Kiri Maru, as far out into the Pacific Ocean off the Peruvian coast as anyone would care to go, had always welcomed visitors, even in the days when its residents occasionally ate them. But those times were long gone, or so wrote Lessa Aldridge, and today they only welcomed visitors with feasts, even as in other parts of the world killing a divine king dwindled to an animal sacrifice, and eventually mere bread and wine were scapegoats for flesh and blood. Kiri Maru was peaceful now, and though they still kept a great many of the old traditions, you could lie upon its pink or yellow beaches and never have to wonder which of your shipmates you’d be having for dinner.

Kiri Maru was so far from anywhere, out past the Humboldt currents in depths where unknown creatures lay dreaming, that it had never been conquered, and in all the colonial days--even in the last great war, when the most worthless pile of volcanic rock and sand was considered strategic--no one had bothered Kiri Maru.


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