Paradise Drift by Sherwood Smith

Author:Sherwood Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2005-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

Perceive that which cannot be seen with the eye.

—MIYAMOTO MUSASHI,

ANCIENT JAPAN,

PRIVATE COLLECTION OF TOKUGAWA ODIN-THOR

According to his usual habit, Tokugawa Odin-Thor did not permit any communication with the planetary or Drift kludges.

The planet Rigos remained silent, but not so the Paradise authorities. The underlings on his Command Deck exchanged covert amused comments in an undertone as some Than appeared and issued questions, and from time to time increasingly obdurate threats. As expected. Also as expected, the Drift had scrambled slip-fighters, who took up a defensive position between the Odin-Thor fleet and the Drift. The Andromeda hailed them a second time; they would wait on his pleasure.

What caused a mild sense of question in Tokugawa Odin-Thor was why he had not yet heard from Alphyra Kodos. He knew she was one of the governing powers on the Drift; he suspected she had acted without the others’ knowledge.

“Seii Taishogun,” the communications officer said. “Incoming, private signal.”

“Put it on,” Tokugawa said, thinking: Things at last begin.

Alphyra Kodos appeared in the screen, and once again Tokugawa was surprised at her beauty. It was an exotic beauty, unlike any of the blond Valkyries his family tended to produce. She was, of course, a kludge—her proportions were small, therefore weak—but he could appreciate that beauty in the way the superior mind appreciated any work of art—a five-thousand-year-old painted screen; a face demonstrating exquisite genetic choice; the tricksterish randomness of nature in the colors dappling the back of an insect…

“Seii Taishogun,” she said, inclining her head.

The vid was not as clean as it should be, but he could see faint marks of tiredness under her eyes. Then he couldn’t see her eyes as her head dipped, and he saw only the thin, glowing chain of silvery moon-pearls she had threaded through the complicated knots in her glossy hair.

One who understood the life of art. He’d forgotten that; it was what had first attracted her to his notice, during those long-ago days on Vedra-Shin, young as she was. That and her ambition, so determined. He remembered regretting she could not have been born Nietzschean.

“Alphyra Kodos,” he responded. “I am ready for the transfer when you are.”

She straightened her head, the long column of her throat tightening. Ah, trouble, then. She did not have the control she thought she did.

Ought to have—no. That was the Nietzschean point of view. Tokugawa never underestimated the labyrinthine thinking that lesser sentients struggled with; to do so was clumsy, and to use force when suggestion, perhaps a mere hint of force, controlled them, harnessed them to his will, preferably against their own, was so very much more exquisite. The mark of the artist.

From the other end of the communication link Alphyra watched him, having forgotten how he used silence. She had brought them here, it was up to her to speak first, or he would perceive her as weak. She said, “I am certain you know the Andromeda Ascendant is here. That is, it has removed into space somewhere.”

“We know,” he said, looking amused.

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