Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (117 page)

So
when
he
organized
Bleys'
Soldiers,
he
was
aware
of
the
need
to keep
them
in
condition;
an
entire
floor
of
the
Others'
headquarters
building
was
devoted
to
that,
and
what
could
not
be
done
well
there was
carried
on
in
courses
in
the
countryside.

Nor
did
he
neglect
the
mental
side
of
fitness:
he
had
been
little educated
in
his
youth,
but
with
the
facilities
Bleys
could
provide
he had
devoted
a
portion
of
every
day
to
instruction
in
various
technical
and
scientific
fields—and
made
sure
his
Soldiers
did
the
same.

What
it
came
down
to
was
that
although
he
was
older
than
most of
his
Soldiers,
it
was
important
to
him
to
keep
himself
in
the
same shape
he
demanded
of
them.

He
had
never
thought
of
himself
as
one
of
those
who
could
send others
out
to
fight
while
conserving
their
own
strength—those whose
value
lay
in
their
experience
and
intelligence.
There
had
always
been
a
part
of
him
that
suspected
that
such
people
put
their souls
in
greater
danger
than
did
the
common
fighter.

Did
he
still
feel
that
way,
now
that
he
seemed
to
be
taking
such
a role?
It
might
be
a
good
idea
to
do
some
thinking
about
the
meaning
of
his
past
life.

"Bleys,
wake
up!"
Toni's
voice
pierced
the
darkness,
but
Bleys
was already
awake—he
had
roused
when
her
breathing
changed
as
her wristpad
awoke
her. "What
is
it?"

"An
urgent
message
from
Harmony,"
she
reported.
"Rukh
Tamani has
escaped
from
the
Militia."

Bley
s
sat
up,
and
waved
a
hand
for
some
light.

"Details?"
he
said.
"How
long
ago
did
this
happen?"

"I'm
still
being
fed
information,"
she
said.
"It
sounds
as
if
it
occurred
about
four
days
ago.
There
was
a
raid
on
the
prison."

"Four days!"

"Yes,"
she
said.

"W
⁷
hy
did
it
take
Barbage
so
long
to
report
this?"
he
asked,
intending
that
she
direct
the
question
to
whoever
she
was
in
contact with.

"The
report
isn't
coming
from
Barbagc,"
Toni
said
after
a
moment.
"It
seems
he's
vanished." "Was
he
killed?"

"Apparently
not,"
she
replied.
"There
were
a
lot
of
casualties—I gather
there
are
some
wild
stories
about
some
huge
man
hunting people
down
in
the
corridors—"

"Mayne!"
he
said.

"No
identification
was
made.
However,
Barbage
was
seen
after
it was
all
over—and
when
he
disappeared,
no
one
who
was
left
knew you
had
any
particular
interest
in
the
woman;
so
the
report
took
a while
to
get
up
the
chain
of
command
to
us."

Bleys
was
silent.

"The
Militia
are
asking
if
you
want
to
order
them
to
seal
all
the spaceports,
to
prevent
Tamani
from
getting
off
the
planet,"
she
said. She
waited
for
him
to
reply.

"No,"
Bleys
said
finally.
"It's
certainly
too
late."

He
rose,
and
padded
in
his
bare
feet
out
of
the
bedroom
and down
the
hall
to
his
lounge.
He
did
not
turn
on
a
light;
he
was
not sure
what
his
reaction
to
the
news
really
was,
and
he
did
not
want Toni
to
see
his
face
while
he
explored
it.

CHAPTER
38

Delivered Out of Egypt,
despite
its
longer
name,
was
a
much
smaller ship
than
either
Favored of God
or
Burning Bush.
The
vessel
had been
called
Poker Face IV
as
it
came
out
of
the
shipyard
on
Old Earth's
moon,
Luna;
and
its
size
was
well
adapted
for
the
in-system routes
it
was
meant
to
run
between
the
numerous
ports
and
pads
in its
home
solar
system.

Now,
having
only
recently
become
one
of
the
steadily
growing fleet
owned
by
the
Others,
it
had
been
chosen
for
this
trip
precisely because
it
was
new
to
their
service,
which
meant
that
its
presence somewhere
was
less
likely
to
alert
people
that
Bleys
Ahrens
was
in the
area.
Bleys
also
hoped
that
anyone
trying
to
find
him
would
be distracted
by
Favored
^‘
s
trip
to
Newton,
where
it
remained
in
orbit while
Toni
and
Henry
gave
the
impression
that
Bleys
was
conducting
business
in
the
privacy
of
the
ship.

The
disadvantage
to
Delivered's
smaller
size,
however,
was
that its
passageways
were
narrower,
and
had
less
overhead,
than
those
in the
larger
ships.
Moreover,
its
cabins
were
smaller,
its
facilities sparser
and
its
passenger
lounge
less
than
half
the
size
of
the
one Bleys
used
as
his
office
aboard
Favored.

The
lounge
was
still
the
largest
space
on
the
ship,
however,
outside
of
the
engineering
areas,
and
so
Bleys
was
spending
almost
all his
time
there;
but
he
was
getting
sick
of
the
place.

Delivered,
using
the
assumed
name
Fanons Friend,
had
been
in orbit
at
Mara
for
nearly
six
days
now,
pretending
to
have
suffered
a malfunction
that
seriously
contaminated
its
environmental
support systems—badly
enough
that
after
spending
the
first
few
days
trying to
fix
the
problems
themselves,
the
crew
had
been
obliged
to
call for
help
in
the
form
of
a
local
expert.