Harry Turtledove - Days of Infamy

She looked at him. “You’re a fisherman. You don’t know how lucky you are. Believe me, you don’t. Nobody we know who keeps chickens lets them go outside any more. They disappear.”

Kenzo suspected she didn’t know anybody who’d kept chickens before December 7. He admitted to himself that he might have been wrong, though. Some haole families couldn’t seem to forget they’d come off the farm in Iowa. He said, “It’s not an easy time for anybody.”

Elsie drew in a breath. She was going to scorch him. He could tell-something like, What do you know about it, with your dad licking Kita’s boots? But her anger died before it was born. All she said, quietly, was, “I forgot about your mother for a second. I’m sorry.”

Back at the theater, she’d been the one who kept squeezing his hand. Now he squeezed hers. “Thanks for remembering,” he said.

When they got back to her house, they stood on the front porch. She spoke the ritual words: “Thank you for a very nice time.”

He gave her a kiss. With the sun still in the sky, it was a decorous kiss. If her folks were watching-and they probably were-he didn’t want them saying she couldn’t go out with him any more. But a kiss it definitely was, and he wore a big, silly grin on his face all the way back to the tent in the botanical garden.

COMMANDER MINORU GENDA and Commander Mitsuo Fuchida met in front of Iolani Palace. They bowed politely to each other. Genda grinned wryly. “Here we are again,” he said.

“ Hai.” Fuchida spoke with amused resignation: “Maybe we’ll have better luck this time.”

“Well, it couldn’t be much worse,” Genda said.

The Hawaiian and Japanese flags fluttered over the palace as the two Navy officers climbed the stairs. Japanese guards at the top of the stairs saluted and stepped aside to let Genda and Fuchida in. They climbed the koa-wood interior stairway and went into the library. Their Army counterparts, Lieutenant Colonels Minami and Murakami, were waiting for them behind that Victorian battleship of a desk. The Army men looked no more hopeful about the coming interview than Genda felt.

“We’ll try it again, that’s all,” Murakami said.

Izumi Shirakawa scurried into the library next. As usual, the local man looked nervous and unhappy about translating for the occupiers. Odds were he sympathized with the other side. If he did his job and otherwise kept his mouth shut, no one would have to ask him any questions about that. He was a good interpreter. Genda knew enough English to be sure of that.

A soldier stuck his head into the room. Saluting, he said, “The prince is here.”

“Send him up,” Genda replied. With another salute, the soldier disappeared.

As soon as Minoru Genda saw the man who called himself Prince Stanley Owana Laanui, his hopes began to rise. The swag belly, the double chin, the shrewd eyes with dark patches beneath them-all spoke of a man who thought of himself first and everyone and everything else later if at all. That was exactly the sort of man Japan needed right now.

Genda spoke to the interpreter: “Tell his Highness we are glad to see him and pleased to make his acquaintance.”

After Shirakawa turned his words into English, the Hawaiian princeling muttered, “Took you long enough to get around to me.” Shirakawa politely shaded his translation of that. Genda followed it even so.

And Stanley Owana Laanui wasn’t wrong, even if he also wasn’t particularly polite. It had taken the Japanese a while to get around to him. The reason was simple: he had a much more tenuous connection to the old Hawaiian royal family than did Abigail Kawananakoa and several other men and women. But they’d all declined to be involved in reviving the monarchy. He was the best candidate left.

“We are sure you are a man who thinks first of your country and only afterwards of yourself,” Lieutenant Colonel Murakami said. Genda was sure of exactly the opposite, but hypocrisy was an essential part of this game.

“Yes, of course,” the Hawaiian nobleman said, preening a little. In fact, he had more Anglo-Saxon blood than native Hawaiian. That was not necessarily an impediment; it was true of quite a few in the Hawaiian community. Some so-called Americans, prominent ones included, were also part Hawaiian. Intermarriage had run rampant here.

A bigger problem was Laanui’s personality. If he were rendered for oil, he could go a long way toward replacing what the Japanese had destroyed in the third wave of attacks on December 8. (People here spoke of it as December 7, but Genda and the strike force had stayed on Tokyo time throughout.) Genda glanced at the photographic portraits of distinguished nineteenth-century Hawaiians on the walls of the library. Judging by Stanley Laanui, interbreeding hadn’t been altogether for the best.

But, inadequate as he was, he was what the Empire of Japan had to work with at the moment. Genda said, “You must be sorry, your Highness, that the United States has occupied these islands for so long and robbed them of their independence.”

“Yes, that is very unfortunate,” agreed Laanui, who’d probably still been making messes in his drawers when the Americans put an end to the Hawaiian monarchy, and who no doubt hadn’t lost a minute of sleep over what had happened from that day to this.

“You can help us set a historic injustice to rights,” Lieutenant Colonel Murakami said. He was smoother and more polished than his Army colleague.

Lieutenant Colonel Minami proved as much by adding, “You can give the Americans a good boot in the ass.”

Izumi Shirakawa looked pained. “How am I supposed to translate that?” he asked plaintively.

“Just the way I said it,” Minami snapped. Sighing, the interpreter obeyed.

And a broad smile spread over Stanley Owana Laanui’s greasy face. “By God, that’s just what I want to do!” he said. Genda and Fuchida exchanged faintly disgusted glances. Until the Japanese came, the useless noble’s main goal in life had surely been to suck up to the Big Five in every way he could.

“You could give the islands a powerful symbol of their restored freedom,” Genda said. What he was thinking was, I hope I can get through this without being sick. It’s worse than the North Atlantic in January.

“That would be good. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere sounds like a real smart idea to me,” Laanui said.

Now Genda eyed him in some surprise. That the nobleman knew the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere existed proved he wasn’t as dumb as he looked. But if he spoke well of it… “Hawaii will have its proper role to play, I assure you,” Lieutenant Murakami said: a promise that promised nothing. Hawaii’s proper place would be whatever Japan said it was. Would Stanley Laanui see that?

If he did, he didn’t show it. He said, “The Americans have had their boot heels on us for too long. It’s time for a change.” If that meant, It’s high time to put a crown on my head — well, what was the point of this exercise if not putting a crown on his head?

Commander Fuchida said, “You do understand, your Highness, that the restored Kingdom of Hawaii would still find it advisable to cooperate closely with the Empire of Japan?” That meant, You do understand you’ll be a puppet? Genda wanted to applaud. He couldn’t have put it so delicately himself.

Stanley Owana Laanui nodded. “Oh, yes,” he said. He might have been talking about the weather. “After all, you came all this way just to liberate us.”

Was he an idiot after all, or only an extravagant hypocrite? Genda would have bet on the latter, but how much did it really matter? Either way, he was a tool, and Japan needed a tool right now. Genda said, “Well, your Highness, before long your subjects will start calling you ‘your Majesty.’ ”