Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (143 page)

For
the
first
time,
Bleys
realized
he
was
now
at
a
tremendous disadvantage—and
that
he
might
have
been
so
from
the
first
time he
ever
heard
about
Hal
Mayne....
The
man
seemed
to
know more
about
him
than
anyone
should,
to
be
able
to
read
things
out
of his
mind.
It
was
frightening,
but
it
was,
in
a
strange
way,
exalting.

"He
would,
indeed,"
Bleys
said
softly,
just
making
conversation while
he
thought....
Then
he
recovered
himself.
"Not
that
I'm agreeing
with
these
fancies
and
good-nights
of
yours,
of
course."

"Your
agreement
isn't
necessary,"
said
Hal,
his
face
suddenly seeming
distant.
"As
I
was
saying,
you
used
it
first
to
protect
yourself
against
Dahno,
then
to
reassure
the
rest
of
the
Others
that
you weren't
just
using
them
for
your
own
private
purposes.
Finally, you're
using
it
still
to
blind
the
people
of
the
worlds
you
control
to that
personal
goal
that
draws
you
now
more
strongly
than
ever. You're
a
Faith-Holder,
twisted
to
the
worship
of
a
false
god—the same
god
under
a
different
mask
that
Walter
Blunt
worshipped back
in
the
twenty-first
century.
Your
god
is
stasis.
You
want
to
enshrine
the
race
as
it
is,
make
it
stop
and
go
no
further.
It's
the
end you've
worked
toward
from
the
time
you
were
old
enough
to
conceive
it."

Walter Blunt? That old man who founded the Chantry Guild, centuries ago, that eventually turned into the Exotics?

"And
if
all
this
should
be
true,"
Bleys
said,
trying
now
to
put
a good
face
on
his
confusion,
"the
end
is
still
the
end.
It
remains
inevitable.
You
can
think
all
this
about
me,
but
it
isn't
going
to
make any
difference."

"Again,
you,
of
all
people,
know
that's
not
so,"
Hal
said,
an
air
of patience
again
in
his
words,
as
if
he
found
himself
having
to
explain something
obvious
to
a
recalcitrant
child.
"The
fact
I
understand
this is
going
to
make
all
the
difference
between
us.
You
took
over
the
relatively
harmless
organization
of
the
Others
while
letting
them
think that
the
power
they
gained
was
all
their
own
doing.
But
now
you'll understand
that
I'm
aware
it
was
mainly
accomplished
by
converting to
your
own
followers
the
people
who
were
already
in
charge.
Which you
did
largely
through
the
use
of
Others
who
had
a
large
Friendly component
in
their
background,
people
with
their
own
natural,
culturally
developed,
charismatic
gift
to
some
degree,
who
used
it
under your
own
personal
spell
and
command,
and
Dahno's.
Meanwhile, covered
by
the
appearance
of
working
for
the
Others,
you've
begun to
spread
your
own
personal
faith
in
the
inevitably
necessary
cleansing
of
the
race,
followed
by
a
freezing
of
it
into
an
immobility
of changelessness."

He
stopped
for
a
moment,
as
if
waiting
for
some
response,
but Bleys
could
not
speak.

"Unlike
your
servants
and
the
Others
who've
been
your
dupes," Hal
went
on,
"you're
able
to
see
the
possibility
of
a
final
death
resulting
from
that
state
of
stasis,
if
you
achieve
it.
But
under
the
influence of
the
dark
part
of
the
racial
unconsciousness
whose
laboratory
experiment
and
chess
piece
you
are—as
I
also
am,
on
the
other
side—you see
growth
in
the
race
as
the
source
of
all
human
evils,
and
you're willing
to
kill
the
patient,
if
necessary,
to
kill
the
cancer."

He
stopped
again.
And
this
time,
to
Bleys,
it
felt
like
an
Ending.

He
found
no
words
for
a
long
moment.

"You
realize,"
Bleys
said
finally,
feeling
weary,
"that
now
I
have no
choice
at
all
but
to
destroy
you?"

"You
can't
afford
to
destroy
me,"
Hal
said,
"even
if
you
could. Just
as
I
can't
afford
to
destroy
you.
This
battle
is
now
being
fought for
the
adherence
of
the
minds
of
all
our
fellow
humans.
What
I have
to
do,
to
make
the
race
understand
which
way
they
must
go,
is prove
you
wrong—and
I
need
you
alive
for
that.
You
have
to
prove me
wrong
if
you
want
to
win—and
you
need
me
alive
for
that. Force
alone
won't
solve
anything
for
either
of
us,
in
the
long
run. You
know
that
as
well
as
I
do."

"But
it
will
help,"
Bleys
said.
He
tried
to
put
confidence
into
his words.
"Because
you're
right.
I
have
to
win.
I
will
win.
There's
got to
be
an
end
to
this
madness
you
call
growth
but
which
is
actually only
expansion
further
and
further
into
the
perils
of
the
physical universe
until
the
lines
that
supply
our
lives
will
finally
be
snapped of
their
own
weight.
Only
by
putting
it
aside
can
we
start
the growth
within
that's
both
safe
and
necessary."

"You're
wrong,"
Hal
said,
his
voice
deeper,
final.
"That
way
lies death.
It's
a
dead-end
road
that
assumes
inner
growth
can
only
be had
at
the
price
of
giving
up
what's
made
us
what
we
are
over
that million
years
I
mentioned.
Chained
and
channeled
organisms
grow stunted
and
wrong,
always.
Free
ones
grow
wrong
sometimes,
but right
other
times,
because
the
price
of
life
is
a
continual
seeking
to grow
and
explore.
Lacking
that
freedom,
all
action,
physical
and mental,
circles
in
on
itself
and
ends
up
only
wearing
a
deeper
and deeper
rut
in
which
it
goes
around
and
around
until
it
dies."

"No,"
Bleys
said,
denying
Hal's
words
and
the
whole
history
behind
them,
"it
leads
to
life
for
the
race.
It's
the
only
way
that
can. There
has
to
be
an
end
to
growth
out
into
the
physical
universe, and
a
change
over
to
growth
within.
That's
all
that
can
save
us.
Only by
stopping
now
and
turning
back,
only
by
stopping
this
endless
attempt
to
enlarge
and
develop
can
we
turn
inward
and
find
a
way
to be
invulnerable
in
spite
of
anything
the
universe
might
hold.