Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (73 page)

Whenever
their
ideas
had
conflicted
in
the
past,
Bleys
had
managed
to
work
in
secret
well
enough
to
present
Dahno
with
a
situation
in
which
their
subordinate
Others
were
already
in
strong agreement
with
Bleys'
ideas,
leaving
Dahno
little
option
except
to go
along.
But
open
opposition
by
Dahno
at
the
meeting
on
Association
would
present
the
gravest
of
dangers
to
Bleys'
plans:
no
matter how
well
Bleys
persuaded
the
Others
at
this
secret
meeting
to
take his
side,
it
was
more
than
possible
his
brother,
with
a
few
days
to work
on
them,
could
turn
them
around.
For
it
was
Dahno
who
had recruited
and
trained
them;
it
was
Dahno
who
had
managed
to
win some
sort
of
place
in
their
hearts.

Bleys
had
an
unrivaled
ability
to
show
people
how
going
along with
him
would
benefit
them,
but
Dahno
had
the
better
ability
to get
people
to
follow
him
just
because
they
liked
him.

On
the
lower
floors
of
the
hotel,
suites
had
been
emptied
in preparation
for
the
arrival
of
the
invited
leaders,
but
none
had
shown up
yet;
Toni
was
back
in
Citadel,
waiting
to
meet
them
on
arrival,
to divert
them
here.

"The
Militia
officer
Captain
Amyth
Barbage
is
in
the
foyer,
Great Teacher,"
a
voice
said
over
the
intercom
speaker.
The
voice
belonged
to
one
of
the
staff
people
from
the
Harmony
Others'
offices. Having
brought
only
a
skeleton
staff
on
this
trip,
Bleys
had
been forced
to
co
-
opt
a
few
people
from
the
Harmony
office—but
he
was finding
that
strange
voices
on
the
intercom,
and
strange
faces
carrying
out
his
orders,
made
him
a
bit
uneasy.
It
seemed
unlikely
that mere
staff
people
would
somehow
decide
to
report
to
Dahno
on what
little
they
might
learn
about
Bleys'
doings
here;
but
Bleys
had to
question
everyone's
loyalties,
if
Dahno
had
had
time
to
work
on them.

The
leader
of
Harmony's
Others,
Kinkaka
Goodfellow,
was
also a
possible
danger.
He
had
spent
his
whole
career
here,

always
in
easy
observation
range
of
the
Others'
home
office
on
Association;
it
was
more
than
possible
his
first
loyalty
was
to
Dahno.
Bleys had
diverted
the
Harmony
leader
by
tasking
him
with
preparation
of a
delicate
report
to
be
presented
at
the
coming
meeting
on
Association.
It
was
Bleys'
belief
that
Goodfellow
would
be
intensely
preoccupied
for
the
entire
time
before
that
meeting:
Kinkaka
Goodfellow was
a
consummate
bureaucrat.

Bleys
could
perhaps
have
borrowed
people
from
the
First
Elder's offices
here
on
Harmony,
but
he
had
even
less
reason
to
be
sure
of their
loyalty—here
came
Barbage
now.

The
man
looked,
if
anything,
even
thinner
and
colder
than
when Bleys
last
saw
him,
in
the
cells
in
Ahruma,
less
than
six
months
ago. Bleys
had
been
wondering
how
Barbage
might
have
been
affected by
Hal
Mayne's
escape.
Most
men
would
have
been
humiliated
by that
unfortunate
event,
but
Bleys
was
somehow
sure
Amyth
Barbage would
never
be
humiliated
by
anything
at
all.

"I
am
here
at
thy
command,
Bleys
Ahrens,"
Barbage
said,
as
always
using
the
antique-sounding
canting
speech
practiced
by
certain of
the
ultra-religious
on
the
two
Friendly
planets.
He
had
stopped three
meters
from
the
table
and
come
to
attention,
which
Bleys
knew was
a
deliberate
reminder
that
Bleys,
as
an
officer
high
in
the
government,
was
one
of
Barbage's
superior
officers,
and
thus
able
to
command
him
regardless
of
Bleys'
own
merits.
In
the
captain's
twisted logic,
a
reminder
to
a
superior
officer
that
his
rank
was
all
that
required
Barbage
to
obey
him
always
carried
the
hidden
message
that Barbage
was
superior
in
non
-
military
matters;
for
Barbage
considered himself
to
be
one
of
the
Elect,
those
guaranteed
salvation
and
special consideration
by
God.

At
the
same
time,
Bleys
found
it
meaningful
that
the
Militia
officer
had
not
used
Bleys'
title,
but
addressed
him
by
name.
Barbage seemed
to
be
presenting
a
mixed
message,
and
Bleys
decided
that it
was
some
kind
of
challenge.

"Be
at
ease,
Amyth
Barbage,"
Bleys
said.
In
turn
he
had
used
the Militia
officer's
name
rather
than
his
rank,
believing
it
would
remind
the
man
that
for
all
his
high
political
rank,
Bleys
professed
to hold
an
even
higher
position—one
Barbage
himself
had
seemed
to acknowledge
in
the
past,
when
he
had
addressed
Bleys
as
Great Teacher.