"Don't talk like that," Riker said. "You're an organization man."
So I reached for the phone on his desk and said, "Get me Legal, whoever's the head of it now."
"Let me see, Mr. Dunham," the girl said. They all know your voice at the Network — till the sling is rigged. "That's Mr. Rossini." "Give him the baton, darling."
Mr. Rossini I didn't know. But he had a very musical voice to go with the name. He wanted to know what he could do for his dear Mr. Dunham.
"What's the legal definition of a human being?" I asked him.
Long pause. Then: "There isn't any." "What do you do when that happens?" Mr. Rossini said, cautiously, "Well, I don't know that it ever happened before. I mean, the courts have had time to cover almost everything since Magna Carta… I suppose a court hearing, a court order?" "How about the dictionary definition?" Mr. Rossini said he would look it up. I said I would hold the phone. Hirts said he knew that Billy-boy could handle it. Riker said nothing.
Finally Rossini said, "It isn't at all clear. Like — a man is a man is a man. It says human means of the race, of or related to man."
"Check, Rossini. Good enough. Now, get your hat, and start down for Judge Manton's chambers. I'll call him. We want a court order asking for the release of one Pan Satyrus, illegally held by the U.S. Government." "Oh," Rossini said. 'I heard we were interested." "I'm in Riker's office right now. Get on it, pal." "Mr. Dunham, you can't sue the U.S. Government without its permission."
"You and Manton fix it. I'll call him." Manton was home when I tried his chambers. I called him there. "Judge, you once said any time to me. This is it. I got a lawyer named Rossini on his way to your chambers. I want an order establishing that chimponaut, Pan Satyrus, as a human being."
"Wait a minute, Mr. Dunham—"
"You said any time, judge."
"I know, but—"
"Judge, on the other hand, you're going to owe me two any times. This will make you the most famous jurist in the country."
"Yes. Yes. But the dignity of the bench—"
"The dignity of the bench rests on its protection of human rights. If you could talk to this Pan Satyrus, Judge — believe me, this is an oppressed person."
"But I am a judge of New York State. You have to get him into my jurisdiction."
"That I'll handle."
And that was all for the legal end. From then on it was easy, on the skids all the way. I called a guy I knew in City Hall. "Mac, I just flew in from Florida to cover the reception of Pan Satyrus, the chimponaut. I know you can't give me an exclusive, but could you just hint what the city is preparing for him? Ticker-tape parade, of course. Key to the city? Bronze plaque, maybe?"
"Why, Bill, I dunno, exactly…"
My voice went up like the old Front Page. Lee Tracy, wasn't it? "No bronze plaque? I mean, I should think the city and the Zoological Society would be fighting to see who paid for it. The most distinguished son of the Bronx, born right in a cage in the Zoo? Whatya mean, no bronze plaque?"
"Yep," Mac said. "Yep, I got it. Thanks for the tip, Bill. I didn't know what zoo he was born in."
I hung up the phone. Riker was looking at me with a strange expression.
"Rike, unwind. I don't want a job in Network. I like it out in the field."
"But you'll produce the show. Or host it, anyway?"
"For a start. This is a very friendly chimp, Rike. He takes to people. We'll find him a producer and a host he likes. Maybe pretty girls."
"I didn't know he was a New Yorker. I didn't know he was born in the Bronx Zoo," Hirts said.
"Neither did I. I forgot to ask him. What's it to me? My show is national."
CHAPTER NINE
Every attempt to re-mould his biological heritage "runs off" an otherwise clever and ductile animal of this species "like water off a duck's back."
The gates clanged when they were shut, but the locks turned noiselessly, because they were well oiled.
The security men had taken away their shoelaces, and Ape Bates's belt. There had been nothing to take away from Pan Satyrus, of course, because he had not worn clothes since he got out of the space suit.
Then they were alone, two sailors and a chimpanzee in three detention cells. "How about the doc?" Happy asked. "You don't think they're doing something to him?"
"Questioning him," Ape said. "I figure they figure hell break sooner than you or me. Or Pan here."
"Break about what?" Pan asked.
"We're an international conspiracy," Happy said. "You shouldn't have landed so the Cooke could pick you up. She's top security secret. What they call an experimental prototype."
You sound like a yeoman," Ape said.
Pan was swinging gently from the bars of his cell, from side to side and then from top to bottom. "This isn't bad," he said. "I'm used to cages."
"We're not," Happy said.
Ape grunted. "Stow it, Happy. I don't know about you, but I bet I spent more time in the brig than Pan is old. What's it, seven and a half years? Yeah, I could give you lessons on being in a cage. Difference is, I never learned to like it."
Pan came to rest on the shelf-cot. "So you think we are here because I learned too much about the Cooke? But I didn't see anything but the deck and your dining room."
"Chiefs' mess," Ape corrected.
"You see? I know nothing about ships. That was the first one I was on. I couldn't compare it with any other, or describe it, really. You think if I tell them that, they'll let us out?"
"How do you make a spaceship go faster'n light?" Happy asked. "That's what they want to know."
"But man isn't ready to know that," Pan said. "He'd use it in war."
"Yeah," Ape said. "So we're in the brig. And likely to stay there."
Pan Satyrus swung from side to side of his cell, rising with each swing till he was at the top. Hanging from one hand, he experimentally pulled a bit of mortar from the crack where the bars met the ceiling, and put it in his mouth. Then he spat it out again and swung back down to the cot. "I'm hungry."
"You shouldn't a told them that," Ape said. "They don't feed you till you talk."
"And he won't talk," Happy said.
"He shouldn't talk," Ape said. "War's no good."
"You're talking like an ape. Starving's no good, either."
"Many a chimpanzee has died sooner than surrender his dignity," Pan said. Then he caught hold of the bars and swung a while, in silence. Then he went back to his cot, groomed himself, and folded his hands over his face.
Two of the men who seemed to be flunkies around the place came in, dressed in the oil company overalls that passed for uniforms there. They stood with drawn guns just inside the cellblock door, and stood guard while another man brought in food, first for Ape and then for Happy. Then he went out again.
Ape said, "How about Pan here?"
"No chow," one of the guards said.
Ape snorted, and took a piece of bread off his tray. "Here, Pan."
"Hold it, sailor," one of the guards said, and brought the muzzle of his gun up.
"You guys aren't human!" Happy exclaimed.
"Yes they are," Pan said. "Precisely."
Ape said, "I ain't hungry. You can take this slum away."
"Mine, too," Happy said.
One of the guards whistled and the flunky came back and took the trays out. Again the metal clanged, and they were alone.
"Now we know," Happy said.
"I guess we had better leave here," Pan said.
The sailors looked at him.
"Human beings specialize too much," Pan said. "It seems there are jail builders and cage builders. At least, no respectable zoo would think of putting a chimpanzee in a cage like this."
He reached out and bent one of the bars up out of its floor socket. Then he bent another one. "I should hate to see what a gorilla would do to a place like this," he said. "What do they take me for, a marmoset?" He bent another bar.