Glory's People (19 page)

“I am sorry, Brother Captain, “
Buele addressed himself to all, but it was Duncan he wanted most to convince.
“I know it was angry. It wanted you, Brother Captain. But it was sad, too. A deep, deep sadness. It may be lonely. “

‘Try that one on
Glory
,” Dietr Krieg said, again aloud.

Duncan addressed himself to the entire crew.
“Dietr--all of us--we must remember.
Glory
is a machine. A marvelous one that every year and every kilometer in space makes still more marvelous. But she is still a device. The cats know. See how they treat her. They love her but they seem to understand better than we what she is. The great-queen-who-is-not-alive. She holds terrabytes of knowledge and we can use it, but we cannot expect her to decide questions like this for us. All that
Glory
knows about the Terror is what she--and we--have learned on these voyages. Don't just dismiss what Buele tells us.
Glory
will confirm it. But we need to know much more. “

The fear that Duncan had felt in his own close encounter with the dark stalker still masked the essence of what Buele had declared. In the oceans of Earth, he wondered, did the fleeing prey feel grief for the shark?

An attack by a ninja was a political act on Planet Yamato, bloody-minded, but tolerable. But not aboard a Goldenwing. It broke the covenant between colonists everywhere and the Wired star sailors. Without that covenant man in space became utterly isolated by interstellar distances.

But Buele’s statement had shifted the agenda of the meeting, causing a momentary confusion.

Now, to Duncan’s surprise, Broni Ehrengraf spoke as one among equals. The girl cradled Black Clavius and said,
“An important decision has to be made. “

Dietr Krieg bridled. The Cybersurgeon, being the least empathic of the Starmen, was the last to realize that something unique was happening to the group. He framed his statement as loftily as he knew how. Broni was, after all, only a girl. The male chauvinism of the homeworld had never been eradicated. The Jihad had seen to that.

The cat Paracelsus regarded the physician intently. He-who-cuts was about to make himself foolish. Para’s tail lashed in irritation. Mira disciplined him with the subsonic growl all her kittens knew well.

Dietr Krieg drew heavily on
Glory
's database. Amaya looked speculatively at him. As he moved about, his drogue coiled and uncoiled in the null gravity. The Serpent of Eden, Anya Amaya thought, remembering her Bible lessons that marched so strangely with the matriarchal feminism of New Earth.

Dietr addressed Broni formally, and by the title she bore aboard
Glory
:
“What decision, Astroprogrammer? What is there about that thing that needs some new decision from us?”

The reply, and the manner in which it was given, surprised the Cybersurgeon--surprised them all, save Buele. Broni displayed a polished empathy and situational understanding that made her statement translucently clear. Her sending was precise and to the point:
“Do we kill it, or do we allow it to kill us?”

She looked from one to another across the bridge deck.
“We don’t sail under some mythic prime directive nor are we commanded by God to sacrifice ourselves. We fought it at the Twin Planets, and Glory saved us. But the choice of fight or flee--was one that we made. Now we have to decide again. “
Her vision was so empathically clear that the moral dilemma she posed touched each syndic deeply and personally. Duncan drew a deep breath, expanding with sudden pride. For the first time since
Glory
had lost the Astroprogrammer Han Soo to old age before Planet Voerster and Supernumerary Jean Marque at Einsamberg,
Glory
's people were one. He looked at the Cybersurgeon and was gratified to see the realization and gratification in his face as well. It was not necessary to probe Dietr’s mind. Broni’s coming of age as a Starman was as pleasing to the physician as it was to all the others. It was as though each had touched hands with all the others.
I had forgotten the joy and pride of full unity
, Duncan thought.
Since Eliana, I have brooded alone too often. I have not done all that I should have done for
Glory’s
people
. It was the second time within moments he had felt justified in using that unique description of the Goldenwing’s crew. He indulged himself still again
. In all the Universe, he thought, only we are
Glory’s
people.

Eliana Ehrengraf's daughter is a complete syndic at last
, he thought,
a creature of Deep Space--as are we all.
In the true meaning of the word, he felt Wired.

Glory
announced suddenly:
“Master and Commander, the colonists are convened on the hangar deck. They ask that you and the Sailing Master join them. “

Duncan pulled the drogue from his socket. At once the vast globe of awareness that he had commanded grew small. Parsecs became mere kilometers.

In ancient Rome, Duncan suddenly remembered, a Commander returning in triumph from the wide world to the City was provided with a slave to ride in his chariot through the tight confines of the Forum, whispering so that only the hero could hear: “Remember, you are only a man.”

Mira trilled softly in his ear.

Thank you, small queen
, he thought.
I will remember
.

With their customary industry, the Yamatans had transformed the hangar deck into a fantasy simulacrum of their world. The holographic forest Broni and Buele had so proudly put in place for
Glory
's visitors remained, Earthly pines in the distance, but the hectare where the MD spacecraft had been parked had been changed by the visitors to resemble a clearing in the Shogun’s garden on the planet below.

Not to be outdone in holography by their hosts, the Yamatan engineers had installed their own hologenerators to create a clearing on a tableland above the image of an arm of the coppery Yamatan sea. The spacecraft had been formed into a circle around the barge
Dragonfly
, their lazegun ports covered with paper disks decorated with origamis of three inward-pointing hollyhock leaves. These were the leaves found in the
mon
of the Tokugawa clan, which Minamoto no Kami, by right of descent, claimed as his own family crest.

Screens of stretched paper bearing the same ancient device had been assembled in an open circle, and here the Shogun, his generals, and a score of high-ranking daimyos sat on camp stools awaiting the arrival of the
gaijin
. Aligned on either side of the formation stood the lower-ranking members of the Yamatan delegation. It was the first time they had presented themselves to the syndics in this way. The three-man crews of the thirty MD ships stood unarmored, but still dressed in traditional silk. Still lower-ranking members of the daimyos’ staffs formed a third, outer circle. All told there were over a hundred Yamatans on hand. These engineers and scientists and businessmen had transformed themselves into a circle of anachronism.

To Duncan and Anya Amaya, the effect of the fantastical scene was of having travelled back in time to feudal Japan. Shogun and daimyos, clearly the centerpieces of the display, were ceremonially dressed in the
hakamas
, kimonos and the lacquered and gilded armor of that distant place and time. They sat like statues, the steel face masks exposing only their mouths and their dark eyes.

Duncan, who had been exploring the Japanese history in
Glory
's database, noted that Minamoto no Kami wore a steel helmet decorated with large, curving horns of gold.
Glory
's database held images of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the victor of Sekigahara, wearing such a helmet.

The daimyos held war fans, each with the
mon
of his clan. The exception was Minamoto no Kami’s, which bore the sun disk of Amaterasu. Duncan had seen such war fans in the holoprograms
Glory
produced for him. Long ago on Earth they had been used to transmit orders in battle.

Amaya whispered, “What are they trying to say with all this, Duncan?”

Duncan looked about the circle of daimyos. The lords of Domains formed the first seated rank, cross-legged in the tatami matting that had been spread for them. All were dressed in ceremonial armor. Behind each man his retainers stood like statues. The relative affluence of the Domains was reflected in the opulence of the caparisons the Lord and high-ranking retainers wore. The daimyo of Hokkaido, Genji Akagi, though poor, was the Lord with the most exalted lineage, being descended from the rulers of pre-shogunal Japan. Duncan had seen almost nothing of the Genji during this convocation.

The Lord of Hokkaido was old, even for this company of mostly elderly men. It seemed to Duncan that the mere effort of attending the meeting was exhausting the man. Minamoto Kantaro had, in the most polite tones, remarked that Genji fortunes had declined steadily since Lander’s Day. (All colonists seemed to speak of the day of their landing on a colony planet as though it were yesterday, Duncan thought. On Yamato, Lander’s Day had been more than a thousand years ago.)

Kantaro’s remark about Genji Akagi had been an understatement. Hokkaido was the least favored domain on Yamato, a desolation of ice and snow in the high northern latitudes. The Genji’s war fan, like many others, rested facedown on the matting--hardly an indication of warlike resolve.

Duncan looked at the manner in which the other Lords displayed their fans. If the placement of the fans had significance, as
Glory
's database informed the syndic that it did, the prognosis of this gathering was not encouraging.

To Amaya, Duncan said in a low voice, “The fans were used to signal orders in the wars on Earth. And to indicate intent.” Anya glanced at the circle of daimyos. Facial expressions were hidden behind lacquered steel masks that exposed only the obsidian black eyes. She looked carefully at the two Lords flanking the Shogun. On his right sat Minamoto Kantaro. His fan bore the device of the city of Yedo. On the Shogun’s left squatted Lord Yoshi Eiji of Kai. Anya glanced quickly at Duncan. The daimyo of Kai’s body language was that of a frightened man.

“Minamoto-sama means to fight,” Duncan said quietly. “And so does Kantaro. I don’t think the others do.”

The daimyo’s replicated armor appeared to contain grav devices. The difficulty of producing such apparel, and for merely ceremonial purposes, was enormous. Duncan wondered if these people, isolated for so long, had devoted as much care to the production of new weapons. What would be effective against the Terror?
Glory
had driven it away by quieting a battle with cold-sleep. But killing it? Duncan feared that might be a very different task. Perhaps it was an impossible one.

Behind the Shogun stood a double row of archers. The fletching on long arrows showed above the retainers’ armored backs. The bow and arrow was a weapon peculiarly adapted for use in space, Duncan thought sadly. Like all of mankind’s weapons, they had been designed by men millennia ago to kill other men.
We have always been good at killing one another
, Duncan thought.
We have done it in war, in bloody ceremony, or in drunken rages
. He remembered the Samhain Festival on his native Thalassa. There, at the time of the summer solstice, the antique claymores and spears carried from Earth were unwrapped and the clansmen drank whiskey and danced the sword dances of their ancestors from dusk until sunrise. And often enough, when the liquor set the blood on fire, men of Thalassa fought and killed one another.

An uncle of Duncan’s own marriage group had died in a Samhain brawl the year before the old Wired Ones of the
Gloria Coelis
arrived at Thalassa on Search.

Minamoto Kantaro got to his feet and advanced, fan held rigidly at his side. He planted himself, legs apart, before Duncan and Amaya and made a formal bow.

Duncan returned it in kind, and several of the daimyos uttered a grunting bark of approval.

Kantaro was distressed. Both empaths could feel it. A part of his distress had to do with a recent decision. But there was more. Duncan suddenly received a powerful empathic signal. It was not in words, but the meaning was crystalline, and the thought was aimed at Duncan and at no one else. It came from Mira. It could have come from no other:
“He knows that one of his threw death at you. “

The paper screens cut off much of Duncan’s view of the huge compartment. But Mira was out there, watching and waiting. For a moment Duncan was almost overwhelmed with angry despair. He had hoped that Kantaro could be counted on. He felt the steel-masked Yamatans around him. They had come to see what force a Goldenwing could deploy to protect their world. They had failed utterly to understand the scope of the challenge and what defeat would surely mean. Duncan’s empathic surge was so powerful that it startled Anya Amaya. “Duncan,” she whispered. “What just happened?”

He shook his head.
“Later. ’’
He looked coldly at Kantaro. The young man’s eyes were wide, startled. Was Hana nearby? Duncan wondered. Of course the Folk could be anywhere they chose aboard
Glory
. If she was nearby, she had passed the information to Mira, who moved instantly to warn him.

He straightened from his formal bow. Kantaro said, in Anglic, a language Duncan had not even known he commanded, “Do you understand the language of the war fans, Kr-san?”

The language of the fans
, Duncan thought.
How elegantly archaic
. And how impossible to contest. The time for that was over.

It had come and gone before the Starmen, all of Caucasian-Terrestrial descent, could act.

And if we should act, what would it accomplish? Duncan wondered bitterly. The “language of the fans” was the language of imperatives, of commands. The fans were a signal to act, not an invitation to discuss.
What simple creatures we syndics are
, he thought.
Life seems so straightforward to us. We consider and we convince ourselves of what must be done. But we are too isolated from ordinary men. We forget human self-interest, human ability to be wrong. So we carry our simplicities with us, no matter how many parsecs we travel.