The Eskimo Invasion (22 page)

 

 

The next phone call from the Pentagon barked at Dr. West: "Your
bacteriological boys have perfected a surefire attack."

 

 

"Hardly that," Dr. West had replied, "we're just beginning the first
pretest of the bacterial strain."

 

 

At Sierra Woman's Reformatory there were a hundred volunteers between the
ages of twenty-one and twenty-five. Isolated, these women had developed
slight colds, a temporary burning sensation in the abdomen and groin,
and even before their uneventful recoveries the phone was ringing in
Dr. West's office.

 

 

"Great work, Dr. -- uh, West. Now you can expedite R and D on this
successful attack."

 

 

"General, several years will be necessary to evaluate the physiological
effects and much longer for the psychological effects."

 

 

"Anything you say, Doctor. Great work. We evaluate your program at the end
of the fiscal year."

 

 

At that meeting Dr. West was forced to admit that the biological-
bacteriological research had made the most apparent progress, and he
accepted the additional money to enlarge that wing of the building.

 

 

In a few months the phone rang louder than usual. "Dr. -- uh, West, we
understand the bacteria you used at that women's prison wasn't strong
enough. It pooped out."

 

 

"Hardly that," Dr. West replied. "For the safety of us all, naturally we
have been breeding only self-attenuating strains."

 

 

"Huh?"

 

 

"As the test women transmitted and retransmitted the disease from one
isolated cellblock to another, the virulence of the disease declined."

 

 

"It pooped out."

 

 

"Of course," Dr. West replied, "it was supposed to -- "

 

 

"You're kidding? -- Dr. -- uh, West, we're paying for results.
Your bacteriological boys can give us better results than that. Now!"

 

 

This had launched Dr. West's jet trips to Washington. His desperate
confrontations were ended when the Defense Department suggested to the
University administrators, if they hoped for continued funding for this
and other research programs, the present Director of Oriental Population
Problems Research named Dr. -- uh, West, should be replaced.

 

 

Dumped into his sabbatical leave, Dr. West had fled; from further conflict
he had escaped to the Arctic, but now he lay on the living room rug
in his Berkeley apartment with his five children crawling all over him
while he listened to Steve Jervasoni.

 

 

"The hundred lucky fellows from Chino Men's Prison have really been
producing," Steve Jervasoni laughed. "After two years, a better percentage
of those gals than we hoped finally have managed to get pregnant. In the
outlying cellblocks where the infection was least virulent, most of them
are pregnant."

 

 

"Good. I'm relieved the way their Fallopian tubes are reopening. Just as
our first gynecological studies indicated, most of the stoppage was due
to swelling rather than permanent scarring. Good."

 

 

"Bad," replied Steve Jervasoni. "The Pentagon is pressing us to start
human testing of Dr. Gatson's virulent strain."

 

 

"Dammit!" Dr. West stood up. "Those military minds have been juggling
H-bombs on the tightrope of extinction for so long they've lost all
sensation of danger. Dammit! Accidental transmission of Gatson's favorite
bacteria outside the prison -- God! Why would even the military want
to develop anything that can't be used, that couldn't be sprayed on
Asia. Do they think we could medically isolate America while infection
sweeps the rest of the world sterilizing all women and men until -- "

 

 

Steve Jervasoni's restraining hand was on his forearm.

 

 

"Dr. Gatson still thinks he's on the trail of the antibodies for a protective
inoculation."

 

 

"Bullshit! That's what little Freddie Gatson was saying two years ago."

 

 

"Maybe yes, maybe no," Steve Jervasoni replied, sitting down again and
absently ruffling the dark hair of Little Joe's head. "What I'm wondering
is whether the mild and safe temporarily birth limiting strain we tested
at Sierra Women's Reformatory would have any effect on Esks. Let's face
it," Steve sighed, "now that the Canadian Government's feeding them,
there's going to be an awful lot more, and if they're all as uncooperative
in birth control as Marthalik -- "

 

 

"Probably little or no effect on Esks," Dr. West retorted. "My kids haven't
even caught cold. No sore throats or secondary bacterial infections.
Marthalik's never ill. No, she did have a sore throat once."

 

 

"Then this mild strain might not be able to limit the births of Esks in
a few years when Canada needs help."

 

 

"Who knows? Unless something like this is developed, I think Canada
will have a lot of Esks. And a lot of starvation and a lot of lynching
of innocent Esks."

 

 

"And you'll have a hundred children by then, a hundred of Marthalik's
children to feed, clothe and educate," Steve Jervasoni replied.

 

 

"Very funny. You've observed Marthalik's preg again."

 

 

"This is a safely self-attenuating bacterial strain."

 

 

"Marthalik?"

 

 

"You said it, I didn't." Steve stood up.

 

 

"Forget it," Dr. West retorted, and failed to forget it.

 

 

 

 

The day Marthalik produced his sixth child, Dr. West discovered Steve
Jervasoni sitting on his doorstep.

 

 

"Wouldn't the baby-sitter let you in?" Dr. West asked wearily.

 

 

"When do you bring Marthalik home?" Steve's fist bulged awkwardly inside
his coat pocket as if he had a sixth finger. " Life still taking pictures?
Next month they'll have lost interest in your seventh baby. Eighth. Ninth."
Steve took out a stoppered glass tube and blurted: "Giving you this from
the lab, I guess I could get twenty years in the Federal Pen -- "

 

 

"Bacterial spores? Dammit! Damn you! Good stockpiling characteristics?"
Dr. West asked bitterly. "Storable to Pentagon specifications?"

 

 

"Until you have to do it," Steve murmured, "in this culture medium,
the spores could survive for months -- years at low temperatures like
in the Arctic or in your refrigerator."

 

 

"You think some day I'll open this tube in desperation?"Dr. West demanded.
"You think I'll say:
Marthalik, breathe
-- "

 

 

"But not around here. Fairly safe, self-attenuating but -- "

 

 

"I can't do this," Dr. West said and glared at Steve but did not hand back
the glass tube.

 

 

"It was your -- you gave me the idea," Steve muttered and departed with
his head down.

 

 

His face blank, Dr. West walked into his kitchen. Carefully enclosing
the tube in a polyethelene bag, he transferred part of the culture
medium to an empty nasal inhalator can. He put the polyethelene bag,
which contained both the glass tube of bacterial spores and the inhalator
can of spores, in a Mason jar. Opening the refrigerator, he hid the jar
at the back behind a six-pack of lager beer.

 

 

He thought Steve was a contradictory character, supplying the bacteria
and then acting as if its use was morally wrong. Even Steve's outward
personality seemed contradictory. He acted more awkward and shy than
Dr. West. Yet Steve was the newly elected president of the Graduate
Students' Forum. For such an introvert to be elected president of anything
seemed strange. But Dr. West suspected that few other grads had the free
time or motivation to sit as moderator at interminable meetings where
U.S. foreign and domestic policies endlessly were argued.

 

 

Surprisingly for a bacteriologist concerned with infective means of
limiting the world's birth rate, Steve favored larger families in the
U.S., speaking quietly from his central seat on the platform. "It's
a matter of our national survival. In the international competition,
the Chinese are -- " Steve had repeated the Pentagon's line, urging an
increased income tax deduction per child. "Our whole economy will be
stimulated. More children mean more consumption, and for the unemployed
more jobs, demonstrating to the world that our system still works best.
A return to our American tradition of large families is in the national
interest."

 

 

After Marthalik returned in the
Life Magazine
limousine from the
hospital, proudly carrying her new baby, Dr. West hired a full-time
sitter. "Goodbye Little Joe, Daddy and Mommy are going on their first
vacation."

 

 

Dr. West was relieved how easily Marthalik left her children. "This person
does not worry about children once they are born," she laughed wistfully.
"Always someone will take care of those who are born."

 

 

Dr. West almost asked her if she was more concerned about those who
weren't born yet, but with husbandly wisdom he kept his mouth shut. He
drove their Olds electric to the shingled cottage overlooking one of
the last private beaches in California. He had borrowed this old wooden
cottage from a rich but short-haired artistic type who was a friend of
Phyliss's. Locking the chain across the long dirt driveway, Dr. West
helped Marthalik carry two-weeks' supply of groceries into the cottage.

 

 

"Warm waves. No ice." Across the deserted beach, Marthalik ran to him,
her flawless skin beaded by the sea. Breathing hard in her first bathing
suit, she had a stocky figure by whitewomen's fashion standards, but
very nice, Dr. West thought.
So very nice. Because I love you, you
have a beautiful body.

 

 

"My husband," she giggled as he squeezed her, "this wet person is making
your shirt wet; you are so strong!"

 

 

"Are you happy here?" He released her.

 

 

"Like this we sat," she sighed, sitting down beside him on the
salt-whitened log, "like this on the bone of the whale. This person's
heart felt quick like a bird held in the hand. A very strong man beside
me with his own rifle, even stronger than Old Peterluk, you touched my
hand. Until you saw me, this young girl was so careful." She rested her
cheek against his shoulder. "With you, so strong, this person was ready
for her children to begin."

 

 

"Now we feel close again like that," he suggested hopefully, "because there
are no children between us now. Do you think that?"

 

 

"This person thinks she does not miss them. No matter where we are,
we will have new babies for us to love."

 

 

Inside the beach cottage, Marthalik peeled off her wet bathing suit.
She was most beautiful lying down.

 

 

"Marthalik, first we must breathe this." Sitting on the bed with his arm
around her, he opened the inhalator can, and in her trust she didn't even
ask him what it was, and inhaled, and he wanted to cry.

 

 

Breathing deeply from the can, he stood up.

 

 

"My husband, are you feeling well?" Her hand sought his leg.

 

 

"It is a custom here," he muttered, walking away from the bed, "as when
the hunters are preparing to go out on the ice after walrus, the night
before -- they do not sleep with their wives."

 

 

With his back turned, for an instant he imagined her flushed with fever
from the bacteria, moaning and writhing on the bed. He wanted to cry.

 

 

From the bed, she giggled. "My husband, you are not going walrus hunting.
It is not a walrus you are going to harpoon."

 

 

He had to smile, his pulse racing. Probably she wouldn't even have a fever.
Turning, he looked down at her lying there. Looking up at him, she stretched
luxuriously. And he had to laugh, he was in such a burning agony of desire.
There seemed no medical reason why they shouldn't, particularly if he took
old-fashioned precautions, so why was he torturing them both, denying nature?
His face twisted in a grin. He was burning like hell's fire. He thought
with wry amusement:
continence might not be quite so difficult if I were
5000 miles away in Rome.

 

 

Entwined in the morning, they both sniffled with what he said were lovers'
colds. Marthalik's temperature was only 99 degrees. His was 101. Dulled
by a headache, he worried in how many ways Marthalik might differ in
her physiological reactions from the women used in the testing of this
bacteria. Those female prisoners reportedly had temperatures of 100
to 101.

 

 

The next day she said she felt fine. Her temperature was 98.2, normal
for her. She bustled around the cottage. He lay in bed with 101.6,
feeling burning pains like acute prostatitus. Finally he slept, burning
and revolving until he dreamed he was her, part of her, within her. In
her swollen shut Fallopian tube, he was trapped like an ovum. Like a tiny
embryo growing bigger and bigger, he couldn't get out. He woke up sodden
with sweat. If the blocking of her Fallopian tubes resulted in such an
ectopic pregnancy she would have to undergo a major operation to save her
life, he thought, a more dangerous operation than any uterine abortion.

 

 

"My husband, you must eat something." Cheerfully, she fed him canned peaches
for breakfast.

 

 

As his temperature descended, he began to suspect the bacteria had left
no effect on her. For controlling the spread of Esks, this mild bacteria
might be useless. Perhaps the Esks could be affected only by a bacteria so
virulent it would sterilize all humans, he thought. Esks seemed so much
more durable than humans. He squeezed her strong little hand, thinking,
My love, what are you?