The Eskimo Invasion (47 page)

,
Mao's thoughts derided him.
You have only to think, and my mouth is
happy to question this Esk or a hundred Esks. Every conceivable question
already has been asked.

 

 

Mao III's thoughts collapsed as Dr. West intruded strongly, and Mao III's
mouth hesitantly formed a word. Mao III's voice spoke in Modern Eskimo,
a language he did not know. "Ilaga, my friend ," Mao III spoke as Dr. West
thought. "Nanuktuakjung, little bear, Grandfather Bear approaching -- "

 

 

Dr. West's thoughts poured from Mao III's mouth, while the Esk's eyes
gradually closed. There was no reaction. Dr. West stopped, distressed.

 

 

He fails to understand you, Mao III thought maliciously.
He is culturally
Chinese. Of course he can't understand Eskimo. He was born in China, and
three years before that his father was born in China, and three years before
that his grandfather was born in China, and three years before that his
great-grandfather was born in China, and perhaps his great-great-grandfather
was one of the first thousands of underprivileged Eskimos the Chinese
Federation of Nations, at my orders, rescued from Canada some seventeen
years ago.

 

 

Dr. West concentrated, squeezing aside Mao III's thoughts, and using
Mao III's mouth.

 

 

"Grandfather Bear is approaching," Mao III's voice gasped Dr. West's
thoughts, this time in Chinese. "Great White Bear from the sky,"
Mao III's voice helplessly hissed through the microphone at the Esk,
and Dr. West's memories of the original little group of Esks telling
night stories of the bear in the sky poured from Mao III's mouth with
increasing intensity. "He will come. Grandfather Bear coming down from
the sky. He hungers for us with joy. With joy, all will be one."

 

 

The Esk's eyes widened in ecstasy, his mouth opening. "Grandfather Bear,
Grandfather Be -- Grandfather Dragon-Tiger!"

 

 

Dragon-tiger? Dr. West thought with disgusted surprise, and glanced
at Mao III.

 

 

Dragons, tigers, Chinese symbols of spiritual power have overlaid
the fading Bear symbol. Mao III's smugness en- closed Dr. West.
My tapeworm, your Polar Bear symbol is nothing more than an animistic
relic of prehistoric Eskimo beliefs polluted by capitalist biblical
underexposure. Nothing more. Did you think --
"Grandfather Bear is coming down from the sky. Prepare this world,"
Dr. West's voice-thoughts surged from Mao III into the microphone,
and the Esk lolled his head from side to side, and Dr. West paused,
trying to remember how it was out under the Arctic stars --
No matter how deep you interrogate this lump of flesh, no matter how
ridiculously you try to trigger his racial memory , Mao III's thoughts
taunted,
he can tell you nothing new. How can he tell you secrets of a
World Beyond when the only imprint within him is from this humble world?

 

 

One of the white-capped technicians glanced up at the ceiling camera,
and gradually the electrosensitization of the Esk's cerebrum was being
increased while Dr. West's thoughts spoke through Mao III. Dr. West was
reproducing the religious excitement of Edwardluk twenty-two years ago,
when Edwardluk had clutched his arm.

 

 

"Grandfather Bear approaching, closer and closer as we increase. He is
coming! Our bodies are preparing the world for him. His great hunger is
for us. Our bodies will reward him for our birth!"

 

 

As if in answer, the Esk's voice squealed with -- joy? Abruptly, the
Esk's pulse rate jumped to 150 per minute as his smile opened in a shout.
"Grandfather, I -- we altogether in you." His face strained with joy
and tears. It almost seemed as if his hair was standing on end in a
static-electric effect as he relived the myth his father must have told
him. "Grandfather, come down! We prepare world for you! For you we are
ripening -- "

 

 

The white gowns flurried about the Esk. On the table they were giving him
oxygen resuscitation. Now external heart massage --

 

 

A lot of them die like that, Mao III thought.
Wasted, I suppose due to
an electrosensitization overload.

 

 

A white-robed technician glanced up at the camera, as if in frightened
apology.

 

 

Dr. West sat there sweating. He stared at Mao III. "After I rest, we will
question another Esk." Dr. West's voice rose with excitement. "I don't
believe this Esk died from incompetent electrosensitization. If Esks
could be made to die -- triggered by mental suggestion of something
coming down from the sky? I -- he died -- so happily as if -- "

 

 

"He was electrocuted," Mao III taunted, and released a hail of words
upon Dr. West's weariness. "Tapeworm, Pavlovian cues such as the wave of
a flag can cause a soldier to leap up into machine-gun bullets. Other
triggers such as the news of the death of a loved one can cause a man
already subject to arteriosclerosis to fall down with a heart attack,
and so a sudden gust of wind plucks an overripe fruit."

 

 

Mao III's voice rose. "Even if you triggered that Esk to die, this does
not prove that your words or his belief had Marxist Materialist reality,
or even that other Esks can be psychophysically conditioned to ripeness
for such nonsense. All Maoist Esks know there is nothing physical Out
There In The Sky which desires to eat them. Marxist-Maoists stand on
scientific dialectical logic. In any case, that childishly suggestible
Esk will be proved to have died of too much electricity, which is a
physical force ," Mao III stammered, as Dr. West was able to shut off
his physical voice.

 

 

But Mao III's thoughts swept on like an erosive river.
Tapeworm, we both
should admit that Esks simply are mutated Eskimos, human beings like
ourselves, merely more fecund and more obedient. Listen to me, my tapeworm,
subconsciously you have been searching for excuses to murder Esks. You want
proof they are not human, so it will salve your conscience for the mass
murder of the Eskimos you consummated more than seventeen years ago.
With imperialist-cultured bacteria, you almost succeeded in Eskimo
genocide. Was it twenty-two Eskimos died? Before the eyes of the world
you were convicted of mass murder. Even in the most reactionary capitalist
news media you are, shall we say, enshrined as a homicidal genocidal
maniac!

 

 

"No! You have twisted it!" Dr. West shouted. "My intent -- " His voice
trailed off, and he felt Mao III's stream of destructive thoughts backing
him into a corner so that Mao III could escape.

 

 

Tapeworm, your insane attempt to seize my power is paranoid. Admit you
are God who will cure the chaos of the world. You are trembling. Little
man, you can't even remember what you were instructed to do. The little
imperialist schemers of the CIA were able to conceal what has happened
during the last sixteen years from you. You! Why else would they select
you, who have been inert in a Cold Room for sixteen years, for this mission?
Because you don't know what's been happening in this world.

 

 

Tapeworm, you are their last weapon for mass murder and not only of Esks!
Mao III closed his eyes. You have forgotten your orders because they are
so horrible you cannot allow yourself to think. Once you were a good man.
There still is humanity in us both. At least, we are both of the human
race. Yes, we are on the same side with all of enlightened humanity.
We are both human. You can rise and walk from this vault into freedom.
No one will harm you. You are freed of all murder. In China there is no
murder and I declare you free of all guilt. You are cleansed of the
bloodstains of CIA control. Good-bye, my friend, you are free to walk
to the elevator and rise into the sunshine.

 

 

"You sly bastard!" Dr. West rose, his muscles tightening.

 

 

His head aching with concentration, he caused Mao III to slump to the floor,
where he lay jerking with spastic agony.

 

 

"Don't try to attack me again." Dr. West swayed in the echoes of Mao III's
smothering agony as he writhed on the floor.

 

 

"When I am ready," Dr. West gasped, "you -- I will examine other Esks
until we --"

 

 

Murderer! Even from the floor Mao III thrust up his javelin thoughts.
You hope you find evidence of nonhuman origin and that it will excuse
your crimes. Maniac! You think you warn the world, and now people listen?
Seventeen years ago your lies that Esks are not human were disproved.
Mutants ARE human! You biased expert, the joke is on you. I know more
of the origin of the Esks than you.

 

 

In his memory, Dr. West saw the bare rock ledge where the Boothia Peninsula
thrust against the frozen sea. Climbing onto the huge ledge, he'd looked
down into the crater of the Burned Place, what Edwardluk had called the
Navel of the World. No airplane crash had made that scar. There was
no metal wreckage. The only odd fragments, some white, some charred,
were small shards of what might have been ceramic pottery.

 

 

Erected on the bottom of the shallow Burned Place stood old Peterluk's tent.
Only his wife emerged. Peterluk had fled again, as if he feared the whiteman,
as if he had a bad conscience, Dr. West thought. And Peterluk had returned
after concealing his rifle, avidly eyeing Dr. West's rifle. Dr. West had
asked him where all these young -- Eskimos had come from. Peterluk had
hunted on the Boothia Peninsula before the Eskimo Cultural Sanctuary was
established. But Peterluk was evasive, angrily attacking the beliefs of
the new people.

 

 

"There is no Grandfather Bear coming down from the sky. You and me don't
believe ignorant things like that!"

 

 

But Peterluk accidentally admitted a "star" had fallen; denied it.

 

 

In inexplicable anger, Peterluk lied that the crater was made by whitemen
with sticks of dynamite. "You think this person lies? Then you don't believe
the Egg of God fell here. You don't believe a whitemen's ship poke up
its eye on a stick. Like a whale with many whitemen but this person was
stronger than -- you!"

 

 

Peterluk had tried to wrest away Dr. West's rifle. Dr. West had been too
young and strong in those days. The injured Peterluk had fled toward his
hidden rifle, but he had not used the illegal rifle that summer to kill
a whiteman.

 

 

He shot the priest-pilot when winter and Dr. West returned. So Peterluk
murdered a whiteman with his rust-stained Russian military rifle,
and was confined to the New Ottawa Reformation Center, never properly
interrogated concerning the origin of the Esks.

 

 

And Dr. West had begun to understand that Peterluk and his old wife had
been the only two Eskimos among --

 

 

Yes, Esks, you had to count ihe days of your wife's pregnancy before you
even realized how diflerent they were , Mao's thoughts taunted.
Whiteman,
you arrived years too late to see what the Russians saw in the Burned Place.
"Your Navel of the World," Mao III laughed from the floor where he lay
like a sack. "It is amusing that even now, after another twenty-two years,
you still don't understand what you saw. It is not that Maoism has so many
more well-trained believers throughout the world than the CIA. It is simply
that Chinese travelers collect even the most useless data, rumors,
photographs. Everything is noted, filed and cross-filed. And we have
more highly placed spies in Russia collecting observations. From infinite
unrelated data, the computer arranges valid and reliable patterns."

 

 

Dr. West permitted -- mentally helped Mao III to rise to his chair in front
of the console. Mao III was leading him on for some reason.

 

 

"It is odd," Mao III laughed, "that I am the only head of state who has
taken the trouble to learn how to question an Information Retrieval Computer
directly. Surely direct access to infinite global data multireferenced
and computer-rated for reliability should be more useful to a head
of state than the filtered information which is sprinkled on the head
of your President by his cabinet officers, by his Presidential staff,
by his CIA advisors, by his Joint Chiefs of Staff, none of whom agree."

 

 

Mao III's fingers riffled over the index buttons. A still photograph of
a rock ledge appeared on the telescreen. Separately projected across the
top of the photograph was a date; and some symbols separately projected
beside it appeared as a row of index numbers, presumably guides to
related data. "Do you recognize this photograph?"

 

 

"I assume it is the Burned Place but ," Dr. West stared uncertainly.
"There is rarely that much snow. The high Arctic is dry. The wind sweeps
off -- "

 

 

"It is not the Burned Place. It simply happens to be the nearest photograph
to what was the location of the North Magnetic Pole, thirty-eight years
ago. See the date in the corner: 1971. The other numbers are keys."
Mao III's fingers signaled these index numbers into the console.
"The skill is in selecting the most pertinent general key number --
subjects. Eskimos. Scientific searches. Perhaps meteorites. Aircraft
crashes. Satellites which have fallen. I repeat the location designation:
North Magnetic Pole, Boothia Peninsula, not too specific. In the computer,
an immense pattern of related information has materialized. A leader's
whole life would be wasted reading it. To place an electronic pinpoint
in this vast matrix, I introduce the phonetic number-name Peterluk."

 

 

Mao III's fingers moved, and the photograph of a cautiously smiling young
Eskimo holding out a white fox fur appeared, new index numbers materializing
above his head.