“I’m glad to meet you,” Bleys told them. “What I want you to do is come just behind me into the room where the meeting’s to be held. Four members from the Guilds and four from the CEOs are already there. When I go in, I’ll announce that representatives from the Shoe are joining us; and the minute you hear me say that—the door will stay partly open behind me so you can hear—you come in directly, before they have a chance to speak. Sit down immediately in any empty floats you see. Pay no attention to whatever they start to say, then. I’ll answer them. Am I clear enough about what I’d like?”
“I think so,” said Anjo. He looked at the others. They nodded; and the blonde said “Yes!” rather crisply.
“Then come with me,” said Bleys.
He turned, walked out, and followed Toni back down the hall, through one empty lounge and to an inner door of another. At this still-unopened door, Toni stopped and stood aside, motioning those behind Bleys to also stop, out of sight when the door was opened. She nodded at Bleys. The door opened and he walked through.
Seven faces on the bodies seated around a long conference table, turned to look at him. The eighth—the one with the blur—did not give any clue as to whether it had turned, let alone whether its owner was looking.
“I’m happy to see you here,” said Bleys, quietly but quickly before anyone on either side of the table could start speaking. He stepped to the empty floatchair at the closest end of the long table, but did not sit down in it immediately.
“And I’d like you to welcome the other members of this particular meeting, four representatives from the People of the Shoe—I’m sure you know the organization.”
He sat down.
The visible faces had jerked about to stare as Anjo and the three with him came through the doorway and went down to the empty chairs at the far end of the table from Bleys, Anjo sitting in the one’ that had him completely facing Bleys.
Now there was a moment’s additional silence. Then the explosion Bleys was expecting came, from the individual he had expected it to erupt from first. Harley Nickolaus, who had seemed the most dominant among the CEOs’ board members when they had met with Bleys before—the Oldwolves Band-father—Bleys found himself thinking, as he looked at Harley.
Harley had taken the lead at that dinner meeting at the CEO Club on his previous visit. Although Jay Aman, Harley’s nephew and now again sitting at his right side, had struck Bleys as probably the best mind among the CEOs’ leaders. But Jay would never be the first to speak in a situation like this. He was the kind to hold back and consider the situation first.
The same thing would be true of Orville Learner, who also had been at that earlier meeting and was now seated at Harley’s left side. The person with a blur above his shoulders, beyond Learner, was a question mark; but at first glance Bleys had been sure that the face was hidden because it was someone intended to be unexpected among the CEOs; as if Harley and the rest had come with a shrouded weapon, to be revealed only when the time came for its use.
“You brought us here!” Harley almost stuttered, and his face darkened with congested blood in a way that would have concerned Kaj Menowsky, if he had been present. “Here—to sit with those?”
He jabbed a thick forefinger at the far end of the table, where the People of the Shoe sat. “It’s not bad enough you spring these Guild people on us! Now you stroll in here with these work-people! I’ll tell you what it is, First Teacher—First Elder—you give us no choice but to leave!”
He stopped speaking. Bleys said nothing, merely looked mildly at him. After the silence had stretched out embarrassingly with nothing said, Harley exploded again.
“Well?” he said. “What’ve you got to say?”
“Leave,” Bleys said.
There was another silence that stretched out. Jay Aman started to whisper in his uncle’s ear, but Harley brushed him off.
“Leave?” he shouted at Bleys. “What do you mean by that?”
“What I say,” Bleys said. He lifted his wristpad to his lips, “Toni, Harley Nickolaus is leaving. A CEO member as important as he is deserves an escort of at least four of our people. Would you send in four, accordingly? Thanks.”
“All right!” Harley shouted, jerking to his feet.
He kicked his chairfloat away from behind him and stepped back from the table. Jay Aman and Orville Learner also slowly started to rise. But the figure with the blur for its head did not move; and, on seeing this, Jay sat down again and reached out to catch Orville’s elbow. Orville looked, saw Jay and the headless figure still seated, and sank back in his own chairfloat.
The door opened and four of Henry’s Soldiers of God came in. They came down the room and stood around Harley Nickolaus, who turned and stamped past them and past Bleys at the end of the table, the Soldiers still following; and went out the door, all five together. One down—and out, Bleys thought.
As the door closed, Jay Aman spoke.
“If you’ll forgive me for pointing it out, First Elder,” he said in a voice as quiet as Bleys’, “this leaves us with only three representatives for the CEOs at this table.”
“So it does,” said Bleys. “Perhaps you can tell us, if necessary, what Harley Nickolaus would say to matters as we discuss them here. Speaking of discussing matters, shall we get down to it?”
“Forgive me also, First Elder,” said Edgar Hytry, one of the Guildmasters on the opposite side of the table and the one that Bleys had had most to do with on his previous visit. “I thought this was to be an informal, casual gathering. On behalf of those who aren’t here from the Guilds, as well as I’m sure the Guildmasters with me, we’re as upset as the people on the other side of the table seem to be about those you just brought in—those sitting at the end right now.”
His words were firm enough, but his voice also was as controlled as Jay Aman’s.
“I’m surprised you should be, Guildmaster,” said Bleys. “What’s that old saying—‘you can’t make a cake without flour’? If there’s to be any discussion of this world’s future, along with the other New Worlds—as I rather expect there might be—the CEOs may be the shortening, and you may be the sugar, but certainly the People of the Shoe represent the jobholders who’re the flour—the largest and most important ingredient of the cake that’s New Earth’s population.”
“Perhaps,” said Hytry, “but like our friends across the table, again, I didn’t realize we’d come here for any kind of discussion of our World’s people, or for any reason that would call for representatives from various parts of it. Also, we Guildmasters have always thought of ourselves as representing the jobholder. After all, that’s why the Guilds were formed, to protect and help the jobholder.”
“So I’ve been told,” Bleys said. “But haven’t you ever asked yourself whether your Guilds might not have evolved from King Log into King Stork over the years?”
“They’ve certainly done no such thing!” said Hytry.
“Haven’t they?” Bleys said.
His trained voice gave the words a cutting edge. Hytry’s face paled as Harley Nickolaus’ had darkened from a similar emotion. But whatever else the Guildmaster had been about to say, he held back, possibly from a distaste for being also unceremoniously excluded from the room. Clearly, Bleys thought, Hytry was showing little faith in his fellow Guildmasters’ getting up and walking out with him, if he threatened to leave.
“In that case,” Bleys went on, “I’m sorry for you and Harley Nickolaus. With the future we have before us, the very bright future we have before us, the most clearsighted of leaders will be needed; and I’d always counted you among them.”
Hytry stared back, slightly pop-eyed and uncertain, but still keeping his silence. Two down.
For now, at least, Bleys had the attention of the effective leaders of the Guild and CEOs’ contingent fixed on him. He must use the opportunity while he had it.
“In fact,” he said, turning his attention to all those around the table, “that’s my hope for every one of you.
Because leaders like that are going to be needed. It’s not just my point of view. Speaking as a representative of another World, I can honestly say we’re concerned, in our own interest, that our other New World neighbors do well in the years ahead; and that those who direct affairs on each World are not only clear-sighted but capable individuals, sensitive and responsive to the people on their planet as a whole. Not to just one class, segment or organization on it.”
Bleys paused, but none of those sitting there seemed to feel like answering.
“I take it you feel the way I do—as leaders on any World have to feel,” he went on calmly. “So I’d like to talk to you, particularly, about this bright future I mention so much and so often to so many people.”
Bleys looked for signs of impatience. For the moment, however, all the visible faces before him seemed only waiting and listening.
“Clearly,” he said, “the time has come that the Exotics talked about—when, as separate Worlds, we could start to decay. Happily, the historic pattern that builds forward with every moment of human history and every action by every individual alive at that moment, is moving us all in exactly the right direction to cope with that.”
There was a new interest now on the faces—and some puzzlement. Bleys continued.
“In the case of New Earth, it seems to me, the connection’s already partly made for a more structured three-world social unit, with New Earth as a trainer of engineers for new technology—technology taken to the point of practical production by Cassida, and originating before that as discoveries or ideas on Newton.”
“I repeat,” said Hytry, now in a firmer voice, “this is not at all what we came here to talk about.”
“But we did!” said Anjo, suddenly and strongly from the far end of the table. “It’s your working to fit our World in with Cassida and Newton that’s made you try to push the jobholder farther and farther down toward being a slave!”
“I deny that!” Hytry snapped.
“Why bother?” Jay Aman said, calmly. “The jobholders are always complaining. This is just one of their standard lines, tailored to fit the present circumstance.”
“Of course,” said Anjo, turning on Jay, “you of the CEOs and the Guilds have been hand in glove in this whole process. You deliberately used this antagonism you pretended to have, like two millstones to grind the jobholders to dust between them.”
“Rhetoric!” said Jay.
“Rhetoric to a certain extent, maybe,” Bleys said before Anjo could answer, “but it seems to me there’s also a certain amount of truth there. In fact, it seems to me there’s a certain amount of truth and falsity in the positions of all three of your groups.”
He looked down at the end of the table to meet Anjo’s eyes himself.
“All three of you,” Bleys repeated slowly.
Anjo’s face did not express whatever reaction he might have been feeling. It was simply intent and ready as he matched gazes with Bleys. Bleys’s opinion of him went up a notch. Three down—no, the third cooperative, for the moment at least.
“I have to say I’ve more sympathy for the jobholders at the moment,” Bleys went on. “They’ve certainly been the ones to suffer visibly, as far as their individual struggle to survive goes. You CEOs and Guildmasters have, on the other hand, had certain special benefits from your efforts. Where you’ve suffered, without knowing it, is in justification for the existence of your organizations, and the raising of the question of whether your own existence in the world of the future will be justified.”
“You know, First Elder,” said Jay, toying with the stylus beside a pad of paper on the table in front of him, “this is all rather abstract and theoretical. In our real world of New Earth—”
“In your New World of New Earth,” Bleys interrupted him sharply, overriding him both with tone and volume that made Jay’s voice seem thin by contrast, “selfish concerns with personal advantage—and again this includes the People of the Shoe as well as the CEOs and the Guilds—have ended up pushing this planet to the point of open revolution!”
He had let a little anger surface in his voice; and he knew his face was showing it. Jay, who had opened his mouth, closed it again.
“If you’ll look at the patterns cyclically repeated in the historic record,” Bleys went on, in a calmer voice, “what’s most likely now is an outbreak by the jobholders; their taking control of this world, and that control becoming more and more tyrannical—to the point where former CEOs and Guildmasters end up being brought to trial for past crimes against the New Earth people. You face a modern replay of what went on during the revolution in France on Old Earth, back at the end of the eighteenth century. To put it in more simple terms, the jobholders have suffered a low-level, long-term series of adverse effects from the last hundred years of New Earth history; while the Guilds and the CEOs have essentially saved up theirs for a shorter but much more intense moment of backlash from their actions.”
“This is nonsense,” Jay murmured to the stylus and the paper in front of him.
“Nonsense?” said Bleys. “Look at the people at the far end of the table there, Jay Aman. Take a long, open-eyed look at them. Then tell me you can’t imagine the people sitting there would ever decide your neck should be put under the blade of a guillotine—assuming an archaic machine like that might be revived for use on present-day New Earth, a few years from now.”
Jay lifted his eyes from the paper, looked at Bleys and smiled; then deliberately turned his face to look at those at the end of the table. He gazed for a long moment—in fact, for more than a long moment—and, subtly, his features changed, lost their confidence; and his features became merely blank, so that his eyes remained locked with the unchanging attention on him from the end of the table, as if he was unable to look elsewhere. Four down.
“And you, Anjo, and the others looking at Jay Aman, right now,” Bleys said, “can you promise everyone here that, if not you, others in the organization of the Shoe might not be ready to commit such judicial mass murder?”
The other Shoe people, beside Anjo, stared at Bleys.
“What you mean…” began the blonde, and fell silent. Three more. Seven all told.
“What he means,” said Anjo, still watching Bleys, “is, we shouldn’t only think about that, but ahead to the point where our own People of the Shoe would condemn us—us four, here now—and put our necks in the noose. But why’re you so sure all this is going to happen, Bleys Ahrens? There have to be reasonable solutions to our situation. We don’t have to have bloody revolution.”
“For one thing—” Jay Aman broke in—“there are other solutions that don’t involve revolution, but are equally bloody—”
He broke off deliberately, with a smile, in mid-sentence.
The heads of all those in the room had turned to Jay, to Orville Learner and the blur-headed individual sitting with them; for it was the CEOs who had officially begun the importation of the fifty thousand soldiers from the Friendlies, over half of which were already here. Jay had made the point that he or Harley had come here to make; but, Bleys was sure, ahead of the moment either one of the two had planned. The moment of climax near the meeting’s end would have been their natural choice.
All down now—with the possible exception of blur-head, who had undoubtedly been expecting it. But the attention was all on Jay at this moment. That would need to be changed.
Bleys waited, giving them a moment to look. Then he spoke, before Jay could go on.
“—However, Jay Aman, I think it’d be a waste of time for us to consider any such solution, since there’s one alternative that wouldn’t be bad for anyone and would take the momentum of the present historic evolution, making sure it goes onward and upward to a better life for everyone on New Earth.”
Their heads turned back to him; but slowly, most of their attention still on Jay.
“I wouldn’t be here talking to you all now, if this alternative wasn’t possible,” said Bleys; “but it has to be p
art of a general all-New-Worlds effort. No one World, and no alliance of several worlds only, can make it work. It will need all, working together. The pattern of history has moved to a point where the predicted disintegration and decay will either pull down all of us—or none. What I see, in fact, is an ideal solution, but it calls for two hard decisions from every individual on all the New Worlds.”
He stopped, giving them the chance to interrupt; but none of them did, including Jay, who was waiting calmly, with a small, satisfied smile on his face.
“One,” Bleys said, “is ending for all time the attempts to dominate us by Old Earth, which has never really given up its dream of keeping the New Worlds as colonies.
“The second, by individuals and societies, is to face the fact that they have to remake themselves. They have to commit themselves to developing abilities they’ve forgotten they had; or face being discarded from the race. The people on some worlds—like the Dorsai and the two Exotic Worlds, unfortunately—I’m afraid are beyond saving. We’ll probably have to leave them to their own natural end. But the rest of us—all of us—can live, flourish and grow forever if we go at it right. Properly handled, our future can disregard those three worlds.”
All eyes—even Jay’s—were on Bleys now. The names “Dorsai” and “Exotics”—those two legendary and still-potent powers among the New Worlds—had triggered off what was in effect a historic reflex. Even now, when nearly a century had passed, the wealth and acumen of the Exotics, the military powers of the Dorsai, could still possibly rise, like giants from their sleep, to spoil the best-made plans of any people on one or even all of the other New Worlds.
At last, Bleys held each of them at the table, like the Ancient Mariner…
…with his glittering eye— The Wedding Guest stood still, And listens like a three years’ child: The Mariner hath his will…
Chapter 45
Suddenly the atmosphere in the room was different. What Bleys had just said had painted some inherited, but still vivid, pictures in the minds of those at the table.
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