L ieutenant Tamatsu Shinya, formerly of the Japanese Imperial Navy, and currently brevet colonel and second in command of all Allied infantry forces, unbuckled the belt that held his modified Navy cutlass and pistol. Handing it to the ’Cat Marine sentry at the base of the comfortable dwelling, he climbed rope ladder to the “ground” floor- roughly twenty feet above his head. It was inconvenient, but virtually all Baalkpan dwellings were built on pilings like this so their inhabitants could sleep secure from possible predators. He reflected that the practice was as much tradition now as anything else, since the city never really slept-even before the war-and over the centuries, dangerous animals had slowly learned to avoid the city carved out of the dense wilderness around it. Now there were fortified berms and breastworks, constant lookouts, and vigilant warriors as well. He wondered as he climbed the ladder if the inconvenient tradition would long survive. At the top, he struck the hatch, or trapdoor, above his head and, raising it, entered.
Once inside, Shinya removed his shoes and stood. A curtain separated the entry chamber from the rest of the dwelling and he passed through it. Finding the occupant seated cross-legged on the floor, facing a small window overlooking the bay, Shinya bowed at the waist.
“Commander Okada,” he said in Japanese. “My apologies for disturbing you.”
Okada turned then. His uniform had been wrecked and he wore a robe not unlike the ones the Lemurian Sky Priests used. He was older than Tamatsu, but had the same black hair, untinged with gray. He regarded Tamatsu for a moment before dipping his own head in a perfunctory bow. “At least you still remember how to behave somewhat Japanese,” Okada observed.
Shinya felt his face heat. He straightened. “And you, sir, it would seem, have learned to behave somewhat like your Captain Kurokawa.”
Okada shot to his feet, anger twisting his face. “Still you will compare me to that kyoujin?”
“You have called me a traitor on several occasions now. If I am, what are you? I did not surrender when my ship sank; I was captured while unconscious. I had no idea any of my countrymen even existed in this world. I made an honorable accommodation with a former enemy to help confront an evil I am quite certain our emperor would despise. Our primary differences with the Americans are political, and not.. . on anything approaching the levels of our differences with the Grik! You condemn me, yet you supported the actions of a man you know the emperor would have never condoned!” Shinya fumed. He couldn’t help it: Okada’s attitude infuriated him and he didn’t understand it. “Perhaps General Tojo would have, but the emperor wouldn’t; nor would Admiral Mitsumasa!”
Okada seemed to deflate. “I tried to oppose him,” he offered quietly. “I helped Kaufman send a warning.”
Shinya’s voice also lost some of its heat. “Yes, you did. Moreover, you should be proud you did. I too oppose Captain Kurokawa-and the Grik. I do not and will not fight others who do, nor have I done so. I gave Captain Reddy my parole and had no difficulty fighting the Grik. When I learned of your ship, I faced a choice-a choice I was allowed, by the way-to abdicate my duty to the troops I command, or risk the possibility I might face you and others like you. I was spared that agony, but I would have done it if forced, because those troops would have been aiding Kurokawa and, by extension, the Grik.”
“You make it sound as though I am guilty of aiding that madman simply because I did not rise openly against him sooner! Believe me, I wanted to! But all that would have accomplished is my death before I had any real chance to make a difference.” Okada looked down. “In the end, it made no difference anyway.”
“It did,” Shinya assured him. “You gave us warning. Without that, we would not have been prepared.”
“Prepared to kill our countrymen!” Okada almost moaned. “Do you not see? Perhaps you are not a traitor for what you have done, but I can’t stop feeling like you are, even as I feel like one for doing even less. They were my men!”
“Yes,” Shinya agreed. “But do not think the decision was less difficult for me. Now, to do nothing further, while those same men are in the grasp of such evil, is impossible for me. Don’t you see?” Shinya waited for a response. When there wasn’t one, he sank to the floor across from Okada, who finally joined him there.
“What do you want to do?” Shinya quietly asked.
“I want to go home.”
Shinya took a breath. “Unless you have knowledge beyond mine of the mystery that brought us to this world, I fear that is impossible.”
Okada looked at Shinya a long moment, weighing the words. Finally, he sighed. “That is not what I meant. Of course I want to go ‘home,’ but I have no more idea how to do that than you profess to have. No, what I want is to go to that place that should be home. The place your allies at least still call Japan.”
“Jaapaan,” Shinya corrected. “But why? The Lemurians have two land colonies there-a small one on Okinawa and another, larger one on southern Honshu. They have never, by all accounts, encountered any of our people. On this world, Jaapaan is not Japan. Besides, your knowledge of Kurokawa and the Grik is invaluable to those who oppose them.”
That was true enough. Thanks to Commander Okada, the humans and Lemurians finally knew more about their enemy now. They still didn’t know what drove the Grik to such extremes of barbarity, but they’d learned a little about their social structure. For example, they now knew that the average Grik warrior came from a class referred to as the Uul, which possessed primary characteristics strikingly similar to ants or bees. Some were bigger than others, some more skilled at fighting; some even seemed to have some basic concept of self. All, however, were slavishly devoted to a ruling class called the Hij, who manipulated them and channeled and controlled their instinctual and apparently mindless ferocity. There seemed to be different strata of Hij as well. Some were rulers and officers; others were artisans and bureaucrats. Regardless of their positions, they constituted what was, essentially, an elite aristocracy collectively subject to an obscure godlike emperor figure. Nothing more about their society was known beyond that. The Hij were physically identical to their subjects, but were clearly intelligent and self-aware to a degree frighteningly similar to humans and their allies. They didn’t seem terribly imaginative, though, and so far that had proved their greatest weakness.
Shinya persisted. “Don’t you want revenge for what Kurokawa has done to the people under his command? Our people? Can’t you set your hatred of the Americans aside even for that?”
“I do not hate the Americans,” Okada stated with heavy irony. “But they are the enemy of our people, our emperor. I cannot set that aside. How can you?” Okada shook his head. He didn’t really want an answer to his question. “It is true I had hoped, with Amagi, to work in concert with the Americans against the Grik, because, like you, I recognize them as evil-perhaps the greatest evil mankind has ever known. I never intended an alliance with the Americans, merely a cessation of hostilities. An armistice perhaps. It is not my place to declare peace and friendship with my emperor’s enemies”-he glanced with lingering accusation at Shinya-“and no, I would not have broken the armistice. However, with Amagi, I could have felt secure that the Americans wouldn’t either. In any event, together or independently, we could have carried the fight to the Grik and then inherited this world in the end.” He shrugged. “It is a big world. Whether it was big enough for us and the Americans, in the long run, would have been a test for much later-and at least one of us would have survived the Grik.” He sighed and looked at Shinya. “An imperfect scheme, perhaps, but a less radical… departure from my sense of duty than the choice you made.”
“An impossible scheme,” Shinya stated derisively. “Without the Grik, where would you have been victualed, supplied, repaired? A simple armistice would not have gotten you those things from the Americans and their allies. You would have been at their mercy!”
“No! With Amagi, I could have demanded! As I am now, a prisoner, I have nothing! Not even honor! I can demand nothing as an equal and I have nothing to even bargain with but what is in my head!”
Shinya stood, talking down to Okada. “No. Impossible,” he repeated. “I respect what you did, what you tried to do. You could- should be a hero for it instead of a prisoner. But the old world is gone! If you had succeeded in the rest of your plan, if you had tried to dictate terms, to conquer support from the Allies, even I would have opposed you.”
“Even if it meant killing your own countrymen?”
“Even if it meant killing every man on Amagi,” Shinya answered quietly. “You say you understand, that you hate the Grik and everything about them. You move your mouth and the right words come out, but you really don’t understand, do you? Even now. The Grik are the enemy of everything alive in this world! They… You haven’t. ..” He paused, shaking his head. He could see he was wasting his breath. He did respect Okada, but the man was just… too Japanese. He wondered what that said about him?
