by Victor Milán
“Oh, God, Emiko, I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”
The flare of bitterness had burnt itself out. “I understand, Doctor. You had no way of knowing.”
O’Neill’s console chimed politely for attention. She looked up in irritation. “Yes? I accept the call.”
“Dr. O’NeiIl.” She recognized the voice of a technician in the main lab. “We have a call from Yoshimitsu Michiko. She wants to know if she may come down and observe your experiments.”
The strange soiled feeling flooded back into her. To have undergone that horror in sympathy with TOKUGAWA and surrounded by her own people was bad enough. The thought that Michiko might have been in the lab, watching, was more than she could bear. “Tell her no! She can’t come down now.”
“But, Dr. O’Neill, she very much wants—”
“Tell her tomorrow! O’Neill out.” She looked around at her subordinates. “I’m going to my room. Carry on with analyzing the results of this run. Let me know if you learn anything unusual.”
And she thought, Right now, I need to be alone with TOKUGAWA.
* * * * *
“A foreign mercenary, engaged to destroy a Japanese corporation?” the old man thundered. “Insupportable!”
Ishikawa Nobuhiko faced him squarely down the length of the table in the conference room near the apex of the MITI Pyramid. He didn’t notice his assistant, Doihara Kazuko, who sat behind his left shoulder properly apart from the table at which the policy board met, look up in quick consternation from the notes she was jotting by hand on a notebook in her lap. He’d expected this confrontation. Yamada Tatsuhide, the old fool, had been with the ministry since before Ishikawa was born. Unlike so many of his cohorts in the upper levels of the bureaucracy, he was not simply another wheelhorse growing old in harness. Unfortunately.
Ishikawa assumed a demeanor of reason and compromise affronted by the old man’s outburst. “I assure you, Yamada-san, the ministry has never contemplated the hiring of mercenaries and is not doing so now,”
Yamada chopped a contemptuous hand at the air. “Don’t be coy with me, Ishikawa.” He was gaunt, and not even an expensively cut Savile Row suit could completely hide the ravages of a six-month bout with cancer, fought recently to a draw. His head was narrow, chin and forehead sloping away from his nose, his hair, now gone white, thrusting up and back, so that he looked as if he were pedaling a bicycle against the wind. He normally held his eyes to slits behind his spectacles; now they were round. “Of course the ministry isn’t hiring mercenaries; your puppet Hiryu is. But the ministry has used its influence to obtain a number of blank entrance permits with short-term visa stamps and passed them to Hiryu’s new employee. A remarkable man, I gather; a former Vietnamese army officer who’s acquired a reputation as the world’s foremost siege expert. I daresay my fellows of the board would find his dossier absorbing reading. Shall I have it written to their screens?”
Ishikawa sighed. He’d known he couldn’t keep this information from Yamada’s informants indefinitely. And he’d known just how the old fool would respond.
“Very well, Yamada-san. It’s so; we are—facilitating—certain steps that Hiryu Cybernetics Industries is taking to redress an intolerable situation. Is that not the ministry’s legitimate function, to help maintain the economic health of Japan?”
“To help import an army of foreign thugs to murder Japanese citizens?” Yamada demanded. “I call that barbarous, not legitimate.”
Ishikawa felt his congenial mask beginning to set like mud baked by the sun. He wanted to take Yamada by the wattled throat and shake him. Don’t you see the chaos swirling around us? How it threatens to rush in and plunge us under?
“Our distinguished colleague is a noted admirer of Western arts and culture—so-called,” said Mitsui of Analysis in a voice as lean and sinuous as himself. “Perhaps exposure to Western values has shifted his perspective subtly out of alignment. He wouldn’t wish Japan subjected to the unlimited competition that destroyed the United States’ economy, would he?”
“The Americans never had unlimited competition. That wasn’t what destroyed their economy; it was the insane rivalry into which they and we so willingly entered, as much as any thing.”
Forgetting himself, Ishikawa scowled. “You’re speaking, I believe, of policy approved by our ministry.”
“I never approved it. I wasn’t on the board when it was decided to go on a footing of economic warfare in response to American protectionism, and if I had I’d have fought it. Folly is no answer to folly.”
“I fear we stray from the main point,” Mitsui said. “I’d still like to discover the real reasons for Yamada-san’s objections to our policy vis-a-vis Yoshimitsu Telecommunications.”
“‘I think we are in rat’s alley, where the dead men lost their bones.’”
“Western decadence!” exclaimed Atsuji of Operations. “Truly, Yamada-san has allowed the gaijin to poison his thoughts.”
“Now, Atsuji-san, do not exercise yourself,” Mitsui said soothingly. “Perhaps our colleague doesn’t fully grasp the gravity of the situation. Yoshimitsu Telecommunications has been a thorn in our side for years. They have persistently refused our benevolent administrative guidance. And now, it appears, they have achieved a breakthrough that provides them a tool—or a weapon—of almost unimaginable power.
“You read what our agent reported happened in Kyoto,” the plump head of Liaison said excitedly. “The devilish device practically took over the young Yoshimitsu’s apartment. There’s no telling what it can do!”
“Consider the pernicious influences within YTC itself, said Planning, speaking hastily to forestall a further outburst from his excitable colleague. “Yoshimitsu has always shamelessly employed large numbers of Koreans, depriving many good Japanese of work. And though our country is filled with the finest computer scientists in the world, many of them veterans of our own ICOT, whom does Yoshimitsu Akaji choose to head his TOKUGAWA Project? A foreigner and a woman at that. One who employs a Korean and another American in her innermost circle.
“And what about old Yoshimitsu’s daughter, working among the Indonesians? They’ve threatened to cut us off from the rest of the Pacific for years. What kind of man would permit his daughter to work for the enemies of our nation?” He glowered briefly for effect. “Perhaps a man so corrupted by outside influences as to permit his daughter to devote herself to unfeminine pursuits. A man thoroughly tainted by exposure to Western ways. Does that not alarm you, Yamada-san?” Yamada elevated his head and eyed Operations disdainfully along the aristocratic length of his nose—which was aristocratic indeed; he had noble lineage, and was related none too distantly to the branch of the imperial family that had mounted the throne after the war. “I won’t dignify your innuendo with an answer. As for YTC, I will even stipulate for a moment that there are grounds for your trepidations, though I personally find them ludicrous. But what then? Are we to destroy what law remains in Japan for mere expediency?”
“What do you mean, Yamada-san?” Liaison asked. “We’re the government. We decide what’s lawful.”
“That’s neither accurate nor just. We are indeed the government. Exclude the Diet; a mere debating society. Our esteemed Prime Minister Fudori is a figurehead, who serves by the sufferance of the ministries. We, the ministries, the bureaucracy, the Mandarins, we are the state. But still, our nation has laws. And if we don’t abide by them, can you tell me then, who will?”
“How then are we to meet this emergency?” Mitsui asked. “YTC seems immune to pressure. And the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, blocks our every legal move against the company. Surely, you wouldn’t deprive us of our one remaining means of dealing with those whom self-interest blinds to the needs of the nation?”
“Does the nation need for YTC to be destroyed? If they have, indeed, created artificial awareness, haven’t they worked to the benefit of us all?”
“Ridiculous,” Atsuji said.
“I fear the current of consensus runs
against you, Yamada-san,” Ishikawa said. “The board perceives the threat posed by Yoshimitsu Telecommunications to be both immediate and far-reaching. These are extraordinary circumstances; they call for extraordinary responses.”
Atsuji sneered. “Perhaps Yamada-san has an answer for that too. One he learned at Oxford, perhaps.”
“Yes,” Yamada said, “since the administrative vice-minister speaks of currents, as a matter of fact, I do.” He smiled. “Learned at Oxford: ‘fear death by water.’”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Atsuji demanded. “You think what we’re doing to YTC will bring back Noah’s flood?”
“In a manner of speaking, Atsuji-san. We are opening the floodgates, gentlemen. We’ve permitted cracks to appear, by letting the zaibatsu employ sabotage against one another. But if we ourselves participate in illegal violence—at whatever remove, Ishikawa-san”—he spread his hands before him, horizontally above the polished hardwood table—“we shall cause the inundation of what remains of our social order. We shall accomplish that which the Third World War could not: the destruction of Japanese society. To paraphrase an American Negro gospel song by reversal: ‘It won’t be the fire, but the water next time.’”
Stillness bound the room. The old madman has a touch of the messianic about him, Ishikawa thought. He could tell Yamada was at least unnerving some of his board members, if not converting them. “Please do not forget, Yamada-san, we have not irrevocably embarked upon this enterprise. There is still time to avoid any precipitate action—if Yoshimitsu Akaji sees reason.”
“No.” Yamada rose. “The only hope is that we see reason. Gentlemen, I bid you good day.”
* * * * *
“I feel sorry for Dr. Ito,” TOKUGAWA said.
O’Neill sat on her bed with her legs pulled up, normally an uncomfortable position for her. It was late at night, yet again; she hadn’t gotten to her private talk with her brainchild that afternoon, after all. Kim had called up from the lab almost as soon as she’d arrived in her room, with information on irregularities in the performance of the Kliemann Coil. She’d forced herself to deal with it then and there; Kim said that if they acted upon that data immediately, the coil might be ready for a full-rapport hookup within two days. So, despite her exhaustion and sickness of soul, she’d forced her mind and body back to business.
Now she asked, “Why? Emiko didn’t experience—that.”
“No. But it makes her sad to think of it.”
“How do you know?” O’Neill asked, truly curious.
“I analyzed her breathing, while you were discussing the scenario after it was done. It showed clear signs of distress.”
O’Neill gazed thoughtfully at the visual pickup recently installed above her com/comm screen. TOKUGAWA’s education was succeeding beyond even her most sanguine predictions; in a matter of weeks, he was displaying development both she and her staff felt to be roughly on a par with a human adolescent. Yet he had capabilities that not even the most gifted human adolescent could boast, such as instant access to a wealth of expert programs. Occasionally O’Neill found herself bewildered by the facility with which he used them. “Why do you think that was?” she asked him.
“Dr. Ito seems to think a lot about what her grandmother went through when her mother was born,” TOKUGAWA said. “I don’t know why. There’s nothing she can do to help her.”
O’Neill smiled at his naïveté. “People are like that; they care for others even when there’s nothing to be done.”
“I understand caring, Doctor. But why brood about what’s already happened? Emiko-san can’t make her grandmother feel better by feeling bad herself.”
O’Neill shook her head. He’s still a child in so many of his perceptions. “What about you?” he asked. “How do you feel about today’s scenario?”
“I feel bad that you were subjected to it.”
“You’ve told me I must learn all about being a human,” TOKUGAWA said gravely. “Such things are part of being human, I understand.”
“Regrettably, yes.” Susan. She shook her head. “But I was afraid it would”—she wanted to say, warp you, but she wasn’t sure she could explain that to her charge—“make you unhappy and afraid,” she finished lamely.
“It did make me unhappy and afraid, while it was happening. After that, I was only sorry that things like that really happen.”
“But it was really happening to you. As far as we can tell, you experienced very much the same sensations a human would under the circumstances, or a close analogue.” My poor dear.
“But it wasn’t real. I felt it, but somewhere I never forgot that it wouldn’t last, that it wasn’t really me lying there among the rubble. I don’t have a body to be burned.” A pause. “It seems that nothing that touches you can truly touch me.” The voice sounded wistful, rueful.
O’Neill blinked at the sudden moisture in her eyes. “If you had a body, I’d hug you. I’d comfort you.” And perhaps… “You poor child. If you can’t experience the pains we humans feel—then you should be very, very happy.”
CHAPTER 10
Yoshimitsu Michiko walked along the shoulder of a hill. The late-spring sun fell in a warm steady flow on the back of her neck, and she thought about stopping momentarily to shed the faded blue nylon daypack from her shoulders and take off the red-plaid American work shirt she wore, half-buttoned and tucked into her jeans. It was getting to be T-shirt weather here in southwest Honshu.
“Michiko!” She spun, pulse thumping at the base of her throat, ready to spring away, deerlike, at any sign of threat. At once she chided herself: I’m getting paranoid, damn it. Hanging around this fortress always does that to me. Then she saw who had called her name, and smiled, and waved.
Major Miguel García strode after her along the trail at his slightly bowlegged gait. A compact, handsome man, not much above the Japanese average in height, he had dark Caribbean good looks at once rugged and refined, black beard and long hair set off by flashing blue eyes, a black beret tipped to one side adding just the right note of Ché Guevara insouciance. He wore plain green fatigues, with sidearm and communicator in his web belt; no camouflage for him, off-duty. As he got closer, she saw his hair was all black. He’d shown a few strands of gray when last she’d been home, five years ago.
She smiled to herself. That would be one of the few vanities he’d allow himself, dyeing his hair. It worked; nothing about him hinted that, more than ten years her senior, he’d gotten a good start on middle age. He had the looks, the energy, the easy, resilient grace of a man in his early twenties.
He caught her by the shoulders. “Michiko, querida.” He kissed her; at the last instant she turned aside and accepted it on the cheek. He drew back and grinned. “That wasn’t how you did it the last time I saw you.” His English was good, with a strong Cuban flavor she suspected he maintained for effect.
“That was a long time ago, Miguel.” She shook her head. “I sound like something from a romance novel.”
He laughed. “Don’t be ashamed. You Japanese are almost as hopelessly romantic as us Spaniards.” He let her go and began walking beside her. “Where are you headed?”
She nodded at Mount Takara before them, a wide slow jut with pines standing visibly discrete like hairs. “Up there. A little clearing on the side of the mountain, just below the crest. It was my private place when I was a teenager, back before the castle was built.”
García nodded. His long hair bobbed with the motion. “I remember you telling me about it. Isn’t it named after someplace in a fairy-tale book?”
“Yes. Takara-yama. The Fortunate Mountain.” She walked with thumbs stuck under the padded straps of her day pack, smiling a little at the memory. “Literally, it means Treasure Mountain, but it comes to the same thing. A mythical place where you could find all good things. What I found was mostly solitude. But I guess that’s treasure in Japan, these day’s.”
It was a high-domed day, blue and endless, a few puffy clouds drifting indolent
ly around the green and gray peaks surrounding them. Their path ran out of sight of the citadel through undulating foothills furred with long, green grass. From the peaks a small brook raced, fast and sassy with the last of snow-melt runoff, swatches of red and white and purple flowers spread like banners to either side. Higher up, the cool calm of pine and fir forests beckoned.
“I miss this land in winter,” Michiko said. “I like it best then. It was summertime when I was here last.”
“I remember.” A small smile.
“I haven’t been here in winter since, oh, at least two years before the war. Not long after I accepted the post at Sukarno University. It was so beautiful, all white and perfect and smooth in the flat places, weighing down the branches of the fir trees, sitting up on top of black-looking rocks like thick white caps. I remember papa’s garden was especially beautiful, even though it wasn’t finished yet. Of course, I didn’t get to see it much; he isn’t comfortable having me in his garden.” The corners of her mouth tucked ruefully in. “He’s not comfortable having me around at all.”
“Your father loves you, Michiko. You shouldn’t be hard on him.”
Michiko looked at him sharply. Miguel García wasn’t a man to curry favor. He was merely stating his perception of his employer, whom he found good, if not exactly munificent. She frowned. Objectively, she knew that Yoshimitsu Akaji was in many ways a good man. But I can never forgive what he’s done to me. Or to Shigeo. The years of neglect—“I suppose he does. But he’d love me more if I were a dutiful little girl—ten years married now to some middle-management type, raising a brood of kids. Spending my days on television classes, flower arranging, and gossip, and my nights loyally serving my husband tea, when he wasn’t off with the boys at the geisha bars or topless joints.”
García shook his head. “You were just born the wrong sex, Michiko—not that I’m complaining. Things have changed a lot since I was a kid, but it’s still a man’s world. Especially in Japan.”