Harry Turtledove: End of the Beginning

“We’ve done everything we set out to do here,” Genda said.

“So we have. Now-is it enough?” Yamamoto seemed determined to be gloomy. He looked toward the west. “Back in Tokyo, they think everything is wonderful. They think the United States is at death’s door. They do not understand the enemy. They may have read Sun Tzu, but they do not think what he says applies to them. Oh, no! They are far more clever than he.”

Such sarcasm flayed. What Clausewitz was in the West, Sun Tzu was in the East-and had been for more than two thousand years. A military man disregarded the ancient Chinese general’s thoughts on strategy and tactics only at his peril. Genda said, “Surely things are not so bad as that.”

“No-they’re very likely worse,” Yamamoto said. “Be thankful you’re well away from Tokyo. It’s a poisonous place these days. Some of the poison comes from success, which makes it sweeter, but it’s no less deadly on account of that. Deadlier, probably, in the long run, because success is the kind of poison that makes you blind.”

“If the Germans knock the Russians out of the war-” Genda began.

“Yes, that’s what the Army is waiting for. If the northern beast dies, they’ll jump on the carcass and tear off slabs of Siberia. If.”

“The Wehrmacht has a foothold in the Caucasus. They’re getting close to Stalingrad. Stalin’s ‘not one step back’ speech after Rostov fell sounded desperate.”

Yamamoto only shrugged those broad shoulders. “We’ll see what happens, that’s all. The Germans were at the gates of Moscow last winter, and they got thrown back. They’re after oil now. We have ours. If they can get theirs… I hope they haven’t overreached, that’s all.”

“They keep the Americans and the British busy, too,” Genda said, “which works to our advantage.” That made Yamamoto smile. He stood up and bowed to Genda, who hastily returned the gesture. “I might have known you would think clearly. With men like you here, Hawaii will be in good hands.” He bowed again, a little more deeply: dismissal.

Genda left his office as if walking on a cloud. The man he admired more than anyone else in the world-the man all Japan admired more than anyone else in the world-approved of him! Most of Japan knew-or rather, knew of-Admiral Yamamoto from gushing newspaper and magazine articles. Genda knew the man himself, and found him all the more admirable for the acquaintance.

Trying to suppress a silly grin, Genda went up the stairs from the basement. He got to the top at the same time as Cynthia Laanui, the newly crowned Queen of Hawaii, came down the back stairs from the ground floor of Iolani Palace. “Your Majesty,” Genda said in English, carefully keeping the irony from his voice.

“Hello, Commander Genda. How are you today?” The Queen knew him by sight; he was one of the four officers-two from the Japanese Navy, two from the Army-who’d chosen her husband from among the possible candidates for the restored Hawaiian throne. Stanley Owana Laanui-King Stanley now-was the first candidate who’d made it plain he would cooperate with Japan.

Genda didn’t think Queen Cynthia knew how simple the selection criteria were. He didn’t intend to enlighten her, either. “Better now, thank you,” he said. He read English well but, unlike Yamamoto, spoke less fluently.

Cynthia Laanui smiled at him. She was, without a doubt, the first red-haired Queen the Kingdom of Hawaii had ever had. The smile packed a punch. She was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, with green eyes, freckles, and, from the neck down, an abundant profusion of everything a woman ought to have.

“I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for my husband,” she said. King Stanley was at least twenty years older than she was; Genda didn’t think she was his first wife. Why he’d married her was obvious. Why she’d married him wasn’t, not to Genda. But she seemed to care about him.

“Glad to help him,” Genda said. “He is good man.” He wouldn’t have bet more than fifty sen-say, a dime in U.S. money-on that but it was polite, and it gave him the excuse to keep talking with this striking woman. She was only a centimeter or two taller than he was, too.

She wore a distinctly unqueenly sundress of thin cotton. When she nodded, everything else moved in sympathy, and the dress showed it off. Genda hoped he didn’t notice too obviously. She said, “He’s a very good man. Hawaii needs him, especially now.”

Did she believe that, or was she being politic? Genda would have guessed she believed it. If she was so naive, she was liable to get badly hurt. “Good man, yes. Do many good things,” Genda said. Agreement was always safe. And, as long as King Stanley did exactly what Japan told him to do, the occupiers wouldn’t object if by some chance he turned out to be good, too.

Genda’s agreement won him a smile brighter than the Hawaiian sunshine from Queen Cynthia. He felt as if a bomb had gone off in front of him and he’d got flash-burned. “I’m so glad you think so,” she breathed. He’d never found the simple act of breathing so admirable before.

They chatted a little longer. Then, after another dazzling smile, she went back into the palace. Genda knew he needed to return to his duties. He waited till she’d gone all the way up the stairs, though.

THERE WAS A ZERO, swelling in Joe Crosetti’s windshield. Joe peered through the Grumman Wildcat’s gunsight. Can’t lead the son of a bitch too much, but if I don’t lead him enough I’ll miss, too. The thought was there and then it was gone. If you got close enough, you damn well wouldn’t miss. He waited till the hated enemy filled the bulletproof glass, then jammed his thumb down on the firing button atop the stick.

His wing machine gun roared. Tracers tore into the Jap. The enemy plane went up like a torch and plunged toward the Pacific. The pilot didn’t have a prayer of getting out. Maybe he was dead from the burst of fire, anyway.

“Nailed the bastard!” Joe yelled exultantly. He swung the fighter back toward the carrier. Navigating over the trackless ocean wasn’t easy, but he managed. There was the welcoming flight deck, dead ahead. He brought the Wildcat down toward the carrier’s stern. This was the tricky part… Down! The plane’s tailhook caught an arrester wire, and the machine jerked to a stop. He was down, and he was safe!

A voice spoke in his earphones: “Well, Mr. Crosetti, that wasn’t too bad.”

Reality returned with a bump harder than the one with which he’d landed. His Wildcat turned into a pumpkin, like Cinderella’s carriage: actually, into a humble Texan advanced trainer. The flight deck became a yellow rectangle outlined on concrete. The arrester wires stretched across it were the McCoy, though. This was only the second time he’d landed using them.

His flying instructor, a lieutenant, junior grade, named Wiley Foster, went on, “I liked your attack run on the target. You got a four-oh on that one.”

“Thank you, sir,” Joe said.

“Don’t thank me yet-I wasn’t finished,” Foster answered. “Your landing was okay, but nothing to write home about. You’re not supposed to set down as hard as you would on a real flight deck, not yet. You need to convince me you can make smooth landings before you do rough ones.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” Joe wanted to claim he’d come down that way on purpose, but he hadn’t-and the flying instructor wouldn’t have cared it he had.

“As for your navigation…” Lieutenant Foster paused significantly.

“Sorry, sir,” Joe repeated, sounding as miserable as he felt. He’d struggled with navigation right from the start. A lot of the cadets at Pensacola Naval Air Station were college grads, or had at least some college. Joe had graduated from high school, but he was working in a San Francisco garage when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor. He understood engines from the ground up, but his geometry and trig were barely enough to let him keep his head above water when it came to figuring out how to get from A to B and back again. And if he ever had to ditch in the vast, unforgiving Pacific, odds were he wouldn’t keep his head above water long.