The Visitor At The Zoo
by Damon Knight
I
AS THE Flugbahn car began to slide away from the landing platform, the biped Fritz clutched the arms of his seat and looked nervously down through the transparent wall.
He was unused to travel. Except for the trip by spaceship to Earth, which he hardly remembered, he had lived all his life in the Hamburg Zoo. Now - although he was sure the suspended car would not fall - being so high, and surrounded by nothing but glass, made him want to grip something for security.
In the seat beside him, his keeper, a stupid man named Alleks, was unfolding the crisp parchment sheets of the Berliner.
The biped’s home was eighteen light years away - in space - but remoter still in the distances of the mind!
The breath whistled in his hairy nostrils as he gazed cow-eyed at the headlines. Down the aisle, the other passengers were all staring at Fritz, but being used to this, the biped hardly noticed it.
Below, Berlin was spread out in the morning sun like a richly faded quilt. Looking back, as the car began to fall with increasing speed, Fritz could see the high platform where the Hamburg rocket-copter had landed, and the long spidery cables of the other Flugbahnen radiating outward to the four quarters of the city.
The car swooped, rose, checked at a station platform. The doors opened and closed again, then they were falling once more. At the second stop, Alleks folded his paper and got up. Come, he said.
Fritz followed him onto the platform, then into an elevator that dropped, in a dizzying fashion, through a transparent spiral tube, down, down and down, while the sunlit streets flowed massively upward. They got off into a bewildering crowd and a sharp chemical odor. Alleks, with a firm grip on the biped’s arm, propelled him down the street, through a tall open doorway, then into another elevator and finally into an office full of people.
“My dear young sir,” said a redfaced fat man, advancing jovially, “come in, come in. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Herr Doktor Griick. And you are our new biped? Welcome, welcome!” He took the biped’s threefingered hand and shook it warmly, showing no distaste at the fact that it was covered with soft, feathery-feeling spines.
Other people were crowding around, some aiming cameras. “Sign,” said Alleks, holding out a dog-eared notebook.
Dr. Griick took the notebook absently, scribbled, handed it back. Alleks turned indifferently and was gone. “Gentlemen and ladies,” said Griick in a rich tenor, “I have the honor to introduce to you our newest acquisition, Fritz - our second Brecht Biped - and you see that he is a male!”
The biped darted nervous glances around the oakpaneled room, at the whirring cameras, the bookshelves, the massive chandelier, the people with their naked pink faces. His body was slight and supple, like that of a cat or a rooster. The grayishgreen, cactus-like spines covered him all over, except for the pinkish sacs that swung between his thighs. His odd-shaped head was neither human, feline nor avian, but something like all three. Above the eyes, in the middle of his wide sloping forehead, was a round wrinkled organ of a dusty redpurple color, vaguely suggestive of a cock’s comb, in shape more like a withered fruit.
“A word for the newscast!” called some of the people with cameras.
OBEDIENTLY, as he had been taught, the biped recited, “How do you do, gentlemen and ladies? Fritz, the biped, at your service. I am happy to be here and I hope you will come to see me often at the Berlin Zoo.” He finished with a little bow.
Three white-smocked men stepped forward; the first bowed, took the biped’s hand. Wenzl, Head Keeper. He was bony and pale, with a thin straight mouth. The next man advanced, bowed, shook hands. Rausch, Dietitian. He was blonder and ruddier than Griick, with eyelashes almost white in a round, serious face. The third: Prinzmetal, our veterinary surgeon. He was dark and had sunken cheeks.
Dr. Griick beamed, his red face as stretched and shiny as if cooked in oil. His round skull was almost bald, but the blond hair, cut rather long, still curled crisply above his ears. His little blue eyes gleamed behind the rimless glasses. His body, round and firm as a rubber ball under the wide brown waistcoat and the gold watch-chain, radiated joy. “What a specimen!” he said, taking the biped’s jaw in one hand to open the mouth. “See the dentition!” The biped’s teeth were two solid pieces of cartilaginous tissue, with chiselshaped cutting edges. He broke free nervously after a moment, clacking his wide jaws and shaking his head.
“Halt, Fritz!” said Griick, seizing him to turn him around. “See the musculature - perfect! The integument! The color! Never, I promise you, even on Brecht’s Planet, would you find such a biped. And he is already sexually mature, said Griick, probing with his fat hand between Fritz’s legs. Perfect! You would like to meet a female biped, would you not, Fritz?”
The biped blinked and said haltingly, “My mother was a female biped, honored sir.”
“Ha ha!” said Griick, full of good humor. “So she was! Correct, Fritz!” Rausch smiled; Prinzmetal smiled; even Wenzl almost smiled. Come then, first we will show you your quarters, and afterward - perhaps a surprise!”
Picking up his shiny new valise, the biped followed Griick and the others out of the office, along a high, glass-walled corridor that overlooked the grounds with their scattered cages. People walking on the gravel paths looked up and began to point excitedly. Griick, in the lead, bowed and waved benignly down to them.
Inside, they emerged in an empty hall. Wenzl produced a magnetic key to open a heavy door with a small pane of wired glass set into it. Inside, they found themselves in a small but conveniently arranged room, with walls and floor of distempered concrete, a couch which could be used for sitting or sleeping, a chair and table, some utensils, a washbowl and toilet. “Here is the bedroom,” said Dr. Griick with a sweeping gesture. “And here -” he led the way through a doorless opening - your personal living room. The outer wall was of glass, through which, behind an iron railing, they saw a crowd of people. The room was larger and more nicely furnished than the one inside. The floor was tiled and polished. The walls were painted. There was a comfortable relaxing chair, a television, a little table with some magazines and newspapers on it, a large potted plant, even a shelf full of books.
“And now for the surprise!” cried Dr. Griick. Brushing the others aside, he led the way again through the bedroom, to another doorless opening in the far wall. The room beyond was much larger, with a concrete floor on which, however, some rubber mats had been laid, and two desks with business machines, filing cabinets, wire baskets, telephones, a pencil sharpener, a pneumatic conveyor and piles of documents.
Across the room, beside one of the filing cabinets which had an open drawer, someone turned and looked at them in surprise. It was another biped, smaller and more faintly colored than Fritz. Of the other differences, the most notable was the organ in the middle of her forehead, which, unlike Fritz’s, was developed into a large, egg-shaped red-purple ball or knob. “Now the surprise!” cried Dr. Griick. Fritz, here stands Emma, your little wife!”
With a faint shriek, the other biped clapped her hands over her head and scurried out of the room, leaving a storm of dropped papers to settle behind her.
FRITZ sat in his relaxing chair staring disconsolately out through the glass at the darkening air of the Zoo grounds. It was late afternoon. The Zoo was about to close, and the paths were almost deserted.
“That takes time, Dr. Griick had said heartily, patting him on the shoulder. Rest, get acquainted, tomorrow is better. Fritz, good afternoon!”