Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (107 page)

As
she
silently
put
the
tray
down
on
the
desk,
Bleys
looked
at
it distrustfully;
but
then
his
nostrils
picked
up
the
scent
of
some
tangy spice,
and
he
suddenly
realized
he
was
starving.

He
looked
up
at
Shira—she
was
short
enough
that
he
did
not have
to
look
very
far
up—and
she
interrupted
her
silent
backing away.

"Did
you
prepare
this,
Shira?"
he
asked.

"Yes,
Great
Teacher,"
she
said,
her
voice
tiny
in
the
large
room.

"You're
new
on
Favored of God,
are
you
not?"

"Yes,
Great
Teacher,"
she
said
again.
"I
graduated
from
the
crew training
facility
at
New
Earth
City
two
months
ago,
and
the
captain hired
me
for
my
first
job."

"I
think
you're
originally
from
one
of
the
Friendlies?"
he
asked. "Your
voice
tells
me
so."

"I
was
raised
on
Harmony
by
my
grandparents
after
my
mother and
father
died,"
she
said.
"But
I
was
born
on
Mara
and
spent
the first
part
of
my
life
there."

"I'm
sorry
to
hear
about
your
parents,"
he
said.
"Would
you
tell me
what
happened
to
them?"

"They
were
killed
in
a
trafficway
accident
on
Freiland,"
she
said. "They
were
on
leave
from
their
ship."

"And
you
decided
to
go
into
their
profession?"

"Yes,"
she
said,
her
brown
eyes
shining
a
little.
"The
crew
of
the
Sombok
became
like
family
to
me,
and
helped
raise
me."
She
smiled. "Captain
Broadus
was
one
of
them,
although
only
a
junior
officer
at the
time,
and
that's
why
she
hired
me."

"You've
come
to
the
right
ship,"
Bleys
said,
nodding
seriously. "The
captain
will
turn
you
into
a
veteran."

"Yes,
Great
Teacher."

"You
prepared
this,
you
said,"
he
continued,
looking
down
at
the large
plate
in
the
center
of
the
tray.
It
had
a
cover
that
prevented him
from
seeing
the
dish
that
awaited
him,
but
an
exotic
aroma
was rapidly
filling
the
room.
"What
is
it?"

"It's
a
curried
lamb
dish,
Great
Teacher,"
she
said.
Then
she blushed.
"It's
from
a
recipe
of
my
family,
but
I've
changed
it
a
little."

"I
see
you
brought
me
coffee,
orange
juice
and
water,"
Bleys said.
"Are
those
appropriate
to
drink
with
your
dish?" Shira
blushed
again,
but
smiled.

"Perhaps
the
Great
Teacher
would
like
a
glass
of
beer?"
she
said. "Tea
is
traditional
with
curry,
but
in
my
family,
we
find
that
a
good Japanese-style
beer
sets
off
the
flavor
of
the
spices
very
well."

"Would
you
get
me
one,
then?"
he
asked.

She
did.

CHAP
TER
35

The
elderly
shuttle
had
been
ordered
to
hold
its
distance
from
the Final
Encyclopedia;
there
was
other
traffic.
But
the
driver
had
his hands
full
doing
so,
because
the
Encyclopedia
was
no
ordinary satellite.

Of
all
the
artificial
satellites
orbiting
Old
Earth,
only
the
Final Encyclopedia
spent
the
energy
to
hold
itself
in
an
unnatural
sort
of geosynchronous
orbit.

Properly
placed,
satellites
falling
in
their
orbits
about
a
planet could
remain,
seemingly
stationary,
above
a
fixed
point
on
the
ground below.
But
the
laws
of
physics
dictated
that
a
satellite
could
occupy such
a
geostationary
position
only
if
its
orbit
followed
the
planet's equator.

The
Final
Encyclopedia,
however,
held
a
fixed
position
above
a point
in
Earth's
northern
hemisphere;
and
it
did
so
only
because
it constantly
used
drive
engines
to
counter
the
demands
of
the
laws
of physics.

Bleys
knew
that
the
fixed
point
the
Encyclopedia
hung
above was
the
location
of
the
estate
where
the
boy
Hal
Mayne
had
been raised.
And
that
knowledge
haunted
the
Other.

The
day
after
he
learned
that
fact,
Bleys
had
gone
to
the
Mayne estate,
at
Dahno's
orders,
to
take
it
over
for
use
as
the
site
of
the
first meeting
of
the
Others'
top
leaders—a
visit
that
turned
into
disaster when
the
boy's
three
elderly
tutors
were
killed.
The
boy
himself had
vanished,
running
from
the
only
home
he
had
known
since,
at the
age
of
two,
he
had
been
found,
alone,
on
a
spaceship
drifting near
Old
Earth.

As
his
shuttle
strained
to
remain
in
place
near
the
Final
Encyclopedia,
Bleys
looked
out
a
port
at
the
mother
planet.
She
was
close,
and
she
was
beautiful,
a
ball
of
blue
draped
with
white
swirls
that crept
from
under
the
black
crescent
of
the
planet's
own
shadow.

Bleys
had
never
been
able
to
learn
why
the
Encyclopedia
was held
in
its
unusual,
and
so
particular,
orbit.
The
satellite's
staff
had never
explained
its
positioning,
and
he
could
find
no
logical
justification
for
the
effort.

He
had
speculated
that
the
Encyclopedia
might
have
been placed
there
so
it
could
keep
an
eye
on
the
boy.
But
that
made
no sense:
the
Final
Encyclopedia
had
gone
to
its
place
about
seventy-five
years
before
Hal
Mayne
was
even
born.

As
for
the
converse
of
that
idea—that
the
boy
had
been
purposely placed
in
a
position
to
be
raised
directly
beneath
the
Encyclopedia— he
could
find
neither
a
reason
for
doing
so,
nor
any
indication
that
the boy's
guardians
had
sought
to
arrange
it.

When
Bleys
had
discovered
that
strange
quasi-connection
between
the
boy
and
the
legendary
orbiting
institution,
he
had
examined
the
public
records.
He
had
learned
that
the
land
on
which the
Mayne
estate
sat,
after
being
the
site
of
a
series
of
hobby ranches
and
recreational
resorts
for
more
than
two
hundred
years, had
been
purchased
by
a
Europe-based
investment
bank—more than
fifty
years
before
Hal
Mayne's
birth
and
well
after
the
day the
Final
Encyclopedia
had
achieved
its
orbit.
The
land
had
then remained
unused
until
it
was
sold
to
the
trust
that
had
been
set
up for
the
boy
out
of
the
proceeds
of
the
sale
of
the
ship
in
which
he was
found.

That
trust
had
been
organized
in
accordance
with
unsigned
instructions
found
on
the
ship,
and
was
overseen
by
directors
appointed by
designated
financial
institutions,
government
bodies,
and
humanitarian
groups—none
of
whom
seemed
to
have
any
connection
at
all with
the
Final
Encyclopedia.

It
was
the
kind
of
story
that
begged
the
listener
to
make
up
some sort
of
mystical
relationship
between
the
boy
and
the
satellite.
Bleys had
no
belief
in
mystical
relationships—but
he
also
had
nothing
to offer
in
their
place.

That
was
only
the
first
of
the
strangenesses
that
had
led
him to
see
in
Hal
Mayne—as
boy
and
later
as
man—an
opponent
to
be respected—

"Sir,"
the
driver's
voice
interrupted
his
musings,
"I
have
the
Encyclopedia
for
you.
Switch
the
intercom
to
channel
C
and
I'll
put
her through."

"Thank
you,"
Bleys
said;
and
reached
to
the
intercom
mounted
on the
bulkhead
in
front
of
him.
He
pushed
the
plastic
button
marked
C;
it
seemed
to
stick
for
a
moment—like
the
shuttle,
this
intercom was
elderly—but
then
he
heard
a
click—