Captain Tadao Kato, the skipper of the Ryujo, stepped up from behind. "Begging your pardon, Admiral, but we have the strictest orders, already breached once, to maintain radio silence. And we have no confirmation of this wild tale. We could imperil the entire plan with one transmission."

Kakuta felt trapped. The evidence of that outlandish aircraft, sitting just a few yards away, confirmed that Hidaka had discovered something of great import. But Kakuta's mission was of paramount consequence, too. The attack on Dutch Harbor was necessary to draw the remnants of the American fleet away from the center of the Pacific, leaving Midway open to attack. Without that feint, the entire gambit might simply collapse. He was already behind schedule, and now Hidaka wanted to drag them farther into the mire.

Yet he trusted the man's judgment as he did his own. That was why he had assigned the investigation to him in the first place. And this thing in which Tomonagi had arrived! It was obviously an aircraft of great power and sophistication. Its very form threatened violence, and he had seen with his own eyes how it hovered in the air like a gigantic hummingbird.

"I will go then!" he snapped, exasperated beyond measure. "But Captain, if you have not heard from me within one hour, forge on with the original plan. It will mean I have fallen into a trap, and must be abandoned along with Hidaka."

"One hour," confirmed Kato.

Twenty-five minutes later a small, booklike electric gadget Ensign Tomonagi had brought across from the Sutanto flared into life. It had been resting against a window of the Ryujo's bridge, continuously scrutinized by Tomonagi, who had remained with the Ryujo on Commander Hidaka's direct orders.

"Captain! Captain Kato!" cried Tomonagi. "It is Admiral Kakuta."

Kato looked over his shoulder at first, thinking his superior had somehow snuck back aboard the ship. But then his eye caught the glow of Tomonagi's electric book, and the captain found it difficult to suppress a gasp of surprise. Kakuta himself seemed to be floating within.

"Captain Kato. It is I, Kakuta." He sounded tired now. "Please contact the fleet, and bring them around. You may use the low-frequency radio. The attack on Dutch Harbor is not to proceed. I repeat, the attack on Dutch Harbor is not to proceed. I shall inform Admiral Hosogaya myself… Just obey!" he added firmly, when he saw that Kato was preparing to argue.

"Amazing… simply amazing," muttered Kakuta as Lieutenant Moertopo cut the link that connected them with the flexipad on the Ryujo's bridge.

"The admiral expresses his heartfelt amazement at this most sophisticated machine," Hidaka translated.

"I suppose it must be a shock," said Moertopo, who had been confronted by a surprise much more profound than one's first exposure to a simple flexipad. The dermal patch on his neck held back the physical sensation of nausea, but he still felt sick in his mind.

"Admiral, I suggest that we have some of the men go up on deck to ensure that Captain Kato has followed your orders," Hidaka said, translating again for the benefit of the Indonesian.

"That won't be necessary, Admiral," Moertopo interjected. "I can do that from here." In a few seconds he linked to the Sutanto's sensors and handed the pad back to Kakuta, who was then able to watch a radar image of the entire fleet, slowing and turning for home. Hidaka explained the meaning of the image that filled the flexipad screen. At this point in history, Japan had not invested deeply in radar technology. Moertopo noted with a degree of satisfaction that neither man was able hide his admiration.

"I can get you an image of any individual vessel you'd care to observe from the mast-mounted cameras," said Moertopo. "It doesn't matter that it's dark and foggy outside. The cameras can pick out your ships, anyway."

He took the pad back, entered a few instructions, and, just as he had promised, the screen filled with a black-and-white image of the Ryujo herself, coming around on the new heading, leaning into the swell, throwing up a prodigious bow wave.

"Again. I am astounded, Lieutenant," said Hidaka with real reverence in his tone.

"I doubt you could be more astonished than I."

They sat at the wardroom table, sipping fresh tea from the ship's finest china, last used when the Sutanto had spirited the Indonesian president and his family away from the Caliphate rebellion. In deference to the Indonesians, who were dressed for the tropics, the ship's climate control had been set to approximate a warm spring day in Bali. The Japanese had stripped off the outer layers of their arctic-weather gear but were still sweating in the heavy uniforms they wore underneath.

The small room was much busier now, with nearly two dozen Indonesian sailors revived and attending to those comrades who were still unconscious, or cleaning up the unpleasant aftermath of their illness. The Japanese and Indonesian sailors remained wary of one another, but their officers had turned to the task of coping with the unprecedented situation.

Lieutenant Ali Moertopo was trying hard to keep relations with the Japanese as friendly as possible. The bulk of his countrymen, including his own captain, were still unconscious and showing little sign of responding to stimulants, so he was well aware that the initiative lay with Kakuta. If circumstances had been more conducive, they might have just sunk the Japanese fleet and sailed off to Pearl Harbor, there to offer their services to the eventual winners of this war.

Assuming, of course, that this insanity played out, and they actually had traveled back in time.

He found he still couldn't accept that as a real possibility.

For the moment, though, he was content to present a mask of civility and cooperation to his captors, for that's what they were, no matter how much buffalo shit they fed him about "rescue" parties. He'd gotten a good long look at the mouth of Hidaka's pistol when he came to, and he remembered only too well that conceited sneer. He noted that the Japanese sailors-or perhaps they were marines-hadn't put down their arms.

Moertopo had offered Kakuta the chance to observe his fleet on the Sutanto's radar only because he needed to know what sort of enemy he was up against. There appeared to be four capital ships, probably consisting of two carriers and two cruisers-or maybe battleships-and another group of smaller escorts, probably destroyers and maybe a tender. He would endeavor to interest them in a lengthy demonstration of the mast-mounted cameras, and in doing so confirm that conclusion. Captain Djuanda would need every possible scrap of information when he recovered and took command.

If he recovered.

Moertopo willed the captain to revive, so that he might be relieved of the mind-bending responsibilities presented by this situation.

"… Lieutenant, are you ill again? You look quite distressed."

The Sutanto's exec pulled out of his reverie with a shake of his head. In fact, he still felt awful, and the physical effects of their arrival were compounded by the stress of confronting the impossible.

"I am sorry, Commander," he lied. "I was overcome by this sickness again. It's much worse than any nausea I have felt before, even in heavy weather."

"Perhaps you have other treatments for it?" Hidaka suggested. "Medicines as powerful as your machines?"

His captor was playing with him, he knew. Fishing for more information about their technology. Moertopo was convinced that if he didn't handle this exactly right, neither he nor any of his men would live to see the next dawn.

"Perhaps," he agreed. "I shall have an orderly bring some syringes." With that, he dispatched a junior rating to the sick bay with instruction to bring back a supply of Promatil fixes.