Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 Read Online Free PDF Page A

for two worlds that once were the richest, and thus the most powerful, of the societies on the Younger Worlds."
    "So maybe they've lost some market share," Dahno said. "That kind of thing is to be expected. It's in the nature of history, you just said that; things like that change over time, as conditions change and motivations change."
    "True enough," Bleys said, "but this goes beyond that. What I found convinces me of the existence of a quiet campaign over a long period of time that apparently sought to undercut the Exotics' wealth and position, by means that can only be described as a covert conspiracy."
    "All right," Dahno said, "so someone has targeted the Exotics in order to get a share—even a big share—of their money. That's understandable; and since it seems to have been working, I'd say it was a pretty good tactic. But whoever those people are, if they're in it for the money and the power, they'll likely be susceptible to our ability to influence them, in the end."
    "They may be vulnerable to us," Bleys said, "but I'm not sure money and power are the reasons they targeted the Exotics."
    "Oh?" Dahno said. "Can you think of some other motive?"
    "Yes," Bleys said. "Revenge, for one."
    "Well. ..," Dahno started slowly before warming to his thought, "I suppose the Exotics might have made enemies with their trade practices over the centuries, but I can't imagine anyone creating a secret society of some sort to oppose them. Have you been reading more of those Old Earth novels again?"
    "Not revenge against the Exotics, necessarily," Bleys went on, ignoring the gibe. "Revenge against the Dorsai, perhaps."
    "The Dorsai?" Dahno said, after a moment of silence.
    "Yes," Bleys said. "I think I mentioned that the traffic patterns indicating a downturn in the Exotics' fortunes were being echoed by the patterns involving the Dorsai. At first I thought the Dorsai were being crippled simply as a by-product of the attack on the Exotics—but then it occurred to me it might be deliberately intended, as a way to deprive the Exotics of a weapon." He paused, thinking.
    "Even then, I was too focused on the Exotics," he went on after a moment. "But now I'm coming around to the notion that it's possible the Dorsai were the original intended targets of this action I've called a conspiracy."
    "I don't understand—" Dahno started; but Bleys continued.
    "It's the only way it makes sense," he said. "Someone started, decades ago at least, to try to cut the Dorsai off from any sources of interstellar credits. You know as well as I do that none of the Younger Worlds is totally self-sufficient. The standards of living on all of them are far lower than that on Old Earth; but they all, each and every one, need to import a lot of things just to survive; and to do that they need interstellar credits. And no one more so than the Dorsai, a planet so poor it's always had to export its people to be mercenary soldiers, just to earn enough to stay alive."
    "And you're saying someone has been trying to starve the Dorsai by cutting them off from credits?" Dahno said.
    Bleys nodded.
    "Where do the Exotics come into this, then?" Dahno said. "Are there two such plots going on? That's a little much to swallow."
    "No," Bleys said. "One plot. If you remember your history, it follows naturally. The Exotics have always been a major customer for the Dorsai's services as the leading military professionals on all the worlds. To weaken the Exotics is to weaken the Dorsai's single largest market—and their single friend among the other worlds."
    "Is it that the Exotics are being crippled to prevent them from helping the Dorsai, or that the Dorsai are being crippled to prevent them from helping the Exotics if they come under attack?" Dahno said. "Couldn't it go either way?"
    "That's true, it could," Bleys said. "The records I've found hint that the campaign against the Dorsai came first, but I'm far from certain about that.... In any event, it doesn't really matter, does