He was halfway to his destination when the following monkeys seemed to grasp his intent. In a blur, two of them moved quickly to cut off that escape. Together, the pair of irate females blocking his path didn’t even equal his mass, but their tough hides looked all but impervious while Nelson’s own skin, already throbbing and bleeding from his little passenger’s unintended damage, seemed tender and useless against those savage, glistening canines.
Both airlocks were out, then. A utilities tray circuited the wall at about man height—the only conceivable refuge in sight. Nelson dropped the sampler and ran for it.
Their angry screeches amplified off the reflecting glass. His pursuers’ rapid footfalls paced the pounding of his heart as Nelson poured everything he had into reaching the wall. The sound of snapping jaws triggered a jolt of adrenaline. He took two final strides and leaped for the conduit tray, his fingers tearing for a hold on the slippery metal mesh. Fangs snagged his pants and laid a bloody runnel along his right calf as he swung his legs up at the last moment.
As soon as he was wrapped around the tray, his little passenger scrambled over him to clamber onto the cluster of pipes and cables. One foot squashed his nose as she hoisted her infant onto a nearby stanchion, but Nelson was too exhausted to do more than just hang there while the creatures below leaped and snapped at him some more, missing his rear end by inches. Inside, he had left only enough energy to curse himself for an idiot.
They gave me a chance! he realized. The matriarchs had waited after the young female leaped on him, to see what he’d do. He could have rejected her then—could have pried her loose and put her down.
Hell, all I’d have had to do was sit down … she’d have had to run for it.
Of course, the conclusion was inevitable anyway. The little monkey didn’t have a chance. But at least it wouldn’t have involved him. Now Nelson understood the other baboons’ anger. He’d violated his own neutrality. He had taken sides.
When he finally caught his breath, he wriggled and puffed his way atop the narrow platform. Seated a meter away, his unwelcome charge licked her baby and watched him. When he moved to sit up, she backed off a bit to give him room.
“You,” he panted, pointing at her, “are a lot of trouble.”
To his surprise she turned her back on him in a motion he recognized. She was asking him to groom her!
“Fat chance o’ that,” he muttered.
Morosely, he looked around. The troop seemed content simply to observe for a while. The big male examining Nelson’s stunner hadn’t found the trigger—worse luck—but he had dragged it halfway to the acacia grove before losing interest and abandoning it. Now the nearest exit was much closer than his weapon.
The cabal of high-status females sat calmly on their haunches, looking up at him. One by one they left briefly to check on their own infants—in “day care” with lower-status monkeys—then quickly rejoined the impromptu posse-lynch mob.
Nelson turned and pounded the thick pane of barrier glass behind him in frustration. A low hum was the only response … that and bruised knuckles. The Bangkok crystal sheeting was incredibly tough. He didn’t even contemplate trying to break it.
Beyond lay lower terraces of the ark tower, each sheltered beneath still more tightly-sealed glass. Nelson could make out forest growth within the ecosystem just below this one. In addition to preserving a patch of jungle, it provided part of the passive atmosphere regeneration that made ark four all but self-sufficient.
Movement caught his eye. Along the treetops below he saw people walking through the forest canopy, along a catwalk skyway. Nelson squinted, and recognized both the dark face of the ark director and the coffee features of Dr. B’Keli. They were showing off the new artificial ecosphere to a white woman, small and frail and quite elderly. From their expressions, they seemed eager to make a good impression. She nodded, and at one point reached out to pluck a leaf and rub it between her hands.
“Hey! Up here! Look up here!” Nelson beat the glass—an effort that seemed required given his circumstances, though he had no real hope of being heard.
Sure enough, the group strolled on, oblivious to the drama unfolding over their heads.
Damn them! Damn the arks. Damn the Salvation Project … and damn me for ever getting myself into this mess!
At that moment Nelson loathed everybody he could think of—from twentieth-century humanity, who had wrecked Earth’s delicate balance, to the voters and bureaucrats of the twenty-first, who spent fortunes trying to save what was left, to his caveman ancestors, who had been stupid enough to grow big, useless brains that everybody was always trying to cram with book learning, when what a guy really needed were claws, and big teeth, and skin as tough as old leather!
He remembered the leader of the Bantus, a “youth club” he had tried to join back in White Horse. It wasn’t supposed to be run like an old-style urban gang, but that was how it turned out anyway. For months Nelson had come home from an endless series of “initiations,” each time more bruised than the last—until it finally dawned on him that he just wasn’t wanted … that his only use to them was as an outlet for their “organized group activity”—the tribe strengthening its internal bonding by beating up on someone else.
He glanced across the prairie at the top male baboon, so serene and in charge, yawning complacently and ferociously. Nelson hated the patriarch and envied him.
If I had a hide like that … If I had fangs …
His attention was drawn back by the shaking of his unsteady platform. Nelson turned to see that the little female was hopping up and down, grimacing, tugging at his sleeve. “Stop that!” he cried. “This thing isn’t built to take that kind of …” Then he looked beyond and saw what had her so upset.
Her foes must have found one of the access ladders. Or maybe they had boosted each other, forming a multimonkey pyramid. However they managed it, three of the largest were now picking their way along the cable tray, heading in this direction.
“Oh hell,” he sighed. The young mother backed against him. Her infant’s dark eyes were wide with fear.
Nelson glanced down at the ground, and saw with surprise that the way was clear below! As he watched, the head male and his followers cleared a path, cuffing other baboons aside. The alpha male looked up at Nelson then, and tilted his head.
With uncanny insight, Nelson suddenly understood. He had only to jump, and he could run all the way to the airlock unmolested before the crazy females caught up with him!
Perhaps. But he’d never make it encumbered. He exchanged a look with the bull. That, it seemed, was part of the bargain. He was not to interfere in the natural working out of their social order. Nelson nodded, comprehending. He waited till the small female next to him was fully engaged, all her attention given to answering the threatening grimaces of her stalkers. At that moment Nelson slipped over the edge.
It was a bad landing. He came to his feet gasping at a sharp twinge in his ankle. Hurriedly, though, he hopped away several meters before pausing to glance back.
Nobody was following him. In fact, the troop mostly faced the other way, watching the drama reach its climax on the ledge overhead. The bull appeared to have dismissed him completely now that he was leaving the scene.
Burdened by her infant, though, the small mother could not follow him. She stared after him instead, blinking with a mute disappointment he could read only too well. Then she had no time for anything but immediate concerns; with her infant on her back, she turned to bare her teeth at her assailants.
Nelson backed away another two steps toward the safety of the exit, now beckoning only twenty or so meters away. Still, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He was captivated by the small baboon’s stand, grimacing final defiance at her foes, holding them back with brave lunges. It was an effort she could not keep up for long.
From experience, he knew the other females did not seek her death, only the baby’s. It was a bit of savagery he had not questioned until today. Now though, fo
r the very first time, Nelson wondered … why.
It was so cruel. So awful. It reminded him of human nastiness. And yet, in all the time he had been here, he had never asked the experts about this or any other matter. It had been as if … as if to do so would be to admit too openly the ignorance he had nurtured for so long. His frail, rigid facade of cynicism could not bear curiosity. Once he started asking questions, where would it stop?
Nelson felt a pressure building in his head. It couldn’t be restrained.…
“Why?” he demanded aloud, and felt his voice catch at the sound.
Protecting her child, the mother backed away awkwardly, shrieking at her enemies.
“Why’s it like this!” he asked, to no one present save himself.
Barely aware of what he was doing, Nelson found himself limping forward. He felt eyes track him as he held up his arms.
“Hey, you!” he called. “I’m back. Come on down …”
He had no need to repeat himself. The mother monkey grabbed her baby and launched herself from the doomed redoubt, landing in his arms as a taut bundle of scrawny brown fur, clawing for purchase on his already bleeding shoulders. Nelson hurriedly stepped away, fully resigned that now there was no way he’d reach the airlock in time. Sure enough, when he glanced back a crowd of angry baboons were catching up fast. The original pursuers had now been joined by several more irate monkeys, at least two of them large, pink-faced males, all dashing his way, screaming.
Nelson did not bother trying to run any further. He turned and scanned the ground for anything—anything at all—until his gaze fell upon a white rod.
His dung sampler.
Sighing that it wasn’t even the inadequate shock-prod, Nelson snatched it up, carrying the motion through just in time to catch a leaping baboon in the snout. The creature screamed and tumbled whimpering away.
The females scattered, dispersing on all sides. Dark eyes peered at him through the tall grass.
Panting, blinking in surprise, Nelson wondered. Was that it? Hey, maybe all it takes is the right bluff!
Then he saw why the females had given up so easily. They were moving aside to make room for a new force.
Rumbling with a low rage, the patriarch and his entourage arrived. Nine big males, their manes fully inflated, ambled with patient assuredness toward him and his frightened, weary charge. Their pace might be confident, but flecks of saliva dripped from their curled lips. Nelson read their eyes, and knew them for killers.
And yet, in that same suspended moment, Nelson had time to feel something he had never before imagined … a strange, crystal calm. As if this was all somehow familiar. As if he had been in this place, in this very predicament, many times before.
We were all like this, once, he realized, feeling the weight of his makeshift cudgel. White, black, yellow … men, women … our ancestors all shared this, long ago …
Back when Africa was new …
Human beings had changed the world, for well and ill. Would their efforts now save what was left? Nelson couldn’t begin to guess.
All he knew for sure was that for the first time he cared.
Nelson and the little mother shared communion in a moment’s eye contact. Leaving her baby clinging to his shoulder, she slipped down to stand beside his left knee, guarding his flank.
The pack slowed and circled. The bull shook his head, as if reading something different in Nelson’s stance, in his eyes. But Nelson suddenly knew the creature saw only part of it.
We humans almost wrecked the whole world. Humans may yet save it …
You don’t mess with guys who can do shit like that.
“Okay, it’s nine against two,” he said, hefting his rude club, smacking its reassuring weight in the palm of his left hand.
“That sounds about right.”
When at last they charged, Nelson was ready for them.
Running Census: Net datum request [ ArBQ-P 9782534782]
U.S. Population Over Age 65
Year
Percent
1900 4.0%
1980 11.3%
2038 20.4%
Voting Clout of U.S. Citizen Age Groups
Citizen Age Group Percent Who Vote Political “Clout Factor”
18–25 19% 5
26–35 43% 23
36–52 62% 39
53–65 78% 44
66–99 93% 71
National Comparisons
Nation Citizenry Over 65 Seniors’ Voting Clout
Japan 26.1% 87
U.S.A. 20.4% 71
Han China 20.2% 79
Russian S.F.S.R. 19.1% 81
Yakutsk S.S.R. 12.1%* 37
Yukon Province, Canada 11.7%* 31
Sea State 10.0% 19
Republic of Patagonia 6.2%* 12**
* Biased by effects of immigration.
** Interactive and remote voting outlawed; polling allowed in person only, at voting stations.
• LITHOSPHERE
The rattling truck stank to high heaven.
It wasn’t just the fumes from its gasoline engine—Logan Eng was used to riding high-priority construction equipment. Fragrant, high-octane aromatics were as familiar as the grit of countless deserts or the metal tang of grease and drilling mud. Even the sweat fetor pervading the cracked upholstery spoke pungently of honorable work.
But in addition to all that, Logan’s driver was a tobacco addict. Worse, he didn’t take his nicotine in pills or spray. No, Enrique Vasquez actually smoked paper-wrapped bundles of shredded weed, inhaling the sooty vapors with deep sighs of satisfaction.
Logan eyed in unwilling fascination the glowing ember that seemed ever about to fall off the tip of Enrique’s cigarette. So far in this lurching ride across rugged Basque countryside, that mesmerizing bit of ash hadn’t yet set off flaming catastrophe. But he could not help picturing it landing amid the floorboards, there igniting a great ball of exploding petrol fumes.
Of course Logan knew better. (With his forebrain!) Only a generation ago, over a billion cigarettes had been consumed each year. And back in TwenCen, the rate had reached staggering trillions. If the things were as unsafe as they looked, not a forest or city would be left standing.
“You will want to stay for our National Day celebrations!” Enrique bellowed to be heard over the engine and rattling springs. The hand holding the cigarette draped the open window casing, leaving the other to handle both steering and shifting. The complaining gearbox set Logan’s teeth on edge in sympathy.
“I wish I could!” he shouted back. “But my job in Iberia’s finished tomorrow. I’m due back in Louisiana—”
“Too bad! It would you make happy. Glorious fireworks we’ll see! Everyone drunk gets. Then the young men, fun with the bulls have!”
The Basque were the oldest people in Europe, and proud of their heritage. Some said their language came from the Neolithic hunters who first claimed this land from the retreating ice. In a Bilbao museum, Logan had seen replicas of tiny boats Basque sailors used long ago, to hunt whales out on the rude Atlantic. They must be very brave or suicidal, he thought, then and now.
Logan gasped as his guide swerved, sending plumes of dust and gravel billowing toward an onrushing lumber hauler. The drivers exchanged obscene gestures with a vehemence that seemed quite sociable, in its macho way. Enrique shouted parting insults as the pickup roared along the rocky verge of a hundred-meter drop. Logan swallowed hard.
They sped past tumbled stones that must once have been some ancient wall or boundary. Conifer forests blurred where hardscrabble farms and pastures once covered these slopes. Here and there, commercial quick-pine gave way to newer stands of cedar and oak, planted in grudging compliance with the Balanced Reforestation Treaty, though their slower growth would profit only future generations.
Enrique grinned at him, all traces of indignation already forgotten. “So. Have they, the dams’ safety, determined yet?”
Logan managed to parse the strange version of Simglish
they taught here. He nodded.
“I spent a week in Badajoz, going over every datum within two hundred klicks of the quake epicenter. Those dams will last a long while yet.”
Enrique grunted. “In Castile they are good engineers. Not like down in Granada, where the land they are letting go to hell.” He spat out the window.
Logan refrained comment. Never get involved in interregional prejudices was a principal rule. Anyway, nobody could stop the climate from changing, since the Sahara had vaulted the Straits to begin southern Europe’s desertification.
Blame it on the greenhouse effect, Logan thought. Or the shifting Gulf Stream. Hell, blame it on gnomes. Let the scientists figure out causes. What matters to me is how much we can save.
Logan closed his eyes and tried to sleep. After all, if Enrique sent the truck over a cliff, watching it happen wouldn’t change it. Anyway, if he’d had ambitions to live forever he’d never have become a field engineer. He hardly noticed the rhythmic jouncing of his skull against the metal door frame—a relatively trivial irritant. Dozing, he found himself recalling how Daisy—his former wife and Claire’s mother—used to approve of his professional plans.
You’ll fight the system from within, she had told him when they were students and in love. Meanwhile, I’ll battle it from the outside.
The plan had sounded bold and perfect then. Neither of them had figured on the way people change … he by learning compromise, she by growing more adamant with each passing year.
Maybe she only married me to get at her family. It wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to Logan. At Tulane, she had said he was the only boy who seemed completely unimpressed with her money and name—which was true enough. After all, financiers just own things, while a skilled person with a job he loves has much, much more.