CHAPTER
Bleys hung in
space, solitary and completely isolated, light-years from the nearest stars, let alone from any world holding even one of the human race. Cold, apart, and alone, but forever free . . .
Only, his imagination would not hold. Abruptly, he lost it. It was only a private screen in the ship's lounge that he stared into—and it was full of star-points of varying brightness.
He was alone; but back with the cold, scared feeling that had never left him since he boarded, seated in one of the great, green, over-padded swivel chairs in the ship taking him from New Earth, where he had left his mother two days earlier, to the "Friendly" planet of Association, which was to be his home from now on.
One more day and he would be there.
Somehow he had not thought about the future in any detail beyond the moment when he would confront his mother. Somehow he had expected that once he had won free of her, and his legion of ever changing caretakers who kept him
encased in an iron routine of study, practice, and all else, things would automatically become better. But now that he was actually in the future there was no evidence that it was going
to.be
so.
His docking place on Association was to be the large spaceport at Ecumeny. This city had one of only twelve such spaceports on that whole world; for it was a poor planet, poor in natural resources, like its brother "Friendly" world of Harmony.
Most of the religious colonists who had settled both worlds made their living from the land, with tools and machines that were made on the planet where they lived. For there were almost no interstellar credits to pay for imported devices; except when a draft of young men would be sold off on a term contract, as mercenaries to one of the other worlds where military disputes were still going on between colonies.
Bleys had been pretending to be absorbed in that, destination on his starscreen. Particularly the star of the destination, Epsilon Eridani, around which circled both Association and Harmony. As Kultis and Mara circled the star of Alpha Procyon—the twin Exotic worlds on which Bleys' mother had been born and brought up; and which she had left forever in fury and disgust at her people, the Exotics, who would not give her the privileges and liberties to which she was sure her own specialness entitled her.
Association was only eight phase-shifts from New Earth—as restatements of the ship's position in the universe were ordinarily, but not correctly, called.
If it had been only a matter of making each phase-shift in turn, Bleys was already aware, they would have been at Association in a matter of hours after leaving New Earth. But there was a problem built into phase-shifting. It was that the longer the ordinary space-time distance that was disregarded by an individual restatement, the more uncertain became the point at which the ship would return to ordinary space-time existence after making a shift. That meant recalculation of the ship's position, every time a shift was made.
Consequently, to be extra-safe for the paying passengers, this trip was being made in small shifts of position, taking a full three days. He would be met on landing at Association by the man who would take care of him from now on; the older brother of Ezekiel Mac Lean, one of the earlier men in his mother's life. Also, the only other permanent individual in Bleys' life along with her, for as far back as he could remember.
It was Ezekiel who had been the only bright spot in Bleys' existence. It was Ezekiel who had chosen to accept the blame not only for being the father of Bleys, but of Bleys' older half-brother, Dahno. Dahno, who had, like Bleys, been sent off to Henry MacLean and his farm on Association, some years back. It was like Ezekiel to do so.
In a strange way Ezekiel was both like and unlike Bleys' mother. She had left the Exotic worlds. He, born a Friendly on Association, had left that world as if he fled from it, rather than with the disdain and fury with which she had shaken the dust of her native world of Kultis from her feet. Ezekiel MacLean was the exact opposite of what those on other worlds imagined Friendlies to be. He was gentle, warm, easygoing—
:
and somehow so good at all these things that he had been suffered to continue to hang around Bleys' mother and Bleys himself, through the succession of lovers that Bleys' mother had taken since.
Normally, Bleys' mother drove her former paramours from her, once she had chosen a new one. But Ezekiel seemed willing to take on a position that was half-friend, half-servant. His round, freckled face always cheerful, always obliging, he raised the spirits of Bleys' mother—and they were usually not high spirits. Ezekiel was useful to her, although he had long since been shut out of her bedroom.
An example of this convenience—for Bleys' mother had no idea of who his real father was—had been Ezekiel's contacting Henry on Association, two weeks back, to see if he would take in yet one more supposed bastard child of his wandering and irreligious brother.
Bleys had always suspected that Henry had a soft spot for Ezekiel, although Ezekiel had pictured his brother as hard as flint. Certainly, Henry had not turned Dahno, Bleys' 10-year
older half-brother down, earlier, and he had not turned Bleys down now. It had been Ezekiel, with his never-failing good humor and kindness, who had offered Bleys some relief from the iron discipline of the caretakers and his unpredictable mother. And now Ezekiel was left behind also.
Dahno, in his time, she had kept with her, on the basis that only she could control him. But this had not worked after all; and Dahno, at only a couple of years older than Bleys was now, had literally tried to run away from her. As a result she had shipped him off to Henry, and determined that she would not make the same error again.
Nor had she. She herself was completely willful and undependable. But Bleys had been put under the control of caretakers, changed as each new lover moved them to a different location and hired a different set. They guarded and ordered him at all times, letting him out only to show off to his mother's guests. At which times she basked in the reflected glory of having a genius child.
A genius he was, legitimately. But that accident of birth had been supplemented by long hours of study, under the caretakers' discipline.
Actually, the study was the last thing he minded. All things fascinated him. His mother, unable to escape her Exotic upbringing, would never, for example, have punished him physically. But the rules of an environment she laid out for him, making sure he would be under the supervision of caretakers at all times, were as rigid as those in a prison.
So it was little help that punishment was non-physical, a room to which he would be sent to "think over what he had done."
This would be a room, not unpleasant in itself, but with the only furniture in it a force-f
ield bed, that needed no bedcov
erings. It was merely a field in which the body sank until it was enwrapped by the field itself and kept at a desirable warmth and softness according to the wishes of its occupant.
It had been a room which enforced idleness. There were not even books; not merely in the archaic sense of bound cardboard and paper, but in the modem sense of spindles or disks inserted into a reading machine. So he did there what any lonely child would do; and let his imagination take him places.
He had dreamed of a land where there were no caretakers, there was no mother, and he had a wand with ultimate power that gave him unlimited authority and freedom. It had been a land where there was absolutely no changing of the people about him. That was one thing that, as absolute ruler, he insisted upon.
It was a land where he lived in sharp contrast to his real life.
He sat now, remembering all this on the spaceship to Association. He had been ecstatic at first at the idea of escaping. But gradually it had dawned on him, during these days on shipboard, that he might be going merely to the equivalent of yet another set of caretakers.
As he had used his quick, childish memory, schooled and trained until it was almost eidetic, to memorize stock tables and current news, so now he studied religious materials he had brought along to prepare himself and shield him in this new encounter—with this "uncle," and his two sons, whose names Bleys did not even yet know.
In between the times when he merely sat staring at the stars, feeling himself not so much enclosed by the warmth of the spaceship but as someone apart and isolated from the human race, placed light-years from anything human or any human world. In solitude, he had studied the material brought with him, committing long passages to memory until he had all of it tucked away to the point where he could parrot it back.
—As he had parroted back the stock tables, real estate prices, and current political actions of the world his mother was on, to make himself sound knowledgeable to her guests. When, indeed, most of the time he had no idea of the meanings of many of the words he said to them.
It was on the second day of spaceship travel that, all unprepared, he suddenly became aware of someone at his side.
Unaware of it, Bleys had been a subject of discussion in the lounge for some time now.
"I think he's lonely," one of the two uniformed women on lounge duty had been saying to the other. "Most children move around. They want soft drinks from the bar. They get bored and pester you. He just sits and isn't any trouble at all."
"Be thankful, then, and leave him to go on doing it," said the other attendant.
"No, I think he's lonely," the~ first attendant had insisted. "Something serious must have happened where he came from, and he's lonely and upset. That
's why he's keeping to himself th
is way."
The other lounge attendant was skeptical. She was the senior of the two in job experience and had been on many more flights than the concerned one, who was a young, pert-faced redhead, with a small, neat body that complemented her blue and silver uniform. Finally, in spite of the strong suggestions by her co-worker that she simply leave the boy alone, the redhead approached Bleys, sitting down on the seat closest to his and swiveling it so that she could look at him from the side.
"Are you getting acquainted with the stars?" she asked.
Bleys was instantly on guard. His life had taught him to be wary of any seemingly friendly approaches. In spite of how she looked and spoke, here was most probably another caretaker come to pretend friendship as a preliminary to controlling him. It had become a reflex in him to reject any sudden attempt at friendship by people hitherto unknown; experience had too often taught him it was a false front.
"Yes," he said, hoping that the pretense of being immersed in star study would cut short the overtures of the other. Perhaps she was only going to offer to show him how to handle some of the controls—though he had already worked these out for himself. Then she would go away and leave him alone.
"You're getting off on Association, aren't you?" she persisted. "Somebody's meeting you there, of course—at the spaceport?"
"Yes," answered Bleys, "my uncle."
"Is he fairly young, your uncle?"
Bleys had no idea how old his uncle was supposed to be. But then he decided that it really made no difference how he answered.
"He's twenty-eight years old," said Bleys. "He's a farmer in a little town some distance from the spaceport and his name is Henry."
"Henry! That's a nice name," said the attendant. "Do you know his last name too, and his address?"
"His last name's 'McClain.' Actually, it's spelled 'M-a-c-L-e-a-n.' I don't know his address—"
This much was a lie. Bleys had read the address, and his memory, which now forgot almost nothing, had stored it away. But he hid that fact, just as he had learned to hide his own intelligence and skills, except in those cases where he was called upon by his mother to show them off, or the situation was such that it looked as if he could gain by performing.
"But I've got it right here at my feet," he said, and reached down toward the little bag that he kept with him at the foot of the chair, that had his identification and his letters of credit.
"Oh, you don't need to show me," said the attendant, "I'm sure you're all set. But wouldn't you like to do something else for a change, instead of just sitting here and watching your star-screen? Wouldn't you like some kind of soft drink from the bar?"
"No, thank you," said Bleys. "Watching the star-screen is part of my studies. I'm missing some school because of this vacation with Uncle Henry; so I've got to keep up on my studies as much as possible. I thought I'd do most of my space-watching on the way there, so that I wouldn't have to spend any time doing it on the way back."
t
"Oh. I understand," said the attendant.
It was not so much Bleys' words, as the confidence he was able to put into his voice, alert and vital, that reassured the cabin attendant. She was beginning to rethink her original guess that his trip was the result of some death or other crisis in his family, and that he had needed to be brought out of himself.
Actually, she also knew the name and address of the Association man who was to meet Bleys. It was required on all regularly-scheduled spaceliners for the cabin attendants to take on certain responsibilities toward any passenger twelve years of age and under, traveling alone.
"In fact," said Bleys, "I really should be getting to my studying right now, if you don't mind. I've got a book and reader I ought to be checking the stars with."
"Oh. Well, I'm sure we don't want you disturbed. But if you want anything, you just press the buzzer and I'll be right over. All right?"
"All right. Thank you," answered Bleys, already reaching over to get into his carry-bag, "I will."
She got up and left. She did not bother to glance at the reader now on his knees, slightly bigger than a slim box that could be held conveniently within Bleys' two hands. So she did not notice that the page of the first book revealed on the electronic screen of the reader was entitled in large letters,
The Bible.
Nor could she have guessed that underneath that book were stored others by some writers of the Muslim and other faiths.
Having taken out the reader, Bleys sat with it on his knees. He was experienced at appearing to do something, while leaving his mind free to occupy itself otherwise.
He actually still had some reading to do in the Bible, which had been Ezekiel's, and given to him when he left, with a strange sadness. Bleys had long since memorized the names of the prophets; but he had also been reading through it for what he thought of as stories, little bits of histories and adventures, like the account of David's encounter with Goliath, that were more interesting, and stuck better, if anything, in his memory with one reading.