II

Tokyo

1

After he had delivered his report to Yoshimura, his section chief, Onodera was turning to leave when Yoshimura, as though remembering something, called to him: “Onodera . . .” He turned back to see his boss, the report pushed to one side, tapping his lip with the end of a pencil and staring into space, lost in thought.

“What is it, sir?” asked Onodera.

“Ah, yes ... I have it. Onodera, you going home now?”

“Well, ah, I suppose,” he answered vaguely. “The day after tomorrow I was going to start that vacation I missed.”

Yoshimura got to his feet. “I’m leaving,” he said to his secretary. “When the report from construction is approved, send it around to the undersea section.”

Onodera held the door open for him.

“What do you say to a glass of beer?” Yoshimura asked cheer fully. He pressed the elevator button. “Do you know a bar called the Miruto in the West Ginza?”

“Ah, I’ve heard the name,” Onodera replied uneasily.

“There’s a nice little girl there. Young, small. . . . and she’s got this unconventional way about her that’s amusing.”

I wonder what he has in mind, Onodera thought.

They hailed a cab, and, after a short ride through the stifling late-afternoon heat of a Tokyo summer, they arrived at the Miruto. The chief strode through the entrance under full sail across a luxuriant purple rug. He passed between a gently curving beige-colored wall and a narrow metallic pillar to sit down in a comfortable chair beside a potted palm. Onodera caught a glimpse of a small, blue-lit dance floor beyond a large, highly abstract sculpture of a harp. Quiet music flowed through the club.

“Well! You’re early, aren’t you?”

A slim girl in a white sharkskin minidress appeared beside the table.

‘That’s because it’s so hot,” answered Yoshimura brusquely, wiping his neck and chin with the wet towel brought by the waiter. “How’s Tateshina? When did she go back home?”

“Well, she didn’t go. She heard that there was a lot of trouble down there this year.”

“Earthquakes? That was way south of Matsudai, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but there were tremors as far up as around Komoro. Some friends of hers had their car smashed by falling rocks. So she’s splashing around at the beach at Hayama.”

“Gin and tonic,” Yoshimura said to the waiter.

“Give me a gin rickey,” said Onodera.

“This is Onodera from our company . . . Yuri.”

“I’m glad to meet you,” said Yuri. “What sort of work do you do?”

“I’m involved in deep-sea dives.”

“Oh! You’re on a submarine?”

“Not an ordinary submarine,” said Yoshimura. “He goes down more than thirty thousand feet.”

“Oh, how wonderful!”

“Did Mako come yet?” asked the chief as he took hold of his gin and tonic.

“Just before. She’s probably getting herself fixed up now.”

“Call her. I want to hear about Nakagawa’s golf match the other day.”

“I hear it turned out very bad for him. He didn’t say a word about it. If he won, it would have been terrible—he never would have stopped talking about it.”

Onodera looked about him, ill at ease. His glass was covered with condensed moisture. He gripped it tightly and gulped down the light-green liquid.

“Another of the same, sir?” asked the waiter.

Onodera nodded. He was becoming bored with it all. The girl named Yuri left, and a hostess with a brown wig casually took her place. She, too, was beautiful, slim, expensively dressed. Yet both of them, though they were young girls of no more than twenty-three, had faces which bore the insidious marks of fatigue. There was no glow to their skin, and, graceful though their behavior was, there was something crass about them. They earned perhaps three or four times what Onodera did.

He raised his glass again. If he were a little drunk, maybe he might be able to bear up better, he thought. His eyes became heavy, and he began to feel more relaxed. He looked at Yoshimura.

“By the way, sir,” he said, “weren’t you going to talk to me about something?”

“Uhh?” said the chief, blinking as though taken unawares. “Oh, yes . . . that. Well, I thought we could go into it later, but ...”

“Whatever you say, sir.”

“Well . . . I was wondering, Onodera . . . Are you going to get married sometime or what?”

“Ohhh!” cried the hostess, on the verge of hysteria, it seemed. “What a marvelous topic! This fine-looking gentleman is single?”

“All right, now, why don’t you just leave us alone for a bit?” said Yoshimura as though humoring a child.

“Let me hear afterward, okay?” the hostess said as she got up to go.

“Have you got a fiancee or a mistress?” Yoshimura persisted. “Does your family have any ideas for you?”

“No, nothing in particular,” answered Onodera, shaking his head as he chewed some nuts. He was afraid that his facial expression might well be betraying his distaste for the topic.

“I suppose that you know about it, but, anyway, with the next stock issue there’s going to be a big expansion. Now, this is something just between the two of us, but I think that there might be a very important position opening up for you. The recommendation would be coming from me. So, this being the case, I think it would be a good idea, about this time, for you to stabilize yourself in terms of both public and private reliability, you see?”

“It would be a desk job, wouldn’t it?” asked Onodera, sensing as much from his boss’s manner.

“Of course. You can’t be taking that submarine down forever.

You have a good head on you, and I think it’s meant for more important work.”

Onodera said nothing. He felt himself getting drunker but no less discontented.

“How about a meeting so that you can see?” asked the chief, settling back in his seat, and speaking with deliberate cheerfulness.

“A meeting?”

“Yes, what I mean is a miai, with somebody who might be right for you.”

“Oh, I see.”

“If it’s all right, we can make it tonight.”

Onodera’s hand, filled with cashew nuts, stopped halfway to his mouth.

“Tonight?” he said, meeting the chiefs eyes. “Dressed like this?”

“It doesn’t matter. Make it casual, she said. She’s about twenty-six. Very beautiful, but she’s a bit of a bitch. And so I think you might be just what’s called for.”

Onodera was acutely aware that there was nothing casual or haphazard about all this. He knew that the company expected a great deal from him and so took a keen interest in him.

“Who is this young lady?” Onodera asked.

“She comes from a good provincial family, the oldest daughter,” said his boss, altogether nonchalant and still probing. “The family’s rather wealthy, and even though it’s a good provincial family, as I said, they’re very unconventional. The father graduated from a European university, and this young lady, too, studied abroad for two or three years. So whatever you have to say to her, she’ll have a comeback for you, you see?”

Yoshimura shook with loud laughter. And then he raised his hand to a hostess who was coming toward him.

“Hello, there,” he called to her.

She waved in response, a tiny girl, slim and pretty.

“It’s been a long time,” she said to Yoshimura. And then as she sat down next to Onodera, she introduced herself: “I’m Mako. Hello.” Her face was tanned, and when she sat down, she dropped her head abruptly, a mannerism that made Onodera think of a small bird.

“This is Onodera,” said the chief.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, and, with that, she suddenly took hold of his arm, bared by his short-sleeved shirt, and, putting her pert nose to it, she sniffed vigorously. “The smell of the sea. I’ll bet you have a yacht.”

“It’s a submarine,” said Yoshimura.

“Ooh! It’s you, then,” said Mako, her eyes wide. “I’ve heard about you from Mr. Yoshimura, and I begged him to introduce me to you. How happy I am to meet you!”

“Thank you . . .” said Onodera, forcing a smile.

“A drink?” Yoshimura asked Mako. “How about cognac?”

“Too early. A whiskey sour or something.”

The recorded music stopped. The club was somewhat darker now. The lights on the tables throughout the room glowed softly like scattered streetlamps. The spotlights focused on the dance floor grew brighter, and a small band began to play quietly.

“Order what you want,” said the chief, getting up and leaving them.

Once they were alone, the hostess called Mako suddenly be came like a little girl, tensing up and saying nothing. She seemed to be about twenty, perhaps more, perhaps less. She used almost no make-up, and the roundness about her chin made her look like a schoolgirl.

“Would you like to dance?” she asked with an embarrassed smile.

“No,” said Onodera, smiling back. “I don’t dance.”

“Your submarine—is it big?” the girl asked.

“No. For its class it’s big, but it’s not anything like what you’re thinking of. With four men in it, it’s crowded. But it can dive as deep as thirty thousand feet.”

“Thirty thousand feet...” Her eyes wide, the girl’s expression took on a somewhat fearful look. “I have no idea how deep that is, but . . . down that far at the bottom of the ocean, what’s it like?”

Onodera swallowed in surprise. He gazed at a pale-yellow table light for a moment. Then a vague smile formed on his lips, and he said abruptly: “It’s a place where there’s nothing at all.”

Nothing but a ton of water pressure per square inch . . . and in the eerie glow of drifting flares, down there on the floor of the sea trench, a serpent some hundred feet long, its skin rippling convulsively . . .

“Aren’t there any fish?”

“There are some. Deep as it is, icy as it is, terrible as the pressure is, a place with no light whatsoever—there are living things there. There are fish—there are vertebrates, too.”

“Really? But if they live in such a deep, cold place, pitch dark and everything, what pleasure can they possibly get out of life?”

The tone of the girl’s voice startled Onodera. He looked at her face. The girl’s round eyes were brimming with tears.

“I don’t know.” He spoke gently as though trying to comfort a child. “But, at any rate, they really are alive.” Yoshimura had been right about this girl, he thought—she was unconventional.

2

When Onodera awoke from the doze he had fallen into as soon as he had gotten into Yoshimura’s car, his section chief was driving along a road next to a beach. Their destination, Yoshimura had said, was a villa on Sagami Bay. After they had passed through Zushi, he turned off onto a private road that climbed to a heavily wooded height, atop which stood an oddly built structure lit by floodlights, its curved roof thrust into the air like a huge plastic egg.

They got out of the car, and Yoshimura led the way into the house through French windows opening onto the garden. They passed an angular, powerfully built girl in the corridor. She was dressed in bell-bottoms, and she was holding a cigarette in the sinewy fingertips of the same hand that gripped her drink.

“Good to see you,” she said. Her voice was somewhat slurred with alcohol. “They’re all expecting you.”

“Rei?” asked Yoshimura casually.

“She’s here. She’s a bit maudlin tonight.”

They opened a white plastic door at the end of the corridor to enter what was apparently the main room. Its oval floor was spread with carpeting of a subdued, moss-like green, around which curved beige-colored walls. An ivory grand piano stood against the wall. Gathered around a glass palette-shaped table, four or five men and women were sitting in chairs of odd but evidently comfortable design. In another corner of the room there was a bar, behind which stood a girl whose pale face was half covered by her long hair. Holding a cocktail shaker in both hands, she turned to Yoshimura and Onodera as they entered.

“Hello,” she said, her voice listless.

“Well, now,” said Yoshimura, in full control of events, “let me do some introducing. This is Mr. Onodera of our undersea section.”

“Please join us—here,” said a pleasant, light-skinned young man, offering Onodera a chair. He wore an aloha shirt of subdued coloring. “What are you drinking?”

Onodera stood there awkwardly. These people, he was thinking, were sophisticated and refined men and women. He sensed that he would not readily fit in. The names he heard, one by one, as he was introduced were names he had somehow heard before, names that were always striking his eye whenever he glanced through a magazine or book. He began more and more to feel that he had without a doubt gotten himself into an awkward position.

Finally, Yoshimura brought him over to the girl standing by the bar. When he learned that she, Reiko Abe, was the owner of the villa and thus the one whom he was to meet in this informal miai, Onodera did not know quite where to look.

“Want to drink this?” asked Reiko, holding out the cocktail shaker and looking at Onodera with a weary, bored expression. “It’s a martini. Here.” She thrust it under his nose, the handle of a strainer sticking out of it.

Muttering his thanks, Onodera took the heavy cocktail shaker from the girl.

Reiko put her head back slightly and laughed a short, dry laugh. “Here you are a guest for the first time . . . Please forgive me,” she said, her tongue somewhat twisted. “But, you see, we don’t have a single cocktail glass left. I’ve smashed every one.”

“It’s quite all right,” said Onodera, forcing a smile. “Thank you very much.” So saying, he put the cocktail shaker to his lips, strainer and all, and drank the martini. Then, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, he handed it back.

“A fine drink.” He turned abruptly and walked back to the table.

“Say, Mr. Onodera . . .” The young man in the aloha shirt, who had offered him a chair before, did so again, cordially bringing him into the conversation. “I’ve heard about you again and again from Mr. Yoshimura. Now, tell me, there’d be no problem about you being able to manage a submarine designed for sight seeing, would there?”

“Well, it depends,” said Onodera.

“What we have in mind is something truly unique—an under sea amusement park,” said another man, who was a well-known economist. “It’s really nothing of consequence, of course, but what we want to incorporate in it are entirely new kinds of entertainment. From available tourism capital, funds should be forthcoming, you see.”

“We’ll even build an underwater concert hall,” said the young man in the aloha shirt, casually spreading a sketch out on the table. He pointed to a young avant-garde composer by the piano. “He’s now experimenting with an underwater sym phony. It’s quite interesting.”

For some time, the sketch in their midst, they carried on an animated discussion of this novel project, and Onodera, despite himself, began to have a good time, helped, of course, by the liquor. At the same time, however, a suspicion began to take form in his mind. He noticed Yoshimura talking earnestly to Reiko, who might or might not have been listening to him as she held her cocktail glass in a limp hand and, from time to time, brushed back a troublesome lock of hair that kept falling over her face. Sometimes she giggled drunkenly and once she threw back her head and gave a loud, dry laugh. Was this cordial discussion about the amusement park part of Yoshimura’s scheme? Onodera wondered. It would have been the shrewd sort of move to be expected from him.

Reiko left Yoshimura and came over to the table, her walk unsteady. She was tall, and though she was slender enough, there was ample evidence that she had the splendid figure of a mature woman.

“I’m going for a swim,” she cried. She stripped off her dress briskly, and the sun-bronzed body so suddenly bared, save for a faded bikini, proved indeed to be surprisingly strong and well formed as she stood with her chest thrust out and her legs apart.

“Not again?” said the youth in the aloha shirt.

“Count me out,” said the economist, stuffing his pipe.

“How about you?” asked Reiko, turning to Onodera. “A swim, Mr. Onoda?”

“I’ll go.” Onodera took off his shirt. “And by the way, my name is Onodera.”

Reiko laughed, wholly unabashed, and led the way out of the room. Onodera followed her, his eyes on her splendid back, which shone as though rubbed with oil. Once out on the terrace, he got rid of his pants. Reiko led the way to a corner of the terrace, where there was a small elevator half hidden by pine branches. His body and Reiko’s touched slightly during the ride down, though he drew back as much as he could. They left the glare from the house behind them, and all at once the night was filled with the sound of waves and of pine branches creaking in the wind. Onodera was acutely aware of Reiko breathing close beside him in the darkness, a sensation that stirred an odd embarrassment in him. There were no stars. The breeze was warm.

“In this elevator,” said Reiko in a flat voice, breaking the silence at last as they were approaching the foot of the cliff, where a mercury lamp was burning, “how many men, do you think, have kissed me?”

“Well . . . ah . . .” Onodera hesitated.

“Just one.”

A plank walkway led from the edge of the narrow concrete elevator platform to a large yellow rectangular cork float, wet from the waves gently rocking it.

Without a backward glance, Reiko headed straight for the float and plunged into the sea. Onodera went in feet first. The water was warm, and there were almost no waves. After taking two or three tentative strokes to attune his muscles, he began to swim vigorously, kicking up the dark surface of the sea as he looked for Reiko’s head. She was swimming toward the open sea with an easy breast stroke. Concerned for her safety, Onodera pulled slightly ahead of her.

In the darkness there seemed to be a faint smile on Reiko’s face.

“Don’t you think it’d be wise to go back?” he said.

“Want to race?” she asked.

“We should stop.”

“I’ve got a strong heart.”

They swam on in silence. Reiko, instead of turning back to ward the float, veered off in the direction of a small sandy beach some fifty yards to one side of the deck. When she reached it, she lay on her stomach with the lower half of her body still in the water. Onodera, still feeling somewhat awkward, stopped some little way from her and sat in the shallow water.

“Do you intend to marry me?” said Reiko abruptly, catching him by surprise. “You’re not much interested?” she persisted when he did not answer.

“I don’t know yet,” he said, his voice subdued.

“Mr. Yoshimura wants to see me married,” she muttered, burying her hand in the sand. “My father begged him with tears in his eyes . . . please, please get his daughter married. And so now he’s come here with you.”

“Look, tonight is the first I’ve heard of this.”

“He’s a shrewd one, you know. He knows just what kind of man I go for. . . . And, then, I wonder what’s all involved.”

“How do you mean?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but... when he was trying so hard to convince me, I started to wonder.”

Onodera said nothing for a moment as he collected his thoughts. “You’re probably right,” he said finally.

Reiko turned to him. “If there was something else involved, you’d say no?”

“No, not necessarily . . .”he answered awkwardly.

“But how do you feel about me? Do you like me or not?”

“I can’t say. Unless we’re together for a longer time ...”

“I don’t need a longer time. I like you.” Reiko raised herself up on her elbows and spoke clearly. “But that doesn’t mean that I want to marry you. You’re set on marriage?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Why? What advantage is there to it?”

“Children.”

Onodera sensed that Reiko was gazing fixedly at him in the darkness. The waves lapped gently over their bodies, dissolving the sand beneath them, which tickled their stomachs and legs as it flowed back into the sea. She suddenly heaved a long sigh. Then, with a quick movement, she rolled over on her back, bringing herself near to Onodera. He heard a faint click, followed abruptly by the sound of music.

“What’s that?” he asked, startled.

“A radio—it’s in my bracelet. It’s waterproof.”

Her chest was heaving violently. She spoke in a hoarse voice: “What are you going to do? Hold me.”

“Here?”

“Yes, here. Because we just met it’s too soon? You don’t have anything against sex, do you?”

Her passion was so intense that it choked her voice. In the darkness her broad breasts heaved. She stretched her arms up out of the water and wound them around his neck.

At the same moment a sudden flash, like a curtain of white brilliance, raced across the dark sky, silhouetting the mountains of the Izu Peninsula. But then the sound of music was directly in Onodera’s ear, and Reiko’s strong arms around his neck were pulling him down. Her lips were close to his in the darkness, and her breath smelled slightly of alcohol. She had loosened the top of her bikini, and her breasts, wonderfully soft, were crushed beneath his chest, the taut nipples caressing his skin. There was a taste of salt on Reiko’s lips. Her arms were incredibly strong. He loosened the fasteners on either side of the bottom of her bikini, and as he pulled it free, Reiko spoke in a hoarse whisper: “Don’t take your mouth away from mine . . . I always cry out.”

After it was over, Reiko, as though her body had gone rigid, kept on clinging to his neck.

Suddenly something alerted him.

“. . . the body . . .”

The voice was coming from Reiko’s radio: “. . . was identified as that of Rokuro Goh, thirty-one, employed by Nagatsuka Construction Company and missing for a week. Mr. Goh is reported to have been distraught recently over his responsibilities in connection with the new Super Express line. His death seems to have been suicide.”

“Look out!” Onodera tried to free himself from Reiko’s grip.

“No!” said Reiko, clinging to him as tightly as before, her breath harsh in his ear. “Not yet . . .”

“Let me go,” said Onodera.

It was at that moment that the shock hit them, rolling up from the depths of the earth, seeming to permeate their flesh. A sudden blast of wind struck their faces. Salt spray stung them. The beach upon which they lay trembled beneath them. Rocks came clattering down through the thick growth of grass covering the cliffside to strike close by them.

Onodera instinctively turned to look across the bay. Above the far-distant mountains of the Izu, black clouds had gathered, and slender streaks of lightning raced violently across the stretch of sky between cloud and peak.

“We’ve got to get up!”

Onodera shook himself free of Reiko. Then, with a swift movement, he reached down and pulled her to her feet.

“Put on your swim suit. Hurry up.”

At first orange flames flared up to illuminate the mountain peaks across the bay. Then a red column of fire thrust itself high into the sky. It was then that the muggy atmosphere of the night itself seemed to tremble as a booming roar came rumbling out of the depths of the earth, followed by what seemed like distant thunderclaps rolling across the water together with a continuous roar as though massed cannon were firing volley upon volley.

“What is it?” said Reiko hoarsely. “What happened?”

“An eruption,” he answered. It’s probably Amagi, he thought. How could it have happened so suddenly?

“Quick!” he shouted at Reiko, trying to hurry her along. The trembling earth beneath them creaked and groaned incessantly, and stones, sand, rock fragments kept clattering down from the cliff above.

Realizing they had to get out from beneath, Onodera took Reiko’s hand and rushed out into the water, but then a chilling thought took hold of him.

“Is there a path up the cliff to the villa?” he asked, turning to Reiko, his voice intense.

“On the other side of that rock there. But why?” said Reiko, her voice shaking. “It would be dangerous with all these rocks and stones. Let’s go back along the shore.”

Instead of answering her, he pointed down. A few moments before, the waves had been sweeping over their feet, but now the sand lay exposed several meters beyond them, and the dark sea was even then pulling back still farther, the tops of sub merged rocks jutting up into view. Reiko’s body stiffened. Onodera felt the girl gasp with terror. Somewhere out in the darkness, a tidal wave was mounting.

Across the water, the pillar of flame had tinged scarlet the volcanic smoke, and from the topmost peak a stream of lava had begun to flow like a thread of brilliance.

3

Sometime after midnight Onodera was at the wheel of a small hovercraft skimming over the surface of Sagami Bay. It be longed to the Abe family, and on board were all the guests who wished to get back to Tokyo at once.

Situated 150 feet above sea level, Reiko’s villa had suffered little, but since the electricity had been knocked out and the road below blocked by a landslide, everyone had been in a state of high excitement.

On Sagami Bay, ashes were fluttering softly down from the sky, and the falling rain, lit by the probing beams of the hover craft, seemed to merge with the surface of the sea. As the vessel skimmed over the water at a speed of forty miles an hour, Onodera’s eyes strayed now and then from the bright radar-scope to the distant view of Mount Amagi, where the night sky glowed red. A strange, indefinable foreboding rose up within Onodera like a dark, sinister tide. Somehow this foreboding seemed linked to what he had seen on the floor of the Japan Trench—down there, 24,000 feet below the surface of the sea, where the pressure squeezed the hull of his submarine at the rate of one ton per square inch—linked to what he had seen there, that massive, indescribable writhing.

“Onodera...” As they were rounding Aburatsubo, somebody called to him from the rear cabin. “It’s a call for you from Tokyo. Person to person.”

Though he heard, Onodera did not respond at once, still in the grip of the cold dread that was gnawing at him.

“Hello, hello . . .”

He knew he had heard that arrogant voice before.

“This is Onodera,” he said.

“This is Tadokoro. I’ve been looking for you. What does Amagi look like?”

“The eruption is still going on,” answered Onodera, glancing out the rain-streaked window. “Mihara, too. A lot of smoke is coming from it.”

“I heard from your general manager that you have the records of the undersea survey you made in Sagami Bay two weeks ago.”

“Yes. I was going over them at home before turning them over to the survey section.”

“Is there anything in the records about any depth changes in the deepest section of the bay?”

Onodera caught his breath sharply.

“There is,” he answered. “But since the previous surveys were not that accurate, all I could do was compare my previous impressions with what I saw and make an estimate. There seemed to be a lot of changes from a year and a half before. But that’s based upon things as I remember them.”

“Onodera, how soon can you get to Tokyo?” Tadokoro’s tone was imperious as usual. “I know you must be tired, but I want those records of yours just as soon as possible. Fm at my laboratory, in Hongo. Where do you live?”

“In Aoyama, sir.” He looked at his watch. It was 1:45 A.M. “At the earliest, I can probably be there by dawn. Where in Hongo?”

“Two Chome. When you get to the neighborhood, phone me.”

“This data, sir, will bear on the earthquake?”

“The earthquake?” Tadokoro’s voice became impatient. “There’s something far more important at issue than the earth quake.” There was a pause. “Or so it seems, at any rate. . . .”

Onodera seemed to lose Tadokoro’s voice. “Hello, hello . . . ” he said, fearing that they had been cut off.

“I’m still here. Onodera, I don’t know exactly what we ought to do.” Tadokoro’s voice had abruptly changed, startlingly so. It had become a voice heavy with weary disappointment. “Maybe it’s just a bad dream. But it’s gotten hold of me, and I can’t do anything about it. Fm obsessed. But, at any rate, please do what you can.”

“I understand, sir,” answered Onodera.

The emergency topic taken up at the regular meeting of the Cabinet on July 27 was the Izu Earthquake. The director general of the Prime Minister’s Office gave a brief report on the damage done, which was expected to amount to hundreds of billions.

“The eruptions, the earthquake—in neither case was there any sort of forecast or warning, was there?” the Prime Minister quietly observed. He had just returned from abroad and looked as though he was still suffering from the rigors of travel. “For some time now we’ve been putting a good amount from the budget into earthquake forecasting, and so one would expect that some research is under way.”

“Well,” said the director of the Technological Agency, the youngest member of the Cabinet, “according to what the scientists tell me, leaving aside the matter of volcanoes, it will take five or even ten more years before we reach the stage where we can predict earthquakes. It seems that now we can’t even say for sure why an earthquake occurs.”

“I suppose the construction of the new Super Express line is going to be held up because of all this,” said the Minister of Trade and Industry.

“The president of National Railways was raising a fuss even before,” said the bent old man who was Minister of Transportation. “The matter of earthquakes be as it may, the area selected for the right-of-way has turned out, time after time, to be land that provides but treacherous footing. I understand the firms involved are clamoring about having to raise their estimates. Both the National Railways and the private lines are going to be very much in the red this year.”

“Prescinding from the floods during the rainy season, because of these earthquakes, this is the third time this year that we’ve applied the Disaster Relief Act,” said the Minister of Finance with a sour expression. “At this rate, we’re going to have to have a supplementary budget.”

“It looks as though from now on we’re going to have to set aside a larger portion each year for damages from earthquakes and other natural catastrophes,” said the Minister of Construction as he wiped off his glasses.

A silence came over the room. The words of the Minister of Construction stirred a vague sense of foreboding in the heart of each member of the Cabinet. Small as Japan was, she was laden with plan upon plan—construction plans, regional plans, municipal plans, plans for the reorganization of industrial areas. This year, however . . . Within the space of the first four months of the calendar year, the vague, somber shadow of something heretofore unknown had begun to fall across all of these plans. On the face of it, it seemed merely a matter of the perennial conflict with nature having become somewhat intensified, but once the data had been viewed in perspective, one sensed that something like a still faint mosaic was beginning to emerge, something sinister, its outline still no more than a pale shadow.

“The problem is the panic that could arise,” the Prime Minister began and then stopped. He dropped his eyes to a teacup on the table. Sunlight from the window fell upon the now cold liquid within. Tiny circles of waves were forming, one after another, on its bright surface. “I’ll be damned! How long are these earthquakes going to go on? Let’s face it, gentlemen— we’ve had more earthquakes lately than ever before. Now are they going to keep on increasing? or what? If we knew, we could provide for them in the budget.”

“Suppose we hear what the scientists have to say,” said the Minister of Health and Welfare. “I, for one, would be interested in that.”

“A good idea,” said the Prime Minister, looking toward the director general of the Cabinet. “Let’s find out how much these earthquake specialists know. But, as always, let’s be circumspect about it. It wouldn’t do at all for reporters to raise a howl. Let’s get a few of them together and hear them out.”

At that moment the room began to rock back and forth. Dust fell from the ceiling, flecks dancing in the sunlight. There was a brief pause, and then a much stronger tremor took hold. The floor shook violently. The earth itself began to groan, and the walls and uprights creaked and swayed. Tea spilled from the cups on the table.

“This is really a big one,” someone murmured.

Then, just when the Cabinet members had risen from their chairs, their expressions tense, the vibrations stopped abruptly. The tea left in the cups was still trembling. The water in the flower vase still splashed back and forth with a noisy gurgle. Two or three acoustic tiles fell with a clatter from the ceiling.

“That was something!” said the Minister of Health and Welfare with a sigh.

There were wry smiles of relief as everyone began to talk a bit too loudly. Unnoticed in the uproar was a distant boom. A few moments afterward there was a knock at the door of the meeting room, and a secretary entered. He spoke into the ear of the director general, who nodded and turned to the others.

“Gentlemen, Mount Asama has just erupted.”

When the earthquake struck, Onodera felt it through the ragged couch on which he lay on the second floor of Professor Tadokoro’s private laboratory in Hongo. Such was his state of mind that he stared up at the swaying, soot-covered fluorescent light above his head as though he were dreaming. He vaguely heard the crack of a windowpane, the snap of something giving way inside the sofa. Finally he came to enough to wonder where he was. By the time he got up from the couch, the quake had stopped. He gave a wide yawn, and as he did so, he heard the clatter of footsteps on the stairs.

“Is there a fire?” he asked a young man running down the corridor.

“No. It looks like Asama’s erupted.”

Professor Tadokoro appeared in the corridor, wearing a wrinkled laboratory coat. When he came into the room, Onodera noticed that his eyes were bloodshot and he seemed completely worn out.

“Asama, uh?” said Tadokoro, his voice hoarse. “It’s not worth bothering about.”

“But, Professor,” Onodera protested, “the whole world seems to be blowing up.”

“Let it blow up,” said Tadokoro, stifling a yawn.

“Well, sir,” said Onodera, glancing at his watch, “I’m afraid I’ll have to be going now. I took too long a nap.”

“Onodera,” said Tadokoro, hit by an onset of yawning, “could we talk just a bit downstairs?”

“Talk, Professor?” said Onodera, stopping in the doorway. “What do you want to talk about, sir?”

“Let’s go downstairs,” said Tadokoro. He shouted to his young assistants, who were still talking excitedly: “Hey, down there! Instead of doing all that chattering, get a report on the Asama eruption.”

“Let me make a phone call, and I’ll be right down,” said Onodera.

When he had finished his call, Onodera went down to the basement.

The heart of Professor Tadokoro’s private laboratory was a snug air-conditioned room with walls of double thickness. It housed a miniature LSI computer, and spread around it in disordered fashion were a desk, an open file, a locker, a drawing board, an old-fashioned dictaphone, and a variety of other instruments. The cool air of the silent room felt pleasant against Onodera’s skin.

Professor Tadokoro was sitting in a chair in the corner, his chin propped up by his elbow, his mouth moving as though he was mumbling something. When Onodera walked over to him, he raised his bloodshot eyes and looked at him searchingly, as though he were seeing a stranger.

“Oh! It’s you,” said Tadokoro. “Now, let’s see . . . Oh, yes. There was a call from Yukinaga just now.”

“Professor Yukinaga?”

“His house is close by here. How about having lunch with us? I’ll have something delivered.” As he spoke, Tadokoro picked up the telephone.

“What was it you wanted to talk about, Professor?”

“Oh . . . yes.” So saying, Tadokoro put down the telephone receiver and, once more lost in thought, said nothing for a few moments. “That submarine at your place—if you charter it for a long period, how much does it cost?”

“Well, it depends, I imagine,” said Onodera, embarrassed. “Figuring out something like that would be beyond me, Professor.”

“Something else, then,” said Tadokoro, abruptly thrusting out a thick finger. “If I asked for it now, would I be able to get it right away?”

“I’m afraid that would be out of the question, Professor,” said Onodera. “The Wadatsumi is being sent to Kyushu next, to do a survey for the Kanbu Tunnel project. After that there’s an assignment from Indonesia waiting for it. And there’s still more lined up after that. It would take several months before your turn came.”

“This is for something of the utmost importance,” said Tadokoro, thumping the table with the flat of his hand. “Isn’t there some way that I can be given priority?”

“Well, sir, I can’t promise anything, but . . . how long would you have to have it?”

“Half a year. Maybe longer,” said Tadokoro, his stubborn expression showing he realized the extravagance of what he asked. “You know what I have in mind. The floor of the Japan Trench—I want to look over every inch of it.”

“A half-year?” Onodera shook his head. “It’s impossible, Professor.”

“What kind of situation is this? In all Japan there’s only one submarine in the thirty-thousand-feet class!” said Tadokoro, growing irritated at last. “Are we a sea-going nation or what? Incredible!”

“Well, once the Wadatsumi 2 is ready, then things will open up a good deal, but that won’t be until next year. Have you thought about chartering a foreign submarine? There’s—”

“I know all about foreign submarines,” said Tadokoro, inter rupting. He thrust a paper under Onodera’s nose. It was a list of all the deep-sea submarines in the world. “I want at all costs to use a Japanese submarine. This survey is intimately bound up with the national interest.”

Behind him, Onodera heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Professor Yukinaga entered, tie neatly knotted, jacket on despite the heat, but there was not a drop of sweat on his decorous features.

“Well . . .” said Yukinaga, smiling at Onodera.

“So you’re here. Will you have lunch with us?” asked Tadokoro. “Should we go out or have something brought in?”

“Either is all right,” said Yukinaga.

“Wait a minute,” said Tadokoro, jabbing the interphone but ton and bending his head. “No answer. They’ve all gone out upstairs. I’ll go get something cold to drink.” He went out the door and started up the stairs.

“The professor’s a fine person, isn’t he?” said Onodera with a smile as Tadokoro’s footsteps faded.

“That fellow? He’s a boor,” said Yukinaga, not at all jocularly but rather with a sigh. “He’s a rash, headstrong genius. So here in this country he’s persona non grata with the scholars. It’s abroad that he’s gotten his reputation.”

“It’s certainly an excellent laboratory,” said Onodera.

“It cost about four or five hundred million yen to build,” said Yukinaga, looking around. “And then the operating expenses are incredible. Once he launches himself into a project, the sky’s the limit.”

“Well, where does he get the money?” asked Onodera.

“The Church of the Seven Seas,” answered Yukinaga cryptically. “It’s a new religion. Its headquarters is in Greece. Making the sea your god is an ingenious approach to religion. They’ve recruited men whose business is linked to the sea—everything from fisheries to shipping—and they’ve formed sister churches all over the world. It’s quite rich.”

All this came as quite a surprise to Onodera.

“Professor Tadokoro is a man unhampered by scruples, you see. If he has research to do, then he’ll snatch money from the hand of the devil himself, confident that nothing will stop him from doing things his way.”

Tadokoro appeared at the head of the stairs. From his right hand swung a kettle covered with beads of moisture, and in his left he was holding a tray with teacups on it.

“Professor Tadokoro,” said Yukinaga, “I have some news. A classmate of mine, a very good friend, is a secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office. He just called me.”

“The Prime Minister’s Office?” said Tadokoro, frowning. “Some bureaucrat?”

“Yes. He told me that the Cabinet members intend to have a confidential briefing on earthquakes from a number of scientists. He wanted me to suggest names.”

“Bureaucrats!” said Tadokoro as though vomiting out the word. “The same old story. They say they want to consult a wide range of people, but the truth of the matter is that all they’re interested in doing is setting up a serene consensus utterly devoid of anything resembling insight. Since their abiding desire is to avoid risk, they shrink from any venture that might entail it, and so they have no way of grasping the shape of things to come.”

“I realize all that, Professor,” said Yukinaga, nodding his head. “Would you be kind enough to participate?”

“Me?” demanded Tadokoro, his eyes straining at their sockets. “Me participate? You’re out of your mind. Who’ll be there? —as though I had to ask. Takamine from the Disaster Prevention Center, Nozue from the Weather Service, Kimijima from the Ministry of Education, Yamashiro from Tokyo University, Oizumi from Keio—a crowd of that sort, right?”

“That’s right, Professor,” said Yukinaga, intimidated.

“And suppose I join them in the bureaucrats’ lair—what then? First of all, we’ll be talking to people who don’t know the first thing about science. And my colleagues, since they depend upon the bureaucrats for patronage, will be bending over back ward so as not to disturb anybody. And then, finally, who are these scientists anyway? They’re all splendid fellows. Each is tops in his field, but there’s not one of them who knows much of significance outside of it. This damned compartmentalization! Nobody knows how to draw the big picture, and they gang up on anybody who dares to try.”

“All the more reason, then, Professor, for you to do me the favor of joining in,” said Yukinaga, cutting in quickly. “The research you’re doing now—”

“The research I’m doing?” shouted Tadokoro, getting up out of his chair. “The research I’m doing now, you say? Suppose I were to talk about that—what would happen? They’d treat me as though I were insane—the mad scientist full of wild fantasies. Because as yet, you see, I haven’t gotten my hands on any unmistakable proof. And if you’re not careful about promoting me, it won’t bode well for your future. Even your friends will attack you, and your reputation will be ruined. No, I’ll not take part. Never!”

“What’s this about my future and so forth?” Yukinaga asked, his voice very patient. “Professor, there’s too much at stake for talk of that sort. It’s hardly worthy of you. This is something that is vital for Japan, something that—”

“Japan? Japan, is it?” said Tadokoro, his face suddenly becoming contorted as though he was about to cry. “As for the likes of Japan, it can go whatever way it wants, as far as I’m concerned. Yukinaga, I have the world, this marvelous world full of inexhaustible mystery and richness. Japan—this threadlike line of islands—what’s that to me?”

“But, Professor, you are a Japanese,” said Yukinaga quietly. “You love the world, yes, but you love Japan, too. If not, why have you kept back some of your data from the headquarters of the Church of the Seven Seas?”

“What?” said Tadokoro, his voice suddenly sharp. “How do you know that I’ve concealed data from my sponsors?”

“It was just a guess. Forgive me, Professor. It was unkind of me to trap you.” Yukinaga lowered his eyes and then raised them again. “And yet I have had occasion to wonder a good deal. I had paid almost no attention to the reports that you’ve been sending to the headquarters of the church. But, just recently it was, something in them happened to catch my eye here. It was very strange. The report dealt with our recent survey, and in it you went on at great length, tediously so, about various sea creatures and coral—something that’s not very much in your line. But any nuance relative to what we saw— which, you intimated to me, might well be something that threatens us—was smoothly concealed.” Yukinaga pressed the attack: “There’s something pertaining to Japan that you didn’t want foreigners to know. Isn’t that correct? Something that you wanted to conceal from the headquarters of the Church of the Seven Seas . . .”

“All right, Yukinaga,” said Tadokoro, his tone suddenly changing. “This conference or seminar or whatever it is of yours —I’ll give it a try. That is, if they accept your recommendation.”

“Splendid,” said Yukinaga. His shoulders sagged as he sighed in relief. “As for lunch, I’d like a bowl of rice. And now let’s have that cold drink.”

4

The conference was held one evening ten days later in an office building in central Tokyo, a place chosen to throw an inquisitive press off the trail. After it was over and all the participants had left, an official in the Prime Minister’s Office drove out of the garage beneath the building. When he reached the neighbor hood of the Palace Outer Garden, he pulled over to the curb and placed a long-distance call on his car telephone. An old man’s voice answered.

“It’s finished, sir,” said the official. “Nothing of significance came out. I’ll summarize the main points.” Then after he had read from his notes, he concluded by saying: “There was just one scientist there who came out with something unexpected. A man named Tadokoro. He said that it could happen that Japan would sink. The others thought he was out of his mind. . . . Yes, sir. Yusuke Tadokoro. . . . That’s right, sir. You keep well abreast of things. . . . What, sir?” The official frowned slightly. “Yes, sir. If now is suitable, I’ll come immediately.”

After he hung up the receiver, he sighed heavily and looked at the dashboard clock. It was 10:35. “Something’s on his mind,” he muttered. “I wonder what.”

Ten more days passed, and then a call from Yukinaga came to Tadokoro’s laboratory.

“Who do you want me to meet?” demanded Tadokoro impatiently. He had been working through the night for some time, and his face was covered with a thick growth of stubble. “You know how busy I am. A hotel, eh? That means a necktie, I suppose.”

“It won’t take much of your time, Professor, No more than thirty minutes. I’ve taken the liberty of sending a car to pick you up,” said Yukinaga, his tone frantically insistent. “This gentle man is a man who knew your father well.”

“Well, who is he, then?”

The line went dead. And at the same instant the interphone buzzed: “Professor Tadokoro, the car sent by Professor Yukinaga is waiting at the front door.”

Wearing a wrinkled, sweaty shirt and carrying his crumpled jacket, Tadokoro strode into the Palace Hotel to be met at once by a young woman in an exquisitely arranged kimono.

“You are Professor Tadokoro?” she asked. “Please, this way . . .”

They made their way through groups of foreigners, business men, elegantly dressed young women, and other guests to a lounge a level higher than the lobby, where a tall, husky young man dressed in a dark suit came forward to meet them. He bowed politely to Tadokoro.

“We have been waiting for you, Professor. Please . . .”

Looking in the direction indicated by the young man’s out stretched hand, Tadokoro saw an old man crouched in a wheel chair. He was no more than skin and bones. Despite the heat, he clutched a blanket which lay over his knees.

“Where’s Yukinaga?” asked Tadokoro, turning back to the tall young man. But he was no longer behind him.

“You’re Professor Tadokoro.”

The old man’s voice was surprisingly strong. Beneath thick gray eyebrows, his sunken eyes were pale but bright, and they were focused upon Tadokoro’s face with piercing force. The small, pinched face, flecked with the splotches of age, seemed somehow to be laughing.

“Well, well! There’s certainly a resemblance. I knew your father. Hidenoshin Tadokoro. A stubborn young fellow, he was.”

“And your name, sir?” asked Tadokoro, looking full at the old man, his irritability fading.

“Mmmm. Sit down there,” said the old man, clearing his throat of phlegm. “What do names matter anyway? I tell you my name’s Watari, and that means nothing to you, does it? I am, however, more than a hundred years old. Come October, I’ll be a hundred and one. Medical science has made such progress that we old people aren’t allowed to go to our rest any more. And we become more and more arrogant with each passing year. We’ve seen everything, and with the end drawing near, there’s nothing left for us to be afraid of. Now today, having you come here like this—this, too, should be laid to an old man’s arrogance. There is something that I want to ask you. Would you be kind enough to give me an answer?”

“What’s the question, sir?” Tadokoro asked, wiping the sweat from his face. He had sat down in a chair beside the old man.

“There is just one thing that has caused me some concern,” the old man said, his piercing eyes looking directly into Tadokoro’s. “Perhaps you might think my question is childish. It has to do with swallows.”

“Swallows?”

“Yes. Every year swallows come and build a nest in the eaves of my home. For more than twenty years now. Last year they came in May, as usual, built their nest, and then, for some reason or other, they left in July. They abandoned their eggs. And this year they didn’t come at all. All around where I live, it was the same. What is the reason, I wonder?”

“Swallows, yes,” said Tadokoro, nodding. “Yes, of course. In the past two or three years the number of migrant birds has fallen off at an incredible rate. Ornithologists say that perhaps it’s because of a change in earth magnetism or in climate, but I feel that it’s due to something far graver. And it’s not just birds. There’s been a great change, too, in the size of the runs offish.”

“Hmmm. My heavens,” said the old man, “what does it all mean? Are these harbingers of something?”

“I can’t answer in definite terms,” said Tadokoro, shaking his head. “But I’m making every effort to find out what that some thing may be.”

“I see,” said the old man, coughing. “I have but one more question for you. For a scientist, what is the most precious thing?”

“Intuition,” answered Tadokoro without hesitation.

“Mmm?” The old man cupped his hand to his ear. “What is it?”

“I said intuition, sir,” said Tadokoro. “You may think it’s strange, but for a scientist—especially for a natural scientist— far and away the most precious gift he can possess is that of keen intuition. Without it, he’ll never make a notable break through.”

“I see. Very well,” said the old man, nodding emphatically. “Well, then, I must say goodbye. . . .”

The tall young man suddenly reappeared. A polite bow to Tadokoro, and he began to push the wheelchair away with quiet efficiency. In a moment both were gone.

When Tadokoro recovered from his surprise and took another look around him, there was still no sign of Yukinaga. A bellboy, however, came by calling for Dr. Tadokoro. The message was from Yukinaga: “Please forgive me. I’ll explain at some other time.”

A middle-aged man with a sunburned face came to Tadokoro’s laboratory one night a week later.

“I understand, Professor, that you’re in the market for a sub marine,” he said without standing on ceremony. “How would the French submarine the Kermadic suit you?”

“How would it suit me? What do you mean by that?” said Tadokoro, frowning. “I’d like to use a Japanese submarine. However . . .”

“I’m not talking about chartering it. I’m talking about buying it and letting you use it. Furthermore, we’ll supply the money for your research. Whatever amount is necessary—it doesn’t matter. And you may select whomever you wish for colleagues. We ask only that you entrust to us the means for preserving the secrecy of your operation.”

“Who are you? What connection do you have with Yukinaga?”

“We’ve requested Professor Yukinaga’s cooperation, too, of course. As for me . . .” The man took a card from his wallet and presented it.

“The Cabinet . . . Department of Research . . .” Tadokoro mumbled, not at all happy.

At that moment there came the loud thumps of hurrying footsteps from the stairway outside the computer room, and a young technician burst into view.

“What is it?” asked the startled Tadokoro. “Can’t you be quiet?”

“Professor!” His face showing his distress, the young man held out a note. “It happened again. In the Kansai. . . .”

For the first time in some years, Onodera was in Kyoto for the Daimonji Festival, watching from the veranda of an inn in Ponto-cho overlooking the Kamo River. The veranda was packed with people. And the bridges as well as the banks of the river were lined with a massive outpouring of spectators. So thick was the crowd that the auto traffic going from the west bank to Minamiya and the Keihan Railroad Station along brightly lit Yonjo Avenue was blocked entirely.

Etched in fire on the side of Mount Higashi, Dai, the Chinese character for “greatness,” had been blazing brightly for some twenty minutes, together with the other traditional fires of the Bon Festival, all alike requiems offered for the souls of the departed.

Onodera listened with half an ear to his friends’ conversation as he leaned against the railing watching the now subdued burning of the Daimonji fire. He had extended his vacation from two to three weeks and had not only attended Goh’s funeral service but had gone to the trouble of traveling to Shikoku for the formal ceremony at his home place. The Dai monji fire flickered softly, Goh’s requiem flame. In this country nothing was destroyed, nothing died, Onodera mused. Was it really so? Kyoto, for example. In it lived a thousand years of history. Today in this ceremony the past was alive, alive within the present. But what of the future? What of the next thousand years?

“Would you like a bit more?” A no-longer-young geisha was standing beside him. “Aren’t you enjoying things? You seem a bit out of sorts. Let me fill your sake cup.”

After the geisha had gone her way, someone began to play a samisen in the neighboring room. The breeze died abruptly, and the muggy heat became more oppressive.

“Is Mr. Onodera here?” From the main room of the inn, a waitress put her head through the doorway. “You have a phone call from Tokyo, sir.”

Surprised, Onodera got up from where he had been sitting by the rail. He left the veranda and walked to the desk, where he picked up the receiver.

“Onodera? This is Yukinaga,” said the voice on the other end. “I would like to get together with you as soon as possible. Are you coming back to Tokyo tomorrow?”

“Yes, sir. I intend to. If there’s a great hurry, I can get a Super Express tomorrow morning. What is it about, sir?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow. I have the utmost need of your cooperation. And so . . .” Yukinaga faltered. “The truth is that it’s work that pertains to Professor Tadokoro.”

At that moment the line went dead.

“Hello, hello,” Onodera shouted into the receiver. “Hello, hello.”

As though he had suddenly become drunk, he felt his body begin to sway back and forth. A young geisha screamed shrilly. Sliding doors began to vibrate loudly, setting up a fearful racket. Before Onodera could even gasp with surprise, an awful, thundering roar seemed to roll up from the earth below, and at the same time the entire inn seemed to whirl about with terrible force. Wrenched from its frame, the crossbeam of a doorway came crashing down. Dust fell in thick clouds from the ceiling and walls. Together with the creaking of the building and the rumbling of the earth, cries of agony began to rise on every side. Onodera grabbed a doorpost to keep his feet. In the hall opposite the inn office a closet door came open, and what looked like a stoutly made desk bounced into the corridor. When he saw the desk, Onodera took hold of it. He tipped it on its side against the wall and then dived beneath it. A fraction of an instant later the inn was plunged into darkness, and something hit the top of the desk with a thunderous crash. Onodera glanced at his watch and noted the time. Since there had been almost nothing in the way of warning tremors, the center of the quake must be very near. How long would it go on? Onodera wondered. A thought struck him that chilled the back of his neck. Twisting his head, he took the risk of looking out from the shelter of the desk. A glimmer of light from the outside showed through a black jumble of door frames, walls, sliding doors, and other debris. Where the veranda had been, there was nothing at all.

The Great Kyoto Earthquake, coinciding as it did with a massive influx of people for the Daimonji Festival, claimed a large number of victims. Of the vast crowds gathered along the Kamo River, many were hurled in tangled masses from the bridges and from the houses lining the banks down into the riverbed, others were crushed beneath collapsing buildings, and still others were trampled to death beneath the feet of the terrified crowd. In one brief moment 4,000 people perished and 13,000 were severely injured. Whole sections of Kyoto were leveled. The effect upon the nation was profound. The plague of earthquakes had spread to long-tranquil Western Japan.