Orphan of Creation

by Roger MacBride Allen

  And yet, she knew another thing. No man ever used hand signals on another man. She had seen human children make the mistake and be severely punished for it. Yet she knew from the endless drudgery of her own life just how needful words were. And she sensed she was close to a great understanding.

  For today, she had chanced to see a thing. Huddled together with her kind, locked into their prison-hut, she thought again of what had happened. A man had commanded one of his work-creatures to bring him water, just as another had man called the creature to some other task. She had seen the command gestures—a cupped hand pulled toward the body, and then a hand raised to the mouth and tilted toward the face as if pouring something in.

  But the man had seen the second man call the creature, and waved his hand as if to brush something away—the sign to ignore the previous order. The creature had gone away without doing the thing. A minute later, the man saw a passing human child, who had not been there to see the hand signals, tapped him on the arm, and made noises at the child. The boy had run off and brought back water!

  It was clear the noises had meant the same thing. Bring-Water. Thinking as hard as she ever had in her life, signing to herself in the darkness and grunting to help make things clear to herself, she puzzled over the facts.

  Man Never-Sign—Never Man. Bad Man—Sign No Never. She repeated the signs, emphasizing the point. Man noises Man. She grunted, and tried to make some man-noises. Even to her own ear, they did not sound quite right.

  But then she made the connection that had been eluding her in the dim recesses of her mind. Her fur bristled, and she bared her teeth to the darkness in her excitement. Man Do Big Together. Huts. Crops. All-Make Fire. Eat-time. Man Noise-talk. Hand-talk Not...

  Frustrated, she growled and grimaced again. She did not have the words to tell herself what she knew inside—which was precisely that hand-talk didn’t have enough words to tell how to do all the men could do.

  This was by far the most painfully complex thinking she had ever done. Already, she was struggling to make the symbols she had fit beyond their capacity.

  She tried again, unconsciously inventing words as she needed them, adding a growl to the sign for talk to mean noise-talk, an extra wave of the palm to mean hand-talk. Man Noise-talk Do Big, she signed rather tentatively.

  That was it. The great revelation. She sat up straighter and snorted with pleasure. Man Noise-talk Do Big, she signed again to the dark. Hand-talk Do Small-Small.

  If she listened, she might learn what the noises meant. And then—

  Do Big. Big-Big.

  She huddled herself up in a ball and went to sleep, dreaming of vague and great powers.

  Chapter Eight

  Ambrose the skull, newly cleaned and coated with Bedacryl preservative, lay gleaming in the center of Dr. Grossington’s desk blotter, staring out across the wide expanse of the desk toward Grossington himself. The last hints of daylight were fading from the late-autumn sky framed in the window. It had been a long day all around. “We shall have to hold this rather closely, of course,” Grossington said to Barbara and Rupert, calmly puffing on his pipe. Somehow, a few hours of thought was enough for him to feel comfortable, literally face-to-face with evidence that proved everything that he knew to be false. Grossington sat at his ease, leaning back in his leather chair, surrounded by his office and all its pleasant accouterments. It was a soothing, calming place for him, though many visitors had been put off by the stuffed owl glaring down from the shelves, and the plaster busts of various human ancestors. “We shall need our ducks neatly in a row before we let this out.”

  Barbara nodded her agreement, but Rupert objected. “Dr. Grossington, I have to disagree,” he said. He was sitting with his rumpled accordion-pleat briefcase on his lap, using it to support the legal pad he was keeping notes on. He shifted his weight to get the pad to a more comfortable writing position and gestured with his pencil, pointing at the skull on Grossington’s desk. “This is the most important paleo discovery in, in—hell, in history. People have the right to know. This is big. We can’t just sit on it until we’re good and ready, pretend nothing’s happened in the meantime. We have to make an announcement.”

  Barbara shook her head. “I don’t think so, Rupe. Back when we thought this was just imported gorillas, you yourself said this could spark a very public debate. Now, with this,” she said, nodding toward Ambrose, “things will be ten times worse, a hundred times. We’ll be hit by everyone from the fundamentalist Christians to other paleontologists.”

  Grossington pulled his pipe out of his mouth and looked at Barbara. “Why on Earth would the fundamentalists get involved?”

  “We’re going to announce that we’ve dug up a creature that is supposed to be an ancestor of man dead and gone these past million years, and yet here he is less than one hundred forty years old,” Barbara said. “Has it occurred to either of you that the Creation Science crowd couldn’t ask for a better target?”

  That made the two of them sit up. Barbara went on. “They’ll say this proves that the australopithecines couldn’t be our ancestors, or our evolutionary cousins. They’ll say it proves that the Earth isn’t very old, that the other hominid finds can’t be more than a few thousand years old, either. It’ll all be nonsense of course, but can you imagine the damage they could do?” As she spoke, inexplicably, Michael popped into her mind. She thought of him and suddenly recalled she was supposed to meet him for dinner tonight at The Childe Harold in Dupont Circle. It was not a comforting thought, and gave an extra twist of angry frustration to her mood.

  “Everyone is going to have an axe to grind,” she went on. “No one is going to want to believe this. Everyone will have a vested interest in proving us wrong. So we have to be ready, have all the loose ends tied up, be prepared with a complete, orderly presentation of all the facts, rather than springing it prematurely and losing control of the situation. Announce today and there will be pickets marching through the dig site tomorrow. At the very least, we have to hold off until the rest of Ambrose and any further specimens have been safely excavated—unless you want to buy the bones back from souvenir hunters.” What sort of fight would Michael pick tonight? Keep your head straight, girl. That didn’t have anything to do with the matter at hand.

  “Okay,” Rupert said. “You’ve made your point. I still don’t like it, but it sounds like we don’t have much choice.”

  “It also strikes me that we should keep the list of people who are informed about this to a strict minimum,” Grossington said. “Again, for reasons of security.”

  “Wait a second,” Rupert said. “Just how minimal are you talking?”

  Grossington shrugged. “Quite frankly, Rupert, I would have preferred excluding you and keeping it down to Dr. Marchando and myself. No reflection on you, of course, but just following the rule of keeping the numbers down. You are in, obviously. And of course that cousin of yours, Barbara. What about your other relations? Do they know what’s going on?”

  She would just have time to get home, drop her stuff, shower and change before it was time to meet him. Barbara made a deliberate effort to force thoughts of Michael out of her mind and shook her head. “Not really. Obviously, they knew I was excited about digging something up, but they weren’t really clear about what it was—and frankly they’ve seen me pumped up about so many obscure discoveries over the years, I don’t think they much care by this time. The girl who cried wolf, that sort of thing. My digging a hole was entertainment, that’s all.”

  Grossington nodded in approval. “Good. But that still makes four who know, which is three more than the best number for keeping a secret. I propose we keep the list that short. The three of us will go to Gowrie and complete the excavation ourselves.”

  “Whoa. No way,” Rupert objected. “We’ve got a major dig site here. We’ll need at least three or four more warm bodies to do it right. And this job, we have to do right. No half measures, for all the reasons we’ve discussed. And with all due respect, you h
aven’t done a field season in years. You’re not in any shape to do the heavy spade work. Sir.”

  Barbara nodded vehemently at the mention of shovels. She could still feel how sore her arm muscles were. “I’ve got to agree with Rupert, Dr. Grossington. There’s going to be too much work for just two or three people. At least let us raid some of the interns and grad students around here. We need some skilled diggers—ah, excuse me, skilled field workers for this one.” For the second time that day, Barbara remembered too late that Grossington hated the slang “diggers.”

  For the second time that day, Grossington let her get away with it, merely glaring at her severely.

  Rupert, it would seem, chose that moment to take a risk all his own. “There’s another point,” he said, doodling in his sketch pad, deliberately not looking up. “Maybe it would be smart if we had someone back in the home office to watch out for us, able to supply us quietly without raising questions, that sort of thing. Perhaps, Dr. Grossington, you ought to be back here instead of straining against a shovel.”

  Grossington snorted angrily and looked fixedly at Rupert, forcing the younger man to return his gaze. “You can offer up all the logical, sensible reasons you want, Dr. Maxwell,” he said. “But I am going on this little outing.”

  Barbara hurriedly jumped in and spoke before Rupert could reply and turn things into a full-scale argument. It was getting to be a pretty tense meeting. “Fine, we’re all going. Can we get back to the question of who else is going? We definitely will need more staff.”

  Grossington slowly turned from Rupert to Barbara, obviously forcing himself to calm down. “But how can we keep the situation quiet if so many people are involved? And what about accommodations for all these people? And work space? What budget will that come from?”

  “Aunt Jo will put them up, for a very reasonable fee. She enjoys having some bustle around that old house. And I’m sure we can squeeze our lab space into the basement. As to security, this is an isolated house on the outskirts of a very small town. It’ll be more like the African brush than being in Washington, as far as contact with the outside world is concerned. Sure, if this leaks, the place will be hip-deep in reporters, but as long as we’re careful, that won’t happen.”

  “Mmmmph. I suppose you’re right. And I must admit that my back is not as strong as it used to be, either. Very well, do some very quiet, discreet recruiting among the grads and terns,” Grossington said, slipping into some slang himself. “And be sure not to tell them anything substantive until they’re signed up.”

  Barbara shrugged. “That won’t be easy, but I can try.”

  Rupert had started scribbling notes to himself, a sure sign that he was taking things seriously. “Hold it hold it hold it,” he said, rattling the words off one right after another. “Before we go signing up our team, let’s decide what it is they are supposed to be doing. We’ll need some specialized skills. First, obviously, excavate Ambrose, clean and preserve the bones, and search in the immediate vicinity for any more of these creatures. You said that journal suggested at least two or three more might be buried there?” Barbara nodded and Rupert jotted the figure down. “Let’s remember that we’re all paleo here, and we’re getting into an archaeo kind of situation. Rupert looked at his two listeners, and was rewarded with a pair of blank looks. He sighed. “Look, none of us is used to working in anything less than thousands of years. Most of our work predates the wheel, and a lot of it goes back to before our ancestors made any artifacts at all. We need an artifact person, an archaeologist who knows more than bones. And we may need some help in local history. Just stuff we need to keep in mind. Okay?”

  The two of them nodded and he went on. “Right. Now, the digging things out of ground part is pretty straightforward, but then what? We know more or less when these beasties arrived, but from where? So, second job, track source of the creatures, presumably in Africa somewhere. Don’t ask me how, but that needs to be done. Third, analyze whatever bones we recover. We’ll need to compare Ambrose and company as closely as we can against every scrap of australopithecine fossil material available.”

  That was not as much of a challenge as one might suppose. The entire genus of Australopithecus was known from only about a hundred individuals, many of the specimens little more than a scrap or two of tooth. The fossils themselves were, for the most part, far too precious and fragile for everyday study. Many were stored in bomb-proof vaults, jealously guarded by their owners, and but rarely removed for examination. There simply were not enough fossils to go around; indeed, there were probably more paleoanthropologists in the world than australopithecine fossils for them to study. Most scientists relied on studies of high-quality casts for day-to-day work. “As far as security goes, we can’t spring any original fossils from their owners without raising a fuss.”

  Barbara broke in. “That means either moving all our casts of the material down to Gowrie, or bringing all of the Gowrie specimens back here to compare to the collection.”

  Dr. Grossington relit his pipe and thought. “Damn it, this is rapidly getting too complex. But you’re right, we’ll need the reference casts. We’ll have to take them along, I suppose. But taking the casts with us is bound to get the people using them now a bit annoyed.” He shrugged. “Can’t be helped.”

  “Okay, we’re agreed on that,” Rupert said. “So, number three, analyze the Gowrie samples and compare against present knowledge. Just incidentally, and not losing our scientific detachment, if we can isolate the Gowrie population phylogenetically, find enough differences to call it a new species of the family Australopithecus, instead of deciding it’s a member of one of the accepted species, that might slow the Creationists down a bit.” Grossington shifted his chair and opened his mouth as if to speak, but Rupert held up a hand to stop him. “Yes, Dr. Grossington, I know. We mustn’t let such concerns warp our scientific judgment and detachment. But wouldn’t it be nice all the same? Then, four, we have to explain all this. How did these australopithecines survive into the modern era? Where the hell have they been? How could the species have been found and then lost in the 1850s? Should I keep going, or is that enough questions for now?”

  Dr. Grossington smiled. “I should say that’s enough.” He glanced at his watch. “Nearly six o’clock. Well, completely upending the study of man’s past by close of business isn’t a bad day’s work. I expect I shall see you both bright and early tomorrow, and we can start planning in detail. I have a date with some gentlemen over at the National Geographic, and it seems to me that this would be a good moment to pay court to our sources of funding, tell them we have something interesting on tap.” The Smithsonian Institution was, of course, a government operation, but it did accept private funds and occasionally cooperated with the Geographic on research.

  Barbara looked up sharply. “Remember, Jeffery, we need to hold this close.”

  “Don’t worry, Barbara. I’ve a great deal of practice in being vague. Until tomorrow, then.”

  Barbara left the meeting wishing she had that sort of practice. Her dinners with Michael usually seemed to get a bit too bogged down on specifics.

  <>

  Dr. Michael Marchando checked his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. It was still fifteen minutes until Barbara was due, of course, but that didn’t make him any calmer. He picked up his martini and sipped it carefully, sedately, temperately. Tonight was no night for drinking too much. Drunks didn’t win their nearly ex-wives back. He shifted on his bar stool so he could watch both entrances. The Childe Harold was an all-right place, but it was not the spot he would have picked. It was a friendly, almost boisterous neighborhood tavern, not a romantic hideaway. No doubt Barbara had chosen the place for just that reason when she had reluctantly agreed to the date the week before.

  Michael was twenty-nine, a year or two younger than Barbara. He was a dark-skinned, lightly built man with a thin face and moody, brown, deep-set eyes. The lines of his face fell most naturally into sad expressions, or hurt ones,
or fearful ones. Perhaps because of that, his unexpected sunburst smiles were all the more winning, all the more charming. He was a surgeon—or, more accurately, a surgical resident—at Howard University Hospital on the other side of the city, and he had the long, graceful hands surgeons were supposed to have.

  He caught a look at himself in the mirror behind the bar, and, as always, was baffled at what he saw there. Michael Marchando was as much a mystery to himself as he was to everyone else. He knew how much he had accomplished, how far the poor kid from the tumbledown public housing project had come. He knew how far he was likely to go yet. He knew he had nothing left to prove.

  He might know it, but he did not believe it.

  <>

  Barbara hurried up the escalator from the subway entrance, and checked her watch as she reached the top. She would be just in time, barely. She bit her lip took a deep breath, and hurried across the street to the restaurant. Damn him for making this date, damn herself for agreeing to it, chasing this marriage long after it had already failed. She stopped for a minute, got her anger under control, and then walked down the block at a far more deliberate pace. Here was the restaurant. Down the stairs and into the lower-level bar. Scan the room and search for—

  And there he was. Such a beautiful man.

  And all of it melted away again, dammit. All the anger, all the frustration, all the infuriating arguments dissolved into nothingness as she felt her face forming into an unbidden, unwelcome smile, a joyous grin as warm as any summer.

  She had known this would happen to her. Dammit. But then he saw her, and came to her across the crowded floor, and their arms were about each other.

  She knew it couldn’t last.

  She stepped back, still smiling, still warm inside, and looked at him. “Hello, Michael. How you been keeping?”

  He smiled back, an uncertain, nervous expression. “Pretty good, Barb. Pretty good.”

  The waiter led them to their table. They ordered quickly and then sat there, staring at each other, almost afraid to speak. Finally, Barbara broke the silence. “So how was your Thanksgiving?” she asked, for want of a better way to begin.