Dr. Bedoian sighed. "There's something about you, Pan. You make friends easier than anyone I ever met."
"Everybody loves chimpanzees," Pan Satyrus said, "Chimpanzees, however, do not love everyone. That's the trouble with the human world. Everybody goes around trying to make everybody else love him. When a chimpanzee comes along, people are refreshed."
The senior man in the front seat spoke up. "By God, you're right. When I pinch anybody, nine times out of ten he'd never get convicted if he didn't talk. But he wants to make me like him. He has to tell me why he did it, so I'll forgive him. So I'll like him. And he can't tell why he did it without saying he did it, so I nail him. What's wrong with people?"
"Not completely evoluted," Pan Satyrus said. "There's a theory called teleology, which maintains that evolution has a purpose, and when the ideal being is created, evolution will cease. The chimpanzee? I don't know too much about teleology, as the keeper who had the book got bored and never looked at it after the first night, and then only for a few minutes."
"Chimps are not completely independent," Dr. Bedoian said. "They live a group fife, they need love to be happy."
"We were talking about men, not chimps," Pan Satyrus said with dignity.
The driver laughed again, and then sat up straighter in his seat and turned the car off the secondary road they had been travelling, onto a dirt, or tertiary road that wound between hummocks and through patches of discouraged-looking palmettos.
"Dr. Bedoian, you should have taught me to eat an animal diet," Pan said.
Dr. Bedoian said nothing.
The car bumped along. Occasionally it would pass a raggedy-looking man in blue jeans and a straw hat. They would have been more convincingly bucolic if the straw hats had not all been of the same type and degree of wear. Still, a super straw hat salesman might have passed through there once, about four years before, and never returned.
"I shall refuse to be questioned if you aren't present," Pan Satyrus said.
Dr. Bedoian said nothing.
"Aram," Pan Satyrus asked, "what have I done to make you angry?"
"Who can live without love, who needs no friends?" Dr. Bedoian asked. "I was just trying you out. After all, I am a scientist."
Ahead of them a woven wire gate was marked with a big sign: pumping station, and the name of a natural gas company. But there were no pipelines anywhere around there.
A uniformed man, carrying a rifle, opened the gate, and the three cars bumped through and fined up alongside each other. Some more men with rifles came out, and the passengers disembarked, each car also disgorging its pair of security men.
Mr. MacMahon appeared from somewhere, and took charge. The terms in which he did it were ominous: "Take all four of the prisoners into the office together. They are not to talk."
From the outside the building resembled a corrugated iron shed for the protection of oil drums or pumping machinery. Inside, it was every government office in the country; waist high walls for the lower officers, ceiling high walls for their superiors, two bull pens full of desks for their inferiors.
Mr. MacMahon led the four culprits — prisoners-guests — to what any bureaucrat would have recognized as the most important of the offices.
Inside, a civil-service faced woman was typing. She did not look up as they went through to the inner office, which was marked, simply, private.
There was a huge desk in the office. Three men sat behind it. Though they wore their shirts and flowered ties and pleated slacks, at least two of them had the unmistakable look of military men in what used to be called mufti.
The one in the center had a closely cropped mustache, a deep suntan, and a jaw that rivalled Pan Satyrus'. He said, "Just line the people up, MacMahon, and leave us alone."
MacMahon said, "Sir, as a matter of physical security—"
"We've got two able bodied Navy men here, if we need them."
MacMahon looked unconvinced but he went out.
Pan said, "My name is Satyrus, sir. And yours?"
"You can call me Mr. Armstrong. And your name is Mem, a chimpanzee."
"Quite so, sir, but I do not care for the name of Mem."
Mr. Armstrong stretched his arms up above his head, then brought them down and caressed Ms shoulders with strong fingertips. "This damned air conditioning," he said. "Why, Mem, I do not care what you care for. To me, you are just an ape who is trying to make a monkey out of the United States." He let his stern glance rake the two sailors and the doctor.
"That's pretty good," Pan Satyrus said. "Make a note of it, Happy. Radioman Bronstein is my secretary," he said to Mr. Armstrong.
"I'm Mr. Satyrus' valley," Ape Bates said. Mr. Armstrong stared at them. "This is very funny, I know," he said. "It may cease to be so at any moment. Kindly remember that you are enlisted men to the armed forces, and subject to court-martial." "I don't see no officers present," Ape Bates said. Mr. Armstrong had the grace to blush. "Now, Mem," he said. "Or Satyrus if you prefer. Playtime is over. You did something to the controls of that spaceship, the Mem-sahib. All right, all right, I don't care for the name, either. What you did was not an accident. We — the government of your country—"
"No," Pan Satyrus said. "Not my country. Do primates, other than Homo sapiens, have a vote? Can a gorilla be President, a macaque governor, a rhesus Secretary of State?"
"My God," Mr. Armstrong said, "you're demanding votes for monkeys."
The man on his right had been busily cleaning a pipe. Now he laid it on the table. "Okay. Any monkeys or apes that get to be twenty-one and can pass 3 literacy test, they vote." "Very funny," Pan Satyrus said. The man took up his pipe and another cleaner. "But that is what we are here for," Mr. Armstrong said. "To find out your price for disclosing this very important secret to us, and to get it for you, if it is within reason." "Chimpanzees are not subject to human desires."
"Then we are prepared to fill some chimpanzee desires. A cage full of luscious young females? A daily carload of bananas? Name it."
Pan Satyrus laughed his alarming laugh.
"You may also — since you seem quite intelligent-have sensed that the atmosphere in this room is not quite like that of some other places where you have been. We are neither security guards nor politicians here. If it is clear, in our opinion, that you are not, at any price, going to cooperate, we are prepared to dispose of you, as humanely as possible, but as finally as possible, too. In other words, a gas chamber, a bullet, whatever is feasible."
"Hold on, mister," Ape Bates exclaimed.
The one of the three men who had not yet spoken spoke now. He barked, "'Ten-shun, Chief!"
Ape Bates came to attention; so did Happy Bronstein.
Pan Satyrus said, slowly, "I have seen your face, sir. In the papers. You are the admiral the Navy hates."
The third man chuckled slightly, and then was still.
"But you are intelligent," Pan said. "And nice looking. Given a little makeup you could pass for some species of giant gibbon. Do you think men ought to have the secret of faster-than-light travel?"
"I think, by and large, they'll have it sooner or later; much sooner, now that we know it is possible. And I think that if anybody is going to have it, our side should. Period."
"Satyrus, you can talk," Mr. Armstrong said. "We cannot let you loose, or even confined to a cage, with this knowledge unless we are sure you are cooperative. At the level of animal keeper, security becomes improbable, if not impossible."
"Has my spaceship been well examined?" Satyrus asked. "Have you had a metallurgist go over it?"
Mr. Armstrong kept his steady eyes on Pan's. The admiral and the pipe cleaner looked up.
"You'll find Mendelev's law confirmed in a new way," Pan went on. "Each of the metals has moved up one notch in his scale. Alchemy, gents, alchemy."
The unpopular admiral frowned. "Better check, Armstrong," he said.
Mr. Armstrong opened a drawer, took a microphone out of it, and held it to the corner of his mouth. He talk
ed, apparently, but not a sound came out into the room. Then he put the microphone away.
"I think I know what this means, but someone fill me in, to be sure," he said.
The man with the mustache said, "Shoot up a load of copper, get back a load of gold."
"I was up there quite a while," Pan said. "I had to do something to occupy myself. Weightlessness and idleness don't go together in the chimpanzee's cosmos. I did not, however, expect to retrogress, or devolute, or devolve. Or I wouldn't have been so damned playful."
"You're not amusing us," Mr, Armstrong said.
"No," the admiral put in. "If this gets out, gold isn't worth anything at all."
Pan Satyrus sat down on the floor and began grooming himself. "I'm hungry."
"Too bad," Armstrong said. He began to grin, slightly.
Dr. Bedoian pushed forward. "If you are thinking what I think you are thinking, forget it. I have been handling chimpanzees — and other primates — quite a while. There comes a point where that sort of thing only makes them more rebellious. To the point of suicide."
The man with the mustache said, "Young man, just which side are you on, anyway?"
"Oh, I'm loyal enough. But Pan Satyrus is my patient. And I don't believe anyone else here is a primate expert."
"And you are?"
"Mr. Armstrong, if I'm not, the government wasted several years of salary on me. Believe me, there comes a time in a chimpanzee's life when he rebels. And Pan Satyrus here is mighty close to it."
"Then you advise — extinction."
The croaking bellow of Chief Bates filled the room. "That's murder."
The admiral said, coldly, "As you were, Chief. The disposal of an animal — government property — is hardly murder."
The old chief stood his ground. 'Pan ain't an animal."
Happy Bronstein took his cue from the chief. "I wasn't brought up to be a sea lawyer, but I'd sure hate to shoot a chimpanzee who talked. You'd be in the brig for years, while the lawyers tried to decide was it murder or not. Pan, here, is a person."
Pan Satyrus pulled himself to his full four feet six. "I am not," he said.
Silence fell across the star chamber.
CHAPTER EIGHT
No qualified person thinks that man is descended from any existing anthropoid ape.
Up Prom The Ape Earnest Hooton, 1946
Flying up to New York, I was not easy in my mind. That Iggie Napoli, my assistant, was too smart. So now he had my mobile unit and my mike, and if any kind of story broke in Florida while I was away, he would go on the air. And who could fail to remember a man named Ignatz Napoli? I had spent more than ten years teaching them to remember Bill Dunham, but Iggie could do it in two interviews, if they were good ones.
So here I went, back to the front office to report, and not at all happy.
My story on the chimponaut was a beat, all right, an old-fashioned scoop, but I hadn't dominated the interview — Pan Satyrus had. And in this business, you limp once, and somebody bites both legs off and sends you a bunch of roses because they're so sorry you're not feeling well.
I took a cab at the airport. I wasn't in any mood to ride with the schnooks in the regular bus. New York, when we came out of the tunnel, looked just the same, everybody hurrying, everybody wrapped up in himself. The elevator starter at the network building remembered me, and I began to feel a little better.
Those guys are the first ones to get the word when the sling has been rigged.
"Take Mr. Dunham right up," he told the operator, and my spirits went up without mechanical help. Thirty-second, Mr. Dunham?"
"Thirty-second," I said, and slipped him a five, He said he was glad to see me back.
No sling today.
Yep. Little pretty-thighs on the reception table had a big row of teeth ready for me and a look down her cleavage. You can always tell how high you are in the network by how deep you can see. She must practice all night; I don't know when she sleeps, though I know with whom, usually…
And whooo-whoppie — here I am, with two vice presidents and an exec, and the bottle coming out, and welcome home to our Billy-boy, safe back from the wars.
No sling today. Slings tomorrow, or the day after, but none today.
Riker, the exec, was running the conference. "Bill, I suppose you know why we hauled you back here," he said.
Whatever he made out of my smile, he could keep. I hoisted my drink and let the ice clink against my teeth.
"That chimp — what did you call him, a chimponaut — of yours is the biggest thing since Jackie Gleason."
"Fat prospects, huh?" Very bad, but a standard move of mine. When they laugh at your bad jokes, you can ask for a raise. When they laugh at the good ones, it's not so sure, though I think those guys never do anything by accident…
They laughed at that one, so I knew that I was really high.
"Drink up, Billy-boy," Riker said.
I drank up, Out in the field I drink Scotch, but that close to Madison Avenue you are not a real fellow unless you drink bourbon-and-branch. I can re member when, it was scotch-on-the-rocks, but to ask for that now would date you. Never get dated, my friend; dates are for tombstones.
"Boys," I asked, "what can I do for you?"
Well, it seemed I couldn't do anything. They had just called me back to New York to find out if I liked Florida. But there's an end to that sort of thing; and finally Riker gives the nod to McLemore, and McLemore gives the nod to Hirts, and Hirts gives me the word, "Billy, you ever think of quitting the news end?"
"Nope." They were getting no change from me.
"You ever dream of being a producer?"
"Nope."
Of a dramatic show," McLemore asks, beginning to pass it up the line again. "Casting beautiful young dolls, kicking actors, bossing writers?"
"Nope. I am an old newsman; guess I'll die one."
"An executive producer," Riker says. "With a director under you, and an assistant producer."
"Listen, Rike, if I woke up in the same bed, or even in the same town three mornings in a row I wouldn't know where I was. I've been at it, newspaper, radio and TV since interviewing Dolley Madison was the hot thing to do."
"We all have to settle down," Riker said, who settled down when he was about eleven and his father left him three million bucks. "You've been an asset to this network, Bill. It's time you reaped some of the good things of life."
No sling was in sight, but it sounded like one was rigged. And yet, there was the bottle, there was the elevator starter, there was Little Miss Lowneck on the reception desk. I said, "Rike, what's the pitch? Let's quit horsing around. You know me: I'm an organization man. What does the organization want?"
"That's right, Bill," Riker said. "Leave us not fight City Hall, eh? It's this ape, Bill, this chimpanzee. Pan Satyrus. The chimponaut."
"What about him?"
Now we had all forgotten the bottle, and what good friends we were, and how we all love the network, our jobs and the U.S.A. Now we were working.
"An hour show," Riker said. "One of our best sponsors: North-South Family Group Insurance. Practically any budget we care to name. But, the chimp has to star. Period. Paragraph."
"So buy the chimp."
They all three looked at me like I had spat on their family Bibles. Which was fine; I had a reputation as a professional roughneck to maintain.
"Billy-boy," Hirts said.
"Always joking," McLemore contributed.
But Riker, the exec, was a boss. "You don't buy personalities," he said. "And he is the greatest personality in months. Since John Glenn, or Carolyn Kennedy."
"We could tell on the air you two hit it off," Hirts said. "You were talking like you'd known each other all your lives."
"He's only seven and a half," I said.
"He's born show business," McLemore said.
"He is what our sponsor wants," Riker finished the cycle.
So now I had the word; and in this business, when you get it, you listen. "
In the words of the poet," I said, "I am only talking out loud. But A — he is government property. B — he is damned emotional. C— there were security men around him like he was the Russian ambassador. That ape knows something, and the government isn't going to let him out to tell it."
Riker nodded at McLemore and McLemore nodded at Hirts, and Hirts said, "You can handle it, Bill."
"There's a spot for me at NBC, and one at CBS," I said. "And Mutual or ABC, they know me of old."
"Don't talk like that," Riker said. "You're an organization man."
So I reached for the phone on his desk and said, "Get me Legal, whoever's the head of it now."
"Let me see, Mr. Dunham," the girl said. They all know your voice at the Network — till the sling is rigged. "That's Mr. Rossini." "Give him the baton, darling."
Mr. Rossini I didn't know. But he had a very musical voice to go with the name. He wanted to know what he could do for his dear Mr. Dunham.
"What's the legal definition of a human being?" I asked him.
Long pause. Then: "There isn't any." "What do you do when that happens?" Mr. Rossini said, cautiously, "Well, I don't know that it ever happened before. I mean, the courts have had time to cover almost everything since Magna Carta… I suppose a court hearing, a court order?" "How about the dictionary definition?" Mr. Rossini said he would look it up. I said I would hold the phone. Hirts said he knew that Billy-boy could handle it. Riker said nothing.
Finally Rossini said, "It isn't at all clear. Like — a man is a man is a man. It says human means of the race, of or related to man."
"Check, Rossini. Good enough. Now, get your hat, and start down for Judge Manton's chambers. I'll call him. We want a court order asking for the release of one Pan Satyrus, illegally held by the U.S. Government." "Oh," Rossini said. 'I heard we were interested." "I'm in Riker's office right now. Get on it, pal." "Mr. Dunham, you can't sue the U.S. Government without its permission."
"You and Manton fix it. I'll call him." Manton was home when I tried his chambers. I called him there. "Judge, you once said any time to me. This is it. I got a lawyer named Rossini on his way to your chambers. I want an order establishing that chimponaut, Pan Satyrus, as a human being."
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