The Best of Kage Baker

by Kage Baker

  “There were several chimpanzees sitting in the center clearing, mostly females with young. They all looked up and stared as we came down the hillside. Some of the smaller juveniles screamed and ran, or threw things, but most of them watched us intently.

  “One or two females signed Look look. Tau 47 led us right up to a female with an infant at her breast and signed, Remember doctor babies gone. Big baby now. Visit. He turned and indicated us. Mrs. Fabry crouched at once and I hastily followed suit. I couldn’t take my eyes off the female. This Gamma 18, he signed to us.

  “Remarkable how different their faces are, one from another, when you see them all in a group. My host-mother had a more pronounced muzzle, and the hair on her head seemed longer than elsewhere, like a woman’s. Taken all in all the effect was a little like that famous parody of the Mona Lisa. But, you understand, by this time she no longer seemed like an animal to me. She looked like the Madonna of the Forest.

  “I signed, Mother, and reached out to her, but she drew back, glancing at me sidelong. Her baby ignored us, snuffling at her long flat breast. After a moment she reached out a tentative hand and knuckled my foot.

  “Funny foot, she signed. Remember. Doctor pull out, take gone. See funny foot. You my baby old now?

  “I signed back, I your baby, good ape now. Mrs. Fabry had tears in her eyes.

  “Gamma 18 signed Good good in an uncertain way. Then she turned to Mrs. Fabry and signed, Comb?

  “We thought she was asking Mrs. Fabry to groom her, and Mrs. Fabry was breathless at the honor and acceptance that implied, but when she hitched herself closer Gamma 18 backed off and repeated Comb? And she carefully and unmistakably mimed running a comb through her hair, as opposed to a flea-picking gesture.

  “Mrs. Fabry said out loud, ‘Oh, you mean you want one!’

  “She happened to be wearing one of those hikers’ pouches at her waist, and she unzipped it and dug around for her comb. She handed it over to Gamma 18, and was instantly surrounded by other females who all wanted things too, and I must say asked for them very politely.

  “Mrs. Fabry, looking radiantly happy, passed out tissues and breath mints and offered little squirts of cologne from a vial she had in there. Gamma 18 moved in closer, and soon they were all sitting around, Mrs. Fabry included, signing to one another and blowing their noses, or taking turns passing the comb through their hair.

  “I sat to one side, dumfounded. Tau 47, who had been watching me, caught my eye and signed, You thing come. He paced away a little distance, looking over his shoulder at me. I got up and followed, feeling sullen and miserable. I had to stand to follow him, because I’ve never been able to walk on my knuckles very well, and of course my rising to my full height set off another round of screams and abuse from the juveniles in the group. One very little male galloped close, pulled up and signed, Ugly ugly pink pink.

  “Angrily I signed back, Dirty stupid. Tau 47 stood up and snarled at the little male, who drew back at once. But he sat there watching us, and to my annoyance began to sign slyly: Pretty pretty pink pink. The other juveniles took it up too, laughing to themselves. I was nearly in tears.

  “Tau 47 huffed and signed, Stupid babies. You smart thing?

  “Not thing, I insisted. Good ape. Tau 47 rolled his eyes as if to say ‘Whatever’ and then signed, You see how lock work?

  “I signed confusion at this. He grunted, sat down and with great care signed slowly: You go in gate. Here. You see how gate lock work? How open?

  “I signed back, Not know. Sorry. You want leave here?

  “I leave leave, he signed. I go back people houses.

  “I was astonished. Why? I signed. This good here. I come here live. It was his turn to look astonished.

  “Come here live, he repeated, as though he couldn’t believe what he’d seen. Why why why? Cold here. Wet here. Bad food. Bugs. Fight bad chimpanzees.

  “I didn’t know what he meant by this, because the Goodall Free Township Committee had selected wilderness that was not only virgin, it was empty of any other chimpanzees. So I signed, Who bad chimpanzees?

  “Tau 47 looked threateningly up at the mountain and signed, Bad bad Iota 34. Bad chimpanzee, friends. Fight. Eat babies. Steal. By which he meant, I suppose, that some family group had split off from the original settlement and taken up residence in a distant corner of the preserve, and now there were territorial conflicts. It didn’t surprise me; chimpanzees in the wild had used to do that, and it might be lamentable but it was, after all, natural. So I signed, Iota 34 steal food?

  “He considered me a moment and then signed, Come hide quiet. So signing, he knuckle-loped away a few paces and looked back over his shoulder at me. I followed uneasily, and he led me through bushes and along a jungle trail, taking us deeper into the hills.

  “Within a couple of minutes we were out of sight of the village and I began to hear warning calls from the brush around us, and glimpse here and there a chimpanzee peering down from high branches. Finally a big male dropped into the path before us, followed by two other males and a big female without young. They bared their teeth at me. Tau 47 signed, Good chimpanzee-thing no bite. He put an arm around me and made a cursory grooming motion.

  “They blinked and looked away, then vanished back into the leaf cover as suddenly as they had appeared. Chimpanzees watch, explained Tau 47. I wondered what they were watching, but he led me forward and as we came out on the edge of a ravine it became clear why they guarded that patch of forest.

  “There, filling the ravine and spilling down it in a river of squalor, was a trash landfill. It was overgrown with creepers, overhung with trees, which was perhaps why the Goodall Free Township Committee hadn’t known it was there. Two chimpanzees worked the heap immediately below us, poking through it with sticks and now and then pulling out a useful scrap of salvage, old wiring or broken furniture.”

  “I guess it wasn’t quite virgin wilderness,” I said.

  “I guess so. Something the survey parties for the Goodall Free Township Committee missed, evidently, or were bribed to overlook. I just stood there gaping at it. The two chimpanzees below looked up at me and froze; after watching Tau 47 and me a moment they seemed to accept my presence and got back to their work. Tau 47 signed to me, This secret. Good things here. Make house. Make knife. Live good. He looked up once again at the mountain and bared his teeth. Iota 34 want secret. Dirty bad bad.

  “Iota 34 make house too? I signed.

  “No no, signed Tau 47. Iota 34 make, and he paused and made a motion of gripping a shaft of something with both hands, stabbing with it. Then he signed, Stick knife hunt hurt.

  “I saw the whole problem in a flash: it was much more than a Tree of Knowledge in Eden. It was like the twentieth-century dilemma over atomic power. Here these poor creatures had this unexpected gift, from which they could derive all sorts of comforts for their wretched existence; but it had to be prevented from falling into the enemy’s hands at all costs, or it could be used against them.”

  “Though they were obviously using it to make weapons themselves,” I said.

  “Naturally.” Hanuman tilted his hat forward to shade his face. “They were chimpanzees. It was in their nature. They’re decent enough people but they’re not peace-loving, you know, any more than Homo sapiens is. What a Cold War scenario, eh? Being signers, they had the ability to communicate ideas; they had seen enough of what Homo sapiens has in the way of enriched environments to want to make one for themselves, and now they had the potential to do so.

  “But as long as most of their tribe’s resources had to be expended on guarding this trash pile, how much time could they afford to do anything else?”

  “It’s always something,” I muttered.

  “So there I was, standing on this height, and suddenly it flashed before my eyes: what if I became one of these people? What if I led them, used my augmented intelligence to give them the edge in their arms race? I might become a lower-hominid Napoleon! We’d take on the dastardly Iota
34 and force his tribe to become peaceful citizens of a new primate civilization! Made of recycled trash, admittedly, but unlike anything that had ever existed.

  “Or perhaps—dare I even think it—force the Homo sapiens world to face the monstrous injustice of what had been done to these poor creatures by letting them get an earful of the Black Monolith, so to speak, and then removing any way for them to fulfill their hitherto unguessed-at potential by insisting they live like primitives?

  “Good heavens, I thought to myself, it might even be a plot to keep us from moving into Man’s neighborhood! Having transmitted the divine spark of reason to us, what if Man had now regretted and sought to keep us mere animals? How dare he deny our humanity? Why, I might lead a crusade to bring apes everywhere to a higher level of being. Shades of Roddy McDowall in a monkey mask!”

  “But you saw the futility of such an exercise in ego?” I inquired.

  “Actually, it was the cold realization that I’d probably be remembered as Pretty Pink General,” said Hanuman. “Plus the fact that just then I felt something bite me, and looked down at myself and realized I was covered in fleas.

  “Good secret, I signed to Tau 47. I quiet quiet.

  “He looked out over it all, sighed and signed, You go. No stay here. Go houses.

  “I signed, You miss houses?

  “Miss houses, he signed back. Want good food. Good blanket good. Miss pictures. Miss music. Miss game. Good good all. I sad. Cry like baby.

  “Sorry, I signed. He just huffed and looked out over the landfill.

  “We went back to the village.

  “The ladies were all sitting around grooming one another, Mrs. Fabry included. She looked up as we approached and said, ‘Michael, dear, I’ve been trying to explain that you want to stay with them, but—’

  “I told her it was all right, that I’d changed my mind. Before she could explain this, though, Gamma 18 broke away from the group and approached me. Looking at me seriously, she signed, You no stay here.

  “No stay, I agreed bitterly.

  “She came closer on all fours—her baby was still hanging under her—and put her hand on my shoulder, quite gently. Then she signed, You no chimpanzee. You no man. You other thing. Sad thing here. You go houses, be happy thing.

  “By which motherly advice I guess she meant that the bananas grow at the top of the tree, not at the roots, and since I didn’t belong at either end (evolutionarily speaking) I might as well climb up and eat rather than slide back down and starve. You get what life deals you, and you’d better make the best of it.

  “I went back home with Mrs. Fabry. The dear woman didn’t mind all the flea bites she’d incurred on my behalf in the least; I do believe she got more out of the whole ape-bonding experience than I had. I settled down to try to be a good adoptive son to her and Dr. Fabry. Tried not to think of my chimp-mother’s plight, though I lived by her wise words.”

  “And that was it? You came all that way, and that was all she had to tell you?” I demanded.

  “Well, she was a chimpanzee, after all, not a vocational guidance counselor.” Hanuman looked at me over his sunglasses. “And if you think about it, it’s good advice. Certainly I’ve let it guide me through a long and occasionally trying life. You might consider doing the same.”

  “I fail to see how our problems are in any way similar,” I snapped.

  “Aren’t they?” Hanuman regarded me. “When I discovered I was neither an ape nor a man, I tried to be an ape. It was a waste of my time. All the advantage is on the human side.

  “You—during a similar adolescent crisis, I’d bet bananas to coconuts—discovered you are neither a machine nor a woman. So you’ve tried to be a machine.”

  “Go to hell, you little hominid bastard!”

  “No, no, hear me out: your work habits, your preference for physical and emotional isolation, are part of your attempts to ignore your human heritage. But your heart is human so you can’t do it, any more than I could, and the stress of the conflict drove you to seek out human companionship.

  “Or possibly, by sleeping in a place you knew to be hazardous, you were indulging in a covert suicide attempt. Was it really tea you were thirsty for, Mendoza?”

  “I can’t believe this!” I leaped out of my chair and tore off my mask, glaring at him. “You’re one of the Company’s psychiatrists! Aren’t you?”

  “Let’s just say I’m not completely retired. You must have suspected all along,” he added calmly, “clever cyborg that you are.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you people, it was an accident?” I shouted, and all up and down the beach, heads turned and other operatives stared at us.

  “But you’re programmed not to have accidents,” he said. “And the Company would like to know how it happened, and whether it’s likely to happen again. Is it just your neurosis that leads you to take unnecessary risks, or is it a design flaw they need to know about? They have a lot of money invested in you cyborgs, you know. Who were you hoping to find in the fire, Mendoza?”

  “Oh, now we get to the truth,” I said, sitting down again. “Now we drop the crap about how I’m really human. I’m an expensive machine and the Company’s doing a diagnostic to see whether I’m still malfunctioning?”

  Hanuman shrugged, holding my gaze with his own. “You look at me and all you see is a monkey, no matter how cleverly I speak. They look at you and all they see is a machine they can’t seem to repair. It’s insulting. Unfair. Yet the hard truth is, neither one of us belong in the natural world. I know it hurts; who’d know better than I? But it won’t change. I’ve accepted that. Can you?”

  I put my mask back on and, without another word to him, strode away up the beach.

  ***

  I managed to avoid speaking to him the rest of the time I was there, and he didn’t try to speak to me, though he watched me somberly from a distance and tipped his hat once or twice when our paths crossed. Maybe he’d found out all the Company wanted him to find out, or maybe he knew there was no way on earth I was ever going to let him any further into my head than he’d gotten already.

  The Company discharged me for active service at last; they had to. They’d repaired me good as new, right? So I took off for the coastal mountains and made a new base camp up in the big trees, and got right back to work happily collecting genetic variants of Abies bracteata. I had all I wanted in the wilderness.

  Stupid chimpanzees, wanting to go back to the cities of humanity! Maybe they needed an enriched environment, but not me. I’d stripped away such irrelevant nonsense from my life, hadn’t I?

  I had the looming mountains to myself, and the vast empty sea and the immensity of cold white stars at night and, thank God, the silence of my own heart. It never makes a sound of complaint. It’s a perfectly functioning machine.

  Son Observe the Time

  On the eve of destruction we had oysters and Champagne.

  Don’t suppose for a moment that we had any desire to lord it over the poor mortals of San Francisco, in that month of April in that year of 1906; but things weren’t going to be so gracious there again for a long while, and we felt an urge to fortify ourselves against the work we were to do.

  London before the Great Fire, Delhi before the Mutiny, even Chicago—I was there and I can tell you, it requires a great deal of mental and emotional self-discipline to live side by side with mortals in a Salvage Zone. You must look, daily, into the smiling faces of those who are to lose all, and walk beside them in the knowledge that nothing you can do will affect their fates. Even the most prosaic of places has a sort of haunted glory at such times; judge then how it looked to us, that gilded fantastical butterfly of a city, quite unprepared for its approaching holocaust.

  The place was made even queerer by the fact that there were so many Company operatives there at the time. The very ether hummed with our transmissions. In any street you might have seen us dismounting from carriages or the occasional automobile, we immortal gentlemen tipping our derbies
to the ladies, our immortal ladies responding with a graceful inclination of their picture hats, smiling as we met each others’ terrified eyes. We dined at the Palace and as guests at Nob Hill mansions; promenaded in Golden Gate Park, drove out to Ocean Beach, attended the theater and everywhere saw the pale, set faces of our own kind, busy with their own particular preparations against what was to come.

  Some of us had less pleasant places to go. I was grateful that I was not required to brave the Chinese labyrinth by Waverly Place, but my associate Pan had certain business there amongst the Celestials. I myself was obliged to venture, too many times, into the boarding houses south of Market Street. Beneath the Fly Trap was a Company safe house and HQ; we’d meet there sometimes, Pan and I, at the end of a long day in our respective ghettoes, and we’d sit shaking together over a brace of stiff whiskeys. Thus heartened, it was time for a costume change: dock laborer into gentleman for me, coolie into cook for him, and so home by cable car.

  I lodged in two rooms on Bush Street. I will not say I slept there; one does not rest well on the edge of the maelstrom. But it was a place to keep one’s trunk, and to operate the Company credenza necessary for facilitating the missions of those operatives whose case officer I was. Salvaging is a terribly complicated affair, requiring as it does that one hide in history’s shadow until the last possible moment before snatching one’s quarry from its preordained doom. One must be organized and thoroughly coordinated; and timing is everything.

  On the morning of the tenth of April I was working there, sending a progress report, when there came a brisk knock at my door. Such was my concentration that I was momentarily unmindful of the fact that I had no mortal servants to answer it. When I heard the impatient tapping of a small foot on the step, I hastened to the door.

  I admitted Nan D’Arraignee, one of our Art Preservation specialists. She is an operative of West African origin with exquisite features, slender and slight as a doll carved of ebony. I had worked with her briefly near the end of the previous century. She is quite the most beautiful woman I have ever known, and happily married to another immortal, a century before I ever laid eyes on her. Timing, alas, is everything.