David Hagberg
Critical Mass
This novel is for Dominick Abel and Tom Doherty. It’s nice to be believed in, and even nicer to have such friends.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Special thanks to Robert Roningen, my friend and weapons expert, for vetting the manuscript. His help is appreciated.
PROLOGUE
The electric lights dangling from the hospital ward ceiling paled to nothingness in the morning sun streaming through the tall windows. A man dressed in what appeared to be a uniform, but without any insignia of rank or unit, stopped at the swinging doors and forced himself to look back. The hospital was nearly full just now, and all but two of the beds in this ward were occupied. An old man sat, head bowed, beside the last bed on the right. He held the hand of the dying old woman beneath the covers.
The man in the uniform looked at them, he suspected for the last time, then turned.
A floor nurse seated at the desk smiled consolingly, but she said nothing. There was no shame or dishonor in dying well. And the old woman in the last bed on the right was accomplishing her dying in an orderly, quiet, dignified fashion. She was well respected in the Red Cross Hospital because of it.
Isawa Nakamura pushed through the swinging doors and walked out into the corridor where he hesitated a few moments longer. The windows here looked downtown, toward the prominent dome of the Industrial Promotion Hall. It was a little after eight, and he was still early for his appointment. No use, this morning, being early. He would gain face by arriving one or two minutes late.
Life was for the living. The dead were not to be forgotten, but time just now was becoming terribly important to those who were going to survive. And if nothing else could be said about Nakamura, he was a survivor. As a child he and his brother had been ice skating on a pond at their family retreat near Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaido when the ice broke and he went in.
His brother jumped in after him and pushed him out of the icy water. Instead of running the mile or so home for help, Nakamura went to the nearby shelter hut where he changed into dry clothes. When he came back to the pond his brother was gone, drowned, so he calmly walked home to report the tragedy. A great many people had died that year of influenza, which was brought on by a chill. No use taking a chance.
At thirty, Nakamura was one of the rising stars in the Japanese industrial-technical revolution. A self-taught electronics engineer, he was as ruthless with his body as he was with his mind. At five-foot-four he was a compact, well-muscled man with deep-set obsidian eyes and jet black, luxuriously thick hair. Given six months he and his people could develop a small, powerful radar that could be installed in fighter aircraft, giving the Japanese airman the decided advantage.
Given a year, the air force would be flying jets, which along with radar and new developments in rocket armaments and guidance systems, could turn the tide.
It would depend on the spirit of the people. If they were willing to defend the homeland on the beaches, in the hills and forests, and in the cities, street by street, house by house, it might buy them the development time. But only just.
There was no time for the dead or dying because Japan would surely lose the war unless the living-all the living-dedicated themselves to the struggle.
He looked again toward the swinging doors. It had been the matter of the estate that had brought him down here. As soon as his mother and father were dead he stood to inherit money and land. He wanted to see with his own eyes the state of their health.
She was dying, and his father didn’t look well. The strain of her death would probably kill him within a month or two.
He’d also come down to meet with the colonel of the Hiroshima Defense District, who fancied himself a businessman, and who was willing, for a price, to supply Nakamura’s firm with the needed copper wire and gold leaf for switch contacts. Both metals were virtually impossible to obtain these days.
“Isawa-san,” someone called for him in a small voice at the end of the corridor.
He turned in irritation as Myeko Tanimoto, dressed in a crisp white and red flowered kimono, held up a delicate little hand for him. She traveled as his secretary. In reality she had been a maiko, which was a geisha in training, until Nakamura bought her from the school. At fifteen, she was a perfectly formed porcelain doll. But she frightened easily, and just lately she had begun to get on his nerves.
“Return to the car and wait with Kiyoshi,” he said as she hobbled in tiny steps toward him.
“There has been another air raid signal, Isawa-san. Didn’t you hear it?”
“It is like the others last night. There is nothing this time. You heard the all clear.”
“But it is said that they have seen B-san. Three of them to the northeast over Lake Biwa.”
“They will bomb some other city. It is their rendezvous point. Now return to the car, Kiyoshi will be getting worried.”
“May I remain here with you?” Myeko asked. She had stopped halfway along the corridor.
A nurse came out of one of the wards, looked at her, then at Nakamura, and left.
“Do as I say,” Nakamura told her.
“But I am frightened…?
“Obey!” Nakamura roared.
Myeko stumbled backward as if she had received a physical blow, then, lowering her head, she turned and hobbled back to the stairs the way she had come.
Dr. Masakazu Saski came to his office door, a disapproving scowl on his deeply lined face. “What is the trouble here?” he demanded.
“There is no trouble, sensei,” Nakamura said. “But I wish to have a word with you about my parents.”
The doctor’s eyeglasses were perched on top of his head. He flipped them down and peered myopically at Nakamura. “Who are you?”
“Isawa Nakamura.”
“Ah, the young lion.” The doctor shook his head. “Come in then,” he said, and he turned and disappeared into his office. Saski had a bad reputation for being overly Western in his brusque, to-the-point manner. But he was a good doctor and he worked cheaply.
The doctor’s office was small, and in complete disarray, with medical supplies, journals, books and files scattered everywhere.
“You want to know how your mother is doing,” Dr. Saski said gruffly.
“She does not look well.”
“No. Neither is your father. Both of them will be dead within a few months. Your mother soonest, I should think.”
“What is wrong with them?”
“Age. Heartache. They talk about your brother almost all the time.”
