"I could think of nothing greater," said Bleys, with enthusiasm.
"All right," said McKae, "Boris'U take you down to the Leader of those men; and you can begin following his orders. You'll be in training. In spite of your skills with weapons and the fact that you're such a powerful wrestler"—McKae smiled just a little—"there'll be things you'll have to learn in order to work with the others. If you feel after some days that it isn't the work for you, simply tell the Leader, and you'll be given a chance to talk to me once more, when I have the time to spare you. Also, if the Leader should decide that you're not proper material, then he'll tell you you're not to be one of them; and again, you'll be given a chance to speak to me, before you leave us and go back to Godsarm's church."
"Thank you, Great Leader," said Bleys, "I don't know how to thank you enough."
"See how the training agrees with you," said McKae, waving his hand in dismissal.
Bleys and Boris went out and this time they went down only one floor and into another suite that had also been turned into an office; but one that was nowhere near as large as the one where McKae sat.
Behind the desk there was a man who also was very different from McKae. He wore a heavy, old, checked shirt and work pants stuffed into work boots. At first glance, Bleys had taken him for a farmer right off the farm; but a second look had told him the man was something more.
He obviously, however, had a background in the out-of-doors. Bleys was introduced to him by Boris, who after that immediately left them. The man's name was Herkimer Shone. And he was plainly a very informal sort.
"Pull up a chair." He indicated a straight-backed chair that was not far from the desk. "Sit down and I'll get the details on you."
"Well, that should take care of it," said Herkimer at last, having questioned Bleys about Henry's farm and church, and written down all the details. He put them in a file. He frowned at the file folder drawer, which was jammed, before closing it.
"Ordinarily, we'd want you in the hotel here," he said, "but we're overcrowded for space, and a lot of the churches are so new, so their tithes aren't yet much use to us. So we've got a financial problem, too. I'd like to keep you here for three days while you run through some of the group maneuvers with the rest of us. After that, if you're married, or even if you have someplace to stay elsewhere in town, at your own expense, we'll be satisfied if you'll drop in at the designated hours to practice with the rest of the guardians. Do you have such a place in Ecumeny?"
"Yes I have," answered Bleys, "you see I met this friend—"
"Never mind the details, give me an address."
Bleys gave him the address of the apartment. He was a little fearful that the other might recognize it as being a building in a part of the city that contained a number of luxury apartments; but evidently the man was either not acquainted with the city that much, or did not care. He put down the address and phone number.
The next three days Bleys slept in a temporary cot set up in the on-duty guard's room; and had nothing to do but kill time these days. He assumed what he had said on the application was being checked out. The third morning, he was awakened at five a.m. and hustled by the duty guard through a quick shower, a rather slim breakfast, and conducted to a meeting room at six.
"Just go on in," said the duty guard, and left him.
Bleys pushed through the door and stepped into a room that was already filled with people. They were of all shapes, sizes and ages. They had in common the deeply tanned, outdoor look Bleys had remarked on the men in the lobby when he had first entered the hotel yesterday; and which, thanks to the fierceness of the sunlight from Epsilon Eridani, he still had, also.
They were dressed, like Herkimer, in all sorts of comfortable work clothes, no two alike. He searched around, found a chair and sat down; while the lean-faced man in his fifties, up on the platform, dressed and looking very much like the rest of them, was still speaking. Needless to say, he drew the attention of more than a few of the audience while he was doing this.
He sat and waited for the man on the platform to finish what he was saying, which had something to do with the plans for the day. But shortly he came to the end of what he was saying. He looked out over the audience.
"I see the last of our recruits has shown up, finally," he said.
There was a small mutter of laughter, but it did not sound to Bleys at all derisive or antagonistic.
"All right," said the man on the platform, "all three of you stand up and tell us about yourselves."
Bleys, with the others, stood up.
"We'd use that one for a flagpole," someone said and there was a little more laughter. The man on the platform let it die down. "We'll start with you," he said to Bleys. "Your name?"
"Bleys MacLean," Bleys answered, "don't you have that up there?"
"I have it," said the man on the platform, "but everybody else needs to hear it too. For the benefit of the rest of you, Bleys MacLean here ran up some very good figures indeed, on the weapons range, on the exercise, and in the hand-to-hand. Bleys MacLean, how many wars have you been in?"
"None," said Bleys.
There was an interested muttering from the audience.
"Interesting, that," commented the man on the platform to the room full of people at large. "Well, we'll start trying him out. Anyone want to volunteer to be coach?"
"I'll take it on, Charlie," said the man seated on Bleys' left. He was at least in his forties, and slightly heavy. None of them there looked at all overweight, but this man came as close to it as any. But his face was square, weathered and not unkind.
"Come to think of it," said the man on the platform, "in this case we'd better have two. Anybody else want to volunteer?"
"I'll take on that chore, Charlie," came a voice from across the room.
Bleys could not see exactly who had spoken.
"You three can go, then," said the man on the platform. "Now, about you other two new recruits—"
But the man beside Bleys had already risen and was nudging Bleys ahead of him past the two other occupied seats out the end of the row, and out the door of the room.
"I didn't hear your name," said Bleys, as the first coach who had been assigned to him started off down the corridor. Bleys fell into step beside him. "Where are we headed?"
"Armory," answered the coach, briefly. "As for my name—"
He glanced sideways and up at Bleys and smiled. "It's Sam Chen. Not short for anything—just Sam."
Bleys looked over his shoulder, but he did not see anyone else who might have emerged from the room behind them.
"What's the name of my other coach?" he asked.
"I'll let him tell you, when he gets around to it," answered Sam. He was now looking straight ahead again.
"I thought he'd be with us," Bleys said. "He will," said Sam.
With that rather uninformative answer, Sam led the way silently down to the Armory, where they were both given what were known as "poacher's" versions of the needle gun. These were needle guns that were still in two sections disassembled, each section shortened to make a smaller version of the weapon. Each part fitted into one of two narrow, vertical pockets inside whatever jacket you were wearing. It was possible normally to button the jacket quite tightly, and still not betray the fact that you were carrying a weapon. Sam already had such pockets in his jacket, and the Armory supplied Bleys with a jacket equipped with pockets in his turn.
Sam led them Out of the hotel into the streets. Four blocks away, he came to a battered old gray hovercraft, which he unlocked and slid into, beckoning Bleys to take the seat beside him. Once the doors were closed and the engine had lifted the craft on its cushion of air, he headed out into the countryside.
They went clear out into the open fields, where city began to give way to farmland. He stopped at last at a large area of either abandoned or unused land; and to Bleys' surprise they practiced creeping and crawling along with their assembled weapons cradled in the crooks of their elbows. The rocky ear
th beneath Bleys' elbows was not kind on them. Also, the exercise made use of muscles that Bleys was not in the habit of using. Nonetheless, they stayed at it for a couple of hours, until Sam suddenly gave a disgusted grunt and began to get to his feet. Bleys rose with him.
"What is it?" Bleys asked.
"We were spotted," said Sam, with a resigned tone of voice.
Bleys looked around him. He had seen no one else on the horizon in any direction from the time they had started and he saw no one now. Yet, Sam was already headed back toward their hovercar. It occurred to him that his other "coach" was actually an observer to see and report on how well he did.
They returned to the city and had lunch at a sidewalk cafe, where to Bleys' surprise, Sam idled over cup after cup of local coffee. Bleys felt fortunate that he had learned early to wait patiently. They made occasional conversation, Sam occasionally asking some general questions about Bleys' background on the farm and his father, Henry.
Sam was interested as to whether he had ever known Henry MacLean at the time he was a Soldier of God; and it turned out that as far as Bleys could tell him, he hadn't. In turn, Bleys probed Sam for details of his past; and Sam made it clear that he didn't want to give these or indeed talk about himself at all.
From time to time however, he threw in a sentence of advice, which startled Bleys with its usefulness.
"Look at the legs," Sam said, after they had been sitting with their coffee for a little over an hour, "watch the legs."
"The legs?" Bleys asked—instinctively, at the same time taking note of the legs of the few people passing around the street before them and the intersection a third of a block away.
"Why the legs?" Bleys asked.
"Suppose we're here to watch for people who may be moving in to try an assassination attempt on the Great Leader," said Sam. "They try to move in as inconspicuously as possible, one by one, and then join together; or sort themselves out in positions from which they can all attack at once. We try to get here well ahead of time, and watch for them moving in."
He glanced at Bleys.
"What we watch are the legs," he went on. "Take a close look. A man or woman can't change their walk. They can be identified by that, even after they've changed their body shapes and their faces completely. A Soldier walks differently from a civilian. City people walk differently from country people. Likewise they give away the way they feel by the way they walk. Look closely at a man or woman moving into a position where they're going to try to kill someone; and hoping not to be spotted as anything but simply someone going down the street. He or she walks with their body weight forward and neck extended, a sort of walking-on-billiard-balls look. Watch for it. You won't see it right away, but after a while you'll begin to pick it up. You'll notice anything different right away."
"You can pick out differences like that, right away, yourself?" asked Bleys.
"That's right," said Sam, toying with his cup but with his eyes on the street. "After several wars it becomes automatic. You learn to read people by the way they walk, as if they were carrying banners. See that short, rather fat man down near the end of the block in the pink jacket?"
"Yes," said Bleys.
"He's running away from something," Sam said, "what, I don't know. It could be some person, it could be just something in his own mind; but his body's reacting by trying to run. Look at how he kicks his leg out as if he was going to take a longer stride, and then deliberately shortens the step when his foot comes down, so it'll look like he's walking ordinarily. Watch him for a bit."
Bleys did.
He was fascinated by this new bit of insight, as by all new knowledge. He concentrated closely on everyone whose legs were to be seen in motion on the street, and from time to time tried out his interpretations on Sam. Sam corrected most of them at first—then gradually Bleys began to come up more and more with interpretations the other man agreed with.
"You pick it up fast," said Sam.
This made the time move swiftly for Bleys. Still and all, they must have sat for two or three hours, until Sam pushed his cup away and shook his head disgustedly.
"Spotted again," he said. "No fault of yours, but you stand out like a distress rocket on a dark night with all that height."
By this time it was into afternoon. Sam led him through a shopping area, and up one of the buildings onto an observation tower, very windy and cool enough so that Bleys was happy to have the protection of the jacket. At this last place they killed another hour. This was the one time where Sam ended up the afternoon smiling.
"All right," he said, "Nicky didn't pick us out at all. That's better. We'll head back and you can turn in your needle gun; then you're free for the rest of the day."
"I don't have any idea what we did all day," said Bleys. "I mean, I don't see what we were supposed to be doing."
"Trying not to be seen," said Sam. "No, let me change that. We were trying to be seen, but not have any attention paid to us. Tomorrow, we'll try something different. I'll meet you at the Armory at six-thirty a.m., all right?"
"I'll be there," said Bleys.
They went back to the hotel and turned in their needle guns; but on Sam's advice Bleys kept the jacket. Free to do what he wanted for the rest of the day, Bleys left the hotel and returned with some relief to his own apartment, got out of his clothes and had a pleasant soak in the agitated water of the stimulant bathtub of their apartment. This had purposely been built extra large for Dahno, and therefore was comfortable for Bleys as well.
Through with the bath, and resting on his bed in his favorite thinking position, Bleys decided that two things needed to be done. He must somehow manage to do both of them without endangering his appearance of wholehearted devotion to guarding McKae.
The first was to visit the Hounds' Kennel and discover whether his orders to sharpen them up, which he had passed on through Norton Brawley, had been obeyed; and, secondly, find out whether they had, if obeyed, produced any change in the ability of the Hounds to carry through their assassination attempt. This last, he doubted. He was now convinced, not only that that assassination attempt was to be aimed at McKae; but that the Hounds did not stand one chance in a thousand of bringing it off.
By killing McKae, Dahno would at once remove all threat to the Five Sisters, and put himself, particularly, back in good order with those five Members of the Chamber. That had been the reason behind his ready agreement to Bleys' picture of the future. It made a good excuse for him to be off-world when the assassination was attempted.
The clerks in the office had reported that they had been hammered at for days now, by both representatives of the Five Sisters, and the Five Sisters themselves, demanding to know where Dahno was and how they could get in touch with him.
The clerks had repeatedly responded that they did not know. They had also, on Bleys' orders, not mentioned him at all; and the few times his name had come up they had claimed to know nothing about his whereabouts, either.
In a sense, both answers were perfectly truthful. They did not know where Dahno or Bleys was at any given moment. Possibly, Bleys was the only one who knew that Dahno had headed toward Earth rather than to one of the other worlds. Norton Brawley could know that he was off-Association, but probably not his destination. In Dahno's eyes, Norton would have had no need to know.
Meanwhile, Bleys had told the office staff nothing about what he was doing; so that while they knew he was in the city, and might on rare occasions be at the apartment, they had no idea of where or when.
All this, they dutifully reported to him, when he appeared at the office to look at his off-world mail and ask them questions. He told them to continue stonewalling any attempt by any of Dahno's clients to reach either Dahno or himself and, out of their deep loyalty to Dahno and their budding loyalty to Bleys, they were quite cheerful about accepting the assignment. They were, surprisingly, almost fierce in their determination to protect both brothers.
Chapter 35
Bleys reported faithfull
y at six in the morning on the next five days.
On each day he and Sam worked more closely with other Defenders, as McKae's security force called themselves, until by the end of the five days he was engaged in general movements of large numbers of them in a single exercise.
In the process he learned a great deal about his fellow Defenders; and also about the way they operated. Their manner of defense and attack was entirely different from that of the "modem ninjas" that Ahram Moro had trained for Dahno.
In a sense this did not surprise Bleys. He had been suspicious right from the start of the contempt with which Ahram and Norton Brawley both seemed to dismiss those who would be guarding the charismatic young church leader. To go way back, it did not fit with what he had seen of Henry; either in his day-to-day life, or in that moment in which he had faced down the rest of the congregation when Bleys had been in danger of being mobbed by them.
He could not picture Henry as a bumbling farmer engaged in a completely untrained firefight with other bumbling farmers. Nor did it make sense, on a world where armed disputes between churches were common, that men who had ended up fighting in these disputes all of their life by matter of choice should remain essentially inept and unorganized.
Furthermore, he had gathered the impression that when the militia moved in on one of these disputes, it was not an easy time for the militia at all; sometimes the churches combined against them, and then the casualties among the militia were high—and in any case they were considerable.
Also, Bleys learned something of the in-group language of the Defenders. The second day out he heard Sam speaking to one of the other Defenders with whom they were engaged in some kind of practice exercise that Bleys did not completely understand, but which involved working through the city streets in groups of no more than two and then joining up at a certain place. Among the words that were bandied back and forth, was one that struck Bleys oddly. The other Defender made a reference to "Bodies."