“Yes, but their loyalty and honor might just demand that they lay in a course for the homeland. I take it from the title of this book that Japan didn’t have a good time of it, by the end of the war.”

“No, granted, they didn’t. But the Siranui’s crew aren’t stupid. They know that what doomed Japan was the hubris of the militarists who ran the country . . .”

“Who run the country, you mean,” said Spruance.

“Okay,” she conceded. “Who run the country. But Japan—their Japan—has been a liberal democracy for generations. To suggest that modern Japanese would want to return to the mistakes of their distant past is as fatuous as saying modern Germans would all turn back into Nazis if given the chance.”

“Oh my God,” Beanland pleaded. “Please don’t tell me you’ve got a bunch of German ships out there, as well.”

Spruance was genuinely perturbed by the possibility. “Well, Captain,” he demanded. “What of it? Any other nasty little surprises you’d care to let us in on. A U-boat, for instance?”

Halabi struggled to control her exasperation with the paranoid mind-set of the two men.

“No,” she said firmly. “We have no German vessels operating with us. There are undoubtedly a small number of German personnel on secondment to various elements of the task force. There may well be some Italians, too. I know of a couple on the Fearless. And we had a couple of Republic of Indonesian boats with us, which might well have complicated things, since you don’t have a Republic of Indonesia . . . but then neither do we nowadays, so I guess it couldn’t be any more complicated. And anyway, they seemed to have escaped the Transition here, like the American subs and a New Zealand frigate, which were all some distance away from the event.”

“So what on earth do you intend to do with all of these Krauts and Japs, then?” asked Spruance, who seemed to be growing agitated again. He stood and turned to face her squarely.

“I don’t intend to do anything with them,” she replied, “until we’ve had a chance to discuss the matter at a fleetwide command level. A discussion, I can assure you, that will take into account the wishes of all of the men and women concerned.”

“Good Lord,” Spruance cried. “You can’t suggest that you would let them be repatriated to their respective countries, if that’s what they desired.”

“Of course not,” she responded. “Nobody’s going to hand Hitler or Tojo the plans to an atom bomb. But they’re not going into irons, either, just for being Japanese or German. I have a Russian on my own ship, by the way. I know she’d have no interest whatsoever in returning home. Stalin would have her shot on sight, as soon as he discovered what became of his bloody workers’ paradise.”