Glory's People (3 page)

As Master and Commander of Goldenwing
Gloria Coelis,
Duncan needed to know. To a human in Deep Space it was a need as vital as air. If the Terror had a purpose, Duncan believed, it was to
consume
life. Or perhaps, Dietr thought, it was to teach humankind that it does not belong out here, light-years from Earth.

Mira arched her back and growled in disagreement; her tail went expressively erect.

“Damn you, Mira, you
do
read me. Why can’t
I
understand
you
?” He pulled the drogue from his skull and flung it at the rewinding receptacle. Mira stretched, pulled at the fabric of the table with her foreclaws, and trilled at him. He had a fleeting impression of Buele, the so-called idiot savant from Voerster, exchanging--information?--with the cat. With many of the cats.

Mira leaped from the table to the wall nearest the open valve into the plenum. With another, and dismissive, flick of her tail, she was gone.

Dietr sat staring at the spot the animal had abandoned. It was near to impossible to conduct reasonable experimental science with an animal who had free will and sentience equal to that of a human being.

But by God
, he thought suddenly.
I did read her for a moment. And without the drogue. Was that a breakthrough?
It was humbling that the most brilliant medical student ever at Heidelberg now orbited a Japanese planet eleven light-years from Earth, ready to beg for help, and consumed with jealousy of an adolescent
lumpen
from a world of quarreling Afrikaners--because the lowborn boy could communicate with a colony of near-to-feral cats and the brilliant medic could not. Where was the justice in that?

With a sigh, he re-stowed his data-collecting gear.
Useless, most of it
, he thought dourly. He stowed it neatly because that was his habit. When he had done, he headed for the plenum himself. A view of the beautiful planet below the Goldenwing made one feel more important, more
competent
.

The terminator lay briefly on 123 degrees west longitude before sweeping onward across the vast expanse of the Inland Sea. Between 120 west and 160 east only scattered small islands, the tops of ancient seamounts risen from the deep sea, broke the surface of the ocean.

A deepening twilight lay on the western coast of Honshu, the largest of the Yamatan islands and the domain of the Minamoto family, whose daimyo was also the first daimyo of all Planet Yamato. From the
Gloria Coelis
, orbiting inverted at a height of 239 kilometers, the city of Yedo shone like a pile of gemstones. Thin beads of light extended to the north, south, and east--roads and outlying towns and villages binding Yedo to the smaller communities scattered in profusion across the island-continent. Over the Fuji Mountains and covering most of the eastern coast, a pattern of spring storms formed complex circular cloud formations that were occasionally illuminated by flashes of violet lightning.

Broni Ehrengraf, confined to the microgravity aboard
Glory
by the limitations of an artificial heart, floated on her back in the still air of the vast ob-deck. Like Duncan Kr, she was enchanted by the spatial views through the transparent carapace.

On Broni’s bosom rested one of Mira’s large sons, a black tomcat whom Broni had named Clavius, in honor of a beached Starman whom she had known and honored on her homeworld of Voerster. Whenever she played her balichord, she remembered Black Clavius.

Broni was a Voertrekkersdatter, daughter of a planetary ruler, the Voertrekker-praesident of Voerster. Her birth had destined her for a loveless political marriage, and her rheumatic heart had condemned her to an early death. The arrival of the
Gloria Coelis
at Voerster had changed all that--and a great many other things as well.

Damon Ng, the Rigger, recently relieved on watch by Buele, appeared beside Broni out of the dimness below.

“Another seaworld,” Damon said. “Duncan must be pleased.”

Their commander’s affinity for oceans was the subject of many conversations among the junior Starmen aboard
Glory
.

In silent companionship the young man and young woman watched the apparent movement of the planet above their heads. The terminator slipped past the western coast of the island-continent of Kyushu. The lights of coastal towns and villages grew dim as the planet rotated and
Glory
moved on. The deep darkness of night lay on the face of a largely empty planetary ocean.

At the horizon the syndics could see the burgeoning glow of Moon Hideyoshi. It burst from the sea and climbed precipitously toward the zenith.

The planet’s satellites were named for the three warlords who unified ancient Japan: Oda Nobunaga, the rustic daimyo (of whom the people of Old Japan had said: “He grew the rice”), Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the peasant general (“He made the paste”) and Tokugawa Ieyasu, the warrior aristocrat (“He ate the cake”). Minamoto no Kami, the ninety-year-old Shogun of Yamato, was descended from the same stock as the legendary Tokugawa.

The first moon to rise from the sea was the nearest, a mere 260,000 kilometers from Yamato. Moon Oda, at 1,700,000 kilometers mean distance, would rise more slowly. And Ieyasu, the largest and most distant at 2,500,000 kilometers, would rise more slowly still to flood the sea with yellow light. Hideyoshi, thought Broni, like the peasant he was, had leapt into the sky to begin his race for the far horizon.

Damon, who came from a tree-canopied world where the sky was seldom seen, was always impressed by swiftly moving celestial objects. “How fast it is,” he said.

“He, Damon. How fast he is. Yamatan colonists speak of celestial objects as masculine. Duncan says we are to get it right. Small things are important to colonists. Duncan says we must be correct.” To take the edge off her Afrikaner tendency to haughtiness, Broni said, “I have been studying with
Glory
. Do you know why they named him for Hideyoshi?” She took care to pronounce the name correctly, accenting the next to last syllable as
Glory
’s computer assured her the Yamatans did. She repeated the parable of the rice cakes.

“Tokugawa Ieyasu’s family ruled ancient Japan as Shoguns for more than three hundred years,” she finished approvingly.

As the daughter of a ruler and politician, Broni Ehrengraf appreciated the difficulty of the achievement.

“Weird people,” the Rigger murmured.

The two young syndics were silent as
Glory
moved swiftly through the night sky of Yamato. Hideyoshi silvered the sea and made a spangled path across the water. A coastline appeared below. “What is that?” Damon asked. Damon had qualities, but being an attentive student of
Glory
's lessons was not one of them.

“Kai. It is ruled by a family who claims to be descended from Takeda Shingen, the Mountain Lord,” Broni said. “There is a legend that Shingen was killed during a siege of one of Tokugawa’s castles because he returned to the same spot every night to hear an enemy soldier play the flute. I rather like that story. I think I like Takeda Shingen, too.”

“And Oda? You are going to tell me about Oda, aren’t you?” Damon said with a grin.

“You should know these things,” Broni said primly. The cat on her breast gave a low trill of agreement.

“Oda was a great warrior but a very bad man. He died of overconfidence. That’s what
Glory
says. Of overconfidence, and full of arrows, on top of a burning temple.”

“I hope that’s not an omen for us,” Damon said with one of the sudden mood switches for which he was famous aboard Goldenwing
Glory
.

Glory
's orbital track crossed Yamato’s equator and dipped into the southern hemisphere. In the dark before the approaching dawn terminator could be seen a half dozen of the artificial satellites in orbit around Yamato. Beyond, despite the glow of dawn on the horizon, the starfields were bright. On Yamato the stars shone in daylight. Amaterasu provided only half the illumination of Sol at Earth.

At latitude -18°
Glory
passed over a scattering of small, empty islands. Like much of the sea-girt land on the planet, they were volcanic. At -43°
Glory
passed from night into day high above still more empty ocean. To the south the syndics could now see the edges of the Southern Ice Cap that reached in this season to latitude 40 south.

On Yamato, a planet not greatly changed from the Pangaea stage, the poles were covered by caps that could reach, in winter, almost to 50 south. Cold Oda now rode high in the lightening sky.

The water below averaged a depth of nine thousand meters. The dark seas beneath the polar caps were the nurseries for the myriad sea diatoms that were the only indigenous sea life on Yamato. The fish-eating Terrestrial Japanese who had settled on Yamato had swiftly developed a taste for the microscopic plants of their sea. They were not precisely fish, but the colonists of Yamato ate them with relish. As far as anyone knew, an intelligent animal had never been found in the seas of Yamato, nor was one likely to be. The chances were,
Glory
declared, should such an animal exist, it would be eaten without remorse.

Glory
's orbit carried her north again, across a wilderness of stormy southern ocean. She recrossed the equator at longitude ten west and overflew the island-continent of Honshu to the shores of the Inland Sea. As the
Gloria Coelis
passed once again over the coast of Ieyasu, the city of Yedo below was awakening.

Dietr Krieg appeared in the ob-deck. He had brought with him a handheld video receiver. On the tiny screen the Wired Starmen could watch the appearance of Duncan and Amaya on the plaza before their luxurious guest quarters in one of Yedo’s tallest ryokans.

The streets, even at this early hour, were jammed with cheering people. Many waved paper flags bearing a sea-creature that they imagined to be the national insignia of Thalassa--for Duncan Kr--and silhouettes of big-breasted women in aggressive New Earther stances for Anya Amaya.

“
Glory
has been informing their planetary database about us, I see,” Dietr Krieg said thoughtfully. “I wonder if that is such a good idea.”

“Why should you wonder that?” Broni asked.

“Middle-aged suspicion, I suppose,” the Cybersurgeon murmured. “What people don’t know they can’t use against you.”

“It looks to me as though the people of Yedo are very pleased to have Starmen on their world,” Damon Ng said.

“I’m sure,” Dietr said drily. “But will they be so happy when Duncan asks the hard question, I wonder.”

“Will they be afraid, Dietr?” Broni asked.

“They would be fools if they were not,” the Cybersurgeon said.

At that moment a thread of ruby light streaked across the tiny screen. It originated somewhere in the mass of people gathered to see the offworlders. It terminated in the breast of an official standing next to Duncan Kr. The man fell, his chest vaporized by the heat of the beam.

“My God...”
Broni’s voice was thick with shock.

A human shield of police had formed around Duncan and Amaya, and armed men began frantically clearing the square in front of the ryokan.

Dietr took command.

“All right, children,” he snapped. “Back to the bridge. Let’s get this ship ready for Deep Space. Duncan must have asked the question. I think we’ve just had an answer.”

The most casual and unintended movement had shifted Duncan’s position in the group in front of the ryokan. There was a red flash and he felt the heat of a laser bolt as it burned past his cheek and exploded the torso of the city official behind him. The smell of ozone mingled with that of seared flesh, and Duncan felt the sting of sizzling hot droplets of blood on his face.

Duncan caught Anya by the shoulders and shoved her to the ground. The forecourt of the high-rise ryokan that had been, only a moment ago, crowded elbow to elbow by ranked Yedoans was now a swirling mass of frightened people, some running, some lying on the ground sheltering behind their fellows. Official Yedo had become a terrified mob. What agency could create such fear?

Duncan became aware that a cordon of yellow-clad domain policemen, weapons out, had formed around him and Anya.

A policeman shouted, “He’s wearing a nullgrav harness!” Another ruby laser bolt cut down a line of Domain lawmen. Duncan stood, ignoring the orders from his cordon of police to stay down. Across the forecourt there was violent activity. Details were impossible to see. Minamoto Kantaro, gorgeously attired in a samurai’s court dress, appeared with an incongruously modem energy weapon in his hand. “Take shelter, Kr-san,” he shouted. “We have a ninja!” To his police, he shouted, “Don’t let him live! Kill him and guard the
gaijin
!”

Across the square, a figure burst upward from the throng. It was a man dressed in black and wearing a backpack under the shreds of a formal kimono. In all the worlds Duncan had visited, only the Twin Planets of Ross 248 and Yamato possessed personal antigravity units.

The man rose into the air, but people clung to his legs, overburdening the lifting power of the backpack. With no hesitation whatever the ninja put his lazegun under his own chin and pressed the firing control. His head dissolved into an elongated cloud of steaming, bloody froth. Hissing fragments showered the crowd.

Startled, those holding his legs released their grip and he shot skyward, leaving a trail of bloody red vapor behind his headless body.

Minamoto Kantaro shouted for more police. “And get an air patrol after him! Get him down!”

The police were swiftly restoring order. Duncan put an arm around Amaya and asked, “All right?”

“He was aiming at you. He was trying to murder you.” The Sailing Master was more outraged than frightened.

“Enough, Anya,” Duncan said softly.

Minamoto Kantaro stood before Duncan and made a deep bow. “I am dishonored, Kr-san. I am steeped in humiliation.” Duncan regarded the young man thoughtfully.
Glory
’s database informed him that ninjas were an essential part of Japanese history and culture. It also warned that if a ninja’s attack failed for any reason, a second and third might be expected.