Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09

by Gordon R. Dickson

  As he had used his quick, childish memory, schooled and trained until it was almost eidetic, to memorize stock tables and current news, so now he studied religious materials he had brought along to prepare himself and shield him in this new encounter—with this "uncle," and his two sons, whose names Bleys did not even yet know.

  In between the times when he merely sat staring at the stars, feeling himself not so much enclosed by the warmth of the spaceship but as someone apart and isolated from the human race, placed light-years from anything human or any human world. In solitude, he had studied the material brought with him, committing long passages to memory until he had all of it tucked away to the point where he could parrot it back.

  —As he had parroted back the stock tables, real estate prices, and current political actions of the world his mother was on, to make himself sound knowledgeable to her guests. When, indeed, most of the time he had no idea of the meanings of many of the words he said to them.

  It was on the second day of spaceship travel that, all unprepared, he suddenly became aware of someone at his side.

  Unaware of it, Bleys had been a subject of discussion in the lounge for some time now.

  "I think he's lonely," one of the two uniformed women on lounge duty had been saying to the other. "Most children move around. They want soft drinks from the bar. They get bored and pester you. He just sits and isn't any trouble at all."

  "Be thankful, then, and leave him to go on doing it," said the other attendant.

  "No, I think he's lonely," the~ first attendant had insisted. "Something serious must have happened where he came from, and he's lonely and upset. That's why he's keeping to himself this way."

  The other lounge attendant was skeptical. She was the senior of the two in job experience and had been on many more flights than the concerned one, who was a young, pert-faced redhead, with a small, neat body that complemented her blue and silver uniform. Finally, in spite of the strong suggestions by her co-worker that she simply leave the boy alone, the redhead approached Bleys, sitting down on the seat closest to his and swiveling it so that she could look at him from the side.

  "Are you getting acquainted with the stars?" she asked.

  Bleys was instantly on guard. His life had taught him to be wary of any seemingly friendly approaches. In spite of how she looked and spoke, here was most probably another caretaker come to pretend friendship as a preliminary to controlling him. It had become a reflex in him to reject any sudden attempt at friendship by people hitherto unknown; experience had too often taught him it was a false front.

  "Yes," he said, hoping that the pretense of being immersed in star study would cut short the overtures of the other. Perhaps she was only going to offer to show him how to handle some of the controls—though he had already worked these out for himself. Then she would go away and leave him alone.

  "You're getting off on Association, aren't you?" she persisted. "Somebody's meeting you there, of course—at the spaceport?"

  "Yes," answered Bleys, "my uncle."

  "Is he fairly young, your uncle?"

  Bleys had no idea how old his uncle was supposed to be. But then he decided that it really made no difference how he answered.

  "He's twenty-eight years old," said Bleys. "He's a farmer in a little town some distance from the spaceport and his name is Henry."

  "Henry! That's a nice name," said the attendant. "Do you know his last name too, and his address?"

  "His last name's 'McClain.' Actually, it's spelled 'M-a-c-L-e-a-n.' I don't know his address—"

  This much was a lie. Bleys had read the address, and his memory, which now forgot almost nothing, had stored it away. But he hid that fact, just as he had learned to hide his own intelligence and skills, except in those cases where he was called upon by his mother to show them off, or the situation was such that it looked as if he could gain by performing.

  "But I've got it right here at my feet," he said, and reached down toward the little bag that he kept with him at the foot of the chair, that had his identification and his letters of credit.

  "Oh, you don't need to show me," said the attendant, "I'm sure you're all set. But wouldn't you like to do something else for a change, instead of just sitting here and watching your star-screen? Wouldn't you like some kind of soft drink from the bar?"

  "No, thank you," said Bleys. "Watching the star-screen is part of my studies. I'm missing some school because of this vacation with Uncle Henry; so I've got to keep up on my studies as much as possible. I thought I'd do most of my space-watching on the way there, so that I wouldn't have to spend any time doing it on the way back." t

  "Oh. I understand," said the attendant.

  It was not so much Bleys' words, as the confidence he was able to put into his voice, alert and vital, that reassured the cabin attendant. She was beginning to rethink her original guess that his trip was the result of some death or other crisis in his family, and that he had needed to be brought out of himself.

  Actually, she also knew the name and address of the Association man who was to meet Bleys. It was required on all regularly-scheduled spaceliners for the cabin attendants to take on certain responsibilities toward any passenger twelve years of age and under, traveling alone.

  "In fact," said Bleys, "I really should be getting to my studying right now, if you don't mind. I've got a book and reader I ought to be checking the stars with."

  "Oh. Well, I'm sure we don't want you disturbed. But if you want anything, you just press the buzzer and I'll be right over. All right?"

  "All right. Thank you," answered Bleys, already reaching over to get into his carry-bag, "I will."

  She got up and left. She did not bother to glance at the reader now on his knees, slightly bigger than a slim box that could be held conveniently within Bleys' two hands. So she did not notice that the page of the first book revealed on the electronic screen of the reader was entitled in large letters, The Bible. Nor could she have guessed that underneath that book were stored others by some writers of the Muslim and other faiths.

  Having taken out the reader, Bleys sat with it on his knees. He was experienced at appearing to do something, while leaving his mind free to occupy itself otherwise.

  He actually still had some reading to do in the Bible, which had been Ezekiel's, and given to him when he left, with a strange sadness. Bleys had long since memorized the names of the prophets; but he had also been reading through it for what he thought of as stories, little bits of histories and adventures, like the account of David's encounter with Goliath, that were more interesting, and stuck better, if anything, in his memory with one reading.

  But the attendant had gone now; and in this particular moment he was feeling more lost and abandoned than ever. It was a strange thing. He would have liked to have trusted her and welcomed the warm emotional offering she was making to him, but he could not trust her. He could trust nobody.

  He did not think of his feeling about the attendant as a sign he was lonely. He did not, in one sense, really know what "loneliness" was. He felt it, strongly; but he had never had the opportunity to measure its dimensions. He only knew that when he had been very young he had been under the impression that his mother loved him. Then, sometime very early, he had become aware that she did not. She either ignored him, or was briefly pleased with him, when he was able to do something that reflected well upon her.

  Now he should carry through what he said he would do, and read. But the will to do it failed him, foundering in his even deeper fears of the future which had been triggered off by his turning away the attendant's attempt to reach him.

  The reader with its Bible, its Koran, and the other religious books which the library to which he had gone on New Earth had listed for him as being the most likely ones that might be used in worship on the Friendlies, lay forgotten in his lap.

  Once more, he felt the terrible separateness, the feeling of being off in space from all the other human worlds and human people; and to combat jit he dre
dged up his old dream of a magic wand that would give him exactly the kind of people around him and the kind of life he yearned for.

  But even this would not work, now. The passages he had memorized from the books in the. reader he now held on his knees seemed like fragile, almost useless, things to make friends for him with whoever he might encounter on Association. The ways he had learned to amuse and impress grownups like his mother's guests, would not work on a farm on an ultra-religious world like Association.

  All sorts of things could be required and expected of him by Henry and his two sons, beyond the matter of being clever or learned.

  He had never felt so helpless. He had really nothing to offer them, Henry MacLean and his family, beyond these memorized words from the Bible and the other books he had brought. What was he, after all, but a monkey with a bag of tricks—?

  The memory came grimly back to him, of where he had heard that phrase. Shortly before he had left his. mother, a friend of Ezekiel's had come around—obviously with his mother's indifferent permission but at Ezekiel's invitation— and talked to him.

  The friend had been a slightly overweight, gray-haired man, with a touch of accent. There had been something different about his talk that Bleys could not put his finger on exactly. Like the cabin attendant just now, he had tried to be friendly.

  Bleys had been tempted to like him, but those he had dared to let himself like had been taken from him so many times before that he held his feelings in check automatically. The man had asked a great many questions and Bleys had answered truthfully those he felt safe answering truthfully; otherwise he pretended he did not understand their real meaning.

  After a couple of meetings with him, he did not see the gray-haired man again for several days. Then on the day just before the one on which Bleys left, he was coming into a side sitting room of the main lounge of the enormous hotel suite that his mother was now occupying, and heard Ezekiel's voice from the next room. Answering him was the voice of the gray-haired man. But the gray-haired man was now talking much differently, with different words and cadences to his speech; and Bleys realized suddenly that he was hearing the type of Basic affected by some of the ultra-religious Friendlies—called "cant."

  Bleys had checked, hidden in the side room and listening. The gray-haired man was talking about him.

  "—A monkey with a bag of tricks," the gray-haired man was saying, "thou knowest it as well as I do, Ezekiel. That was all the need his mother ever has had of him, and all the use she ever made of him. It was wise of thee to call me in to observe the boy. There are no lack of good psychomedicians in this city; but none who, like myself, grew up in the same district as Henry and yourself on Association. For I can indeed tell you something about the boy. For one thing, he's not another Dahno."

  "I know that," said Ezekiel, "Dahno was very intelligent too; but he was as big as a grown man at twelve years old and easily as powerful as a grown man. The Lord only knows what size he is now."

  "That, I don't know," said the gray-haired man, "but I have heard he is as a giant nowadays, and probably it has been the will of the Lord that he have a giant's strength."

  "But you say Bleys is different," said Ezekiel's voice. "How can that be? His mother kept him if anything, more under control than she did Dahno. You're the psychomedician.

  You actually saw and met Dahno when he was still kept on a string by his mother."

  "But this difference is enormous, I tell thee," said the gray-haired man's voice. "Dahno grew up with their mother, for she trusted no one else to control him; and he is another like her, in every way. He even has the ability she had, to charm a snake into choking itself to death by swallowing its own tail. But this boy, Bleys, even though he hath been under the same roof, hath been raised entirely differently."

  "Oh, I know," Ezekiel said. "You're thinking of the caretakers. It's true that he's been tied down much more tightly than Dahno was. But—"

  "Nay, but the difference goeth far beyond that," interrupted the gray-haired man. "He hath been given a totally different upbringing. Dahno was part of his mother's life. This little fellow hath had no part of it. As I say, to her he hath been only a monkey with a bag of tricks. Something to show off to other people and preen herself about. But think thee now of Bleys' life as it must be and hath been, from the inside. He was like unto a soldier, under strict discipline at all times. A child less intelligent would have been ruined by this time. He is not ruined, the Lord be thanked for that; but he is put on a totally different path. Hast thou marked the boy's isolation? Hast thou noticed that he trusts no one—unless it is yourself?"

  Bleys could heard Ezekiel's sigh.

  "Yes," he said, "that much is true. When I've had a chance to, I've tried to get him out of his shell. But all the rest of the time, and everything else's he's had to do, put him in it too tightly. Anyway, that wasn't the point. I wanted you to give me an idea of whether he would be all right with Henry, back on Association."

  "Thy brother, Henry," said the gray-haired man's voice, "was someone I grew up with. I may not know him as well as yourself, but I know him very well indeed. Yes, whether for good or ill, Bleys will survive and grow along the path he hath been already started on, once he gets to Association. What has been nurtured in him is far closer to that of our people—that which thou ran away from, thyself, Ezekiel—than it is to this

  world we're on, or even the world of Exotics. Yet, he is Exotic also; and what will come of the blend I do not know. But, he will get along with Henry. Dost thou suppose I could see him again for a short time?"

  "Certainly, certainly," said Ezekiel, "I'll just go and have a word with the chief caretaker and then I'll come back and get you. Do you want to wait here?"

  "As well here, as any place in this over-pillowed suite," said the gray-haired man.

  "I'll be right back," said Ezekiel, his voice receding.

  Bleys turned and hurried back into his own quarters. He was apparently deep in reading a book on ancient languages of Old Earth, when Ezekiel came and got him.

  "Medician James Selfort would like to speak to you again," said Ezekiel, when he found Bleys, "would you like that?"

  "Yes," Bleys had said, putting down his reader with the book still in it, "I like him."

  The last few words, like so many that Bleys uttered, were not strictly true. But it was a fact that he did not dislike the man; and now, having overheard part of their conversation, he was warming to James Selfort, who seemed to be on his side, with Ezekiel, in spite of his umonkey with a bag of tricks ..." statement. So Bleys found himself wanting to talk to Selfort again, in hopes of hearing more hopeful things about himself.

  As it turned out, he did not. But he had clung tightly all through this trip to the fact that in the overheard conversation Selfort had said to Ezekiel that he, Bleys, would survive on Association. Remembering it now, he found himself warmed by that opinion, and his current depression lifted.

  One thing in favor of the people and the place he was going to. They and it would not change on him within weeks, or a few months, as the caretakers had and everything else about his life with his mother. He could learn the rules there once; and then be sure of them.

  - He was nothing right now but that monkey Selfort had called him. Certainly he was no Exotic, twice removed from that identity by his Mother's denial of it; and the fact that she had kept all things Exotic—except herself—from him. Consequently, he could be anything, in pursuit of the dream he had dreamed so many times when he had been in the caretakers' "thinking room," with himself in a solid, fixed universe, holding the magic wand to keep all of it the way he wanted it.

  There was no reason he could not reach that dream also by becoming a Friendly first. It would mean everything would have to be learned all over again—all of it different from anything he had ever known before. But he would be able to belong to other people and still make his own freedom.

  It was even possible that Uncle Henry could be a rock against which he could
lean—Henry and the probably stable, dependable people who were his neighbors and attended the same church. It was just barely possible that Bleys might find them understanding of him, accepting him, and offering him a place to belong.

  It all depended on his being able to become a Friendly. Maybe then, in time, he could actually go on to become what he pretended; and there would be no doubt in anyone, no doubt in himself. ...

  He sat in the big chair, staring at the screen with eyes that did not see it, but instead seeing a future that might be what he had always wanted. The warmth of the possibility carried him back into his dream, in which he hung in space, solitary, completely isolated from the rest of the race—but master, at last of himself and his universe.

  He looked at all the suns with planets where the human race had settled. But it was the planets he gazed on, not their suns. The time would come, he told himself, the time would inevitably come, when nowhere on any of them was anyone who could order his life.

  Rather he would order theirs.

  That last thought was so exciting as to verge on frightening him. He pulled back from it. But he lingered a moment longer. . . .

  "—Do you see that?" the young, red-haired cabin attendant said to the older one.

  "No, what?" asked the older one.

  "The boy. The look on his face. Look!"

  The older was busily inventorying the liquor. She did not look up right away.

  "What look?" she asked, when she finally lifted her head.

  "It's gone now," the younger said. "But he was looking so strange for a moment, there. So strange. ..."

  CHAPTER 3

  Before the ship entered the atmosphere of the planet of its destination, it switched from phase-shifting to its ordinary engines. Within the hour it landed at Ecumeny; and its passengers were escorted from the lounge into a deceptively small terminal—that was actually only one of many terminals scattered over a large plain near that city. All senses alert, like some small, wary animal, Bleys carried his personal case off with him, hidden from his surroundings by the tall adult bodies that joined him in thronging the disembarking passage.