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"Restrain yourself, then," said Mike the Angel, "because I'm Gabriel." Nariaki's smile became genuine. "So! Good! The phone has been screaming at me every half hour for the past five hours. Captain Sir Henry Quill wants you." "He would," Mike said. "How do I get to him?" "You don't just yet," said Nariaki, raising a long, bony, tapering hand.
Lieutenant Tokugawa Nariaki was an average-sized, sleepy-looking individual with a balding crew cut and a morose expression. He looked up from his desk as Mike came in, and a hopeful smile tried to spread itself across his face. "If you are Commander Gabriel," he said softly, "watch yourself. I may suddenly kiss you out of sheer relief."
"There are a few formalities which our guests have to go through." "Such as?" "Such as fingerprint and retinal patterns," said Lieutenant Nariaki. Mike cast his eyes to Heaven in silent appeal, then looked back at the lieutenant. "Lieutenant, what is going on here? There hasn't been a security officer in the Space Service for thirty years or more. What am I suspected of?
Mike handed it over, and Nariaki fed it through a printer which stamped a complex seal in the upper left-hand corner of the card. The lieutenant signed his name across the seal and handed the card back to Mike. "That's it," he said. "You can " He was interrupted by the chiming of the phone. "Just a second, Commander," he said as he thumbed the phone switch.
"Well," he said, "you have Commander Gabriel's hands, anyway. If you have his eyes, I'll have to concede that the rest of the body belongs to him, too." "How about my soul?" Mike asked dryly. "Not my province, Commander," Nariaki said as he pulled the retinal photos out of the machine. "Maybe one of the chaplains would know."
The sergeant shrugged. "Don't ask me, Commander; I just slave away here. Maybe Lieutenant Nariaki knows something, but I sure don't." "Thanks, Sergeant." Mike the Angel went inside, through two insulated and tightly weather-stripped doors, one right after another, like the air lock on a spaceship.
"Lieutenant, do you actually mean that you really don't know what's going on here, or are you just dummying up?" Nariaki looked at Mike, and for the first time, his face took on the traditional blank, emotionless look of the "placid Orient." He paused for long seconds, then said: "Some of both, Commander. But don't let it worry you.
But by that time the Jo-i party, from a cause which I shall soon mention, had been completely transformed and converted to the Western ideas. Among the leaders of the Jo-i party was Nariaki, the old prince of Mito. He was connected by marriage with the families of the Emperor and the highest Kuges in Miako, and with the wealthiest Daimios.
Mike's irises had dilated to the point that he could see the dim dot in the center of the target circle, glowing like a dimly visible star. "Shoot," he said. There was a dazzling glare of light. Mike pulled his face out of the padded opening and blinked away the colored after-images. Lieutenant Nariaki was comparing the fresh fingerprints with the set he had had on file.
It ended in the resignation of its author and the complete defeat of its purpose. Nariaki inherited the literary tastes of his ancestor, Mitsukuni, and at his court a number of earnest students and loyal soldiers assembled.
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