"He has," Beanland put in.
"Oh. Well, that's good then. But you're right, Admiral. Maybe things are slightly different here. Maybe nothing we'll ever notice, like the typeface of a small county newspaper being altered, but everything else appears exactly the same. Or maybe our trip here was a straight H. G. Wells deal. From twenty twenty-one to our very own nineteen forty-two. I don't know. We may never know. Theories are one thing, but actually cracking open the fabric of spacetime and manipulating it without dire consequences, well, that's a whole other sort of something."
"As you may have discovered to our cost," said Spruance.
"Yes," Halabi admitted. "I am sorry. You were unfortunate enough to tangle with our CIs while there was minimal human oversight."
"CIs?"
"Combat Intelligences. Computers. Machines that think. They help us run our ships, our whole society actually. And when they detected the threat you posed to the task force with your cannon fire, they responded."
"Well, that response may have cost us the war," Spruance observed bitterly.
"It won't," Halabi insisted. "The strategic imbalance between the Axis powers and the Allies is so great that it would take a lot more than the destruction of your task force and the loss of Midway, Hawaii, or even Australia to tip that balance in their favor."
"Oh, God, don't let MacArthur hear that," Spruance muttered, practically to himself.
"With all due respect," Beanland protested, "you've done your damnedest to help them on their way."
"I am well aware of what happened tonight, Commander. I lost a good many friends myself on the Fearless. We haven't had a chance to formally discuss it at a command level yet. But I can assure you we won't leave you swinging. If necessary, almost any one of the ships in our task force could sink the Japanese carriers and capital ships closing on Midway at the moment."
"Yes, but would they?" Spruance asked. "Do you seriously believe your Japanese comrades would happily send their forefathers to the bottom?"
She answered honestly. "I don't know. I haven't spoken to them. And since most of the Siranui's senior officers have been killed anyway, their views are no longer entirely relevant."
"Yeah, but the views of the survivors will be!" Beanland insisted. "Maybe you got yourself some real tame, friendly Japs where you come from, but we got just about the worst bunch of bastards in the world right here. And I don't fancy them getting their hands on any of those rockets or thinking machines you hammered us with.
"Admiral," he said, ignoring Halabi now, "whatever turns out to be the case with these people"-he indicated the British captain with a jerk of his thumb-"we have to insist on those Japs that came along with them being disarmed and interned. They're just too much of a threat."
"That may well be, Lieutenant," Spruance said, nodding, "but let's just stay calm for the moment, shall we. Captain Halabi, how do you think your boss would take to that suggestion?"
"Frankly, not very well. I don't think any of us would."
Spruance seemed quite taken aback by the defiant note in the woman's voice.
"And why not, might I ask?"
"Because they're our allies," she said, as though explaining something to a child. "This wouldn't have been the Siranui's first tour with Admiral Kolhammer's group… sorry, that means nothing to you. Look, I've served in coalition with that ship before. I know that Admiral Kolhammer has, too. They've taken the same risks we have, watched our backs, taken fire when we did. We have no reason to doubt to their loyalty or their honor."
"Yes, but their loyalty and honor might just demand that they lay in a course for the homeland. I take it from the title of this book that Japan didn't have a good time of it, by the end of the war."
"No, granted, they didn't. But the Siranui's crew aren't stupid. They know that what doomed Japan was the hubris of the militarists who ran the country…"
"Who run the country, you mean," said Spruance.
"Okay," she conceded. "Who run the country. But Japan-their Japan-has been a liberal democracy for generations. To suggest that modern Japanese would want to return to the mistakes of their distant past is as fatuous as saying modern Germans would all turn back into Nazis if given the chance."
"Oh my God," Beanland pleaded. "Please don't tell me you've got a bunch of German ships out there, as well."
Spruance was genuinely perturbed by the possibility. "Well, Captain," he demanded. "What of it? Any other nasty little surprises you'd care to let us in on. A U-boat, for instance?"
Halabi struggled to control her exasperation with the paranoid mind-set of the two men.
"No," she said firmly. "We have no German vessels operating with us. There are undoubtedly a small number of German personnel on secondment to various elements of the task force. There may well be some Italians, too. I know of a couple on the Fearless. And we had a couple of Republic of Indonesian boats with us, which might well have complicated things, since you don't have a Republic of Indonesia… but then neither do we nowadays, so I guess it couldn't be any more complicated. And anyway, they seemed to have escaped the Transition here, like the American subs and a New Zealand frigate, which were all some distance away from the event."
"So what on earth do you intend to do with all of these Krauts and Japs, then?" asked Spruance, who seemed to be growing agitated again. He stood and turned to face her squarely.
"I don't intend to do anything with them," she replied, "until we've had a chance to discuss the matter at a fleetwide command level. A discussion, I can assure you, that will take into account the wishes of all of the men and women concerned."
"Good Lord," Spruance cried. "You can't suggest that you would let them be repatriated to their respective countries, if that's what they desired."
"Of course not," she responded. "Nobody's going to hand Hitler or Tojo the plans to an atom bomb. But they're not going into irons, either, just for being Japanese or German. I have a Russian on my own ship, by the way. I know she'd have no interest whatsoever in returning home. Stalin would have her shot on sight, as soon as he discovered what became of his bloody workers' paradise."
Spruance slowly began pacing a tight circle around the cabin, rubbing the back of his neck as he turned the whole thing over in his mind. He was surprised to discover that his initial shock and disbelief were fading quickly now. Piled on top of that discovery came the realization that this annoying woman was mostly responsible. Standing there in her dress uniform, arms folded as arrogantly as you please, tossing off her own opinions while disregarding his as though she considered them largely worthless, she came as a small, intimate herald of change. What sort of a woman was she? The loss of her sister ship and a thousand comrades appeared not to ruffle her at all. She seemed every bit as self-assured of her own godhead as any number of Royal Navy captains he'd met over the years. It was almost as if their blasted empire had never begun to crumble to dust. The jaw-dropping perversity of meeting this odd creature who was so very obviously convinced of her own infallibility, in that recognizably and infuriatingly British way, all helped undermine the skepticism with which he had first responded to Kolhammer's ridiculous story.
Jesus, he thought, what if it's true?
He retrieved the book from where he had tossed it on his desk and flicked through it again, leaving Beanland and Halabi to their mutually hostile silence. He scanned a few pages that dealt with the rapid destruction of three Japanese carriers, caught by his dive-bombers while their decks were littered with refueling planes, high-explosive bombs, and thousands of gallons of flammable gas.
"We were lucky, then," he said, glancing up at Halabi again.
"Yes and no," she said. "The heavy bomber flights and the waves of torpedo planes that went in earlier set it up for your dive-bombers. If those pilots hadn't sacrificed themselves-and that's what it was for most of them, a suicide mission-you wouldn't have caught Nagumo with his pants down around his ankles and his cock on the chopping block."
Spruance smirked at
the profane image, even as he cringed at such language coming from a member of the fairer sex.
God help us, are all the women from her day like this?
"Captain Halabi," he said. "Can I have your word as an officer that you have spoken true tonight?"
Karen straightened herself out of the relaxed posture she had fallen into.
"You have it."
"Fine," Spruance said over the rising objections of Commander Beanland. "We won't delay for word from Black and Curtis. I take it you have some way of contacting your ship and Admiral Kolhammer, and getting them to start their own rescue operations."
"I do, sir." She whipped her flexipad out of a breast pocket and opened a link to the Trident. A red-haired man with hawkish features appeared on the small screen.
"Captain? We've been missing you."
"It's nice to be loved, Mr. McTeale. We have clearance from Admiral Spruance to begin search and rescue. Get them away in… two minutes… Will that be long enough for you to get the word out, Admiral?" she asked Spruance.
He was caught off-guard by the speed at which she had moved, but waved Beanland out of the cabin with a firm instruction to see that his surviving ships were informed of the order.
"Better give us five minutes, Captain. I know it's
11
HIJMS RYUJO, 2331 HOURS, 2 JUNE 1942
The thermometer in the pilothouse of the carrier Ryujo stood at minus seven degrees Centigrade, but to Rear Admiral Kakuji Kakuta it felt even colder. The wind running over the carrier's deck added to the chill, as did the dense banks of fog and damp, clammy air through which the Second Carrier Striking Force had been groping toward the Aleutians. It wasn't the vile conditions that had halted the progress of the Fifth Fleet's Northern Force, however.
Kakuta was a warrior, and as such he expected to fight in fog and darkness, to strike at an enemy whose whereabouts or capabilities he might not know for sure. Nothing was certain in war. But this, this was a mystery beyond the ken of simple warriors. It was as though the gods themselves had intervened in mortal affairs. Such things were not unknown, of course. Huge Mongol invasion fleets had twice been destroyed, in 1274 and 1281, when kamikaze-or divine winds, in the form of typhoons-had smashed them to splinters.
But although he was a spiritual man, Kakuta's rational side understood that clumsy wooden boats that tried to cross the Sea of Japan during typhoon season were liable to meet with disaster. Just as he had been dogged across the northern Pacific by these impenetrable fog banks, hundreds of miles deep and so thick that the nearest escorts-just a few hundred meters away-were transformed into murky shadows, even at midday.
The bridge was quiet, except for an occasional directive to the helm to alter the heading slightly, keeping them on station within the body of the strike force.
As bitterly cold as he was, Kakuta was more profoundly disturbed by the turn of events these last few hours. Admiral Yamamoto's fantastically elaborate plan to seize Midway Island and destroy the remnants of America's Pacific naval power depended on exact timing. Yet here they were, behind schedule, creeping through the fog and trying to deal with a ghost ship.
He was anxious for a report from his staff, who had boarded the vessel what seemed like an age ago. But he would just have to wait until a motor launch brought Lieutenant Commander Hidaka back with a full account.
KRI SUTANTO, 2331 HOURS, 2 JUNE 1942
When they had first come aboard they had been grateful for the glorious warmth of this vessel. But that had quickly soured, and Hidaka was seriously considering having the men throw open all the hatches and portholes to let in some of the freezing Pacific air. This ship reeked of human filth, of vomit and shit and urine.
The culprits lay everywhere. Not dead, but not quite alive, either. Medics had dragged four men who showed at least some signs of life into a starboard corridor that ran the length of the vessel. There was little to do but monitor them. Nothing brought a response, not smelling salts, kicks and slaps, not even a shallow prod with a dagger.
The casualties weren't Americans. That much was obvious. Hidaka was unsure where they hailed from, but to his eye they resembled the savages of the former Dutch East Indies more than anything else. That couldn't be the case, of course. This warship was simply too advanced. It was small, granted, but it was full of equipment that none of them had ever seen before. The pilothouse glowed with ethereal lights, hundreds of them burning and blinking on banks of control panels that made the Ryujo's bridge look stark and simplistic-even though the whole world now knew that Japanese naval technology was unmatched.
Standing on the bridge, he was tempted again to caress the large, magically glowing plate of glass that rose on a sort of stalk from the arm of what must surely be the captain's seat. But the last time he had tried that, shrieking alarms had sounded for a full two minutes. So he stayed his hand, and kicked the man who lay unconscious at the foot of the captain's chair, more out of spite and frustration than from any hope that it might rouse him.
The body absorbed the blow like a sack of rice.
"Keep an eye on things here," he told a petty officer. "Don't touch anything, and summon me immediately if one of these baboons decides to raise his head. I shall be in the wardroom."
He left without waiting for the man to acknowledge his order. Hidaka was becoming annoyed with his own inability to unravel the puzzle of this ship. He had been chosen to lead the boarding party because of his near-faultless grasp of English, but the language displayed on all the signage throughout the vessel meant nothing to him. Once or twice he had found a small plaque written in what seemed to be German, but that only served to deepen the mystery. He proceeded to the wardroom in very poor humor.
The men in there sprang to attention when he arrived. Three of the insensate crew lay on the floor.
"Well?" he asked immediately. "Anything to report?"
An ensign snapped to attention and indicated a pile of books and papers sitting on a table.
"We were just coming to get you, Commander. We have located these, we think some are written in English…"
He cast a wary eye over a tall stack of magazines written in what he assumed was the baboons' language. Most were editions of something called Detik. A lesser number were of another journal called Tempo. He ignored them in favor of the English-language publications.
That was a thin collection, but it was nonetheless astounding. The first item was a pornographic magazine! Hidaka examined the masthead. HUSTLER, it read. He wasn't sure what that meant. The smaller titles, perhaps representing the articles, were no clearer.
WE TESTFUCK THE LATEST IN V3D PUSSY.
INSIDE THE RISING JIHAD.
and
GET BIG AND BEASTLY WITH THE LATEST SYNTH-SIMIAN DNA.
Meaningless. Absolutely meaningless. And…
"Shit!"
Hidaka wasn't even aware he'd sworn in English, so great was his shock at the image that met him when he flipped open the magazine.
"So the rumors are true," he mused in Japanese, when he'd recovered from the surprise. "They are blond all over."
The men sniggered, and he might have spent a few minutes confirming the theory if the ensign hadn't gently handed him a small device.
"And there is this, Commander. It glows like a lantern."
A strangely lit screen displayed the cover of Tempo. Hidaka checked it against the pile of paper magazines. Yes, he was certain they were same thing. What an oddity. A magazine in an electric box!
It was apparently written in the same damnable tongue as everything else on this ship, but there in the left-hand margin of the screen was a small British flag and underneath it, the word
English
Progress at last! Hidaka thought.
He had almost grown used to the magic of these illuminated plates, because they were scattered everywhere aboard the ship. Nonetheless, it was a revelation to find one he could hold in his hand and carry around. But how did it work? What did it do? There were a number
of buttons in the base of the thing, but he was disinclined to press them, especially after his experience on the bridge. So he carefully placed the instrument back on the scarred tabletop while he examined the other discoveries.
There was another magazine. Like Hustler, it was printed in rich colors on thick glossy paper. The title appeared to be People. A strange name for a periodical, he thought. An ethnographic journal perhaps.
Most of the pages were dominated by photographs of idiotically grinning barbarians. American or British, he supposed, for the small amount of text was certainly written in English. But there were an amazing number of Negroes and half-bloods, and people of races he'd never seen before. A mud race of polyglot people, he thought, pleased with himself at recalling such an obscure term, even though it had been at least five years since he had studied at Princeton University.
Hidaka attempted to glean some wider meaning from the photo captions, but they seemed as vacuous as the gaijin about whom they were written. The common themes seemed to be who was sleeping with whom, and who possessed the most riches. There were longer articles, but he threw the magazine aside in a fit of pique, because they were just as impenetrable. People would have to wait until he had more time.
He picked up the next item, a much thicker magazine, with the title PC Week. Opening this to a random page and flicking through, he let go an exclamation.
"Ah! Technical documents!"
The crewmen grunted happily in response. If they had discovered something vital, it would bring them great honor and distinction. As Hidaka flicked through the pages, he nodded his head vigorously, though these articles, written in English, were even more unreadable than in the journal of People. At least this time, however, he felt certain his inability to decipher the text was because it so obviously dealt with top-secret technologies.
There were many pictures of those odd floating glass plates, and boxes with wires and boards in them, and even of devices that resembled the gadget with the small British flag on its glass plate. He would dearly love to decipher one of these articles for Admiral Kakuta, but such a task might take weeks-and they had hours at best.
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