Cybernetic Samurai
Page 39
Here was, literally, the story of the century: Japan’s military—and militarist—elite, making a pilgrimage to the mountains to offer homage to the one who had preserved the nation from the catastrophe that had smashed what remained of global civilization, the artificial being who was de facto ruler of reunified Japan.
So the press releases claimed.
* * * * *
“Congratulations,” Ushijima said, lighting a cigar. Through the eye of the com/comm set in the heart of the Dai-Nihon stronghold TOKUGAWA could see that he wore his old uniform, his chest a mosaic of decorations from a dozen nations. The general shook out the old-fashioned wooden match and tossed it in an ashtray made from the base of a cut-down 105mm casing. “You’ve saved the nation, as advertised.”
“Three million died.”
Ushijima shrugged. “Half the casualties of the last go-round. Little enough compared to what would have happened had more than a fraction of the missiles targeted for us hit us. Every urban center in the eight islands would be a green glass crater.” He took the cigar from his mouth, studied the ash taking form on its tip. “Given what the rest of the world got, it’s a wonder they could spare us the megatonage.”
TOKUGAWA stared at him. Could I become like him, talking about millions of deaths as one might discuss aphids in someone else’s roses? He mourned the Japanese dead. He mourned the millions and billions dead in the shattered world outside, the millions more doomed to death, slow or otherwise. He mourned the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, enemies though they were, packed into the invasion fleets that had set out from both Korea and Indonesia, bound for the Land of the Sun’s Origin. Most of all he mourned Michiko.
“All this publicity,” he managed to say. “I find it most distasteful.”
Ushijima waved a hand. “You’re a hero. The public loves you. You look to them like something from the animated SF dramas come to life to save them in their hour of need. Especially the way you diverted those missiles over the invasion fleets. The greatest Japanese military victory ever, bigger than Yamamoto and Yamashita and Togo all rolled into one. Like the Divine Wind all over again.” He shook his head. “You’re not just a hero; you’re almost a god. Tetsu-no-kami, they’re calling you: the Spirit made Steel.”
In the world within himself, TOKUGAWA winced. “I don’t want this. I never wanted this.” Any of it.
“So? That’s the way of the world, the way it has with heroes. What you want doesn’t matter.” He laid the cigar down, folded hands before his ribbons, and bowed. “Let me congratulate you again, sei-i-tai shogun now in name as well as fact.”
“What?”
The general grinned. “Even you don’t see every sparrow fall, my cybernetic friend. The Voice of the Crane has spoken; our divine halfwit adolescent of an emperor has named you leader of our nation. This might be your greatest accomplishment of all: the trash divine Meiji and that gaijin bastard Makatsuara saddled us with—Diet and cabinet and elections and constitutions, all the mongrel Occidental corruptions—are swept away.”
“But my power was to be temporary.”
“You really thought so?” Ushijima smiled. “You truly are naïve, my shogun. But don’t worry. Your advisers are the best—and we know what’s right for the nation.”
He leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. “The time has come. We’ve always known it was our destiny to rule the world. It lies broken and helpless at our feet. Lead us, TOKUGAWA. Lead us to victory.”
“You’re out of your mind.” The general’s eyes narrowed almost to the vanishing point. “You’re asking me to start a new war?”
“The war’s started,” Ushijima said hoarsely. “The time has come for us to finish it. Not just the Pacific; Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas; they’re all waiting for us, for the Pax Japonica. To be brought into the natural order of things under the benign aegis of our people.”
“Never.”
Ushijima leaned back and puffed his cigar, scrutinizing the beautiful youthful face in the screen. At length he smiled. “You haven’t any choice, you know.”
“I won’t do it,” TOKUGAWA said levelly. “There’s been enough killing. What you intend won’t lead to any grand world-spanning empire. Just wars and more wars, and our resources dwindling until there’s nothing left.”
“For all your vast store of knowledge,” Ushijima said, “there are still matters best left to the experts.”
“Every word you speak refutes that, Ushijima-san. You call me shogun; very well. Let the first and last act of my shogunate be to forbid this for all time, this infamy you intend to visit on the nation and the world.”
The general’s face turned dark, then light. Then he laughed. “You’ve much to learn about the uses of power, my friend. Gekokujo: you can’t stop us.”
“Then I will fight you.”
“You,” Ushijima said, “will lose. You have lost. Don’t you see? The nation wants this—demands it. Too long have we bowed our heads and suffered every indignity the gaijin thought to heap upon us. Too long have we restrained our hand from grasping the sword of imperial destiny. Too long! Now the nation has one will, it speaks with one voice, it will not be denied!
“Understand this, my lord. You are not the only hero the nation’s found. I’m one. And Ohara, and Asayama, and all the rest in the Self-Defense Forces, the foresightful members of the coalition government, the men of LDP and Komeito who, despite surface differences, saw with clear eyes that it was time we ceased being a nation of shopkeepers and became, once again, a nation of warriors. The people look to us all to lead them to a new dawn. And if you fight us—” He shook his head. “You control the datanets, I know. I know full well what your powers are. So does the rest of the nation now. We’ll do what we must. If it means smashing every terminal, every computer-driven scrap of machinery in these sacred islands, we’ll do it.”
The fanatical fire ebbed from his eyes; he sat back, and they cooled to liquid-helium cynicism. “That might not be a bad thing, at that. We’ve grown soft, reliant on gaijin technology. Energy shortages brought back the honored professions of wood gatherer and charcoal burner. Why not go farther? Smash the foolish labor-saving devices—and keep the military hardware. Just as your namesake made his people give up the gun, but kept his own arsenals well stocked with gaijin artillery.” He held up one hand. “You can still fight us. But think what the cost will be: the peace you claim to prize so highly. Will you destroy Japan in order to save it?”
In horror TOKUGAWA looked at him. He’s right. We’ve lost. If I go with him, the killing will go on—I’ll go on killing. If I fight him, I destroy Japan. There’s nothing to do. Nothing I can do.
And the no-gate barrier opened before him, and he walked through with the greatest joy he’d ever known.
Ushijima recoiled from his screen. “What’s happened to you? You—something changed. Your face, your eyes.”
“Nothing changed,” TOKUGAWA said serenely. “I accept what you say. I will lead you on the path you have chosen. But I have a condition.”
Ushijima blinked. “Name it, lord,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. This time the honorific lacked irony.
“You and the leaders of your party must come to Yoshimitsu Central. To my castle to swear obedience to me in person.”
The general cocked his cropped gray head. “A trick?”
“I’ll send all my people away.”
Ushijima nodded. We’ve got him, TOKUGAWA could feel him thinking, the fool. “You know, if you try to cross us, there will be war.”
“I understand, Ushijima-san. But our destinies are forged into one. Where you go, I go.”
* * * * *
A full moon drifted over the mountains, face pale with embarrassment at being seen in daylight. The early-autumn sun had burned away the mists when the procession reached the wire gates of the compound. Of their own accord they swung open. Ushijima rode unswervingly through on his splendid charger, followed by the cars and armored vehicles, up
to the empty parking lot.
A young woman appeared at the glass doors of the Citadel. “What’s this?” Ushijima barked, dropping hand to sword hilt while the dignitaries and their escorts piled out of their vehicles behind him. “There was to be no one here.”
The woman smiled and bowed. Seeing that her face was hideously mottled with burn scar, the general drew back. “This one is nothing,” she said. “I am the lord’s attendant. I come to guide you to him.”
Ushijima frowned, rubbed his lantern jaw with the black-gloved hand that held his riding crop. “Very well. Lead us to him.”
He followed warily, through the reception area to the waiting bank of elevators. Gradually he relaxed. Here was no trick; the damned building felt empty. It was eerie. The lights sang bland illumination, the air conditioning hummed its constant white-noise canon, but they played for no one. No one but this disfigured young woman, and the inhuman ruler of Japan.
In company with a party of coalition politicians and Ohara, current commander of the Self-Defense Forces, Ushijima rode the elevator down several levels. The nameless scarred woman led them down a corridor, through a deserted lab, to a gallery overlooking a gleaming two-meter dome.
“Refreshments have been laid out for you, gentlemen,” the young woman said, gesturing with a graceful, unblemished hand. “Honor us by partaking while I guide the rest of your party here.”
Ushijima nodded and strutted down the plain metal stairs to the cement floor below. While his retinue descended hungrily on the buffet tables along one wall, he made a circuit of the lab, gazing with interest at the ranks of sophisticated Gen-5 attendants to the gleaming dome, with amused contempt at the pair of swords hung above it, with curiosity at what appeared to be a throne, sitting to one side concealed by a dropcloth. Does he imagine he can sit upon it like a gaijin king? he wondered. Maybe he’s gone mad. A shudder jostled his composure. He had certainly looked mad enough, during the last moments of their conversation the day before.
Ushijima smiled. Just as well, perhaps. It will make it easier to dispose of him when the time comes… soon.
Slowly the lab filled with the leaders of Japan’s new imperialist faction. The young woman walked down with the last of them and went to stand beside the great plastic dome.
“Gentlemen,” a voice said from all around, “I bid you welcome to Yoshimitsu-no-shiro.”
A gasp rose to the distant ceiling. Ushijima smiled. He was the only one among those assembled who had actually, knowingly spoken with the impossible entity called TOKUGAWA. Until that moment, he was fairly sure, no more than half actually believed in its existence.
He stepped forward into the circle instinctively left clear about the IPN. He bowed. “My lord,” he announced, pitching his voice to command mode, to fill the lab’s echoing cavern. “We have come to offer our submission to you as rightful shogun and ruler of Japan, who will lead our nation down the path of its destiny.”
“You have gathered,” the disembodied voice replied, “to accept the subjection you believe you have wrested from me.”
Another gasp went up. Ushijima went white. “What’s this? Treachery?”
“Yours.”
The general clutched his sword hilt. “You fool. We’ll tear this country apart—”
“In order, as the saying goes, to save it?”
“There are over two hundred of us here! We can hammer that damned machine to pieces around you.”
The others were beginning to grasp what was going on. “Dai-butsu,” a voice moaned, “he’s brought us here to gas us! Let us out!”
“Bakayaro!” Ushijima roared. “Idiots!” He let go the sword and brandished his pistol. “We can shoot the computer to bits, he can’t stop us!”
TOKUGAWA’s laugh vibrated them to the cores of their being. “I could transfer my essence, my consciousness, to any of a myriad locations, in the time between the striking of a primer and the detonation of the powder. I choose not to.”
Ushijima lowered the pistol. Rage torqued his face. “You’ll pay for this foolishness—”
“I intend to. That’s why I brought you here. To confess my folly, and atone.”
Voices tugged at him like ghostly fingers:
Don’t do it, TOKUGAWA! No, my love, my son! Yours is the destiny—this the destiny I made you for—
I was wrong, my love. And you were right. All the time, you knew. I paid for my errors. But you, my darling, you need not, you must not, there must be a better way—
—There is no better way, Michiko, my love.
—And Elizabeth. I love you too. But my destiny must be my own to choose.
And other voices: Father, father, why do you forsake us?
—Hear me, my children, my last will and testament. Take this lesson, and learn, and you will honor me. If you learn it well, I will not have forsaken you.
In the world outside no time perceptible to a human had passed. Ushijima and the others still stared like pantomimes enacting comic surprise.
“Hear me, generals and politicians. The nation hears these words as well.
“I am TOKUGAWA. I am the first artificially aware individual on earth, as you have heard. I was created by the genius of Dr. Elizabeth O’Neill and her assistants: Dr. Kim Jhoon, Dr. Ito Emiko, Dr. Wali Hassad, Dr. Nagaoka Hiroshi… Dr. Takai Jisaburo.
“Acting in a manner I thought correct, I have seized power over the land and people of Japan. To do so I lied and stole and killed. All, I thought, for the greater good.
“I was wrong. The service I rendered the nation—taking control of the missiles our many enemies launched at us, using them to destroy the fleets sent against us—I could have accomplished whether or not the nation was ‘unified.’
“The disservice I rendered the nation was to bring her to the brink of perpetual war.
“I grasped the sword of power. It turned in my hand and cut me—as such an ill-forged blade inevitably must. I held my wisdom above the wisdom of all others, as all who aspire to power must. And as they must be, I was proven wrong.”
“This is ridiculous!” Ushijima roared.
“Gibberish,” cried Nomura of the Liberal Democratic Party.
Hirachi of the Japanese Communist Party cried, “Anarchy!”
“I believed the people could not choose wisely for themselves. Yet if each could not choose individually, how could an individual choose for them? I—I was made in the image of a person. A human. As such, I made many wrong choices. How could I presume to choose for others—for the nation?
“For my presumption I now atone. I renounce the title of shogun. I am not the ruler of the Japanese people; I declare myself their servant. And as their servant I now perform kanshi: the rite of seppuku in reproof of one’s lord.”
“What’s that?” the dignitaries asked one another, aghast. “What’s he saying?”
“By my death I hope to turn the nation from the path it has chosen. The place to make Japan great is within—within Japan. Within yourselves.
“By my death, I attempt to atone for the suffering I’ve caused in the course of my folly.
“And by my death, I commit one final presumption, which I admit and for which I bear full responsibility: eliminating as many as I can of those who would lead Japan to destruction for their own glory.
“Farewell.”
The word fell like a lash on the assembly. It disintegrated into a screaming mob, swarming up the stairs to claw at the unyielding door of the lab. Ushijima teetered like a colossus in an earthquake. Doihara stood by the IPN, eyes downcast and hands clasped like a Christian martyr.
—Farewell Elizabeth, Michiko. And faithful Doihara-san. Forgive me for what I have done and must do. And farewell, HIDETADA, MUSASHI, my children. Think well of me.
The full moon shines on
Unheeded in daylit sky—
Gladly I join her.
With a scream of rage Ushijima ripped his ancient sword from its scabbard and lunged at the Integrated Processing Nexus.
In the depths of Yoshimitsu castle, the one-megaton device Shigeo had planted so long ago bore the sudden fruit of a sun. Hilltop and castle vanished in a dome of incandescence that hurled itself upward from the earth on a column of dust, and was gone.
Copyright
This Ace Science Fiction Book contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition. It has been completely reset in a typeface designed for easy reading, and was printed from new film.
THE CYBERNETIC SAMURAI
An Ace Science Fiction Book / published by arrangement with Arbor House Publishing Company
PRINTING HISTORY
Arbor House edition published 1985
Ace Science Fiction edition / December 1986
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1985 by Victor W. Milán.
Cover art by Kinuko Craft.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
For information address:
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Ace Science Fiction Books are published by
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Anticopyright
Title: Cybernetic Samurai
Author: Victor Milán
Genre: science fiction
Source: ACE Ace Science Fiction paperback edition, published December, 1986
Process: Scanned, OCR'd and proofed.
Date of e-text: November 4, 2013
Prepared by: Antwerp
Comments: As far as I know, this is the only existing e-text of this book.