The Eskimo Invasion

by Hayden Howard

  "Let me take your temperature," said Dr. West.

  "I'm all right, sir. I'm never ill."

  The Mountie's temperature was 100.

  "I'm all right, sir. Do you think an outsider has brought in the flu? Those bearded types in the LST, they do a lot of coughing. I've eaten several meals with them. I'm never ill, sir, but I'm concerned about our Eskimos." The Mountie peered out the door. "They used to be quite susceptible, sir. Back in 1972 we had severe influenza which started in Baffin Island, We tried to quarantine. We watched it spread on the map -- "

  "I'll go outside," Dr. West said.

  The Mountie opened his mouth as if to protest. Whether from concern that Dr. West also might be a flu carrier or that Dr. West might make an unauthorized departure, the Mountie did not say.

  Dr. West observed some of the children were sitting, rather than racing around. When he dipped the thermometer in the alcohol tube, women squeaked with fright and edged away. Apparently the women were afraid he was preparing to inject them -- with a new kind of no-baby needle. This was confirmed by the laughter of the men. Children were giggling.

  After much instruction and demonstration to ensure they did not bite off the thermometer, Dr. West began taking children's temperatures. Most of this small group were running temperatures of 99.

  The Mountie appeared behind him, breathing hard and keeping away from the Esks. Mosquitos clustered on his blotchy face. "Sir, do you think -- I think I shall order an immediate quarantine of this village."

  From a distance, the Mountie told certain men to carry his words through the village, guards should be appointed, and so forth.

  While Esks might be more obedient than Eskimos, as the day dragged on Dr. West observed several groups departing. Their fellow Esk guards hurried after them, gestured, tried to explain. But Esks never use force, Dr. West thought. The Esks accepted life as cheerfully and noncombatively as if it were a dream soon to be ended. Soon guards and departees all were laughing. The guards waved good-bye. The departees trudged north along the coast toward one of the smaller camps. They had no sleds, no dogs. The Esks bred so much faster, that their dogs had become a rare minority with larger appetites than Esks. Most of the accessible seals had been killed, and the younger Esks wore only war-surplus khaki. When winter returned, Dr. West thought, there would be misery and death.

  "At the least, this epidemic will slow the birthrate," Dr. West muttered in self-justification, "and give the Canadian Government time to formulate a policy, before the western hemisphere is overrun." He realized he was talking to himself again and closed his mouth. Western hemisphere overrun sounded -- ridiculous.

  At least this epidemic will demonstrate, for the first time on a large group, what planned bacterial population control can accomplish. "Quickly, cheaply, almost humanely -- "

  By the next day Dr. West's confidence was shaken. Some Esks showed symptoms of the disease, but mild symptoms on the bell-shaped curve. Marthalik's must have been a severe case.

  Few Esks showed temperatures of as much as 99.6. Plainly Esks were more resistant than humans. Not only were they completely immune to TB, they were only mildly affected by this population control disease.

  It was the Mountie who was sick. His temperature had risen to 102 degrees.

  Dr. West discovered the bearded humanitarians in the LST were running temperatures of over 101 to 103. The two Life photographers were confined to their tent. The bleary-eyed Mountie radioed for airborne medical help.

  Dr. West stared down at old Eevvaalik shivering in the blankets of what had been Dr. West's bed. Her temperature was approaching 103 degrees. He lost his nerve and began to cool her with damp rags. He forced aspirin between her dry lips. She whined at the bitter taste.

  "Let this -- person," she protested, " -- find happiness. Do not -- do things -- No. Eh-eh." She laughed or coughed. "You not sick -- don't know."

  He tried to force another aspirin.

  "Pah!" she spat it back. "You don't know."

  Unexpectedly, she said: "You don't even know -- this person is the mother of everybody. Eh-eh."

  "Yes, I know that." Dr. West knelt beside her, gently agreeing with whatever she said. He glanced at the tape recorder but the batteries were filled with gravel. "I know you are the mother. Who is the father? What did he look like?"

  "Terrible, this person feels terrible," Eevvaalik moaned. "This person, eh-eh, won't remember until you make her feel so good."

  Even now, was she still teasing him, holding back her knowledge for some last advantage? Dr. West did not know.

  Eevvaalik was prattling feverishly about her youth, when she was a young girl. "Eh-eh, in those days, few Innuit (Eskimos), many seals. This young person was so fat and beautiful. Now this old person is burning. Tired. Sleep. Want to sleep," she cried out in sudden pain. "Help me! Want to sleep."

  By contrast, the Mountie kept getting out of bed. He staggered between the window and the radio closet, where his two-way radio equipment was housed. "Sir, until the medical aircraft reaches us, and it never will, what with fog and mechanical difficulties and false promises, sir, we've got to do something for these people."

  "They're not as sick as you are."

  "Sir, the old woman looks like she's dying."

  "Not likely," Dr. West answered with more confidence than he felt. "She -- and you are the two with the highest temperatures.

  "I'm responsible for all these people, sir. I should have kept this disease from spreading. The operator at Seal Camp says fever has already reached there. Says some of my people arrived there yesterday. Why don't you do something; you're a doctor, or were a doctor." The Mountie staggered back to the radio closet without waiting for a reply.

  Dr. West bent over the fitfully sleeping Eevvaalik. He had started both Eevvaalik and the Mountie on a course of terramycin capsules, to keep down any additional bacterial infections. Against the bacteria now spreading its secondary poison through the narrow tube structures of their bodies there was a specific antibiotic, and he did not have it. It would not have been available to him without a risky theft from the guarded laboratory in California. It was a classified military secret, as were the bacteria in the spray cans.

  Dr. West smiled bitterly. For accepting Steve Jervasoni's stolen starter sample of this population control bacteria, for conspiring in the theft of a military secret, already he was liable to prosecution by the U.S. Government. If the spray cans and the bacteria were traced to him and he was taken back to the U.S. -- he remembered what happened to men who stole other military secrets

  "Now the radioman at Stone Bay says it's popped up there." The Mountie was clumsily charting the new locations of the illness on his wall map. "It's what we did during the flu epidemic," he muttered ineffectually. "The date of appearance and where the visitors came from. I keep telling them to cut off every camp from every other camp. So many Esks traveling, spreads and spreads."

  The next day the promised medical plane still had not even taken off. Engine trouble was reported, and the Mountie blundered around the cabin, flopping down on the bed and sleeping fitfully.

  By now, R.C.M.P. radio operators up and down the coast were comparing virulency of the disease in their respective encampments. The bacteria had spread south from one coastal camp to the next until mild cases were reported in the fifth camp. Only a few mild cases in the fifth camp --

  "Here, we had it worse, but now we're getting better." The Mountie stared out the doorway.

  The Esk children were becoming more active. The disease was running its course.

  At Dr. West's suggestion, the medical aircraft was diverted to another camp. The Mountie seemed to want the aircraft here first, but he agreed, temporarily.

  The next day as his fever declined, the Mountie scribbled more detail into his chart -- as if a map showing the spread of the disease magically could control the disease.

  "I can't understand this," the Mountie said. "It seems to have stopped going south. In the fifth encampment, th
ey say there are visitors from the fourth encampment but no one in the fifth encampment has it bad enough to matter. A few slight fevers. Do you think it's halted here?" He pressed his thick finger against the map.

  "Yes." Dr. West didn't wince, but a clue was stalking him.

  On each of the five encampments to the south, the map contained the Mountie's scrawled date for the reported arrival of visitors. "Everyone's done a terrible job of not keeping visitors out, sir. More inefficient than during the flu. So many more people now, but it's no excuse, sir."

  In the village immediately south of them about 50% of the Esks reportedly had been sick. In the second village 20% to 25%, in the third village less than 20%, in the fourth village 10%, and in the fifth village there were only a few with a mild fever or other symptoms.

  "As it went south, the disease died out," the Mountie murmured. "It's not like flu, is it, sir?"

  "No, it isn't," Dr. West agreed.

  At the map, staring at the opposite extension of the disease in a northerly direction, Dr. West began to have a trapped feeling. A clue as to the origin of the disease was beginning to take shape on the map.

  "The two villages nearest north of us had it as bad as we did," the Mountie said, talking to himself. "Then it faded, weaker in each of the next five villages. So it took a total of seven villages to wear out the disease going north, but five going south."

  He turned and stared at Dr. West.

  "The two north camps where they had it as bad as we did," the Mountie said, "their radio operators both report they noticed orange cans, mosquito spray cans like we've been using here. Traveling Esks -- "

  Outside, there was the roar of the boat-shaped medical aircraft circling the harbor for a landing.

  The Mountie's face widened with relief and he walked back into his radio closet and closed the door.

  Dr. West knelt by Eevvaalik's sleeping form. As he lifted her wrist to feel her pulse he knew she was dead.

  When the Mountie came out of the radio closet, he stared at her, then at Dr. West's drawn face.

  "She's not the only one dead, sir. I didn't want to disturb you before the aircraft arrived, but about a dozen people are reported dead to the east of us, and a spray can. Older people. They were camped beside the empty Cultural Sanctuary Guard Station, the only old people."

  "The last of the real Eskimos," Dr. West blurted, and felt sick as if this Mountie and the whole world were closing in on him.

  "I think so, sir. I think the disease was strongest where the spray cans were, sir. Here, there, and in the two camps to the north where visitors carried mosquito spray cans. I've had men on the lookout for cans in the other camps but no sign of them. I know the disease is mildest in the camps furthest away from the cans. You're a doctor. How do you explain that, sir?"

  "Probably a bacteria with self-attenuating virulency," Dr. West answered with calm desperation.

  "I've never heard of that, sir."

  "There's a lot you haven't heard of!" Then Dr. West managed to control his voice. "Think of bacteria as microscopic blobs like strings of grapes, typical bacteria each excreting tissue-destroying poison as an incidental by-product. The toxin is what makes the person feel sick. Virulent bacteria, we say."

  Dr. West stared out the open door to the harbor where the big tilt-jet flying boat had landed; now the Mountie had reinforcements. "Where was I? Bacteria multiply so rapidly, a new generation every half hour, millions of bacteria within a person," Dr. West laughed unexpectedly. "Every hour there is the possibility of hundreds of bacterial mutations. Bacteria with slight genetic alterations may be more virulent or less so. Here is the surprising thing. A single mutated bacterium may be -- born, which is less virulent, excretes less poison and arouses less resistance in the body of the person. Perhaps for that reason, it and its descendants are able to multiply more quickly through the next few bodies than the competing bacteria of its species. The mutated mild bacteria may win the competition. Bacteria compete for living space, too. These less virulent but more fertile bacteria squeeze out their old-fashioned relatives and take over."

  "From the poisonous ones, sir? Like the meek shall inherit the earth? Hardly that, sir?"

  "In self-attenuating bacteria, that is what has happened." Dr. West laughed as if in triumph. "The less poisonous had a built-in survival advantage. They've spread through the Esks with less and less symptoms, until they could infect the world with no noticeable effect, no harm."

  "The bacteria, sir?" The Mountie was staring at the map. "Surprising to me, sir. The opposite would be so much worse --

  "You mean more and more virulent mutations. For some bacteria this does happen. But it makes no difference to the bacteria as long as multiplication can proceed most rapidly." Dr. West watched the airmen walking up the beach toward -- him. His voice faded: "Like it or not, life's basic chemical command simply is to survive and multiply."

  "It is true there will be too many Esks, sir." The Mountie was staring at him. "Is that what you're really talking about?"

  "What do you think? This planet was yours first! They're only Esks."

  "Perhaps, sir, but this is a civilized country." The Mountie's eyes scrutinized Dr. West. "Are you saying Esks are not fully human, sir? Saying things like that, Hitler soothed his Germans to pop off the Jews, by saying -- other races -- Are you saying Esks aren't human?"

  Dr. West retorted: "Thirty-day gestation period and you still think Esks are human? Those stupid bearded kooks in the LST," Dr. West gasped, "they are the humans. Stupidly feeding a new and competing -- species. Esks. Human? The Esks? No, not human unless monthly births from each Esk woman is an historically human characteristic. Mutated humans? Hell, no! In an Esk there are too damn many neat mutations at one time. They aren't human. You are the humanitarian idiots bringing food so the Esks can multiply until -- "

  "Sir, we can't let people starve! Listen, sir, those bearded chaps in the LST, at least they obeyed the law and handed me approved invoices, lists of all the food they brought in. All imports approved. That is required by law. Look at these approved lists on my desk. Shipping number 334 is for 500 cartons of prefolded paper diapers. It is not for a little wooden box full of bloody cans of MOSQUITO SPRAY!"

  Dr. West looked away as the Mountie's voice rose.

  "The Esks brought the wooden box to me." The Mountie's voice broke as if in pain. "I said, open it. How could I know? I said, just what I need, mosquito spray. I took an orange can. I said, you chaps take the rest. Sir, I even showed them how to press the knob on top to make the spray come out. Sir, I did it -- the bloody hell! What was in those cans? People died. People died." Mosquitos whined around the two men.

  Dr. West's mouth was so dry he couldn't answer.

  "People died, sir. People died." The Mountie looked down at the lump of bedcovers where Eevvaalik's body lay.

  "But you didn't even get sick, sir," the Mountie blurted. "I think you brought those spray cans from California, sir. The R.C.M.P. will trace them back to where they were manufactured. You needn't speak without advice from your counselor-at-law. Sir --" The Mountie's voice trailed off, and he started out the cabin door.

  The words ARREST and MURDER remained unspoken. All day they had been flying through Dr. West's consciousness like savage-beaked skuas. Now they fell at his feet. The worst had happened. There was nothing more he could do.

  Dr. West's face twisted in a smile of numb relief as the cheery pilots and doctors from the flying boat blundered into the cabin and shook hands all around. The Mountie was too courteous to mention they were shaking hands with a murderer. They all sat down and had tea.

  Voiceless, Dr. West tried not to think ahead to the trial. In Ottawa would they strip him morally naked before the world?