Other

by Gordon R. Dickson

  “They’ll hope they can get you to use your influence for them against the Guilds,” said Jill.

  “Yes,” said Ana, “the balance of power between CEOs and Guilds has been essentially equal for years now—but they’d both like to turn that balance in their own favor as much as possible.”

  “Would they go so far, either one, as to try to kill me, if I won’t work with them?” Bleys asked.

  “No, no!” Jill managed to convey shock, in spite of her voice filter.

  “I don’t think so, either,” said Jack. “Not as things stand now, anyway.”

  “Copies of your earlier speeches have been sold on all the worlds—even Old Earth—haven’t they?” Jill said. “They wouldn’t dare—unless there was a jobholders’ revolt threatening because of what you say. Also, you’ve got your own bodyguards, haven’t you?”

  “Fifty-seven people,” said Henry, breaking, for the first time, the silence in which he had sat since they all sat down together. “Enough to stop any ordinary assassin or mob; but nothing like what would be needed to handle any serious military attack.”

  “Oh, they’d never go that far!” said Ana, finally sounding shocked in her turn. “Anyway, besides your security people, I’m going to have you surrounded by Others I trust. We could even arm them if you want—”

  “No,” said Bleys.

  “Anyway,” Ana went on, “even though the CEOs, in particular, control whatever police, military, or paramilitary forces we have—”

  “They don’t control those in the ranks,” Jill said. “Only those in command.”

  “There’s that,” said Ana, “still, what I was about to say was that for over a hundred years everything’s been settled

  on this world with nothing but talk, bribes, and some use of Tough Squads.”

  “I’ve got some information on these so-called Tough Squads, already,” said Henry. “But perhaps, Jack and Jill, you could talk to me later and fill me in on some details?”

  Jack and Jill murmured agreement.

  “That seems to cover the main points,” said Bleys, “and I’ll leave the rest of you to fill in the lesser ones—like the information Henry would like from our two incognito advisors. Ana, you’ve got the official invitation for me to this CEOs’ dinner this evening?”

  “Yes,” said Ana.

  “Then, when we break up here, I’d like to talk to you about the individuals I’m likely to meet there-—or would Jack know more about them than you?”

  “No,” said Ana, sharply, “Jack doesn’t move in those social circles. Because of the Others—as you know, we’ve got over half a million registered members on this world, now; since it was known you were coming, they’ve been crowding in faster than we can handle them, literally—I’m the one who meets and knows the important people.”

  “So much for the moment, then,” said Bleys. “If the rest of you don’t mind, then, I’ve got some things to talk over with Dahno.”

  The rest got up and left the room. Jack and Jill stood back to let the rest out first, and Bleys watched with interest as they turned their backs and walked through the door.

  “What’s wrong with Ana?” Bleys asked Dahno privately, after the door had closed and he was alone with his brother.

  “Can’t you guess?” said Dahno. “She was head of a large, wealthy, perfectly legal operation here, personally welcomed and accepted among the other movers and shakers of New Earth society. Now, if what you say or do here rubs the CEOs or Guilds the wrong way, what’s going to happen to her Others—and her?”

  Chapter 6

  “Why did you want them dressed like starving outlaws?” Toni asked.

  They were being driven to the CEO Club for dinner in two of the limousines; Bleys and Toni in the first with one of Henry’s crew riding next to the driver, and the other five security people they had brought along, with Henry himself, in the second limousine. It was just twilight now, with Sirius setting, so that the blazing-white Dog Star, two-fifths the apparent size of Sol from old Earth, was already safely hidden from direct sight behind the tall buildings—but its light filled the air of the city above the passageways with a faintly greenish-golden glow from the reflection of its rays off a thin but widespread cloud cover that had spread across the sky in the afternoon.

  Toni was referring to Henry and the six men he had handpicked. Bleys had told Henry to have them dressed— and, so they were—in the worn, rough clothes and heavy boots of farmers and workmen, common away from the cities on Association and Harmony.

  “It’s a test,” said Bleys. “A small but interesting one. To see how badly these CEOs want me. One of the prices of having me there is going to be their admitting Henry and the others along with us.”

  He smiled at her, suddenly almost mischievous.

  “It’s also a small reminder that most of my faithful following on this world, as well as others, are working people,” he said.

  Toni nodded. She looked out the window of the limousine at the tall buildings about them, bathed in the golden twilight.

  “Such an orderly, well-off world to be so troubled and torn apart,” she said. Bleys watched her sympathetically. She would be thinking, he knew, of the poverty on the two Friendly Worlds and the struggle for survival of most of the people on them these last three hundred years.

  “It’s what you’ve heard me say so often now—a world with promise still,” he said. “The trouble is, like the rest of the other New Worlds, its sights’ve always been fixed too much on its own present moment. It’s ignored the past; what it could learn there, and from the past on Old Earth. If it hadn’t, it’d have seen how history is sweeping New and Old together toward a point of crisis—”

  Toni smiled.

  “What is it?” asked Bleys.

  “You’re getting to sound a little pompous, aren’t you?”

  Bleys frowned. Pomposity was certainly not one of the impressions he wanted to give anyone listening to him; and Toni was only doing one of the duties of her job to point it out to him.

  “I suppose,” he said. “It’s just that some things are hard to say without being pompous.”

  He waited for a second, but she only smiled.

  “However, thanks for telling me. I’ll work on it.”

  “No payment necessary,” said Toni. “Now, you were about to say?”

  “Just,” said Bleys, “that for New Worlds and Old Earth, it’s a matter of establishing the different personalities of the New Worlds from Old Earth’s—their social patterns, for example, as they had to be dictated by different conditions.”

  “Still you’d think—” Toni broke off. “What are you expecting to happen at dinner this evening?”

  “It’ll be a war of nerves,” said Bleys, “or perhaps you could call it a war of character. They’ll try to intimidate me—and I’ll try to intimidate them—at least enough to keep them guessing while I get at least some lectures accomplished without interference.”

  “How many do you need?” asked Toni.

  “I’ve no idea,” said Bleys. “But even one will let this world know I’m here; with that done, things should start happening both with the CEOs and the Guildmasters, and I’ll adapt as things develop. My great advantage over organizations like them is they’ve got to take time to talk things over before they take action. I can walk around behind them while they’re still debating.”

  “I see,” said Toni. She was silent for a moment, then smiled again. “At least I didn’t have to dress up as an outlaw or a working person.”

  “No,” said Bleys, looking at her. “Also, you and I are the contrast to Henry and the others. For that matter, your acceptance here may be another small test; but my main reason for wanting you with me is so we can go over what’s said, afterward, from two different viewpoints.”

  He continued to look at Toni with approval. There was that tall, trim body of hers, that had been shaped by a lifetime of exercise in the martial arts and wrestling; beautifully clothed at the moment in
a long ivory evening gown, under a short jacket of imitation black fur. Fur which matched the color of her hair and focused all attention on the brilliance of her steady and intensely penetrating eyes, which were a blue almost as dark as hair and fur.

  He, himself, was dressed as usual for public occasions, in his black cloak with red lining, over a tight-fitting, light blue jacket and narrow black trousers which tapered to scallop-topped ankle boots, also black. All these, except for the cloak, were in current evening fashion, as far as men’s clothes went on New Earth. Together, he and Toni made an expensively tailored-looking couple—particularly in contrast to Henry and the Soldiers.

  The limousines had reached their destination. They pulled up in front of the CEO Club, which turned out to be a tall building at the corner of a block in the business section of New Earth City, its front faced with stone that looked like a dark granite.

  That front, unbroken by windows, faced out on the passageway by which their limousines had arrived; and the side of it that was next to the equally high side of a neighboring building was separated from it only by a bare narrow cul-de-sac of an alleyway. So narrow, in fact, that it would have been too dark to see into, if it had not been for a single glaring light above a double door, grimly closed and of service-entrance appearance, some twenty meters back from the alley opening. The day’s-end gloom would have left it a place unknown.

  By contrast, pleasantly open to the evening air in the still-bright twilight, the front entrance had a number of wide steps before it, leading up to the open doorway, tall and wide enough for at least four people to walk abreast through it.

  Only the hinged edges could be seen of the pair of heavy doors, swung back inside, leaving the doorway itself unblocked except for the customary invisible weather-shield that would be guarding the indoor climate against that outside. Two pink-faced, healthy-looking young men of identical size, in sky-blue uniforms with oversized lapels edged in gold, stood one on either side of the doorway and just inside it, looking out. A third young man, in the same livery, turned and disappeared back into the club’s dark interior, at the sight of Bleys emerging from the limousine.

  Bleys waited for Henry to organize his people from the second limousine and bring them up behind Toni and himself, so that they went in as a single group. It was a small pause, but long enough for the young man to return, along with a man in his late thirties or early forties, who wore a dark gray business suit with similar oversized lapels. He stopped and stood, stage-center in the middle of the doorway looking down at Bleys and the rest of them as they began to mount the steps.

  He towered over the doormen. In fact, he was plainly no more than a dozen centimeters shorter than Bleys himself and wider in the body. He had a broad, strongly-boned face and a mane of graying black hair mounted from his forehead in a sweeping curve backward, matched by a heavy black handlebar mustache that would have looked ridiculous on anyone not his size and bulk.

  Everything about him—the suit with the wide lapels on a body that was already wide-shouldered and very strong looking, the mustache, the mane of hair—was clearly orchestrated to give the impression of an overpowering, almost domineering figure of authority. But in this case, the half-frown with which he had first stepped into the doorway faded into an uncertain look, as with Bleys’s steady mounting of the steps it became obvious that Bleys would loom over him—he who was clearly used to looming over others.

  Bleys kept the smile inside himself hidden. He was used to a reaction from men more than normally tall who suddenly noticed he overtopped them. He merely nodded gravely at the man as he reached the top of the steps.

  The mustache and gray suit pulled itself back into some semblance of authority. Plainly, he recognized who this guest must be.

  “Bleys Ahrens! Honored to meet you, very honored!” he said. But then the smile thinned as his eyes shifted to Toni and the men with Henry. He looked back at Bleys. “I’m Walner Mathias, Club Manager. I’ve got you down for dinner in the upper private dining room. But—I’m sorry, my book’s marked only for you, not for anyone else with you.”

  “This lady with me,” said Bleys, letting some of the long-trained power of his voice roll out in the tone of someone who states an inarguable truth, “will be with me at dinner. I’m sure you’ll find my hosts agree. These others—perhaps you can find some side room for them.

  They’re students of mine, a few I allow to come with me from time to time, to observe and learn. These six were lucky enough to be the ones I chose this evening. We’ll all come in.”

  The Manager hesitated.

  “I’m sure you can find a place for my pupils,” said Bleys. This time there was the slightest edge of impatience to his voice—an edge that could hardly be said to verge on annoyance over the other man’s hesitation, but hinted at it; the way a distant roll of thunder below a horizon might threaten storm from a sky presently cloudless.

  Mathias hesitated only a second more. He was clearly uncomfortable, his only choices other than accepting them being to directly refuse admission to Toni, Henry and the rest—or admit publicly that he had to consult Bleys’s hosts, and damage his obviously-valued appearance of ultimate authority in this place.

  He chose to surrender, and led them all along a wide hall past a succession of rooms half-filled with people sitting, reading, talking or drinking. The furnishings seemed odd, as if a deliberate attempt had been made to make the club look like something out of the historic past, the nineteenth or possibly twentieth century on Old Earth.

  The furniture was all float-furniture, but this was about the only concession to modernity. Underfoot were rich individual carpets—in all sizes. These, the paneling and the upholstery of the furniture were dark, as with age. Antique floor lamps pretended to light the rooms with a yellowish glow, while actual modern lighting supported this from the illuminated ceilings. Even with that, it was dimmer here than Bleys would ever have expected to find in a present-day New World building.

  The hall led them at last to another pair of floor-to-ceiling doors, green metal this time, that barred further passage. These, however, opened automatically before the Manager; and when they passed through, they were suddenly in a totally different section of the building, completely modern in furnishing; and with full-spectrum Sirian daylight beaming upon them—safely now—from three-dimensional outdoor scenes, shown in viewing screens built like windows into the walls on either side of the hallway.

  In another moment there were only three of them—Bleys, Toni and Mathias. Henry and the others had been conducted away by another blue-uniformed young man.

  Mathias led Bleys and Toni a small distance farther down this new section of hall, then turned to face one of the wider screen-windows. It, and the wall around it, slid aside to reveal an elevator with a fixed compartment waiting. Clearly a private elevator, judging by the padded floats and tiny drinks-bar the compartment contained. He led them into it. The wall closed behind them and they went up.

  The building was a tall one, and there was silence for several moments as they rose. Mathias was sternly wordless; Toni, as was usual on occasions like this, was simply being silent and giving out no signals whatsoever. Bleys was immersed in his own thoughts. He had made a habit of keeping his plans to himself unless it was necessary to tell even Toni and Dahno about them, and at the moment there was nothing more to tell. He was thinking that one of the things the CEOs at the dinner would try would be to buy him.

  He had no intention of being bought. But he would get a much clearer picture of what his position was on this planet, and therefore what his own bargaining powers were, if he seemed to listen to their offers. They would probably follow the timeworn method of donkey control, by first offering him the carrot, to make him move in the direction they wanted, then threatening him with a stick if the carrot failed to produce results.

  Only a dozen seconds had actually passed before the lift stopped and its entrance opened again. They stepped into the small anteroom of a much larger
oval chamber, which was either dining room or boardroom—it was impossible to say which—and which had more of the viewscreen windows in its walls. The ones visible from the anteroom showed wide expanses, in all directions about the building, down on the now-twilit streets of New Earth City, seen from a considerable height.

  The Manager led them into the larger chamber. A dozen or more men—but no women—were seated on floats with individual side tables, at the room’s far end. They looked at Bleys and Toni with open curiosity.

  “Wait here,” Mathias said to Bleys under his breath.

  He made his way to the man seated farthest from them; an individual well into his fifties, with some remnants of an athletic body, now overpadded with fat. His face had been open and generous once, with clear blue eyes, which still remained.

  But there were lines of habitual ill-humor between his eyebrows and around his mouth, which deepened in his reddening face, as Mathias whispered in his ear. When he opened his mouth, the voice that came out was loud and angry, ignoring the fact that Bleys and Toni were there to hear.

  “Well, there’s no point in your telling me now! You’ve already let them in!” he half-shouted at Mathias. “What good does it do to tell me about it now?”

  Mathias started to whisper in his ear again and was interrupted. The expression of his face, the angle of his body all silently cried out at the discomfort of suddenly having to live the role of flunky, rather than that of Manager.

  “Oh, let them stay! Let them all stay!” the red-faced man waved the Manager off; and turned his still-angry attention on Bleys and Toni.

  “I see you misunderstood, Bleys Athrens!” he shouted—unnecessarily in a room plainly so acoustically perfect that an ordinary tone of voice could be heard clearly from one end to the other. “You were the only one invited to dinner. We didn’t send invitations to half the Friendly Worlds!”

  Bleys smiled, letting the tone and words bounce off him.

  “Allow me,” he said, “to introduce Antonia Lu. She comes with me everywhere—particularly to dinners like this.”