Walter Greatshell - Apocalypse blues

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 than 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."