'Bravo!' Dr. Bedoian said.
Pan turned and grinned at him. 'What do I say, touche?'
'You can imagine,' the Curator continued, 'I am — we all are — very excited about this. It is the first time we have ever had a chance to talk to one of our charges. You can do a lot to teach us how to take better care of primates.'
'Turn them loose,' Pan said.
'That we are not going to do, and you know it. And since we're not, you can do a lot for your people by instructing us.'
'Don't call them people,' Pan said. 'We're apes.'
'Very interesting,' the Curator said. 'I wondered whether the change in you would obviate the change in all chimps at your age. It hasn't. You are becoming belligerent.'
'Intolerant of captivity,' Pan said.
The Curator of Primates said, 'Have it your own way. I was going to offer you a job. As head keeper of primates.'
'Why not your job?'
The Curator sighed. 'You don't have the degrees, my friend. But this discussion has gone on too long; we're keeping a number of people waiting. I want you to meet the board of the Society. Many of the staff you may remember.'
'First meet my friends. Ape Bates and Happy Bronstein,' Pan said. 'And Dr. Bedoian.'
The Curator shook hands with the sailors, exchanged a grin and a grip with the doctor. 'Finally, Pan,' he said, 'you will have that conference with us?'
'Oh, yes. If you'll grant me a favor. I'd like to be alone in the Primate House a little while. To think of my mother.'
'What are you up to?' the Curator asked.
'Happy and Ape can stay with me,' Pan said. 'And the regular inmates, of course.'
The Curator looked at the two sailors, and then at Pan. 'If you will pardon an expression somewhat vulgar, Pan, this smells of monkey business.'
'I was going to accept that job with you,' Pan said. 'It sounds better than being a television actor,'.
'If you are going through the maturity change of most chimps — all male chimps I have ever heard of — the job is no longer open. But if you get your wish, do we get our conference?'
'I respect your sincerity,' Pan said. 'As a matter of fact, you were always a right guy, for a man. You used to carry apples and little toys in your pocket for me when I was a young ape. Bring on your stuffed shirts.'
The Curator sighed, and looked at Dr. Bedoian, who shrugged.
The ceremony went forward.
When it was over, they left Pan and Happy and Ape in the Primate House, and went away. The Curator went last, and as he closed the door he looked back at Pan, and he didn't look happy.
Pan went over and stood in front of the cage in which he had been born, staring at the new bronze plate: Birthplace of Pan Satyrus, first chimpanzee known to have mastered human speech, and thirteenth of his species to enter outer space.
'Pan Satyrus,' he said. He looked up at the top front of the cage, where a sign said chimpanzee. Pan Satyrus, habitat Equatorial Africa. And then, the symbol for female.
Pan looked in the cage. She was young, about four, and nubile. And obviously eager.
'You been at sea a long, long time, Pan,' Ape said softly.
Pan said, 'O, my God.' He was not swearing.
The chimp in the cage chittered and chirped and rattled her knuckles against the floor of the cage.
'Can you make out what she's signalling?' Ape asked.
'You don't need it interpreted,' Pan said.
'Naw.' Ape chuckled. 'Like Sand Street when the fleet's in. This is the town where Sand Street is, huh?'
'Yeah,' Happy said. 'This is New York, which Brooklyn is a part of. I was born over there. Only, no brass plate.' He looked at the female chimp, and then at his friend, Pan. 'I got a screwdriver under my blouse,' he said. 'And there's no kind of padlock I can't open. It's the only way of getting a drink on a ship,' he added. 'Medical stores. Compass alcohol.'
'I could probably pull the lock off,' Pan said. 'It's placed out of reach of the. inmates, but not of visitors. I guess I am the first chimpanzee visitor the old Primate House ever had. If I am a chimpanzee.'
'After my first hitch,' Ape said, 'I couldn't wait to get back to the old crummy neighborhood I was born in. And then there wasn't anything to talk to the guys about. I was a sailor, and they was just wise guys on a corner.'
'This is not about talking,' Pan said. 'I am very young. Hooten and Yerkes believe that the chimpanzee, in a state of nature, lives to be fifty. A long time ahead.'
'Listen,' Happy said, 'just because you didn't go for those dames down in Florida, don't let it get you down, Pan. They were strictly two-dollar, marked down from two-fifty. There are better ones.'
'Better than that television actress?'
Happy said, 'I got more than a screwdriver concealed about my person, like the cops say.' He reached under his blouse and produced two pints of gin and a pint of vodka. 'This was for the rhesuses, but your need is stronger than mine.'
Pan began his laugh, if that was what it was. 'Put up another bronze plate,' he said. 'Pan Satyrus, who, at seven and a half, resigned himself to spectator sports.' He turned his back on the lady chimp, who began screaming with rage. 'This way to the rhesus monkeys, gentlemen. Give them the vodka.'
There were about sixteen of them, all in one cage. There were a couple of old grandpas of rhesuses; there were four or five babies clinging to their mothers' backs; and there were plenty of adult rhesus folk, in the full Bush of life.
Pan vaulted the railing designed to keep the spectators and the monkeys at a proper distance from each other. He swooped a long arm back and got the vodka from Happy, started to put it between the bars. Then he thought better of it and removed the cap. 'Here, my little cousins,' he said. 'In the time of your life, live.' He turned to Happy. 'That's a quotation from a cousin of Dr. Bedoian's,' he said.
Across the Primate House the lady chimp pressed on her water fountain with one short thumb and put the other thumb on the bubbling stream that resulted. The water shot across the house and hit Pan squarely in the back of the neck. He wiped it away negligently.
The three of them sat on the railing and watched. Once Ape said, 'A girl'd charge fifty bucks for that,' and once Happy said, 'If a guy went around in orbit long enough, could he get to be a rhesus?' But mostly they watched in awed silence.
The two sailors kept their eyes on the rhesus cage as Pan quietly slipped away.
The squalling and chattering in the Pan Satyrus cage stopped. There was a metallic clang as something that sounded like a padlock was thrown on the cement floor. Ape let out a long, relieved sigh.
'What was that all about?' Happy asked.
'He ain't human all the way, and he ain't exactly chimp any more,' the chief said. 'Neither kind of dame appeals to him.'
'Oh. Hey, look at that red-faced monk. What a man!' Happy tilted the gin bottle up and drank deep. 'The next dame I pick up is in for some surprises.'
'I wish I'd knowed about this twenty years ago,' Ape said. 'Pass me the bottle.'
After a while, Pan came back. 'Enjoying yourself, Ape?'
'I'll never be happy at sea again.'
But one by one the rhesus succumbed to the liquor; before the pint of gin that had followed the vodka was gone, they were all asleep. The sailors stood up, and Ape tipped his chiefs cap to the dormant cage. Happy looked up at the sign. 'Macaca mulatta mulatta, sleep well,' he said, 'I'll never forget you.'
When they passed the Pan Satyrus cage, no occupant was visible. She had apparently retired to the privacy of the room behind the display cage, her sleeping quarters.
Pan halted before a cage in which two orangs stared out belligerently. 'This used to be a gorilla cage,' he said. 'Now they have a house of their own. A great attraction for visitors, gorillas. So human.'
