Eva (16 page)

It came almost in an instant, a few large drops rattling among the leaves and then a drenching downpour. Everything streamed wet. Twenty dark faces—twenty-one including Tod’s—stared disgusted at the sky, and then the whole group went knuckling rapidly from the hill for the cover of their crates. The crates were gone. Eva had known they would be and had heard earlier that afternoon the thud of rotor blades as a flivver lifted them away. The chimps halted and stared at the blank space in dismay. The stream was roaring now with a dangerous sound, which added to their alarm. Across the valley, below where the crates had been, stretched the electric fence.

The fence had become the biggest problem in the whole expedition. The sponsors nearly called it off because of the cost and difficulty, but everyone had agreed that without one the chimps would probably go roving across the barren mountain to other patches of forest, almost impossible for humans to reach, and be lost completely. Even as it was, the whole program was months late, because the fence had taken so long to build. There should have been sun and sparkling waters, instead of this daylong sauna.

Now the chimps gazed at the fence and the barren slope beyond. To their minds there was no other place the crates could have gone but down there. Several of them knuckled over to the fence to look, naturally enough reaching hands to grip the mesh as they did so. They leaped back with barks of dismay, then gingerly reached forward and tried again, snatching their hands back at the first tingle. Some of them perhaps knew about electric fences, because there were places around the Reserve where possible escape routes had been blocked with charged wire, but they wouldn’t all have explored that far.

The rain, if anything, was heavier now. For a few minutes they scuttered to and fro along the fence, as if hoping for a gap. Sniff, more purposefully, traced the line up the right-hand ridge and over to where it turned and climbed toward the cloud base. He paused at the angle, staring out over the barren, horrible rockscape, all streaming with thousands of individual tiny waterfalls, then snorted and turned away. Eva had followed, interested both in the fence and in Sniff’s reactions, and when he saw her he snorted on a slightly different, negative, note, and led the way back down into the valley. The others were already heading up into the comparative shelter of the trees.

In the ravine the stream was a foaming fawn torrent, but near its lower end rose a stand of broad-leaved palms, with dryish patches beneath them. Here they huddled together, their drenched pelts steaming. Night fell, and suddenly they were in total dark. By the time the rain stopped an hour later, they were all asleep, but Eva, restless, awoke and saw lights moving around. Her first thought was that Dad or some of his helpers had come up to check that they were all right, but then she realized that the lights were too faint and there were far too many of them, hundreds, thousands, blinking their different codes. Fireflies. Of course. She lay for a while, listening to the roar of the stream, and at last fell truly asleep.

Sniff explored the fence in the morning. Eva had expected him to, just as he seemed to have expected her to come around with him. It was another steamy hot day, but the cloud base was higher so that you could see most of the way up the mountain. Even for chimps the climb was stiff going—for the humans who had built the fence it must have been quite a task. Every so often Sniff would stop and gingerly touch the mesh, to check that the current was active all along. At other times he paused and simply stared at the mountainside, all brownish dull rock and scree, glaring with the heavy diffused light, plunging toward the sea. From up here you could see the grove spreading across the cramped plain at the foot of the mountain, the regular green rows mottled brown with disease.

During one of his pauses Sniff gazed at the area with deep interest, then grunted, nudged Eva and pointed, not at the grove but out beyond to the tip of the island, the little harbor with a ship loading, and in an open patch beside the buildings the SMI airboat tethered firm and the two flivvers, tiny as toys with distance. His snort expressed wariness and distrust.

The fence turned again, running sideways across the slope now, and climbed steeply to cross the ridge that lower down became the left-hand flank of their valley. At the crest Sniff halted. This was the highest point of the enclosure. From here you could see a whole new expanse of mountain, almost the same as the other side but steeper, with sheer cliff in places and in others loose rock at such a slope that it seemed poised for a fresh fall. There was another difference. About two kilometers away, nearer to the peak, was a large patch of dull green—trees.

They were too far off for Eva to tell whether they were real trees, or just bushes that had somehow retained their roothold on the incredible slope, but she could understand why they’d never been cleared—there was almost no way any human could reach them. She stared and stared. It was no use trying to work out a possible route—too much of the slope between was hidden—but she couldn’t help trying. “Take as many of the others as you can with you,” Grog had said. “If the worst comes to the worst you’ll have to go alone. Give me a month.” Grog had never been on the island—he’d only seen photographs. From them it looked as if there’d be places to hide and enough to eat. He couldn’t have known.

She heard Sniff grunt and turned. He was already climbing back down the ridge toward the ravine. Eva waited. She heard him crashing about below, and then he came back carrying a small branch he had torn from a bush. When he reached the fence he put the branch against it, at first just brushing the leaf tips quickly along and then withdrawing it. Feeling no shock, he pushed harder. The mesh bowed out under his weight, but the fence had been engineered to stand such attacks—Dad would know that the chimps were smart enough to try something like that if they chose—and the branch broke first.

Sniff wasn’t ready. He fell solidly against the wire and got the full force of the current. All his hair shot erect. He jumped back and might have gone tumbling helplessly down toward the stream if Eva hadn’t grabbed at his arm and caught him. He didn’t seem to know what he was doing. She eased him into a crouch, where he stayed gasping while she tried to calm him by grooming the trembling pelt along his spine. At last he gave a long sigh and straightened, then turned his head to gaze at the trees on the far slope. He got up, went back to the fence, and studied it minutely, his muzzle only a few inches away from the mesh. After a while, with a grunt of disappointment, he continued their exploration down the slope, but now didn’t pause either to test the current or to look at the mountain.

Just as they were gathering for their midday rest in the ravine, a whooping noise began from down the slope. It was, in fact, the recorded call of a howler monkey, chosen because it was natural enough not to alarm the chimps but couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. If it had come in short bursts, it would have been a signal that Dad or someone wanted to see her urgently, but the steady unbroken version just meant Come if you can. Sniff had come back from his reconnoiter in an aggressive mood and had had several confrontations with Billy. Now they were making it up, clasped together, absorbedly peering and combing each other’s fur. Nobody but Sniff would have been likely to keep an eye on Eva. Slowly she edged herself clear and slipped away.

Dad was waiting by the gate, fanning the flies away with a branch. Sweat streamed down his beard.

“Having fun?” he said.

Eva grunted enthusiasm.

“And your pals?”

“Uh.”

“The shaper chaps are pleased with the pictures they’re getting. There’s one long sequence, yesterday, when you were settling into those trees in the gorge. That was lovely to see. Like a Japanese print.”

He had brought the keyboard. Eva picked it up and pressed the keys.

“Lovely to do,” she said.

Eva had heard the enthusiasm in his voice and was glad but at the same time bothered. In a few days’ time she was going to let him down very badly. He was doing his best for her and for the chimps, he thought. He really wanted them to be happy. He loved them, in his way. Probably he understood them better than any human alive, but still she didn’t dare tell him.

“What happened up at the top of the enclosure this morning?” he said.

“Uh?”

“We saw you and Sniff going off on your fence survey. Characteristic—he’s a very bright lad. We don’t have any cameras right up there in the open, so the next thing we knew was the alarm bell ringing in the camp. The circuit didn’t break, so we left it until we saw you coming back down the far side.”

Inwardly Eva frowned. They hadn’t told her about the alarm bell.

“He fell against the fence,” she said. “He’d been testing it with a branch. He’s learned now.”

“You don’t think we ought to get cameras up there?”

“He was just looking. He’s like that. They won’t run off. They’re happy here.”

“That’s my line. I must say, I’ll be sorry for them when we’ve got to go.”

“Me too. Heard from Mom?”

“I’ll be calling her tonight.”

“Give her my love.”

“Of course.”

Eva handed him the keyboard and knuckled back up to the ravine. The moment she appeared Sniff swung across through the branches and faced her, bristling. When she crouched and panted he came close and smelled her all over, then faced her again, less challengingly but with a look of querying suspicion. She reached up and stroked his cheek before offering him her shoulder to groom. He grunted softly and began, while Eva sat hunched and thinking.

The alarm bell was a problem. On the other hand it was good to know for sure that there were no cameras up at the top. She’d been told about the cameras in the valley, because of being expected to maneuver the chimps in front of them, so she ought to be able to construct a mental map of the areas that weren’t in range. In one of those areas she’d have to find and break off a long straight branch, preferably with a fork at the end and strong enough to bear Sniff’s weight. Then, still keeping out of range, she’d have to take it up and stow it somewhere near the top.

Food? It might be possible to hoard some chimp chow. They’d found enough food in the trees yesterday not to eat all their ration last night. There were no cameras trained on the feeding area, because the whole idea was to show the chimps living wild. Chimp chow would be a let-down. But how to store it and carry enough to see four or five chimps through the first day or so . . .

Four or five? Well, Sniff would come. Eva was as sure of that as if he’d told her in words. Lana was no adventurer, but she’d have to be made to, somehow. Two more at the most. Who? How?

And when? The obvious time for a breakout was early dawn. With a little luck it would be hours before the watchers below were sure enough in their counting to know you were missing, but you’d never get chimps to behave like that. Chimps liked to wake slowly and sit around and scratch and groom one another, reminding themselves who and where they were and how they fitted into the group. They’d never be restless enough for action till at least midmorning, and by then the humans below would be watching . . .

And now the alarm bell . . .

Eva heard a gloomy, meditative grunt and realized that she had made it herself. Sniff stopped grooming. He put his hand to her face and turned her head so that he could stare into her eyes. His gaze was clear, deep, and steady. After a while he grunted, using almost exactly the same tone that she had. What was he thinking? Could he actually read her thoughts? There was something shared anyway, she was certain, not the detailed plans, but at least the idea of escape and the feelings that went with it. Difficult. Frightening. Necessary.

YEAR TWO,
MONTH TWELVE,
DAY TEN

Eva heard the howler while she was still trying to settle herself into her pelt for the day, fingering around, nosing and nibbling under the hairs, the way you did. She was conscious of having slept badly, for once, and now her fur didn’t seem to want to lie down. The others were uneasy too. She could sense a restlessness, a nerviness. They kept glancing up between the leaves, where the clouds moved low and dark and faster than usual. Then she heard the signal, a burst, cut short, and another burst, and a gap, and again . . . urgent.

Lana was giving Wang his morning once-over. Sniff was grooming Herman—he’d had a run-in with Billy yesterday that had ended with Billy chasing him up a tree, so now he’d evidently decided to make a serious alliance with the much less ambitious third male. The others were fidgety, preoccupied. It was no problem to slip away.

She found Dad inside the fence, with the expedition coordinator, Maria, and Diego, who’d headed the advance party and built the enclosure. They were all three looking at the sky. Out here you could really see how low and dark the clouds were and how fast they were traveling. The wind was up too—she hadn’t heard it in the ravine because of the noise of the stream. It was like no wind Eva had ever felt, a huge block of steamy heat moving all together, like the breath out of a mile-wide mouth.

“We’ve got trouble,” said Dad. “There’s a typhoon on the way. It was supposed to pass on the other side of Madagascar, but now it’s swung in.”

“I told ’em,” said Diego.

“Uh?”

“Apparently we’ve got about five hours. It’s too late to evacuate. Maria wants to get the chimps in.”

“I’m getting the crates lifted up,” said Maria. “If you can get the chimps down here, we’ll put some doped fruit out.”

“Uh-uh,” said Eva and took the keyboard from Dad.

“Don’t think I can,” she explained. “I’m not boss. Sniff’s having trouble with Billy.”

“Good grief,” said Maria. “Couldn’t we lay a trail of fruit?”

“I doubt if you’d get them all,” said Dad.

“What are you going to do with them?” said Eva. “When you’ve got them?”

“Keep them in the crates till it’s over,” said Dad in a flat tone. Knowing him so well, Eva could tell that this was all part of an argument that he’d lost.

“Uh-uh.”

“It’s the best we can do,” said Maria.

“Spoil everything,” said Eva.

“It’s not just that,” said Dad. “Just think what it would be like in the crates, with a typhoon going on. It wouldn’t necessarily be any safer, in my opinion.”

“I told ’em, I told ’em,” said Diego.

“It was getting that damn fence built,” said Maria. “Listen, Eva, you realize there’s every chance that ravine will fill with water, and you’ll all be drowned.”

“Uh?” said Eva, looking at Dad. He shrugged.

“Can’t tell,” said Diego. “Must’ve been typhoons before. The trees in there have stood it.”

“We can climb out, up,” said Eva. “Blossom found a way.”

“Yes, we saw that,” said Dad.

“Why does something like this
always
have to happen?” said Maria. “Every damn project I’ve ever been on. The better it’s going, the worse it comes.”

“You might get some terrific pictures,” said Eva.

She said it on purpose. At first she’d just been reacting to the immediate problem, the typhoon, and whether she could get the others down and what was the best thing to do. But from what Dad had said about the crates not being any safer she’d realized that the human argument wasn’t really over, and the more weight she could put on his side the more chance there was of staying. He was right anyway. Now that she’d had time to think she was determined not to do what Maria said. If worst came to worst, she’d simply disobey orders. It wasn’t that she’d planned the escape completely yet or was sure it would work or that she’d get anyone except Sniff to go with her, but a break like this . . . they’d have to keep the chimps drugged while the typhoon lasted, or they’d go mad in the crates. They might even decide they’d gotten enough film already and could all go home . . .

Maria was talking into a commo. Diego was watching the sky. All three humans were streaming with sweat.

“Well done,” muttered Dad.

“How soon can you get them down here, Eva?” said Maria.

Eva shrugged. If she’d really wanted to and had enough bananas for bait, she thought she might have managed by late morning. She held up three fingers.

“Three’s the best she can do,” said Maria into the commo. She listened.

“Too late,” she said. “They want to have the flivvers lashed down before then.”

“Tell them to send up more chimp chow,” said Dad. “Several days’ rations. In a steel box with a lock. I’ll leave the key under that rock, darling.”

“What about the fence?” said Maria.

“Still have to switch the alarm off,” said Diego. “That amount of wind, it’ll keep setting itself off. There’ll still be the current, unless we get a lightning strike. They’ll lay low, won’t they? None of ’em have been near the fence for days.”

“What d’you think, darling?” said Dad.

“Uh?”

It took Eva a moment to gather her wits. The whole problem of crossing the fence without setting off the alarm had filled her waking mind for days. Even when she was dreaming the dream she kept finding her path between the branches blocked by live mesh.

“They wouldn’t anyway,” she said. “Happy where they are.”

“God, if I’d been given a whole day’s warning,” said Maria.

“It’ll be all right, my dear,” said Dad. “Personally I think the chimps will be safer up here than we will down on the shoreline. The ravine is good shelter, provided the water doesn’t rise too far, and as Eva says, if worst comes to worst they can always climb out.”

“Least they won’t have tidal waves to look out for,” said Diego.

“I suppose there’s that,” said Maria. “Okay. You win.”

“We’ll be okay,” said Eva.

“Let’s hope,” said Maria. “You’ll be on your own.”

*                  *                  *

The wind rose unsteadily. At full force you could hear its shriek even above the rush of the stream. In the lower part of the valley the bushes threshed like waves. And then there would be a lull, though the clouds still raced over, lower than ever now. In these pauses Eva’s pelt seemed to crawl with electricity. The others presumably felt the same. They were uneasy, making short expeditions to the nearer feeding trees and heading back for the ravine after a few mouthfuls. Sniff and Billy seemed to have forgotten their conflict for the moment. Sniff in particular was anxious and now kept his eyes on Eva most of the time, and followed her around. In one of the lulls she took the chance to lead him, by a route she had worked out to avoid the cameras, up the left flank of the valley to where she had been trying during the last few days to weaken the branch she wanted by gnawing a ring around its base. He studied the bite marks, frowning, and smelled them too, then looked in a puzzled way along the length of the branch. Eva made the “Come” signal and led the way on, threading through the scrub-covered slope above where it dropped to the ravine and up on to the bare ridge at the top of the valley, close to the place where Sniff had had his shock. Here the fence crossed the ridge and immediately turned down the mountain. There was a point where you could stand on the outer slope, level with the top of the fence and only about four meters from it. A branch placed here, with its fork weighted with rocks for stability and its butt across the top of the fence . . .

Eva pointed to the place and made gestures. Sniff considered the problem, frowning. She could sense him trying to estimate distances. He grunted doubtfully, then raised his head and stared at the far trees. The upper end of the wooded patch was hidden in the cloud base. He was still looking when the lull ended. The hot wind came booming off the ocean, so strong now that they had to crouch beneath its weight. When Sniff faced it, it sleeked his pelt like silk, but when he turned for the shelter of the valley the wind got under the fur and bushed it out as if he’d been displaying. He led the way now, following the route they’d taken, down to the tree with the weakened branch. The wind was roaring through the treetops, making them bow all one way, like weeds in a stream. Sniff looked at the branch for a few seconds and began to climb. He clambered slantwise up it and gripped another, stouter branch that crossed it about five meters up. With his feet on the lower branch he heaved them apart until he was standing like a triumphant weight lifter with his arms raised above his head. The branch creaked. Eva gnawed at the straining fibers, feeling them snap as the cut opened. The branch gave with a crash, leaving Sniff dangling in midair, but he swung himself up and climbed down, panting not with the effort but with excitement. Together they twisted the branch free and broke off the twigs and side shoots. Eva wondered whether the microphones had picked up the noise. She guessed so, but the wind would cover most of it, and in any case, the chimps did a fair amount of crashing around in the ordinary course of things.

They dragged the branch up the slope and out into the open. The wind was really howling now. A human could hardly have stood in it. Sniff immediately tried to raise the branch toward the top of the fence but Eva only pretended to help. It was too soon to get that far. Diego might not have switched the alarm off yet, and in any case, suppose they did get it in place, Sniff would insist on trying to cross and then perhaps get stuck outside. But he was raring to go and almost managed it on his own before a sudden new blast of wind made him give up. Crouching under its force, he glared at the fence top and the mountain beyond, then snorted and led the way back.

The others were all in the ravine, huddled together, nervous, waiting. Down here you could hardly feel the wind, but you could hear its shriek and see the black ominous clouds racing above the threshing treetops. The chimps’ alarm was like an odor, something they all breathed and shared. Wang clung close to Lana, as if he’d been a baby, and Tod huddled in Dinks’s arms with a wide, terrified grin. The same white fear signal gleamed on every dark face. Eva was grooming Lana, trying to calm her, when the rain started.

It struck the mountain like a flail. You heard the crash of its coming, and then you were under water. Not just drenched, drowning. Can’t breathe! Tidal wave! No, of course not, not this high, but for a minute it felt like that, as though the whole ocean had hummocked itself up and crashed down on the island. Eva gasped, struggling for breath, clutching the branch beside her, forgetting everything except her own immediate survival. Below her she saw the stream leap in its bed. One moment it had been tumbling down its rocky channel in the floor of the ravine and the next it was crashing, white, from cliff to cliff. As the first wall of rain passed by, somebody scrambled, snorting, up beside her—Sweetie-pie, drenched and grinning with terror. The opposite tree had one comfortable branch that hung low, only a meter or so above the floor of the ravine. Last time Eva had looked a couple of chimps had been sitting there, but now the branch was straining in the torrent and they were gone. She peered through the downpour and saw movement, several chimps climbing higher, others reaching down to help them. Something about their attitudes, the way they had gathered on the branches closest to the cliff, told her that they were in shelter—yes, of course, when she’d been out in the open with Sniff the wind had been from that side. Carefully she made her way across the network of branches and found she was right. It was like coming into a house out of the rain, so sudden was the difference. She went back and with some difficulty coaxed Lana to cross, and then Sweetie-pie. Seeing them go, the rest came too.

There were barely enough perches to go around. Once they were settled Eva worked her way along the huddled line and counted. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. All safe. But now she couldn’t find anywhere to perch herself till Sniff shoved Herman over enough on the branch they were sharing to make room for her. She settled and looked at the torrent, trying to see if it was still rising. After that first tremendous buffet of water the downpour had lessened, though it was still heavier than any rain Eva had ever seen, lashed by the wind against the farther cliff as if sprayed from firehoses. The whole mountainside must be streaming. If enough of it gathered here the ravine, as Maria had said, would fill right up, or far enough at least to tear the trees from their roothold in the cliffs. Before that happened they must move. The others, even Sniff, would be difficult to persuade, to make understand the danger. She set herself marks on the opposite cliff and tried to estimate whether the tumbling water was getting nearer. After a long while she decided it was, but slowly. No need to worry yet.

By then Eva had realized how cold it had gotten. At first her slight sense of chill seemed the natural result of drying out after her drenching, but even when she was dry she found she was shivering, and was glad of the warmth of Sniff’s body. Not that it could have been cold by the standards of winter in the Reserve, but compared with the steady, steamy heat of the last week, when even chimps, who had evolved for a climate like that, had needed to rest through the middle of the day, the change was extraordinary.

How long did typhoons last? Two or three days, she seemed to remember. They were huge, intense eddies in the atmosphere, sweeping along on curving paths, weren’t they? If that was right you’d get the wind blowing harder and harder the nearer the center came, with the isobars packing in, and then it would change direction—you’d only get a lull if the center passed straight over you—and you’d have about the same amount of time before it was over. Anyway, it was going to get worse before it got better. The leaves of the tree they perched in were leathery and bitter. They had already stripped the ravine of anything edible.