He stretched forward a little more and looked closely, finding the line of division between reality and projection. It was perceptible here, as with any illusory image, seen close up. In daylight it would have been immediately obvious. Now there was no more question about it.
Clearly, past the line he recognized, there was no more fascia, only the three-dimensional illusion of it. The illusion was all the more effective in this dim light from the
city below. If the fascia became unreal, then the step-back space beneath him… he leaned as far out as he could and slid his front foot forward over the step-back surface, gradually moving his body forward also.
The step-back stayed solid. It continued solid as far as he could stretch. But there was no real fascia above it. He brought his foot back. Suddenly the step-back seemed to have narrowed to half its width. If he tried to go on without the fascia to hold on to, and the step-back unexpectedly also became illusion—he looked ahead toward the balcony he had picked out as that of the Council meeting-room. There was only one other balcony left between him and it.
Fear and uncertainty were bad companions. It was easy to tell himself that there would be other ways of getting the information that he hoped to overhear once he had reached the Council Room; but it would be a retreat, and he had promised himself he would never retreat. If he did it once, he was afraid he might be tempted to do it again—and again, and his life would end with his goal still out of reach.
Bleys thought back to his earlier climb, and his use of ki, to anchor himself to that building so that instead of being up against a vertical wall, he had felt as if he lay on his back on a flat surface, looking up at the stars.
He had done it once. He could do it again.
The thought was like a clean wind blowing away the fog of emotion that for a moment had threatened to conquer his sense of purpose.
Kioshizumeru, he thought to himself.
The Nipponese term for what he would do calmed his mind. Training began to take over. His attention left the step-back and the fascia, concentrating on the hara, the centerpoint of his body. He gathered himself back into that single point, just above his navel; and it was like returning to a solid base from which all other things could be seen in proper perspective, in their true dimensions. An inner peace flowed out through his body. He began to imagine his ki as carrying all his spirit, concentrated now into his hara, deep into the wall before him and anchoring him there. It reached out, and his perception of the wall tilted at his will, not back to a perfectly level surface, as on Association, but at an angle in which he felt himself lying comfortably on it as on an inclined plane, a slope not steep enough to let him slip downward easily.
Bleys took his hands from the fascia and stretched his arms out on either side of him, the palms of his hands flat against the surface of the wall. His feet moved him sideways over the ledge supporting him.
He moved up to and over the next balcony, jutting up and backward at an odd angle; stepped down once more to the setback, with his arms outstretched and his palms against the building; and moved once more toward the last balcony, that would connect with the Council Room. He could hear voices now, through the half-open door to the final balcony; the talking audible, but the words still unclear. He let the wall return slowly to the vertical.
Bleys felt his weight once more on the step-back below him. The balcony was only an arm’s length away, the voices raised in argument were now understandable—and suddenly the ledge was as nothing beneath his feet. Without warning, the same sensation of vertigo that had nearly brought him down in the shower struck him again. But this time many times stronger, killingly stronger. All at once the world spun around him, and all his sense of balance left him.
Chapter 31
The timeless moment passed—and he was still on the step-back, still pressed against the wall surface, with his arms outstretched and his palms flat against the face of the building, but a full step further on.
His body had ignored the disturbance of his inner ear, which should have toppled him from his footing; and obeyed instead the command of his trained mind.
For a minute, Bleys simply stood as he was. It had been a simple but nasty little trap for anyone who had managed to get this far without the fascia to hang on to. He had simply been lucky in having used kioshizumeru when he did. But the balcony that was his goal was only a couple of steps away now. He moved to it and climbed over the railing onto the balcony itself.
Bleys was able to hear the voices clearly, now, coming out through the half-open door with the filmy inner curtain that also blew outward in pleasant, ghostly fashion into the night air, under the pressure of the hotel’s air system—feeding cleaned, cooled atmosphere at a slightly higher than outdoors pressure into the room.
Close up now, Bleys could see only faintly through the wall itself, that had been opaqued from the outside, but was lit and transparent from within. He stood back from the doorway, back where wall-end and balcony met. From there, even looking from the night darkness at an angle through the partly open balcony door, they would not be likely to see him—even if one of them looked out.
There was of course, the problem of getting safely back, unnoticed, to his suite. He could not now go back the way he had come. He was physically as strong as when he had started, but there was an exhaustion in him from the tension of the climb and the near-thing of the sonic trap.
In any case, Bleys had come here by this route to spy on the Council. He forced his mind away from all else and fastened all his attention on the conversation in the lounge.
For the first time, he realized they were not using the blue bubble phase-shield for secrecy. He had brought along Dahno’s small device, hoping to make it touch and merge with one that the Council would be using, so that effectively they would all be in the same bubble, and he would be able to hear what they said. It had been unnecessary.
Plainly they felt more secure in their evening private session here than he had expected. Kaj had said it was not the most brilliant of their professions who sat on this Council.
Now, glancing through the fluttering gossamer curtains moving in and out through the doorway with the airflow from inside, Bleys could not only hear their voices—one had an odd sound—but see them; if not well, at least clearly enough to recognize that all he had met this afternoon were there. And there was also the interesting addition of one extra person, possibly the source of the odd-sounding voice. Whoever the new member was, he or she was seated farthest from Bleys and could not be seen fully from Bleys’ angle of view through the balcony doorway.
“I should never have let the rest of you talk me out of it,” Half-Thunder was saying, his voice pitched higher and more angry than it had been while Bleys was with them in the afternoon. “I said then and I say now, it’s ridiculous to delay, on some wild hope of his usefulness to us in the future. We didn’t even really need to talk to him this afternoon. We should simply have taken care of him right away. It’s straightforward and easy enough. I already had everything arranged.”
“It’s foolish not to explore all possibilities,” said Din Su’s placid voice. “We agreed on that sometime since. Now, what the rest of us have already decided just needs finalizing; and we only need you with us, so we have the required six votes on it. Any original arrangements you’ve made shouldn’t make you close your mind to the considered opinions of the rest of us.”
“You don’t have to scrap what you’ve set up,” said Ahmed Bahadur. “We can hold your arrangements ready for another day or two, can’t we?”
“Of course, of course!” Half-Thunder said. “But that’s not the point. Of course it’s ready, and can be kept ready to go at a second’s notice.”
“Any given individual can fail to behave as predicted, and we might wind up getting a too-public mess out of it,” said Anita delle Santos.
“Nonsense!” said Half-Thunder, with something very like a sneer. “That’s what you tinkerers would believe, naturally. Good theory, p
erhaps. But for practical purposes, I tell you the man I picked for the job is completely under control. He not only has the proper genetic and social background, but I’ve got him thoroughly conditioned. I do mean thoroughly!”
“Any human individual can betray you on the best of programming,” murmured Anita delle Santos.
“Of course. As I say, Human Engineering would guarantee you’d believe that,” said Half-Thunder. “So, you’re really saying it for the record, aren’t you?”
“Think what you wish,” she said.
“Yes. For the record, and for the people back in your own Institute,” said Half-Thunder. “But we don’t need political remarks, we need a decision. We need action. All I’m saying is, I was against what you did with Bleys Ahrens; and in spite of the fact I ended up giving in to you just before we met him, the interview confirmed everything I’d thought. He’s too dangerous to play games with. I’m saying that strongly, and having had a few more hours to think about it, my opinion’s confirmed.”
“Five-to-one, still, then,” Din Su said. “Since I assume Georges will vote with the rest of us in the majority. Isn’t that right, Georges?”
“I think Thunder’s got some reason on his side,” said Georges Lemair, “but yes, I’m with the rest of you.”
“Yes,” said Din Su. “Then, if Thunder’s determined not to go along, maybe the Gentleman would care to give us an opinion that might fulfill our six-vote requirement?”
The one additional person in the room shifted position slightly, and Bleys got a clearer look. It was instantly clear why the odd voice had rung a faint bell in his memory.
Someone else’s legs were still between his angle of vision and the lower half of the unknown’s figure. But the upper part of the body Bleys saw was wearing a dark blue jacket with a neck-scarf beneath it that could have been worn equally reasonably either by a man or a woman. Where the head of this person should have been, however, was the same sort of blur that had hidden the identity of the two people brought to speak with him on New Earth; both of them Others, but one also a member of the CEO Club and the other a member of the Guildmasters. Here, too, the blur was concealing an identity.
“That’s a request I’ve had made to me a number of times by earlier members of this Council,” said the unnatural voice. “I’ll give you the answer I gave them. In spite of the fact that I’ve theoretically had to accept a full membership in this Council to be part of its deliberations, I stipulated from the beginning that whatever I said would be restricted to the information I bring and my opinion about its usefulness. I wouldn’t—and won’t—exercise any of the regular prerogatives or duties of a Council Member. You’re all going to have to settle this among yourselves.”
There was a long moment of silence inside the lounge. Bleys could imagine the look of smug victory on Half-Thunder’s face.
Then Din Su’s voice spoke again, still placid, still gentle, still unchanged. “I’m afraid, then, you don’t leave me any alternative. I’m going to need to call for a reelection of the Council; and of course the topic to be aired will be the matter of you, Half, being the only one who disagrees with the rest of us.”
This time the moment of silence was very brief.
“You won’t do that!” Half-Thunder said. “You’d be putting your own neck on the chopping block, as far as reelection was concerned—to say nothing of the necks of everybody else who agrees with you here in this Council. I don’t think they’ll thank you for that.”
“Oh, I don’t think the rest have a lot to worry about. I know I’m not worrying,” Din Su said. Bleys had never appreciated before how utterly deadly such an apparently gentle tone and manner of delivery could make a voice. The threat in her words was multiplied by the total lack of threat with which they were uttered and the quiet certainty of her voice.
She continued, “The other Council members voting with me for reelection on this question are simply doing our duty to steer Newton in the direction it has always - gone, with due caution and concern. The Institutes’ members electorate will understand that none of us wanted to fall into the trap of a quick-and-easy—but possibly dangerous—solution. It is my duty I’m doing, isn’t it, Gentleman? If I remember the Directives, the one that’s concerned here says: ‘Any Council member who feels it is his or her duty has the right to call for a general reelection of all Council members, to test whether the consensus of opinion within the Council reflects the best aims and ends of Newton’s immediate purposes and ultimate destiny’… Did I quote correctly, Gentleman?”
“Perfectly correctly,” said the voice from the blur above the tightly suited shoulders Bleys could see through the doorway.
There was a sudden silence in the Council lounge.
“Din Su’s right, you know, Thunder,” said Anita delle Santos, after that moment. “We’re all of us just doing our duty. You know as well as the rest here that the main direction of this Council’s actions have always been to steer Newton into a position of power over the other New Worlds—not merely silent, but acknowledged power; and as we’ve said, right here in this room, Bleys Ahrens plainly has something like the same dream, only for himself. But there’s a great difference between the careful actions earlier Councils have taken in that direction over the past century and what one person can do in just a few years with a clever tongue. He’s not that dangerous to us. Compared to all we’ve done and what we are, he’s no real threat. On the other hand, he might be useful. I repeat, he’s not that dangerous.”
“You’ve said all that before,” Thunder snapped. “I’m sick of the blind lot of you.”
Bleys could just make out through the doorway Thunder’s movement as he jumped to his feet from his float.
“—And if my views are going to be disregarded continually by this Council, what am I doing sitting around with the rest of you?” he said bitterly. All at once, he was striding toward the doorway out onto the balcony.
There was no time to think it over.
Chapter 32
Bleys stepped forward, himself, in two long, swift, strides passing through the doorway into the room and stopping. Almost within his arm’s reach, the approaching Thunder checked abruptly. Bleys smiled pleasantly at all of them, and they all stared back at him; but with quickly schooled faces on which there was no expression, least of all that of astonishment.
“I apologize for breaking in on you like this,” Bleys said pleasantly. “I’m just cutting through your room here out into the hallway on my way back to my own suite. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course, Bleys Ahrens,” said Din Su, almost without hesitation, in that unvarying voice of hers. “You’re certain you know your way back?”
“Quite certain.”
In the continuing silence, Bleys walked on around their floats to the doorway by which he had left the lounge the last time. He stepped through the door as it slid open before him, clearly opened by one of the members—
probably Din Su he thought—and, as he stepped through, it slid to again behind him.
But before it closed completely, he heard the first of the words breaking the silence from the room; they were from Half-Thunder.
“Didn’t I say he was dangerous?” Triumph rang in Half-Thunder’s voice, followed by a fractional moment of silence only—but a silence with no dissenting voices.
Thoughtfully, Bleys turned and headed back toward his room.
He had had no choice but to brazen out his having been on the balcony—how long, they would have no way of guessing. It was possible, of course, that his own cheerful treatment of the matter as nothing out of the ordinary, and Din Su’s apparent agreement, meant that they would not alter their plan of not taking any sudden action about him, simply because he had had a chance to overhear at least part of what they had said.
Normally, any such governing body would react immediately. In fact, if it was up to Half-Thunder alone, undoubtedly he would be pressing studs on his control pad right now and giving orders. But, in thi
s instance, Bleys guessed the Council, as a whole, would not.
The Members would have to be too much aware of their personal reputations for responsible decisions, to say nothing of their commitment to the Council’s long-standing plan which Anita delle Santos had mentioned. In short, they were not likely to go off half-cocked, if only because they were too used to looking before they leaped.
He thought of supporting reasons. The long-term ambitions of Newton had been no secret on the New Worlds for over a century—had been obvious since the Exotics of Mara and Kultis had ceased to dominate the New Worlds with their interworld mercantile power, during the last century. Being intelligent themselves, the majority of the Council Members would be very conscious of Bleys’s own intelligence; and assume that he probably had already guessed the general aim of their main interest and actions. Therefore he would have heard nothing surprising to him
out there on the balcony; though clearly they would not guess how he planned to turn those ambitions of theirs to his own advantage as he had, in fact, already been doing with similar social ambitions on the Friendlies, New Earth, and Cassida.
But Half-Thunder, in his instinct to act, had been right for reasons they did not suspect—and Half-Thunder himself probably did not realize consciously.
Of course, once they knew he was making a break for the airport and fighting through any opposition in his way, the fat would be in the fire. They would realize that Half-Thunder had been justified, if for deeper reasons than any of them had guessed—but by that time it would be too late for Thunder’s plan.
Still, while there might be only a slight chance of some threat against him in the hours between now and the Symphonie performance, it was time for Bleys to reconsider his actions between now and the time when Favored of God would carry them safely into interstellar space.
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