Peter Dickinson - Eva

All this while she pretended to be absorbed in what she was doing, but she was aware that by now most of Beth’s group had stopped reacting with one another and were watching her. Her spine prickled with their attention. Close in front of her there was a gap in the floor level, some kind of sump or inspection pit; it was dry, so it must drain away somewhere, but it had a jumble of rubbish in the bottom, old cabbage stalks and peelings, pieces of plastic, cans, cardboard. She dropped the bottle over the edge and backed away, holding the cord.

Her move took her beyond the edge of the wall, out of sight of the others. Hunkering down again she pulled on the cord, teasing the bottle up over the edge of the pit and then, slowly, across the floor toward her.

There was a scamper of feet—Abel, probably—and a bark—Beth calling him back. Eva whisked the bottle out of sight and hid it behind her back. Abel came rushing to the corner and stared, bewildered. Eva laughed at him. She went back to the pit, still holding the bottle so that he couldn’t see it, and dropped it over the edge again, then backed off, but this time not so far, so that the others could see what she was doing. When she pulled the cord Abel followed the bottle across the floor, crouching so close that his face almost touched it, but as soon as he made a move to grab it Eva whisked it out of reach. She hid it and laughed again, then turned. Lana, she saw, was laughing too. A chimp’s laugh is almost silent, a sucking of breath and a round toothless grin. Abel, suddenly alarmed, went scuttering back to Beth. Beth rose slowly from where Dinks had been grooming her and came over. Her solid, deliberate movement showed she was boss of the group and knew it and expected this stranger to know it too. Eva crouched low and gave a series of brief, quiet pants—what Dad called “submission greeting,” a way of saying You’re the boss. Beth snorted, then lowered her head to within a few inches of Eva’s and stared.

Eva couldn’t stare back because that would have been a challenge; but flickering glances showed her there was something else in Beth’s eyes than the assertion of dominance-puzzlement? Surprise? Eva was very aware now of her differences, of the people smells she must carry, shampoo and cooking and trafficky streets, and inside her the human mind trying to control the encounter. She made more submission pants and put out her left hand in a tentative pleading gesture. Beth backed away, still staring, but now with a frown of definite bewilderment. Almost as clear as speaking her look said Where have I seen you before?

Chimps had good memories, Eva knew. When she was five a young female called Snoo had been very fond of her and wanted to play with her all the time whenever Eva came. But then Snoo had gone off for a language experiment and Eva hadn’t seen her for three whole years, so that Eva had changed a lot before they met again. Even so, Snoo had known her at once and gone wild with excitement, jumping up and down and shrieking in her glee. So was it possible Beth actually remembered Kelly? Dad had said no. Chimps for the Research Section were taken away when they were still small, in order not to disrupt the community too much, so Kelly would have been less than a year old—tiny, when Beth had last seen her. It didn’t seem possible. Still . . .

She tried the greeting again, but this time more confidently—not Good morning, Lady Elizabeth but Hi, Mrs. Beth. Beth gave up the puzzle, whooshed her breath out, and lumbered back to Dinks. Eva stayed where she was and made a loose loop in the end of her cord.

After a short while Abel came sliding across to look for the bottle. Eva rolled it toward him, then drew it back, coaxing him along till he was in reach. She picked the bottle up and teased him closer, then slipped the loop over his neck as she gave him the bottle. He grabbed and scampered away to play with his toy, not yet realizing it was fastened to him. After a while he took it to the pit and dropped it over the edge. Nothing happened, so he lost interest and moved off. As soon as the cord tightened he jerked away. The bottle shot into the open. Abel stared at it, nosed forward, and then backed off again. The bottle followed him. Now for the first time he seemed to notice the cord. He grabbed it and pulled, jerking the bottle nearer. Suddenly he seemed to lose his alarm and started running to and fro, trailing the bottle behind him, delighted by its rattle across the concrete, dropping it into the pit and yanking it out again, until the weak cord snapped. For a minute or two he simply ran about, trailing the cord, but there was no fun in that, so he lost his temper and wrenched the cord off his neck.

The adults had watched his game intently, their heads moving to and fro as he scampered about. When it was over Beth and Dinks went back to grooming but Lana turned toward Eva with a look of amusement crinkling around her eyes. They laughed together. Eva rose and lolloped across, then stopped. There was still, she sensed, an invisible barrier that it wasn’t polite to go bursting through. Slowly she reached out with the same pleading gesture she had used toward Beth, but stretching farther, farther. Lana replied by pushing an arm toward her. Eva touched with her fingertips, walking them delicately up the flesh beneath the dark hairs, and then, when Lana didn’t withdraw, hunkered down closer and began to groom her never-known sister in earnest.

It was some while before she realized that she had broken her promise by moving out of Joey’s line of fire. By then she was sitting huddled close to Lana while Lana searched steadily down her shoulder blade and Wang scrambled his way over the pair of them, not seeming to notice which was which. Eva hadn’t had a bath for four days, but she knew she must still smell strongly of the human world. Lana sniffed at her sometimes, inquisitively but not suspiciously. Sitting in the sun, being properly groomed by a real chimp who did it because she wanted to and not just because she was supposed to, was the most glorious sensation. Eva had never felt closer to anyone. The only trouble was that Lana wasn’t going to find any reward for her search. She didn’t seem to mind, but Eva had picked off and nibbled half a dozen little bugs that had moved in under Lana’s fur.

I must get me some bugs of my own, she thought. Mom’s not going to like that.

“How was it, darling?”

“Okay. A little like the first day of school. I think some of them sort of guessed I was funny, but then they forgot.”

Mom had tried to make her question casual but you could hear the edge in it. Eva, on the other hand, could control her tone exactly, using the box. It wasn’t fair, but it couldn’t be helped.

“I’m going to find lots out for Dad,” she said.

“Good.”

Not fair, either. Eva was preparing Mom to accept that she was going back to the Pool as often as she could. At the same time she was concealing the argument she’d had with Dad, first because of moving out of sight and then by losing all track of time, so that in order to attract her attention he’d had to break the Reserve rule of not making the chimps aware of the human presence more than he had to. Still, she was fairly certain he wouldn’t tell Mom. He was too excited about the new project of having Eva see if she could teach any of Beth’s group to tie knots, and then whether they would pass the skill on.

Eva felt odd about all this. She had always been so open with Mom in the old days, so close and trusting. Now, though she was a little ashamed and guilty about what was happening, it was only a little. It was like the pang you get looking through old photographs and seeing someone who used to be a best friend but you haven’t thought about for years. I must write her a card, you tell yourself, and perhaps you do, but that’s all.