Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (109 page)

The
lights
high
up
in
the
walls
were
bright
and
harsh
to
his
eyes, glaring
at
him
as
he
began
to
walk
down
the
ramp.
Against
the
glare
he
could
make
out
a
figure
apparently
waiting
for
him
on
the
bay floor.
Other
figures
were
moving
about,
but
none
seemed
to
be
paying
him
any
attention.

The
person
waiting
for
him,
he
found,
was
a
woman,
small,
and probably
in
her
thirties,
with
black
hair
framing
a
faintly
oriental face.
She
wore
clean-looking
lime
green
work
coveralls
that
fit
as
if tailored,
and
black,
slipperlike
ankle
boots.

"Bleys
Ahrens?"
she
asked.
It
was
the
alto
voice
he
had
spoken with
from
the
shuttle.

"Yes,"
he
said,
nodding
politely.

"My
name
is
Chuni
Maslow,"
she
said.
"Hal
Mayne
asked
me
to take
you
to
him.
Would
you
follow
me,
please?"

She
turned
and
led
the
way
to
a
hatch,
which
opened
itself
at
her touch
on
its
controls.
Stepping
through
behind
her,
Bleys
found himself
in
a
corridor
much
like
those
in
good
hotels
on
Old
Earth.
It seemed
to
be
wallpapered
in
a
motif
of
white
flowers—not
roses,
he thought,
but
something
showier,
elongated—on
pale
yellow.
It lightened
the
effect
of
the
royal
blue
carpeting.

He
knew,
from
his
reading,
that
this
corridor
was
a
unit,
a
movable
piece
that
could
be
maneuvered
about
within
the
vast
interior of
the
satellite.
It
had
probably
been
set
in
motion
as
soon
as
the door
closed
behind
them,
and
by
the
time
they
walked
to
the
other doorway,
the
corridor
itself
would
have
reached
their
destination and
attached
itself
there.
But
he
felt
no
movement.

At
the
second
doorway,
Chuni
operated
the
control
pad,
and
the door
opened.

"Hal
Mayne
asks
that
you
wait
here
in
comfort,"
she
said.
"He won't
be
long."

"Certainly,"
Bleys
said,
nodding.

Out
of
habit,
he
ducked
his
head
in
the
doorway,
but
he
did
not need
to
do
so.

The
room
appeared
to
be
a
simple,
comfortably
furnished, lounge.
He
explored
it
briefly,
as
any
innocent
visitor
would,
and found
that
both
food
and
drink
were
available
from
mechanisms
in the
walls.
A
video
screen
provided
entertainment
and
news
channels,
and
he
could
see
control
pads
that
indicated
the
availability
of communications.

He
did
not
try
any
of
the
controls,
settling
for
a
glass
of
fruit juice.
He
chose
the
sofa
as
a
seat,
since
it
was
larger
than
any
of
the chairs.

As
he
sat,
he
examined
his
interior
state,
and
found
that
he
was
a little
on
edge.
He
began
to
practice
some
of
his
silent
breath-control exercises.

In
just
over
ten
minutes
the
door
opened,
and
Chuni
Maslow
appeared,
framed
by
the
portal
but
not
coming
in.

"If
you'll
follow
me,"
she
said,
"I'll
take
you
to
Hal
Mayne."

Bleys
rose
and
stepped
back
through
the
doorway,
this
time
stopping
himself
from
ducking
his
head.

He
found
himself
in
a
different
corridor,
this
one
paneled
in
dark red
wood
above
a
pale
yellow
carpet
that
showed
no
sign
of
soil.

I
wonder if those fools who used to run Newton ever came here? They wanted so much to impress people with how advanced they were.

Even
as
he
had
that
thought,
they
had
reached
the
next
doorway, and
Chuni
was
operating
its
control
pad.

"Here
you
are,
Bleys
Ahrens
...,"
she
said,
as
the
door
opened. At
her
gesture
he
stepped
into
the
room
ahead
of
her;
and,
seeing Hal
Mayne,
he
lost
track
of
the
woman
until
the
door
had
closed
behind
him.

The
figure
before
him
was
undeniably
Hal
Mayne,
but
it
was
not the
young
man
he
had
seen,
sick
and
exhausted,
on
the
too-small bed
in
that
prison
cell.
At
that
meeting,
Bleys
had
been
surprised
to see
that
Hal
Mayne,
the
boy
he
had
never
met,
had
grown
into
a man;
now
he
had
the
feeling
he
was
meeting
with
a
completely
different
person.

Although
tall,
the
person
in
that
cell
had
been
still
a
boy.
But
all of
Bleys'
instincts
told
him
the
figure
before
him
now
was
that
of
a full-grown
adult
male—full-grown
in
every
way.

He
stood
as
tall
as
Bleys,
but
with
massive
shoulders
and
chest
that made
Bleys
feel
suddenly
smaller;
yet
the
difference
from
the
boy
in the
cell
went
beyond
size.
This
man
gave
an
instant
impression
of being
older
than
Bleys
was.
Bleys
was
disconcerted:
how
could
that boy
could
have
become
so
different
in
less
than
two
years?