DeNiles shook his head. “I’m sorry, but my job’s only with the here and now—whether the Board should let you hold your talks here.”
“I know,” said Bleys. “But tell me this. Can you find anything in what I’ve said that you really believe would be subversive or dangerous for your people to hear?”
DeNiles frowned, opened his mouth and then closed it again.
“Someone once said to me,” Bleys went on, “that Cassidans lived in greater luxury than the inhabitants of any of the other Younger Worlds, even the Exotics. I suggested that he examine what he meant by luxury. I told him what Cassidans actually lived in was not the most luxurious, but the most technologized of worlds. Their most important work is developing discoveries made by the researchers of Newton and selling the developed techniques for further expansion into profitable mass-marketable processes of manufacture on worlds like New Earth. Because of that, your people are regularly in a position to buy the best of what’s new, at the lowest possible price.”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with what we were talking about,” DeNiles said.
“I tell people,” said Bleys, “they can learn only by stepping back from the society they live in and the societies they see around them; and looking at those societies from the outside. If they do, they will see people may not be evolving, but the societies are. Cassida, in a technological sense, only, is evolving heavily in one particular area. It is more specialized than any other New World.”
“That’s been understood for some time,” said DeNiles.
“Some time, but only in the latter centuries,” said Bleys. “The thinking before mat used to be that in a single lifetime things didn’t change so much that an individual continually had to adapt.”
He paused, hoping that now, at least, DeNiles was seriously and open-mindedly listening; but the Secretary’s calm old face still told him nothing.
“Remember, it was the twentieth century,” Bleys went on, “before space travel became a reality, with many other techno-developments; and it was undeniable by then that humanity’s personal universe was growing and changing daily, faster all the time. So fast that grandparents had trouble understanding—and being understood by—grandchildren. At first computers baffled twentieth-century grandparents. Their grandchildren adopted them easily, and fitted them naturally into their lives.”
DeNiles still said nothing.
It had become time to pin down this particular grandfather-age listener, Bleys told himself.
“Now,” he said, “will you admit that that sort of thing, and at least some of what I’ve said earlier, are matters of historical fact?”
He paused. DeNiles frowned, but he had already shown that he was someone who saw the danger of not being open to argument.
“All right,” he said. “Will you agree that what you’re saying is that your talks are, perhaps, subversive? But subversive only to Old Earth—not to Cassida, or any of our other inhabited worlds?”
“That’s right,” said Bleys.
DeNiles opened his mouth as if to say something more; but at that moment, by possibly convenient coincidence, a melodious set of chimes sounded overhead and a pleasant woman’s voice interrupted.
“Secretary DeNiles,” it said, “time for your walk. If you’d like to cancel it today—”
“No, no,” said DeNiles. He looked at Bleys. “Would you mind walking as we talk? I always take a walk this time of day. It’s part of my necessary exercise.”
“Not at all,” said Bleys. DeNiles was already getting to his feet.
As Bleys rose with him, he noticed how DeNiles steadied himself with both hands on the arms of his chair as he rose and saw suddenly that the other man was even older than he had finally assumed. Not merely old, but very, very old and fragile.
DeNiles turned toward one of the walls showing the cliff face of a mountain at no great distance. As he turned, a section of the windowed wall swung outward.
He led Bleys through it onto what seemed to be the top of a broad, grassy ridge, perhaps five or six hundred meters wide and something more than that in length; like a strip of meadow among the mountain peaks, forming an uplifted corridor of grassy openness that stretched to the beginning of a pine forest at the base of a near-vertical rock face.
There seemed perhaps a kilometer’s width of woods in the forest before the almost dark and bare stone of the mountain lifted steeply upward, with a small silver stream leaping and bounding down from the rock, emerging from the cliff face perhaps forty meters above the treetops, and disappearing behind the trees.
They walked together slowly, Bleys holding down his own long stride to DeNiles’ short steps. The air was moist and warm—exactly as the room with its fireplace had been. This uniformity gave away its hidden character.
This little bit of ideal terrain which DeNiles probably traversed daily could hardly be a natural part of the landscape, Bleys thought. The farther terrain, the stream, cliff and distant mountains, could be all three-dimensional illusions with the nearer parts built solely for the older man’s pleasure and use, and enclosed by a weather-shield. What felt like small breezes barely caressed them from time to time, and the afternoon sunlight of Alpha Centauri shone down on them here with a suspiciously softer, benign illumination.
“I like to walk,” said DeNiles, stepping along with his gaze fixed on the pine trees and the cliff behind them. “But I can’t do. Much as I used to.”
His shortness of breath was obvious, and his age and stiffness showed more now that they were moving. What was barely a stroll for Bleys was a major effort of putting one foot in front of the next for DeNiles. He worked his way forward, his gaze fixed on the trees ahead. Bleys gazed down at the slow-moving legs, then stared closely at them. He had seen movements like that before. However, neither his face nor anything else about the older man triggered any other memory.
Bleys considered the small body moving painfully beside him. DeNiles was so small and weak that Bleys could literally have crushed the life out of him with one hand. Nonetheless, Bleys felt an unusual kindling of excitement. Unless his suspicion was wrong, there was a remarkable mind and an unbendable will walking beside him, together with an unlimited amount of courage and determination.
Ahead of them, now, Bleys noticed a slight blurring of the outer edges of this ridge and the outer trees of the woods ahead. With the few steps they had taken, they had appeared already to have covered over half the distance to the trees, and the open ridge-top had seemed three times that distance.
Of course, thought Bleys; along with weather control and all other modern conveniences, this special walkway must have an illusion of extra distance built into it, for the benefit of the man beside him.
“Stopabit,” said DeNiles running the three words into one short, fast exhalation. He stopped.
Bleys halted with him. DeNiles smiled upward in wordless thanks and labored a few silent minutes at regaining his breath.
“I’ve a question for you,” he said at last, in a more normal voice. “One I thought you might like to talk about where you could see you wouldn’t be overheard. I often have things to say I don’t want want overheard. I suppose, like all public figures, you’ve got a monitor in your wristpad for any snooper ear concealed within ordinary range of your voice?”
Bleys nodded and glanced at the wrist wrapped around by the cuff of his control pad. The monitor light was unlit.
“And you can see there’s no place to hide a long-range listening device within practical distance?”
“Yes,” said Bleys. “What were you going to ask?”
“Just one question. What changes would the evolution of society you hope for make in the case of individuals of great ability? Genius, in fact. Proven genius; because it’s possible for many to give the signs of talent, but fail to keep producing more than one flash of what’s required to prove it. What would it do to them as far as their still having the necessary freedom to do their work under the best possible conditi
ons?”
Bleys considered the other man for a second. DeNiles was surely too old to be ambitious for himself, but it was a strange question unless he had some personal stake in the answer.
“I don’t know,” he said. “The evolution I talk about is going to take generations to mature, even under ideal conditions. But I can’t see how it would affect geniuses any differently than all other individuals then concerned with it.”
“I see. Thank you,” said DeNiles. “We can walk on.”
They walked. Bleys mused over the possible reasons for such a question.
They were almost to the trees now and the shadow of the mountain ahead, now that midday was over, was reaching from the bottom of the outermost trees across the grass toward them.
“Well,” said DeNiles, after a moment. “I’ll see the Board. As—”
He ran out of breath. The illusion of distance was such that they had just stepped between the first tree trunks; and the dimness of the tall, thick-topped pines was making a gloom about them.
“But”—said DeNiles in gasps—“in all fairness. I should tell you. This should be routine. For the voters. But. Anything can—”
He blundered against the side of Bleys, wordless once more. Bleys caught him by the elbow, held him upright and stopped him, so that they were half-turned to face each other.
“I’ll just say a bit more myself,” Bleys said. “Your Board has to realize that the throttled pace of societal evolution on our New Worlds is about to explode, into very rapid movement, like held-down springs suddenly let go. There will be large changes happening quickly, on all the Worlds; not only changing each of them, but changing their relationship to each other. I’m sure you’ve already noticed that New Earth’s been developing technologically in all fields, including reaching out in the direction of working directly with Newton’s research laboratories?”
He paused to give De Niles a chance to answer, but the Secretary only shook his head, struggling to breathe.
“—And that Cassida is in the position of a middleman who could eventually be bypassed, if that reaching out continues. The great majority of discoveries could go directly to New Earth for development, to save middleman costs. New Earth has been slower in social evolution, but ahead in the expansion of fields of work, while you here have been essentially noncompetitive, comfortable as you were with the situation as it was, with Newton and them.”
Again he paused to give DeNiles a chance to speak, but DeNiles shook his head again—breathlessly.
“Also,” said Bleys, “your world has locked itself into a mold with the cream of the technology that passed through your hands. Of all the Younger Worlds, Cassida’s going to have the hardest time adjusting to its future; and of all worlds, your people probably need the most to hear what I have to say.”
They had stopped and stood facing each other again.
“Tell your Board that,” Bleys said.
DeNiles’ eyes closed; and all strength went out of his body, so that he began to slide toward the ground.
Bleys caught him and held him standing.
There was a flicker of movement to their left and right. In seconds a man was standing on either side of them, dressed in the same army officer uniforms as the one who had brought Bleys to DeNiles’ home. But these were not the same kind of officer. These were larger, broad-faced and heavy-jawed. Without a word, they took DeNiles off Bleys’s hands.
“You bastard!” the taller one said savagely to Bleys, just before he turned away. “You wore him out! Go back the way you came, and you’ll be taken care of!”
He had caught at one of Bleys’s arms as he spoke, and held it.
Bleys stopped. “You will let go,” Bleys said.
It was a statement, not a question. For a moment, the officer’s eyes looked up into Bleys’s; then his whole face and body changed and his arm dropped away. He muttered something and turned to his companion, who was still supporting DeNiles in an upright position and who now took the old man away, up into his arms, while the taller officer followed. DeNiles, his eyes still closed, laid his head on the officer’s wide shoulder like a tired child.
Bleys turned and went back across the short real distance of the meadow, back into the room with the fireplace, and found the original officer waiting for him.
“This way,” he said curtly. At first he looked at Bleys with some of the same anger that the officer in the wood had shown. But that look changed swiftly to complete expressionlessness. He did not take Bleys back out of the building. Instead he led him to a lounge, where Toni was sitting, drinking tea, while Henry simply sat, not drinking or doing anything else—only waiting.
They were left there together for only a few minutes, during which they looked at each other but said nothing. Then the two original officers appeared again and took them out of the building into the same trucks. The tracks, already loaded with the rest of Henry’s Soldiers, left, going back down the mountainside and disgorging them finally at the hotel which had been their original chosen destination.
Bleys had said nothing on the ride back. Henry and Toni, after their first look at him, had also been silent. They did not speak until they were safely in the private lounge of their suite in the hotel. Once there, however, Toni dropped into a chair. Bleys did the same thing, signaling Henry to join them. Toni had been observing Bleys closely.
“Well,” she said to him, “you had an interesting time.”
That, too, was a statement, not a question.
Chapter 22
Word came by fastest ship mail that McKae had declared for Bleys as First Elder if McKae was elected.
Word came, days later, that he was elected.
Word came in code from the Other Headquarters on Association that there was a rumor that the New Earth embassy on Harmony had approached the new de facto Eldest—not yet officially installed, but already busy at work—with some sort of proposal concerning the rental of Friendly troops for New Earth.
“Meanwhile,” said Toni, “it’s been more than a week now since you talked to DeNiles, and so far no word has come from this Board of theirs. Again this morning, Johann Wilter has been on the phone to me.”
She, Bleys and Henry were seated together in the main lounge of Bleys’s rooms at their hotel. Johann Wilter was the latest leader to be chosen by Bleys for the Others’ underground organization on Cassida. Bleys had been icily practical about transferring authority as more capable people were found, particularly in view of the touchy legal situation.
“About the bills we’re running up, I imagine,” said Bleys.
“That’s right,” Toni said. “Also the reservations around this world for your six planned talks and hotel space for all our crew nearby. He says that some anonymous contributions have been coming in to the outlawed local Others organization, but not enough to stretch their treasury. They only have a couple of thousand actual dues-paying members, planetwide, because people here are afraid the authorities may decide, without warning, to start a more serious crackdown; and anyone belonging to the organization now could be in serious trouble. Shall I tell him I’ll meet the bills out of the interstellar credit we have with us?”
“Hold off a little longer on doing that—and we’ll continue as planned with the tour until stopped. Time’s never lost, as long as the mind can work,” said Bleys. “I’ve had these quiet days now to think over the situation; and I’ve come to be sure DeNiles will want to see me in action here, to see the kind of response I’ll get. To say nothing of the interworld diplomatic consequences of deporting us all without waiting for me to furnish the Development Board with an excuse for doing that.”
The chime of an incoming call sounded.
“Bleys Ahrens?” said an unfamiliar voice from the wall and ceiling of the room. “This is the front desk. There’s a message for you here, sealed and carried by courier. Should he bring it up?”
“Yes,” said Bleys. “Tell him to ring at the door to the main room of my suite. Someone will bring hi
m to me.”
The messenger came, another army officer; this time a young one, with a tanned face and his hat tucked under one arm, showing close-cropped, sunny-colored hair. In his other hand he carefully carried a sealed envelope.
“You’ve something to deliver to me?” Bleys suggested.
“Yes”—the officer hesitated—“Great Teacher. I have an official communication for you from the Planetary Development Board.”
He held out the envelope. Bleys took it and opened it. There was a single sheet inside that was obviously a paper substitute, but gave the interesting three-dimensional visual impression of black letters cut into a table of white stone. Bleys read it aloud.
” ‘Bleys Ahrens, the Planetary Development Board of Cassida welcomes you to our World, and would like to express its pleasure at having such a distinguished philosopher in our midst. We, with the other citizens of our World, look forward to hearing what you may have to tell us. If the Board can be of any assistance to you at any time, please contact us.
” ‘Signed as of this date by the Secretary of the Board.’ “
Below the last line was the printed name Pieter DeNiles, and just above it a signature, barely decipherable in the scrawl in which it had been written.
“My thanks to the Board,” Bleys said to the officer. “Anything else?”
“No, sir—I mean, no, Great Teacher,” said the officer. “With your permission, I’ll leave now.”
“I’ll send a note of appreciation to the Board,” Bleys said.
“Yes sir.” The lieutenant started to salute, nodded his head instead, turned around and headed toward the door.
“What now, then?” Henry asked, as the door slid shut again.
“We simply keep on as planned,” said Bleys. “First, my talk, wherever you’ve set it up, tomorrow. I’ve decided, after my conversation with DeNiles, to change what I was going to say here. Now I’ll speak more specifically to these Cassidans. That should interest DeNiles, in particular.”
“Why do that?” Toni’s gaze on him sharpened. “Are you hoping to make some use of DeNiles, now?”