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makes it a win situation for me."
"Possibly," said Toni. But she lifted her wrist control pad to her lips and
spoke into it.
Back at the hotel, Bleys paced up and down their pri-vate lounge while they
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waited for Henry, who had left them to get a medical check on those of his men
who had taken any possibly serious damage in the alley.
Bleys had not taken off his cloak, which swirled and flapped about his legs at
each turn, as he paced the room. He was aware of Toni's watching him from a
sofa-float, and of Henry's arrival, shortly after; but only with the edge of
his mind. At the center of it, it was as if the en-ergy being generated inside
him by his thinking would burn him up if he did not burn it off.
His eyes were focused nowhere in particular. He was concentrating on nothing
and everything at the same time; including the possibilities suggested by what
they had ex-perienced at the dinner. These possibilities engaged the full
cognitive machinery of his mind. The room, Toni and Henry even the world
around them for the moment had only a shadowy existence. Only his thoughts
existed.
"It's all right," he came back to his surroundings to hear. Toni was saying in
a low voice, "He's well into it."
Bleys looked and saw Henry and Toni sitting with their heads close together;
and, since he was still pacing, he saw they did not realize he had come out of
his whirlwind of thought.
"How are your men?" Toni was asking.
"Fine," Henry answered. "No one got seriously hurt."
"I'm glad to hear it," answered Toni. She nodded at Bleys. "Was he like this
as a boy?"
Henry shook his head.
"No," he said.
"When did it start?" asked Toni.
"I saw it first a few months before he left my farm my son's farm to go to
Ecumeny and be with Dahno. That was shortly before he tried fasting to find
God and did not. It was at least half a year after that before I saw him
again; and somewhere in that time he'd made the decision that brought me to
him now."
"The choice for Satan?" said Toni.
"Not a choice for," said Henry, shaking his head again. "No, he wouldn't do
that. He's too big in soul too big in every way for that. But it was a
decision that put him in Satan's hands, whether he admits it to himself or
not."
"If he really doesn't know," said Toni, "can you still hold him responsible
for being the way he is and doing what he's doing?"
"Yes," said Henry flatly.
"Why?"
"No one who walks with Satan can avoid the guilt of it," said Henry. "A man
may try to hide it from himself, but the hiding is known by him, even if
what's hidden is not admitted."
"You're very hard in some ways, Henry," Toni said.
"I'm very sinful in many ways, myself," said Henry. "But in the end for me as
for Bleys and everyone the answer's the same. Alone, you take the
responsibility for any decision. And alone, you bear the consequences."
"It's cruel to think that way."
'To live in God's way is not easy," said Henry.
Bleys stopped his pacing abruptly and stood facing them. Their heads lifted
and their faces turned to him.
"Henry," he said, "are there any of your men who won't be able to move on to
Blue Harbor tomorrow?"
"None," said Henry. "But I thought we were going to stay here another day or
two."
"That was my first plan, yes," Bleys answered. He looked at his wrist control
pad. "Just a little after nine in the evening, now. There's plenty of time
yet. Toni, will you take the phone and make arrangements for all of us to fly
tomorrow, late afternoon, for Blue Harbor? Make it about dinnertime."
Toni frowned.
"I don't know if I can arrange scheduled transportation for as many people as
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we've got at that short notice," she said. "At the very least, the local
space-and-atmosphere lines are going to want to split us up into groups on
dif-ferent ships."
"Charter a space-and-atmosphere ship if you have to," said Bleys.
"There's that, of course," said Toni. "Maybe I'd better ignore the regular
flights and go directly to that."
"I'll leave it to you," said Bleys. He came over and took a chairfloat by
them. She keyed in the phone by her sofa, spoke briefly to a travel agency and
broke the connec-tion.
"You look pleased," said Henry, watching him steadily.
"Things are moving," answered Bleys, stretching his long legs out before him
toward the fire in the fireplace, which the hotel staff had replenished. It
crackled as mer-rily as if there were not a problem in the universe. It was
ridiculous that something originally designed to heat a room should be
retained for merely decorative purposes. But Bleys enjoyed watching it, as for
very different reasons he appreciated the starscape in the ceilings of his
bedrooms.
"They could be moving much faster than I expected," he went on thoughtfully.
"There are some possibilities "
He was interrupted by the chiming that signaled a phone call. Toni answered.
It was a return of her travel agency call, and she was immediately immersed in
the details of the move.
"Interesting that none of those who jumped us in the al-
ley used anything but sticks or clubs," Bleys went on to Henry.
"They planned to hurt us but not seriously," said Henry.
"So I just said to Toni," Bleys answered. "That's why it's interesting.
Whoever sent them did it with orders to hurt and scare us, but not to do real
damage to the im-portant ones among us, anyway."
"Also," said Henry, "to give the appearance of being a simple gang off the
street. Not part of any organization."
"That, too," Bleys said. They looked at each other and nodded. Bleys turned to
Toni, who had now finished the call. "Everything set?"
"Everything. I set takeoff for six p.m. tomorrow," said Toni. "All right?"
"Fine," said Bleys, gazing at the fire again. "Now, we wait. I think we're
going to have a late visitor."
"A visitor?" Toni asked. "Who?"
"That I can't guess," answered Bleys. "We'll wait and see. Whoever it is
should be here by midnight."
However, it was less than an hour and a half later that their phone chimed.
Toni picked it up and spoke into it.
"Bleys Ahrens' suite. Yes?"
She listened a moment, then thumbed her control pad to mute and turned to
Bleys.
"For you," she said. "A Guildmaster Edgar Hytry. News travels fast in this
town."
"And decisions are just as fast," said Bleys, a second before he thumbed the
phone stud on his own pad to talk. "Guildmaster Hytry?"
He listened a moment.
"Not at all," he said. "I'm usually up later than this. If you'll go to the
north tower of this hotel, and press the stud of private elevator A2, its door
will open, and you can come directly to me, up here."
A pause.
"Not at all." Bleys said. He touched the stud again and cut off contact.
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