The Eskimo Invasion (46 page)

Dr. West blinked in confusion.

 

 

"Don't you remember where you -- slept during the last sixteen years?"
Mao III persisted. "At least I have seen your dossier. Do I know more than
you? The New China News Agency knows where you were. Seventeen years ago,
in Canada you had been convicted of genocide as the whole outraged world
remembers. You should have been executed. You were coddled in the New
Ottawa Reformation Center. For some reason, which I do not know, soon
you were moved to what Canadians euphemistically refer to as the Cold
Room. So you can't remember what's truly happened. You've been asleep
for sixteen years. Were you startled to awaken in the United States? You
confessed to my own interrogators that you regained consciousness in a
large basement room in a large building across the river from Washington."

 

 

Mao III laughed. "The imperialists finally had a use for you -- you mass
murderer. You were stolen from an indeterminate sentence in Canada,
rescued because the United States Government finally concocted a filthy
use for you."

 

 

Dr. West blinked. A circle of memory faces peered down at him. He had been
startled by how old Fred Gatson looked. Beside him a man with a hypo
also appeared vaguely familiar.

 

 

After a few weeks of "therapeutic adjustment" they had taken him upstairs
to the Assistant Director, who was --

 

 

Dr. West tensed. "I know all that, I know all that, the Harvard Circle!"
he shouted as if in guilt. "Shut up or I'll stop your breathing."

 

 

But I have said so little, Mao thought, and shrugged. "Now you have
negative feelings because the CIA has used you like a blind tapeworm.
I am going to show you what truly is happening in the United States."
His skeletal hand crept across the console toward the television buttons.
"The U.S. no longer is what they described to you. Those imperialist
warmongers never let you out of Central Intelligence Agency Building to
see -- "

 

 

With a frightened thought, Dr. West stopped Mao III's hand.

 

 

The worst sin is ignorance. Mao III's thought slashed.

 

 

" -- your attempt is -- to confuse me," Dr. West gasped. "Trying to
disorient me, so I'll lose my -- need to take action, lose my desire to
control you."

 

 

My motive is exactly that, Mao III thought calmly,
but facts are true
regardless of the motive of the one who brings them to your attention.
Let your eyes witness truth, see telebroadcasts relayed from our satellites
stationed above America, see films made by enlightened tourists.

 

 

Dr. West's throat tightened. "I reject your attack. I don't want --"
He closed his eyes. "Give orders through your foreign office," Dr. West
shouted. "Now! Transmit to your so-called ambassador in Warsaw, to make
an offer, an ultimatum for a teleconference within one week with the
President of the United States."

 

 

"What a beautiful flower," Mao III exhaled after Dr. West had released his
voice, "is each moment of life. Particularly beautiful is the last flower
seen by a mountain climber whose grip is weakening on the precipice of life.
I am that climber, and you are roped to me, Tapeworm. My military could not
allow such a conference."

 

 

"I don't give a damn what your generals want."

 

 

"But the art of government is quite complex. During the three years since
my first brain-stroke, the generals have been watching each other while
waiting for me to die." Mao III's face contorted. "Already there must be
rumors of your presence in this hole, my faith healer, but each general
has hesitated to take action because this would arouse the suspicions
of the others as to his real purpose."

 

 

Mao III smiled. "My pure-hearted generals! Each man dreams of the power
to save the world. Each desires the empty thing which he thinks is down
here in this Command Vault."

 

 

Dr. West said nothing.

 

 

"Is it power or the ghost of power?" Mao III laughed. "Now if I disappoint
my generals and tell them that my health has been regained, that I plan to
embark on a revisionist foreign policy without their guidance, that I intend
to recognize and dignify the existence of the United States by engaging in
a teleconference with that Barbarian Assassin whose capital is Hollywood,
or Toledo or Washington, my generals will conclude I have gone mad.
-- Or I have been captured by a rumored non-Chinese faith healer.
My generals will be forced to unite and rescue me."

 

 

Dr. West glanced at the ceiling. Supposedly, it was 4000 feet to the surface.

 

 

"This hole, this coffin is not inviolable," Mao III taunted. "Perhaps
today someone is drilling down through the concrete slab beneath the
Winter Palace. Twenty-five years ago when my power was democratically
confirmed, I ordered construction of this vault as a patriotic base
against an imperialist or Russian revisionist preemptive nuclear attack.
It was designed so that revisionist assassins would have difficulty
fighting their way down to this vault. Under the concrete surface cap
is entombed the device. Since then the architects of my vault's defense
have died. But shrewd drilling might locate and disconnect this small
device. An overimaginative general once intimated that I hold the whole
city of Peking a hostage against my assassination. But truly it is a
very small device only intended to seal off entry to this vault. Not
even the Inner City would be obliterated."

 

 

Where is the detonation control? Dr. West thought.

 

 

Mao III shrugged. "If the generals and my loyal surface guard, and the
civil police, and my Party police all could agree to trust each other,
it would become a simple matter to drill down a series of exploratory
holes and eventually disconnect the device."

 

 

Dr. West found himself listening for the elevator. "Careful technicians,
with small loss of life, should be able to locate the alarms and gas jets
in the long elevator shaft, even though all plans were burned twenty years
ago when the architects were liquidated." Mao III laughed like a pleased
young boy. "Then soldiers can be lowered on long cables. It would be fatal
to use the elevator as long as I -- " Mao III inadvertently visualized
a switch on the control console. "Pull it and immobilize the elevator
if you panic. But the soldiers will come down on ropes. They will push
my servants aside because my servants are nonviolent, even too innocent
to poison me."

 

 

"Then all of your servants down here are Esks," Dr. West said.

 

 

"The soldiers will push my servants aside and rescue me -- from you."

 

 

"Then -- welcome them," Dr. West retorted. "If this is what will happen,
you should be happy to start the flow of events. Simply give orders to
prepare for the teleconference. Now give the orders!"

 

 

Mao III sighed. "You still lack the subtle understanding necessary for a
leader who desires to continue his long reign. Let me explain to you -- "

 

 

Dr. West's brow wrinkles deepened, and Mao III cried out as his terrible
cranial pain echoed dizzily into Dr. West, who relaxed the pain. If he
killed Mao III, he would be left with -- nothing.

 

 

" -- with nothing," Mao III gasped, "for either of us. The generals will
come down to rescue something from you, my tapeworm. Not me, my power.
For them, my living body will be an embarrassment, like a mangy dog."
He laughed bitterly. "But a dead leader can be used as a political martyr,
you -- CIA assassin."

 

 

"Goddammit, give the orders for the teleconference!" Dr. West repeated.

 

 

Mao III bleated in pain, and Dr. West had to wait for the grayness to clear
from Mao III's brain.

 

 

"Consider," Mao III whispered and managed a twisted smile. "What is the
simplest way to rid an old dog of his tapeworm? It is to smash his skull
and give him a glorious funeral through the Great Square of Peking. This
is the way I would like to die, but consider -- is either of us ready?"

 

 

Dr. West's rage whirled Mao III's thoughts into gray confusion.

 

 

Unexpectedly, Dr. West glimpsed Mao III's visualization of an inconspicuous
keyhole, a locked panel in the console. Now Mao III was imagining an
earthquake rumbling from the surface as he twisted in pain, and Dr. West
felt the childhood clutch of claustrophobia. Mao III really would turn
the key, detonating the nuclear device, erupting the Winter Palace,
sealing them 4000 feet beneath Peking. Where was the key?

 

 

Dr. West knelt beside Mao III's contorted body on the floor and lifted the
silver snakechain from Mao III's neck, drawing out of the black dacron robe
the skin-tarnished key.
My control isn't as all-encompassing as I thought.
I never detected the existence of the key, but perhaps you never thought
of the detonator key until now -- I hope --
Dr. West hung the key around his own neck.
When Dr. West helped Mao III's limp body back onto the chair in front
of the console, he could detect no more mental resistance. Mao III's
surprisingly determined resistance to a teleconference seemed at an end.
His thin fingers depressed the proper buttons on the console. His sagging
lips mouthed Dr. West's orders to the Chinese Foreign Office, and Dr. West
warmed with excitement as he heard his orders being transmitted into action.
Although the Chinese Federation of Nations now held three seats in the
United Nations General Assembly, and their dacron red-and-black robes no
longer attracted tourist attention within the glass-walled U.N. sanctuary
on Manhattan Island, all diplomatic contact with the United States still
was carried on via the Catholic Capitalist Principality of Warsaw. Thus,
the U.S. Ambassador in Warsaw was invited to sit in secret session with
his Chinese counterpart. Negotiations leading toward the international
teleconfrontation had begun.
"Tapeworm, you are uselessly sacrificing your life and mine because your
President will not agree to face me in a television debate."
"Wishful thinking on your part. Signal your interrogators on the surface.
What has happened to that Esk who was supposed to be readied for me to
question -- ?"
"Let me show you telecasts of the situation of the Esks throughout the
United States."
"No!" Dr. West shouted with unexplainable rage and pain. "Show me the Esk
in the interrogation room."
A shuffling sound caused Dr. West to whirl. False alarm. An Esk servant
had wandered into the Control Room carrying the afternoon tea tray.
Dr. West ignored this Esk.
On the telescreen appeared the frightened face of a Chinese interrogation
technician, confessing there had been minor technical difficulties in
wiring the Esk's frontal lobes. There would be another short hold.
Dry-mouthed, Dr. West waited for his tea to cool, waited for Mao III to
drink first, noisily.
"Tapeworm, I am alive because my Esks prepare my meals. Do you consider
Esks inhuman because they not only eschew violence, they are too innocent
to poison -- ?"
"Why should they bother to poison you? They're poisoning the whole world
with sheer numbers."
"You're hysterical and stupid," Mao III replied. "Your Esk strapped on
the table up there will be as unable to explain the purpose or lack of
purpose of the Esks, as you or I would be if we were tortured to explain
the purpose of man on this Earth."
"Is your strategy," Dr. West retorted, "to argue against anything I try
to do? By deriding me are you trying to erode my self-confidence? Are you
trying to wear me down? I'm so much stronger than you, you won't escape
that way!"
"Your President cannot agree to confront me in a teleconference if the
agenda includes the international problem of population limitation of the
Esks. He is a practical man, as practical as I am, and he will create an
excuse, an incident to avoid facing me in a teleconference, if the subject
is to be population control of the Esks. Tapeworm, let me show you the
United States. I will show you why your President cannot agree to -- "
"Shut up!" Dr. West turned away and closed his eyes.
The President would
welcome another international telecon frontation.
His thoughts had the
sound of another man's voice.
Now he remembered George Bruning's calmly intelligent face. Dr. Bruning
was not a medical doctor; he was the Assistant Director of the Central
intelligence Agency. "-- my idea but the President took it up," George
Bruning had said. "A fresh innovation in international diplomacy -- "
Dr. West blinked. George Bruning had been briefing him for this purpose.
To his memory, George smiled expansively. "Everyone has a use. Ages ago
when Paul and I -- the President and I were in the Hasty Pudding Club --
that's at Harvard, I said 'Paul, you ought to enter politics. At nineteen,
you're already a greater actor than Lincoln -- '" George Bruning had leaned
toward Dr. West. " -- both our previous international teleconfrontations
have made use of our U.S. Information Service relay satellites blanketing
the Earth -- split screen, each leader in his own country, almost
face-to-face -- instant audio translations from a hundred satellites
covering the world. They saw it all. The BIG audience! And both times
the President scored!
" -- the first time he was a little nervous, even though we had dug one
pitfall for the Premier." George Bruning had smiled shyly. " -- before
accepting, the Premier was cautious. Maybe he'd read U.S. history,
the Kennedy-Nixon debates, little pitfalls of television. The Premier
agreed to discuss only three of our suggested subjects. These safe
subjects were coffee prices, weather control and the international
student exchange program.
"Unimportant agenda," Dr. Bruning said, "but at least the personalities
of both men were to be exposed to the world. To our dismay the Premier
projected surprisingly great dignity for an assassin. He appeared to
be an upstanding man, which he was not." Dr. Bruning's frown gradually
spread into a smile of remembrance. "Our President -- what a warm
personality! As a former motion picture actor, Paul really knows how
to come across. But it would have been a standoff." George Bruning
grinned. "I crawled underneath his teleprompter and handed him the pics.
" -- since they were on the final subject for discussion, the international
student exchange, the President could use those enlarged pics." George smugly
smiled. "Of course, I'm only Deputy Director of the Agency. But one of my
agents actually helped the Premier's other policemen set up that machinegun.
My man was wearing one of our 4mm cameras. This happened three months before
the teleconfrontation."
"The Premier had assured their relatives that the student leaders
merely had been exiled because of the march. The Premier had said the
troublemakers were benevolently sent to China as part of the student
exchange program. Already their relatives had been receiving enthusiastic,
but typed postcards from China. They liked China so well they might
never return, the postcards said."
" -- until our President held up the pics to the TV camera, clearly
revealing to the world the students' bodies lying at the foot of the
wall. In the background was the Premier's easily recognizable Capitol
Building." George Bruning sighed. "The mob dug up the bodies of the
students while the Premier was trying to escape out the other side of
his Capitol Building. The new government is much more acceptable to the
CIA." He spread his arms.
" -- after that, another teleconfrontation with another head of State was
difficult to arrange. Necessarily, its arrangement had to be more subtle.
The President lost, as promised. Like billiards -- pool, you know,
like a hustler. We're looking ahead to the big one -- "
There was a buzzing sound, and Dr. West blinked. A yellow communications
light was flashing on the control console.
"Do you still desire to attempt your useless interrogation of an Esk?"
The thin voice beside him was Mao III's.
On the telescreen gleamed a white room with white-gowned figures bending
over a surgical table. Dr. West winced at the similarity. It could have been
the same room in which he had been interrogated.
Now the viewpoint from the closed-circuit TV system shifted to a high lens
looking down from the ceiling. Dr. West remembered staring up from the table
at the ceiling grill with a camera lens glinting behind it, while cold hands
forced wired needles into his skull and consciousness faded.
On the table, the Esk's eyelids were creeping closed. His shaven head
glittered like a pincushion, with a tangle of wires leading to the
electrosensitizer and the reaction dials. As the electric current
increased, the Esk idled his head from side to side. Wide-cheeked, with
a massive lower jaw, barrel chest and short legs, physically this Esk
resembled an Eskimo.
One of the white-capped figures twisted a knob, and the Esk's eyes
snapped open. Dr. West recognized the humming sound and the distant
voice questioning. In Chinese, the Esk mumbled his name, a Chinese name,
and the name of the Esk segrecommune where he labored.
A technician glanced up meaningfully at the camera lens.
Dr. West swallowed convulsively.
Tapeworm, Chinese electrocranial occupuncture is at your service