Other

by Gordon R. Dickson

  “Just what I went to find out. The attitude of the New Earther man and woman in the streets and elsewhere. You might be a little surprised. Since our troops started arriving, a lot of people have been expecting the People of the Shoe to take a hand in the situation, somehow—though most I talked to wouldn’t stick their necks out enough to name anyone in the Shoe, or the organization itself. They’re all sympathetic with the Shoe, but I don’t think the majority of the public will follow that organization as a whole, any more than they’d follow the CEOs or the Guild as a single choice for control of their world. They’d probably split up, following the groups that made up the Shoe—the ones Anjo told you about. The only single leader they’d follow, Brother, is you!”

  “That’s impossible,” said Bleys, “although Anjo just suggested exactly that. But while I can safely let myself be named First Elder of Harmony and Association, since it’s understood that I’m a citizen of a Friendly world—letting myself also pick up an official position on any other World, would make it seem I’m favoring some Worlds over others—and lose me the general all-New-Worlds’ following I’ve still got to gain. If I’m going to forge all the Worlds into a single, unified, society—unified in purpose, if nothing else—they’ve all got to trust me. Otherwise, I can’t lead, even if I lead from the shadows, the way I want to, with the help of local Others—ones not in obvious situations of power, but known by the people who’ve been running these Worlds up till now. That means I want the People of the Shoe recognized legally, but the Guilds and CEOs also have to stay in position; and at least appear as if they have as much power and control as they did earlier.”

  “I wish the Guilds and the CEOs had called back before now,” Toni said. “Then at least we’d have some idea about whether the meeting was set, and when.”

  Bleys nodded. He turned to Toni.

  “I think you’d better give them both a call. I know it’s late, but in this case I don’t think we have to worry about office hours. Tell them I regret not being able to accept their invitations in their original form, but you already explained the constraints upon me. Add that, actually, there are even more constraints than that. Because of my obligations as First Elder, my schedule, as I originally laid it out, has just been severely curtailed. The result is that I’m only able to see them tomorrow at a meeting in the early afternoon, here at my suite.”

  “What if I can’t get through at this hour to anyone important enough to give that message to—at either CEOs or Guilds?” Toni asked.

  “You’ll get through,” said Bleys. “I’d bet my future on it. Give the exact same message to each one; don’t make any specific mention of any but the organization you’re calling. As you said earlier, I think under the circumstances the CEOs won’t be too surprised to see the Guilds here and vice versa. Since Anjo will have his people ready to come tomorrow, I want to bring them in as soon as possible before their leaders who weren’t picked to come have time to get together and cook up trouble for Anjo in the Shoe organization.”

  “All right.” Toni got up. “If you don’t mind I want to go back to my own desk with the record of exactly what they said to me the time before. Then I’ll bring in transcripts of all of them for you.” She went out.

  “Here are all the old transcripts, plus the new,” she said, a few minutes later, coming back to the private lounge; where, in the interval, Dahno had been filling Bleys and Henryjn on the specifically significant things he had heard from the people he had talked to outside the hotel, and why he had drawn the conclusions he had. He broke off as Toni came back in and accepted the transcript she handed him, as Bleys and Henry were accepting theirs.

  They all looked at them. Bleys needed only a quick glance at each page. Dahno was almost as fast, but Henry read his, line by line, gravely, but without any noticeable change of expression. Meanwhile, Toni sat down. They waited for Henry to finish.

  “I’d say they’re eager, all right,” Bleys said, flicking the end of the papers on the small table-float in front of him where his copy lay, as Henry laid his down. “Wouldn’t you say so, Dahno?’”

  “I would, indeed,” said Dahno.

  “Any suggestions?” Bleys asked. Dahno and Toni both shook their heads.

  “A few questions,” said Henry. “Bleys, are you ready to meet them, yourself? Are you sure what you want to say to them; or how you want to deal with them? Also, should I have a few Soldiers standing by in adjoining rooms, just in case?”

  “I can’t imagine why any of our Soldiers of God would be needed,” said Bleys, “and I assume it was they you were talking about, rather than the Friendly troops?”

  Henry nodded.

  “—And the last thing I want is any of the Friendly military involved in the meeting,” Bleys said. “No great danger in their knowing after the fact, but what’s known beyond a controlled area by even one person spreads quickly to just about everybody else—in this case, the public that Dahno went out to check on. On second thought though, it never hurts to play safe. Yes, Henry, bring in a few of your Soldiers; but make sure that they don’t see the people coming in, or the people see them. Particularly, I don’t think the People of the Shoe would appreciate their visit being known—at least, until they’ve left and are safely away someplace else.”

  He paused and looked around at the three other faces.

  “Any other comments, suggestions, anything?”

  “Oh, another small piece of information,” Toni said. “You wanted the meeting set early in the afternoon. I set it for two o’clock, just after an early lunch hour, so that we won’t be bothered with setting up any eating or drinking, except for the sort of nibble-and-sip refreshments, like those I set out for you and Marshal Damar.”

  “Good,” Bleys said. “If you haven’t already, you might call the Others’ headquarters, under security, and give Ana Wasserlied warning about the Shoe people and the Friendly soldier escort; also, put off any meeting by me with her until after this other meeting tomorrow.”

  He glanced at the chronometer on his wristpad.

  “Come to think of it, have there been any other important calls for me? Ana, maybe, or someone unusual and important?”

  “Ana did call. I said you’d call her back as soon as you could,” Toni said. “Were you expecting anyone in particular?”

  “Not in particular,” Bleys said. “Someone from off-planet, perhaps. But clearly you didn’t get anything like that. It’s just as well. I don’t want to be disturbed between now and the meeting—the only exceptions being you three. I want to be able to push aside everything else and leave my mind free to work with what could happen then and how I ought to handle it.”

  He looked at Dahno.

  “We’re at the climax. This meeting’s the break point I’ve been aiming for, ever since I started this lecture tour of mine. I’ve got to manage it right. In fact, I think I’ll go lie down now, and if I sleep, I’ll get up and eat something later on.”

  He paused.

  “Anything else any of you want to bring up?”

  “No,” they each told him.

  “In that case, I think I’ll get to bed to be in shape for tomorrow. I feel like some sleep, right now.”

  And he did. As the other three got up and left him, he was feeling the touch of an unnatural weary emptiness within him. It could be one of the side effects Kaj had warned him could linger for years.

  He became conscious that the muscles of his jaw were clenched. He made them relax; but the determination in his mind remained.

  No side effect—no anything—would come between him and what he had set out to do.

  Chapter 44

  Morning of the day of the meeting with the leaders of the CEOs, the Guilds and the People of the Shoe.

  Bleys had been awake since dawn, but had not yet left his bedroom. He had taken no phone messages nor made any calls. He had written innumerable notes to himself and destroyed them. He had paced and thought, as on the morning back on Association, when Henry had
come to offer himself as a protector. Only that had been lacking; though he had not realized he lacked it. He had been impatient, like the gyrfalcon, until now. But at last, oddly, coming on top of his poisoning—as if it was something he had found, rather than won—it seemed to him that finally the full strength he had sought, the power to hold his listeners transfixed, no matter whether they wished to hear or not, had finally come on him. That ability of the Ancient Mariner in Coleridge’s poem—what were those lines again?

  He holds him with his glittering eye— The Wedding Guest stood still…

  It was this that Bleys had reached for with what he had worked for and done; and he would need it this day, at this meeting with all those who must be brought under control, here on New Earth. He was pacing again, back and forth in a bedroom filled with high-noon sunlight through a transparent window wall, promising joy and a magnificent day to all those outside.

  Bleys was blind to it. He was barely aware of his own tall body, in its striding back and forth between the two facing blank walls of the room. His mind was still examining and re-examining the possibilities of the meeting, dealing with one possible scenario after another, for what might develop, as fast as he could imagine them.

  The possibilities were not endless; the number and characters of the participants in the meeting limited them. But he would be guessing at their emotional reactions, and those were what counted. He would be juggling three factions, and four individuals, within each faction.

  Either he won here and now, or he lost everything he had gained so far. He must trigger each group emotionally to announce their strength before its proper moment. Then, without losing control of the situation himself, he must push everything to a final showdown…

  His wrist control pad chimed.

  “Time to go,” its small feminine voice announced to the room at large. He had set it to answer from his wrist, rather than in the larger voice from walls and ceiling, so that it would rouse him as gently as possible from wherever his thoughts had led him.

  “All right!” he said, to shut the small voice up, since it was beginning to repeat its announcement. Still, in spite of what he had just said, his emotional momentum carried him through several more strides and across the room completely, before he slowed to a stop.

  He was completely dressed and ready, except for his cloak. It was heat-sensitive, just like the cloaks he wore for his public talks. It would have cooled, rather than overheated him. But he had not wanted to finish dressing before he had to go.

  Now, however, he threw it around his shoulders and turned toward one of the blank walls of the room.

  “Mirror!” he said.

  Instantly the blank daylight sky-blue of the wall became a reflective surface, showing him to himself, full length, with the cape on and ready to face those coming.

  Bleys’s breathing checked. For a moment he merely stared, motionless, at his reflection, unmoving.

  “Henry”—he began out loud, unthinkingly, but his mind finished the sentence silently—“should see me now.”

  The change he had first thought he saw in himself after recovering from the poisoning seemed now to have gone a step further, under the impetus of this final make-or-break moment.

  The rectangular face he saw in the mirror above the cape and below its dark brown hair, was still physically unchanged. But psychically it was as if it had moved a step deeper in the direction he had seen reflected before in that earlier mirror image.

  It gave the single impression of all of its natural elements working together now to create one unmistakable image, of physical features lit by the purpose within him. His eyes under their dark brown brows appeared darker, focusing with unnatural concentration on what they gazed at.

  His high cheekbones, his level mouth, his high forehead, now all together had the appearance of channeling a knowledge and understanding almost too weighty to be borne by any single human. Altogether, what he looked at could be one of those many faces of the Satan in whose hands Henry believed Bleys was held. Not, perhaps, the most usual visage of that Darkness; but of a sad, powerful Satan.

  It was a face that shook even him, so that, for a moment, he almost turned from it—and yet, at the same time, it was the image he had been working toward, all these years.

  “—You’re still here,” said Toni’s voice, suddenly behind him. With an effort, Bleys forced his expression swiftly to an urbane expressionlessness. He turned to her, even as her voice was still going on …

  “… You’ll have to come now. The CEOs and the Guild people are already here; and I’ve got the People of the Shoe out of sight in a side lounge. You’ll want to see them first, of course?”

  Bleys had almost whirled upon her at the first syllable he had heard, as if her voice had been the voice of an enemy. But instead he had remembered to turn casually. Still, he had been braced inside against seeing in her the shock he himself had just felt. Instead, she only stared back at him for a second. A slight frown line appeared between her eyebrows.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  He almost grinned at her, with the fierce joy that had suddenly awakened within him, hearing the other members of the meeting were here.

  “Never better!”

  “Well, if you’re sure,” she said, still watching him closely. “You know Kaj warned you to avoid stress. And this particular meeting’s an important one, isn’t it?”

  “It couldn’t be more important,” said Bleys, “but I don’t see how there could be any stress in it.” He knew he was lying as he said it; and worried for a second whether Toni knew him well enough now, to see through him to that. But she said nothing. “I don’t think I’m in any danger.”

  “If you’re sure,” she said, her eyes still on him. “This is the high point of everything you’ve done so far, isn’t it? This is the moment when everything comes to a head for you as far as New Earth is concerned?”

  “That’s right, and if it does, I should take a long stride toward what I want from Cassida and Newton, too, since New Earth’s necessary to them. They expect a tussle, but it’s not going to go the way they think. It’ll be like a four-handed card game, with the CEOs and the Shoe people, at least, each thinking they’ve brought along a high card that will take everything. Possibly even the Guild thinks so—though the Guild is riding on the CEOs’ coattails right now. All I need to do, though, is work them into playing their cards ahead of the proper moment they should play them. Then, having played them, they’ll have lost most of their advantage and I’ll be the one to come out on top.”

  “Stress,” Toni said flatly.

  “Not really. Just a matter of my waiting for the moment to act. You said the Guilds and the CEOs were here, too?”

  “Yes,” Toni said. “They’re already in the meeting room—and probably wondering about the extra chairs at the table.”

  “Yes,” Bleys said. “We shouldn’t waste time, then. You’re right. I’ll go now. But, yes, take me to the People of the Shoe first—did the Guilds and the CEOs hold themselves each down to four representatives?” he added as they went through various rooms and down a short corridor.

  “Yes. Both groups brought four representatives. Three of the CEOs you met at their dinner when we were on New Earth last. They’ve one person, though, wearing a head-blur; like those two Others who were spies in the Guilds and CEOs—you remember—they came to talk to you with Ana here in the hotel.”

  Bleys smiled.

  “Yes,” he said. “Have you got a recording of the CEOs coming in? I’d like to have a look at that blur-headed individual.”

  “The usual security recording, I suppose,” Toni said. “Henry’s been insisting we always make them now.”

  She punched at studs on her wristpad. The corridor wall behind them lit up with a life-sized three-dimensional image of four individuals coming into the suite through its main lounge door. There were Harley Nickolaus, Jay Aman and Orville Learner. The fourth, in a black business suit cut in the current
New Earth fashion, was a shorter individual with the head-blur Toni had mentioned. Bleys watched it closely.

  The recording followed them across the main lounge and through a further, side door to the meeting room.

  “She—he—could be anyone,” said Toni. “By the way, the shoulders of that jacket are padded pretty heavily.”

  The figures went into the meeting room. The image winked out and the wall was a wall again.

  “I noticed,” said Bleys.

  “The CEOs didn’t introduce their incognito person,” Toni said as she went on again, “but I’d guess it’s somebody new. Otherwise there’d be no point in hiding the identity—”

  She broke off, turning through a doorway, whose door had just slid open before her. She and Bleys stepped into a small, fireplaceless lounge, where Anjo and three other people—two women and one man—sat waiting.

  They got to their feet as Bleys came in. The other man was a little taller than Anjo; but with a face that seemed to show something of the same implacable heritage, though it was not tanned as Anjo’s was. The two women were not much more than in their twenties, if that; remarkably healthy looking, sturdy young women, both of them, but standing differently and a little apart. One was a light blonde, with her hair cut fairly short and almost ice-blue eyes, holding herself very erect. The other, shorter, with comparatively light brown hair but with startlingly warm brown eyes.

  The blonde wore a burgundy skirt and tailored dusty-rose jacket, with a pale blue sweater underneath; the brown-eyed one a full emerald-green skirt and loose yellow tunic, sashed at her waist. Both pairs of eyes examined Bleys, but gave nothing away; and without knowing just what gave him the message, Bleys had the feeling that they were antagonistic, not only to each other, but to Anjo and his particular group within the Shoe. But any internal differences of their organization should not be something he would have to deal with at this meeting.