Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (90 page)

He
sighed.

"But
it
never
lasts,"
he
said.
"While
I
can
persuade
people—many people,
not
all—to
believe
what
I
tell
them,
it
doesn't
last.
If
they have
any
solid
core
to
their
personalities,
their
unconscious
minds seem
to
return
them
to
their
old
selves.
Many
of
our
Others—and most
of
the
top
ones—have
the
same
persuasive
ability
themselves;
and
I
suspect
what
success
I've
had
with
them
stems
largely
from
the fact
that
what
I
tell
them
agrees
with
what
they
want,
anyway.
But that
won't
be
the
case
forever."

"Which
is
why
we
have
to
keep
making
the
rounds
of
the
leadership,"
she
said.
"You
have
to
keep
refreshing
their
convictions."
She sat
up.

"I
knew
you
were
doing
that,"
she
said.
"But
I
hadn't
thought
it out
enough
to
realize
the
implications.
You're
killing
yourself,
trying
to
keep
ahead
of
them,
and
the
more
Others
are
recruited,
the more
you
have
to
do."

"Well,
I
don't
have
to
work
on
all
of
our
people,"
Bleys
said. "Those
of
our
Others
who
have
the
persuasive
power
exert
it
to
keep their
own
followers
in
line—which
is
fine
as
long
as
the
top
people support
me.
But
it's
all
a
gigantic
pyramid
scheme."

"You're
letting
yourself
become
depressed,"
she
said.
"Stop
it! Remember
how
far
you've
already
come."

Both
of
them
were
silent
for
some
moments.

"It's
sad,"
she
said
finally.
"It's
like
having
to
be
suspicious
of
your own
family."

He
sensed,
somehow,
that
her
feelings
ran
deeper
than
her
simple
words
indicated.

Two
days
after
they
got
back
to
Association,
word
came
that
Ana Wasserlied,
the
top
Other
on
New
Earth,
had
been
assassinated.

CHAPTER
29

By
the
time
Bleys
got
to
New
Earth,
Ana
Wasserlied's
deputies
had already
publicly
placed
blame
for
her
murder
on
unidentified
off-worlders;
but
there
was
a
quiet
war
of
succession
going
on,
and Bleys
discovered,
as
he
had
expected,
that
he
was
looked
to
as
the kingmaker.

Having
had
time
to
think
the
situation
over,
he
had
already
made his
choice
of
a
successor.
However,
he
avoided
announcing
that choice
for
some
days,
using
the
time
to
watch
the
candidates
in
action.

As
if
unaware
that
the
top
Others
on
the
planet
were
in
an
agonized
limbo,
Bleys
spent
an
afternoon
with
Marshal
Cuslow
Damar, commander
of
the
Friendly
troops
who
enforced
the
Bleys-created truce
that
had
averted
a
Bleys-induced
civil
war
on
New
Earth— thus
effectively
giving
Bleys
control
of
the
planet.
Marshal
Damar, Bleys
knew,
was
no
fool,
and
might
have
some
useful
ideas.

Much
of
what
the
Marshal
had
to
say
was
confirmed
when,
on Bleys'
fifth
day
on
the
planet,
he
kept
a
quiet
rendezvous,
once again
using
an
automated
taxi
as
a
mobile
meeting
room.
He
had not,
this
time,
been
able
to
get
away
from
his
hotel
totally
unnoticed,
but
he
was
sure
he
had
not
been
pursued
closely
enough
for anyone
to
see
and
understand
what
he
was
doing.

"I
can't
prove
it,"
Deborah
said,
"but
I'm
sure
the
assassination
is connected
to
someone
inside
your
Others'
organization.
My
people here
haven't
had
enough
time
to
get
high
in
the
local
organization, but
we've
had
a
lot
of
experience
in
learning
things
from
subordinate
positions—and
your
Others
are
generally
pretty
negligent
in their
security."

"Just
here
on
New
Earth?"
Bleys
asked.
Deborah
smiled.

"No,"
she
said.
"They're
pretty
bad
on
most
of
the
other
Younger Worlds,
too—except
for
Newton
and
Cassida."

"That
might
be
a
legacy
of
the
era
when
the
organizations
on those
worlds
were
forced
to
operate
underground,"
Bleys
mused. "But
in
any
case,
I
don't
want
them
to
be
too
good
at
protecting themselves—not
just
yet."

"Because
it
would
make
it
a
lot
harder
for
you
to
keep
an
eye
on them,
through
my
people,"
Deborah
said.
She
smiled
again.

"Don't
you
worry
about
trusting
me?"
she
asked.

"A
little,"
Bleys
said.
"You're
the
most
calculated
risk
I've
ever taken."

"But
calculated
is
the
operative
word
here,
isn't
it?"
she
replied. "I've
always
liked
the
analytical
way
you
approach
problems.
And I
think
you've
recognized
that
my
people
wouldn't
gain
much
if
we betrayed
you."

"That's
one
way
to
put
it,"
Bleys
said.
"You
might
gain
a
little wealth
by
trading
me
for
another
employer,
but
I
think
that's
nothing
that's
likely
to
motivate
your
people,
or
yourself."

"You're
right—at
least
so
long
as
you
pay
us
well
enough
to
satisfy
our
needs."

"Are
you
having
any
problems
in
that
area?"

"No,"
she
said.
"You've
been
generous
enough—again,
you're smart
enough
to
see
it
never
pays
to
try
to
shortchange
people
you depend
on.
Besides,
we
know
if
we
betrayed
you,
we
could
never manage
to
take
over
your
empire
and
run
it
for
ourselves."

"But
I'd
still
be
wise
to
avoid
antagonizing
you."

"That
goes
without
saying."
For
a
moment
they
were
both
silent.

"So
what
else
do
you
have
for
me?"
Bleys
asked
at
last.

"I
don't
know
what
it
means,
but
there's
been
some
unusual
traffic
between
Freiland,
Cassida
and
New
Earth
over
the
last
six months.
I
don't
know
if
it's
associated
with
the
assassination.
And
I can't
tell
you
if
there's
been
any
involvement
of
the
Newton
organization."

"What
kind
of
traffic?"

"Just
as
one
example,
three
Others
from
the
Cassida
organization— one
a
key
deputy
to
Johann
Wilter—have
made
five
round
trips
to

New
Earth
in
the
last
six
months,
traveling
under
false
identifications on
commercial
transport,
and
while
here
they
made
no
attempt
to contact
the
New
Earth
organization." "What
did
they
do
here?"

"I
don't
know,"
she
said.
"We
here
never
knew
they
were
coming,
on
any
of
the
trips,
until
we
got
the
word
from
our
people
on Cassida
that
they
had
already
left
there—because
of
the
Cassidan organization's
security,
our
people
there
weren't
in
a
position
to know
about
the
trips
ahead
of
time—but
our
people
on
the
staff here
would
have
known
if
the
Cassidans
made
any
contact
with
the New
Earth
offices."

"All
right,"
Bleys
said.
He
paused
to
think
for
a
moment.

"Is
there
any
asset
I
could
get
you
that
might
have
enabled
you to
learn
more
about
this?"

"Not
really,"
she
said.
"The
problem
is
that
our
information about
such
a
trip
can't
reach
here
before
the
Cassidans
themselves get
here—interstellar
communications
are
still
limited
to
the
speed of
a
ship.
If
we
had
higher
positions
in
the
Cassidan
organization
it's possible
we
might
learn
something
well
enough
in
advance
to
send word
on
an
earlier
ship—but
that
seems
unlikely.

"The
only
other
possibility
would
be
to
have
an
organization
that can
check
on
every
person
who
comes
through
a
spaceport,"
she went
on,
"but
that
makes
for
other
problems
that
I
don't
think
are really
in
my
line."

"You're
right,"
he
said.
"But
if
you
think
of
something
else,
let me
know.
Anything
else?"

"Other
unusual
traffic,"
she
said.
"Not
involving
New
Earth.
Jo-hann
Wilter
has
made
two
trips
to
Freiland,
and
Hammer
Martin has
made
two
trips
to
Cassida,
all
of
them
kept—not
secret,
but
at least
low-profile.
We
can't
say
what
we
may
have
missed."

"I
see,"
Bleys
said.
"It
makes
for
an
interesting
pattern."

"There's
more,"
she
said.
"We
think
there
have
been
several quiet
trips
between
Fre
iland
and
Old
Earth,
too—but
since
there isn't
an
Others
organization
on
Old
Earth,
we
can't
say
much
more than
that
they
left
Freiland—"