III

The Government

1

By April of the following year, Yukinaga was fully absorbed in a project that had been designated “Plan D,” working day and night in an office building in the Harajuku district, one floor of which he and his colleagues had taken over. The heart and soul of Plan D was Tadokoro.

Yukinaga was filled with misgivings. Suppose all this turned out to be nothing more than a wild fantasy of Tadokoro’s? He had taken a leave of absence from the university at a time that was especially critical for him. His superiors were just beginning to recognize his achievements, and if he behaved himself, he had a good chance of advancing to a full professorship the following year. But now he had let himself become entangled in a bizarre affair that defied rational analysis. How was he going to explain things to his academic patrons?

Kazunari Nakata, a friend from college days and one of the world’s foremost authorities on informational science, frowned with concentration as he studied the reports. “No matter how you look at it, it’s an absurd kind of game—like trying to grab hold of a cloud,” he said with a groan. “The qualifiers are extremely complex. Why, even a PERT might not be able to handle them. What we have to do is think in terms of some sort of new softwear. The problem is that the government is going to give us money only on a stage-by-stage basis and not once during the intermediate stages are we going to come up with unequivocal evidence that this is actually going to take place. Can we persuade the government, then, despite this intrinsic uncertainty, to commit itself fully at some point, realizing full well that this will entail the expenditure of a fantastic amount of money? And then there’s the whole business about secrecy!”

“It might even happen that new legislation is necessary,” said Kunieda, a young man from the Prime Minister’s Office. ‘In that case, secrecy would be out of the question.”

Yukinaga, naive as he was in such matters, had at first favored the open implementation of Plan D, but Kunieda and Nakata had persuaded him otherwise. According to Tadokoro’s rough calculations, the earliest possible date was two years off; the most remote, fifty years. The phenomena in question were still extremely vague and impossible to interpret clearly. Should the evidence, however, begin to point toward an actual occurrence and that, if not in two years, at least in the next few years, then the formulation of a government program to deal with it would have to be done in secret in order to avoid public turmoil. Nor would secrecy be any less necessary in the area of foreign relations should the dreadful crisis come to pass. The news would have to leak out eventually, of course, and it would therefore be a question of how much the government would be able to accomplish before then.

Nakata’s responsibility lay in coordinating the workings of Plan D. The group as yet numbered no more than five, and they were young, ranging from the late thirties to forty years of age. Besides Yukinaga, Nakata, and Kunieda, there was Yamazaki, of the Intelligence Section of the Cabinet, and Yasugawa, the youngest of the group, who had been taken from an architect’s office to handle the accounts.

“About the money aspect,” said Yasugawa, “it seems to me that we’ve already gone beyond the budget given us. And soon we’ll need still more people and an incredible amount of equipment.”

“Let’s just leave worries of that nature to the Prime Minister and his friends,” said Nakata. “No matter how much we thrash it around, we’re not going to get anywhere with that problem. So let’s get down to work with whatever means we have avail able and get some results. The rest is out of our hands.”

The meeting broke up, and Kunieda and Yukinaga were left to themselves as the others went downstairs for coffee. Yukinaga envied Nakata his cheerful confidence. He stared moodily at the magnetized map of Japan on the wall. Large red arrows had been attached to the southeastern section of the Archipelago, which was mottled with a variety of colors, and to the Japan Trench. The start of Tadokoro’s plan.

Suddenly Yukinaga realized that the board was shaking gently from side to side. “Another tremor,” he muttered.

“The old gentleman, Watari, has let go a part of his art collection, I hear,” said Kunieda absently as he puffed on a cigarette.

“And that’s how we got part of our money?”

“I think so. They say that some of his pieces are classified as National Treasures.”

That shriveled-up old man in the wheelchair—what was his game anyway? Yukinaga wondered. Kunieda came from the same village as he, and it was most likely the old man’s influence that had put Kunieda into the Prime Minister’s Office. A city boy himself, Yukinaga could not fathom the nature of that village solidarity whose deep roots remained firm even to the present. At any rate, Kunieda seemed to have maintained con tact with the old man at all times, and it had been through Kunieda, to whom Yukinaga had confided the nature of Tadokoro’s “concern,” that Watari had come into the affair. Yukinaga had known nothing of this relationship, nor had he even heard of the old man, though after Kunieda had explained things to him, he had a vague recollection that he had seen the name somewhere years before.

Immediately after the earthquake meeting, he had been in vited to come to see the old man with Kunieda. He had been astounded at the fierce spiritual strength that lay hidden behind Watari’s withered appearance and at the keenness of the mind that posed such laconic, concise questions. Watari’s manner was never anything but gentle, the very image of the good old man, but Yukinaga had gone away that day thoroughly awed. With his own eyes he had seen Watari summon the Prime Minister to his residence in Chigasaki and with a few words persuade him that Plan D should become a reality. And then there were the mysterious individuals and the hard-eyed young men, the latter obviously bodyguards, who surrounded the old man. There was also a beautiful young woman, mysterious enough in her own way. This was the stuff of legends, Yukinaga thought, a world whose depths he could not fathom, and he could not help feeling that something sinister lurked in the background.

“The old fellow—aside from this project, I wonder what goes on inside his mind,” said Kunieda, snuffing out his cigarette.

“I was going to ask you that,” said Yukinaga.

“I don’t know much about him either. We’re from the same town, it’s true, but if you tried to follow up any lead about him as a native son, you’d quickly come to a dead end. But it’s quite certain that his forte has been to work behind the scenes in two major worlds: politics and finance. He spans the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa eras, and he has a knowledge of their dark side that he carries with him into the present. Certainly, according to our way of thinking, he’s done some evil deeds, I suppose. But at times it seems that unless some villain with immense power comes along, nothing at all can be accomplished.”

“If you had lived for a century, what the devil would you think of things, I wonder?” said Yukinaga. “And more than just living, if you had exercised authority all that time, what would be going on in your mind? What would you want to do?”

“I have no idea,” said Kunieda, getting up. “I’m sure only that it’s because of his power that Plan D has actually gotten under way.”

Kunieda went downstairs, leaving Yukinaga to his thoughts.

2

“Well, they’re really getting down to it, aren’t they?” said Nakata, laughing as he read a transcript of the secretary general’s press conference at the end of September, in which he urged the nation to look outward.

“Is that your doing, too, sir?” asked the young Yasugawa.

“No, no. It’s the brainchild of some politicians and bureaucrats acquainted with the situation. They seem, however, to have made use of some suggestions of mine—bringing up that slogan from the old days: ‘A Bold Leap into the World.’ “

“But they’d better be careful,” said Kunieda, pointing to a section of the paper. “There might be somebody out there who can put two and two together.”

He had indicated a humorous item enclosed in a box. It was a parody of an old song popular at the beginning of the Showa Era, when immigration to Manchuria was at its peak:

If you go, I go too.

Who wants to stay behind

In shaky old Japan?

Nakata laughed when he read it: “So you think there might be some people keen enough to tie this up with the earth quakes, eh? The Japanese people, it’s true, are great for intuition.”

The door opened with a frightful bang, and Tadokoro surged into the room, his shoulders squared.

“What’s the news on the Kermadic? Is it here yet or what?” he demanded fiercely, a question he had asked countless times before. “What’s causing all this delay? Has it sunk on the way?”

“Everything’s all right. It’s already passed Okinawa, and to morrow it’s going to dock at Moji,” answered Nakata.

“Moji?” Tadokoro’s face turned scarlet and his eyes bulged. “What’s the idea, sending it there? What we want to investigate is the Japan Trench. We’ll lose two days in extra sailing time.”

“The idea is to keep it out of the public eye, Professor,” said Nakata with great care. “If it was a matter of Yokohama or Kobe, the reporters would be on our necks. When it clears the port, they’ll load it on a naval vessel there, the Takatsuki, which will then sail directly for Ise Bay. The diving tests will be in Toba Bay and the Kumano Sea.”

“I’m going to Ise, then,” said Tadokoro. “The main thing is that we’ve got to move. Look at this. One section of the Rikuchu coast is now sinking at the rate of .5 centimeters a day. At the bottom of the sea off Sanriku, shallow earthquakes of small to medium intensity are occurring at the rate of several per day. When will the survey equipment arrive?”

“Part of it has already been sent to Moji and Toba. But by the time all of it is put in order and installed, it will be another week or ten days, no matter how much hurrying is done.”

“Ten days!” Tadokoro groaned like an animal. “Dammit to hell! With speed so vital! And while we’re standing here, down below in the Japan Archipelago, here, there, everywhere, changes are taking place from minute to minute. We’ve got to get a line on things at the earliest possible moment. What will happen if we’re late, I ask you?”

“We share your fears,” said Kunieda distractedly. “But about the time factor there’s nothing we can do.”

All eyes turned to the situation chart on the wall. It was a board lit by electronic luminescence on which light lines indicated the progress of every task that had been programmed into the LSI computer. The board was still filled with categories altogether unlit. In the date-designation portion, marked by vertical red lines, however, several had already reached the point indicating their starting date.

“Don’t you people see?” demanded Tadokoro, striking the hand in which he held his papers with the back of the other. “In essence, our work is a fight against time.”

A buzzer rang. Yasugawa went to the phone and picked it up. His voice indicated surprise.

“It’s from the Christina.”

“We’re using a foreign ship?” asked Tadokoro sourly.

“Dutch. It won’t be noticed as much as a Japanese ship,” answered Nakata as he took the phone. “It’s Onodera,” he told them. Then he spoke into the phone:

“I see. . . . Well, right now we’re sending Kataoka from Defense Research to meet you at Moji. There’s nothing to worry about. I don’t think you know him at all. He’s one of those who just joined our group, and when it comes to machinery, he’s a genius.”

Nakata hung up and turned to Yamazaki. “Call Kataoka. He’s at the arsenal in Yokosuka. Arrange for him to fly to Moji. He’s to wait for the Takatsuki, which we’re sending to meet the sub. The Christina will arrive tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”

“Why is that fellow going?” asked Tadokoro, not at all happy.

“There’s some sort of problem with the engines on the Kermadic. Onodera can’t fix it, he says,” Nakata answered. “But this Kataoka is a wizard.”

“Professor Tadokoro . . .” Yukinaga stood up from the desk, holding a sheet of paper upon which he had just done some calculating. “The total quantity of energy in earthquakes and in the movement of the earth’s crust this past year in the Japan Archipelago surpassed—though just by a little—the theoretical limit.”

“Well, I wonder where the excess energy came from,” said Tadokoro, taking the sheet and staring hard at it. “Where from, eh? What caused it, do you think?”

Yukinaga gazed down at the relief map of Japan on top of the desk. It was made of clear plastic of varying tints, which showed the mantle beneath the surface.

“Well, this may be rash, but,” he said at last, “it seems to me that the only way that we can track this thing down is to set up a simulation model involving the entire globe, focusing upon the crust and mantle of the East Asian land mass, especially the movement of the Japan Archipelago.”

“What we lack is data,” said Tadokoro, rapping the computer with his fingers. “That’s of first importance.” Suddenly he glanced at his watch. “Nakata, I’m going to Moji, too. Okay?”

“Well, Professor . . .” Nakata’s eyes widened. “If you’d like to . . .”

“I’d like to check the situation again in the West,” Tadokoro said, putting on his coat. He had all at once become like a boy. “I was thinking that maybe in the West. . . Well, I’m somewhat concerned about the Aso and the Kirishima volcanic belt.”

“It’s the only thing to do, I guess,” said Nakata, clucking his tongue. “Yasugawa, call Yokosuka. Tell Kataoka that Professor Tadokoro will be going with him.”

“Will it be a commercial flight?” asked Tadokoro.

“A navy courier plane. Needless to say, you’d like to fly over Aso for a look, wouldn’t you?”

Tadokoro snorted, but a happy expression stole over his face.

3

As autumn advanced, the weather grew cooler, though, as happened every year, summer made torrid gestures of farewell even into October. Finally, these, too, came to an end, and as the blue of the sky deepened with each passing day and the lights each evening showed the ground more wet with dew, the memories of the turbulent and disastrous summer grew less vivid, and people began to regain their composure. Japan settled into the fall season in a manner scarcely different from that of other years. The streets, the people, the weather, nature itself . . . Yes, nature itself, or so it seemed.

Onodera had just finished a series of diving tests in the Kumano Sea and was about to return to Tokyo for a night before starting the actual exploration, which would be still more demanding. All its defects repaired now, the Kermadic was in satisfactory condition. Kataoka, the mechanical genius, had done a painstaking job of repairing and refitting it.

When Onodera had finally been able to drag himself from beneath a pile of tiles in Ponto-cho after the earthquake, he had made use of the quickly restored phone service to contact Tokyo, and, at Nakata’s direction, he had taken off at once for Europe to negotiate the purchase of the Kermadic without even taking the time to stop at his parents’ home. From Italy he had sent a cryptic cablegram announcing his resignation, which stunned his superiors at Sea Floor Development, who had been under the impression that he had died in the quake. Now, his work finished in the Kumano Sea area, he boarded a military seaplane and flew to Haneda Airport. The next day, together with Yukinaga and Nakata, he was to fly back to the Takatsuki, which was bound for a spot 310 miles east of Cape Inubo. Such was Onodera’s frantic pace.

As soon as he stepped into the headquarters in Harajuku, he was taken in hand, especially by Nakata and Yukinaga, and swept up into an interminable discussion of the communication system and a variety of other aspects of the project. Onodera was astounded at the incredible tempo of Plan D. No sooner was one problem dealt with than still more loomed up. Can they expect, he wondered, to get through this fantastic amount of work with no more men than they have?

Finally, after a lengthy period of give and take, Nakata threw a sheaf of documents brusquely aside and yawned extravagantly.

“Well, no matter how long we stuck at it, we wouldn’t finish,” he said. “And the survey starts tomorrow. What do you say we get a good night’s sleep tonight? Onodera, how about going out for a nightcap with us? After all, you won’t be seeing Tokyo for a while, will you?”

“Thanks,” said Onodera, glancing at his watch as he stood up. “An hour or two’ll do no harm.”

They went to a bar at the very top of a new building in Yoyogi which offered a panoramic view of the city. The lighting in the bar was so dim that it took time to make out the faces of the patrons, and though it was eleven o’clock when they arrived, it was rather crowded. At each table flickered a candle covered with a red or blue shade. Band music flowed quietly through the room, and well-dressed men and women talked as though in whispers. In the midst of a gloom like depths of indigo blue, the smooth faces of the women, their bare arms and shoulders, and the necklaces and pendants that hung at their breasts glowed pale, like the bellies of fish swimming over the dark ocean floor, while the tiny orange flames of cigarette lighters flashed from time to time.

The six of them sat at a table near the window, ordered a bottle of white wine, and then quietly touched their glasses together.

“Well,” said Kunieda, “here’s to the bold project that we start tomorrow.”

“I don’t know anything about bold projects,” said Onodera with a half-smile, “but here’s to the success of our research.”

“And here’s to the safe performance of the Kermadic,” said Yukinaga.

“And, finally,” said Nakata, in a last toast, “here’s to Japan and the road ahead for her.”

The glasses clinked softly. The cold, mellow liquid flowed down their throats. After he had filled his glass a second time, Onodera leaned back in his chair as though to withdraw some what from the quiet conversation that had begun at the table, and gazed at the scene spread out below him, beyond the sheet of glass that extended from ceiling to floor—the city at night.

Tokyo by night was, as always, a flood of lights. The white beams of headlights and the red flash of taillights coalesced in swift-moving currents between the chilly glow cast by lines of mercury lights. Yellow sodium lights shone on the freeways winding about the city like huge snakes, and here and there skyscrapers towered up, giant black slabs studded with thou sands of lights despite the lateness of the hour.

How could one possibly conceive of such a thing happening! Onodera stared out into the night beyond the dark sheet of glass.

Like a black, ominous bird, a huge passenger plane, flashing red and white lights on its approach to Haneda, seemed to graze the peak of Tokyo Tower, etched in the night sky with specks of brilliance.

Everything he looked at—should the thing that Professor Tadokoro feared come about, if it turned out to be real. . . this vast city, the teeming life that pulsated through it, what would become of it all? The 110 million people of this race that had come into being and flourished on this soil rich in history—what of the dreams cherished by each of them as they looked toward tomorrow? To build a home. To raise children. To go to college. To travel abroad. More than 100 million people, with their petty hopes—what in heaven’s name was to become of all of them?

Go ahead and enjoy yourself, thought Onodera, as he looked out on the scene flooded with lights, his mood almost that of a man offering a prayer. Go ahead, for now at least, enjoy yourself to the full, all of you. Enjoy every moment like something never to come again. The memory of even paltry pleasures is better than none at all. So enjoy yourselves for now. As for tomorrow . . . maybe it will never come.

“I guess it’s time,” said Nakata, looking at his watch as he stood up. “Let’s everybody get a good night’s sleep tonight.”

While they were standing by the cashier’s counter, a short, slim girl, wearing the kind of beige suit touched with pale blue that was stylish that fall, glanced at Onodera and then cried out in a small voice: “My goodness! It’s . . . ah . . . Mr. Ono . . .”

“Well,” said Onodera, placing the girl. “Mako—right?”

“Yes! You’re kind enough to remember me. Oh, how nice! Mr. Onoda—no, Mr. Onodera.”

“That’s right. Your place is the . . . let’s see . . . the Miruto, isn’t it?”

“You haven’t been there at all since then, have you? Yuri’s just heartbroken that you never taught her how to use an aqua lung.”

While she talked, Mako clung to Onodera’s arm as though she were intent on abandoning the stout, distinguished-looking gentleman she was with. “Please come back. Oh, yes—Mr. Yoshimura has been in, but he said that you left the company. Is that so?”

Frowning slightly, Onodera nodded.

“Well, anyway,” said the girl, “please come again. And give me a call, please. Don’t forget.”

“A cute little girl,” said Kunieda ironically. “Is she a hostess?”

“Yes. It’s awkward to run into her like this,” muttered Onodera as he watched the girl disappear into the bar, chattering to her companion like a sparrow. “Should I tell her to keep her mouth shut?”

“No, there’s no need. With a girl like that, there couldn’t be cause for concern,” said Nakata. “Besides, tomorrow you’ll be at sea—or, rather, at the bottom of it.”

4

Kataoka was frantically at work at Yokosuka supervising the refitting of factory ship Yoshino to serve as the command vessel for D-l, and in the meantime the Takatsuki was doing duty as mother ship for the Kermadic. The Takatsuki was an old ship, a former American corvette which had served as an anti-submarine vessel during the Second World War. Just the previous year the Sea Defense Force had refitted it as a specialty ship. In place of its depth-charge racks, a platform had been installed on its broad afterdeck, which was used to secure the Kermadic on the way from one diving site to another while the Takatsuki kept to a grueling schedule calling for some twenty dives within two weeks over a wide area of the Pacific above the slope of the Japan Trench. Often the submarine, caught in the flux of con verging currents, was buffeted like a leaf, and there were many days when the sea was so clouded to the very floor of the ocean that any visual estimates were impossible.

The grind told upon Onodera. His skin became pallid. His eyes were bloodshot, and his cheeks hollow. A growth of beard covered his face, and his joints ached from lack of sleep. Time and time again he guided the submarine down through turbulent seas to the ocean floor in dives of more than 20,000 feet, taking it where the shouting Tadokoro directed, turning on lights, releasing flares, taking pictures, and operating the television camera. Often it was necessary twice in one day to do the work of placing the automatic measuring devices on the trench floor and on its sides. The consequent strain on mind and body had a cumulative intensity. With the temperature of the ocean floor at two or three degrees Centigrade, the instruments in the gondola were as cold as ice, and the moisture inside was so heavy that the dehumidifying compound had to be replaced after every dive. Then, too, since the refitting of the submarine had been carried out very quickly, the various instruments to be installed had been crammed helter-skelter into the narrow confines of the gondola, leaving almost no space in which to move about during the dives of some hours’ duration.

On the seventeenth day the Kermadic developed mechanical trouble as a result of the hard use it had been put to, and further dives had to be put off for a while. Tadokoro shut him self up in the wardroom with a vast amount of research data, and Onodera, fighting the weariness that had taken hold of him, threw himself into the repair of the submarine, working in grim silence beside the Takatsuki’s engineers.

Two days later the Yoshino finally arrived at the rendezvous point. Its three radar masts roused a cheer when they appeared over the horizon. Two large derricks were mounted on the low afterdeck, which was also equipped with a launching slide. It would be a simple matter for the two interlocked cranes to lift the submarine out of the water and place it on the deck, and the use of the launching slide would make refloating it a speedy operation. Things would go much smoother from then on.

Kataoka was on board the Yoshino, a short, bright-eyed young man whose plump brown face was like that of a young boy.

“It took more time than I thought. I’m sorry,” said Kataoka, grinning as he spoke through the loudspeaker on the bridge. “We’ll load the sub onto the Yoshino right away. Professor Nakata and Mr. Kunieda are on board, too. Mr. Yamazaki will be coming soon on the courier plane. We can have a conference on board here, if that’s all right.”

When Tadokoro and the others were ready to leave the Takatsuki, they went to the captain’s cabin to take their leave. The captain handed Tadokoro a message he had just received.

“It says that Hakone shows signs of erupting,” the captain said. “And it seems that there’s the sound of rumbling at Miyakejima. The timing’s good, anyway. We’re to proceed at full speed to Miyakejima to aid in the evacuation.”

The Kermadic was already in the water, its yellow hull bobbing in the troughs of the waves as it was drawn slowly to the fantail of the Yoshino. As soon as the submarine was secured, the Takatsuki steamed off at once on a southerly course, its prow cleaving the waves as it rapidly grew smaller in the distance.

“Well, as you see,” said Nakata, “we don’t have a welcoming banquet prepared for you. What do you say? Should we start talking right away?”

“Of course,” said Tadokoro without hesitation. “As soon as we pay our respects to the captain. Where can we have a private conference?”

“Well, first let’s get your luggage to your cabin,” said Kunieda. “Then I’ll show you to our Plan D command room.”

Twenty minutes later they gathered in the command room on the top deck at the front of the ship. The walls were banked with flashing computer lights, and at one end of the room hung the luminescent progress chart and the magnetic plastic board on which was drawn the Japan Archipelago. In almost the center of the room was a huge rectangular block of clear plastic. The block seemed to contain nothing at all, but when Kataoka pressed a switch at its base, the Japan Archipelago came into view in the form of a vividly clear three-dimensional image in full color. Everyone responded with a gasp of admiration.

“Rather nice, isn’t it?” said Kataoka, flashing his white teeth. “It’s a hologram projector screen developed by Defense Re search. The plastic block seems to be empty, but actually it’s filled with very small metallic particles.”

Kataoka pressed other switches, and smaller-scale images appeared one after another in the plastic block. One of these showed the topography of the ocean floor.

Moreover, as Kataoka moved his fingers over the board, a wide variety of symbols such as spots of light, arrows, lines, and the like appeared. Heat currents, gravitational abnormalities, vertical and horizontal movement of the earth crust, volcanic activity—these and almost every other sort of data could be projected into the hologram.

“There’s a direct link-up with the computers, and so the data, as soon as it comes in, can be shown as is. It takes in everything,” said Nakata.

Tadokoro, in the meantime, had sat down in a corner of the room in a chair facing the wall. His head was bent forward, and he seemed lost in thought. His face was gray and covered with sweat, and Yukinaga was taken aback to see how painfully contorted his expression was.

“Professor Tadokoro,” said Yukinaga, as he went up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Aren’t you feeling well?”

At Yukinaga’s touch, Tadokoro started as though he had received an electric shock. He jumped up from his chair. “Oh,” he said, expelling his breath harshly. “Oh, yes . . . of course.”

Tadokoro then walked with dragging footsteps toward the desk around which the others were gathered. He looked vacantly at the computers along the walls, the control board, and then he stared at the three-dimensional image of the Japan Archipelago that glimmered in the huge block of plastic, as though noticing it for the first time. As he stared, the light gradually came back to his hollow eyes.

“An interesting device,” said Tadokoro, his eyes now boring into the plastic projection screen. “Can you show more—not just the Japan Archipelago but the whole area, taking in the Western Pacific to Southeast Asia?”

“Right now this is the widest area we can show,” said Kataoka, pressing a switch to project a view that, with Japan at its center, took in the Ogasawara Islands, Okinawa, Taiwan, the Philippines, together with the Korean Peninsula and a section of the Chinese coast.

“Good enough. Leave that on, please.”

With that, Tadokoro walked away from the screen and stood beneath the plastic board on which was drawn the map of the Japan Archipelago.

“Sit down, gentlemen,” said Tadokoro, his voice low and hoarse. “I’ll tell you what has to be said.”

The group took seats around the desk. Tadokoro stood for a few moments with his eyes cast down as though considering something. As Yukinaga gazed at Tadokoro standing thus, he suddenly felt his chest painfully constricted. This man, Yukinaga thought—how much he’s aged in just two or three months! It’s as though he’s ten years older. His hair has gotten whiter, there’s no vitality in his expression, his wrinkles have grown deeper. . . . His eyes are heavy and bloodshot, and his whole expression is that of a man who’s burned out.

“This Plan D of ours,” began Tadokoro, his voice lifeless, “took its origin from a possibility that had arisen in my mind as a result of the varied research I had been doing for the past ten years, research that had begun with marine volcanoes and then had gradually spread to mountain ranges, geology, and, finally to the basic structure of the earth beneath the ocean floor. The possibility is that there might take place a vast alteration of the earth crust of the Japan Archipelago.”

As Tadokoro paused, a chill seemed to sweep over the group around the desk.

“The plan is presently divided into D-l and D-2. D-l is our concern—further investigation. The burden of D-2 is to formulate an evacuation program, should worse come to worst.” Tadokoro paused for a moment, his hand to his head as though marshaling his thoughts. Then he placed both his hands on top of the plastic-block screen. “Let me take things in order. The thing that first led me to suspect that something was wrong was the manner in which marine gravitational irregularities were distributed in the areas adjacent to the Japan Archipelago. There was an incredible change from what had been recorded in a survey made a mere decade before. Furthermore, there was the same sort of radical change with regard to earth magnetism and electrical and heat currents, especially the heat currents on the Japan Sea coast. And then in the Ogasawara group, as you know, an island with an elevation of some two hundred feet sank in a single night—an event of extraordinary significance.”

Tadokoro glanced down at Onodera.

“As it happened, in the course of investigating that, some thing further came to my attention, something that our most recent explorations have confirmed: it seems to me that the pattern of mantle convection far beneath the Japan Trench is changing radically.”

“Professor,” said Kunieda, “would you be kind enough to explain what a mantle convection is?”

“Very good,” said Tadokoro, some color returning to his life less skin. “Our specialties vary, so some basic explanations are in order. First, a convection: for the present, think of it as the transfer of heat through fluid motion, especially motion up ward. Now let’s take the structure of the earth.” He drew a circle on a blackboard and then a much smaller one within it. “At the center of the earth, like the yolk of an egg, is the core.

Surrounding it, like the white of the egg, is the mantle. Finally, the thinnest and outermost layer, the crust. Judging from the way that earthquake waves are transmitted from deep within the earth, we believe that the mantle is solid, the outer core liquid, and the inner core solid. The mantle is some two thousand miles thick, approximately half the radius of the earth. The crust, on the other hand, is a mere twenty miles thick beneath the continents and still thinner beneath the ocean floor—apparently no more than three miles. We like to think of the ground beneath our feet as solid, but the truth is that the thickness of the crust upon which we and all our history and civilization rest is, relative to the size of the earth, like the stretched rubber of an inflated balloon. And within the mantle itself, solid though it seems, the evidence indicates that, over vast stretches of time, convections take form here just as they do in liquids. The mantle, in fact, flows beneath the crust at the rather rapid rate of two inches per year in its deep portion and at the rate of six inches per year in the portion near the crust, which, in turn, provokes great movement on the surface of the crust, especially beneath the ocean. This seems to be the motive force that moves the continents. . . . Kataoka, let’s have a topographical map of the world.”

Kataoka pressed a switch, and a brilliantly colored map appeared on the projection screen on the desk. Tadokoro took up his explanation, tapping the map with his pen.

“Note the respective concave and convex portions of the European and African coasts and the North and South American coasts, so aligned that it seems as though they would fit neatly together. It is this configuration that gave Wegener the hint that they had in fact once been joined and so led him to his famous theory of Continental Drift.”

Tadokoro next ran his pen down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, indicating the massive Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which reached a height of 9,000 feet and was 600 miles wide, stretching in an S shape from the Arctic Circle all the way down to the southern polar region.

“In the midst of this ridge, the source of almost all the quakes in the Atlantic,” Tadokoro continued, “there runs a deep crevice containing an extraordinary amount of heat. This heat is being conveyed upward from deep within the mantle by means of convection, and this Mid-Atlantic Ridge itself is nothing else but the upward thrust of this mantle convection. Here we have the motive force that long ago, in accordance with Wegener’s theory, opened up a great chasm in the continental mass and set what is now the American continents moving in a westward direction. Furthermore, this same kind of protuberance, resulting from the upward thrust of the mantle convection and constituting the same kind of break in the crust, runs along the sea floor of all the oceans of the world.” Professor Tadokoro stopped for a moment. He looked around at everyone before going on, his voice somewhat lower. “Now with regard to these mantle convections, using a method that I’ve developed myself, I have not only been able to make a detailed diagram of them and formulate a comprehensive explanation, but I am certain that I can predict the emergence of phenomena that will be completely new.”

Yukinaga felt his pulse quicken. What a sensation Tadokoro’s theory would provoke if he could make it known! But that, of course, was out of the question. And then, too, even granting that the history of man’s scientific scrutiny of the earth was a short one, the thrust of Tadokoro’s argument seemed fantastic. . . .

“All right,” said Tadokoro as he turned a dial and brought a relief map of the Pacific into focus, “now let’s take a look at the Pacific.” He picked up a pointer and indicated the undersea ridge off the coast of Chile. “You see how the ridge line of the Atlantic continues into the Southeast Pacific. Now look here.” He now pointed to an undersea mountain range that extended up through the Indian Ocean. “If one credits Wilson’s theory, it was the upward thrust of the mantle, represented by this range, that pushed the Indian subcontinent, formerly separate from Asia, to the north, thrusting it finally against the continent. And in the process the coastal impact area was pushed upward to form the great Himalayan fold. And even now this seems to be the explanation for the continual increase in the height of the Himalayas.” The pointer moved back to the Southeast Pacific. “It seems evident that the general flow of the Eastern Pacific mantle is from southeast to northwest, something corroborated by the fact that the Christmas, Hawaii, and Tuamotu groups run in that direction. Furthermore, this flow collides eventually, we believe, with the mantle flow coming from the Asian continent, as a result of which a part of it takes a down ward turn, something that would account for the long trenches that characterize the eastern side of the island arcs of the Western Pacific. But now let’s consider how all this pertains to our immediate concern.”

There was dead silence in the room as Tadokoro flipped a switch to change the picture. The area now spread across the screen was the Northwest Pacific, taking in Japan and a portion of the mainland. “The Japan Archipelago was once joined to the continent, and some time in the distant past the continental mantle current I referred to thrust it out into the Pacific in a southeast direction. According to my theory, it is still doing so to this day at a speed of from one to three inches a year. In the first stages of this process, say twenty-five million years ago, the Archipelago lay much farther to the north and it lay straight rather than curving away from the continent. The constant pressure, however, bent it into its present arc shape and opened the fossa magna that divides Central Honshu. Furthermore, at this break line we have the Fuji volcanic zone. But now let’s consider the mantle current coming from the opposite direction, from the Southeast Pacific. What happens when these come together?” Tadokoro paused for a moment and then suddenly looked at Yukinaga, a gleam in his eye. “Yukinaga, what discipline concerns itself with the behavior of masses of fluids of varying temperatures on the earth’s surface?” he asked.

“Meteorology, Professor,” answered Yukinaga, his voice hoarse.

“Good. But you want perhaps to protest that vapors, liquids, and solids are quite different things, isn’t that right? But would it be too absurd to think that, given a sufficiently long period to overreach the difference in nature, meteorological analogies might be used to explain the behavior of the mantle? For it not only forms convections, but in the upper mantle there is a distribution of masses of varying temperatures. Would it be out of the question to think of these as behaving like vapor masses, given enough time?”

They stared at Tadokoro’s unshaven face in amazement. Could there really be any similarity between atmospheric cur rents, ever moving and never knowing rest, and those heavy, solid masses of rock moving deep with the earth at high temperatures?

“To put it in simple terms,” said Tadokoro, “let’s take a look at the kind of pattern that occurs when a cold front meets a mass of warm air.”

Tadokoro drew a horizontal line on the blackboard. Above this he drew a line cutting down into it which formed half an oval, its long axis parallel. Within the curved line he drew an arrow pointing from right to left. “This is a vertical section diagram of a cold front. The straight line below is the earth’s surface. On the right is a mass of cold air. The cold air mass plunges beneath the warm atmosphere on the left. The warm air is pushed upward and is chilled. And along the line of discontinuity, clouds take form and rain begins to fall. In the case of a warm front, the reverse happens. The warm front climbs over the cold mass.” Tadokoro turned away from the blackboard and singled out Onodera this time. “Onodera, do you see where I’m going?”

“I think so, Professor,” answered Onodera. “In terms of your analogy, the cold front moving from right to left is the mantle flow coming up from the Southeast Pacific, and the warm atmosphere on the left is the mantle flow coming from beneath the continent.”

“Exactly. The continental mantle flow is much warmer be cause of the radioactive elements it contains, because the crust of the continent is some six times thicker than the crust of the ocean floor, and for other reasons I needn’t go into now. Thus, it climbs up the advancing mantle. And this is the force that moved the Japan Archipelago away from the mainland, forming the Japan Sea in the process, and eventually bent the Archipelago into its present arc shape. Now bear this in mind: the Archipelago is still bending and moving, and the Japan Trench, formed by the descent of the Pacific mantle, is still growing deeper.”

His intent listeners swallowed hard as they heard Tadokoro’s explanation. The Archipelago on which they lived was like a line of clouds that had taken form along the leading edge of a moving mass of warm air. Outside, the wind seemed to have risen and the sea grown rougher. The Yoshino began to pitch and roll, though gently at first. Since Tadokoro had paused once more, they could clearly hear the echo of creaking throughout the ship, the moaning of the wind, and the breaking of the waves. A gloomy mood took hold of them.

Kataoka broke the silence: “But, Professor, hasn’t all this been going on for millions of years?”

“Yes, it has. And you’re thinking that it will go on for still more millions in just this way?”

“Well, yes.”

“If so, we of course have nothing to worry about. But my research, my intuition also, if you will, leads me to think that we are on the verge of a sudden, a violent alteration of that pattern. I readily grant that a change of this nature would be something unheard of, but please remember this: since man as we know him now appeared on the earth, some hundreds of thousands of years have passed—no more. What incredible events may have happened before he appeared we have no idea. And even after he appeared, even in historical times, much has occurred that we know next to nothing about simply because our scientific scrutiny of the earth has barely gotten under way. For example, the fact that the earth’s axis has moved, the fact that terrestrial magnetism is lessening and will be gone in another two thousand years, the fact that creatures upon the earth will be subject to cosmic rays—these and many other things we’ve learned in just this past decade, and we’ve no more than scratched the surface. So we must be very slow to say that such-and-such a thing cannot happen.”

The cabin lurched to one side. There came the noise of doors crashing shut.

“There’s always a reason, though. There has to be a reason.” Tadokoro turned to Yukinaga. “Yukinaga, do you remember how, when Runcorn resurrected Wegener’s Continental Drift theory, he explained how the process began—the break-up of the single land mass and the westward movement of the Americas?”

“I remember,” answered Yukinaga, feeling his throat dry. “He proposed Chandrasekhar’s calculations, the great Indian astrophysicist working in America.”

Tadokoro nodded and then pointed to the diagram of the earth that he had drawn earlier.

“Take another look at this cross-section, gentlemen. At present the diameter of the core is more than half that of the earth, having a diameter of about four thousand miles. It seems, how ever, that in the beginning the core was smaller. The earth as a whole has been contracting, by force of its own gravity, while the core, its heat and pressure growing more intense, has been expanding. And this has had its effect upon the mantle sur rounding it. In the beginning the mantle convection pattern was like a single whirlpool, but as the core expanded, it altered. Nor was this alteration a gradual process. Rather, once the core reached a certain size, the whirlpool suddenly was torn asunder and a multitude of small whirlpools took form, a theory verified by Chandrasekhar’s calculations. And so, after having remained a single mass for so many millions of years, the continents suddenly began the movement that would give them their present form. But you see what I’m driving at, Yukinaga?”

“I think so. The still-expanding core has brought about an other sudden alteration of the mantle convection pattern,” Yukinaga answered. “Still smaller whirlpools are taking form. And somewhere near the Japan Archipelago, the mantle mass has developed a fine split or is on the verge of so doing.”

“Basically, that’s it. Why things should be moving so fast, I don’t know. But, in any case, the mantle mass on the Pacific side of the Japan Archipelago is rapidly shrinking.” He tapped the block screen on which was projected a three-dimensional map of Japan. “This may be the harbinger of a crust change of un precedented kind extending over the whole earth. Or perhaps it will affect only this area.”

Tadokoro’s tone was much softer than it had been, his voice lower. The room was hushed. There was not a murmur. Holding their breath, the group sat with their eyes fixed upon Tadokoro. Behind his back the computer lights flashed on and off incessantly. Outside, the whine of the wind and the crash of the waves seemed to be growing louder.

Onodera noticed that his hands, clenched into fists, had become sweaty. He wiped his brow instinctively, to find it, too, slippery with sweat.

“And what would its effect be, Professor?” Onodera found himself asking.

“If the present speed and direction are maintained, there’s reason enough to believe that once the shift in matter reaches a certain point, the present dynamic balance existing between the mantle and the crust structure will collapse at a stroke. Up to now, you see, the pressure from the Pacific side has held the Archipelago relatively firm against the pressure coming from the continental side. And so, should the convection pattern on the Pacific side suddenly change, the result would be a crushing blow to Japan.”

A single image took hold of Onodera’s mind: the bar holding the Japan Archipelago in place suddenly falling away. . . .

“If the worst were to happen,” Tadokoro went on, swallowing noisily, “the usual way of thinking of greater or lesser quake damage would have no place. For if the worst were to happen, the greater part of the Japan Archipelago would sink beneath the sea. We have to think in terms of annihilation.”

A chill silence fell over the room. No one dared release his breath. The whine of the wind, the creaking of the ship, the sound of waves beginning to break over the decks—all these seemed but to intensify the silence that held them in its grip.

Out of the corner of his eye, Onodera noticed that the red lights of the computers and the communication gear had begun to flash steadily. Because no one was taking the messages, the equipment was starting to do its own recording. The telex was chattering. The facsimile machine began to crackle. But still no one moved.

All at once there was the sound of hurrying feet in the corridor. When they reached the cabin door, there was a loud knock. Someone in the room answered, but Onodera had no idea who. The door opened and a sunburned young officer came in. He made a polite bow. His face was tense, and the paper he held in his hand shook slightly.

“Just now a message came from Fleet Command in Yokosuka,” said the officer, looking at the paper, his voice unsteady. “A large-scale quake has occurred in the Kanto Region. The epicenter is twenty miles out to sea off Tokyo Bay. Its magnitude is 8.5. Tidal waves have struck the entire shoreline of Tokyo Bay and Sagami Bay. In Tokyo the force of from 6 to 7, together with the suddenness with which it hit, appears to have caused extensive damage. This vessel, on orders from the Sea Defense Force Headquarters, is changing its course and is proceeding to Tokyo Bay for rescue operations. . . .”