ANTAGONlST

and DAVID W. WIXON

TOR®

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are cither fictitious or are used fictitiously.

ANTAGONIST

Copyright © 2007 by Gordon R. Dickson and David W. Wixon

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

This book is printed on acid-free paper. A Tor Book

Published by Tom Dohcrty Associates, LLC 175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Dohcrty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dickson, Gordon R.

Antagonist / Gordon R. Dickson and David \V. Wixon.—1st cd. p. cm.

"A Tom Doherry Associates book." ISBN-13: 978-0-312-85388-4 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-312-85388-2 (alk. paper) I. Wixon, David W. II. Title.

PS3554.I328A8 2007

81.V.54—dc22 2006050929

First Edition: March 2007

Printed in the United States of America

0987 6 54 3 21

FOR MIKE AMUNDSON, WITCH DOCTOR:

There for Gordys computers, Here for mine. Thanks, Mike!

CHAPTER 1

From where he knelt on the dirt floor, Bleys could see the soldier's body up against the far wall of the roughly dug, timber-framed bunker. Its uniformed back was to Bleys, but he felt that the body was that of a tall, thin young man—and he found himself thinking about a raccoon that, as a boy on a brief visit with his mother to Old Earth, he had seen lying dead along a rural road in a part of the mother planet where wheeled vehicles could still be found. This body before him had that same curled-inward shape that spoke of a being that, able to accomplish some slight movement before death came, huddled into itself to seek what comfort it could find in the face of its fear and pain....

Abruptly, Bleys was torn out of his near-trance as something pulled at his right hand, and he realized he had been holding someone else's hand—a hand that had just jerked slightly in his.

I must have had another blackout.

He still got them periodically, as his medician, Kaj Menowsky, had warned him would happen. They were one of the by-products of the damage caused by the genetic invader the rulers of Newton had injected into him, in their attempt to get him under their control, back when they still opposed him, a few months ago. The blackouts were becoming less frequent since his body began to recover from both the invader itself and the medician's countermeasures that had killed it; but he had apparently just gone through one.

This experience was alarmingly different, however; he usually came out of his blackouts in his sleep.

The medician had warned him that stress would make a blackout, or any of his other symptoms, more likely; but Kaj had also said that every human body was slightly different, and reacted to a given

stimulus in a slightly different way than any other human body. So perhaps it was also true that the same human body would react differently to different levels of stress.

Bleys could immediately pinpoint one apparent difference between this blackout and his previous blackouts: he seemed to be experiencing some form of amnesia ... at least, he thought so, since he had the feeling that he was missing a period of time longer than his normal blackouts. In fact, he could not seem to pin down exactly when this particular sequence had started. Always before there had been a clear point prior to which he could, later, remember everything—and after which he could never remember anything, up until his awakening.

Looking about guardedly, to try to learn what had been happening, he saw that the bunker was occupied by a small group of soldiers—and it came back to him that he was on Ceta, that large planet where he had been on a tour of areas where units of Friendly troops were leased out to one or another of the many Cetan states. As First Elder of the government of the two Friendly planets, Harmony and Association, Bleys could find good cover for his visit to this planet, in a junket to visit those troops—a visit the most cynical of observers would believe sufficiently explained by the political need of a Friendly politician to assure the fervently religious folks back home that their leaders cared about their sons in uniform.

The visit might have been less congenially received had his hosts realized that Bleys' interests extended far beyond the Friendly worlds, all the way to their own governments.

The soldiers in this bunker, he saw, were not wearing the black uniforms of the Friendly troops; so he guessed they must be native Cetans. Several were lying about wounded, in addition to the one whose hand he was holding. Toni was nearby tending to one of them. But all of the unhurt soldiers—seven, he counted—were in two groups on either side of the bunker's only entrance.

From where he knelt he could not actually see that entrance, since it had apparently been built on the other side of a barrier wall intended to prevent direct access into the bunker from outside; anyone trying to attack into the room would be slowed by the need to turn either left or right as soon as they came through the doorway.

The soldiers were up against the sandbag-reinforced bunker wall in which the actual entrance was cut, and thus a little farther from him than was the barrier wall.

Those soldiers were silent, but they appeared tense as they crouched low against the wall beside the entrance, their eyes flickering between the interior of the bunker, their comrades and the entrance—but always returning to a leathery-looking, brown-skinned man, perhaps in his mid-thirties, whose short, roughly cropped dark hair protruded a little from beneath his fiberglass helmet. The man wore the insignia of some kind of non-commissioned officer—a sergeant of some grade unknown to Bleys—and he was noticeably less nervous than his men. At least, he showed it less.

Looking again at the man whose hand he was holding, Bleys saw that he was somewhat better dressed than the other soldiers, and that his collar bore the tabs of a junior officer. Also, Bleys saw, he was now dead. The blood-soaked bandages across his chest and stomach showed that his wounds had been severe—Bleys' eye caught movement, and he shifted his focus to catch Toni looking up and across at him.

"He's dead," Bleys reported. "Just now."

He saw the noncom look across at him bleakly.

"There was no way to stop it," Toni said. "Not with those wounds." She paused, and her tone changed.

"How are you doing?" she asked; and he felt the hidden meaning in her words. Antonia Lu was one of the few who knew of the attack on his DNA, and of the occasional relapses he experienced as his body slowly recovered; and although he seemed, when in a blackout state, generally not to show many signs of that state to others, he was not at all surprised to guess she was sufficiently attuned to him, after all these years together, to know when he might be in such a condition.

"I'm all right," he said. "Do you need any help?"

"No," she replied. "There's nothing more we can do until we can call for help." She paused a brief moment, before continuing, almost cheerily.

"Of course, we're cut off, and surrounded, and our communications are totally jammed. I'm pretty sure this isn't the local war heating back up. I think it's an assassination attempt aimed at you." Her blue eyes were looking into his calmly.

The noncom looked at her curiously, as if wondering why she was rehearsing what they all already knew. But Bleys knew she was using the apparent babble as a way to fill him in on events he might have lost while in his blackout.

She never lost her nerve, he thought.

CHAPTER 2

Dahno Ahrens, Bleys' older half-brother and the nominal head of the Others, the organization of crossbreeds from the major Splinter Cultures that the two of them had led into positions of leadership on five of the Younger Worlds, had objected more than a little when Bleys decided to travel to Ceta—a world not yet under the control of their organization—and check, on the situation there. Bleys, Dahno objected strongly, had had them traveling almost nonstop for months now, orchestrating the political alliances that had opened the doors to their control of the latest three of those five and cemented their position on the two Friendly worlds. Moreover, Dahno pointed out, Bleys was still recovering from the effects of the Newtonian Council's attack on his DNA, and was only recently recovered from wounds received during their escape from that planet.

"Why?" Dahno asked again. "Why do you need to do this now? I'll admit you've taken us farther and faster than I ever had dreams of, but don't we have our hands full with consolidating our control of Newton, Cassida and New Earth? And for that matter, there's always work to be done here on Association, and on Harmony as well. You've got this Hal Mayne fellow on the brain!"

Dahno was being as open about his feelings as was possible to him, Bleys thought, which could be a bad sign. Bleys was glad Toni had left before Dahno arrived, because his brother was usually a good deal more circumspect when Toni—or, for that matter, anyone else—was around, and Bleys preferred it when his brother was more open. Still, Bleys wondered if Toni might be listening, somehow . . . he would have been.

"Perhaps," Bleys replied to his older, larger sibling. "But he's a dangerous man, I've told you that before."

"Yes, you have," Dahno said, "but how much of a danger could he really be? He's only one man, and a young one—he's not even in his mid-twenties yet!"

"True," said Bleys. "But you were around that age when you started to take over the Others social group here on Association, and change it into a tool you could use for your own purposes."

Dahno had raised his left arm from the elbow in a short, dismissive wave. "You know perfectly well, brother, that I was a special case—as, for that matter, are you."

"True enough," said Bleys, "but I think he's what you call a 'special case,' too."

Dahno took a moment before answering, more quietly.

"I'll admit it was quite an accomplishment for a sixteen-year-old to elude us after our people took over his estate on Old Earth and killed his tutors," he said. "And he's managed to dodge your efforts to find him ever since. But he's been in hiding and on the run for most of the six years since, and he's still a lone wolf at best."

"I don't think so," Bleys answered. "It was no small feat for him to escape from that prison cell on Harmony after Barbage caught him, and get to the Exotic embassy—he was apparently ill at the time, too. But it ought to be a matter of major concern for us that the Exotics not only took him in, but then smuggled him off the planet before we could take any action—"

"Before your creature Barbage could take any action, you mean," Dahno interjected.

"Yes, again," Bleys said. "Come on, sit down."

He moved across the room, in this lounge that doubled as his unofficial office, to the two oversize chairs reserved specifically for their large bodies, and sat in the dark gray one. His brother took the other, blue chair and leaned back, crossing one leg over the other.

"I know," Dahno said, before Bleys could speak again. "Barbage had no power to stop the Exotics even if he'd known where Mayne was."

"Don't forget," Bleys said, "we were away at the time, wrapping up New Earth." Dahno nodded.

"That's so," he said. "Barbage's fanatic nature rubs on me even more than most of the Fanatics I've met." It was half of an apology, Bleys realized, and the most he would ever get. But Dahno was continuing.

"I suppose it's useful to have an able and ruthless resource like that Militia captain on tap. But you have to realize that the fanaticism must eventually detract from the usefulness. Fanatics never work for you, you know; they're always working for themselves. The best you can hope for is that their goals will match yours—and in the end, there'll always be a point where their interests diverge from yours."

"Fanatics don't seem to be any more susceptible to our abilities to persuade people than are their direct opposites, the True Faith-Holders," Bleys said, thoughtfully. He had spent a lot of time pondering why that should be so, since those days when he had realized his own power to make people want to follow his lead. The ability to resist the powers of persuasion he, along with many of his fellow Others, possessed, was a trait those two sorts of ultra-religious Friendlies apparently shared with both the Exotics and the Dorsai, and he was at a loss to explain what those groups had in common.

Hal Mayne had not fallen under his spell, either, on that single occasion when they had met, in Hal's cell on Harmony. Mayne was an Earthman, rather than a member of one of those apparently immune groups ... and in that moment, Bleys had the feeling he was on the verge of something important.

But Dahno was not the person to explore the matter with, he knew.

"We always use what we have to hand, as you know very well," he said now, putting speculation aside for more pressing matters.

Not to be diverted, Dahno backtracked to his main point. "Over the years, you've spent a lot of time and resources trying to track Mayne down; and now you're running a little economic extortion on the Exotics, to try to force them to give him up—they won't, you know—but you've never convinced me it was all justified."

"I know they won't," Bleys said, referring to the Exotics, still safe on their two worlds under the star Procyon. "I'm just hoping to slow the progress of whatever connection Hal Mayne and the Exotics are building."

"Is there some justification?"

"Maybe it could be called a hunch," Bleys said. "But I've been feeling a sense of—call it caution—ever since I learned about his history, even before we got to his estate. I knew from the start there was something unusual about him, even beyond the way he was found as a two-year-old alone on an interstellar ship floating in space near Old Earth."

"However strange his history," Dahno said, "what about that past indicates any danger to us?"

"I can't answer that," Bleys said. "I just feel it, if you want me to admit that. It's a mystery no one has explained, topped by the enigma of the substantial abilities he's shown just by getting away from us—and all that now in an alliance with the Exotics."

"Mysteries from twenty years ago cut no ice with me," Dahno said. "I said it earlier—we've got our hands full. Your ability to deduce what really motivates people, and then to convince them that going along with you will give them whatever that is, has made your plans work out for us—better than I ever expected; and our people are showing more ability to do that same kind of convincing than I ever realized they had, in their work on the planets I—we—sent them to. But the number of our people is tiny compared with the populations of those worlds, and all of us are up to our ears in work to do, just to consolidate our control and keep things moving."

"That's exactly why I need to go to Ceta again," Bleys said.

"Because of Hal Mayne and the Exotics?" Dahno chuckled, but there was no humor in his eyes.

"Yes," Bleys said, ignoring the skepticism. Dahno seemed to be baiting him, but he never played his brother's games. "I learned something from Hal Mayne's escape."

"So the Exotics have been helping him," Dahno said. "So what? They've never even tried to bother us before."

"Well, that's true," Bleys said. "But haven't you ever wondered why? I mean, why they never tried to stop us, in those years when we were just getting set up on the other Younger Worlds? Even though we were barely beginning to gain positions of influence on those planets, starting as lobbyists and information brokers, you know as well as I do that the Exotics, with all those tools of their social sciences, had to have recognized us as a new power that could only be a danger to their own position."

"Why should they—try to stop us, I mean?" Dahno answered. "What's it to them, anyway? They could never've guessed we'd manage to take over those worlds, until we'd gone too far to be stopped." He laughed. "At that point, even we weren't thinking about really taking over any of the Younger Worlds!"

"That's not what you were telling the classes of Others you ran through your training program and sent out to the Worlds to work for you," Bleys said. Dahno gestured, as if waving his brother's words away from his face.

"You know perfectly well I only told them that to motivate them," he said. "Greed and ambition make people work harder. I never really intended any such thing, and I figured they'd forget about it, over time ... until you came along, with your talk about making it happen."

"There's not much in your secret files about it," Bleys said, ignoring Dahno's last jab, "but I know that when you started sending your newly trained Others to begin infiltrating the various worlds, you never sent any to Mara and Kultis, the Exotic planets—and not to the Dorsai, either. I think you knew from the start that our abilities to influence and convince people wouldn't work on those worlds."

"That's so," Dahno said. "The Dorsai doesn't even have much of a government, and not much by way of a corporate environment, either—so there was just no place for one of our people to get into Dorsai society, even leaving out their notorious clannishness." He paused; and then uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, putting the points of his elbows on his massive thighs.

"You and I both know," he went on—his voice was lower and quieter now, his eyes earnest, as his hands moved as if to cup the open air between their two faces—"if only out of our mother's Exotic background, that the Exotics tend to have personalities that are largely immune to our abilities. I certainly wouldn't try to crack a way into either of those societies, and I wouldn't waste my trainees trying it, either. It's a culture-based characteristic that makes them immune to our persuasive talents, I think."

The mention of their mother, Bleys thought, was intended to emphasize the seriousness of Dahno's words; the subject had always been a flash point for Dahno's temper, and for him to voluntarily bring her up was either a sign of great concern or a calculated arguing tactic.

"I'm sure you're right about that," Bleys said, controlling an impulse to lean back in his chair, away from his brother, and cross his own legs. "But as I said, why didn't the Exotics ever try to stop our efforts to take control of other worlds? They have a centuries-old position as the major mercantile power among the Younger Worlds, second only to Old Earth itself—and for all their image as philosophers, they didn't get there by philosophy alone. They've always shown themselves to be pragmatic enough to quash potential threats to their position—they were a frequent employer of the Dorsai, remember."

"What could they do?" Dahno said, leaning back again. "Ours was an attack they couldn't use military force against. And anyway, we weren't acting directly against them, and in fact we were going about it very quietly."

"I'll tell you why they didn't act," Bleys went on, once more ignoring his brother's last words. "It's because they couldn't do anything!"

"Isn't that what I said?"

"It's not what you think," Bleys answered. "They couldn't respond because they were under attack themselves." "Attack? By who?"

"That's just it, I don't know," Bleys said. "The attack, as I called it, hasn't been so major as to make the Exotics totally helpless. I think it's been strong enough, and going on long enough, to at least distract them, or confuse them—but let me tell my story in a proper order." This time he did lean farther back in his chair, but it was for the purpose of looking up at the great interstellar map mounted on the wall above them, on which he had tried to chart Hal Mayne's movements.

"When I got the news that Hal Mayne had been taken in by the Exotics," Bleys began, "and then taken to Mara, it suggested to me that maybe the Exotics were going to try to get involved in his campaign against us—"

"'His campaign against us'?" Dahno echoed. "What campaign is that? I haven't seen him doing much more than just trying to get away from you."

"He's campaigning," Bleys said. "Trust me on that."

Dahno put on his most skeptical expression and re-crossed his legs. Bleys continued.

"You yourself said it," he went on. "We've got our hands full with those Younger Worlds we've gained controlling positions in. That means we're walking a knife edge in trying to balance the disparate groups we've manipulated, who are still at odds with each other. It's a system of control that might be tipped over with a nudge or two in the right places."

"All the more reason to stay at home and consolidate our positions as fast as possible," Dahno said.

"But don't you see," Bleys said, "that if the reason the Exotics haven't taken a hand against us before is because they're too weak and distracted to do much—and I'll concede that there're more reasons than one for that weakness, and some of it is based in the inevitable changes that come to any civilization in the course of its historic development, but if one of the reasons for that weakness is because they've been under a covert economic attack for more than thirty years—don't you think we should know who's been attacking them?"

Dahno's face had sobered, but he said nothing.

"I didn't realize it, either," Bleys nodded. "It's been a very quiet operation, and it's stayed that way for decades, at least. That alone suggests a group so disciplined it can keep its very existence secret for a long time—"

"How could that be possible?" Dahno interrupted. "We've had the best intelligence-collecting organization on the Younger Worlds for the last ten years—well, maybe except for the Exotics themselves— and we've never even picked up a sniff of anyone out there!"

"That's right," Bleys said, pointing an index finger at his brother for emphasis. "But the author behind that fictional Old Earth detective Sherlock Holmes once put his finger on it, when he spoke of how strange it was that a dog didn't bark...." As Dahno rolled his eyes, Bleys nodded and raised his hands, palm out, to forestall the acid comment he saw coming. Mercifully, Dahno kept his silence, although there was something very near a sneer on his face.

"More technically put," Bleys went on, "the absence of something that ought to be there is itself a piece of data.... At any rate, once I realized that the Exotics might be taking an active role against us, I started to research what the combination of Hal Mayne and the Exotics could do to our plans—which meant I had to understand the bases of the Exotics' power. And that's how I learned more than I expected about what's been happening behind the scenes."

He paused for a brief moment to marshal his presentation.

"I mentioned the historical forces, a moment ago," he went on. "And as I said, some of the weakening of the Exotics' position is traceable to those very normal historical forces—the same ones I've told you about in the past. But I've also told you before that I believe our civilization—the whole human race—made a big mistake by going out into space too fast; and that I believe that mistake has accelerated the normal decline that comes to all civilizations over time."

He could see Dahno's face beginning to take on the bored expression it generally wore when Bleys was giving one of the speeches he had become famous for, around the Younger Worlds, and which had earned him the honorary title of Great Teacher.

"Look at it this way," Bleys said. "We Others in particular have been helped tremendously by that decay I'm speaking about."

That got his brother's interest back.

"Decaying societies are more corrupt than their earlier forms," Bleys went on. "And corruption in the leadership, in particular—in whatever form it may take—exacerbates frictions within the society. And that, in the case of every planet we've taken over, gave us entry and provided a way for us to leverage our relatively weak position into one of control."

"Does that go for the Exotics, too?" Dahno asked. "I mean, are they decaying, too?"

'in several ways, yes," Bleys said. "But their decline is not of a form that gives us any power over them. However, it has weakened their ability to oppose us—perhaps even their will—which is to our advantage. Decay at the tops of societies usually means that the richest elements of the society have found a way to take, and keep, control— which in turn means that their planets spend more on keeping the rulers secure, as well as on importing luxury goods, and less on what's needed by the masses. The less well-off get less chance to rise in the society, a comparatively lower standard of living, fewer social services ... and the gap between rich and poor increases—that's where we got a hook into New Earth, remember."

"But that hasn't happened to the Exotics," Dahno said.

"That's right," Bleys said. "And maybe that's because of those culture-based characteristics you mentioned a few minutes ago. At any rate, the consensual bases of their culture—the things they all live by, deep down inside, whether you mean beliefs or feelings or even instincts—seem to be very different from those of peoples on the other planets. For instance, they've been rich for centuries; but that doesn't seem to have induced any desire for more money or things."

"And yet you say they've decayed, too?" Dahno asked. "In what fashion? And if they haven't spent their money on luxuries, where has it gone?"

"To answer the last question first," Bleys said, "they've remained consistent to their purpose of advancing what they regard as the evolution of the human race. Remember, as just one example, that the Exotics provided the funds for the construction of the Final Encyclopedia, possibly the single most expensive project in the history of the race ... it was almost an act of faith for them, made out of a belief that somehow the Encyclopedia would be important to human evolution."

"But once set up and running in its orbit around Old Earth," Dahno said, "I know the Encyclopedia makes enough money on its own, out of its research facilities and so on, that it supports itself. . . but we've gone off the subject: you suggested that the Exotics, too, have been decaying. What form does that take, that we can't make use of it?"

"You know," Bleys said, "if you stop to think about it." He looked squarely into his brother's eyes, knowing he was risking an explosion.

CHAPTER 3

"Our mother," Dahno said after a moment. He was calmer than Bleys was used to seeing him, on those rare occasions when the subject of their Exotic parent came up.

"Yes," Bleys nodded. "A highly intelligent woman from a rich society designed to help people rise to the limits of their talents—and yet somehow she came to feel she wasn't getting the recognition and status she deserved."

"All societies produce people who just don't seem to fit in," Dahno said. "But that's probably been true all through history. So how do you come to see that as a sign of the Exotics' societal decay?"

"I don't know of any way to prove it," Bleys said, "but I suspect that the proportion of people in similar situations has been increasing over the last century."

"That I can believe," said Dahno, "if only because the very existence of crossbreeds like us can probably be largely traced to that fact."

"If you mean that the dissatisfied tend to leave their worlds and move elsewhere, yes," Bleys said. "But don't make the mistake of thinking that our abilities arise out of a simple mixing of bloodlines from different worlds—we're the result of the mixing of cultures, not genes."

"I'm not entirely convinced of that," Dahno said. "You and I are something special physically, too."

"We may be," Bleys said. "But size doesn't mean all that much; remember that there are people on other worlds who can match us physically—some of the more legendary Dorsai, for example. But it's our power to persuade people to follow us that sets us apart, and that isn't based in any physiological part of us, as far as I can see.

Remember, many of our Others have been showing great persuasive powers, too, even though none of them match us physically." Dahno, clearly reluctant, only nodded.

"Your point was well taken," Bleys went on. "Our very existence, and that of the Others we've been recruiting, is a strong indicator that such decay must have been going on."

"Well, it's a strong indicator that people have been moving about between the Younger Worlds," Dahno said. "I'll give you that. But there might be plenty of reasons for that, and some of them directly opposite to the idea of decay."

"That's certainly true," Bleys said. "But we were talking specifically about the Exotics, and what form the decay of their society might take; and I repeat that our mother's life might illustrate that decay."

"She was probably the single most self-centered person either of us has ever known," Dahno mused. "It must have frustrated the Exotics to have that result from one of their most celebrated and nurtured bloodlines—but are you saying that selfishness is the form decay has taken among the Exotics?"

"She may well be an extreme example," Bleys said, making a note in his head to follow up on that remark about their mother's genetic heritage. No one had ever mentioned anything about that before, and he had never thought to look into it; Dahno's tendency to react strongly when their mother came up in conversation had generally led Bleys to avoid the subject. But Dahno seemed to be handling it well, for the moment.

"After all," Bleys went on, "most of the Exotics haven't rejected their entire culture to go chase dreams of personal status among the wealthy of other planets. But it only takes a little extra concern for oneself to weaken a society's faith in what was once its ultimate goal—when that small amount of self-concern is exhibited by each one of millions of people."

"How can you possibly prove something like that?" Dahno said. "You can't compare how the individual Exotic of today measures up to those of, say, two centuries ago. Even if you had Exotics of each time side by side, you couldn't measure something like selfishness."

"You're absolutely right," Bleys said. "And I never claimed to be able to prove that the Exotics, taken as individuals, are decayed versions of their ancestors. But what I do claim to be able to prove is that the Exotic culture is no longer as strong and vibrant as it once was. The simple drop in their wealth as a society is an indirect proof of that. The rest is extrapolation—theory, if you want—that I use to try to explain what I've found.

"All I'm telling you is this: whatever flame once burned inside the average Exotic, that caused them to work together for a common goal—that flame is weakened today." He raised a hand to forestall the interruption he saw coming from his brother.

"It's not out. It's still there—strong yet, probably, in some. But it's weaker."

"Even if you're right, we can't make use of anything like that," Dahno said. "We work by offering people something they want and convincing them, in a way that bypasses their usual rational abilities, that they can get it by working with us—which in turn works because of our ability to override their normal skepticism for at least long enough for them to fall into line—and then inertia, in the form of the normal human inclination to avoid painful self-examination, tends to keep them in line. And the Exotics, taught from birth to question everything, are just too skeptical to fall for our usual line."

"That's one way to put it," Bleys said.

"Well, as you say," Dahno said, "we may not be able to bring the Exotics under our control, but it must be to our advantage to have them become less rich, and so less powerful. But how did that come about?"

"Except for the occasional expensive bit of advanced medical equipment and that kind of thing," Bleys said, "the Exotics have never been about manufacturing goods that other planets need to import. It's always been knowledge that they exported—the experts they sent out to the other worlds. The expense of interstellar freight has always meant that the biggest credit producer for any planet is the people it can send out to do things for other planets, things those planets couldn't manage to do for themselves. And the various Younger Worlds have, more and more, been producing their own experts, shrinking the market for the Exotic experts."

"I understand that," Dahno said. "I know that the Friendlies, for instance, who used to discourage their people from going off-planet, changed that policy some time ago. And that was only because of their desperate need for the hard currency of interstellar credits."

"Exactly," said Bleys. "If you think about it, that by itself is an example of the kind of decay that's infected all the societies on all the planets. And it's only one illustration of my reasons for believing the race will die out unless it's made to grow up." He looked at his brother keenly, wondering if he might get through to him this time.

"In the case of the Friendlies," he went on, "the change you mentioned was just one of many small ways they relaxed an old principle because of the pain of living up to it."

"Or they finally started to become a little more human," Dahno said, almost to himself.

"It was just that kind of decay," Bleys said, ignoring that remark, "that allowed you, followed by myself, to rise into a position of power here among the Friendlies. In past centuries we'd have been denounced as godless, and made virtual outcasts." He shrugged. "Some think that way about us even today, and many of them are willing to say so, and oppose us. But enough of the population finds reasons to go along with us that we're not only safe, but in control."

"There are places on these worlds where I wouldn't go without a well-armed escort," Dahno said, scowling.

"Yes," Bleys said. "That's true. But because Friendly society is divided, those parts cancel each other out, and we can keep control even though there are still many, possibly close to a majority, who would have rejected all those little things—and us—if they had realized what was going on. In their weakness they listen when we tell them, couched in the comforting words of their faiths, what they want to hear; and never notice, until it's far too late, that we've done something else entirely."

"We're off the subject again," Dahno said.

"Only a little," Bleys said, "but I'm getting there. You see, I expected, when I started researching the Exotics' power base, that I'd find just what I said: that the Exotics had suffered—undergone—a number of changes of the sort that could be expected to arise simply out of the workings of normal historical forces over a couple of centuries. I found, instead, evidence that the Exotics—and the Dorsai, too—have been under covert economic attack for decades; an attack apparently aimed at cutting them off from access to interstellar credits."

Overriding the start of a comment from his brother, Bleys pressed on: "The first thing I looked for was a way to estimate Exotic wealth; and I found that in whatever terms you might want to measure it, it's been decreasing steadily for some time. That led me to a long-term pattern of Exotic-owned shipping being outbid for freight contracts and passenger carriage. I started to analyze traffic patterns, and found that shipping outbound from every one of the Younger Worlds for the Dorsai and the Exotics has been decreasing steadily over several decades at least—"

"Where do you find that kind of information?" Dahno exclaimed.

"The government, of course," Bleys said. "I'm First Elder, remember? Those gray bureaucrats over at the Commerce Cabinet were happy to winnow through several decades' worth of the raw data that all governments accumulate—and then largely bury."

"Why would the Friendly government have raw data on Exotic shipping?" Dahno asked, a puzzled look on his face.

"You, more than anyone, know the value of accumulating raw intelligence," Bleys said. "Governments always accumulate lots of raw data, simply because it's out there and some functionary can justify his position by grabbing it."

"But raw data is useless if no one is looking at it and thinking about it," Dahno nodded. "You're right. But—"

"Stop right there!" Bleys said. "Let me get back to the Exotics."

"You're right, you're right," Dahno said. "It's just that I've spent so much of my life trying to find information.... Anyway, back to the Exotics—didn't you also mention the Dorsai? Where do they come in?"

"Well, that's another thing I wasn't expecting," Bleys said. "The changes in traffic patterns involving the Exotics were virtually echoed by the changes involving the Dorsai."

Dahno leaned back in his large chair, looking vaguely in the direction of the ceiling while holding one hand up to stop Bleys from continuing.

"I think I can see a pattern of sorts," he said. "Both of those are societies that lived principally on exporting knowledge—in the case of the Dorsai, military expertise that made them better at soldiering than anyone else around." Now he looked back down at Bleys, challengingly. "So both societies would be hurt when the other planets just stopped needing their experts, right? For instance, when the other planets either began producing more of their own experts, or got caught up in fewer wars."

"That's just what I expected to find," Bleys said. "And I did find it. You're right as far as that goes."

"What did I miss?"

"The balance of trade reports every government produces for its own use," Bleys said. "Academics and economists have been watching and charting that kind of number for centuries, trying to see patterns. And usually they produce pretty accurate data on the trends in all the major economic categories—including expert leases."

"I was never able to keep up an interest in that kind of thing," Dahno said.

"Dry as dust, I know." Bleys nodded. "But it's like any mathematical formula—somewhere under the dryness is an underlying reality that might be important, even exciting.... At any rate, it's true the other planets have been steadily increasing the numbers of experts—in a wide variety of fields—they produce. But what's exciting is that the increase hasn't been enough to account for the size of the disparity."

"Is that disparity in expert leases enough to cause the decrease in Exotic wealth you found?" Dahno asked.

"No," Bleys said. "There's another, even more measurable, disparity to be found in the commerce records. Specifically, in the shipping records."

"You mean, cargoes?" Dahno asked. "You said yourself that the Exotics were never about exporting goods—"

"That's right," Bleys said. "But I don't mean the cargoes. I mean the ships."

"Oh, of course!" Dahno said. "It's been pretty much a stereotype that the Exotics' merchant fleet carries most of the cargoes between the worlds—but I haven't seen anything to suggest there's been a change in that perception."

"Yes," Bleys said. "In fact, Exotic ships have been carrying a progressively smaller portion of interstellar trade. And the fact you didn't realize it shows the genius of the attack. It's been going on for a long time, and yet no one has really noticed—well, I'm sure the Exotics have noticed, but they're not likely to advertise the fact someone is trying to take, and succeeding in taking, their leading position away from them. It's been a remarkable fall for two worlds that once were the richest, and thus the most powerful, of the societies on the Younger Worlds."

"So maybe they've lost some market share," Dahno said. "That kind of thing is to be expected. It's in the nature of history, you just said that; things like that change over time, as conditions change and motivations change."

"True enough," Bleys said, "but this goes beyond that. What I found convinces me of the existence of a quiet campaign over a long period of time that apparently sought to undercut the Exotics' wealth and position, by means that can only be described as a covert conspiracy."

"All right," Dahno said, "so someone has targeted the Exotics in order to get a share—even a big share—of their money. That's understandable; and since it seems to have been working, I'd say it was a pretty good tactic. But whoever those people are, if they're in it for the money and the power, they'll likely be susceptible to our ability to influence them, in the end."

"They may be vulnerable to us," Bleys said, "but I'm not sure money and power are the reasons they targeted the Exotics."

"Oh?" Dahno said. "Can you think of some other motive?"

"Yes," Bleys said. "Revenge, for one."

"Well. ..," Dahno started slowly before warming to his thought, "I suppose the Exotics might have made enemies with their trade practices over the centuries, but I can't imagine anyone creating a secret society of some sort to oppose them. Have you been reading more of those Old Earth novels again?"

"Not revenge against the Exotics, necessarily," Bleys went on, ignoring the gibe. "Revenge against the Dorsai, perhaps."

"The Dorsai?" Dahno said, after a moment of silence.

"Yes," Bleys said. "I think I mentioned that the traffic patterns indicating a downturn in the Exotics' fortunes were being echoed by the patterns involving the Dorsai. At first I thought the Dorsai were being crippled simply as a by-product of the attack on the Exotics—but then it occurred to me it might be deliberately intended, as a way to deprive the Exotics of a weapon." He paused, thinking.

"Even then, I was too focused on the Exotics," he went on after a moment. "But now I'm coming around to the notion that it's possible the Dorsai were the original intended targets of this action I've called a conspiracy."

"I don't understand—" Dahno started; but Bleys continued.

"It's the only way it makes sense," he said. "Someone started, decades ago at least, to try to cut the Dorsai off from any sources of interstellar credits. You know as well as I do that none of the Younger Worlds is totally self-sufficient. The standards of living on all of them are far lower than that on Old Earth; but they all, each and every one, need to import a lot of things just to survive; and to do that they need interstellar credits. And no one more so than the Dorsai, a planet so poor it's always had to export its people to be mercenary soldiers, just to earn enough to stay alive."

"And you're saying someone has been trying to starve the Dorsai by cutting them off from credits?" Dahno said.

Bleys nodded.

"Where do the Exotics come into this, then?" Dahno said. "Are there two such plots going on? That's a little much to swallow."

"No," Bleys said. "One plot. If you remember your history, it follows naturally. The Exotics have always been a major customer for the Dorsai's services as the leading military professionals on all the worlds. To weaken the Exotics is to weaken the Dorsai's single largest market—and their single friend among the other worlds."

"Is it that the Exotics are being crippled to prevent them from helping the Dorsai, or that the Dorsai are being crippled to prevent them from helping the Exotics if they come under attack?" Dahno said. "Couldn't it go either way?"

"That's true, it could," Bleys said. "The records I've found hint that the campaign against the Dorsai came first, but I'm far from certain about that.... In any event, it doesn't really matter, does it?"

"No," Dahno said, thoughtfully. "I suppose not." He raised an eyebrow as he looked closely at his brother. "So you have some reason for going to Ceta to try to unravel this?" he said.

"Yes, of course," Bleys said. "Ceta seems to be where these attacks originated."

"You can tell that somehow?"

"Yes. Remember, among the Younger Worlds, Ceta was always the Exotics' main competition in commerce, after Old Earth."

"So they had the greatest motive to try to undermine the Exotics," Dahno said. "Doesn't that come down to money and power, as I said earlier?"

"True," Bleys said, "but I think there's something extra involved." "Why do you think that?"

"Because there's been a strain of vindictiveness involved in all this," Bleys said. "Some of the things I've found in the records have no other good explanation."

"Such as?"

"Such as the Dorsai being charged more for some products than other worlds have been paying," Bleys said. "Such as collusion between companies—usually Cetan companies—competing against the Exotics, to undercut Exotic bids, even when it means the competitors must have been losing money."

"A certain amount of that could simply be good—well, maybe sharp—business practice," Dahno said.

"Now and again, yes," Bleys said. "But not when it's a pattern repeated frequently over decades."

"So you're going to Ceta to try to uncover this," Dahno said. "Then what?"

"Well, think about the other ramifications of this," Bleys answered. "If I'm right, why don't our Others, who've been working on Ceta for years, know about it?"

"I see," Dahno said, his eyes narrowing slightly. "If our people don't know about whoever's doing all this—then we're being played."

"Which means our own plans are being undermined," Bleys said. "Yes, I see that," Dahno said. He was suddenly tight-lipped, and Bleys knew his brother was concealing the effect of a severe blow.

Dahno had always been almost obsessive about maintaining his personal independence—it was a reaction to the way he had been treated by their mother, as a kind of personal accessory—and Bleys could think of little that would shock his brother more than to find out he had been manipulated.

CHAPTER 4

"Uncle Henry, are you busy?" "Nothing that can't keep, Bleys."

"I'd like to speak with you about preparations for another trip," Bleys said into his wristpad. "Off-planet, I mean; and soon. Continue with what you're doing, but I'd appreciate it if you'd come to see me when you're finished."

"God has willed that it would be appropriate to do so," Henry MacLean said. "Carl and I have been comparing opinions on the new Soldiers we've brought in since Newton, and I wanted to speak with you about that when we are finished." Henry's voice and words often became more formal when the God he believed in was mentioned, but he had never used the antique-sounding speech affected by many of those who thought themselves unusually devout.

"Good," said Bleys. "Come up when you're ready, then."

"I will."

When faced with a problem, Bleys often worked it out in his head while pacing relentlessly up and down the length of his private lounge, in the tall building that now housed the headquarters of the Others, in Ecumeny, the capital of Association. But not this time. This time, he felt scattered and unable to focus.

That, he thought, as he tried to impose his usual discipline on his mind, was because there wasn't really a problem to focus on. The task he faced was simple; unfortunately, it was going to be difficult.

His uncle Henry was going to be coming up to sec him soon. Henry MacLean was the organizer and leader of Bleys' Soldiers, the picked bodyguards Bleys had to surround himself with, these days.

Henry had to be told, right away, to make the preparations necessary for the trip to Ceta.

Faced with mentioning Ceta to his uncle, Bleys had found that, at some deep level, he was afraid. Because it was on Ceta that Henry's younger son, Will, had been killed, some years ago, while serving with a unit of Friendly Militia leased to a principality on that planet.

Bleys had never seen Henry display any deep emotional reaction with regard to Will's death. But Bleys knew, on a level so detached that it might have happened to someone else, that he himself had reacted strongly to the news. He could no longer recall—he avoided trying to recapture—the explosion of emotion he had felt at the time.

He was afraid to see what Henry's reaction might be.

He stopped short in his pacing, remembering, suddenly, that he had lied to Henry, the first time he saw his uncle after Will's death.

Bleys had been on Cassida, one stop on his first tour of the Others' organizations on the various Younger Worlds, when he received the news. He had finished his tour, including a stop on Ceta, before returning to Association—and almost his first stop upon arrival was a visit to Henry's farm, where Henry, almost casually, had asked Bleys whether his trip off-planet had taken him to Ceta.

Bleys had immediately told Henry he had not gone there.

Bleys could no longer recall, if he had ever known, why he had lied to his uncle. For the first time now it occurred to him he might have been trying to avoid reminding himself of the uncomfortable emotional reaction he had himself experienced.

At any rate, he had lied, and it was a good thing he had recalled that fact now, before dealing with Henry face-to-face. He would have to watch how he spoke in front of his uncle, from here on— either avoiding any reference to that previous trip, or giving a vague impression it had occurred at some other time.

For a moment he felt a touch of irritation, that he had let himself be so paralyzed; but the feeling was quickly forgotten as he turned to the screen that accessed his information stores. This trip was going to require a lot of preparation.

By the time Toni was due back from whatever errand she had been on, Bleys was deep in his study of the Cetan situation, taking his researches down byways he had not had time to pursue before. His staff had prepared digests of all the materials relating to Cetan society available in the Chamber Library, here in Ecumeny, as well as of information gleaned from a number of government departments. He reserved for himself, however, the task of integrating that material with the data sent back, over the last decade and more, by the Others who had been sent to work on Ceta .. . the staff here never saw that kind of report.

This was a time he could regret that the computers on each world were not fully connected to each other, as they had once been on Old Earth; it would have made his researches much easier. But humanity had taken to heart the lesson it learned when the Super-Complex, the great supercomputer, had rebelled and wreaked havoc on the mother planet: no one would ever again link computers in any quantity sufficient to risk that kind of incident.

Instead, Bleys had to send out for information, including dispatching messages to the Others' groups on all the Younger Worlds— except, specifically, for Ceta—instructing them to send him as much data on that planet as they could locate on their worlds, and to do so quickly, sending it in installments, if need be. The information was unlikely to arrive on Association in any quantity before he himself left for Ceta, though; and in any case it would be so voluminous as to require it be winnowed by his staff... he would have to be sure to leave instructions on that.

He realized he was becoming irritated again. He hated it when that happened; emotion hampered the mind's cool functioning.

After a few moments of self-examination, he concluded that the irritation, this time, arose out of his deeply buried discomfort at having to leave it to his staff to digest the information for him. He had tried to select for intelligent people, and had worked to train them; but it bothered him nonetheless ... it was just so likely they would miss something important that he would have found, if only . . .

Pulling himself out of that train of thought, he checked the time, wondering where Toni was. Explaining the need for this trip to her would be considerably easier that it had been with Dahno. He could depend on her for that, he knew; whatever the motivation might be behind Toni's voluntary attachment of herself to him, she brought to her position much more of a judicious wait-and-see attitude than did his half-brother.

"What are you planning?" Toni said, immediately after her arrival. "Am I that obvious now?"

"You know you aren't," she said, smiling at him, the blue of her eyes seeming to stand out in the room, as if strengthened by the turquoise scarf she wore at her neck. "But I have more experience with reading you than almost anyone."

"That's true," he said.

The only other people who had much experience with him at all were Dahno and Henry, he reminded himself. Were they able to get information just from watching his face?

Once Toni had been filled in on the need to go to Ceta, and while they were waiting for Henry to arrive, the two of them laid out a rough plan for the trip.

For public consumption, it would be portrayed as a semi-official trip by Bleys, as First Elder among the Friendlics, and his brother, Dahno, an elected member of the Chamber on Association, to visit the various units of Friendly Militia that had been leased out to several states scattered about Ceta. It was a good enough excuse for the trip, that on the two Friendly worlds of Harmony and Association, images of the brothers apparently lending support to the young soldiers would be politically useful; within a few days the population at home—and, indeed, people on other worlds—would be seeing images of Bleys the philosopher listening to the concerns of young enlisted troops as they shared a meal, or imparting quiet words that obviously inspired the young soldiers.

This kind of trip, Toni pointed out, would provide great fodder for political commentary by anyone who was opposed to Bleys personally, or to the Others—or even to the McKae administration. But Bleys dismissed that worry: with the Others' steadily increasing control of both the government and the media, on both Friendly

worlds as well as on several other planets, such jaundiced views could be effectively marginalized in a number of ways.

And even the more sophisticated among the viewing audience would find themselves somewhat disarmed when it became obvious that the elected politician on the trip, Dahno, although alongside his brother and lending support, was obviously not pushing himself in front of the lenses.

"Is Dahno in agreement with all this?" Toni asked. "He doesn't usually want to be in the public eye, and I'm pretty sure he's not really interested in being re-elected to the Chamber."

She had learned a lot about his brother, Bleys reflected.

"Not in detail," he responded now. "But he'll go along with this—I've already convinced him of the need for the trip, and he'll sec the usefulness of concealing the real purpose of our trip behind this facade."

"Layers within layers," she said. "That would appeal to Dahno, all right."

"You're right about another thing, too," Bleys said. "Dahno only took the Chamber seat when I vacated it because at the time we needed someone there who could control the place—and that's no longer a worry."

"Has this trip been cleared with McKae?"

That question was, in a way, a test for Bleys, himself. Darrcl McKac was the Eldest, the highest officer of the two Friendly planets, elected by the populace of both worlds—and the man who had appointed Bleys to his position. But Bleys had made it clear to McKae some time ago that he would not be bound to the dictates of his nominal superior. And McKac, who had achieved his own position only with Bleys' aid, lacked any real desire to fight him.

Toni had reacted with strong approval, Bleys remembered, the first time he had refused an order from McKae. She seemed somehow to see that as an indication of a kind of moral ascendancy on Bleys' part. Since that time, McKae had largely been acquiescent in whatever Bleys had planned.

Darrel McKae, Bleys reminded himself now, had not gotten to his position by being a weakling. And for all that he might have become overly fond, of late, of both wine and his office—and even been repelled, or frightened, by something he had been able to see in Bleys—the fact was that in large part he had not opposed Bleys because he was smart enough to know he had very little to gain by getting into a public spat with the First Elder he himself had appointed .. . but that implied truce would work only so long as nothing happened to upset the Eldest.

"Not yet," Bleys told Toni now. "But we'll clear it with his office anyway. He won't object. Could you have the Office of the First Elder draft an official communication to the Eldest's Office?"

"I will," she said. "And may I suggest we ask both Offices for suggestions for one or two diplomatic missions you could undertake while on Ceta? It would add weight to the official purpose of the trip—"

"You're right," he said, interrupting her. "Having a second level of reasons for doing something always tends to deflect observers."

"—and also provides justification if you find you have to move about Ceta, to places where there are no Friendly troops to visit; or if you're noticed to have been moving about in secret."

"Thank you," he said. "I hadn't thought of that."

"You're not yet used to thinking of yourself as a public officer," she said.

"I know," he said, a little ruefully. "To tell the truth, I'm uncomfortable with having the extra position. It's a drag on me, holding me down from being free to go when and where I want."

"It's one of the prices you have to pay to carry out your own mission," she said. He knew she was thinking of the plan he had made his life's task, which only she—and to a much more limited extent, Dahno—knew: to gather the worthwhile elements of the human race back together on Old Earth, shutting the Mother World away from space travel and forcing the race to give up its reckless adventuring until it grew up ... a plan he knew would result in the slow deaths of all of the Younger Worlds, and likely the faster deaths of a lot of their people.

The alternative was to let the undisciplined, immature people who made up the human race continue to be distracted from the need to grow up by shiny dreams of future adventures—to let them continue to feel no concern for the hurts they did to others, or for the dangers that surely lay out there among the stars.

After a brief pause, she continued in a much lighter tone: "You'd have thought of it yourself. You just haven't had time to get down to the details yet."

She smiled at him.

"Shall I begin?" She uncrossed her black-trousered legs in anticipation of his response.

"Yes," he said. "No, wait—we also need to arrange transportation. Can you find out the status of both Favored of God and Burning Bush”

"I can, of course," she said, looking slightly puzzled. "It's standing orders that one of them's always available to go on eight hours' notice—are you concerned it won't be ready? Or is it that you want a particular ship?"

"I want both ships," he said.

"Both?"

"Yes," he said. "I want to travel, officially and openly, in one of them. But I want whichever one is able to get off first to precede us under a false name and papers, to be in place already on the ground, and in no way associated with us, before we ourselves get to Ceta."

"Are you expecting that much trouble? You have diplomatic immunity now, you know."

"I had immunity when we went to Newton," he pointed out, "and it didn't stop the Council from attacking me. While I'm certainly a much more important figure now, politically, the fact is I simply don't know what to expect. I don't know who those people we'll be looking for are, or what their reactions might be when they notice us sniffing around on their trail. We only managed to get off Newton because the authorities there didn't know which ship we were trying to reach when we crossed the spaceport pad, remember."

"Perhaps some of the Soldiers should go on the ship that travels— well, incognito," she suggested. "They won't be part of our official party, which could make them more useful in some situations."

"True," he said. "We'll have to get Henry's input on which ones would be best suited for that kind of job—it'll demand initiative and experience ... in fact, I can think of several things they can be doing on the planet before we get there."

"That sounds as if you want to send some of the technical teams," she said. "Carl Carlson might be a good choice to lead that group." She was referring to Henry's second-in-command.

"No," Bleys said. "He's been with us too long."

At her questioning look, he explained: "We have to assume someone might know about the people who work most closely with us," he said. "Carl might be recognized."

"All right," she said. "I see that. But I was about to remind you that some of the Soldiers are originally from Ceta. They might be particularly useful on the first ship, since they'll blend better into the population."

"Unless they have some reason for not wanting to go back," he said. "We generally don't ask if our people have legal problems elsewhere, but those on the first ship won't be covered by my diplomatic immunity."

"Henry will be able to judge that." She nodded.

"Having Soldiers already in place undercover," Bleys went on, "will allow my 'official party,' as you put it, to be smaller. I know I need the bodyguards, but I worked hard to craft my image as a peace-loving philosopher who travels about the Younger Worlds giving common-sense talks, and I've been uncomfortable with the conflict between that image and my apparent need for guards."

"I don't think you really mean you, personally, are uncomfortable with that apparent contradiction," she said, after taking a moment to think. "I think you mean you don't like it because the need for bodyguards detracts from the message your image is crafted to present."

"Well, that's true, too," he replied. "But I did mean what I said, literally."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that appearing to be a philosopher is not exactly a lie," he said. "At least, whether I am one, or not—I'd like to be one."

"You are," she said. "You couldn't have seen the way to your mission if you weren't."

"I guess that's so," he said. "But there seems to be a little bit of the idealist left in me—enough to regret that I need bodyguards at all. It seems ... unphilosophical."

"Oh, there's a lot of the idealist left in you," she said—and for a brief moment a smile lit her face; but quickly vanished. "There's no reason for your mission that isn't based on ideals—and selfless ones, too.

He didn't want to go any further with the conversation, so he let the silence stretch on; until at last the subject could be considered dropped, and she left to begin her assignments.

When the spare, late-middle-aged figure of Henry MacLean stepped off the disk of the private elevator, Bleys was standing in front of the Mayne-map, waiting for him.

"Thank you for coming, Uncle," Bleys said. He felt ready to handle mentioning Ceta to Henry, now. He had lost his balance for a few moments, he told himself, but now he had recovered, just as he would after making a mistake during a martial-arts workout.

Henry wasted no time on preliminaries.

"How quickly do we leave for Ceta?" he said.

"I can't answer that so simply," Bleys said. He was determined not to let himself be thrown off balance again so quickly.

"You make it sound complicated," Henry said. "I need details on what will be required."

"Come and sit with me," Bleys said. "Toni and I have laid out a tentative plan, and I'd like to run through it with you, as well as discuss some special arrangements—we can work out what's needed together."

Henry nodded, and moved to a chair.

"How did you know this trip was to Ceta, Uncle?" Bleys asked, settling into the dark gray, oversize chair that was always his. "Dahno told me," Henry said.

Bleys nodded. It had to be so, of course. But Dahno had not known of Bleys' later decision to take two ships.

Bleys went on to explain to Henry that between having to get the second ship ready, and having to make diplomatic, political and administrative preparations, it would be five days or more before his own party could get off; but that he wanted whichever ship could take off first to take some of Henry's people. Going over the requirements took the rest of the afternoon. Neither of them brought up Will's name.

"For all that's happened," Toni said late that evening, after Favored of God had been sent off with its instructions, "it's only a few weeks since you told me you thought it would be best to leave Ceta to the last, because it would be, well, messy to try to take over that splintered world—do you remember?"

"Of course I do," Bleys said. "But I'm not really figuring on trying to take control of Ceta, just now. It's still uncontrollable. I'll be talking differently, when we're there, but don't let that distract you— we're going on what might be called an intelligence mission, and some of the talk will be a ruse aimed at smoking out whoever's hiding from us."

"I know that," she said. "And I applaud the flexibility it shows. But I wonder—I've been assuming that was only what might be called a 'tactical' shift, and that your long-range plan has not changed—"

"No," he said, interrupting her. "My goal hasn't changed." He paused, watching her face for reaction.

"I haven't changed," he said. "I never change."

"Your plan is so—" She groped for a word. "—so large! Isn't that daunting, even to someone with your abilities?"

"Is it daunting for you?" he asked. "To be in on this, I mean."

"No," she said. "I'm committed to you. You know that."

"I know," he said. "And you know you're the only one who really knows what I'm after, in the very long term. Even Dahno has no real idea of the full scope of my purpose."

"I don't know the details of your plan—"

"Most details have to await the moment," he said.

"I understand that. But what you told me when you were ill— what you spoke, perhaps for the first time out loud, tells me you expect to be strongly opposed."

He nodded.