Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09

by Gordon R. Dickson

  He cleaned up after his breakfast, washed his dishes and the pot and did whatever other things seemed to need doing about the main room of the house. In the process he managed, finally, to put the whole matter out of his mind. A little more than three hours later, Henry and the boys returned and life took up as if this day was no different from any other.

  During the next few days Bleys came as close to liking Joshua and making a friend of him as he ever had with anyone in his life. The older boy was always pleasant, certain but easy-going. He apparently knew his way about the various tasks and duties of the farm as Henry did himself; and he never seemed to get impatient or tired of explaining these to Bleys. For that matter Joshua never seemed to get upset over anything.

  Bleys had had almost no acquaintance with other children his own age. What few he had met from time to time were so inferior to him in knowledge and intelligence that he had nothing in common with them; and they soon perceived this difference and resented it.

  On the other hand, the few older children he had run into, were from Bleys' point of view apparently cut-down adults. They were neither as bright nor as knowledgeable as the adults that Bleys had to do with generally; and it seemed that he could not even try to talk about the things in which they were interested without somehow making it plain to them that although he was younger he was far more capable than they were. They, too, were quick to sense this difference, and resent it.

  The result was that Bleys had never actually had a friend, in the ordinary sense in which youngsters have them. He was conscious of this as he was conscious of the fact that he was different from the adults; even though they might be entertained by him, and consent to give him at least a little of their time. There was a phrase he only chanced to come across in his reading; but it fitted so well he thought of it frequently. He felt like "neither fish nor fowl."

  He was condemned by being unique, and off by himself at a distance where no one else seemed to have any real reason to be concerned with him. The single person who might have been concerned had been the very one who was so glaringly not—his mother.

  Therefore, Joshua's acceptance of him and lack of jealousy or resentment took Bleys unawares. It was a little while before he figured out that from Joshua's point of view there was no competition between them because Joshua's place in the family was already fixed—he was the oldest, and certain things came to him by right.

  Bleys, also from Joshua's point of view, was fixed. He was the cousin who had been taken into the family, and placed in a sort of probationary position between Joshua and Will. In short, there was no way that Bleys could supplant him, or infringe on Joshua's territory, because God had ordained that their respective spheres should be separate ones; and Joshua's father, as God's nearest representative, would enforce that separateness.

  To his own surprise, Bleys found a measure of contentment in this fixed order, that tied in with his appreciation of the general order he had found here. From only being determined to become a Friendly to reach his own goal, he found he was beginning to desire to be one for the way it fitted with his own dreams. Now, it was even a certain type of Friendly he wished to be. It seemed that those much admired by other Friendlies were called by them "True Faith-holders." A True Faith-holder was supposed to have given all of himself totally to his religious beliefs, setting them above all things, even life itself.

  As Will had predicted, Bleys was given the duties of taking care of the inside of the house. This involved making the meals—which were almost invariably the same simple stew, only varying in ingredients as these became available—and cleaning everything in the house that was not the responsibility of some other individual to keep clean.

  This meant that the table, the benches, the chairs, the floor, the walls and floors in both the boys' bedroom and in Henry's, were to be scrubbed daily. The windows were also to be kept clean, and all the tableware and household tools.

  In spite of these chores, Bleys had free time on his hands; and in that free time, both Will and Joshua introduced him to the duties that they, themselves, were concerned with outside. Will, now freed from the house, had been given the responsibility of the farmyard itself. This included the cleaning of the goat barn, the daily examination of the goats for signs of skin diseases, illness, or hurt that might be affecting them; and the minor repairs that needed to be done to any of the buildings.

  Joshua had the responsibility for everything beyond Will's area. This included taking the goats out to pasture each day, the milking, the cheese-making, and the repair and upkeep of the split-rail fences that enclosed outside areas on the farm, such as the pasture. The heavier maintenance and repair of all structures was his responsibility.

  Over and above all this, Joshua had a general responsibility to pitch in and help or substitute for any of the two younger ones, if they needed help or ran into difficulties with the work they were doing.

  Altogether, he put in a long, hard day, every day.

  Henry spent his time checking to make sure everything was right about the farm, and doing the things that could only be done with a man's strength. For example, they cultivated several acres; and while goat teams pulled the plow or the harrow, it was Henry who muscled the implement itself, and made sure the work was done. He also made almost daily trips in to the small, nearby store where necessities could be bought; and, occasionally, day-long trips to Ecumeny for more important and rarer things, such as added parts for the motor.

  Through all this daily pattern of existence ran a thread of extreme regularity. They got up at daybreak, prayed and had breakfast; as soon as their beds were made and their rooms were cleaned they went about their daily duties until prayers at ten; then again about eleven-thirty in the morning, which was lunch time and prayer time once more, and the largest meal of the day.

  Following lunch they went back to work and worked until near sundown, when Henry would go around and call a halt to everybody's labors. Bleys was quick to join in the motions of kneeling where he happened to be, and praying. But although he tried desperately, he could not seem to manage to bring either his mind or his heart to accept the idea of religion or any belief in the idea of a deity.

  On the fourth day they were eating lunch, when over their conversation, a roaring sound could be heard approaching closer and closer to the farm.

  "It'll be your brother," said Henry, looking at Bleys.

  Bleys felt a coldness in him, suddenly, that was almost panic. He had forgotten entirely about this older sibling, who had been sent away by his mother to Henry, years ago—in fact, shortly after Bleys' birth. Not seeing or hearing anything of him around the farm, Bleys had assumed that the other was either dead or gone. He had ceased to think of the possibility of an older half-brother; as if no such possibility had ever existed.

  Now, suddenly the possibility was reality, and the reality was approaching—obviously by hovercar, to judge by the roaring sound of the fans that would be holding it off the unpaved road that led to the farm. That road must be barely wide enough for it to slide through.

  A current of excitement seemed to have run through the two other boys. Henry looked at them reprovingly.

  "Your older cousin has come during meal time," he said pointedly. "He may join us, or he may wait until we are done and everything is taken care of. There will be no changes simply because we have a visitor."

  The roaring sound grew very loud, moved into the yard and stopped. Lunch was almost over. But Will and Joshua were eating a little faster than normal—not enough to earn their father's reproach—but as fast as possible without doing so. Bleys, as usual, had taken less than any of the rest, and his bowl was nearly empty anyway, as a result.

  But, he reflected, he was the one who would have to clean up and wash up after the meal.

  There had been silence outside for a few moments. Now came the sound of heavy steps mounting the three stairs outside, the door opened, and Bleys' older half-brother, Dahno, came in.

  Bleys had heard D
ahno, as a boy, described to him by various friends of his mother's; but mostly by Ezekiel, Henry's older brother. He had heard it from Ezekiel, who had taken responsibility for the fathering of both boys and arranged to have Dahno—and Bleys later—sent off to Henry.

  Bleys, therefore, had expected someone outsized in the way of height and width. Somebody with large bones and a great deal of muscle. But he was not expecting what came in the door.

  Dahno had to duck his head to get through the doorway itself; and, standing just inside, it seemed that his head was within a few inches of touching the saplings that made the ceiling. He was dressed in a black business suit of soft cloth, and ankle-high black boots brightly polished, except where the mud from the yard had splashed on them. He bulked to the point where he seemed to overshadow all of them, dominating the room.

  He was like a thick-set man of ordinary height, blown up to half again his original size. His arms and legs bulged the clothes that covered them. His face was round and cheerful under a cap of curly, jet-black hair; and he had a merry, warm smile for them all.

  "Don't let me disturb your lunch," he said in a voice as warm as his smile, a light baritone that did not echo the outsize elements of the rest of him.

  "You would not in any case," said Henry.

  But Henry, Bleys noticed, was smiling back at Dahno, that wintry smile that was the most Henry could achieve. "You know our customs. You'll wait until we're done."

  "Fair enough," said Dahno, with a wave of one large hand. "By the way, I brought you some parts for your motor."

  "I thank God for your kindness," said Henry formally. "If you will sit, that chair of yours is there in the corner."

  Bleys had wondered about that one extra-large chair; but assumed it was for Henry on special occasions.

  "Thanks. But I'd just as soon stand," said Dahno.

  Whether it was intentional or not, his looming over them had the tendency of speeding up the lunch. Even Henry, indifferent as he appeared to be to Dahno's size and presence, seemed to finish his bowl of stew faster.

  "I came to see my little brother, actually," said Dahno, looking at Bleys.

  "Did you so?" said Henry, laying his spoon down at last beside his empty bowl. "In mat case, Bleys, you are excused from the normal cleaning up after lunch. Will, you take over for your cousin."

  Bleys sat staring at the large man.

  "Bleys,"—there was a slight edge to Henry's voice— "you're free to go. Rise, therefore, and go with your brother."

  Bleys pushed back his chair, stood up and then pushed it back into position again at the table. He walked around it, approaching Dahno, feeling smaller with every step, by contrast with the enormous bulk he was approaching.

  "Come on then, Little Brother," said Dahno.

  He turned and opened the door leading outside. Bleys followed, carefully closing the door behind him, as even the few days he had spent here had taught him to do.

  "We'll walk off a ways," said Dahno. He took the strides of his long legs slowly, so that Bleys did not have to run to keep up with him. They walked around the now dirt-spattered white body of the brand-new looking hovercar squatting on the muddy ground; and Dahno led the way off and around the goat barn, so that they were out of sight of the house. Once behind the barn, he turned and faced Bleys.

  He gazed down for a long moment, the smile on his face gradually broadening until he finally burst into full-throated laughter.

  "I knew she'd send you eventually!" he said.

  He was still laughing, when, with a casual flip of the back of one of his massive hands, he knocked Bleys clear off his feet and against the wall of the barn. Bleys, dazed, slid down it to the ground below.

  Bleys lay where he had fallen, in the rank grass by the goat barn. He was barely conscious, half-knocked out from even the light blow of that massive hand; and it took him several moments for his senses to come back. For a minute after they did return he felt merely odd, lying on the ground; and then a sharp headache burst into life behind his temples.

  "Up with you," said Dahno. Bleys felt his wrist and right hand enclosed in a massive fist; and he was hauled to his feet.

  Bleys was still not sensible enough, not enough fully recovered from the blow, to guard his tongue as he usually did.

  "Why did you do that?" he asked.

  Dahno laughed again.

  "Because you had to learn, Little Brother," he said, "you're very fortunate to have me for a half-brother—you know that? But if you're really going to be fortunate, and I'm really going to find a use for you, you're going to have to start out understanding what I'm really like."

  The first fierce burst of pain was receding from Bleys' head and his mind was beginning to work.

  "I'd have found out shortly, anyway," he said.

  "Ah, the little brother has teeth," said Dahno, "but they're milk-teeth, young Bleys. Don't try to use them on me. Yes, you'd have found out. But I decided I wanted you to find out right away. Now you know. I'm not exactly the laughing boy that everybody takes me for."

  "You're like our mother then," said Bleys.

  "Ah, quick. Even quicker than I'd thought!" said Dahno. "Yes, that's exactly it. I am like mother in that particular; but that and one other are the only ways. The other is that I always get my way. That means I'm going to get my way with you, too. I want you to get that straight, right from the beginning. Have you gotten it straight?"

  "Yes," said Bleys. He put a hand to the side of his head briefly. "I have it very straight."

  "Good," said Dahno, "because what I just did to you is nothing to what I'll do to you if I have to. There's no limit to what I'll do to you if it's necessary. But I don't expect to. I think we're going to work together, hand in glove. Like brothers indeed, Little Brother. But we won't come to it quickly. There's a few things I have to do first; and it won't hurt you to have a little seasoning here on the farm of our 'Uncle' Henry."

  Bleys' mind was finally fully back in working order. He recognized that what Dahno said was true. This man was one person he was not going to be able to control—at least, not for a long time. He retreated behind the barrier of childhood.

  "What are you going to do with me?" he asked.

  Dahno did not answer directly. Instead, he looked at Bleys for several long moments, thoughtfully. Even his smile was gone.

  "You know," he said, "I was just like you when I came here. Oh, there was the difference that I was as big as Henry himself, even then, even though I wasn't much older than you are—and twice as strong as Henry, if it came to that. But it was still my intelligence I used to protect myself from him, and this whole way of life of his. You'll already have started to do that. Haven't you?"

  "Yes," said Bleys. There was no point in trying to explain himself to someone like this.

  "Yes, you would've," said Dahno, thoughtfully, "and we'll put that mind and those abilities to good use eventually, you and I, Little Brother. But not just yet. You still have a lot to learn. So far, by and large you've been working only on people who were halfway ready to be agreeable to you in the first place. The test comes when you work on somebody who is ready to disagree with you at the very sight of you. That's the real test. So, as I say, you stay with Uncle Henry."

  "And finally? Someday?" asked Bleys. "What happens then?"

  "Then you move to where I am, in Ecumeny—in the city," said Dahno. "By that time I'll have a place ready for you in what I'm doing."

  "What are you doing?" Bleys asked.

  "That, you're going to have to wait to learn," said Dahno.

  He turned away.

  "We probably ought to be getting back to our relatives," he said.

  ",Wait—" said Bleys. "How long do I stay here?"

  "Some weeks? Some months? Maybe even a few years," said Dahno, looking over his shoulder back at him, "it all depends."

  "On me?"

  Bleys had to follow him to ask the question, because Dahno was already walking toward the end of the goat barn.

/>   "On you to a certain extent, yes," said Dahno, "but on other things as well. Don't worry. I'll come and see you from time to time. Meanwhile, you can be finding out what you can do in the way of handling the relatives."

  Dahno led the way back around the barn. Henry and Joshua were out in the yard. Will, presumably, was inside, still doing the cleaning up after lunch. Bleys hardly saw the two in the yard, for the hard knot of emotion that was in him at the moment. In his mind there was just a single thought. Never again! Never again would Dahno hit him!

  Then the knot dissolved, and his mind was clear once more—and he understood. He realized that of course Dahno would never hit him again. His older brother had no intention of it, knowing it would never be necessary.

  The blow was not a blow in the ordinary sense of the word, as much as a signal. Bleys was being notified that Dahno was taking over the role that their mother had played in Bleys' life.

  Delivered in that heavy-handed slap from Dahno, the message was unmistakable. Dahno now owned him. Nor was there anything that Bleys was in a condition to do about it now. As Dahno had said, only too truly, Bleys still only had his milk-teeth, compared to the weapons of his older brother. But time would change things. Bleys tucked the whole episode away in the back of his mind for future study.

  Dahno waved his hand at Henry.

  "If you don't mind, Henry," he said, "I'll take my little brother here into town and buy him some clothes. Now, if you'll come around to the trunk of the car, I'll give you those engine parts I brought you."

  "That'll be quite all right, Dahno," said Henry. "Bleys and I thank God for your generosity."

  As he spoke he was coming to meet them at the back of the hovercar. Dahno sprang open the trunk and took out a couple of paper-wrapped packages, each one of which filled one of his large hands. He handed them to Henry, who received them in his arms.

  "And I thank the Lord for your generosity to me in this," said Henry.

  CHAPTER 6

  Henry stood back and Dahno went around one side of the hovercar, while Bleys went around to the other and opened the door there. The two seats inside were separate and swiveled. There was a control stick in front of each chair, and Dahno took hold of his as the two doors were closed.