He paused, watching Jay’s face; but Jay only continued to stare.
“To get around this,” Bleys went on, “it became a Dorsai practice to name some extra senior commanders who did not go out with the immediate shipment of troops; but remained on the Dorsai, available to go wherever someone was trying to do something like this and take over command. Pending their arrival, the troops would operate only under the standing orders which you’ll find enumerated at the very end of the contract. You can look those up, too, if you like; but briefly what they say is that even if they’re down to one enlisted man, he—by definition—is acting commander of the existing forces under contract, until a more senior officer arrives.”
While Jay still sat unmoving, the door behind him opened again. Two majors, a lieutenant and four enlisted men in the uniform of the Friendly expeditionary force came through and stood behind Cuslow Damar. The sound stirred Jay finally and made him turn. He stared at them, then turned back to Bleys.
“This is all non—” he began, then stopped.
“Marshal,” said Bleys, standing up, “I think I’ve done as much as I usefully can here. Neither Pieter DeNiles nor I will need to be escorted off-planet; though I imagine we’ll each be leaving soon, in any case. You might alert an Honor Guard on standby basis for me.”
He looked around the table.
“One more thing,” he said. “Marshal, from this point on, you’ll take advice—advice only—when necessary, from Ana Wasserlied, the Head of the Others organization on this world; whom I now appoint my deputy; and if you need direct contact with any of the influential groups represented here, speak to Anjo for the People of the Shoe, Edgar Hytry for the Guildmasters, Jay Aman for the CEOs—and in case the matter of Newton or Cassida should come up at all, with Pieter DeNiles, if he’s still here—or, if he’s not, the chief diplomatic representatives of Newton or Cassida. Now, good afternoon to you all. Marshal, you and those with you might as well come with me.”
He walked away from the end of the table toward the waiting officers.
“I think I’ll go with you,” Pieter said, pushing back his floatchair and standing up. “Wait for me, please.”
He caught up with them just as the officers were standing back to let Bleys go first. Just before he passed through the door, however, Jay called after him.
“Wait!” he shouted. “Speak to me? After this, you want them to speak to me? Why?”
“Because you’re the most capable of the CEOs,” Bleys answered, without looking back.
He went out. Pieter DeNiles, Cuslow Damar and the other soldiers followed; and the closing door shut out sight of all those in the room behind them.
Bleys and those with him had stepped into an adjoining lounge, empty of people, the yellow walls of which picked up the now-full mid-afternoon sunlight. Bleys turned away from that sunlight to go through a further door in the wall beyond, and they followed him into the hall down which he had come originally to join the meeting.
“If you’d slow down a bit…” said DeNiles.
Bleys checked his stride and waited for the older man. The officers, including Cuslow, had politely kept pace behind the two of them. When they were once more all together, Bleys went on more slowly; and a little way down the hall they turned in through another door into the general lounge of the suite’s main entrance.
“I’ve got to sit down,” said Pieter.
“Certainly,” said Bleys, guiltily conscious that, without his thinking, from habit his legs had lengthened their stride again. He reached out to grasp a chairfloat and pull it to Pieter, who dropped into it with a small sigh of relief.
Bleys found another float for himself.
“Marshal,” he said, sitting down, facing Pieter, “Pieter DeNiles will probably be going back to his hotel. After that he’ll want freedom from interference by New Earth-men until he leaves.”
He glanced at Pieter, who nodded.
“Perhaps you might get together three or four officers and some men to stay in touch with him and make sure he has an easy time of it and gets off all right.”
“I’ll arrange that right away, First Elder,” said Cuslow, and went over to a thin, tall and very straight-backed young officer, who was standing talking to Toni.
“Thank you,” said Pieter. “How did you know it was me in there?”
“You didn’t make it easy for me,” Bleys said. “By the way, congratulations on your performance as Jack, the anonymous double member—both for our Others and for the CEO Club. It couldn’t have been easy to not only move, but talk, like someone with a half-century’s-less life experience than you.”
“I was an actor—a professional actor—for a while, years ago,” Pieter said mildly. “But you haven’t answered my question.”
“I didn’t connect you with Jack until I walked with you on Cassida. Even then, it was hard to believe it. But the leg movements had the same signature,” said Bleys. “In the case of Jack, you remember, I’d sent you all away just so I could see you and Jill walk out of the room. If you were a professional actor, you must have been told that the hardest thing about oneself to disguise is the manner of walking. You walked naturally, in a way that suited your age, when I was with you on Cassida, as you did here. But the movements were alike enough to give you away.”
“You didn’t see me walk on Newton,” said Pieter.
“No, but you were clearly the dominating factor in that Council Room, and entirely too intelligent to let the Council follow that foolish plan of Half-Thunder’s unless you knew a great deal about me. Enough to think I stood a good chance of surviving such an attack; and if you had been that interested in me for some time, I suspected you were looking for someone like me—just as I was looking for someone like you. Combine that with what I said there and the earlier effort made to make me think you couldn’t travel interworld; and I could be pretty sure you’d be at any meeting like this where you knew I’d be. All you had to do was come here and wait.”
“I came when the first of your Friendly Soldiers arrived,” Pieter said. “But you say you were looking for someone like me? Why?”
“I assumed there had to be someone tying all three worlds together. After the amok attack on me, I was pretty sure it was you. If it was, I could almost predict how you would react in the meeting we’ve just left. You did.”
“I believe I did,” said Pieter, and sighed. “I’m definitely getting old.”
“I don’t agree,” said Bleys. “Multiple contact is always dangerous to secrecy, and you’d have wanted to see me in action. Also, it must have been incredibly hard for you to move like a young person when you were walking away from me on New Earth.”
“It was,” Pieter said. “It required taking some rather uncomfortable medication before I met you, so I could override the limitations of my body as it presently is, for even a few moments. Once the door was closed behind us, I pretended to turn my ankle; and Jill—whoever he or she was—helped me back to my own transportation. But maybe you knew about that, too?”
“I didn’t,” Bleys answered. “By the way, are you Cassidan? Or are you really a Newtonian?”
“Oh, I’m Cassidan,” Pieter said. He had his breath back, evidently; for he spoke with relative ease in spite of looking rather small and frail as he sat in the chairfloat. “But the best minds are on Newton and that drew me there— though I’m not a scientist or researcher myself.”
“If that Council of theirs on Newton is a sample of their best minds,” said Bleys, “you must have been disappointed.”
“No,” said Pieter, “and yes. No, I wasn’t disappointed. And yes, you’re right. The Council has never been made up of people from the top class of Newton’s minds—you can’t pry the top people away from their work. But from just below the top class—and even just below that—those with a hunger for political power end up on the Council. So, yes to that last part of your question. The Council would have been disappointing to me, too, if they’d represented the best Newton had
to offer. But for the actual best on Newton, I’ve been willing to work all my life—though most of them hardly know I exist. The best may be few, but they’re valuable; and they need whatever’s necessary to get their work done.” He paused to smile at Bleys.
“Now you tell me. I was listening to your general aims, just now in there, with a great deal of interest. What are your larger intentions toward Newton and Cassida?”
“You were probably the only one there who was,” said Bleys. “Everyone else was concerned only with what might affect them, personally and directly.”
“Probably natural of them,” Pieter said. “But I’ve lived long enough to know that if someone sneezes on Old Earth, eventually someone on Newton catches a cold. But, you haven’t answered me. What, specifically, are your intentions toward Newton?”
“The same as my intentions toward New Earth or any other of these Worlds,” Bleys answered. “I don’t intend to interfere with the local social machinery—or, rather, I’ll interfere as little as possible. Whoever’s governing can go on governing, if they’ve the capability for it. But I want to see all the New Worlds combine and head in the right direction. As I may have said, either in the meeting just now or to you on Cassida, I’m a philosopher. All I want is to spread the point of view of my philosophy as widely as possible and have it accepted by as many people as will do that.”
“That’s a reasonable view, of course,” Pieter said.
Cuslow Damar had returned. Standing beside Bleys, he leaned down to attract Bleys’s attention.
“First Elder,” he said, “I—”
Chapter 46
Bleys woke to dimness. It was as it had been each time before—a sudden transition, as if no time at all had passed—except for the fact that now he had not wakened to find himself talking uncontrollably. Gloom enclosed him again like a thick fog; in which he could see no figures, not even the comforting one of Toni that he had become used to finding there.
“No!” he exploded, out loud. “Don’t tell me I just dreamed about getting well—”
The figure of Toni did resolve out of the dimness, then. He saw her mistily, but close beside him; and her voice came strongly and comfortingly.
“No,” she said. “It was just a blackout.”
“Just a blackout?” Bleys could not put his finger on how he felt. It was disagreeable, but there was no focus to it. It was not pain, but a sort of unpleasant universal feeling all through him. A general unclearness and stupidness clogged his thinking; and suddenly a sensation very close to panic pounced and fastened its claws on him. “Did I collapse? Did Pieter DeNiles, or any of the soldiers see me collapse, or act strangely—anything like that?”
“No,” said Toni’s voice, “Cuslow and his officers left; then one officer and some enlisted men left with DeNiles. You seemed just as usual, then. You said you were a little tired and you were going to take a nap. You lay down, and later, when we went to find you, we couldn’t wake you. We got Kaj, and he said it was to be expected. He had warned you that episodes like this would occur from time to time. You remember—I asked if you were all right and reminded you what Kaj said before you went into the meeting. They’re supposed to be less and less frequent, though, as time goes on.”
“I can’t afford”—Bleys broke off—“but you’re sure no one noticed anything?”
“I’m sure,” Toni said.
“Good. That’s all that matters, then.”
Toni said nothing—pointedly.
But Bleys felt a tremendous relief. The dimness became more dim around him. Then brightened, then dimmed again.
“Can you hear me?” It was the voice of Kaj Menowsky. Some time seemed to have passed. Bleys was vaguely aware that although he could really see nothing but the dimness and their two blurred figures, his surroundings had changed. His voice rang in his ears as if it echoed off walls more close to him than the ones that had surrounded him when he had been speaking previously.
“Yes,” said Bleys. “Where am I now?”
“That’s good,” Kaj said. “You’re more conscious of what’s about you than at any time before. You’re on board ship, on your way back to Harmony. Now tell me. How much stress did you have before and at this meeting?”
Bleys’s mind pondered the question. He seemed to think for a long time, but either Kaj was very patient or it was not as long as he thought.
“I suppose,” he said at last, “you’d say it was all stressful, from the time the meeting was set. But I didn’t feel stressed—at any time. I simply felt as if I was operating at top power.”
He hesitated, thinking of his talk with Pieter DeNiles.
“Some unexpected developments came up after I left the meeting—but they were very welcome developments.”
“But there was prolonged stress?”
“Yes,” said Bleys. “How can you have any kind of situation like that without stress?”
“Tell me about the situation,” said Kaj. But now he was evidently talking to Toni because Bleys could no longer see him and his voice seemed aimed in a different direction. He was aware of Toni answering, without his actually being able to make out the words she was using; and he drifted off again.
Then he woke to the fact that Kaj was with him once more.
“Can you hear and understand me all right?” asked Kaj.
“Certainly,” said Bleys; and in fact, it seemed to him that the dimness was better lit than it had been before—or perhaps his eyes were focusing better. The figures of both Kaj and Toni were less fuzzy and imprecise.
“I should tell you,” Kaj said, “you’ve got to choose between what you call top speed and this kind of reaction, but I’d be wasting my breath, wouldn’t I?”
“Yes,” said Bleys.
“I thought so. These blackouts,” said Kaj, “will be coming from time to time, as I told you. Don’t try to fight them. I suspect you’re instinctively trying to fight this one. Don’t. Just relax and ride along with it. The less you bring them on—and the more you’re able to accept them, the better chance you’ll have that they’ll become shorter, easier and trouble you less and less.”
“But how long—” Bleys started, and then could not think how to phrase the ending of his sentence the way he wanted.
“How long will they bother you?” Kaj said. “That depends on you. What you do and what kind of person you are. I can’t tell you that. It all depends on how much real damage you sustained, how good you are at repairing yourself—mentally, emotionally and physically—and probably on a certain amount of individual genetic strength, which we don’t know yet how to measure. You’d be wise to just accept these episodes for the indefinite future—a matter of some years, perhaps, before they cease completely. In fact, what will probably happen is that you’ll realize one day you haven’t had a blackout, or any other such problem, for a matter of some years. Then you’ll have to think back to when it actually ended. Because the exact moment of its ending will be invisible, in the end.”
“I see,” said Bleys. But secretly, inside himself, the determination had already formed that he would find a way of mending himself, some way of self-repair more effective than Kaj expected. He had handled everything else he had come up against in life. He would handle this.
Whether or not this decision was a factor, from then on he did recover with a rapidity that was at least gratifying—if not startling—to those around him. From the moment of his conversation with Kaj, it seemed his recovery from this particular blackout accelerated.
His vision sharpened; and, little by little, at Kaj’s instructions, Toni allowed more and more light into the room. Bleys discovered directly why it was good sense to keep it dim, when inadvertently the control command she sent the window wall of his bedroom was overstated, and more light came in than she had intended. It was almost as if the illumination was a solid fist striking him in both eyeballs. He grunted, as one grunts from a powerful and painful unexpected blow. But already Toni had the light back down where it should b
e, and as quickly as he had felt the impact of sudden brightness, his reaction to it had vanished.
In any case, within twenty-four hours, the room was darkened only slightly; and by that time, he was not merely up to sitting on the edge of his bed, or in the nearby chairfloat, but had reached the point where he was on his feet and pacing—perhaps a little unsteadily, but pacing—back and forth.
“Why can’t I leave this room and do some real walking?” he asked Kaj, at this point.
“You probably could,” Kaj said. “But I’d rather play safe. Stay here for another twenty-four hours, do anything you want inside the room, but stay close to your bed in case you get to feeling dizzy, or uncomfortable in any way. If you do, I want you to lie down, relax and forget about everything. Just push everything else aside.”
“I can do that while I’m walking,” Bleys said.
“Nonetheless.” Kaj was firm.
So Bleys stayed in the room another twenty-four hours. But he began to have visitors; and while Toni, who had been with him all the time, was still there for most of it, she was now joined by other people. Though in the case of Henry, who was the first of those to get in to see him— she left the room on her own initiative to give him privacy in which to talk to Bleys.
“How are you, Bleys?” Henry sat down by Bleys’s bed. He brought the words out as if he was requiring a report from some subordinate, but Bleys was not misled. Long before he was fully grown, he had come to know the inside Henry as well as he knew the outside Henry. Henry was most likely to appear his sternest when he was most deeply stirred by his own personal emotions.
“I’m just fine, Uncle,” said Bleys. He knew Henry liked to be called “Uncle” by both him and Dahno, but would not admit this, even to himself—so that he was embarrassed if either one of them did it under any but casual—or special—private and emotional conditions. The particular minute changes in his expression were unreadable now, even by Bleys; but Bleys was satisfied that this was one of the times when Henry accepted and enjoyed being so addressed.