“What’s that?”
“My relationship with Yukikaze. You said that simultaneously viewing her as a separate person while also acknowledging her as a part of me wasn’t that rare in people, that people have that ability. You said that it wasn’t an illness.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“What does that mean, specifically?”
“You know perfectly well. Isn’t that what you said to Major Booker before? You ask even when you know the answer. Still, I can understand why you might be shy about saying it, so I’ll lay it out for you,” Captain Foss said. “It’s what happens when you love someone. It’s an ability that’s been born of the love between you and Yukikaze, between a human being and the artificial intelligence of an SAF fighter plane.”
“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” Rei said.
“Yes. When I take a step back and think about it, the truth is that I want to laugh. But it’s the truth. Love can take this form. It’s the ability to feel as though another person is a part of you. It’s not the transient passion of infatuation, but the intense love that would drive you to willingly sacrifice yourself for their survival. We need to teach the JAM about that. The JAM don’t know love. If you wanted to express what the JAM don’t understand about the SAF in a literary way, that’s how I’d put it.”
“There’s no need to teach them.”
Rei put on his helmet and switched places with the maintenance man running the preflight checks in Yukikaze’s cockpit.
“Why not?” Captain Foss asked Rei as she clung to the side of the plane on the ladder. “Are you afraid that the JAM might love you back?”
“Maybe I am. Once the JAM understand that, the war will bog down into a quagmire. We’ll be reduced to a nasty mudslinging contest, and an even stronger hatred will be born of it.”
“Better to keep things as they are, is that it?”
“Yeah,” Rei said.
“Such a typical answer from you. But I predict that the JAM will evolve to understand it in order to match us. I’d even go so far as to say it would make them even more powerful.”
“And us too?”
“The two sides will continue to change. Assuming you live through this, I’m interested in seeing how you’ll continue to change. Be sure to make it back.”
“I was planning to, even without your asking me. Now, if you don’t mind, get out of the way. And have them pull all the safety pins out of the missiles. I’m taking off as soon as I’m topside.”
Captain Foss silently climbed down from the ladder. As Rei watched her, he thought that surviving the JAM wouldn’t necessarily mean he’d return home. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he felt for Major Booker’s watch on his left arm and took it off. And then, after telling Captain Foss to catch it, tossed it to her.
“Give that back to Major Booker for me, will you?” Rei said. “Good luck, Edith. You fixed me up well.”
Captain Foss nodded.
“Like you guys fixed me.”
And, as if answering him, Yukikaze scrolled a message onto the main display.
Everything is ready… Capt.
As they began towing Yukikaze toward the elevator, Rei was no longer aware of Captain Foss as an individual. She, the maintenance teams, the humans and the AIs of the SAF… the SAF had tuned both himself and Yukikaze to perfection, and as they sent him out, all he felt now was satisfaction.
He started the engines as soon as they’d exited the elevator. This was already a battlefield. On the runway, several FAF planes were burning. Three Super Sylphs, Carmilla, Chun-Yan, and Zouk, were speeding low, barely skimming the ground.
“This is Yukikaze. Taking off.”
Night had given way fully to dawn. The crimson jet of the Bloody Road could no longer be seen from ground level.
Yukikaze shot away from the ground at maximum thrust, zooming upward in a combat climb. She soared high, aiming for altitudes where the Bloody Road could be clearly seen, even at noon. The soaring fairy. The queen of the wind. Maeve. Yukikaze.
I AM THAT I AM
Commentary by Maki Ohno
SF Critic, Translator
THIS BOOK, A sequel to the 1984 release Yukikaze, was originally serialized between 1992 and 1999 in SF Magazine. It was later revised and corrected before being released in hard cover form in 1999 as Good Luck, Yukikaze. It is truly worthy of the title of author Chōhei Kambayashi’s lifework.
It’s the story of a fighter plane and its pilot and their battle with an enemy on an alien world. But that mainly serves as a specialized stage, merely a background for a drama of society and humans. Amidst the extreme circumstances of war, it paints a picture of a hero joined to a cool piece of mecha and destiny in a symbiotic relationship that could almost be called fetishistic. However, what’s depicted here isn’t a war in the usual sense. (The book itself refers to it as a “struggle for existence.”) It’s full of detailed descriptions of the mecha served to wow the fans, but that’s not the sole source of this book’s appeal. Herein lie the major themes of what is intelligence? What is communication? And the author pursues those themes repeatedly. It’s loaded with deep speculation about the perception of the self and others, an ultimate example of SF as speculative fiction.
WARNING! The following contains spoilers about the previous work, Yukikaze. Those who have not read it yet, beware. As this book is a sequel, you are strongly urged to read Yukikaze before proceeding.
A THREE-KILOMETER-WIDE COLUMN of mist appears on a point on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. This is the “Passageway,” and through this hyperspace corridor fly an alien intelligence known as the JAM to invade Earth. However, the human race form an Earth Defense Organization and begin their counterattack. On the other side of the Passageway lies the mysterious planet Faery. Humanity establishes bases there, and this begins a long war with the JAM that is to last thirty years.
The main actor in the war is the Faery Air Force (FAF). Evolving from our current jet fighter planes, the Sylphid fighter with an advanced electronic brain is deployed at the bases on Faery. In addition, an organization charged with reconnaissance and intelligence gathering is established within the FAF: the Special Air Force (SAF), who deploy an improved version of the Sylphid with more powerful computers known as the Super Sylph. The Super Sylph’s artificial intelligence, along with the base’s tactical and strategic computers, possess individual consciousness, making them sapient life-forms that exist along with the humans.
The SAF’s mission is to survive and bring their data back to base, and they are prepared to let their comrades die if necessary to achieve that end. For that reason, the pilots must be callous and coldhearted. In a sense, they require personalities that put them at odds with most ordinary human beings. Rather than human beings, they are more like parts of their fighter planes, organic combat computers that are a part of the Super Sylph.
The previous novel told the story of an SAF Super Sylph named Yukikaze and her pilot, Rei Fukai. As befitting an SAF member, he has trouble communicating with people, only really able to relate to his commander, Major Booker, and Yukikaze. But as he fights, he gradually begins to face the meaning of the war he’s fighting. Quite simply, he comes to believe that the war isn’t a battle between mankind and the JAM, but one between the aliens and the computers that mankind has built. What meaning could human existence have in such a war?