Sometime later, Dr. Langhorne returned, accompanied by a much older lady, a Miss Riggs, whose baggy face was plastered with makeup and whose flaming copper wig looked about as natural as a coonskin cap. I couldn't believe they had given this poor old thing an implant! She dragged a huge rolling suitcase behind her like a homeless person.
"Lulu, Miss Riggs is going to help you get ready for tomorrow. She's a professional, so give her your full cooperation, okay?"
Professional what? I thought apprehensively.
"Oh, my achin' feet," said Miss Riggs, opening the suitcase and setting up a bright light on a stand. "Come on, honey. I ain't gettin' any younger." I hesitated because of my nakedness, but she didn't give a darn. "Let's go!" she squawked.
Half her suitcase was taken up by a big makeup kit with folding trays full of every conceivable grooming tool. I nearly swooned from the smell, which evoked the spicy-sweet aroma of numberless beauty parlors. The color palette had the worn look of long, expert use, and the tools and brushes were arranged as neatly as surgical instruments. The other half of the case contained a stack of carefully packed dresses, all plastic-wrapped as if fresh from the dry cleaner. On top I could see a baroque layered gown of jade silk and antique lace.
"Excuse me," Miss Riggs said to the doctor. "I can take it from here."
"I won't get in your way," said Langhorne.
"I can't stand people lookin' over my shoulder when I'm workin'! Beat it!"
Langhorne was shocked and furious, but she held her tongue. "All right," she said. "Let me know when you're done." To me, she said, "Your escort tomorrow will be Mr. Utik. He'll be here at eleven, so be ready to go. He's conversant in Inuktitut, French, and Danish, but his English may leave something to be desired. I suggest you don't call him an Eskimo, or he'll think you uncouth." She brusquely ducked out.
"Some people can't take a hint," the old lady said. "They don't understand the artistic temperament. You can't crowd talent. I learned that from Jayne Mansfield. You gotta stick up for yourself, or these bozos will walk all over ya." Measuring me, she said, "Honey, you sure ain't no Jayne Mansfield, I'll tell you that. How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"That's a shame. You need some meat on your bones; you look like a plucked chicken. They treatin' you all right in here?"
I couldn't begin to answer; all I could do was cry.
"Aw, honey, you're gonna be all right. You know how many fresh-faced young girls I worked with over the years? I seen 'em all go through it, even Marilyn Monroe. You ain't the first. Some became tramps, some became drunks and dope addicts, some made a career of getting knocked around by the wrong kind of men. There's always gonna be men who think having a pretty dame around will make them hate themselves less, and they take it out on the girl when it doesn't work. Ain't no different now. Hold still."
"What can I do?" I quavered. "What can I do?"
"Don't move." She was fastening the tiny hooks on a carapace-like bustier, her hands strong and nimble and utterly without hesitation or wasted movement, everything coming together with an accidental ease that suggested the opposite of entropy-order flowing from chaos. Despite her rheumy yellow eyes and cigarette-stained teeth, I sensed that nothing could shake her; she was solid. I wished she would stay with me and tell me what to do. I wanted to hide in her suitcase.
With effortless speed, she threw clothes on me from that treasure chest of couture, one dazzling outfit after another, enough to stage the Oscars, all pristine and new. Obscenely plush designer gowns straight off a Paris runway; metallic silks and jewel-fruited filigree; bloodred taffeta and peach satin; cream lace studded with pearls; Versace, Gucci, Dior-annoying names that littered my consciousness with all the other obsolete pop-culture clutter, but which I had never seen on a label, suddenly delivered into my pauper's hands like so much pirate booty. Nothing fit me, but needles sprouted from Miss Riggs's withered lips, thread from her spiderlike hands, cinching in and hemming and pleating, filling out the tops with blubbery foam inserts so that for the first time in my life I looked like a woman. Amazed at my unfamiliar spangled self, I realized I was booty, too-part of the loot.
"You wanna know what to do?" she said through a mouthful of pins. "None of the above. That's the extent of my wisdom, hon: Do none of the above."
Miss Riggs took all the costumes with her to finish working on them-a whole lavish wardrobe, custom-fitted for me. I couldn't quite comprehend it. It had been such a bizarre flurry of activity that I almost believed I had imagined the whole thing, and it was a little bit of a shock the next morning to find all the completed dresses hanging in the tent, with a row of matching shoes lined up below. One of the outfits was set apart, and next to it was something I never expected to see again: the hooded fur cape Hector had given me. I wept to touch it. It had been cleaned and brushed to a high reddish gloss, matching perfectly with the teal-and-black ensemble I was to wear.
At exactly eleven (by the Tiffany watch that had appeared on my bedstand), a pair of Air Force men came in through the tent flap and escorted me down a sausagelike inflated tunnel. I sensed them taking great pains not to stare at me in my finery.
"What happens now?" I asked them.
"We're not at liberty to say, ma'am."
"What do you think of all this?" I tapped my forehead nodule.
One of them was annoyed by my questions, but the other one said, "Everybody's just coping. That's all you can do. Forget who you were and roll with it. Those who can't…" He shrugged.
Eyes swimming with tears, I said, "I'm not sure if I can live like that."
"You wouldn't be the first."
At the end, we came to a revolving door, and they sent me through. Pushed by a gust of warm air, I emerged on an enclosed balcony in pale, subzero twilight. I was outside the dome!
There was someone else on the balcony. A large Inuit man in a long black overcoat with the collar turned up and a gleaming stovepipe hat. He had no implant, making me more aware than ever of mine.
"Oh," I said. "Are you Mr. Utik?"
Doffing the hat with a comical flourish, he said, "Herman." He opened a pneumatic outer door and gestured me through. I braced for the murderous cold, but he took his heavy coat off and wrapped it around me as we went. Underneath he was wearing a striking charcoal uniform with jodhpurs, gold buttons, and highly polished leather boots. The outfit made him look like some kind of Prussian officer. His face was familiar, then I realized he was the bus driver who had intercepted us at the perimeter wall.
I looked across the white divide to that motley armada of planes, and suddenly made the connection-I was being taken out there. Mogul country. Mr. Utik hustled me down a short flight of stairs to a waiting armored truck, and two other equally decked-out native Greenlanders appeared to help me aboard. They all stared at me with frank curiosity.
Climbing into the truck, I had to laugh: From the outside it looked like some kind of tank or riot vehicle, replete with turret, but on the inside it was an outrageous Victorian carriage, roomy as a small RV, with velvet-upholstered walls, pastoral thumbnail portraits in gilded frames (by the likes of Sargent and Cassatt-if they were real), stained-glass lamps, a small mahogany bookcase with miniature editions of Herodotus and Thucydides, two antique divans, and curtains over the gun slits.
"Oh my God," I said, plopping down on one of the burgundy divans. It reminded me of a psychiatrist's couch. All I could think was, If this van's a-rockin-
As the others took their places in the cockpit, Mr. Utik got me squared away, tucking high-tech hot-water bottles around my legs and showing me a cooler full of liquor.
"No thanks," I said. "I'm underage."
This seemed to fluster him, and he gave the order for us to get going.
"I'd give anything to know what you make of all this," I said in an undertone as the vehicle lumbered forward.
"Better than hunting seal," said Utik, sitting behind the drivers.
"What?"
"I said it's better tha
n freezing your ass off out on the ice hunting seal. That's what these guys would be doing now if we weren't working for the qallunaat." He pointed to their backs in turn. "This is Nulialik, and this little runt is my brother, Qanatsiak."
"You speak English."
"Shhh-don't tell anyone."
"Why tell me, then?"
"You're not one of them."
"How do you know?"
"I'm a spy." He winked at me.
"Give me a break."
"I'm spying on you right now."
"I'd believe that."
"But I'm also spying on them."
"The Moguls?"
"Kapluna. Qallunaat."
"What for?"
"Something big is going on. Bigger than all this. We want to know what it is."
From his grin, I couldn't tell if he was being serious or not. "Who's 'we'?" I asked.
"Ilagiit nangminariit-my extended family, and many others, led by an elder-the inhumataq. He believes we bear a special responsibility for all that is happening. We may be the only ones with the power to intervene."
"How so?"
"The indigenous peoples of the Arctic are now the dominant race on the planet. Our civilization is the most intact; the meek have inherited the Earth, just as Christ foretold. But this means nothing unless we can stop the tunraq kigdloretto that has been unleashed."
"The what?"
"Agent X. We call it a tunraq-a spirit invoked by a shaman. Usually it's a helper spirit, but if it is invoked for evil purposes, ilisiniq, it can get out of control and even turn on its user. The kigdloretto is this kind of rogue spirit."
"Okay…"
"My Netsilik ancestors routinely practiced female infanticide, and many of us now believe that it is the ghosts of these girls that are coming back to possess the living. We think they were released by an angotkok, a powerful shaman, who is practicing witchcraft."
"Do you really believe that?"
"All the Seal People were converted to Catholicism long ago, so there aren't many who remember the old ways. Most of what we know comes from legends we heard as children. But a lot of the legends are relevant-it isn't superstition to see connections where they exist. Is it a coincidence that menstrual blood was one of the most powerful instruments of ilisiniq?"
"But how does that help you? What is it you think you can do about it? Cast a spell or something?"
"You're humoring me, but I do believe the answer lies somewhere in our tradition. It won't be a matter of chanting some mumbo jumbo, but of taking rational, specific action at the right time and place. It's a question of recognizing the signs when we see them and interpreting them correctly."
"Good luck."
"It's not a matter of luck, but of fate. Whatever is supposed to happen will happen. Is it luck that all our hunting parties were pinned down by a blizzard on the day the women turned? We came back after a week to find our houses cold, our families gone. The few men and old people who survived told what they saw, showed us the blue bodies of the ghost ones, frozen while trying to break down the doors of the living. Many children, too. Whole towns were dead, and yet all the able-bodied men survived, far out on the sea ice. Was that luck? Some thought we were cursed to have survived. I knew it was for a reason, and when I heard that the qallunaat were arriving in great numbers, I realized it was connected to our purpose. We're here." He got up and threw the door open, admitting a blast of cold. Aircraft loomed around us like a forest.
I didn't want to move just yet. "How did you wind up working here?"
"I've worked for the qallunaat for a long time. I started by selling fossil ivory out of a kiosk in the BX, then served for eight years as Native Liaison and Labor Coordinator for the Danish Interests Office, which used to broadcast Danish Radio off a transmitter at Thule."
"Danish radio?"
"Kalaallit Nunaat-Greenland-is part of Denmark."
"No, I know, but you speak English."
"I grew up in western Canada, outside Yellowknife. There were Canadians and Americans here at Thule. It was what they call a 'joint-use facility.' I remember once a guy from Siorapaluk was caught toking up, and he told them that's what he thought it meant. They let him off the hook! We got along pretty well with the Air Force. I didn't like to see them slaughtered."
I thought of the frozen body parts at the perimeter wall. "What exactly happened?"
"Same as with my people. Piblokto. Madness. Starting with the women, the blue ones spread like lice, but the blizzard prevented them from getting far. There were not many women to begin with, mostly wives of officers. By the time it was over, the Base Commander's Office was being run by small fry like that Lowenthal, who kept issuing statements that help was coming, and the situation was 'well in hand.' When the first wave of planes landed, it seemed to be like he promised. The planes were full of important civilian men with a private army of their own.
"But no one was airlifted out, in fact it was the other way around. More and more newcomers arrived, setting up a separate command post outside the base perimeter. The planes just kept coming in, bringing everything you see now. The Air Force and Air National Guard people who went along with it all got promoted and rewarded, while the ones who complained or resisted were left to rule the empty remains of their base, totally isolated like the Vikings who perished here long ago.
"Since native workers became the only interface between the two systems, we saw it all go down: the frustration of the banished ones as they had to beg for supplies, and the feudal society of the domes. We knew it couldn't last, and it didn't."
"They killed them."
"Uh-huh. The second dome had just gone up, and all the military men decided enough was enough-they were going to march in and demand their rights. So they put on their dress uniforms, loaded their sidearms, and tried a show of force. But those automatic COIL weapons were already in place; there were not even any MPs to appeal to or intimidate. It lasted about two seconds. Not many under the dome even knew it happened."
"What happened?"
"Same as with your friend."
I had a horrible flash of Mr. DeLuca on the snowbank, just before… "I didn't really see that. It was too fast."
"It's a laser beam, like Star Wars. COIL stands for Chemical Oxygen-Iodine Laser. It's an anti-ballistic missile system, but it works just as good against people." Sounding awkward, he said, "I'm sorry."
"You don't have to be sorry," I replied. "It's not your fault. It's nobody's fault. We're all just killing time until the end, I guess."
"No, I mean I'm sorry, but you have to get up. It's time to go."
"Oh."
Helping me out of the truck, he said, "We call winter here the killing time. But just as summer follows winter, we believe there will be a new season for us. For all people. We are chosen to be witnesses to the fall, so that we may tell the story-it's a great responsibility. This means you, too. You carry within you the story of your people and must pass it on."
"That's a little hokey, I'm sorry."
"Why? What do you think's going to happen?"
"I think spring is going to come, and the Xombies will finish taking over the world. The Moguls will either fight it out to the end or turn themselves into a better class of Xombie. There won't be any more babies, and eventually it'll all just sputter out. That's fine. I don't even care anymore."
"What do you mean, turn themselves into Xombies?"
"They're all Xombie wannabes in there. Maybe it's the blue blood. They tried to make a race of supermen and got Xombies instead. They're still at it."
We entered a tented area between jumbo jets, and Mr. Utik led me through a series of insulating flaps to a security station humming with electric radiators. I was reminded of the sub, of its cheap power in the hands of these people. We had come cheap, too, I guess. Armed sentries dressed in commando garb stole lewd looks at me but were outwardly respectful… if not outright nervous. I wondered if they saw me as some kind of a threat. Not as a potential monster, but
as an elite sex slave, a concubine with royal privilege. It was strange to think about.
Utik left me there without a word, and I wondered if he had been mocking or testing me, but our conversation was already unreal and fading fast. I didn't have the capacity for worry that I once had; it just sloughed off. I felt slow and stupid, and liked it that way.
I climbed an enclosed ramp and boarded the plane. It was not a 747, but it was close-a seven-something-seven. After the fancy carriage ride, I was expecting the Palace of Versailles, but the interior of the jet was more low-key-not exactly understated, but of a more contemporary splendor. There was a wide-open seating area like a sleek hotel bar, with earth-toned carpeting and furniture, and aqua lighting from banks of TV monitors. At the back, a softly lit hallway like a modern-art gallery led past smaller compartments. Out of this hall emerged a lithe-looking older man. He was dressed in a striped satin robe as shiny as those Christmas ribbon candies, and his bald head gleamed intermittently in the spotlights, implant-free. He looked like he had just stepped out of the shower.
My snap judgment was, Well, could be worse. I was shaking like a leaf.
As he approached, I could see that despite his age and slight limp, he was quite handsome, with chiseled features and the unthreatening demeanor of a man sharing a laugh at his own expense. My hackles went up: Pervert. He looked at me in the eager, expectant way of some forgotten acquaintance-an elementary-school teacher or distant uncle. And I did know him. Why was he so familiar?
"Hello, Lulu," he said, gravel-voiced. "Welcome."
It was Sandoval.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
"Do you remember me? I know we were never properly introduced, but your father talked about you so much, I already feel like I know you. I'm Jim Sandoval."
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