Salmonella Men on Planet Porno (Vintage Contemporaries) (30 page)

“Dr Mogamigawa…” I at last managed to squeeze out in a strained voice. “W-what’s happened to you? W-what hideous thing have you become?”

“Pardon? Oh,
this
.” Mogamigawa started to crawl around like a spider as he surveyed the changes in his appearance. They didn’t appear to shock him so much at all. “Well, as long as I still have my mind, I really don’t care what happens to my body. Actually, I feel jolly good and fresh, as if I’ve been reborn. After all, there’s nothing more precious than one’s health, is there! You arrived at just the right time, old chap. If the transformation had advanced any further, my mind would have become the same as a nursery spider’s. What simply perfect timing! Heeheehee!” His flippant tone suggested that even his personality had changed. He hopped onto the trunk of a nearby tree with a sprightly leap and turned his head downwards. “Look! I can even do this.”

In utter confusion, I turned to Yohachi for help. “Yohachi. What shall we do?”

Yohachi calmly returned my stare. “Do about what, mate? If you mean the professor, what can we do but take him back to the Base?”

That was the problem. Taking him back would be all right, but how would we explain it to his wife? If she saw her husband transformed into a spider, she might have an apoplexy. She might drop dead on the spot. Then again, it would be next to impossible to explain his condition without letting her see him. “
I’m very sorry
,
madam, but your husband has been turned into a spider
.” She was never going to believe that – she would think we were joking.

Mogamigawa was frolicking about, revelling in his ability to move his reborn, flexible body just as he wished. “Dr Mogamigawa?” I called.

“
Yeeeeuurrggh! Yeeeeuurrggh!
Oh, sorry!
Mea culpa
. It comes out like that when I start talking suddenly. What is it, my friend? You’re wondering whether you should take me back to the Base? But of course you should. You needn’t worry one jot about my wife. She can cope, I assure you. The main thing is that I’m so full of energy! My mind is crystal-clear. Now that I’ve lost my sexual functions and my sexual desires, I’m liberated from obligatory sex with my wife, not to mention concern or jealousy over her infidelity. That means I can devote myself to my research and enjoy life on this wonderful planet. So yes, my dear Sona, I can hardly wait to get going!
Carpe diem
, as they say! Wahahahahahaha!” He climbed the tree as he spoke, then roared with laughter as he slid back down in front of our eyes, on a thread that emerged from his backside. “Wahaha! Wahahahahahahaha! Wahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

This was no longer the Mogamigawa of old. That’s how it seemed to me. It was someone else. Or perhaps some new species of creature.

The three of us, or should I say the two of us and one spider, set off for the Research Base in accordance with Mogamigawa’s wish. The now arachnid Mogamigawa scurried along the ground ahead of us. It may seem hard to believe, but he didn’t appear to see anything remotely wretched or absurd in his condition. Paying no heed to my muddled thoughts, he continued to speak without pause.

“You know, this may be a kind of retribution against my former self, a kind of
quid pro quo
. I used to think that the humanoids and animals on this planet, even the natural phenomena, were all obscene. But what splendid retribution! This planet has transformed me, a conservative, opinionated old man who abhorred anything erotic, into a nursery spider, a creature that has no sexual capacity and is, at it were, the ideal host for me. In doing so, it has released me from sex and incorporated me into the ecology of this planet
–
mirabile dictu
! That’s right. I am no longer human. I am a creature. Well, Sona my friend? What name would you give to this new creature? Hmm?”

I could find no words with which to reply, and simply continued walking in silence. Instead, Yohachi, whose face now exuded a kind of sublime saintliness, answered on my behalf. “
Mutatis mutandis
,” he said in the austere, solemn tone of a divine revelation.

“I see, yes, I see.
Mutatis mutandis
. Indeed yes, I have mutated into a spider and the spider has mutated into me, yes indeed. Wahahahahahahahahaha. What an excellent name. Oh look. We’ve left the jungle now. Soon we’ll be in the field of forget-me-grass. What fun. How wonderful it is to walk as freely as this, to hop and jump like this. But more than that, I’m no longer burdened by the pressures of sex, which were clinging to me doggedly and refused to desist even in my sixties. I will never again be troubled by mistress bine, fondleweed or the itchy scratchy tree. This planet is exactly like heaven to me now. No, no. This planet really is heaven, is it not? Newdopia may be a paradise where totally naked deities have created a country. This planet is a paradise of love! It has the magical power to make not only Yohachi and myself but all humans adapt and conform, sooner or later, provided they live here long enough. From now on, I can continue my research without constraint. But occasionally I will go out to the jungle to save unfortunate newborn hybrids that have been separated from their dead parents. I will cocoon them with my silk and change them into relic pods. Yes – I will dedicate myself to the instinct of love! I will live here for the rest of my life. Look! Is that a field of forget-me-grass I begin to see in the distance? What joy. What joy. And after the forget-me-grass, there’s Lake Turpitude. What fun. What fun. Wahahahahahahahahaha. Wahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Waha. Waha. Wahahahahahahahahahahahah. Wahahahahahahaha-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Wahahahahaha-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.”

FIRST VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES EDITION, JANUARY 2010

Translation copyright © 2006 by Andrew Driver

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Japan as
Poruno Wakusei No Sarumonera Ningen
by Shinchosha, Co., Ltd., Tokyo, in 1979. Copyright © 1979 by Yasutaka Tsutsui. This translation originally published in Great Britain with twelve additional stories by Alma Books, Ltd., Surrey, in 2006, and subsequently published in hardcover in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2008.

Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks and Vintage Contemporaries is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

“Rumours About Me” originally appeared in
Zoetrope: All-Story
.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Pantheon edition as follows:
Tsutsui, Yasutaka.
Salmonella men on Planet Porno : stories / Yasutaka Tsutsui; translated from the Japanese by Andrew Driver.
p. cm.
1. Tsutsui, Yasutaka—Translations into English. I. Driver, Andrew. II. Title.
PL862.S77A2 2008
895.6′35—dc22
2007051356

eISBN: 978-0-307-47671-5

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