Glory's People (26 page)

Two of the Goldenwing cats, Mira and Damon’s Pronker, crouched on the pod holding the Rigger, uttered low growls. Hana leaped from Kantaro’s shoulder to the pod and touched her nose, in silent exchange, to Mira’s. Pronker hissed softly at his sibling. Anya watched the exchange. Was the expression of displeasure because Hana now carried Kantaro’s alien scent? Or were the cats simply behaving as animals? For months Anya had, with repressed resentment, disregarded Mira’s Folk, but now it seemed fitting that she should look carefully and try to understand what was happening.

The Shogun and Kantaro stared fixedly at the holograph. The aurora was a common sight on Planet Yamato, but neither man had ever seen it from above. Nor had they ever seen anything remotely resembling the Red Sprite.

“I don’t understand you, Kr-san,” Kantaro said. “This manifestation is a part of the threat?”

“We believe so, Kantaro-san,” Duncan said. “There was nothing like it during our encounter in the Ross Stars, or before that in Deep Space. There may
be
nothing to see. Or at least nothing that we can see. We believe it comes from outside our space-time from some reality where, perhaps, light does not exist. We have reason to believe that in its own medium it travels unlimited distances instantaneously.”

The syndics’ empathic Talent warned them that Kantaro was finding this hard to believe.

“Nothing can exceed lightspeed, Kr-san. Nothing,” the Yamatan declared.

“Not in the universe as
we
know it, nephew,” the Shogun said softly.

Amaya whispered, as if to herself, “The sound of one hand clapping.”

“Just so, Sailing Master,” the Shogun said. “A follower of the Buddha has less trouble than most accepting such a life principle. In precolonial times didn’t some Terrestrial cosmologists hypothesize about an infinity of multiple universes? If universes are infinite in number, is the idea of a universe without space or time so impossible then?”

Duncan said, “On Planet Armstrong of Barnard’s Star there is a school of physics taught that states time and space form a Klein bottle. Others say no, that is too complex and inelegant, the universe must be shaped like a Moebius strip, finite and one-sided.”

“Intellectual games,” Kantaro protested.

“Perhaps so,” Duncan said. “But our adversary is no intellectual game--it is real, and it can intrude into our space-time. Each time it does it comes to destroy. We don’t know why. But we must try to stop it, or this is as far into Deep Space as Mankind is ever likely to go.”

“What action do you intend to take, Kr-san?” the Shogun asked.

“I had hoped we would have more time to plan,” Duncan said. “But that’s unlikely now. Our first concern is to lure the Intruder away from Yamato. Our last experiences with it suggest to me that it has learned most of what it finds necessary about human beings. It isn’t complimentary to us, Shogun. In spite of how well we have fared in the business of predation and fighting, we are not formidable by comparison with the threat. That leaves us guile.”

“Can we deceive it?” Kantaro demanded.

“We believe it to be intelligent and sentient. So it can be deceived. If we are subtle enough,” Anya Amaya said.

Duncan broke off to address
Glory
by spoken word. “Any change in position of the Sprite?”

“A change in intensity only, Master and Commander.”

“That may mean it is surfeited,” Duncan said. “We have to assume so.”

From the wall com-units came Dietr Krieg’s voice from the surgery. “We must keep the thing’s movements from the colonists, Captain.”

“That is not acceptable, Kr-san,” Kantaro said sharply.

“Not even possible, Kantaro-san,” Duncan said. “There is no way we can disguise our emotional sendings. I feel certain that we are leaving a wake of psychic disturbances behind us. If we could be found in Deep Space, there is no way we can hide here.” He turned to Minamoto no Kami. “I intend to use one of your ships and crew to trail behind
Glory
, between the ship and the intruder.”

“With such members of my contingent as I choose to send, Kr-san.”

“Not you, Shogun.”

“No,” Minamoto no Kami said sadly. “I am too old to be of use in a battle.” He turned to his nephew. “But you, Kantaro. If the Minamoto are to survive, a Minamoto must have a part in the battle for survival.”

Amaya was looking aghast at Duncan. “You, Duncan? Bait?”

“If need be, Anya.”

“
Glory
won’t permit it,” she said desperately. .

“It is
Glory
who commands it, Sailing Master.”

The Shogun looked thoughtfully at the holograph. “Out of a universe without time or light,” he murmured, lifting his gaze to the two syndics standing before him. “We Yamatans have our own cruel version of the principle. The intruder comes to take lives like a ninja. There comes a time when we are all warriors of darkness. Say what you require, Kr-san. If it is within Ya-mato’s power, you shall have it.”

When the time comes, there is no moment for reasoning.

--Yamamoto Tsunetomo,
Hagakure

From a distance of 150,000 kilometers the ruddy surface of Yamato’s planetary ocean glistens like a sheet of burnished copper. The cyclonic storm systems of the Yamatan spring mottle the surface of the planet with light and shadow. Yamato has completed one full revolution since
Glory
broke orbit. The Goldenwing ’s present course is a translunar injection aimed at sling-shotting around Moon Hideyoshi and then on to Tokugawa, the methane satellite Yamatan scientists believe is the smaller of an early two-planet system with Yamato itself. From Tokugawa, the plan is to leave the plane of Amaterasu’s ecliptic in the hope that the intruder will be distracted from populated Planet Yamato and Moon Hideyoshi. From the command pilot's seat aboard the mass-depletion vessel chosen by Shogun Minamoto no Kami and his daimyos for the first hazardous probe at the intruder, Duncan can see the western hemisphere of Planet Yamato from pole to pole. He is concerned that the Red Sprite is no longer visible. The lack makes the conditions of a possible encounter even more uncertain than Buele had calculated.

The Supernumerary, having assimilated almost the entire canon of knowledge about the Terror possessed by
Glory
, had warned that if the Sprite was, as Duncan suspected, a manifestation of the Intruder’s manner of ingesting planetary plasmas, its disappearance could only mean that its task was completed and the Terror was charged with what must surely be trillions of gigawatts of electrical energy generated by the vast dynamo of Planet Yamato’s aurora borealis.

Because the syndics had never actually seen the Terror, only its horrifying effects and manifestations, Duncan had hoped that the Sprite would remain in place above Yamato’s pole. He desperately needed a semifixed manifestation of the intruder in an environment of light, time and space. But this had not happened.

The Terror might be temporarily inert, but it was not far away. Duncan could feel its presence, as could Mira, Hana, and Pronker, who prowled the small bridge of the MD ship, investigating nooks and comers, all the while lashing their tails, meowing and growling.

Amaya had protested Duncan’s decision to take Damon as the second syndic in the MD probe. She insisted that the task was rightly hers and that Damon and Pronker were needed aboard
Glory
to handle the monkeys and be available for sudden changes in the sailplan. Duncan rejected her contention, leaving her no room for discussion or recourse. “You are the Sailing Master, Anya,” he said. “You remain to command in my absence. That’s the end of it. No more argument.”

Before boarding the MD craft in the hangar deck, Duncan had instructed
Glory
’s computer to record his personal recommendations for the future operation of Goldenwing
Gloria Coelis
.

Buele would be surprised, Duncan knew, if he survived the coming encounter and managed a return, that Amaya would be
Glory
’s Master only until Buele was ready to assume command. Knowing Anya’s pride and her drive for excellence, it had not been an easy message to convey.

“A Talent of such dimensions as Buele’s can’t be wasted, Anya, “
Duncan recorded in his
Sailing Instructions. “It has been my intention to groom the boy for command. His Talent is greater than any of ours. Eventually, he must be Master and Commander of
Glory
.”
In his Personal Log, intended to be heard only by Anya, he said,
“I leave it to you, dear Anya, to know when it is time to relinquish command to Buele. Until then, keep the syndicate together. You may become the last Sailing Master of the last Goldenwing. It is a task I would demand of no one else. “

For a long and painful moment Duncan had wished he had someone upon whom he could lean, someone with whom he could share the responsibility for the gamble he was taking. But there was only
Glory
, and in the final analysis
Glory
was a machine--a wondrous construct, but still a device. Computers were marvels of calculation and organization, but original thought came only from living beings. He absently caressed Mira’s small head as he reminded himself that all he, all anyone, knew of the Terror came from encounters in the Ross Stars and in Deep Space.
We have never even seen the Intruder
, Duncan thought bleakly.
All we know is what it has done--what it has destroyed as we watched. And all that Glory knows is what her computer has filed away in her vast data bank. Lines of code, no more.

The theory that the Red Sprites were subsets of the Terror in a gravity well, feeding on the immense manifestations of the belts of cosmic energy surrounding planets, was only that, he told himself. A theory.

His thoughts were too disturbing to dwell upon. Better to concentrate upon the second tier of problems his leaving
Glory
to fight independently created. Better to convince himself that he was not abdicating too great a responsibility to Anya Amaya.

Duncan understood what he was asking of the New Earther, but he was clear in his mind that only she, of the present syndics of Goldenwing
Gloria Coelis,
could protect his beloved ship against an uncertain future.

I have, in effect, written a will
, Duncan thought grimly. A bitter necessity. In other times and circumstance, aboard vessels crewed by hundreds, as were the clipper ships of ancient Earth, command would devolve, upon the death or loss of a vessel’s Master, to the next in rank.

But sailing the tachyon trades aboard a Goldenwing crewed by six Starmen made it imperative that command fall to the syndic with the greatest abilities. The paucity of Talent had historically made it necessary to sail the Goldenwings with as few as four and seldom more than a dozen empathic crew members. There was no question of command following the archaic notion of rank.

Buele would not be ready to command for years, but eventually he would take over
Glory
because his was the ability--no, perhaps even the destiny--to become
Glory
's Master and Commander. He had the Talent without which the great ship simply could not be sailed.

As the MD pilot, Yamaguchi Kendo, a Kaian boy of not more than nineteen planetary years, let the small spacecraft fall astern of
Glory
, the others aboard--Duncan, Damon, Kantaro, and Ishida, the sullen retainer of the Lord of Kai put aboard by Yoshi Eiji’s specific demand--searched the sky for some sign of unusual menace. They could discern none.

But the Intruder
was
nearby. The cats remained tense and quarrelsome, crouching, gathered as if to attack, with ears flattened and warning mutters for anyone approaching them.

Mira’s response to the retainer Ishida was particularly hostile. Duncan studied him intently. The man’s hooded eyes were blank, almost without sheen. Was this the man who had attacked him in the carapace? Duncan wondered. If he were, Mira would tell Duncan in a dozen different ways. But at the moment the new surroundings and the growing separation between Mira and her Folk seemed to have silenced the small cat.

“It is all right, queen, “
Duncan sent carefully,
“we are safe together. “

Does she believe that?
he wondered.
Do I believe it?

Duncan watched Kantaro Minamoto carefully. The young Mayor of Yedo was staring intently at Lord Kai’s retainer. The ruler of Kai had insisted that Ishida was the best of his warriors, and highly trained in the art of spaceship handling. Whether this was true remained to be seen. Duncan lived with the suspicion that Ishida’s talents lay in a vastly different direction. But only when Mira became less distrait would she be able to tell him.

Distraught by Duncan’s decision to occupy what the Yamatans called the fighting chair aboard the MD craft, Anya Amaya fled down the plena toward the carapace deck where she and Duncan had so many times made love.

On the bridge Broni and Buele lay Wired and naked in their pods. Their enhanced personas ranged far on either side of
Glory
's track.

On the hangar deck the Shogun and his people waited aboard the barge
Dragonfly
while Kantaro and the retainer Ishida joined Duncan on the MD ship.

As Anya flew through the fabric tubes she could sense the unseen presence of Mira’s Folk--some, but not all, cats who had been enhanced by Dietr’s experimental surgeries.

By this time the Starmen of
Glory
had lost track of the number of still unnamed felines belonging to Mira’s pride who roamed the vast empty compartments of the ship. Dietr contended that he had not artificially inseminated any of the last generation of cats, that they had been reproducing in the normal, feline way. Which Anya had no reason to doubt, but she still found it difficult to believe that the recently born no longer required Dietr’s surgical interventions in order to Wire to
Glory
's computer. All she had ever learned about genetics (and genetics was a subject of surpassing interest on New Earth) told her that what Dietr reported could not be so.