James Morrow - This Is the Way the World Ends

‘And so the world went to thermonuclear war. First strike, second strike, third, fourth. Keep it clean. Keep it surgical. Go for the other side’s war-waging capability, that’s all.’ Aquinas gave a small, quick smile. ‘Ah, but what if that war-waging capability embraces civilian population centers? There is a breezy little term for this particular brand of nuclear strategy. The term, learned judges, is city-busting.’ He hurled his mug across the courtroom, cocoa trailing behind like rocket exhaust. ‘But wait!’ he screamed as the mug shattered. ‘Could not the leaders of the superpowers see that they were dragging the human species into extinction? Of course they could. The leaders of the superpowers, however, were not beholden to the human species, but only to their respective sovereign states. How were they to explain the loss of so much for nothing? The destruction of a few cities was not a reason to quit, it was a reason to risk the rest .’

Returning to the prosecution table, Aquinas picked up a copy of the McMurdo Sound Agreement.

‘Thus were the Major Attack Options implemented,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Thus did the world follow the maps of hell so diligently drawn by Robert Wengernook, Brian Overwhite, Major General Roger Tarmac, Dr William Randstable, Reverend Peter Sparrow, and George Paxton.’

The prosecutor caressed the barbed-wire binding of the agreement. A pearl of black blood appeared on his index finger. He moved the finger across the cover, drawing an X in blood.

‘If faced with the unenviable task of defending these six men, I would perhaps argue that they had no choice. Their adversary was piling weapon upon weapon, and their only option was to do likewise. But that is a false argument. It was possible to rid the planet of the nuclear threat. Not by organizing a world government or bringing heaven to earth, but by diplomatic measures fully within the defendants’ knowledge and capabilities. As the case for the prosecution unfolds, you judges will learn exactly what this solution was. The gravamen of the charges against these men lies in their deliberate refusal to consider it. In short, the prosecution is prepared to prove criminal negligence on a scale the world has never seen before – and will never see again!’

Aquinas sat down and accepted handshakes from his assistants.

Although George’s worst fear – that the courtroom would erupt in thunderous applause – was not realized, he did see smiles lighting the faces of almost everyone in the gallery. Many spectators, including several of the Mount Christchurch reporters, pantomimed the act of clapping. A young woman, manifestly gripped by a variety of romantic fantasies involving Aquinas, trembled and wept.

‘This guy’s full of yams,’ said Brat.

‘Diplomatic measures – hah,’ said Overwhite.

‘No doubt he leaves a note to the tooth fairy whenever his dentures fall apart,’ said Wengernook.

‘I never drew a map of hell,’ said George.

‘The tribunal will recess for lunch,’ said Justice Jefferson.

SEVERANCE PETITION DENIED, proclaimed the slopes of Mount Christchurch. AQUINAS MAKES MAGNIFICENT OPENING ADDRESS.

Slowly, Martin Bonenfant approached the bench. His stride was a kind of ambulatory Rorschach test. One could project anything one fancied into it anxiety hiding behind a facade of confidence, confidence hiding behind a facade of anxiety, anxiety and confidence in dynamic equilibrium.

‘Learned judges, citizens of Antarctica, friends.’ Bonenfant’s words rolled hesitantly from between lips set in the slightest of smiles. ‘This morning the prosecution addressed us in the language of passion. I cannot condemn his ploy, for atomic weaponry is an invention worthy of no other emotion save horror. Your verdict, however, will be a judgment not on nuclear war but on policies designed to avert, control, and mitigate nuclear war. This case must be decided on the basis of facts, not feelings.

‘The first fact, one you will repeatedly be asked to appreciate in the coming weeks, is the extreme improbability of the recent extinction.’ His voice was stronger now, his inflections lilting and smooth. ‘If I may use a crude analogy, for I lack Mr Aquinas’s way with words, it would be this – the chances of the war unfolding as it did, with such a regrettable outcome, were about the same as those of a woman who takes contraceptive pills getting pregnant by her infertile lover.’

Of the four judges, only Theresa Gioberti seemed offended. The others beat down smiles.

An unlikely extinction, thought George. That’s an excellent point, he decided.

‘The second fact is that my clients, far from wishing to fight World War Three, devoted their professional lives to its prevention. Look toward the dock. You will see not war planners but patriots. If these men are guilty, your Honors, then their crime is limited to a count not listed in the McMurdo Sound Agreement, a count called “Love of Peace.”’

‘He’s good,’ said Wengernook.

‘He’s very good,’ said Brat.

‘The only game in town is not necessarily crooked,’ said Randstable.

‘Which brings us to the third fact,’ said Bonenfant. ‘The threat to peace. Right before Mr Aquinas gave his address, I bet my two assistants that he would get through it without once mentioning the Russian Communist Empire by name. He never did. Twice he used the word “Soviet,” once the word “adversary.”

‘Your Honors, do you know what nation, prior to the war, was engaged in the largest military buildup of all time?’ The advocate’s glossy black hair had taken on a life of its own, slapping his forehead, flying skyward. ‘Do you know what nation violated virtually every arms control agreement it ever signed? Slaughtered millions of its own citizens in the name of collectivizing agriculture? Employed illegal chemical and biological weapons in Southeast Asia? Persecuted more Jews than anyone since Adolf Hitler? Routinely imprisoned its pacifists and dissidents in psychiatric hospitals?’

In George’s mind the blood-gallows had melted completely away. By God, he thought, we do have a case. We’re innocent after all.

‘Spreading outward since the October revolution, the cancer of Russian Communism engulfed country after country. Azerbaijan. Armenia. The Ukraine. Estonia. Latvia. Lithuania. Poland. Rumania. East Germany. Hungary. Czechoslovakia. Item – in 1983, a Prague grocery clerk was sentenced to five years at hard labor for possessing an unregistered mimeograph machine. Item – reliable observers report that, as part of its campaign of terror in Afghanistan, the Soviet army air-dropped toys into the villages for the little boys and girls of the tribes. Each toy was equipped with explosives that detonated when picked up, commonly blowing off a child’s arm…’

Bonenfant had a hundred more items ready. The frigid afternoon disappeared, replaced by a bottomless pit of betrayal and atrocity. Whenever George blinked he saw a little Afghan girl picking up a doll. He could not bring himself to visualize the explosion.

‘Why are there no Soviet defendants in this courtroom? Where is the Secretary General of the Communist Party? The Commander in Chief of the Warsaw Pact? The Minister of Defense? Their absence speaks volumes. The framers of the McMurdo Sound Agreement knew there was no point in putting Soviets on trial, so manifestly guilty was Moscow of turning the world into an armory and ruining the peace that was my clients’ daily dream.’

We’re going to win, George told his spermatids.

‘Following a mandate from the electorate, acting with the consent of the governed, the men in the dock sought to check the expanding Soviet tumor using whatever technologies were available. Mr Aquinas has questioned the wisdom of defending freedom with thermonuclear weapons. Permit me to enumerate the successes of this doctrine.