Read Glory's People for Free Online Page B

landscape shifted, became rocky foothills darkly green with proto-conifers, the mountains alive with flame yellow lichens. Golden sunlight glinted on a hidden lake. A river tumbled through a narrow canyon glittering like a torrent of amber as it pushed and crowded its way between shoulders of rock toward the paddies and man-made marshes in the valley. From this altitude one could see far out to sea. There were no islands on this stretch of coast, only rocky cliffs and surf. In the distance ahead lay the misty granite tower of Mount Kagu, where Goldenwing Hachiman's shuttles were said to have deposited the First Landers.
     
    Amaya, both enchanted and made uncomfortable by the traditional Yamatan garb she wore, found herself wondering about the man they were soon to encounter. Minamoto no Kami had been Shogun of the Four Domains for many more downtime years than Amaya had been alive, yet his grandparents had been young when she was born on New Earth. Such anomalies were functions of the Einsteinian time dilation that governed the lives of Wired Starmen. If what Duncan and young Damon Ng believed about the technology under development here on Planet Yamato was true, then there was a chance that star-voyaging at speeds denied by Einstein might become possible. Amaya hadn’t the technical knowledge to understand mass-depletion technology--few did--but Duncan believed that the depletion engine might make it possible to reduce the time of flight between stars to zero rather than years, bypassing the Time Dilation Effect entirely.
    To the stars instantaneously .
    Anya Amaya closed her eyes and tried to imagine what sort of society would arise from such a technological revolution. From here to Proxima in a heartbeat. From Proxima to Luyten in two. Witchcraft. Black magic. The ability to match the speed of the Terror. She shivered. What lay ahead for humankind? Faster-than-light speeds and hunting-cat partners for all warriors? A great change was in store for humankind. The war for the stars was beginning.
    There were no certainties on Planet Yamato, but a near miss by a lazegun bolt tended to organize the mind swiftly and very well, Anya Amaya thought.
    Kantaro-san said, “Look there, to the north, Amaya-san. In the shadow of Mount Kagu. The Shogun’s garden.”
    It was a good bit more than a garden, Amaya thought. Under a canopy of imported Terrestrial pines, sequoias and cypress trees growing proudly amid the Yamatan conifers, lay a ten-hectare parkland of sand and rock gardens dotted with graceful structures of native wood roofed with colorful tiles. From time to time a ray of yellow sunlight would glint from the placid surface of a carefully sited pond or lake. Reflections painted the water’s surfaces: clouds in black and bronze; pale, copper yellow sky at the zenith; starry, dark sky at the horizon. It was a man-made environment of stunning beauty. The Yamatan botanists had made it grow from the soil of Planet Yamato. An enormously difficult task.
    Her face must have shown how the scene moved her, because Kantaro-san said quietly, “Shoguns of the Four Domains have nurtured this great garden for a half a thousand years, Amaya-san. And for centuries before that they dreamed of it.”
    The tilt-rotor circled and descended to two hundred meters. At that altitude it hovered. Anya was empath enough to feel that it was being scanned by sophisticated eyes, both human and electronic.
    “Security check,” she said.
    Kantaro-san’s eyebrows lifted. “I had heard that Wired Starmen listened to the wind,” he said with a thin smile. “I had not expected to have the legend confirmed so quickly.”
    Duncan was watching the Yamatan with shrewd interest. “Do you ‘listen to the wind’ as well, Kantaro-san?”
    The Mayor of Yedo shook his head ruefully. “Nothing so grand, Kr-san. I know the routine, that’s all.”
    The aircraft began again to descend. It sank softly to the ground between stands of thirty-meter Sequoia