She laughed, shaking the hair from where it flopped into her eyes. “They found the lynx,” she called to Miss Scarlet. The chimpanzee turned, face rumpling into a smile. “But not before it killed Anatole Equestris’s favorite bird-of-paradise.”
“Oh dear,” said Miss Scarlet. “Poor Anatole! I meant to ask him for another of those feathered flywhisks he made for me last year.”
She rejoined us, tsk-tsking over the state of Jane’s breeches and a fresh bloody cut upon the girl’s arm. “I don’t know how you can stand it, Jane. Those—”
She hesitated, searching for the right word. “Those animals, those barbarians! You with your carnivores and now you’ve got Wendy looking at snakes… .”
She shook her head. “But what time is it? Wendy and I should be thinking about meeting the others and setting up for The Tempest.”
Miss Scarlet gasped when Jane told her the hour. “And I meant to visit Koko and Effie!”
“Oh, there’s still time for that,” insisted Jane. “They’re right on the way to the amphitheatre.”
Miss Scarlet looked discomfited, but after a moment sighed. “I suppose I should: it’s been almost a year. It’s just so hard …”
I followed them, looking back regretfully at the terrarium where the peepers clung to the glass until we had passed out of the Herp Lab, when I heard their ringing song once more.
Outside it had grown cooler. Dark clouds sailed across a blue sky rapidly turning gray. But there was a buoyancy to the air as we crossed the wide avenue where the Zoologists strolled, wearing clean tunics of green and russet and yellow, laughing and calling to Jane and Miss Scarlet, and even acknowledging me with bright smiles.
“They know you are one of Toby’s troupe, Wendy,” Jane proudly announced as we passed a group of laughing women carrying hooded gerfalcons, like small gloomily cowled monks perched upon their wrists. The women giggled. One who was hawkless pressed three fingers to her lips and winked, then rubbed her fingers across her palm to show her interest in me. I looked away.
“Aidan, I mean,” Jane corrected herself, glancing to see if I had taken offense.
“That’s all right,” I said. “As long as no one else hears you.”
“Oh, they won’t,” said Jane. “No one ever listens to me. Here, Scarlet—a new shortcut to the Primate House since you’ve been back. Follow me.”
The Zoologists had laid an orderly path of smooth stones, with goldenrod growing alongside it and the day’s ration of autumn leaves already raked up and burning nearby. Miss Scarlet coughed at the whiff of smoke and hung back from Jane and me. At the end of the path stood the Primate House. Not a large building, but constructed of glass and steel and other metals so that it seemed more massive than it really was. Over the centuries most of the glass had broken, to be replaced by boards and makeshift walls of iron bars salvaged from other cages. A sort of dry moat separated us from the overgrown habitats, empty except for sparrows and squirrels who dug industriously for acorns beneath the leafless oaks.
“They’re inside for the winter,” Jane explained. Miss Scarlet kept her head down, still walking a little behind us. Jane raised her eyebrows. “Scarlet, we don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
“No, no,” the chimpanzee replied. She gazed at a small area barren of grass, the dun-colored earth hacked up and spattered with dried feces and rotting carrots. “I’ll feel worse if I don’t.”
We entered by a heavy metal door, guarded by an older man who yawned and nodded as the gate clanged after us. “Hello, Jane,” he said. “Scarlet Pan, how are you?”
She nodded, face drawn. Although this building was as neat and well-swept as the Reptile House, and better lit, she lifted her skirts with a grimace, as though afraid to let them touch the floor. I wrinkled my nose at the smell. A heavy musky air, cool but not very fresh. It was noisy, too, as we ducked down the corridor that led into the great covered courtyard where the primates were housed.
“Ah, Magdalene,” Miss Scarlet said beneath her breath.
Jane bit her lip. “They’re really very well cared for,” she told me. “What can we do? We are their Keepers, they all would have died years and years ago if not for us.”
On every side immense bars rose from floor to ceiling. Behind them, on sloping concrete floors stained by centuries of damp and mold and urine, squatted figures much like Miss Scarlet. Only these creatures were huge, bigger than a man, with sorrowful heavy-browed faces that scarcely took note of us as we stopped to look at them. One cradled a little animal, a miniature of the great monsters rocking or sitting on the floor about her. The baby peered at us with inquisitive black eyes, but its dam gave us only a passing glance as she bowed her head to the infant. Her huge arms curled about the baby, her fingers moving in front of its wizened face in a repetitive series of gestures. When she dipped her head I saw that a number of black wires protruded from a shaved portion of her skull. Beside me Miss Scarlet shivered. My hair stood on end when I heard the creature in the cage mutter hoarsely, “Men, men, men. Go.”
Jane Alopex looked away. “Come on, Scarlet, there’s no need for this … ”
“But there is,” Miss Scarlet retorted. “If I am ever to become truly human I must learn from these poor souls—”
“Why torture yourself?” said Jane angrily. She stopped in front of a cage where a single animal, massive and barrel-chested, with long matted auburn hair and hands the size of a bunch of plantains, crouched in front of a flattened sheet of polished metal. It regarded its distorted reflection impassively, fingers working the same strange patterns in the air, brow furrowed as though it sought to remember something.
“They are not torturing themselves,” Miss Scarlet said at my elbow. Her pupils dilated and her hackles stiffened. “You have imprisoned them—”_,
“They would die without us!” Jane repeated. I left them and crossed to another cage, my heart pounding. In this one a number of small monkeys leaped and fought and howled. Several of them stopped and raced to the edge of the cage to stare up at me, paws writhing between the bars to pat at my knees as they squealed and chirped. But after a moment their cries grew petulant, their tiny black fingers clawing angrily when I did not acknowledge them. I pulled myself away.
In the next cage a family of the tall red-haired apes reclined against a log. The largest groomed one of the younger ones, parting its long fur so that I could see the scars where it too had been venesected. I hurried away to lean against a crooked metal railing, trying to breathe through my mouth so as not to smell the stench of fear and numbing boredom that seeped through that place.
“—then why do you never try to speak to them, Jane, why these endless games in the name of research—”
Jane stalked over to me, throwing her hands into the air as Miss Scarlet followed her, arguing. I pressed my thumbs to my eyes and breathed deeply. The sound of Miss Scarlet’s shrill voice seemed to alarm the other animals in the Primate House. The small monkeys began to screech, the sullen mother ape to grunt, “Go, go, go, “in a guttural voice that grew gradually louder and louder.
“Scarlet, you know I hate it worse than you do—”
I opened my eyes. Beside Jane, Miss Scarlet swung her arms up and down furiously, heedless of her stiff garment tearing as she bobbed on her heels. “Why did you ever teach them, can’t you see they are trying to remember—”
I let out my breath and asked, “What are they trying to remember?”
Miss Scarlet’s long teeth gnashed as she cried, “Speech! They are descended from geneslaves, they taught them once to speak with their hands—”