Glory's People

by Alfred Coppel

  I thank the Goddess, he thought, that the attacks on Kr-san’s life have failed. But what now? Where will we be if the next attempt succeeds?

  Kantaro was discovering that even for a Yamatan aristocrat absolution for attempted murder was not easily come by. One simply did not extricate oneself easily from treachery on so grand a scale. The ninja had not disappeared, nor, Kantaro suspected, had he meekly retreated back to Planet Yamato with the daimyos the Shogun had dismissed. The Mayor of Yedo remembered the encounter in the grove in the Shogun’s garden. Men like Tsunetomo vanish like smoke, he thought, but never before their task is done.

  What would Amaya-san think if she knew? More to the point, what would she recommend that the Master of this great vessel do? Opening the hangar deck and ejecting the colonists into space naked as newborns was not an outlandish notion to a man born and raised on Yamato.

  He felt a soft touch on his shoulder. It was Hana. She had materialized from somewhere, gripping the padding of his armor with imperceptible gentleness. She thrust her temple against his ear and trilled softly.

  Without his volition, his spirits rose, and as they did so Anya Amaya turned to glance at him. Sometimes between the syndics and ordinary men flashed some extraordinarily powerful connections. He had had the strong and urgent feeling that Anya-san responded to him as a man. She still did. But suddenly he felt a spike of envy from her.

  For a moment that confused him, and then he realized that she envied him Hana. For a second moment he experienced an almost childish satisfaction that this woman who so attracted him sexually while simultaneously intimidating him could wish for anything that he possessed.

  He was admonished for that thought with an almost inaudible growl from the small cat on his shoulder. The statement was not in human words, but its meaning was unmistakable: “I am not owned. I am not possessed. I am Hana. “

  Thinking to avoid shocking the Yamatans with the sight of near naked syndics in pods, Wired to the ship, Duncan had considered conducting his war council with the Shogun and his people on the skydeck under the carapace. But he decided against that because it had become necessary (as it was inevitable that -it should be) that the Yamatans see the people with whom they had decided to cast their lots as they were.

  Until now there had been neither necessity nor opportunity to allow the colonists the sight of Goldenwing Gloria Coelis’s bridge-crew at their proper stations. Duncan knew from experience that it could be a daunting sight. As a boy recruit, he had been stunned by the sight of the near immortal Starmen naked in the gel of their pods, their heads sprouting the grotesque segmented cable of the drogue that connected them to their vessel.

  Duncan had mentioned this in passing to Minamoto Kantaro, who had replied with the expected disclaimer about how any sophisticated person would realize that a ship as vast as a Goldenwing could not be sailed in any ordinary fashion. But many a promising relationship had foundered on the reefs of good intentions and well-meaning tolerance.

  Now, however, there was no time for a leisurely indoctrination. First Minamoto no Kami and Kantaro, then all of the daimyos and MD crewmen aboard, must see, and have confidence in, the age-old techniques by which the great, silent ship was operated.

  There was the additional consideration that the view from the transparent carapace was calculated to affect the instinctively isolationist colonials adversely as they watched their Yamato recede astern at an ever faster pace as Glory's delta increased.

  Some concession to the real situation was required, however. Duncan had surrendered the con to Buele and assigned the task of sail trim to Damon Ng so that he could meet the Shogun and his people looking somewhat more normal than he did when he was connected to Glory’s mainframe.

  The holograph of the space within a five-hundred-kilometer radius of Glory still hovered in air between the crew pods and the interface wall with its peculiarly out-of-date potpourri of analog, digital and empathic gauges and manual controls--all the seldom-used instruments of human physical control. The Yamatans were technically literate enough to understand the purpose of the isolation pods.

  The holo’s version of Yamato was nearly complete, save for the slice of planet that lay outside of the exterior imaging cameras’ field of vision. From Glory’s viewing angle the main feature of the planet they were leaving was the vast cyclonic disturbance that raged with demonic intensity over the planet’s north pole.

  Violent flashes of light betrayed the intensity of the storm. Yamato’s northern hemisphere was into its spring, approaching the vernal equinox. At precisely this time of year were the storms most fully charged with energy. The thing was feeding, Duncan thought. Somehow it was draining energy from the aurora and the storm. In another man it would have been a guess. In an empath of Duncan’s quality it was an epiphany.

  Duncan wondered: How does it know? Does it perceive reality as we do? No Red Sprite was visible from this viewing angle, but oddly prehensile columns of purplish light probed the northern aurora from a point beyond the limb of the planet.

  We have gained a little time, Duncan thought. And then, bitterly: What does that really mean? The Terror seems simply to ignore the Einsteinian conditions that frame existence for human beings. What, after all, did time mean to a thing that could move with the speed of thought?

  “Duncan?” It was Anya Amaya on the voice com-link.

  “Yes, Anya.”

  “We are on our way. What is happening outside?”

  “So far, nothing. We are outward bound from Yamato. The monkeys appear to have resolved their psychological reluctance to work. They are still in the tops watching the sail-set. “ Duncan essayed a thin smile. “They will never replace your fine touch, Sailing Master. “

  There was a momentary hesitation, and then Anya said, “Thank you, Duncan, “ and broke the link.

  Duncan made a temporary connection. “Broni, “ he sent, “set a course to keep Hideyoshi and Nobunaga between us and Yamato. “ Once again he warned himself against a surfeit of hope. If the Intruder remained content to stay in Yamatan space gorging on the planetary plasmas of Yamato’s northern lights for as much as a single day, the odds would increase enormously in Glory's favor. But what did distance mean to the Terror?

  A day ago it had killed an MD ship 120,000,000 kilometers away near the gas giant Honda. And only hours ago it had killed the Hokkaidans. Were such attacks senseless expenditures of energy rather than a form of feeding? If so, why would so powerful an entity do such things? What benefits could it derive?

  Pleasure? Simple pleasure? Was that possible? The idea was so revolting that Duncan was sickened. If that were the why of it, then the priests and sages had always been right, he thought.

  There is a Devil.

  22. Warriors Of Darkness

  Under the stumpy delta wing of their largest mass-depletion spacecraft, the retainers chosen from the Kai contingent stood uncertainly with their daimyo. Yoshi Eiji had no wish still to be on board the Goldenwing, most particularly not now, when whatever it was that the Yamatans had come to fight lay an unknown distance behind them.

  It was in exactly situations like this one that daimyos were traditionally expected to earn their privileges and rank. Since the days of medieval Japan on Earth, daimyos in extremis had gathered their samurai around them and prepared for battle, sometimes in merely practical ways but often in the meditative way of the ancient Zen warriors who sought victory but were always prepared for death.

  But Yoshi was samurai in name only. He was a “latecomer,” a descendant of the second wave of colonists who arrived aboard the Goldenwing Musashi. He was no warrior and he had no wish to be. He was an engineer by training, a rich man by inheritance and an entrepreneur by inclination. He understood quite well that the Shogun, Minamoto no Kami, had ordered him to remain aboard not as a mark of favor, but in order to keep him under surveillance. He knew that the Shogun suspected him of being involved in the ninja affair, and so he was. But what Minamoto no Kami did not know was tha
t Yoshi’s cautiousness had kept him untainted by any direct contact with the Order of Ninjas. Now that it was rumored that the Order had put another assassin aboard the Goldenwing to redress the first assassin’s failure, the Lord of Kai was at a loss. He looked about him at the faces of his retainers. Being naturally penurious, he did not maintain an army of clansmen in Kai. When he had been selected to join the conference aboard Goldenwing Gloria Coelis he had made up the numbers required to enhance his station from the many ronin who roamed from Domain to Domain on Yamato upholding the age-old tradition of the wandering warriors of Japan.

  Planet Yamato was a fertile ground for resurrection of the ancient ways, and though the planet’s history was not appreciably different from that of other colonial worlds, the nature of its people encouraged a wistful replication of their storied past.

  For Yoshi Eiji, however, the situation encouraged no wistfulness. He had no wish to be here. It was clearly dangerous. There was no profit in it. And worst of all, outraging his entrepreneurial instincts was the fact that he now stood in the hangar deck beside one of his hideously expensive spacecraft, surrounded by strangers. He looked suspiciously at his “retainers” and wondered which of them was the substitute assassin put aboard by the Order of Ninjas. There were twenty clansmen, and one was surely what the others would call a warrior of darkness.

  The clansmen of Honshu and Kyushu who had remained at the Shogun’s command had dispersed to their own MD craft, and the barge crew was already aboard Dragonfly, preparing that ship for flight. No one on the hangar deck had any notion of what would happen next, but all expected a swift encounter with whatever it was that had destroyed the Hokkaidan MD as it attempted reentry over Yamato’s northern ice.

  “Daimyo.” The speaker was one of the new retainers, a middle-aged man named Ishida Minoru. “We should be preparing ourselves for battle.”

  Yoshi regarded the man disdainfully. Many of the other lords of domains employed masters-at-arms or chief retainers who were able to marshal the clansmen into some semblance of order. But Yoshi Eiji had never done that. The pay of a chief retainer was high because most men holding that rank were swordmasters, archers, adept in the art of the traditional weapons.

  Occasionally one might hire an ex-soldier, but these were uncommon on Yamato. The planetary wars had ended generations ago, and former soldiers were rare on the islands. Now, for the daimyo of Kai to be accosted by a recently hired nonentity seeking, one supposed, to distinguish himself enough to justify permanent employment, irritated the distraught Yoshi.

  “Oh, should we be?” Yoshi said coldly. “How do you suggest we do that?”

  “I noted aboard the Dragonfly the Shogun has shinai and bokken, Yoshi-sama. I am skilled at kendo. “

  “Are you, indeed?” The man’s confident manner irritated Yoshi Eiji more and more. “And you think that a fencing demonstration would stiffen the backbones of my employees?”

  The man’s face seemed suddenly to lose much of its plasticity and harden into a mask. “The battle may soon be within this ship, Daimyo. Some strengthening of spines would not be amiss.”

  Yoshi looked more carefully at the ronin. It seemed he was seeing him for the first time. A cold chill moved into the pit of the daimyo’s stomach. By the Goddess, he thought, how could I have missed it? Here, in plain view, was the ninja. He had no doubt of it. Darkness seemed suddenly to gather around the stranger.

  “It is time to take command, Daimyo,” Ishida said.

  Yoshi felt a flash of cold panic. Take charge and do what? Fulfill his ninja contract? Kill the Starman Kr-san? And then what? Yoshi had heard that ninjas were single-minded to the point of madness. The possible consequences of having this man discovered to be part of the Kai contingent aboard the Goldenwing were suddenly terrifying. Minamoto no Kami would not hesitate for an instant to order a seppuku. And failure to comply would bring the strangler’s garrotte or a swordsman’s thrust. The old man was capable of ordering it with scarcely a second thought.

  “Come with me, Ishida-san,” Yoshi said. “The rest of you stay here where you are and await word from the bridge.” He led the way around the spacecraft and stopped well out of the other’s hearing.

  “I think I know you,” he said, hoping his voice did not tremble.

  “I am Ishida, Daimyo.”

  “I do not think so, ninja-san.” Yoshi met the flat, black eyes with difficulty. Instinct told him that to admit fear of the man was to risk setting him in motion. “I know why you are here. I approve of it. You must know that I was one of the first to subscribe to the idea that a member of the Order was the only response to the outworlders. Now, however … “

  The face remained expressionless and craggy, like a skull kami at the head of a sand garden.

  Yoshi’s voice failed him as his throat went dry. He began again. “Understand me. I know why you are here. I see no alternative to what you must do. But not now, Ishida-san. Out here we are totally at the Starmen’s mercy. Have you any idea of what we can expect from them if Kr-san is--injured?” He could not bring himself to say “killed.”

  Yoshi had seen holofilms of a great beast of the homeworld, the great white shark. For three million years it had swum the seas of Earth. For three million more it would continue as before, a creature totally without fear, striking where and when it chose. Ishida’s eyes were like those of a great white, Yoshi thought.

  I must manage the murder of this madman, the Lord of Kai thought. I must manage it before he fulfills the task for which he has come aboard.

  “Wait,” he whispered. “Wait until we are free of the danger out there, Ishida-sama. When that time comes I will offer you all the resources of the Domain of Kai.”

  The flat, blank shark’s eyes looked at him unblinking. “I will not need the resources of Kai, Daimyo,” the ninja said. “Only these.” He held up his brown, callused hands for the Lord of Kai to see.

  “I had hoped for more time, Shogun,” Duncan said. “But that hope is denied. We have encountered our nemesis again--and in a form unfamiliar to us.” He manipulated the holograph controls until an image of the Red Sprite hovered over the polar storm on Planet Yamato. “You must let yourself imagine the proper scale. Take note of how the red disk is situated directly over the planetary pole. We think that the Sprite is a manifestation of the phenomenon we have taken to calling, for obvious reasons, the Terror. Have you ever seen a display like this in the polar sky of Yamato?”

  Minamoto no Kami and Kantaro were reeling from the impact of the strangeness on the bridge. Both had heard, had been told, and understood that Goldenwing syndics sailed their great ships from isolation pods that strengthened the connection between the Starman’s brain and the ship’s systems. But it was one thing to be told, another to see at first hand members of a Goldenwing bridge-crew lying nearly naked in the conductive gel within the pods, long cables seemingly sprouting from their skulls to join them to the banked consoles on the bulkheads.

  To the Yamatans, a highly innovative technical race, the surroundings here on Glory's bridge seemed at once archaic and like a scene drawn from some slightly mad futurist’s imagination. Many of the banks of instruments on the consoles were of analog design--a thing not seen on Planet Yamato for two hundred or more years. The pods themselves were of metal with permanently transparent closures. Yamatans were accustomed to enclosures that reacted to ambient conditions in their homes and workplaces and in their spacecraft.

  However, the holograph image that Glory had reconstructed was of a clarity and intensity that far exceeded the ability of Yamatan engineers to duplicate. The storm raging over the Yamatan polar region lay beneath the thing Kr-san had called the Red Sprite. It was impossible not to suspect that there was a connection among the storm, the Sprite and the high combs of light of the aurora borealis.

  “You cannot see the intruder, Shogun,” Kr-san said. “But it is there. This image is constructed from data gathered only moments after the Hokkaidan mass-depletion ship was consumed.�
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  Kantaro looked at the display with dread. The image radiated menace.

  “Consumed, Kr-san?”

  “Yes, Kantaro-san. We are so accustomed to the thing that we forget others are not. We believe that it consumes whatever it attacks.”

  Two of the Goldenwing cats, Mira and Damon’s Pronker, crouched on the pod holding the Rigger, uttered low growls. Hana leaped from Kantaro’s shoulder to the pod and touched her nose, in silent exchange, to Mira’s. Pronker hissed softly at his sibling. Anya watched the exchange. Was the expression of displeasure because Hana now carried Kantaro’s alien scent? Or were the cats simply behaving as animals? For months Anya had, with repressed resentment, disregarded Mira’s Folk, but now it seemed fitting that she should look carefully and try to understand what was happening.

  The Shogun and Kantaro stared fixedly at the holograph. The aurora was a common sight on Planet Yamato, but neither man had ever seen it from above. Nor had they ever seen anything remotely resembling the Red Sprite.

  “I don’t understand you, Kr-san,” Kantaro said. “This manifestation is a part of the threat?”

  “We believe so, Kantaro-san,” Duncan said. “There was nothing like it during our encounter in the Ross Stars, or before that in Deep Space. There may be nothing to see. Or at least nothing that we can see. We believe it comes from outside our space-time from some reality where, perhaps, light does not exist. We have reason to believe that in its own medium it travels unlimited distances instantaneously.”

  The syndics’ empathic Talent warned them that Kantaro was finding this hard to believe.