Contdown to Midnight vers 2, page 13
which should accompany my sacrifice, will not suffer either, for I shall threaten the police, not because they’re afraid, but because they’re in the service of those who produce the bomb, those I hate. So that threat and that hatred should be included in the program of sacrifice. I cling to this thought: I consider it fine and pure, for I can hold the makers of the Zeta bomb, and their assistants, under threat; I can do as I like with them. That’s a wise sacrifice. I can command them to march to a hollow between hills and leave them there, and starve them. I can send Professor Lombard there, and even the chief of staff, himself. I’m grateful to that rustle in the reeds. It has brought about a judicious change in my thinking.
I shan’t destroy the Zeta bomb today. Pity I didn’t bring the plush box also when I brought it away. I’d have had something in which to keep it. I shall keep Zeta and devote it to the service of the good. I’m astonished that I could ever have forgotten the great significance of the bomb in this kind of service.
Blind self-sacrifice made me regard it only as the source of a great evil. Prudence, which I now associate with the desire for sacrifice, makes it possible for me to consider Zeta from various aspects. With Zeta’s aid I can see the world free from Zeta. By using it as a threat, I can order the laboratories in which it was to have serial production to be destroyed. I can render Professor Lombard harmless, and all the experts on the bomb, and its guards. I can do this if I screw the contact pin to a distance of one millimeter from the critical point. The threat of its explosion will compel them to submit and be absolutely obedient to me. With Zeta in my possession I can destroy every wicked man. With Zeta I can do much, I can do almost everything. Why do I say “almost”? I’m in a position not only to achieve general reforms, but to break into the life of every man in this earth and arbitrarily change it. If I wish, the wealthiest of merchants will hand over his store to me. If I wish, Mrs. Emilia will forsake the husband she loves, will bow to me and go wandering about the world. If I wish, the daughter of the chief of staff will present herself naked to me. If I give the order, the Nestor of science will shave off his beard and climb a tree in the city park in broad daylight. I imagine the scene and laugh: the Nestor of science climbing to the top of the tree with the agility of a monkey. I already see people coining from all over the world and bowing to me and handing me all sorts of articles and titles. One gives me a sumptuous villa at the seaside; another proposes that I should accept a doctorate of all the sciences; a third humbly explains that kingship is the finest form of government and that I am highly suited to be king, for I have a fine bearing and profound intelligence. Someone tells me I have very handsome ears.
I try to cast out these thoughts. For I am to serve the good. I must set about the destruction of evil. That’s why I’m keeping Zeta. In order to destroy evil I must divide the people into wicked and good.
I can do that: I shall be the supreme judge. But why the future tense? I am the supreme judge. There is no one higher than I. I touch Zeta. I stroke it. How beautiful it has become, how smooth and pleasant it is, how brilliantly it shines. I press Zeta to my heart, I kiss it. What am I saying, what am I doing? But why ask? I’m doing and performing that which ought to be done; all this is included within my enlarged, human program of sacrifice. I cannot hesitate—I should be ridiculous if I hesitated. I am Caesar, Napoleon, Alexander the Great; I am the supreme judge, I am God, I surpass God. I shout “I am God.” The trees already know; they bow down to the ground. The human beings don’t know it yet. I hurry back to the city by the shortest route. To judgment. I shall judge. All human beings are wicked; they must all be destroyed. I alone am good. I ALONG AM GOOD, FOR I POSSESS ZETA.
Translated from the Polish by
Harry Stevens
THE NEUTRINO BOMB
Ralph S. Cooper
Ralph S. Cooper is a physicist whose areas of specialization include magnetic fusion, laser fusion, reactor physics, ion exchange column theory, nuclear rocket propulsion, and radiation effects. In 1957, at the age of 26, he joined the staff of the Theoretical Physics Division of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, where both the original atomic bomb and the thermonuclear (fusion) bomb had been developed. Except for a four-year stint as Chief Scientist of the Nuclear Laboratory of the Douglas Aircraft Company (1965-1969), he was to work at Los Alamos continually through 1980.
Dr. Cooper published “The Neutrino Bomb” in the July 13, 196I issue of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory News. Many readers, including scientists, took his proposal seriously, failing to see the ridicule being heaped on their own assumptions about the arms race.
While the United States continues its test moratorium, delaying its work toward revolutionary new types of nuclear weapons, reliable sources indicate that the Soviet Union may have leapfrogged our neutron bomb with the development and possible tests of the ultimate in clean, blastless nuclear weapons, a neutrino bomb.
Annihilation
In this device, a plasma or soup of high temperature hydrogen is created in which the electrons and protons, particles with opposite electric charge, annihilate each other with the emission only of a flood of high energy neutral particles called neutrinos.1
*The free neutrino was first detected by Los Alamos scientists in June, 1956.
These have tremendous penetrating power against which no shielding is effective and which makes the ordinary neutrons seem like marshmallows in comparison. In the one-cubic-foot tactical size containing four pounds of hydrogen, over a trillion-trillion high energy neutrinos are released. Neutrinos are liberated in fission bombs but in much smaller numbers, while in the neutrino bomb, almost all the energy goes into neutrinos and virtually nothing into blast waves, gamma rays, fission fragments, or fallout.
Before discounting this as a significant weapon, two things should be considered. First the absence of any physical dam-age is directly in line with the so-called peaceful motives avowed by the Soviets, who are privately calling this a “peace bomb.’1 Secondly, that the detonation is not completely without observable effects since the disappearance of, the hydrogen leaves a temporary vacuum into which the surrounding air rushes with a loud bang, informing the victims in the target area that they have been had.
Microton Yield
Reports coming from the Iron Curtain countries of loud noises heard deep inside Russia indicate that they not only may have tested the one-cubic-foot tactical size (for which the ’ air implosion is equivalent to about one microton of TNT) but that they may already have tested large neutrino bombs in the milliton range, containing thousands of pounds of hydrogen. This information, coupled with the possibility of underground decoupling or even of detonation inside a steel pressure vessel to prevent the air implosion, indicates we may be crucially far behind in the development of this important weapon. Indeed, experiments of the latter kind are known to have been performed in Russia, although the scientists involved claimed their only interest was in the production of a high vacuum. Whether this was the “ultimate weapon” of which Khrushchev spoke in his March, 1960, speech cannot yet be determined, but the recent disdainful attitude of the Soviet diplomats implies their extreme confidence in the Russian military posture. Thus it behooves us to take whatever steps necessary to rectify this potential imbalance of military power or face the inevitable disastrous consequences.
AKUA NUTEN (THE SOUTH WIND)
Yves Thériault
Visions of nuclear war in literature are usually limited to the industrialized nations, especially those inhabited by Europeans and their descendants. But a thermonuclear shootout would no doubt also destroy hundreds of mil* lions of Innocent bystanders In the Third World. How does the nuclear arms race and its possible outcome look to those peoples who have never participated in it? And how would they, long called “savages,” regard the self-destruction of what calls itself “civilization”?
One chilling answer comes from Yves Theriault, the most prolific and one of the most Influential authors in Quebec, himself a descendant of Montagnais Indians. Born in 1915, Theriault is best known in the English-speaking world for his powerful novels of native life available in English translation: the much-honored Agaguk (1958); Ashini (1960); N’Tsuk (1968); Agoak (1975). Before his death in 1983, he had also published thirty other diverse novels, about a dozen volumes of short stones. Innumerable pseudonymous “ten-cent thrillers,” and more than a score of science fiction volumes for young people, while in addition turning out dozens of plays as well as over 1,300 radio and television scripts.
“Akua Nuten (The South Wind)” appeared originally In his highly innovative 1962 SI la bomb m’était contée (If They Had Told Me of the Bomb), a volume describing nuclear war from the perspective of many different peoples. The story’s non-European point of view, Its simple eloquence, and its primeval natural setting are all perfectly appropriate for a conclusive moment in human history.
Kakatso, the Montagnais Indian, felt the gentle flow of the air and noticed that the wind came from the south. Then he touched the moving water in the stream to determine the temperature in the highlands. Since everything pointed to nice June weather, with mild sunshine and light winds, he decided to go to the highest peak of the reserve, as he had been planning to do for the past week. There the Montagnais lands bordered those of the Waswanipis.
There was no urgent reason for the trip. Nothing really pulled him there except the fact that he hadn’t been for a long time; and he liked steep mountains and frothy, roaring streams.
Three days before he had explained his plan to bis son, the thin Grand-Louis, who was well known to the white men of the North Shore. His son had guided many white in the regions surrounding the Manicouagan and Bersimis rivers.
He had told him: “I plan to go way out, near the limits of the reserve.”
This was clear enough, and Grand-Louis had simply nodded his head. Now he wouldn’t worry, even if Kakatso disappeared for two months. He would know that his father was high in the hills, breathing the clean air and soaking up beautiful scenes to remember in future days.
Just past the main branch of the Manicouagan there is an enormous rock crowned by two pines and a Fir tree which stand side by side like the fingers of a hand, the smallest on the left and the others reaching higher.
This point, which Katatso could never forget, served as his sign-post for every trail in the area; and other points would guide him north, west, or in any other direction. Kakatso, until his final breath, would easily find his way about there, guided only by the memory of a certain tree, the silhouette of the mountain outlined against the clear skies, the twisting of a river bed, or the slope of a hill.
In strange territoiy Kakatso would spend entire days precisely organizing his memories so that if he ever returned no trail there would be unknown to him.
Thus, knowing every winding path and every animal’s accustomed lair, he could set out on his journey carrying only some salt, tea, and shells for his rifle. He could live by finding his subsistence in the earth itself and in nature’s plenty.
Kakatso knew well what a man needed for total independence: a fishhook wrapped in paper, a length of supple cord, a strong knife, water-proof boots, and a well-oiled rifle. With these things a man could know the great joy of not having to depend on anyone but himself, of wandering as he pleased one day after another, proud and superior, the owner of eternal lands that stretched beyond the horizon.
(To despise the reserve and those who belonged than. Not to have any allegiance except a respect for the water, the sky, and the winds. To be a man, but a man according to the Indian image and not that of the whites. The Indian image of a real man was ageless and changeless, a true image of man in the bosom of a wild and immense nature.)
Kakatso had a wife and a house and grown-up children whom he rarely saw. He really knew little about them. One daughter was a nurse in a white man’s city, another had married a turncoat Montagnais who lived in Baie-Comeau and worked in the factories. A son studied far away, in Montreal, and Kakatso would probably never see him again. A son who would repudiate everything, would forget the proud Montagnais language and change his name to be accepted by the whites in spite of his dark skin and slitty eyes.
The other son, Grand-Louis … but this one was an exception. He had inherited Montagnasi instincts. He often i came down to the coast, at God bout or Sept-lies, or some-i times at Natashquan, because he was ambitious and wanted to earn money. But this did not cause him to scorn or detest the forest. He found a good life there. For Kakatso, it was enough that this child, unlike so many others, did not turn into a phony white man.
As for Kakatso’s wife, she was still at home, receiving Kakatso on his many returns without emotion or gratitude. She had a roof over her head, warmth, and food. With skilled fingers she made caribou skin jackets for the white man avid for the exotic. The small sideline liberated Kakatso from other obligations towards her. Soon after returning home, Kakatso always wanted to get away again. He was uncomfortable in these white men’s houses that were too high, too solid, and too neatly organized for his taste.
So Kakatso lived his life in direct contact with the forest, and he nurtured life itself from the forest’s plenty. Ten months of the year he roamed the forest trails, ten months he earned his subsistence from hunting, trapping, fishing, and smoking the caribou meat that he placed in caches for later use. With the fur pelts he met his own needs and those of the house on the reserve near the forest, although these needs were minimal because his wife was a good earner.
He climbed, then, towards the northern limits of the Montagnasi lands on this June day, which was to bring calamity of which he was completely unaware.
Kakatso had heard of the terrible bomb. For twenty years he had heard talk of it, and the very existence of these horrendous machines was not unknown to him. But how was he to know the complex fabric of events happening in the world just then? He never read the newspapers and never really listened to the radio when he happened to spend some hours in a warm house. How could he conceive of total annihilation threatening the whole world? How could he feel all the world’s people trembling?
In the forest’s vast peace, Kakatso, knowing nature’s strength, could easily believe that nothing and nobody could prevail against the mountains, the rivers, and the forest itself stretching out all across the land. Nothing could prevail against the earth, the unchangeable soil that regenerated itself year after year.
He travelled for five days. On the fifth evening it took Kakatso longer to fall asleep. Something was wrong. A silent anguish he did not understand was disturbing him.
He had lit his evening fire on a bluff covered with soft moss, one hundred feet above the lake. He slept there, rolled in his blanket in a deeply dark country interrupted only by the rays of the new moon.
Sleep was slow and when it came it did not bring peace. A jumble of snarling creatures and swarming, roaring masses invaded Kakatso’s sleep. He turned over time and again, groaning restlessly. Suddenly he awoke and was surprised to see that the moon had gone down and the night’s blackness was lit only by stars. Here, on the bluff, there was a bleak reflection from the sky, but that long valley and the lake remained dark. Exhausted by his throbbing dreams, Kakatso got up, stretched his legs and lit his pipe. On those rare occasions when his sleep was bad he had always managed to recover his tranquillity by smoking a bit, motionless in die night, listening to the forest sounds.
Suddenly the light came. For a single moment the southern and western horizons were illuminated by this immense bluish gleam that loomed up, lingered a moment, and then went out. The dark became even blacker and Kakatso muttered to himself. He wasn’t afraid because fear had always been totally foreign to him. But what did this strange event mean? Was it the anger of some old mountain spirit?
All at once the gleam reappeared, this time even more westerly. Weaker this time and less evident. Then the shadows again enveloped the land.
Kakatso no longer tried to sleep that night. He squatted, smoking his pipe and trying to find some explanation for these bluish gleams with his simple ideas, his straightforward logic and vivid memory.
When the dawn came the old Montagnais, the last of his people, the great Abenakis, carefully prepared his fire and boiled some water for his tea.
For some hours he didn’t feel like moving. He no longer heard the inner voices calling him to the higher lands. He felt stuck there, incapable of going further until the tumult within him died down. What was there that he didn’t know about his skies, he who had spent his whole life wandering in the woods and sleeping under the stars? The sky over his head was as familiar to him as the soil of the underbrush, the animal trials and the games of the trout in their streams. But never before had he seen such gleams and they disturbed him.
At eight o’clock the sun was slowly climbing into the sky, and Kakatso was still there.
At ten he moved to the shore to look at the water in the lake. He saw a minnow tun and concluded that the lake had many fish. He then attached his fire cord to the hook tied with partridge feathers he had found in the branches of a wiki hawthorn bush. He cast the fly with a deliberate, almost solemn movement and it jumped on the smooth water. After Kakatso cast three more times a fat trout swallowed the hook and he pulled him in gently, quite slowly, letting him fight as much as he wanted. The midday meal was in hand. The Montagnais, still in no great hurry to continue his trip, began to prepare his fish.
