This is the Way the World Ends by James Morrow Page A

round the mortal world.
    When Jormungandr shakes its coils
    The slimy ocean swirls and boils.
    Lieutenant Grass came in, brass buttons sparkling, white uniform croaking softly with starch. His freckles looked newly polished. He loved the Navy.
    Sverre crossed out the stanza. ‘Can we leave this ghastly place?’
    ‘They pulled the man free an hour ago,’ said the exec. ‘He’s in surgery.’
    ‘Surgery? Hell. I’m not delivering any corpses, that’s not how my orders read. Prognosis?’
    ‘Fair. The bullet probably would have finished him, but it went through some kid’s scopas suit first. He’s a strong fellow – carved tombstones for a living.’
    ‘Tombstones?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘What do they want with him ?’
    ‘Beats me, Captain.’
    ‘Contaminated?’
    ‘Over two hundred and fifty rads, the needle said.’
    ‘Got any more bad news, as long as you’re here? Tell me the ward can’t handle another case.’
    ‘Well, they’re still treating Wengernook and Tarmac, but even after Paxton’s admitted they won’t be near capacity. This is a fine boat they gave you, sir.’
    Sverre contacted the control room and ordered the diving officer to bring them around. ‘Take her down, Mister Sparks. Two hundred feet.’
    ‘I’m curious, sir,’ said Lieutenant Grass. ‘When they picked up Paxton, he was at ground zero – right in the crater. A crazy place to be, wouldn’t you say? What do you suppose he was doing there?’
    Turning his good eye to the periscope, the captain watched the red, boiling waters of Boston Harbor splash across the deck. ‘He was doing what we’re doing,’ said Sverre. ‘Trying to get home.’
    ‘Facts,’ a woman said. ‘You need facts, Mr Paxton. Facts will steady your mind.’
    George became conscious of several varieties of pain. He concluded, with mixed emotions, that he was still alive. Despite the bullet from John Frostig, the thermonuclear bomb, and his keen desire to be dead, he had evidently not yet left the world – unless, of course, the blurry creature standing near him was an angel.
    ‘Facts. You are in the radiation ward aboard US Navy submarine SSBN 713 City of New York , out of McMurdo Station. Displacement – thirty-four thousand tons submerged. Draft – sixty-five feet. Delivery system – thirty-six tubes loaded with Multiprong missiles. Warheads – W-76 reentry vehicles, eight per bus, five hundred kilotons each.’
    Fever coursed through George’s body. His brow oozed sweat. His bowels ached. His stomach churned sour milk. Barbed wire flossed his brain.
    ‘There is a document,’ she said. ‘The McMurdo Sound Agreement. Six names appear in it. You are all being evacuated to the Ross Ice Shelf.’
    George suddenly realized why the angel was so fuzzy. He was inside a plastic tent. She was outside.
    ‘Aurhgh,’ George responded. Two marbles seemed to be lodged in his throat. As if to diagnose the problem, he inserted his fingers. The back of his hand was covered with purple spots. His gums were bleeding.
    ‘Your benefactor is Operation Erebus. When they rescued you, there was a bullet in your stomach and a scopas suit in your arms. The bullet came out last week. The suit is now in the cabin you will occupy if and when your convalescence begins.’
    Why is my head so cold? George wondered. Your head is cold because you are hairless, his fingertips revealed. You are as bald as a slab of South African granite.
    ‘Final fact. For the last six days you have been unconscious, during which interval you passed from the prodromal phase of radiation sickness through the latency phase and into the life-or-death phase. And that’s your situation. I’m sorry it’s not better.’
    Beyond his physical pains lay additional anguish, emotions that rested on him like the stones with which his New England ancestors had pressed witches to death. There was a stone for loss, a stone for fear, a stone for Holly, a stone for—
    ‘I have a wife,’ he said. Four words,