Glory's People

by Alfred Coppel

  Before politics dominated his life, he said, he had been a practicing xenobiologist with considerable experience in space. “I may look like a samurai painted on a war fan,” he had said with a barely perceptible smile. “No doubt Minamoto Kantaro has emphasized what an old-fashioned man I am. That is true. But I am under no illusions that the date is sixteen hundred. Or that politics have grown simpler since then.”

  “Warning taken, Shogun,” Duncan said.

  “One of the skills required in the exercise of power, Starman, is the ability to distinguish between truth and wish.”

  “A skill I suspect you have mastered, Shogun,” Duncan said.

  “No one ever masters it, syndic-san. But one’s percentage of success rises over time. And I am old.” He spoke with a steely ring in his fragile voice. “I have learned which of my wishes I have a right to see fulfilled. One of these is to be told the truth.”

  “I did not bring Glory to Yamato to tell lies, Shogun,” Duncan said evenly. “It is not a syndic’s way. And it isn’t mine.”

  “Good,” the old man said. “You appear to be a man who heeds warnings.”

  “When I can, Shogun.”

  The Shogun glanced at Kantaro. “It is not like an assassin of the Ninja Order to fail, nephew. How did it happen?”

  “He must have misjudged the temper of the crowd in front of the ryokan, tono. “

  How calmly they discuss our near-miss, Duncan thought. Whatever else they were, they were certainly pragmatics. The task was to interpret events, and so be prepared.

  The daimyo turned back to Duncan. “Be warned. The Order does not take failure lightly, syndic-san.”

  Duncan shrugged, his light eyes cool. “Karma, Lord Shogun,” he said.

  Minamoto no Kami nodded approval of Duncan’s reply. “Tell me about the war you seek,” he said.

  “We seek no war. We have made a discovery, that is all.”

  “A disquieting discovery.”

  “Yes.”

  “Enough to bring you here without hope of gain.”

  Glory had warned that the colonists on Yamato were highly evolved capitalists. Their asteroid subcolonies were treated as independent states, free to exercise all their commercial and entrepreneurial skills, even on the inhabitants of the home planet.

  “That is so, Shogun,” Duncan said. “Unless one chooses to assign a cash value to life, liberty, human survival...”

  “I am being chided, I see,” the Shogun said. “Well. I asked, you answered. One sometimes does, syndic-san. You do well to remind me,” the Shogun said. He looked at Anya curiously. “You have spoken very little, Anya-san. Have you nothing to add to what your daimyo says?”

  “Only my agreement, Shogun,” Amaya said in her selfassured way. “Despite what happened in front of the ryokan this morning.”

  “Or because of it. I understand,” the old man said.

  The Lord Mayor of Yedo flushed. He was not accustomed to hearing the most exalted official on his world spoken to so--most particularly, not by a woman. He began a protest, but the Shogun interrupted him.

  “Iie, Kantaro-san,” the Shogun cautioned. “Our guests must feel free to speak plainly. We did not serve them well in Yedo today.”

  Kantaro’s face became an instant mask. Duncan was reminded of Glory's, warning that the price of failure could be very high on Planet Yamato. The Shogun could issue harsh orders. Seppuku was common on Planet Yamato.

  “The battle has only begun, Shogun,” Duncan said. “We are still searching for friends to share the burden.” Including a live and functioning Minamoto Kantaro, who would be well worth recruiting into Glory's fight against the Terror.

  The old man regarded Duncan intently. “I wonder if you are not too frank to prosper on Planet Yamato,” he said.

  Anya Amaya said quietly, “Shouldn’t we be open with one another, Shogun? There may be difficult times ahead. Wouldn’t we do well to remember that we are all Earth’s children?”

  The old man said, “We have been separated for a very long time, Anya-san. We may have grown too far apart to share the burdens.”

  “Or spoils?”

  The megacapitalist steel glinted in the old man’s eyes.

  “Carefully, Anya, “ Duncan subvocalized. He felt her bridle, and then she said, “Whether we share or not, it will come and we must face it. I think we would do better as allies and partners.”

  “Even if we die, Anya-san?” the Shogun asked in a voice like a stiletto blade probing.

  “Even then, Shogun.”

  The old man smiled thinly at Duncan. “Are all your women made of steel, syndic-san?”

  “They tend to be, Shogun,” Duncan said.

  Minamoto no Kami said, “So this is what one learns in Centaurus.” The women’s colony of New Earth in the Proxima Centaurus System had been established before Hachiman had departed for Tau Ceti. The Japanese of Earth had violently ejected the feminist recruiters who came to their islands seeking converts. Some had been killed. Perhaps it is a human trait, Duncan thought, that our quarrels and troubles outlive our civilizations.

  “I don’t know, Shogun,” Anya said. “But when New Earth’s time comes, I hope they will remember they are human beings before they are women.”

  “When it comes?” the old man asked.

  “When, Shogun, yes.”

  The Shogun looked at Anya approvingly. “A samurai’s answer, Anya-san.” He turned to Duncan. “Now tell me of your enemies, Starman. Describe them.”

  “I have never seen them, or it,” Duncan said. “I have only seen the men they have killed.”

  “An invisible adversary, Kr-san?”

  “There are colors the human eye cannot see, sounds the human ear cannot hear.”

  “That is not reassuring,” the old daimyo said.

  Duncan shrugged. “There are nonhuman Terrestrials aboard Glory. Our partners. They first sensed the Terror at a great distance.”

  “Your partners? You mean your cats?”

  “Yes, Shogun.”

  The daimyo’s gaze shifted to Minamoto Kantaro for confirmation. “Neko? Truly?”

  “I have not seen them, Shogun. But I am told they have remarkable powers,” Kantaro said.

  Duncan had given Kantaro a detailed description of Glory's pride of cats. He had no idea whether or not the Yamatan believed him.

  “Can you demonstrate the skills of your animals?” the Shogun asked. Minamoto no Kami was not only a skeptic. As a xenobiologist he was at least apt to be open to the idea that species other than human had abilities men did not. Mira’s pride would be a revelation to the daimyo of Honshu--of all Yamato, actually, Duncan thought. But, of course, there was no way fully to demonstrate the animals’ abilities to one who could not Wire to Glory's computer.

  The Shogun said to Duncan, “I keep cats. As pets. They do not breed well on Planet Yamato, but those that do are companion animals, nothing more. We claim no supernatural powers for them.”

  Duncan said, “With respect, Minamoto-sama. There is nothing supernatural about our animals. They were born and have lived all their lives in Deep Space. The environment has changed them. And our Cybersurgeon has given them implants that allow them to interface with Glory's computer. What Starmen do with drogues and sockets, the cats do by radio-link. The results have been--surprising.”

  Duncan felt Amaya thinking and subvocalizing sardonically: “That is an understatement only a Thalassan could make, Duncan. “

  “Remarkable,” the daimyo said drily. Clearly he was far from convinced. But someone on Yamato was, Duncan thought. Convinced enough to send an assassin. The urge to hide from the unpleasant and the dangerous was, apparently, still universal among men.

  The Shogun said, “We humans have criticized ourselves for millennia for being unable to establish reasonable interspecies relationships. You have succeeded where so many others have failed?”

  “You are losing him, Duncan, “ Anya subvocalized.

  “A few small success
es, Shogun,” Duncan said. “But those successes have kept us alive. I believe our adversary is attracted by Terrestrial emotions. Enraged by them. I don’t know why. At the moment I don’t care. I think your new technology has taken Yamatans out far enough to draw attacks.”

  “Emotions? Feelings? I think that a strange provocation, Kr-san.”

  The old man was fishing for knowledge, Duncan thought. And the Yamatans had suffered losses caused by the Terror. He was certain of it. “Fear,” he said. “Any emotions might be dangerous. But fear is the common element in our encounters. I think I, personally, drew it down on my ship when I strayed too great a distance from Glory in a sled. I was afraid--and it knew. It fed on my emotions.”

  “This is what you bring us, Starman?”

  “With regret, Shogun.” Duncan realized it was not the style on Yamato to give a short, simple answer. But if the Yamatans were ever to work with the syndics of Goldenwing Glory, some changes in their ways would have to be made. The thing Glory’s people and the warriors of Nimrud and Nineveh had fought to a temporary standstill in the Ross Stars was unlikely to stop hunting Man now. It had a taste for death.

  Duncan wondered, Are the colonists of Yamato capable of meeting the challenge Glory brought? He regarded the old daimyo steadily. The wars fought by the Shogun’s ancestors had not been conducted with tea ceremonies and Zen meditations. Like all mankind’s wars, they had been hard, bloody and savage.

  “Kr-san, let us speak without ceremony,” the Shogun said.

  “Please do, Minamoto-sama.”

  The Shogun’s eyes flicked to Amaya and back to Duncan. “Do you wish to excuse your woman?”

  Amaya flushed but maintained silence. Glory’s data bank had much to say about the interpersonal relations of the men and women who came into space from Earth’s Japan.

  “No, Daimyo. I do not,” Duncan said. “Amaya is my Sailing Master, my second-in-command.”

  “As you wish. First allow me to instruct the Mayor of Yedo.” The Shogun spoke rapidly to Kantaro in an ancient Japanese dialect. The younger man, on his knees, bowed low with his knuckles touching the tatami. Then he moved to the entry, slid the door panel aside, and departed.

  Duncan felt a flash of anxiety. “Daimyo,” he said. “The happening before the ryokan in Yedo was probably unavoidable. I would regret if our presence in your Domain of Honshu became the cause of any administrative trouble.” I wish I could say, Duncan thought, that the worst thing that could happen would be to have Yamatan society turned upside down to uncover some plot or other against the gaijin--the foreigners. That was not the way to win allies in a very losable war.

  The Shogun’s old eyes turned frigid. “Let me be the judge of that, Kr-san. Let Japanese problems be solved with Japanese methods.” The statement was remarkable for the use of the word Japanese. The ethnic name for the people of Planet Yamato was almost never used. When it was, the intention was extreme emphasis and separation from the rest of human society. It was a clear warning that said: Keep out. This concerns only us, not the gaijin.

  The old man smiled grimly. “Don’t expect ritual disembowelments, honored syndic. Such things are seldom done here among our people, and never by the enlightened.”

  “I am relieved to hear it, Shogun.”

  “I have instructed my nephew to, among other things, make contact with your vessel and inform your people that you are safe and well.” The old man looked at Anya and essayed a barely perceptible smile. “Does that meet with your approval, Sailing Master?”

  “We are in your house, Shogun,” Anya said, guided by her Hispanic ancestors. “We rely on your wisdom.”

  The Shogun’s smile broadened. “Very good, Sailing Master. Well said. Spoken like a Japanese.”

  Duncan was thinking that this encounter was becoming more and more like a wandering ronin's reception in some castle in the feudal Home Islands of two millennia ago.

  “Kantaro has spoken to me about your battle at the Twin Planets,” the Shogun said. “Tell me now. All that you can remember.”

  “It was scarcely a battle, Shogun,” Duncan said. “It was at the most a skirmish.”

  “One that, without the cats, you would have lost?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Say on, Kr-san. Old men love war stories.”

  Duncan felt a surge of impatience. The daimyo’s elliptical manner grew exasperating. Anya gave Duncan a covert look of caution. It was fitting that she, who came from the most rigid social order represented aboard Glory, should best understand the old Shogun.

  But Duncan could not help replying, “Isn’t it more fitting to speak of that which is to come rather than that which has been, Shogun?”

  “We have fought battles as well, Starman. And lost them, too. The people who sent the ninja are frightened. They think we can hide. I do not. But first let us be certain we fight the same enemy.”

  6. A Swift Killing

  Higashi Ichiro, Commander of the test ship MD-23, was tremendously pleased with the performance of his craft and three-man crew. The handling of the mass-depletion engine had been all that the engineers and research physicists back on Yamato could have wished, and Masao Kendo, the Specialist in Astrogation, now confirmed that the MD-23 had jumped a full 278,000,000 kilometers in an interval too small for the craft’s chronometer to record. There had been no perceptible acceleration and no apparent passage of time. The event was mind-boggling. Ichiro had been warned that actually doing the impossible was unsettling, to say the least. But the reality left him and his crewmates speechless.

  Ichiro felt disoriented. He had read of the time dilation experienced by Goldenwing Starmen as their ships approached light-speed. This was time dilation multiplied by infinity. In the Near Away time did not exist. No Yamatan physicist understood it, but such was the medium through which mass-depletion devices moved.

  Now, however, MD-23’s mass-depletion engine was drained of power. The return journey to Yamato would be powered by reaction engines and would take months.

  And, unnerved or not, Ichiro couldn’t prevent the burst of joy in his chest when Masao-san confirmed that MD-23 had actually completed its first flight into and through the Near Away.

  With this test flight, the fleet of Yamatan ships capable of attaining more than lightspeed numbered eleven. Of the eighteen constructed on Moon Hideyoshi, seven had failed to return from test journeys. That was frightening, but a samurai understood that a nation was advanced by the self-sacrifice of its people.

  MD-23 had been fuelled correctly with sufficient capacity to emerge from the Near Away on the far side of Amaterasu, in the satellite system of the gas giant Toshie--which now filled a substantial part of the sky visible in MD-23’s navigational screen. What the engineers called the Law of Inertial Mass Depletion had functioned exactly as the techs had predicted it would. The ship had emerged into normal space near to, but not dangerously within, the vast gravity well of Planet Toshie, and still within a tedious but manageable distance from Yamato in normal space. Ichiro had never before been so far from home, and the sight of the huge yellow planet ringed with cloud belts was overpowering.

  Ichiro was no physicist. He understood the principles of inertial-depletion flight imperfectly. This ignorance he shared with his fellow astronauts.

  He had been taught that the engine was powered in the environment of the Near Away by the tachyons storming out of the white hole at the galaxy’s center. Goldenwings, Ichiro knew, were powered by the same tachyons, but their capture of tachyons with skylar sails was primitive compared with the processes within the tokamak at the heart of the MD propulsion unit.

  Goldenwings used tachyon pressure on square kilometers of golden skylar sails to drive their great tonnage in the same way the winds had driven the clipper ships across Earth’s vast oceans. Since tachyons exceeded lightspeed only by a small fraction, the sailing ships could never actually surpass lightspeed. The Near Away remained forever out of reach. Like all sublight matter and particles, the Go
ldenwings were subject to all Einsteinian time-dilation effects.

  The mass-depletion engines operated with a complexity orders of magnitude greater than the Goldenwing sailplans. Tachyons were captured by the engine and stripped of inertia. The resultant power was channelled to the plasma rings that were the most obvious physical feature of MD ships. In flight the vessels were ringed with plasma that glowed like St. Elmo’s fire. The MD rings converted the tachyons’ inertia into delta-V, driving the ship into and through the analog of normal space the Yamatan builders called the Near Away.

  In that “place,” analogs of distance and direction existed, but an analog of time did not. Entry and exit from the Near Away were simultaneous; direction and distance were controlled (or so the crews hoped and believed) by the amount of inertial mass depleted by each jump. The results were stunning. A voyage that would take a nuclear rocket-powered spacecraft years to complete would take a Goldenwing months of shiptime (and decades of “nondilated” downtime). But an MD-powered spacecraft, destroying its own inertia as it went, took no time.

  To the visionaries on Yamato, the new technology offered instantaneous travel throughout the galaxy--and even extragalactic voyages seemed within reach. The dreams were unlimited.

  The first problem to arise for the MD engineers was the endurance of the engines. A voyage of three hundred light-days totally depleted the largest tokamak’s inertial mass-destroying capability, leaving the spacecraft stranded months, or even years, from planetfall in ordinary space.

  From Tau Ceti, to the nearest star, Epsilon Eridani, was a mere 5.4 light-years--a voyage of months in a Goldenwing, but quite unreachable through the Near Away because an MD ship would burst helplessly out of the Near Away a light-year and a third from its launch point, tokamak drained of power, marooned between the stars. The Near Away eliminated time, but in normal space distance remained, real and demanding.

  There were “to-come” MD ships in the design computers, ships capable of carrying two or even more of the massive MD engines to be used serially. But an MD tokamak functioning in the vicinity of another destroyed the passive engine’s ability to generate the necessary plasmas. Unless shielded with impossibly dense barriers, an MD engine, when carried within the inertialess field created by another MD engine, swiftly became useless.