The Eskimo Invasion (14 page)

 

 

Dr. West blinked. This old man was showing himself to be a political
dinosaur, who was outside the beliefs of either party in Parliament.
Dr. West smiled sardonically. "Perhaps they're not human, by your
definition."

 

 

"Ah!" Etienne LaRue smiled in instant agreement.

 

 

"A one-month gestation period," Dr. West said, "suggests many hormonal
differences from other Eskimo women, from human women. Perhaps these
should be considered a new subspecies."

 

 

"A new species, mon dieu! I knew they weren't human."

 

 

"Perhaps not a new species because -- they do interbreed," Dr. West
laughed hollowly, " -- with us. Perhaps you could say they are a new race,
differentiated not so much by outward appearance as by gestation period
and other habits which we will discover. Instead of Eskimos, instead of
'skimos which is a derogatory term, perhaps we should differentiate them
from Eskimos by calling them -- "

 

 

"Esks." This was the first word the nephew had spoken, and Henri LaRue
smiled like a hopeful candidate for minor office, his cheeks gleaming
with good living, his little mustache neatly trimmed.

 

 

"Too pleasant, this word, Esks," old Etienne LaRue retorted. "A longer
word telling of sin and filth and treachery must be discovered by my staff.
The way these -- these Esks are increasing, the whole French language
and way of life may be threatened not only in the Northwest Territories
but in Quebec!"

 

 

The nephew snorted. Evidently he was feeling his oats after his success
with his invented word: ESK. "There are only a few hundred of them. Let
these Esks learn French. And vote."

 

 

"They are not human, those Esks, or any Eskimos," the old man hissed.
"None of them. Look at their faces, those grinning devils. Even as a boy
I dream of them. Slant-eyed devils, my shouts wake myself up. They are
like evil spirits, and these -- these Esks must be worse."

 

 

Dr. West glanced at the portly nephew, who was eyeing the ceiling.
Evidently the old man not only was racially, culturally and religiously
prejudiced, he was entangled by senile paranoia in boyhood fears and
superstitions. Dr. West stood up to leave.

 

 

"Voilŕ! We get rid of those Esks." The old man clutched Dr. West's
arm. "Savages no better than dogs. Morals unspeakable. Dogs in the
manger is what they are. All that land up there must be freed for --
for all mankind!"

 

 

Dr. West pulled away. He knew how rapidly the French-speaking population
still was increasing due to the increasing baby bonuses supported by
increasing sales taxes, and incited by increasing immigration from
England's overcrowded New Towns. Etienne LaRue's party wanted more
Lebensraum for Quebec.

 

 

The old man pursued him. "My nephew will lead the investigation. You
will guide Henri to the Esks. With my influence, the Sanctuary cannot
keep you out, even though Hans Suxbey, that moral fiend, denies access
to all. Your aircraft will not be shot down."

 

 

Dr. West stopped walking away. He thought he could use this old devil.

 

 

In the Rolls, the nephew sighed: "Wild goose chase." He proffered a
half-pint of Haig & Haig. "Call me Henry."

 

 

"You think we are the two geese who will be shot down?" Dr. West asked.

 

 

"Mon dieu! I hope not! Finally our monetary offering was accepted by
the Guard pilot. I hope that fighter pilot is honest."

 

 

By commercial jet, Dr. West sat beside the portly Henry LaRue all the way
toward Churchill on Hudson Bay. Barring accidents, he hoped to return
this way with Marthalik and his baby son. In the Sanctuary, Dr. West
hoped to show Henry LaRue the Esks' need for birth control assistance
as well as food this winter. Surely old Etienne LaRue would not oppose
artificial birth control -- if it were for Esks.

 

 

Who is human? Dr. West thought, his memory recoiling from his own
conversation with that withered Etienne LaRue, who hated Esks he'd
never seen.
Who is human? Who is more human? What definition?
Physical appearance? Nation? Language? Religion? Birthrate?

 

 

"More than a hobby. Me," Henry LaRue was saying not so humbly. "Perhaps
I am the only whiteman in Canada who bothers any more. But my hobbies
are difficult things. I have listened to Eskimo recordings. At the
hospital I visit the old Eskimos. The Eskimo language has become my -- "
And he laughed, " my most austere and intellectual hobby, and yet my
uncle disapproves."

 

 

Because you are challenging him, Dr. West thought,
deliberately
irritating him by pretending to learn the language of the Eskimos -- of
his nightmares.
Dr. West imagined Henry LaRue's linguistic attainments
would turn out to be the parroting of a few long agglutinative word-phrases
without wholly grasping their significance to an Eskimo. Henry LaRue
was signaling to the stewardess, and she understood, bringing more
champagne. As she bent over them, she flinched and giggled, and Dr. West
had glimpsed another of Henry LaRue's happy hobbies.

 

 

At Churchill's enlarged airport, met by a pilot and staring out at his
aircraft, Henry LaRue's smiling facade cracked. "That little plane?
It is so small."

 

 

Squatting like a fat two-motored duck, the VTOL looked reassuringly large
to Dr. West, whose previous flight across the tundra and ice to Boothia
had been in a single-engined Turbo-Beaver, not a massive twin-engined
transport like this.

 

 

"Our Order has faith," the pilot laughed, "flying this old Canadair CL-284.
You will see her wings and engines pivot to the vertical. You will be
set down safely as in a copter upon the Cultural Sanctuary. Of course
providing that -- " The pilot stopped, as if deciding not to worry his
two passengers with his other concern.

 

 

But Dr. West knew what it was.

 

 

Glancing at the sky, the pilot zipped up his snow-white and visual orange
flight jacket and led them to his white and visual orange striped aircraft.
These were the bold colors of the Aerial Order of Pope John, an Order of
Involvement flying rescue missions throughout the North while the older
Order of Oblate Fathers concentrated on more ascetic obligations.

 

 

Seated at the instrument panel, the pilot grinned at Dr. West as if they
were going on a great adventure together, which was no lie! Dr. West hoped
old Etienne LaRue's bribe to the fighter pilot guarding the Cultural
Sanctuary was generous enough. This lumbering VTOL transport would be
helpless beneath a supersonic hawk.

 

 

Here on the parking apron at Churchill Metropolitan Airport, the priest-pilot
did not wait the long wait to enter the crowded airport taxi pattern,
or wait some more for clearance from the control tower before scooting
out between the deadly turbulence of giant jet transports. Instead, still
parked like a car he lifted a switch on the CL-284'S instrument panel
and an electric motor growled, twisting the wing and its two propjet
engines to a vertical position. He started the jet props squealing dust
around the squatting aircraft.

 

 

Dr. West watched intently while the pilot checked the rpm's of the little
tail rotor back there between the rudders. For his own purpose, Dr. West
tried to burn into his visual memory the pilot's hand motions in sequence
setting the autopilot for vertical takeoff. The twin propjets screamed with
exertion, and the VTOL lifted straight up with heavenly stability. The
priest-pilot raised both hands from the controls, grinning. Someone
else was flying the aircraft upward more safely than any man. It was
the autopilot.

 

 

At 3000 feet, Dr. West watched how the priest-pilot pivoted the wing and
engines to a normal horizontal position without losing much altitude,
and the CL-284 whined forward at 300 mph north. With all these automatic
systems assists, Dr. West thought he could learn to fly this aircraft
more easily than a Turbo-Beaver.

 

 

Flying above the whitened tundra, Henry LaRue poked his head between the
dual seats, shouting louder and louder to relieve his nervousness. "I
am not prejudiced like my uncle about the Eskimos in the Cultural
Sanctuary. But the money of the taxpayers cannot continue to go down that
rat's hole, while in Montreal thousands of honest Canadian voters are
unemployed. I say the Government must subsidize New Towns throughout the
Arctic, as the Russians have done so successfully. Stocked with sturdy
Canadian voters from our overcrowded cities, the North will prosper at
last. Some pessimists say Canada's population continues increasing too
fast because of our increasingly humanitarian Baby Bonus. But I say,
look down from this aircraft at all that empty tundra. I say it is
impossible for Canadians to increase too fast while there is so much
room. I mean all Canadians regardless of religion or race, and for all
progressive people there is so much living space here in the North."

 

 

The priest-pilot winked at Dr. West, as if the North was not that easy.
For two hours the CL-284 whined north across a thousand nameless frozen
lakes of the glacier-bulldozed Keewatin District. For another hour they
winged northwest across the frozen curly-cues of Back River past Lake
Macdougall and banked north across empty tundra toward the Boothia
Peninsula. "I believe we're over the Eskimo Cultural Sanctuary now,"
the priest-pilot shouted, glancing toward 12 o'clock high in the sky.

 

 

Dr. West saw the metallic speck swooping down from the altostratus clouds.
Flashing, it made a head-on pass; for an instant it was an ancient F-111B
carrier-launched version of the McDonnell swing-wing jet fighter of the
1970's, overkill as far as their lumbering CL-284 was concerned. "Butcher
bird!" the pilot shouted. "There are so many rumors -- bush pilots who
disappeared. I hope our permission to enter truly has been transmitted
to this reckless pilot by the Director."

 

 

Dr. West winced as the F-111B made another pass. Someone had lied to
the priest-pilot. Of course the Director of the Cultural Sanctuary,
Hans Suxbey, had not been informed of this impending violation. Hans
Suxbey would have ordered the fighter plane to down them. It was the
pilot of the F-111B who was supposed to have been bribed.

 

 

Looking back, Dr. West saw Henry LaRue had his eyes shut. His lips were
moving. The CL-284 wallowed through the jet fighter's turbulence, but
did not change course.

 

 

"How do they explain about this butcher bird," the priest-pilot angrily
shouted, "to their Eskimos who are supposed to have become innocent --
of whiteman's machines."

 

 

"When Suxbey descends from the sky -- above the Esks in four years,"
Dr. West laughed with strain, "he could explain this F-111 was a winged
god watching over them."

 

 

"I thought the Director was to be their only god," the pilot retorted,
ducking and grinning and holding his northward course as the F-111B made
another pass.

 

 

"He's trying to do the best he can for them -- from his point of view."
Dr. West stared at this priest-pilot who faithfully was refusing to change
course in the face of threatening F-111B collisions, refusing to be
forced down.

 

 

Evidently the pilot was unwilling to commit aerial murder. Flying three
times faster than the VTOL all over the sky, the fighter plane burned
away its fuel and departed. The priest-pilot appeared to have won.

 

 

"Can you recognize the bay?" he shouted at Dr. West, grinning.

 

 

They had found it, the familiar bay and the river flowing from the
little lake.

 

 

"Never have I seen such a big Eskimo camp," the priest-pilot marvelled
as he set the CL-284 straight down on the snow-dusted gravel beside all
the newly raised winter igloos.

 

 

Dr. West swung outside already shouting to the Esks.

 

 

"You are asking about a woman?" Henry LaRue shouted, revealing a better
understanding of the Eskimo language than Dr. West had expected, and
Henry jumped down beside him, interrupting Dr. West's conversation with
the Esks. "We came here to count and inspect, not to chase a woman. All
these young women look -- healthy, well-fed. Do they have the hospitality
of the Eskimos in the old days? If necessary I would not want to hurt
their feelings if hospitality were offered. I am a bachelor and a serious
student of Eskimo -- language."

 

 

"The important Esk -- Eskimo, I am looking for has moved to the next bay,"
Dr. West said truthfully. "His name is Peterluk, and I think he may have
been a witness to the arrival of these Esks."

 

 

Dr. West did not mention Marthalik was said to be living in a new camp
beyond that next bay.

 

 

"Beyond a little hill," the Esk boy murmured as Dr. West maneuvered
this unsuspecting guide and the smiling and waving LaRue back toward
the aircraft.

 

 

In the rising VTOL, the Esk boy sat bravely. He peered down, then up,
his mouth opening. "We are near to Grandfather Bear?"

 

 

Dr. West shook his head. He couldn't answer that one, as the CL-284 sank
down toward the white flat at the head of the next bay. When the swirl
of snow settled, Dr. West saw a lone igloo. "Peterluk?"

 

 

"Bad man," the boy murmured, but he climbed out.

 

 

Dr. West glanced at the ancient Winchester Model 70 rifle strapped above
the aircraft door, part of the priest-pilot's survival equipment. "I'll
stay here and keep her warm," the pilot said, and Dr. West shrugged and
climbed out empty-handed, followed by LaRue. If he approached the igloo
carrying a rifle, he thought old Peterluk might be happy for an excuse
to shoot. That day they had struggled for possession of Dr. West's rifle
in the crater of the Burned Place, the Navel of The World, Peterluk had
been flung down. Growling with rage, he had fled back to the rocks to
get his own rifle, but he had not shot then.