Dan Simmons - Darwin's Blade

Emma the elephant trumpeted sadly from the next enclosure. The noise was like an inconsolable woman weeping.

“Carl,” said Ms. Haywood.

Dar shook his head. “His whole name.”

“Carl Richardson,” said the assistant curator. “He has no family…His grown daughter died in an accident near a Hawaiian volcano last year. Emma was his only…He always tried to…” Ms. Haywood broke down again. “He was only a month away from retirement,” she managed to say. “He was very worried about how Emma would get along without him.”

Dar nodded and looked at Lawrence and Trudy. “You can take the pictures now,” he said. “But let’s get the man’s name right. Mr. Carl Richardson.”

Lawrence nodded and began taking more photos.

Dar stood and pulled off the gloves, dropping them on the concrete. “Names are important,” he said as if to himself. “A name is—”

“An instrument of teaching,” said Syd, “and of distinguishing natures.”

“Socrates,” said Dar as if in final benediction. He turned his back on the group and walked to a nearby restroom to wash up.

Syd waited for him outside. When Dar finally emerged, his sleeves were rolled up and his hands, arms, face, and neck smelled of liquid soap.

“Sorry,” he said when he came close to Syd.

“Hush,” said Syd. “It’s a pretty Sunday morning and the zoo isn’t open yet. Can we walk a bit before we head home? The only thing I don’t like about zoos is the crowds.”

Dar nodded. Syd took his hand and they started walking down the wide and curving asphalt path. The bright summer sun made the tropical foliage here an almost impossible green. Somewhere a lion or tiger coughed.

“Hesma phobou,” Syd said after a while. They paused in the shade of a wildly branched tree with tiny leaves. On a nearby island, small monkeys were leaping from branch to branch in perfectly silent balletic arcs.

“What?” said Dar, looking at her strangely.

“Hesma phobou,” repeated Syd. “I’ve been reading up on your Spartans. The weeping after a battle…falling to their knees…shaking, trembling. Hesma phobou —‘fear shedding.’”

“Yes,” said Dar.

“It wasn’t considered a weakness,” continued Syd. “It was considered necessary. Another way—after the battle—of ridding themselves of the worst sort of possessing-fear daemon. The daemon of indifference.”

Dar nodded.

“It’s been too long, my dear,” she said, and squeezed Dar’s hand.

“And they never forgot the names of their fallen,” said Dar. He hesitated only a few seconds before he spoke again. “My wife’s name was Barbara and my son’s name was David.”

Syd kissed him.

“It is a pretty day,” said Dar. “Let’s enjoy the zoo awhile and then come back and get Lawrence and Trudy. We can have breakfast outside somewhere with them.”

“Lawrence,” said Syd.

Dar raised his eyebrows slightly.

“You called him Lawrence,” said Syd. “Not Larry.”

“A name is important,” he said.

Syd smiled. “Let’s take that walk, shall we?”

They had not walked more than ten paces before an explosion of noise behind them made them turn.

One of the smaller monkeys had miscalculated slightly and leapt for too small a branch, the branch had broken, and the little primate had fallen at least forty feet, using his hands and feet to grab at undersized branches and leaves every inch of the way down. The branches had all torn free but had softened his fall enough that he looked only shaken and embarrassed as he huddled on the concrete base of the monkey island and trembled, sitting on his haunches but curled almost into a fetal position. He was sucking his thumb for comfort. The sunlight glowed red through his ears, and his skin twitched.

Around him, more leaves and twigs continued to fall in a steady shower of debris. Above him, all of the other monkeys were chattering, screeching, gibbering…It sounded like wild and mindless laughter. Other animals picked up the noise and roared, growled, coughed, and whinnied in unison until the entire zoo sounded like a giant echo chamber. Only Emma the elephant’s infinitely sad trumpeting raised itself in lonely counterpoint to the chaos and chorus of hysterics.

Dar looked at Syd. She took his hand, smiled, shrugged, and shook her head.

Questions unanswered but some riddles solved, the two walked down the path from shade to sunlight and then back again.

The author would like to acknowledge the help and advice of Wayne A. Simmons and Trudy Simmons in researching this novel. Thanks also go to the Warner Springs gliderport for letting me test my theories on aerial combat in one of their high-performance sailplanes, to The Accident Reconstruction Journal, to the United States Marines’ Scout Sniper School in Quantico, Virginia, and to Camp Pendleton in California. Acknowledgment should also be given to the writings of Stephen Pressfield on the Greek theories of phobologia —the study of fear and its mastery—and to Jim Land, whose sniper instruction manual may be the definitive work on the topic. To the artist in the Acura division of the Honda Motor Corporation who assembled the engine of my Acura NSX by hand, I can say only “ Domō arigatō gozaimasu—Shūri o onegai dekimasu ka? ”

All of the accidents investigated in Darwin’s Blade are based upon real accident reconstruction files but each is a composite—the combination of several investigations into one reconstruction used for fictional purposes. My thanks go to all of the accident investigators and accident reconstruction experts whose professionalism, research, and bizarre sense of humor have illuminated this novel. Any accuracy or verisimilitude in this book are due to them; the mistakes, unfortunately, are the author’s alone.

Dan Simmonsis the author of the critically acclaimed suspense novel The Crook Factory, as well as the award-winning Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, and their sequel, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymon. He is also the author of Song of Kali, Carrion Comfort, Fires of Eden, and several other respected works. A former teacher, Mr. Simmons makes his home in Colorado, where he is at work on a new novel.

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