“Hold on, I’m not casting anything on her,” said the Team Leader, stirring in his seat. “Well, there are only four of us – but let’s start the meeting anyway. Dr Shimazaki herself has declined to attend, on the grounds of embarrassment. Well, that’s only natural, considering how shy and demure she is. The geo-mineralogists are out surveying that obscene cloystone at the Hokomaka Pass on Mount Arasate.”
“As the matter demands immediate action, we should act right away. Ah! I appear to have said much the same thing twice. How embarrassing,” said Fukada, who, having written some thirty tedious novels as a hobby, posed as a man of letters. “Ahem. Proceeding to the main issue, pregnancy caused by widow’s incubus reaches full term in ten earth days. So, to amend the statement made by Dr Sona just now, Dr Shimazaki was pregnant for only four days without knowing it. In the two previous cases involving earth women, a member of the First Expedition miscarried on the seventh day, and a female doctor attached to the Base Construction Team rather recklessly aborted her own pregnancy by curettage on the third day. But in Dr Shimazaki’s case, curettage is already out of the question, and we have no way of knowing whether she can miscarry or not. There is every chance that she will in fact give birth. However, Dr Shimazaki herself says that she does not want to.”
“Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she. Having a child fathered by a weed called widow’s incubus would bring disgrace to her long family line of notable scientists.”
“May we keep this discussion on a scientific level?,” said Mogamigawa, glaring at me again. “It is inconceivable that the androspores of widow’s incubus, having entered the body through the respiratory organs, would then proceed directly from there to the uterus. Rather, they merely give some kind of acid stimulus to the woman’s unfertilized ovum, and thereby induce the growth of a new individual. As such, the widow’s incubus has not directly fertilized Dr Shimazaki per se, and therefore cannot be said to have ‘fathered’ anything. All will be revealed when she gives birth, but I feel sure that the new individual will only have chromosomes from the mother’s side. It’s normal for human individuals born by parthenogenesis to lack a reproductive capacity, as Professor Yoishonovitch Sano states in his History of Transparent Embryogeny in Humans.”
“Well yes, that would be the normal way of thinking,” Fukada started in counter-argument. “But things aren’t always normal on this planet, or to be more exact, things tend to veer from the normal towards the obscene, if anything. There is every possibility that the spores of widow’s incubus could reach the uterus via the respiratory, digestive or circulatory organs, or what have you – without biodegrading, mind – and then find some means of infiltrating the uterus. Parthenogenesis is a perfectly normal method of reproduction in the animal kingdom, even on earth. So it wouldn’t be unthinkable for something as preposterous as embryonic fertilization by plant spores to occur on this infamous ‘Planet Porno’. When I said there was ‘something’ inside Dr Shimazaki’s uterus, what I meant was that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a human embryo.”
Mogamigawa’s face was still set in a grimace. “In principle, I agree with you when you call this an obscene planet. But I heard that the foetus miscarried by the female in the First Expedition did indeed appear to be human.”
“However-”
“The problem, however,” I intervened, hoping to speed the discussion along, “is neither the nature of Dr Shimazaki’s pregnancy, nor the identity of her foetus. Surely, it is how to prevent it from reaching full term.”
“Well, on that subject,” the Team Leader said with a nod in my direction, “I think there are two methods available. One is to remove whatever it is from her womb by Caesarean section.”
“We have no equipment for that,” groaned Fukada. “Of course, it can still be done, but I don’t like doing it. And the burden of opening Dr Shimazaki’s abdomen would be too great to bear.”
Fukada was attempting to shirk responsibility as usual. Mogamigawa cast a contemptuous eye in his direction, then turned to me. “Would you happen to know how the Newdopians prevent pregnancies caused by widow’s incubus?” he asked. “Or what measures they take when a pregnancy occurs? They must surely fall victim to it.”
“Yes, I think they do. The vegetation around Newdopia is characterized as having communities, or plant divisions, or anyway very large quantities of widow’s incubus. But since humans cannot enter Newdopia, we don’t yet know how the natives deal with such cases.”
The Team Leader leant forwards. “Then again, the second method I was considering was, in fact, for someone to go to Newdopia and somehow find out about it from the natives. It would also have value as scientific research, so it would be like killing two birds with one stone, as they say.”
“But they won’t let us in,” I said with a shake of the head, remembering how we were flatly refused permission to enter on a previous research mission. “Unless it’s someone who shares their mentality, that is. They’re pretty good at reading our minds, you know.” I turned to face Dr Fukada. “The quickest way would be for you to perform a Caesarean section, after all.”
Fukada immediately started to panic. “Well, yes, in the barbarian era they did such operations very crudely by hand, but now, well, it’s only performed under fully automated conditions using computer systems, and so, that is I mean, as a doctor, I don’t particularly, well, they don’t teach such things at medical school, and…”
Mogamigawa looked up at the ceiling as if to say, So you can’t do it then. I was equally disappointed.
“According to one report, some members of the First Expedition entered Newdopia and saw what it was like,” said the Team Leader to revive the discussion. “How did they manage that?”
“Because it was the first time the natives had seen human beings, I suppose. They didn’t realize that we were such an obscene race, and just let them in without thinking. By that, of course, I mean obscene from their point of view.”
“Obscene? They’re the obscene ones!” Mogamigawa said, wrinkling his cheeks in annoyance. “As far as I’ve heard, they openly have carnal relations with each other, outdoors in broad daylight, and they don’t much care who the partner is! Nor do they care where they do it – in the street, public squares, community halls, anywhere, great numbers of them together at the same time!”
“That’s exactly my point,” I replied, popping up a finger at Dr Mogamigawa. “It’s that very attitude, the attitude that sex acts are obscene and should be hidden from the eyes of others, that appears obscene to them. Looking at it from their point of view, I suppose they would feel distracted or inhibited if we watched their acts with that kind of attitude.”
“Are you saying you don’t find such things obscene?” Mogamigawa gave me a look laden with antipathy.
I blushed slightly. “No, I don’t find such things obscene.”
“In that case, why can’t you get in there?”
“Because I am obscene. Well no, in my case, I find it interesting and enjoyable to watch such things as an onlooker, call it voyeurism, peeping or whatever. But if you asked me to do such things in front of people, I suppose I would feel embarrassed, unnatural, self-conscious, and I wouldn’t be able to go through with it. They can see right through my mental framework, and that’s why I would be refused entry.”