War with Mars

by Umino Jūzō · 2026-03-31

Furuhata finally felt it was time to step out of the coffin. A wave of emotion washed over him, thinking it had been a millennium since he last walked the earth.

Stepping outside, he found himself in a place that resembled a half-dug tunnel. Beside him lay a device that looked like a water gun.

"What is this?" Furuhata asked, and Professor Chita said something astonishing. "This is a drilling machine. It can easily bore holes through soil, concrete, or even an iron wall. I dug this cave myself in about thirty minutes just now."

Furuhata thought it was a lie, but when he heard that the water gun-like device utilized the immense energy from atomic disintegration, he understood and was convinced. When he asked, "So, all current power derives its energy from atomic disintegration, doesn't it?" the professor replied, "That's right," with a look that seemed to ask why he would inquire about such an old matter.

Stepping out of the cave, a city unfolded before him, exactly like the world ten million years in the future he had once seen in a science magazine. The first thing that caught his eye was the roads crisscrossing everywhere. These roads didn't intersect in a cross shape as Furuhata knew them; instead, they were staggered vertically, so there was no need to cross them, nor were they stopped by traffic lights.

What surprised him even more was that not a single vehicle-like object was visible on these roads. People were zipping along like bullets, with astonishing speed.

"Those people run quite fast, don't they?" Furuhata remarked admiringly, and Professor Chita chuckled, saying, "No, Mr. Furuhata. It's not the people running; it's the roads moving. They say old roads used to stay still, and cars and trains ran on them, but all current roads move with high speed. If a person gets on them, they'll be carried anywhere."

“A moving road, that’s an incredible mechanism. Just thinking about the power, it’s hard to calculate, and first of all, the resources…” When I said that, Professor Chita interrupted me, saying, “No, in today’s world, there’s an endless supply of energy. You can get as much energy as you want by breaking down matter. And it’s a colossal amount of energy, incomparable to the past. You don’t need to worry about such things.”

Furuhata was impressed, thinking, “Indeed.” It was a world where there was no need to worry about power. What a fortunate day humanity had reached.

So Furuhata thought of asking Professor Chita a crucial question. “Professor Chita, is there still war in today’s world?”

“War? Yes, there is war.” The moment he said that, a loud voice, as if piercing through the city, resonated. Someone was speaking rapidly. Professor Chita’s face hardened slightly.

When the loud voice ceased, Furuhata asked, “What was that just now? Was that loud voice a loudspeaker?”

“Yes, it’s an announcement from the Immigration Command. It’s telling everyone up to a certain number to quickly go to the surface and gather in front of the immigration rocket.”

“Ah, so this isn’t the surface, then?”

“That’s right, we’re five hundred meters underground.”

“So it’s an underground city. Professor Chita, I want to see the surface, I want to know quickly how the surface has changed.”

“No, no,” the professor said, dismissing Furuhata’s wish. “Only those who have been ordered can go to the surface. Immigration is an order, so they can go up like that.”

“Immigration? Where are they immigrating to?”

“They’re going to Venus. Periodically, we’re sending more and more of Earth’s population to Venus.”

“Oh, Venus. To Venus, that planet?” Furuhata was surprised. “So the day has finally come when we can travel to a planet.”

“If all goes well, within the next three months, all humans on Earth will have moved to Venus.”

“What? So Earth will be empty? What on earth is going on? To abandon this precious Earth.”

“It is known that exactly one year from now, Earth will collide with Comet X and be utterly destroyed.”

“Ah, I see, a collision with a comet, then.” Furuhata nodded, but then asked, “So there’s a need to emigrate from Earth. In that case, why not go to Mars, which has a climate very similar to Earth’s, instead of going to Venus?”

Professor Chita then turned to Furuhata with an unusually stern look and said, “You’re old, and your brain is no good. Aren’t humans on Earth currently at war with the beings on Mars? As soon as we planned the Venusian emigration, the Martian beings began to interfere. That’s why only seven percent of the emigration rockets have arrived on Venus so far, and the other ninety-three percent of the rockets have all been destroyed by the Martian beings, and humanity has been brutally massacred. After all, the Martian beings are more cunning, so it can’t be helped. No, I think humanity should have prepared for space war much earlier. It was a great conceit to think that only humans on Earth were the smartest beings in this vast universe.”

Furuhata realized for the first time that when Professor Chita had said earlier, “There will be war,” he had been referring to this space war.