1
It was humid. November, and outside the window there was fog, and the fog was tepid. Scorched earth, tung oil, and the river. The plank floor gave underfoot. Of the bulbs hanging from the ceiling, every other one had burned out.
Around a long table, thin men were getting to their feet. Their uniforms had faded and some of the shoulder boards had been mended. The oldest of them spoke in a shaking voice.
"The Mandate of Heaven."
At that the room split.
"It can be nothing else."
"Proof that Heaven has not abandoned us."
"Then to whom has Heaven shown itself?"
Ah, he thought. In Japan the army and the navy had fought over what the light meant. Here they were fighting over whom it was addressed to. Some knelt; some did not kneel but looked quickly around at the other faces, and there were more of the latter. In this room, that Heaven had come down was a smaller event by far than whose side Heaven had come down on.
His right pocket rang. The argument stopped.
"An oracle of Heaven?"
"No," he said. "A telephone."
2
Elite Battleship Squadron Available War Economy Available Opening Diplomatic Mission Available Research Head Start Available Campaign Chronicle Unlocked …… Minor Power Handicap Requirements not met …… Admiral's Record Room Campaigns completed 2 Nations completed 2 ―――――――――――――――― Next Theatre Modern Fleet Requirements not met
Four things could be taken. He did not take the squadron; the reason was the same as in the previous world. Asked where the ships had come from, he could not answer. And this country had no harbour in which to float eight elite warships.
He took the war economy and the research head start. He took the diplomatic mission as well: when this country came to the table, its relations with the countries in the neighbouring chairs would begin a little better. That was all it was, and for this country it was everything.
Then his finger stopped on one of the grey lines.
Minor Power Handicap Strengthens by stages with each victory as a minor power Stage 1 = foreign volunteers at no cost / Stage 2 = resources each turn / Stage 3 = an alliance with a major power from the start
Win as a small country and you are given help for small countries. He understood the arrangement in three seconds and nearly laughed. To obtain the first stage, you must first win once without it.
He put the phone away and raised his head. The thin men had been watching a man touch something that was not there.
"May I ask the Chairman's name?"
A name he did not know came back. That was as it should be.
"In eighteen days, on the morning of the eighth of December, Japan and the United States will go to war. Four years of fighting alone end that night."
This time the room split along a different line.
3
Three questions were put to him.
Land. Lin, the Chief of the General Staff, spread out a map of the mainland — a map still carrying four years of red pencil.
"If Japan draws troops away to the south, the pressure on the mainland should ease. But Hong Kong and Changsha may take a blow instead. Do we wager on the easing, or prepare for the blow?"
"Both will come."
"Both."
"They will draw south. At the same time they will strike here. In order to draw away, they want us quiet first."
Lin did not move, the pencil still in his hand.
"The date."
He gave the date. In the world he came from, it had been that day. Then he added what he had learned in the previous world.
"However. I am capable of being wrong."
The room stirred. The Mandate of Heaven had just admitted to error.
"What I know is the history of a world I did not enter. This world differs from it a little, and the difference grows larger by the day. You are welcome to believe me. But keep a second plan, for when I am wrong."
Lin looked at him for a long time. Then he set the pencil down and said:
"Adviser. For four years, that is how we have fought."
Sea.
Guan, representing the naval department, rose. His navy did not possess a single ship that could be sent to open water.
"The entire coast is closed to us. But if the Americans and the British enter the war, the meaning of the blockade changes. With the ships we have left, what should we be preparing now, against that day?"
He liked this question.
"Three things."
"Go on."
"One. Count the river and coastal craft, now. Make a register: the owner's name, the tonnage she can carry, the draught she is limited to. You will use it in two years. But if you begin counting in two years, it will be too late. Two. Train stevedores, now. What runs short on the day the port opens is not ships. It is the men to get the cargo off, and the roads to move it once it is off. Three. Keep a ledger. What arrived where. Where the things that did not arrive disappeared. That last is a precaution against your own side."
Guan's face stiffened.
"Why that?"
"I have seen two countries," he said. "What a country receiving aid loses first is not goods. It is trust."
The nation. Gu, for the Executive Yuan, spoke last.
"Once Japan and America are at war we are no longer alone; we are allies. The Burma road, and the aid that will come. What do we ask for, and what do we give in exchange?"
"Ask for a seat."
"A seat."
"A seat at the table after the war ends. Take that before you take goods. Goods come later. Seats do not come later."
4
Every decision was taken that night, and then it could not be taken back. Eighteen days passed, and on the eighth of December Japan and the United States went to war.
That night firecrackers went off in the streets of Chongqing. He watched from a window. Four years of fighting alone had ended that night. Somewhere in the city someone was singing. He could not follow the words, but he understood what was being sung.
He was remembering what he had seen in two worlds. In Washington, that morning, men had died. In Tokyo, that morning, an hourglass had been turned over. The same day had held three different meanings in three rooms. And of the three, this was the room that was happiest. The weakest country was the happiest one.
5
The three and a half years that followed were the most immobile of his life.
The radar circuit was in his head down to the last wire. So were the metallurgical tables, the process control charts, the method for antibiotics — everything he had handed over in the two previous worlds. There was no factory in this country to turn any of it into an object. Washington had all three: the factory that could build it, the engineer who could build it, the ship to carry it. Tokyo had two. Here there were none.
He learned that in the first six months. The man he had been one world ago would have stopped there, he thought. He did not stop. If there is no factory, hand over the things that need no factory.
Antibiotics cannot be made. But the procedure for boiling and handwashing can be distributed today. Radar cannot be carried. But how a lookout stands his watch, and the form his report takes, can be changed tomorrow. A control chart cannot be drawn. But the keeping of a ledger takes only paper and pencil.
He took what he had and disassembled it, piece by piece, and picked out only the parts that could be carried at this country's weight. Then he began to walk.
6
The first man he went to see was a man who did not obey orders. Ma Zhenyuan, the power in one of the regional armies, who for four years had listened to the centre only when it suited him. He was said to call the man from the sky an idol manufactured by the centre.
He took three guards and spent four days getting to Ma's headquarters. Ma kept him waiting three days. On the fourth, he received him.
"They tell me you came down out of the sky."
"Yes."
"What did you come for?"
"I should like to see your register of boats."
The demand appeared to catch Ma off balance.
"Boats. This is the mountains."
"There is a river."
"What of the river craft?"
"The number your units reported to the centre last autumn differs from the actual number. I want the actual number. I have not come to punish you for the larger figure."
Ma was silent for a long time.
"Why not punish it?"
"In two years the port opens," he said. "When it does, someone will be needed who can move cargo inland. In this country there is nobody but you who can. The centre has no boats. I do not want to be quarrelling with you on that day."
"You came here now to talk about two years from now."
"Yes."
Ma laughed. Then he sent a subordinate for the register.
In two worlds he had seen the same kind of man. The isolationists in America. The army staff officers in Japan. Different offices, different convictions, different countries. And both had feared the same thing: having their own portion decided for them by somebody else.
He had learned that in two worlds. It was not knowledge. It was not technique. It was only that he had watched people twice.
And in this country, that was the only thing that worked.
7
In the spring of 1943 the man responsible for communications came to see him.
"Adviser. An odd report has come up."
"Go on."
"The Japanese coastal blockade has tightened."
"Tightened how?"
"Until now we could get through under cover of night and fog. That no longer works. They have learned the habits of our boats."
He did not raise his head.
"Is there a word in the decrypt fragments that makes no sense?"
The man caught his breath.
"How do you know that?"
He did not answer. They had come down on the other side too.
This time he was a little surprised. In this country he had produced neither radar nor fuzes; there were no factories, so he could not. A register of boats, training for stevedores, a ledger. That was all. And still they had come. Traces are not decided by how spectacular a thing is. They are decided by how far one departs from what actually happened. Before he arrived, this had been a country where cargo did not get through. In the month it began getting through, the other side arrived.
He took a sheet of paper and wrote down the dates. In the first world, the summer of the second year. In the second, the spring of the second year. In the third, the spring of the second year. All three land in roughly the same place. Looking at the three of them, he thought for the first time that this might be readable as a scale.
8
In 1944 the Burma road opened, a little at a time. The port opened after that. On that day, Guan's register of small craft, the stevedores who had been trained, and Ma's river boats all moved together. Three things decided on a night three years earlier came back on a single day three years later.
He was on the wharf that day, watching the cargo come down. Rice, medicine, machinery, and crates with numbers stencilled on them. A clerk was writing each one down, in the ledger he had made them keep three years before.
Guan came and stood beside him.
"Adviser. The sea has come back."
"Yes."
"We do not possess a single warship."
"No."
"And yet cargo is arriving from the sea."
He nodded. Can a country that lost its sea survive on supply from the sea? Three and a half years of answer went past in front of him in the shape of wooden crates.
9
In the summer of 1945, it came. The third time. In this country, it was the thing that brought the end. Eight years of war were over.
He took out the sheet of paper and wrote the third line. Summer 1945 — completed. Three. Three worlds, three wars. The country he had made win, the country he had brought to a negotiated end, and the country that could make nothing at all. Only that summer had stood in the same place all three times.
Before, he had thought of it this way: whatever I do, that one thing will not move, and therefore I am powerless. Now it was a little different. If the thing that does not move has stood in the same place three times, it is not a wall. It is a marker. Eighteen days, and the summer of 1945. Between two points that cannot be moved, how much can he do? That, every time, is the only question.
In three attempts, the span between them had certainly widened.
10
That autumn Guan invited him to a small celebration at the wharf office. When it ended, coming down the stairs at the back of the building, his right pocket rang. The third time. He no longer stopped walking.
ATLAS Operations in this world are complete. Your decisions have changed this world. Choose what you wish to take to the next one.
He opened the app. Four lines had turned black.
Grand Carrier Force Unlocked Accelerated Research Unlocked Flagship Title Unlocked Minor Power Handicap Unlocked (Stage 1) …… Admiral's Record Room Campaigns completed 3 Nations completed 3 ―――――――――――――――― Next Theatre Modern Fleet Requirements not met Remain in this world Requirements not met
Minor Power Handicap. Stage one.
Three and a half years, for one stage. Two more stages. Two more small countries.
The man he had been one world ago might have been disheartened by that number. He was not.
Instead he read the lines that were still grey, from the top.
Veteran Air Groups Win by destroying an enemy fleet with air attack Seasoned Army Win by taking an enemy capital by land Inherited Technology Decisive victory Industrial Mobilisation Complete five campaigns Theatre-Wide Reconnaissance Complete on Historical or above Ironman Complete on Historical or above Hell+ Complete on Hell Battle-Honoured Hulls Win with a battle-honoured ship still afloat
The conditions were written there.
He noticed it and stopped halfway down the stairs.
For three worlds the lines had turned black on their own. So he had not read them. There had been no need to read them.
The conditions are written. Which means they can be aimed at.
He read the eight lines from top to bottom three times.
The two lines below the rule were still grey. One cannot remain. The third time as well.
He closed the screen.
After he closed it, the light came up around his feet. There was fog, so the light bled softly white through it, and it was very beautiful.
The smell changed. Not tung oil: polished wood, beeswax, cold metal. Under his soles, the hardness of a parquet floor.
Nobody knelt. Nobody prayed. Nobody put a hand to a holster.
Across the long table, a man with staff braid said quietly to the man beside him:
"Record the phenomenon."
Another answered.
"If it is a weapon, analysis."
The next world was Germany.