No One Goes There Now

Book excerpt: Colonizing the galaxy’s near reaches, the myriad, mutated children of Earth are loosely governed by Imperium Terrestriana, and a hierarchy headed by an elite neohuman minority proactively fostering Convention, a body of civil law that featured Code Duello, and under its precepts trillions of eligible patricians and plebes wield their swords to settle all public and private disputes. Imperial explorers discover parsecs-distant Dan, a raw, idyllic world seemingly ripe for colonization, where enigmatic indigenes exhibiting superior intellect come and go like shadows, yet lack habitations or any visible infrastructure. The telepathic Danii who abhor violence are horrified when sequestered duelists begin vanishing, and repeatedly explain how mysterious “Higher Ones,” appalled by the wanton destruction of life wrought by victorious duelists, “have taken miscreant smallswordsmen into their gentle care.” The unseen Higher Ones make their acute displeasure known through precipitate action in a chilling, ironic climax that raises provocative questions about neohumankind’s place in the eternal scheme of things.