Harry Turtledove - End of the Beginning

The way Genda remembered things, the Army hadn’t wanted much to do with Hawaii. The Army was worried about Russia, and about keeping as many men as it could in the endless China adventure. Admiral Yamamoto had had to threaten to resign before the stubborn generals would change their minds. The benefits of their change of mind were obvious-now. And now, of course, they found new things to complain about.

Genda knew only too well that he couldn’t explain that to General Yamashita. The other man not only outranked him but belonged to the service he would be maligning. What he did say once more was, “Sir we are doing everything we can do, everything we know how to do. If you can suggest other things we should be doing, we will be grateful to you.”

That made Yamashita no happier. “Zakennayo!” he burst out. “You’re supposed to know what to do about submarines. If you ask me about tanks or artillery, I can give you a sensible answer. All I want to know is, why are you having a harder time now than you were against the American aircraft carriers?”

“Aircraft carriers are easier to find than submarines, sir,” Genda answered. “And once we find them, we sink them. We’re better than the Americans are.”

“Aren’t we better with submarines, too?” Yamashita asked pointedly.

“With them? Probably,” Genda replied, though he wasn’t altogether sure of that. “At detecting them? At hunting them? Please excuse me, sir, but there the answer is less clear. The Americans have had more combat experience in those areas than we have, both in the last war and in this one.”

“Faugh!” Yamashita said-more a disgusted noise than a word. “We’re getting the experience, all right-getting it the hard way. All I have to tell you, Commander, is that we’d better put it to good use.”

“Yes, sir.” Recognizing dismissal when he heard it, Genda got to his feet and saluted. Yamashita sent him out of the Gold Room with an impatient wave.

With more than a little relief, Genda left. Yamashita hadn’t really called him in to confer; he’d called him in to rake him over the coals. And, from the Army commandant’s point of view, he had every right to do so. The Navy was supposed to protect the supply line between Hawaii and the rest of the Empire of Japan. If it didn’t, if it couldn’t… Then we have a problem, a serious problem, here, Genda thought unhappily.

He was heading for the koa-wood stairs to make his escape when someone said, “Commander Genda, isn’t it?”-in English.

He stopped and bowed. “Yes, your Majesty,” he answered in the same language.

“Why are you here today?” Queen Cynthia Laanui asked.

“Military matters, your Majesty,” Genda said, which was true but uninformative.

The redheaded Queen knew as much, too. She gave him an exasperated sniff. “Thank you so much,” she said, her sarcasm more flaying than Yamashita’s because it came from a prettier face in a softer voice.

“Let me put it another way, Commander-what’s gone wrong this time? You never come to the palace when things are going well, do you?”

“I should not discuss this,” Genda said.

“Why not?” Now the Queen’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Why shouldn’t I know what’s going on? Isn’t Hawaii allied to Japan? If anybody ought to be kept informed, don’t you think my husband and I should?”

“You-” Genda stopped. He couldn’t just come out and say, You’re an American. She was, of course: a fine, healthy specimen of an American, too. But if she was playing the role of Queen of Hawaii to the hilt…

“I am the Queen. I could order you sent to the dungeons.” That dangerous flash again. Then, half a second later, Cynthia Laanui’s eyes flashed again, in an altogether different way. It happened so fast, Genda wasn’t sure the two flashes weren’t really one-wasn’t sure, in fact, that he hadn’t imagined both of them. Except he hadn’t. She repeated, “I could order you sent to the dungeons…” Her nose wrinkled, and her laugh rang sweet as frangipani. “I could-except we haven’t got any dungeons, and nobody would follow the order if I was dumb enough to give it. Details, details.” She laughed again, on a slightly wrier note.

Genda laughed, too, and surprised himself when he did it. He bowed. “Your Majesty,” he said, and meant it more than he ever had before with either of the Hawaiian puppet monarchs. He surprised himself again by telling her about the freighters that had gone down in the channel between Kauai and Oahu.

“Oh, that, ” Queen Cynthia said, and he could not doubt she already knew about it. As if to confirm as much, she went on, “That story’s all over Honolulu-probably all over Oahu-by now. You couldn’t keep it a secret if you tried, not when people on the island could see the smoke.” She leaned forward a little, not to be provocative-she was provocative enough just standing there-but as a friend would in conversation with another friend. “Or is the secret part that it bothers you more than you want to let on?”

“Hai,” Genda said before he realized he should have answered, That’s none of your business.

Then-realization piled on realization-he saw that wouldn’t have helped, either. Only an immediate, convincing denial would have done him any good, and he couldn’t give her one.

“Is it so very bad?” she asked quietly.

He shook his head. He wanted to shake himself, like a dog shaking off cold water. “No, not so very bad,” he answered, and searched for words-not because his English was bad, but because he wanted to be most precise. “Things are not quite so good as we would like, your Majesty. This is honto -it is true. But we fight a war. Things in a war go exactly how we want almost never. Do you see?”

“Oh, yes. I’m not a child, Commander.”

Genda bowed once more, not trusting himself to speak. Cynthia Laanui might be a great many things, but a child she definitely was not. The flowered sun dress she wore left no possible doubt of that.

Just as he straightened, her nose wrinkled in amusement again. Only after that did her face politely go almost expressionless. She knows what I’m thinking. That alarmed Genda, who did not want his Japanese colleagues-let alone a gaijin woman-able to read him like that.

He occasionally visited officers’ brothels on and near Hotel Street. Like most of his countrymen, he was much more matter-of-fact about that than Americans were. What else was he supposed to do, here so far from home? But lying down with a whore was one thing. Lying down with a woman who might be interested in you for your own sake-that was something else again.

And what would lying down with a Queen be like?

Foolishness. Moonshine, he thought. Queen Cynthia Laanui hadn’t been much more than polite. If she was a friendly person, that didn’t mean she wanted to do anything but make conversation with him… did it?

She said, “Thanks for leveling with me.” She paused for a moment to make sure he understood, then went on, “Do please let me know what’s going on from here on out. Things will work out better for everybody if you do.”

“Do you think so?” Genda couldn’t have sounded more glum, more dubious, if he’d tried for a week. Queen Cynthia laughed once more, which only made his question seem gloomier than it had. “I’m not Mata Hari, Commander,” she said. “I’m not going to seduce your secrets out of you.” She cocked her head to one side. “Or should I?”

How am I supposed to answer that? Genda wondered frantically. He bowed again. That was safe, it was polite (almost reflexively so for him), and it bought him time to think. Having bought it, he knew he had better use it wisely. “Whatever your Majesty wishes, of course,” he murmured.