Orphan of Creation (29 page)

She gave it up and stared into the jungle. The jungle at night was not the best place or time to try and resolve such things.

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The next morning snapped into existence with the usual disconcerting speed of dawn in the tropics. It seemed to Barbara that she blinked once and the sun was up. She looked up to see what sort of day it was going to be. Directly above their trailside camp, a tiny patch of sky peeked through the trees, startling blue and bright to eyes used to nothing but grey and dark green. One by one the humans woke up to the new morning. Thursday managed to sleep later than any of them. It made sense, Barbara decided. This was probably the first time in her life that the poor thing hadn’t been jolted awake by her keeper.

It was well past seven before Thursday stirred. By that time the rest of the camp had long been up and about. It was a beautiful morning, the air clear and bright, the humidity down, and there was a freshening, almost cooling, breeze. Everyone woke up in a good mood, and the baffled gloom that had hung about the night before seemed forgotten, as unthreatening as a nightmare that hadn’t come true.

The coffee was on the fire, the birds were singing, and all seemed right with the world. Rupert even managed to get the BBC World Service on the short-wave, and picked up a music program.

Finally, Thursday woke up, coming alert very quickly. She stood up, stretched and shook herself, getting the kinks of the night out. Then she turned and walked out of camp, hurrying just a bit, disappearing into the wall of forest. Every eye in the camp was on her, wondering if they had just witnessed an escape. One by one, they all turned to look at Barbara. Should they go after her? Should they let her go?

Suddenly, there was the sound of a small, fast stream of water striking the ground. The men got it first, of course, and roared with laughter. Then Barbara understood, and found herself blushing—and that set her laughing. Thursday was answering a call of nature, not escaping to it.

The sound ended, and a moment or two later Thursday reappeared from the trees. She stopped at the edge of the trail and looked at the humans, all of them still laughing out loud. She hesitated, looking just a bit alarmed, and even stepped back a foot or two.

“Thursday,” Barbara said. “It’s all right, it’s all right.”

Thursday looked at Barbara and cocked her head. “Come here, Thursday.”

The australopithecine raised her arm and pointed to herself. It was an unmistakable gesture.
Who, me?

“Jesus, she’s learned her name already,” Rupert said. “And no one even tried to teach it to her.”

“Let me try something,” Barbara said. “Yes, Thursday, come,” she said, gesturing for Thursday to approach. She spoke slowly and carefully, enunciating each word. With only the slightest hesitation, Thursday walked toward her. Barbara raised her hand and put it on her own chest. “Barbara.” Livingston was standing nearest to her, and she needed to point to someone else, to show “Barbara” wasn’t the word for human. “Livingston,” she said, and then pointed to the others. “Rupert. Clark. Ovono.” Thursday followed her pointing finger, looking to the person indicated, and not instead staring at the tip of the finger, the way a cat or dog might. Then Barbara put her hands at her side and said “Thursday?” Barbara looked from side to side, as if looking for her.

Thump. Thump thump
. Thursday patted herself on the chest, solidly, confidently. She had no doubt who she was. There was something eager in her face and her bearing, something that looked most proud and pleased. Barbara understood. Thursday had something she had never had before—a name, a symbol for herself. For the first time in her life, in a strange way, she
was
something.

Barbara walked toward her, reached out and touched her on the shoulder. “Thursday—yes.” She kept her hand on the warm, furry shoulder and said “Barbara—no.” She put her hand on herself again. “Thursday—no. Barbara—yes.”

“
Es.
”

Everyone in the camp froze, stunned once again. She had said it, most emphatically, if not clearly.

Barbara tried it again, another way. She touched herself again and said, “Thursday.”

“
‘O.
”

Barbara touched the australopithecine again. “Thursday.”

“
Es, es
.” Thursday rocked excitedly back and forth on her feet for a moment, and the fur on her neck stood straight up. She snorted happily and did it again, pounding herself in the chest. “
Es. Es. Ur-ay
.”

Thursday looked around to their faces again, worried that she had done something wrong. “Good! Yes, yes!” Barbara said anxiously. “My God, she’s quick.”

Rupert sat down slowly next to the fire, reached out for the coffee pot and poured himself a cup. “Great,” he growled. “It isn’t as if we didn’t have enough to think about already.”

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They settled down to eat after a bit. Barbara was eager to continue the language lessons, but once Thursday got it into her head that the food was for her, too, she wasn’t much interested in words anymore. She gulped down the freeze-dried glup and bland canned food as if she was starving. Livingston couldn’t help thinking she’d be a big hit in the no-fresh-food hotel restaurant at Booué.

Barbara got the radio and set it down next to Thursday, expecting her to be fascinated by the music coming out of it, but she seemed to have no real interest in it.

“It makes noise, so what?” Rupert said. “So does the wind and rain and fire. What’s she’s supposed to do, recognize Beethoven’s Fifth?”

“She likes voices,” Barbara said. “Maybe she’ll respond when someone starts talking. Pass the coffee, will you?”

Not long after, the music did end, and the BBC news reader came on. Barbara, watching intently to see what Thursday did, wasn’t really listening to the words herself at first—until she heard her own name in the lead story.

“—ara Marchando and her colleagues are reported to be in the west African nation of Gabon, possibly in search of living examples of the species. As Dr. Grossington noted at that news conference, the first fossil of
Australopithecus boisei
was discovered by the famous paleontologist, Dr. Louis Leakey, a native of Kenya, the son of a British missionary and graduate of Cambridge. . . .”

“How do they
know
about us?” Rupert demanded.

“Oh my God, it got out,” Barbara said. “The story got out. Now we
have
to get back. They’ll eat Jeffery alive back there.”

Thursday didn’t notice the commotion. She was too fascinated with the box that had begun talking. She picked it up and shook it, tried to find a place to peek into it.

The radio, quite unimpressed with being shaken, went on. “Despite the impressive nature of the evidence offered in the form of the skull called Ambrose, several experts at the British Museum of Natural History expressed grave doubts that such a creature could have survived into historical times.”

“
Now
they tell us,” Rupert muttered. “Someone want to tell Thursday?”

Interlude

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Thursday. Thursday. Her mouth and throat could not form the sound clearly, but she could hear it, and recognize it, and know that it meant her, and no one and nothing else. There was magic in that.

There was magic, too, in her new people—in the foods they had and the things they did and the way they acted.

On the day after her first night with them, there was a great flurry of activity. All of them got upset suddenly, for no reason that she could see. At first she thought it might be because of something she had done, but none of them seemed angry at her. If anything, they ignored her a bit in the big rush of activity. After their morning food, which they seemed to eat in a great hurry, they packed up all their belongings, put them in bags that hung on their backs, and started walking down the path, away from the village. Then she thought she understood. They had to get away from the village, from the bad men there. But none of them looked back at her, not once, not at all, as if they had made a rule not to look at her. She chased after them, and ran fast until she was alongside Barbara, walking with her. Barbara looked at her with a face so happy and sad at the same time that once again Thursday feared they would not let her come with them. But they did let her come—and didn’t even make her carry anything.

They walked all that day, and another, and another, sleeping at nights, until at last they came to a place where there was a very large and strange box, unlike anything Thursday had ever seen before. The humans seemed to know what it was, and they knew how to make parts of it swing open and shut. They seemed to play with it for a while, climbing in and out of it, and the small dark one—Ovono?—seemed to put some small thing into the front part of it. She tried to stick her head in the box through a hole in the side, and bumped her head on it, and so discovered that the clear parts of the box were there, even if they were invisible. Barbara, who was always telling her words, more words than Thursday could dream of remembering, told her the box was called a car, and the clear parts were called glass or window. Thursday did not remember that for long, but somehow it helped even to know a thing had a name, even if she did not know what it was.

They watched the men play with the car-box for a while, and then, after a time, Barbara led Thursday a long ways away from the car-box and stood there with her, watching it.

The other humans climbed into the car-box and sat down in it. Suddenly the car-box made a terrible roaring noise, and let out a horrible-smelling puff of smoke. It frightened Thursday very much, but Barbara held her hand and made soothing sounds. Then the box began to move, not walking, but going about in a strange way without lifting its feet at all. It moved around and around the clearing, and the men inside leaned out of the windows, smiling and waving at her. Thursday, in a burst of understanding, realized that they were all trying to show her not to be afraid of it. Barbara led her toward the box-thing, and Thursday understood that she was to get into the thing, and ride in it as well.

It was almost too much for her, but her trust in Barbara made her fight her fear. With her heart racing, and every tuft of fur standing erect, her fingers trembling with fright and excitement, she got into the—yes, it took a moment, but she recalled the name, and felt very proud of that—she got into the car. The car moved again, this time with her in it, and for the first time in her life, Thursday moved without doing the work of moving for herself. It was a scary thing, and exciting.

For days they drove that way, until they came to a place where a huge swath of the jungle was not there anymore. In its place were men—many, many men— huge, noisy, frightening machines, trees fallen down, and endless sights and sound and smells she could not understand. The one called Ovono made the car move fast past there, and the humans tried to hide Thursday from view, as if they were afraid of her being seen. Perhaps these men would want to take her away from Barbara, just as Barbara had taken her away from the others. Thursday did not want that, and so she let them hide her, even though she was curious about all the things they were moving past.

On and on they went, until they came to a big place, like the old village grown and grown and grown bigger and bigger, with the huts made of strange things, and the air full of odd smells. Again Barbara and the others tried to hide her, and again she let them. They came to a broad, open place near the big village, with many strange machines standing about on it.

Thursday began to notice new words that sounded alike in the conversation—airplane, airport, airline. She wondered what they meant. She wanted to see everything, but they kept her hidden under a blanket in the back of the car. It was hot there, but there was a hole in the blanket she could peek through, and Barbara stayed with her. Peeking through the blanket, she saw Clark talk to a man, and give him some flat things that the man folded up and shoved in a pocket.

When night came, the car moved again, and stopped alongside one of the biggest of the strange machines. The back door of the car opened, and Barbara urged Thursday to step out and come with her.

Thursday saw a door in the big machine, and realized they wanted her to go through it. She climbed inside it, with Barbara following after. Barbara sat down on the floor of the machine, and patted the floor next to her, signaling Thursday to sit down next to her.

Thursday did, and shivered, for the strange floor was made of something very cold and hard. She wondered what would happen next.

Then she felt a jabbing in her rear, like a bee sting.

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She was asleep before she knew to be afraid, thank God. Barbara reached over and stroked the coarse fur on her head, and did her best to arrange the unconscious creature into a comfortable position. She wrapped a blanket around Thursday’s body and took the hard, callused hand in her own.

The old DC-3 coughed into life, and the well-bribed pilot took them up into the night sky, out of the seedy airstrip of Makokou toward Libreville, and whatever transport Clark could improvise there.