She did not understand this reaction. It had not been so taxing with her firstborn. Then, like the other mothers she had felt relieved after feeding her infant—of course, none of their babies had been like Gazda.
Gazda had developed quickly in his first six months with his adopted tribe, not so much in size, as in toughness. His body thickened, and his skin coarsened. He remained pale, but there was a dense quality to his flesh that drew a sigh of relief from Eeda for he had been like a baby bird before.
But Gazda grew sturdier, and little wonder: he was always eating. In fact, there had been times his mother tried to stop his suckling when she grew tired, but Gazda had worn her down with his insistent strength. Many times as she drowsed after feeding, she would remember that strength and ponder weaning him early.
He moved well on all fours like the other apes, and he’d become so adept at climbing that she had to keep a careful watch when he played to guard against him joining the older apes in the high branches.
Eeda tried to keep him clean by licking the dirt off him, but exposing the odd little body beneath often stopped her. At least some grime kept him from looking like a grub, a look that was exaggerated by his habit of taking daily naps on the black earth in the shadow of broad-leafed plants.
No doubt fatigued by his sleepless nights, Gazda would crawl into the underbrush as the rising sun cut golden swaths through the canopy. Yawning, he crept under the leaves where he’d cover himself with any dead vegetation he could find before stretching out flat and falling asleep.
Eeda had been concerned when this first happened, since he went completely still; but whenever her fears drove her to act; he came awake as her rough hands shook him—sometimes nipping at her in the process. If the tribe was on the move, he would wind his fingers in her fur and sleep where he clung to her back or hung beneath her as she followed the group.
He did not sleep at night at all. Eeda would awaken in her nest with a twitching between her shoulders, and there Gazda would be perched on a nearby branch of the sleeping tree—watching her.
His pale body was plain to see in the dark, and his red eyes flashed when he blinked. She’d scold and he’d scuttle up the tree trunk, his pale torso pressed against the dark bark with his long, thin limbs splayed like a spider’s.
She’d been unsettled at first, but in the time since, like any mother of an unusual child; she simply grumbled at his antics before rolling over and going back to sleep.
The other apes rarely complained about his strange ways anymore, or about Eeda’s, but had started referring to Gazda as a night ape.
Something that only a mother could love.
As Eeda did, so much that the concerns of the tribe were often lost to her. She had Gazda to care for, and she would not lose another infant to chance, or to a wicked ape’s fury.
So her child slept in the day? There were worse things an infant could do, and if the tribe was on the move, she never lagged while carrying him.
CHAPTER 5 – Grooming Rock
As time continued forward and the years passed, Eeda came to relish Gazda’s daily naps beneath the green for they allowed her to turn outward for interaction and share in grooming with the other members of the tribe. The apes would gather in the undergrowth with the blackbacks sharing sentry duties, and there they would communally clean one another’s thick coats from head to toe.
So if day-to-day grooming was a simple, shared sigh of relief, then doing it at the Grooming Rock provided a comfort far more spiritual. Under the watchful eye of their king and blackback guards, the anthropoids would pick through each others pelts hair by hair, enjoying the physical contact and the emotional restoration that came from the ritual.
The blackbacks took part in the grooming, too, but often preferred the company of the other males, seeming aloof within their aggressive culture of competition—unless they were at the Grooming Rock. There every member was sure to share in turn.
Even Goro could not resist joining in at such times. He would guard the tribe awhile, until his gruff demeanor softened and then disappeared with a happy hoot, as he climbed down from the Grooming Rock to join in the activity.
Then the day would grow hazy as his thoughts shifted into a blissful state while a trio of she-apes picked his fur clean of insects, dead skin and dirt. But, the grooming was not exclusive to pairs or mating, and was shared by all members of the tribe.
After Goro had been preened by his handmaidens, the other males would often take a turn, giving and receiving a release of calm and comfort as they took up positions around the silverback’s mighty bulk.
Even Omag took a turn, and with his ambitious blackback supporters would join the ritual of cleaning King Goro’s fur. Of course, the crippled ape had other reasons for participating because he did not like to be groomed himself. The disease that was eating a hole in his face, was also causing his fur to fall out and the raw skin beneath to form sensitive lesions that when touched caused him tremendous pain.
Omag could still observe his duty and groom the silverback, though Goro would have been dismayed if he had seen the looks his old challenger shared with the aging queens as they performed their duty.
Akaki and Oluza were both suckling infants at this time, but knew that after these offspring or the next, their milk would dry up and they’d be of no use to Goro.
So, forming alliances with “lesser” males was
