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rice grown with great labor, is the food of our ancestors. It is rice. True rice.” He smiled grimly. “What, you may ask, has rice drawn from the alien mud of Yamato to do with the ninja who tried to assassinate you?”
    “I begin to understand, Kantaro-san. The way of living is more important than the fact of living.”
    “Yes, Kr-san,” Minamoto Kantaro said. “The Hagakure , the book by which we try to live, is called the Way of the Samurai. We live by symbols, Kr-san. You will have already noticed that we dress conservatively for our day-to-day lives. But let there be an occasion or a festival--and we have hundreds of festivals, Kr-san--you see how we love our ancient finery. Symbols, tradition. For example, when the rice crop fails--and it fails often in this climate--it is taken as a warning from the mystical powers. From the animist spirits said to live in the stars, from the kamis of rock and river and mountain. From the Sun Goddess. Even from the Buddha. We have always had many faiths, we Japanese. Yet they are one. We united them. We do things in an ancient way on Yamato; we cling to our traditions--whether they are good traditions or bad.” He caressed the golden pommel of the wakizashi short sword in his scarlet sash. “We often wear the two swords of the samurai. Despite our technical sophistication, we do other things as archaic. It is our way.” He paused. “But we are also a practical people. Thus, sometimes, Kr-san, when we can, we influence the gods by spoiling a rice crop--or employing a ninja.” He fell silent.
    “You are gifted as a teacher, Kantaro-san,” Duncan said. “I shall remember your words.”
    “I suggest that you do, Kr-san.”
    Anya Amaya was following the conversation closely now. “How many daimyos know why we are here?”
    “You are here to summon us to war, Amaya-san. All the daimyos know.” Kantaro-san hid his hands in his kimono sleeves. “But the daimyos wonder if you know what you are asking.”
    “We fought the Terror in the Ross System, Kantaro-san,” Amaya said. “We know.”
    “And the point is,” Duncan said quietly, “that you know, as well, Kantaro-san.”
    Minamoto Kantaro looked uncomfortable. “We have lost spacecraft,” he said. “But the daimyos are divided.”
    “How is that possible?” demanded Anya. “The threat is real.”
    “Perhaps we are being warned not to venture into Deep Space, Amaya-san. It is our way to consider all the possibilities.”
    “What does the Shogun know?” Duncan asked. The question was blunt, too blunt for these archaic Japanese, but the Terror was real, and it drew nearer each day. Glory 's, syndics felt it like a chill in their bones.
    Minamoto Kantaro said, “He knows that we have lost spacecraft. Some tests of the mass-depletion engine have not gone well. So long as our spacecraft move slowly and remain close to Amaterasu, flights are uneventful. Some of the older daimyos believe the Sun Goddess protects them.”
    Amaya snorted in derision. Duncan warned her with a glance. Kantaro shrugged in apparent agreement. “But as the speed of our ships increases and their range extends, events not necessarily to Yamato’s advantage take place.”
    Duncan heard in the Lord Mayor of Yedo’s words the echo of the Great Rescript, which had ended the last great war the Japanese fought on Earth. Japan had lost two cities to atomic attack, and a hundred more to conventional bombing. Her navy was on the bottom of the sea and her people starving. At this point the Emperor had written that the war must end because “events had not necessarily developed to Japan’s advantage.”
    “I see,” Duncan said. “And suddenly we appear.”
    Minamoto Kantaro remained eloquently silent.
    So the government of the Four Domains knew that something was killing their new, experimental lightspeed ships. The ninja’s attack indicated plainly enough that powerful Yamatans connected Glory ’s arrival from Deep Space and the loss of their