Tengo took a moment to organize his thoughts. Then he said, “So Air Chrysalis becomes the bestseller it’s supposed to be. And Eri attracts everyone’s attention. And that makes it harder for Sakigake to do anything. That much I understand. But how are things supposed to go from there in your view, Professor Ebisuno?”

“I don’t know any better than you do,” the Professor said matter-of-factly. “What happens from here on out is unknown territory for anybody. There’s no map. We don’t find out what’s waiting for us around the next corner until we turn it. I have no idea.”

“You have no idea,” Tengo said.

“Yes, it may sound irresponsible of me, but ‘I have no idea’ is the gist of this story. You throw a stone into a deep pond. Splash. The sound is big, and it reverberates throughout the surrounding area. What comes out of the pond after that? All we can do is stare at the pond, holding our breath.”

This brought conversation at the table to a momentary halt. Each of the three pictured ripples spreading on a pond. Tengo waited patiently for his imaginary ripples to settle down before speaking again.

“As I said the first time we met, what we are engaged in is a kind of fraud, possibly an offense to our whole society. A not inconsiderable amount of money may enter the picture as well before long, and the lies are going to snowball until finally the situation is beyond anyone’s control. And when the truth comes out, everyone involved—including Eri here—will be hurt in some way, perhaps even ruined, at least socially. Can you go along with that?”

Professor Ebisuno touched the frame of his glasses. “I have no choice but to go along with it.”

“But I understand from Mr. Komatsu that you are planning to become a representative of the phony company that he is putting together in connection with Air Chrysalis, which means you will be fully participating in Komatsu’s plan. In other words, you are taking steps to have yourself smeared in the mud.”

“That might well be the end result.”

“As far as I understand it, Professor, you are a man of superior intellect, with broad practical wisdom and a unique worldview. In spite of that, you don’t know where this plan is headed. You say you can’t predict what will come up around the next corner. How a man like you can put himself into such a tenuous, risky position is beyond me.”

“Aside from all the embarrassing overestimation of ‘a man like me,’ ” the Professor said, taking a breath, “I understand what you’re trying to say.”

A moment of silence followed.

“Nobody knows what is going to happen,” Fuka-Eri interjected, without warning. Then she went back into her silence. Her cup of cocoa was empty.

“True,” the Professor said. “Nobody knows what is going to happen. Eri is right.”

“But you must have some sort of plan in mind, I would think,” Tengo said.

“I do have some sort of plan in mind,” Professor Ebisuno said.

“May I guess what it is?”

“Of course you may.”

“The publication of Air Chrysalis might lead to revelations about what happened to Eri’s parents. Is that what you mean about throwing a stone in a pond?”

“That’s pretty close,” Professor Ebisuno said. “If Air Chrysalis becomes a bestseller, the media are going to swarm like carp in a pond. In fact, the commotion has already started. After the press conference, requests for interviews started pouring in from magazines and TV. I’m turning them all down, of course, but things are likely to get increasingly overheated as publication of the book draws near. If we don’t do interviews, they’ll use every tool at their disposal to look into Eri’s background. Sooner or later it will come out—who her parents are, where and how she was raised, who’s looking after her now. All of that should make for interesting news.

“I’m not doing this for fun or profit. I enjoy my nice, quiet life in the mountains, and I don’t want to get mixed up with anything that is going to draw the attention of the public. What I am hoping is that I can spread bait to guide the attention of the media toward Eri’s parents. Where are they now, and what are they doing? In other words, I want the media to do for me what the police can’t or won’t do. I’m also thinking that, if it works well, we might even be able to exploit the flow of events to rescue the two of them. In any case, Fukada and his wife are both very important to me—and of course to Eri. I can’t just leave them unaccounted for like this.”

“Yes, but assuming the Fukadas are in there, what possible reason could there have been for them to have been kept under restraint for seven years? That’s a very long time!”

“I don’t know any better than you do. I can only guess,” Professor Ebisuno said. “As I told you last time, the police did a search of Sakigake in connection with the Akebono shootout, but all they found was that Sakigake had absolutely nothing to do with the case. Ever since then, Sakigake has continued steadily to strengthen its position as a religious organization. No, what am I saying? Not steadily: they did it quite rapidly. But even so, people on the outside had almost no idea what they were actually doing in there. I’m sure you don’t know anything about them.”

“Not a thing,” Tengo said. “I don’t watch TV, and I hardly read the newspaper. You can’t tell by me what people in general know.”

“No, it’s not just you who don’t know anything about them. They purposely keep as low a profile as possible. Other new religions do showy things to get as many converts as they can, but not Sakigake. Their goal is not to increase the number of their believers. They want healthy, young believers who are highly motivated and skilled in a wide variety of professional fields. So they don’t go out of their way to attract converts. And they don’t admit just anybody. When people show up asking to join, they interview them and admit them selectively. Sometimes they go out of their way to recruit people who have particular skills they are looking for. The end result is a militant, elite religious organization.”

“Based on what kind of doctrine?”

“They probably don’t have any set scriptures. Or if they do, they’re very eclectic. Roughly, the group follows a kind of esoteric Buddhism, but their everyday lives are centered not so much on particular doctrines as on labor and ascetic practice—quite stern austerities. Young people in search of that kind of spiritual life hear about them and come from all over the country. The group is highly cohesive and obsessed with secrecy.”

“Do they have a guru?”

“Ostensibly, no. They reject the idea of a personality cult, and they practice collective leadership, but what actually goes on in there is unclear. I’m doing my best to gather what intelligence I can, but very little seeps out. The one thing I can say is that the organization is developing steadily and seems to be very well funded. The land owned by Sakigake keeps expanding, and its facilities are constantly improving. Also, the wall around the property has been greatly reinforced.”

“And at some point, the name of Fukada, the original leader of Sakigake, stopped appearing.”

“Exactly. It’s all very strange. I’m just not convinced by what I hear,” Professor Ebisuno said. He glanced at Fuka-Eri and turned back to Tengo. “Some kind of major secret is hidden inside there. I’m sure that, at some point, a kind of realignment occurred in Sakigake’s organization. What it consisted of, I don’t know. But because of it, Sakigake underwent a major change of direction from agricultural commune to religion. I imagine that something like a coup d’état occurred at that point, and Fukada was swept up in it. As I said before, Fukada was a man without the slightest religious inclinations. He must have poured every ounce of his strength into trying to put a stop to such a development. And probably he lost the battle for supremacy in Sakigake at that time.”