Part 35 (1/2)

He met her eyes. ”Nevertheless, you're doing what Dr. de Shriver asks, aren't you?”

She nodded. ”Dr. de Shriver's nice. She says maybe I might get to go see Mommy and Daddy, sometime soon.”

Robert winced. He would have to talk to de Shriver about deceiving the youngster. The chim in charge probably could not bear to tell the human child the truth, that she would be in their care for a long time to come. To send her to Port Helenia now would be to give away the secret of the gorillas, something even Athaclena was now determined to prevent.

”Take me down there, Robert.” April demanded with a sweet smile. She pointed to a flat rock where the infant gorilla now capered before some of Robert's group. The chims laughed indulgently at the little male's antics. The satisfied, slightly smug tone in their voices was one Robert found understandable. A very young client race would naturally feel this way toward one even younger. The chims were very proprietary and parental toward the gorillas.

Robert, in turn, felt a little like a father with an unpleasant task ahead of him, one who must somehow break it to his children that the puppy would not remain theirs for long.

He carried April across to the other bank and set her down. The water temperature was much more bearable here. No, it was wonderful. He kicked off his moccasins and wriggled his toes in the tingling warmth.

April and the baby gorilla flanked Robert, resting their elbows on his knees. Elsie sat by his side. It was a brief, peaceful scene. If a neo-dolphin were magically to appear in the water, spy-hopping into view with a wide grin, the tableau would have made a good family portrait.

”Hey, what's that you've got in your mouth?” He moved his hand toward the little gorilla, who quickly s.h.i.+ed back out of reach. It regarded him with wide, curious eyes.

”What's he chewing on?” Robert asked Elsie.

”It looks like a strip of plastic. But . . . but what's it doing here? There isn't supposed to be anything here that was manufactured on Garth.”

”It's not Garth-made,” someone said. They looked up. It was the chimmie who had served them their soup. She smiled and wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n before bending over to pick up the gorilla infant. It gave up the material without fuss. ”All the little ones chew these strips. They tested safe, and we're absolutely positive nothing about it screams Terran!' to Gubru detectors.”

Elsie and Robert exchanged a puzzled look. ”How can you be so sure? What is the stuff?”

She teased the little ape, waving the strip before its face until it chirped and grabbed it, popping the well-masticated piece back into its mouth.

”Some of their parents brought shredded bits of it back from our first successful ambush, back at the Howletts Center. They said it 'smelled good.' Now the brats chew it all the time.”

She grinned down at Elsie and Robert. ”It's that super-plastic fiber from the Gubru fighting vehicles. You know, that material that stops bullets flat?”

Robert and Elsie stared.

”Hey, Kongie. How about that?” The chimmie cooed at the little gorilla. ”You clever little thing, you. Say, if you like chewing armor plating, how about taking on something really tasty next? How about a city? Maybe something simple, like New York?”

The baby lowered the frayed, wet end long enough to yawn, a wide gaping of sharp, glistening teeth.

The chimmie smiled. ”Yum! Y'know, I think little Kongie likes the idea.”

54 Fiben ”Hold still now,” Fiben told Gailet as he combed his fingers through her fur.

He needn't have said anything. For although Gailet was turned away, presenting her back to him, he knew her face bore a momentary expression of beatific joy as he groomed her. When she looked like that-calm, relaxed, happy with the delight of a simple, tactile pleasure-her normally stern countenance took on a glow, one that utterly transformed her somewhat ordinary features.

It was only for a minute, unfortunately. A tiny, scurrying movement caught Fiben's eye, and he pounced after it on instinct before it could vanish into her fine hair.

”Ow!” she cried when his fingernails bit a corner of skin, as well as a small squirming louse. Her chains rattled as she slapped his foot. ”What are you doing!”

”Eating,” he muttered as he cracked the wriggling thing between his teeth. Even then, it didn't quite stop struggling.

”You're lying,” she said, in an unconvincing tone of voice.

”Shall I show it to you?”

She shuddered. ”Never mind. Just go on with what you were doing.”

He spat out the dead louse, though for all their captors had been feeding them, he probably could use the protein. In all the thousands of times he had engaged in mutual grooming with other chims-friends, cla.s.smates, the Throop Family back on Cilmar Island-he had never before been so clearly reminded ofj>ne of the ritual's original purposes, inherited from the jungle of long ago-that of ridding another chim of parasites. He hoped Gailet wouldn't be too squeamish about doing the same for him. After sleeping on straw ticks for more than two weeks, he was starting to itch something awful.

His arms hurt. He had to stretch to reach Gailet, since they were chained to different parts of the stone room and could barely get close enough to do this.

”Well,” he said. ”I'm almost finished, at least with those places you're willing to uncover. I can't believe the chimmie who said pink to me, a couple of months ago, is such a prude about nudity.”

Gailet only sniffed, not even deigning to answer. She had seemed glad enough to see him yesterday, when the renegade chims had brought him here from his former place of confinement. So many days of separate carceral isolation had made them as happy to see each other as long-lost siblings.

Now, though, it seemed she was back to finding fault with everything Fiben did. ”Just a little more,” she urged. ”Over to the left.”

”Gripe, gripe, gripe,” Fiben muttered under his breath. But he complied. Chims needed to touch and be touched, perhaps quite a bit more than their human patrons, who sometimes held hands in public but seldom more. Fiben found it nice to have someone to groom after all this time. Almost as pleasurable as having it done to you was doing it for somebody else.

Back in college he had read that humans once restricted most of their person-to-person touching to their s.e.xual partners. Some dark-age parents had even refrained from hugging their kids! Those primitives hardly ever engaged in anything that could be likened to mutual grooming -- completely nons.e.xual scratching, combing, ma.s.saging one another, just for the pleasure of contact, with no s.e.x involved at all.

A brief Library search had verified this slanderous rumor, to his amazement. No historical anecdote had ever brought home to Fiben so well just how much agnosy and craziness poor human mels and ferns had endured. It made forgiveness a little easier when he also saw pictures of old-time zoos and circuses and trophies of ”the hunt.”

Fiben was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of keys rattling. The old-style wooden door slid open. Someone knocked and then walked in.

It was the chimmie who brought them their evening meals. Since being moved here, Fiben had not learned her name, but her heart-shaped face was striking, and somehow familiar.

Her bright zipsuit was of the style worn by the band of Probationers that worked for the Gubru. The costume was bound by elastic bands at ankles and wrists, and a holo-projection armband picted outstretched birds' talons a few centimeters into s.p.a.ce.

”Someone's comin' to see both of you,” the female Probie said lowly, softly. ”I thought you'd want to know. Have time to get ready.”

Gailet nodded coolly. ”Thank you.” She hardly glanced at the chimmie. But Fiben, in spite of his situation, watched their jailer's sway as she turned and walked away.

”d.a.m.n traitors!” Gailet muttered. She strained against her slender chain, rattling it. ”Oh, there are times when I wish I were a chen. I'd ... I'd ...”

Fiben looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

Gailet strained to turn and look at him. ”What! You've maybe got a comment?”

Fiben shrugged. ”Sure. If you were a chen, you just might be able to bust out of that skinny little chain. But then, they wouldn't have used something like that if you were a male chim, would they?”

He lifted his own arms as far as they would go, barely enough to bring them into her view. Heavy links rattled. The chafing hurt his bandaged right wrist, so he let his hands drop to the concrete floor.

”I'd guess there were other reasons she wishes she was male,” came a voice from the doorway. Fiben looked up and saw the Probationer called Irongrip, the leader of the renegades. The chirri smiled theatrically as he rolled one end of his waxed mustache, an affectation Fiben was getting quite sick of.

”Sorry. I couldn't help but overhear that last part, folks.”

Gailet's upper lip curled in contempt. ”So you were listening. So what? All that means is you're an eavesdropper, as well as a traitor.”

The powerfully built chim grinned. ”Shall I go for voyeur, also? Why don't I have you two chained together, hm? Ought to make for lots of amus.e.m.e.nt, you like each other so much.”

Gailet snorted. She pointedly moved away from Fiben, shuffling over to the far wall.

Fiben refused to give the fellow the pleasure of a response. He returned Irongrip's gaze evenly.