Nelson turned and pounded the thick pane of barrier glass behind him in frustration. A low hum was the only response… that and bruised knuckles. The Bangkok crystal sheeting was incredibly tough. He didn’t even contemplate trying to break it.
Beyond lay lower terraces of the ark tower, each sheltered beneath still more tightly-sealed glass. Nelson could make out forest growth within the ecosystem just below this one. In addition to preserving a patch of jungle, it provided part of the passive atmosphere regeneration that made ark four all but self-sufficient.
Movement caught his eye. Along the treetops below he saw people walking through the forest canopy, along a catwalk skyway. Nelson squinted, and recognized both the dark face of the ark director and the coffee features of Dr. B’Keli. They were showing off the new artificial ecosphere to a white woman, small and frail and quite elderly. From their expressions, they seemed eager to make a good impression. She nodded, and at one point reached out to pluck a leaf and rub it between her hands.
“Hey! Up here! Look up here!” Nelson beat the glass — an effort that seemed required given his circumstances, though he had no real hope of being heard.
Sure enough, the group strolled on, oblivious to the drama unfolding over their heads.
Damn them. Damn the arks. Damn the Salvation Project… and damn me for ever getting myself into this mess!
At that moment Nelson loathed everybody he could think of — from twentieth-century humanity, who had wrecked Earth’s delicate balance, to the voters and bureaucrats of the twenty-first, who spent fortunes trying to save what was left, to his caveman ancestors, who had been stupid enough to grow big, useless brains that everybody was always trying to cram with book learning, when what a guy really needed were claws, and big teeth, and skin as tough as old leather!
He remembered the leader of the Bantus, a “youth club” he had tried to join back in White Horse. It wasn’t supposed to be run like an old-style urban gang, but that was how it turned out anyway. For months Nelson had come home from an endless series of “initiations,” each time more bruised than the last — until it finally dawned on him that he just wasn’t wanted… that his only use to them was as an outlet for their “organized group activity” — the tribe strengthening its internal bonding by beating up on someone else.
He glanced across the prairie at the top male baboon, so serene and in charge, yawning complacently and ferociously. Nelson hated the patriarch and envied him.
If I had a hide like that… If I had fangs…
His attention was drawn back by the shaking of his unsteady platform. Nelson turned to see that the little female was hopping up and down, grimacing, tugging at his sleeve. “Stop that!” he cried. “This thing isn’t built to take that kind of…” Then he looked beyond and saw what had her so upset.
Her foes must have found one of the access ladders. Or maybe they had boosted each other, forming a multimonkey pyramid. However they managed it, three of the largest were now picking their way along the cable tray, heading in this direction.
“Oh hell,” he sighed. The young mother backed against him. Her infant’s dark eyes were wide with fear.
Nelson glanced down at the ground, and saw with surprise that the way was clear below! As he watched, the head male and his followers cleared a path, cuffing other baboons aside. The alpha male looked up at Nelson then, and tilted his head.
With uncanny insight, Nelson suddenly understood. He had only to jump, and he could run all the way to the airlock unmolested before the crazy females caught up with him!
Perhaps. But he’d never make it encumbered. He exchanged a look with the bull. That, it seemed, was part of the bargain. He was not to interfere in the natural working out of their social order. Nelson nodded, comprehending. He waited till the small female next to him was fully engaged, all her attention given to answering the threatening grimaces of her stalkers. At that moment Nelson slipped over the edge.
It was a bad landing. He came to his feet gasping at a sharp twinge in his ankle. Hurriedly, though, he hopped away several meters before pausing to glance back.
Nobody was following him. In fact, the troop mostly faced the other way, watching the drama reach its climax on the ledge overhead. The bull appeared to have dismissed him completely now that he was leaving the scene.
Burdened by her infant, though, the small mother could not follow him. She stared after him instead, blinking with a mute disappointment he could read only too well. Then she had no time for anything but immediate concerns; with her infant on her back, she turned to bare her teeth at her assailants.
Nelson backed away another two steps toward the safety of the exit, now beckoning only twenty or so meters away. Still, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He was captivated by the small baboon’s stand, grimacing final defiance at her foes, holding them back with brave lunges. It was an effort she could not keep up for long.
From experience, he knew the other females did not seek her death, only the baby’s. It was a bit of savagery he had not questioned until today. Now though, for the very first time, Nelson wondered… why.
It was so cruel. So awful. It reminded him of human nastiness. And yet, in all the time he had been here, he had never asked the experts about this or any other matter. It had been as if… as if to do so would be to admit too openly the ignorance he had nurtured for so long. His frail, rigid facade of cynicism could not bear curiosity. Once he started asking questions, where would it stop?
Nelson felt a pressure building in his head. It couldn’t be restrained…
“Why?” he demanded aloud, and felt his voice catch at the sound.
Protecting her child, the mother backed away awkwardly, shrieking at her enemies.
“Why’s it like this!” he asked, to no one present save himself.
Barely aware of what he was doing, Nelson found himself limping forward. He felt eyes track him as he held up his arms.
“Hey, you!” he called. “I’m back. Come on down…”
He had no need to repeat himself. The mother monkey grabbed her baby and launched herself from the doomed redoubt, landing in his arms as a taut bundle of scrawny brown fur, clawing for purchase on his already bleeding shoulders. Nelson hurriedly stepped away, fully resigned that now there was no way he’d reach the airlock in time. Sure enough, when he glanced back a crowd of angry baboons were catching up fast. The original pursuers had now been joined by several more irate monkeys, at least two of them large, pink-faced males, all dashing his way, screaming.
Nelson did not bother trying to run any further. He turned and scanned the ground for anything — anything at all — until his gaze fell upon a white rod.
His dung sampler.
Sighing that it wasn’t even the inadequate shock-prod, Nelson snatched it up, carrying the motion through just in time to catch a leaping baboon in the snout. The creature screamed and tumbled whimpering away.
The females scattered, dispersing on all sides. Dark eyes peered at him through the tall grass.
Panting, blinking in surprise, Nelson wondered. Was that it? Hey, maybe all it takes is the right bluff!
Then he saw why the females had given up so easily. They were moving aside to make room for a new force.
Rumbling with a low rage, the patriarch and his entourage arrived. Nine big males, their manes fully inflated, ambled with patient assuredness toward him and his frightened, weary charge. Their pace might be confident, but flecks of saliva dripped from their curled lips. Nelson read their eyes, and knew them for killers.