"Yes, sir. You are a simple chimpanzee."
"And last night you would have shot me if you had had a gun on."
"Forget last night, Mr. Satyrus. Last night you had a good time, and I had a horrible one."
"You're learning,*' Pan said. He stretched his arms to their full lengths and pulled up his legs, so he could swing on his knuckles. "I'm cramped from riding in the car," he explained. "Okay, pal. The doctor walks with me, Chief Bates and Radioman Bronstein fall in behind, and you can bring up the rear, Maguire."
"That isn't military," the general screamed. Then he got control of himself again. "AH right, sir. As you say, Mr. Satyrus."
Pan Satyrus gave his gruesome laugh. I'm looking forward to seeing those papers. I must be the biggest thing since the Twist."
General Maguire said, "The man who wrote the Twist already has a new dance out called the Chimpango." He swallowed, and added, "Sir."
"Then let us chimpango, by all means," Pan said. I'll tell you something, General. I'm really very easy to get along with. All chimpanzees are, given a chance to be natural. And I'll tell you something else; Mrs. Maguire can come back. I don't really have designs on her."
And so they left the crushed-shell driveway, and went up the steps, and past the Marine guards — who presented arms, and were saluted in turn by Pan Satyrus — and into the cool interior of the house.
Here a suave version of a security man stopped them, and said, politely, "I'll have to ask for your identification, gentlemen."
General Maguire snapped out a gold-edged, plasticine-covered I.D. card. Ape and Happy got theirs out only a little slower. Dr. Bedoian produced his NASA pass.
Pan Satyrus swung on his knuckles, and said, "I left mine in my other pants."
The security man said, "But you're not wearing any. Oh."
"Then I guess this interview's off," Pan said. "Doctor, do you think we could get to Canaveral by—"
"I was ordered to bring him here!" General Maguire said. His voice bleated; it was still martial, but pretty much that of a martial goat.
The security man said, "My orders; nobody in without I.D."
Happy Bronstein looked even happier than usual, Ape Bates even more gorilla-like.
General Maguire said, "Surely, you recognize this — this Mr. Satyrus."
"Does he?" Pan Satyrus said. "Do you? I am a male chimpanzee, seven and a half years old. Maybe Dr. Bedoian could tell me from any other male chimpanzee, my age, in good health. But I doubt if anybody else could."
"You are the meanest person I ever met, Pan," Dr. Bedoian said.
"I am not a person. I am a chimpanzee. We don't mind trouble. We like it."
"Trouble for other people?"
"No, Aram, not necessarily. Just trouble. Nobody ever handled a ten-year-old chimp, did they? Not in the movies, or on the stage, or in a strait jacket in a capsule. It can't be done. Because chimps like trouble."
"Damn it," General Maguire said, "we can't stand here like a bunch of quartermaster sergeants. I'll vouch for this — this—"
"Chimpanzee," Pan said. "Pongina. Great ape. Pan Satyrus."
"I'll vouch for him," said the voice of the military goat.
The security man stepped aside.
Ape Bates said to Happy, "I think they're making a mistake. Pan's up to something." His lips did not move as he said it.
Another security man opened the door, and there was the Great Man, Number I, facing them.
He was seated behind a light table, leaning back in a rocking chair. And he was not alone. With him was a governor, another great man.
Pan Satyrus swung forward, using his arms as crutches, flew through the air, and landed on a corner of the table. It was better built than it looked; it did not creak, just swayed a little.
General Maguire came to attention, and said, "Mission completed, sir."
The Great Man said, "So I see. Introduce us, general."
"Sir-"
"It isn't necessary," Pan said. "I call myself Pan Satyrus. As college men, you both know — I am sure— that this is the proper scientific name for my species. The only species of chimpanzee there is, in fact, though there are two species of orangs and two of gorilla. And I know who you both are. I've seen your faces dozens of times."
The Governor had charm, almost as much as Number One. He leaned forward. "How interesting. Where did you see our faces?"
"On the floor of the Primate House," Pan said. "You'd be surprised how many newspapers there are there, on Sunday night, when the keepers finally run the crowd out. Crumpled newspapers, mustard-stained newspapers, walked-on newspapers. Filthy, and all of them — or nearly all — with one of your two faces on them."
The Great Man said, "Governor, we're not dominating this interview."
The Governor was chuckling. "Routed by a Pan Satyrus," he said.
The Great Man took over. "Mr. Satyrus, at least we made this a bipartisan conference. An honor to you."
Pan frowned, or so it seemed. Chimps' features do not quite assume the same expressions as men's. "Oh? Is one of you a Communist?"
The shocking word lay on the conference like a slow rain on a picnic. General Maguire looked as though he wished he were leading the Charge of the Light Brigade.
But Number One was suave and urbane and practiced with hecklers. "Hardly," he said, his voice flat and nasal. "What do you know about Communists, Mr. Satyrus?"
"Why, they're the other party," Pan said. "They're the reason for all the projects that I and a couple of hundred other chimpanzees have been run around the country lately. Los Alamos, Alamagordo, Canaveral, Vandenberg. It seems — or so they keep saying on the radio and the television — that men have split up into two parties, Communist and the Free World Party. Which of you is which?"
"You never heard of Republicans and Democrats?" the Governor asked.
"Oh, that," Pan Satyrus said.
"He's been in the South too long," the Governor said. "He's turned into a one-party man."
"One-party chimp," Pan Satyrus corrected him, "If anything. No, the keepers usually turn off the radio when that sort of thing comes on. Have you ever thought of separating men into two parties, on an evolutionary basis?"
The Great Man said, "Governor, I'm beginning to think I shouldn't have invited you to this shindig. I think a new political principle is about to be laid down."
"Share and share alike," the Governor said. "How do you separate people into two evolutionary parties, Mr. Satyrus?"
Pan Satyrus swung down from the desk. A fly had somehow gotten into the austere room; Pan caught it with an absent-minded flick of his pink-palmed hand, and crushed it and threw it on the floor. "Well," he said, "as you must know, some people have evoluted much more than others., For instance, look at these people here. Chief Bates has gone very far; in fact, he closely resembles a very young gorilla. His friends in the Navy notice it, they even honor him with the title of Ape, though he's a good ten thousand years from that. And then, on the other hand, take General Maguire. There's a gap of a half a million years there, gentlemen, and then only if you breed all the Maguires to very intelligent women."
The Governor said, "I'm beginning to wish you hadn't invited me, sir. This is getting much too personal. I hope I'm not next."
Pan Satyrus's glowing gaze rested on him a moment.
Then he turned to Dr. Bedoian. "Remember what we were talking about just outside the door there, doctor?"
"When you call me Aram, I always remember."
"Flattery," Pan Satyrus said, "Don't be frightened, I'm not planning any violence. Men divide themselves, and then divide themselves again, gentlemen. Chimpanzees don't."
The Governor leaned forward. "But men capture chimpanzees and make them slaves. And do chimpanzees ever capture men?"
"Who wants them?" Pan asked.
Both the great men had been highly educated at those Eastern schools maintained to remove the embarrassment that inherited riches gives young men. The Number One Great Man said, "Man is the only animal that dominates his environment, and therefore is the most highly evoluted animal."