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  "Ran has taken them to her," Pope said. Even in Japanese, she sounded as if she was praying. Jahn's eyebrows twitched. He'd heard the Norse gods invoked quite a few times since the Old Faith revival started. Usually the invocation was the gods' private parts, and he'd never heard anyone reverently name the goddess of the sea.

  "May it be so," Jahn said. Goto also bowed his head and muttered a Shinto prayer too softly for the Draka to catch all of it. "On the way back, we saw an American airship—Shenandoah class, I think—who shadowed us for about eight hours until we shook her off at nightfall. They said they were off their course to the Philippines, but they didn't turn when we gave them the correct heading."

  Pope's face now twisted into something that only needed a few snakes to be a perfect mask of Medusa. "Damnyankee snoops!" she snarled in English. "What do they think they're doin', messin' around in this war? Think the Japanese are Confederates in disguise?"

  The accent was American—Confederate American. Obviously no relative of the Union General, later Senator, John Pope. Her family would have fought the American Civil War in gray and butternut, with Ferguson rifles that Horace's grandfather William might have run through the blockade.

  "I doubt that we shall agree on the rights of the United States to be interested in this war," Goto said. "From their point of view, the total victory of either side would endanger their position in the Philippines and western Pacific, not to mention their hopes that the Tai'pings may turn China into a valuable trading partner."

  "The only position ah want tah see Yankees in is on their hands and knees, beggin' the Confederacy to secede again," Pope said briskly. "But ah suppose that's too much to ask for, in anythin' but a what-if novel like that fellah Futrelle writes."

  "Most likely," Goto said. "But a word to you, Tetrarch Pope, speaking as one who is for the moment acting as your sensei. You must remember not to strike except when you are completely centered. You are very fast and have a longer reach than many Japanese. . . but striking from the true center gives you the advantage over a non-centered opponent of any size."

  Pope nodded, and looked Jahn up and down. He felt like a prize bull being judged at an agricultural fair. "Want tah go a few falls, sir, see if Goto's right?" she asked.

  Jahn shook his head. Pope's face hardened again. Jahn almost took a step backward.

  "Because I'm a woman?"

  He shook his head. "Two good reasons. I've had ten hours of sleep in the last five days. Also, my school didn't teach the pankration style. I wasn't too bad at Graeco-Roman wrestling—"

  "Ha!" Goto said. "Jahn-san has five heavyweight wrestling crowns, two from school and three from the Navy. Indeed, I would say that he was not too bad."

  "Even mo' interestin' " Pope said. "Ah do think a friendly match might be entertainin'. But some othah time, ah agree—wouldn't do fo' me to have an unfair advantage, now would it?"

  She stepped up to Jahn, gave him a not-quite-mocking peck on the cheek, then sauntered over to where her gear bag stood on a bench. The Japanese palestra garment, the white cotton gi, was loose fitting for freedom of movement, but Julia Pope would have looked good in a barley sack, either going away or coming toward you.

  Obviously one of the Advanced Women, Jahn thought, and a red-hot Rebel as well. Odd combination—but interesting for more than her physical parts. Not that there's anything likely to be wrong with those . . .

  * * *

  Lieutenant Commander Goto ignored the water still draining from Number 36's bridge platform, that had already soaked his legs to mid-calf. He braced himself between the railing and the periscope housing and studied the horizon with his binoculars. On the other side of the housing, Sub-Lieutenant Yamamoto did the same. Behind them, one seaman made notes as the two officers identified the Russian ships, while another stood lookout.

  The Russians had no operational submarines at Port Arthur, or so said the Naval Staff, but the Naval Staff was not infallible. Nor was it impossible that some of their newer undersea vessels, nearly as powerful as Number 36, could have made the voyage south from Vladivostok to support the Far East Fleet in its biggest operation of the war.

  Meanwhile, less than ten thousand meters away, five hundred or more guns paraded by. The smallest of them would be able to keep the submarine from diving with a single hit. Goto focused his binoculars to get a better look at the ships now passing, Petr Veliky and two others of her class of five. Eight 30cm guns, fourteen 150cm, a score of lighter weapons, all cased in 250mm armor and driven by Germania/Danzigwerke turbines at twenty-three knots.

  The Germans had an odd taste for supplying a potential enemy, Russia, with so much modern weaponry. But Britain was another potential enemy and Japan a British ally in all but name. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" was doubtless a popular saying among German shipbuilders.

  Three torpedo gunboats now, one-twentieth the battleships' tonnage, seven knots faster, no armor and no guns larger than 10cm, but six torpedo tubes. Then a ship with even more freeboard than the battleships and three even taller funnels, belching a plume of smoke that must have had anyone in her wake coughing like a consumptive. Her decks were crowded with gray-clad troops whose uniforms nearly blended into the superstructure. Goto waited until the transport was out of his field of vision, but before she was gone, another (this one had two funnels and a green hull) steamed into view.

  Goto and Yamamoto counted twelve troop-laden transports and nine cargo vessels before the Russian fleet vanished behind its own smoke cloud, still headed south. At least thirty-five warships, probably more, convoying at least twenty-one merchant vessels, was Goto's count. As he asked Yamamoto for his estimate, they both heard the distant rumble of guns.

  "We did not see them all," the younger officer said. "They have sent a squadron against Wei-hai-wei."

  "Much good may that do them," Goto said. The Japanese had not successfully attacked Port Arthur since it fell to the Russians at the beginning of the war, because of its defending gun batteries, mines, torpedo squadrons, and shore-launched torpedoes. The Japanese anchorage at Wei-hai-wei was just as well defended, with five coastal submarines in place of the shore torpedo tubes. It also now held the coastal defense ships Fuso and Haruna, which gave Goto a personal reason for wishing that the Russians were only making a diversion. His brother commanded a main-battery turret aboard Fuso, and the two old ships were the most visible targets in the anchorage if the Russians tried a serious attack.

  Unlikely, though. The agents left behind when the Imperial Navy evacuated Port Arthur had taken full advantage of the Russians being unable to tell a Chinese-speaking Japanese from a native Chinese, and gained full details of the Russian plan to strike far to the south, at Hainan Island. The transports would be carrying nearly five thousand Russian soldiers to spearhead the attack on the island, and the cargo vessels thousands of tons of modern weapons and ammunition, to supply the private armies of the Chinese governors of the coastal provinces. Then either Japan's hard-won foothold on the Chinese coast would be attacked, or the Combined Fleet would have to sortie and meet a superior Russian Far East Fleet at a time and place of the Russians' choosing.

  Or possibly both together.

  Goto studied the horizon again, then nodded to Yamamoto.

  "Trim down until only the radio mast is above water. Then we will transmit our report."

  Yamamoto's round young face showed confusion. "Are we not going to pursue on the surface and attack by night?"

  "After we report, if then," Goto replied. "The courage of the samurai is not in rushing to his death without purpose or gain. It is in serving the Emperor to the best of his abilities, whether by living or by dying."

  "As the Emperor commands—"

  "—so we are done with sitting about in plain sight," Goto finished. "Clear the bridge and rig for running awash." The soft-voiced command was enough to start the others scrambling through the hatch. Unlike the raucous diving alarm, it could reach no hostile ears.

  * * *
/>   The meeting of Jahn and Pope at the dojo was the first of many, at intervals of a few days over the next five months. Acquaintance ripened into friendship as the war settled into a stalemate both on land and at sea, a situation everyone knew that the Russians could endure longer than the Japanese.

  The only unfrustrated Japanese either of the Draka knew was Goto. A month after their meeting, he received his orders—command of Number 36, one of the latest Imperial Fleet submarines. His farewell party was memorable, and his relief at getting back into the fighting undisguised.

  The Japanese raided across the Yalu River into Russian-occupied Manchuria, and sent occasional airship raids against vulnerable points on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The Russians sent their long-range cruisers south from Petropavlosk, creeping out behind icebreakers during the long nights, to raid Japanese ocean commerce. The Japanese raided the strongholds of pro-Russian Chinese, while similar squadrons of Russian light craft raided the Japanese coast. Each side tried to interrupt the other's oil shipments from Borneo (Number 36 torpedoed a Russian auxiliary cruiser off Sarawak, sending it limping off to internment in Haiphong), until the Americans persuaded the British to join them in establishing a Neutrality Patrol around the oil fields. Rumor had it that they'd threatened to occupy the Sultan of Brunei's territory with a regiment of Marines if the British didn't cooperate.

  That rumor moved Julia Pope to eloquent fury. "That's the closest the Yankees have come to really messin' with somebody who could mess them back, since ah was a girl. Then they'all have to go kiss and make up. Ah could spit."

  Which she promptly did, startling two British officers passing by. One of them looked ready to take up the challenge of such unladylike conduct, but Jahn now knew Pope well enough to step back and let her deal with the officer on her own.

  "Although if he'd said `loose Draka morals' one more time, they'd both have had a quarrel with me," Jahn said, when Pope had finished an explanation that fell somewhat short of an apology. "Would you have left enough of them for me?"

  "If ah was feelin' generous, maybe," she said, slipping her arm through his. That was Improper Public Contact under the regulations, but even with the Women's Auxiliary detachment, the Draka observation mission was still less than a hundred strong. That was no more than a couple of tetrarchies or the crew of a torpedo gunboat, even if two flag officers commanded it, and all Citizens. Discipline was therefore easy enough so that Jahn and Pope could indulge themselves in the pleasure of shocking the other observers. It probably amused the Japanese, and what the Archangels didn't know wouldn't hurt anybody.

  "Right now, though, ah feel closer to dirty," Pope said. "Mind if we share the fee for the ofuro?"

  Jahn started suspecting things when Pope reserved a private bath at a respectable inn. He stopped suspecting and started hoping when she slipped off her uniform and climbed into the tub with him. Nothing he saw disappointed him at all, and his body's reaction to her undraped splendor apparently didn't disappoint her.

  "You look glad to see me." He would have sworn that she was purring.

  "Well, I might call you—ah, see worthy. Very."

  They went eagerly from looking to touching, and it was quite a while before they had free lips or enough breath to say anything.

  That wasn't the last such encounter, either. The Japanese grew cautious about letting anybody's observers aboard their dirigibles, claiming that most of them were on patrol against the Petropavlovsk raiding cruisers, in the dangerous weather over the icy seas off Hokkaido and the Kuriles. Nothing to see, or so Goto's dour replacement told Jahn, "And we can hardly ask foreign observers to expose themselves in areas where we send even our own men reluctantly."

  Since the Combined Fleet held most of its exercises as far north as possible, to escape those same foreign observers and "strengthen the spirits of the men," Jahn knew that the officer was lying and suspected that the officer knew that Jahn knew. However, implying either of these things would offend Japanese honor, probably leading to Jahn's being shipped home on a slow Portuguese tramp freighter.

  Julia listened attentively, almost affectionately, that night, then gently bit the side of his neck and whispered in his ear, "Somethin' that the serf wenches do, that they say is fun for men too." Her mouth moved downward, until she heard him laugh.

  "You'd bettah tell me what yo' find so funny, or ah just might bite."

  Jahn tried to control his voice, and finally managed it by stroking her hair. With his eyes on the waxed cedar of the ceiling, he said, "Your nose. It's—that long, that I thought—if you ever did this—you would gut me with that—ow!"

  The nip was playful, though. After a while, he groaned. "I see I was wrong."

  "You cain't see anythin', Horrie. You've got your eyes shut."

  "I see Paradise. That's enough."

  "Ah thought the Christians say there's no lovin' in Heaven," she murmured, as well as she could with her mouth full.

  "They could be wrong."

  "Ah most sincerely hope so."

  II

  Over the Sea of Japan, 0800, August 18, 1905

  It was three and a half hours since Jahn saw Pope's legs protruding from under the radio cabinet. It was also three hours and twenty-five minutes into a mystery.

  What were the Japanese up to?

  He and Pope had still been on the observation platform aft of the radio room when they saw out the windows a convoy rolling by, a long line of the little pneumatic lorries that the Japanese used on major bases. They moved at a walking pace—proof of this: more than a hundred armed sailors marched to either side of the convoy, shouldering bayoneted rifles while their officers marched with drawn swords.

  Each lorry towed a bomb cart, with a canvas-shrouded bundle on it. Jahn thought that there were two sizes of bundles, both larger than conventional bombs. As he tried to lean out the window, two of Satsuma's crew came up behind him, politely urged him back, then slid the shutters closed with a fierce rattling and clinking.

  A minute later, more metallic noises floated in from outside and from below. Winches and chains were lifting something heavy—something that they did not want him to see—aboard Satsuma and the rest of the airships. This went on for a good twenty minutes, interrupted once by a gonglike bwannnggg and a cacophony of screams and Japanese curses.

  Jahn himself had never dropped a bomb in anger, and never seen anything larger than the standard 500-kilo incendiary clusters, direct descendants of the warloads that burned Odessa a generation ago. He knew that several nations had bombs twice that weight. The Draka and the Americans had even used them in combat, on Bushmen in the Sahara and Moro rebels in the Philippines who'd gone to earth too far from roads to allow the peacekeepers to bring up artillery. No doubt the Japanese wanted something even bigger to be a surprise to both friend and foe.

  Then trumpets and whistles called Satsuma's crew to quarters for getting underway. Five officers (plus Jahn and Pope) and twenty-eight petty officers and men saluted the Emperor's portrait (or faced toward the shrine holding the portrait, if they were on duty elsewhere), then all five engines came to life. Now the purring sounded more like a pride of lions who had just feasted on fresh livestock (with perhaps a lion dog or two for dessert). . .

  Engine exhaust warmed the air in the superheat cell and Satsuma lifted gently into the still morning air, along with five other airships of her lead squadron. Jahn found an unshuttered window and saw that the morning haze was also lifting, except where the ten thousand charcoal fires of any Japanese city created their own murk. Jahn reminded himself that for a country with no local oil supply, burning charcoal was prudent frugality, not primitive filth. . .

  His composure didn't survive a good look at the anchorage. Instead of empty water cut only by a few boat trails, he saw at least a squadron of battleships and armored cruisers, flanked by a line of scout cruisers on one side and torpedo cruisers and gunboats on the other. At least they had steam up and the scouts had raised observation balloons, but they amoun
ted to a good third of the already-outgunned Combined Fleet and they were still in harbor.

  Also, why the observation balloons, when they would be working with the airships?

  Speculation ended then, as Satsuma glided forward, all five aluminum propellers chopping a wake of wind through the sky as the First Air Kokutai headed out to sea. Jahn's speculations only returned two hours later, as the propellers slowed while the engines worked as hard as ever, feeding the superheat so that the dirigibles went on climbing.

  At three thousand meters, nearly pressure height, Satsuma broke out of one layer of clouds. Through unshuttered windows, Jahn had a good view of most of the Kokutai. Two-thirds of the Empire's airpower described slow circles between two layers of cloud, like a school of gigantic silver-gray fish in a god-sized aquarium. The flagship Akagi was so close that Jahn felt he could stick a hand out the window and touch the ten-meter square sun-rayed battle ensign flying from her upper fin.

  He was raising his binoculars to get a better view of Akagi's bomb racks, when he saw a light blinking from the flagship. Something punched him in the back and someone said, "Yes!" behind him, as he finished reading the signal. Then a soft voice said:

  " `The fate of the Empire depends on this day. Let every man do his utmost.' "

  Jahn turned to see a grinning Julia Pope. "Ah don't suppose anybody told Admiral Kondo that there's at least one woman who's goin' to do her utmost?"

  "He's probably too carried away by being the first admiral to lead an airship fleet into action."

  "You think we're goin' after the Russian fleet?"

  "Our hosts have to be secretive and ruthless. They can't afford to be crazy."

  * * *

  Commander Goto had thought of manning the deck gun as Number 36 ploughed south, green water swallowing her bow torpedo tubes as she worked up to her full surface speed of fourteen knots. However, the stubby 80mm gun was hardly effective against anything bigger than a junk, and shooting up one of those would merely make noise that might alert the Russians to who was on their trail. The gun's crew would also be more men to get below, if the Russians became suspicious on their own and sent a torpedo squadron racing north to clear their wakes.