The Eskimo Invasion (45 page)

, Dr. West thought.
Signal for a closer view.

 

 

Beside him the man's fingers, which had been paralyzed, moved. Click-click
across the thousand miles, and in Szechwan Province a telelens panned along
the rain-gray mountain. Across tiny rice paddies, beaded along a precipice,
swept the rain. Dissolving mudlips slipped. Whiskered rice paddies smaller
than bathtubs burst down the terraces. Scurrying Esks struggled to repair
dissolving edges with dissolving mud.

 

 

The whole cliff's about to slide, Dr. West thought as the telelens
zoomed at a random rain-drenched face. In this moment of peril, the
surveillance screen was flooded by the Esk's infuriatingly senseless grin.

 

 

"Dammit, even now, that one's looking north!" Dr. West shouted, his body
tightening in another of his uncontrollable agonies of rage and frustration.
"Every day. More and more Esks looking north at the sky." His voice choked
as his breathing squeezed tight. His rage or fear was making his heart
muscle wince.

 

 

Beside him at the console the thin hand contracted like a dying spider.
Dr. West felt his own pain reflected through Mao III as they both grasped
for breath. He blinked at Mao III's loud-gasping face, now waxen above the
luxurious black dacron robe.

 

 

Instinctively, Dr. West's hand slid another tiny white pill under his
own tongue. The tightening was in his heart, not Mao III's. The stinging
sensation beneath his tongue helped him relax even before the .32 mg
trinitroglycerine tablet dissolved, diffused, reopened the constricted
arteries within the cramped muscle which was his heart. He relaxed,
sheathed with sweat.

 

 

Beside him, the partially paralyzed Mao III regained his breathing rhythm,
emitting rhythmic hissing sounds in the Command Vault 4000 feet beneath
Peking.

 

 

On the telescreen the random Esk still stood grinning at the sky as if
symbolizing a billion, two billion Esks spreading over the world,
all smiling into space.

 

 

"There is nothing up there but sky," Dr. West muttered.

 

 

Unconscious of the surveillance lens, the Esk bent his rain-washed
back once more, and his obedient hands scooped mud upon the dissolving
rim of the rice terrace. Beside him worked a child, and another child,
dozens of Esk children working rhythmically in the rain.

 

 

So much more quickly maturing than Chinese children, they appeared to be
twelve-year-olds. Dr. West estimated this swarm of children had been born
two years ago. In another year they would be reproducing babies of their own.

 

 

"You fool!" Dr. West shouted at Mao III. "You still insist they are human.
But such unhumanly quick mothers and embryos! A one-month gestation period
-- " Dr. West closed his eyes. "Human?"

 

 

Up there on the mountainside, Dr. West thought,
even a man's hardest
labor could not produce the equivalent of 1800 calories of rice energy
each day he needs to keep him working and alive. But these Esks are
producing a rice surplus.

 

 

"You fool!" Dr. West glared at Mao III. "Do you still think you are leaping
fifty years of Marxist-Maoist agricultural frustration? Yes, you have a rice
surplus this year. Yes, you are elbowing into world trade. With surplus rice,
you are filling the bellies of Chinese industrial workers and troops all over
Southeast Asia and spreading west -- You are increasing the Esks to produce
an even bigger agricultural surplus next year, but the Principle of
Diminishing Returns is not an economist's myth. And the ghost breathing
on your neck is Malthus."

 

 

That discredited eighteenth-century English pessimist, Mao III's thoughts
taunted,
who did not foresee that the scientific improvements of Maoist
agriculture can race ahead of hunger.

 

 

"How can you talk about scientific agriculture," Dr. West shouted,
"while depending on Esks? Even with scientific agriculture in the sea,
this planet has limits! The human population is only doubling every
twenty-five years. We both know the Esk population is doubling every
year in China."

 

 

Dr. West stared at Mao III's lopsidedly smiling face, and added bitingly:
"Are you master or tool? The first few Esks did not appear in the Arctic
because Maoist theology wished them there."

 

 

At this, Mao III's thought-projection turned as blank as Arctic ice.

 

 

If there is a purpose in life, Dr. West thought and oddly visualized
a spinning globe with a Geographic North Pole set in the white Arctic
Ocean and, rotating closely around it, the bare rocks of Canada's Boothia
Peninsula, present locus of the Earth's magnetic lines of force, of the
North Magnetic Pole. There he had discovered the first few grinning Eskimos
who were not -- "

 

 

"What are they?" Dr. West croaked, his thoughts circling back in the old
rut.
So nonviolent, so obedient, so happily increasing as if they can
feel their purpose approaching. Always smiling, no matter what we do
to them, as if they feel their purpose approaching. Closer every day.
"What is their purpose? Their purpose can't be our purpose!"

 

 

He stared at Mao III.

 

 

No purpose. Mao III's thoughts derided Dr. West with startling humor for
a paralytic who was gasping for breath.
No purpose anywhere. End-purpose
of the universe when I die equals nothing. No ten thousand years of Maoism.
Nothing. So you cannot frighten me with too many Esks.

 

 

Mao III's throat corded with effort, and he managed to gasp aloud,
"Nothing frightens me after what you did to me, my brain tapeworm.
You parasite -- " his voice struggled.

 

 

Dr. West's forehead wrinkling with effort, Mao III's voice gurgled to
silence. But Mao III's thoughts, like javelins, penetrated Dr. West.

 

 

My power is nothing. Squirm, my tapeworm. So shrewd, the capitalist plan
to invade me with you. But your success is nothing. Mao III's face contorted
like a smile.
Squirm in my intestine of power, my tapeworm. You a new
leader? I laugh. Since the beginning of time, the world has been impossible
for leaders. What can you do?

 

 

Dr. West's thoughts and body tightened defensively, and Mao III's face
sagged. His transmitted thoughts were blurred by pain. Dr. West watched
him gasping for breath. It would be catastrophic to let him die.

 

 

Cold with sweat, Dr. West squirmed on the console chair.
Instructions
must have been given me
, his thoughts revolved,
in case I succeeded
like this.

 

 

Confused by echoes of Mao III's thoughts, Dr. West moaned with motionless
effort turned inward. There was no coherent clue to his next line of action.
His memory seemed torn apart.

 

 

He knew the electrointerrogation after his "capture" had contributed to
his present disorganization. And this symbiotic relationship -- Mao III
was cursing it as parasitic -- might be permanently disorganizing both
of them.

 

 

His dreams -- until he began giving Mao III sleeping pills, Mao III's dreams
had awakened him.

 

 

The pink walls enclosing the Great Square had echoed from marching troops
and awakened Dr. West, imagining it was his own dream. Then dim ranks
of children wearing red bandanas around their throats had passed through
Dr. West's mind even though he was awake. Endless ranks of children with
red balloons, white balloons, and Dr. West felt a growing sensation of joy
and pride. Mao III must be watching them from his dream. " Mao Tse-tung
wan shui! Mao Tse-tung wan shui! " their shrill voices shouted.
May
Mao Tse-tung live ten thousand years!

 

 

In unison the balloons in the dream were released. But Mao Tse-tung
had been dead for nearly forty years. Mao III must have been an unknown
young man then. Dr. West realized that Mao III was dreaming of his youth
before the interregnum of committees and armies which followed the death
of Mao Tse-tung.

 

 

The following fatherly figure, Mao II, had been a desperation figurehead.
But Mao III was here in the Command Vault, whether in command of China
or subtly trapped by a coalition of generals, Dr. West still was unable
to determine.

 

 

"Command into the telecom," Dr. West blurted. "Speak to your interrogators
on the surface who failed to protect you from me. Order them to prepare
any Esk. I -- you want to ask that Esk one question."

 

 

Mao III's breath hissed out, and Dr. West allowed the paralyzed hands
to move across the console.

 

 

Without Dr. West's mental concentration, Mao III's stroke-paralyzed body
was useless sinew, skin and bones. Now it moved as if Mao III still were
in command.

 

 

Such a small decision. Mao III's thought derided.
To question an Esk.
For seventeen years we have been peeling their brains like onions --
to find nothing. They are simply mutated Eskimos. Nothing more.

 

 

As Mao III's finger stabbed a pattern of buttons, Dr. West detected no
discernible treachery in Mao III's thoughts. Colossal contempt emerged
from Mao III:
Tapeworm, you will learn that Esks contain no magical
racial memory. What magical question can you ask? My technicians have
questioned them electrically until I was ill from the smell of charring
flesh. Such innocent people: Esks cannot even think of lies to confess.

 

 

There was a humming from the communications contact with the surface
interrogation clinic, and Dr. West allowed Mao III's voice to speak.
What emerged were Dr. West's orders.

 

 

The distant answer: "Within fifteen minutes an Esk will be positioned,
Chiu Hsing." Click.

 

 

Dr. West's eyebrows rose. "Chiu Hsing, an honorific title meaning Saving
Star? That also is the name of your mass-production automobile," Dr. West
laughed softly as Mao III peered questioningly at him.

 

 

With the dignity of a Mandarin, Mao III nodded. "I gave happiness."
As he detected the derision in Dr. West's thoughts, Mao III scowled.
"You are a monomaniac convicted of attempted Eskimo genocide," Mao III's
voice rushed as if he expected Dr. West to shut him off. "You would not be
here if I had not suffered my brain-stroke, parasite! You have such little
plans. To question an Esk until he dies. Listen, my tapeworm, the deepest
words you will excavate from a stupid Esk are their incorrect Arctic
myths, a confusion of bear worship and imperialist Bible fables." Mao
III smiled. "Maoist science has proved Esks are nothing but mutated
Eskimos." His voice shrilled. "You fraud, perhaps you were in the Arctic
when the Esks still were few. But it is I who saw the future for China,
who managed the rescue of thousands of Esks from Canadian starvation."

 

 

"And you're helping them breed beyond a billion?"

 

 

"They are as human as I am, and more human than you, you genocidal maniac."
Mao III gasped for breath.

 

 

As Dr. West mentally strangled his speech, Mao III's thoughts continued
attacking.
Tapeworm, you are sitting in my Command Vault as if you
imagine you control the greatest organized power on Earth. Yet your mind
is so small, you are planning to waste time personally interrogating,
yes, torturing one little Esk.

 

 

Dr. West said nothing. Finally he nodded his head. "As you say,
the questioning is a small step. A larger step will follow." Dr. West
improvised, forcing his weary smile at Mao III. "You are going to reappear
before the world."

 

 

That plan now elaborated so swiftly in Dr. West's mind, he thought he
accidentally must have cued some original hypnoinstructions. "You are
going to appear before the telecamera to demonstrate that your rumored
retirement, nice word, is false. You have recovered from the rumored
stroke. You are going to ask for an international teleconference between
you and -- "

 

 

No name automatically was formed by Dr. West's voice. Dr. West blinked.
Nothing flowed, no well-ordered plan from his damaged memory. If the
Harvard Circle had implanted further instructions in case he reached
Mao III, they were erased. He was alone. Had he always been alone?

 

 

"The subject of the teleconference will be -- " Dr. West waited. Nothing.
He made his own decision based on his own beliefs of thirty years --
"You will propose a split-screen teleconference with the President
of the United States. Before a world audience you will negotiate for
international population control."

 

 

Dr. West smiled. "This may seem even more difficult than weapons control.
Because population limitation proposals invariably enrage the populace of
nationalistic countries, you will negotiate only for population limits for
our Esks. It seems reasonable that the U.S. and China each should agree
to limit their Esks to one billion."

 

 

"Limitation of Esks?" Mao III laughed aloud. "Your monomaniac fear
of Esks reappears in another new disguise. International limitation
agreement? Impossible ideal. More impossible than atomic control."

 

 

Mao III's smile became malicious. "The United States could never agree to
limitation of your Esk population. You look startled, my tapeworm. Either
our electrointerrogation burned holes in your memory, or those murderous
plotters in the CIA neglected to correctly inform you of what has happened
in the United States during the last sixteen years."