Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (67 page)

"Are
you
sad
because
he
refuses
to
be
your
friend—or
because he's
your
enemy?"

"I
don't
know
how
to
answer
that,"
he
said,
looking
back
to
her face,
framed
by
her
black
hair.

"Then
let
me
ask
this,"
she
said:
"if
Hal
Mayne
were
to
become your
friend,
would
you
turn
back
from
your
plans,
from
your
goal
in life?"

He
looked
at
her
for
a
long
moment.

"No,"
he
said,
finally.
"I
think
I
see
what
you're
getting
at—I
can't very
well
expect
him
to
give
up
his
goals
for
my
friendship,
when
I would
never
do
the
same."

"That's
not
what
I'm
saying,"
she
said.
"I'm
saying
you
already have
a
friend,
one
so
big
there's
no
room
for
another
...
I
mean
the purpose
you've
devoted
your
life
to."

For
a
long
moment
he
just
looked
at
her.

"I've
been
blind,"
he
said
then.
"How
do
you
handle
it?"

"I
knew
what
I
was
getting
into
when
I
joined
you,"
she
replied, a
fist
thumping
him
on
the
sternum.
"But
what
do
you
think
about what
I
just
said?"

"I
believe
you're
right,"
he
said,
after
taking
a
brief
moment
to think.
"I
tell
myself
frequently
that
my—my
purpose—is
more
important
than
everything
else—"

She
interrupted
him.

"You
mean
you
need
to
remind
yourself
frequently,
because— because
other
things
in
life
distract
you?"

"Let's
say:
because
sometimes
the
things
I
may
be
required
to
do are
too
hard."

"I'm
sorry;
I
interrupted
you,"
she
said.
"Go
on
with
what
you were
saying,
please."

"I
was
saying
that
I
tell
myself,
frequently,
that
my
purpose
is more
important
than
anything
else,"
he
said.
"But
I
hadn't
thought, until
now,
to
relate
that
to
Hal
Mayne."
He
stopped
for
another moment,
thinking.

"I
guess
subconsciously
I
interpreted
his
escapes—first
from
his estate
and
then
from
that
prison
cell—as
a
personal
rejection
of
me, and
of
my
offer
of
friendship.
Of
course
that's
a
stupid
reaction
on my
part."
He
shook
his
head.

"That
reaction—my
reaction,
I
mean—was
a
mistake
in
itself.
It was
a
weakening
of
my
resolve.
And
that
applies
regardless
of whether
Hal
Mayne
rejects
me
as
a
friend,
or
accepts
me." He
stopped,
looking
into
her
blue
eyes.

"I
used
to
worry,"
he
said,
"that
you'd
reject
me,
too,
once
you learned
enough
about
my
plans."
He
shook
his
head.
"We're
beyond
that
now,
aren't
we?"

She
closed
her
eyes,
and
lowered
her
head
to
his
chest;
and
held him.

CHAPTER
23

Bleys
keyed
off
the
circuit
over
which
he
had
been
talking
with
the Others'
personnel
office,
six
stories
below
him;
and
leaned
back
in his
chair,
looking
down
the
length
of
the
lounge
at
the
great
map
he used
to
keep
track
of
his
nemesis.
Years
of
self-control
kept
him from
grimacing.

Dahno
would
not
have
hesitated
to
express
his
scorn,
if
he
were here
and
Bleys
had
mentioned
that
word,
nemesis.
There
was
little concrete
evidence
to
speak
for
Mayne's
dangerousness.

Yet
Bleys
remained
convinced
Hal
Mayne
was
the
biggest
single danger
to
his
plans.

In
a
way,
Mayne
was
irrelevant—no
single
human
being,
including
Bleys
himself,
carried
sufficient
historical
mass
to
control
the
direction
of
those
threads
of
historical
forces
Bley
s
had
pictured
for Toni,
that
night
on
Ceta.

But
those
forces
were
closely
balanced;
just
a
small
weight,
added to
one
side
or
subtracted
from
the
other,
could
alter
their
direction— alter
it
enough
to
change
the
course
of
the
human
race,
as
a
puff
of wind
could
alter
the
flight
of
a
bullet.

The
historical
forces,
that
he
pictured
as
a
many-threaded
tapestry
flowing
through
time,
were
made
up
of
all
the
decisions
ever made
by
human
beings,
across
the
entire
span
of
the
race's
history; and
so
they
had
a
weight,
an
inertia,
no
single
person
could
turn aside.

So
his
task
was
not
to
shift
the
forces
himself,
but
to
move
members
of
the
human
race—convince
them
that
his
was
the
correct
path. If
enough
people
went
along
with
him,
their
combined
weight
could dominate
the
direction
of
the
forces
...
within
himself
he
felt
a
feeling
of
familiarity,
as
if
what
he
had
just
thought
echoed
something
he