The Eskimo Invasion (58 page)

The immense thought overlapped his consciousness.
We have made death reversible. Almost --
Dr. West was made to feel their crowded patterns pressing against each other,
each still lacking internal dot circulation and consciousness.
Due to their vast numbers, each was receiving more and more exterior
pressure because the sum of their individual expansion rates was greater
than the expansion of the outer surface of their whole group. Either there
was a limiting velocity for brain patterns, which those on the outer surface
had reached, or the faint gravitational fields of surrounding stars supplied
at least a temporary caging effect. Something was maintaining a pressure
within the group.
Within the vast group, he felt the individual patterns being pressed and
pressing warmer and warmer against each other. Not warmth in a human sense,
this pressure-energy was being released not as warmth but as movement of
the symbolic dots within their brain patterns. Along familiar pathways,
the bead strings of dots were flowing faster and faster throughout each
brain pattern in a circulation similar to consciousness.
We are alive!
Dr. West's erratic heart struggled with excitement. With the primitive
desire of LIFE, his mind and body contorted with joy.
But then he saw that the pressure-energy was provided by the repelling
gravitational forces from the stars. Between the stars, in all directions,
the vast group continued to expand outward into the infinity of space.
Another massive pain cramped his blood-starving heart muscle.
As if personally defeated, he saw their diminishing pressure-energy;
unconsciousness and final death were awaiting as the finite group expanded
in the infinite emptiness of space.
He understood their fatal problem. Although repelled by gravity,
they were spreading out between the stars along the channels of least
gravitational pressure. Already the group's immense outer surface had
expanded so many light-years through the Galaxy, there was lessening
of the vital pressure within. As they expanded, the pressure which gave
them the energy of consciousness could only decline. The number in the
group was finite. Space seemed infinite, he thought sadly.
To maintain and stabilize their inner pressure, they would have to fill
all of space. But their brain patterns could not reproduce themselves.
Their own numbers could not increase. Their individual expansion rates
were reaching their limits. As pressure-energy against a brain pattern
lessened, the inner circulation of dots of consciousness slowed.
Even though the brain patterns of other dead creatures arisen forever
from a billion planets throughout the Galaxy were being swept up and
by inertia packing against the outer surface of the expanding group,
the pressure within continued to decline. For all, death was returning.
Now Dr. West thought he understood the purpose for the Esks within the
larger purpose, which was immortality. He understood the purpose of
dying in cohesive billions at one time, all over one planet, the Esks --
"Their brain patterns fill a little more of space," he whispered,
"to help maintain the pressure of life for YOU."
But they too are alive, the immense thoughts soared.
Billions of --
souls rising from your planet into immortality.

 

 

"You gave the Esks life on my planet," Dr. West sighed, "and you have
taken them away." He realized those strange patterns out there were unable,
because of repelling gravity, to reach in and kill the life-forms on a
billion planets. "To increase the pressure, to maintain your consciousness,
if you were able would you have murdered all of us?" Gravity kept them
away . "You gave so little. One white shell failing toward the Boothia -- "

 

 

You! Man of so little faith in life over death, see! Believe! Eternal life
is triumphing for everyone. For you --
In his mind he was shown, distant in space, an insensible white dome
feeding in perpetual isolation on its rocky asteroid. As it always had,
the dome emitted a white egg. As the egg unfolded its purple sail,
Dr. West realized it must be drifting through the invisible brain
patterns.
"You reached in," Dr. West muttered. "Against the gravity of Earth,
you reached us indirectly by means of -- "
He was shown the symbolic lines of dots from space overlapping the huge
white egg as it drifted through the Galaxy. The overlapping mind pattern
was concentrating a node of dots within the immature reproductive cells
of the egg. Within an incomplete sexual cell, within one chromosome,
he saw the glowing dots flowing through the genes of the egg's inherited
characteristics.
As his view magnified within a gene, he saw the glowing dots flowing
through the gene's complex molecules of life. As if he were falling inward
among vibrating atoms, he saw the glowing necklaces of symbolic dots
among the molecules. He saw these controlled lines of electrons flowing,
influencing the movements of other electrons among the ionized atoms
of the genetic molecules. Here within the gene, within its molecules,
he saw the egg's characteristics of inheritance were being altered.
Not like cosmic radiation causing a random mutation, here a whole set of
interrelated characteristics had been altered purposefully for a purpose
beyond the egg.
Outwardly unaffected, the egg sailed on through space. Instinctively,
its sun-sails altered its course toward another drifting egg in their
age-old necessity for inheritance variation by mating, for adaptive
survival of their species. Mating would have been impossible for the
adult white domes immobile on their scattered asteroids. Only in the
drifting egg stage could they meet. In space, he was shown two stony
shells on converging courses. The two impenetrable eggs bumped. Between
them flashed lightning. Exchanging electrical imprints of their genetic
essence, they had mated for an instant. They drifted apart into the
vastness of the Galaxy. Each carried the new characteristics the strange
brain patterns had designed for them to transmit throughout the universe.
Within the huge white egg, he was shown that the incomplete sex cell
by mating had been doubled. Doubling itself, the new half completed
the whole. One half resembled the genetic arrangement from the other
egg. The completed cell replicated while the huge shell drifted, and on
collision course, smashed against an unoccupied asteroid. The new dome
grew, and in time it began to emit eggs with unnatural rapidity.
Opening their purple sails, the altered eggs sailed unnatural courses.
In the past, sailing by light-pressure from the stars through space, eggs
always had steered away from gravitational fields. For species survival
this was necessary because the white domes could feed and grow only on
asteroids of minimal gravity. But genetically altered eggs steered toward
gravity forces, toward stars and then away from these blazing suns when
radiation stabbed with unbearable intensity through the flesh within the
inner shell.
Down toward a billion planets the aberrant eggs were plunging, now attracted
by gravity but at the last moment repelled by the radiation belts trapped
by magnetic forces around gravity planets. Readjusting their sun-sails,
deflected eggs streaked on orbiting courses above the radiation belts
shaped by the planets' magnetic lines of force.
Down through the polar funnel in the Earth's radiation belts, down through
the inward turning of the Earth's magnetic lines of force, THE egg had
plunged toward the North Magnetic Pole. Its fleshy sun-sail burning away
in the atmosphere, the egg had smashed down on the Boothia Peninsula.
In time turned back forty-two years, Dr. West was shown Peterluk, with
a puzzled smile, poking the fleshy contents of the inner shell with his
finger.
No mind pattern of the unknown symbols was waiting to invade Peterluk's
genes. The Earth's repelling gravitons would have driven out any stowaway
brain pattern while the egg still was above the ionosphere.
But the life-force designed by the strange brain patterns was there.
Indirectly they could cause mutations in Earth's sanctuary.
Within the egg's electrogenetic material, its altered chromosomes quivered.
The slippery outer mass which Peterluk's finger touched had a cellular
consistency similar to the batteries of an electric eel. This egg had
not mated. It had not discharged. Since the parent domes are stationary
on their asteroids, it is only through the drifting eggs that genetic
imprints are exchanged -- with electric jolts!
Dr. West felt Peterluk's surprise and chagrin to regain consciousness
lying on his back on the cold rocks of the Burned Place. "Evil jelly
flesh!" Peterhtk's voice echoed through time as he struggled to his
feet. "May foxes devour you!" He had fled.
That night, Peterluk did not confess his mysterious fainting weakness
to his wife. Boasting, he warmed himself in her smile, and in her arms.
In the rhythmically gasping darkness, of the millions of his sperm
the successful one to penetrate Eevvaalik's monthly ovum carried his
altered chromosomes. The first Esk was conceived with the designed
characteristics of adaptability, fetal growth efficiency resulting in a
one-month gestation period, a rapid maturation rate with the potentiality
of rapid multiplication -- and an unlit fuse. This fuse was the hope of
the strange brain patterns distant in space. On Earth, population maximum
would ignite it. As long as the delicate psychic emanations of the Esks
increased, their fuses were dormant. When their total emanation shrouding
the Earth no longer increased, the Esk population would have reached
its zenith; the maximum number had been achieved. The physiological fuse
within each Esk on the surface of the Earth had ignited.
Instinctively joining hands for death, the Esks had fallen-risen.
Their freed brain patterns had ballooned into space. Too well, Dr. West
understood the purpose for which the Esks had died.
But they are alive! the great thoughts surged through Dr. West's brain.
We -- they -- everything which has ever lived will become alive. When we
have filled the universe there will be eternal life.

 

 

From distant space the great thoughts flowed --

 

 

Dr. West felt their hope and excitement as he lay in the golden dust of
the Great Square, his contorted body gasping for breath. From his heart
the massive pain so filled his chest that he felt himself being squeezed
out of himself.

 

 

The contribution of even a single life's pattern, the great thoughts
surged,
increases the vital pressure of immortality for all.
He felt
their sympathy.
Believe! Life can be sustained beyond physical death --
for all.
The feeling was excitement, hope.

 

 

In his physical agony, he knew he should try to reach his hand into his
pocket for the bottle of nitros, the trinitroglycerine pills for his heart.
It might not be too late to survive a little longer. His thoughts were
dimming as he felt their enveloping sympathy. He was not yet alone.
Surrounding patterns of his departing Esks still were transmitting the
thoughts of those beyond -- to him -- with sympathy. Why else, he realized,
would he have been communicated with in this last possible moment as the
last expanding mind patterns of the Esks crowded upward from the Great Square
in continuous contact across space --

 

 

Writhing on its side, his breathless body contracted in a fetal position.
He glimpsed the blue sky so beautiful. He laughed like a naked savage
with wonder and awe, but soundlessly. He laughed as his heart's terminal
fibrillations stagnated the flow of blood to his brain into visual
darkness, and he did not take the pill.

 

 

Freed from lifelong fear he laughed with amazement at the universe of which
he was a part.
Marthalik?

 

 

His last human thoughts rose above the bodies of the Esks in the Great
Square. He imagined a sharply questioning voice in Chinese. Hard hands
were attempting to lift his body. But his heart had stopped long ago.

 

 

In the dissolution of death, the electrical flowing within his brain
was completed. It -- he had risen outside. His upward expanding thoughts
laughed with joy at the purpose of the Esks and those beyond.

 

 

Hopefully he pondered with wonder at the tiny Earth.
Now all we need to
know is OUR purpose in life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BRILLIANT SCIENCE FICTION FROM
THE BALLANTINE LIST
THE WANDERER Fritz Leiber
(Hugo Award)
A CASE OF CONSCIENCE James Blish
(Hugo Award)
MORE THAN HUMAN Theodore Sturgeon
(International Fantasy Award)
THE WHOLE MAN John Brunner
(Hugo Runner-up)
DAVY Edgar Pangborn
(Hugo Runner-up)
FAHRENHEIT 451 Ray Bradbury
CHILDHOOD'S END Arthur Clarke
Send for our complete catalog to
Dept. CS, Ballantine Books,
101 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003
In Science Fiction
Ballantine Books Brings You
the Best of the Established Authors
and the Most Exciting New Writers
===================================
THE NIGHT OF THE WOLF Fritz Leiber 50¢
WORLD OF PTAVVS Larry Niven 50¢
FAHRENHEIT 451 Ray Bradbury 60¢
THE LONG RESULT John Brunner 50¢
NEEDLE IN A TIMESTACK Robert Silverberg 50¢
TARNSMAN OF GOR John Norman 75¢
BERSERKER Fred Saberhagen 60¢
OUT OF MY MIND John Brunner 60¢
B.E.A.S.T. Charles Eric Maine 75¢
TO OPEN THE SKY Robert Silverberg 75¢
DOLPHIN BOY Roy E. Meyers 75¢
TREASURE OF THE BLACK FALCON John Coleman Burroughs 75¢
THE WORM OUROBOROS E. R. Eddison 95¢
MISTRESS OF MISTRESSES E. R. Eddison 95¢
CHTHON Piers Anthony 75¢
RESTOREE Anne McCaffrey 75¢
THORNS Robert Silverberg 75¢
THE ESKIMO INVASION Hayden Howard 75¢
OUTLAW OF GOR John Norman 75¢
THE SEED Dan Thomas 75¢
Send price of book plus 5¢ a copy for postage to
Dept. CS, BALLANTINE BOOKS, INC., 101 Fifth
Avenue, New York, New York 10003, with your
name, address and ZIP CODE NUMBER.
MORE BALLANTINE SCIENCE FICTION
THE 10TH VICTIM Robert Sheckley .60
A CASE OF CONSCIENCE James Blish .50
THE WATCH BELOW James White .50
THE MAIN EXPERIMENT Christopher Hodder-Williams .50
SLAVE SHIP Frederik Pohl .50
TALES OF GOOSEFLESH AND LAUGHTER John Wyndham .50
THE BLUE WORLD Jack Vance .50
DIGITS AND DASTARDS Fredrik Pohl .50
TOMORROW MIDNIGHT Ray Bradbury .50
(stories in cartoon form)
THE NIGHT OF THE WOLF Fritz Leiber .50
WORLD OF PTAVVS Larry Niven .50
FAHRENHEIT 451 Ray Bradbury .60
THE LONG RESULT John Brunner .50
NEW DREAMS THIS MORNING ed. James Blish .50
TALES FROM THE WHITE HART Arthur C. Clarke .50
THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS John Wyndham .50
NEEDLE IN A TIMESTACK Robert Silverberg .50
TARNSMAN OF GOR John Norman .75
Write for our complete catalog to:
Ballantine Books, Inc., Dept. Cs, 101 Fifth
Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10003
SPECIAL RELEASE
OF EARLY CLASSICS
FROM
THE BALLANTINE LIST
===================
U2341 AHEAD OF TIME Henry Kuttner 50¢
The first collection of one of science
fiction's greatest.
U2342 BRAIN WAVE Poul Anderson 50¢
The novel that put Anderson on the
s.f. map.
U2343 GLADIATOR-AT-LAW Frederik Pohl &
C. M. Kornbluth 50¢
One of the three magnificent novels by
this famous team of collaborators.
U2344 NERVES Lester del Rey 50¢
The book about a nuclear reactor that
had minions of the Pentagon in a tizzy.
U2345 THE GREEN ODYSSEY Philip José Farmer 50¢
A joyous, roistering science fantasy
adventure in the grand old tradition.
U2346 TO LIVE FOREVER Jack Vance 50¢
A darkly ingenious extrapolation on
the theme of immortality.
Send for our complete catalog
To order books by mail, enclose price of book plus 5¢
a copy postage and send to Dept. CS, Ballantine
Books, 101 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003.
(On orders of 4 books or over we pay postage.)
This is an original publication -- not a reprint Cover printed in U.S.A.