Inter Ice Age 4 by Kono Abe
On the bridge immediately above, white-clad figures were coming and going, their sandals clacking, reading meters and making notes. Even when we came in, they did not turn around and look at us, but when Professor Yamamoto called the name Harada, a surprisingly affable face appeared as his voice reverberated deep among the tanks.
“Harada, would you mind opening Growing-Room Three for us, please.”
“It’s all ready, sir.”
Professor Yamamoto nodded and looked around. “Well then, shall we go? For the present it’s my room,” he said, setting off across the center bridge.
“Look,” exclaimed Tanomogi, touching my arm and directing my attention to the water tanks on either side. Without being told, I had been taking everything in from the moment I entered.
In the first tank were a pair of aquatic mice. Aside from the fact that light peach-colored crevices were opening and closing between the rough hairs at the base of the neck and that the breast was small and barrel-like, there was almost no difference between them and ordinary field mice. Their movements in the water were surprisingly graceful. Their dog-paddle fashion of swimming was reminiscent of land animals, but they cavorted around with the utmost agility like prawns, expanding and contracting their whole bodies as if they were springs. The rodent features had evidently not been suppressed, for one of the mice pranced up to the surface of the water and grabbed between his paws a chip of wood that was floating there, gnawing on it as he slowly sank on his back to the bottom. The other one suddenly sprang at me, but just before striking the glass of the tank, gracefully turned aside and stared at me with great round, unblinking eyes, flicking the tip of its pointed red tongue between half-open lips.
The next tank and the one after that contained mice. Then the fourth held a rabbit. It was different from the mice: It looked most dejected and miserable with its hair all pasty. It was floating curled up in a ball near the bottom of the tank like some bag. “Purely herbivorous animals haven’t worked out very well,” observed Professor Yamamoto, tapping the tank above the rabbit with his fingernail. I suppose it’s because their method of assimilating energy is too specialized. The first generation manages to live, but subsequent generations don’t.”
We were led up some iron stairs on the right to a box-like room suspended from the ceiling. Just before I entered, I casually looked around. An immense animal, gleaming darkly in a tank the size of a van located at the far end of the room, dashed to the surface of the water, undulating like honey, and let out a distressing cry. It was a cow.
“Amazing, isn’t it,” said Professor Yamamoto, smiling and closing the door. “We even manage to raise herbivorous animals if we don’t stint on artificial fodder. As cows provide meat and milk, we can make quite a profit if we produce fodder on a large scale. But they’re in the water, and a device for milking them presents difficulties. For the present, we’re using a small vacuum pump, but I can’t say it’s ideal.” He took out a china pitcher from a refrigerator in the wall and filled a glass. It was milk. “Try a little. Fresh from the cow. It’s almost the same as you get from a land animal. Analytically, the salt content is somewhat greater. The milk itself doesn’t have any more, it’s just that during the milking, salt water infiltrates. Ah, the freshness is its best feature.”
I quickly drank some so as not to hurt my host’s feelings. Perhaps it was because they took such care with the fodder, but I felt it tasted better than the milk we drank at home. I seated myself on the chair that was brought up. Drinking the milk before being seated was most effective in producing a friendly, informal feeling. If this was all put on, my host was going to be a hard customer to deal with.
“You must be tired at an hour like this. We’re used to it here by this time,” said Professor Yamamoto, joining his thick fingers in front of his chest, his back facing a wall lined with microscopes and various other instruments for use in chemical experiments. On the back of each finger rose some ten upstanding, coarse hairs, like those on a currying brush. In back of us was a bed, part of which was hidden by a screen, and some high bookcases.
“Oh no, being up late at night is a common occurrence for us too,” I rejoined.
“I imagine it is. You must be very busy. It’s not quite precise to say we’re busy. By the very nature of the work here we almost can’t distinguish between night and day. It’s the way things are. There are a lot of night prowlers among carnivorous animals, and, well, even if we try and fool them by lighting artificially, it won’t work. In training a dog, for example, it’s got to be done outside, and so daytime is out. We’re not anxious to be seen, you see.”
“Aren’t you, indeed?”
“Certainly not!” he exclaimed, smiling warmly. “If we have the time, I’ll show you, but a little later. May I offer you another glass of milk? How about you, Tanomogi?”
I looked at Tanomogi, stunned. The casualness of the question, no matter how affable Yamamoto might be, could not be acceptable for people who had seen each other only a few times. But Tanomogi didn’t even try to conceal that he felt at home; quite the contrary.
“There’s no need to worry about pasteurization, sir,” he said, continuing in Yamamoto’s vein. “The water in this part of Tokyo Bay is quite pure. It’s been filtered and reclaimed artificially.”
“Quite true. Let me show you a model of the building,” said Professor Yamamoto, arising and taking the cover from a stand by the corner of the bookcase. Abruptly a column of dust billowed up. “Sorry. It’s not very clean here. Now, look at this. It’s a cross section of part of the laboratory. Above it, up to here, is all sea; it’s about thirty feet to the surface, I should imagine. Water is supplied through this pipe. It has filters that make use of natural water pressure. They have a capacity of two million gallons per unit; and besides them we have two reserve units of five hundred thousand gallons, so we’re adequately provided for. If the filtering is too perfect, it’s not good for growth, probably because the so-called natural balance has been disturbed. There’s a decline in digestive capacity, and allergic diseases seem to increase. Here in this tank organic and inorganic matters are mixed together to produce something close to sea water. We can make any kind you want:Red Sea water, Antarctic water, water from the depths off the Japan Sea. We’re moving right along with our research on the best water for raising pigs.”
“So you don’t have to worry about eating sliced raw pig here as an appetizer, like caviar.”
“Quite true. It’s our special delicacy. Someone unaccustomed to it surely wouldn’t like it, but it’s much more palatable than beef, say. Once you’re used to it, you just can’t stay away from it. Will you try some?”
“I think not today, thank you,” I replied, irked at his attitude, as if the two of us were collaborators. “I should prefer, if you don’t mind, to get down to the main point of our visit immediately.” After I had spoken I realized how bungling I must seem, but there was no question of turning back now, and I went on with no idea how things would turn out. “I’m terribly sorry to force myself suddenly on you at such an inopportune time, but you have heard from Tanomogi more or less the reason for our visit, I believe.”
“Well, I was only told that it was for research purposes. But never mind. It’s really a pleasure to be able to talk with someone like you. I live cut off from the outside world here. Getting permission is rather bothersome, and we seldom have the chance to see anyone, though we live right in the middle of Tokyo.”
“By ‘permission,’ do you mean a permit to go out?”
“No, no, permission to invite people in from the outside.”
“Does that mean that this laboratory is under the jurisdiction of some government agency?”
“Not at all. A government agency is like a family: You can’t keep anything secret. Besides, it’s not all that troublesome.” Then he raised a big questioning hand before me, as if to block my way. “No, I can’t answer any more. You see, even I don’t really know what the top structures are here. But the
“Then you know?” I suddenly asked Tanomogi point-blank. “No, absolutely not!” Tanomogi shook his head and raised his eyebrows exaggeratedly; in his expression I could not discern the slightest tremor.
“Strange, isn’t it. How was it possible to get a permit for me then?”
“Through me, of course,” laughed Professor Yamamoto, displaying long, widely spaced front teeth, as if he were enjoying the conversation. “I'm the one in charge, and even I don’t know, so how could any outsider know the top structures? I was able to submit a request on your behalf because I alone know how to contact them.”
“I see,” I said, sensing that here was the trump card in my hand. “Then, for example,” I added, leisurely savoring my excitement, “that would mean that the first time Tanomogi became aware of the existence of this laboratory, he must have received permission to inspect it by someone else’s request, doesn’t it? If he didn’t, your explanation doesn’t hold together.”
“Of course it does,” interjected Professor Yamamoto, restraining Tanomogi, who had started to speak. “Let me give a simple explanation of the point. For the information of a new recruit, as it were. As I have already said, the work in this laboratory requires secrecy, and this must be respected whether you’re a visitor or a member of the staff. Of course, there’s no law or anything. We don’t ask you to put your signature on any oath, and there are no formal restrictions. However, the screening is consequently all the more severe. We show our work only to those we absolutely know will keep our secret. As a result, there have been almost no slips.”
“When you say ‘almost,’ you mean there have been cases where a promise of secrecy was broken?”
“Mm, I wonder. I think we can safely assume that there have been none, since our work has never once been discussed publicly. But I did hear of a case of some poorly educated workers who talked under the influence of liquor. They received rather severe treatment for it.”
“Were they liquidated?”
“Of course not. All kinds of progress have been made in science. You don’t have to kill; there are any number of methods: causing a loss of memory, for example.”
My trump card had evidently been the right one. Professor Yamamoto’s mild expression remained the same as before, and his voice kept its businesslike hardness. But the nervous little rhythm that Tanomogi was tapping out with his fingertips on the edge of the table-he himself was unaware of it—told me that the conversation was already approaching the kernel of the situation.
“However,” I probed, “you can’t manage to have a dead body speak without making mincemeat of it.”
Professor Yamamoto burst out laughing, shaking his shoulders as if terribly amused.
“That may be true. If we got to that, we would be in a pretty fix.”
“But I don’t understand. If you’re all that fearful of your work becoming known, you should not have granted visiting privileges to start with. It’s all right in the case of some pressing request by a given applicant, but aren’t you just laying a trap by arbitrarily forcing a permit on someone and saying you’ll kill him if he talks? And knowledge he can’t talk to anyone about serves no purpose. It looks to me as if your aim is merely to torment.”
“You exaggerate, sir,” began Tanomogi. “There’s absolutely no objection about insiders discussing the work as much as they like.”
“Of course not,” continued Professor Yamamoto. “In principle, the request for a permit is handled through a third person; this is a means of enlarging the number of people who are sympathetic and not against keeping our secret. Anonymous voices, as it were, like public opinion and rumor, are quite different from the judgment of responsible individuals, sympathizers, you will agree.”
“Sympathizers, sympathizers, you say. What in heaven’s name are they supposed to sympathize with?”
“That’s precisely the reason I’m going to show you around now.”
Professor Yamamoto stood up briskly, rubbing the palm of his hand back and forth on the lapel of his white coat and narrowing his eyes as if pleased. “I should like you to take an intellectual rather than factual interest in what you’re going to see. First we’re going to start with the growing-rooms, but before that, a very simplified history of what our research proceeded from.”
“Just a moment. Before you go on, there’s one more thing I’d like cleared up.” I too stood up and took a step backward, dropping my raised hands slowly to the table. “Tanomogi, I realize it was you who put in the request for me, but what I don’t understand is who put in the request for you. If the person who was permitted to observe this work is a colleague, don’t I have the right to know who it is? Who selected you and why?”
“All right. I’ll tell you,” said Tanomogi, smiling faintly as he rose. “Since I can, I will. It’s just too bad if you’re angry because I haven’t told you until now.”
“No one’s angry. I just want to know the truth.”
Professor Yamamoto intervened, speaking as if he did not know what the whole thing was about. “Yes, indeed, the truth is fascinating, isn’t it? At last, the heavy burden has been taken from Tanomogi’s shoulders.”
“In point of fact, it was Wada,” said Tanomogi selfconsciously, licking his lips.
“Wada?”
“Yes. Before she went to work for you, she was employed here for some time,” interceded Professor Yamamoto, raising his hand. “She was a competent worker and, for a girl, possessed amazing perseverance. But she had an unfortunate weak point for a place like this: She couldn’t stand the sight of blood. So she left and went to you. But if I remember correctly, her sponsor at the time was my younger brother at Central Welfare.”
“Right. That’s quite true. I remember now.”
At once the various links of the chain closed with a snap • . . too quickly. But even with my suspicions dispelled, the problem was still there. The links had been neatly plucked from the air, but the fact that the touch was too neat made me sense here some hidden device. Unfortunately the very magician who was performing this sleight-of-hand for me had still not actually revealed himself. I was thus suspicious but fascinated by the well-ordered links of his chain. Suddenly a new wiring chart was drawn between me and the central figure who had seemed only an accident, and the link between us was clear and strong. To some extent I could even understand the reason Tanomogi had brought me here. At least the explanation was feasible. Even though I did not go so far as to trust him, I was beginning to feel that the possibility existed that I might. I exhaled slowly so that the deep breath I had taken would pass unnoticed by the others.
24
“The first research project for our group was the metamorphosis of insects. Professor Katsumi, you have some knowledge of genetics, I believe?”
“Oh, no. Consider me a rank amateur. I’ve even forgotten whether the inner or outer germinal layer is produced first.”
“Fine. That will make it easier to explain things in simple terms,” said Professor Yamamoto, tapping alternately both ends of an unlit cigarette on the table. “Of course,” he continued in a slow voice as if weighing every word, “our goal was not only the metamorphosis of insects. What we were aiming for, to put it in general terms, was the planned reconstruction of living creatures. To some extent improvements have already been made. We have actually been able, in the case of plant life, to double the chromosomes. However, in the case of animal life, our efforts have not gone beyond the purely experimental stage of breed amelioration. We want this improvement of living creatures to be fundamental and well planned. It’s an ambitious project: We’re attempting to cause evolution to progress artificially and rapidly but in a given direction. Now as you know, the development of an individual repeats the development of the family line. Strictly speaking, he does not repeat the exact form of th
“That’s what we would call a composite feedback, isn’t it?”
“It’s a feedback complex. And in order to investigate the detailed workings of it, we’ve been observing the metamorphosis of insects. It has been known for some time that the specialization hormone secreted from nerve cells and the larva hormone which comes from the corpus allatum are what control the metamorphosis of insects, and we have actually been able to see what will result from the elimination of one or the other during a given period. But the control of growth by minute and quantitative regulation is technically difficult. Exactly nine years ago, however, they succeeded in realizing this control experimentally almost simultaneously in the United States and in Russia. Then the following year our group, working independently, also discovered the technique. We produced some very strange insects. Here, just look here.”