Wormholes
Page 35
He could see Sandy best, which was good, because he found her deeply attractive. She turned so he could see her face, with her wide eyes and softly contoured jaw. He remembered their last coupling in the yard during her estrous. Despite their deep attraction to one another, though, they had their quarrels, too; as had happened yesterday when he had crankily meted out a slap at her. But later they’d made peace; he’d offered a hand as a peace gesture, which she took in her mouth as acceptance, and they’d shared a make-up kiss.
A metallic click interrupted Solomon’s reverie. He instantly recognized the sound of the door to their wing unlocking, and he swung out of the tunnel and over to the cage front. He clutched the wire and pressed his large face against the thick mesh trying to peer down the row of cages to the open door. A low babble of unfamiliar human voices filtered through the open door. Solomon sensed that the whispered commands contained an urgency, a tension. The others began to grunt in jittery curiosity at the strangers invading their home. Jonathan, trying to advance his status as alpha male, began a low pant-hooting that grew into a furious scream, slamming his body with a massive boom into the metal door to the outside. The others leaped and swung about their cages in anxious reaction to the visitors.
But Solomon remained quiet, focusing his senses. Now was the time, he knew. He stared suspiciously at a shadowy figure in the doorway. It was joined by another, and perhaps a third. At first he wasn’t sure, but one of them appeared to be Abby striding toward him down the row.
It was Abby! Their leader, their protector, the most trusted human in their lives. The apes danced and swung about with gleeful hoots of greeting or raucous lip-razzes to attract her cherished attention. But she merely greeted the others, stopping in front of his cage. Solomon pressed himself as close to the mesh as he could, studying her face for clues to the decision he still did not understand. The slump of her shoulders told him it bothered her. He wanted to communicate with her, to go to the machine room to make more talking with the touch screen.
But the long-barreled tranquilizer gun she brought up meant there would be no more talking about this. Now would come the needle-sleep. He retreated, whimpering, dancing back and forth across the cage in anxiety, the hair on his body rising. The others saw the gun, and their raucous hooting and screaming rose in volume to thicken the atmosphere with fear.
“Okay, Solly, we’ve got to dart you,” said Abby. “Just put you to sleep for a while. Turn around, big guy. Let me get a good shot.” Despite her nonchalant words Solomon discerned the strain in her voice, not a difficult task after decades of paying rapt attention to her every mood.
He hooted softly, in a question. Why was she so nervous? From beyond the door, the strangers’ voices rose again, one calling, “We need to get this operation underway, Dr. Philips.”
“C’mon, turn around,” said Abby softly. “We have to do this. We have to. It’s a good thing for you, Solly.”
Still whimpering in anxiety and puzzlement, Solomon obediently turned his rump to her, knowing the needle-sleep would come with the shot, but also trusting that Abby would be with him. Abby raised the gun, trembling slightly. The gun fired with a faint explosive poof, and the sting in his calf told Solomon the dart had entered. A wisp of sleep fog began to curl through his brain.
Abby asked for the dart, and he obligingly plucked it out and shuffled forward to give it to her. His vision blurring, he turned to see the strangers walking along the row, their appearance producing a new round of frightened, raucous eruptions from the others. Jonathan pant-hooted his way up to another piercing scream, and Bruno let loose an alarm whoop, as Earle skittered about in panic, hair raised. Others cowered, barked or flung their large plastic barrels against the wall with clattering crashes.
But for Solomon, the sounds faded as the fog thickened, brought darkness. The last thing he heard was Abby saying in the distance of receding consciousness, “It’s okay, Solly. We just have to do this.”
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Epilogue
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