"All right," said the man on the platform, "all three of you stand up and tell us about yourselves."
Bleys, with the others, stood up.
"We'd use that one for a flagpole," someone said and there was a little more laughter. The man on the platform let it die down. "We'll start with you," he said to Bleys. "Your name?"
"Bleys MacLean," Bleys answered, "don't you have that up there?"
"I have it," said the man on the platform, "but everybody else needs to hear it too. For the benefit of the rest of you, Bleys MacLean here ran up some very good figures indeed, on the weapons range, on the exercise, and in the hand-to-hand. Bleys MacLean, how many wars have you been in?"
"None," said Bleys.
There was an interested muttering from the audience.
"Interesting, that," commented the man on the platform to the room full of people at large. "Well, we'll start trying him out. Anyone want to volunteer to be coach?"
"I'll take it on, Charlie," said the man seated on Bleys' left. He was at least in his forties, and slightly heavy. None of them there looked at all overweight, but this man came as close to it as any. But his face was square, weathered and not unkind.
"Come to think of it," said the man on the platform, "in this case we'd better have two. Anybody else want to volunteer?"
"I'll take on that chore, Charlie," came a voice from across the room.
Bleys could not see exactly who had spoken.
"You three can go, then," said the man on the platform. "Now, about you other two new recruits—"
But the man beside Bleys had already risen and was nudging Bleys ahead of him past the two other occupied seats out the end of the row, and out the door of the room.
"I didn't hear your name," said Bleys, as the first coach who had been assigned to him started off down the corridor. Bleys fell into step beside him. "Where are we headed?"
"Armory," answered the coach, briefly. "As for my name—"
He glanced sideways and up at Bleys and smiled. "It's Sam Chen. Not short for anything—just Sam."
Bleys looked over his shoulder, but he did not see anyone else who might have emerged from the room behind them.
"What's the name of my other coach?" he asked.
"I'll let him tell you, when he gets around to it," answered Sam. He was now looking straight ahead again.
"I thought he'd be with us," Bleys said. "He will," said Sam.
With that rather uninformative answer, Sam led the way silently down to the Armory, where they were both given what were known as "poacher's" versions of the needle gun. These were needle guns that were still in two sections disassembled, each section shortened to make a smaller version of the weapon. Each part fitted into one of two narrow, vertical pockets inside whatever jacket you were wearing. It was possible normally to button the jacket quite tightly, and still not betray the fact that you were carrying a weapon. Sam already had such pockets in his jacket, and the Armory supplied Bleys with a jacket equipped with pockets in his turn.
Sam led them Out of the hotel into the streets. Four blocks away, he came to a battered old gray hovercraft, which he unlocked and slid into, beckoning Bleys to take the seat beside him. Once the doors were closed and the engine had lifted the craft on its cushion of air, he headed out into the countryside.
They went clear out into the open fields, where city began to give way to farmland. He stopped at last at a large area of either abandoned or unused land; and to Bleys' surprise they practiced creeping and crawling along with their assembled weapons cradled in the crooks of their elbows. The rocky earth beneath Bleys' elbows was not kind on them. Also, the exercise made use of muscles that Bleys was not in the habit of using. Nonetheless, they stayed at it for a couple of hours, until Sam suddenly gave a disgusted grunt and began to get to his feet. Bleys rose with him.
"What is it?" Bleys asked.
"We were spotted," said Sam, with a resigned tone of voice.
Bleys looked around him. He had seen no one else on the horizon in any direction from the time they had started and he saw no one now. Yet, Sam was already headed back toward their hovercar. It occurred to him that his other "coach" was actually an observer to see and report on how well he did.
They returned to the city and had lunch at a sidewalk cafe, where to Bleys' surprise, Sam idled over cup after cup of local coffee. Bleys felt fortunate that he had learned early to wait patiently. They made occasional conversation, Sam occasionally asking some general questions about Bleys' background on the farm and his father, Henry.
Sam was interested as to whether he had ever known Henry MacLean at the time he was a Soldier of God; and it turned out that as far as Bleys could tell him, he hadn't. In turn, Bleys probed Sam for details of his past; and Sam made it clear that he didn't want to give these or indeed talk about himself at all.
From time to time however, he threw in a sentence of advice, which startled Bleys with its usefulness.
"Look at the legs," Sam said, after they had been sitting with their coffee for a little over an hour, "watch the legs."
"The legs?" Bleys asked—instinctively, at the same time taking note of the legs of the few people passing around the street before them and the intersection a third of a block away.
"Why the legs?" Bleys asked.
"Suppose we're here to watch for people who may be moving in to try an assassination attempt on the Great Leader," said Sam. "They try to move in as inconspicuously as possible, one by one, and then join together; or sort themselves out in positions from which they can all attack at once. We try to get here well ahead of time, and watch for them moving in."
He glanced at Bleys.
"What we watch are the legs," he went on. "Take a close look. A man or woman can't change their walk. They can be identified by that, even after they've changed their body shapes and their faces completely. A Soldier walks differently from a civilian. City people walk differently from country people. Likewise they give away the way they feel by the way they walk. Look closely at a man or woman moving into a position where they're going to try to kill someone; and hoping not to be spotted as anything but simply someone going down the street. He or she walks with their body weight forward and neck extended, a sort of walking-on-billiard-balls look. Watch for it. You won't see it right away, but after a while you'll begin to pick it up. You'll notice anything different right away."
"You can pick out differences like that, right away, yourself?" asked Bleys.
"That's right," said Sam, toying with his cup but with his eyes on the street. "After several wars it becomes automatic. You learn to read people by the way they walk, as if they were carrying banners. See that short, rather fat man down near the end of the block in the pink jacket?"
"Yes," said Bleys.
"He's running away from something," Sam said, "what, I don't know. It could be some person, it could be just something in his own mind; but his body's reacting by trying to run. Look at how he kicks his leg out as if he was going to take a longer stride, and then deliberately shortens the step when his foot comes down, so it'll look like he's walking ordinarily. Watch him for a bit."
Bleys did.
He was fascinated by this new bit of insight, as by all new knowledge. He concentrated closely on everyone whose legs were to be seen in motion on the street, and from time to time tried out his interpretations on Sam. Sam corrected most of them at first—then gradually Bleys began to come up more and more with interpretations the other man agreed with.
"You pick it up fast," said Sam.
This made the time move swiftly for Bleys. Still and all, they must have sat for two or three hours, until Sam pushed his cup away and shook his head disgustedly.
"Spotted again," he said. "No fault of yours, but you stand out like a distress rocket on a dark night with all that height."
By this time it was into afternoon. Sam led him through a shopping area, and up one of the buildings onto an observation tower, very windy and cool enough so that Bleys was happy to have the protection of the jacket. At this last place they killed another hour. This was the one time where Sam ended up the afternoon smiling.
"All right," he said, "Nicky didn't pick us out at all. That's better. We'll head back and you can turn in your needle gun; then you're free for the rest of the day."
"I don't have any idea what we did all day," said Bleys. "I mean, I don't see what we were supposed to be doing."
"Trying not to be seen," said Sam. "No, let me change that. We were trying to be seen, but not have any attention paid to us. Tomorrow, we'll try something different. I'll meet you at the Armory at six-thirty
a.m
., all right?"
"I'll be there," said Bleys.
They went back to the hotel and turned in their needle guns; but on Sam's advice Bleys kept the jacket. Free to do what he wanted for the rest of the day, Bleys left the hotel and returned with some relief to his own apartment, got out of his clothes and had a pleasant soak in the agitated water of the stimulant bathtub of their apartment. This had purposely been built extra large for Dahno, and therefore was comfortable for Bleys as well.
Through with the bath, and resting on his bed in his favorite thinking position, Bleys decided that two things needed to be done. He must somehow manage to do both of them without endangering his appearance of wholehearted devotion to guarding McKae.
The first was to visit the Hounds' Kennel and discover whether his orders to sharpen them up, which he had passed on through Norton Brawley, had been obeyed; and, secondly, find out whether they had, if obeyed, produced any change in the ability of the Hounds to carry through their assassination attempt. This last, he doubted. He was now convinced, not only that that assassination attempt was to be aimed at McKae; but that the Hounds did not stand one chance in a thousand of bringing it off.
By killing McKae, Dahno would at once remove all threat to the Five Sisters, and put himself, particularly, back in good order with those five Members of the Chamber. That had been the reason behind his ready agreement to Bleys' picture of the future. It made a good excuse for him to be off-world when the assassination was attempted.
The clerks in the office had reported that they had been hammered at for days now, by both representatives of the Five Sisters, and the Five Sisters themselves, demanding to know where Dahno was and how they could get in touch with him.
The clerks had repeatedly responded that they did not know. They had also, on Bleys' orders, not mentioned him at all; and the few times his name had come up they had claimed to know nothing about his whereabouts, either.
In a sense, both answers were perfectly truthful. They did not know where Dahno or Bleys was at any given moment. Possibly, Bleys was the only one who knew that Dahno had headed toward Earth rather than to one of the other worlds. Norton Brawley could know that he was off-Association, but probably not his destination. In Dahno's eyes, Norton would have had no need to know.
Meanwhile, Bleys had told the office staff nothing about what he was doing; so that while they knew he was in the city, and might on rare occasions be at the apartment, they had no idea of where or when.
All
this, they dutifully reported to him, when he appeared at the office to look at his off-world mail and ask them questions. He told them to continue stonewalling any attempt by any of Dahno's clients to reach either Dahno or himself and, out of their deep loyalty to Dahno and their budding loyalty to Bleys, they were quite cheerful about accepting the assignment. They were, surprisingly, almost fierce in their determination to protect both brothers.
Chapter 35
Bleys reported faithfully
at six in the morning on the next five days.
On each day he and Sam worked more closely with other Defenders, as McKae's security force called themselves, until by the end of the five days he was engaged in general movements of large numbers of them in a single exercise.
In the process he learned a great deal about his fellow Defenders; and also about the way they operated. Their manner of defense and attack was entirely different from that of the "modem
ninjas"
that Ahram Moro had trained for Dahno.
In a sense this did not surprise Bleys. He had been suspicious right from the start of the contempt with which Ahram and Norton Brawley both seemed to dismiss those who would be guarding the charismatic young church leader. To go way back, it did not fit with what he had seen of Henry; either in his day-to-day life, or in that moment in which he had faced down the rest of the congregation when Bleys had been in danger of being mobbed by them.
He could not picture Henry as a bumbling farmer engaged in a completely untrained firefight with other bumbling farmers. Nor did it make sense, on a world where armed disputes between churches were common, that men who had ended up fighting in these disputes all of their life by matter of choice should remain essentially inept and unorganized.
Furthermore, he had gathered the impression that when the militia moved in on one of these disputes, it was not an easy time for the militia at all; sometimes the churches combined against them, and then the casualties among the militia were high—and in any case they were considerable.
Also, Bleys learned something of the in-group language of the Defenders. The second day out he heard Sam speaking to one of the other Defenders with whom they were engaged in some kind of practice exercise that Bleys did not completely understand, but which involved working through the city streets in groups of no more than two and then joining up at a certain place. Among the words that were bandied back and forth, was one that struck Bleys oddly. The other Defender made a reference to "Bodies."
"What did he mean by 'Bodies'?" asked Bleys, when he and Sam were off by themselves again.
Sam looked at him with an unusually sober expression on his face.
"He was talking about those who were willing to give their lives, to make sure that their Great Leader was not hurt," said Sam.
"1 thought that was our job?" asked Bleys.
"Our job is different," said Sam. "The 'Bodies' are simply the volunteers who offer to cluster tightly about our Great Teacher, so that their living flesh becomes a shield against any needle, power blast, or void bolt aimed at him. Our job is to stop people from firing those blasts and bolts before they start."
"The Bodies aren't really Defenders, then?" asked Bleys.
"They're entitled to the name, but most of them don't use it," said Sam.
Bleys rucked that away in the back of his mind for future reference. He was learning a great deal. Gradually the organization, and something of the tactics and strategy of the Defenders, were becoming clear to .him as the days progressed. The Bodies made a living shield wall of their bodies around McKae at all-times when he was moving about in public. The Defenders spread out ahead almost as skirmishers, ready to come together in force against any enemy, before these had the chance to do anything lethal.
It became more and more apparent to Bleys that the Defenders operated more like old pros, like veterans, in doing their job. He learned that most of them had had actual battle experience, as well, in militia drafts off-world. They operated like an army unit. They were in contact with each other at all times and their aim was to face the enemy not one-on-one, but as a unit; firing and operating together, and able to call reinforcements to their aid to outnumber an enemy.
Their working together this way was helped by the fact that so many of them had been through this before, and like old experienced hands at any business, most of them needed only a minimum of commands'. From the way things would be developing, they could see what was best for each of them to do.
Bleys was reminded of examples out of history. The Greek phalanx, against the Persian king's so-called Immortals, at Marathon. The Roman phalanx against the Transalpine Gauls—the Germans of their time. Caesar had written something in one of his campaign messages back to Rome, to the effect that the Transalpine Gauls were one-on-one, superb fighters, noticeably superior to the Roman legionary, in this. But the organization, discipline, purpose and strategy of the legions caused them to win battle after battle against the northerners.
These so-called barbarians had even had superior weapons. A lot of them were working with steel at a time when the legionary's weapons, like his armor, were still only of iron. The Gauls were larger on the average, and stronger. They were extremely fierce fighters. But the Legionary stayed tightly in his phalanx, obeyed his orders, and conquered, nonetheless.
The more he compared the two, the more Bleys became convinced that the
ninjas,
for all their t
raining in all departments, could not begin to deal with the superior experience, battle-tested tactics—and, above all, unity—of these rough-clad Defenders.
If this was so, then, finally, the pattern of things to come fell into place, like a tipped-over row of dominoes. But it would be wise to double-check that conclusion first.
On the eighth day of his employment, which happened to be a Monday, Bleys asked to speak to Herkimer, and was given permission to do so.
He stepped into the office, in which everything, including Herkimer's clothes, looked as if nothing had changed since he had first met the man a week before.
"Yes, Bleys," said Herkimer, looking up at him as he came in. "Your coaches tell me they're pleased with you. What did you want to talk to me about?"
"It's a little problem with time," Bleys said. "I've got a cousin out in the country who's being married tonight; and he'd like me to be best man. The whole thing is likely to run rather late; and I'd have trouble getting back here by six in the morning. I just might be a little worn out tomorrow. I was wondering if I could come in late, the day after tomorrow?"
Herkimer laughed.
"You haven't been with us long," he said, "but you've struck everybody as being a pretty steady hand. I think you can come in late the day after tomorrow. If you really feel too rocky after the night before, simply call in and I'll let you have off until the following morning. In fact, why don't you just take off when you're free until the second day after that?"
"That's real good of you," said Bleys, "that's
real
good of you. I know my cousin is going to be happy to hear that."
"Call him up now and tell him," said Herkimer, waving at the control pad on his desk.
"Thanks," said Bleys, "but he hasn't got a phone."
He hesitated, and went on.
"My section leader said there was nothing really important for me to do the rest of today
..."
Herkimer laughed again.
"Oh, go on!" he said. "You can take off from now until the time I told you."
"Thanks a lot," said Bleys, "I appreciate that."
"We'll make you work for it after you come back," said Herkimer, still with a smile. "Now go along and let me get back to work. Oh, by the way, be sure to tell Sam on the way out about the time off I've given you."
"I will," said Bleys.
He left, after passing word of Herkimer's permission to Sam, who merely nodded. Once outside the hotel, he walked for several blocks and turned several corners. Sure at last that he had not been followed from the hotel, intentionally or otherwise, he used a street corner call-box to get himself an autocar and rode back to his apartment.
He stopped there only long enough to change clothes into the ordinary, rather expensive business wear Dahno had insisted he outfit himself in after his move to Ecumeny.
He walked down to the street instead of calling from his apartment; and from a nearby corner-box, once more called an autocar to take him to the office. There he used one of the office phones in his room to call the Hounds' Kennel and speak to the Kennel Master, Ahram Moro. The other's voice answered him within seconds.
"This is Bleys Ahrens," Bleys said.
"Yes, the officer of the day recognized your voice and keyed me in immediately to your call. What can we do for you, Bleys Ahrens?"
"Well, I thought I'd drop out this afternoon and see how the Hounds are doing on this latest exercise of theirs. I'm going to be in Moseville overnight, so it struck me that I could take care of two things at once. Suppose I take them all out to dinner in Moseville tonight—unless you have some objection, of course?"
"I . . . oh, no objection at all," said Ahram. "When'll you get here?"
"I should fly into the local airport about one o'clock. It'll be a private plane, of course, and I don't know just to the minute when we'll get off from here."
"That's just fine," said Ahram; "there'll be a couple of our Hounds with a car there waiting for you when you get in, Bleys Ahrens."
"Good," said Bleys, "I'll see you all later today then." "We'll look forward to it." "Good-bye," said Bleys. "Good-bye," answered Ahram.
Bleys switched off. He called the airport and arranged for the plane and a pilot, explaining that he would be staying overnight; and that he would want the pilot and the plane to do the same.
It was about a half an hour after one, when he sat down finally at the Moseville airport. The Hounds were there with a large, luxurious car as promised. They brought him to the Hounds' Kennel in about twenty more minutes.
There, Ahram insisted on Bleys having a glass of wine with him, then himself drove Bleys out to the practice ground and parked on a hill from which they could see a complete mock-up of the streets and buildings, which Bleys recognized as those of the building holding the Chamber from which McKae would emerge after his speech, eight days from now.
Bleys watched with an almost sardonic interest as the exercise was run. It took them no more than forty minutes, from the time they first began to move into place until those playing the part of McKae and his party were all down on the ground, playing dead. Everything had happened like a well-rehearsed play.
Ahram drove Bleys back to the Hounds' Den.
"What time were you thinking of taking the Hounds into Moseville for dinner?" Ahram asked, once they were seated back in his office.
"I've got to go into Moseville just about now," said Bleys. "Send them to the restaurant of The White Horse in the Triumph Hotel. Have them there about five
p.m."
"All of them?" asked Ahram.
"All who aren't on duty or needed here," said Bleys.
"That means at least eighty of them—possibly ninety.
Almost our full complement," said Ahram. "You'll want a private dining room, of course?"
"No, I don't think so," said Bleys. "Between you and me I'd like to see them out among other people. Going to a dinner in a private dining room is simply transferring their usual dinner to a different set of walls, floor and ceiling. Just make a reservation for a half or three-quarters, or whatever section is necessary, in The White Horse's best dining room and add extra waiters. Our men should get used to being waited on. Don't you think?"
"Well . . . I've never really thought of it," said Ahram, "but I suppose you're right. After all, in the long run, they'll all be recognized as important and be dining themselves in the best places."
"Yes, indeed," said Bleys. He stood up. "Now, if you'll get those two Hounds with the car around in front, they can take me into the city."
Half an hour later Bleys was registering at the Triumph Hotel. He had checked by phone from Ecumeny before coming, and with the aid of the local Civics Responsibility Bureau in Moseville, had found the kind of place he wanted.
He had specified a hotel that was off a busy indoor plaza or concourse, with a balcony from which he could stand and look down to see the Hounds as they came in, and then with a dining room that could handle a special party up to a hundred people and still be open to the public.
Now, he stood at the balcony after taking a look at the suite they had assigned him, and saw that the choice had been a good one. The balcony looked down on a busy floor with little kiosks, restaurants and shops, running all around the outside of it, except on two sides where huge revolving doors allowed people in and out. An escalator led from the bottom floor up to the floor that was the entrance to the hotel.
He smiled a little to himself. The question he had been expecting—in fact that he had been sure he would hear—had come from Ahram only diffidently, just before Bleys had stepped into the car.
"Oh, by the way," Ahram had said, "you'll be wanting the staff and myself—so on and so forth—as well as the Hounds?"
Bleys stopped with the door open in his hand.
"No, I don't think so," he said judiciously. "Let's give them a complete evening off without the eye of authority upon them. I'd like to make the evening as informal as possible. Oh, yes—and tell them they needn't come back till something like, say, three in the morning. I want them to have some free time to do what they want in the city, after the dinner is over."
"If you say so, Bleys Ahrens," said Ahram. His tone was perfectly agreeable, but Bleys could feel, almost as if it was radiating from the man, a very strong dislike of the freedom Bleys was demanding.
Now, here at last, Bleys gave over his inspection of the concourse below him and went back up to his hotel suite to lie down on the bed and plan.
There had been no appreciable difference between the exercise he had seen run today, and what he had seen on his last visit. Theoretically, this could mean that the Hounds were at the peak of their training.
Bleys did not believe it. Either Norton Brawley had not passed along his order that the Hounds be sharpened up, or else it had been disregarded by Ahram. The Kennel Master had stood beside him today, perhaps counting on Bleys' expertise in such armed actions as the assassination to be so slight that he would not notice that there had been no difference.