Good Luck, Yukikaze

by Chohei Kambayashi

  “Major, it’s almost as if you’re saying that the JAM are like gods, and that we need to think about whether or not they exist.”

  “It certainly seems that way, doesn’t it?” Booker said.

  “I’m surprised. I always figured you were an atheist, like everyone else in the SAF.”

  “Whether gods exist or not, we can still live, all the same. That’s what I think, and I believe it’s the same with the JAM, whether they exist or not.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Foss said.

  “If you don’t agree, then you’re telling me that you’ve accepted the JAM as gods with an objective existence; you’re preaching the religion of JAMism.”

  “Hold on there, Major. Then what is it that you’re doing here?”

  “I’m explaining to you that if the JAM can’t be directly perceived by humans, then I believe that we can’t fight them without bringing up certain philosophical questions. If the JAM are not physical entities, you can’t simply say that they exist whether you believe in them or not.”

  “So how do we make this more definite, Major Booker?”

  “We search for exactly what the JAM threat is. If we find that it’s an illusion, then we don’t have to fight.”

  “The SAF can’t just abandon the battle now, surely.”

  “That’s General Cooley’s job to decide, not yours, and your profacting report on the JAM will be used by her as a major ingredient in determining what decision she makes. Now add in data Yukikaze has brought back. It may be possible now to verify the threat the JAM pose. I have a feeling that we won’t be able to immediately verify your suspicions about the JAM’s true nature. And even if humans in the future judge what we do here as a complete waste of time and history decides that we made a mistake, it’s all we can do now. History’s verdict has nothing to do with us. Either way, we won’t be alive to see it, and that’s true if we die content or cursing our bad fortune. I couldn’t care less about the future. All we can do now is what we believe is best, and that’s how anyone with a brain in their head has lived and died throughout all of history.”

  “You think the JAM are like gods, huh?”

  “The same way that humans must appear to them,” Booker said. “We’re equal in that respect, and there’s nothing to fear from it.”

  General Cooley stopped reading there and took a sip of her tea.

  Even if the JAM were like gods, it was nothing to fear— How very typical of Major Booker, Cooley thought. The JAM and humanity were equal in his view. If the JAM are gods, then so are we, he’d told Captain Foss. He’d explained that she should leave out the god angle as much as she could. And even when Captain Foss had still brought it up, he’d told her not to be afraid. Don’t fear the JAM, don’t blindly accept them, just determine the true nature of the threat they represent. That was his way of lending the young doctor support.

  But the truth was that their relationship with the JAM wasn’t equivalent, because humans formed collectives. Indeed, Captain Fukai and Yukikaze had fought the JAM on equal terms and had returned to tell about it. Major Booker, too, could argue with the JAM on equal terms with his philosophy. But there was no way that every human was capable of such accomplishments. I put the SAF together to place us on equal footing with JAM, General Cooley thought, and to do that I created a group of individuals with a single purpose, just I supposed the JAM to be. There was no way they could equal the JAM unless not a single person in the group defied her.

  Almost from the day she was born, General Cooley had wanted one thing: power. Overwhelming, unquestionable power. Power that would let her declare that the world was hers, that would allow her to argue on equal terms with the gods. From the typical desire for authority most people have, the feeling grew into a palpable sensation inside her. It was probably a base instinct in humans, born out of being social animals. If she were like a cat, a natural loner, then she’d only rely on herself to hunt for food or defend herself from enemies. But wolves and humans weren’t like that. Without a good leader, the entire group would be threatened. We create gods out of our desire for an external leader. A life-form that lives independently has no gods because it doesn’t need them.

  Thinking back, the general realized that she’d been defying, even fighting, godlike beings since childhood. Back then, her father had seemed like a supreme being. Whatever he said was right and had to be obeyed. She was the middle child between two brothers, and when she’d complained that he treated her differently, his reply was that it was because she was a girl. Her mother said the same thing. It wasn’t as if being a girl was something to be ashamed of, but the reasoning just seemed so absurd to her. She wished to grow up as quickly as she could but found that things weren’t very much different as an adult.

  “General Cooley,” Captain Foss had once asked her, “what did you do before you joined the FAF?” The doctor had been gathering data on the SAF members, and she made no exceptions, even for her own commanding officer.

  “I did a number of things, all of them related to finance. Right before I joined up, I was aiming to be a top-level broker in a securities firm.”

  “Tough work, but rewarding all the same. Is that the career you wanted, and then the FAF grabbed you?”

  “No, I came here of my own accord. You wouldn’t expect someone whose skills lie in finance to be assigned to a combat unit, but it was what I wanted.”

  “What was it that brought you here seeking a new world, Lydia?”

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me by my first name here, Captain Foss.”

  “I beg your pardon, General Cooley.”

  “What was it? I think young Lydia Cooley just decided to abandon her old world because she found it irrational.”

  “I’m not entirely familiar with what goes into being a stockbroker, but the really high-level ones can move the world on their say-so, can’t they?” Foss said.

  “Money is just numbers. None of it is real, although that may be an extreme position to take. Still, money does have practical power. It can disrupt an entire nation. To control it, to manipulate it freely, can be thrilling. And when things go well, it can even be fun. But I couldn’t reach that level. I don’t think it was a question of my abilities, but the world wasn’t kind enough to let me get by on just those. I finally understood. You might say that I saw the limits of my world.”

  “You experienced sexual discrimination?”

  “Oh, naturally,” General Cooley said. “Plenty of that. But that wasn’t what made me abandon it.”

  What young Lydia Cooley had realized was that the true source of the irrationality she’d always experienced wasn’t from her being born a woman, but from her having been born a human being.

  “Humanity is divided into two classes: bosses and everyone else. Even if a woman controlled the world, no one would accept it. I was being a fool in trying to be a boss that no one would accept.”

  “A fool…”

  “Yes. Where would be the fun in becoming the boss of people who’d treat me like that?” Cooley replied. “I realized how empty it would be. However, I didn’t want to resign myself to being one of ‘everyone else,’ either. So what was I to do? For a while there, I was seriously considering becoming a nun.”

  “So in the end, you began to doubt the rat race and the values of the harsh world of the money game.”

  “I suppose so…When I think back, there were all sorts of paths I could have taken. I might have become a researcher, like you, or a talented psychologist who’d make a fortune and win acceptance from the world. Or I could have married and become a mother. But there before young Lydia were beings called the JAM, who threatened the whole of human society.”

  “And you felt that a job fighting invaders from another world, ones with values completely different from our own, would be a rewarding career?” Captain Foss asked.

  “Maybe I did. It’s ancient history now.”

  Captain Foss had nodded, jotted down something in her notebook
, and asked nothing more about it.

  She had thought it would be a rewarding job, but as General Cooley looked back at the person she was at that time, she realized that she hadn’t been burning with hope. The FAF had been an escape for her. Yes, just like a convent. The JAM were there. The JAM, which she could believe in in place of God. She’d never been aware of it until now, when she’d realized that what Major Booker had said applied to her. Then, she asked herself, did I come here to learn that overwhelming power was a necessity? And with that, I could oppose the JAM?

  No, that wasn’t it. The JAM’s attitude had made that clear.

  True, it would be an ideal situation to gain absolute authority over the FAF and fight the JAM that way. While humans did operate as collectives, it was necessary to win power struggles within that collective. That fact put them at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the JAM, and they’d be sure to exploit it. The JAM must have understood humanity’s Achilles’ heel. Their analysis must have also shown them that a weak point could be turned into a strong point. For example, conflict within a collective might be necessary to replace a bad boss with a superior person.

  The JAM had admitted that the SAF was beyond their understanding. They might as well have said that it was Cooley herself that they didn’t understand, since she was the one who’d set the SAF up in this way. That was the JAM’s weakness. The FAF and the JAM might not be equally matched, but it could be said that the SAF was now in the same position as the JAM. It was a position she couldn’t abandon. The one thing she couldn’t afford to do was behave as her opponents expected.

  What she needed to make clear to the JAM was that humanity didn’t merely consist of the types of people that they could comprehend.

  “The JAM are like gods?”

  Major Booker had said that regarding the JAM as an unknowable enemy called to mind words and concepts like god. Booker told Captain Foss that he’d prefer to avoid seeing the JAM as gods, but also feared that it might be impossible. General Cooley understood how he felt. But, she thought, a part of her hoped that they literally were godlike beings. Because to stand up and fight against the gods was something that young Lydia Cooley had always hoped she could do.

  4

  AFTER CHANGING CLOTHES, Rei and Lieutenant Katsuragi joined Captain Foss and Major Booker on their way to see General Cooley in the command center.

  In response to General Cooley saying that she hadn’t summoned the two pilots, Major Booker whispered in her ear to explain about Yukikaze’s discovery of two unidentified humans within the Systems Corps—men who were claiming to be Lieutenant Burgadish and another dead man. How Yukikaze had recognized them as JAM, and how Rei felt that her concerns were likely a JAM trick. The general betrayed little surprise as she listened. After brief consideration, she ordered First Lieutenant Eco, the chief of fighter plane maintenance operations, to begin repairs on Yukikaze at once.

  “Yukikaze won’t resist our moving her to the repair bay now.” There had been some fear of her self-destructing. “However,” General Cooley continued, “we need to keep her linked to the tactical computer while she’s in the repair bay. Can you do that?”

  “Of course we can.”

  “How long will the repairs take?”

  “I’ll know that once I get a detailed look at exactly what’s damaged on her. From what the maintenance team saw when they eyeballed it before, dismounting the damaged engine shouldn’t take too long. It should just slide right out. There’s nothing fatally damaged on the airframe, and the root of the primary tail stabilizer she lost is just fine. It should take us an hour to move her into the repair bay and run a damage inspection. Swapping out the engine and the other miscellaneous repairs should take about three hours if we push it, another two for general maintenance and inspections, so… Yeah, six hours should do it.”

  “Do it in four.”

  “Okay, we’ll aim for four.”

  Lieutenant Eco began to issue orders to the maintenance team from his terminal, the display on the monitor mirrored on the big screen at the front of the command center. Data from Yukikaze’s onboard airframe self-monitoring system began to scroll onto it as well. Confirming that Yukikaze had agreed to the repairs, Cooley told the still-standing Major Booker and his subordinates to take seats at the empty consoles.

  “Captain Pivot, enter Captain Fukai’s and Lieutenant Katsuragi’s reports into the strategic computer. Lieutenant Katsuragi, you assist him. Major Booker, monitor what the strategic computer does. Captain Foss, present your formal prediction of the JAM’s strategy and the results of your profacting. Please wait here while I read it to answer any questions I may have.”

  “I want to delete the data related to the retraining unit in the Systems Corps,” Rei said. “Authorize the attack.”

  “You are to read through the data that you and Yukikaze brought back, as well as the data analysis report we’ve generated here at HQ. Whether or not we attack will be determined by a comprehensive judgment of all available information,” Cooley said. “If you haven’t eaten yet, order anything you want. Captain Foss, Major Booker, that goes for you too.”

  “Great, I’ll have a two-pound steak, please, and make it rare,” said Lieutenant Katsuragi. That immediately broke the tension.

  This might be our last meal, Rei thought. Thirteen people weren’t nearly enough to be doing this. It occurred to him that there were thirteen planes in the squadron as well. When the final battle came, they’d probably all be served fuel and weaponry at the same time too…

  The general’s young secretary, who hung by her side like a shadow, took their orders and called them in to the SAF mess hall.

  Rei ordered a ham bun, and by the time the round, extra-large roll stuffed with ham and vegetables had arrived, he’d gotten to the part of the analysis report that General Cooley had reread, wherein Captain Foss and Major Booker had discussed the ontology of the JAM.

  If they start calling the JAM gods, then it’s all over, Rei thought. The FAF will lose its reason for existence.

  If what Major Booker had predicted came to pass, the FAF would split into two groups: believers and nonbelievers. Three, if you counted the group who wouldn’t care either way. And then those groups would probably split into even more subgroups. At any rate, since the JAM were unperceivable entities, it was impossible to ascertain just what was the correct way to conceive of them. With the stress of all these various groups within it, there’d be no way that the FAF could maintain its role as a coherent organization against the JAM. If the groups within the FAF started using force to validate their views, it’d turn into an outright religious war. Major Booker had been right on the money to call it “JAMism.” Even now, there were a lot of people on Earth who claimed that the JAM were illusory, with some of them practically believing that they were gods. The groups back home hadn’t yet begun making moves that threatened the FAF, but there was a real danger that they might.

  “If humans really can’t perceive the JAM,” Rei said, “the FAF must never let that information go public.”

  “I’d expect the Intelligence Forces have a media control plan ready to go,” said Major Booker, nodding. “What about it?”

  “I was just thinking I’d like to tell Lynn Jackson about this. About what we’ve got here. She’s an Earther. She has a right to know.”

  “I agree. There’s a saying that the three most useful friends to have are a doctor, a lawyer, and a journalist,” Booker said. “Although you’re inviting disaster if they aren’t very good at what they do. Still, we can rely on Lynn. She can understand the SAF. It’ll be tough to pull off, but I think it’d be worth it. If you were going to make a last will and testament, I can’t think of a better person to entrust it to.”

  “It’s not certain that we’re going to lose,” said Captain Foss. “And it’s not certain that we’re going to die.”

  “A will is something you write while still alive,” said Major Booker. “We’re losing our chance to leave it with the FAF.” />
  “The Intelligence Forces aren’t incompetent,” said Lieutenant Katsuragi. “They must have predicted the implications of knowing the JAM’s true form. You might say that the SAF was slow to figure it out. Well, I suppose that comes from being a combat unit. You only believe in what you can practically confirm. Still, this inability to pin down where the JAM exist is almost like quantum theory, isn’t it? Maybe the JAM are quantum beings.”

  “You’re talking about the Uncertainty Principle,” said Captain Foss. “That’s the one that says the means of human observation itself makes knowing an object’s location unclear, since you can’t measure two exact values at the same time, right?”

  “That’s not entirely correct,” said Captain Pivot, the man in charge of data analysis. “The values that can’t be simultaneously observed are those with attributes in conjugate relation to each other. For example, position and energy have no conjugate attributes, so it’s possible to know both simultaneously if you measure them precisely. If you make that into the conjugate attributes of position and speed, however, then you can’t observe both values simultaneously.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t explain it in a few words. Quantum theory is hard for us to think about in commonplace terms because it works like a mathematical metaphor. Anybody can understand the formulae if they work hard enough at it; the mistakes come when they try to interpret them. There are some people who make up suitable explanations while ignoring the formulae, which is probably where your own misunderstanding comes from. Now, it’s true that you get uncertain results from inaccurate observation methods, but that isn’t the uncertainty we’re talking about here. Quantum uncertainty doesn’t work that simply. I think what Lieutenant Katsuragi is trying to say is that if the JAM possess quantum uncertainty, then they only exist when you observe them, and that they don’t actually exist anywhere before you do that. One interpretation you can get from quantum theory is that an unobserved JAM really doesn’t exist. Another is that you can’t definitively know that a quantum object exists until you observe it. There are all sorts of interpretations. In any case, humans don’t currently possess an experimental means to determine which interpretation is the correct one. You could say that the incomprehensibility of quantum theory comes from humans lacking the means to make certain the uncertainty of quantum uncertainty.”