Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09 by Gordon R. Dickson Page B

where the cleaning tools were kept.
    "Oh, you can take time out to unpack those packages you brought in first, if you want," said Henry.
    Bleys unpacked the packages, put the clothes away in the trunk underneath his bunk and stood, unsure of what to do with the boxes; finally he took them out and put them in one of the sheds where extra bits and pieces of equipment and worn-out items were kept. Few things were thrown away around the farm, he had noticed.
    He had no idea if the boxes would be useful; but he did not want to risk disposing of them. Henry had gone, or else he would have asked his uncle what to do with them. He went back in and gave the house a cleaning. Since it was scrubbed every day, it hardly needed even that much attention. Meanwhile, he had started the evening stew in the pot over the fire; and in due time everyone came in and ate.
    Henry announced the end of the meal as usual by putting down his eating utensils and standing up.
    "Will," he said, "since you cleaned up after lunch you're free now. You can go to bed early or do anything you want until regular bed hour; and then you better be in your bunk. Bleys, you clean up everything and then it'll be bedtime for you. Joshua, in my room after your prayers."
    Bleys noticed that as he went through the doorway of his room Henry lifted from a nail in the wall a long strap and took it in with him.
    Bleys found the action puzzling. He could think of no reason for Henry to be bundling up things in his own room. As far as he knew, none of them were going on a trip, and it was the kind of strap that would reinforce a suitcase or other piece of luggage. However, there was no obvious answer. He put it out of his mind for the present, going to work at the business of cleaning up after the dinner and washing the dishes.
    It did not take long to do the washing and clean up, now that he was experienced at it. He finished up and went to the bedroom he shared with the other two boys.
    Will was still on his knees when Bleys came in, which meant he had been praying for an unusually long time. But at Bleys' entrance he scrambled to his feet, climbed up into his upper bunk, undressed hurriedly and wrapped himself in.his blanket, turning his face to the wall. He had not looked at Bleys since Bleys entered.
    Further puzzled by this, but only slightly, Bleys went about his own business of undressing and getting into his own bunk. After the first few days of being awakened at dawn, he had adjusted to the idea of going to sleep early to make sure he got a full night's rest. It was only when he was pulling the covers up over him, that he looked across the room at the upper bunk, clinging to the outside log wall, where Will lay; and saw that the other boy had his head completely buried under his pillow.
    Bleys had learned when he was a good deal younger not to chase after mysteries, but to lie in wait for them, adding up evidence until at last the mystery revealed itself. He told himself that this odd behavior of Will's would explain itself in the long run, turned over in his bunk so that he faced the wall to Henry's bedroom and dug his own head comfortably into his pillow.
    It took him a few moments to doze off. He was vaguely aware of the sound of voices from Henry's room, but they were too low-pitched for him to understand anything. He was just starting to drift off when the voices ceased. There was a long moment of silence in which he hovered on the very edge of sleep, and then he heard an odd sound that he could not identify. There was a pause, then it was repeated. Then another pause and another repetition . . . and then he began to hear Joshua's voice ...
    Horror flooded through him, leaving him cold as an icicle. Suddenly, clearly and unmistakably, he identified the sounds from Joshua as sounds of pain; and the rhythmic repetition of the first sound he had heard he now recognized as the kind of sound made by a leather strap hitting a human body.
    To someone like himself, born to