Glory's People (15 page)

Some of the
Musashi
latecomers found the new world to their liking. Peasants became entrepreneurs, mechanics became engineers, village lawyers became politicians and sometimes even statesmen. A few of Yamato’s great clans were founded by such men. The descendants of the Yoshi, who arrived on Yamato late and penniless, now ruled the domain of Kai and the spaceport on Moon Hideyoshi.

Yoshi lacked the steel of his ancestors, but he had their shrewdness and self-interest. He had come up to Goldenwing
Glory
with misgivings; he remained to suffer the discomfort of zero gravity and the fear of great spaces, both within and without the great ship. But Yoshi was aware that the
gaijin
had experienced something truly remarkable in the Ross Stars, and his politician’s instinct told him he could not yet abandon the gathering and return to the planet. First, the Shogun must commit totally to this suicidal fool’s errand.

Yoshi did not lack intelligence; his unmet need was breadth of vision. Cupidity told him that if his mass-depletion ships were the only, or at least the first, colonial vessels freely to roam Near Space, it would be much to Yoshi Eiji’s advantage. But someone must first discover a method of protecting Yamatan ships from the thing that had happened out near Planet Honda. Otherwise crews would soon refuse to launch.

Yoshi was by training an off-planet engineer. He had never worked at his profession, and was in fact not very good at it. But he was a shrewd politician and he understood how important it might be to acquire the technology of whomever or whatever was ravaging MD ships. With such magic in his hands, Yoshi believed, the next shogunate might be his for the taking, for Minamoto no Kami was in his nineties.

The Shogun regarded his visitor dourly. Lord Eiji, he thought, was exactly the sort of man who rose to power among a people isolated from their true roots.

But he listened. Yoshi was a bellwether of discontent, capable of giving an early warning of serious dissent among the daimyos.

At the moment Yoshi was still playing the samurai. He was addicted to the Japanese fixation on acquiring a famous name. As the Lord of Kai, on Earth once the domain of the Mountain Lord Takeda Shingen, he yearned to be allowed to adopt the Takeda name for his own. There were no real Takedas left and had not been for fifteen hundred years, but a favorable recommendation from the Shogun would make Yoshi Eiji, parvenu, into a descendant of the great Mountain Lord.

So far there was no sign that Minamoto no Kami would even consider such a thing.

“We have weapons,” Lord Yoshi declared, puffing his full face into a samurai mask as he had been trained to do, acting ‘military’. “We are aboard an antique whose time has passed. Why can’t we simply arm this empty hulk and send it out to do what it should have done in the Ross Stars?”

He imagined the Lord Takeda Shingen might speak so. The samurai lord who had died during a siege because of his wish to listen to the flute playing of an enemy soldier had been a prodigious warrior.

But Shingen’s death had brought to the lordship his son, a feckless young man who did not heed his father’s dying advice to stay in his mountains. He had marched his splendid army down to the coastal plain, where the combined forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu had shot it to pieces with imported muskets at a river crossing called Nagashino. The mournful tale had been told with tears for two millennia. It was one of the best-remembered laments of a people who loved laments--the sadder the better.

Yoshi Eiji yearned to be a true Takeda of Kai.

The compartment occupied by Minamoto no Kami was as austere as any other aboard
Glory
. In her larger spaces, the Goldenwing was capable of using holographs and illusions to create an astonishing range of environments from the information in her data bank. But the actual living quarters aboard were plain, without ornamentation, functional. The Goldenwing had been designed by Spartans, Minamoto no Kami thought approvingly.

He said to Yoshi, “Are you suggesting that Wired Starmen do our fighting for us?” He had known the Lord of Kai for forty years and he had never liked him.

“It has yet to be proven, Minamoto-sama, that it is our fight. But if it should be, would it not be better to let the
gaijin
do it?”

The Shogun waited for him to make the next, obvious, statement. That even if there should be fighting and dying to be done that it had become Yamato’s business only because the Wired Ones had been followed into the Amaterasu System.

But Yoshi Eiji did not. He was a man who was cautious in all things. Most of the daimyos Minamoto had dragooned into coming aboard the Goldenwing saw themselves as samurai (which they were not), and as a reincarnation of the
bakufu
--the ancient military government of Japan--which had ruled the Home Islands until the formation of the
daibatsu
--the cabal of industrialists who had ruled Japan in peace and war until it was destroyed by the Jihad.

But we are none of those things
, Minamoto thought wearily.
We are simply colonists far from Earth, isolated in Near Space, and in danger.

This enterprise was vital to Yamato and, eventually, to all the colony planets. The evidence the
gaijin
presented was compelling. Everyone aboard now had seen holographic reconstructions of the engagement fought in the Ross Stars. Minamoto no Kami was not a squeamish man, but the sight of a man being consumed by fire from within was not easily forgotten.

But the Lord of Kai found it unpleasant to consider so grave a threat. In this he had companions. The sentiment among the daimyos was shifting away from risking their precious ships in a confrontation with a power they did not understand. Secret meetings had been held, and a consensus was growing. Let the
gaijin
do it. Surely it was they who had brought the danger to Amaterasu space.

Yoshi Eiji was neither a soldier nor a scientist. He hired soldiers and scientists. As many as he required for whatever task needed doing. All this talk of a fleet of ships, manned by samurai--including their daimyos--and led by the strangers, was an absurdity.

Yoshi had opposed welcoming the
gaijin
from the moment Goldenwing
Gloria Coelis
appeared in Yamatan telescopes. He was among the daimyos who contributed to the fund for hiring a ninja to kill the strangers in Yedo. When the attempt failed, Yoshi Eiji was shaken. A ninja failure was a thing that had happened only a dozen times in nearly the last four hundred years.

Though occasionally a fool, Lord Yoshi could also be a realist.
I am no warrior
, he told himself.
I covet Old Takeda Shin-gen’s name and fame, but not his battles.
Substituting lazeguns for katanas made fighting too dangerous. It was a great pity, for the Lord of Kai was second to no one in his love of the trappings of bushido. But he had no intention of confronting any powerful enemy with a weapon in his hand. A man could get killed doing a thing like that.

“I only suggest, Minamoto-sama, that we should arm this ship with laze cannon and distance it from Yamato,” he said carefully. “We have the means. We even have the men to fill a proper crew for this ghost ship if they are needed. The
gaijin
want aid. Let us give it to them and send them on their way. A ship or two to collect the mysterious technology of the invaders--that I am prepared to contribute.”

The old man frowned, his distaste for the Lord of Kai writ on his lined face. The Shogun’s intelligence resources on Planet Yamato were extensive, and Minamoto no Kami was by now reasonably certain that Yoshi was one of the daimyos who had contributed to the shame in Yedo.

A man who would lend himself to such a scheme with so little accurate knowledge concerning what a political murder at this time might precipitate was an undoubted fool--but he was far more than that. He was a menace to the best interests of Yamato.

The Shogun spoke with the full authority of his office. “The people of Kai have historically been calm and thoughtful men, Lord Yoshi. While they are descendants of the people of the
second
Goldenwing, they have almost always conducted themselves with calm wisdom ...”

“Almost, Minamoto-sama?” The daimyo’s voice grew thin at the slight to his family.

“Almost,” Minamoto repeated evenly.

Yoshi Eiji had blundered into the Shogun’s presence without serious thought. On the island-continent of Kai, a well-oiled governmental-industrial machine had made the Yoshi family rich. Minamoto no Kami, an aristocrat to his fingertips, thought that was reward enough for a daimyo descended from the people of the Goldenwing
Musashi
. At ninety-some, Minamoto no Kami was unlikely to change his mind. At times, the Shogun thought, it appeared that Yoshi Eiji would never be content until he achieved his own Nagashino.

He motioned impatiently to cut off further discussion. “I don’t care to get into a lawyers’ argument about ethics and the good of Planet Yamato,” Minamoto declared.

“We are envied, Shogun,” Yoshi said clumsily, “is for the rewards received because of our service to the state.”

“No doubt,” Minamoto said wearily. “I would be the last to deny that the domain of Kai has served the
bakufu
.” The Shogun used the archaic term deliberately, for its effect on a parvenu. “I will grant that you are serving Yamato now by being here at great inconvenience to your interests.” He had difficulty in controlling the irony in his tone.
I am getting too old for this
, he thought.
Soon let it be Kantaro’s time
. “But it is unseemly for us to try to entice the Starmen to go in harm’s way without support.”

“I am only considering the possibilities, Shogun,” Yoshi Eiji said stiffly. “What would be best for Yamato.”

The old man regarded Yoshi Eiji narrowly. “What other possibilities have you also considered, Yosh?” The sudden use of the familiar diminutive was not an endearment. On Yamato children and inferiors were addressed in that manner. Yoshi retreated swiftly.

He had almost decided that it was worthwhile risking a challenge to the old man’s authority. Yoshi rethought that precipitously.

Minamoto no Kami was certainly a very old man. And on the homeworld, a Shogun had been nearly a god. Here in Tau Ceti space, matters were different. The lords of Yamato lived under the rule of the Minamoto Shoguns because to attempt some other way was to risk the internecine strife and bloodshed no Earth colony could afford.

Blood could be shed on Yamato. But there were ways, means and methods that did not risk the destruction of the state. That was why ninjas still existed. Yoshi studied the Shogun guardedly. How much did the old man know? Sometimes it seemed Minamoto no Kami was an aging dodderer. At other times he seemed a dark, ancient demon.

“I only hoped to suggest a course of action, Shogun,” Yoshi said. He sat on the tatami-covered fabric deck, and as he spoke he bent deeply from the waist over his spread thighs; his fingertips, extended, touched the floor in a manner customarily used by women and, very occasionally, by samurai wishing to show submission.

Minamoto no Kami inclined his head in acknowledgment. The Lord of Kai knew his proper body language. He should. The Yoshi, lowborn but highly placed, were all experts in the protocol of dealing with their social and political superiors.

But never mistake the gestures for the reality
, Minamoto no Kami told himself.
This man spreads trouble wherever he goes. Even here aboard this vast, ancient ship.

When Eiji had excused himself and made his way hastily out of the shogunal compartment (he was still having great difficulty getting about either in zero-G or in the gravity field generated by the pack he wore under his
hakama
), Minamoto no Kami spoke aloud. “You heard, Kantaro-san?”

Kantaro appeared from a dilating fabric valve leading into the adjoining compartment. On his shoulder rode a small, ruddy cat. One Minamoto no Kami had not seen before. This one lacked the hair-thin wire antenna that many of the others aboard the Goldenwing displayed. Yet it sat firmly anchored to the padding in the shoulder of Kantaro’s broad-shouldered surcoat. The small head was very close to Kantaro’s ear and it seemed for one curious moment that the cat was speaking to him.

“I see you have found a
neko
to be your companion, nephew,” Minamoto no Kami said curiously.

Kantaro ran his knuckles over the small beast’s breast. “I believe she chose
me
, Shogun,” he said.

“She?”

“Definitely she,” Kantaro said. His face showed a momentary puzzlement. “I knew it at once. I don’t know how I knew it--I am not an expert in feline anatomy.”

“And does she speak with you?” Minamoto no Kami asked the question half-smiling. The cats were a peculiar delight aboard the Goldenwing. They moved about the ship like furry birds. Starman Amaya explained that they had all been born in space, and were completely at home in null gravity. She also suggested that if one listened in the right way, the small beasts
would
speak with you. Though what she actually meant by “speak” was not clear to the old Shogun. But their presence pleased. Clearly, Kantaro was captivated by the graceful creature riding on his shoulder.

Kantaro shrugged. “She speaks, I think, in her way.”

“And has she a name, your
neko
?” Minamoto no Kami asked. It was odd, he thought, that he had called Kantaro into the compartment to discuss the matter of Yoshi, but had fallen easily into a discussion of the cat.

“I call her Hana, Shogun.” He caressed the small, alert head and was rewarded with an almost inaudible purr.

“Flower,” the Shogun said. “It suits her.”

Kantaro lifted Hana from his shoulder and handed her gently to his uncle, who cradled her against his breast. “But she is not mine, uncle.” He smiled. “I suspect no one owns these cats.” Minamoto no Kami, despite the rigidity of his upbringing as a samurai aristocrat, had always been one of the most sensitive and empathic of men. It was a characteristic much desired in the ruling families of Yamato.