The Eskimo Invasion (30 page)

 

 

Flailing their signs, the screaming mob broke through the police line
and halted the armored car with their bodies. SAVE OUR ESKIMOS. A sign
hammered against the bulletproof window. HUMAN LIFE IS SACRED. A contorted
face pressed against the glass, recognized Dr. West. "Kill the bastard!"

 

 

Dr. West had closed his eyes. They were right.

 

 

Shivering inside warm Tower #3 that first night, finally alone in his
solitary suite, still shivering Dr. West had hung up his gray denim
trousers, and the capsule fell out of his cuff. He had blinked at it.
On the pink gelatin was scratched HOSP-APP. At first he did not realize
what the APP stood for. With irony he thought the capsule might contain
cyanide from his billions of TV admirers who had witnessed his trial
and conviction for genocide and were outraged there no longer was a
death penalty in Canada. Their dead Eskimos were lovable people, easily
idealized. "Tool of capitalist genocide!" -- "Communist fiend!" the
confused Canadians had shouted after him.

 

 

Swiftly, willing to accept whatever it contained, Dr. West had gulped
the capsule and lain down. His actual crime, his ineffectiveness was
more terrible than the billions knew.

 

 

The numbing of death did not come. As his temperature rose and his
symptoms proliferated, Dr. West realized that APP stood for appendix.
Someone was trying to get him out. Someone must believe him.

 

 

Fever engulfed him in delirium. A potent capsule! He imagined he saw
Eskimos entering his suite, and he shouted with terror.

 

 

The Medical Officer's fingers were pressing his rigid abdomen. "Nurse,
best take a rectal thermometer reading from this chap."

 

 

The massive whiteness of a polar bear loomed over the Medical Officer's
shoulder, and Joe West had yelled.

 

 

To his dismay, instead of carrying him out to the hospital, gauze-masked
monsters wheeled a portable operating table into his suite. "Best give
the patient a spinal."

 

 

Mirrored in the reflector of the portable overhead light they were turning
his body. Their yellowish rubber hands gleamed. A grease pencil marked
a line from his navel to his hip. He felt the numb tugging of the scalpel.

 

 

When the appendectomy was complete, a masked face had bent over him.
"I say, West, your appendix appears remarkably healthy. In retrospect,
your symptoms all seem rather odd. You've made me feel the fool. Was this
another one of those unnecessary operations?" The Medical Officer had
turned away. "Best deliver his appendix to the pathologist."

 

 

Now, for a Christmas present, or a warning, the Medical Officer had
returned his appendix in a bottle with a note.

 

 

Mr. West, our pathologist reports that a foreign substance, probably
ingested, raised your white blood count and induced other symptoms
typical of peritonitus. As a former medical man, you may have a more
specific explanation?

 

 

Why not feign a brain tumor next time. We would welcome the
exercise. Merry Christmas from the staff, New Ottawa Reformation Center.

 

 

P.S. Looking forward to your continued presence during the New Year.

 

 

Dr. West's bitter grin sagged while he turned his head from side to side
as if searching for a window to the Outside. Windowless concrete. He stared
past Nona at the concave wall and violently stiffened, his fist crushing
the note.

 

 

Her voice intruded: "Did he write one of his funny-type notes?"

 

 

"Funny? My sense of humor's dead. I'm dead. Don't waste your hour in here
with me. Don't waste the taxpayers' money. Get out, dammit!"

 

 

Instantly he was sorry. Terribly lonely.

 

 

She looked up at him. To his surprise, she moved toward him, smiling.
Her hand --

 

 

He stiffened. "Get out. While you can, go!" he shouted. "Get out. I can't
stand your -- is it sympathy?"

 

 

She edged toward the door but turned around, her face solemn. "If you want,
you can apply for someone else, a different Social Therapist ."

 

 

"No! What choice has a rat in a trap?" He looked her up and down.
"Bait, is that what you are? Get out."

 

 

"After you've been here a while," she answered softly, "you'll realize
this is like your home. You'll feel differently. Please, if you want to --
you can apply for a different -- "

 

 

"No, dammit, I want to get out of here! At least you -- get out!"

 

 

After he had caught his breath, he realized she was still standing there.
Trying to hold his voice from trembling, he said: "You don't scare very
easily do you?"

 

 

"Sometimes. But I'm not scared of you."

 

 

"I'm sorry. But I've got to get out of here. I forget you have problems,
too. Here you are a woman alone all day with us murderers and maniacs."

 

 

"I'm not alone."

 

 

"Do you mean that physically or spiritually? Outside, they'd lynch
me," Dr. West said finally. "In here you people try to make me feel
comfortable, but won't even tell me the news."

 

 

Wryly he smiled. "There was a prophetess named Cassandra. Now I know
why she wailed. A man, a prophet, would have battered his head against a
marble pillar. Cassandra could foretell what was going to destroy Troy,
but no one would listen. She warned them not to drag the wooden horse into
Troy. No wonder she wailed. Helplessly knowing what is going to happen,
but not being able to do anything is so much more painful than -- "

 

 

"Aren't you being rather dramatic," she remarked. "That wooden horse,
isn't it in a school book about Greece?" Turning away from his tormented
face, she walked into the kitchenette and opened the sliding doors which
concealed his sink and electric stove. She boiled water. "Instant coffee?"

 

 

"So you're the unshakable type," he laughed bitterly. "Must help
in a madhouse like this."

 

 

"I believe in living along from day to day." She sat down on the other
end of the sofa and smiled at him over her steaming cup. "Now that
you've had your tantrum for this day, I'm going to tell you something
which may give you a second one."

 

 

"No, I'm through," he said, smiling faintly. "Your child psychology has
overpowered me."

 

 

"The Pharmacist asked me to ask you ," she put down her coffee cup. "
-- if a hypodermic was, shall we say, overlooked and left in your
cell. During the first three nights after your appendix operation the
nurse gave you sleeping injections. In a government institution like
this everything has to be accounted for even if it's all used up like
a one-shot disposable hypo. Anyway, the nurse must have become confused
in her equipment count. A used hypo is missing. Of course she had other
patients to visit, but you're the newest in this tower and this has never
happened before, so the Pharmacist wonders, if you still have the hypo,
would you return it -- "

 

 

"I haven't any hypo."

 

 

"Good. I'll ask the Recreation Officer if he'll start the search in someone
else's suite. The Adniinistratrix has told him to search, so he has
to search."

 

 

"That's all right." Dr. West leaned back on the sofa. "The Recreation
Officer can start here. I won't feel persecuted. He's my buddy,"
Dr. West bluffed, and nodded at the insulated cage, the compressor, the
centrifuge, the gleaming glass equipment, all of which the Recreation
Officer cheerfully and ingeniously had acquired for him -- with Dr. West's
own impounded funds.

 

 

Dr. West's heart palpitated as he remembered the dissected squirrel
concealed under the compressor. But he went on talking. "The Recreation
Officer showed the Administratrix my hibernation study proposal. I may be
repeating old metabolic and glandular research, but it's more therapeutic
for me than weaving baskets. He says he got her approval by suggesting
Tower #3 surely must be more enlightened than Alcatraz, San Quentin --
some prison where they once let an old lifer raise canaries. So the
Recreation Officer's my buddy, and I raise squirrels. He's welcome to
search. When is he likely to -- ?"

 

 

"He'll probably start someplace else." She put down her coffee. "At least
two students who've been sick and visited by the nurse are former drug
addicts and might steal hypos, I suppose -- " She looked solemnly at him,
and he was surprised how small she really was. Her hand on the couch was
fragile compared with his. "The truth is," she laughed, "some men in this
tower are -- rather scary. That's why in your suite I feel so much better
-- with you."

 

 

Dr. West recognized the pitch, the helpless bit, and he almost smiled with
pleasure. He not only felt protective, he felt almost possessive. From the
sofa, she looked up at him, smiling with her eyes as if she knew that
he knew, and he felt his imaginary glass wall dissolving.

 

 

"What are you smiling about?" she said.

 

 

"I was just thinking that we -- "

 

 

The outer door hissed. Dr. West's muscles contracted like a criminal's,
caught in the act. The inner door shoved open.

 

 

"May I come in?" said the Recreation Officer, already in and sniffing
his toothbrush mustache in his most characteristic gesture; he had an
old face but his mustache and hair were black with dye. "I can come back
later." His unreadable gaze bounced off Nona's face, and he stared at
Dr. West. "I've been asked, shall we say, ordered, to search for a small
useless -- uh, item in your suite."

 

 

Dr. West grinned. "Nona told me it was a hypo. Feel free to search away.
I'll help any way I can, but I haven't got a hypo for you. I wish there
was a prison grapevine so I could tell you who's got the hypo."

 

 

The Recreation Officer failed to smile. To Dr. West's surprise the
Recreation Officer's usually sly sense of humor was gone, blank.

 

 

But Dr. West kept trying. "Since this is my one and only happy hour with
this sweet young thing, I would be happier if my suite were searched
during the following hour." Dr. West grinned hopefully. "I promise not
to go away, sir, since this is my therapeutic hour. Sir, as you said,
you could come back later."

 

 

"No, I'm already here, so I'll start here," the Recreation Officer
replied. "She can vacuum this dirty floor whether I'm here or not."

 

 

Dr. West tried again. "Sir, if you could come back later, after Nona's
gone -- I need to talk with you alone."

 

 

Dr. West was careful not to glance toward the compressor. Beneath it the
dissected squirrel was hidden, and Dr. West was afraid Nona's reaction
would be revulsion when it was discovered. He thought the Recreation
Officer's reaction would have been mild interest if the dissected squirrel
had been in plain sight on the work counter.

 

 

Unfortunately, Dr. West had concealed the dead squirrel, as if guilty
of something. Now the Recreation Officer's reaction when he found the
bloody package might be suspicion.

 

 

Dr. West knew the Recreation Officer lacked the medical background
to put two and two together, but if the squirrel were shown to the
Medical Officer -- that intelligent man would recognize this was not
merely a squirrel autopsy. The squirrel had been cut open for another
purpose. The Medical Officer would ponder this problem and knowing
Dr. West's controlling motivation was escape --

 

 

" -- in the kitchenette," the Recreation Officer was saying, opening and
closing drawers. "You haven't even done his dishes yet, Nona." He opened a
cupboard. "A more logical hiding place for a hypo would be -- the bathroom."

 

 

Dr. West began to perspire. He knew he needed to maneuver both of them
out of the suite in order to dispose of that dissected squirrel. If the
Recreation Officer continued searching, eventually he would discover
the body of the squirrel.

 

 

The Recreation Officer spent a surprisingly long time banging around in the
bathroom. All it contained was a medicine cabinet, toilet, basin and tub.
The bathroom was located in the narrow inner end of the suite.

 

 

Whenever he had sat in the tub, Dr. West could hear the eight elevators
humming up and down the central shaft of the cylindrical tower. His thirtieth
floor suite was shaped like an eighth of a pie. The center of the pie
was occupied by the huge open shaft, which contained the elevators and
the air-conditioning ducts. The elevators were code-controlled. To escape
without an elevator would be a long fall.

 

 

The Recreation Officer emerged from the bathroom, smiling beneath his
toothbrush mustache. "I took the liberty of searching your medicine
cabinet." His smile widened. "I deduce from the bottles and tubes that
you suffer from piles." His smile spread so wide it almost appeared
malicious. "Not a very romantic ailment for a world famous Arctic
adventurer -- for a convicted mass murderer -- "

 

 

Dr. West blinked with surprise. Until now, the Recreation Officer always
had treated him with human respect, never mentioned his crime.

 

 

"You've murdered more people," the Recreation Officer remarked, "than
the rest of the students in this tower combined, and you top it off by
stealing a worthless one-shot hypo."

 

 

"I haven't got your hypo."