The Eskimo Invasion Read Online Free Page A

breathes out

air from the foot. But it does not breathe in water."
     
     
Now the boys were being fed, six of them. The two largest were teen-agers,

apparently too old to be the children of the young woman behind the lamp.

Then both the young women and five little girls like stairsteps ate,

but amazingly little, Dr. West thought.
     
     
Smiling like any matron at the end of a successful dinner, the woman

withdrew her arm inside the wide sleeve and reaching around inside her

parka brought the baby to the front. Its fuzzy head nursed vigorously.
     
     
"So many children," Dr. West began so that it sounded like a compliment

rather than a question.
     
     
"Eh-eh, many sons," Edwardluk agreed with pride.
     
     
"Eleven children, more than the fingers of my two hands," Dr. West

outwardly marveled, inwardly doubting. "You are both so young."
     
     
"More than my fingers and my toes," the woman behind the lamp added shyly.
     
     
"You are the mother of more?"
     
     
"Three are older than Marthalik," she said, smiling past Dr. West at

the young woman whose knees supported him, "and two who are younger

but already have babies of their own. Grandfather Bear is pleased with

-- them."
     
     
The knees behind him hardened, and Dr. West turned his head thinking

surely Marthalik and the woman nursing the baby had to be sisters. Their

smiling faces seemed equally young. Were they lying? This young mother

obviously couldn't have produced twenty children, some already older

than Marthalik. "You are her sister."
     
     
Marthalik's small hand rose to cover her startled giggle. "This person

is only the daughter of my mother, and Edwardluk is my father."
     
     
Dr. West blinked at Edwardluk, whose smoothly unweathered face indicated

he still was in his twenties. By their thirties, the faces of Eskimo hunters

were seamed by wind and frostbite. Edwardluk's wife, smiling behind the

lamp, still had the fresh face of a teen-ager. Dr. West wondered why

Edwardluk had adopted so many older children. Had their parents died?
     
     
"This person wonders what it is like Outside," Marthalik said boldly

behind him, her breath close to his ear.
     
     
"Marthalik is a bad one who frightens away the boys," Edwardluk laughed.

"They are afraid she will ask them to take her Outside again."
     
     
"This person walked on the winter ice," Marthalik's soft voice added

without laughter. "Where the lightning fence does not go, where Peterluk

said our grandfathers fled, this person walked because -- "
     
     
"The mosquito chased her back," Edwardluk laughed, and Dr. West imagined

the Guard's mirror-windowed helicopter swooping down.
     
     
"What is out there?" Marthalik said anxiously. "This person knows you

are a whiteman."
     
     
"Outside are many whitemen," Dr. West sighed. "White whitemen, black

whitemen, yellow whitemen, more whitemen than all the birds nesting on

all the cliffs." He grinned at Edwardluk. "None serve so much good seal

meat as you, nor are their tents as warm with happiness."
     
     
Edwardluk laughed with pleasure and pride, but Marthalik's hand tightened

on Dr. West's arm. "Old Peterluk, he says in the old days hunters traveled

far to get good things to eat from the whitemen. No one was hungry. Before

Grandfather Bear came down from the sky, all hunters owned loud rifles.

Peterluk says -- "
     
     
"Peterluk is an old man," Edwardluk interrupted, and a hint of unhappiness

appeared in his smiling conversation. "Peterluk is a bad old man who lies.

Sometimes he boasts he has the only rifle in the world; there was never

another rifle."
     
     
"Then Peterluk is," Dr. West guessed aloud, "the man with the big sled

and many dogs who -- "
     
     
"Peterluk ran away from you," Marthalik said firmly, her knees against

his back, "because you are more powerful."
     
     
Dr. West couldn't help smiling at this. He was no warrior but he liked

her compliment. From his parka he took out the notebook and looked