“But the world is very different from what the adults imagined. We can’t be inflexible,” Huahua said.
Specs then laid out his own viewpoint. “If the climate continues to follow the same pattern, half of our country will be drowned or rendered uninhabitably hot. Our future is linked to Antarctica, and so a global contest for the south pole is unavoidable. When the country first contemplated embarking on Antarctic expeditions, one national leader said, ‘In the midst of pressing concerns, taking an idle move like this shows vision.’[6] But for us, sending the army to Antarctica is not an idle move. It is a matter of urgency, and a mistake may cost us the game.”
Huahua added, “Set aside Antarctica’s strategic significance for the time being and consider the war games on their own. The outcome may determine seating order in the children’s world.”
They all agreed that Huahua’s point could have profound implications for the future, and so the question of taking part in the Antarctic Games was settled.
News of the games spread round the country, and it brought the Candytown period to a swift end. The country awoke with a start from its two-month slumber, “as if a tray of ice cubes had been dumped under the covers,” in the words of a later historian. But careful consideration reveals that this was nothing unusual. Nothing is a more powerful stimulant to society than war.
Apart from excitement and tension, the new direction that Antarctica gave the children was a major factor in waking them out of the Candytown period. In the children’s minds, the far-off south pole, a wonderfully mysterious place, became their only hope for shaking off the boredom of life. They had faith that their army would be able to win for the Chinese children an expanse of land on the continent, where the children who settled there could start new lives. In the televised broadcast of the order mobilizing troops to Antarctica, Huahua had this to say:
“Our territory is a paper covered with the adults’ drawings. Antarctica is an empty page where we can sketch whatever we desire, and build the paradise of our dreams!”
His statement led to a serious misunderstanding. A rumor began circulating saying that the country would simultaneously execute two five-year plans, the boring one drafted by the adults for domestic use, and the glorious one the children had depicted in the virtual country for Antarctica. There they would build their parks. The idea whipped up all of the country’s children into a frenzy. For a time, the “Antarctic Park” was the hottest topic online and in the media, and the entire country focused its attention on the far-off war games. After the mobilization order was issued, the tidiness of the Inertia period returned. Children returned to their jobs and resumed work, and soon the country was humming again.
The Supernova War was the first children’s war in human history, and from the start it demonstrated their society’s idiosyncrasies. The adults of the Common Era had no capacity to imagine a war that took the form of a game and proceeded according to the rules of a sports tournament.
Despite the deployment by all the countries of over a million troops, and the bases lined up at fifty-kilometer intervals, peace and calm reigned. There was even communication and interchange among the bases. Were it the adults’ era, war would already have broken out. For example, sea transport lines between the countries and their Antarctic bases were fragile and it was impossible to obtain supplies locally from the untilled land, which meant that a strike severing those supply lines would cause a disastrous collapse of an enemy’s land base. The children did the opposite: the fleets of major powers assisted weaker countries in transporting personnel and material to take part in the games.
Why this occurred is one of the strangest aspects of the children’s war: None of the countries had yet learned who their opponents would be. They were all just athletes at the Olympics, and only when the order of play was set would they know who they would be fighting. And they would be pitted against different opponents in each competition. Although diplomacy was constantly being conducted both openly and in secret, no alliances were formed, and all countries maintained complete nonalignment as they waited on the Antarctic playground for the start of the war games.
After they left the Japanese base, it was another two-hour drive before the Chinese children reached the American base. It was their first visit, and the scale of the place amazed them. It stretched out along the coastline for twenty-odd kilometers, dense clusters of tents and temporary buildings as far as the eye could see. Some of the buildings were quite tall, and sprouted forests of antennas from the rooftops. Radar antennas were distributed in large quantities throughout the base, half of them in white radomes that looked as if some gigantic bird had laid a clutch of eggs at random.
Surrounding the base was a web of rough roads on which all manner of military vehicles were passing by, kicking up clouds of dust alien to Antarctica and befouling every last stitch of snow along the way. Nearer to the impromptu harbor along the coast, mountains of goods of all kinds were piled up near the water. A row of large landing craft had just arrived and opened their black maws toward the shore to disgorge tanks and armored vehicles. The giant iron beasts crossed the shallows to dry land, and the ground shook as they rumbled on both sides of the Chinese children’s snow track. An unending line of transport planes flew low overhead, their enormous shadows flitting across land and sea in the direction of the airstrips, which had been set up in a hurry out of specialized perforated steel plates.
The summit of participating countries was held in an expansive hall constructed out of inflated building material. It was brightly lit and heated to springtime, and the ceiling was filled with balloons in all colors. A military band was playing a cheerful tune, as if this were a holiday celebration. When the Chinese children entered, most of the other leaders were already there. President Davey came over to greet them, and then led them to a long table in the center of the structure where other leaders were munching heartily. Over a hundred metal helmets were laid out on the table, each of them brimming with some sort of shiny substance.
“Try it. Krill from the Ross Sea.”
Huahua picked up one of the translucent krill, and then peeled and ate it. “Raw?”
Davey nodded. “Don’t worry. Everything is clean in Antarctica.” He handed Specs a glass of beer, and then took a few chunks of ice out of a tray on the table and dropped them in the glass, where they hissed and fizzed. “Natural Antarctic ice. It’s got high gas content. The finest restaurants in Europe used to source it specially. It’s quite expensive.”
“It’s all going to disappear pretty soon, judging from the oil slick along the shoreline,” Specs said.
“I’d like to discuss a topic not on the agenda of the meeting,” Huahua said, finding Ōnishi Fumio on the opposite side of the table and pointing a finger at him. “You need to stop the Japanese children from overfishing whales. If this goes on, whales will be wiped out in Antarctica in short order.”
Ōnishi set down his krill and answered with a sneer, “Focus on the games. Otherwise you’ll be wiped out.”
“That’s right, focus on the games,” Davey called out eagerly. “That’s the goal of this meeting. It’s been four months since the last one in D.C., and now that every country has brought a decent amount of naval and land forces to Antarctica, the games can begin. The thing is, no one knows how to play! That is the focus of this discussion. First off—”
“Mr. President, I should be chairing this meeting!” Yagüe said from one end of the table, banging on it with an empty helmet.
6
Wu Heng (1914–1999), a geologist who chaired the National Antarctic Research Committee (later the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration) in the early eighties ahead of China’s first expedition, attributed this remark to Marshal Chen Yi (1901–1972).