In truth he dreaded the higher gravity. He even feared it might put such a strain on his heart that it would kill him. But it was a risk he was prepared to take. Yamamoto would find his sudden emergence into the twenty-first century startling enough; there was no need to embarrass him with a low-gravity environment that might make him physically ill or overwhelm his spirit with sudden fear.
The moment finally arrived. The great power satellites turned their emitting antennas to the huge receiver that had been built near the space station. Half of Asia, from Beijing to Bangkok, went dark.
Grand Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese Imperial Fleet, suddenly appeared in the middle of Konda’s living quarters. He had been seated, apparently, when the wave harmonics had transported him. He plopped unceremoniously onto the floor, a look of pain and surprise widening his eyes. Konda wanted to laugh; thank the gods that the field included the admiral’s flawlessly white uniform. A naked Yamamoto would have been too much to bear.
Konda had divided his living quarters in two with an impervious clear plastic wall. Both sides were as antiseptic as modern biotechnology could make them. Yamamoto, coming from nearly a hundred years in the past, was undoubtedly carrying a zoo of microbes that could slay Konda within days, if not hours.
For a frozen instant they stared at each other: the admiral in his white uniform sitting on the floor; the scientist in his powered wheelchair, his face gaunt with the ravages of the disease that was remorselessly killing him.
Then Yamamoto glanced around the chamber. He saw the banks of gauges and winking lights, the gleaming robots standing stiffly as if at attention, the glareless light panels overhead. He heard the hum of electrical equipment, smelled the mixed odors of laboratory and hospital.
Yamamoto climbed to his feet, brushing nonexistent dust from his jacket and sharply creased trousers. He was burly in build, thickset and powerful. His heavy jaw and shaved scalp made him look surly, obtuse. But his eyes gleamed with intelligence. Two fingers were missing from his left hand, the result of an accident during the battle of Tsushima, young ensign Yamamoto’s first taste of war.
Konda bowed his head as deeply as he could in his wheelchair and hissed with respect.
Yamamoto granted him a curt nod. «I am dreaming,» he said. «This is a dream.»
«No, this is not a dream,» said Konda, wheeling his chair to the clear partition that divided the room. «This is reality. You, most revered and honored admiral, are the first man to travel through time.»
Yamamoto snorted with disdain. «A dream,» he repeated. But then he added, «Yet it is the most unusual dream I have ever had.»
For hours Konda tried to convince the admiral that he was not dreaming. At times Konda almost thought he was dreaming himself, so powerful was Yamamoto’s resistance. Yet he persisted, for what Konda wanted to do depended on Yamamoto’s acceptance of the truth.
Finally, after they had shared a meal served by the robots and downed many cups of sake, Yamamoto raised a hand. On the other side of the partition, Konda immediately fell silent. Even through the plastic wall he could feel the power of Yamamoto’s personality, a power based on integrity, and strength, and limitless courage.
«Let us arrange a truce,» Yamamoto suggested. «I am willing to accept your statements that you have created a time machine and have brought me here to the future. Whether I am dreaming or not is irrelevant, for the time being.»
Konda drew in a breath. «I accept the truce,» he said. It was the best that he would get from the utterly pragmatic man across the partition.
He felt terribly weary from trying to convince the admiral of the truth. He had deliberately wrapped his entire module in a stasis field, making it a small bubble of space-time hovering outside the normal flow of time. He wanted true isolation, with not even a chance of interference from the space station crew or the doctors. He and Yamamoto could live in the module outside the normal time stream for days or even years, if Konda chose. When he was ready to turn off the field and the bubble collapsed, no discernible time would have elapsed in the real world. He would return himself to the instant the experiment began, and Yamamoto would return to his writing desk in 1941. Not even his three friends would know if the experiment had worked or not.
If his friends still existed when Konda ended the experiment.
They slept. The robots had prepared a comfortable cot for Yamamoto, and suitable clothing. Konda slept in his chair, reclined in almost a horizontal position. His dreams were disturbing, bitter, but he suppressed their memory once he awoke once again.
Time within the windowless chamber was arbitrary; often Konda worked around the clock, although less and less as his body’s weariness continued to erode his strength. When Yamamoto awoke, Konda began the admiral’s history lessons. He had painstakingly assembled a vast library of microform books and videotapes about the events of the past century. Konda had been especially careful to get as many discs of boastful American films from the World War II years. This would be a delicate matter, he knew, for he intended to show Yamamoto his own death at the hands of the murderous Yankees.
Slowly, slowly Konda unreeled the future to his guest. Yamamoto sat in stolid silence as he watched the attack on Pearl Harbor, muttering now and then, «No aircraft carriers at anchor. That is bad.» And later, «Nagumo should have sent in a third attack. The fool.»
By the time the viewing screen at last went dark, Yamamoto looked through the partition toward Konda with a new look in his eyes. He is beginning to believe me, Konda told himself.
«This dream is very realistic,» the admiral said, his voice dark with concern.
«There is more,» Konda said. Sadly, he added, «Much more.»
Konda lost track of time. The two men ate and slept and watched the ancient discs. Yamamoto put away his uniform, folding it carefully, almost reverently, and wore the comfortable loose kimono that Konda had provided for him. The admiral had far more energy and endurance than Konda. While the scientist slept, the admiral read from the microform books. When Konda awakened Yamamoto always had a thousand questions waiting for him.
He truly believes, Konda realized. He sees that this is not a dream. He knows that I am showing him his own future. The admiral watched the disastrous battle of Midway in stoic silence, his only discernible reaction the clenching of his heavy jaw whenever the screen showed a Japanese ship being sunk.
To his surprise, Konda felt enormous reluctance when it came time to show Yamamoto his death. For a whole day he showed no further videos and even cut off the power to the microform book reader.
«Why have you stopped?» Yamamoto asked.
From behind his impermeable plastic screen, Konda grimaced with pain. But he tried to hide it by asking the older man, «Do you still believe that all this is a dream?»
Yamamoto’s eyes narrowed into an intense stare. «All of life is a dream, my young friend.»
«Or a nightmare.»
«You are ill,» said the admiral.
«I am dying.»
«So are we all.» Yamamoto got to his feet, walked slowly around his half of the room. In his dark blue kimono he needed only a set of swords to look exactly like a samurai warrior of old.
Slowly, haltingly, Konda told him of his disease. The gift of his unknown parents. He had never spoken to anyone about this in such detail. He cursed his whore of a mother and damned the father that had undoubtedly spread his filth to many others. An American. He knew his father had to be an American. A tourist, probably. Or a miserable businessman come to Tokyo to ferret out the secrets of Japanese success.