Orphan of Creation (24 page)

“People are using that debate to push school boards around, yank books out of libraries, take kids out of classes for fear their brains will get polluted by an unapproved thought. I cover a lot of school board stuff, and I’ve seen it.
Thought
control is being practiced down here, and nine times out of ten it’s the fight over evolution that’s the thin edge of the wedge. That starts it, and then the censors find out how easy it is to stamp out books and ideas. Do you have any idea how tough it was for me to find any books on human origins in the stores and the libraries down here?

“You’re sitting on an incredibly potent weapon up there, one that could strengthen the hand of people interested in teaching children the truth instead of what their parents
wish
was the truth. And every day you withhold your discovery, another little township school board is going to knuckle under and agree to use the sanitized, bowdlerized textbooks approved by people who think you can change the truth if you don’t like it. Do you have any idea how much more damage could be done by the time you felt ready to tell the world what you’ve found?”

Grossington cleared his throat again. “Excuse me, Mr. Ardley. I’m surprised to learn you care about anything.”

Pete shrugged, knowing it was a pointless gesture over the phone. He was a little surprised to learn it himself. “I beg your pardon, Dr. Grossington, I didn’t mean to get so worked up. I hope you don’t take offense. I just get scared at the mush they’re putting in the kids’ heads.”

“It scares me too, Mr. Ardley, and we’ve argued that very same point in this office, I assure you. Just not quite so persuasively. So tell me, how can you ‘help’?”

Pete hesitated for a moment. He had gotten a little off track and had to collect himself. “It’s like this, Doctor. I’ve had some time to work on this. I’ve had a month to read up on the subject, I’ve interviewed an expert in the field, I’ve had a chance to think and to learn about the subject of paleoanthropology to the point where I know what I’m talking about. I can write a follow-up story about these skulls without calling them missing links or ape-men, without people thinking you’re saying that something that died just before the Civil War could be their ancestor. I can make it clear what their relation is to human beings, what the significance of the find is.

“When the other news media pick this up, they’re going to put general assignment reporters on it—reporters who were writing about the mayor yesterday and a burglary the day before that. They or she won’t know any more than I did a month ago—and I didn’t know
anything
. I can put the case for your find clearly, without falling into the traps those guys will land in. And since I broke the story, I’m in a position to sell freelance pieces and wire stories.
That
could set the tone for reporting on this whole thing. With a little luck, we can keep the debate fairly civilized. Will you help me?”

There was another long silence. Finally Grossington spoke. “You talk a convincing line, Mr. Ardley, but I still can’t see where I owe you anything. However, I’m calling a press conference for two p.m. the day after tomorrow, and if you can be here then, I suppose you’d be welcome. Good day to you.”

Pete already had the airline schedule out before Grossington had the phone handset back on the cradle. Pete had been hoping for a real interview, but he’d have to settle. Those were the risks of the game when you forced somebody’s hand. Pete spread the schedule out and glanced at his watch. The real trick would be getting up to Jackson fast to catch an early flight. It would do some good to be on the ground in Washington before the news conference. He had some leads up there to follow.

Chapter Sixteen

In the movie-cliché version of Africa, there should have been a glorious feast in their honor that night, with spectacular music and dancing around a roaring fire, shouting and laughing people surrounding the flames as the sparks flew up into the jet-black sky. The food should have been wonderful as well, of course, with all sorts of delicacies laid before the travelers.

However, the Utaani apparently hadn’t been to the movies recently, and didn’t know about such things. The five visitors were crammed into the chief’s rather fragrant hut along with the chief and several of the village’s leading citizens. They sat on mats on the floor of the hut, wedged into a tight circle of bodies alongside the great man, choking on the smoke from the sullen little fire in the hut’s center, forcing down the bland, pasty glup that seemed to be the Utaani idea of a feast food. Livingston found himself missing the canned-goods elegance of the hotel at Booué.

Liv had seen a lot on this trip, seen a lot of ways for people to live, but this was the first he had ever seen that just plain felt
wrong
. There was nothing, exactly, that he could put his finger on, but this was a bad place. Nasty, brutish. He had yet to see anything clean, or orderly, or well-made, anything a person could be proud of.

Livingston turned to Rupert and nudged him in the ribs to get his attention. “So what in hell goes on around here? What does Monsieur Ovono think?”

Rupert shrugged. “I’ll ask him.” Rupert got Ovono’s attention and the two of them talked in French for a moment or two, both men making a big show of speaking in a very animated way, very happy and effusive. Rupert turned backed to Livingston. “He says he has never seen such a miserable place or such uncultured people,” Rupert reported, still keeping his voice animated and excited, so the Utaani would think he was happy. “None of the villages he has seen have been as unhappy as this. Do not judge the jungle villages of Gabon by this miserable example. They live like pigs here. So says Monsieur Ovono,” Rupert finished up.

“Okay, I’ll go with that, but what about the reason we’re here?” Livingston asked, being a bit cryptic so as not to upset either their guide or their hosts. He wasn’t quite sure how either would react to mention of the creatures they were there to find. He didn’t want to mention the one Utaani word he knew,
tranka
and he didn’t want to refer to them by the scientific name australopithecine either, as Ovono would be sure to spot it.

“Hold on a sec.” Rupert and Ovono started talking again, and after a moment Clark joined in. Then the Utaani chief tapped Ovono on the shoulder and spoke, apparently asking what his visitors were talking about. Ovono replied, no doubt at least sanitizing what the visitors were saying in French, but more likely out-and-out lying, inventing something that would satisfy the chief. Then, of course, the chief had to tell the visitors something, which Ovono had to translate, and so on. Livingston sighed. By the sounds of things, it was threatening to be a rather long conversation. He had gotten used to not being able to speak French, but now he felt doubly out of it for not speaking the dialect of Eshiri that the Utaani spoke.

Barbara poked him in the ribs and laughed. “It’s okay, Liv, I feel a little out of touch myself. So much for cultural relativism, huh?”

“I’ve managed to blank out most of my sociology requirements. What’s cultural relativism?”

“It’s sort of a soppy liberal thing, the idea that you can’t view one culture as superior to another, because all cultures judge themselves by different criteria. A member of a purely agricultural society like this, living in mud huts, might view Manhattan as hopelessly backwards because there was no place to grow food, and by their sights, they’d be right. Einstein’s theory of relativity told us there were no privileged points of reference in physics, that all frames of reference are equally valid, and no one point in the universe is better for observation than another. The cultural relativists sort of work from an analogy with that, saying that there is no culture that is better than another, since there is no objective measure for comparing one group against another. There are no absolutes.”

“But these people are living in filth! And they must die young—I haven’t seen anyone much older than 45 or so.”

“Ah, but what you call filth is part of their cultural matrix, living closer to nature. And no doubt they are accustomed to dying young, and if their life expectancy was extended, it would unbalance all the social structures geared to the chief dying young, for example. And maniac terrorists who kidnap innocent people and blow up airplanes full of people who have nothing to do with their fight are by their lights engaging in honorable, even holy war by the only means possible.
We
are not so oppressed, how would we act if we were? Who are we to judge?”

“Yeah, well, I don’t remember anything about Martin Luther King taking any hostages,” Livingston said testily. “Killing innocent people is wrong.
There’s
an absolute for you.”

“How can you be so dogmatic?” Barbara asked playfully. “You’re just not a good liberal. Suppose the innocent
wants
to die, and the death is a sacrifice that plays a vital role in the life of the community? Or to get back to our hijackers, how innocent are the people in that airplane, really? Aren’t they all growing fat and rich off the system of oppression that denies the hijackers a homeland? Aren’t they going to spend their paychecks, pumping money into the global war economy that is denying our poor, misunderstood hijackers their rights?”

“Wait a minute,” Livingston protested, “you’re halfway to saying that no one can ever do anything wrong, that nothing can ever be someone’s fault—”

“And since Hitler sincerely thought the Jews were subhuman, by his lights, killing them was no more murder than slaughtering cattle,” Barbara said, her voice tight and angry, no longer playful. “The further logic is that it’s always
our
fault—poor old Western mainstream culture’s fault—for not being understanding enough. Beyond that, there is no right, no wrong, no moral dimension, because no one—not Hitler, not the hijackers, not the bastards who bought our ancestors for slaves—ever thinks of himself as
bad
. They always find a reasonable argument to explain what they did as good and proper from their point of view.”

“So no act can be evil, because the only one who committed the act can judge the act, and no one ever thinks of himself as evil,” said Livingston. “Jeez, that’s real sharp thinking.”

“The relativists have a point, in that we can’t judge everything by one standard,” Barbara said thoughtfully. “Monsieur Ovono wouldn’t fit in our world any better than we fit in his, but he’s a happy, useful person. But even if this is a tribal culture off in a tiny clearing in the jungle, there’s no reason we have to stand around in human waste in the middle of the village! Ovono himself said he had never seen a place like this. There are such things as right and wrong, and this place proves it. This is no way for people to live.”

Livingston nodded. “I know. I get the same feeling. Right down deep in the gut. It’s as if they don’t give a damn about anything.”

Rupert turned to Barbara. “If you two are finished being catty, Ovono has just gotten done telling the locals how much we love the place, and then asked the chief if we might talk of what the other white men traded for. The locals are debating that point now.”

The chief and his cronies were talking energetically, and finally seemed to reach a conclusion. Ovono listen and relayed their agreement. “Okay, they say fine, let’s make a deal, and want to know what we offer,” Rupert reported. “Now what?”

Clark spoke up. “My goof, I’m afraid. It should have occurred to me that we might need to barter for information. I should have thought of things to bring along to trade. Now we’ll have to cough up from the gear we brought along for ourselves.” He shifted to French. “What sort of things would they be interested in, of the things we have with us? Don’t ask it of them, just give me an opinion before we start to bargain.”

Ovono shrugged. “Tools, I think. You have some handsome knives they might like. Rupert’s machete, perhaps. And your watches—not that these savages keep time, of course, but they might think them elegant jewelry. Perhaps some of your clothes if you can spare them. Nothing too unusual. But I suggest you leave the bargaining to me. I know the traditions for bartering things in these parts. These fellows are brutes, but they seem to follow much the same rules. And I suggest we leave it until tomorrow. They are in a mood to eat and drink, not to bargain. They will become irritable if we try to press a deal now.”

Clark nodded. “That sounds sensible. Tell the chief we wish to rest first, and ask where we might set our mosquito nets and sleep tonight.”

Ovono translated and listened to the answer. He grinned humorlessly as he relayed it. “There is no need to bother. We are the guests of the chief, and have the honor of sleeping here, under his leaky, termite-infested roof, tonight, on the very same mats you are sitting on now. I would suggest we check each other
very
carefully for lice in the morning.”

<>

Barbara woke from a fitful sleep to find a pair of leering eyes staring at her. It was the chief, God damn it, and judging from the way he had his breech clout off—and what his condition was underneath it—he clearly had but one thing on his mind. He saw that she was awake, grinned, and reached out to touch her, but she jerked back out of range without thinking.
Superb situation
, she thought.
The chief wants to rape me. I can’t afford to annoy him, and I’m sure as hell not going to let him touch me
. Livingston was curled up next to her, and that was some comfort. Liv would tear this yahoo limb from limb if he tried anything—but on the other hand, that wouldn’t exactly help them achieve their goals—or even survive. “Monsieur Ovono!” she called out in as calm a voice as she could, struggling to recall some shred of French to save her. “
Savez moi
! Monsieur!”

Ovono snapped into wakefulness with the speed of someone who spent time in the jungle. He sat up and took in the situation in a moment. The chief seemed not at all abashed, but instead looked at Ovono and laughed, as if Ovono should think it all funny. “
Merde
,” Ovono said, quite distinctly. “
Apa
,” he said, switching to Utaani. It was one of the few words of the dialect Barbara had picked up—the word for no.

“
Apa
,” Barbara echoed, drawing as far away from the chief as she could. She backed into Livingston, who stirred sleepily and opened his eyes. Clark, Rupert, and some of the locals were waking up too. Barbara felt her heart pounding in her chest, as frightened as she had ever been in her life. How many kinds of danger were they in now?

Speaking in a low, calm voice, Ovono began talking to the chief in his own language. The chief answered back, joined by some of his friends, but Ovono ignored them and spoke only to the chief.

The chief was all smiles at first, as if he were trying to pass it off as a joke. But at last the smiles died and the grimy breech clout went back on. The chief’s manner turned apologetic, but he ignored Barbara, speaking only to Ovono, and then, briefly, to Livingston before hurrying out of the hut, followed by the rest of local men, leaving the travelers alone.

Ovono spoke rapidly to Clark in French, and then Clark translated to Barbara. “Chief Neeri apologizes to you, Livingston, for his having tried to take your wife without your permission. Ovono told him Liv was your husband, Barbara. It was the only thing he could think of that fast. The slimy bastard thought he could just whip off his pants and have you right here in front of everyone, that you were brought here as some sort of gift for him. Charming people, aren’t they? What Ovono said last night is right, Barbara. Don’t judge jungle Gabon by these brutes. For the most part, they are very decent people out here, who wouldn’t dream of treating a guest that way—but something is wrong around here.”

Rupert shook his head. “That’s for damn sure. Everyone remember we can’t afford to offend these people just yet—unless we have to. But Barb, if anyone—
anyone
touches you again, scream bloody murder and we’ll all come running, beat the hell out of him, and worry about the consequences later. Okay?”

Barbara nodded, and noticed she was shaking. “Okay.”

Clark reached over as if to pat her reassuringly, and then seemed to think better of it, and stopped midway. Barbara was glad of it. Physical contact was not what she needed just now. “All right then, let’s get out there and pretend everything is okay.” He shifted to French. “Monsieur Ovono, I believe it might be best for the rest of us to go off by ourselves for a time and let you take care of negotiations. Our emotions run too high just now.”

“You are wise, M’sieu Clark. Go down the path we came in on, and return in two hours’ time. By then we will have the beginnings of a deal with these mongrels. Perhaps you should take your packs with you and have your breakfast meanwhile. But wait a moment, I just thought of something else.” Ovono reached for his own rucksack and began emptying it. “Distribute my belongings among your own packs, and then everyone should put the things they are willing to trade in my pack.”