Beyond Heaven's River (6 page)

“In the early morning, after I have slept for some hours, I hear a tremendous roar, and I see the dawn sky light up with blasts. I wait for day, but the carrier is gone. She has been scuttled. There are no planes in the sky, no one to rescue me. A few stars are still out.

“Then I see something I cannot explain. It is a bright spot in the sky, like a star but moving. It winks and goes out, just as a plane will wink when it is flying in sunlight and turns to flash its wings. Perhaps it is a plane, very high, I think.

“But then it comes back, much larger, the size of my thumbnail. It is completely silent. It swoops down to where oil from the Hiryu is still bubbling, and I see it is very large — perhaps twice the length of the carrier. It is a flattened ball, with glowing tear-drops sticking from its sides. When it flies toward me, the water around the raft begins to steam. I look up and see myself mirrored in the bottom of the thing, all the world reflected from horizon to horizon. I know we in Japan have no aircraft like that, and I think perhaps this is what really sank theAkagi, Kaga, Soryu . And I am not afraid any more.

“I know I am going to die.”

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Beyond Heavens River

Eight

Kawashita held his breath for a moment, then smiled and drank half a glass of beer. “I feel odd then, like electricity is going through me.” He looked around the cabin. “Pardon. I have been talking about your people, about the war, and I do not know what you think. It is very hard — what we did —”

“We aren’t Americans, Yoshio,” Anna said softly. “It was a long time ago, things have changed.”

“Desu-ka? Yes, of course. I continue. I find I am not in my raft. For a long time I am examined by things — metal tools, buzzing machines. I lie on a metal bench with a soft part in the middle. I am naked. Twenty meters away, perhaps, in the dark, there is a circle, and in the circle a face. No mouth, no nose, just wide black eyes. I also see one arm — could be an arm — with a hand. Nothing holds me down, so I stand, walk into dark, stop by the lighted circle. There is nothing behind it — it floats in air — but face and arm are full, like in three dimensions. Nothing moves. I turn away and see the bench is gone. Another circle is in its place, with what looks like bird — but not a bird. A man with a sharp, beaked face and thin fur or feathers all over him, with large, naked ears. I see four circles, back and forth across the dark place, before I feel floor going away. I think I sleep.”

“Sounds like you were shown a Minkie and a Crocerian,” Elvox said. “What did the others look like?”

“Not sure. Uglier — one like fish that sucks on other fish — what do you call it?”

“Lampreys,” Carina said.

“But with snake body and limbs … reversed.” He demonstrated by trying to bend his arms backward at the elbow.

“That could be an Aighor,” Elvox said. “It’s obvious they didn’t show you what they looked like themselves.”

“I do not know. I believe I never saw them, never saw anything trulyfrom them. But may have seen and not recognized. When I awake, I am in a house like my grandparents’ house near Yokosuka. There is a forest around it. I can walk as far as I want, in any direction, but I know it is not for real. The house was burned in nineteen thirty-five. And the forest cleared for lumber. For a long time, I think I am dreaming. Then people appear, mostly women, but now — how to say — personable? Most cooperative, like in a pillow-book, but not real. I think perhaps my baser instincts will be provided for by captors.”

“The women change, however, and soon will not do everything I want. Before long, a whole village grows up around me, a building added each night when I sleep. I am not dreaming. I am making things appear. I decide captors, whoever they are, have the power to let me create whatever is in my mind. They must bekami  — divine spirits. Very divine spirits. So I worship them. I build a small shrine and put one part aside for my ancestralkami , one part for these new inhumankami , new powers.

“Each day I walk farther. Finally I leave the forest and come to a city, very much like Yokohama. Thousands of people live in it. I am proud to be able to think of so much, but I don’t take advantage of it. I try to find recruiters so I can go back to my ship, to the war. Perhaps I am really home, I think — hope against hope. But there are no ships, no war. Just city. I cannot redeem myself for cowardice. I cannot sacrifice myself for my emperor. I am truly captured, not just insane. I decide to create other things, and find my limitations.

“In morning, I squat in my shrine — I have built another in the city — and concentrate on as much of Japan as I can. Then I take a train and go away from the city, which is very much like Yokohama, to Kyoto. And there I live, work, marry. Have a child. But nobody grows old. I help design airplanes in a factory — airplanes nobody uses, probably — waiting for war to come and find me. I feel that none of my workers or friends change, become more worthy. Everyone stays the same. Soon I am bored. I think of other things — about heroic times, when there were ways to gain honor and live a full life. I think of days after Japan was created, and of the Sun hiding in a cave, and what happened to Her. I think of Jemmu Tenno. But nothing changes outside — it is just very deep night. I don’t know enough about such things.

“So I think of a library. It is barely clear in my mind before I am wandering through stacks of books and racks of newspapers, reading about all sorts of things. I learn what has happened since I left. I find news about the war. Real news? I don’t know. But there is so much, so self-consistent, that I decide I cannot have made it all up. My captors must inject some of real world into my creation. I find English books about the war, and other subjects, so I learn how to read and speak English. I don’t need to rest, so I study for days, weeks, time no matter. I learn the war had gone badly. We had lost. And surrendered. The emperor declared that the beginning of Japan was a myth, and he was not descended from the Sun Goddess, but was a mortal.”

“Emperor Showa,” Carina interjected.

“Yes, Hirohito when he was alive. That night, to soothe myself, I hang a ribbon for Japan in my shrine. Then I go to other parts of the library and find books on Japanese history, besides traditional ones I have read in school. My thoughts about the past are clearing. I decide first on nineteenth century, since I had heard a lot about it from my grandfather, who was actual samurai. I learn aboutBushido , the warrior’s way. Next morning, I go outside library, and nineteenth century is outside door. I go out to live as a traveling priest. That lasts, I think, for many decades.

“But after turn of century, as war with Russia grows near, I become unhappy. I go to shrine and make it night outside. With that night goes two wives, one who had died in childbirth, three children, many friends.

“When day comes, I am in a Japan I have never seen before. I haven’t created it myself, not intentionally. I decide it has been created for me by thekami .

“It is the twelfth century. I am a man named Tokimasa, a very important adviser. I begin to see what thekami wish me to do. I am to examine Japanese history, to find what has flawed us.”

“They told you that?” Elvox asked.

“No, never speak. Never show. But this is strong suggestion, no? I think perhaps I will see how to change history, to bring Japan to enlightenment before my time comes — an experiment. To decrease pain and killing and ignorance. I try to …”

He stopped and looked down at the table. “That is all my shame. From the very beginning it is my shame, to be captured alive, to accept the destruction of my land, to act so before thekami who are testing me. You say there are things I will have trouble understanding. Well, you cannot easily understand my shame.”

“Hoji Tokimasa was a member of the Taira clan,” Carina said. “He was given charge of two Minamoto boys, Yoritomo and Yoshitsune, sons of Kiyomori, a chieftain killed by the Taira. Yoritomo married your daughter … uh, Masa, but you didn’t accept the marriage until they had a child. When Yoritomo staged a revolt against the Taira, you … uh, Tokimasa switched allegiance.”

“That is history,” Kawashita said. “And I was too weak to change it second time around. When I created, what I meddled with — it would have been better if I had killed Masa in her bed as an infant.” His voice was quavering with bitterness, and his eyes brimmed with tears.

Elvox was impatient. “How long before the Perfidisians left and everything stopped?”

“I don’t know. I try to change things, but everything snaps back. I try to run away by making another world, but I have to return. Time does not mean much under the dome. The last years, I advise Yoritomo after he makes himself the first universalshogun  — the first to establish the place of theshoguns in Japan.”

“When did the trouble begin?” Anna asked.

Kawashita shook his head. “It was awful.”

“Storm’s letting up,” the pilot observed, entering the lounge. “Anna, we have a signal from thePeloros . Two Centrum ships have entered orbit. They’re waiting for permission to send down landers.”

Anna looked across the table at Kawashita. “Well?”

“Yes?”

“You seem to be provisional owner. Can they land?”

“Of course.”

The pilot handed a tapas insert to Elvox. “And here’s a message from the two men you sent into the dome.”

“Yes. I have some questions about that. Yoshio, we measured that dome. It couldn’t possibly hold everything you’ve told us about. How do you explain that?”

“I do not know.” He bowed to them. “I will go rest now. Is it possible —” He paused, his eyebrows coming together and his lips working. “Is it possible to destroy the dome and everything under it?”

“I wouldn’t advise that,” Anna said. “Go rest now and we’ll talk about it later.” Kawashita nodded sharply and left the lounge.

“Looks like you’re mother to the oldest child in the world,” Elvox said.

Nestor shook her head. “He’s had a rough time,” she said, hugging the loytnant’s arm. “Have to wait until we hear the rest of the story, right? Patience. If I’ve learned anything, it’s to let times like these unfold at their own pace. I’d pay attention to the Waunters now, frankly. But what about your investigations? Can we share and share alike?”

Elvox looked at the tapas insert, then nodded. “I don’t see why not. You can investigate as easily as we.” He took a tapas from Carina, programmed the decode sequence, and held the machine out for them to watch.

When it was done, they leaned back in their seats and Elvox sighed. “I apologize if my men think it’s haunted.”

“It’s understandable,” Carina said. “Two hundred bodies, half looking like they’ve just fallen in their tracks, and the rest slaughtered, throats cut, limbs scattered.”

“How could it happen?” Elvox asked. “Who would want to go around killing androids?”

“Maybe they killed each other,” Anna said. “Maybe they thought they were real, and held real grudges.”

“It doesn’t seem to have been one big battle,” Carina said. “They seem to have attacked each other at random. No sides chosen, no special uniforms, no banners. Just streets filled with bodies. What did Yoshio have to do with it?”

Elvox put his hand on the pad. “I think the Perfidisians left just when the slaughter was getting good. They kept the basic environment for him but cut back on the androids, the scenery, most of the illusion. So the androids fell in the middle of a pitched battle, whatever sort of battle it was.”

“They left him because he started a ruckus?” Carina said, incredulous.

Anna shook her head. “I don’t pretend to understand Perfidisians, but they must have left for better reasons than that. A scientist just doesn’t leave his lab because the rats squabble. But think what Kawashita must have gone through. All of a sudden, his dream was over. He was surrounded by bodies. Who knows? They might have been friends, fellow soldiers, wives, nobles. Hell, he was there long enough to have had children and grandchildren. Suddenly they all died, stopped functioning. Well, because of the battle, maybe it seemed like a punishment from God — from thekami . Maybe he went crazy for a while, still lived with phantoms.”

“And the Waunters found him that way,” Elvox said. “But if they had him living whole lives in the dome, they had to provide more than is there now. The roads just end at the walkway around the perimeter. Some buildings are cut in half. Whole forests are bisected, and that doesn’t make for a credible world. Something had to keep the cage out of his view.”

“What?” Anna asked.

“I have an idea,” Kiril said. “It’s a little hard to conceive. Maybe he really did have a whole world at his disposal. Whenever he headed for the walkway, for the cage wall, everything changed behind him, and he was somehow turned around to head back toward the center of the dome. To him, it would have seemed like one long walk.”

“He wouldn’t have just lived in one restricted section, then,” Elvox said.

“He already told us about that,” Anna said. “He had all of Japan to travel in. But where is the dome now? I mean, what locale is set up inside?”

“Perhaps Heian-Kyô, or Kamakura,” Carina said. “He was dressed like a samurai, but he could have put on the armor when the illusions stopped. He was probably scared out of his wits.”

“That much seems certain,” Anna said. She looked at Elvox. “Do you have a few hours before you have to go back?”

“If I leave a message.” He removed the tapas insert from the pad. “I assume my men delivered this after sending it on from the lander.”

“If you trained them right. I’d enjoy your company here. Place your message?”

He agreed. In the lift, he stood behind her, frowning. Until now, he hadn’t violated any of the codes of a United Stars Officer. He had been completely loyal and dedicated. Was he compromising his duty by staying with Nestor? He didn’t think he was. On the whole, they would both benefit by not being evasive or hiding information.

Nestor took care of Kawashita honorably and without apparent guile. She could afford to — she wasn’t desperate. But then, neither was United Stars. As the largest human consolidation, USC had its hand in thousands of similar enterprises. How could he decide without bias? She was a persuasive woman. And was that persuasiveness deliberate? Or perhaps even worse, it was possible that her actions — while not deliberate — were part of the unconscious matrix of behaviors which made her what she was, Anna Sigrid Nestor. Her instincts could be far more dangerous than any subterfuge.