Japan Sinks

by Sakyo Komatsu

  “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.