The Eskimo Invasion

by Hayden Howard

  "I move. I speak," Mao III said. "What do you wish to speak about?"

  Sleep until I awaken you. Dr. West lay there staring up at the triumphantly grinning faces of the Harvard Circle.

  Dr. George Bruning, boy wonder, geophysicist, astronaut, political climber, and buddy of the President.

  Dr. Sam Wynoski, chemopsychiatrist.

  Dr. Fred Gatson, bacteriologist and ladder climber.

  Dr. Einar Johansen, neurosurgeon and electric eel fancier.

  Dr. Tom Randolph, parapsychologist.

  You CIA Sons of bitches, Dr. West thought so gently that Mao III did not awaken, you've succeeded in planting your man in Peking.

  But am I your man? You may have implanted general guidelines in my skull such as "love America." But you could never prepare me for all the quick and unexpected decisions a new dictator must make. I have a feeling I am free now -- to do what I want.

  Within a few days we'll find out.

  9. UNDERGROUND DYNASTY

  Deep within the assassin-proof vault, a traditional dragon symbolizing good fortune flaunted his gold-painted tail above the most important telescreen.

  Across this surveillance screen moved Chiu Hsing (Saving Star) electric fuel cell powered sedans rolling off an assembly line in distant Shanghai. Click, televised from even further south, in Canton well-fed students in traditional dacron robes sprang erect to face an antique blackboard of chemical formulas.

  Click, televised erect, as if disdaining underground silos and contemptuous of strategic dispersal, protruding enormously above the pink-walled courtyard of Peking's ancient Winter Palace, threatening nose cone symbolizing --

  "Now show what's really important," Dr. West challenged. "We both know what feeds all this -- "

  Tapeworm, you force me too much pain, the protesting thought flickered faintly within Dr. West's brain.

  Beside Dr. West, the thin fingers on the control console remained obstinately motionless. Dr. West could feel the other man's resistance like sparks within his own skull. Authoritatively, Dr. West withdrew his support. Beside him, the opposing face sagged while paralysis again spread from the stroke-damaged brain. Dr. West returned his mental support, and those narrowing eyes widened.

  The two men were alone in the Command Vault beneath Peking, but they were not alone.

  "Now!" Dr. West commanded aloud, and beside him the unparalyzed fingers moved more obediently across the numbered push buttons on the control console.

  Click, on the surveillance screen, shimmering across a thousand miles, appeared the contorted mountains of Szechwan Province, laboriously terraced. Up new tiers of glittering mountain rice paddies, swarming shapes with hoes clambered into graying rain.

  Closer, Dr. West thought. Signal for a closer view.

  Beside him the man's fingers, which had been paralyzed, moved. Click-click across the thousand miles, and in Szechwan Province a telelens panned along the rain-gray mountain. Across tiny rice paddies, beaded along a precipice, swept the rain. Dissolving mudlips slipped. Whiskered rice paddies smaller than bathtubs burst down the terraces. Scurrying Esks struggled to repair dissolving edges with dissolving mud.

  The whole cliff's about to slide, Dr. West thought as the telelens zoomed at a random rain-drenched face. In this moment of peril, the surveillance screen was flooded by the Esk's infuriatingly senseless grin.

  "Dammit, even now, that one's looking north!" Dr. West shouted, his body tightening in another of his uncontrollable agonies of rage and frustration. "Every day. More and more Esks looking north at the sky." His voice choked as his breathing squeezed tight. His rage or fear was making his heart muscle wince.

  Beside him at the console the thin hand contracted like a dying spider. Dr. West felt his own pain reflected through Mao III as they both grasped for breath. He blinked at Mao III's loud-gasping face, now waxen above the luxurious black dacron robe.

  Instinctively, Dr. West's hand slid another tiny white pill under his own tongue. The tightening was in his heart, not Mao III's. The stinging sensation beneath his tongue helped him relax even before the .32 mg trinitroglycerine tablet dissolved, diffused, reopened the constricted arteries within the cramped muscle which was his heart. He relaxed, sheathed with sweat.

  Beside him, the partially paralyzed Mao III regained his breathing rhythm, emitting rhythmic hissing sounds in the Command Vault 4000 feet beneath Peking.

  On the telescreen the random Esk still stood grinning at the sky as if symbolizing a billion, two billion Esks spreading over the world, all smiling into space.

  "There is nothing up there but sky," Dr. West muttered.

  Unconscious of the surveillance lens, the Esk bent his rain-washed back once more, and his obedient hands scooped mud upon the dissolving rim of the rice terrace. Beside him worked a child, and another child, dozens of Esk children working rhythmically in the rain.

  So much more quickly maturing than Chinese children, they appeared to be twelve-year-olds. Dr. West estimated this swarm of children had been born two years ago. In another year they would be reproducing babies of their own.

  "You fool!" Dr. West shouted at Mao III. "You still insist they are human. But such unhumanly quick mothers and embryos! A one-month gestation period -- " Dr. West closed his eyes. "Human?"

  Up there on the mountainside, Dr. West thought, even a man's hardest labor could not produce the equivalent of 1800 calories of rice energy each day he needs to keep him working and alive. But these Esks are producing a rice surplus.

  "You fool!" Dr. West glared at Mao III. "Do you still think you are leaping fifty years of Marxist-Maoist agricultural frustration? Yes, you have a rice surplus this year. Yes, you are elbowing into world trade. With surplus rice, you are filling the bellies of Chinese industrial workers and troops all over Southeast Asia and spreading west -- You are increasing the Esks to produce an even bigger agricultural surplus next year, but the Principle of Diminishing Returns is not an economist's myth. And the ghost breathing on your neck is Malthus."

  That discredited eighteenth-century English pessimist, Mao III's thoughts taunted, who did not foresee that the scientific improvements of Maoist agriculture can race ahead of hunger.

  "How can you talk about scientific agriculture," Dr. West shouted, "while depending on Esks? Even with scientific agriculture in the sea, this planet has limits! The human population is only doubling every twenty-five years. We both know the Esk population is doubling every year in China."

  Dr. West stared at Mao III's lopsidedly smiling face, and added bitingly: "Are you master or tool? The first few Esks did not appear in the Arctic because Maoist theology wished them there."

  At this, Mao III's thought-projection turned as blank as Arctic ice.

  If there is a purpose in life, Dr. West thought and oddly visualized a spinning globe with a Geographic North Pole set in the white Arctic Ocean and, rotating closely around it, the bare rocks of Canada's Boothia Peninsula, present locus of the Earth's magnetic lines of force, of the North Magnetic Pole. There he had discovered the first few grinning Eskimos who were not -- "

  "What are they?" Dr. West croaked, his thoughts circling back in the old rut. So nonviolent, so obedient, so happily increasing as if they can feel their purpose approaching. Always smiling, no matter what we do to them, as if they feel their purpose approaching. Closer every day. "What is their purpose? Their purpose can't be our purpose!"

  He stared at Mao III.

  No purpose. Mao III's thoughts derided Dr. West with startling humor for a paralytic who was gasping for breath. No purpose anywhere. End-purpose of the universe when I die equals nothing. No ten thousand years of Maoism. Nothing. So you cannot frighten me with too many Esks.

  Mao III's throat corded with effort, and he managed to gasp aloud, "Nothing frightens me after what you did to me, my brain tapeworm. You parasite -- " his voice struggled.

  Dr. West's forehead wrinkling with effort, Mao III's voice gurgled to silence. But Mao III's thoughts, like javelins,
penetrated Dr. West.

  My power is nothing. Squirm, my tapeworm. So shrewd, the capitalist plan to invade me with you. But your success is nothing. Mao III's face contorted like a smile. Squirm in my intestine of power, my tapeworm. You a new leader? I laugh. Since the beginning of time, the world has been impossible for leaders. What can you do?

  Dr. West's thoughts and body tightened defensively, and Mao III's face sagged. His transmitted thoughts were blurred by pain. Dr. West watched him gasping for breath. It would be catastrophic to let him die.

  Cold with sweat, Dr. West squirmed on the console chair. Instructions must have been given me , his thoughts revolved, in case I succeeded like this.

  Confused by echoes of Mao III's thoughts, Dr. West moaned with motionless effort turned inward. There was no coherent clue to his next line of action. His memory seemed torn apart.

  He knew the electrointerrogation after his "capture" had contributed to his present disorganization. And this symbiotic relationship -- Mao III was cursing it as parasitic -- might be permanently disorganizing both of them.

  His dreams -- until he began giving Mao III sleeping pills, Mao III's dreams had awakened him.

  The pink walls enclosing the Great Square had echoed from marching troops and awakened Dr. West, imagining it was his own dream. Then dim ranks of children wearing red bandanas around their throats had passed through Dr. West's mind even though he was awake. Endless ranks of children with red balloons, white balloons, and Dr. West felt a growing sensation of joy and pride. Mao III must be watching them from his dream. " Mao Tse-tung wan shui! Mao Tse-tung wan shui! " their shrill voices shouted. May Mao Tse-tung live ten thousand years!

  In unison the balloons in the dream were released. But Mao Tse-tung had been dead for nearly forty years. Mao III must have been an unknown young man then. Dr. West realized that Mao III was dreaming of his youth before the interregnum of committees and armies which followed the death of Mao Tse-tung.

  The following fatherly figure, Mao II, had been a desperation figurehead. But Mao III was here in the Command Vault, whether in command of China or subtly trapped by a coalition of generals, Dr. West still was unable to determine.

  "Command into the telecom," Dr. West blurted. "Speak to your interrogators on the surface who failed to protect you from me. Order them to prepare any Esk. I -- you want to ask that Esk one question."

  Mao III's breath hissed out, and Dr. West allowed the paralyzed hands to move across the console.

  Without Dr. West's mental concentration, Mao III's stroke-paralyzed body was useless sinew, skin and bones. Now it moved as if Mao III still were in command.

  Such a small decision. Mao III's thought derided. To question an Esk. For seventeen years we have been peeling their brains like onions -- to find nothing. They are simply mutated Eskimos. Nothing more.

  As Mao III's finger stabbed a pattern of buttons, Dr. West detected no discernible treachery in Mao III's thoughts. Colossal contempt emerged from Mao III: Tapeworm, you will learn that Esks contain no magical racial memory. What magical question can you ask? My technicians have questioned them electrically until I was ill from the smell of charring flesh. Such innocent people: Esks cannot even think of lies to confess.

  There was a humming from the communications contact with the surface interrogation clinic, and Dr. West allowed Mao III's voice to speak. What emerged were Dr. West's orders.

  The distant answer: "Within fifteen minutes an Esk will be positioned, Chiu Hsing." Click.

  Dr. West's eyebrows rose. "Chiu Hsing, an honorific title meaning Saving Star? That also is the name of your mass-production automobile," Dr. West laughed softly as Mao III peered questioningly at him.

  With the dignity of a Mandarin, Mao III nodded. "I gave happiness." As he detected the derision in Dr. West's thoughts, Mao III scowled. "You are a monomaniac convicted of attempted Eskimo genocide," Mao III's voice rushed as if he expected Dr. West to shut him off. "You would not be here if I had not suffered my brain-stroke, parasite! You have such little plans. To question an Esk until he dies. Listen, my tapeworm, the deepest words you will excavate from a stupid Esk are their incorrect Arctic myths, a confusion of bear worship and imperialist Bible fables." Mao III smiled. "Maoist science has proved Esks are nothing but mutated Eskimos." His voice shrilled. "You fraud, perhaps you were in the Arctic when the Esks still were few. But it is I who saw the future for China, who managed the rescue of thousands of Esks from Canadian starvation."

  "And you're helping them breed beyond a billion?"

  "They are as human as I am, and more human than you, you genocidal maniac." Mao III gasped for breath.

  As Dr. West mentally strangled his speech, Mao III's thoughts continued attacking. Tapeworm, you are sitting in my Command Vault as if you imagine you control the greatest organized power on Earth. Yet your mind is so small, you are planning to waste time personally interrogating, yes, torturing one little Esk.

  Dr. West said nothing. Finally he nodded his head. "As you say, the questioning is a small step. A larger step will follow." Dr. West improvised, forcing his weary smile at Mao III. "You are going to reappear before the world."

  That plan now elaborated so swiftly in Dr. West's mind, he thought he accidentally must have cued some original hypnoinstructions. "You are going to appear before the telecamera to demonstrate that your rumored retirement, nice word, is false. You have recovered from the rumored stroke. You are going to ask for an international teleconference between you and -- "

  No name automatically was formed by Dr. West's voice. Dr. West blinked. Nothing flowed, no well-ordered plan from his damaged memory. If the Harvard Circle had implanted further instructions in case he reached Mao III, they were erased. He was alone. Had he always been alone?

  "The subject of the teleconference will be -- " Dr. West waited. Nothing. He made his own decision based on his own beliefs of thirty years -- "You will propose a split-screen teleconference with the President of the United States. Before a world audience you will negotiate for international population control."

  Dr. West smiled. "This may seem even more difficult than weapons control. Because population limitation proposals invariably enrage the populace of nationalistic countries, you will negotiate only for population limits for our Esks. It seems reasonable that the U.S. and China each should agree to limit their Esks to one billion."

  "Limitation of Esks?" Mao III laughed aloud. "Your monomaniac fear of Esks reappears in another new disguise. International limitation agreement? Impossible ideal. More impossible than atomic control."

  Mao III's smile became malicious. "The United States could never agree to limitation of your Esk population. You look startled, my tapeworm. Either our electrointerrogation burned holes in your memory, or those murderous plotters in the CIA neglected to correctly inform you of what has happened in the United States during the last sixteen years."

  Dr. West blinked in confusion.

  "Don't you remember where you -- slept during the last sixteen years?" Mao III persisted. "At least I have seen your dossier. Do I know more than you? The New China News Agency knows where you were. Seventeen years ago, in Canada you had been convicted of genocide as the whole outraged world remembers. You should have been executed. You were coddled in the New Ottawa Reformation Center. For some reason, which I do not know, soon you were moved to what Canadians euphemistically refer to as the Cold Room. So you can't remember what's truly happened. You've been asleep for sixteen years. Were you startled to awaken in the United States? You confessed to my own interrogators that you regained consciousness in a large basement room in a large building across the river from Washington."

  Mao III laughed. "The imperialists finally had a use for you -- you mass murderer. You were stolen from an indeterminate sentence in Canada, rescued because the United States Government finally concocted a filthy use for you."

  Dr. West blinked. A circle of memory faces peered down at him. He had been startled by how old Fred Gatson looked. B
eside him a man with a hypo also appeared vaguely familiar.