Toni had made him articulate it: Bleys could never give up his mission, even if it cost him everything else he wanted out of life. He wondered if Hal Mayne felt the same way ... but how could he, when his side of the struggle was so clearly wrong?

No one else understood the race's peril as Bleys did. Not even Hal Mayne.

He reached for a piece of the fine paper kept in a small box on his desk. It was expensive paper, a linen blend that felt good under his fingers when he chose, as he did now, to write to himself. He could, and often did, use any available paper for such writings— when the urge was on him the writing was all that mattered. Still, there was a pleasure of creation that came with using an antique-style pen to put his words on the finest of papers ... it was a kind of art, he felt.

He had thought idly, now and then, of studying calligraphy; but he had never done so. Art was not the point of his writings.

I never really knew how lonely I was, until I started to imagine what Hal Mayne must feel, he wrote. He's been taken in by the Final Encyclopedia; I wonder if he's lonely there?

He paused, looking at the words. He had no real need to write such notes; and in a way it made little sense to do so; the words, although encoded as he wrote, were never seen by anyone else, but destroyed as soon as he had finished writing.

He smiled, almost shyly; and skipped down the page a little, to write again:

Do I use these notes as a substitute for having a friend?

He looked at the words for a moment, the smile fading; and then fed the sheet into the slot in his desk that, using a variation of the phase-field technology that was the basis of both interstellar travel and the panels that shielded the Final Encyclopedia, disintegrated the sheet totally, spreading its component subatomic parts evenly throughout the universe and placing it forever beyond recovery. He pulled out another sheet of paper, and wrote.

In my youthful, failed attempts to find God, I read all the holy books. In some there's a story that tells how Jesus, before his crucifixion, asked if the burden God had given him could be taken away. But it could not be. Not if Jesus was to do his job.

I have the burden of knowing the danger the human race is in, and of being the only one who can see that danger, and a way out of it. . . and because I'm the only one who can see it, I can't shift my burden to someone else.

If I truly believed in God, perhaps I could forget the danger, and just leave it to Him to take care of His children. But I was never able to develop the faith such an abdication would require. So I have no one to pass the cup to.

It's up to me. Even though / might not be up to it.

Me. Alone.

He sat back, looking down at the paper but not really seeing it.

He must lead, then, even from his position of weakness. He must lead, because no one else saw the danger.

He would have to do it through lies, because few would believe the truth. Dahno did not; and even Toni—the only other person to whom he had explained his vision—even she had only accepted what he said, as if tucking it away to think about later.

He was committed to a course of trying to break down what was needed, into a series of steps; and then to finding a way to make each step so attractive a lot of people would want to take it.

His future would be long and arduous, as he tried to lead his blind species along those steps.

Would he ever be in a position to explain the end?

Somehow, he would have to find that position; because he could not live long enough to carry the race through to its maturation.

One step at a time, he told himself.

He fed the second sheet into the disposal slot, and then keyed the internal comm circuit for Toni; and asked her to find Amyth Barbage, and have him come.

After he finished speaking, he looked again at the slot he had just trusted to destroy two sheets of paper. He said no word, made no motion that might betray the suspicion that had risen in him—but for a moment the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Have I been overlooking a danger?

He spent the rest of the day pacing, until Toni came to make him work out. By then, he was impatient for it.

Neither of them was yet back in optimum condition, but they had managed to get in a martial arts workout every day since their return from Ceta, and they were not as far off their marks as before.

On this occasion, though, Toni was startled when, in the midst of the dance-like movements of their exercise, Bleys surreptitiously began to communicate with her, using the touch-language her own family had developed over generations, which she had taught him.

"Why?" she communicated. Bleys understood she was asking why he was using this secret form of communication, here inside the secure bounds of Others' headquarters.

It was a disadvantage that their workouts, which were primarily based on judo and an extended form of aikido, included only brief moments of contact through which they could touch and communicate, as they maneuvered about each other, each attempting to reach the point of being able to use the other's ki against him or her, and thus throw the other.

Ki was what their workouts were really all about. Ki was the Japanese word that described the centering of the body's energy flows; and the point of aikido was to blend oneself with the opponent's ki, so as to be able to redirect it without having to oppose it—and to do so without losing one's own centeredness.

"Brother," he told her, his fingers answering her question in a series of taps, pressures and pulls delivered as he took a momentary grip on the lapel of her exercise jacket—her gi—before their movements took them apart again.

"Listening?'" she asked, when next they came together; and in the same moment he was signaling "Assume listening."

"Danger?"

"Always."—And they moved apart again, to keep up the integrity of the exercise.

Over the next hour, bit by bit, Bleys told her—using abbreviations and skipping a lot of the unimportant words, and trusting she would pick up meanings from bits and pieces—that he had always known that Dahno thought he, Bleys, might be insane. Dahno had gone along with Bleys' plan to alter the purpose of the organization Dahno had built, from simply seeking money and power, to seeking to control the human race, only because Bleys had shown his brother, in a time when Dahno's world was beginning to crumble around him, that he really had no choice.

"That explains a lot" Toni communicated, with the left hand that pulled his arm while her right arm swept him into an uncontrolled plunge across the room. . .. Bleys, in his effort to communicate, had lost his focus for a moment.

Back on his feet and gripping her sleeve, he told her he had nothing specific to go on, but he was sure Dahno was working on some plan of his own.

"Until he was wounded, he always felt invulnerable.. . but since we returned, he's been showing a pattern of alternating opposition and acquiescence. "

"How does that evince treachery?" she communicated.

"It's not that it proves he intends to betray me. It's that it proves he's not thinking like himself—like the Dahno who created and ran the organization so successfully. This is the pattern he was showing when he got into trouble and left Association, leaving me to deal with that trouble. .. he would oppose me, just out of his normal habit—but then, remembering he had a new plan, give in to me..." Bleys paused, using a hand signal to tell her that he needed to catch his breath—he really was out of shape.

"And if he isn't planning something," he continued when they resumed their exercises, "what I tell him tomorrow may make it so."

"Tomorrow?"

"Brother can be a great help to me," Bleys explained—referring to Dahno as brother was faster than going through the laborious spelling process. "Has been. But if he intends to oppose me, I have to stop him."

"How can you decide what to do if you don't know what he's planning?"

"I can't afford to waste much time and energy on what is, essentially, a sideshow. I'll have to simply try to disrupt whatever his plans are. And I may be able to do that while also getting some use out of his talents."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Tomorrow I'll propose calling a convocation of all our top 0titers, telling you to call them in, and to have them arrive here on Association in three weeks. Instead, you '11 tell certain ones to come secretly to my offices on Harmony, four days earlier than the three weeks."

"Which to Harmony?"

"Will signal names during tomorrow's exercise." "Tell me what you 're planning?" "Too long and complicated. You’ll hear most tomorrow." Soon after that they finished with their workout. On his way to the shower, Bleys turned back, as if a thought had just struck him. "Have you located Barbage yet?"

"The message went out," Toni said. "I haven't had a response yet."

"Send an amendment," Bleys said. "Tell him not to come to Association, but to wait for me to leave him a message at my offices on Harmony."

"You're going to Harmony?" she asked, giving no sign of their silent conversation ... he had been sure she would not fumble before any unseen listeners.

"I wasn't," he said. "I just decided on it while we were working out. Harmony is where Hal Mayne was, until the Exotics got him away; and I think there's some follow-up to be done there."

"It won't hurt to look in on McKae, cither," she said, continuing their charade. "I know you don't like the kinds of things First Elders have to do, but there's much to be gained from keeping your hand active in the government."

"I wish I could consider McKae reliable," Bleys said. "His personality seems to have been deteriorating, but I can't discount the chance he'll rebel sometime."

"You can afford a certain amount of protocol," she said. "It reassures him, and that helps you get our people into all levels of the government."

There was no charade in that statement.

"The latest reports are in from Ceta," Dahno said, stepping off the disk of the float elevator later that day. His broad face shone with cheerfulness and he was moving quickly, more energetic than at any time since his injury.

"I've had them scanned in so you can look them over on your screen," he added, waving a hand in the direction of Bleys' desk.

"I will," Bleys said, smiling back at his brother, "but why don't you summarize it for me, first?"

"The Families arc sending six of their young people here to us for training," Dahno said, grinning. "They're convinced of our abilities and they think they can learn them. It'll be a great opportunity for us to set up future control of the Families."

"It'll be interesting to meet them," Bleys said. "I've believed for some time that the reason the Families are ruled by their elderly members is because the younger generations don't care about what happened to Prince William. We'll make good use of them."

"Also," Dahno continued, "they've given Pallas Salvador the chair of the Malik Shipping Line, as well as directorships in three other major companies; and they've placed more of our Others into nine other directorships in five other major companies. Pallas Salvador says it's no gesture on their part: she's already moved Others into a number of key positions in several of those companies—enough that we're running short of people."

"I presume Pallas Salvador is carrying out our end of our bargain?"

"She says she's already given orders to divert three shipments of metals intended for the Dorsai—they'll be Most,' officially, and the shipping company's records will only show that the cargoes left Coby on Malik vessels and haven't been heard of since. Meanwhile, the Dorsai's escrow will be frozen until the matter is cleared up— which will drag out for a very long time.... The Families are very pleased; it's something they never thought of."

"How did she manage to set that up so quickly?" Toni asked.

"Pallas Salvador is neither innovative nor particularly persuasive," Bleys said, "but she can be an efficient administrator, once she's given the outline of a plan."

"She's going to have her hands full," Dahno said. "We'll probably need to put someone else in to run the organization there."

"No," Bleys said. "She's possessive. I don't think she'd react well to that. We'll give her several more deputies, but we have to make it clear to her she's still in charge."

"Overly possessive subordinates grow to be a problem," Dahno pointed out, oblivious of his own shortcomings.

"That's true," Bleys said, "but for the moment—and probably for a long time to come—we'll need her efficiency to cement the alliance—"

"By giving the Families everything they want, of course," Dahno interrupted. "For now."

"All right." Dahno nodded. "But those people are smart, and I don't want us overlooking something, and finding we've been gulled. Going along with them makes sense for now, if you think she can be depended on not to try to push too far—the Families'll be watching for tricks."

"Pallas Salvador has strict orders not to take any action that might spook them," Bleys said, "and I'll be watching her closely. For the moment, doing exactly what the Families want—weakening the Dorsai and the Exotics—is just what we want; so we lose nothing by seeming to cooperate, and in fact we gain from use of their power and connections."

"Can you keep close tabs on Pallas Salvador and still run the rest of the organization? Or do you want me to take an extra hand?"

"We'll all be taking those 'extra hands,'" Bleys said. "Our plan is growing faster than expected, and we'll all have to take on more work—become more efficient."

"The only reason I'm not fighting you over this alliance," Dahno said, "is because I don't see how its failure can hurt us. I don't trust the Families—I know you don't either—and they don't trust us. But if this deal falls apart all we lose is our organization on Ceta, and we can live with that." He had regained some of his apparent cheerfulness.

"Are you trying to warn me about something?"

"Maybe I am," Dahno said. "I've said it before: you've taken this organization very far, very quickly. But this unrestrained growth is dangerous! We're far short of the trained people we need just to keep control of what we've gained, and I just don't see any way the two of us—even with Toni's more-than-able assistance—can keep everything going... it's becoming a gigantic juggling act, and you and I can't be everywhere at once, making every decision and keeping an eye on every one of our people."

"You're absolutely right," Bleys said. "But there are a few things we can do to take some of the load off ourselves."

"I don't think I like the sound of that," Dahno said, his eyes narrowing. "Come out with it: what've you decided to do without telling me, this time?"

"It takes too much time to pump out well-trained Others from your training program," Bleys said. "You've produced able people who've served us well, but we're short on numbers."

"We can't change that!" Dahno protested. "We've expanded the program as far as it can go without being diluted by the lack of individualized attention."

"I'm not so sure about that," Bleys said. "But you're right about one thing: whether we can expand the program or not, it would take time to build the system, and we just don't have it."

"We can't speed up the process," Dahno said; "what's in the pipeline is what we'll have, for a while."

"That means we have to compensate for the lack of trained Others," Bleys said, "by making our trained people work harder, and moving the untrained recruits into more responsible positions."

"How can you get our people to work harder?"

"You should know, brother," Bleys said. "You're the one who taught them all to be ambitious."

"Ambition? You mean you have something more to appeal to them with?"

"Certainly: more power."

"What kind of power?"

"More control on their worlds," Bleys said. "More worlds to control. And more of a voice in running our organization."

"You can't be suggesting we give up our control!"

"I am," Bleys said. "Some of it, anyway."

As his brother remained silent, Bleys spoke again, more softly.

"War is coming," he said. "Under the surface, it's already here. It won't necessarily be a war of soldiers and ships; but it's going to be a war of ideas. It'll be a war between Hal Mayne and myself—and the peoples lined up with each of us—and it'll be a war for the minds of every other human being."

He paused, turning to look briefly at Toni, and then looked back at his brother.

"I know you don't believe it. But this war has already started, and I have to do everything I can. I have to rush my side into getting ready. Because Hal Mayne's already out there setting up, and he's going to be hard enough to beat without giving him a head start. He's going to be a very dangerous foe once he builds his side to its full strength."

Dahno was not through with his opposition to Bleys' ideas, but by the next morning he seemed to change his stance; and he agreed readily to Bleys' proposal for another convocation of the senior Others' leadership.

"Firdos, would you send me all the files on our own people?" Bleys said.

"Do you want just the files on the people who've passed through training here?" the staffer asked. "Or do you want the information on the other-planet recruits, too?"

"All of them, I think," Bleys said. "I know there'll be a lot of them, but I need to find particular sorts of people."

"We have more information on those who went through our training course here, of course," the staffer replied. "And that includes some psychological profiles—is that the kind of thing you're after?"

"It's not the only information I need," Bleys said, "but it'd be very useful."

"We won't have as much information on the people recruited by the off-planet organizations," Firdos pointed out. "But we could tell them to send more information, if you'd like."

"Yes, would you do that, please?"

CHAPTER 24

The holder of the position of First Elder of the Government of the United Sects of Harmony and Association, like his superior, the Eldest, had his own official offices and official residences—to be exact, one on each of the two planets.

In the political life of the Friendly worlds, more often than not there was no Eldest to rule both planets—that political phenomenon required that the same candidate receive a majority of the votes cast on each of the two planets. In those periods in which no candidate received such a double majority, the two planets were individually governed by the candidate who had received the plurality of the votes cast on that world, and matters affecting both planets were—in theory—handled by the two planetary governments working as a team.

Both planets had a capital city, along with official residences and government office buildings; and on the infrequent occasions when an Eldest ruled both worlds, he and his government generally moved back and forth between the two planets, spreading his presence to both worlds in the most expedient political fashion. There were plenty of available facilities, since residences and offices on each world had been emptied by the last election and were available at the Eldest's discretion.

Since his election Eldest Darrell McKae had chosen to spend most of his time on Harmony, even though his career had begun on Association. The reason for this was unclear, but some suggested that the Eldest, feeling Harmony was the weak point in his electoral base, was intent on strengthening his hand on that planet.

Bleys, however, suspected McKae was avoiding Association both to cut down on encounters with his original supporters—since his election the Eldest had become more open in his taste for wine— and to avoid having to face his failure to curb the activities of the First Elder he had appointed. And Bleys was sure McKae preferred to avoid that First Elder, Bleys himself—who was more often on Association than on Harmony.

On those occasions when Bleys came to Harmony he had no need to find either accommodations or working space, since each planet had a complete set of offices for both the Eldest and the First Elder. However, there were things Bleys preferred not to do within the confines of government-provided facilities; and on this trip he delayed only long enough, after his arrival on the pad in Citadel, for a trip to the Others' Harmony offices, before traveling to Healing Waters.

Healing Waters was a small city that nestled between two small rivers at the point where they nearly joined before emptying into Revelation Bay, a shallow, island-dotted body of water largely useless for ordinary commercial purposes. It was a picturesque warm-zone city given over to vacationers—to the limited extent the Friendly planets had citizens wealthy enough to afford that luxury. This gave Bleys an excuse to be there—need for a restful vacation— as well as the insulating effect of distance from the capital and any who might be interested in his doings.

As the time for Amyth Barbage's appointment neared, Bleys was sitting under an awning at a large table that had been moved to the deck of the penthouse suite of the city's most luxurious hotel. He had chosen this hotel because he expected to be joined by the senior Others he had secretly invited to a meeting that might well be critical to his plans.

Being on the hotel's roof minimized the risk of being overheard in his dealings. He had been able to bring only one of the security technicians who normally scanned any room he stayed in for listening devices; to bring a larger staff on a supposedly routine and restful trip might have attracted Dahno's notice.

In the past, Bleys had always been able to persuade his fellow Others to go along with his ideas; that was, in fact, the base on which his control rested. He anticipated no difficulty now in persuading his invitees to support him in the plan he intended to present—to the select group here and now, and to the larger group that would be attending the meeting that was to start next week on Association.

But he had never had to try to create such a consensus of opinion in the face of active opposition from his half-brother.

Whenever their ideas had conflicted in the past, Bleys had managed to work in secret well enough to present Dahno with a situation in which their subordinate Others were already in strong agreement with Bleys' ideas, leaving Dahno little option except to go along. But open opposition by Dahno at the meeting on Association would present the gravest of dangers to Bleys' plans: no matter how well Bleys persuaded the Others at this secret meeting to take his side, it was more than possible his brother, with a few days to work on them, could turn them around. For it was Dahno who had recruited and trained them; it was Dahno who had managed to win some sort of place in their hearts.

Bleys had an unrivaled ability to show people how going along with him would benefit them, but Dahno had the better ability to get people to follow him just because they liked him.

On the lower floors of the hotel, suites had been emptied in preparation for the arrival of the invited leaders, but none had shown up yet; Toni was back in Citadel, waiting to meet them on arrival, to divert them here.

"The Militia officer Captain Amyth Barbage is in the foyer, Great Teacher," a voice said over the intercom speaker. The voice belonged to one of the staff people from the Harmony Others' offices. Having brought only a skeleton staff on this trip, Bleys had been forced to co-opt a few people from the Harmony office—but he was finding that strange voices on the intercom, and strange faces carrying out his orders, made him a bit uneasy. It seemed unlikely that mere staff people would somehow decide to report to Dahno on what little they might learn about Bleys' doings here; but Bleys had to question everyone's loyalties, if Dahno had had time to work on them.

The leader of Harmony's Others, Kinkaka Goodfellow, was also a possible danger. He had spent his whole career here,

always in easy observation range of the Others' home office on Association; it was more than possible his first loyalty was to Dahno. Bleys had diverted the Harmony leader by tasking him with preparation of a delicate report to be presented at the coming meeting on Association. It was Bleys' belief that Goodfellow would be intensely preoccupied for the entire time before that meeting: Kinkaka Goodfellow was a consummate bureaucrat.

Bleys could perhaps have borrowed people from the First Elder's offices here on Harmony, but he had even less reason to be sure of their loyalty—here came Barbage now.

The man looked, if anything, even thinner and colder than when Bleys last saw him, in the cells in Ahruma, less than six months ago. Bleys had been wondering how Barbage might have been affected by Hal Mayne's escape. Most men would have been humiliated by that unfortunate event, but Bleys was somehow sure Amyth Barbage would never be humiliated by anything at all.

"I am here at thy command, Bleys Ahrens," Barbage said, as always using the antique-sounding canting speech practiced by certain of the ultra-religious on the two Friendly planets. He had stopped three meters from the table and come to attention, which Bleys knew was a deliberate reminder that Bleys, as an officer high in the government, was one of Barbage's superior officers, and thus able to command him regardless of Bleys' own merits. In the captain's twisted logic, a reminder to a superior officer that his rank was all that required Barbage to obey him always carried the hidden message that Barbage was superior in non-military matters; for Barbage considered himself to be one of the Elect, those guaranteed salvation and special consideration by God.

At the same time, Bleys found it meaningful that the Militia officer had not used Bleys' title, but addressed him by name. Barbage seemed to be presenting a mixed message, and Bleys decided that it was some kind of challenge.

"Be at ease, Amyth Barbage," Bleys said. In turn he had used the Militia officer's name rather than his rank, believing it would remind the man that for all his high political rank, Bleys professed to hold an even higher position—one Barbage himself had seemed to acknowledge in the past, when he had addressed Bleys as Great Teacher.

Barbage, however, provided Bleys with no hint of a reaction to Bleys' words, but merely snapped crisply from his position of attention to a position of at ease that in fact displayed no hint of actual relaxation, but looked like the previous stiffness, differently arranged.

There's no point in sparring with this wan. He's as harsh and unsparing as ever, ana¹ there's no forgiveness in him, whether for others or for himself

Bleys wondered briefly whether Barbage might think he had just won a point from Bleys; but he shrugged, mentally, and set the idea aside. He was not playing any game in which points mattered.

"Would you like something to drink, Captain?" Bleys asked mildly. "Or even something to eat?—I'm not sure how far you've had to come today."

"I have not come far," Barbage said. His words seemed to be a refusal of any refreshment, which was hardly surprising, coming from this ascetic individual. Barbage's eyes were held level, his gaze passing over Bleys' head, as if he refused to recognize the First Elder. "I have been awaiting thy arrival in this fleshpot of a city for two days."

A reproof! This is progress, of a sort.

"I know you would never approve of a city of pleasure like this, Captain," Bleys continued, his tone as mild and unreproachful as before. "But I didn't call you here to afflict you with the atmosphere in this place. Rather, my duties have required that I come here, and it was efficient to call you to me here."

"I am always at thy command, Great Teacher," Barbage said, "and of course at the call of the First Elder, as well."

That's as much as he can possibly unbend, Bleys thought, eyeing the officer. Yes. He will do it.

"I called you here, Captain," Bleys said, "because there is a need for you—one I felt it best to convey to you in person. And I've chosen you because I'm convinced you're the best man for this task—not only because of your own abilities, but because of your past history with and knowledge of Hal Mayne."

With that Barbage's eyes came down, to focus, burning, on Bleys' face, an intensity in them that would have made other people want to raise their hands.

"Surely he hath left this planet, Great Teacher," Barbage said. He spoke slowly, but there was an edge to his voice. "Is it that he hath gone to Association—"

"No, Captain," Bleys said, interrupting the question. "He's now well beyond your reach." He gazed directly into the officer's black eyes. "But a way to reach him may yet be available to us, if you can carry out the task I have in mind."

"What is that task, then, Great Teacher?" Barbage's head had drawn back just a little, as if he were preparing to spring forward and bite Bleys.

"Hal Mayne is gone, Captain," Bleys repeated, "but the outlaws of his Command are, I think, still at large."

And now Bleys saw a light kindle behind those dark eyes.

"I shall find them for thee, Great Teacher," Barbage said. His eyes turned down for an instant; then rose to look at Bleys directly once more.

"Alive?" he asked, his light baritone voice carrying a cold message.

"Alive," Bleys said. "Particularly their leader, the woman Rukh Tamani. But I warn you to be very careful of her: I have met her, and I tell you she is dangerous."

"I know of the woman," Barbage said. "She is indeed strong in her evil. It will avail her nothing." The look in his eyes was ugly to see.

"Nevertheless, I will give you some help," Bleys said, reverting to a more formal tone. "You will shortly receive notice that you've been promoted, and given command of three companies of Militia and the authority to commandeer any Militia forces in areas into which your pursuit may take you."

Several of the senior Others arrived over the course of the next few hours, sent along by Toni after she had met them in Citadel and peeled them away from their entourages.

Bleys had asked Toni to meet the invitees because he had confidence in her ability to smooth over hurt feelings that might result from the unexpected change in their plans. The leaders would almost all be arriving in their own ships—a sign of the wealth and power they were becoming used to—and they would not have been expecting to be separated from their staffs and households; nor to have their entourages confined to their ships, incommunicado, for the duration of this secret conclave.

Bleys found he need not have worried about Johann Wilter's reaction. The leader of the Cassida organization looked as dapper as ever, but his gaze was still steady and he brushed aside Bleys' apologies for the methods used, saying he was certain that whatever Bleys planned would be well worth any inconvenience. This man, Bleys saw, was not going to let himself be distracted by a momentary infringement on his status.

Wilter was accompanied by Support Hayakawa, an Association-born Other who, although Wilter's senior deputy, was clearly under his boss's thumb.

Ana Wasserlied, leader of the New Earth organization, was another matter entirely. She had come without any of her deputies, and her angular body, superbly dressed as always, was radiating resentment over having been met by Toni, separated from her entourage, and made to come around the planet in a rented shuttle.

"Ana, thank you for coming," Bleys said, offering his hand. "I apologize for making you uncomfortable with this alteration in your schedule, but when you hear what I've brought you here to discuss, I believe you'll understand."

The woman uttered polite reassurances, but her blue eyes burned and her posture remained stiff and unforgiving.

By the end of the following day, six more leaders had arrived: Hammer Martin from Freiland, and two of his deputies, Joachim Suslov and Aries Foley; Kim Wallech and Astrid Croce from Sainte Marie; and Pallas Salvador from Ceta. Only Pallas Salvador had come in on commercial transportation.

Each was greeted personally, and warmly, by Bleys, and encouraged to simply relax and enjoy the facilities of a city meant for diversions, while they acclimated to a different time frame. Most seemed happy to do so, but Johann Wilter and Hammer Martin, although compliant, displayed a certain impatient eagerness to get on with whatever they had been called here for.

"They're going to be our best allies," Bleys told Toni, who had come in along with Pallas Salvador after meeting the Cetan leader when she disembarked in Citadel. "They live for their jobs and their power, and they'll be eager to expand. But we'll have to do something about Ana Wasserlied, and I might need you to help me distract her."

"Distract her? Are you planning to replace her?"

"I think that may have become necessary. But I can't do it before this meeting, and probably not before the one on Association. I made a mistake in calling her here, I'm afraid." He shook his head. "I still believe she'd be willing to go along with my plans, under ordinary circumstances, but she's allowing her resentment over what she sees as an imposition on her status—being brought here in the way she was—to blind her."

"In other words, she's lost sight of the overall plan," Toni said.

"Yes. We'll have to come up with a list of possible replacements," Bleys said. "But the priority now is to keep her from learning the purpose of this meeting—I can't count on her not to talk about what I want to do here."

"To Dahno, you mean."

Bleys nodded.

"Perhaps a couple of innocent meetings, apparently in preparation for the more formal meeting on Association," Toni suggested. "You could say your idea was to bring our most important Others here so they could get to know each other better, in a pleasant, relaxing setting—it would fit with your acknowledged intention to set up a group leadership structure. And there's the fact that Pallas Salvador, who isn't well known to any of the others, has suddenly become an important figure; this could be presented as a way to let the top people get to know her."

"And with a couple of joint meetings out of the way," Bleys said, "I could have individual meetings—and have Ana's first. I'll set her up with some plausible story, tell her she'll be contacted further; and then send her back to New Earth."

"Leaving her out of the Association meeting altogether?" "Yes," Bleys said.

"Won't that seem strange to the rest of the leaders?" Toni asked. "And suspicious to Dahno?"

"Can you think of an alternative?"

"Well, it's possible," Toni said, looking thoughtful, "that a few days of special treatment here—particularly some special attentions from the other leaders—might make her more amenable . . . there's a plausible basis for a plan like that in the fact that she was invited here at all. A few days of feeling she's part of the elite group might work wonders on her."

"That's a good idea," Bleys said. "She's always been able, and if we can just get around her attitude problem, she could continue to be useful. But that kind of plan would require, among other things, enlisting the other leaders in our little act." He paused, thinking.

"Come to think of it, that could even be made to work to our advantage—once they're enlisted in working together on one objective, they'll be more amenable to working together on other things."

"It'll give them a sense of having gained additional power already," Toni said. "That'll make them more supportive, too."

"Yes," Bleys said. "The more they feel they have to gain by going along with me, the less likely it becomes they can be persuaded otherwise by Dahno."

Two days later, during a break in his meeting schedule, Bleys unobtrusively left the hotel, traveling across town in an automated cab to a small restaurant. He got out of the cab there, but did not enter the restaurant; rather, he signaled for another such cab; and by the time it arrived, the woman he had once known as Gelica Costanza had emerged from the restaurant to join him.

"Thank you for coming, Deborah," Bleys said, while programming the cab to head for a destination on the other side of the city. Locked in a small, moving room, they talked without fear of observation.

"Are things going well on Ceta?" Deborah asked.

"Very well," Bleys said. "You played your part to perfection at the meeting with the Families, even to setting yourself up for a reprimand. I can't thank you enough."

"Believe me, it was my pleasure," Deborah said. "Or I should say, our pleasure. All of my Others—sorry, New People—were happy to have a chance to strike back at the Families; and your deal with them allowed us to finally leave the planet, and with enough resources to be able to set up comfortably elsewhere."

"It may not look like much of a 'strike' at the Families," Bleys said. "Anyone looking at the situation would say we've given the Families just what they want."

"We know better," Deborah said. "We've been inside your organization; we know we've fed the Families a poison pill."

"You have an interesting way with words, Deborah," Bleys said.

"I doubt I hurt your feelings," she said. "Remember, I've seen close up how logical a thinker you are. You're not the kind to let an emotional reaction alter your plans."

"You don't have very much experience to base that judgment on," Bleys said.

"Oh, I'm not calling you an unemotional machine," she said. "But I'm confident I've seen the truth." "Are you interested in seeing more?" She smiled.

"I figured you had another job for me," she said. "Tell me about it."

"Are you sure you want to hear it?" Bleys said. "The last time you helped us, you and your friends ended up having to leave Ceta, losing your careers and a lot of your assets."

"We'd wanted to leave, anyway," she said. "We were never really at home there, particularly after the Families began leaning on us. No more than we'd ever been anywhere else."

"I know you've settled on New Earth, now," Bleys said. "Are all of your New People comrades there with you?"

"Almost all of them," she said. "We've been family for a long time, and we're looking for a way to keep working together—my generation, anyway. The younger ones are a little restless."

"No retirement?"

"Not us," she said. She smiled. "Are you going to give us that work?"

"Maybe," he said.

He was still explaining what he had in mind when their cab reached its programmed destination, so he reprogrammed it for a trip back across town.

They talked on, through trip after trip across the small city.

CHAPTER 25

Most of the Others who had been called back to Association had not been on the planet since their graduation from Dahno's training program, and they seemed to revel in returning as wealthy, elite members of interstellar society; until they came to Dahno, most had been young, poor, and without useful social or political ties.

They were impressed by the fleet of spacecraft now owned by the organization, as well as by the luxurious facilities Dahno and Bleys had moved the organization into. They all well remembered the elderly building in which they had once been trained and lodged.

Invitees began arriving a couple of days before the conference's scheduled beginning, and Bleys, Dahno and their staff were kept busy finding ways to make their guests' stays as enjoyable as possible; Association's entertainment facilities were limited at best.

Eventually all were on hand, and the meeting could begin.

On the evening before the official opening of the convocation, Bleys hosted a small party for a group of the invitees, people he had picked, after dealing with them for a day or two, as most likely to be influenced by what he had to say. All were second- or third-level Others.

Late in the evening, when most had taken enough food and drink to become congenial, but not yet drunk, Bleys, holding a brandy snifter, moved across the room to settle himself on a sofa near which several conversations had been taking place. The conversations died away even though he spoke no word; their eyes were all on him.

"Please, you shouldn't call me Great Teacher? Bleys said, in response to a question from Prosper Fulton, one of the delegation from Cassida. "We Others are all, in our way, family, and I like to think of us as brothers and sisters."

That drew smiles, and there was some movement, as if they all felt a momentary impulse to draw together in a closer group.

"It's a family, then, that I'm proud to be a part of," Fulton said now, glancing about the circle of Others who had gathered around Bleys. "But if you don't mind, I feel you and Dahno arc the elder brothers of our family. I know both of you have different tasks than those of us who spend our time on the worlds we've been sent to ... I guess I just wanted to ask for some idea of what you see as our current situation, and where you think we're headed."

Eyes in the circle became serious above their smiles, but Bleys laughed.

"You're trying to get a preview of my speech for tomorrow morning's opening," he said. "Were you planning to sleep in?"

"I think what Prosper may be asking," Ameena Williams said, from her place behind the sofa where Prosper was sitting, "is for something personal from you—I mean, I've heard you speak many times, during your visits to New Earth, about our abilities as leaders of the human race, and the importance of our task of taking up that leadership position and using it to lead the race to greatness. But when it's put that way, it seems a little cold, or maybe distant; so we'd like to hear something from you about your own personal vision: about what you personally want, and why you personally are involved in this."

Bleys frowned down at the snifter in his hand, as if trying to see a vision in the brandy there. The silence held, and at last he looked up.

"I have been blessed," he said at last in a formal tone; and as he looked up into their faces he could see that the words chimed agreeably with most of them. All of those here had been raised on one of the Friendly planets, and found religiously themed speech comfortable and familiar.

He looked back down into his snifter, giving the impression of one too shy to let his soul show from his eyes.