The Eskimo Invasion (29 page)

"I've never heard of that, sir."

 

 

"There's a lot you haven't heard of!" Then Dr. West managed to control
his voice. "Think of bacteria as microscopic blobs like strings of grapes,
typical bacteria each excreting tissue-destroying poison as an incidental
by-product. The toxin is what makes the person feel sick. Virulent bacteria,
we say."

 

 

Dr. West stared out the open door to the harbor where the big tilt-jet
flying boat had landed; now the Mountie had reinforcements. "Where
was I? Bacteria multiply so rapidly, a new generation every half hour,
millions of bacteria within a person," Dr. West laughed unexpectedly.
"Every hour there is the possibility of hundreds of bacterial mutations.
Bacteria with slight genetic alterations may be more virulent or less so.
Here is the surprising thing. A single mutated bacterium may be -- born,
which is less virulent, excretes less poison and arouses less resistance
in the body of the person. Perhaps for that reason, it and its descendants
are able to multiply more quickly through the next few bodies than the
competing bacteria of its species. The mutated mild bacteria may win the
competition. Bacteria compete for living space, too. These less virulent
but more fertile bacteria squeeze out their old-fashioned relatives and
take over."

 

 

"From the poisonous ones, sir? Like the meek shall inherit the earth?
Hardly that, sir?"

 

 

"In self-attenuating bacteria, that is what has happened." Dr. West
laughed as if in triumph. "The less poisonous had a built-in survival
advantage. They've spread through the Esks with less and less symptoms,
until they could infect the world with no noticeable effect, no harm."

 

 

"The bacteria, sir?" The Mountie was staring at the map. "Surprising to me,
sir. The opposite would be so much worse --

 

 

"You mean more and more virulent mutations. For some bacteria this does
happen. But it makes no difference to the bacteria as long as multiplication
can proceed most rapidly." Dr. West watched the airmen walking up the beach
toward -- him. His voice faded: "Like it or not, life's basic chemical
command simply is to survive and multiply."

 

 

"It is true there will be too many Esks, sir." The Mountie was staring
at him. "Is that what you're really talking about?"

 

 

"What do you think? This planet was yours first! They're only Esks."

 

 

"Perhaps, sir, but this is a civilized country." The Mountie's eyes
scrutinized Dr. West. "Are you saying Esks are not fully human, sir?
Saying things like that, Hitler soothed his Germans to pop off the Jews,
by saying -- other races -- Are you saying Esks aren't human?"

 

 

Dr. West retorted: "Thirty-day gestation period and you still think Esks
are human? Those stupid bearded kooks in the LST," Dr. West gasped,
"they are the humans. Stupidly feeding a new and competing -- species.
Esks. Human? The Esks? No,
not
human unless monthly births from each
Esk woman is an historically human characteristic. Mutated humans? Hell,
no! In an Esk there are too damn many neat mutations at one time. They
aren't human. You are the humanitarian idiots bringing food so the Esks
can multiply until -- "

 

 

"Sir, we can't let people starve! Listen, sir, those bearded chaps in
the LST, at least they obeyed the law and handed me approved invoices,
lists of all the food they brought in. All imports approved. That is
required by law. Look at these approved lists on my desk. Shipping
number 334 is for 500 cartons of prefolded paper diapers. It is
not
for a little wooden box full of bloody cans of MOSQUITO SPRAY!"

 

 

Dr. West looked away as the Mountie's voice rose.

 

 

"The Esks brought the wooden box to me." The Mountie's voice broke as if
in pain. "I said, open it. How could I know? I said, just what I need,
mosquito spray. I took an orange can. I said, you chaps take the rest.
Sir, I even showed them how to press the knob on top to make the spray
come out. Sir, I did it -- the bloody hell! What was in those cans?
People died. People died." Mosquitos whined around the two men.

 

 

Dr. West's mouth was so dry he couldn't answer.

 

 

"People died, sir. People died." The Mountie looked down at the lump of
bedcovers where Eevvaalik's body lay.

 

 

"But you didn't even get sick, sir," the Mountie blurted. "I think you
brought those spray cans from California, sir. The R.C.M.P. will trace
them back to where they were manufactured. You needn't speak without
advice from your counselor-at-law. Sir --" The Mountie's voice trailed
off, and he started out the cabin door.

 

 

The words ARREST and MURDER remained unspoken. All day they had been
flying through Dr. West's consciousness like savage-beaked skuas. Now
they fell at his feet. The worst had happened. There was nothing more
he could do.

 

 

Dr. West's face twisted in a smile of numb relief as the cheery pilots
and doctors from the flying boat blundered into the cabin and shook hands
all around. The Mountie was too courteous to mention they were shaking
hands with a murderer. They all sat down and had tea.

 

 

Voiceless, Dr. West tried not to think ahead to the trial. In Ottawa
would they strip him morally naked before the world?

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. THE MODERN PENITENTIARY

 

 

Alone in the comfortable apartment which was his cell, Dr. Joe West
chewed the inside of his cheek in self-torment. Quivering, his scalpel
exposed the tiny pituitary gland of the Arctic ground squirrel on his
work counter.

 

 

"Blind fools!" His real guilt was so much worse than the angry orators
in the United Nations General Assembly had shouted.

 

 

Racial murder? Unpredictably, twenty-two Canadian Eskimos had died.
The Ottawa court convicted him of murder.

 

 

"I'm guilty of worse ." His face twisted. Apparently less than 20%
of the Esk women had developed any significant infection or even
temporary swelling in the tubes from their ovaries. A few of the Esk
children and men had a day or two of mild fever. Not a single Esk
died. Their resistance to human pathogens was so much stronger than
he'd expected. While Eskimos died, Esks had continued happily eating
and breeding and breeding and breeding --

 

 

"Damn me! Instead of my controlling their birthrate, I'm their Santa Claus!"

 

 

It was his murder trial which attracted worldwide attention and aid to the
hungry Esks. Ironically, it was his trial which awakened humanitarians and
politicians to the plight of the overcrowding Esks. Rapidly multiplying
Esks starving --

 

 

During the year of his arrest, while his trial dragged on, the counted
number of Esks increased from 4500 to 8000.

 

 

Both the malicious Chinese Government and the embarrassed United States
Government were air-delivering food, baby clothing, portable barracks.

 

 

"Blind fools! Like providing food and shelter for lemmings." Dr. West's
youthful face winced, gaunt as a pensioner's.

 

 

The first rumor Dr. West had overheard as he was led to his bulletproof
glass booth in the Ottawa courtroom for sentencing: a Chinese VTOL
aircraft had "evacuated" more than one hundred starving "Eskimos,"
surely Esks, from Canada's Boothia Peninsula. Like an infectious boil,
the population pressure of the Esks finally had burst.

 

 

The last rumor he had heard before he was delivered to this prison:
hundreds of Esks had asked to be permitted to emigrate to China.
"We are loved in that free country." Evidently Chinese agents had been
planted among the Esks. In the Canadian Parliament there was a Great Debate.
Esks if they so desired would be permitted to go. "Few will, I say. Let the
few malcontents go, and relieve our taxpayers of a few Family Allowances."
When the huge Chinese VTOL jet transports began landing, to the amazement
of Canadians not a few Esks but 4000 Esks opted for China. This was fully
half the total Esk population at that moment.

 

 

"God! What's happening out there?" Trapped in the New Ottawa Reformation
Center, Dr. West knew he should make a second attempt to escape --
at once.

 

 

His cell was frighteningly comfortable. "Safe as a womb."

 

 

Already the friendly staff were changing him. Outside, the Esks would
change the world.

 

 

The hiss of increasing air pressure alerted Dr. West that the outer door
to his suite was being opened. Ignoring the Ceiling Lens, Dr. West hastily
wrapped the dissected squirrel in metallic-green Christmas paper; he was
not allowed newspapers. Dropping to his knees, he hid the squirrel under
the compressor.

 

 

As he lurched to the sofa, his abdominal incision tugged. His heart thudded
more quickly than the compressor pumping coolant through frosty copper tubes
past his work counter to the huge insulated cage.

 

 

It was an ingenious but scary means of escape.

 

 

Peering out through the double glass window of the cage, a single chilled
Arctic ground squirrel (Citelus undulatus) still resisted hibernation.
The other squirrels slept under the sawdust. This lonely squirrel shrank
back as the inner door to Dr. West's suite moved open. With her upswept
hair and neat blue uniform, Nona walked in with a therapeutic smile.

 

 

Dr. West stiffened, his face twisting. Every time he saw a woman in here
he wanted to cry --
Marthalik
. Or shout with rage. Marthalik, where are
you? Not even during his trial, his last months in the outside world,
had Marthalik or Steve contacted him.
Not even tried to contact me.
Sometimes as he lay in his cell he imagined Marthalik making love with
Steve, and pounded his fist against the mattress.
That's why she went
with him. Not to have an operation.
Marthalik and Steve had vanished
as if from the face of the Earth. But when he saw a woman, there was
Marthalik for an instant.

 

 

His pulse racing, Dr. West couldn't remember whether he'd shaved, as Nona
walked toward him. Every day for a week, at 10:00 a.m. she had entered
his suite, made his bed, done his dishes and tried cheerful conversation.

 

 

Her blue uniform no longer reminded Dr. West of a guard or airline
stewardess. Through his insane glass wall, he was staring at her eyes.

 

 

"Merry Christmas, Student." Nona laughed, but her self-assurance visibly
fell away. "This is supposed to be a present to you from the staff. But
I don't know what's in this package." She wasn't smiling now. "I didn't
have anything to do with it."

 

 

Dr. West reached for the package, which was wrapped in grinning Santa
Claus paper. He felt as if he could almost reach Nona through his imaginary
glass wall. His fingers closing around the bottle-shaped package touched
her hand. His muscles tightened. After a year alone in Territorial Prison,
and then in the bulletproof glass booth while on trial, and then in
Classification Prison, always alone and cutoff, Dr. West could not quite
break through the illusion that there was a glass wall --

 

 

"Gurgles like a fifth of rye," he remarked with a weak smile, cautiously
shaking the package.

 

 

"I doubt that." Nona sat herself down on the coffee table, still breathing
hard as if she had been hurrying to her hour-a-day appointment with him.
Always she seemed to be perched on the coffee table, her knees pressed
together, her hand tugging down her blue uniform skirt.

 

 

"That's Christmas on your head," Dr. West stammered, not sure what he
meant to say.

 

 

Her silvery flower-shaped hair decoration of foil, tinsel and yellow-green
mistletoe rustled as she raised her face with dimpled pleasure. "Thank you,"
she said.

 

 

After a moment she said, "There's still a package in your hand -- "

 

 

Dr. West's fingers stripped down the red and white Santa Claus paper,
exposing the clear glass neck, and laughed with confusion. "A fifth
of gin?" He stared at something worm-shaped and pink drifting back and
forth in the alcohol. "I'll be damned! It's my appendix."

 

 

"I'm sorry!" Nona blurted. "What a horrid thing for the Medical Officer
to send."

 

 

At her upturned face, Dr. West blinked, more surprised by her shocked
reaction than by the fact the Medical Officer would send him back his
appendix for Christmas. Dr. West's smile hardened as he silently read
the note:

 

 

Mr. West, our pathologist reports --

 

 

That first night in his suite, Dr. West had lain waiting for his fever
to rise. The dull pain spread. His abdominal muscles became rigid.
He vomited, crawling toward the bathroom. As he had hoped, the Ceiling
Lens was transmitting, and thirty floors below in the basement where
240 TV screens were banked, the Night Observer noticed and telephoned
the Medical Officer.

 

 

Dr. West had expected to be rushed out of his solitary cell into the
elevator, and down, then out through the icy Canadian night to the
hospital building. Apparently that was someone's plan. Perhaps an orderly
had been bribed. The rectangular hospital seemed to have more escape
possibilities than these tall cylindrical towers of the New Ottawa
Reformation Center.

 

 

From a distance the towers had resembled concrete grain elevators.
His return glimpse, as the armored car had delivered him toward the
penitentiary, had shifted from the towers to the Canadians massing in
the sleet. PRESERVE OUR ESKIMOS a placard read.