Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (115 page)

Still,
Dahno's
mysterious
doings
on
Old
Earth,
and
the
attempt to
have
Bleys
himself
arrested
there,
demanded
thought;
and
he spent
many
hours
pacing
up
and
down
the
length
of
his
lounge.

His
encounter
with
Hal
Mayne,
Bleys
told
himself,
had
served
a valuable
purpose:
it
had
confirmed
for
him
his
growing
belief
that war
not
only
had
to
come,
but
was
in
fact
highly
desirable—that
a successful
war
could
advance
his
plan
many
times
faster
than
years of
political
maneuvering....
It
was
as
if
he
had
managed
to
slough off
an
old
layer
of
skin,
abraded
by
the
searing
meeting
with
the young
Earthman:
his
intellectual
energies,
Bleys
felt,
had
once again
been
cleansed
of
the
clogging
effects
of
delusion
and
emotion.

When
the
Militia
officer
Amyth
Barbage
arrived
to
report
on
his capture,
three
weeks
earlier,
of
the
Harmony
outlaw
Rukh
Tamani, Bleys
felt
as
if
he
were
looking
at
the
man
with
new,
piercing
eyes.

It
was
not
the
first
time
a
meeting
with
Barbage
had
coincided with
a
change
in
Bleys'
own
perception
of
himself;
shortly
after Bleys
had
recovered
from
the
worst
of
his
struggle
with
the
DNA invader
the
Newtonians
had
injected
into
him,
Barbage
had
come for
a
meeting;
and
the
Militia
officer
had,
somehow,
seemed
to
recognize
that
Bleys
was
different.
It
was
a
change
Bleys
himself
had noticed
only
days
before—a
feeling
that
he
had
been
charged
with some
new,
and
dark,
upwelling
of
power.
A
power
that
fixed
him more
firmly
on
his
course,
and
made
him
surer
of
his
will
to
carry
it through.

It
had
brought
to
his
mind
those
archangels
who
had
sided
with Lucifer.

When
he
became
aware
of
the
change,
Bleys
went
to
a
mirror,
expecting
to
see
a
different
appearance;
but
the
mirror
failed
to
reflect the
change
he
felt.
So
he
had
been
surprised
when
Barbage
not
only seemed
to
recognize
that
change,
but
to
welcome
it,
with
a
kind
of glee
Bleys
would
never
have
expected
could
lie
under
that
normally
harsh,
severe
disposition.

Once
again,
this
time,
Barbage
seemed
to
sense
a
change
in Bleys.
But
this
time
the
officer's
face
seemed
to
betray
puzzlement, even
uncertainty—something
very
rare
for
that
self-designated member
of
God's
Elect.

"True
to
thy
prediction,
Great
Teacher,"
Barbage
said,
"the woman
Rukh
Tamani
proved
a
formidable
foe—not
only
in
her
own abilities
to
outthink
and
outfight
many
of
the
Militia's
commanders, but
in
her
ability
to
pass
her
satanic
energies
along
to
her
cohort.
Indeed,
it
seemed
that
every
time
my
forces
managed
to
take
or
kill members
of
her
group—her
Command,
as
these
children
of
perdition
style
themselves—legions
sprang
up
to
replace
those
losses."

"Surely
this
is
no
surprise,
Colonel,"
Bleys
said.
"The
woman was
able,
after
sabotaging
the
Core
Tap,
to
shut
the
city
down,
captivating
its
populace
with
her
words
while
appearing
boldly
in
their midst
to
address
the
people
in
broad
daylight—"

"Words
of
defiance,
Great
Teacher!"
Barbage's
face,
recovered from
its
uncertainty,
became
ugly,
and
he
nearly
spat
the
words "—born
of
an
evil
that
knows
no
fear,
and
must
be
destroyed!"

"But
no
more,
Colonel,"
Bleys
said,
calmly
and
softly.
"You've had
her
in
a
cell
for
three
weeks
now,
I
believe?"

"It
is
so,
Great
Teacher."

"Tell
me
how
you
managed
to
take
her."

"It
cost
us
dearly,"
Barbage
said,
"for
thy
order
was
that
she
be taken
alive.
But
God
at
last
favored
us
and
delivered
her
into
our hands."

"How
did
that
come
about?"
Bleys
asked.

"God
led
me
to
change
my
tactics,"
Barbage
said.
"Once
we managed
to
learn
what
general
area
her
group
was
in,
we
tried
unsuccessfully
to
drive
her
force
before
us,
into
traps
we
laid,
but
God did
not
vouchsafe
us
success."

"That
has
been
tried
before,"
Bleys
said,
"and
those
people
usually
managed
to
evade
the
Militia,
in
the
end."

"It
is
so,
Great
Teacher,"
Barbage
said.
"But
God
revealed
to
me that
the
work
to
repair
the
Core
Tap—the
very
one
Tamani
and
her people
sabotaged
earlier—had
been
proceeding
apace,
and
was nearly
completed.
With
God's
help
I
realized
that
such
as
these Forsaken
would
feel
a
need
to
return.
Thus,
I
directed
that
the word
be
given
out
that
repairs
had
been
completed
and
that
work on
the
Core
Tap
was
about
to
resume."