No One Goes There Now

Colonizing the galaxy’s near reaches, the myriad, mutated children of Earth are governed by Imperium Terrestriana, headed by an elite neohuman minority fostering Convention, a body of civil law featuring Code Duello, and trillions of eligible patricians and plebes wield their swords to settle private disputes. Imperial explorers discover parsecs-distant Dan, an idyllic world ripe for colonization, where enigmatic indigenes of superior intellect come and go like shadows, but lack habitations or a visible infrastructure. Abhoring violence, the telepathic Danii are horrified when sequestered duelists begin vanishing, and explain that mysterious “Higher Ones” are appalled by the wanton destruction of life wrought by victorious duelists, and 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.