Episode 113. Part 5
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Nika, meanwhile, has followed Zira to the crew lounge aft. The orangutan has found Rina’s workbench and is going through the tools stored there. It seems to Nika that the orangutan is looking for something and she watches as the ape goes methodically through the drawers of the workbench. Behind her, Nika hears Rina’s low protest at the racket, and knows the engineer has caught the sound of the tools rattling around. The engineer will just have to put up with the invasion of her workspace and deal with the mess later. If the situation wasn’t so dicey, Nika would find Rina’s twitch amusing.
Nika: (to Zira) If I knew what you were looking for, I might be able to help.
Zira looks at Nika and moves to the woman, taking her by the shoulder and pulling her down to the orangutan’s eye level. Nika plays along and doesn’t resist, and kneels on the deck. Zira puts a finger to Nika’s temple. The leather of the orangutan’s digit is dry and soft, the touch weighty.
Nika: (evenly) If you hurt me, they will take out the entire group of your friends. I want to help you—.
Zira pulls back a bit at the words and the tone and regards Nika closely.
Nika: (continuing) But I’m just letting you know that if you hurt me, they will hurt your friends. So, go ahead.
Zira raspberries Nika in the way that only an orangutan can. Drippily and dismissively. Nika keeps her cool and Zira moves back to the workbench.
Nika: Then I don’t have any incentive at all and I will help them hurt your friends.
Zira doesn’t even pay attention, but continues what she’s doing—whatever it is. Nika rises and wipes the spit off her face, and keeps her eye on the ape. The ape rummages and the woman watches and nothing disastrous happens.
Back in the lounge, Rina’s in her own little stand off with Maximus. A minus. Her gun is still up, her gaze is still averted, and the gorilla still hasn’t ripped her to pieces. A plus. Maximus puffs up his chest, snorts, and decides the two humans in front of him are cowed enough and turns his attention to the galley. Mike freezes in the doorway in classic “uh-oh!” position. Another minus. Moving slowly as Maximus approaches the galley, Mike eels over the counter and out the pass-through into the lounge proper, abandoning the galley to the gorilla’s tender mercies with his skin intact. Another plus, and the score stands even.
Maximus starts sampling the wares at hand. Cabinets clack and drawers squeal. Pots and pans rattle and crash. Wrappers rustle. Bottles clink and a can hits the floor.
We leave him to it.
With Maximus gainfully occupied on something other than us, Christian quits his chair and heads aft for Nika. He can see her in the straight shot down the corridor, but Zira’s half hidden, and he goes to investigate. When she’s certain that Christian is shielded by the corridor from Maximus and Mike is clear of the galley, Rina makes tracks for the open container door. Nothing else is coming out of there to hit our backs, not if she has anything to say about it.
Christian draws up behind Nika and Nika tells him wryly over her shoulder.
Nika: I got raspberried.
Christian: (sniffing) Oh, yeah. And Arden’s unconscious.
Nika: Oh, wonderful.
Christian: Yeah.
Up forward, a quick check of the interior of the container shows that of the four remaining, two of the apes are missing. Their cages sit sprung and emptied of their inhabitants.
Shit!
Rina groans, twitched to the max, and looks again. The missing apes are still not there, but Taylor is present, sitting in a lotus position and rocking back and forth. Other than the creepiness of her behavior, the woman looks completely uninjured. Rina goes through with her original plan and locks the container right the hell up. The apes haven’t hurt Taylor yet and now they can’t should they change their minds. Rina monkey-wrenches the door controls so the apes couldn’t possibly open it the minute her back is turned. With the remaining apes still locked inside, she’s reduced the enemy by two.
One less item on her list to worry about. But where the hell are the missing apes?
A quick examination of the ceiling shows they aren’t hovering, ninja-like, to drop on their unsuspecting victims below. Rina puts it out mind. The next item on her list is to see how badly Arden is hurt. She checks the container door one more time, sees the jam is solid, and goes to the stairway corridor. She’s cross-trained with Arden and is reasonably sure that she knows enough first aid not to kill the man outright.
Back in the aft lounge, Nika brings Christian up to speed, recounting her exchange with Zira.
Christian: Maybe I should handle the negotiations.
Nika: (by all means) Knock yourself out.
Christian: It may do that.
Nika: It may.
Christian: (brightly) Excuse me.
Zira looks up from her rummaging and blinks at him. She “hmmm”s and then makes a provocative gesture. Clearly she’s twigged what Christian does for a living—or rather, did. She turns back to her rummaging.
Nika: Zira, he’s willing to volunteer if you want to tell him what you’re looking for.
Christian: (politely) Can I help you?
Nika: If you can tell him what you’re looking for.
Another hmmmm from Zira.
Christian: (undertone) If this were a comedy, she’d be in love with me already.
Zira reaches over to Christian and pulls him down to her level, hug-like, and Christian submits gracefully. The orangutan signs something and when no one recognizes it, she pulls a sad face and touches his temple with her finger. She releases him and Christian slowly rises.
The sense of miscommunication is maddening. What is Zira trying to say?
Christian: Are you sad? Are you hurt? I don’t know sign language and it would be much easier if I did. But…do you know letters? Signs for letters? A, B, C, D? How to spell?
Christian demonstrates the manual alphabet. Zira looks at him but doesn’t respond. Maybe spelling is a higher function than she’s capable of. Christian goes back to his quarters and fetches his encyclopedia, pulls up the entry on sign language and carefully shows the results to Zira. He shows her how manipulate the encyclopedia controls, hoping that they can find some common ground on the device and make each others’ wants known.
Nika remarks it must be incredibly frustrating to be smart enough to know your needs and wants yet be unable to tell anybody. Christian agrees. After a few minutes, it’s clear this is another dead end and Christian puts the encyclopedia away. Zira looks at Christian and then scratches her head. She points down the corridor at Mike, visible at the far end and pulls a face, and something in the expression gives Christian a clue.
Christian: You want to know where Cesar is? You want to know where everybody is?
Zira makes another expression and another gesture. Interpreting as best he can, Christian hazards his next statement.
Christian: Well, our doctor is unconscious. Your very large friend knocked him out, he was surprised. Startled. And Cesar is asleep in the med bay. He hurt himself.
At this, Zira moves toward the nearest door and tries to open it. It’s locked and she goes to the next one. And the next. It’s obvious now that she’s given up trying to communicate and is now actively looking for someone. Who she’s looking for is, however, known only to her. Christian and Nika follow her. Zira tries the door to the girls’ stateroom and Christian remonstrates quickly and gently.
Christian: And the young women are in their quarters and not a threat to you at all. And they are very, very easy to startle and I would ask you to please leave them alone. They are not a threat to you, I promise.
Nika: Christian, are you sure we’re not attributing too much intelligence to the animals?
Christian: At this point? No.
Nika: Okay. The doctor did say that if they ever got out that they would be very curious about the ship and about everything on it…I’m doing my level best not to piss them off.
Christian: I realize that. (to Zira) Is this about going to the planet? Going to your new home? Do you not want to go there?
Zira lifts her foot and cradles it in her hands, strokes it gently. Then she picks up a scrap of paper on the floor and wraps it, bandage-like, around her foot.
Nika: You need the doctor?
Christian: Okay, go get Arden.
Nika: Arden’s not conscious.
Christian: Wake Arden up.
Nika turns for the foredeck and behind her she hears Christian asking Zira:
Christian: Are you going someplace bad? Are they taking you to someplace bad?
Meanwhile, Rina’s managed to revive Arden. He’s pretty banged up: bloodied, bruised in arm and ribs, and slightly concussed on top of it all. She helps him to his feet and props him against the wall. Arden is still muzzy and confused.
Arden: What… hit me and why?
Rina: The door.
Arden: Why did it hit me like that?
Rina: The gorilla pushed it into your face.
Arden: Are you the gorilla? (A beat) Actually, I knew that…. Wait a minute. Okay.
Rina gently brushes him off.
Rina: You’re not lookin’ too good. Rest here a minute.
Arden: Yeah, but…got things to do.
Rina: (keeping her grip on him) Like?
Arden: Like…see if the doctor’s okay…
Rina: She’s meditating. She’s in the container with the rest of the monkeys and she seems fine. She’s in there for now.
Nika’s making her way forward and wondering to herself if maybe we’re a little too easily buying into Cesar’s claims the apes are super-intelligent, that they are capable of doing more than they really can. Or maybe we’re just not phrasing our questions intelligibly to the apes and—At that point she tells herself to shut the hell up and get the damn doctor. No way is she going to start wondering if we’re somehow not intelligent enough to equal a bunch of monkeys.
She draws even with Mike at the head of the corridor. He’s got a knife in hand and is leaning on the bulkhead, and is looking around the corner every few seconds or so to check on Maximus. Smashing sounds emerge from the galley doorway and Nika leans past Mike to see the bulk of the gorilla inside. Maximus has a can in his hands and is currently attempting to open the thing with his teeth and it looks entirely possible his jaw is powerful enough to puncture that can like tissue paper. She tries not to imagine the effect of those teeth on her flesh. She leans back and stands shoulder to shoulder with Mike. They trade a look.
Mike: Gorilla in the kitchen.
Nika: (No shit.) Yeah…. Knock on the girls’ door.
Mike: (looks askance) Why….?
Nika: Knock on the girls’ door.
Mike: Okay.
Mike does so and the girls miraculously answer it. They look at Mike and Nika both and Nika quietly tells them to lock the door and don’t come out. The monkeys are loose. The girls squeep! their eyes go wide, and the door shuts quick as a wink. The locks clack home and Nika sighs. She nods at Mike and leaves him to stand guard again, gives the galley a wide berth and makes it to Arden without further pause.
Nika: The orangutan wants Arden.
Arden: Whuht..?
Nika: Arden? Apparently she has a sore foot.
Arden: (groaning)…oh…’Kay, lemme get my bag.
Aft, Christian is talking to Zira.
Christian: She says they’re taking you to be freed in the wild. Is that true? (off Zira’s look) No…? Sort of? Do you think they’re going to put you to sleep?
Zira continues to hold her foot and make her hmmmm expression.
Christian: Is there something in your foot?
Zira puts her foot down and starts walking down the hallway. Christian sighs and follows her. Our separate parties, orangutan and humans, meet halfway in the passenger lounge. Zira draws herself up at the sight of Arden, than grabs Arden by his bruised arm and starts pulling him to the container over his yelps of pain. Of course, Zira cannot enter—the door’s been monkey-wrenched shut. Zira looks at it a moment, sees Rina’s trick, and yanks the impediment out of the way like plucking a flower from a vase. Rina winces. So much for her brilliant jam.
Zira drags Arden to Taylor. The other apes are looking at Taylor with quite worried expressions on their faces. Arden checks the doctor over quickly: color, pulse, pupils. The pupils are difficult to check, as her eyes are rolled halfway back in their sockets and taking in the entire picture, the woman seems struck by an almost-religious ecstasy. Arden feels her skull carefully for any lumps or contusions and comes up clean. He announces he needs to get her in med bay and we help him get her settled in. Taylor is actually capable of walking there on her own two feet and she does so, clutching Zira’s hand on one side and Arden’s arm on the other. We get doctor, patient and orangutan settled in the med bay. Arden has to treat Taylor sitting upright in a chair—we can’t move Cesar yet and he’s in the only bed. As Arden works, albeit slowly given his condition, the rest of us piece it together.
Chagrin over our paranoia and gullibility aside, the long and short of it was: Taylor was stricken by her fit when with her beloved apes and the apes were smart enough to know they needed to get help for her. Things may not have gone as awry as badly as they’d had if we hadn’t overreacted to the apes as a threat and if Arden hadn’t been knocked unconscious by Maximus.
As far as what we’re going to do with Maximus, currently reducing our galley to smithereens….anybody wanna deal with him?
Anybody?
Nika steps up to the plate.
Nika: Maximus, Dr. Arden is taking care of Dr. Taylor.
Maximus snorts and turns around. He’s got half a can of peaches in his mouth and at the moment seems quite suspicious that she’s there to take it away from him. Nika slowly gestures toward the apes’ container.
Nika: Can we go back in?
Maximus growls, baring his teeth, spittle and peach juice flying.
Nika: (soothingly)You can take it with you. You can take it with you.
From around the corner in the central corridor, Christian calls out to Nika.
Christian: Leave him in the galley. Leave him in the galley. He’s happy in the galley.
Arden: (from the med bay) Give him the can opener.
Can opener? Are you kidding? With those teeth? What use has he for the can opener?
Nika: Tell you what. I’ll bring you an extra treat with dinner. Please.
Christian: (still around the corner) What are you doing? Leave him alone.
Nika: (to Christian) No. We have missing gorillas. (to Maximus) Where are your friends? I’m worried about them.
Rina is off to one side, beside herself. Who does she aim for, who does she cover? Her crew is scattered in ones and twos across three different locations and God knows where all the apes are. She’s only got one gun and two eyes and far too many potential targets. She takes a deep breath, takes another, and puts her back to the wall, the better to take in as much of the scene as possible.
Nika continues to cajole Maximus.
Nika: I like sweet monkeys. Sweet monkeys are nice.
Christian: No animals. Ever. Ever again. No more animal cargo. Ever. Again.
Rina: (from her position against the wall) This makes the bees look like something soft…and fuzzy.
Christian: You remember the bees?
Rina and Christian together: I miss the bees.
Back in the med bay, a scan of Taylor reveals no skull injuries but they do reveal the same strange chemical we’d found in Cesar’s blood…but in much higher quantities.
Ta mah de.
The strength of the drug lingering in her system tells Arden the current dose is a recent one and examining her arms, he finds needle tracks much like Cesar’s, about a week old.
Ta mah de, doubled.
Arden tells Christian to search Taylor’s quarters for any unknown drugs, like the one she’s currently taking. Arden looks on the Cortex for anything that can tell him how to counteract the drugs in Taylor’s system and comes up with a blank. That damned informational blackout is really crimping Arden’s style. Zira looks over the surgical implements Arden has yet to clean and put away and shakes her head. Her expression of distaste is clear. Arden hooks Taylor up with an IV of fluids. If nothing else, he can try to dilute the drugs in her system and keep her hydrated.
Christian, meanwhile, is busily tossing Taylor’s quarters and being thorough about it. He finds a small drug kit and in it, a small unmarked vial. Christian shows it to the others, including Zira. Zira’s eyes light up in recognition and she rubs her arm, as if at a sore injection site. Again, her meaning is clear: That’s the stuff all right.
Furthermore, questions to Zira only confirm it. When asked who gave her the drug, Zira points to Taylor, and when asked who gave Taylor the drug, Zira again points at Taylor. It’s obvious Taylor has been injecting drugs formulated for apes into her own very human body.
Ta mah de, tripled.
Christian inquires after Taylor’s databook, recalling our first reference to it, and goes off to find it. Nika leans toward the central corridor and starts issuing orders.
Nika: Rina. Keep an eye on Maximus.
Rina: (indignant) Thanks!
Nika: Mike. We have two missing gorillas. Let’s go find them.
They check on the two caged gorillas first and find them playing a computer game on the flat screen monitor, Unification War II, and they are taking out the Browncoats easily. Nika and Mike take off for other parts of the ship to find their missing brothers.
Christian has found Taylor’s databook and is reading through it. It’s a jumbled mess. Earlier entries are coherent and legible and intelligible. The later entries are increasingly disjointed, full of mispellings and non sequiturs and odd fragments of numbers and symbols until towards the end, the entries cease to make sense at all. He finds the phrases sprinkled throughout: “Found this passage…” and “Working on it….” The phrases would be followed by a few words and a bunch of random characters. In parentheses, inserted in the character strings would be words like “Peace” and “War” and “God”…all of it in random order. Pretty much gibberish.
Looking over the databook entries as a whole, Christian realizes that this isn’t Taylor’s scientific logbook but a personal diary. Going through from the beginning again, Christian tracks her comments on her project: “Progress is astounding…” and “Ready to move to the next stages of trials…” and “Still working on funding…” Eventually, Christian finds the entry where she records her decision to try the drugs on herself, and later still, he finds her entry where she reveals she’s found another human subject to test the drug upon—Cesar. Her entries confirm the fact that Cesar is indeed a speech therapist, lending the man’s testimony credence. The journal shows quite clearly the drug’s progression, with her entries deteriorating apace with the dosage.
It looks like Taylor is the villain of the piece and not Cesar, as we’d suspected.
Meanwhile, Mike and Nika find the two missing gorillas. It wasn’t hard, given all the noise they were making. They have taken over an empty container below decks and are bouncing around in the wide open space within, just going nuts and having a good time. Looking closely at the interior, Mike and Nika see that the apes have actually damaged the metal walls by dint of throwing themselves off them…whoa.
Faced with the unlikely success of getting the gorillas to do anything until their game is over, Mike and Nika leave them where they are and it’s quickly decided that as far as restraining the animals go, until we get them off our ship, we’ll let them go where they want until they’re ready to return to their cages. They are the stronger of our two species and short of killing them by gun, we have no way to make them do our bidding if they refuse.
We also decide to keep Taylor sedated for the rest of the trip. We install her in her quarters and keep an eye on her there. The moment she’s settled in her bed, Zira walks up to the sleeping woman and pats her on the shoulder, as if to reassure her friend that everything is going to be all right. The orangutan turns and leaves and not-quite-whistles to Maximus in the galley. The gorilla drops what he’s doing and comes docilely out of there, lugging a couple of cans with him. The both of them walk back to their cages and settle inside, like two vacationers returning home. The gorillas below decks finally tire of their game and wander upstairs to the container and likewise install themselves. And that’s it—six apes present and accounted for. A relief. We finally find the missing key card. One of the apes has it and good luck getting the key away from it. Not so relief. It looks like the apes are going to come and go as they please, even after we get them back into their cages. No relief at all.
For the nonce, they seem content to stay in the container. We leave them there and go to the passenger lounge, to sit around the table amidst the debris and the damage…and simply breathe.
Christian: Never animals.
Rina and Christian together: Never again.
Arden: Why? The animals weren’t the problem. The doctor and the assistant were the problem.
Mike: (teasing Arden) Never a doctor, then.
Christian: (holding up the databook) The doctor ran out of funding and couldn’t get approval for human trials so she used herself and Cesar. She was convinced she was translating some mystic text.
It’s obvious that the woman is going to need psychiatric help when we reach Lassek, fifteen days hence. It’s also obvious that for the next fifteen days, we will have to suffer the apes roaming our ship at their leisure. And for the most part, it’s not as bad as we initially fear: they are content to stay in their container with their amusements and come out periodically to look things over before going back in. Christian shoulders the care and feeding of the animals as part of his steward duties. Amazingly enough, the apes are toilet trained and aside from the dominance marking by Maximus on the night of their escape, they use it regularly. The toilet module still needs emptying out when full and we take turns doing that messy task. It’s a downside, but ultimately a minor one, considering how things might have turned out had the apes turned violent. In addition, Maximus’ spree in our galley depleted ten person-days of food and our last week in the Black has us eating protein paste again. Despite these irritations, it’s a fairly bearable ride to Lassek, even with the free-roaming cargo, and the rest of the trip passes without further incident.
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