Scurrying, the old man led Dr. West to the inner office, where a fortyish man rose ponderously, sliding a bottle back into a drawer.
"It may be useful to speak in front of my nephew," old Etienne LaRue snapped. "Tell him -- Henri, listen to him -- how the Sanctuary has become a concentration camp of the dead."
As Dr. West opened his mouth, Etienne LaRue's voice rushed on: "That dog in the manger, Suxbey, would seize the whole Northwest Territories. For his Eskimo empire, he is stealing Canada's future living space. He is a maniac! Do not describe for me all the atheistic sexual abominations taking place under his leadership. Each fiscal year I have been pleading with Parliament that we must defeat his wasteful request for appropriation. Always I have said, reopen the Eskimo Cultural Sanctuary to the honest Canadian people to whom Canada belongs!"
Somehow Etienne LaRue didn't leave Dr. West much to tell. Dr. West remembered Etienne LaRue had begun his rise to elder statesman a generation ago on a political platform of linguistic independence for Quebec.
"But there are only a few hundred of these Eskimos," Dr. West kept trying to calm Etienne LaRue. "Only the few Eskimos on the Boothia Peninsula have the monthly gestation period. Of course, they do seem different from other Eskimos in other ways. Their complexions are so clear and unweathered, as if they're all quite young. They seem even more good-humored and patient and honest than the Co-Op Eskimos. With the exception of one older Eskimo who still owns a rifle, they were kind to me. They are wonderful people."
Old Etienne LaRue's face wrinkled as if in disgust. "You -- Doctor West, are another visitor from the United States who becomes an expert on Eskimos in a week. Like a child's book, you tell of Eskimos like happy angels smiling." LaRue's voice lowered to a whisper. "Those squint-eyed heathen are barely human!"
Dr. West blinked. This old man was showing himself to be a political dinosaur, who was outside the beliefs of either party in Parliament. Dr. West smiled sardonically. "Perhaps they're not human, by your definition."
"Ah!" Etienne LaRue smiled in instant agreement.
"A one-month gestation period," Dr. West said, "suggests many hormonal differences from other Eskimo women, from human women. Perhaps these should be considered a new subspecies."
"A new species, mon dieu! I knew they weren't human."
"Perhaps not a new species because -- they do interbreed," Dr. West laughed hollowly, " -- with us. Perhaps you could say they are a new race, differentiated not so much by outward appearance as by gestation period and other habits which we will discover. Instead of Eskimos, instead of 'skimos which is a derogatory term, perhaps we should differentiate them from Eskimos by calling them -- "
"Esks." This was the first word the nephew had spoken, and Henri LaRue smiled like a hopeful candidate for minor office, his cheeks gleaming with good living, his little mustache neatly trimmed.
"Too pleasant, this word, Esks," old Etienne LaRue retorted. "A longer word telling of sin and filth and treachery must be discovered by my staff. The way these -- these Esks are increasing, the whole French language and way of life may be threatened not only in the Northwest Territories but in Quebec!"
The nephew snorted. Evidently he was feeling his oats after his success with his invented word: ESK. "There are only a few hundred of them. Let these Esks learn French. And vote."
"They are not human, those Esks, or any Eskimos," the old man hissed. "None of them. Look at their faces, those grinning devils. Even as a boy I dream of them. Slant-eyed devils, my shouts wake myself up. They are like evil spirits, and these -- these Esks must be worse."
Dr. West glanced at the portly nephew, who was eyeing the ceiling. Evidently the old man not only was racially, culturally and religiously prejudiced, he was entangled by senile paranoia in boyhood fears and superstitions. Dr. West stood up to leave.
"Voilŕ! We get rid of those Esks." The old man clutched Dr. West's arm. "Savages no better than dogs. Morals unspeakable. Dogs in the manger is what they are. All that land up there must be freed for -- for all mankind!"
Dr. West pulled away. He knew how rapidly the French-speaking population still was increasing due to the increasing baby bonuses supported by increasing sales taxes, and incited by increasing immigration from England's overcrowded New Towns. Etienne LaRue's party wanted more Lebensraum for Quebec.
The old man pursued him. "My nephew will lead the investigation. You will guide Henri to the Esks. With my influence, the Sanctuary cannot keep you out, even though Hans Suxbey, that moral fiend, denies access to all. Your aircraft will not be shot down."
Dr. West stopped walking away. He thought he could use this old devil.
In the Rolls, the nephew sighed: "Wild goose chase." He proffered a half-pint of Haig & Haig. "Call me Henry."
"You think we are the two geese who will be shot down?" Dr. West asked.
"Mon dieu! I hope not! Finally our monetary offering was accepted by the Guard pilot. I hope that fighter pilot is honest."
By commercial jet, Dr. West sat beside the portly Henry LaRue all the way toward Churchill on Hudson Bay. Barring accidents, he hoped to return this way with Marthalik and his baby son. In the Sanctuary, Dr. West hoped to show Henry LaRue the Esks' need for birth control assistance as well as food this winter. Surely old Etienne LaRue would not oppose artificial birth control -- if it were for Esks.
Who is human? Dr. West thought, his memory recoiling from his own conversation with that withered Etienne LaRue, who hated Esks he'd never seen. Who is human? Who is more human? What definition? Physical appearance? Nation? Language? Religion? Birthrate?
"More than a hobby. Me," Henry LaRue was saying not so humbly. "Perhaps I am the only whiteman in Canada who bothers any more. But my hobbies are difficult things. I have listened to Eskimo recordings. At the hospital I visit the old Eskimos. The Eskimo language has become my -- " And he laughed, " my most austere and intellectual hobby, and yet my uncle disapproves."
Because you are challenging him, Dr. West thought, deliberately irritating him by pretending to learn the language of the Eskimos -- of his nightmares. Dr. West imagined Henry LaRue's linguistic attainments would turn out to be the parroting of a few long agglutinative word-phrases without wholly grasping their significance to an Eskimo. Henry LaRue was signaling to the stewardess, and she understood, bringing more champagne. As she bent over them, she flinched and giggled, and Dr. West had glimpsed another of Henry LaRue's happy hobbies.
At Churchill's enlarged airport, met by a pilot and staring out at his aircraft, Henry LaRue's smiling facade cracked. "That little plane? It is so small."
Squatting like a fat two-motored duck, the VTOL looked reassuringly large to Dr. West, whose previous flight across the tundra and ice to Boothia had been in a single-engined Turbo-Beaver, not a massive twin-engined transport like this.
"Our Order has faith," the pilot laughed, "flying this old Canadair CL-284. You will see her wings and engines pivot to the vertical. You will be set down safely as in a copter upon the Cultural Sanctuary. Of course providing that -- " The pilot stopped, as if deciding not to worry his two passengers with his other concern.
But Dr. West knew what it was.
Glancing at the sky, the pilot zipped up his snow-white and visual orange flight jacket and led them to his white and visual orange striped aircraft. These were the bold colors of the Aerial Order of Pope John, an Order of Involvement flying rescue missions throughout the North while the older Order of Oblate Fathers concentrated on more ascetic obligations.
Seated at the instrument panel, the pilot grinned at Dr. West as if they were going on a great adventure together, which was no lie! Dr. West hoped old Etienne LaRue's bribe to the fighter pilot guarding the Cultural Sanctuary was generous enough. This lumbering VTOL transport would be helpless beneath a supersonic hawk.
Here on the parking apron at Churchill Metropolitan Airport, the priest-pilot did not wait the long wait to enter the crowded airport taxi pattern, or wait some more for clearance from the cont
rol tower before scooting out between the deadly turbulence of giant jet transports. Instead, still parked like a car he lifted a switch on the CL-284'S instrument panel and an electric motor growled, twisting the wing and its two propjet engines to a vertical position. He started the jet props squealing dust around the squatting aircraft.
Dr. West watched intently while the pilot checked the rpm's of the little tail rotor back there between the rudders. For his own purpose, Dr. West tried to burn into his visual memory the pilot's hand motions in sequence setting the autopilot for vertical takeoff. The twin propjets screamed with exertion, and the VTOL lifted straight up with heavenly stability. The priest-pilot raised both hands from the controls, grinning. Someone else was flying the aircraft upward more safely than any man. It was the autopilot.
At 3000 feet, Dr. West watched how the priest-pilot pivoted the wing and engines to a normal horizontal position without losing much altitude, and the CL-284 whined forward at 300 mph north. With all these automatic systems assists, Dr. West thought he could learn to fly this aircraft more easily than a Turbo-Beaver.
Flying above the whitened tundra, Henry LaRue poked his head between the dual seats, shouting louder and louder to relieve his nervousness. "I am not prejudiced like my uncle about the Eskimos in the Cultural Sanctuary. But the money of the taxpayers cannot continue to go down that rat's hole, while in Montreal thousands of honest Canadian voters are unemployed. I say the Government must subsidize New Towns throughout the Arctic, as the Russians have done so successfully. Stocked with sturdy Canadian voters from our overcrowded cities, the North will prosper at last. Some pessimists say Canada's population continues increasing too fast because of our increasingly humanitarian Baby Bonus. But I say, look down from this aircraft at all that empty tundra. I say it is impossible for Canadians to increase too fast while there is so much room. I mean all Canadians regardless of religion or race, and for all progressive people there is so much living space here in the North."
The priest-pilot winked at Dr. West, as if the North was not that easy. For two hours the CL-284 whined north across a thousand nameless frozen lakes of the glacier-bulldozed Keewatin District. For another hour they winged northwest across the frozen curly-cues of Back River past Lake Macdougall and banked north across empty tundra toward the Boothia Peninsula. "I believe we're over the Eskimo Cultural Sanctuary now," the priest-pilot shouted, glancing toward 12 o'clock high in the sky.
Dr. West saw the metallic speck swooping down from the altostratus clouds. Flashing, it made a head-on pass; for an instant it was an ancient F-111B carrier-launched version of the McDonnell swing-wing jet fighter of the 1970's, overkill as far as their lumbering CL-284 was concerned. "Butcher bird!" the pilot shouted. "There are so many rumors -- bush pilots who disappeared. I hope our permission to enter truly has been transmitted to this reckless pilot by the Director."
Dr. West winced as the F-111B made another pass. Someone had lied to the priest-pilot. Of course the Director of the Cultural Sanctuary, Hans Suxbey, had not been informed of this impending violation. Hans Suxbey would have ordered the fighter plane to down them. It was the pilot of the F-111B who was supposed to have been bribed.
Looking back, Dr. West saw Henry LaRue had his eyes shut. His lips were moving. The CL-284 wallowed through the jet fighter's turbulence, but did not change course.
"How do they explain about this butcher bird," the priest-pilot angrily shouted, "to their Eskimos who are supposed to have become innocent -- of whiteman's machines."
"When Suxbey descends from the sky -- above the Esks in four years," Dr. West laughed with strain, "he could explain this F-111 was a winged god watching over them."
"I thought the Director was to be their only god," the pilot retorted, ducking and grinning and holding his northward course as the F-111B made another pass.
"He's trying to do the best he can for them -- from his point of view." Dr. West stared at this priest-pilot who faithfully was refusing to change course in the face of threatening F-111B collisions, refusing to be forced down.
Evidently the pilot was unwilling to commit aerial murder. Flying three times faster than the VTOL all over the sky, the fighter plane burned away its fuel and departed. The priest-pilot appeared to have won.
"Can you recognize the bay?" he shouted at Dr. West, grinning.
They had found it, the familiar bay and the river flowing from the little lake.
"Never have I seen such a big Eskimo camp," the priest-pilot marvelled as he set the CL-284 straight down on the snow-dusted gravel beside all the newly raised winter igloos.
Dr. West swung outside already shouting to the Esks.
"You are asking about a woman?" Henry LaRue shouted, revealing a better understanding of the Eskimo language than Dr. West had expected, and Henry jumped down beside him, interrupting Dr. West's conversation with the Esks. "We came here to count and inspect, not to chase a woman. All these young women look -- healthy, well-fed. Do they have the hospitality of the Eskimos in the old days? If necessary I would not want to hurt their feelings if hospitality were offered. I am a bachelor and a serious student of Eskimo -- language."
"The important Esk -- Eskimo, I am looking for has moved to the next bay," Dr. West said truthfully. "His name is Peterluk, and I think he may have been a witness to the arrival of these Esks."
Dr. West did not mention Marthalik was said to be living in a new camp beyond that next bay.
"Beyond a little hill," the Esk boy murmured as Dr. West maneuvered this unsuspecting guide and the smiling and waving LaRue back toward the aircraft.
In the rising VTOL, the Esk boy sat bravely. He peered down, then up, his mouth opening. "We are near to Grandfather Bear?"
Dr. West shook his head. He couldn't answer that one, as the CL-284 sank down toward the white flat at the head of the next bay. When the swirl of snow settled, Dr. West saw a lone igloo. "Peterluk?"
"Bad man," the boy murmured, but he climbed out.
Dr. West glanced at the ancient Winchester Model 70 rifle strapped above the aircraft door, part of the priest-pilot's survival equipment. "I'll stay here and keep her warm," the pilot said, and Dr. West shrugged and climbed out empty-handed, followed by LaRue. If he approached the igloo carrying a rifle, he thought old Peterluk might be happy for an excuse to shoot. That day they had struggled for possession of Dr. West's rifle in the crater of the Burned Place, the Navel of The World, Peterluk had been flung down. Growling with rage, he had fled back to the rocks to get his own rifle, but he had not shot then.
Dr. West realized Peterluk wasn't here to shoot now. Like farewell notes, his dog's droppings were steaming in the intense cold. The trail of Peterluk's sled curved over a low hill.
The young Esk crawled into the entry tunnel, cheerfully shouting. From the igloo his voice came back to Dr. West. "Grandmother! This person happy you wait for us."
In the translucent dimness of the igloo, Dr. West recognized old Eevvaalik seated on the skin-covered ledge behind her strange ceramic seal oil lamp.
"Eh-eh! You -- " she laughed in instant recognition. "He is not afraid -- of you."
"Eevvaalik, when will your husband return?"
Her weathered face exposed stumps of teeth in what might have been a smile of triumph. "When your airplane was smaller than a petrel bird, already my husband was loading his sled. He has long eyes."
"He ran off and left you." Dr. West tried to create resentment of Peterluk, so that Eevvaalik might tell the truth for a change, but she laughed at him.
"My husband says not even a woman should be afraid of you, you plain whiteman who does not wear a gray uniform, not even a cap with a red star, so he is not afraid of you," she sighed. "He is afraid of what he did not tell you. After so many winters, in his dreams he cries out like a child."
Stinging snow particles shot across the dim igloo. The two men, the boy, the woman blinked at the small bright hole which had appeared in the snow wall. A muffled sound from outside had followed the rifle b
ullet through the igloo.
Dr. West smiled apologetically at LaRue and lay down on the icy floor. "I believe we've found Peterluk."
The Eskimo Invasion Page 11
