic camera in the mind of each. He had not moved them in the slightest degree by his deliberate impoliteness to Iban. They were—as they obviously had been from the moment he had entered the room—remote, deliberative, and absolutely sure of themselves.
“Have you seen our Symphonie des Flambeaux, Bleys Ahrens?” asked the motherly Din Su.
Bleys looked at her agreeably. But, as she spoke, his mind was racing. The question itself was innocuous. The Symphonie des Flambeaux was indeed considered one of the several Wonders of the Worlds—even including Old Earth. Until the claim became ridiculous in the last century, Newtonians had been in the habit of insisting that the Symphonie des Flambeaux ranked first among all such wonders, ahead even of the Final Encyclopedia.
The breath of the air through the partly open door to the balcony cooled the side of Bleys’ face that was toward it. Din Su’s question, apparently harmless as it was, was still also the opening gambit of the Council’s talk with him, and merited study as much as a Queen’s-pawn to Queen’s-pawn-four opening in a chess game between master players. The piece moved was one of little power, the move could be simply an automatic one; but in the hands of such a player it could also indicate a dangerous pattern of attack.
If so, it was a pattern Bleys must deduce, make plans to oppose and be ready to meet.
Chapter 28
“Not yet, I’m afraid,” Bleys said. “As you probably know, I just got here. I haven’t had time. But I’ll be seeing it tomorrow. I wouldn’t want to miss seeing at least one performance.”
“So,” said the light tenor of Georges Lemair. The chemist himself had not stirred, or the expression of his face altered. “Sight-seeing as well as work—is that the kind of trip it is?”
Bleys looked at him pleasantly.
“No,” he said. “Work only. From my point of view, the Flambeaux are an index of Newton’s development. I’ve made quite a study of your past and gone to some trouble to decide what I want you to do in the future.”
The ambiguous words were said so lightly that they took a few seconds to sink in, even on this group.
Then Half-Thunder leaned forward in his float. “Are you by any possibility suggesting that you yourself might have some influence on the future of our world?”
“Well,” Bleys answered. “I have already, of course; and I don’t see why I shouldn’t continue.”
There was another small silence.
“Is this man completely sane?” Iban asked Half-Thunder.
“As far as we knew.” Half-Thunder directed both his answer and his attention to her.
He turned back to Bleys. “Or perhaps this is some kind of joke, Bleys Ahrens?”
“Why should you think it was a joke?” Bleys asked.
“If you really need an answer to that question,” Half-Thunder said, “we’ll assume your sanity—which I’m not surprised that Iban questioned—and simply say that you’re about as far from having any influence on this world as somebody in a cage in the other end of the universe.”
His voice had risen—but only slightly—on the last few words. He paused, then went on with perfect calmness.
“You’re not only not in a position of influence here. The Council has brought you before us to tell you we’re going to have to take some measures with you. Apparently, you have come here under the cloak of diplomatic immunity to disturb our citizens with this nonsense about your Others.”
“You must be mistaken,” Bleys said. “This is a speaking tour only. Naturally I make it a practice to be available to the local Others when I’m on a world where there are some. What else would you expect?”
He shrugged his shoulders in the face of their silence.
“My talks,” he continued, “have nothing to do with you or the Other organization, but with the future of the human race itself. Newton’s population is part of the human race, so what I say applies to it as well as to everyone else. Of course, that population can choose not to listen. But I think some may, in times to come.”
“You admit it, then?” Iban said. “You’re here to disturb our society?”
“I admit what I say.” Bleys looked half-humorously at her. “If you want to put some sort of different construction on my words, I can’t be responsible for that.”
“Oh, yes, you’re responsible,” said Georges Lemair.
“Georges is quite right,” Half-Thunder said. “All the more so because you’re here on a diplomatic passport. Our Council here, looking at the whole pattern of your behavior—not only on our world but on the others you’ve visited, and on the two Friendly Worlds from which you come—find it adequately clear that you’re here only to try and upset society on the most valuable New World the human race possesses.”
Bleys laughed.
“You think it’s funny?” asked Anita delle Santos, her words coming all the more cuttingly from her apparent fragility and delicacy.
“I’m afraid so,” Bleys said. “Here you are, the senior—essentially a responsible and ruling—body of what you call the most valuable of all New Worlds—though I can imagine some other New Worlds disagreeing—and still, you seem to have dreamed up some sort of cloak-and-dagger farce with me as the chief actor. I wish you’d explain to me just how something like what you’re imagining could be going on under cover of my talks about all the race on all the worlds?”
“I think you know as well as we do it’s not a farce and how you have been doing it.” Half-Thunder looked around the circle, which responded with a murmur of agreement from the rest sitting there.
“In any case,” he went on, “it’s quite clear that with the help of your older brother, you first set up the nucleus of a subversive organization on as many worlds as you could. Here on Newton, you weren’t able to set it up as well as you probably wished; but there are some weak people among even our good researchers who’ve been attracted and influenced by your notion that the human race in general needs only to throw off the yoke of Old Earth—a yoke that’s nonexistent, of course; I think you know that as well as we do—and remake itself according to your own notion.”
He paused. Bleys merely watched him. When the silence had lasted more than a moment, the older man went on.
“Having set all this up, you’re now going around lighting a fuse to these groups and the general public on each of the Worlds. What surprises all of us is that you also seem to have a fair amount of intelligence. How you might have expected Newton to stand for this—this open and barefaced sabotage—simply because you come here with a diplomatic passport, perplexes us all. I can only hope that intelligence of yours extends to the point of understanding that we’re simply going to disregard your diplomatic immunity, if necessary.”
“That’d be unwise,” said Bleys. “The New Worlds exist by financial interdependence; and that, more or less necessarily, requires a host of commonly accepted conventions. That includes the ancient convention, brought from Old Earth originally, that accredited diplomats are given consideration on another World they’re visiting, as if they were still on the soil of their native planet.”
He looked around at them, smiling. “Violate that convention, and there’s no reason why all the other connections and agreements shouldn’t also break down; and that would be disastrous to all of us.”
“I know casual public opinion on most of the worlds runs that way,” said Half-Thunder. “But it overlooks the fact that Newton has been moving into a position where it’s the one world that’s vitally important to all the rest.”
“Vitally?” said Bleys.
It was Georges Lemair who rose to the bait.
“Without us, none of the other inhabited planets have a common technology!” His voice was loud.
“Aren’t you assuming quite a lot?” Bleys murmured. But Lemair was going on without listening.
“If we cut off connections with them all, tomorrow, they woul
d all end up going different ways at different speeds, falling apart—back into savagery. Meanwhile, our World and those with us would go on advancing scientifically and technologically into a brighter and ever more advanced condition, with a larger and larger understanding of the universe. We’ll be an empire, eventually, in which Newton, of course, will make decisions. For all. In fact, we’re practically there now.”
“I see,” said Bleys. “I imagine you’ve already made plans, too, for your own manufactories, like they have on Cassida; for medical research units and teaching units, like they have on the Exotics; and military training, like that found on the Dorsai—wasn’t it a Dorsai, Donal Graeme, that brought Newton to surrender, a century or so ago?”
“Those worlds have already taken their specialties as far as they can go. We already know as much as they do,” Lemair answered.
“I see,” said Bleys again, soberly.
He did indeed.
In fact, he suddenly understood, almost certainly, more than they intended him to, and possibly more than they understood themselves.
One of the evidences of social decay predicted for the New Worlds had been a drift into a form of megalomania, in which each planet’s people began to think of themselves as not only living on the best of the New Worlds, but the one world that, in the long run, must outpace all the others.
He had been prepared to meet this form of collective semi-insanity, but not this soon; and he had always expected—in fact, assumed—that the first indications of it would be armament building, construction of an armed force that hoped to take over the other Worlds by force.
Old Earth had once hoped to militarily conquer the Dorsai World. But Old Earth had been unexpectedly defeated—not because of a military genius; not even by the best of her fighting people—but by the noncombatants of the planet. Since then, such dreams had been discounted.
Clearly these present Newtonians expected to make their conquests by other and less violent means, most likely commercial ones. But that still meant that this Council could be in deadly earnest after all, with the announcement of its plan to disregard his diplomatic immunity. If they really wanted to arrest him, there was little he or Henry’s Soldiers could do to stop them.
As yet, between the worlds, Bleys was still a small fish. These people on this Council did not fully realize it, but McKae would certainly not risk any real break in relations between the two Friendly Worlds and Newton simply because a Friendly government member had been mishandled there. McKae had neither the character nor the temperament for such a determined move.
He would probably do as little as possible, secretly pleased that Bleys was the member mistreated—not realizing that Bleys had already made enough of an impression on Harmony and Association, at least, that if he went down, McKae would shortly go down as well. Friendly voters had long memories and strong opinions.
All this went through Bleys’s mind very quickly, so that he hardly paused before speaking to Half-Thunder.
“Even supposing you wanted to risk committing such an unheard-of act as disregarding my diplomatic immunity; and possibly even do something more than deport me— though it’s hard to imagine what—”
Half-Thunder smiled as he interrupted.
“I can tell you specifically what we intend. We intend to bring you to trial here under our laws for attempted sabotage. I won’t cite you legal chapter and verse; but under our system, conviction on that charge could make you liable to a death penalty.”
“Which, of course, would be carried out immediately,” said Bleys, with a tinge of irony openly in his voice.
“I’ve no doubt it would be carried out immediately,” said Din Su in her comforting, motherly voice. “I’m sure we’d all feel relieved if all the New Worlds were free of your tendency to trouble people.”
“Haven’t you overlooked one thing?” said Bleys. “If you tried me in the face of all international custom and agreement, then executed me, you’d be making a martyr of me. Look at history. Not only our history on the New Worlds, but all the history before that on Old Earth. Martyrs tend to be remembered and sanctified. Their philosophy tends to make more converts after their death than they made themselves, alive.”
Half-Thunder shook his head, smiling. “Our situation here has a different precedent in history. Do you remember the observation someone once made, that Carthage was recorded in history as the villain in its conflict with Rome—but it was Rome who wrote the history? Soon we here will be in the position of Rome. We’ll write the history.”
“I see,” said Bleys. He sat back on his float. “Then you’d better get busy with your legal and diplomatic moves. Because, as it happens, I believe in what I tell people. I don’t consider my life anywhere nearly as important as my message.”
He looked around at them all.
“Not my life,” he said, “not the Others’ organization, nor anything else. All that’s important is the future of the race. I can hardly claim I’ll enjoy the prospect of my death; but I realize it’s something that, in spite of what you say, is going to do more for my message and more for the human race than probably anything my words could do while I was alive.”
Grimly now, he smiled at all of them.
“Perhaps,” he said, “I should even thank you.”
Not only was Bleys telling the truth—what he actually believed in—but his words were delivered with all the trained power of his voice and person that had carried conviction on so many other statements to so many other people. The Council members hearing him might be trained and experienced in many ways; but they were not experienced auditors, skilled in warding off the emotional influence in the voice that now spoke to them.
Even if they had been, it was still the truth—all but the last few words. Within himself, Bleys believed sincerely that the end toward which he worked could be achieved only if he stayed alive and continued to work for it. But there was little likelihood that they would be able to separate that one grain of difference from the rest. Moreover, by this time Bleys was completely convinced that if this was actually what they aimed at, there had been little sense in their bringing him before them, simply to shock and frighten him.
Clearly, they had meant to shock and frighten—but only as a step toward something further; and it was that something further for which he now fished with an attitude mostly truthful, but partly false.
“A very brave attitude,” said Half-Thunder, after a moment. “But, in any case, no matter how many other people think you’re a martyr, on the other Worlds—and there’s little likelihood of that getting out of hand here on Newton, while Old Earth is not really concerned in this—it will actually make no difference to how we guide our own world.”
“Are you sure?” Bleys asked. “You might find my martyrdom may make converts who’ll be strongly opposed to you; who’ll make things difficult for you when you come to try and lead all the other New Worlds.”
“We already do lead all the other New Worlds,” said Anita delle Santos.
Bleys glanced at her briefly, but returned his attention to Half-Thunder.
“I’m not talking about what you can do, particularly with the hard sciences,” said Bleys. “I’m talking about your trying to be in a position to give orders to all the other New Worlds. As an ultimate goal, there could be difficulties in reaching that, if enough people on other Worlds hold a philosophy that doesn’t agree with yours.”
“What gives you the idea that Newton has any interest in giving orders like that?” Half-Thunder asked.
“Isn’t that what the best end up doing?” Bleys said, innocently. “Being the most powerful? In a word-dominant. All and each of you.”
This time, small tensions and small movements in those around him gave away the fact that he had taken the conversation into a sensitive area. Very likely they had not officially or even unofficially discussed how power would be apportioned among them if and when Newton became the world ruling all other New Worlds. But that was the obvious end towa
rd which they were heading. All of them had to have been able to taste the power of rulership in their minds, and that was a particularly attractive taste to some personalities.
That question of future authority raised a large point of potential trouble between those here. Bleys had brought it out into the open; meanwhile giving them reason to move on to the unspoken proposal he expected from them—the carrot and the stick he had encountered on New Earth—but with a difference. This business of ignoring diplomatic immunity and putting him on trial for his life could hardly be a preamble to such a proposal. He was waiting for one of them to get to it.
Bleys had guessed that one would be Din Su—and it was.
“I’m interested,” she said. “What makes you feel there is any great number that will even remember you, let alone think of you as a martyr?”
“They came in the upper tens of thousands—I believe we had close to eighty thousand people there one day on New Earth, when I spoke,” said Bleys. “That was a World that had never seen me before, but heard what I had to say only on recordings. That indicates something to me. Doesn’t it to you?”
“It indicates something,” said Din Su, “whether it’s what you had in mind or not, I don’t know. Interest like that is largely unmeasurable. Any unusual event or six-day wonder will attract a crowd.”
“Close to a hundred thousand people?”
Instead of answering him, Din Su turned her attention to Half-Thunder.
“You know,” she said to Half-Thunder, as quietly and as unconcernedly as if she and he were alone in the room, “we did talk about making some other use of him.”
“You aren’t saying you believe these claims of his?” said Half-Thunder.
“Oh, they’re inflated, of course,” said Din Su. “Even if he was serious about being willing to die for his philosophy, he’d still have reason to want to make us think that his following was as large as it could be. But he’s got what some writer or other back on Old Earth once called ‘a dangerous eloquence.’ We might find a use for that eloquence for our own concerns and purposes. What do you think?”
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