"Mr. Walton, where is the silver case?" She'd walked straight up to us
and now was just standing there, awaiting an answer.
"Mori-san, that silver box is long gone, thanks to Noda." I suddenly
felt as if we'd just dropped out of the twentieth century and back into
the twelfth. Time warp. "Let me tell you something. It was like the
apple in the Garden of Eden: bite into it and out would spew the
knowledge of good and evil. Better to forget the whole thing."
"You don't know anything."
"Definite point. We've just discovered there was a heck of a lot we
didn't know." I thumbed toward Noda's office. "Including the scope of
Dai Nippon's impressive new investment program."
She ignored that response entirely as she whirled on Tam, her voice
increasingly strident. "Dr. Richardson, you have betrayed His Majesty."
"Mori-san, you and everybody who's helping Noda are the ones who've
done the betraying." Tam stared her in the eye, daggers.
"Even though you are Fujiwara, you still let him continue," Mori
pressed on, oblivious. "His scheme to manipulate the Emperor, to
undermine MITI--"
"That's got nothing to do with--"
"It is the duty of a Fujiwara to protect His Majesty."
"Speaking of His Majesty," I cut in, "how much did you have to do with
Noda's fake sword? Guess that 'protected' the Emperor too. Nothing like
being handed a new lease on divinity."
"The sword was to be his gift to me." She said it hesitantly. "To
restore--"
"Perhaps we can clarify what it's really intended to restore, Mori-
san," I interrupted again. 'The shogunate, with Noda as--"