Weapons of choice

"Quite so." Halabi nodded, encouraged by the man's grasp of the theory. "This may be a subtly different nineteen forty-two. Or maybe a radically different one. Perhaps Hitler doesn't make the mistake of invading the Soviet Union…"

"He has," Beanland put in.

"Oh. Well, that's good then. But you're right, Admiral. Maybe things are slightly different here. Maybe nothing we'll ever notice, like the typeface of a small county newspaper being altered, but everything else appears exactly the same. Or maybe our trip here was a straight H. G. Wells deal. From twenty twenty-one to our very own nineteen forty-two. I don't know. We may never know. Theories are one thing, but actually cracking open the fabric of spacetime and manipulating it without dire consequences, well, that's a whole other sort of something."

"As you may have discovered to our cost," said Spruance.

"Yes," Halabi admitted. "I am sorry. You were unfortunate enough to tangle with our CIs while there was minimal human oversight."

"CIs?"

"Combat Intelligences. Computers. Machines that think. They help us run our ships, our whole society actually. And when they detected the threat you posed to the task force with your cannon fire, they responded."

"Well, that response may have cost us the war," Spruance observed bitterly.

"It won't," Halabi insisted. "The strategic imbalance between the Axis powers and the Allies is so great that it would take a lot more than the destruction of your task force and the loss of Midway, Hawaii, or even Australia to tip that balance in their favor."

"Oh, God, don't let MacArthur hear that," Spruance muttered, practically to himself.

"With all due respect," Beanland protested, "you've done your damnedest to help them on their way."

"I am well aware of what happened tonight, Commander. I lost a good many friends myself on the Fearless. We haven't had a chance to formally discuss it at a command level yet. But I can assure you we won't leave you swinging. If necessary, almost any one of the ships in our task force could sink the Japanese carriers and capital ships closing on Midway at the moment."

"Yes, but would they?" Spruance asked. "Do you seriously believe your Japanese comrades would happily send their forefathers to the bottom?"

She answered honestly. "I don't know. I haven't spoken to them. And since most of the Siranui's senior officers have been killed anyway, their views are no longer entirely relevant."

"Yeah, but the views of the survivors will be!" Beanland insisted. "Maybe you got yourself some real tame, friendly Japs where you come from, but we got just about the worst bunch of bastards in the world right here. And I don't fancy them getting their hands on any of those rockets or thinking machines you hammered us with.

"Admiral," he said, ignoring Halabi now, "whatever turns out to be the case with these people"-he indicated the British captain with a jerk of his thumb-"we have to insist on those Japs that came along with them being disarmed and interned. They're just too much of a threat."

"That may well be, Lieutenant," Spruance said, nodding, "but let's just stay calm for the moment, shall we. Captain Halabi, how do you think your boss would take to that suggestion?"

"Frankly, not very well. I don't think any of us would."

Spruance seemed quite taken aback by the defiant note in the woman's voice.

"And why not, might I ask?"

"Because they're our allies," she said, as though explaining something to a child. "This wouldn't have been the Siranui's first tour with Admiral Kolhammer's group… sorry, that means nothing to you. Look, I've served in coalition with that ship before. I know that Admiral Kolhammer has, too. They've taken the same risks we have, watched our backs, taken fire when we did. We have no reason to doubt to their loyalty or their honor."

"Yes, but their loyalty and honor might just demand that they lay in a course for the homeland. I take it from the title of this book that Japan didn't have a good time of it, by the end of the war."

"No, granted, they didn't. But the Siranui's crew aren't stupid. They know that what doomed Japan was the hubris of the militarists who ran the country…"

"Who run the country, you mean," said Spruance.

"Okay," she conceded. "Who run the country. But Japan-their Japan-has been a liberal democracy for generations. To suggest that modern Japanese would want to return to the mistakes of their distant past is as fatuous as saying modern Germans would all turn back into Nazis if given the chance."

"Oh my God," Beanland pleaded. "Please don't tell me you've got a bunch of German ships out there, as well."

Spruance was genuinely perturbed by the possibility. "Well, Captain," he demanded. "What of it? Any other nasty little surprises you'd care to let us in on. A U-boat, for instance?"

Halabi struggled to control her exasperation with the paranoid mind-set of the two men.