Кобо Абэ - The Ark Sakura

“Anything you want.”

“All right, then — how about Main Mess Hall? It’s easily four times as big as the one by the tangerine grove. Someone will have to keep a sharp eye on the cooking squad; otherwise it would be easy for irregularities to creep in, and any carelessness regarding sanitation can only lead to harm. Unfortunately, tomorrow’s breakfast is fish again. It’s a pity, when we have two former butchers among us, both skilled meat carvers. Excuse me for a moment.”

The adjutant cut across the hold, walked past the storage drums, and disappeared down the tunnel leading into the work hold. It seemed to take ages — a half-hour or more — before he was gone.

“Hey, Komono,” called the shill, to no response. “Make him quit that, will you? Komono, what’s the matter? Are you out of your mind?”

“I’ll make him stop,” said the girl, releasing the safety on her crossbow, and fitting it with an arrow.

I was busy taking steps of my own. Sliding off the encyclopedia, I twisted back and reached out for the Uzi that the girl had left propped up against the toilet. Slowly the muzzle of the insect dealer’s gun rose, aiming straight at me.

“Cut it out. ” He came around and wrested the Uzi away from me. “I haven’t gone mad, much as it may seem I have. I’m all right, I think. Just wait a little longer. I’m thinking. I know what — I’ll have a smoke.”

He withdrew to a safe place and crouched against the wall; there, with the Uzi across his knees, and his own gun still in his hand, he lit a cigarette. The young scout kept on raising and lowering his arms mechanically, as if pounding rice for rice cakes. He did seem to be letting up a little. Red Jacket went on moaning in time to the movements of the broom; he did not appear to be taking a decisive beating. Hundreds of barbed slugs, or some such creatures, were crawling around on the surface of my paralyzed leg.

“I’m going to go take a leak,” said Sengoku, and headed for the hatch, with a sidelong look at the sheeted bundle. No one had any reason to stop him, and no one did: the pack of wild dogs would do that. The realization that Red Jacket’s partner had gone outside was a bit troubling — but then, it was probably true that he’d been attacked by the dogs. That would take care of him. Puffing on his cigarette, the insect dealer went into a crouch and cocked his gun.

Mentally, in those few seconds I played up and down the keyboard of my brain cells, fast enough to compete in a contest, and made a decision. I whispered to the girl, “Will you do me a favor? Keep it secret.” My voice was so low I could barely hear it myself, but her response was instantaneous.

“Yes.”

“Locker number two upstairs has a switchboard inside. There’s a red lever on the left end, just at eye level. I want you to push it up. Will you do that?”

“What’s the combination?”

“Same as the locker number, two — two right, two left, two right. Just two-two-two.”

“The red lever.”

“Nothing will happen right away.”

For safety’s sake, I had set up the dynamite detonating device in two stages. The panel I had now at my fingertips could do nothing on its own. Contact with the switchboard relay would awaken the slumbering fuse and ready it for reception. My Uzi had been taken from me, but now — if only she managed her task successfully — I would gain a weapon many times more powerful.

The girl went casually up the stairs. Anticipation and nervous tension seemed to make the pain in my leg recede somewhat. When she was halfway up the stairs, the shill shot her an inquiring look, which she answered with a frantic signal.

Naturally, it would be hard for him to understand what she was up to, but at this point the only secret she and I could possibly share would have to concern a way out of the current impasse. He fell in with her. If all went as planned, I had no intention of leaving him in the cold. The insect dealer followed her movements briefly, then showed no further interest. Women are expected to have their own reasons for coming and going, beyond men’s understanding; in fact, men have a duty to pretend not to see. She disappeared safely onto the bridge. I thought of tiny air creatures faced with death. Of schools of whales seeking survival that end up committing mass suicide instead. My vision of eupcaccia tranquillity — had it been only an illusion? Then why was there a merry-go-round in every amusement park worthy of the name? If it could be proved that children on holiday were all schizo, very well; then I would resign myself, and withdraw.

A destructive pressure now bore on my calf. Had I not been wrapped in the protective bandage of the pipe, the flesh might well have ruptured. It felt like the time my gums were inflamed with toothache. I only wished I could lance it, and clean out the abscess within. Had a surgeon chosen that moment to menace me with his scalpel, I doubted my ability to fend him off. A butcher’s cleaver I would resist to the death; a surgeon’s scalpel could be the tool of my salvation. But this weakening was a sign of danger. The failure of the drugs to arrive probably meant the scout was haggling with a doctor reluctant to prescribe morphine; then again, it could have been that the doctor was taking a long time to dress, or even that the car engine wouldn’t start. Would the doctor go along readily with an amputation? He could always justify it on grounds that it would relieve suffering. If he succeeded in stopping the bleeding, and if vascular suturing went well, and if effective measures to prevent suppuration could be taken, then medical ethics wouldn’t seem to argue against it. Even if the doctor should witness my amputated leg vanishing down the hole with a pop like that from a popgun, followed by the dismembered parts of a corpse, one after another, his ethical propriety would remain unimpeachable.

The girl signaled to me from the parapet.

At last the time had come, just as I had known that one day it would; I had always known, too, that it was something I would have to decide myself, without orders from anyone else. I had put off that decision until now for the same reason that I had refrained from betting with the insect dealer as to whether or not the nuclear war would begin in five minutes. But in a nuclear war there could be no advance warning, which would give the enemy an irreversible advantage. The button could be pushed for only two conceivable reasons: either a sudden, unforeseen accident, or the development of technology which conferred automatic first-strike victory on the user, thus ending the balance of power. That moment could come at any time, without forewarning. By its very nature, nuclear war would begin all of a sudden, and as suddenly be over. The variables are far greater than for an earthquake, making prediction far more problematical. Warnings were unthinkable. Any attack that left room for the operation of a warning system would be subject to the restraining forces of both sides. The launching of the ark would inevitably take place one peaceful day, catching everyone unawares. There was not the slightest reason why that day should not be today. All decisions are arbitrary in the end.

Sengoku came back inside, having relieved himself.

I brought out the remote-control panel from my belt, slid off the safety device, and held my finger quietly on the red button. My conviction was low, but my expectations were high. There would be vast alterations in the flow of the underground vein of water. I might even be able to free myself from the toilet. It would be a lonely, quiet launching, with not a single toast in celebration. This, I thought, was the only way to enter upon nuclear war— before it began. Of those who were aware of the actual outbreak of war, the vast majority would be wiped out; only those whose ears were covered, who remained ignorant, would be able to survive.