David Brin - Earth

Nelson had more immediate problems than recovering Kuwenezi Ark property. Less savagely intimidating than adult males, the females nonetheless growled impressively. Their teeth shone saliva-bright, and he knew why even leopards and hyenas did not dare attack baboons in a group.

It wasn’t hard to figure who it was cowering on his back, pressing her infant between them. In desperation, the little mother had apparently decided to enlist his “protection” whether he offered it or not. He stepped sideways, in the direction of the exit, speaking soothingly to the angry females. “Now… take it easy, eh? Peace an’ love… uh, nature is harmony, right?”

They didn’t seem particularly interested in reason, nor in slogans borrowed from the Earth Mother movement. They spread to cut him off.

I heard they can be pretty mean in their fights between females… I even saw one kill the baby of another. But this is ridiculous! Don’t they care I’m a man? We feed them. We made this place, to save them !

He realized with a sinking sensation that only one of these monkeys had any respect for him. And that shivering creature had turned to him only because nobody more important gave a damn.

Nelson looked around. One of the outer airlocks was just thirty meters away, opening onto the roof of the habitat below. He had no sun hat or goggles, but could easily stand the harsh daylight long enough to dash to another entrance. He began sidestepping that way slowly, maintaining a soothing monologue. “That’s right… I’ll just be goin’, then… no need for trouble, eh?”

He was halfway to his destination when the following monkeys seemed to grasp his intent. In a blur, two of them moved quickly to cut off that escape. Together, the pair of irate females blocking his path didn’t even equal his mass, but their tough hides looked all but impervious while Nelson’s own skin, already throbbing and bleeding from his little passenger’s unintended damage, seemed tender and useless against those savage, glistening canines.

Both airlocks were out, then. A utilities tray circuited the wall at about man height — the only conceivable refuge in sight. Nelson dropped the sampler and ran for it.

Their angry screeches amplified off the reflecting glass. His pursuers’ rapid footfalls paced the pounding of his heart as Nelson poured everything he had into reaching the wall. The sound of snapping jaws triggered a jolt of adrenaline. He took two final strides and leaped for the conduit tray, his fingers tearing for a hold on the slippery metal mesh. Fangs snagged his pants and laid a bloody runnel along his right calf as he swung his legs up at the last moment.

As soon as he was wrapped around the tray, his little passenger scrambled over him to clamber onto the cluster of pipes and cables. One foot squashed his nose as she hoisted her infant onto a nearby stanchion, but Nelson was too exhausted to do more than just hang there while the creatures below leaped and snapped at him some more, missing his rear end by inches. Inside, he had left only enough energy to curse himself for an idiot.

They gave me a chance! he realized. The matriarchs had waited after the young female leaped on him, to see what he’d do. He could have rejected her then — could have pried her loose and put her down.

Hell, all I’d have had to do was sit down… she’d have had to run for it .

Of course, the conclusion was inevitable anyway. The little monkey didn’t have a chance. But at least it wouldn’t have involved him. Now Nelson understood the other baboons’ anger. He’d violated his own neutrality. He had taken sides.

When he finally caught his breath, he wriggled and puffed his way atop the narrow platform. Seated a meter away, his unwelcome charge licked her baby and watched him. When he moved to sit up, she backed off a bit to give him room.

“You,” he panted, pointing at her, “are a lot of trouble.”

To his surprise she turned her back on him in a motion he recognized. She was asking him to groom her!

“Fat chance o’ that,” he muttered.

Morosely, he looked around. The troop seemed content simply to observe for a while. The big male examining Nelson’s stunner hadn’t found the trigger — worse luck — but he had dragged it halfway to the acacia grove before losing interest and abandoning it. Now the nearest exit was much closer than his weapon.

The cabal of high-status females sat calmly on their haunches, looking up at him. One by one they left briefly to check on their own infants — in “day care” with lower-status monkeys — then quickly rejoined the impromptu posse-lynch mob.

Nelson turned and pounded the thick pane of barrier glass behind him in frustration. A low hum was the only response… that and bruised knuckles. The Bangkok crystal sheeting was incredibly tough. He didn’t even contemplate trying to break it.

Beyond lay lower terraces of the ark tower, each sheltered beneath still more tightly-sealed glass. Nelson could make out forest growth within the ecosystem just below this one. In addition to preserving a patch of jungle, it provided part of the passive atmosphere regeneration that made ark four all but self-sufficient.

Movement caught his eye. Along the treetops below he saw people walking through the forest canopy, along a catwalk skyway. Nelson squinted, and recognized both the dark face of the ark director and the coffee features of Dr. B’Keli. They were showing off the new artificial ecosphere to a white woman, small and frail and quite elderly. From their expressions, they seemed eager to make a good impression. She nodded, and at one point reached out to pluck a leaf and rub it between her hands.

“Hey! Up here! Look up here!” Nelson beat the glass — an effort that seemed required given his circumstances, though he had no real hope of being heard.

Sure enough, the group strolled on, oblivious to the drama unfolding over their heads.

Damn them. Damn the arks. Damn the Salvation Project… and damn me for ever getting myself into this mess!

At that moment Nelson loathed everybody he could think of — from twentieth-century humanity, who had wrecked Earth’s delicate balance, to the voters and bureaucrats of the twenty-first, who spent fortunes trying to save what was left, to his caveman ancestors, who had been stupid enough to grow big, useless brains that everybody was always trying to cram with book learning, when what a guy really needed were claws, and big teeth, and skin as tough as old leather!

He remembered the leader of the Bantus, a “youth club” he had tried to join back in White Horse. It wasn’t supposed to be run like an old-style urban gang, but that was how it turned out anyway. For months Nelson had come home from an endless series of “initiations,” each time more bruised than the last — until it finally dawned on him that he just wasn’t wanted … that his only use to them was as an outlet for their “organized group activity” — the tribe strengthening its internal bonding by beating up on someone else.

He glanced across the prairie at the top male baboon, so serene and in charge, yawning complacently and ferociously. Nelson hated the patriarch and envied him.

If I had a hide like that… If I had fangs …

His attention was drawn back by the shaking of his unsteady platform. Nelson turned to see that the little female was hopping up and down, grimacing, tugging at his sleeve. “Stop that!” he cried. “This thing isn’t built to take that kind of…” Then he looked beyond and saw what had her so upset.

Her foes must have found one of the access ladders. Or maybe they had boosted each other, forming a multimonkey pyramid. However they managed it, three of the largest were now picking their way along the cable tray, heading in this direction.