Jacobs and Mclntyre were still very much in evidence, of course. They had been lucky enough to have first shot at Timmie, and they still had the inside track with him because of their priority status. But they were aware that they could not have a monopoly on him. A horde of anthropologists, physiologists, cultural historians, and specialists of a dozen other sorts was at the door, knocking to get in. And each one had his own agenda for the little Neanderthal boy.
The fact that Timmie could speak English now made them all the more eager. Some of them acted as if they could simply sit down with the boy and start asking him questions about life in the Paleolithic Era as he remembered it:
"What species of animals did your tribe hunt?"
"What were your people's religious beliefs like?"
"Did you migrate with the seasons?"
"Was there warfare between tribes?"
"What about warfare between your subspecies and the other one?"
He was the only possible source. Their minds bubbled with queries that Timmie alone could answer. Tell us, tell us, tell us, tell us! We want to know all that there is to know about your people'skinship structures- totemic animals- linguistic groups- astronomical concepts- technological skillsBut of course no one got to ask Timmie any of these fascinating and important questions, because Timmie's command of English, though it was growing stronger day by day, was still confined at the moment to phrases like "Timmie eat now" and "Man go away now."
Besides which, Miss Fellowes was the only one who could understand Timmie's words with any degree of reliability. To the others, even those who saw the boy virtually every day, his thick, strangled attempts at pronunciation were only barely recognizable as carrying meaning. Evidently the original speculations about Neanderthal linguistic ability were correct, at least in part: though the Neanderthals obviously did have the intellectual capacity for speech, and the anatomical ability to produce intelligible words, their tongues and larynxes were apparently unable to create sounds with the degree of articulation required by modern-day languages. At least, Timmie couldn't manage it. Even Miss Fellowes had to strain much of the time to figure out what he was trying to say.
It was a frustrating business for everyone-for Timmie, for Miss Fellowes, and especially for the scientists who were so anxious to question the boy. And it reinforced the poignancy of Timmie's isolation. Even now that he was beginning to learn how to communicate with his captors-and that's what we are, Miss Fellowes found herself thinking again and again, his captors-it was a terrible struggle for him to get even the simplest of concepts across to the one person who could at least partially understand him.
How lonely he must be! she thought.
And how baffled and frightened by all the hubbub that went on constantly around him!
She did her best to protect him. She could not and would not allow herself to accept the fact that what she was engaged in was simply a scientific experiment. It certainly was that; but there was a small unhappy child at die center of it; and she would not let him be treated only as an experimental subject.
The physiologists put him on special diets. She purchased toys for him. They plagued her with requests for blood samples, X-ray pictures, even clipping of Timmie's hair. She taught him songs and nursery rhymes. They put Timmie through exhaustive and exhausting tests of his coordination and reflexes, his visual acuity, his hearing, his intuitive intelligence. Miss Fellowes comforted him afterward, holding him and stroking him until he was calm again.
They demanded more and more of his time.
She insisted on strict limits to the daily inquisitions. Most of the time her wishes prevailed, though not always. The visiting scientists undoubtedly thought she was an ogre, an impediment to knowledge, a stubborn and irrational woman. Miss Fellowes didn't care. Let them think whatever they wanted; it was Timmie's interests that concerned her, not theirs.
The closest thing to an ally she had was Hoskins. He came to visit the dollhouse virtually every day. It was obvious to Miss Fellowes that Hoskins welcomed any chance to escape from his increasingly difficult role as head of Stasis Technologies, Ltd., and that he took a sentimental interest in the child who had caused all this furor; but it seemed to her also that he enjoyed talking to her.
(She had learned a few things about him by this time. He had invented the method of analyzing the reflections cast by the past-penetrating mesonic beam; he had been one of the inventors of the method of establishing Stasis; his often chilly, exceedingly businesslike manner was only an effort to hide a kindly nature that was sometimes too easy for others to take advantage of; and, oh yes, he was married, very definitely and happily so.)
One day Hoskins walked in on her just in time to catch her in the process of erupting.
It had been a bad day, very bad. A new team of physiologists from California had showed up with a whole new series of tests they wanted to put Timmie through-right now-something having to do with his posture and pelvic structure. The tests involved an intricate arrangement of cold metal rods and a lot of pushing and pressing. Timmie wasn't much in the mood just then to be pushed and pressed against cold metal rods. Miss Fellowes, watching them manipulating him as though he were some sort of laboratory animal, found herself being swept by the hot urge to kill.
"Enough!" she cried, finally. "Out! Out!"
They gaped and gawped at her.
"I said, Out! Session's over! The boy is tired. You're twisting his legs and straining his back. Don't you see that he's crying? Out! Out!"
"But, Miss Fellowes-"
She began to gather up their instruments. They snatched them hastily from her. She pointed to the door. Muttering among themselves, they scuttled out.
She was staring after them in a blind fury, looking out the open door and wondering what kind of intolerable intrusion was next on the schedule, while Timmie stood sobbing behind her. And then she realized that Hoskins was there.
He said, "Is there a problem?"
She glowered at him. "I'll say there is!"
Turning to Timmie, she gestured and he came running to her, clinging to her, twining his legs around her. She heard the boy murmur something, very low, words she couldn't quite make out. She held him close.
Hoskins said gravely, "He doesn't seem happy."
"Would you be, in his place? They're at him every day now with their blood samples and their probings and their tests. You should have seen what they were doing to him just now-trying to find out which way his legs were fastened to his body, is what it looked like. And now his food's been changed too. The synthetic diet that Jacobs has had him on since Monday is stuff that I wouldn't feed a pig."
"Dr. Jacobs says that it'll build up his strength, that it'll make him better able to withstand-"
"Withstand what? Even more testing?"
"You have to bear in mind, Miss Fellowes, that the primary purpose of this experiment is to learn as much as can be learned about-"
"I do bear that in mind, doctor. And you bear in mind that what we have here isn't a hamster or a guinea pig or even a chimpanzee-but an actual human being."
"No one denies that," Hoskins said. "But-"
She cut him off yet again. "But you're all ignoring the fact that that's what he is: a human being, a human child. I suppose you see him as nothing more than some kind of little ape wearing overalls, and you think that you can-"
"We do not see him as-"
"You do! You do! Dr. Hoskins, I insist. You told me it was Timmie's coming that put your company on the map. If you have any gratitude for that at all, you've got to keep them away from the poor child at least until he's old enough to understand a little more of what's being asked of him. After he's had a bad session with them, he has nightmares, he can't sleep, he screams for hours sometimes. Now I warn you" (and she reached a sudden peak of fury) "I'm not letting them in here any more. Not!"
(She realized that her voice had been grow louder and louder as she spoke and now she was screaming. But she couldn't help it.)
Hoskins was looking at her in deep chagrin.
"I'm sorry," she said after a moment, in a much more temperate tone. "I didn't mean to yell that way."
"I understand that you're upset. I understand why you're upset."
"Thank you."
"Dr. Jacobs assures me that the boy's health is fine, that he's not in any way impaired by the program of research to which he's being-subjected."
"Then Dr. Jacobs ought to spend a night sleeping in here and he might have a different view," Miss Fellowes said. She saw a startled look come into Hoskins' eyes and her face blossomed with embarrassment at the unintended, implausible other meaning of what she had just said. -*'To listen to him crying in the dark. To watch me have to go into his bedroom and hold him and sing lullabies to him. Not impaired, Dr. Hoskins? If he hasn't been impaired by all this, it's because he spent the first few years of his life under the most dreadful conditions imaginable and somehow survived them. If a child can survive an ice-age winter, he can probably survive a lot of poking and testing by a pack of people in white coats. But that doesn't mean it's good for him."