5. Examination
"SHE WON'T HURT YOU," ELLIOT TOLD THE frightened orderly. They were in the passenger compartment of the 747 cargo jet. "See, she's smiling at you."
Amy was indeed giving her most winning smile, being careful not to expose her teeth. But the orderly from the private clinic in Nairobi was not familiar with these fine points of gorilla etiquette. His hands shook as he held the syringe.
Nairobi was the last opportunity for Amy to receive a thorough checkup. Her large, powerful body belied a constitutional fragility, as her heavy-browed, glowering face belied a meek, rather tender nature. In San Francisco, the Project Amy staff subjected her to a thorough medical regimen - urine samples every other day, stool samples checked weekly for occult blood, complete blood studies monthly, and a trip to the dentist every three months for removal of the black tartar that accumulated from her vegetarian diet.
Amy took it all in stride, but the terrified orderly did not know that. He approached her holding the syringe in front of him like a weapon. "You sure he won't bite?"
Amy, trying to be helpful, signed, Amy promise no bite. She was signing slowly, deliberately, as she always did when confronted by someone who did not know her language.
"She promises not to bite you," Elliot said.
"So you say," the orderly said. Elliot did not bother to explain that he hadn't said it; she had.
After the blood samples were drawn, the orderly relaxed a little. Packing up, he said, "Certainly is an ugly brute."
"You've hurt her feelings," Elliot said.
And, indeed, Amy was signing vigorously, What ugly? "Nothing, Amy," Elliot said. "He's just never seen a gorilla before."
The orderly said, "I beg your pardon?"
"You've hurt her feelings. You'd better apologize."
The orderly snapped his medical case shut. He stared at Elliot and then at Amy. "Apologize to him?"
"Her," Elliot said. "Yes. How would you like to be told you're ugly?"
Elliot felt strongly about this. Over the years, he had come to feel acutely the prejudices that human beings showed toward apes, considering chimpanzees to be cute children, or?angs to be wise old men, and gorillas to be hulking, dangerous brutes. They were wrong in every case.
Each of these animals was unique, and did not fit the human stereotypes at all. Chimps, for example, were much more callous than gorillas ever were. Because chimps were extroverts, an angry chimp was far more dangerous than an angry gorilla; at the zoo, Elliot would watch in amazement as human mothers pushed their children closer to look at the chimps, but recoiled protectively at the sight of the gorillas. These mothers obviously did not know that wild chimpanzees caught and ate human infants - something gorillas never did.
Elliot had witnessed repeatedly the human prejudice against gorillas, and had come to recognize its effect on Amy. Amy could not help the fact that she was huge and black and heavy-browed and squash-faced. Behind the face people considered so repulsive was an intelligent and sensitive consciousness, sympathetic to the people around her, It pained her when people ran away, or screamed in fear, or made cruel remarks.
The orderly frowned. "You mean that he understands English?"
"Yes, she does." The gender change was something else
Elliot didn't like. People who were afraid of Amy always assumed she was male.
The orderly shook his head. "I don't believe it."
"Amy, show the man to the door."
Amy lumbered over to the door and opened it for the orderly, whose eyes widened as he left. Amy closed the door behind him.
Silly human man, Amy signed.
"Never mind," Elliot said. "Come, Peter tickle Amy." And for the next fifteen minutes, he tickled her as she rolled on the floor and grunted in deep satisfaction. Elliot never noticed the door open behind him, never noticed the shadow falling across the floor, until it was too late and he turned his head to look up and saw the dark cylinder swing down, and his head erupted with blinding white pain and everything went black.
6. Kidnapped
HE AWOKE TO A PIERCING ELECTRONIC SHRIEK.
"Don't move, sir," a voice said.
Elliot opened his eyes and stared into a bright light shining down on him. He was still lying on his back in the aircraft; someone was bent over him.
"Look to the right. . . now to the left. . . . Can you flex your fingers?"
He followed the instructions. The light was taken away and he saw a black man in a white suit crouched beside him. The man touched Elliot's head; his fingers came away red with blood. "Nothing to be alarmed about," the man said; "it's quite superficial." He looked off. "How long would you estimate he was unconscious?"
"Couple of minutes, no more," Munro said.
The high-pitched squeal came again. He saw Ross moving around the passenger section, wearing a shoulder pack, and holding a wand in front of her. There was another squeal. "Damn," she said, and plucked something from the molding around the window. "That's five. They really did a job."
Munro looked down at Elliot. "How do you feel?" he asked.
"He should be put under observation for twenty-four hours," the black man said. "Just as a precaution."
"Twenty-four hours!" Ross said, moving around the compartment.
Elliot said, "Where is she?"
"They took her," Munro said. "They opened the rear door, inflated the pneumatic slide, and were gone before anyone realized what happened. We found this next to you."
Munro gave him a small glass vial with Japanese markings. The sides of the vial were scratched and scored; at one end was a rubber plunger, at the other end a broken needle.