Ian Douglas - The Complete Heritage Trilogy - Semper Mars, Luna Marine, Europa Strike

“Anyway,” she continued, “from all I’ve read on archeology, it’s a long, involved, painstaking process. Alexander told Dad it might be years before they even knew the right questions to ask.”

“So why do you think I might be able to answer those questions, when we don’t even know what they are?”

“Well, of course we can’t know. But we can guess, can’t we? We can speculate. The idea of other intelligent beings, a whole other civilization, inhabiting this solar system long before modern humans even evolved…it’s mind-boggling. I want to know who they were, why they came here, where they went.”

Yukio grinned. “Then why aren’t you studying exo-paleoarchaeology instead of AI systems design?”

Kaitlin shook her head. “I don’t have the patience for archaeology. I want to go out there and find them, wherever they are. Even if that particular species is extinct, just the fact that they were there proves we’re not alone. There must be others, thousands of other races throughout the galaxy. And I don’t think we’re going to find them by sitting here waiting for them to come to us. We’ve got to go to them.”

Yukio gazed out into the deep blue of not-quite-space. “We’re just on the edge of exploring the solar system. It will be quite some time before we are able to reach the stars.”

“I don’t know. If we can work the bugs out of antimatter propulsion, we could be sending a ship to Alpha Centauri in, oh, twenty years or so.

“And I want to be on that ship.”

0507 HOURS GMT

Kansai International Airport

Osaka Bay, Japan

1407 hours Tokyo time

Yukio held his hands casually in his lap to keep from gripping the handrests as the Star Raker came into its approach to the huge man-made island that was Kansai International Airport. He always felt a little nervous flying when he didn’t have any electronic displays in front of him to follow course and speed and range. He didn’t know the man in the cockpit, didn’t know with certainty his competence and experience, the way he did with Taii Iijima, the Space Defense Force captain he usually flew with. For a veteran of thousands of hours of flight time, such nervousness seemed embarrassing, so he always tried to hide it. Usually he was successful.

A slight sound coming from his right made him turn his head to see Kaitlin looking at him as though she was trying hard not to laugh.

“Okay, now I really know you’re a flight officer!”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Dad says all flyers are like that, though the actual pilots are usually worse than side-seaters like you. Can’t stand to have someone else in control.”

Yukio grinned ruefully. “You found me out. And I thought I was hiding it pretty well.”

She nodded. “You were. But don’t worry, I won’t let on I know your dreadful secret. It’s just nice to know that you have at least one flaw.”

The Star Raker came in for a textbook landing, and Yukio resumed his normal breathing pattern. The slidewalk in the International Terminal was bordered with gift shops, eating parlors, and communications stations; signs in French, English, and Nihongo welcomed visitors, and holoboard advertisements bombarded them with sights and sounds as they made their way toward the baggage area. Travelers from all over the world came through Kansai, but there was a predominance of Asian faces. As he got off the end of the slidewalk, Yukio almost gave a skip. It was good to be home.

They took the Jet Foil across Osaka Wan to the mainland and then traveled by maglev to Kyoto. One flaw, she said. How little she knows me, if she thinks I have only one. He stole a glance at the woman on the seat next to him, seeing her as though with new eyes. By American standards she was beautiful, with long auburn hair curving around a thin green-eyed face. By international standards she was stylishly and appropriately dressed for travel, in a sleeveless one-piece jumpsuit with hip belt. By Japanese standards, she was neither appropriately dressed nor beautiful.

He thought about his name. Yukio was a shortened form of Toshiyuki; the nickname meant Snow Boy and implied one who goes his own way. When, Yukio wondered, had he ever gone his own way? He’d entered the Space Defense Force to please his father. He’d enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University because he was ordered to by the SDF. He’d agreed to this trip because Kaitlin wanted it, and he’d been almost relieved when he’d thought his new orders would make it impossible. Then he’d allowed himself to be persuaded again.

Yukio considered himself quite cosmopolitan, not Westernized to the extent of rejecting his heritage, of course, but enough of an Internationalist to be open-minded about Western ideas, Western culture…even Western women. In Pittsburgh Kaitlin had seemed perfect, exotic in the way that all Western women were, and yet familiar because of her love of Japan and Japan’s culture. Now she seemed jarring, out of place…or was he the one who was out of place?

They took the subway from the maglev station and then walked the few blocks to the youth hostel where Kaitlin would be staying. She made a good impression on the clerk at the desk, bowing and addressing him in fluent and respectful Nihongo. Yukio had never stayed at a place like this, but he would guess that few Americans came here who would be able to converse with their host in the host’s language…or who would wish to.

“I’m going up to change,” she said. “I shouldn’t be more than a few minutes. Unless you’d like to come wash up also?”

“No. I am fine. Thank you.”

She gave him a strange look, then turned and walked up the stairs to her room. He mentally kicked himself. Ever since they’d landed at Kansai, he’d become more and more formal with Kaitlin. He knew that she felt it and was puzzled by it. The thing was, he was puzzled, too. He was well aware of the differences between American and Japanese customs. He was well aware that behavior that would be considered reprehensible in Kyoto was perfectly acceptable in Pittsburgh. But he’d thought of himself as a new Japanese, able to transcend his upbringing, to be a citizen of the world. He was finding that he was more tightly bound to tradition than he’d imagined possible.

He walked over to the comm station against one wall of the lobby. It was an old-fashioned one—audio only, no video, no net access—but sufficient for his purposes. He called home and arranged with Isoru Nabuko, his father’s secretary, for a car to be sent to pick them up. “Is my father at home, Hisho-san?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, Ishiwara-san,” the man replied. “Daijin Ishiwara returned from Tokyo two hours ago. He is eagerly awaiting your arrival and that of your honored guest.” Nabuko chuckled. “I’ve not seen him so excited since you received your well-deserved promotion to the rank of chu-i.”

Yukio asked that Nabuko convey his respects to his father, and then he hung up, wondering if the secretary knew that the honored guest in question was in fact a gaijin. He had not hidden the fact from his parents, but he didn’t know whether the information had been passed on. Perhaps it had. Perhaps he was worrying unnecessarily. Perhaps he was the only one who—

“Is there a problem?” It was Kaitlin.

“Oh. No, certainly not. I was just thinking.”

“Ah.”

She was conservatively dressed, he was relieved to see, and holding a large, oblong box in her hands. “Did you call home?” she asked.

He nodded. “A car will be here in…” He glanced at his wrist-top. “…about a half an hour. Perhaps we can find a place nearby to sit down and have a drink.”

“I need to get this wrapped first,” she said, gesturing with the box. “The clerk here said there was a gift shop around the corner. All of those shops at the airport seemed geared for tourists, and I want to make sure this is wrapped properly.”