"Aren't we independent already?" Nomuri asked in open puzzlement. "There are hardly any American soldiers here to annoy us anymore."

"And those under guard now," Taoka observed. "You don't understand. Independence means more than politics. It means economic independence, too. It means not going to others for what we need to survive."

"It means the Northern Resource Area, Kazuo," another of their number said, going too far, and knowing it from the way two pairs of eyes opened in warning.

"I wish it would mean shorter days and getting home on time for a change instead of sleeping in a damned coffin-tube two or three nights a week," one of the more alert ones said to alter the course of the conversation.

Taoka grunted. "Yes, how can one get a girl in there?" The guffaws that followed that one were forced, Nomuri thought.

"You salarymen and your secrets! Ha!" the CIA officer snapped. "I hope you do better with your women." He paused. "Will all this affect my business?" A good idea, he thought, to ask a question like that.

"For the better, I should think," Kazuo said. There was general agreement on that point.

"We must all be patient. There will be hard times before the good ones truly come."

"But they will come," another suggested confidently. "The really hard part is behind us."

Not if I can help it, Nomuri didn't tell them. But what the hell did "Northern Resource Area" mean? It was so like the intelligence business that he knew he'd heard something important, quite without knowing what the hell it was all about. Then he had to cover himself with a lengthy discourse on his new relationship with the hostess, to be sure, again, that they would remember this, and not his questions.

It was a shame to have to arrive in the darkness, but that was mere fortune. Half of the fleet had diverted for Guam, which had a far better natural harbor, because all the people in these islands had to see the Japanese Navy—Admiral Sato was weary of the "Self-Defense Force" title. His was a navy now, composed of fighting ships and fighting men that had tasted battle, after a fashion, and if historians would later comment that their battle had not been a real one or a fair one, well, what military textbook did not cite the value of surprise in offensive operations? None that he knew of, the Admiral told himself, seeing the loom of Mount Takpochao through his binoculars. There was already a powerful radar there, up and operating, his electronics technicians had told him an hour earlier. Yet another important factor in defending what was again his country's native soil.