Genus Homo Read online

  Downstairs they watched the gorilla cut stencils for the local newspaper, which came out every six days. T'kluggl handed the chemist a copy of the previous issue; it was a long strip of paper folded together zig-zag like a map. Bridger, although he had been studying the gorillas' written language, could make next to nothing out of it.

  The savants from Mm Uth arrived in force the next morning, and the grilling they gave Bridger made his previous inquisitions seem mild. He felt as if were back in college being quizzed for his Ph.D.

  The chimpanzee ambassador acknowledged introductions with elaborate politeness. He was a few inches shorter than Bridger, but heavier, and he wore a monocle and a scarlet sash around his middle. When the questioning started, he perched himself on a pile of cushions, leaned back against the wall of T'kluggl's living room, took out of his pouch a telescope cigarette-holder which pulled out to the length of a yard, inserted a cigarette, lit it, and holding the affair lightly in his right foot puffed contentedly. He asked an occasional question. When Bridger commented that the party had been debating the question of polygamy, which was to be brought to a vote that evening, the gorillas looked solemnly interested but Kik-Kee-Whee almost exploded with mirth. He even dropped his monocle and had to fumble for it among the cushions.

  "May I have one of your honorable smoking-things?" Bridger asked him, using the polite form of address. "We smoked things like that in my former life, and I have wished for one for a long time."

  The chimpanzee obligingly passed him a cylindrical case of inlaid strips of bamboo. Bridger lit one of the longish cigarettes and found that it had an unpleasantly sweetish taste, but felt bound to finish it to avoid hurt feelings. "Would it be possible for us to get some pipes like yours, but only about half as large?" he asked T'kluggl. "Barnes whittled a few for us, but he hasn't had time to make any more."

  "Why yes," T'kluggl started, "I'll speak to . . ." but Tsugg Oof cut in impatiently. "Please, T'kluggl, you can settle these trivial details later. Now, Blidza, will you tell us more about those payments you call tac-siss?"

  The chemist finally broke up the session on the plea that he had to attend to his duties as chairman of the human race. "Very well, if you insist," Tsugg Oof agreed, "but we will go along with you to see how you conduct your meeting."

  As the meeting opened, Packard took the floor. "Sorry I can't agree with you, Henley," he said, "but I've been giving a lot of thought to this polygamy proposal, and I'm sure it would set a bad precedent."

  He went on to explain his reasons in detail. The lawyer was an adroit and forceful debater, and Bridger began to see his proposal doomed. Oh well, he thought, what of it? It's not the sort of thing you can ram down people's throats; if they don't want it, they don't want it. He was very much surprised, when, after two hours of heated discussion, polygamy carried the day. Bridger observed with a spark of amusement that all the married women—there were now five, including Mrs. Aaronson—voted solidly against it. Ruth Pierne, too, registered an emphatic "No!" Strange, Bridger thought; she's pretty broad-minded about most things, but you can never tell with a woman!

  As the meeting was breaking up, there was a disturbance down the street. The gorillas hurried off into the dark, and Bridger and some of the men followed. Through the chatter the chemist could make out the word "Pfenmll" repeated over and over. Wriggling through the crowd, he saw that it surrounded two gorillas, a male and a female, gasping and evidently exhausted from running. The female was smeared with drying blood.

  Most of the adult population of the town was soon packed into the street, and Bridger strove valiantly to discover what was happening, but could get no answer but the ominous "Pfenmll." Finally he sighted Kik-Kee-Whee bobbing about in the crowd. He wormed his way through to where the chimpanzee was perched on a barrel, observing the melee with interest.

  "From what I can gather," Kik-Kee-Whee told him in his fluent but oddly accented gorilla, "these two are the survivors of a party of six that started for the coast a few days ago. It seems that one of the ships of the Loof K'thll, bringing goods to trade, is overdue, and the gorillas thought they would go to meet the traders, and incidentally study the birds and flowers and whatnot and amuse themselves along the way.

  "Well, the Loof K'thll arrived all right, but they didn't bring goods to trade; they brought an army of Pfenmll. The gorillas were promptly attacked, and four were either killed or captured; the two you see escaped into the forest and made their way back with the warning. These Loof K'thll are conscienceless rascals; as long as they are paid well, they'll carry anything or anybody. They don't care if it means the destruction of a civilization."

  Bridger remembered T'kluggl's story of the unheroic part the chimpanzees had played in the war in Africa, but thought it wise not to mention it. "How many are there?" he asked.

  "They don't know yet; certainly hundreds, from what the fugitives say: perhaps thousands. Probably they came in more than one boat."

  "How many gorillas are there?"

  "Altogether? I don't know—somewhere between twenty and thirty thousand, I believe. Of course, that includes infants, so the effective fighting strength will be much less. In an emergency such as this the females will fight beside the males."

  That exhausted the chimpanzee's information, though not his thoughts on gorilla and human culture. Bridger, impatient at the small-talk, tried to get more from the gorillas that hurried past, but they muttered excuses and dashed on. Finally he assembled as many of his crew as he could find, gave them what news he had, and sent them home. He returned to T'kluggl's house, hoping that his host would come in later, but neither T'kluggl nor P'plookhl was there; he waited for hours and finally fell asleep.

  He was awakened next morning by T'kluggl's hurried entrance. "I can't talk to you now, Blidza," said the ape. "I must help to get the army off. Perhaps I can give you a few minutes later."

  All that day the human beings found themselves at loose ends. The gorillas were far too busy to pay them any attention. As the hours passed the undercurrent of excitement began to affect them too.

  "They haven't asked us to help, Henry," Janet Rodriguez observed, "but I think we should offer to do what we can. They've been pretty decent to us, really."

  "Good idea," the chemist agreed. "I was going to suggest it myself. Suppose we meet here in the square again at sunset, and I'll try to drag the big shot down for a consultation. There must be something we can do."

  He spent the rest of the day observing the gorillas' preparations and keeping out from underfoot. The army, it seemed, comprised practically the entire adult male population. Besides their shooting devices, which the new Mrs. Macdonald insisted should be called arbalests, they had quite an assortment of armament—broad-brimmed rubber helmets that looked like firemen's hats, small bucklers, wooden maces with glass spikes, knuckle-dusters with spikes of formidable length, quarter-staves with a twenty-pound stone at each end, and glass-bladed knives. Late in the afternoon the column set out briskly along the road to the east.

  Bridger finally cornered T'kluggl, who had remained behind. "Please listen," he said. "My people want to make themselves useful, and I'm sure we can if you'll let us. In a way it's our war, too, you know."

  "Oh, there will be plenty for you to do," the ape replied. "We must put Dlldah in condition for defense. That means laying in a supply of food and water, surrounding the wall with covered pits, and a lot of other things. Also, the factory must be kept going continuously, making arms and ammunition. It may be wise to make a set of small arbalests for your people; ours are too heavy."

  Bridger persuaded him to come down to the square, and to bring the mayor and the keeper of stores, the latter a female named Gliff Thoo. After some discussion of the tasks that the people could be expected to carry out, Zbradovski said, "I think we ought to have an observer with the army. If we have to fight later, it will be a big help to know something about these Pfenmll. I don't think any of us know much about military science, and that would be the quick
est way to teach us."

  Ll Fthung-ee, the mayor, objected at once. "That wouldn't do at all! Not one of you would have a chance in a fight with the Pfenmll. You would merely get yourselves killed for no good purpose."

  "He's right, your honor," Wilson chimed in. "You don't get quite our point of view. We ought to have two observers, really, in case something should happen to one . . ."

  The stout gorilla finally gave in. "Very well," he agreed, "but who should it be? Your females cannot possibly get around fast enough, nor are they strong enough to stand the exertion of military life. Blidza, of course, will have to stay here to manage the rest of you. Bonnz and Toomee are needed at the factory for their skill with machinery. If things look serious, I shall have you all sent back to Mm Uth. Perhaps it would be better to do so immediately . . ."

  Zbradovski broke in: "You could send Wilson and me; we don't seem to be good for anything special here." After more argument the gorillas finally agreed to this arrangement.

  Macdonald had been hovering around the fringes of the crowd, trying from time to time to inject a word in his halting gorilla. Seeing the conference on the verge of breaking up, he turned anxiously to Bridger.

  "What I'm tryin' to say," he told the chemist in English, "is that with all these pigs the size of buffaloes, we ought to be able to get up a good mounted force. I was a mounted cop once, before I got hurt and had to quit, and I could organize a squad and train 'em if they'd let me."

  Bridger translated. "It's an ambitious idea," T'kluggl said. "It might be good if it could be done, but these draft-pigs of ours are not that easy to train. However, our friend here can try his scheme, if he likes, with one or two pigs first."

  That night, as they wandered back to their quarters, Wilson caught up with Zbradovski.

  "Look here, Sneeze," the publicity man said, "when I backed you up on your scheme I didn't know you were going to elect me to do the dirty work! It's all right for you—you're just a young squirt who likes that kind of excitement—but I don't know. . ."

  "You don't have to go if you don't want to."

  "No—I'll go, I suppose. I just wish you'd sprung the idea on me first, sort of gradually. I don't like to be pushed into these things. Still, maybe it won't be so bad—I always did like the idea of being a war correspondent."

  14

  THE PFENMLL

  Thirty hours later, Wilson and Zbradovski were awakened by a large hand shaking them by the shoulder. It was light enough to make out shapes, but it would be at least an hour before the sun was up.

  "If you two want to see any fighting," growled T'kluggl in their ears, "you'll have to hurry. The army will be moving out in a few minutes, and I have to go back to town. Come on; I want to introduce you to the commander."

  The two men stumbled after the professor through the gorilla camp. There was a quiet bustle around them; apes cleaning their teeth, rolling up their blankets, looking over their weapons, and pulling on their absurd rubber helmets. There was more to the camp than they had thought when they arrived the previous night. " 'Bout two hundred of 'em," muttered Wilson. They passed a line of eight pig-wagons, and a cleared space in which gorillas were inflating a hot-air balloon.

  "Good morning, Commander," said T'kluggl suddenly, stopping in front of a gorilla who, in the dim light, seemed no different from the others. "These are Human Being Wilson and Human Being Spla-doff-skee, who are to accompany you. My friends, this is Mmpl Fethi, Commander of the Dlldah Company." The Commander clapped his hands in greeting, and the men did likewise. "I must leave you now," continued T'kluggl. "Try not to get killed. We have become very fond of you people."

  "Just a minute, Professor," said the gorilla named Mmpl. "To be quite honest—" he turned to the men—"I wasn't very well pleased when I heard that you were to come with us. You could easily get in our way at a critical moment, and if you are killed, which is quite likely, I shall be held responsible. If you come, I want it understood that you will obey my orders implicitly. If that doesn't suit you, you can go back to Dlldah now with the Professor."

  "We understand," Wilson assured him. "You're the boss."

  "Very well. Stay close to me, but don't get in my way. Look and listen all you wish, but don't ask questions unless I give you permission. I can't stop in the middle of a battle to think up answers. Talk to each other, if you like, but don't raise your voices. If a fight starts, get behind something and try to look inconspicuous. Can you remember that? Good. Goodbye, T'kluggl—I hope the Pfenmll don't catch you on your way back. Get your belongings, human beings; we're ready to move." With that he strode off, barking orders right and left.

  By the time the men had found their bedding, crammed it into their packs, and woven their way back to the Commander, the two hundred apes had finished striking camp and were lining up. As the men hurried up, Mmpl blew a shrill whistle. An ape beside him raised one of a bunch of little colored flags. A score of gorillas broke ranks and disappeared into the woods on both sides of the road. "Scouts and flankers," whispered Wilson. A few minutes later a second blast of the whistle sent a larger group swinging up the road out of sight. With a third blast, most of the remaining gorillas stepped out smartly into the road and set off in a double file at their rolling walk.

  "Follow those," barked Mmpl. "I have to get the wagons started—I'll be with you presently." The men obediently trudged off after the long black column of apes. Behind them came a squeaking and grunting, and seven of the pig-wagons lurched into motion, the huge animals heavily muzzled to prevent their bellowing. Two wagons were loaded with axes, shovels, rope, stakes, and various odds and ends of impedimenta. The other five carried what looked like catapults covered with tarpaulin, and crates that might contain ammunition.

  Presently Mmpl hurried up and fell into a walk just ahead of the two men. He paid them no attention. Instead, he drew a map from one of the numerous pockets in his harness and swung along silently, studying it from time to time. A subordinate ran back to mumble something in his ears; he nodded briefly and kept on, looking now at the map and now at the road and the woods. His brusque and gloomy mien contrasted with the phlegmatic amiability of the others of his species whom the men had met.

  The road wound now through evergreens, now through hardwoods, and now through huge brake-ferns that almost met over the men's heads. The only sounds were the swish of the gorillas' huge, hand-like feet through the short grass of the road-bed, the heavy breathing of the pigs, the occasional squeaking of a wagon, and the rarer sound of some small animal fleeing into the underbrush.

  The sun rose, and the air grew warmer. An occasional bird sang, and there was a faint buzzing of flies. Still the stony, overgrown road led on, over one hill after another, and still the column of apes maintained its slogging pace. The men began to sweat, and the straps of their packs began to cut into their shoulders.

  For hour after hour they trudged along. The air become oppressively hot, and a thin cloud of dust hung over the marching column. The flies, seeming find the gorillas' thick skins and dense hair too much of a challenge, descended on the men with glee. Red-faced, swatting at the buzzing swarm, Wilson muttered, "I've got the first real appetite I've had in months."

  The woods grew thinner and finally ended, and they came out into an area overgrown with long grass. The column halted suddenly. There was the sound of arbalests being cocked, and the men could see gorillas deploying up ahead. Mmpl turned: "Do you see the big oak on that little rise to our right? Crouch down and get over there—fast. Don't show your heads above the rise."

  The oak stood by itself in the open. When the men arrived they found three gorillas hoisting themselves and their arbalests into its branches. Wilson and Zbradovski slid off their packs and sat down with their backs to the trunk.

  "Look," Sneeze said, "there's the balloon!" Sure enough, the big bag could be seen over the first ridge, a faint plume of smoke streaming from the vent in its top. "Oh my God!" cried Wilson. "Is that all the farther we've come? I thought we mu
st be halfway to the seashore by now."

  "That's a fair distance," Zbradovski assured him. "Six or eight miles, I'd say. Remember, it isn't noon yet."

  Shortly Mmpl trotted up and focused a telescope on the distant balloon. The men could make out a faint point of light below the bag, winking on and off.

  "Heliograph," muttered Zbradovski.

  "I know, stupid!" answered Wilson.

  Then two officers came up, and Mmpl conferred with them in growls while all three pored over their maps. Mmpl lined up his telescope on a hilltop opposite the balloon, and again there was a winking gleam—much plainer now, because the distance was less by half. The three officers trotted off.

  The gorilla army spread out around the oak. A quarter of them trailed over the rise, carrying strange-looking things that seemed to be square wicker shields with poles protruding from the centers. When the shields were set on the ground in a row, the poles kept them nearly vertical, and the whole thing made an effective-looking four-foot breastwork. Two more rows of shields were laid at right angles to the first, making three sides of a square with the tree in the center, and the rest were piled where they would be handy.

  Now four of the wagons were pulled into position behind the shields; a fifth was placed at the left end of the front row. It bore an elaborate wooden apparatus. "Looks like a cross between a spinning-wheel and a handcar," Wilson commented. The officers set up a tripod on the crest of the hillock, and blinked off heliograph messages alternately to the balloon and to the operator on the distant hill-top. The men ate their lunch and wondered when the excitement would begin.

  Presently a slightly more cheerful Mmpl came over and sat down heavily beside them. "I suppose you'd like to know what this is all about," he began. "That's Ah Glugg over in the trees. He's our best scout. A party of Pfenmll passed under him just before he started signaling, so you see he doesn't mind taking chances. He estimates their total number at two or three thousand. They could slaughter us in no time if they were together, but they're not. As they came inland, they spread out fanwise, and now they're strung out over a twenty-mile front. It would take them at least two days to get back together, since they don't know the country and aren't following the roads.