by James Corley
[III]
The last link between the isolated marine research station and the mainland had been broken four months before. It had come suddenly and almost without warning. The last supply plane had landed on the tenth of November. Stoddard had an arrangement with the pilot, a young flight lieutenant of the Indian Air Force, who brought in the odd, unofficial bottle of gin on his monthly flights. The pilot was never in any rush to get back into the air. Usually he sat with the Director for a few hours sharing the bottle.
“Things are under control." the flight lieutenant had said confidently. “I read in the papers this morning that world food supplies will only be cut by thirty per cent according to official estimates. The fall-short isn’t comfortable of course, we’ll lose several millions through starvation, but that’s tolerable. If they all keep their heads.”
“But the rice and wheat crops must still be mutating,” objected Stoddard.
The pilot shrugged. “The military government has reassured the public that the mutation isn’t as serious as was first thought. Though most countries are suspending cattle and pig farming for the time being while they try to find a way to genetically stabilise the animals.”
“That should help things temporarily,” Stoddard said. Sipping his gin the young man nodded confident agreement.
The pilot left as the Sun was beginning to sink below the horizon. He was slightly too drunk to fly safely. It was the last they saw of him.
On November the fourteenth the short wave set in the common-room had picked up an English language broadcast. Which station was broadcasting was obscure. The solar wind ripped vast holes in the ionosphere. Stations tended to switch wavelengths in an uncontrolled fashion trying to find the one that was momentarily best. It had been the content of the broadcast that was important. A report on the Geneva Symposium on Solar Activity. A lone Frenchman who declared the Sun was in the process of going nova was shouted down. The American delegation had insisted the phenomenon was short lived and normalcy would soon he resumed. When Academician Sarnov stood up and asked what evidence they had for this opinion the Americans supplied a long answer which repeated what they’d said and added nothing.
Academician Sarnov had then claimed the anomalous solar activity was due to a NASA experiment on the corona in which a ton of titanium pellets had been dropped into the Sun. The Americans denied all knowledge of the experiment. Academician Sarnov declared it was yet another example of Neo-imperialist meddling contrary to the interests of the peoples of the world.
On the fifteenth of November twenty-two American embassies were razed in various countries. The radio reported that seven more countries went under military control within the space of twenty-four hours. Food riots, political riots and Anti-American riots were universal by the eighteenth. On the nineteenth, static on the radio became worse than ever. It hardly mattered. There were no more broadcasts.
Almost immediately rumours of a nuclear war circulated among the men on the island. Stoddard had tried unsuccessfully to squash the story. There was no basis for it he told Manji who was a cheerful supporter of the theory. They had argued publicly in the canteen.
“The Russians and the French have attacked America." Manji said. “And the Americans have retaliated. Armageddon has happened.”
“It's more likely the various military governments have decided to stop public broadcasting to conserve energy."
Manji fended the postulate with logic. “There is no shortage of electricity, only of edible foodstuffs. Electricity isn’t edible."
“They may have done it as a gesture. To emphasise the need for restraint in other areas. Or just to stop all these wild stories about the American experiments spreading."
"Then we should still be able to pick up military broadcasts. They wouldn’t stop those," Manji replied forcefully.
"You know what reception’s like. There could be any amount of radio transmitting. We just can’t hear it for the static."
“I think the world is dead outside of this island." Manji’s words cut through the room that had gone silent as men listened to the row.
“That's ridiculous and defeatist," Stoddard stated loudly. He began to get worried about order breaking down in the station. Visions of hopeless anarchy came to him.
Manji seemed unmoved by the prospect. "It might be for the best. All the seed plants are mutating because of the Sun’s rays. The climate has changed in any case, that must have at least decimated the harvests. The fast breeding animals are mutating. Look at the fish we’ve been getting out of the sea, the last we caught had two heads. It’s simply a matter of time before long gestating animals like man show signs of wide-spread mutation. All this talk about solving the problem is propaganda, nothing more. The problem is too big. The human race is finished, we simply have to accept it. Who wants to carry on anyway when the next generation will be a collection of abortions and still-born monstrosities? And you know anything born that survives will be a circus freak."
“Then why are you still working here?" Stoddard asked angrily. ‘Why not simply give up now?”
"I keep myself busy. I have to do something. I survive."
Stoddard walked out of the canteen shaking. By morning the whole thing was forgotten. If the world had ended people pretended not to have noticed.