Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (97 page)

"How
is
Henry?"
Dahno
asked.
"I
got
your
note
that
Joshua
had a
daughter
some
months
back,
and
I've
been
wondering
how
Henry reacted
to
that."

"They
named
her
Miriam,
by
the
way,"
Bleys
said.
"But
you know
Uncle
Henry's
not
much
for
letting
his
reactions
show."
He paused
to
watch
the
woman
as
she
reached
into
the
cloth-obscured lower
portion
of
the
cart
to
produce
an
ice
bucket,
half
a
dozen wineglasses
of
varying
sizes
and
three
antique-looking
bottles
with paper
labels.

"He
planned
to
take
a
week
off
to
go
back
to
the
farm,"
Bleys continued,
"but
he
wanted
to
wait
until
Ruth's
mother
left—she'd come
over
to
help
out;
there
wouldn't
have
been
room
otherwise. But
that
took
about
a
month,
and
if
I
didn't
know
better,
I'd
say Uncle
Henry
was
on
pins
and
needles
the
whole
time."

"I
can't
even
imagine
it,"
Dahno
said.

The
woman,
Bleys
saw,
was
having
difficulty
with
the
corkscrew. It
was
not
surprising;
cork
was
largely
unknown
on
the
Younger Worlds,
where
all
bottled
products
were
sealed
by
molded
caps,
on which
a
very
different
implement
was
used.
Dahno,
still
cheerful, reached
over
and
gave
her
a
demonstration
on
how
to
handle
the corkscrew.

When
they
had
been
served
the
woman
withdrew
with
the
cart.

"Is
there
anything
else
you
haven't
told
me
about
your
organization?"
Bleys
asked
as
he
took
a
forkful
of
the
white
substance;
it was
mildly
spicy.

"Well,
at
another
level
up,"
his
brother
said,
"we've
been
cultivating
people
who
already
have
credentials
in
the
academic
and journalistic
fields.
We've
got
a
few
on
the
payroll
already,
people who
will
slant
their
reports
and
conclusions
just
a
little
to
our
side, when
the
time
is
right
for
that."

"How
far
will
they
go
for
you?"

"So
far—not
far,"
Dahno
answered.
"But
time
will
pass
while
they earn
their
money
fairly
easily;
and
eventually
they'll
find
it
difficult
to cut
themselves
off
when
the
earning
gets
harder."

"I
suspect
there's
more
to
it
than
that,"
Bleys
said.

"True,"
Dahno
answered.
"On
the
one
hand,
we're
going
to
have them
all
make
the
occasional
small
statement
they
wouldn't
normally
make—not
as
something
we
need
them
to
say,
but
only
to
make
it
harder
for
them
to
backtrack
on
their
records
if
the
spirit
of rebellion
ever
rises
up
in
them."

He
paused
to
cut
off
another
portion
of
his
entree
and
raise
it
to his
mouth.

"Of
course,
people
who
can
be
bought
so
easily
have
likely
been bought,
in
one
way
or
another,
in
the
past;
so
we're
quietly
digging into
their
histories.
I
believe
we'll
eventually
have
blackmail
material
on
most
of
them."

"Sometimes
blackmail
just
makes
people
angry,"
Bleys
said. "That
can
lead
to
even
bigger
trouble."

"I
know
that,"
Dahno
said,
a
hint
of
asperity
in
his
voice.
"Blackmail
won't
even
be
hinted
at,
except
as
a
last
resort."
He
paused, thinking
as
he
chewed.

"My
own
belief,"
he
went
on,
the
touch
of
emotion
gone,
"is
that people
who'd
let
us
influence
what
they
say
aren't
particularly
concerned
for
the
integrity
of
their
work
anyway."

"What
about
my
idea
of
trying
to
infiltrate
the
Final
Encyclopedia?"
Bleys
asked.

"It's
difficult,"
Dahno
said.
"Those
people
really
restrict
access." He
smiled.
"But
I
did
it,"
he
said.

"You!”

"No,
I
don't
mean
me
personally,"
Dahno
said.
"It's
not
likely
I could
fool
them
as
to
who
I
was,
even
with
the
best
phony
documentation.
But
I've
got
two
people
in
already."

"As
staff?"

"No,"
Dahno
said.
"I
got
a
couple
of
our
pet
academics
accepted as
visiting
scholars."

"That's
probably
not
as
useful
as
a
staff
position,"
Bleys
said, "but
I'm
willing
to
bet
anyone
who
joins
that
staff
is
thoroughly checked."

"You
know
it,"
Dahno
said.
"And
there's
not
much
turnover,
either."
He
cut
into
the
remains
of
his
veal.

"Your
friend
Hal
Mayne
seems
to
still
be
there,"
he
said
casually.

A
bit
later
Bleys
leaned
back
in
his
chair.
He
had
tried
the
coffee Dahno
pressed
on
him,
a
very
different
beverage
from
the
coffee
he had
drunk
on
this
planet
before.
It
was
an
old
regional
specialty,
his brother
had
explained,
for
which
he
had
developed
a
taste;
but Bleys
found
he
did
not
care
for
its
thick
sweetness,
and
so
had
been sipping
lightly
from
a
glass
of
a
red
wine
whose
name—
Chateau
La Fl
eur
St.
Bonnet
—Dahno
tossed
off
lightly.