James Morrow - This Is the Way the World Ends

‘You want me to decide?’ said George.

‘Yes,’ said Sverre.

‘Me?’

‘Correct.’

‘Why me?’

‘I’m curious to see what will happen.’

George did not think it right for the fate of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to be in his hands.

‘I’m not really qualified for this,’ he said.

‘You’ve fought as many nuclear wars as the rest of us,’ said Sverre.

A mile-high tombstone appeared in George’s mind, Design No. 1067 in Vermont blue-gray. A million names were inscribed in the granite. DULUTH. DODGE CITY. SAN FRANCISCO. PHILADELPHIA. CHRYSLERS. CBS. XEROX CORPORATION. THE SUPER BOWL.

What had Sverre called it? A retaliatory strike? A fair and reasonable notion. They sandblasted us. We must do the same to them.

And yet…

‘Tell me if I’ve got this straight, Brat,’ said George. ‘You want to blow up Russia, correct?’

‘I want to kill the Soviets’ reserve ICBMs and prevent their being salvoed in subsequent attacks,’ Brat replied.

‘Why?’ asked George.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said, why?’

‘National defense, that’s why.’

‘Yes, yes, I can understand that,’ said George. ‘Sure. However, if we’re going to have national defense, Brat, don’t we also need, well… you know…’

‘What?’ said Brat.

‘A nation.’

‘It’s a necessary condition,’ said Randstable, whose left cerebral hemisphere was preparing to play chess with his right. ‘Please put that thing away before you get us all killed.’

‘If we don’t take out their reserves,’ Brat insisted, ‘the Soviets will use them to hunt down the survivors.’

‘Painful as it may be, I think we must conclude that MARCH is no longer the operative strategy here,’ said Randstable, staring blankly at the chessboard. ‘We’ve even gone past the SPASM, I’d say – the motive matrix is completely different now.’ He turned suddenly toward Sverre, his fingers splayed and wriggling. ‘But then why this Antarctica business?’

‘Your job for the present,’ said the captain, ‘is to work with Dr Valcourt on conquering your survivor’s guilt.’

Brat perspired and trembled, as if gripped by a high fever. ‘You want a motive, William? I’ve got a motive. Vengeance may not be a pretty word, but it’s what’s expected of us.’

‘Right!’ said Sverre. ‘We owe it to all those millions of dead people to make more millions of dead people. Be careful how you rewrite strategic doctrine, General, or you’ll come out of this war without a single medal. Mr Paxton, I need your answer.’

XEROX CORPORATION. THE SUPER BOWL. MAXWELL HOUSE COFFEE. HERSHEY BARS. THE WORLD SERIES. CHEERIOS. AUNT ISABEL. COUSIN WILLIE. NICKIE FROSTIG. JUSTINE PAXTON. HOLLY PAXTON.

Vengeance. George pictured the word in his mind. Obviously Brat felt strongly about it. Still, the strategic decision is mine, he thought – mine and mine alone. An epitaph materialized at the bottom of the mile-high tombstone. A ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR MEGATON RETALIATORY STRIKE WILL NOT BRING US BACK, it said.

That settled the matter.

‘I believe I would like to start having fresh orange juice with my breakfast,’ said George. ‘Keeps away the scurvy, I hear.’

‘Lousy decision, Paxton,’ fumed Brat. ‘Really bad.’

‘I’m sorry,’ George said softly.

The general’s forehead threw off hot droplets. ‘Ten seconds, Captain. That’s all you’ve got, and then David fires his slingshot. Nine… eight… seven…’

‘He’s bluffing,’ said Randstable, who still hadn’t made an opening move. ‘I’ll give you a hundred to one odds he won’t do it.’

Sverre went to his writing desk and continued the Saga of Thor . Brat retargeted the missile.

‘Six… five… four…’

‘I don’t believe I have any,’ said Randstable.

‘Any what?’ asked Sverre.

‘Three…’

‘Survivor’s guilt,’ said Randstable.

‘Two…’

‘We can fix that,’ said Sverre.

An uncanny noise issued from the MARCH Hare. George thought of the cackling piped into the funhouse at the Wildgrove Apple Blossom Fair. Brat’s now flaccid fingers uncurled, and the little missile clattered impotently to the floor. Lying on the rug, it looked more toylike than ever.

‘I’ve never seen one of those before,’ said Sverre, pointing to Brat’s defenses with his quill pen.

The MARCH Hare collapsed on the sofa, guzzled some gin, and began mourning his dead country through hyperventilation and high-pitched wails.

Sverre left his desk, picked up the weapon. ‘What kind of guidance?’

‘Inertial navigation,’ muttered Randstable, ‘updated by terrain contour matching.’

‘Propulsion?’

‘Air breathing F-218 turbofan engine.’

‘Throw-weight?’

‘Nine pounds.’

Later that day, after the three Erebus evacuees were gone, Sverre ordered his officers and men to their main battle stations. The launch tubes were pressurized to match the outside ocean. The hatches opened. A small rocket in the rail of each Multiprong missile began to burn, boiling pools of water in the tubes. Steam built up, hurling the missiles to the surface, whereupon the main motors ignited. The stages fell away. Within fifteen minutes the warhead buses had scattered their sterile payloads across the Gulf of Mexico, from the Florida Keys to the vanished city of New Orleans.

Like all Philadelphia -class fleet ballistic missile submarines, SSBN 713 City of New York held within its lowest decks a labyrinth of forgotten passageways and unmarked corridors. Leaving Sverre’s cabin, George realized that he and Brat were for the moment not on speaking terms – he could tell by the general’s sour face, his aloof gait – and so he ran ahead, soon finding himself in the submarine equivalent of a back alley. Naked light bulbs swung on brown cords like phosphorescent spiders. The air was murky and still. He became aware of the boat’s sound, a fitful hum. Under other conditions, getting lost this way would have upset him, but he was still feeling extraordinarily good about his strategic decision. Thanks to him, the men, women, and children of the Soviet Union had been spared a retaliatory strike – my monument to Holly, he thought, as glorious and firm as any block of granite.

He pounded on doors. The echoes traveled up and down the empty corridor. He tested the latches. Every cabin was sealed as tight as the cottage-like tomb that the Sweetser family owned back in Rosehaven Cemetery. Fear weaved through his chest and bowels – a creeping conviction that Peach and Cobb would soon appear and inflict some new torture on him. Hell, anybody would have signed that ridiculous sales contract. Anybody. Black blood. Just like Mrs Covington. Certain facts should not be thought about too much. I shall think about something else. Holly saved Russia…

Beneath a nearby door, an orange glow advanced and retreated like surf. George approached, knocked.

‘Come in.’

A female voice. Entering, he saw a monster. He stopped dead and thought, yes, they’re on the loose again, trying to intimidate me…

It looked like a gigantic winged shark. The eyes shot blood, the nostrils flamed and smoked like the vents of a volcano.

He had seen this species before.

‘Hello, George.’

In the center of the cabin an old woman stood hunched over the sort of antique machine that, as he knew from taking Holly to the Boston Children’s Museum, was called a magic lantern. A cone of smoke-filled light spread toward the projected vulture. Shadows hovered above the woman’s nose and cheeks. She removed the vulture, slipped it under a stack of similar glass paintings.