Mr. MacMahon brought an official document.
Happy Bronstein, who had answered the door — he had slept on the couch in the sample room, Ape and Dr. Bedoian had had the beds, and Pan Satyrus had contented himself with an overstuffed chair — went and got Dr. Bedoian, as required by their visitor.
Dr. Bedoian accepted the document in silence; in silence he read it. Then he looked at the FBI agent There was no special expression on Mr. MacMahon's face; duty was duty to him, and no more.
"An hour," Dr. Bedoian said.
I'll lay transportation on," said Mr. MacMahon, thus betraying previous service in England or with British officers.
"Do so," said Dr. Bedoian.
Ape said, "Happy, get on the horn. Razor, toothbrushes, clean socks — I wear thirteen — clean skivvies, and can they wash and dry our uniforms in a half an hour." He looked at Dr. Bedoian apologetically. "We came ashore in what we was wearin'. We wanta look like man o' war's men."
Happy made no move to phone. "What's the poop, doc?" he asked. "We gotta stand a court?"
"The brass — the very highest brass — wants to meet Pan at noon, up the coast." He held out the orders. Happy took them, whistled, and handed the sheet to Ape. Ape took it and whistled, more slowly. He said, "Belay them orders, Happy." He went to the phone himself, put in a long distance call. "Gimme Chief Sadowski," he said, after barking various extension numbers at various people. "Pipe it to his quarters, he ain't on deck yet. Chief Bates callin'." He held the phone dreamily away, stared at it. "Ski, this is Ape. Now get this, an' get it right, or your old lady hears about Singapore, an' this time I ain't just yappin'. Class A tropical uniform for me, about an inch bigger in the waist than last time I saw you. Yeah, and I made E-9, get the stripes right. Okay, an* a suit of whites for a Radioman First, about five nine, a hunnered-eighty. Got it? Yeah, an' a suit of civilians, tropical weight, anything in a nice light color, about five-ten — whatya weight, doc?"
Dr. Bedoian stared. "I take a forty, regular," he said.
"He takes a forty regular. Good quality, we'll pay yuh when we see yuh. How you been, Ski? You made E-8? I always knew there was a future in the Navy." He cleared his throat. "Well be at your place in two hours, no more'n three. Right."
He hung up. "Ski'll come through. Wisht I had my ribbons, but we can pick some up at the PX there. Okay, Happy, the horn. Add shoe polish to the order. Brown for the doc."
Pan Satyrus was huddled in his big chair, caressing the thumbs of his feet. "They don't feel any different," he said. "I'd hate it if they'd turn human, like my tongue has. If this is the way people feel in the morning, chimpanzees ought to be grateful every day of their lives."
"Well get some cold orange juice into you, perhaps some aspirin, and you'll feel better," Dr. Bedoian said. "You have a hangover."
"I've heard of them," Pan Satyrus said. "Keepers talk of nothing else on Sunday morning… I wish I'd gone on just hearing about them."
"It creates a problem," Dr. Bedoian said. "The chimpanzee reaction to aspirin is quite different from the human. Which are you?"
"My toes are still chimpanzee," Pan Satyrus said, "but my head and stomach feel different than they ever have before. But I suppose that's the hangover. I don't think my body has retrogressed. Or devoluted. Or whatever it is."
He somersaulted over the back of the chair and shuffled into the bathroom. They heard a deep sigh of relief. "Not a hair missing from my face," he said. "I'm glad. I don't want to be human."
"Aren't you curious about our orders?" Dr. Bedoian asked.
Pan Satyrus shuffled back into the room, carrying a dry towel with which he was giving himself a vigorous rubdown. "I presume from the reaction we are going to meet some very important men. I have met some very important men. Scientists and generals, admirals and senators. Which are these?" "Political figures," Dr. Bedoian said. "Statesmen." "Your disclosure has done nothing for my hangover," Pan Satyrus said. "Absolutely nothing." He tossed the towel in a corner, and began combing his coat with his fingernails. "Have any of you been to Africa?"
"Capetown," Happy said. "Port Said. Nothing in between."
"Do you realize I have never seen chimpanzees living in a state of natural chimpanzeeship?" Pan Satyrus said, "It comes over me when I am melancholy, as at present. Do you think if I tell these people what they want to know that they'd take me back to Equatorial Africa? That's where we came from, you know. Perhaps my father is still there."
"Who was your father?" Dr. Bedoian asked.
"I don't know, really. My mother was pregnant when they — captured her. She never liked to talk about the old days, in the jungle. Chimpanzees can't stand much unhappiness, you know."
"Better lay off the gin, then," Ape advised. "Try rum."
Pan Satyrus said, "Isn't there a word, teetotaller? It is what I feel like becoming."
"Never swear off while you got a hangover," Happy said.
The breakfast and the shaving gear arrived then.
They went north in three cars, the security men riding in front of and behind them, civilian and military police clearing the way. There was a slight argument with Mr. MacMahon about stopping at Ski's base to pick up the clean clothes, but in the argument the security men forgot to watch Pan Satyrus, who again captured Mr. Crawford.
The pleas of his colleague moved Mr. MacMahon's heart, and he agreed that he could stop if Pan promised not to get out of the car at the Naval Base.
So it was still short of noon when they went, sirens screaming, between lines of plainclothes men and up to the portico of a very, very private house. Dr. Bedoian, in his new, government-bought, suit was drowsing beside the driver. He woke up and got out first.
General Maguire was coming down the steps of the private house. He was in full Class A this time instead of tropical Class A. "I am to take Mem in," he said. "In fact, my orders are, I am to consider myself Mem's aide-de-camp."
Pan Satyrus said, "Don't call me by that ridiculous name."
"But it is your name. If you could see the mornning papers, you'd know, we've really pulled a scoop! What we did yesterday is on all the front pages, we have never had such good publicity. You can't change your name now."
"I see you have two stars again," Pan said. He reached a hand out.
General Maguire jumped back. "After your — when you come out again, the reporters want to see you."
"Kissing your wife?"
"Mrs. Maguire has gone north to consult her physician in Baltimore. Please, won't you cooperate? My whole career depends on it."
Pan sat down on the crushed shell driveway. He picked up a handful of shell, tasted it, spat it out. "Oily," he said. "Yet, I felt a desire for oyster shell. Calcium deficiency, doctor?"
Dr. Bedoian said, "I'll make a note of it. Maybe well try calcium gluconate. It tastes like candy, Pan."
General Maguire said, "It — he — seems to respond to you, doctor. Won't you please reason with him? If anything goes wrong in the next hour or so, I'll be a colonel on the retired list."
Dr. Bedoian shrugged.
"Tell me, General," Pan asked, "would you be able to eat any more if you had two stars on each shoulder instead of one? Would you be able to drink more and have a smaller hangover? Could you have two young wives instead of one old one?"
"By God, I wish I had you in the Army for a few days, Mem," Maguire answered.
'The name is Pan Satyrus. Mr. Satyrus except to my friends."
The general clenched his teeth. Through his slit lips he said, "All right, then. Mr. Satyrus. But come along. You can't keep men like this waiting. Nobody ever has."
"I'm not somebody. I am a simple chimpanzee."