Connie Willis - Bellwether

When I had ten points for every sheep, I fed in an analysis program to calculate proximities and mean direction, and continued plotting vectors.

On the screen the movement was still random, determined by length of grass or wind direction or whatever it was in their tiny little thought processes that makes sheep move one way or the other.

There was one vector headed toward the hay, and I isolated it and traced it through the next hundred frames, but it was only a matted ewe determined to wedge itself into a corner. I went back to tracing all the vectors.

Still nothing on the screen, but in the numbers above it, a pattern started to emerge. Cerulean blue. I followed it forward, unconvinced. The sheep looked like she was grazing in a rough circle, but the proximities showed her moving erratically but steadily toward the hay.

I isolated her vector and watched her on the videotape. She looked completely ordinary and totally unaware of the hay. She walked a couple of steps, grazed, walked another step, turning slightly, grazed again, ending up always a little closer to the hay, and from halfway through the frames, the regression showed the rest of the flock following her.

I wanted to be sure. “Ben,” I said. “Cover up the water trough and put a pan of water in the back gate. Wait, let me hook this up to the tape so I can trace it as it happens. Okay,” I said after a minute. “Walk along the side so you don’t block the camera.”

I watched on the monitor as he maneuvered a sheet of plywood onto the trough, carried a pan out, and filled it with the hose, watching the sheep sharply to see if any of them noticed.

They didn’t.

They stayed right by the hay. There was a brief flutter of activity as Ben carried the hose back and lifted the latch on the gate, and then the sheep went back to business as usual.

I tracked cerulean blue in real time, watching the numbers. “I’ve got her,” I said to Bennett.

He came and looked over my shoulder. “Are you sure? She doesn’t look too bright.”

“If she was, the others wouldn’t follow her,” I said.

“I looked for you up stairs,” Flip said, “but you weren’t there.”

“We’re busy, Flip,” I said without taking my eyes off the screen.

“I’ll get the slip halter and a collar,” Ben said. “You direct me.”

“It’ll just take a minute,” Flip said. “I want you to look at something.”

“It’ll have to wait,” I said, my eyes still fixed on the screen. After a minute, Ben appeared in the picture, holding the collar and halter.

“Which one?” he shouted.

“Go left,” I shouted back. “Three, no four sheep. Okay. Now toward the west wall.”

“This is about Darrell, isn’t it?” Flip said. “He was in a newspaper. Anybody who read it had a right to answer it.”

“Left one more,” I shouted. “No, not that one. The one in front of it. Okay, now, don’t scare it. Put your hand on its hindquarters.”

“Besides,” Flip said, “it said ‘sophisticated and elegant.’ Scientists aren’t elegant, except Dr. Turnbull.”

“Careful,” I shouted. “Don’t spook it.” I started out to help him.

Flip blocked my way. “All I want is for you to look at something. It’ll only take a minute.”

“Hurry,” Ben called. “I can’t hold her.”

“I don’t have a minute,” I said and brushed past Flip, praying that Ben hadn’t lost the bellwether. He still had her, but just barely. He was hanging on to her tail with both hands, and was still holding the halter and the collar. There was no way he could let go to give them to me. I pulled the ribbon out of my pocket, wrapped it around the bellwether’s straining neck, and tied it in a knot. “Okay,” I said, spreading my feet apart, “you can let go.”

The rebound nearly knocked me down, and the bellwether immediately began pulling away from me and the not-nearly-strong-enough ribbon, but Ben was already slipping the halter on.

He handed it to me to hold and got the collar on, just as the ribbon gave way with a loud rip. He grabbed on to the halter, and we both held on like two kids flying a wayward kite. “The… collar’s… on,” he said, panting.

But you couldn’t see it. It was completely swallowed up in the bellwether’s thick wool. “Hold her a minute,” I said, and looped what was left of the ribbon under the collar. “Hold still,” I said, tying it in a big, floppy bow. “Po-mo pink is the color for fall.” I adjusted the ends. “There, you’re the height of fashion.”

Apparently she agreed. She stopped struggling and stood still. Ben knelt beside me and took the halter off. “We make a great team,” he said, grinning at me.

“We do,” I said.

“Well,” Flip said from the gate. She clicked the latch up and down. “Do you have a minute now?”

Ben rolled his eyes.

“Yes,” I said, laughing. I stood up. “I have a minute. What is it you wanted me to look at?”

But it was obvious, now that I looked at her. She had dyed her hair—hank, hair wraps, even the fuzz of her shaved skull—a brilliant, bilious Cerenkhov blue.

“Well?” Flip said. “Do you think he’ll like it?”

“I don’t know, Flip,” I said. “Dentists tend to be kind of conservative.”

“I know,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That’s why I dyed it blue. Blue’s a conservative color.” She tossed her blue hank. “ You’re no help,” she said, and stomped out.

I turned back to Ben and the bellwether, who was still standing perfectly still. “What next?”

Ben squatted next to the bellwether and took her chin in his hand. “We’re going to teach you low-threshold skills,” he said, “and you’re going to teach your friends. Got it?”

The bellwether chewed thoughtfully.

“What would you suggest, Dr. Foster? Scrabble, Ping-Pong?” He turned back to the bellwether. “How’d you like to start a chain letter?”

“I think we’d better stick to pushing a button to open a feed trough,” I said. “As you say, she doesn’t look too bright.”

He turned her head to one side and then the other, frowning. “She looks like Flip.” He grinned at me. “All right, Trivial Pursuit it is. But first, I’ve got to go get some peanut butter. Sheep Management and Care says sheep love peanut butter,” and left.

I tied a double knot in the bellwether’s bow and then leaned on the gate and watched them. Their movements looked as random and directionless as ever. They grazed and took a step and grazed again, and so did she, indistinguishable from the rest of them except for her pallid pink bow, unnoticed and unnoticing. And leading.

She tore a piece of grass, chewed on it, took two steps, and stared blankly into space for a long minute, thinking about what? Having her nose pierced? The hot new exercise fad for fall?

“Here you are,” Shirl said, carrying a stack of papers and looking irate. “You’re not engaged to that Billy Ray person, are you? Because if you are, that changes my entire—” She stopped. “Well, are you?”

“No,” I said. “Who told you I was?”

“Flip,” she said disgustedly. She set down the papers and lit a cigarette. “She told Sarah you were getting married and moving to Nevada.”

“Wyoming,” I said, “but I’m not.”

“Good,” Shirl said, taking an emphatic drag on the cigarette. “You’re a very talented scientist with a very bright future. With your ability, good things are going to happen to you very shortly, and you have no business throwing it all away.”

“I’m not,” I said, and made an effort to change the subject. “Did you want to see me about something?”