Salmonella men on Planet Porno: stories - By Yasutaka Tsutsui Page 0,106

done in broad daylight and out of doors, openly, the most beautiful natural thing a person could do, and it’s performed as a kind of art. That moved me to tears. Come to think of it, it’s only natural that this kind of art exists. Don’t you think it’s strange for a society not to have such beautiful art? Well anyway, what went through my mind as I watched the ballet was that anyone who doesn’t understand the beauty of this can’t be called human any more. If someone from earth watched that ballet and said it was obscene or something, that would be someone who can’t understand love or art or anything. But, in fact, most people on earth would be like that person. Realizing that made me cry even more. It all got muddled up together – my feeling of bitterness at being looked down upon till now, the sadness of those earth people, and my happiness and emotion at being able to watch that ballet. In the end, I was bawling my head off.” Tears were streaming down his face.

That Yohachi could speak with such eloquence, such enthusiasm, when he was usually so taciturn and poor at expressing himself, proved how deeply he’d been moved. The realization of this helped me to share some of his emotion.

My gaze was still fixed on Yohachi’s face when Mogamigawa called over to me, his eye still on the microscope.

“Sona. Come and look at this.”

When I looked into the eyepiece, I saw, swimming there in a sea of semen, some flagellar bacilli that were clearly distinct from the spermatozoa.

“What are these, then?” I asked.

“A type of salmonella,” answered Mogamigawa. “On earth, this bacillus is well known to cause typhous diseases in humans, as well as food poisoning and gastroenteritis through infection from the excreta of birds and mammals. But that’s not all. There’s a type of salmonella bacillus that has no effect on humans but causes miscarriage in horses, i.e. equine mycotic abortion. This one seems to be parasitic on penisparrows and infectious to humans, causing what we might call ‘human mycotic abortion’. That’s what it must be.”

“In other words, the Newdopians have been controlling their population with the aid of salmonella and the penisparrow. Hmm. I had wondered why there isn’t a population surplus with all this sexual activity going on,” I said as I continued to watch the movement of the salmonella bacilli. “Yohachi has always wanted to sleep with Dr Shimazaki. Now he’ll have to, to infect her with salmonella. Lucky bastard!”

Mogamigawa groaned morosely. “Why should a fool like that be given such an enviable task? No, there’s a quicker way. Dr Shimazaki could masturbate using the penisparrow as a dildo,” he said, then blushed when he sensed my burning glare on his face. “Er, of course, I’m not saying that out of jealousy, no no no. It’s because I doubt Dr Shimazaki would wish to be violated by such a man.”

“I’m not so sure. I reckon she’d prefer that to some unnatural method like masturbating with a penisparrow. Especially if she saw him as he is now…”

Mogamigawa glanced back towards Yohachi, then brought his mouth to my ear. “Don’t you think the look on his face has changed?” he whispered conspiratorially.

“Yes. That’s the face of someone who’s been awakened to art. The gleam in his eye is completely different,” I answered. I started to collect up my things, which lay scattered about on the river bank. “Well, anyway, why don’t we leave the decision to Dr Shimazaki?”

“Yes, I suppose we could,” Mogamigawa said with little conviction as he idly packed away his electron microscope. “Damn that Yohachi! How could he have better looks than me?!”

A whole day would soon have passed since our meeting at the Research Centre. In that case, Dr Shimazaki would soon be entering the sixth month of her pregnancy, in earth terms. Whatever was gestating inside her captivating midriff had to be aborted as soon as possible, and for that it was imperative that we return quickly. It was hard on the elderly Dr Mogamigawa, as we’d only slept a total of four hours in about a day and half. But as soon as we’d gathered up our baggage, we immediately set off for the Research Base.

As we neared the jungle, night fell once more.

“I refuse!” exclaimed Mogamigawa, who’d been trailing behind with little enthusiasm until then. He parked his backside on the ground and started to fret like a spoilt child. “Of