He led Geoffrey and Sunday to one of the far windows. Geoffrey’s stomach churned with apprehension.
‘I’m not sure this is right.’
Gleb was pushing the trolley again. ‘Always scope for improvement. But that doesn’t mean the elephants should be put on ice, or euthanised.’
Compared to the rhino habitat, the grass was lower, scrubbier – dry and bleached like the Serengeti before the short rains. In the middle distance lay a waterhole, now reduced to a muddy depression. Standing on the far side of the waterhole, clumped together into one multi-legged, multi-headed Cubist mass, were three dwarf elephants. They were the size of baby goats, grey bodies camouflaged with olive-brown patches of drying mud.
‘Tell me how these elephants were born,’ he said.
‘In artificial wombs, here in the Descrutinised Zone,’ Gleb replied. ‘The fertilised eggs were imported, carried
‘You’d need hundreds – thousands – for a viable population, though.’
Chama nodded. ‘We have hundreds. But so far only these elephants have been allowed to be born.’
‘Just these three?’
‘As many as the habitat can reasonably support,’ Chama said.
Geoffrey had been agnostic about the rhinoceroses. Now his distaste sharpened into precise, targeted revulsion. ‘This is wrong. No matter what your objectives, you can’t do this to these animals.’
‘Geoffrey—’ Sunday began.
He ignored her. ‘Elephants aren’t born into a vacuum: they’re born into a complex, nurturing society with a strong maternal hierarchy. An elephant clan might contain thirty to a hundred individuals, and there are strong inter-clan bonds as well. What you’re doing here is the equivalent of dropping human babies into isolation cubes!’
Sunday’s hand was on his arm. She tightened her grip. ‘They’re not unaware of these issues, brother.’
Chama appeared in no way offended by Geoffrey’s outburst. ‘From the moment these habitats were conceived, we knew that the elephants would need surrogate families to provide a developmental context. So we devised the best way to provide that surrogacy. From the time they were embryos, these animals have grown with neuromachinery in their heads. That shouldn’t horrify you, should it?’
‘Not necessarily – but it depends what you do with that machinery,’ Geoffrey said.
‘These elephants need a socialising context,’ Gleb responded. ‘So we provide it. The neuromachines drop hallucinations into their minds via direct activation of the visual, auditory and olfactory modules. We create figments – in other words, a ghost-herd – to provide stimulus and guidance. The elephants move in augmented reality, just as we do when we ching.’
‘The difference is we know that figments are figments. Elephants don’t have the cognitive apparatus to make that distinction.’
‘If they did, the figments would be pointless,’ said Chama.
‘The figments are computer-generated, but they’re based on observations of millions of hours of the social dynamics in real herds,’ Gleb said. ‘The same database reassures us that the dwarves’ responses are fully in line with what would be expected if the figments were real. These are not developmentally impoverished creatures.’
‘Well, if you’ve no qualms—’
‘I didn’t say we’ve achieved shining perfection,’ Gleb countered.
‘Computer-generated figments may provide some kind of stabilising framework,’ Geoffrey conceded, choosing his words with tightrope precision, ‘but elephants are individuals. They have memories, emotions. They can’t be modelled by mindless software. Maybe these dwarves won’t grow into monsters. But they won’t turn into fully socialised elephants either.’
‘No,’ Chama agreed. ‘But you could help matters so that they do.’
‘Help you? I’m on the verge of pushing for your extradition on the grounds of Schedule One biocrimes!’
‘We’re aware of your work,’ Gleb said. ‘We’ve read your papers. Some of them are quite good.’ He allowed this calculated slight to hang in the air before continuing, ‘We know what you’ve been doing with the Amboseli herds.’
‘If you know my work,’ Geoffrey said, ‘then you should have guessed that I wouldn’t be too keen on any of this.’
‘We also saw that you might be able to provide a possible solution,’ Chama said.
Geoffrey hooked a finger into his belt. ‘This I’m fascinated to hear.’
‘We know of your matriarch, Matilda – we’ve followed her with passive ching. She’s magnificent. She also has neuromachinery, as do most of your elephants.’
‘As a monitoring tool, nothing else.’
‘But the same neuromachinery, with a few configuration resets, could provide an aug layer.’
‘I’m not sure where you’re going with this.’ But he was surer than he cared to admit, even to himself.
‘These dwarf elephants already interact with hallucinations,’ Gleb said. ‘Instead of being computer-generated fictions, why couldn’t they be the ching figments of Matilda and her clan? There’s no reason why Matilda and her elephants couldn’t perceive the Lunar dwarves as being physically present in the basin, as another family or group of orphans in need of adoption. By the same token, the Lunar dwarves could experience real-time interaction with genuine Amboseli elephants, as if they were here, on the Moon.’
