“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.”
3. A Death In Yedo
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.
Still bowing with head low, palms on his knees, Minamoto Kantaro said, “Yamato is shamed, Kr-san. I am shamed.”
“Politics is an unruly business, Kantaro-san,” Duncan said. “Please. Let us hear nothing more about it. If you cannot grant me this request, then I shall be dishonored for having brought trouble to Yamato.”
A trio of yellow police tilt-rotors swept over the recovering crowd in pursuit of the soaring corpse.
Kantaro-san straightened and said, “My obligation will be decided by my daimyo. Whatever is decided, it will not reflect your honor or the honor of your ship.”
Anya Amaya moved to speak but Duncan signalled her silence subvocally. “Let it go for now. “
Aloud, he said, “How high will the nullgrav carry him, Kantaro-san?”
“It depends on the efficiency of the unit and the amount of fuel it carries, Kr-san,” Minamoto said. “Customarily we only use them in space, and then to create gravity rather than nullify it. We dislike free-fall.” His dark eyes glittered. “He has had a bitter death. Failure will forever shame his memory.”
“But I honor him for it,” Duncan said drily.
A police official drew Minamoto Kantaro aside for a moment. Amaya took the opportunity to whisper to Duncan, “Might he commit seppuku, Duncan?”
“Only if his daimyo commands it.”
“Perhaps he should. You might have been killed. You very nearly were.”
“Ritual suicide is not commonly practiced on Thalassa, Anya.”
“I knew men of some societies did such things on the home-world,” she said. “I wondered if all men carried their foolish traditions into space with them.” Amaya tended to make harsh judgments on males. It was part of her feminist upbringing.
Before more could be said, the mayor rejoined them and said, “Where there is one ninja there are sometimes more, Kr-san. We will go to the Shogun’s garden now. A tilt-rotor is waiting for us on the ryokan roof.” He turned to an aide and said, “Find that body. I want what is left of it.”
The ten-meter tilt-rotor was handsomely--but austerely--equipped. Duncan could discern nothing to set it apart from the aircraft that had carried him and Anya Amaya from the spaceport, yet it was one of the squadron reserved for the personal use of the Shogun and his staff. Each of the dozen seats was fitted with an impressive console containing the controls for outside video-imagers, cellular com devices, and other services not immediately apparent.
Kantaro-san had spent the first five minutes of the flight with the pilots. He now returned to attend to the comfort of his guests. Duncan found the way in which he dealt with the incident of the ninja in Yedo fascinating. Clearly, he was upset. The incident, as severe as it had been, had implications for the young samurai that Duncan found difficult to grasp. Yet if he were ever to prevail upon the colonists of Yamato to do what no colonists had ever done--seek out a threat and offer battle--he would have to interpret the complexities of the system of duties and obligations that governed life in the Tau Ceti System.
Kantaro-san, an opulent figure in brocaded silk hakama and kimono, still managed to look like a warrior, Duncan noted. Glory’s crash course on Yamato and its people emphasized that Yamatan society mimicked that of feudal Japan. There was an antique cast to life on Yamato that suggested a psychological return to ancient Japan--the Japan unified after the Battle of Sekigahara. The Minamoto Tokugawa Ieyasu established his clan hegemony that foggy day in 1603 and for 264 years nothing had changed until Japan was opened under the guns of an American naval squadron.
Clearly the Minamotos of Planet Yamato had resolved to do at least as well as their ancestor, Ieyasu. To descend, as Glory had, on such a society bearing a call to war was not going to attract friends. The ninja’s attack was practical proof of that.
When the mayor had settled himself in
his seat and turned it to face the syndics, Duncan asked, “May I ask some questions, Kantaro-san?”
The Yamatan’s face was round, unlined. His heavy lids with their pronounced epicanthic folds shielded eyes black as fuligin. Standing, Duncan would tower over the Mayor of Yedo, as would Anya. Yet Minamoto Kantaro was a figure of power. Duncan, descendant of Gael fishermen living on a world of rock and sea, understood that Kantaro-san’s presence was the result of forty generations of selective breeding. Glory’s database contained descriptions of the almost fanatic lengths to which Yamatans went to ensure the purity of the gene pool of their Great Houses.
Kantaro regarded Duncan distantly. Duncan had already noted the tendency of Yamatan eyes to empty when one asked inopportune questions. “About the ninja?”
“And other things.”
“Ah.” Kantaro-san steepled his supple fingers and looked out the window of the tilt-rotor. “It is the tonno’s place, not mine, to exchange ideas directly with you.”
Duncan noted the use of the Japanese word for “lord.” Every nuance held meaning when dealing with people as complex as the colonists of Yamato. Under the circumstances, Minamoto Kantaro was saying politely, it was Minamoto no Kami, the daimyo of Ieyasu and the chosen Shogun of Yamato, who would deal with the outsider.
Minamoto no Kami, Duncan amended mentally, or no one. “Still,” Duncan persisted. “Is the Ninja Order as strong on Planet Yamato as it once was in Japan?”
“What does your ship’s database tell you?”
“It suggests that it is, Kantaro-san.”
“Your database is correct, Kr-san. Here the Master of the Order takes the name of Tsunetomo--the author of the Hagakure--the book by which samurai try to live. The Order is secret and not political.”
Duncan’s heavy brows arched skeptically.
“It is so, Kr-san. On Yamato we say that the Ninja Order is the sword arm, not the brain.”
“Killers work for pay and not out of political conviction?”
“We do not regard ninjas merely as killers, Kr-san. But yes, the agents of the Order are blades in the wars of ideas.”
What a remarkable way of seeing the world, Duncan thought. And how bloody risky it made life for a stranger on Planet Yamato. But there was no point in carrying on this conversation now. “You said something earlier that interests me, Kantaro-san. About Yamatans disliking free fall. I find that unusual for a spacefaring race.”
The Yamatan shrugged. “Perhaps it is because so many of our ancestors experienced cold-sleep for only part of the voyage from the home planet. Now most who leave the planet’s surface do so wearing grav units. They are expensive, but very good.” And their concentration of gravity control might account for their advanced state in the development of mass-depletion propulsion, Duncan thought. A fascinating, paradoxical people.
The tilt-rotor’s flight was carrying them from the coastal hills upon which Yedo stood, across a wide, lowland valley, toward the foothills of the Fuji Mountains.
From what appeared to be about fifteen hundred meters’ altitude, the valley below could be seen clearly--an intricate pattern of waterways and paddies. Dappled yellow sunlight glinted as the aircraft’s sun-angle changed. It was as though the field below were sending golden arrows after the interloper. Duncan’s empathic sense made the impression powerful. The land
seemed to be warning off the machine flying above it.
Duncan glanced at Anya to see if she was getting the same psychic message. But the New Earther was staring out the window at the wetlands below. Water in such quantity was unknown on New Earth.
Kantaro said, “I took note of your interest in the valley, Kr-san. Do you know what crops are being raised down there?”
“It appears to be rice, Kantaro-san.”
“It is rice. Now, rice grows poorly on Yamato. The conditions are not favorable,” Kantaro-san said. “But rice is of mystical importance to Japanese, Kr-san. Did you know that it was once a medium of exchange on the Home Islands? One koku of rice was the amount needed to feed one warrior for one year. The daimyo who owned a crop of a million koku had at his command, in effect, an army of a million men.” He gestured to the land below. “That rice could be genetically reengineered into a crop more suited to the ecosystem of Yamato. This has been proven a number of times over the last millennium in the agricartel laboratories. The engineered rice is designed to the Yamatan taste and indistinguishable from the rice you see growing down there. It may even be more savory. But I would not know. I have never eaten any of the rice growing in those paddies. Nor have any of the secular inhabitants of the Four Domains. The rice grown with such difficulty in those paddies below is rice reserved for the temples and monasteries. I have no idea what the bonzes and monks do with it. For the most part, they eat what the rest of us eat--cereal grains and meat from the descendants of offworld food animals. Yet rice, specifically that rice you see in the paddies below, rice grown with great labor, is the food of our ancestors. It is rice. True rice.” He smiled grimly. “What, you may ask, has rice drawn from the alien mud of Yamato to do with the ninja who tried to assassinate you?”
“I begin to understand, Kantaro-san. The way of living is more important than the fact of living.”
“Yes, Kr-san,” Minamoto Kantaro said. “The Hagakure, the book by which we try to live, is called the Way of the Samurai. We live by symbols, Kr-san. You will have already noticed that we dress conservatively for our day-to-day lives. But let there be an occasion or a festival--and we have hundreds of festivals, Kr-san--you see how we love our ancient finery. Symbols, tradition. For example, when the rice crop fails--and it fails often in this climate--it is taken as a warning from the mystical powers. From the animist spirits said to live in the stars, from the kamis of rock and river and mountain. From the Sun Goddess. Even from the Buddha. We have always had many faiths, we Japanese. Yet they are one. We united them. We do things in an ancient way on Yamato; we cling to our traditions--whether they are good traditions or bad.” He caressed the golden pommel of the wakizashi short sword in his scarlet sash. “We often wear the two swords of the samurai. Despite our technical sophistication, we do other things as archaic. It is our way.” He paused. “But we are also a practical people. Thus, sometimes, Kr-san, when we can, we influence the gods by spoiling a rice crop--or employing a ninja.” He fell silent.
“You are gifted as a teacher, Kantaro-san,” Duncan said. “I shall remember your words.”
“I suggest that you do, Kr-san.”
Anya Amaya was following the conversation closely now. “How many daimyos know why we are here?”
“You are here to summon us to war, Amaya-san. All the daimyos know.” Kantaro-san hid his hands in his kimono sleeves. “But the daimyos wonder if you know what you are asking.”
“We fought the Terror in the Ross System, Kantaro-san,” Amaya said. “We know.”
“And the point is,” Duncan said quietly, “that you know, as well, Kantaro-san.”
Minamoto Kantaro looked uncomfortable. “We have lost spacecraft,” he said. “But the daimyos are divided.”
“How is that possible?” demanded Anya. “The threat is real.”
“Perhaps we are being warned not to venture into Deep Space, Amaya-san. It is our way to consider all the possibilities.”
“What does the Shogun know?” Duncan asked. The question was blunt, too blunt for these archaic Japanese, but the Terror was real, and it drew nearer each day. Glory's, syndics felt it like a chill in their bones.
Minamoto Kantaro said, “He knows that we have lost spacecraft. Some tests of the mass-depletion engine have not gone well. So long as our spacecraft move slowly and remain close to Amaterasu, flights are uneventful. Some of the older daimyos believe the Sun Goddess protects them.”
Amaya snorted in derision. Duncan warned her with a glance. Kantaro shrugged in apparent agreement. “But as the speed of our ships increases and their range extends, events not necessarily to Yamato’s advantage tak
e place.”
Duncan heard in the Lord Mayor of Yedo’s words the echo of the Great Rescript, which had ended the last great war the Japanese fought on Earth. Japan had lost two cities to atomic attack, and a hundred more to conventional bombing. Her navy was on the bottom of the sea and her people starving. At this point the Emperor had written that the war must end because “events had not necessarily developed to Japan’s advantage.”
“I see,” Duncan said. “And suddenly we appear.”
Minamoto Kantaro remained eloquently silent.
So the government of the Four Domains knew that something was killing their new, experimental lightspeed ships. The ninja’s attack indicated plainly enough that powerful Yamatans connected Glory’s arrival from Deep Space and the loss of their own mass-depletion-powered ships.
They see us as inflight, pursued by a superior force, Duncan thought. Not a situation calculated to endear us to the people of Planet Yamato.
Kantaro-san said, “There are many secret societies on Yamato. Their names would mean nothing to you, and hardly more to me. Their activities have always been limited to family feuds and clan disputes. Until now. The bolt fired at you was political. The lord Minamoto must decide what is to be done.”
Duncan said, “There is nothing political about Glory’s call in Yamato, Kantaro-san.”
“Here, Kr-san, survival is political.” His hand rested on the cord-braided hilt of his wakizashi, a short sword that was clearly sharp as an old-fashioned razor. Duncan Kr studied his host’s unlined face intently. The syndic’s empathic power brought him to the edge of understanding. But not farther. Duncan was a Caucasian. Before his people colonized Thalassa they had accumulated the experience of three thousand years of Western history in their genes. In Minamoto Kantaro’s heredity was twice that number of years dominated by east Asia’s intricate ethos. The psychological infrastructures upon which the personalities of the two men depended were, literally, worlds apart. Close observation and study, Duncan thought, might bring understanding of a sort, but would it bring the empathy without which a human defense of Near Space might be impossible? Planet Yamato lay like an unaware gatekeeper, at risk on a strange and terrifying frontier.
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