Win Some, Lose Some

by Mike Resnick

  “A snake,” he mumbles, barely able to make himself understood.

  “A snake?” asks the cornerman.

  “Draw it on my glove,” he says, forcing the words out with an excruciating effort.

  “Now?”

  “Now,” mutters Nyerere.

  He comes out for the seventh round, his face a mask of raw, bleeding tissue. As Amin approaches him, he spits out his mouthpiece.

  “As I strike, so strikes this snake,” he whispers. “Protect your heart, madman.” He repeats it in his native Zanake dialect, which the giant thinks is a curse.

  Amin’s eyes go wide with terror, and he hits the giant on the left breast.

  It is the first punch he has thrown in the entire fight, and Amin drops to his knees, screaming.

  “One!”

  Amin looks down at his unblemished chest and pendulous belly, and seems surprised to find himself still alive and breathing.

  “Two!”

  Amin blinks once, then chuckles.

  “Three!”

  The giant gets to his feet, and approaches Nyerere.

  “Try again,” he says, loud enough for ringside to hear. “Your snake has no fangs.”

  He puts his hand on his hips, braces his legs, and waits.

  Nyerere stares at him for an instant. So the pen is not mightier than the sword. Shakespeare might have told him so.

  “I’m waiting!” bellows the giant, mugging once more for the crowd.

  Nyerere realizes that it is over, that he will die in the ring this night, that he can no more save his army with his fists than with his depleted treasury. He has fought the good fight, has fought it longer than anyone thought he could. At least, before it is over, he will have one small satisfaction. He feints with his left shoulder, then puts all of his strength into one final effort, and delivers a right to the madman’s groin.

  The air rushes out of Amin’s mouth with a woosh! and he doubles over, then drops to his knees.

  Ali pushes Nyerere into a neutral corner, then instructs the judges to take away a point from him on their scorecards.

  They can take away a point, Nyerere thinks, but they can’t take away the fact that I met him on the field of battle, that I lasted more than six rounds, that the giant went down twice. Once before the pen, once before the sword.

  And both were ineffective.

  Even a Mwalimu can learn one last lesson, he decides, and it is that sometimes even vectors and philosophy aren’t enough. We must find another way to conquer Africa’s dark heart, the madness that pervades this troubled land. I have shown those who will follow me the first step; I have stood up to it, faced it without flinching. It will be up to someone else, a wiser Mwalimu than myself, to learn how to overcome it. I have done my best, I have given my all, I have made the first dent in its armor. Rationality cannot always triumph over madness, but it must stand up and be counted, as I have stood up. They cannot ask any more of me.

  Finally at peace with himself, he prepares for the giant’s final assault.

  INTRODUCTION TO “BARNABY IN EXILE”

  John Scalzi

  One day when I was young, my grandfather told me that the best IQ anyone could have was 93. The reason for this, he explained, was that it was just smart enough that you could do just about anything you wanted to do if you worked at it, but you weren’t smart enough to be overly burdened with self-awareness. At the time I thought grandpa was being cynical, but now having lived long enough to meet any number of people for whom a significant amount of intelligence did not actually make their lives happier or more productive, I wonder if, in his own, cranky way, he didn’t have a very good point. All that being smart means is that you’re smart.

  My grandfather’s words came back to me while reading “Barnaby in Exile,” the hero of which has the sort of intelligence that is beyond the understanding of those from which he came. That this remarkable intelligence is a gift isn’t much in doubt, but gifts can also be curses (the prime historical example of this being the now-proverbial “white elephant”). My grandfather has passed on, but I think he would have enjoyed reading how Barnaby tries to negotiate his own needs around the gravity well of his intelligence.

  One thing’s for sure: Mike Resnick’s IQ is somewhat above 93. His intelligence may or may not always make him happy—he generally seems happy when I see him, but then generally when I see him, we’re in the bar at a convention, so what’s not to be happy about?—but from our end we get some good stories out it. And that makes me happy, at least.

  One day I was chatting with science fiction writer Maureen McHugh, and she mentioned that along with Koko, the famous “talking” gorilla, there was now a Bonobo chimpanzee who could also sign, and that her favorite sign was “Tickle me!”

  I got to thinking about it, and wondered what would happen if you had an even more intelligent ape, an ape that could solve puzzles that would stump a 6-year-old child, an ape whose signing vocabulary was perhaps 300 words…and what would happen if for some reason you had to return him to the wild?

  So I wrote “Barnaby in Exile” to see what the answer might be, and it was a Hugo nominee for Best Short Story in 1994.

  BARNABY IN EXILE

  BARNABY SITS IN HIS CAGE, waiting for Sally to come into the lab.

  She will give him the puzzle, the same one he worked on yesterday. But today he will not disappoint her. He has been thinking about the puzzle all night. Thinking is fun. Today he will do it right, and she will laugh and tell him how smart he is. He will lay on his back and she will tickle his stomach, and say, “Oh, what a bright young fellow you are, Barnaby!” Then Barnaby will make a funny face and turn a somersault.

  Barnaby is me.

  It gets lonely after Sally leaves. Bud comes when it is black and cleans my cage, but he never talks. Sometimes he forgets and leaves the light on. Then I try to talk to Roger and his family, but they are just rabbits and cannot make the signs. I don’t think they are very smart, anyway.

  Every night when Bud comes in I sit up and smile at him. I always make the sign for “Hello”, but he doesn’t answer. Sometimes I think Bud isn’t any smarter than Roger. He just pats me on the head. Sometimes he leaves the pictures on after he leaves.

  My favorite pictures are Fred and Barney. Everything is so bright and fast. Many times I ask Sally to bring Dino to the lab so that I can play with him, but she never does. I like Barney, because he is not as big or loud as Fred, and I am not big or loud either. Also, my name is Barnaby and that is like Barney. Sometimes, when it is black and I am all alone, I imagine that I am Barney, and that I don’t sleep in a cage at all.

  This day it was white out, and Sally even had white on her when she came to the lab, but it all turned to water.

  Today we had a new toy. It looks like the thing on Doctor’s desk, with lots of little things that look like flat grapes. Sally told me that she would show me something and then I should touch the grape that had the same picture on it. She showed me a shoe, and a ball, and an egg, and a star, and a square.

  I did the egg and the ball wrong, but tomorrow I will do them right. I think more every day. Like Sally says I am a very bright young fellow.

  We have spent many days with the new toy, and now I can speak to Sally with it, just by touching the right grapes.

  She will come into the lab and say, “How are you this morning, Barnaby?”, and I will touch the grapes that say, “Barnaby is fine” or “Barnaby is hungry.”

  What I really want to say is “Barnaby is lonely” but there is no grape for “lonely”.

  Today I touch the grapes that say “Barnaby wants out.”

  “Out of your cage?” she asks.

  “Out there,” I sign. “Out in the white.”

  “You would not like it.”

  “I do not like the black when I am alone,” I sign. “I will like the white.”

  “It is very cold,” she says, “and you are not used to it.”

  “The white is very pretty,” I
say. “Barnaby wants out.”

  “The last time I let you out you hurt Roger,” she reminds me.

  “I just wanted to touch him,” I say.

  “You do not know your own strength,” she says. “Roger is just a rabbit, and you hurt him.”

  “I will be gentle this time,” I say.

  “I thought you didn’t like Roger,” she says.

  “I don’t like Roger,” I say. “I like touching.”

  She reaches into the cage and tickles my belly and scratches my back and I feel better, but then she stops.

  “It is time for your lesson,” she says.

  “If I do it right, can you bring me something to touch?” I ask.

  “What kind of thing?” she says.

  I think for a moment. “Another Barnaby,” I say.

  She looks sad, and doesn’t answer.

  One day Sally brings me a book filled with pictures. I smell it and taste it. Finally I figure out that she wants me to look at it.

  There are all kinds of animals in it. I see one that looks like Roger, but it is brown and Roger is white. And there is a kitten, like I see through the window. And a dog, like Doctor sometimes brings to the lab. But there is no Dino.

  Then I see a picture of a boy. His hair is shorter than Sally’s, and not as gray as Doctor’s, or as yellow as Bud’s. But he is smiling, and I know he must have many things to touch.

  When Sally comes back the next morning, I have lots of questions about the pictures. But before I can ask her, she asks me.

  “What is this?” she says, holding up a picture.

  “Roger,” I say.

  “No,” she says. “Roger is a name. What is this animal called?”

  I try to remember. “Rabbit,” I say at last.

  “Very good, Barnaby,” she says. “And what is this?”

  “Kitten,” I say.

  We got through the whole book.

  “Where is Barnaby?” I ask.

  “Barnaby is an ape,” she says. “There is no picture of an ape in the book.”

  I wonder if there are any other Barnabys in the world, and if they are lonely too.

  Later I ask, “Do I have a father and a mother?”

  “Of course you do,” says Sally. “Everything has a father and a mother.”

  “Where are they?” I ask.

  “Your father is dead,” says Sally. “Your mother is in a zoo far away from here.”

  “Barnaby wants to see his mother,” I say.

  “I’m afraid not, Barnaby.”

  “Why?”

  “She wouldn’t know you. She has forgotten you, just as you have forgotten her.”

  “If I could see her, I would say ‘I’m Barnaby,’ and then she would know me.”

  Sally shakes her head. “She wouldn’t understand. You are very special; she is not. She can’t sign, and she can’t use a computer.”

  “Does she have any other Barnabys?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” says Sally. “I suppose so.”

  “How does she speak to them?”

  “She doesn’t.”

  I think about this for a long time.

  Finally I say, “But she touches them.”

  “Yes, she touches them,” says Sally.

  “They must be very happy,” I say.

  Today I will find out more about being Barnaby.

  “Good morning,” says Sally when she comes into the lab. “How are you today, Barnaby?”

  “What is a zoo?” I ask.

  “A zoo is a place where animals live,” says Sally.

  “Can I see a zoo through the window?”

  “No. It is very far away.”

  I think about my next question for a long time. “Are Barnabys animals?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are Sallys animals?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “Does Sally’s mother live in a zoo?”

  Sally laughs. “No,” she says.

  “Does she live in a cage?”

  “No,” says Sally.

  I think for awhile.

  “Sally’s mother is dead,” I say.

  “No, she is alive.”

  I get very upset, because I do not know how to ask why Sally’s mother is different from Barnaby’s mother, and the harder I try the worse I do it, and Sally cannot understand me. Finally I start hitting the floor with my fist. Roger and his family all jump, and Doctor opens the door. Sally gives me a little toy that squeeks when I hit it, and very soon I forget to be mad and start playing with the toy. Sally says something to Doctor, and he smiles and leaves.

  “Do you want to ask anything else before we begin our lesson?” asks Sally.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Why what?”

  “Why is Barnaby an ape and Sally a man?”

  “Because that is the way God made us,” she says.

  I start getting very excited, because I think I am very close to learning more about Barnabys.

  “Who is God?” I ask.

  She tries to answer, but I do not understand again.

  When it gets black and I am all alone except for Roger and his family, and Bud has already cleaned my cage, I sit and think about God. Thinking can be very interesting.

  If he made Sally and he made me, why didn’t he make me as smart as Sally? Why can she talk, and do things with her hands that I can’t do?

  It is very confusing. I decide that I must meet God and ask him why he does these things, and why he forgot that even Barnabys like to be touched.

  As soon as Sally comes into the lab, I ask her, “Where does God live?”

  “In heaven.”

  “Is heaven far away?”

  “Yes.”

  “Farther than a zoo?” I ask.

  “Much farther.”

  “Does God ever come to the lab?”

  She laughs. “No. Why?”

  “I have many questions to ask him.”

  “Perhaps I can answer some of them,” she says.

  “Why am I alone?”

  “Because you are very special,” says Sally.

  “If I was not special, would I be with other Barnabys?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have never hurt God,” I say. “Why has God made me special?”

  The next morning I ask her to tell me about the other Barnabys.

  “Barnaby is just a name,” explains Sally. “There are other apes, but I don’t know if any of them are named Barnaby.”

  “What is a name?”

  “A name is what makes you different from everything else.”

  “If my name was Fred or Dino, could I be like everyone else?” I ask.

  “No,” she says. “You are special. You are Barnaby the Bonobo. You are very famous.”

  “What is famous?”

  “Many people know who you are.”

  “What are People?” I ask.

  “Men and women.”

  “Are there more than you and Doctor and Bud?”

  “Yes.”

  Then it is time for my lessons, but I do them very badly, because I am still thinking about a world that has more People in it than Sally and Doctor and Bud. I am so busy wondering who lets them out of their cages when the dark goes away, that I forget all about God and don’t think about him any more for many days.

  I hear Sally talking to Doctor, but I do not understand what they are saying.

  Doctor keeps repeating that we don’t have any more fun, and Sally keeps saying that Barnaby is special, and then they both say a lot of things I can’t understand.

  When they are through, and Doctor leaves, I ask Sally why we can’t have fun any more.

  “Fun?” she repeats. “What do you mean?”

  “Doctor says there will be no more fun.”

  She stares at me for a long time. “You understood what he said?”

  “Why can’t we have any fun?” I repeat.

  “Fund,” she says. “The word was fund. It means something different.”r />
  “Then Barnaby and Sally can still have fun?” I ask.

  “Of course we can.”

  I lay on my back and sign to her. “Tickle me.”

  She reaches into the cage and tickles me, but I see water in her eyes. Human People make water in their eyes when they are unhappy. I pretend to bite her hand and then race around my cage like I did when I was a baby, but this time it doesn’t make her laugh.

  I hear voices coming from behind the door. It is Sally and Doctor again.

  “Well, we can’t put him in a zoo,” says Doctor. “If he starts signing to the spectators, they’d have a million people demanding his freedom by the end of the month, and then what would happen? What would become of him? Can you picture the poor bastard in a circus?”

  “We can’t destroy him just because he’s too bright,” says Sally.

  “Who will take him? You?” says Doctor. “He’s only eight now. What happens when he becomes sexually mature, when he is a surly adult male? It’s not that far away. He could rip you apart in seconds.”

  “He won’t—not Barnaby.”

  “Will your landlord let you keep him? Are you willing to sacrifice the next twenty years of your life caring for him?”

  “We might get renewed funding as early as this fall,” says Sally.

  “Be realistic,” says Doctor. “It’ll be years, if ever. This program is being duplicated at half a dozen labs around the country, and some of them are much farther along. Barnaby’s not the only ape that has learned to use articles and adjectives, you know. There’s a 25-year-old gorilla, and three other Bonobo chimps that are well into their teens. There’s no reason to believe that anyone will restore our funding.”

  “But he’s different,” says Sally. “He asks abstract questions.”

  “I know, I know…once he asked you who God was. But I studied the tape, and you mentioned God first. If you mention Michael Jordan and he asks who that is, it doesn’t mean that he’s developed an abiding interest in basketball.”

  “Can I at least talk to the committee? Show them videotapes of him?”

  “They know what a chimpanzee looks like,” says Doctor.

  “But they don’t know what one thinks like,” says Sally. “Perhaps this will help to convince them…”