Pan Satyrus

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Now they were in a hotel room — a hotel suite, to be exact. There were two bedrooms, a living room, two baths, and a Utile hallway that led to the outside corridor.

They were alone, Dr. Bedoian, Pan and the flower of the U.S. Navy. Happy was what Ape called "on the horn"; he was sitting in an easy chair by the phone, which rang every few minutes with offers for Pan to endorse this or appear at that To all of them Happy said a quiet "No."

The rooms on either side of them were occupied by Mr. MacMahon and his men.

Happy said: "I bet the dames a bellboy'd get you here'd cost fifty bucks a head."

"You ever looked to see they got heads?" Ape asked. He was drinking scotch-and-soda, not that he wanted it or liked it, he said, but because the elegance of the suite called for it.

"Chief, you take this phone a while," Happy said. "I've had it."

"Yeah," Ape said. He changed places with Happy, gave the downstairs operator a number. "Chief Maguire… I don't care if he ain't aboard. Give him a signal at his quarters. This is Master Chief Torpedo-man Bates. Mac, I'm on this ape duty, you heard. Yeah, yeah, very funny. Now, get this, we need a yeoman, second'll do, an' some boots to stand guard, an' a petty officer to run the boots. In boondockers, canvas leggins an' all. Naw, no side-arms, but cartridge belts to let 'em know we're serious. How's Mary?. Well, too bad, but I tole ya ya shoulda married her, a dame with her own bar an' all. Yeah, we're at this hotel."

He hung up. "Yeoman'll handle the horn, boots'll keep the mob away, ya got nothing to gripe ya, Pan. It's like we was back in Florida,".

But Pan sat huddled in the depths of an armchair, and seemed to pay no attention to them. Dr. Bedoian looked at his wristwatch. "Maybe it is wearing off, Pan. Maybe it was just temporary."

Pan raised his weary eyes. "What?"

"The compulsion to talk. Maybe you are turning back into a chimpanzee."

Pan shook his head, and then clasped his hands over his knees. Dr. Bedoian came over and put a hand on the simian brow. "No fever," he said. "Why don't you go in one of the bedrooms and lie down? I'll come cover you up."

Pan Satyrus continued to stare at the spotless, durable hotel carpet.

"Lissen," Ape said, "them boots'l! be here on the double. You can drill 'em, Pan. More fun than a barrel of — marines. Boots, they gotta do anything you tell 'em, wit' a master chief watchin'. You'll get a kick outa it, Pan."

Pan slowly rubbed his long-fingered palms on his bony knees.

"Take a drink," Happy said. But there was no conviction in his voice. "Ill order up some dames, we'll have a ball, like in Florida. You tell the doc about how you got us a stake in that juke joint, charging those pigs to dance with them? Maybe we could sneak out and—"

He broke off. "All right," he said. "So I swung and I missed. Think about this, Pan. You're going to get ten thousand dollars a week. What does a chimp cost, five hundred or a thousand dollars? You'll be able to buy up all the chimpanzees in all the zoos, and go on buying them as fast as the schmos can catch them. And turn them loose—"

Pan Satyrus spoke at last. He put his arms forward till his knuckles were on the floor, and then he swung forward on them. "An ape is an ape," he said. "Not a philanthropist. I loved my mother. I enjoyed playing with a little boy gorilla when the Curator would let me. And I used to like being with other chimps, but. Only man buys gratitude and fame and fortune. Anyway, I'm not sure but what the television program is off. After I tore that girl's dress off."

Dr. Bedoian went over to Happy and took a drink from the radioman's bottle. Then he turned and faced Pan. "Yes," he said, "it's off. While you were in the Primate House, the Curator and I had a talk with the television people. The zoo vet was there, too. All three of us agreed that you had reached the age when you were no longer safe."

"Going to shoot me, doctor? Going to slip me a nice, fatal hypo, friend Aram?"

"You know better than that." His dark eyes, smaller than Pan's and white around the edges, watched the chimpanzee cautiously.

Pan made a contemptuous motion with one hand. "Yes, I know better. You are going to put me in a very strong cage, with a back room that can be locked by remote control. And when you want to clean the display cage in front, you are going to turn a fire hose on me so I will go in the back room. And when you want to clean the back room, I suppose there is a way of spraying a fire hose in there, too. And there will be a glass panel across the front of my cage, so I cannot take my turn and spray the customers. Bight?"

Ape said, "Pan."

The chimpanzee turned to him, and his expression looked like a smile. "Yes, Ape?"

"I tole ya, when ya first come aboard the Cooke, what the chiefs' mess wants, the skipper does. I got the years in, I got the rank. Nobody's gonna treat ya like a mascot, even if that's your rank."

"He'd be pretty goddam useful fixing the antenna in a storm," Happy said.

Dr. Bedoian said, "No. I — anyone your skipper consulted — would have to certify that it was not safe."

Happy stood up, pulled his jumper down over his belly. "What side you on, doc?"

"Pan's side. Pretty soon, if he follows the course of every male chimpanzee I ever knew, he is going to develop an intolerance for man and all his works that will make him violent."

"He ain't a chimp," Ape said. "He devoluted."

"Retrogressed," Dr. Bedoian said. "According to his own story. But ask him if he feels like a chimpanzee or a man?"

"The doctor's right, Ape," Pan said, "It wouldn't be safe."

He shuffled across the room, blinking his eyes. But no chimpanzee has ever wept tears. He picked up the phone. "Mr. MacMahon's room, please."

They stared at him as he held the phone a little clumsily in his short-thumbed hand. "This is Pan Satyrus, Mr. MacMahon. The chimpanzee. I am ready to demonstrate superluminous flight, sir. No, I am afraid I do not have the vocabulary to tell your experts; and my fingers are not adapted to holding a pencil, so I cannot draw the diagram. I shall have to demonstrate in a real live spaceship. Could we leave for Canaveral in the morning? No, not tonight. I am giving a farewell party for a few friends. You will have to call off that banquet, too."

He hung up the phone. He shuffled across to Ape and drained the rest of the chiefs scotch highball. Then he crossed to Happy and drank the rest of the radioman's pint.

Then he went back to the phone and again asked for Mr. MacMahon. "Send one of your boys over with a thousand dollars," he said. He added, sharply, "You heard me!"

Happy had pulled another pint from under his blouse. Pan took it and drank a fair half. "Get on the horn, Happy," he said in a fair imitation of Ape's growl. "They got bellboys in this dump, ain't they? Tell them to send up some fifty buck pigs."