Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (114 page)

"I
was
in
the
lake,"
Hal
said.
"Walter
and
Malachi
Nasuno—the Dorsai—signaled
me
when
they
guessed
you
were
on
the
grounds. I
had
time
to
hide
in
some
bushes
at
the
water's
edge.
After
...
I
came
up
to
the
terrace
and
saw
you
and
Dahno
through
the
window of
the
library."

"Did
you?"
Bleys'
response
was
almost
perfunctory.
Suddenly
he felt
dull,
exhausted,
as
if
he
had
expended
all
his
energy
in
some burst
of
effort.

The
two
of
them
stood
there
silently,
just
facing
each
other;
and at
last
Bleys
shook
his
head,
recognizing
finality.

"So
it
had
already
begun
between
us,
even
then?"
he
said.
It
was not
really
a
question.

Bleys
turned
to
open
the
door;
and
stepped
through
it.
In
the
corridor,
he
tiredly
forced
himself
to
be
gentle
as
he
closed
the
door behind
him.

No
one
was
in
the
corridor,
but
when
he
got
to
the
door
at
its
far end,
that
door
opened
on
the
entry
bay;
and
the
woman
who
had
escorted
him
before
took
him
to
his
shuttle.
He
managed
to
thank
her politely,
and
then
to
direct
his
driver
to
return
him
to
Favored of God.
But
those
were
the
only
words
he
said
for
some
time.

As
the
misty,
silver-gray
orb
of
the
Final
Encyclopedia
dwindled
behind,
and
now
above,
his
shuttle,
Bleys
pulled
his
eyes
away
from the
sight.
He
wanted
to
think,
but
it
was
as
if
the
phase-shield
panels
that
protected
the
satellite
also
fractured
his
thoughts,
breaking them
into
tiny
bits
that
scattered
about
the
Universe,
beyond
recall.

What
was
it
about
Hal
Mayne
that
had
such
an
effect
on
him?
He had
known
there
was
something
unusual
about
the
boy,
and
had come
to
believe
the
man
had
the
potential
to
become
a
friend
of
the sort
that
might
alleviate
his
perpetual
loneliness.
But
he
could
not explain
why
he
felt
that
way,
any
more
than
he
could
explain
the mystery
of
Hal's
childhood
beneath
the
Final
Encyclopedia.

The
only
similar
feeling
Bleys
had
ever
had
in
his
life
had
come
on a
day
long
ago
when
he
began
to
discover
the
works
of
the
great artists
and
writers
of
the
past.
For
a
while
he
had
believed
he
had found
a
bond
with
them,
dead
people
who
had
once
lived
lives
made full
and
rich
by
their
unique
abilities;
was
he
recognizing
a
similar
talent
in
Hal
Maync?
Was
that
what
drew
him?

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.