The Eskimo Invasion (23 page)

 

 

The next day he felt so much better he knew she was as human as he was.
"This game is called checkers," he explained, and she learned amazingly
quickly, but he managed to beat her every time, while she nodded: "It is
proper that the husband is wiser in the fighting of these little men."

 

 

Five days later she was surprised and alarmed to discover a menstrual flow.
"This person has not bled since she was a girl, since she met you."

 

 

"That is because each month until now you had a baby." Dr. West smiled
because the family limitation bacterial infection was a success.

 

 

"Is this person -- sick?"

 

 

"Your body has been given a chance to rest."

 

 

By the end of the two weeks their last groceries were eaten. He felt
confident they no longer were active carriers of the bacteria. The women
in the prison had not been carriers after one week. None of the men
had contracted the infection when they were admitted to the cells two
weeks later.

 

 

"My husband, my body is so empty. Where is my baby?"

 

 

"It's time to go home," he said, and packed their clothes in their suitcases,
which he left in the cottage.

 

 

Going outside onto the wooden porch, he stared at the red drowning sun.
For a moment his confidence drained. How ironic if he caused the spread of
the bacteria and it mutated, becoming more virulent. Ninety years after
the last human birth, he thought, a world crowded with Esks shoulder to
shoulder. "The meek shall inherit the Earth."

 

 

"Eh?"

 

 

"Your people are meek, Marthalik. That means they don't fight each other.
They don't get angry. Always smiling, they are better than the rest of us
-- but I don't think they will inherit the Earth."

 

 

To Marthalik's openmouthed surprise, he told her to take off her clothes.

 

 

"My husband, in this country, it is not done out-of-doors."

 

 

"Marthalik, we're merely going to swim in the ocean. It's dark. Take off
your clothes. Don't be a prude." He threw all their clothing on the wooden
porch, and led her by the hand into a grippingly cold ocean.

 

 

While he shivered, she giggled trustfully, plumper, female, more resistant
to cold water. Hardening his muscles, he ducked completely under and rose.
Seizing her shoulders, he ducked her. Bubbling, she did not resist.
Gasping, she clung to him as they waded out.

 

 

"My husband, it is not a woman's place to ask questions but -- "

 

 

"No, don't go back on the porch." He led her to the car, took his extra
key-card from his illegally installed spare key-holder under the fender,
and inserted the magnetically coded card into the trunk lock. "Here --
a towel, and some of your clothes I brought from home for you."

 

 

He said: "Put them on!" Naked he ran back to the house, and when he returned
she had laid out his extra clothes for him.

 

 

"My husband, you have forgotten our suitcases."

 

 

"No, we will leave them. It is a new American custom," he said, unlocking
the driveway chain.

 

 

As they drove away, bumping across the railroad tracks, curving toward
the coast highway, her voice rose. "My husband, look back! A brightness
like a campfire on the roof. Look back, is our cottage burning?"

 

 

"I can't look back when I'm driving," he blurted, driving out of sight.
"You saw the red light from a fishing boat." He doubted if the cottage was
insured. He would have to pay for it. But he had taken every precaution
to minimize the unlikely risk that anyone else would be infected. As he
drove, he worried.

 

 

 

 

When Marthalik did not produce a baby the following month, emotionally
he began to pay for what he had done to her.

 

 

"What is wrong with me?" she complained, compulsively rubbing her small
stomach as if this would help make a baby grow there. "Where is my baby?"

 

 

"You already have six children to take care of, and me."

 

 

"This person feels so -- Not accomplishing anything. So lonely with herself."
For the first time Marthalik was speaking negatively like a whitewoman.
"This person feels as if her life lacks -- " She stared helplessly at the
ceiling as if unable to express her inner feelings.

 

 

In the night she groaned and thrashed in a nightmare, and he held her
in his arms. "My love, what is it?"

 

 

"Eh? Dreaming. All right now. Hold me."

 

 

In the morning with coy smiles she tried to be attractive to her husband.
Now when she needed him most, he felt separated from her.

 

 

"When will this person have a baby?" her voice persisted, while his sexual
desire waned, and he paced the streets, anxious for his teaching adventure
at Free U. to begin.

 

 

The finance company had been willing to loan him only $500 on his future
prospects when they learned he would be teaching at Free U. Nervously he
organized and reorganized his lecture notes. To get out of the apartment,
he took Little Joe for long walks.

 

 

Not yet a year old, Little Joe ran across the lawns and shouted and laughed
with the round-eyed children. Already Little Joe appeared as large as a four-
or five-year-old, but his coordination seemed similar to a three-year-old's.
When children pushed him, Little Joe smiled instead of crying or pushing
back. Smiling at his smile, strange children strangely didn't push him
again. They romped around Little Joe as if enjoying the radiance of his
magic smile. "Daddy, they love me. Everybody loves me!"

 

 

That sleepless night, only two days before he would have to face Free U.,
Dr. West lay on his elbow listening to Marthalik's groaning. Beside him,
asleep, her face twisted in pain while she mumbled: "For you -- we will
fill -- for you -- this person is trying -- "

 

 

Awake, she tried to maintain her smiling face. Accidentally upsetting
an empty glass, which didn't even break, she broke into tears. Steve
Jervasoni stared at Dr. West. With increasing frequency, Steve had
appeared at the apartment to play with the kids or to chat with Marthalik
if Dr. West was out taking the children for a walk.

 

 

"She doesn't understand," Steve blurted at Dr. West as the two men stood
outside by the curb. "A terrible thing has been done to her without her
permission. Have you told her why?"

 

 

"You know I haven't told her. Goddammit, what could I tell her? I sterilized
her -- perhaps forever."

 

 

"She has this terrible need."

 

 

"Tell me something I don't know!"

 

 

"I feel so guilty," Steve's voice persisted, "for bringing you the bacteria.
Because you asked me to -- "

 

 

"That wasn't how -- "

 

 

"She was the happiest person I ever knew," Steve's voice rushed. "I -- we
felt so wonderful just sitting in her presence, enjoying her smile. Have
you considered an operation to reopen her -- "

 

 

"She's my wife, not yours!" Dr. West went in the house.

 

 

He had to sleep. Tomorrow was his first lecture at Free U. Half-remembered
stories of the laughter and booing, of the humiliation hurled at inadequate
lecturers, left him sleepless beside his restlessly sleeping wife. He tried
to reassure himself that he'd be lecturing at Free U. for only one semester.
But the
Journal of American Population Scientists
had rejected his
paper, asking for more substantiation that his wife was not merely a
"gynecological phenomenon." The rejecting editor added: "Your age-sex
census of the Boothia Peninsula Eskimos is not of a professional level.
If any Eskimos, other than your wife, do tend to have shortened gestation
periods, we can assume a reputable expedition soon will confirm it."
But Dr. West lacked the money to return to the Boothia Peninsula, even if
the Canadian Government permitted him to enter.

 

 

Free U. was scattered all over Berkeley. With a hollow feeling in his
stomach, he walked stiffly toward the former furniture warehouse. Past
an ancient signpost in the alley, proclaiming this as Reagan Boulevard,
he entered the enormous room. Clomping on the wooden plank platform,
he wrote across the blackboard what he considered most important, while
the coughing and chattering of entering students grew. To his dismay,
he saw they were ambling past the padlocked entry boxes without putting
dollar bills in the slots. There must be an explanation --

 

 

With surprise and excitement overlaying his discomfort, he saw that he
was packing the hall. All the chairs and benches filled with gum-chewing
faces. A stocky youth in conservative knickers scrambled onto the platform,
his bow tie askew. "Employee Relations," he introduced himself, shaking the
hand of the employee, Dr. West. This student executive extracted his watch
from his wescot, then glanced at the chattering audience. "Lecture Course
in Population Problems," the youth shouted into the noise. "J. West,
Probationary Lecturer."

 

 

Chattering continued among the low-waisted, short-skirted co-eds until
resoundingly the youth fired at the high wooden ceiling. A splinter fell
to the platform. Nodding encouragingly at Dr. West, the student leader
blew across the twin barrels of his derringer.

 

 

Dr. West's mouth opened but no sound emerged.

 

 

He had been advised by Dr. Darwin to open his first lecture with a fresh
but safely pretested joke, or if he didn't want to gamble on a joke,
to hurl a shocking introductory statement at the co-eds in the front row
to make them pull their knees together and sit up straight. A dramatic
opening to hook the audience at once was necessary if he were to compete
against the nationally syndicated TV professors. But Dr. West's throat
was so dry he pointed at the blackboard, voiceless. He hoped to hook
them with this visual teaser:

 

 

Estimated Population of World
Date Human Progress in Millions
----- -------------- -----------------------------

 

 

25,000 B.C. Hunting and seed gathering 5
8000 B.C. Deliberate farming, villages 7
1 A.D. Roman and many Asian cities 250
1650 Scientific start 500
1960 Birth control pills tested 3000 (3 billion)
1980 World census 5000 (5 billion)
1990 This year 7000 (7 billion)

 

 

*** Actual: 1990 = 5.5, 2011 = 6.9

 

 

"Back in the 1960s," Dr. West's voice creaked, "population experts predicted
a world population of about seven billion by the year 2000. They assumed
correctly that there would be increasingly widespread use of The Pill.
They predicted three-month antiovulation injections such as medroxy
progesterone. But they underestimated nationalistic pressures to maintain
high birthrates. Right now in 1990 we've had to update our prediction
for the year 2000 to nine billion." He took a breath. "There'll still be
room for the tourists who reserve earliest for Yosemite and Yellowstone."

 

 

Hastily he chalked on the other blackboard: WHAT IS THE MAXIMUM POPULATION
THE EARTH CAN SUPPORT?

 

 

"This is an unfair question," Dr. West said, "because I didn't ask WHEN,
what year. Given about sixty peaceful years of cooperation, it is estimated
that mankind could organize this planet to support a maximum population
of twenty billion by the year 2050. This future twenty billion would have
about as much food available per person as with our seven billion today."

 

 

Dr. West inadvertently let his gaze fall to a co-ed's knees, and he
stared at his notes. "In only ten years, that is, by the year 2000,
there will be nine billion of us. Medical progress reducing infant
mortality in Asia, Africa and South America has continued to outrace
birth control programs. Population contests between military-industrial
nations are escalating. World population has continued doubling every
twenty-five years. But assuming nine billion in the year 2000, we may
not have eighteen billion in 2025, and we won't reach thirty-six billion
in 2050 if there's only food for twenty billion then. It appears that
famine, disease and war may control more population than The Pill."

 

 

"The maximum population the world can support at any given time is balanced
on a precarious pile of interlocking -- factors." He was afraid he was
getting too abstract and losing his audience.

 

 

"Think of a three-legged race. I mean, at a picnic where you and your
boyfriend's legs are tied together and you try to run. Your name is
Potential Breeding Power, and you are a fast runner. His name is Food
Production. He's a plodder, but you're tied together. If Breeding Power
runs too fast, Food Production can't keep up, and both of you begin
to stagger."

 

 

A girl giggled, and Dr. West's voice improvised: "Suppose there were a
sudden increase in population ." He didn't know where his sentence was
going and realized subconsciously he'd been thinking of the Esks. "Such
an increase that our food distribution system begins to -- to stagger --
with lowering standards of living even in America and Europe, causing
political unrest, decreasing production, revolution, chaos, a breakdown
of our delicately balanced technology?" He let the question hang, and
started telling what was happening in South America.