Shoshana considered this. No one had told Hobo yet about the lawsuit from the Georgia Zoo. They hadn’t wanted to upset him. Chimps were notorious for hating to travel—which made sense for territorial animals.
Still, Georgia did have several chimps, and several bonobos, too. It wasn’t clear which group they wanted to keep Hobo with; he had been conceived when the two populations had been housed together during a flood. It probably hadn’t occurred to Marcuse in his zeal to fight the lawsuit, but Hobo might well want to be among his own kind—whichever kind that was.
But there was more to the zoo’s lawsuit than just custody. They also wanted to have Hobo sterilized—to keep the endangered chimp and bonobo bloodlines from being contaminated by his hybrid sperm. But although lots of reasonably complex ideas could be communicated to him, trying to explain the effects of castration would probably exceed his ability to comprehend.
“Are you going to brief him about what’s at stake—assuming he’ll listen to us at all now, that is?” Sho asked.
Marcuse seemed to mull this over for a few moments, then he nodded his great loaf of a head. “He’s likely to just get more antisocial as time goes on. Which means if we’re going to get through to him at all, there’s no time to waste—we’ve got a very narrow window here.”
And so he and Shoshana headed back out into the sunshine, leaving Dillon behind. Marcuse led the way, taking bold steps as they crossed the bridge, his footfalls like thunder on the wooden boards. Hobo seemed to have been waiting for him, and he swayed on his spindly, bowed legs, looking at Marcuse from a dozen feet away—a standoff. Sho suppressed the urge to whistle the theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
She couldn’t see Marcuse’s face but she imagined he was again staring directly at the ape, trying to establish dominance.
Hobo bared his teeth: large, yellow, sharp.
Marcuse made a hissing sound, and—
And Hobo averted his eyes and dropped his head.
Marcuse confidently closed the distance between them, and, straining as he did so, he crouched near the ape, who was now sitting on his haunches.
Hobo, Marcuse signed. Pay attention.
Hobo was still looking at the ground, meaning he couldn’t see the signs. Sho gasped as Marcuse reached out to touch the bottom of Hobo’s face, afraid the ape was going to lash out at the contact, but he allowed Marcuse to lift his head.
Do you like it here? he asked.
Hobo was still for a time, and Shoshana was afraid the ape had given up signing altogether. But at last, he moved his hand, held in an O shape, from his mouth to his cheek. It was a sign that combined the words for eat and sleep, and it expressed the simple thought: Home.
Yes, Marcuse signed. It’s your home. A pause. A seagull flew by overhead. But your home used to be Georgia Zoo, remember?
Hobo nodded, a simple, and very human, gesture.
Georgia Zoo wants you back—be your home again.
Hobo briefly looked at Marcuse’s face. You there?
No.
He pointed questioningly at Shoshana.
No. None of us. But: other apes!
Hobo made no reply.
What you want? Marcuse asked at last. Here? Or zoo?
The ape looked around his little island, his eyes lingering for a moment on the statue of the Lawgiver, and lingering again when they came to the gazebo at the island’s center, with its screen windows and doors to keep the insects out, and his easel and work stool in the middle.
Home, Hobo signed again, and then he spread his arms, encompassing it all.
Okay, Marcuse replied. But others want to take you away, so you’re going to have to help us.
Hobo made no reply. Shoshana thought Marcuse’s blue polyester trousers might give up under the strain of him crouching for so long. There will be a fight, he signed. Understand? A fight over where you will live.
Hobo briefly looked at Shoshana, then back at Marcuse. His eyes were dark, wet.
If you speak, Marcuse continued, you can stay here—maybe.
Hobo looked around his little island domain again, and glanced back at the bungalow, off in the distance. Stay here, said Hobo.
Shoshana wondered if the Silverback was going to raise the question of Hobo’s violent behavior, but he seemed to be letting that pass for now.
That’s right—but you have to say it to other people. To strangers, or…
He took a deep breath, then let it out. Shoshana knew there was no way Hobo could understand what Marcuse wanted to convey: Or else people will think I coached you in what to say.
Strangers, said Hobo, and he shook his head and bared his teeth. Bad.
It’s important… Marcuse began.
But Hobo made the downward sign for bad once more, and then suddenly bolted away, running on all fours to the far side of the island.
sixteen
Bashira left around 4:00 p.m., and, after seeing her out, Caitlin went back up to her mother’s office. She was still IMing with Webmind there. “How is he?” Caitlin asked.
“The president?” her mom asked innocently. “Professor Hawking?”
“Mom!”
“Sorry, sweetheart.” She smiled. “He is fine; he seems to have completely recovered. Oh, and he hopes you enjoy the Harry Potter books.”
Caitlin was startled. Yes, Webmind saw what she was seeing—but the notion of him discussing that with her mother was disconcerting to say the least! She’d have to have a talk with him about privacy.
“Just give me a minute,” her mother said. “Then you can have your computer back. I want to finish this up. We’re talking about academic politics, of all things.”
“No problem,” said Caitlin. She lay back on her bed, switched her eyePod over to duplex mode, interlaced her hands behind her head, and let the wonder of webspace engulf her. Except for the sound of her mother’s typing, the outside world didn’t intrude.
There was perfection here: the perfection of Euclid, of geometry, of straight lines and exact circles.
“Mom?”
A voice, bridging the two realities. “Yes, dear?”
“Not everyone is going to like Webmind, are they? I mean, if the public ever finds out about him.”
She heard her take a deep breath, then let it out. “Probably not.”
“They’re going to compare him to Big Brother, aren’t they?”
“Certainly some people will, yes.”
“But we’re the ones guiding his development—you, me, Dr. Kuroda, Dad. Can’t we make sure it’s, you know, good?”
“Make sure?” said her mother. “Probably not—no more than a parent can make sure her child turns out well. But we can try our best.” She paused. “And sometimes it does turn out all right.”
Tony Moretti and Peyton Hume were back in Tony’s office. The colonel was swilling black coffee to keep going, and Tony had just downed a bottle of Coke. The Secretary of State was on the line again from Milan. “So,” she said, “this thing is called Webmind?”
“That’s what the Decter kid refers to it as, yes,” said Hume.
“We shouldn’t call it that,” said Tony. “We should give it a code name, in case any of our own future communications are compromised.”