Semper Mars(130)

The Warhursts’ entertainment room was large and comfortably furnished, with a circular sofa in the sunken floor, and a Hitachi wallscreen that literally covered an entire, eight-meter wall from ceiling to floor. She sat down behind the low, central table and slid open the polished top, exposing the keyboard, touchscreen, and gaming controls. She touched the accept key.

The screen came on, and Montgomery Warhurst’s craggy face looked down at her, huge and imposing. “Hello, Kaitlin,” he said.

She touched a control that stepped the screen’s active area down a bit, so she didn’t feel like she was standing in front of the Face on Mars. “Good morning, General,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“Kaitlin, I’ve just had the damnedest call. Came through from an old friend of mine…who also used to be our ambassador to Japan. It seems a Japanese friend of his has been trying to get in touch with you, and, well, with the war and everything, he had to resort to some pretty sneaky back channels to carry it off.”

Kaitlin’s heart leaped. A Japanese friend? But, no…it couldn’t be Yukio. Yukio’s father might know the American ambassador as a friend, but not Yukio.

And in that moment, she knew who the call was from, and what it was about.

“Anyway, we’ve set up a special comm channel for him. It’s, ah, it’s the Japanese minister of International Trade and Industry, and he wants to talk to you. In private. Will you take the call?”

Kaitlin felt very cold…and detached. It was as though she were listening to someone else, a stranger, say, “I’ll take it.”

“Okay.” He turned his head, looking at another screen. “I’m putting you through, sir.”

The face that appeared on screen a moment later was not Ishiwara’s, but a younger man sitting cross-legged on a tatami behind a low table with a PAD. It was Hisho Nabuko, the man she’d spoken with the day she left Japan.

He bowed formally. “Good morning, Miss Garroway,” he said in only slightly accented English.

She stood, then bowed in reply. “Konichiwa, haji-memashte, o-hisho-san.”

“I am well, thank you. The minister would like a moment of your time, if you would be so kind.”

“Of course. I would be delighted to talk to him.”

Her stomach was twisting, her eyes blurring through the tears. Slowly, she slumped back to the sofa, then let herself slide to the floor, kneeling next to the table. Oh, God, no! Not Yukio! Not Yukio!…

Ishiwara appeared, wearing a silk robe and seated on the floor behind a low table and PAD identical to his secretary’s. He was seated in one of the almost bare rooms of his home, and she wondered what he must think of the lush, cluttered, and very Western decor at her back. Well, he was used to dealing with Western gaijin. More surprising was the very fact of speaking face-to-face with a member of the Japanese government…when the United States was at war with Japan.

What, she wondered, would her father think?

With a small, jarring shock of recognition, she saw that a small niche in one wall was occupied now by her house present, the sleek and elegant little model of the Inaduma fighter, a black-and-white, dart-shaped minnow clinging to the back of the whalelike Ikaduti booster.

“Konichiwa, Kaitlin-san,” Ishiwara said. “Genki des ka?”

He was addressing her as a younger friend, asking her how she was.

“Genki des, domo, o-Daijin-sama,” she replied, giving the traditional za-rei, or seated bow, three large fingers of each hand on the floor, thumbs touching little fingers in circles. “Konichiwa, o-genki des ka?”

“I am…in good health, Kaitlin-san,” he said, switching to English. “I fear, however, that I have very bad news. Nine days ago, Toshiyuki-san…he failed to return from his mission.”

Somehow, somehow, she kept her face as impassive as his. “I am very sorry to hear that, Ishiwara-sama. The loss of your son…of Yukio….” She couldn’t stop the tears streaming down her face. She reached up and brushed them away. “I am very sorry for you, for your loss.”

Ishiwara smiled, the expression jolting Kaitlin for an instant, until she remembered that in Japan, a smile, a pleasant face, was expected to cover any emotion. When she looked into his eyes, however, she saw there the truth.

“First, Kaitlin-chan, let me tell you that Yukio loved you very deeply. We talked often about it, about you. I know this to be true.”

Kaitlin was still recovering from the shock of hearing Ishiwara use the honorific chan instead of san, an affectionate diminutive usually reserved for family members or intimate friends. She could say nothing…do nothing but try to match Ishiwara’s smile.