The Eskimo Invasion (41 page)

 

 

"You sound like a bleeding heart or a Maoist," Dr. West retorted. "A rehash
of the half-truths when I was crucif -- excoriated before the United Nations
General Assembly. You're remembering the Chinese Communist Party line."

 

 

"You're the traitor. Genocidal maniac is the truth," the Major added,
more calmly. "That whole U.S. Administration was voted out of office at
the next election."

 

 

"The U.S. Government was innocent," Dr. West replied, "but a lot of voters
believed the Communist Party line. It's funny now. My guilt rubbed off
all over, even though only I made the decision to use the bacterial spray
cans. If you believe the Chinese fulminations of seventeen years ago
when I was convicted, I made old Adolph Eichmann look like an innocent
saint. I was the threat to all the yellow skins and brown and black.
I was the racial butcher."

 

 

" -- because the Eskimos weren't bothering anybody." The Major couldn't
keep his voice steady. "It wasn't their fault that radioactive cesium is
concentrated by the lichen-caribou food chain. The Eskimos always had eaten
caribou. None of you wise-guy know-it-all doctors told them not to -- "

 

 

"The extreme mutational theory has no basis in fact. When will you stop
confusing Eskimos with Esks?"

 

 

"They're the same. It's a word trap, a phony word trap to justify your
plan for world genocide of the Eskimos. The Eskimos can't help it if
they've started multiplying fast."

 

 

"Major, you don't know anything, except what you've recalled in bits and
pieces from old TV newscasts of seventeen years ago when you were about
twenty-three and so busy with girls and booze you weren't paying any
attention to the rest of the world. How old do you think I was then? How
old do I look now?"

 

 

Dr. West thought his own face looked about forty, which was his theoretical
physiological age. His calendar age since birth was fifty-six. He felt his
damaged heart laboring as if he were seventy-six.

 

 

The Major blinked. "You're damn well preserved. In prison you weren't
in the sun. Or were you in the freezer? In prison is where you'll go
again if we ever get out of here. Right now I need you. You talk Chink
to these people. Tell them to hide us. Tell them we will free them from
the Chinese. We'll give them self-determination, food, real clothing,
medical supplies, if they'll hide us from the Chinese."

 

 

"Oh, brother!" Dr. West laughed savagely. "You are terrified! Why not
promise them guns and ammunition -- "

 

 

"Sure, we'll drop guns. Some of their people must be the guerrillas."

 

 

"Don't you wish it were so!" Dr. West taunted. "These people aren't Eskimos.
These people aren't human. These are Esks. Throw away your expectations of
human behavior. Esks don't behave that way. Do you see any Chinese guards?
Humans this miserable would need guards. Esks aren't human. They don't
revolt. They feel no need to be guerrillas. Or to vote. They don't need to.
They're getting their way. They're getting what they want -- or what
something out there wants for them. They're filling our world!"

 

 

"Tell them to hide us. That's an order."

 

 

"Very rapidly they're filling our world."

 

 

"Tell them to hide us, damn you!" The Major's .45 was raised again.

 

 

"Where can they hide us? Under their bodies?"

 

 

"They must have houses someplace." The Major peered about.

 

 

Shrugging, gesticulating, Dr. West tried to communicate with some of the
women. He asked if they felt well. They said they did. "They say to climb
over that ridge, over the hill to the next valley," he lied. "They say
hide on the hill."

 

 

He regretted his lie as they struggled up the terraces. His mouth had
lied before he had a chance to think. It was as if the Harvard Circle
of the CIA had drummed into his skull that he must go to a hilltop. The
signal sender would have more range from a high place. Was that it?

 

 

His heavy legs ached and dragged. His heart thudded. He was exhausted. He
couldn't make it all the way to the top of the mountain. It was a mountain
of endless terraces, giant steps too big for any man. The world whirled
dazzling bright as Dr. West fell in the mud.

 

 

"You got to get up." The Major was pulling at him. "Saw a copter out there.
A little speck, zigging around like it's looking for something. You don't
think the Chicoms are tuned in on our guerrilla wavelength?"

 

 

Dr. West stared up at the muddy little signal sender in the Major's huge
hand. "Possible." That was the truth. In fact it was the understatement
of the year. The CIA radio was tuned to the Maoist frequency.

 

 

"How do I turn this thing off without busting it?"

 

 

"Don't turn it off. Probably the helicopter is simply supervising the Esks,"
Dr. West's mouth lied. "To turn it off, you would have to break it. Then the
signal sender would be done for, and so will -- "

 

 

"All right, let's go, we can still reach the top." The Major tried
boosting him up the slippery wall of a terrace. "Got to reach the top.
Irrigation pumps up there, I think. Can hide underneath. Won't be seen
from air." The Major wheezed and gasped for breath, plainly feeling his
forty plus years and a candidate for a coronary.

 

 

Dr. West fell again. "Leave me." He had difficulty enunciating the words.
"I don't want you to die for me."

 

 

"No, got to help you. In spite of everything we're on the same side, Doc."
With strength and tenderness, the Major helped Dr. West climb. "Some time --
when you got time -- you got to prove to me -- those Esks down there --
are different from Eskimos. I don't believe it. I'll never believe it."

 

 

When the two men finally wormed under the throbbing irrigation pump on the
crest of the mountain, Dr. West regained his breath and spoke intently
through the roar of the pump. "If you could compare their chromosomes
you would see that their genetic coding, the DNA recipe which guides
the growth of an Esk, is too neat, too perfect, too repetitive among
different individuals to be -- human."

 

 

Deaf to a maniac's ravings, the Major peered out, clutching his .45 as
savagely as if it were an antiaircraft weapon. "The copter's moving to
a new position -- like they're sure as hell -- looking for -- something."

 

 

"The simplest misexplanation is yours, that the Esks are mutated Eskimos."
Dr. West continued talking at cross-purposes to the Major. "Ockham's Razor,
an old scientific rule of thumb, suggests if there are several possible
explanations for a mystery, pick the simplest. Mutated Eskimos is the
simplest explanation. It is the most conservative explanation. It is
the explanation picked by so-called reputable physiologists. It is the
explanation people want to continue to believe."

 

 

"The copter's moving out over the valley where we were -- " The Major
stopped.

 

 

The Doctor's hand closed around the dagger within his layers of clothing
and he kept talking as though each sentence might be his last. "Mutations
usually involve a single trait or related set of traits. But any honest
study of the Esks shows they differ from human beings in hundreds of ways,
physiologically and psychologically."

 

 

"The copter is moving from position to position like they're trying to
get a radio-location fix on us. Do you think this signal sender -- ?"

 

 

"And the Esk child acts happier and more cooperative than a human child,
and efficiently grows into an adult in three years. Eating only 600
calories of food a day, an adult Esk outworks a Chinaman. And breed,
breed like lemmings! For what purpose are the Esks overrunning the
Earth? Why are the Chinese, we, everyone letting the Esks multiply?"

 

 

"The copter's heading in our direction."

 

 

"The simplest misexplanation is that the Chinese are using the Esks
for politico-economic purposes. The Esks ease the Chinese agricultural
problem. The Esks produce farm surpluses. The Esks produce favorable
balance of trade. The Esk manpower frees Chinese manpower to police
India. But all this is the superficial explanation. It does not reveal
the underlying -- "

 

 

"Copter straight for us!" The Major began smashing the signal sender
with the butt of his .45.

 

 

Dr. West could not stop talking. He expected to be stilled forever. "Even
our President seems to believe the simple-headed explanation, that the
Chinese are using, breeding the Esks as part of the Endless War, simple
power politics. -- But I believe the Esks are using the Chinese!"

 

 

The clattering wail of the jet copter chewed through the roar of the pump.

 

 

Under the iron pump, as if cued by the sounds of the helicopter, Dr. West's
hand pulled down the zipper, opening his flight suit, and freeing the quilted
Chinese blue cotton within.

 

 

The copter squatted down. It was small, with a plastic bubble cockpit. The
Major stared at the indistinct faces inside -- and then down to his .45,
and then to Dr. West.

 

 

As the copter engine squealed to a stop, the Major stared unbelieving
at Dr. West. "You've got on a coolie costume. All planned! Nothing for
me. Good God, what was intended for me?"

 

 

Dr. West tried to release his own fingers from the dagger inside the
padded Chinese coat. "I don't know. I swear to you, I don't know."

 

 

The black boots of a Maoist policeman sprang from the copter to the
Chinese mountain top and ran toward the pump. The Major rolled, firing
his booming, deafening .45 automatic three times. The Major's wide-eyed
face twisted back toward Dr. West, and the round eye of the .45 followed
too slowly.

 

 

With surgical precision, Dr. West's hand thrust the dagger into the
auricle of the Major's heart.

 

 

Dr. West, the man, sobbed.

 

 

In helpless anguish he lay within the body he had not been able to control.
A Chinese hand disengaged his fingers from the dagger.

 

 

"Liu," exclaimed the excited young Cantonese voice above Dr. West's body,
"where could he have gotten such a dagger? It is a Mark III dagger."

 

 

"My eyes can see it is a Mark III dagger," the copter pilot retorted.
"He killed the other Big-Nose with it -- which is strange."

 

 

"Liu, with care we should tread. Perhaps the Mark III dagger was issued
to him." The young Cantonese voice quickened. "Great care. He is wearing
commune clothing, but he has the white corpse-face of a typical Big-Nose,
and yet there is the radio signal to explain. See, here is the little
transmitter, which told us to come rescue him. The other Big-Nose must
have smashed it. I think this man who is alive may be an important personage.
Peking should be notified. Extensive photographs should be taken for the
record or our buttocks may be burnt." The black boots ran back to the copter.

 

 

"You, yes, you -- yes,
you
!" the copter pilot nudged Dr. West with his
boot toe. "Did you understand our words?"

 

 

Dr. West feigned unconsciousness.

 

 

"He does. He understands us," the copter pilot shouted.

 

 

The returning young policeman with the camera backed off, and the copter
pilot followed. Like doctors in consultation, in sinister whispers they
argued. Then the young Maoist policeman advanced warily toward the patient.
"It is with great regret that official regulations require us to bind
your wrists to your ankles," he blurted. "I, for one, would never do
such a thing." With professional expertise, he knotted the ropes.

 

 

The ropes were not tight The young Maoist policeman had been careful
not to interfere with Dr. West's circulation. Having already tied him
so he could not walk, the two men had to hoist Dr. West and carry him
to the helicopter.

 

 

"For a thin man -- very heavy!" the young one gasped.

 

 

"Big bones. Primitive skeleton. Typical Big-Nose," the pilot retorted.

 

 

"Did you notice the wrists of the dead one are hairy as an ape's!" The young
voice echoed the racial disgust. "Weak blue eyes. Shot at me twice."

 

 

"Three times. So close to your belly even a drunken sot imperialist
should not miss. Either you are dead or there was something wrong with
his bullets."

 

 

As the helicopter scuttled upward, it sideslipped violently. Its door flew
open. The sack in which the Maoist policeman had collected the battered
signal sender, the dagger, the .45, and Dr. West's CIA "escape kit"
slid across the dented aluminum floor toward the open door. The young
policeman fell to his knees, snatching at these sliding objects. Dr. West
considered lunging from the copter -- to fall forever.

 

 

Contorted forward on the seat because his wrists were tied to his ankles,
Dr. West leaned toward the open door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. OUR MAN IN PEKING

 

 

The copter lurched upward, slamming its door shut, and the Major's hard
head flopped against Dr. West's bound feet and wrists. The Major's blue
eyes were white-rimmed in the futile stare of death.

 

 

Dr. West closed his own eyes. Whiplashes of self-flagellation slashed
through the numbness inside his skull.