“Who else,” replied the Team Leader, fixing his gaze on me. “Yohachi is surely the only person at the Base who has the mentality needed to enter Newdopia.”
“Impossible!” Mogamigawa shook his head as if to add,
“However, Dr Mogamigawa,” the Team Leader said abruptly, in a bid to persuade him, “even if he has no knowledge of medicine or biology, surely it isn’t beyond him to ask how they prevent pregnancy?”
“If Yohachi goes to Newdopia, we’ll never see him again,” I said with a grin. “Apart from anything else, Newdopian women are said to be universally beautiful – far beyond the likes of earth women. Didn’t the report say ‘The women were all like angels’?”
“What a banal expression,” said Fukada, turning away.
“Yes, but someone else could go with him,” argued the Team Leader. “He could wait near the Newdopian border and give Yohachi instructions from there. If the information Yohachi brings is unclear, he could be sent back repeatedly until an intelligible answer is received.”
My head sank. “You want me to go, don’t you.”
“Correct,” the Team Leader declared coldly, before turning to Mogamigawa. “And I think a knowledge of bacteriology will come in handy too. Could you accompany them, Doctor?”
Mogamigawa nodded casually. “I could do that. If we take the survey ship, we’ll be there in about an hour.”
“However,” interrupted the Team Leader, shifting uneasily in his seat. “We only have one ship, and it’s currently being used by the geo-mineralogists.”
“So you could contact Dr Nayama and order him to return immediately.”
“In fact, I was speaking to him by telecall just now,” the Team Leader said with a pained expression. “He says they won’t be back for another two days. As you know, he’s an obstinate so-and-so. He won’t take orders from anyone.”
“Of course, you did tell him how urgent the situation is.”
“Of course. But it was like water off a duck’s back. ‘Let her give birth, then just dump the thing somewhere,’ he said.”
“Very amusing,” Mogamigawa said with a sigh. “Then we shall go by hovercar.”
“What?!” I gasped. “The hovercar will only take us as far as Lake Turpitude. It can’t travel over water. And we can’t go round the lake, as there’s the Sea of Newdopia to the north, and sea from the tip of Cape Onania to the south.” As I spoke, I felt rising anger at the studied silence of Dr Fukada. If only he would perform a Caesarean section, this problem would not have existed in the first place. Surgeons were increasingly unable to perform operations manually; as they themselves said, it was all thanks to advances in medical science. But what good are scientific advances if they cause such inconvenience? “If we go, we’ll have to take the hovercar as far as Lake Turpitude, then make some kind of raft from the vegetation around there, cross the lake, go through the marsh to the west of the lake, then walk the remaining twenty or so miles to Newdopia.”
Dr Mogamigawa groaned. “Is that the only way?!” Evidently sharing my thoughts, he turned to glower at Fukada with a look that said,
Fukada shifted uncomfortably in his seat and attempted to excuse himself. “Of course, I should go. But as you know, I have a bad leg, not to mention my chronic condition.”
“Nobody is asking you to go, my friend,” Mogamigawa said sharply. Fukada cast him a look of petulant indignation, then fell into a sullen silence.
Nobody said anything for a while.
At length, Fukada could take it no longer and rose from his seat. “Well, I have work to do. Excuse me.”
Once our incompetent friend had left the room, the Team Leader let out a huge sigh. In our disgust, Mogamigawa and I had lost all inclination to speak.
The groaning voice of a woman riding on a wave of ecstasy came blowing in on the wind from Mount Mona.
“What an obscene sound,” cursed Mogamigawa. “A mountain that makes a noise like that should be called Mounting Climax, not Mount Mona.” His eyes bulged. “What am I saying?!” He scratched his head. “Dear me. How low have I fallen.”
I took a long puff from my cigarette and started to speak as calmly as I could. “From my one experience of walking from Lake Turpitude to Newdopia and back, it won’t be all that hard to make a raft and walk there. The main reason why I really didn’t want to go there on foot again was because of the nightmarish flora and fauna we encountered on the way. Not to mention their habitats. Of course, I myself should be well-accustomed to the outlandish habitats of bizarre life forms on alien planets. But even I could not remain apathetic to their sheer obscenity, based on scientific interest alone.”
“Er – you needn’t mention that now,” said the Team Leader in some haste.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I have to warn Dr Mogamigawa of these things before we go. It may help to lighten the blow.”
“Are they really so obscene? I’ve heard rumours, but…”
“Well, most of them are plants and creatures that also exist around here, but over there they’ve formed biocenoses to the point of overpopulation. The plants grow in multi-layered communities, among which the animals form complexes while maintaining relationships of peaceful coexistence. For example, species of algae that are only occasionally found in these parts have formed whole communities in Lake Turpitude, which is arguably their physiologically optimal habitat. There’s clingweed and bleedweed, not to mention fondleweed.”
“Not fondleweed! It’s obscene!” Mogamigawa repeatedly banged both fists on the table and contorted his body. “Only recently my wife went to a lake not far from here and bathed in the water. After a few moments she began to look drowsy, and came out looking utterly dissipated. There was fondleweed in that lake! It’s obscene,” he muttered once his agitation had abated. “I should never have brought my wife to such an obscene planet!”
“Lake Turpitude is also full of strange creatures. It’s literally swimming with flatback hippos, eleventh-hour crocodiles, gurgling alligators, and what have you.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“No. They’re not dangerous, but they come and do obscene things. Besides the larger animals, there are also swarms of matchbox jellyfish and other weird creatures. We’ll have to build the raft sturdily, as it’ll be no joke if it capsizes.”
“I’ll wager there’s something in the marsh too. Is there something in the marsh too?” Mogamigawa asked, trembling with trepidation.
“There are communities of forget-me-grass there.”
“Not forget-me-grass! It’s obscene!” Mogamigawa repeatedly banged both fists on the tabletop and contorted his body. “Only recently I was collecting species of grass for culture tests on perforating bacterial pathogens, and that plant was mixed in amongst them. I forgot what culture tests I was supposed to be doing! That was just with one specimen. If we have to cross a whole field of forget-me-grass, who knows what we’ll forget. We might even forget what we’ve gone there for!”
“Perhaps you should make a note of it in advance,” said the Team Leader.
“What if we forget how to read?”
The Team Leader laughed dismissively. “It causes temporary amnesia, not senile dementia! Honestly, it can’t be that bad.”
“Wasn’t there a jungle too?” Mogamigawa looked at me with fear in his eyes. “What’s in the jungle?”
“There are communities of sheath and mantle, characteristic of woodland borders, lying between the jungle and liberated vegetation zones such as fields of forget-me-grass. Mistress bine grows there. It’s a type of lichen that hangs from the branches of the itchy scratchy tree. As for animals in those parts, the main ones are the panting hart, the false-eared rabbit, the grindhog, the gaping hooter and the collapsible cow. For birds we have the penisparrow, for insects the screeching cicada. Unclassified species include the relic pod, and finally, one that’s heard but never seen, the wife waker.”
“Not the wife waker! It’s obscene!” Mogamigawa banged his fists madly on the tabletop and scratched his hair. “If one hears its ghastly cry while in bed at night, one is sure to have an erotic dream! It wakes my wife, then she wakes me. I should never have brought her to such an obscene planet!” He put his head in his hands.
