The Ugly Little Boy

by Isaac Asimov

  “No complaints there,” Levien said after a time. “Your nutrition people seem to know what they’re doing.”

  “The boy does appear healthy,” said Mannheim. “But I’m concerned about this enforced solitude of his.”

  “Yes,” Marianne Levien chimed in. “So am I. Very much so.”

  Mannheim said, “It’s bad enough that he’s being deprived of the supportive tribal structures into which he was born—but the fact that Timmie has to do without companionship of any sort does indeed seem extremely troublesome to me.”

  “Don’t I count as companionship, Mr. Mannheim?” Miss Fellowes asked, with some asperity. “I’m with him virtually all the time, you know.”

  “I was referring to the need for someone close to his own age. A playmate. This experiment is planned to run for a considerable length of time, Dr. Hoskins, is it not?”

  “There’s a great deal we hope to learn from Timmie about the era from which he comes. As his command of English improves—and Miss Fellowes assures me that he’s becoming quite fluent, even though it’s not easy for some of us to make out exactly what he’s saying—”

  “In other words, you intend to keep him here for a period of some years, Dr. Hoskins?” Marianne Levien said.

  “That could be, yes.”

  Mannheim said, “Perpetually penned up in a few small rooms? And never being exposed to contact with children of his own age? Is that any kind of life for a healthy young boy like Timmie, do you think?”

  Hoskins’ eyes moved quickly from one to the other. He looked outnumbered and beleaguered.

  He said, “Miss Fellowes has already brought up the issue of getting a playmate for Timmie. I assure you that we’ve got no desire whatever to cripple the boy’s emotional development or any other aspect of his existence.”

  Miss Fellowes glanced at him in surprise. She had brought the issue up, yes. But nothing had come of it. Since that one inconclusive conversation in the company cafeteria, Hoskins hadn’t said the slightest thing to her in response to her request that Timmie be given a child to keep him company. He had brushed the idea off then as unworkable, and he had seemed so taken aback by the whole notion, in fact, that Miss Fellowes had hesitated to bring it up with him a second time. For the moment Timmie had been getting along quite satisfactorily on his own. But lately she had begun to look ahead, thinking that Timmie’s adaptation to modern life was proceeding so quickly that the moment to raise the point again with Hoskins was approaching.

  And now Mannheim was raising it first, for which Miss Fellowes was immensely grateful. The children’s advocate was absolutely right. Timmie couldn’t be kept in here all by himself like an ape in a cage. Timmie wasn’t an ape. And even a gorilla or a chimpanzee wouldn’t do well cut off indefinitely from the society of his peers.

  Mannheim said, “Well, then, if you’ve already been working on getting a companion for him, I’d like to know what progress has been made along those lines.”

  Suddenly his tone was no longer so amiable.

  Sounding flustered, Hoskins said, “So far as bringing a second Neanderthal back to the present time to put in here with Timmie goes, which was Miss Fellowes’ original suggestion, I have to tell you that we simply don’t intend—”

  “A second Neanderthal? Oh, no, Dr. Hoskins,” said Mannheim. “We wouldn’t want that at all.”

  “It’s a serious enough matter that there’s one already incarcerated here,” Marianne Levien said. “To capture a second one would only compound the problem.”

  Hoskins shot her a venomous glare. Sweat was streaming down his face.

  “I said that we don’t intend to bring a second Neanderthal here,” he replied, virtually between clenched teeth. “That’s never been under consideration. Never! There are a dozen different reasons why. When Miss Fellowes brought it up the first time, I told her—”

  Mannheim and Levien exchanged glances. They appeared bothered by Hoskins’ sudden vehemence. Even Timmie began to seem a little alarmed, and moved up close against Miss Fellowes’ side as though seeking protection.

  Smoothly Mannheim said, “We’re all agreed, Dr. Hoskins, that a second Neanderthal would be a bad idea. That’s not the point at all. What we want to know is whether it would be possible for Timmie to be given a—well, what word do I want? Not human, because Timmie is human. But modern. A modern playmate. A child of this era.”

  “A child who could visit Timmie on a regular basis,” said Marianne Levien, “and provide him with the kind of developmental stimuli that would tend to further the healthy sociocultural assimilation which we all agree is necessary.”

  “Just a minute,” Hoskins snapped. “What assimilation? Are you imagining a pleasant future life in some cozy little suburb for Timmie? Applying for American citizenship, joining a church, settling down and getting married? May I remind you that what we have here is a prehistoric child from an era so remote that we can’t even call it barbaric—a Stone Age child, a visitor from what you yourself, Dr. Levien, once described with some accuracy as an alien society. And you think he’s going to become—”

  Levien cut in coolly. “Timmie’s hypothetical citizenship application and church membership aren’t the issue, Dr. Hoskins, or any other such reductio ad absurdum. Timmie is still a child, and it’s the quality of the childhood that he experiences that Mr. Mannheim and I are primarily concerned with. The conditions under which he’s being held as of now are unacceptable. They would, I’m sure, have been unacceptable in Timmie’s own society, however alien from ours in some respects it must surely have been. Every human society we know, no matter how remote its paradigms and parameters may be from ours, assures its children the right to a nurturing integration into its social matrix. There’s no way that we can regard Timmie’s present living conditions as providing him with that sort of adequately nurturant social matrix.”

  Acidly Hoskins said, “Which means in words of one syllable comprehensible by a mere physicist like myself, Dr. Levien, that you think Timmie ought to have a playmate.”

  “Not merely ‘ought to,’” Levien said. “Must.”

  “I’m afraid we’re going to take the position that companionship for the child is essential,” said Mannheim in a less belligerent tone than Levien’s.

  “Essential,” Hoskins repeated bleakly.

  “A minimum first step,” Levien said. “This is not to say that we are prepared to regard the boy’s incarceration in our era for a prolonged period as acceptable or permissible. But for the moment, at least, we think we can waive our other outstanding objections and therefore the experiment can be permitted to continue—is that not so, Mr. Mannheim?”

  “Permitted!” Hoskins cried.

  “Provided,” Marianne Levien continued serenely, “that Timmie be allowed the opportunity to enjoy regular and emotionally nourishing contact with other children of his chronological peer group.”

  Hoskins looked toward Miss Fellowes for some sort of support under this onslaught. But she could offer him no help.

  “I have to agree, Dr. Hoskins,” said Miss Fellowes, feeling like a traitor. “I’ve felt this way all along, and it’s becoming more urgent now. The boy’s coming along very nicely, indeed. But the point is close at hand where continuing to live in this kind of social vacuum will be very bad for him. And since there aren’t going to be any other children of Timmie’s own subspecies available to him—”

  Hoskins turned to her as if to say, You’re against me too?

  There was silence for a moment in the room. Timmie, who seemed increasingly disturbed by the vociferousness of the discussion, clung ever tighter to Miss Fellowes.

  At length Hoskins said, “Those are your terms, Mr. Mannheim? Dr. Levien? A playmate for Timmie or you’ll bring your hordes of protesters down on my head?”

  Mannheim said, “No threats are being made, Dr. Hoskins. But even your own Miss Fellowes sees the need for implementing our recommendation.”

  “Right. And you think it’ll be easy t
o find people who’ll cheerfully let their young children come in here and play with a little Neanderthal? With all those fantastic notions circulating out there about how savage and ferocious and primitive Neanderthal Man must have been?”

  “It should be no harder,” Mannheim said, “than being able to bring a little Neanderthal child into the twenty-first century in the first place. A good deal easier, I’d like to think.”

  “I can imagine what our counsel would have to say about that. The cost of liability insurance alone—assuming we can find anyone crazy enough to allow their child inside the Stasis bubble with Timmie—”

  “Timmie doesn’t seem all that ferocious to me,” said Mannheim. “He seems quite gentle, as a matter of fact. Wouldn’t you say so, Miss Fellowes?”

  “And as Miss Fellowes pointed out earlier,” Marianne Levien said with icy sweetness, “we must not regard Timmie as being in any way subhuman, merely as unusual in certain physical aspects.”

  “So of course you’d be delighted to let your own small child come in and play with him,” said Hoskins. “Except you don’t happen to have any children, do you, Dr. Levien? No, of course you don’t.—What about you, Mannheim? Do you have a little boy you’d like to volunteer for us?”

  Mannheim looked stung. Stiffly he said, “That’s neither here nor there, Dr. Hoskins. I assure you that if I had been fortunate enough to have children, I wouldn’t hesitate to offer to help.—I understand your resentment at what you see as outside interference, doctor. But by transporting Timmie to our era, you’ve taken the law into your own hands. It’s time now to consider the full implications of what you’ve done. You can’t keep the boy in solitary confinement simply because there’s a scientific experiment going on here. You can’t, Dr. Hoskins.”

  Hoskins closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.

  “All right,” he said finally. “Enough of this. I concede the point. We’ll get a playmate for Timmie. Somewhere. Somehow.” His eyes blazed with sudden fury. “Unlike either of you, I do have a child. And if necessary, I’ll bring him in to be Timmie’s friend. My own son, if I have to. Is that enough of a guarantee for you? Timmie won’t be left lonely and miserable any longer. All right? All right?” Hoskins glowered at them.—“Now that that’s settled, do you have any further requests to make? Or can we be permitted to continue with our scientific work in peace?”

  INTERCHAPTER FIVE

  The Other Ones

  SHE WHO KNOWS could feel the warpaint glowing like fire on her body beneath her robe as she descended the hill. If she dared, she would have gone down the hill naked, and let them all see how she was painted, both the Other Ones and the men of her own tribe. Especially the men of her own tribe. Let them know that a woman could wear the paint as well as a man; and that if they did not choose to strike a blow against the enemy, she was capable of doing it for them.

  But of course she couldn’t go down the hill that way. A woman covered her lower parts except when she was offering herself in the coupling-rites: that was the rule. If she were wearing a loincloth the way the men did, she could at least go bare-chested to the battle, as they did, and let the enemy see the paint that was on her breasts. But she had no loincloth. All she had was a robe, and that covered everything. Well, she would open it in front when she came before the Other Ones, and they would know from the color that was on her skin that they were facing a warrior, even if she was a warrior who had breasts.

  She heard Silver Cloud shouting at her, far behind her on the path into the valley. She ignored him.

  And now the men of the War Society could see her approaching them. They were still locked in their absurd stalemate, face-to-face with the row of the Other Ones; but they turned their heads and stared at her in amazement as they drew near.

  “Go back, She Who Knows,” Blazing Eye called to her. “This is no place for a woman.”

  “You call me a woman. Blazing Eye? Woman yourself! Women, all of you! I see no warriors here. You go back, if you’re afraid to fight.”

  “What is she doing here?” Tree Of Wolves asked, speaking to the air.

  “She’s crazy.” That was Young Antelope. “She always has been.”

  “Go back!” the men called. “Get away from us! This is war, She Who Knows! This is war!”

  But no one was going to make her go back now. Their angry shouts were like the buzzing of harmless insects in her ears.

  She Who Knows reached the bottom of the path and strode toward the shrine. The ground was spongy here, because of the three rivers. There must be water running under the earth, she thought. With every step her bare toes dug deep into the cold, moist, yielding soil.

  Behind her the sun was getting higher, rising now over the crest of the hill on which the People were camped. The little white sliver of the moon that had been showing before was no longer visible. The wind was in her face, brisk and hard, like a slap. She came forward until she was close to the line of War Society men.

  Nobody was moving. The Other Ones warriors were frozen like statues.

  Caught Bird In Bush was standing at the end of the row nearest to her. “Give me your spear,” She Who Knows said to him.

  “Go away,” said Caught Bird In Bush, sounding as if he was being strangled.

  “I need a spear. Do you want me to face the Other Ones warriors without a spear?”

  “Go—away.”

  “Look! I have the war paint on!” She opened her robe in front and let her breasts show through, boldly splattered with the blue pigment. “I’m a warrior today. A warrior needs to have a spear!”

  “Make one yourself, then.”

  She Who Knows spat and stepped past him. “You, Young Antelope! Let me have yours. You don’t have any need of it.”

  “You are a crazy woman.”

  Tree Of Wolves reached out across Young Antelope and caught She Who Knows by the elbow. “Look,” he said, “you can’t be here. There’s going to be a war.”

  “A war? When? You just stand here and make stupid noises at them. And they do the same thing. They’re just as cowardly as you are. Why don’t you attack?”

  “You don’t understand these things,” said Tree Of Wolves disgustedly.

  “No. No, I suppose that I don’t.”

  But it was pointless to ask any of them for a spear. They didn’t intend to let her have one; and they were all holding tight to their weapons, no doubt remembering how she once had grabbed up Blazing Eye’s spear and threatened him with it. That had been a defilement. Blazing Eye had had to make a new spear afterward. Stinking Musk Ox had told him that he couldn’t go into battle carrying a spear that had been handled by a woman, and he had burned the old one and carved another, cursing and muttering all the while. But what good was the new one, She Who Knows asked herself, if Blazing Eye was too timid to use it?

  “Very well. I’ll do without one.”

  She swung around and stepped forward, taking two or three steps toward the line of Other Ones, who were watching her as though she were a demon with three heads and six tusks.

  “You! You Other Ones! Look here, look at me!”

  They gaped at her. She opened her robe again and let them see her painted breasts.

  “I’m the warrior of the Goddess,” she told them. “That’s what this paint means. And the Goddess orders you to leave this place. This is Her shrine. We built it for Her. You have no business being here.”

  They were still staring, astounded.

  She Who Knows let her eyes rove up and down the line of them. They were all tall and pale, with rank black hair dangling down past their shoulders, but cut short across their foreheads, as if they deliberately wanted to expose the hideous flat high-rising domes of their skulls.

  Their arms were long and narrow and so were their legs. Their mouths were small and their little noses were absurd and their chins stuck out in a repellent way. Their jaws seemed feeble and their eyes looked colorless. The sight of them stirred old memories in her, and she saw once again the
thin, lanky Other One whom she had encountered beside that little rock-rimmed pool, long ago when she had been a girl. These men looked just like him. She couldn’t tell one from another, or any of them from the one she had once met. For all she knew, he was here today, that one from the pool. And then she realized it was impossible, for these men all looked young, and he would have to be old by now, nearly as old as she was herself.

  “How ugly you are,” she told them. “What pale simpering monstrosities you are! Why are you sniffing around at a shrine of the Goddess? The Goddess never made you! You were made out of rhinoceros dung by some passing hyena!”

  The Other Ones continued to look at her in a blankfaced bewildered way.

  She Who Knows took another step forward. She gestured at them, making a chopping movement with her hand, as though to sweep them away from the vicinity of the shrine.

  One of the Other Ones spoke.

  At least she assumed that that was what he was doing. He uttered a long series of thick, furry sounds that came out of his mouth as though his tongue were attached the wrong way around. It was mere noise. None of it made the slightest sense.

  “Can’t you speak right?” She Who Knows asked. “It’s impossible to understand a thing you’re saying. Let somebody else speak, if you aren’t good at it.”

  He spoke again, just as incomprehensibly as before.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

  She walked closer and swung herself about so that she was facing toward the far end of the line of Other Ones.

  “You,” she said to a man down there. “Can you speak any better than that one?”

  She pointed at him and clapped her hands. His eyes went wide and he made a kind of dull mumbling sound.

  “Use words!” She Who Knows ordered him. “Don’t just make idiotic noises!—Pah! Are all of you foolish in the head?” She pointed to the man again. “Speak! With words! Didn’t any of you ever learn how to speak words?”