David Brin - Earth

While waiting, he heard soft noises from the next room. The rustle of fabric heightened his sense of expectation. But when she emerged again, she was still fully dressed, and in her arms she held a two-year-old child.

“ Isn’t he cute ?” she said, as the infant rubbed his eyes and looked up from Nelson’s lap. “ Everyone says he’s the best-behaved little boy in White Horse. ”

Nelson had shelved his sexual hopes at once. His memory was vague about what followed, but he recalled a long, embarrassed silence, punctuated by fumbling words as he maneuvered the child off his lap and worked his way toward the door. But one image he recalled later with utter clarity — it was that last, unnerving, patient expression on the young woman’s face before he turned and fled.

Nelson realized later she’d been worse than crazy. She’d had a plan . And for some reason he came away from that episode feeling he was the one who had failed.

The little mother baboon turned to look directly at him and Nelson shivered at a strange moment of deja vu. Summoning B’Keli’s injunction against direct eye contact, he found much to do, searching for more piles to check.

The expanse of superhard glass overhead might keep out the ultraviolet, but it hardly eased the savannah heat. Artificial mimicry of the greenhouse effect made it stifling, in spite of the blowing fans. As he had been doing for a few weeks now, Nelson took humidity and temperature readings from his belt monitor and noted the direction of the desultory breeze. Slowly, he was coming to recognize the way even a man-made environment had its “seasons,” its “natural” responses to unnatural controls.

His sampling path soon took him toward the edge of the habitat where slanted panes met the rim wall. Trays of cables circuited the habitat two meters high. Through the transparent barrier he could see the dun hillsides and sunburnt wheat fields of a land once called Rhodesia, then Zimbabwe, and several other names before finally becoming Ndebele Canton of the Federation of Southern Africa.

It wasn’t like any “Africa” Nelson had seen while growing up, lying prone in front of the B-movie channel. No elephants. No rhinos. Certainly no Tarzan here. At least he’d had enough sense not to flee Canada for his parents’ lamented homeland. Everyone knew what had become of Nigeria. The rains that had abandoned this land now drenched the Bight of Africa, engulfing abandoned cities there.

Deserts or drowning. Africa just could not get a break.

Closer in view were the sealed chambers below this one, a series of glistening ziggurat terraces leading step by step toward the dusty ground, each sheltering a different habitat, a different midget ecosphere rescued from the ruined continent.

The coterie of curious baboons in his trail had grown by the time Nelson came closest to the glassy wall. They went about their business — eating, grooming, scuffling — but all the time watching him with a nonchalant fascination that drew them in his wake. Each time he finished sampling a pile of feces, several monkeys would poke at the disturbed mass, perhaps curious what he found so attractive about ordinary turds.

Why are they following me ? he wondered, perplexed by the monkeys’ behavior, so unlike that of their cousins in the main ark. Once, the alpha male stared directly at Nelson, who was careful not to accept the implied challenge.

Nervously, he realized the entire troop now lay between him and the corridor airlock.

The little mother and her baby remained his closest adherents. Nelson noticed her anxiety grow as five larger females approached, several of them clearly high-status matriarchs, whose sleek infants rode their backs like lords. One of the newcomers handed her baby to a helper and then began sidling toward the solitary mother.

The young one screeched defiance, clutching her infant close and backing away. Her eyes darted left and right, but none of the creatures nearby seemed more than vaguely interested in her plight. Certainly none of the big, lazy males offered any succor.

Nelson felt a twinge of sympathy. But what could he do? Rather than watch, he turned and hurried several meters to another set of droppings. He wiped his brow on his shirtsleeve and put his back to the blazing sun. In the muggy heat daydreams transported him back to his own room in the cool northlands, with his own bed, his own teli, his own little fridge stuffed with icy Labatts, and his mother’s pungent Yoruba cooking wafting upstairs from the kitchen. The reverie was pleasant beyond all expectation, but it shattered in an instant when he felt a sudden sharp tug on his pants leg.

Nelson swiveled, holding the stun-prod in both shaking hands. Then he exhaled an oath. It was only the little female again — now wide-eyed and sweat-damp, wearing a grimace of fear. Still, she did not back away when he shook the rod at her. Rather, she edged forward, trembling and awkward on two feet, clasping her infant with one paw while in the other she held forth something small and brown.

Nelson broke into nervous laughter. “Great! That’s all I need. She’s offering me shit!”

Flies buzzed as she shuffled another step, extending her piquant gift.

“G’wan, beat it, eh? I got enough to sample. And it’s supposed t’be undisturbed shit, get it?”

She seemed to understand at least part of it. The rejection part. With some retained dignity she spilled the feces onto the dry earth and wiped her paw on grass stems, all the time watching him.

The other monkeys had backed away when he shouted. Now they returned to their affairs as if nothing had happened. At first glance, one might guess they were content, foraging and lazing in the warm afternoon. But Nelson could sense undercurrents of tension. The patriarch’s nostrils flared as he sniffed, then resumed grooming one of his underlings.

This is one troop of insane monkeys, all light . Nelson wondered if there were still openings hauling hay to giraffes. With a resigned sigh he moved on, calculating how many more piles of crap he had to cover before at last he could get out of here, shower, and go nurse a beer or two — or four.

Screams suddenly erupted behind him, shrill peals of panic and fury. Nelson turned, his nerves finally tipped over into anger. “Now I’ve had enough …”

The words choked off as a small maelstrom of dark brown landed in his arms. Flailing for balance, he nearly fell over as a screeching creature clawed at his dungarees, scratching his shoulders and arms. Nelson staggered backward swearing, trying to protect his face and throw the baboon off. But the creature only scrambled around behind his shoulders, enclosing his neck in a fierce constriction.

Nelson wheezed. “Damn stupid crazy…” Then, just as suddenly, he forgot all about the small monkey on his back. He gaped at the entire troop, now arrayed in a half circle around him.

Moments ticked by, punctuated by the pounding of his heart. Most of the dark animals merely watched, as if this were great entertainment. The lead male licked himself lazily.

But facing Nelson directly now were five large, grimacing beasts who appeared to have something much more active in mind. They paced back and forth, turning and barking at him, tails flicking expressively.

The troop’s dominant females, he knew quickly. But why were they angry with him? The matriarchs’ band moved forward. Nelson did not like the gleam he saw in their eyes.

“Stay… stay back,” he gasped, and brandished the stunner-prod. At least he thought it was the prod, until a second glance showed it to be the sampler . Where had the damned prod gone!

He saw it at last several meters away. The biggest male was pressing his broad, multicolored snout against the white plastic, sniffing it. Cursing, he realized he must have dropped his only weapon in that initial moment of panic.