His intimacy with Mira and the Folk aboard Glory had taught him that reality had an infinity of faces. Glory's syndics most particularly knew this to be so because their Talent made it possible for them to create mental surrogates for what their feeble eyes and ears failed to detect. It was this ability that formed the core, the very heart, of the link between the human beings of the Gloria Coelis and the new and strange cats who populated their world.
Duncan thought, When familiar reason abandons us to the irrational, then we must do as the Folk do--create an alternate reality in which we can effectively live, and fight, and if need be, die, for we are Wired Starmen.
That was Duncan’s fourth epiphany.
29. Syndics
They are gone and we don’t know where,” Anya Amaya said to the group gathered on the bridge deck. “It was Duncan’s intention to take the battle to the Terror rather than run from it. He did that. Now he and the others are gone. And so, I think, is the Terror. None of the Folk can sense it nearby, and neither can Glory. “ Amaya was too straightforward a person not to go on. “It is almost certain that we will not see any of them again. Duncan warned me the price of driving the intruder off could be high. He and Damon were willing to pay it.” She looked at the colonists clinging to the fabric bulkheads. “I hope your people were as willing,” she said.
Her eyes were red, but there were no more tears. She had received all of Duncan’s behests from Glory and she was now the acting Master and Commander. A single hour had passed since the sky had opened and swallowed the MD vessel. In that awful moment there had been a surge in the empathic signature of fear, genuine fear, and anxiety aboard the Goldenwing, but there was no corresponding counterattack from the Terror. Quite the contrary. The cats aboard had lost interest in the chase, and the humans felt only their personal grief. Their friends and fellow syndics had vanished, and with them the devil that had stalked Glory half across the sky.
The Sailing Master had ordered sail taken off the spars the moment the level of tension began to fall. Duncan had left instructions that Gloria Coelis come about “immediately we are engaged” and return with all haste to Planet Yamato.
Anya had seen no reason why all aboard should not hear, in Duncan’s own words, what he had left for them to do.
“No matter if a fight begins,” he said in Glory's voice, “and assuming we are not immediately consumed or destroyed, Glory must return to synchronous orbit at Yamato, which is the only place, so far as we know, in Near Space where the relativistic-speed problem is even being addressed. This means that if we fail to incapacitate, or at least discourage, the phenomenon we have been referring to as the Terror, another attempt must be made. I leave it to you, Anya, and you, Minamoto no Kami, to assume this duty. It must be done, or Mankind’s time among the stars is at an end.”
The Yamatans, wearing funereal white, responded to Duncan’s words with formal bows. The Shogun’s face was etched with the loss of his nephew, and Anya was touched with the memory of a thought she had had only yesterday, and that now seemed a whisper from the distant past.
We were never lovers, Minamoto Kantaro. Perhaps it is as well. Grief should be pure.
It was a thought worthy of the grim-faced women who had raised and then rejected her on New Earth.
Despite this, and despite the love and respect Anya had for Duncan, her inbred feminism rose in a surge of anger and grief. Duncan had performed an act that was typically a man thing, heroism fuelled with testosterone. And now I am alone to deal with what comes after, Anya thought bitterly.
The Shogun wore a hachimaki, a cloth headband bearing the sun disk of Amaterasu and a calligraphic prayer for the “happy rebirth” of the Yamatans who had died, as the colonists put it, “in the Near Away.”
The old man’s grief was evident. A lifetime of stoicism did not ease the pain of the loss of his nephew and heir. Yet only now could he allow himself to consider whether or not Kantaro had been as blameless as he, Minamoto no Kami, would have preferred him to be.
Before the dismissal of the war fans and the return to Yamato by most of the daimyos, Minamoto had struggled against the suspicion that Kantaro knew more about the attempts on Duncan’s life than was honorable. The young man had shown a reticence to speak of the ninja attacks that Minamoto had found disturbing.
Well, he thought bleakly, it was unimportant now. But had Kantaro’s complicity in some plot against the Goldenwing syndics and even--may the Gods forbid--against the legitimate order on Planet Yamato made it easy for the young man to volunteer so insistently for the MD mission to the Near Away?
Minamoto no Kami put such thoughts out of his mind. If what the woman syndic declared was the way things actually were, his duty as Lord of Honshu and Shogun of Yamato was to return and suppress any unrest or even insurrection that the loss of Kantaro and the others might encourage.
The thing these Wired people called the Terror was apparently gone, attacked and possibly even destroyed by the starship Captain’s reckless thrust into the unknown. The cost was high and the unknown and unknowable nature of the battle, if battle there was, left a Yamatan samurai unsatisfied. But Minamoto no Kami, a feudal Japanese to his fingertips, understood where his own duty lay.
“Is there any service we can render, Sailing Master?” he asked formally. “We are few, but you are fewer.”
“I thank Minamoto-sama,” Anya Amaya replied as formally. “But this Goldenwing is self-sufficient. However, it will take some time and distance for us to change course. We shall have to swing around Moon Hideyoshi to turn Glory. I have ordered the monkeys and the computer to use the light pressure of Tau Ceti.” A New Earther under all and any circumstances, she disregarded the discomfort among the Yamatans at the use of the Terrestrial name for Amaterasu--who was, after all, the astronomical aspect of the Sun Goddess. Already, Amaya was disengaging herself from the colonists. It was a defense ingrained in the syndic psyche. Only by such separation could the “immortal” Starman survive his or her life of continuing personal loss.
Amaya recognized what she was doing and was of no mind to change it, even if she could. A Starman once, a Starman always. It was an axiom aboard Goldenwings. Amaya herself had never truly needed--until now--to accept terrible losses without complaint. Duncan had shown her that it was possible when he left Eliana Ehrengraf on Voerster. Now the crew of Goldenwing Gloria Coelis must all do the same. Leave Yamato and leave Duncan Kr and Damon Ng, relegating them to the log and legend of the ship.
“We are still within range of Yamato, Amaya-san,” the Shogun said. “Since you have no further need of us, we will make preparations to depart at once. Our MD ships can shed their inertia and make an almost instantaneous turnaround by using the mass-depletion engines. So we will go in the MD ships and leave Dragonfly aboard to reclaim when you reestablish orbit. If that is acceptable, Master and Commander.”
Broni, defiantly floating in air above a control console and holding Clavius as though he were a kitten, bridled visibly at the use of Duncan’s title. Buele, close enough to her to touch, squeezed her wrist in warning, displaying a social sophistication he had not heretofore been known to possess.
“Your plan is acceptable, Lord Shogun,” Anya said. “Our speed is dropping swiftly. What inertial overload can your engines handle?”
The Shogun looked to one of his companions, a mass-depletion engineer. “Point zero zero five lightspeed, Minamoto-sama.”
The Shogun looked to Anya for confirmation. “Is it possible, Amaya-san?”
“We will be down to that speed within an hour, Shogun.”
Minamoto steadied himself with a hand on the flexing bulkhead and inclined his head. “We will prepare, Master and Commander.”
Once again Buele’s short-fingered lumpen's hand closed on Broni’s wrist. Still far from being in command of herself, the Voertrekker girl snatched her arm away. Big, perched on Buele’s shoulder, raised his hackles and hissed at Broni. Buele silenced him with an unspoken interspecies caution. Anya Am
aya shot a stem look at Buele and Broni. It would not do, particularly at this time, to give the Yamatans the impression that the syndics of Goldenwing Gloria Coelis were at odds.
Minamoto no Kami and his people left the bridge. Most had come to terms with the business of moving about in the almost nonexistent gravity aboard Glory. Those who had not still wore the grav units. Yoshi Eiji, the Lord of Kai, was one of these.
When the colonists had cleared the bridge, Amaya rounded on her crewmates.
“I do not want to see a display like that one ever again,” she said. “We are syndics. I expect us all to act like syndics.” She glared at Broni. “Without exception.”
Broni, a Voertrekker aristocrat unaccustomed to being disciplined, responded furiously. “He called you Master and Commander. “
“He did, and I am,” Anya said in a voice steely with command. “You heard Duncan’s instructions to Glory. Unless there is a miracle, there is no more to say. Is that clear, Astroprogrammer? “ For a syndic to use a Starman’s shipboard title was a clear warning given that discipline was being enforced. Life aboard a Goldenwing was seldom strict and not often formal. But on any vessel crewed by so few individuals, a direct appeal to ship’s discipline was not to be challenged. That had been true on the clipper ships of old Earth, and it was true now, near the limits of Near Space.
Broni bit her lip and held back the tears. Buele reverted to type and said gently, “We all miss them, Sister Broni. But there is the ship to care for.”
Broni clung to Clavius, holding him against her breast. He remonstrated with her as gently as one of the Folk may do. “I am not a pet, “ the cat sent. The Folk were never pets.
Everyone on the bridge read the sending. Tragedy had sharpened and enhanced their empathic Talents. The more sensitive among them, Buele and Broni, could “hear” the reassurances being offered them from all the unknown number of cats throughout the ship.
Buele said, “See, Sister Broni? We are not alone.”
A strong pulse came from Glory herself. It was a nurturing touch from a machine that had nurtured the men and women who had served her for a thousand years. Broni caught the swift thought from Buele: “What is being alive compared to that?’’ Cybersurgeon Dietr Krieg, who had been silent throughout the interview with the Yamatans, said, “Paracelsus is young. He grieves for Mira.” Despite the situation, he could not restrain himself from announcing, in this anonymous way, that he, the cold and cerebral man of old Earth, was no longer alone.
“So do they all, Brother Physician,” Buele said. “Can’t you hear them?” He glanced at Anya, a woman newly decorated with a new kitten on her shoulder. Anya was comforting her small familiar, cupping the small head in a hand and touching an ear with her lips.
Broni regarded Buele with a regard she had never known she felt for him. She noted that he had reverted to the “Brother This” and “Sister That” form of address. He had not done that for weeks, but it seemed just right now.
One day Buele will command us, Broni thought. Duncan as much as told us that many times.
“All right, then,” Amaya spoke with authority. “Let’s get the ship into a slingshot around Hideyoshi and back to Yamato as quickly as we can. Buele, can you replace Damon with the monkeys?”
“Aye, Captain.”
“See to it the Yamatans stay on the hangar deck. We can’t afford to have the monkeys frightened.” They were all only too aware of how the small cyborgs had gone into fugue when soldiers of the Collective had blundered among them and murdered a few.
Amaya looked at Broni steadily. Her amber eyes held steady on Broni Ehrengraf Voerster’s blue ones.
“Is there anything more you want to ask?” Amaya said.
“No, Captain,” Broni said in a low voice. “Nothing more.”
Within six uptime hours, Glory's delta had dropped sufficiently for the computer to align the ship with the pass, awkward for a vessel of the Goldenwing’s size, needed to make for a slingshot maneuver around Moon Hideyoshi.
Seven hours of backing sails to the solar wind of Amaterasu had also reduced Glory's speed enough to allow a launch of the remaining mass-depletion-engined ships still aboard. With their mass neutralized, the MD craft would begin their fall back to their homeworld from a point of neutral gravity. Their voyage back to Yamato would be swift and undemanding.
Yoshi Eiji, the second-wave daimyo of Kai who was now the senior retainer present in the retinue of the Shogun Minamoto no Kami, was finishing the business of getting all the Shogun’s people who had come in the barge Dragonfly into the more crowded accommodations aboard the MD ships. He had already been heard to complain about the lack of amenities aboard the Shogun’s experimentals. His own, he made it known, were superior in every way.
Minamoto no Kami, dressed now in a contemporary manner for space, stood with Anya Amaya in the shadow of Dragonfly's stubby atmospheric foils. His distaste for the Lord of Kai was evident in his manner, but it would have been out of character for the old man to discuss Yamatan politics with a gaijin.
“There is a thing I should say to you, Captain-san,” he said quietly. “My most skilled MD engineer was watching our vessel penetrate the Gateway into the Near Away--” He hesitated, as though unsure of how, precisely, to say this to the new Master and Commander of the Goldenwing Gloria Coelis. This venture had not gone well, and he did not now wish to make it worse. “He watched carefully. The Gateway was not what one customarily sees when an MD coil is activated. It was very different, Anya-san.”
“Tell me, Lord Shogun.”
“It did not resemble a Gateway at all. What it appeared to be was a black hole. That, of course, is impossible. But nevertheless, Akaga-san is seldom in error.”
Anya felt a stab of further grief. If what the Yamatan said was true, then those aboard the missing mass-depletion ship were truly and forever gone, tom apart by the powerful gravitic interplay of the hole. “I have read papers on the possibility of miniature black holes, Minamoto-sama, but everywhere Glory has sailed such things are intellectual constructs, not actual things.”
The old man regarded her sadly. “I devoutly hope that you are right and my engineer is wrong.” He essayed a melancholy smile. “But whatever you must face, you will face it well. As will I, Master and Commander. We are born and trained to our respective tasks. It is,” he finished gently, “our karma.” He bowed. “I bid you good journey back to Yamato.”
30. An Incautious Pursuit
For Duncan it was a plunge into emptiness. He sat in the unfamiliar chair of the MD pilot, his hands on controls he understood imperfectly. But Kantaro, with Hana on his shoulder, had moved to Duncan’s side and stood ready to intervene if assistance was required. Damon, closely attended by Pronker, was engaged in whispered, intense conversation with the young Yamaguchi Kendo, who seemed dazed by all that had happened to the vessel entrusted to his care by the Shogun.
That left the odd-man-out character of Ishida, whose presence aboard the MD ship was unexplained. The man sat on the deck, motionless, as though lost in some deep meditation. His heavy-lidded eyes were veiled. From Mira came the warning that the man was dangerous. Duncan was certain that it had been Ishida who had thrown the star in the carapace deck aboard Glory. Minamoto no Kami had done Duncan no favor by assigning the silent man to the mission into the Near Away.
But there was no time to unravel all the twisted strings of feudal plotting, political maneuvering, and Yamatan motivations. Kantaro had warned Duncan that politics was a dark tangle in the colony and that because of it Duncan and the syndics might find themselves at risk. The time was now, Duncan thought. If he had been able to develop his original plan of isolating Yamato’s ruling daimyos aboard Glory and well out into space where in isolation and utilizing the obligation with which Wired Starmen were regarded, a true alliance might have taken form.
But the Terror had preempted any hope of that, and Duncan was forced now to pass political concerns on to another, to Kantaro, who knew his people and
why they behaved as they did--but whose motives were as obscure as any of Planet Yamato’s ruling class.
Thank God, Duncan thought, for Mira and Pronker and small Hana, without whom the humans aboard the MD craft were deaf, dumb and blind in this limbo of the Near Away.
Mira sent Duncan visions:
She was in pursuit of a shadowy enemy. It was dark night, a night without moon or stars, the footing was damp and had the smell of rank growing things--
Yes, yes, Duncan thought. That is how it was in deep space. Mira always knew where the threats were; time and distance meant nothing to her when she hunted.
In a response to a command from Mira, Pronker left Damon and attached himself to Duncan’s other shoulder, gripping hard enough to drive the tips of his claws through the monomolecular fabric of the skinsuit.
Duncan felt the small, hard head press against his own. He could feel, too, the wispy touch of the drogue wire Dietr had planted in Mira’s skull, unwittingly beginning all that had happened to Glory's cats. Duncan abandoned himself to the powerful empathic sendings.
Two cats now stalked the dark grassland, searching, testing the scent of the air, tasting the feast of wild odors on the wind. A third cat appeared. A young female, still weeks from her first estrus. These were one with the saber-tooth and the smilodon who prowled this vast savannah. A hunting pride was forming, purposeful, dangerous.
Somewhere, not nearby, but within the globe of his awareness, Duncan sensed his own forebears. Not yet true men. What was happening to time? Duncan saw small, hungry creatures with heavy brow-ridges and fearful eyes. He remembered them. On summer nights, he huddled with them around a sparking, smoking fire while the cats watched from the shadows.
I will not crouch tonight, he thought. I am not Homo habilis. I am something else entirely. Something that was never born, yet here it is. He felt the grasses brushing his belly as he crept forward toward the prey. He smelled its fear: His hunger burned like fire …
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