The Eskimo Invasion

by Hayden Howard

  "Pranging you!"

  "You old dreamer. Is this how you earned your pay in your Cultural Sanctuary? Lying around boasting and smoking. Going outside to take away transistor radios from poor little Eskimos. Or stealing their fishhooks. Or shooting down newspaper gentlemen." She winked at Dr. West inaccurately.

  "I know which party you belong to -- my lass," the Cultural Sanctuary Guard's voice wheezed. "Asinine women like you think they understand more than important scientists and statesmen. Your asinine party would solve Canada's problems with her unprepared minorities by making the Eskimos disappear. We'll save a few Eskimos from your melting pot."

  "Please stop disturbing the patient." She pressed her cool hand on Dr. West's forehead between his taped-on encephalogram sensors and winked at him.

  One day when the Guard was asleep, she asked Dr. West if Marthalik was his wife.

  "Marthalik?" Dr. West realized he must have done a lot of talking those first days while he was delirious. "Yes, my wife."

  He lay trapped in the hospital while they attempted massive repairs of his leg, while simultaneously torturing him with Pasteur injections. "It was a bear that bit me, not a mad dog," he protested, but he had to admit to himself that perhaps the bear had been rabid and this was why it had acted so strangely.

  Like a fellow prisoner, the Cultural Sanctuary Guard reclined on the other bed, fully uniformed, setting down his oxygen mask. "Don't plan to escape, lad, while I'm in the can. If you pull off your wires, the monitor will buzz the nurse."

  She might be watching him through the one-way glass wall, Dr. West knew. Because his room was narrower at that end, with an oddly trapezoidal pie shape, he deduced these Intensive Care rooms were arranged around a central nursing station but located in a square building. The center was where the warning lights and sensor readout panels and computer would be located, he thought, wondering how to get out. He saw the walls and floor of his room had removable vinyl covering to help maintain semi-sterility. Whenever his door opened, he could feel air from his room flow outward, evidently an air pressure barrier against outside bacteria. Although the Cultural Sanctuary Guard was a minimum care patient, the hospital staff never allowed the Cultural Guard outside to carry in new bacteria.

  One day, while the glass wall was opening, Dr. West glimpsed a nurse at the central console removing a bottle from a pneumatic tube which must extend down to the pharmacy. He supposed the computerized console had the medication schedules of the patients dialed into it by the doctors. On schedule it would order the medical dosages from the pharmaceutical computer downstairs But there were no stairs. To escape from the ward he would need to use the elevator.

  Trapped with his leg in an antigangrene hip boot pulsating, Dr. West had to envy the medical technology in this Canadian hospital. Everything expensive that they talked about in the States, and rarely installed, was here: patient self-service beds, liquid residue diets, electrocephalic sleeping helmets, old-pro nurses.

  "You have a visitor." She glowered at the tweedy bacteria carrier, who extended toward Dr. West an unsterile and leathery hand.

  It was a hard grip the wizened man had, a commanding gaze. The nurse departed. The Cultural Sanctuary Guard, who had been standing at attention, obediently departed as if he had heard an order from this grimly smiling man.

  "Dr. West, I've been most interested by your dossier -- your, shall we say, checkered career," Hans Suxbey said. "As Director of the Eskimo Cultural Sanctuary, I've often imagined how it would feel to be -- fired. I assume your resignation was not a, shall we say, cover. You weren't sent into my Sanctuary by that Oriental Population Problems Research Project from which you were fired. The U.S. Defense Department surely can't be interested in my innocent Eskimos."

  Dr. West smiled like a shield. "I'm up here on my sabbatical, on University of California money, not Defense Department money. Either press legal charges against me or let me go."

  "Nothing would give me greater pleasure than for your medical treatment to be completed, so you can depart for the States. You raved so deliriously on the various aircraft which transported you here from Boothia, that your accidental crash and heroic rescue by one of my Eskimos earned thirty seconds on the TV news. But you've been forgotten, replaced by more important news such as Ottawa's increasing lead over San Francisco in the new International Hockey League."

  "What crash? What happened to my pilot?"

  "The English are abominable pilots. Before our aircraft could intercept him, he crashed. So much open water in Victoria Strait."

  "Your F-111 forced him down or shot him down?"

  "Of course not," Hans Suxbey laughed. "But it would have been better for all concerned if our radar had noticed his aircraft on the way into the Sanctuary, while you still were in the aircraft. Even now, your distraught wife is lurking outside the pris -- the hospital."

  "My wife?"

  "So she's not," Hans Suxbey laughed. "I thought any woman who carries her marriage license in her purse must have an ulterior motive. Either she's the most persistent of the reporters or she's been sent by the McGill University crowd who put you up to this."

  Dr. West said nothing, wondering if the Director's attaché case contained a tape recorder.

  "My former colleagues at McGill have never forgiven me." The Director's face seemed to age. "Because my own career began at McGill, Lecturer in Eskimo Ethnology over thirty years ago, they think I owe them special treatment. For twenty years they have been demanding to inspect, that is, to violate my Eskimo Cultural Sanctuary, even though this would shatter its purpose. Hordes of note-taking ethnologists by their very presence would disturb the cultural pattern of any primitive people. How can my easily influenced Eskimos regain their prehistoric independence and self-confidence if they're to be jostled by professors, with notebooks, and then denigrated by loudmouthed whitemen riding in Sno-Cats and flaunting two-way radios, nylon tents, rifles, canned food, steel knives? My industrious Eskimos may be beginning to recreate bone knives."

  "If they don't starve to death this winter -- " Dr. West thrust.

  Hans Suxbey stared him down. "While you were delirious, your babblings about a one-month gestation period for women, for women, that is, not lemmings, was reported by some gullible spy to the sensationalist press, where your name was printed. Your ravings were quoted. This may have destroyed the remnants of your professional reputation."

  Dr. West nodded glumly. "What did you do with my black notebook?"

  "You attempted an incredibly sloppy age-sex census."

  "At least it shows a disproportionate number of children, suggesting a startling increase in population. Too many hungry mouths, not enough adult hunters, starvation this winter. Where is my notebook?"

  "Prehistoric Eskimo culture was shaped by their harsh Arctic environment."

  "Implying starvation has cultural benefits which you can't admit to the press or Parliament," Dr. West persisted. "More Eskimos, more starvation, more authenticity in your cultural museum."

  "I plan to introduce plastic intrauterine birth control devices into their religious rites in four years when the Eskimo elements of their culture are stronger, and I plan to enter my -- their Sanctuary."

  "Do it now. Open your eyes to reality in your Sanctuary," Dr. West said, "or there will be too much starvation this winter. Your Guards will turn against you and tell the world what they know. When Canadian voters learn that your Eskimos are starving in Canada, land of wheat surpluses -- "

  "You're exaggerating. You're threatening me?" Hans Suxbey bleated. "My Cultural Sanctuary's my life."

  Hans Suxbey leaned forward, "It's the Boothia Peninsula my enemies want to grab. Members of Parliament would use your lies, any lies, to open the Sanctuary. They hope to strike oil for Quebec. They don't care about my Eskimos. Think what happened to your Navahos when -- "

  "Since uranium was discovered, their living standard has improved."

  "True Navaho culture has vanished," Hans Suxbey stated. "And our last E
skimo culture will vanish if liars like you cause Parliament to vote against my annual appropriation. In Parliament, that greedy old Etienne LaRue is the tool of the oil interests. In Parliament that reactionary old racist, LaRue, is drooling to destroy me and my Sanctuary and the last Eskimo culture. That senile old paranoid in Parliament for twenty years has been trying to destroy me and the last Eskimos."

  "At least the Eskimos in the Co-Ops will -- "

  "Those aren't Eskimos." Hans Suxbey leaned forward, repeating his old protest. "They're lost as Eskimos. They're simply round-faced Canadians disappearing in the homogenized cultural slurb spreading all over the world from the United States."

  Dr. West said nothing, no use arguing with this wild-eyed old man that the real villain for the increasing similarity of cultures throughout the world was not the United States. It was technology.

  "You are anxious to leave Canada," Hans Suxbey was saying, like an offer to do business.

  "Yes." Dr. West was trying to think how he could get back to the Sanctuary and rescue Marthalik before the winter starvation began.

  "But when you reach the United States, you would talk to journalists and contact my enemies at McGill. Deliberately or not you would help destroy the Sanctuary."

  This was difficult for Dr. West to deny. "If you bring me to trial for violating the Eskimo Cultural Sanctuary, the publicity will do the same thing." Immediately he wished he hadn't said that because -- but surely this civilized man wouldn't have him murdered -- would be?

  Hans Suxbey opened his attaché case on his knees and thrust at him the microphone of the tape recorder. "Whatever lies you tell in the States will be contradicted by your recorded statement." He aimed the microphone like a gun. "Simply tell us how you intended to study those debased Co-Op Eskimos to the west. Your aircraft strayed off-course near our Sanctuary and crashed off-shore. Our more authentic Eskimos rescued you. -- What you say now simply will confirm our press release of last month when you were brought to the hospital. You were quoted, shall we say, through my mouth -- "

  Dr. West felt the trap close.

  "You observed them to be well-adjusted to their environment," Hans Suxbey was saying. "Happy and well-fed, they are succeeding admirably in their use of bone and stone artifacts. While one Eskimo was transporting you to our Guard Station, a rabid sled dog attacked you, severely injuring your leg. You remember raving with delirium, strange dreams like a one-month gestation period -- "

  "Go see for yourself."

  "Shall we rehearse before I switch on the recorder?"

  "Yes, rehearse the truth," Dr. West blurted. "Face facts. It's important that you personally enter the Sanctuary this summer, now. See for yourself. Not only will Eskimos starve; suppose for example this one-month gestation trait were not transmitted by inheritance from a mutation. Suppose this increased growth rate of Eskimo embryos has a viral cause, like a cancer, like a communicable cancer which could spread to mothers throughout the world?"

  "The ultimate population explosion?" Hans Suxbey laughed. "When you were fired as Director of Oriental Population Problems Research, you went insane."

  "No, I admit the one-month gestation period probably did begin as a mutation rather than a virus, but when a people's birthrate rises so suddenly, it must be investigated at once. There's not only starvation for your Eskimos; there may be long-term implications for Canada."

  "My next inspection within the Sanctuary is scheduled in my Plan in four years. By helicopter, I'll conduct my next flyover then."

  "Four years?" Dr. West bleated. "Flyover? Inspect from an altitude of 5000 feet? You're the one who is insane. You don't want to disturb your cultural museum. You want survival of the fittest Eskimos? In four years when you enter, you'll inspect your museum -- of starved corpses."

  "Now if you'll relax, we can rehearse something more reasonable for the tape recorder."

  "Like hell I will!"

  "Then don't." Hans Suxbey snapped the attache case shut, rose and departed. "Ever."

  For another month Dr. West underwent minor operations on his leg, waiting for Hans Suxbey to return or for the hospital to release him. Now that the tendons and remnants of muscle were healing they were giving Dr. West daily physiotherapy -- in his room. When he proudly hobbled into the central station, the nurse abruptly pressed an alarm button and an orderly appeared from the elevator and firmly hobbled him back to his room.

  "You're not a prisoner," the nurse insisted and the doctors insisted while they cheerfully played with endless minor cosmetic operations on the skin of his leg, and more weeks crawled by while Dr. West practiced walking quickly to the window of his room.

  Snowflakes fluttered against the glass. Dr. West stared out at the last brown leaves in the park which surrounded the cylindrical white towers of the prison. With the growing strength in his body, he daydreamed of Marthalik. Through a thin spot in the mirrored one-way glass, Dr. West studied the silhouette of the nurse at the central console. When the wheezing Cultural Sanctuary Guard was in the bathroom, Dr. West opened the closet and studied the Guard's civvies for fit. He knew the Guard was standing on the toilet seat with his head in the air vent smoking a cigarette, which was the Intelligent Man's Cure for Emphysema. Swiftly, Dr. West entered the bathroom carrying the Guard's pillow, and the Guard's wheezing stopped. When the dim silhouette of the duty nurse left the console to inspect one of the other rooms, Dr. West put the limp Guard to bed, using both oxygen and manual resucitation to start his wheezing again. He crowned the Guard with the sleeping helmet dialed to MAXIMUM. The sleeping Guard's civilian trousers were too short for Dr. West, the old sportcoat lacked modern duo-lapels, but the next time the nurse left her console station, an unstylish Dr. West left the ward by elevator.

  He had learned the visiting hours.

  On the ground floor he limped away among the visitors departing from the Minimum Care Ward. He limped after them along the concrete path between the concrete towers. As blankly windowless as silos, they housed the "students" at the New Ottawa Reformation Center. At the gate there was no security. It must be the towers which were escape-proof, Dr. West thought as he entered the monorail car, dropping the Guard's quarter in the slot. The mono whined above the sprawling metropolis of Ottawa.

  He knew Ottawa was only fifty miles from the U.S. border, but the broad St. Lawrence River would intervene. Probably the hospital would be contacting the police and Hans Suxbey. Dr. West hoped the Director of the Cultural Sanctuary would try to call off a public search because arrest publicity would provide new ammunition for the enemies of Hans Suxbey. Dr. West thought, if he reached the U.S., his delirium already misquoted by the press, who would believe his story of a one-month gestation period in the Eskimo Cultural Sanctuary? He needed Marthalik.

  If he sought help at McGill University, he thought those nervous ethnologists might be indecisively helpless. Their instincts would be to guard their research grants. They were afraid to offend the Canadian Government or even such minor political battlers as Hans Suxbey.

  "But there is one man here in Ottawa, he won't be afraid -- to use me." Dr. West hoped he could use this powerful man as a passport back to the Cultural Sanctuary.

  From the monorail he looked ahead to the hill bristling with Parliament buildings. Like a square-sided rocket, the Peace Tower pointed at the afternoon sky as Dr. West limped toward the private office of the most ferocious member of the Canadian House of Commons.

  Inside the outer office of Etienne LaRue, Gobelin tapestries swathed the walls. The cut-glass chandelier glittered. The receptionist's desk was Louis XIV, and the buxom receptionist seemed wasted on Etienne LaRue, who was eighty-four years old with a handshake like parchment.

  "When I heard your name, Dr. West, I come out!" Etienne LaRue straightened and his eyes seemed startlingly youthful. "That lying Suxbey, weeks ago how he lied the press! But my friends in the hospital have report to me -- you seem sane. I wish to believe with you."