I had no preconceived notion of how the apes lived, having seen nothing of their city outside of my examining room, and having had no time to formulate opinions from the meager clues provided by Dr. Chala. Despite this lack, and despite my enervated condition, when the full uniqueness of Tahana City presented itself to my eyes, I forgot my fatigue and surrendered wholly to my supposedly jaded sense of wonder.
Tahana City was contained entirely inside of a mountain.
To call it a "city" was perhaps an exaggeration. It was more of a small town, encompassing at most ten thousand souls. But although I lacked any pretension to engineering, I could see at a glance that the construction of this hamlet had required more skill and more technical knowledge than the greatest metropolis of my Earth. I stared skyward, or where I had assumed the sky to be, and the only word that finally came to convey the majesty of this achievement was "cathedral."
The builders of Tahana had not sought to make the inside of their mountain resemble the outside world; that would have been too obvious, and too cruel. Their genius had suggested a far more elegant solution, one that incorporated, rather than denied, the uniqueness of their setting. Through some exotic process, they had altered the very composition of the mountain itself so that parts of it, in a dazzling pattern that drew the eye ever onward until it curved in on itself, actually admitted the light of day.
Dr. Chala explained to me that the mountain itself was solid rock, and that the process of admitting light, called "photonic integration," was a gift from the original architects, gone to dust a thousand years ago, their knowledge lost with them. From outside the mountain appeared to be, and was, entirely normal. But inside the golden light shone as through clear glass, diffusing until the city suffered not at all from its subterranean milieu.
All this I absorbed in the first breathless moments that I stared, transfixed, as I exited the hospital. Later I asked the Librarian what he knew of photonic integration, but it was outside of his programming. I was disappointed, having hoped to repay the apes in some way for their assistance. But that disappointment soon melted in the warmth of their genuine friendship.
Dr. Chala took me to her home, which was, I was surprised to learn, Timash's as well. They were mother and son. No sooner did we arrive than she informed him that I would be using his room and he would be banished to guest quarters. Like any son, he averted his eyes, muttered under his breath, and obeyed.
Timash's bed seemed large enough for my entire family, built as it was to support his greater bulk. When I crawled out into the middle of it and spread-eagled, I could not touch any of the edges. The first night I took advantage of this fact to wrap the huge but thin blankets tightly around me, but I soon learned that Tahana City's stable temperature rendered most night coverings unnecessary and I slept quite comfortably indeed.
I soon had reason to be glad of my comforts, for Dr. Chala's residence suddenly became a social watering hole, as civic leaders, scientists, friends, relatives, and curiosity seekers began beating a path to her door. She had been granted a leave of absence from the hospital, with the understanding that she would use her home office to keep up with some of her patients, but the endless parade of visitors quickly made that impractical. In self-defense, she began to encourage Timash to take me on tours of the city.
Following the contours of the mountain itself, Tahana's buildings became taller the closer one came to its center. It made for a pleasing symmetry, even if the tallest of them rose only four stories. The pattern of light from above, diffused by distance, created a warm glow about the city that complemented the quiet way the apes went about their lives. Quiet, indeed—with the mountain all around them loud noises would forever be echoed back upon them. Londoners and New Yorkers could never have survived!
The city streets were narrow, but the apes had no vehicles to speak of, and in a deliberate contrast to the rocky precipices that formed their horizon, they had lined their avenues with trees and their buildings with color. Along these we strolled through crowds of gorillas, nor did I ever see another human being.
The citizens themselves tended to be shy and non-confrontational, with the exception of those who would make themselves at home with Dr. Chala, hoping to catch me for a few minutes' conversation. But even the scientists and politicians (who had not changed in a mere 900,000 years!) were easily dissuaded should I choose to excuse myself. The centuries of close living had given them a respect for privacy not unlike the Japanese, and I feel sure that many social gaffes on my part went unremarked.
I learned more about the apes by watching Timash than through conversation with him. He reminded me of my own friends of my adolescent days: everything interested him at once, and nothing for very long—unless it swayed and winked at him in the street, at which time he was wont to forget me completely in fascinated observation of what, in the apes, I found difficult to think of as "the gentler sex." (Although they likely could not have crushed my skull like an eggshell with a single blow of their massive fists, as could their forebears, I did not doubt that one could lift me over her head and dash me to the ground with little effort and much the same result.)
When it came to the world outside, Timash was much more informative, for he had lived there. Not all of the Tehanans lived in the mountain; some preferred the outdoors even with its unpredictable weather, animals, and occasional human interlopers.
"Most of them still think we're savages," he muttered one day as we strolled along a quiet, park-like lane. He had recently spied a girl of his fancy, and her dismissal of his advances had pushed his mood distinctly toward the morose. Apparently my company suited him. "Except for the conservationists; they think we should simply move into abandoned villages instead of building them ourselves."
"The conservationists? Who are they?"
His head raised a bit and he almost smiled. "They're the ones fighting with the Nuum."
I waited until my patience was out, and then I prodded him. "And…?"
"Hey! That hurt."
"Tell me about the conservationists," I said quickly. I had seen Timash aroused to anger and was not keen to repeat the experience. "I was shanghaied by the Nuum to fight someone. In fact, I had to escape them through the middle of a battle. Were those the conservationists?"
Timash turned to stare at me, a new light sparkling in his close-set eyes. "Really? A battle?" Only when I pantomimed seizing him by the throat did he collect himself. "Well, the conservationists are humans who've lived here a long time. Maybe as long as we have. They respect the trees and the jungle, the way the Nuum don't know how to do. The Nuum have been trying to move into the jungle and harvest trees and animals, and the conservationists are trying to stop them."
"Really…" I said, half to myself. "How long has this been going on?"
"Not long." Timash made a face, something the apes seemed to enjoy just for the exercise. "Maybe a year or two. I used to go up to their camp and see them, but Mother won't let me any more."
"I thought you were old enough that you didn't have to listen to your mother."
He only grunted.
"It seems the conservationists are giving the Nuum all they can handle down here. That's why they brought us from up north. They said the black Nuum could not take care of their responsibilities, so it was up to the red Nuum to do it for them."
This time his eyebrows shot up. "Really? But the blacks and the reds hate each other!"
"That's what they said…"
"Shene must be massacring them!"
"Who is Shene?"
"Shene's the leader of the conservationists. I knew she was going to resist, but this is great!"
It was my turn to put on a face. "I thought your mother didn't let you go to see them any more." He averted his eyes. "That's where you were going when we met, wasn't it? And when you saw me, you were hoping to take me prisoner!"
"Yeah, but the tiger spiders got in the way, and then we had to run, and things got all fouled up. It would have been great, but I gues
s it worked out all right."
His friendly compliment flew past me without recognition. What a world of possibility this opened! Until now I had been wandering, tossed to and fro involuntarily and without purpose. This was the first moment that the resentment of the Nuum that had bubbled inside me since the deadly riots had found vent to the outer world. Here, a hemisphere removed from where I had first witnessed their ruthless carnage, I had discovered a way in which I might strike back!
But no sooner had my mind embraced this great purpose than the clouds began to rise around my brain. Though I seemed to act the same from my viewpoint, I saw the alarm spread on Timash's face as far away I heard a madman's rising babble, and I realized faintly that the madman was me…
Strong arms gathered me up like a babe. As my conscious mind began to succumb, I heard the sounds of a gathering crowd of apes. Suddenly the rumblings of concern grew into a mighty roar, and for an instant my vision cleared. As in a dream, I saw myself standing on a great hill, while all around me thousands—humans, apes, and others at which I could not guess—cheered and shouted my name over and over until the ground shook under my feet. I raised one arm in triumphant salute --
-- as the last of my awareness sank into the mire and I was carried off to what destination I knew not.
19. I Meet a Visionary
If losing consciousness and being rescued by hairy anthropoids was becoming a habit, waking easily and without discomfort was not. At first I thought Timash had taken me back to his mother, or to the hospital, for I lay on one of the apes' hard beds, but where I was and how long I had been there were mere tangential details compared to the pulsing, aching mass that was my head. I didn't dare try to open my eyes, but a moan escaped my lips. Leathery fingers cradled my skull with utmost tenderness. A warm, sour smell wafted in under my nose and a cup was placed against my lips. Hoping against hope that it was a swift poison, I sipped.
The warmth slipped down my throat like fine brandy while the vapors rose through my sinuses in a rush, and where they touched, the aching eased away. I opened my eyes to a softly-lit room and Timash watching me over the shoulder of a stranger. As he saw me come around, my friend sighed heavily with relief.
"If you'd died, my mother would've killed me."
"Nonsense!" huffed the other gorilla in a gravelly voice. He slapped both hands on his knees and stood up. "I taught your mother more medicine than she can remember."
"More than she wants to remember, you mean," Timash retorted.
"That's enough of that, son. I also taught her to respect her elders." He regarded me, still prostrate with the memory of pain. "You can lie there all day if you want, but the tea's in the other room." And with that he turned and left Timash and me to our own devices. I queried my friend with raised eyebrows.
"That's my Uncle Balu," Timash whispered. "Well, actually he's my mother's uncle—I think. Anyway, his house was the closest place of I knew to take you, so…"
"A good thing, it feels like to me," I said, rubbing my scalp. I swung my legs over the side of the bed.
"Oh, yeah, Uncle Balu knows a lot of stuff like that. He wasn't kidding when he said he taught my mother a lot about medicine. He's been everywhere."
I began to understand the origin of Timash's wandering ways. However, my manners, impressed upon me almost a million years ago by my own family, suddenly snapped me back to the present and commanded me to join my host in the other room, preventing me from interrogating his nephew any further.
Uncle Balu sat in a straight chair before a window overlooking the city. His apartment was on the third floor, judging from the building across the way, which surprised me, for in a city of very close horizons, lodgings with anything approximating a commanding view were highly prized and notoriously difficult to obtain. Although directly across the road was another apartment building, I was to find that from his chosen seat, Balu could see obliquely one of the small but beautiful parks of Tahana.
On a small table beside the chair sat what I least expected to see: a dainty flowered tea set, with three cups set out on saucers. Not until I was quite close could I see that the flowers were not the English roses with which I was familiar, but flowering plants whose genus had probably not existed when I was born. But they were lovely nonetheless, and I was almost overwhelmed with an attack of homesickness.
Balu gestured for us to sit down, and as he poured the tea (which I was delighted to find tasted equally as delicious as those I was accustomed to), I took in the wonderful tiny museum that he called home.
In only four rooms, he had stuffed the memorabilia of a lifetime. The walls were covered with paintings and carvings of all sorts, although placed with such a masterful appreciation of each piece's uniqueness that they complemented each other perfectly without blending into a homogenous blur. I was pleased to see that none resembled the abstract art with which Hana had decorated her room, and I began to feel an affinity for this creature so unlike me. Hana's face arose in my memory, chiding me for my inaction. I shook my head to clear her away along with my guilt.
Where there were no paintings there were curio cabinets and shelves lined with objects of glass, metal, wood, plastic, and shell. Not cheap souvenirs from some backwater midway, these virtually shouted out to be noticed, absorbed, and their stories told. On one shelf I saw a long, hollow metal tube, ringed about the middle with semiprecious stones. Both ends were blackened and pitted. I could guess that it was a weapon, and very old, but how it might work I could not fathom—nor was I sure I would want to. A small glass globe held a replica of the Earth so finely detailed I could almost see myself on its surface, but the continents were subtly changed, and an unknown archipelago stretched almost the width of the Atlantic.
"Your tea will be getting cold," a gentle voice chided me, and I turned to see Balu and Timash watching me from their chairs. So lost in fascination had I become that I had arisen to walk about the room without ever noticing my own movements.
To proffer my apologies would have been insulting. I groped for words as I retook my seat, but anything I could think to say seemed inadequate.
"Timash told me you'd been everywhere," I managed at last. "I'll never doubt him again."
To my great surprise, he laughed, a roaring jungle-cry of a laugh, until he could hardly put his teacup down, and then he slapped both knees with his hands and laughed some more. I looked at Timash, but he was nearly as mystified as I, communicating without words his feeling that: "He's an old man, you just have to take him as he comes."
When Balu finally calmed down he took a moment to wipe a tear from his eye.
"Oh, Clee, I haven't laughed like that in years. I've been everywhere? What about you?"
I smiled self-consciously. I have never been comfortable as the center of attention; until the War, books had formed my shelter from the scrutiny of my fellow man.
"Most of my travels have been through books—or because of them. Even in the War, I went only so far as France and England."
Balu stroked his chin in an attitude of wisdom, and then said: "I have no idea what you're talking about. How far is it from England to France?"
Again, I smiled, but this time in response to the unintentional irony of his question.
"That depends. In distance, only a few miles. In culture, philosophy, outlook…the Moon is closer."
Balu nodded. "Then you have traveled far indeed. Cultures can learn from each other, even in war. I myself have learned a great deal in my travels, but nobody wants to hear about it any more." He glanced at his nephew. "Except Timash, of course, and even he doesn't believe me."
"Hey, hold on—!"
"Quiet, boy. If you'd rather listen to your mother, who's never been outside this mountain, than to me, well that's your business." He sipped his tea, giving me a wink over the lip of his cup. Timash missed the wink and sank into a staring contest with the bottom of his cup. The conversation lagged.
"I did make quite a trip getting here," I ventured, trying to relieve
the silence. "But I spent most of it inside a Nuum airship, so there wasn't much to see."
At the mention of the extraterrestrials, both generations perked up. Balu was the first to speak.
"The Nuum… What an odd bunch. Did I ever tell you about the time I worked on one of their sky barges, Timash?"
Timash started to speak, then thought better of it. I was getting pretty good at reading the apes' faces: his took on an expression of concentration, then puzzlement, and finally dawning surprise. I knew his answer before he spoke, and it required no telepathy.
"No, actually… I don't think you ever did." He put his teacup down and assumed an expression of real interest for the first time since we had begun talking.
For his part, I believe Balu was no less surprised than Timash to find that he'd never told that particular tale, but he concealed it more artfully. He set aside his own cup and rubbed his hands in preparation; I could tell that when he let go, his entire body would leap headfirst into the telling, his arms and legs windmilling and gesticulating. I quietly backed my chair to a safer range.
"Years ago, when I was about your age, Clee, the Nuum hadn't gotten on this crusade about apes that they have now, and it was pretty safe to travel around the countryside. Well, it was safe from the Nuum anyway, the tiger spiders and the breen and maybe some of the humans were a different story. But hey, if there's nothing out there you can't see from your front window, why go out at all?
"So there I was, minding my own business, somewhere up by Cantrenes, which is maybe five hundred miles north of here, and a pretty lively town at the time. About thirty years ago it got wiped out by the red weed, but that's a different story and I wasn't there then anyway. So I wandered into town one night, keeping to the shadows, 'cause some of the Nuum even then were a little nervous about a gorilla walking around after dark." He winked again. "I guess they were even more nervous before I got through. I wasn't lookin' to start any trouble; fact is, I was really looking to find some work—I was hungry—but who should I run into—and I mean that—but a Nuum.
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