“I don’t believe in the soul, Kamellin.”
That is the point I am trying to make, Andrew.
Reade touched his shoulder. “You give me the creeps, talking to yourself. What now?”
They picked out a large male chimp and sat looking at it while it grimaced at them with idiotic mildness. Andrew felt faint distaste. “Kamellin in that thing?”
Reade chuckled. “Quit being anthropomorphic. That thing is a heck of a lot better adapted to We on Mars than you are—look at the size of the chest—and Kamellin will know it, if you don’t!” He paused. “After the switch, how can we communicate with Kamellin?”
Andrew relayed the question, puzzled. Finally he said, “I’m not sure. We’re using straight thoughts and he can’t get any notion of the -form of our language, any more than I can of his. Reade, can a chimp learn to talk?”
“No chimp ever has.”
“I mean, if a chimp did have the intelligence, the reasoning power, the drive to communicate in symbols or language, would its vocal cords and the shape of his mouth permit it!”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Reade said, “I’m no expert on monkey anatomy, though. I wouldn’t bet against it either. Why? Going to teach Kamellin English?”
“Once he leaves me, there won’t be any way to communicate except the roughest sort of sign language!”
“Andy, we’ve got to figure out some way! We can’t let that knowledge be lost to us! Here we have a chance at direct contact with a mind that was alive when the city was built—”
“That’s not the important part,” Andrew said. “Ready, Kamellin?”
Yes. And I thank you eternally. Your world and mine lie apart, but we have been brothers. I salute you, my friend. The voice went still. The room reeled, went into a sick bluer—
“Are you all right?” Reade peered anxiously down at Andrew. Past him, they both realized that the big chimpanzee—no, Kamellin!—was looking over Reade’s shoulder. Not the idiot stare of the monkey. Not human, either. Even the posture of the animal was different.
Andrew—recognized—Kamellin.
And the—difference—in his mind, was gone.
Reade was staring; “Andy, when you fell, he jumped forward and caught you! No monkey would do that!”
Kamellin made an expressive movement of his hands.
Andrew said, “A chimp’s motor reflexes are marvelous, with a human—no, a better than human intelligence, there’s practically no limit to what he can do.” He said, tentatively, “Kamellin?”
“Will the chimp recognize that?”
“Look, Reade—will you remember something, as a favor to me? He—the chimp—is not a freak monkey! He is Kamellin—my close personal friend—and a damned sight more intelligent than either of us!”
Reade dropped his eyes. “I’ll try.”
“Kamellin?”
And Kamellin spoke. Tentatively, hoarsely, mouthily, as if with unfamiliar vocal equipment, he spoke. “An—drew,” he said slowly. “Shein. La. Mahari.” They had each reached the extent of their vocabulary in the other’s language. Kamellin walked to the other cages, with the chimpanzee’s rolling scamper which somehow had, at the same time, a controlled and fluid dignity that was absolutely new. Reade dropped on a bench. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “But do you realize what you’ve done, Andrew? A talking monkey. At best, they’d call us a fraud. At. worst the scientists would end up dissecting him. Well never be able to prove anything or tell anyone!”
“I saw that all along,” Andrew said bitterly, and dropped to the bench. Kamellin came and squatted beside them, alert, with an easy stillness.
Suddenly Andrew looked up. “There are about twenty chimps. Not enough. But there’s a good balance, male to female, and they can keep up a good birth rate—”
“What in the—”
“Look,” Andrew said excitedly, “it’s more important to preserve the Martian race—the last few sane ones—than to try convincing the Society—; we probably couldn’t anyhow. We’ll take the chimps to Shein-la Mahari. Earthmen never go there, so they won’t be molested for a while, anyhow— probably not for a hundred years or so! By that time, they’ll have been able to—to reclaim their race a little, gain back their culture, and there’ll be a colony of intelligent beings, monkeylike in form but not monkeyish. We can leave records of this. In a hundred years or so—”
Reade looked at him hesitantly, his imagination gripped, against his will, by Andrew’s vision. “Could they survive?”
“Kamellin told me that the city was—time-sealed, he called it, and in perfect order.” He looked down at the listening stillness of Kamellin and was convinced that the
Martian understood; certainly Kamellin’s reception of telepathy must be excellent, even if Andrew’s was not.
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