The Eskimo Invasion (49 page)

 

 

Magnificent redwood trees appeared against the sky, and dissolved into
a friendly faced man standing with his hand resting on the shoulder of
a smiling boy, a boy who was deeply tanned and slightly Oriental around
the eyes so that he could be recognized as almost any nationality.

 

 

Smiling into the teleprompter, the friendly man was speaking, and the
telesatellites over China relayed a peaceful-voiced Chinese translation:
"Friends, I bring you greetings from your friend, the President of the
United States. I am his good friend. My job is Secretary of State. I want
to be your friend. The President and all my friends throughout the world
call me Dino. My friends, don't go away from your television sets. Please
tell your children to listen. This important announcement also concerns
them. The President of the United States has asked me to tell you how
happy he is that the Chairman of the Chinese Federation of Nations has
suggested a friendly teleconference."

 

 

The Secretary of State smiled through his transparent teleprompter and
took a deep breath. "The President of the United States has asked me to
tell you he feels honored that the Chairman of the Chinese Federation
of Nations has invited him to a split-screen teleconference. Don't go
away from your television sets. This historic meeting which promises
greater happiness for all peoples throughout the world will be broadcast
at this very same time tomorrow. You, your children, all ages will want
to witness this historic meeting. Be sure to tune in -- "

 

 

Jagged static squealed off the sound, and momentarily distorted the
smiling face of the Secretary of State as he was dissolved into majestic
redwood trees. The American flag billowed in the sunset as Mao III switched
off the broadcast and the picture contracted to a little bright spot
which vanished.

 

 

"Tomorrow." Dr. West felt hollow and unprepared; there had been no mention
of the agenda: were the subjects for discussion still being haggled over
in Warsaw?

 

 

"Now the military will be forced to face the fact that I am -- insane.
Insane to have suggested such a meeting," Mao III blurted. "The military
will disconnect my external broadcast antenna. It stands undefended on top
of the Winter Palace. They will not be sufficient fools to let me match
myself against your robust President. Perhaps one of my understudies --
No, the generals are too cautious even for that. They will deny there was
an agreement for a teleconference. China's prestige must be preserved.
They will denounce your Secretary of State as a hoaxer. Then they will
come down the elevator shaft and -- rescue me -- kill us both!"

 

 

Dr. West glanced at the guard lights on the console. Evidently the
elevator shaft still was safely locked at the surface. If the console
could be believed, the protective devices still were cocked

 

 

"It is a U.S. hoax!" Mao III blustered. "Your Secretary of State was
afraid to mention that population limitation would be on the agenda.
It won't be. Your Government already has gained a propaganda advantage.
Now the CIA will create an incident. Perhaps an American ship will sink,
and this will be blamed on our nuclear submarines defensively stationed
off your coast. Your Government will use the television time tomorrow for
a taped denunciation. Your President will not face me. How can he, when
the agenda we sent to Warsaw requires a discussion of the International
Esk Problem? Your Government fears I am going to suggest bilateral
population limitation with quotas and international inspections of our
respective populations of Esks."

 

 

Mao III ended triumphantly: "Any suggestion that the increasing number
of American Esks should be limited would cause a political uproar in
the United States. Any suggestion that their number should be reduced
would cause revolution!"

 

 

"You're unfamiliar with the United States' way of life," Dr. West replied.

 

 

"No. You are. Admit that you haven't seen the United States for more than
seventeen years."

 

 

"Dammit, let me see the United States!"

 

 

"But the ghastly collapse of Canada proves my foresight in China. From the
first, I segregated our Esks in their own separate labor communes. There
were two reasons for this." Mao III's hands moved on the console. "I'll
show you. These are merely recent film clips from Canada, so you can deny
your own eyesight. In Canada -- "

 

 

No!
Dr. West thought forcibly.
First show me the United States.

 

 

And Mao III's skeletal fingers obeyed.

 

 

Across the screen jiggled an electric bus as if filmed by a tourist.
The neon advertising below its windows blinked: FINE FUNERALS FOR HUMANS
OR ESKS; then ASTROBOY CONVIENIENT MINIMUM EXCRETABLE BREAD. The crowded
bus turned toward the camera. Its destination tape read: WILSHIRE TO
WESTWOOD. The film with an amateurish zoom enlarged the bus driver's
calmly smiling face.

 

 

"You see," Mao III said triumphantly, "the bus driver is an American Esk.
He is the capitalist solution to all the undesirable jobs for which a
living wage had to be paid -- until the willing Esks appeared."

 

 

"FILMED MINUS SIX MONTHS," the vocoder of the Information Retrieval Computer
howled, "BY STUDENT-VISITOR LOS ANGELES."

 

 

Mao III's finger shifted on the console, and Dr. West stared at a film
of a huge white truck entering a suburban driveway of a high-rise apartment.
As it stopped, a great white scoop-jaw above the cab of the truck reached
forward and downward like a dragonfly larva's jaw. From the cab of the
truck, a hurrying man in white emerged, seized a garbage can and emptied
it into the jaw. The camera zoomed at the man's happily smiling face,
an Esk. "With Americans wedded to the four-hour day," Mao III laughed,
"how could all these necessary services function without Esks?"

 

 

Click, on the screen appeared towering condominium apartments beside
the East River near the ancient United Nations building, and this
more expertly handled camera explored past the Esk doorman into the
ground floor lobby of the apartment building where a short-legged but
attractively uniformed and smiling maid was walking toward the escalator.

 

 

"Another Esk." Mao III restlessly pressed a button, and an unsteady film
showed a large concrete-block house. "SIOUX FALLS," the vocoder howled as
the lens-view zoomed into the screened window. An American Negro family
were sitting down to supper, and a neatly uniformed Esk maid appeared from
the kitchen carrying a steaming platter of franks and sauerkraut. "An Esk,"
Mao III chortled. "I am so familiar with imperialist oppressor history.
What a satisfactorily capitalistic solution! Esks are happy to be at
the bottom of the American peck order."

 

 

Click, a dozen small Esk boys were shown industriously polishing an
autocopter while an American boy and girl played on a revolvo-swing
and their father lay on a lawn dais officiously gesticulating to an
obedient Esk who was laden with a lawn rake, a fertilizer injector and
a dandelion extractor.

 

 

Click, along a college dormitory hall a svelte-hipped Esk maid balanced a
tray of martini-shaped glasses through a Princeton-bannered door chalked
FRESHMAN STUD-Y RUM, and she didn't come out.

 

 

Click, the sign on a huge new windowless warehouse read: ESK RESCUE
MISSION #9.
Chicago Aid-to-the-Esks Society.
And underneath, Healthy
Canadian Imports. Also Fresh Raised Local Stock. At the bottom a pricelist
was taped to the door: AIR EXPORT TO SOUTH AMERICA AND EUROPE.
Wholesale
Prices on Request.

 

 

"Damn!" Dr. West was sweating and laughing and shivering at the same time,
horrified. "God! In a few years when there's no more countries to which
this surplus can be exported -- "

 

 

"You are supposed to be the birth control expert," Mao III replied
maliciously. "A scientifically humane solution such as forcible birth
control injections still should be simple, if capitalist and revisionist
oppressors are able to cooperate and behave rationally. But there is an
unknown factor. Even rational Maoist scientists cannot explain it. In the
first country to have a preponderantly Esk population, which was Canada --
"

 

 

Click, across the screen moved an impenetrable barbed wire fence
stretching along the Saskatchewan prairie. Filmed from the U.S. side
of the border, the fence bulged with dark clots, bodies in the barbed
wire, on the Canadian side. Further behind the International Boundary,
indistinguishable masses who appeared to be Esks stood waiting.

 

 

"MINUS FOUR DAYS," the vocoder howled. "U.S. TROOPS IN FOREGROUND REPORTEDLY
GUARDING FENCE AGAINST RENEWED CUTTING ACTIVITY. GRAY-BEARDED HUMAN PRISONER
REPORTEDLY SOLE REMAINING MEMBER NEW YORK SAVE-THE-ESKIMOS LEAGUE."

 

 

A close-up through the boundary fence showed skeletons, humans or Esks?
Starvation or -- ?

 

 

"I can't stand to look at this. Let me look at Ottawa," Dr. West blurted,
"where I was imprisoned."

 

 

Click, instead of the angry mob of Canadians who had reviled him seventeen
years ago, the streets of Ottawa now were stagnant with starving Esks.
Hordes of children were wandering in the streets. From a copter, the
first film clip failed to show a single moving vehicle on the streets of
downtown Ottawa. "MINUS SIX MONTHS," the vocoder howled. "NOW REPORTEDLY
CITY POPULATION REDUCED. LACK OF TRANSPORT AND FOOD."

 

 

"But what happened to the Canadians?" Dr. West bleated.

 

 

Tall white towers like grain elevators appeared against the skyline
of the city. "That's it, the New Ottawa Reformation Center," Dr. West
said remembering his loneliness for Nona.
What's happened to her?
"Are there prison personnel close-ups on file?"

 

 

Click, Esks were wandering in and out, as if the towers had become giant
dormitories. "What happened to the real people? I knew some of the guards,
when I was a prisoner -- "

 

 

Nona
, he thought,
all I see are Esks.

 

 

Click, Mao III's hands moved at the console, and the computer howled:
"INSUFFICIENT DATA REGARDING PRISON STAFF FOR DATA RE: PRISONER DR. JOSEPH
WEST REFER TO -- " Mao III switched to the next item. "FOR DATA PRISONER
PETERLUK ESKIMO BOOTHIA REFERENCE 85234." Mao III's fingers moved. "85234
PETERLUK BOOTHIA DIED NEW OTTAWA REFORMATION CENTER MINUS SEVENTEEN YEARS
SELF-HANGING."

 

 

"So Peterluk was dead before I even entered the Reformation Center,
and they wouldn't tell me," Dr. West muttered. "Dead, and he was perhaps
the foster father of all Esks. His own lying statements must have contained
evidence of their origin. Dammit, they're not human!"

 

 

Mao III laughed contemptuously. "Many in the United States agree with you
on that. To relegate Esks to subhumanity justifies buying and selling."
Mao III's voice softened. "The unanswered question to me is why the Canadians
finally in self-defense did not massacre enough of their Esks. Because
there was some confusion due to interbreeding as to who was an Esk is
no explanation. Human beings have been willingly massacring each other
since the beginning of our species. But so inefficiently in Canada -- "

 

 

Click, a jiggling film of men with axes and shotguns showed Esks being
herded like rabbits against a fence corner, the axes rising and falling.
"LYNCH MOB, BRITISH COLUMBIA," the vocoder howled. "MINUS FIVE YEARS."
A close-up showed a Canadian farmer retching and staggering away.

 

 

"It should have been so easy to exterminate them when there were only
a few million," Mao III mused. "Nowhere have Esks put up violent resistance.
When the first rumors of the failure of Canadian rioters to accomplish
anything substantial reached me, I ordered my 8th Route Army here in
Peking to carry out an experimental massacre of one small commune of
Esks who had been planted on the dust desert west of Peking -- as a
scientific experiment. Using machine guns, the number of Esks had been
reduced about 10% when it began to rain. Surprisingly, tough Chinese
troops sought shelter from the rain. The commanding general also had
other excuses. Machine guns overheated and jammed. After I removed him
and ordered the massacre completed, the new commander, my former aide,
General Chen Yung, had difficulty with trucks bringing replacement troops
to the scene. Finally an air attack with napalm was successfully carried
out and I believe a good portion of those Esks eventually were eliminated,
although now there seem to be more Esks out there in the desert than ever.
To superstitious troops the unexpected mental difficulties of the execution
were disturbing -- "

 

 

"Damn right they are disturbing!" Dr. West yelled. "Here you are letting
Esks increase to a billion in China, and you don't even know if you're
capable of eliminating them."

 

 

"It could be done, it could be. Mass executions become simple matters when
competently organized," Mao III replied. "With historically scientific logic,
Maoism can solve any problems of mankind."

 

 

"Then do it, dammit. Now!"

 

 

"Tapeworm, you forget that you are in command, not I."

 

 

Dr. West closed his eyes.
What did those bastards in the CIA instruct
me to do?

 

 

"Nothing that our interrogation could locate," Mao III taunted.
"Squirm, tapeworm, squirm with all the problems of the world, which wiser
men than you have only made more complicated each generation until -- "