The Eskimo Invasion (52 page)

 

 

Dr. West made no comment. They would shoot him.

 

 

The next day many television stations transmitted only their focusing
pattern, the white lotus star. From the south, a few broadcasts showed
waving flags and martial music and schoolgirl poetesses with Cantonese
accents reciting instant odes to the heroism and patriotism of General
Peng Huai, Liberator of Canton, Savior of China.

 

 

"Southern traitor," Mao III blurted, and his quick fingers clicked through
the other television broadcasts. "Why don't they praise Mao? Traitors!
This Cantonese rebellion will produce loyalty in Peking -- to me."

 

 

The next day none of the Peking stations was broadcasting.

 

 

In the dormitory, Dr. West stared anxiously at the Esk women.
They should
be aborting by now
, he thought. None of them showed any discomfort.

 

 

As he walked back along the corridor, Dr. West noticed a scar on the
doorjamb of the closet, beside the lock. Breathing hard, he unlocked the
closet door. The jars still were white with pills -- no, with grains of
rice. " -- The pills, where are the pills?"

 

 

The steward continued smiling while Dr. West violently shook him. "Pills?"
the Esk gasped. "Please, sir, which pills?"

 

 

"Did you give the women the pills?"

 

 

"Eh?" the Esk giggled with embarrassment as Dr. West stopped shaking him.
"This person gave away pills."

 

 

"You're lying."

 

 

"Eh-eh, this person is lying." the Esk laughed placatingly.

 

 

"Where are all the other pills?"

 

 

"Eh? Pills here? This person does not know."

 

 

"The whole closet was full of pills!" Dr. West shouted.

 

 

"Eh-eh, this person is telling the truth. No pills."

 

 

"You're lying."

 

 

"This person is lying," the Esk patiently agreed as if soothing an insane
man. "It is the truth."

 

 

Dr. West hurled the unresisting Esk to the floor.

 

 

 

 

By now most of the Chinese television stations were off the air. Some of
Mao III's remaining surveillance cameras, which were automatic equipment,
showed circling flies, or perhaps distant aircraft circling clouds of
smoke beyond the horizon.

 

 

One surveillance camera suddenly blurred with the too-close face of an Esk
smiling stupidly into the lens.

 

 

That night Tele-Pravda's satellite broadcast that General Peng Huai's
troops from Canton were meeting only token resistance outside Nanking.
A victorious Cantonese television broadcast was expected hourly.

 

 

It came with joyful music and a triumvirate of smiling Chinese physicians,
the first doctor announcing that the beloved Chairman, Mao III, was showing
superlogically materialistic improvement from his three-year illness. The
second announced that new developments in traditional Chinese accupuncture
had completely cured the paralysis from which their beloved Chairman for
three years had suffered. The third announced that the Chairman, the Saving
Star, now was able to speak to all of his people.

 

 

In the dim vault, Dr. West watched Mao III's expression change from surprise
to rage.

 

 

On the telescreen a Mao III appeared, walking briskly forward. With sturdy
peasant gestures and a confident voice, this Mao III reassured the world
that: "The Maoist Party shines like a gun barrel! Your Chairman once again
is able to labor for the wellare of the people. All is now peace, for I am
with you."

 

 

This Mao glanced at the teleprompter and announced that he had appointed
General Peng Huai of the Canton Military District to rebuild three bridges
to the people, to assume three responsibilities. "The Ministries of Defense,
of Dream Persons and of Internal Security." Pseudo-Mao bowed perceptibly.
"General Peng Huai's heroism has saved my life, and through me the life
of China.

 

 

"With Comrade Peng Huai's guidance, we shall build an even larger China,
worthy of our great population. Together, arm in arm, we will lead all
the free peoples of the world into the future."

 

 

Beside Dr. West, Mao III gurgled with rage, and Dr. West remarked:
"Is that one of your former doubles? You used so many to confuse your
assassins. Now they've discovered one Mao is as good as another."

 

 

Mao III glowered at the waving flags on the screen, the rising balloons,
the traditional ranks of marching children, until the Canton station
abruptly signed off the air. "Air raid warning!"

 

 

"I will be rescued," Mao III blurted. "My favorite general, Chen Yung,
Commander of my personal 8th Route Army here in Peking, he, too, desires
power. Now he will need my aid in exposing this impostor. My General
Chen Yung personally will descend the elevator and bow down before me."

 

 

There was more news about the air raid scare. False warning.

 

 

The next morning Tele-Pravda reported that General Chen Yung, Commander
of the 8th Route Army based in Peking and formerly considered the most
influential of the inner council of generals, and the former favorite
of Mao III, had been appointed Ambassador to South Belgium. "General
Chen Yung already has departed to assume his new post."

 

 

"If his aircraft does not explode in midair," Mao III hissed, and began
to sob like a little boy who has lost his last toy.

 

 

"Which leaves us with the Cantonese General Peng Huai consolidating his
power." Dr. West asked, "Do you recall Peng Huai's attitude toward the
future increase of the Esks?"

 

 

"That traitor first gained notoriety as Field Commander in our pacification
of India." Mao III smiled crookedly at Dr. West. "Peng Huai always has
maintained that China will need many more people for a still greater
effort, therefore as many Esks as possible. Each Esk replaces on
the homefront a peacefighter to free the world. Have I answered your
question?"

 

 

That night, Mao III cried out in pain. Rising, Dr. West saw that Mao III
was suffering a more massive stroke. The whole left side of Mao III's face
was twisted down. Even when Dr. West's mind strained to help, Mao III was
unable to move his lips as his thoughts leaked out:
Tapeworm, leave me
alone. At least permit me to die.

 

 

But Mao III's righ hand twitched in a signal for his Esk night servant
to bring him a sip of water.

 

 

Finally, Dr. West walked away. When Dr. West was able to escape into sleep,
in his dream he was clutched by a nightmare earthquake shaking apart the
elevator shaft to the surface, filling it with rubble, squeezing the vault
while the smiling Esks grew like balloons filling --

 

 

The bed shook him awake as he sat up, his eardrums still echoing the dull
thud of -- an explosion?

 

 

The lights still worked. He felt as if he'd been slapped on the side
of the head. He blinked at the ceiling, at new hairline cracks in the
concrete here, 4000 feet deep in the earth. Through the reverberations
of his eardrums, he could hear the excited chattering of Esks.

 

 

He noticed an Esk standing stupidly by the locked control panel, with
an oddly shocked expression for an Esk. No smile now from Mao III's
night servant. Swaying from the Esk's hand hung a thin silver neck chain
dangling the key.

 

 

Dr. West's hand rose to his own neck where the key had been, and he
bounded across the room, seized the key from the unresisting Esk.

 

 

Dr. West stared at the lock now turned to a horizontal position above
the depressed red lever. "You idiot." The dull thud must have been an
explosion at the surface.

 

 

Dr. West remembered Mao III's mental slip: The vault's defensive threat
was the small nuc device encased in tons of concrete beneath the Winter
Palace. As Mao III's last act it could be detonated by this lock and red
lever, to entomb forever this vault in which Dr. West stood breathing
hoarsely.

 

 

"You suicidal fool," Dr. West blurted at the Esk, "you stole it from me
while I slept. Tell me why -- "

 

 

The Esk smiled with nervousness and glanced toward the dragon-curtains
of Mao III's sleeping alcove.

 

 

Dr. West tore open the curtains. "You paralyzed old bastard. You communicated
to this Esk to steal back your key. Wonderful! Bang! You've sealed us forever
in this coffin."

 

 

Mao III's lopsided face smiled up at him.
Tapeworm, fear?
Mao III's
triumphant thought filtered cut of his blood-clotted brain.
With so
much fear, you are unable to think. You must listen to my thoughts --
"Like hell I will!" Dr. West ran along the corridor to the elevator. The
elevator door bulged out jaggedly, due to the mass of smashed rock which
had jammed down the shaft. Would the radioactivity from the nuc extend
down this far?
He tried to calm his unevenly thudding heart.
He walked to the end of the farthest concrete tunnel and stared at the
concrete wall. "It is not possible to dig out. We're nearly a mile beneath
the earth." He trudged slowly back with his hand pressed against his
breastbone and flickers of reflected pain inside his left arm. "If I'm
going to drop dead -- heart. Good! Now!" But he took a nitro. He searched
through janitors' closets, and a small storeroom containing trays of spare
modules for the computer and a vast storeroom of tiered shelves stacked
with plastic-wrapped freeze-dried vegetable bricks. He wandered between
mountains of sacks of rice and on into the kitchen equipment room.
By now he carried a crowbar he had found, and a handful of flimsy plactic-
handled screwdrivers and a ball-peen hammer. He found a short-handled
scoop-shovel intended for loading rice -- not intended for digging straight
upward through 4000 feet of rock formations to the surface. "Got to get
out -- "
When the next pain in his chest subsided, he herded eight male Esks
to the end of the corridor and set them to chipping at the concrete
wall. The plastic split off from the handles of the screwdrivers, and
their soft iron shafts bent. The head of the ball-peen hammer popped
off. The crowbar bounced back from the concrete with ringing protests.
Dr. West located an electric twist drill and enough extension cords,
and the whole set of steel drill bits soon was ruined. He unbolted the
hinges of the massive steel door of the Power Source room. Puzzled by
his orders but smiling, eight heavily-breathing Esks carried the steel
door up to the end of the corridor. The corner of the steel door made a
clumsy battering ram. The noise was deafening. Wincing, Dr. West stared
toward the shower room, and visualized a long hose.
The concrete within the corridor wall seemed slightly softened after
a stream of hot water was hose-lengthed from the shower room. His Esks
rammed the steel door against the wet wall.
"Cheap Maoist concrete," he laughed shrilly. "But who could make a profit?"
After exhausted relays of Esks, the clanging corner of the steel door
smashed through concrete into darkness.
Dr. West leaped forward as if into a miraculous hidden tunnel, but his
flashlight illuminated only the yellow-brown solidity of prehistoric
sandstone strata, 4000 feet beneath the present surface of the Earth.
The battered point of the crowbar, hurled full force, penetrated nearly
one-eighth inch into the sandstone. It left a tiny dent.
"This damned sandstone's been pressed down here so long and hard, it's
not even sedimentary. For me, it's hard as metamorphic ." Sourly smiling,
Dr. West set the Esks chipping upward at a 45-degree angle, aiming the
slanting tunnel away from the nuc explosion's ground zero. "Not too
steep for you to scramble up a gopher hole barefoot, yet steep enough
for the debris to slide down."
He foresaw a narrow tunnel with one Esk digging at a time. It would have
ventilating problems enough without being stuffed with other Esks passing
the debris down by hand. He found a draftsman's 45-degree triangle and
tied a string to a bolt. He suspended the bolt from the triangle like
a plumb bob. "You understand the direction? Dig upward in line with the
hypotenuse of this triangle."
"Eh?"
"I mean the tunnel must line up with this longest leg of the triangle."
"Eh?" These Esks all smiling stupidly made Dr. West want to scream with rage.
Smile
, Dr. West thought at the cheerfully scurrying Esks, who already
were carrying away double handfuls of granulated sandstone.
Smile,
at least this work gives you another purpose down here besides --
Their primary purpose scampered small and naked on the corridor floor,
more children each day. Children's fingers traced childish symbols in
the sand spilled on the corridor floor circles, circles around circles,
and an amorphous blob reminding Dr. West of a bear.
In the shoulder-wide hole up into the hard sandstone Dr. West measured daily
progress. "A good three feet in the last twenty-four hours. I like you,
all of you. Now, dig faster!"
Dr. West exploded in irritation. "No! Don't dump the sand in the shower
room! Empty it in the food storeroom."
Each day there was more space in the food storeroom to store sand,
less rice --
During the "night" shift, below the sounds of the upward tunneling Esk,
Dr. West scowled at his penciled diagram on the wall. It was an inverted
right triangle with its hypotenuse at a 45-degree angle to its vertical
and horizontal lines.
Beside the vertical line he wrote: 4000 feet up. Beside the horizontal
surface line, he also wrote 4000 feet. He scowled at the diagonal line
symbolizing the tunnel. "This damn gopher-hole hypotenuse will be a lot
longer than 4000 feet, you -- ghost of Pythagorus. The sum of the squares
of the other two sides is 16,000,000 plus 16,000,000 equals 32,000,000.
Now what in hell is the square root of 32,000,00? It's more than 5000 feet!
This slanting tunnel will be more than 5600 feet long. Digging three feet
per day, that's 1866 days -- "
He stared at the unhearing Esks. "God help us all, 1866 days, that's
five years!"
He walked into the food storeroom where Esks were piling sand from the
tunnel. "Even if these smiling fools could stop having babies as of this
minute, all the food, just for the Esks alive right now, will be eaten
in a couple of years. This stupid tunnel will starve to a stop not even
halfway to the surface." He smiled like a starving clown. "We will have
eaten ourselves to death three years below the surface."
I'm not going to murder any Esks