Little Boy Lost
It was five years later and The Highway to Heaven was back on the Green Planet. Their mission had been a wild success. Instead of a totally devastating war, the Human race was now united as never before. Their ship had had a very busy five years. After getting the agreements from the Idaltu High Council, they had visited the outer parts of the star systems of most of the over ten thousand inhabited planets of the Idaltu Humans.
They would appear briefly, transmit the complex message from the High Council explaining the situation and jump to the next planet. They were often doing as many as ten planetary systems a day. The ex-president’s book was attached to the end on the message.
The Earth and the other planets of the Earth type Humans already knew what had happened. The rest of the peace fleet had spread the message when it dispersed.
Despite the incredible success of their mission there was still a large element of sadness. Although they would have succeeded anyway, the acceptance of the Earth Humans by the Idaltu planets was made much easier by the tragic love story of Mujib and Mydepa. Mujib’s brother Dr. Ali was still deeply depressed. Andy had experience with depression, having lost his first wife, Susan and his son Sam in a car accident many years before. Andy had been depressed for over ten years. Andy suggested that while they were on the Green Planet they should have one more attempt at finding them.
Quite a lot of people joined the renewed search from both branches of humanity. One group consisted of Pete, Tanya, Angus and Albert.
They were searching a mountainous area which had thick forests interspersed with wetlands.
They searched for several weeks, but this was the last day. The Highway to Heaven was about to return to the Earth.
With heavy hearts they went out to search the ranges on that final day. They were searching in pairs. That day, Tanya and Angus were searching a swampy area while Pete and Albert were searching a more hilly area.
It was early afternoon and Pete and Albert were going back towards their temporary camp when from a scrubby gully came the cry they never forgot:
“Where's my daddy? Where’s my daddy?”
Cried the little boy lost.
The cry was in English!
A little boy with no clothes on was trapped at the bottom of the gully. He had slipped down the steep side of the gully and got wedged under a branch. After a short discussion with Pete, Albert climbed down to the boy. It would have been a very difficult climb for a human, but Albert was an ape. Pete was an exceptional climber and could certainly have got down, but they decided that Albert was better adapted for this task.
Albert was able to lift the branch off the boy. Albert was less than five feet tall, but he was much stronger than a Human of the same weight. The boy said:
“Thank you. What’s your name?”
Albert was interested in the boy’s reaction. They had been worried that the boy would have been frightened by Albert’s appearance. Instead he accepted it readily. But Albert had seen something much stranger. When he had spoken the boy had used some semi automatic gestures to accompany his spoken words. The gestures were very familiar to Albert. Albert could speak English better than any other Wise Ape, and could say his own name well enough that most people could understand it. But Albert answered the boy using international sign language; the first language he had learned to speak:
“Albert. I am a Wise Ape.”
The boy said in English;
“Albert? That’s a very nice name. My name is Stephen.”
Albert told the boy using the international sign language to climb on his back and hold tight. Albert climbed out of the scrubby gully very carefully with Stephen on his back.
When they got up, Albert told Pete about the strange discovery he had made:
“The boy can understand international sign language.”
Pete said:
“What an odd thing to teach him.”
Pete had exceptional hearing and had heard what had been said at the bottom of the gully, but he had missed the use of the sign language. He asked the boy:
“Stephen, how old are you?”
“I’m four years old; I’ll be five on my next birthday. How old are you?”
Pete answered:
“I’m one hundred and sixty four. I’ll be one hundred and sixty five on my next birthday.”
Stephen said:
“So you are only one hundred and sixty years older than me.”
Then he asked:
“Will you have a birthday party?’
“Yes, I’ll have a big party in my great grandad Andy’s house.”
“My daddy has promised me a party as well. All the Apes will come.
“I have never seen a house. What’s your name?”
“My name is Pete. Where do you live?”
“In a cave.”
Where is your Daddy?”
“I don’t know. I got lost and fell down this hole. Can you find my Daddy for me?”
Pete promised:
“Yes, we’ll find your Daddy.”
Of course there was no doubt who the parents of the little boy were. They could not be far away.
If they could not find them quickly they would call in the aid of both branches of Humanity. They must be within the distance that a four year old boy could walk. But Pete thought they could find them more quickly.
Albert and Pete had spent quite a lot of time in the African jungle with the Wise Apes. They were quite capable of tracking visually. They followed the track of the boy to find where he had come from. They met a search party of apes out looking for the boy. Although they were definitely apes, they were taller and thinner than the Wise apes, but were walking fully upright.
The boy greeted them joyously and individually by name and he got on the back of one ape. The ape carried Stephen back home, while Albert and Pete followed more slowly.
Stephen chattered to his anxious parents telling him about his adventures, how he had got lost, fallen down a hole and been rescued by a Wise Ape wearing clothes.
Mujib queried:
“A Wise Ape?”
“Yes, his name is Albert. There was a funny little man with him called Pete. They are coming along the path over there.”
Mydepa and Mujib were immediately struck by the same thought. They hurriedly went to the back of the cave and put their night clothes on.
When it had become obvious that they would not be rescued quickly and their only clothes were getting worn, they decided to keep them in reserve for when they were eventually rescued.
The attitude to nudity was roughly the same in both Human cultures. There was not considered to be anything wrong with it, but people wore clothes in public on most occasions. Pete and Albert would not have had any objection if Mydepa and Mujib had met them with no clothes on, but Mydepa and Mujib preferred to be clothed for the occasion.
As Mujib watched his friends coming along the well worn path he thought about how he had first met them. He met Pete when he was eleven and Pete was fourteen. They had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro together and taken part in the first, but unrecognized, contact between two sentient species.
Albert and he had first met on the Moon.
Pete and Albert looked around curiously as they went towards the cave. Mujib said:
“Thank you for rescuing Stephen. He’s a brave but reckless boy and wanders off.”
A group of the apes came up. The leader spoke to Mujib and Mydepa using sign language:
“The Clever Apes are glad your people have found you, but we are sorry that teacher will now be leaving us.”
Pete asked;
“Clever Apes? Teacher? What have you been teaching them?”
“Well they are very clever, and I couldn’t call them Wise Apes, so ‘Clever’ seemed an appropriate name. I’ve taught them International Sign Language and Basic English including reading.
“The things they’ve taught us were far more practical for s
urviving on this continent. When they found us they could see that we were hungry and trying out all sorts of unsuitable food so they brought us here and gave us an excellent meal. After that they showed us good things to eat and we’ve been working together ever since.”
“Now they are inviting you for a meal before you take us away from them.”
The four Humans went over to the fire. Pete asked:
“Did you teach them how to use fire?”
“No, they already knew this. You will notice how well cleared this area is. This jungle is probably not very inflammable, but they are taking no chances.”
Pete asked:
“Did you teach them how to smelt metal?”
“No, they were already capable metal workers in several types of metal. Did you notice the large cooking pot?”
“Yes, we knew that there was a lot of Gold on this continent. It made it more difficult to scan for your flier, although there wasn’t a lot of metal used in its construction anyway. By the way, what did happen to your flier?”
“It was pushed into deep water in a lake by a very large animal.”
“Do the Clever Apes use any Iron?”
“No, I don’t think so. They use several other metals. Now they are telling us that the food is ready.”
“What’s in the stew? It smells good.”
“The main ingredient is a tuber very like a small potato. It grows wild, but they also collect them for planting and they’ve worked out that choosing tubers from plants with good tubers increases the chance of getting plants with good tubers when they grow.
“Apart from this potato like tuber they are very good at adding herbs and spices for flavour. Some of these are cultivated. They don’t eat any meat.”
Pete used his short range communicator to tell the other search pair of his little group that Mujib and Mydepa had been found and to meet back at the flier.
Pete was officially the gardener of the Highway to Heaven; apart from his other abilities. Mujib showed him the Potato like plant. Pete said:
“It certainly looks like a Potato although I’m surprised at a Potato growing in this hot climate. Probably it has evolved considerably since it was taken from Earth 150,000 years ago.”
Albert went off with the Clever Apes. They were having an earnest conversation using International Sign Language.
Mujib said to Pete:
“I see they’re using our sign language in English. Does it mean that the Wise Ape language is different from the Clever Apes’ one?”
Pete was one of the few Humans who could communicate with the Wise Apes in their own language. He answered:
“Yes, their two languages are totally different. How did you come to teach them sign language and reading?”
“At first I only taught them some simple things in sign language to make it easier to communicate with them. When Stephen was eight months old I started teaching him to read. The Apes joined us for the lessons.”
“How did you teach reading without any books or paper?”
“I have a cave I use as a school room. I wrote temporary things in the sand on the cave floor, and things I wanted to keep on the walls.”
Pete asked a completely different thing next:
“When I spent twelve years in the African jungle I grew a beard. I’ve never understood why Tarzan had no beard when he was living with the apes. Of course I never met Tarzan so I couldn’t ask him; but why don’t you have a beard?”
“At first I was growing one, but Mydepa didn’t like it; the Idaltu men don’t grow beards at all. I tried shaving with a broken piece of stone, but it wasn’t very successful. The Clever Apes saw what I was doing and made me a razor. Come back to our home cave and I’ll show it to you.”
Pete looked at the razor:
“The metal looks like Gold but I can see that the edge is modified. Is it some sort of Gold alloy?”
‘Yes, I think so, but I don’t know exactly what or how they got such a good edge on Gold. It’s nearly as good an edge as we could get with steel. Naturally it’s not as good as the razers with an edge made from the cubic Boron nitride like substance you discovered on B2.”
Pete commented:
“These apes are taller and thinner than the Wise Apes. They don’t look as if they’re as strong. Can they swing through the trees like the Apes on Earth?”
“Yes, very well, but in this gravity even I can do that a bit. By the way, I notice that neither you nor Albert are carrying a weapon of any sort. Of course you know about the predators on this continent?”
Pete answered:
“We had two of those cattle prod things, but Tanya and Angus have them today. If anything threatens me and Albert we’ll just take to the trees. Do you have any trouble with the Cave Lions or other predators?”
“No, they know enough to keep well clear of a Clever Ape area. The apes are completely peaceful to each other and to Humans, but they don’t tolerate predators.”
The others arrived back at the flier just before Pete and Albert came with Mujib, Mydepa and Stephen and their huge escort of Apes.
Mujib used the long range radio of the flier to contact the Highway to Heaven. He said to the temporary speechless Captain Jack:
“Do you have room for anther three people on board?”
“Three? You mean…”
“Yes.”
Mujib held up his son:
“Meet Stephen Rahman.”
Stephen said:
“Hello Captain Jack.”
“Hello Stephen, welcome to our ship.”
After that Mujib asked:
“May I speak to the ‘Special Envoi for the Intelligent Species, in intercommunication, of the Solar System’?”
This was Mujib’s cousin Ali’s rather cumbersome official title. It was intended to indicate that he represented both Humans and Wise Apes, but not any unrecognised sentient animals of the Solar System.
Jack said:
“Yes of course.”
Jack broadcast a message to all members of the crew, announcing the Mujib and Mydepa had been found safely. Then he sent private messages to Ali and the ex-president asking them to come to the control room.
Mujib spoke to Ali:
“Pete told me about the Federation of Friendly Sentients you organised. There is another applicant. Meet the Matriarch of the Clever Apes. Albert told them all about the Federation.”
The Matriarch spoke to Ali using the international sign language and Jack translated it into spoken English for the ex-president. The Matriarch applied for membership of the federation on behalf of her people. Ali questioned her for sometime until he was satisfied that she really understood what she was applying for.
It would be necessary for a joint Idaltu Earthman expedition to visit the Clever Apes to gather information to present to their respective governments. One of the many things than Ali did was to take blood samples from the Clever Apes and to get other biological data about them.
War and Space Page 8