Inter Ice Age 4

by Kono Abe

  Ten minutes before, the body had been delivered. It was hermetically sealed in a large glass case containing a special gas, and the technicians had to work on it from a distance with mechanical hands. Dr. Yamamoto stood by the case and explained what was happening. (Of course, I was listening to him by television.) Radiations were emitted from the left-hand side of the room, passed through the corpse, and projected a kind of anatomical chart of the body on the right wall. I could not actually see this picture, but metal needles as fine as a strand of hair at the extremities of the mechanical hands were accurately guided by means of an invisible force to certain prescribed places in the nerve fibers. The metal helmet the corpse wore on his head sprouted tufts of copper wire in place of hair and replaced the cranium, which had been removed. This helmet lay directly on the brain and played the role of meter, I was told.

  13

  Suddenly a strong light went on, illuminating the interior of the room. The camera moved to the head. Tanomogi was there, abruptly, on the far side, smiling into the lens. Slightly to one side, the anxious faces of Aiba and Wada Katsuko were peering fixedly at the body’s face. At that angle the mole above Wada’s lip was not noticeable, and she looked considerably better. The camera rotated, closing in, as the man’s naked body, gleaming whitely, filled the frame. A row of brown spots, evidently traces from the strangulation, went round his neck, his chin jutted out, his lips were slightly open, the eyes tightly closed. A beard sprouted raggedly from skin that seemed covered with dust. Was this the steadfast, hardworking accountant with a family, the one who had a mistress in whom he was so involved that he had been murdered by her? He seemed considerably more lively, indeed more dangerous than last night when, laced into his flannel suit, he had sat so properly on his chair in the cafe with the dish of melted ice cream before him. Enviable, and at the same time comic, he made me feel most uncomfortable.

  At length the analysis began. First weight and height were measured, respectively 120 pounds and five feet one inch. Then in an instant the features of the various parts of the body were expressed quantitatively and relatively. The mechanical hands began to move. Simultaneously a number of needles were thrust through various parts of the body. A row of serried lights fixed on the wall vertically and horizontally and connected to the needles blinked on and off as they converted the words of the machine. Whereupon, in response, the body in the box began to move freely, quite as if it were alive. The movement went from the tips of the toes to the upper half of the body, finally causing the lips to stir, the eyes to open and shut, working even the facial muscles. Wada heaved a groaning sigh; even Tanomogi’s lips trembled, and his face was bathed in perspiration.

  Dr. Yamamoto said: “This way we determine the motor function. Movement is not a purely physiological feature. It is also connected with the body’s underlying history as an individual.”

  Then came the analysis of the internal organs, and when that was done they at last got to the brain waves. The needles in the mechanical hands increased in number, seven or eight concentrated on the face. They stimulated the sense organs such as the eyes and ears. A receiver was lowered to the ears and a device like a pair of large-sized binoculars to the eyes; sounds and images began to come in, whereupon the eighty delicate wave ripples on the screen began to undulate violently.

  “First of all,” said Dr. Yamamoto, continuing his explanation, “let’s try beginning with the stimuli of very common, everyday phenomena. We’ll use the five thousand most ordinary reactions we have produced in our lab. To them correspond a group of simple nouns, verbs, and adjectives by which they may be described. Then, we’ll use five thousand slightly more complex reactions made up of combinations of the first five thousand and their corresponding descriptions. Usually that’s enough for us to be able to read the reactions to the stimuli and perform the necessary pathological analysis. However, today, as an experiment, we have decided to go further. It’s just an idea of ours, but I wonder what will happen if we use as stimuli words that have appeared in the newsreels and newspaper articles over this past week.”

  “It’s a brilliant idea,” I began enthusiastically, and Tanomogi in the television nodded his approval. Well done indeed. It was not always that the greater served the lesser. In the case of a fishnet, a finely woven one catches both great and small. Even in the net of thoughts, the finer the better.

  But as I watched, the line of wave ripples, unchanging, still kept wavering and trembling like hot air over a street.

  I could not help being impatient for the time when the switch on the forecasting machine would at length be turned and the high-speed output would begin humming. What, I wondered, would the body have to say?

  14

  Dr. Yamamoto cut the switch for the brain-wave analysis and nodded on the screen.

  “For the time being we’ve completed the scheduled analysis.”

  I thanked him and snapped off the television set with an uncomfortable feeling. In the vanishing lines Tanomogi’s displeased eyes looked challengingly into mine. Indeed, I may have been slightly too abrupt and wanting in courtesy. Everyone was expectant and curious about what the deceased accountant Tsuchida Susumu would have to say through the machine. But I had my own ideas. The results of the analysis must not be published until the problem of the murder had been put in some kind of order. At all costs we must avoid irritating the cowardly committee with sensational rumors. If anything like murder got involved, that in itself would make the committee back off. As far as I was concerned now, over and above testing the forecasting capacity of the machine, the priority was for investigating this strange crime. (I would talk with Tanomogi about it when he returned.)

  Just as I was about to turn the output switch, the buzzer on the telephone sounded. I took up the receiver and a distant, muffled voice said: “Hello? Hello? Dr. Katsumi?”

  I seemed to remember the voice, but I wasn’t sure. From the city noise in the background I assumed the call was being made in some public booth.

  ‘‘I’m calling to warn you,” the voice went on. ‘You’d better not go too far with us.”

  “Us? Who is us?”

  “Look, I’m telling you. There’s no need for you to know. The police already suspect the two fellows that were shadowing that dead Romeo.”

  “Look. Who are you?”

  “A friend, Professor, a friend.”

  The phone went dead. I lit a cigarette, waiting for my composure to return, and went back to the output device. I turned the switch and read the signals. I summoned from several addresses the analyses of the dead man, connected them up, and set the machine on “induction.” The man was quite dead, but in the machine now he would be revived with his responses precisely the same as they had been when he was alive. Of course, it would not be the man as he was. Clearly there would be a difference between his actual body and the projected one. It would be interesting to speculate on that difference, but I had no time to do so now.

  “Can you answer a question?” I asked the machine point-blank, containing my excitement.

  After a short time the answer came, weak but clear.

  “It is possible, I think, if the question is concrete.”

  I was bewildered at the overly cordial tone, and I had the impression that a real human was concealed within the machine. But this was merely a simple reaction. It could not have a conscience or a will.

  “I wonder if you really understand you’re dead.”

  “Dead?” The equation in the machine gasped in surprise. ‘‘Do you mean me?”

  It was too real to believe.

  “Yes, of course,” I said hesitantly.

  “Is that so. Then I surely must have been killed. Is that it?”

  “Don’t you have some clue about the murder?”

  Suddenly the voice became sharp and grating. “But who for God’s sake are you, telling me this?”

  “I ... ?”

  “No, I mean what’s this place here? It’s strange, isn’t it, to be talking
and thinking even though I’m dead?” said the voice, cracking nervously. “Ah, you’re fooling me, aren’t you. I see. You’re trying to trap me.”

  “Not at all. Actually, you’re not a human being. You’re the personality equation of a man by the name of Tsuchida Susumu, that has been committed to memory by the machine.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. And stop this ridiculous deceit. Damn! All my sensations seem to be gone. But where’s Chikako? Say, what about turning on the lights?”

  “You’re dead.”

  “Okay, drop it. I’ve decided not to be afraid.”

  Wiping away the perspiration that had run into the corner of my eye, I pulled myself together. “Tell me. Who killed you?”

  The machine made an insulting sound. “Rather than my telling you anything, I’d like to know who you are. If I was killed, it was by you. Say, turn on the light and produce Chikako. Let’s come to terms.”

  Apparently he thought that I was the criminal. This was proof that his consciousness was still at the point just before he was killed.

  “Just who do you think I am?”

  “How should I know?” responded the man in the machine, shrilly, like a boy whose voice is beginning to change. “Even though I might look like it, I’m not so dumb as to be taken in by such lies.”

  “Lies? What lies?”

  “Come on!”

  The rough, wheezing breathing came at me, hanging over my face. I realized it was only a machine, but I had an eerie feeling. There was too much discrepancy with the absolute correctness I had expected of it. Perhaps I had not proceeded right. I should not have come to an outright showdown this way. We should face each other more objectively, with a safety zone between us.

  I turned the switch, and the man at once dissolved into electronic fragments. His existence had been so lifelike that I was conscience-stricken when I erased him. Hastily I turned the time scale, which had been on unspecified time, back twenty-two hours, to when the man was still waiting for the girl in the Shinjuku cafe. I connected the television and turned on the switch again.

  The phone rang. It was from Tsuda, in charge of the group concerned with the criminal.

  “How are things? Any results from the analysis of the body?”

  “Not yet, no,” I began casually, but surprised when I realized that I had obtained one important piece of evidence from the exchange with the machine just now. In my conversation with Tanomogi we had foreseen the worst possible situation, one in which the real criminal was not the Kondo girl but a different person entirely. Yet it remained a prediction, and there was no actual basis for it. In the conversation now it was clear that the man had expected a third party, someone other than the girl, a man whose interests stood in opposition to his own.

  “What’s going on with you? Have you any new information?”

  “Not a thing. Apparently two men shadowed the man as far as the apartment. The tobacconist near the building testified to it, but in any case the girl put her signature to the confession. Opinion is evenly divided among the detectives, and no one appears very interested in the two.”

  “But what’s your own opinion?”

  “Well, a while ago I contacted Kimura, who’s checking on the girl. Unless the relationship between the two is clarified, the basis for assuming the criminal to be other than the girl is extremely slight. And then even if we do suppose the existence of someone else, is the investigation of an incident like this all that important?”

  “We won’t know until the case is solved.” Then in an irritated tone, I added: “Don’t you bother about the conclusion. Concentrate rather on data. I think it would be well if we had an exact sketch map of the girl’s room.”

  “But I don't understand. However will such things help with the forecasting plan?”

  “I’ve been telling you. We won’t know until we try them!”

  I was at once repentant of my angry outburst. “We’ll talk this all over together later when we’re not rushed. I’m impatient because we’ve no time. Let me say it again: Watch out for the newspaper reporters. That’d be the last straw for the committee.”

  Indeed things were gradually getting difficult. Rather than formulating a plan that would win over the committee, it looked as though I would have my hands full just vindicating myself. I had the impression that the more I struggled, the deeper I became enmeshed.

  15

  I replaced the receiver and looked around. On the screen appeared Tsuchida Susumu’s retreating figure when he was still alive twenty-two hours before. Again I experienced a sense of pride at the machine’s efficiency. As I turned the co-ordinate plate, the man turned completely around along with the background. But this background was after all the man's inner landscape, and so only what he saw now was distinct; the rest was crooked and irregular and faint. Thus the section where Tanomogi and I should be was dead black, as if nothing existed in it. The ice cream on the table was completely melted.

  The man stuck his spoon into the mush and sipped some up with the tips of his tapering lips. During that time his eyes did not leave the door. Oh, yes, I thought, searching my memory, that time. Soon the jukebox would begin to play and the man would look over this way. Let's just wait and see.

  At length the music began just as I had anticipated it would, and the man looked around. In order to see how we were reflected in his eyes, I turned the co-ordinate plate 180 degrees. The jukebox and the girl in the miniskirt stood out extraordinarily distinctly; in front of them we appeared only faintly, like shadows. (That was quite all right. If he had not seen us, there was no fear that his corpse would become our accuser.)

  Then I tried advancing the time two hours.

  The man was walking down the street.

  I advanced it still another two hours.

  He was standing in front of the public telephone.

  After that I tried condensing the passing of time to one tenth the normal velocity. As in a movie that has been speeded up, the man jumped quickly onto the streetcar, got off, charged up the alley, and arrived in front of the girl’s apartment. At that point I shifted back to normal speed again.

  From now on we were getting to the part with which I was unfamiliar. If all went well, not only would the real murderer be revealed, but we would have a complete set of valuable data to show to the committee, and in one fell swoop matters would change for the better. Intensely anxious, I kept my eyes riveted on the man’s movements.

  He mounted the dark stairs and stopped, gazing fixedly toward the end of the corridor on the second floor. He began hesitantly to walk forward, his head tilted. Muffling his steps, he advanced toward his already appointed death. Tanomogi did not show up in the picture, but in the shadow of the stairs he must be looking on.

  The man took a key from his inner pocket; and after wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, he bent over and opened the door. The sound of the lock opening was unnaturally sharp, as if suggesting his own inner tension. He jerked the door open, entered, and closed it behind his back with his other hand. From the sound, I had the impression it was not shut tightly. Beyond, in the darkened room, one could see a gray window and some distant lights. He removed his shoes, and extending his hand along the left wall, flipped on the switch. (Ah . . . Death approaches!)

  With the light on, a medium-sized room came into view, a girl’s apparently, in which a small cabinet hid one corner. No one was there. Only an intense muteness invested the chamber. The man’s gaze shifted idly left and right. There was a low sound behind him. A faint creak that came from nowhere. And just as he looked around, he doubled over limply. The floor rose up obliquely and struck his face. A great shadow, twisted like a hook, leaned over and switched off the light; it fell gently over him. The screen was plunged into blackness. It was then that he had died.

  I stared for some time, motionless, at the trembling black screen. He hadn’t seen the murderer. And since he had not, he might even become an actively hostile witness. The girl had n
ot been in the room. That was what she had testified, but she had been accused on the grounds that she had returned late. Then it was a patent lie that she had done the killing. And that was not all. Suppose he thought that the creak he had heard in the background was the noise of the door. On the other side of that door was Tanomogi. The results of the analysis of the body were becoming more and more unfavorable to us. It was as if we had put the rope around our necks with our own hands.

  I had apparently remained lost in thought and oblivious to things about me for some time. Suddenly conscious of someone, I turned around and found Tanomogi standing with his back to the door. I had been quite unaware of his arrival. (For an instant I had the hallucination that the scene I had just witnessed had been revived, that I was standing in place of the murdered man. I shuddered.) Tanomogi laughed, shaking his head over and over again and running his fingers through his hair.