But the attendant had gone now; and in this particular moment he was feeling more lost and abandoned than ever. It was a strange thing. He would have liked to have trusted her and welcomed the warm emotional offering she was making to him, but he could not trust her. He could trust nobody.
He did not think of his feeling about the attendant as a sign he was lonely. He did not, in one sense, really know what "loneliness" was. He felt it, strongly; but he had never had the opportunity to measure its dimensions. He only knew that when he had been very young he had been under the impression that his mother loved him. Then, sometime very early, he had become aware that she did not. She either ignored him, or was briefly pleased with him, when he was able to do something that reflected well upon her.
Now he should carry through what he said he would do, and read. But the will to do it failed him, foundering in his even deeper fears of the future which had been triggered off by his turning away the attendant's attempt to reach him.
The reader with its Bible, its Koran, and the other religious books which the library to which he had gone on New Earth had listed for him as being the most likely ones that might be used in worship on the Friendlies, lay forgotten in his lap.
Once more, he felt the terrible separateness, the feeling of being off in space from all the other human worlds and human people; and to combat jit he dredged up his old dream of a magic wand that would give him exactly the kind of people around him and the kind of life he yearned for.
But even this would not work, now. The passages he had memorized from the books in the. reader he now held on his knees seemed like fragile, almost useless, things to make friends for him with whoever he might encounter on Association. The ways he had learned to amuse and impress grownups like his mother's guests, would not work on a farm on an ultra-religious world like Association.
All sorts of things could be required and expected of him by Henry and his two sons, beyond the matter of being clever or learned.
He had never felt so helpless. He had really nothing to offer them, Henry MacLean and his family, beyond these memorized words from the Bible and the other books he had brought. What was he, after all, but a monkey with a bag of tricks—?
The memory came grimly back to him, of where he had heard that phrase. Shortly before he had left his. mother, a friend of Ezekiel's had come around—obviously with his mother's indifferent permission but at Ezekiel's invitation— and talked to him.
The friend had been a slightly overweight, gray-haired man, with a touch of accent. There had been something different about his talk that Bleys could not put his finger on exactly. Like the cabin attendant just now, he had tried to be friendly.
Bleys had been tempted to like him, but those he had dared to let himself like had been taken from him so many times before that he held his feelings in check automatically. The man had asked a great many questions and Bleys had answered truthfully those he felt safe answering truthfully; otherwise he pretended he did not understand their real meaning.
After a couple of meetings with him, he did not see the gray-haired man again for several days. Then on the day just before the one on which Bleys left, he was coming into a side sitting room of the main lounge of the enormous hotel suite that his mother was now occupying, and heard Ezekiel's voice from the next room. Answering him was the voice of the gray-haired man. But the gray-haired man was now talking much differently, with different words and cadences to his speech; and Bleys realized suddenly that he was hearing the type of Basic affected by some of the ultra-religious Friendlies—called "cant."
Bleys had checked, hidden in the side room and listening. The gray-haired man was talking about him.
"—A monkey with a bag of tricks," the gray-haired man was saying, "thou knowest it as well as I do, Ezekiel. That was all the need his mother ever has had of him, and all the use she ever made of him. It was wise of thee to call me in to observe the boy. There are no lack of good psychomedicians in this city; but none who, like myself, grew up in the same district as Henry and yourself on Association. For I can indeed tell you something about the boy. For one thing, he's not another Dahno."
"I know that," said Ezekiel, "Dahno was very intelligent too; but he was as big as a grown man at twelve years old and easily as powerful as a grown man. The Lord only knows what size he is now."
"That, I don't know," said the gray-haired man, "but I have heard he is as a giant nowadays, and probably it has been the will of the Lord that he have a giant's strength."
"But you say Bleys is different," said Ezekiel's voice. "How can that be? His mother kept him if anything, more under control than she did Dahno. You're the psychomedician.
You actually saw and met Dahno when he was still kept on a string by his mother."
"But this difference is enormous, I tell thee," said the gray-haired man's voice. "Dahno grew up with their mother, for she trusted no one else to control him; and he is another like her, in every way. He even has the ability she had, to charm a snake into choking itself to death by swallowing its own tail. But this boy, Bleys, even though he hath been under the same roof, hath been raised entirely differently."
"Oh, I know," Ezekiel said. "You're thinking of the caretakers. It's true that he's been tied down much more tightly than Dahno was. But—"
"Nay, but the difference goeth far beyond that," interrupted the gray-haired man. "He hath been given a totally different upbringing. Dahno was part of his mother's life. This little fellow hath had no part of it. As I say, to her he hath been only a monkey with a bag of tricks. Something to show off to other people and preen herself about. But think thee now of Bleys' life as it must be and hath been, from the inside. He was like unto a soldier, under strict discipline at all times. A child less intelligent would have been ruined by this time. He is not ruined, the Lord be thanked for that; but he is put on a totally different path. Hast thou marked the boy's isolation? Hast thou noticed that he trusts no one—unless it is yourself?"
Bleys could heard Ezekiel's sigh.
"Yes," he said, "that much is true. When I've had a chance to, I've tried to get him out of his shell. But all the rest of the time, and everything else's he's had to do, put him in it too tightly. Anyway, that wasn't the point. I wanted you to give me an idea of whether he would be all right with Henry, back on Association."
"Thy brother, Henry," said the gray-haired man's voice, "was someone I grew up with. I may not know him as well as yourself, but I know him very well indeed. Yes, whether for good or ill, Bleys will survive and grow along the path he hath been already started on, once he gets to Association. What has been nurtured in him is far closer to that of our people—that which thou ran away from, thyself, Ezekiel—than it is to this
world we're on, or even the world of Exotics. Yet, he is Exotic also; and what will come of the blend I do not know. But, he will get along with Henry. Dost thou suppose I could see him again for a short time?"
"Certainly, certainly," said Ezekiel, "I'll just go and have a word with the chief caretaker and then I'll come back and get you. Do you want to wait here?"
"As well here, as any place in this over-pillowed suite," said the gray-haired man.
"I'll be right back," said Ezekiel, his voice receding.
Bleys turned and hurried back into his own quarters. He was apparently deep in reading a book on ancient languages of Old Earth, when Ezekiel came and got him.
"Medician James Selfort would like to speak to you again," said Ezekiel, when he found Bleys, "would you like that?"
"Yes," Bleys had said, putting down his reader with the book still in it, "I like him."
The last few words, like so many that Bleys uttered, were not strictly true. But it was a fact that he did not dislike the man; and now, having overheard part of their conversation, he was warming to James Selfort, who seemed to be on his side, with Ezekiel, in spite of his
u
monkey with a bag of tricks
..."
statement. So Bleys found himself wanting to talk to Selfort again, in hopes of hearing more hopeful things about himself.
As it turned out, he did not. But he had clung tightly all through this trip to the fact that in the overheard conversation Selfort had said to Ezekiel that he, Bleys, would survive on Association. Remembering it now, he found himself warmed by that opinion, and his current depression lifted.
One thing in favor of the people and the place he was going to. They and it would not change on him within weeks, or a few months, as the caretakers had and everything else about his life with his mother. He could learn the rules there once; and then be sure of them.
- He was nothing right now but that monkey Selfort had called him. Certainly he was no Exotic, twice removed from that identity by his Mother's denial of it; and the fact that she had kept all things Exotic—except herself—from him. Consequently, he could be anything, in pursuit of the dream he had dreamed so many times when he had been in the caretakers' "thinking room," with himself in a solid, fixed universe, holding the magic wand to keep all of it the way he wanted it.
There was no reason he could not reach that dream also by becoming a Friendly first. It would mean everything would have to be learned all over again—all of it different from anything he had ever known before. But he would be able to belong to other people and still make his own freedom.
It was even possible that Uncle Henry could be a rock against which he could lean—Henry and the probably stable, dependable people who were his neighbors and attended the same church. It was just barely possible that Bleys might find them understanding of him, accepting him, and offering him a place to belong.
It all depended on his being able to become a Friendly. Maybe then, in time, he could actually go on to become what he pretended; and there would be no doubt in anyone, no doubt in himself.
...
He sat in the big chair, staring at the screen with eyes that did not see it, but instead seeing a future that might be what he had always wanted. The warmth of the possibility carried him back into his dream, in which he hung in space, solitary, completely isolated from the rest of the race—but master, at last of himself and his universe.
He looked at all the suns with planets where the human race had settled. But it was the planets he gazed on, not their suns. The time would come, he told himself, the time would inevitably come, when nowhere on any of them was anyone who could order his life.
Rather he would order theirs.
That last thought was so exciting as to verge on frightening him. He pulled back from it. But he lingered a moment longer. . . .
"—Do you see that?" the young, red-haired cabin attendant said to the older one.
"No, what?" asked the older one.
"The boy. The look on his face. Look!"
The older was busily inventorying the liquor. She did not look up right away.
"What look?" she asked, when she finally lifted her head.
"It's gone now," the younger said. "But he was looking so strange for a moment, there. So strange.
..."
CHAPTER
3
Before the ship
entered the atmosphere of the planet of its destination, it switched from phase-shifting to its ordinary engines. Within the hour it landed at Ecumeny; and its passengers were escorted from the lounge into a deceptively small terminal—that was actually only one of many terminals scattered over a large plain near that city. All senses alert, like some small, wary animal, Bleys carried his personal case off with him, hidden from his surroundings by the tall adult bodies that joined him in thronging the disembarking passage.
He was tight as a bowstring. Now that he had arrived, his plans, the Bible and other books he had studied on the way, seemed like fragile things for his hopes of making new friends to depend upon. The reality of finally being here was like stepping into a new universe.
The terminal waiting room was a large, circular place with light silver carpeting, as opposed to the familiar dark green of the upholstery on the overstuffed chairs of the lounge; and a number of people were stand
ing there waiting for those who
were landing. The red-haired cabin attendant went with him, saying she would point out his uncle to him when they got there. She had, herself, been provided with a picture of Henry.
He was standing a little aside from the others who were waiting when they found him; and Bleys' hopes sank a little at the sight of him. He had none of Ezekiel's open face and engaging smile. This was a man of surprisingly indeterminate age, whose hair had not so much grayed as become drab with approaching middle age. Certainly he was more than twenty-eight years old.
He was tall, thin almost to the point of emaciation, with a narrow, potentially unyielding face, and an impatient air about him.
His clothes were universal working clothes—rough dark pants, and rough dark shirt, under a leather-like jacket of some black material. The bones of his face were so narrow that the* features of it seemed pinched to a sharpness like that of an ax-blade. He had dark eyes which focused like twin weapon barrels on the attendant and Bleys as they came up to him.
"Bleys," said the cabin attendant, stooping down a little to speak into Bleys' ear, "this is your uncle, Henry MacLean. Mr. MacLean?"
"The same," answered the man. His voice was somewhere between rusty and harsh in an otherwise light baritone. "I thank the Lord for your kindness, attendant. I'll take care of him, now."
"Honored to meet you at last, sir," said Bleys. "No need for frills, boy," said Henry MacLean. "Come with me.
He turned around and led the way out of the terminal waiting room with such briskness that, although his height was only a few inches greater than the average, he set a pace that had Bleys trotting to keep up with him.
Outside the terminal, they went down a slope into a long underground tunnel and stepped onto a floating strip that moved them along; at first, slowly, then at faster and faster speeds, apparently accompanied by a flow of air that moved with them, since there was no feeling of a breeze in their face.
Still, so swiftly did they end up moving that Bleys guessed they had covered a number of kilometers within several minutes by the time the strip slowed again and they were let off at the far end before wide, glass doors that opened automatically. They stepped out into a gray, cool day with a stiff breeze moving damp air under low-hanging clouds that threatened rain.
"Sir! Uncle! said Bleys, trotting beside him, "I have luggage—"
"That will already have been delivered to me," answered Henry, without looking down at him, "and let me hear no more 'sirs' from you, boy—Bleys. 'Sir' implies rank; and there's no rank, in our church."
"Yes, Uncle," said Bleys.
They continued for some distance, until the parked vehicles thinned out. At last they came to a number of other vehicles, motorized, but with wheels, rather than the skirts around their bottom edges that marked the hovercraft or magnetic-field style of transport which made up most of the ranks they had passed through so far.
Eventually, beyond these, they came at last to unmotorized transports. These varied from carts to wagons, and finally to something that was neither cart nor wagon, but something of both, but which like the rest had a team of goats harnessed to it and tethered in place. Beside it stood Bleys' single small bag.
"How did they get it here so quickly, Uncle?" asked Bleys, fascinated to see the expensive case glittering beside the unpainted, goat-driven cart.
"They drop off a luggage container on landing, before taxiing to the terminal," answered his uncle, shortly. "It's done automatically. Put your bag in the back and we'll cover it with a tarp. It'll likely rain before we're home. You and I sit in the cab, up front."
Bleys moved to help; but his uncle was too quick for him. The bag was loaded and covered before Bleys had done more than begin trying to help.
"In the other door with you, boy," said Henry, opening the left side door of the wooden cab for himself. Bleys ran around