Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (140 page)

He
checked
an
instinctive
protest,
as
he
felt
a
braking
force
slowing
his
fall.
The
iris,
that
he
had
seen
as
a
disk,
now
appeared
to
his brain—trying
to
put
into
meaningful
terms
the
signals
sent
by
his eyes—like
a
sidelit
landing
area
on
a
gray
spaceport
pad.
For
the
first time
he
noticed
that
a
dark
bar
cut
across
the
iris,
well
away
from
its center,
which
must
be
the
end
of
the
floor
that
had
been
floated
into the
tunnel;
its
presence
gave
him
a
reference
point
that
told
him
he was
now
rotating
slightly....
The
captain,
expert
spacer
that
she was,
was
orienting
him
properly,
so
that
when
he
pushed
his
way through
the
pressure
seal
at
the
end
of
the
tunnel
he
would
be
able to
simply
step
onto
that
floor.

The
floor,
when
he
got
there,
turned
out
to
be
obscured
by
a glowing
mist
that
made
him
feel
as
if
he
were
stepping
into
a
cloud. He
had
been
told
the
air
in
the
tunnel
would
be
supersaturated with
water
vapor,
to
cut
down
the
risk
of
a
deadly
static-link
to
the phase-field
that
made
up
the
tunnel
wall,
but
he
had
not
expected the
surreal
vision
created
as
the
lights
at
the
sides
of
the
floor
reflected
off
the
myriad
of
tiny
droplets
in
the
air.

He
unsealed
his
helmet
and
tilted
it
back.
The
air
was
heavy,
and cool
on
his
skin,
like
a
light
rain;
around
him
the
mist,
apparently subject
to
faint
air
currents,
seemed
to
be
billowing
slowly.
He
could not
see
his
feet,
or
the
floor;
and
for
a
moment
he
was
disoriented.

He
froze
in
place
for
a
moment,
until
his
searching
eyes
recognized that
the
billows
of
mist
seemed
slightly
thinner
in
one
direction— which
matched
what
he
had
been
told
to
expect.
He
started
walking in
that
direction,
moving
cautiously.

After
a
minute,
or
perhaps
a
little
more,
he
became
aware
that
a darker
shape
was
appearing
out
of
the
mist
before
him;
and
in
moments
he
could
see
it
was
Hal
Mayne,
also
wearing
a
vacuum
suit with
the
helmet
thrown
back.

Bleys
felt
as
if
the
hairs
on
the
back
of
his
neck
were
trying
to stand
on
end.
This
man
coming
toward
him
at
a
fast
walk
once
more looked
very
different
than
he
had
the
last
time
Bleys
had
seen him—he
was
coming
on
toward
Bleys
as
if
he
didn't
intend
to
stop, as
if
he
were
some
war
machine
that
could
not
be
prevented
from rumbling
right
over
Bleys.
..
.
Bleys
told
himself
it
was
the
vacuum suit,
giving
Mayne
extra
bulk.

And
yet,
once
more
Bleys
felt
the
old
sense
of
kinship
with
the younger
man
now
coming
to
a
halt
before
him—the
sort
of
tug
at his
attention,
his
mind,
his
heart,
that
he
would
perhaps
have
expected
if
he
had
an
identical
twin.

Hal
Mayne
was
just
standing
there,
looking
at
him;
and
Bleys recalled
that
he
himself
was
the
one
who
had
requested
this meeting—that,
in
fact,
all
of
their
meetings
had
been
initiated
by Bleys
...
he
suppressed
a
twinge
of
hurt,
and
opened
the
dialogue as
a
good
host
should.

"Well,"
he
said,
"you've
got
your
Dorsai
and
everything
you want
from
the
Exotics
locked
up,
here.
I
take
it,
then,
you're
determined
to
go
through
with
this?"

"I
told
you
there
was
never
any
other
way,"
Hal
said.
His
voice was
neutral,
distant.
It
was
as
if
they
had
simply
stepped
right
into their
last
conversation.
Bleys
wondered
if
he
wasn't
wasting
his
time here,
after
all.

"So
now
the
gloves
come
off,"
he
said.
Belatedly,
he
realized
the words
could
be
taken
as
a
threat.

"Yes,"
Hal
Mayne
said.
"Sooner
or
later
they
had
to,
I
being
what I
am
and
you
being
what
you
are."

"And
what
are
you?"

"You
don't
know,
of
course,"
Hal
said,
nodding
slightly,
as
if
he were
in
a
conversation
with
himself.

"No,"
Bleys
said,
feeling
now
as
if
he
were
trying
to
bridge
a
chasm with
his
words.
"I've
known
for
some
time
you're
not
just
a
boy
whose tutors
I
watched
die
on
a
certain
occasion.
How
much
more,
I
still don't
know.
But
it'd
be
petty-minded
of
me
to
hide
the
fact
that
I've been
astonished
by
the
quality
of
your
opposition
to
me.
You're
too
intelligent
to
move
worlds
like
this
just
for
revenge
on
me
because
of your
tutors'
deaths.
What
you've
done
and
are
doing
is
too
big
for
any personal
cause.
Tell
me—what
drives
you
to
oppose
me
like
this?"