Lou glanced at his wristwatch.
“I took the liberty of setting it correctly for you.”
Looking up sharply at him, Lou asked, “While I was asleep?”
The Chinese nodded, with the faintest trace of a smile on his otherwise impassive face.
So Lou spent the morning walking around the island. It was small, no more than a half-dozen kilometers long, and half that wide. It was really nothing more than a pair of heavily-wooded hills poking out of the water. The trees were palms and other tropical species that Lou couldn’t identify.
The sun was hot, but the ocean breeze was beautiful. The place really was a tropical island paradise.
There were lovely white sand beaches all the way around the island, and a coral reef further out where the surf broke, except for a small inlet at one end. Lou saw a fair-sized, air-cushion ship resting in the gentle swells of the inlet. There was a dock there and a few plain white buildings. Slightly away from the buildings was the jet landing pad, a square of well-kept grass. The plane was gone now. There was no runway for bigger jets anywhere on the island, the vertical landing type were the only planes that could come down.
The dormitory building was at the opposite end of the island, connected to the inlet by the single road out through the trees. In the middle of the island, set into the fairly flat area between the two hills, were the laboratory buildings.
The labs were tucked away in the shade of tall trees. There were six buildings in all, filled with the bustling, nearly frantic action of men unpacking huge crates of equipment and working hard to set them up as quickly as possible. Their shouting and hammering drove Lou away very quickly. He only stayed long enough to make certain that they weren’t damaging the equipment that they were handling. They weren’t. They knew what they were doing.
And then, as he passed between two of the labs, Lou heard a scratchy hoarse voice calling.
“Uncle Lou!”
He looked and saw Big George standing erect, his huge arms upraised so that his hands rested on the top of the nine-foot wire screen fence that stood between them. The fence bulged dangerously under his weight.
“Hey, Georgy!” Lou felt his face stretch into its biggest smile in days as he ran toward the fence.
The gorilla jumped up and down and slapped his sides with excitement “Uncle Lou! Uncle Lou!”
“Georgy, you okay?” Lou asked as he reached the fence.
“Yes, yes. Strangers scared me at first, but they are very nice to me. It was lonesome, though, without you or any of my other friends.”
“Well, I’m here now. Everything’s going to be okay, Georgy. Come on down to that gate over there and I’ll get you out of this compound.”
Big George lumbered along the fence, knuckles on the ground. Lou saw that the gate had no lock on it, just a simple latch. With a shrug, he opened it.
George lurched out and grabbed Lou in his immense arms.
“Hey’ Careful!” Lou laughed as George lifted him off his feet, strong enough to crush him, gentle enough to handle an equal amount of nitroglycerin without danger.
Lou pounded the gorilla’s massive hairy shoulders happily. The warmth of his body, even his scent, carried the impression of huge jungle strength. And if the gorilla could have laughed or even smiled, he would have right then.
A pistol shot cracked nearby. Startled, George jerked and nearly let Lou fall. Lou saw sudden fear in the gorilla’s eyes, then turned to see some sort of uniformed guard pointing a pistol at them.
“Stop! Put that man down!” the guard yelled—from a safe distance away. He was wearing a khaki-colored shirt and shorts, with a little cap on his head and that big gun in his wavering hand.
“Shut up,” Lou snapped “And put that stupid gun away. We’re old friends. He’s not hurting me.”
The guard’s mouth dropped open.
“Let me down,” Lou said softly to George. The gorilla stood him carefully on his feet.
Walking to the wide-eyed guard, Lou said, “Put that gun away and don’t let me catch you doing anything that hurts that gorilla or frightens him in any way. Do you understand?”
“I—I thought…”
“You thought wrong. Big George wouldn’t hurt anybody—unless they scared him so badly that he lashed out in fright.”
“I was only…”
“You were wrong. Now get out of here.”
“Yes sir.” The guard turned and walked away, fumbling the gun back into the holster strapped to his hip.
Lou stayed with Big George until lunchtime—but inside the relative safety of the wire screen that marked off the gorilla’s compound. Too many people out there who’ve been frightened by bad movies And too many guns. The compound was wide and wild, Lou saw George had plenty of room, big trees, a stream, even the slope of one of the hills to climb.
“You’d better stay inside,” Lou said as he left the gorilla at the gate, “until the people around here get to know you better. I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble.”
“I know,” George whispered “I’ll be good.”
Lou smiled at him “Sure you will. I’ll see you soon.”
Lou walked briskly back toward his quarters, knowing that George would spend the better part of the afternoon feeding himself. It took a huge supply of fruits and vegetables to keep a gorilla satisfied. By the time Lou approached the white prefab building, he felt sweaty and uncomfortable. It was beginning to get really hot, and the breeze had slackened.
The turbowagon was sitting in front of the dorm, with a driver wearing the same sort of khaki uniform that the gun-waving guard had worn. The driver also had a holster strapped on.
In the back seat an older man was reading some papers. His face was mild and milky white, with a high balding forehead and thin sandy hair that had started to turn gray. He looked slim to Lou, and was probably getting near-sighted, judging from the way he held the papers close to his nose. He wore a starched white shirt, short-sleeved, and full-length trousers.
He looked up as Lou’s sandals crunched on the gravel of the driveway.
“Ah Mr. Christopher.”
Lou nodded and put on a smile as he walked up to the wagon.
“I’m Donald Marcus, the head of the laboratory,” Marcus put his hand out and Lou shook it. The grip was limp, almost slippery.
“Get in and we’ll go down to the lab area. I want you to see the computer set-up before we have lunch.”
Lou climbed up into the wagon and sat beside his new boss.
“By the way,” Marcus said as they drove off, “did you know that you’re three minutes late?”
Without even blinking, Lou snapped back, “My guard must’ve set my watch wrong.”
Marcus looked a little startled, but said nothing.
The computer was housed in a building of its own, off to one side of the lab complex and not far from Big George’s compound.
Inside the one-story building was chaos. Workmen were uncrating bulky consoles, ripping off the protective plastic coverings, leaving huge gobs of spongy foam heaped all over the floor. Carpenters were putting up partitions with whirring drills and power saws. Someone was pounding on a wall someplace. Everyone was talking, calling back and forth, shouting orders or responses, mostly in sing-song Chinese. Lou was nearly run down by four men who, with backs bent and heads down, were wheeling in the massive main control desk at breakneck speed from the open double doors at one end of the building.
It was hot and sticky, and the room smelled of new plastic and machine oil. Lou felt perspiration trickling down his body.
“Most of these components,” Marcus yelled over the din, “come from your computer system at the Genetics Institute.”