Peter Dickinson - Eva

In the shelter of the cliff she worked along the line of chimps, distributing the chow by handfuls. They received it without any sign of surprise or gratitude and chewed away. They were calmer now, having realized that they were safer here than they would be anywhere else. Only Wang still kept his grin of terror.

Night came with just enough warning for Eva to move out and find herself a crotch to sleep in among the more exposed branches. With difficulty she persuaded Lana to do the same, and seeing what they were up to, several of the others copied them. The rain came erratically now in rattling spasms, but a few drenchings were clearly better than dropping asleep and letting go of one’s hold.

Night seemed endless, cold, the snatched intervals of dozing full of roaring dreams and the terror of falling, but she must have slept at last because she was awakened by a sudden new loud noise and opened her eyes in daylight to find Sweetie-pie crouching beside her, solicitously picking the moss out of her left ear.

There were twenty-one chimps still in the tree. No one had fallen. By now they took it for granted that Eva would bring them chow. Only Sniff was interested enough to follow her up the cliff for the second bag. The wind was wilder still, coming in heavy buffeting lumps. It was blowing half sideways along the slope now, so that Eva had to work her way directly across its path to where she’d left the bag pinned down by a rock. It was only a few meters, but she barely made it. Clearly there was no hope of getting down to the chest for more until the wind dropped. There was also no hope of persuading hungry chimps to let her preserve half a bag till the evening—in fact, they were now confident enough of their safety to come crowding around when she brought the chow down and have characteristic chimp squabbles over their rations. Well, one evening without supper wouldn’t kill them.

By late that morning the wind had gone around enough to blow directly up the ravine. For almost an hour it roared full force between the cliffs, while the chimps clung with all their strength to the swaying branches, grinning their fright. At one point Eva remembered the cameras. Terrific pictures, she thought. Huh.

The wind swung on. They moved to the shelter of the farther cliff and endured. Tomorrow, Eva thought. If it goes the same speed that it came. In the afternoon, when it’s dying. Before the humans switch the alarm on again.

They spent the night hungry and cold. For several hours around dawn it rained, not quite as heavily as at the onset, but enough to wake the torrent below to another bout of white roaring.

As soon as the rain lessened Eva made the “Come” signal to Sniff. This time he followed. Quite a lot of trees were down, including one of the shelter palms. She unlocked the chest, bit a bag open, and let Sniff feed. She ate too. Then she gave him a fresh bag to carry and took one herself. At the top of the cliff she pinned one bag down and with some difficulty persuaded Sniff not to climb down into the ravine with the other, but to follow her on up to the top of the enclosure. The wind had picked their branch up and blown it against the fence—without that, it would have gone right out to sea. They dragged it back, and, with Eva now helping her best and the wind behind them, dropped it without trouble across the top of the fence. Sniff watched frowning while Eva pinned the fork firm with several boulders, with the bag of chow beside it.

The branch bowed deeply when Sniff put his weight on it, but stayed in place and straightened as he walked four-footed to its stiffer end. He reached the top of the fence and paused, studying the drop. The wind screamed past, rumpling his pelt. Eva barked anxiously. She’d known she’d have to take the risk of letting him get this far. Sniff glanced around. She looked up at the racing sky, turned, moved up the slope, looked at the sky again, and made the “Come” signal. He snorted and studied the drop again. For a moment she thought he would insist on going now, but a sudden stronger gust changed his mind and he made his way back, almost unbalancing as he turned. On the way to the ravine he paused several times to look at the sky, but he climbed down without hesitation. Eva distributed the rations—a lot of squabbles now, with everyone famished—and settled to a morning of waiting. Most of it she spent grooming Lana, who paid little attention, being obsessed by Wang, inspecting every hair root, turning him over and beginning again. Eva made occasional expeditions up the cliff, and now not only Sniff came with her. They moved around the wind-lashed slope above the ravine, nibbling the unappetizing leaves. The clouds were still low and dark and moving very fast, and the chimps were nervous enough to go back to shelter almost at once.

Around noon Eva climbed out again. Sniff followed her as usual, and three or four of the others. This time she led the way down toward the palms. There were fallen branches all over the place, many with succulent young tips out of reach till now. Eva fed for a while, then broke off a handful of twigs and made the “Come” sign to Sniff. He hesitated, grunted, and came with her, munching. At the ravine she climbed down and handed the food around, only a leaf or two each, enough to whet the chimps’ appetites. They were hungry for greenery and bored with being cooped in one place. Soon, in twos and threes, they were climbing the cliff and going to look for forage of their own.

Lana, preoccupied with Wang, was the slowest to move and Dinks stayed with her, but at length Eva managed to coax Dinks away, and Lana followed, rather than be left alone. With Wang clinging to her neck she climbed reluctantly up the greasy rock. Dinks had waited, and Sniff had been there all along, watching the process under frowning brows.

As soon as Lana came out into the open Eva snatched Wang from her back. He shrieked. Eva raced off, gripping Wang by his upper arm. Behind her she heard the racket of a chimp squabble, Lana’s shrieks of outrage, joined by Dinks’s, and Sniff’s hoot of warning. She paused and glanced around. Sniff was closest to her. He’d put himself between Eva and the other two and was following her up the slope, keeping them at bay as he came. Dinks, in any case, was impeded by having Tod to carry. By climbing fast enough to prevent them from separating and one of them thus outflanking Sniff, Eva was able to lead the others on right up out into the open, over the ridge, and down to the corner of the enclosure. Not giving herself a moment to hesitate, she picked up the bag of chow, put it between her teeth, and balanced herself out along the swaying branch. She gripped the projecting end with her free hand, swung herself down, and dropped. She’d been worried that her weight coming down like that on the outer end would loosen the fork from its mooring of boulders, but it didn’t, and when she rose and looked around she saw that Lana must have already been on the branch, unintentionally weighting it firm.

Lana reached the top of the fence and balanced there, shrieking anger and fright and dismay. Eva made the “Come” sign and held Wang out, offering him to Lana, like bait. For the first time she noticed how little after that one shriek he had resisted, how placid and uninterested he seemed. She placed him on a jut of rock and moved back. Lana still hesitated. Sniff by now was holding the far end of the branch firm, while Dinks was circling beyond, clutching Tod close, shrieking her outrage.

Wang whimpered, his voice hardly audible in the hiss of the wind. Lana overcame her doubts, swung on to the butt of the branch, dangled two-armed, and dropped. The moment she touched the rocks she scampered to Wang and began inspecting him for signs of damage, turning her head every few seconds to snarl at Eva. On the other side of the fence Sniff was herding Dinks on to the branch. Twice she refused to go, huddling instead into the corner of the enclosure, but he cuffed her out into the open, rounded her up when she broke for the ridge, and drove her back. The third time she did what he wanted—in fact, once she was on the branch she barely hesitated, but, seeing Lana below busy with Wang, just dropped and joined her.