Now that the rain had stopped the sky had cleared, and the ugly shape loomed against a slice of moon. It was a breeze-block structure, big, square, with hangar doors. Above the roof iron letters were mounted on stilts, and he picked the Japanese characters out against the sky: K-A-W-A-K-A-M-I.
The screeching set his teeth on edge. It was coming from a gap in the hangar doors, open a few inches, perhaps to let air in. He peered through, and saw nothing: total blackness. Then a kind of glimmering like the markings on a luminous watch. Denser shapes of blackness were shuddering along the markings. He tried to pull the doors wider but couldn’t manage it, and felt with his hands in the gap and found a safety bar in position. He tugged it upwards, and at once an alarm bell went off. He stepped back, but he had been seen; a torch beam was shining on him from inside. He stood away as the light approached, and then put his face into the gap.
‘Ichiko! It’s me — remember?’ The light was blinding him. ‘It’s Johnny. I came to see you.’
The light swung about his face, then down to the safety bar and the alarm bell stopped. The door slid open, and the torch waved him in. Inside, the noise was horrendous, the screeching and clanking grossly amplified and bouncing back off the walls. His arm was being tightly gripped, and the torch shone up to Ichiko’s face. He had ear muffs on, and he touched his lips and shook his head. Then he put the safety bar back on and pointed the light at an end wall, and moved there. A little glass cabin, dimly lit, was up on the wall. An iron staircase led up to it and he followed Ichiko there.
In the cabin Ichiko took his muffs off and closed the door, and the noise abruptly decreased; the glass of the cabin multiply glazed. A long desk and a console looked down on the factory. But it looked down on nothing — only the room lights shining back off the glass. But as he moved Porter saw one panel greenly illuminated, like an aquarium, and a scene of weird activity taking place in it.
As if through night glasses, the whole factory was luminously in view there; and all of it crazily at work. Like a computer game a hundred things were jerkily going on. Carts moved along aisles: moved, stopped, moved again. They moved along glowing lines in the floor. Skeletal arms reached out from bays at either side, and skeletal fingers weaved and bobbed in the air. They were picking up bolts, screws, drill heads; touching, feeling, coming back for more, occasionally letting off showers of sparks and filings.
‘Ichiko, what is this?’
‘The new world, no people. No people needed.’
‘They told me you were here. I went to Hanita’s.’
‘She’s gone. Not required any more. Nobody needed.’
‘Ichiko, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’ It was only four years since he had seen him last, when Ichiko had just left the sea — always a cantankerous but a forthright and robust man, jovial in his way. Now he was like an automaton, withdrawn, as jerky in his movements as the machines below. He had shown no curiosity whatever at seeing Porter. ‘So how do you like the night work?’ he asked.
‘It runs itself. I only watch. Nobody needed.’
‘What do they make here?’
‘Robots. Robots make robots. You see? Who’s needed?’
‘Ichiko,’ Porter said. He had a lowering feeling he wasn’t going to get far. ‘You used to give me advice.’ Ichiko didn’t say anything, only looked at him with hollow eyes. ‘I need something, Ichiko,’ Porter said.
Ichiko came closer, and glanced absently through the panel in passing. ‘I’ll give you something,’ he said. Through the panel Porter saw the carts had suddenly stopped and small bulbs on the console were flashing. ‘It’s only coffee,’ Ichiko said. He was filling a mug from a flask. ‘No drink allowed.’
‘Ichiko, something has happened below. Are you supposed to do anything about it?’
‘The robots do it. A drill broke and they’re replacing it. They look after themselves, they doctor each other. They’re cleverer than we are. Here,’ he said, and gave Porter the mug.
‘Aren’t there any workers here at all?’
‘A small shift in the day. They sharpen parts, take away what’s been done. At nights it’s just the robots and me.’ He sneezed and blew his nose. ‘Johnny?’ he said suddenly. He was blinking at him. ‘What do you want here?’
‘I came to see you.’ Porter smiled at him, relieved at the abrupt return to sense. ‘I have to go to sea again, Ichiko. I need some advice.’
‘Leave it alone. That’s my advice.’
‘It’s just for a short while.’
‘You said you were going to the Ainu in Hokkaido.’
‘I went. This is something else.’
‘Another one of your projects?’
‘Yes, another one.’
‘Ah.’ Ichiko looked through the panel and pressed buttons on the console. Below, the subdued row began again. ‘Where are you going?’
‘North, the Arctic’
‘Your Eskimos, eh? Well, best regards to them,’ Ichiko said. He screwed the top back on the flask.
‘Ichiko,’ Porter said. He was glad to see the old robustness back, and he took the enlarged photograph out of his pocket. It was folded small and he opened it out. ‘It’s one of the Yakamoto ships. Remember, you did some trips with them?’
‘Stay away from the bastards. They’re dangerous.’
‘One trip only. But I don’t know the deck gear, Ichiko, the derricks. Take a look here. Maybe you can make it out.’
Ichiko peered at the photo.
‘Make it out? This is the bitch that took Kenji’s arm. Kenji — that fine boy, you remember?’
‘Kenji?’ There were many Kenjis.
‘The whistler, eighteen years old. He helped me catch eels. His first trip on the ship and they put him on this! They gave him nothing for the arm. I tell you — stay away, it’s a killer.’
Porter looked again at the photo. It was one of the last of the roll, among the shots he had thought obstructed by workmen, but it had come out the clearest.
‘Ichiko, what’s so bad about this derrick?’
‘What’s so bad? It cripples you! It belongs in a museum! See how it happened with Kenji,’ Ichiko said, and picked up a piece of pencil and began drawing on the back of the photo.
But he didn’t draw for long and he didn’t explain for long, his animation suddenly expiring. ‘No, I don’t know. I forget. I don’t know anything any more. There isn’t any more.’ He opened the door and the hellish uproar returned. ‘Just stay away from it, I tell you!’
‘Ichiko, a single second!’ He held the man’s arm and tried to close the door but Ichiko resisted. ‘About the greasing again — just once! You said with the greasing —’
‘I don’t know about greasing. I don’t know anything any more. Leave me alone now. Let me go,’ the old man said, and put his muffs on.
Porter followed him down the stairs and through the tumultuous blackness to the slit of sky in the wall.
‘Ichiko, I’m sorry!’ he shouted. But Ichiko couldn’t hear him any more; and at the hangar door when Porter held his hand out he didn’t seem aware of that either, for he put the safety bar on and turned away.
It was still early, not yet eleven, when he got out of the train in Tokyo. He crossed the station forecourt, and made for the side door of the Lucky Strike. No one inside, and he entered quickly. But the indicator showed the elevator descending, so he took the stairs, and let himself into room 303, with a sigh.
All as he had left it, his business suit on the bed, his wig in the wardrobe. From the wardrobe he took the bottle of rye and poured himself one, and drank it. Then he poured another, and sat and looked at the photograph and at the pencilled markings on the back.