“Specifically,” said Mendoza, “that unidentifiable message that your family received a while back.”
“We knew that our network was permeable,” said Van Pell, “and so when you arrived we installed some monitoring devices to make sure we were alerted if someone broke into your system. You deal with a lot of sensitive information, Dr. Cocciolone.”
“Well, then,” Carol Jeanne said. “You probably know more than I do.”
“Actually not,” said Van Pell. “You see, someone neutralized our monitors. They were still in place, but it turns out that they’ve been sending us garbage.”
“Oh,” said Carol Jeanne. “Are you sure they weren’t defective?”
“What we’re sure of,” said Mendoza, “is that they were rewired.”
I toyed with the idea of denying having done anything. Let them think some clever spy was at work.
“Oh, is that all?” said Carol Jeanne. “I’m sure Lovelock did that.”
So much for that idea.
“Lovelock?” asked Mendoza.
These goons were supposed to be the hotshot security force on the Ark, and they didn’t even know the name of Dr. Cocciolone’s witness? Hey, working out till you have less than two percent body fat doesn’t make you efficient, it just makes you stringy.
“My witness,” said Carol Jeanne. “Lovelock always checks out the security of my data. He undoubtedly found your devices and assumed they were some kind of attempt to spy. He’s really very good with computers.”
Why shouldn’t I be? I’ve got a jack in the back of my head.
Mendoza and Van Pell looked at me with expressionless faces. I assumed they were sizing me up. Good with computers, eh?
“Your monkey’s interference made it impossible for us to detect the source of that particular system penetration,” said Van Pell.
Carol Jeanne laughed in their faces. “My witness was merely doing your job—protecting the security of my data. And, I might add, he did it better than you.”
Thanks, Carol Jeanne. Let’s make these goons really like me. Someday my life may depend on how cute and lovable they think I am.
“Next time you want to install some device in my computer,” said Carol Jeanne, “tell me about it so that Lovelock knows to leave it in place. And even then, I suspect he’d still jimmy your devices, because he won’t trust you to maintain security as well as he does.”
“If he’s so good,” said Mendoza, “then he no doubt knows how the network was penetrated in order to send you that anonymous message.”
“Lovelock?” asked Carol Jeanne.
I sprang to her computer. Mendoza and Van Pell, still standing at attention like Marine drill sergeants, oriented themselves so they could see what I typed. I acted confident, but in fact I was dying inside. My sleeper programs would only kick in and work for me when the new network went online. So if I showed them Peter’s and my back door into the old network, they’d close it down and cut off my special access. That wouldn’t be an absolute disaster, because I could write another access for myself. However, any new back door I created now, for the old software, increased my chances of getting caught before the new network even came online.
Still, I knew that it was better to tell them about the back door so they wouldn’t keep searching for it. A really effective search might turn up my sleeper instead of the back door, and that would be by far the greater disaster. So I would give them the back door and they would stop searching.
“I discovered the means of entry within hours after the message was sent,” I wrote. “I did an analysis of all network routines reading keyboard input and found one that responded to this password.” I typed the backdoor password. “It gives master access, even more powerful than the sysops. The original programmers must have left this in.”
They looked at each other with faces that might have registered astonishment if they had been capable of showing any expression more complicated than solemn narcissism.
“How did you break into the system in order to read the keyboard interpretation routines?” asked Van Pell.
I ostentatiously looked at the ceiling for a moment, to show them that I thought of this as obvious, easy, baby stuff. When I had demonstrated the technique, they both stood in silence for a long time. “You know,” said Van Pell, “I’m going to be glad when we get rid of that shitty old software.”
“When is the new network going online?” asked Carol Jeanne. “It would really help our work to be able to access all of the databases without having to change systems.”
“Soon,” said Van Pell.
“Sooner, in fact, now that we know that these most recent breaches of computer security come from problems that won’t be present in the new software.” Mendoza gave me a formidable glare. “In the meantime, don’t let your monkey prowl in the system. He could do all kinds of damage without realizing it.”
Every instinct demanded that I defecate into my hand and throw the pellet at her. But I restrained myself. Don’t ever let it be said that monkeys can’t be civilized. Besides, it would only make Mendoza all the more certain that she was right about me. Let her go on thinking that I was just an animal that somehow could access delicate computer equipment. It was my best protection, to have the security people think of me as a cleverly trained pet.
I had also managed to keep Peter’s knowledge of the back door a secret. But since they would immediately set up traps now that they were aware of the back door, I would have to send Peter an anonymous message right away, warning him that the back door had been discovered and was now a trap. Plenty of time—it would take them hours to set up new routines.
Even as my thoughts were racing, Carol Jeanne was answering them—rather testily. “My witness was not prowling in the system. Lovelock merely investigated two breaches of security and dealt with them.”
“Our monitoring devices were not a breach of security. They were security.”
“When someone puts a monitoring device on my computer without asking my permission, ladies, that is a breach of security. Don’t ever do it again.”
They glared at her. It was a delicious confrontation—the hard-bodied law enforcement officers trying to face down a soft-bodied scientist. When they finally wilted beneath Carol Jeanne’s benign gaze, it only showed that the kind of will that builds strong bodies twelve ways isn’t a match for the kind of will that conceives of entire biospheres and brings them to life.
When they had left the room, Carol Jeanne laughed and reached for me. I jumped onto her soft chest and felt her fingers stroking me, and for a few moments I was insanely happy. Good slave. Attaboy. Good, good slave.
I checked the incubator as often as I could; after the first month, I did it every day. I knew that the real trial of my life would come when the baby emerged. Primate babies are born stupid and needy. They can’t do anything for themselves. They need nurturing. I read everything I could find about the care and feeding of capuchin monkeys, learning everything that the humans meant to do to raise them properly so they could eventually fend for themselves in the wild on our new world. I carried the parts of a cage up the wall of the Ark to a recessed, secure hiding place and assembled them there, so that the baby wouldn’t fall out when I had to leave her. I stole a hugger—a soft, yielding monkey-fur doll designed for hatched-out monkey embryos to cling to in order to satisfy their need for physical warmth and affection. Monkey fur…I’m sure the monkey they got it from died naturally.
Monkey chow was trickier. The supply was limited—only enough was being produced on the Ark to feed me. At first it wouldn’t matter, because I would be feeding the baby a non-milk-based formula through a baby bottle, both common as dirt and easy to steal. In a few weeks or months, though, to give her a well-balanced diet I would have to steal from myself. Which meant that to eat adequately, I would have to get a good supply of fruits, flowers, and vegetables. Or else start eating leaves, which meant getting the runs in a big way. We capuchins are built so that during lean
times, when there’s nothing to eat but greens, our digestive systems kick into overdrive and process the roughage in a matter of three or four hours, so we can eat more and thus—maybe—get enough nutrients to stay alive till some fruit or other comes into season. What this translates to is, no more hard little pellets of poop. I would leave streaks of diarrhea everywhere I set my butt, and Carol Jeanne would take me to a veterinarian and he might well realize that I wasn’t eating my monkey chow.
In other words, I was really planning ahead. I knew how everything should go, I knew all the dangers, and I was set.
Dearest beloved diary,
Nothing ever works out right. Peter and I get Nancy out of her terrible family and now she’s not only not speaking to me, she’s actually being nasty. Zoni told me at school today that Nancy is saying that I’m jealous of her and I’m always trying to get anything of hers that I can steal or copy or whatever. It’s the stupidest thing ever said by any human who is not Peter. Why would she say things like that? Zoni says she’s also been telling people that they better not let me know any of their secrets because I tell secrets all the time just to get people in trouble. This is NOT TRUE and I almost told Zoni that the only secret I ever told was that Nancy’s father was being bad to her, but then I realized that even saying that would be telling a secret and it would make what Nancy was saying true. Which means that really I can’t defend myself, because what do I do, go around telling people lists of all the secrets that I have kept? Anyway my true friends will still be my friends anyway, and who needs the other ones anyway?
So there I am putting up with really nasty gossip at school, and do you think Mother has time to listen to my woes? No, of course not, darlingest of diaries, you are the only one who listens to me. Mother is too busy floating around the house acting all feminine and lovely because of this short little Indian guy who’s dating her. I mean, I’m glad Mom is happy and all that, and maybe it’s good for her career because Neeraj is a big high muckymuck in the biology division which makes him a great contact for Mom. But I don’t think she’s thinking “career” when she gets so silly and moony-eyed. Peter says that Neeraj is just the first man who’s treated Mother like a woman since we got here and she’s horny as an upstream salmon, but I think that’s disgusting. Women aren’t like men, they don’t ruin their whole lives over some man. Neeraj is short and ugly, and I don’t think that makes me a bigot, he’s not an American, that’s all. I mean, why do we have these stupid villages anyway if you’re just going to go off and marry somebody from another continent? What will we do if they get married, move to Ganges? Will we have to stop eating meat? Will I have to start putting a stupid dot on my forehead? Peter says that if Mom would just sleep with the guy and get it over with, we’d get rid of him sooner, but Mom’s not that kind of woman. And I don’t think he’s that kind of man. I think they’re going to get married and Peter thinks so too which is really scary because it’s not like anybody’s asking us for our vote, and we’re the ones who are going to get our lives screwed up without any of the compensating benefits.
I don’t want a father because I already have one, thanks. If Mother marries him I’m going to run away and hide in the air conditioning and freeze to death and they’ll find my desiccated, freeze-dried body in a duct somewhere and that will be fine with them because as Peter points out Mother is still fertile and she’ll probably want to have a bunch of new cute dark brown babies that can grow up to worship cows.
When a new lion takes over an old lion’s family, he kills all the cubs so the females will all come into heat and have his babies. Peter says that if we didn’t hate Neeraj so much we’d probably like him. But I think that’s horse pucky.
I found out about Neeraj and Dolores the easy way—I saw them together. I was on one of my clandestine journeys to the gestation chambers when I saw them under a tree in the dim light of evening. They were sitting there talking, that’s all, but they were holding hands and it didn’t take a Ph.D. in psychology to recognize that Dolores was flat-out in love with Neeraj.
My first thought was: It sure didn’t take him long to find a substitute when Carol Jeanne made it clear she wasn’t going to be available for marriage.
My second thought was: Dolores is in Mayflower. Neeraj couldn’t have picked a mate under circumstances more likely to make Carol Jeanne writhe. Because I happened to believe that Carol Jeanne was still besotted with Neeraj, even as she tried to make her marriage with Red work.
My third thought was: Dolores is Peter and Diana’s mother. Neeraj is the one adult human I’ve known on the Ark who seems to think of me as something like a person. Maybe there’s some benefit for me in getting Neeraj into the same house with Peter and Diana.
I wasn’t sure—I’m still not sure—what my motive was in going to Neeraj the next day. Was I trying to protect Carol Jeanne? Or project myself into Neeraj’s new relationship? Both, probably.
He seemed delighted to see me. Actually, he seems delighted to see everybody, but that means that at least he thinks of me as somebody. I got straight to the point, typing on his computer that I wondered when he was going to talk to Carol Jeanne about his relationship with Dolores, and that I had been waiting for some time so he could tell her himself but that if he didn’t do it soon, I would. “You’re getting more careless,” I wrote. “You were observed last night, and word is getting around.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m such a coward. And besides, I didn’t know until last night that—Dolores is going to be my wife. We worked it out. I’m joining Mayflower village and living with her.”
“How kind of you,” I wrote. “That will make it easier for Carol Jeanne, I’m sure.”
“Carol Jeanne is not part of this equation, Lovelock,” said Neeraj. “She made her decision. And now Dolores and I have to make our decisions without reference to anyone else. Except her children. Dolores would gladly have come to Ganges with me, but her daughter is obviously terrified of our relationship disrupting her life, and so Dolores and I decided that remaining in Mayflower was best for them. It’s unfortunate that Dolores is in the same village as Carol Jeanne, but that’s not how I met her or fell in love with her.”
“I know,” I wrote. “You only prowl at work.”
For a moment he looked angry. Then he calmed himself. “Lovelock, is your snideness because of your programmed loyalty to your mistress? Are you only angry at me because you perceive this as harming Carol Jeanne? Or do you think that I’ve really done something wrong?”
The reference to my programming was a pointed insult, if I looked at it one way. But if I looked at it another way, it meant that Neeraj actually understood the basis of much of my behavior. And, take it how you will, he was asking me my opinion of his behavior. As if it actually mattered to him what I thought.
And I had to admit that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with his mating with Dolores. “I know the kids,” I wrote. “They’re very smart.”
“Yes,” said Neeraj. “They talk about you a lot. To them, Carol Jeanne is the woman that Lovelock lives with.”
Talk about me a lot? I didn’t dare ask, but I worried. How discreet were they? Had they mentioned our joint computer escapade?
“They’re good children,” said Neeraj, “and even though they don’t realize it, they’re desperately in need of their father. I can’t replace him, but I can still provide the approval and sense of orderliness that children need from some male figure in their lives.”
Nancy had chosen Red as her father figure, but he was not and never would be part of her family. If Neeraj married Dolores, however, he would be part of Peter and Diana’s lives, and I had seen how effectively Neeraj worked on people. They would fall in love with him soon enough. And he would be loyal to them. He would be there. Something that Red couldn’t really do for Nancy. Peter and Diana had no idea how lucky they were.
“When we’re married,” said Neeraj, “I don’t imagine I’ll have much contact with Carol Jeanne except professio
nally. However, I hope you know that you will be welcome in our home always. The children would welcome you. And so would I. I know that your duties keep you with Carol Jeanne most of the time. And I’m not being altruistic. If the children perceive me as your friend, it will make me more attractive to them. But I hope you realize that insofar as it is possible, I really am your friend.”
The words struck deep in my heart. No human had ever said such a thing to me. It was like being thirsty to the bottom of my soul, and suddenly, unexpectedly, somebody had given me a drink. His offer of friendship spread through me like a warm fluid, watering places that had always, always been dry.
I wanted to embrace him. I wanted to speak to him of what these words meant to me. Instead, I had to type my answer on a screen. “And I am your friend, as far as my programming allows.” It was a brittle, self-pitying thing for me to write, and I regretted it even as I typed it, yet I could not escape from my sense of my own powerlessness long enough even to accept wholeheartedly this good man’s offer of friendship.
Yet he seemed to understand. He reached out and touched my back, not stroking my fur the way people do when they think of me as a pet, but rather letting his fingernails dig into the fur enough to lightly scratch my skin under the fur. Grooming me. He knew what would feel good, and he gave that to me.
He gave that to everyone. Why else had Carol Jeanne and Dolores both fallen in love with him? He had an instinct for needy people, for what would satisfy them, and he gave it freely.
And yet I still couldn’t answer in the same generous spirit that he offered. “Why don’t you have a family already?” I wrote.
He laughed gently. “Lovelock, haven’t you done a dossier search on me?”
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