Godzilla Returns (10 page)

It's a cliche
, he thought,
but they look like ants.

Brian looked away from the screen and scanned the other faces in the room.

Nick Gordon, Yoshi Masahara, and May McGovern sat around a huge table in the INN conference room. Their eyes were glued to the screen at the front of the room. Each member of the INN team had a folder open in front of them. It was filled with dozens of pages of text, mathematical formulas, graphs, and diagrams.

"The creature's origin is still a mystery." Lieutenant Takado continued. "But the nuclear physicists Dr. Edward Teller and Albert Einstein formulated the most likely theory..."

She clicked a remote control she held, and the image on the screen changed. An even grainier, and very blurry, photograph of a large reptile walking near a line of palm trees flashed onto the screen.

"In the 1940's, during the closing days of World War II, a mysterious species of reptile was reported by Japanese troops stationed in the Marshall Islands, a chain of small islands and atolls southwest of Hawaii.

"This photograph was taken in 1944 by a platoon of Japanese soldiers - none of whom survived the war, unfortunately. For years this photo was discounted as a hoax, or as wartime propaganda - until the appearance of Godzilla in 1954.

"Dr. Teller postulated that this animal, or another member of the species, was exposed to massive amounts of radiation from the first hydrogen bomb test on Bikini Atoll. The creature absorbed the radiation, and that caused it to mutate into the monster the western press calls Godzilla -"

"Excuse me... what do you mean by 'the western press'?" Nick interrupted.

Lieutenant Takado turned to Nick. "The Oto Islanders have a legend about a sea monster called Gojira. The word
Gojira
, translated into English, literally means 'whale ape' - or, more precisely, 'whale that walks upright like an ape.'

"When the mutation arrived on their shores in 1954, the islanders naturally mistook the radioactive monster for their mythical Gojira.

"It was the American journalist Stephen Martin who mistranslated the name into English as Godzilla. That name was adopted worldwide, though in Japan we still call the monster Gojira. There is, of course, a Latin name -"

"Spare us!" Nick cried with a dismissive wave. Brian snickered. He recalled that Nick wasn't very proficient in Latin.

Lieutenant Takado smiled, and clicked the control in her left hand. A full body shot of Godzilla flashed onto the screen. It, too, was in black and white.

"Godzilla is roughly 100 meters tall," she continued. "That's about 330 feet, or the size of a thirty-story building. His weight is estimated at about 65,000 metric tons. That makes Godzilla the largest living creature to ever walk or swim on this planet.

"Despite his incredible size, Godzilla can swim in excess of forty knots. He can move across land at nearly fifty kilometers an hour - though he usually moves at a considerably slower pace."

She clicked the control again. This time the image of Godzilla was in color. Nick realized it was a photograph taken only hours after Godzilla had wrecked the Pusan ferry.

"Godzilla's most formidable weapon is not his speed or size, however, but his ability to project a radioactive blast from his mouth. This blast is devastating. It can melt steel and concrete. Flesh is literally vaporized. The people aboard the ferry were very fortunate that the creature did not utilize this weapon."

"Why
didn't
Godzilla blast the ferry?" Brian asked.

Lieutenant Takado nodded. "A good question," she replied. "Dr. Nobeyama thinks that Godzilla had been asleep, floating in the Sea of Japan, perhaps for days. The ferry collided with him and woke him up.

"As to why he didn't attack the ferry... perhaps the creature did not identify the ship as a significant threat."

"Maybe it was just dumb luck," Nick muttered.

"Indeed," Lieutenant Takado said, nodding in agreement.

"Okay," Brian said, leaning forward. "So he's a big, fire-breathing dinosaur. How dangerous
is
he, really?"

"Several ships have been reported missing in the last three weeks," she replied. "And, of course, Godzilla sank the Russian submarine two years ago. As a maritime threat alone, Godzilla is more destructive than a typhoon."

Lieutenant Takado paused again, giving them more time to absorb the information. Then she clicked the control in her hand. A new image appeared. This one showed Godzilla crashing through the Diet - the Japanese parliamentary building - in 1954.

"Godzilla last entered a populated area - Tokyo, Japan - on November 3, 1954. On that night and the next, 179,000 people were killed. Another 30,000 were injured. Some people sustained radiation burns on much of their bodies. Godzilla's initial attack was followed by an outbreak of radiation sickness.

"The creature destroyed the Japanese seat of government and much of the capital city. He leveled buildings and crushed whole industries. Landmarks and shrines that were hundreds of years old were destroyed in a single night. The damage was in the hundreds of billions of yen. It took nearly a decade to rebuild the city... and so much more was lost for all time."

Lieutenant Takado began clicking the remote rapidly. A succession of images flashed across the screen, and then disappeared: black-and-white photographs of buildings in ruins, whole city blocks burning, hundreds of injured people choking hospital hallways and parks and sidewalks.

And then there were the pictures of the dead. Thousands of them. Bodies lining streets. Lying under shrouds. And sprawling where they fell. Burned. Crushed. Torn asunder.

Brian gulped and averted his eyes. Nick whistled softly. Yoshi turned pale. May looked sick.

"Godzilla is more destructive than the hydrogen bomb that gave him life," Lieutenant Takado said. "If the creature comes to land, there is no telling how much damage he will cause. Or how many people he will kill and injure."

* * *

"We'll be landing in five minutes," one of the helicopter crewmen shouted over the noise of the engine. Nick, who had his head buried between his knees, looked up. A relieved expression appeared on his pallid face. Yoshi nodded, his thoughts unreadable, as usual.

Brian turned and peered out of the tiny window. All he could see was dark water far below. But, as the crewman predicted, the Sea Dragon's wheels touched the brightly lit deck of a small ship five minutes later. As the rotors wound down, the door on the side of the helicopter slid open. Admiral Maxwell Willis stood on the deck to greet them.

"Permission to come aboard, sir," Lieutenant Takado said, saluting smartly.

"Permission granted," the admiral replied, returning her salute. Then he stood aside. "Welcome to the
Kongo-Maru
," he cried over the sound of the choppers engine.

The Kongo-Maru
, Brian thought, recalling the briefing that morning. According to Lieutenant Takado, the ship was a hastily built miracle, a specially constructed and fully outfitted research vessel designed to study and record any and all data on the creature called Godzilla.

The name itself was significant.
Maru
, of course, simply meant "ship," the word was attached to almost all Japanese seagoing vessels. The word
kongo
had more meaning. The
kongo
was a legendary trident-shaped staff of knowledge from Japanese mythology. The
kongo
brought mankind wisdom and insight and pierced the darkness of ignorance.

And so this ship was created to shed light on the mystery that is Godzilla.
Brian recalled Lieutenant Takado's earlier comment. She'd explained that the
Kongo-Maru
started life as a
Pegasus
-class combat patrol hydrofoil in the service of the U.S. Navy. The vessel was chosen because of its incredible speed - almost fifty knots when foil borne - and its amazing maneuverability.

The 145-foot hull was gutted from stem to stern for the purposes of its new mission. All weapons systems and defensive armaments were removed and replaced with dozens of monitoring devices.

Radiation detectors, microwave transmitters and receivers, radar, sonar - even sophisticated MRI imaging systems - were all retrofitted into the hydrofoil hull. Then a whole new superstructure was built over it. The size of the bridge was tripled to fit all the sophisticated instrumentation.

Much of the work had been done in the last two weeks. When Brian stepped off the chopper, he could see men still busily working in the rigging towers, on satellite dishes, and near the many antennas that stuck out of the ship's superstructure like porcupine needles.

As Brian, Nick, Yoshi, and Lieutenant Takado followed Admiral Willis onto the superstructure, the Sea Dragon - freed of its passengers - lifted into the air and flew off into the night. Crewmen immediately began folding up the collapsible helipad.

Brian was stunned by how cramped the
Kongo-Maru
really was. When the group stepped onto an extremely narrow walkway, he searched the bow of the ship. He wanted to get a glimpse of the boldest device on the
Kongo-Maru
, and potentially the most dangerous piece of equipment to use.

Brian wanted to see the harpoon.

"The bow of the ship is fitted with a hydraulic harpoon gun," Lieutenant Takado had told them earlier that day. "The harpoon itself is really an army of monitoring devices. lf we can get close enough, the harpoon will be fired into Godzilla's flesh. For as long as the harpoon is connected to the ship by its fiber-optic cable, we will be able to take readings of Godzilla's vital signs.

"If the attack fails, then we
must
use the harpoon, or all our efforts will be wasted."

"What's the effective range of the harpoon gun?" Nick had asked. Brian recalled that Lieutenant Takado ignored that question. And he nervously concluded they'd have to get really close to use it.

Admiral Willis led the group through a steel door into the ship's interior. Then he excused himself.

"I've got to help calibrate some of the instruments," the admiral told them. "Lieutenant Takado'll show y'all to your quarters." The admiral also suggested they visit the lounge at their first opportunity.

"We have satellite feeds coming in from all over the world," he told them. "Since y'all are news-hounds, you might want to watch some television and gauge the rest of the world's reaction to the return of Godzilla."

Brian already knew some of that reaction.

The prime minister of Japan had yesterday issued a statement to the world. It read, in part: "Godzilla has already taken human lives. This creature is a danger, not only to Japan, but to every nation in the world. I call upon the United Nations to do their part to help in this international emergency..."

The United Nations did their part, all right,
Brian thought bitterly.
They argued, and they're still arguing.

Lieutenant Takado led them down a ladder to the bowels of the ship. They walked through narrow corridors until they came to a hallway lined with doors. She opened a small door to reveal a tiny room with three bunks, one on top of the other. The room hardly bigger than Brian's closet back at INN headquarters.

"I got dibs on the top bunk!" Nick announced, grinning.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Brian led Nick and Yoshi back to where he thought the lounge was. They missed only one turn. Soon they found the small room. The lounge had a microwave oven and small galley. It was also equipped with four televisions, one mounted near the ceiling in each of the corners of the room.

One television was tuned to C-SPAN. It showed live footage of the debate going in the United States Senate. A second television showed the United Nations General Assembly - still in session after twelve hours. The third screen showed the Japanese Diet - also in session after many hours.

A fourth TV was tuned to INN. Brian was certain this was a polite gesture for their benefit. Max Hulse was droning on about the defensive measures the Japanese Navy would employ against Godzilla.

Nick found a remote control and switched channels on the fourth screen. It showed a patch of water, lit redly by infrared scopes. The picture was jerky, but at the center of the screen, Godzilla was clearly visible. The creature was walking on the bottom of the Sea of Japan - only his head and neck projected from the water.

"That's a live feed from one of the patrol ships pacing Godzilla," Lieutenant Takado said, entering the room. She went over to the galley and poured a cup of green tea. "Would you like some?" she asked politely.

"
Domo
," Yoshi said with a smile.

Soon everyone had taken a seat around the table. They sipped tea and watched the monitors. Occasionally, Nick would change the sound - turning down the volume on one TV, and turning up another.

"The governments of Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Syria have just issued a joint statement," the CNN anchorwoman said somberly. "It reads in part: Godzilla is a Sword of Allah. It is a weapon to punish the decadent western democracies and the people of Japan. Any aggression against Godzilla will be considered an act of terrorism against the nations of Islam.

"In other news, the North Korean delegation has walked out of UN talks. They object to U.S. warships sailing close to their shores.

"Meanwhile, a spokesman for Greenpeace demanded that the creature called Godzilla be designated an endangered species and protected under international environmental protection laws similar to those enacted to save the whales -"

"The world has forgotten the horrors of the past!" Yoshi suddenly shouted, his fist crashing on the table.

Brian was shocked by the Japanese youth's emotional outburst. As long as he'd known him, Yoshi had been quiet and reserved. He wasn't the excitable type.

"Whoa, Yoshi!" Nick cried. "Calm down, man."

"People today are crazy," Yoshi continued "They are so... so
ignorant
!"

"They
do
fiddle while Rome burns," Nick agreed. "But people have always been that way."

"Have they?" Admiral Willis said as he entered the room.