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 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
