"The worst that can happen," Fletcher said, "is that we can lose you to the herd."
I stopped my reply before it fell out of my mouth and reconsidered what she'd just said. I looked at her thoughtfully. "You've put people in the herds before, haven't you?"
Fletcher nodded. "And we've lost some of them too."
"How long can a person stay in the herd before he's lost?"
"It varies. It happens fast. Four or five days is the maximum safe time. Even that's pushing the margin. The experience is too intense. It's a mindwipe."
"All right-so all I want is two days. A day and a half. I'll go in tomorrow morning, spend the day getting acclimated, spend the night and participate in the next day's gathering. You can pull me out around dinner time. That'll give me a day to debrief and the weekend to assimilate the experience. Monday, I can get back to work on the mission."
She switched her clipboard off and put it back on her desk. "You're clear this is what you want to do?"
"I'm clear this is what I have to do."
"All right," she said, picking up her phone. "Jerry? It's a Go for tomorrow. Right. No, not at all. Thanks." She hung up and turned back to me. "Okay, we've got a lot of work to do this afternoon."
"Huh?"
"I'm going to train you."
"Train me? How do you train for a herd?"
"There are exercises we can do that will strengthen your sense of self. It might help."
"Meditation?"
"Mm, not really. Call it soul-centering. It's something from the Mode training-"
"I thought you were down on the Mode training."
She shook her head. "Nope. Only some of the people. I don't like what they're doing with it. But the training is one of the most valuable things I've ever done. It was the thing that kept me ... rational ... during the worst part of the plagues. I think it's what keeps me rational today. The truth is, I don't know if it will help or not. I just want to give you every advantage I can."
"I'll be fine," I said. "Really." She didn't answer.
"What's the problem?" I asked.
"I know you're confident. I know you've thought this out carefully. So have we. But I'm still scared. I know how easy it is to miss something. And I really would hate to lose you too... ."
FORTY-THREE
"ALL RIGHT. I'm going to activate the collar," Fletcher said. She turned to the monitor in the back of the jeep and typed something into the keyboard.
The collar around my neck beeped. Loudly. "How's the signal?" I asked.
"It's good," she said. "So's your heartbeat and your respiration. All right, I'm going to lock it on." She stepped over to me and did something under my chin, I couldn't see what.
When she stepped back, I tugged at the collar experimentally. It was locked and operating. There was no way I could get it off or turn it off. Not until I was retrieved.
I had the feeling that there was something she wanted to tell me, but when I looked at her she glanced quickly to her watch. "You'd better get going."
"Yeah," I said. I took a breath. I began pulling off my shoes and socks. The herd was already starting to form in the plaza. It was going to be a warm day.
I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Was that too much? I wondered if I should take the T-shirt off. I glanced to the herd again. There were far more naked bodies than I remembered. I decided to take my cue from the group; I pulled my shirt off and wondered if I should abandon my shorts now too.
I glanced at Fletcher. She looked pensive. "You okay?" I asked.
"Uh huh," she said.
"You don't look it."
She shrugged. "I was just thinking."
"About?"
"I wish we'd had more time."
I took her hands in mine. "I'll be all right," I said.
"I know you will. I guarantee it."
"No, I mean in here." I tapped my head with my forefinger. "I won't get lost. I promise."
She squeezed my hands and searched my face. "You'd better be right, because I'll break your leg if you're wrong."
"I'll remember that." I glanced over at the herd. Too much nudity. Modesty prevailed. I'd keep the shorts on. For now, anyway. "Well..." I said, "I guess I'd better. . ."
"Yeah," she agreed. Suddenly, she put her hands around my neck and pulled my face down to hers. Her lipstick tasted of roses and apricots and sunshine.
I broke away, embarrassed. Her kiss had been a little too intense. I turned away quickly to face the herd. If I didn't do it now, I never would.
The herd was a great milling mass of humanity. They were so dirty, I could smell them from here.
I started walking. The dry grass was scratchy under my feet. The sun was hot on my back. My mouth was dry.
I stopped just before the fringes of the herd. And studied.
I didn't know what I was looking for yet. Some clue. Some cue. Something that would tell me how to act.
A group of young bulls was posturing on the lawn. Two of them were casually wrestling. Some of them glanced over at me. There was a knot in my stomach.
I knew this feeling.
It was the first day of kindergarten all over again. The first time having to shower naked with the other boys. The first time with a girl. The first time I saw a worm.
It was the feeling of walking into a roomful of strangers and having them all look at you. Only, it was worse than that. I didn't know if these were animals or people.
They looked like people. They acted like animals.
Apes.
If I could act like an ape, the right kind of ape, they'd accept me.
So ... now I had to figure out how to act like an ape.
"The problem is," I said quietly, "that nobody around here is giving ape lessons."
And then I realized the joke. Nobody ever taught me how to be a human either.
You just are.
I circled around the young bulls wrestling and headed toward a clear space in the center of the plaza. There was a long wide wading pool there. It was the water hole. Some of the children were playing and splashing in one end of the pool. I moved away from them. I found a place away from everybody else and dropped to my hands and knees. I looked to see how the other apes were drinking. Did they cup their hands or did they just lower their faces?
No. I had to find it out for myself.
I lowered my face to the water and drank. The water tasted horrible. Chlorine? And what else? I couldn't tell. I was glad I had my shots.
How do you act like an ape anyway?
This was the same problem I always had with my own species. I never knew how to act.
Other people always seemed to know exactly who they were. I always knew that I was pretending to be who I was. I wanted to stop pretending. I wanted to just be a human being. Or an ape. Or whatever it was I had to be.
How did these apes feel about human beings anyway? Did they resent us studying them? Watching them? Or did they tolerate us? Did they appreciate us feeding them? Or did they even make that connection?
Did they want us to join them? Or did they just allow us to join them because they had no way to keep us from joining them? Or was it that there was nothing to join?
I started giggling. Wouldn't it be funny if everybody here were trying to act like an ape, just like me? Wouldn't it be funny if we were all pretending?
I wished I could stop thinking. My mind was chattering like a machine. "Chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter.. ." I said. "My mind chatters. Chatters. Chatters. Lumpty lumpty lump."
Nobody even looked at me. None of the apes noticed. Cared. The words were all meaningless. All words were meaningless. And who made up the meanings for the words in the first place? I had. Who else? All the words and all the meanings in my head were connected with connections I had made. They could all be false. Or worse-just some of them might be false connections. But how could I tell which was which?