“Are you saying the forecasting machine is not to create the future but to preserve the present?”
“Well, yes, he is,” broke in Wada impatiently. “After all, that’s fundamentally how Professor Katsumi thinks. It’s obviously useless to say anything more.”
“This is a pretty one-sided discussion,” I said, barely able to control my rising anger. “This future with the submarine colonies isn’t necessarily the only one. There’s nothing more dangerous than trying to monopolize forecasting. Haven’t I always warned about that? That’s fascism. It’s like giving a statesman divine power. Why don’t you try forecasting a future where the secret’s revealed?”
“But we did,” blurted out Tanomogi tonelessly. “The result was that you were killed, sir.”
“By whom?”
“The killer waiting outside.”
33
So they were going to kill me. And they had an astounding reason to boot. Since the prediction had been made, I could understand their trying to avoid it; but deliberately acting in concert with it and committing murder was quite beyond me. In short, the prediction was no more than a pretext to kill me.
“That’s wrong,” suddenly said my second voice through the speaker as if the thought had just occurred to it. I was panic-stricken; I had the sensation that the very clothes I was wearing had suddenly become transparent.
“What is wrong?”
“What you were just thinking.”
The fixed stares of Tanomogi and the others pierced me.
“At any rate,” continued the voice in the machine, “there’s some misunderstanding. Tanomogi and the others did not at all submit tamely to the prediction. Far from it. They began to consider quite earnestly whether there wasn’t some way of saving you. Then they came and consulted me.”
“It’s your second self, sir,” interjected Tanomogi rapidly. “You’re the one, if anyone is, who should give your own fate serious consideration. Besides, I know you better than you know yourself.”
“Evidently,” said the voice. “And what follows is almost all based on my plans. This ‘I’ is an ideal projection of you, Katsumi. In other words, you could say it is a will you’re unconscious of yourself.”
“Murder . . . ? The trap . . . ?” I gasped.
“True, it’s no one’s responsibility. You did it yourself.”
“All right, let’s stop playing games,” I snapped, looking sharply at Tanomogi for some reason. He lowered his eyes and pressed his fingers against his temples.
“No, actually it was a theoretical plan,” said the voice calmly but with a tenacity that kneaded my viscera. “It’s true. Just think about it. Everything was carried through with one purpose in mind. The object was how we could create conditions under which you would not reveal this secret organization after learning the future. Consequently even the first murder clearly had two aims. First, to make you realize that you could not rely on the outside world come what may and that you were suspected as an accomplice. Secondly, to prepare you psychologically for what came next by suggesting the existence of the fetus broker.”
‘‘But I still don’t understand. I myself planned on predicting the private future of someone that day, the man who was killed, a fellow I had met quite by accident in the street.”
“Wrong. You must have got that hint from the machine. The suggestion was devised beforehand in anticipation of such a situation; if you hadn’t got the idea, Tanomogi would have got it for you. And about the man. Needless to say, Tanomogi very cleverly induced you to respond to suggestion. The suspicious accountant, in checking the bankbook, ultimately cornered the girl into a confession. The girl thoughtlessly blurted out the business about the fetus trade, and the man then knew our secret. By the law of the organization both had to be silenced sooner or later. The man was summoned beforehand to the cafe on the pretext of being introduced to the people at the hospital, and Tanomogi took you there. Then you know what happened after that. Tanomogi killed the man, and I made the threatening phone calls to you. The girl took the medicine given her by Aiba and meekly committed suicide.”
“But it’s all too inhuman!”
“Yes, perhaps it is.”
“Whatever justice you claim, you can’t rationalize murder.”
“Nor can you dispose of murder in general terms like that. Murder is bad not because you deprive the victim of physical life, but because you deprive of his future. Consider that life is dear to us all; life is in effect the future. Actually you were planning to put an end to your child’s days, weren’t you?”
“That’s a different story.”
“Why? It’s not at all. Since you can’t face this future, you are calmly able to disregard his life. In these changing times where there’s no single future-times where you have to sacrifice one future to save another-murder is unavoidable. Well, isn’t it? If, at the time, the girl hadn’t been good enough to die, what would you have done? I wonder. You would have immediately put her on the machine, and getting wind of the existence of the aquans, set up a big hue and cry, wouldn’t you?”
‘Naturally.”
“You are honest. Precisely. And public feelings would flare up, mobs would attack the aquan breeding farms, and the future would be entirely stamped out.”
“How do you know that?”
“The machine you made told us.”
“Even so, you’ve no right to make the present preside over a future that’s not yet even begun.”
“It’s not a question of right but of will.”
“All the more reason then.”
“What are you saying? You yourself awoke the sleeping future, didn’t you? Evidently you still don’t realize yourself what you have done. When one is bitten by a pet dog, the responsibility usually lies with the owner. Properly speaking, you can’t complain that you were disposed of in place of the girl at the time.”
“Yes,” interjected Tanomogi, “some of us felt that way.”
“Al the same we didn’t give up hope until the very end. We tried to do as much as we could, and Tanomogi obeyed my request and went ahead and performed the dangerous service of killing the accountant.”
“But I ...”
‘No, it’s thanks to Tanomogi, thanks to him that you got by without having the outrageous experience of being summarily punished without even knowing why. And furthermore, seeing the future, however provisionally, you were given the chance not to transgress our law. Yes, yes, our son. Oh, I guess you didn’t know yet. Yes, it’s a son. For though, we’re much more in debt to Wada’s suggestion than to mine.”
Our eyes met, but Wada did not turn away. She paled to the very tip of her nose, and only her beady eyes shone like those of some bird. Suddenly I was reminded of the conversation last evening, when she had said I was being judged. Rather than being abashed, she seemed to be condemning. You can’t frighten a scarecrow with a Halloween pumpkin. My anger was checked by my perplexity, and my entire body was as stiff as a board.
“Thanks to Wada, you were able to be linked with the future. That your son should continue to live as an aquan is a token of the gratitude we all bear you as the one who perfected the forecasting machine. Don’t you see? Anyway, it means that you were able to manage not committing any crime against the future. That’s a lot. A crime against the future is different from one against the past or the present. It’s fundamental and definitive.”
“I can’t believe what you’re saying. My son’s been made into a deformed slave. How is that a token of gratitude? I can’t say how amazed I am.”
“Just a minute. Your amazement is merely a misunderstanding that stems from ignorance, but we’ll let the explanation of that go until later. After we did all this, we took you to Professor Yamamoto’s laboratory. At first it might have seemed to you a senseless, unrelated incident, but even in a perfect court of law you couldn’t expect to be treated so fairly. You were placed in the position of seeing a portion of the future and being deeply interested in it but neverthe
less not being able to say a word about it. That was as much as I could do. I had no choice but to leave the rest for you to decide. I had great hopes for you. Would you go boldly into the future or would you back out?”
“So . . . ?”
“There’s no need to explain you any further to yourself. Despite all the effort we’ve expended, you haven’t changed at all. By your bungling you’ve got yourself into a position where you can’t avoid explaining things to your wife. We were somewhat roundabout, but ultimately it hasn’t changed anything about the outcome of the first forecast. If you had been let alone, you would surely have revealed the secret. It’s true, isn’t it? This is the reason we’ve had you come here for the final solution.”
“Yet according to what Professor Yamamoto said yesterday, there are milder means than killing.”
“Quite. Usually we adopt much less conspicuous methods. Be that as it may, the Society’s procurement goal for fetuses is eight hundred a day. You realize that at least eight hundred pregnant women learn about the fetus trade every single day? That makes a total of two hundred and ninety thousand a year. It’s most interesting that we’ve been able to keep the secret. So as not to excite curiosity, we plant the fear of God in the women by telling them that what we’re doing is a very serious crime and that those who sell to us have become our accomplices-a rather dirty trick. Their fear, when they’re paid the seven thousand yen, is quite enough to stop idle prattle. It probably wouldn’t work if the transaction were free. You may think it strange to pay seven thousand yen for an aborted fetus that in any case would be flushed down the toilet. And yet, when you consider the scale of the submarine colonies that are going to be completed, a yearly investment of some three billion yen is insignificant. It’s cheap, don’t you think, to be able to buy a whole human life for seven thousand yen? Seven thousand is the figure calculated by psychologists, and on the present price index it’s evidently just the right quotation for souls. It’s quite interesting. To be sure, the seven thousand yen we gave to your wife wasn’t meant like that. Just a justifiable demonstration. There’s no such uniformity in the price of souls. In any event, if you take into account the great number of people involved, there’re bound to be leaks. But no matter how the rumor spreads, if these women are conscious of being accomplices in crime they’re going to claim it was a personal ailment like stomach trouble. The more the news gets about, the greater the fetus procurement; there’s not much danger, though there would be if any information leaked out. Rumor suddenly becomes public opinion; it goes beyond the individual and thrives like a virulent influenza. Automatically we have to take the necessary measures. In the girl’s case, a blunder by a duly registered broker, we had to envisage the extreme penalty as an object lesson. As we go to just as much trouble with every single person involved, it’s rather complicated; but it can’t be helped. Oh, the ultimate penalty is not so important in itself, and the disposal of the body poses problems. So usually we adopt a method that leaves no clues behind. For instance, we increase our frightening suggestions, or if that doesn’t work, we induce insanity artificially. But I don’t suppose you would prefer going insane to dying.”
“You can say anything when it’s a question of someone else.”
“Someone else? You’re talking nonsense. Your death is at the same time mine. But let’s not get sentimental. If you have the strength to think and not be deceived by your emotions, you will quite naturally arrive at the same conclusion. It’s decidedly better than living like a vegetable, and then those of your family who are left get a certain amount of insurance through the goodness of the Society.”
“Insurance? How kind. But if your will is in reality my as you say, then this is a sort of suicide, isn’t it? They don’t pay insurance on suicides.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. If will look like an accidental death. You’re going to be electrocuted by touching a high-tension wire.”
34
How much time had passed, I did not know; but it had become completely dark outside before I realized it. Not a person stirred; I was clinging desperately to solely my own time, quite as if I were experiencing a series of astounding dreams, awakening from one into the other. If only I could remain thus suspended, the silence would last eternally; the following instant would never come.
Had I been thinking of something during that time? I wondered. Apparently I had, but actually only insignificant trivialities. Was it the lady who ran the boardinghouse where he stayed that ironed Tanomogi’s trousers? Or was it Wada? Evidently I had again stuck the premium statement for television insurance in my pocket and just forgotten about it. I made not the slightest movement, lost as I was in the labyrinth of these incoherent thoughts. But my emotions alone, if they had the chance, would take flight. I was awaiting my chance, all my muscles flexed, like a cat watching a hole in the wall. The word “cat” was not casual usage. At that time I was severed from reality as if by madness, but one object remained with me as a with the everyday continuity of things. It was the view of the veranda bathed in the scattered flecks of sunlight from the wisteria trellis. As long as that veranda existed, I must be saved and saved I would be.
With a grating of his chair Aiba suddenly rose.
“Aren’t we going to start pretty soon? It’s already time, isn’t it?”
“To kill me?” I cried, involuntarily drawn to my feet, my chair clattering over on its back.
“No, no,” stammered Tanomogi in surprise, while Wada continued at once: “Not yet. We still have more than two hours to go until the scheduled time. But in the meantime we’ve got to take you by television through the aquan breeding-farm as we promised, and if you’re willing, we’re most anxious for you to see a preview of a submarine colony.”
“There’s no ‘if’ about it, I most assuredly do want to see it,” boldly interrupted the machine. “It was on the schedule from the beginning. The time for the disposal has been purposely extended to nine o’clock. No matter how forceful your arguments may be, the subject is not yet convinced. He still definitely plans to resist.”
“Well then, we can begin, can’t we?” said Aiba over Tomoyasu’s shoulder, extending his hand in the direction of the machine.
“If I could just have a glass of water before we start . . .” said Tomoyasu, looking around Aiba and hesitantly addressing Wada.
“What about a fruit juice?”
“Sorry, but I’m terribly thirsty.”
‘That’s perfectly all right. Anyway we’re running late, and I have to go down and tell Kimura and the others to go on home.”
Suddenly I called to Wada, who had begun to move in her gliding way, her body rigidly erect. “Do Kimura and the others know about the organization, then?”
“No, they know nothing,” said Tanomogi for her. At almost the same time I bent over in the direction of the door and lunged forward with all my might, the tips of my toes digging into the floor. But before my hand could reach the door, it was opened wide from the other side, and I barely managed to remain upright as I stumbled through. There facing me stood the young man, the self-styled master assassin, blocking my way. He had an embarrassed smile on his face, and his two long arms dangled aimlessly as if he did not know what to do with them.
“Trying in spite of everything? Now, now, Professor.”
Not caring, I crashed into him. The only thing left was to tell Kimura about the situation and to ask for assistance from him. These people were mad. Aiming with my left shoulder at the fellow’s chest and taking advantage of his recoil, I tried to pass around his right side. That at least was what I intended to do. But something was manifestly awry in my calculations. I felt a sharp pressure on my left side, and just as I thought I was being pivoted around, the next instant I was flung against the opposite wall in a position difficult to understand. It was as if the lower half of my body was falling down somewhere far away. From my crotch, from between my fingers, from my ears, a myriad eyes were staring at my face. At length, with th
e return of normal space relationships, a sharp pain blossomed in the area below my heart.
I was returned to my chair, supported on either side by Tanomogi and Tomoyasu. “You’re perspiring,” said Wada in a low voice, pressing into my hand a tightly folded handkerchief. Professor Yamamoto stood there shaking his head back and forth as if to say what a bad business this was. I saw that the young man, in the same stance as before, had opened his thin lips.
“Yes, Professor. Dr. Yamamoto told me to stop you if you tried anything. First I thought it was a joke. Sorry, but what else could I do?”
“That’s enough. Go over there and wait,” said the machine, but the man was apparently unable to distinguish if from my own voice. Nodding in a disjointed kind of way, not looking particularly puzzled, he left. I could hear the sticky sound of his canvas shoes.
“It doesn’t make any difference. Just go ahead,” said Wada, leaving the room.
“Everything you do, everything you say, is just as predicted,” said the machine reproachfully, emphasizing its words.
Tanomogi turned out the lights in the room, and Aiba switched on the television.
Suddenly, as if encouraged by the darkness, I began to scream. But my throat was sore, and the cry was weaker than I expected.
“Why do you have to do a thing like this? If you intend to kill me in any event, why not get it over with right away?”
“It’s all right with us,” said Tanomogi, looking hesitantly over his shoulder into the blue light of the picture tube. “If you say, sir, you really don’t want to see the pictures . . .”
I remained silent, motionless, suffering the pain in my side.
Interlude
Televised pictures of the aquan breeding-farm, with commentaries by Professor Yamamoto.