Beep, page 18
That word again.
“It will take us home?” Deeps said.
“You would not be the first,” Chauduri said.
“Many animals hitch rides,” Brother Bangg said. “That’s what he’s saying.” And he kept transmoodling as Chauduri spoke, voluble man:
“It’s loaded fresh with North American timber and wood products bound for Asia,” he said. “Once, before Grace waylaid me, I’d have been up on the britch and in command, merchant marine. From up there you see nothing of animal life on the lading, but animal life there is—birds, rats, lizardos, more than once a cat, twice a dogg—the first was shot, the second was adopted after we docked, the cats, well, who knows. And on the ocean an accompaniment of sea mammals quite often.”
“Those sea breathers are curious peebles,” I said, trying wind voice.
Chauduri raised an eyebrow at the sound of my hoots, said, “Never a monkey, not that I saw.”
Deeps said, “How will we eat?”
And Bangg repeated, windvoice: “How will they eat?” And transmoodled the answer:
“We’ll feed you now, as much as you can stuff in. The way to Panama is only two days on these huge boats. And this one is flagshib of the new Post-Panamax fleet, so it will not be queued but waved on and feted all the way. You’ll hear shore-bound orchestras, large groups of you-mens making mewzzik.”
Ah, mewzzik.
“For food, well, linger, then follow your nose, find the rubbish tip behind the galley—much perfectly elegant food is tossed. You’ll eat well. Passage through the canal is about ten hours. But in the ninth hour, you leap.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Deeps said, imitating me, who imitated Inga, who would live.
The monks broke out food—those robes could feed multitudes—a long baguette, as he called his bread, the cheese they enjoyed and monkeys don’t, but apples, sweet and hard. All delicious enough, but then a lizard that raced past, dodged my hand, expending so much attention on mine that he did not notice Deeps’s.
“Apologies,” she said and aimed Lizard at her mouth.
“Accepted,” said Lizard, already quite bitten in half.
The you-mens, who eat the most vile things imaginable, gagged as my monkey and I shared the little creature.
Bangg moodle-mused, half aloud: “He’s saying you won’t starve, and keep a good lookout to starboard for your home trees. Starboard on this passage is North: get off on the correct side unless you like to swim in oil slicks and shite!”
“I’ve never swum,” said Deeps. “I’ve never been in this big world.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chaudhuri, monk, was not a small creature, but he squeezed through an opening between you-men structures that gonged as we passed, kwanset hutts, he called them. The alleyway opened into a kind of grassy court—this did not feel outzide—go-stone pathways that led to a cheggpoint. I climbed on the shoulder of Brother Bangg to his zignal, and he flipped the hood of his orange garmend over both of our heads—I could see out past his big ear. Dear Deeps climbed onto the back of Chaudhuri, who would live, though Monk Two, who would not, had offered. Already she trusted only sensitives. And yet Chaudhuri was clearly a goer, the way he’d piloted that machine. Much thinking to do, once home.
The monks walked in a line and began to chant, syllables ancient, almost familiar, slow, smooth pace, approached a portal called Seggurity. A very formal nobleman stepped out.
“Passes,” he said, not unkindly.
“We’re not allowed worldly decoration,” Chaudhuri said, making his human syllables as thickly foreign as possible.
“Well, that I understand,” said the guard. “Where is it you’re going? Under whose command?”
Chaudhuri kept up the ruse—he’d been on this base: “Sayer Chabel, ecumenical service, sir. We are guest speakers—we’re staying in Sayer Home.”
“Ah, the monastery.”
“Under the command of Captain Reverend Carter, sir.”
“Oh, isn’t he a pip,” the guard said.
“A pip,” said Bangg. “We apologize for the confusion.”
“No confusion, Your Holiness. Happens daily. Service is in twenty minutes. You’re speaking?”
“Leading a prayer,” Chaudhuri said.
“I’ll attend. God bless you, brothers. God bless you all.”
He would live, I realized. There were many who would live, and found in the oddest places. He pointed the way, not far down the grassy, pretty lane in the midst of this death-affirming you-men scene. And there a structure with a tall point built onto it such that you wanted to look up. And when you looked up, you saw the sky, and in the sky a single round cloud. And the cloud if it could moodle would say: The world is more than these you-mens.
The Chabel, they’d called it, dark inzide. Brother Bangg raced through the space, Chaudhuri hard on his heels, Monk Two pouting—Bangg had lied to the guard—but all of us safely slipping out a modest dar at the other end, and into the inner port, where we hurried among monstrous gantry cranes (named for birds!) and past men with heavy footwear and meddle lungeboxes and others with clipboards and sheaves of paber.
Chauduri gestured grandly to a massive structure that seemed to sit upon the water, gargantuan boxes stacked in colorful patterns atop. “There’s your shib, me monkeys,” he said. “Now we monks must return to our vann and get the fuck out of here. You two can climb vines, right? Just climb the anchor rope at the far end down there, that’s the stern, and that will put you under the fo’c’sle. There you will find a lokker with life jaggets, illegal to put under lokk. Lift the hatch at the far end—it’s the small hatch and lighter—climb in there till you feel the shib move. Can you carry this bread?
Brother Bangg transmoodled instantly, and even Deeps understood.
“Easily the bread,” she said.
He handed it over.
“And this is water,” he said, handing me a small bottle.
“And drink now from this,” Monk One said. And we drank as much as we could hold from his larger bottle.
“That’ll just make them pee,” said dour Monk Two.
Oh, how Deeps and I smiled at that, for to pee freely and share scent was all we hoped.
“What are life jaggets?” Deeps said darkly.
“Cushions, really,” Chaudhuri said, perfect understanding. “You will find them comfortable.”
“And a lokker?”
Chaudhari, always amused: “A lokker is just a boxx, dear ones. And a hatch, a dar.”
Brother Bangg put a hand on each of our heads. “And now, let us say goodbye, and blessings, and well met, monkeys.”
Chaudhuri pointed out a lower part of the dock he called a step-down, and we ran along this all the way to the sterm of the shib, which was the farthest end, and there indeed were great ropes thick as palm trunks, all the you-mens with their weapons and clipboards and work helmets and busy endeavors far down at a ramp the you-mens traversed to move on and off of the shib, busy as leaf-cutter ants, less cheerful. The gantry cranes pivoted, and a beautiful yellow container swung over our heads this direction, a beautiful blue container the other. The shib was as big as a world. But the world was bigger yet, the true shib, our dear glope.
“O, Beep,” Deeps said. “I fear.”
Just then a moaning arose, and a groaning, and a wail above that, and we looked down in time to see the three monks recessing in chant. The you-mens all looked their way, respectfully incredulous, I’d call it, as the orange robes disappeared into the back doors of the chabel, those sandaled feet now running.
And unseen, balancing bread and bottle, two free monkeys climbed thick ropes to the deck of the enormous Post-Panamax tankker, as it was called, or shib, lifejagget lokker just as described, hatches unlokked, far too heavy to lift, but yes, at the far end, a smaller hatch, and two monkeys opened it easily, climbed inzide as one. Deeps propped our water bottle under the lid so we could breathe the good air of the world and see the good light. The life jaggets were as orange as the fur back of my hands—good omen, I thought. And comfortable, and we lay on them, and slept like monkeys on a branch.
When we woke it was to a roaring in the dark—night had come. And I can’t describe it, but the world moved, and grumbled, and lurched, everything around us creaking and bobbing. We understood we were underway, undercurrents of hope and fear.
Chapter Thirty-Five
We ate the bread almost nostalgically—our last you-men food. The crack of light under the lid of the lifejagget cabinet stayed bright—spot-brights onboard. I so wanted to look and see, but Deeps said no, and amid the rumbling we nestled together. We’d slept so much—it seemed maddening to close eyes again, and not safe. Late, though, I must have dozed, because I woke to her pulling at my arm. “Something happening,” she mooded.
Voices of you-mens. One a female. Friendly enough, but no fun, accent like Mario’s, the beetzaman who’d helped Inga back in Nyork. Something about the draft of the shib, the count on the containers, the contents, paberwork. “Safety brotocol?” she said.
“Oh, now, come on,” a voice said. “You’re really going to count the life jaggets?”
“Spot inspection.”
“I assure you.”
“That hatch is propped there.”
A bright shone into the crack more brightly than the ambient.
“Stowaway?”
“We’ve no reports.”
And suddenly our hatch was popped open, brights in our faces. Taken by surprise, I was too late to follow Deeps, who leapt right into the brightness and scurried up the side of a pink container, hand over hand on a multitude of handles and footholds.
Thick digits had me by the chest and face—I couldn’t even bite, but peed freely.
“Monkey,” the deep voice said.
“Vermin,” the inspector said.
“Monkey ain’t vermin,” the deep voice said. “In fact, I’ll sell this boy in port for a britty benny, I will.”
Another voice, amused: “Well, now, there’s a humane solution.”
The inspector didn’t laugh with the others, said, “There’ll be no illegal commerce in wild animals. Genitalmen, another animal came out of that lokker and just escaped. We don’t know where these animals are from and can’t make assumptions. Your vessel will be waylaid in Gatun Lake per my immediate order until the vermin is found and exterminated. This biological control must be documented with time-stamped photographs, the proper forms, and captain’s signature.”
“Monkey ain’t vermin,” the deep voice said again.
“Captain, explain matters to your crew.”
“There are rules,” the captain said ruefully.
“Then I’ll kill him now in front of ye,” the gruff voice said.
“No, no,” the captain said. “Blood on the decks? What’s the fine for that, inspector?”
“Be serious, Captain.”
The captain, very stern, very resolved, all professional, said, “Seaman, there are dogg crates in the tourist-mess storage. Pick a small one for this fellow. We’ll document a bloodless drowning after lunch. Put the crate in the forward tourist suite—it’s unoccupied. And lokk the door. And don’t get any ideas, seaman, or it’s you I’ll throw overboard.”
“Threatening work enfironment,” the inspector said, humorless, scramching on her pad.
My heart beat very hard. I could hear the hearts of all the you-mens, my jumbled thoughts of flight mixing with their zignals, which were universally negative toward one another and the universe, Seaman Gruff with such a miserable grip on my neck, quite the way my mother had once handed me to aunts. Valiant mother! Dearest aunts!
With all the you-men mind noise and all the clanging roar of the great vessel, it was hard to moodle a contact with Deeps, though I felt her tenderness in the breezes. What had become of her? Somewhere on the shib, that much I felt. The inspector and the captain walked off through a narrow passage between containers. Seaman Gruff squeezed my scruff, walked the other way, soon along the rail with me dangling, immobilized. I could only pee, and did so freely, also poooped. My coarse captor didn’t even care, took no notice.
We bounced up a starway, then another, and yet another, then around a kind of tall building that was the mind of the shib, a monkey could feel it, and the living quarters of these men, could smell. Seaman Gruff shouldered open a heavy dar, grunting with the weight of it, squeezing me harder, then through another that opened into a darkened passage, then a dark chamber where he retrieved a clattering canid prizzon, stuffed me in it, closed and latched it. I slumped to the floor of the thing, wanted to seem incapacitated, which worked:
“Don’t die on me monkey,” Seaman Gruff said. “You’re eight thousand if you’re a benny, just as soon as Our Lady of the Clipboard is gone back to heaven. And just look at the accomodations. Your own staterooom, Master and Commander!”
And he left me, nothing stately about the rooom at all, just a kind of shelf for sleeping and images of shibs (of all things), shibs on the walls, click-click as he lokked the dar, the sound familiar from Inga’s place, so far away.
Oh! Where was Deeps?
I waited a while, seemed forever, opened the dogg prizzon easily, just a doggproof latch, no lokk. Underestimated Beep! I crept to the door of the unstately staterooom, but of course it was lokked, as well, the noob frozen, little noob beneath frozen, too. For a window there was only a large circle over the tightly garmended bed. Out the window the world moving by, grower land, it looked like, orderly sad trees, no jungle, the great vessel churning and roaring in its effort but merely crawling along through the narrow gash in the world.
I realized suddenly that the sea gulls winging out there were not just randomly flitting but had an interest, not only in the shib, but in my window. And shortly an upside-down face appeared: Deeps!
“Dumb monkey!” she mooded crossly.
“You and me both!” I felt back.
“Come out of there.”
“I’m lokked in.”
“You can’t be lokked in. The you-mens use lokks to keep other you-mens out of their private spaces. It’s impossible to explain. But unlike monkeys in a zzoo, you are in control of those lokks. I have studied this extensively, the subject of lokks. It’s much of what we prizzoners talked about at Bronzoo.”
“Deeps. I have studied lokks, too. I did so in the apartment of our brave Inga. I have no kee! Keeze is the kee to this puzzle.”
“So you say. But go inspect the globular meddle appendage upon the dar.”
“The noob,” I said.
“You will see in its center something like the residuum of sepals, stamens, styles, and stigmas on a fruit.”
“The navel, you mean?”
“Always a simpler say,” Deeps said. “Yes, like the navel on a fruit or monkey. Do you see it?”
And sure enough, at the very center of the noob was a nooblet, which turned. And now the greater noob turned freely, lots of clicks, but the dar remained closed.
I explained, nearly narrated.
“Ah good,” Deeps said. “Now there is a kind of appendage—I see it from here—below the so-called noob, there, more stem than navel.” And yes, there was such a thing, the smaller noob, brass bright from the touch of you-men fingers. Bigger fingers than mine! I closed my fist around the tiny shoulders of the thing, and though it gave slightly it would not turn.
“Two hands,” Deeps said.
Same.
“Try turning it the other way, as the sun and stars go.”
It turned easily. The bigger noob turned easily as well, but in the other direction. I pulled at it, but the heavy dar wouldn’t budge. Then, blast of light and heat, the thing flew open and Seaman Gruff nearly fell in, keeze in hand, stumbled straight to the deserted crate, which left a fraction of a moment for me to leap out the dar and into the blessed sunshine, and even better, into Deeps’s moral orbit. Up was the message of her mood, and I grabbed a steel vertical and climbed, stateroooms stacked upon stateroooms, finally the walkway, unfortunately right underneath the captain’s great wimdoes.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he expostulated, this simultaneous with the welcome sight of Deeps, free Deeps and wise.
She shrieked and also moodled her mood, very hard: “Let’s go!”
The seafaring noblemen in crisp whites and blues emerged from their own captivity, shouting and pointing. Seaman Gruff came pounding up the ringing steel starway, dangerous in his humiliation, and shouting something about strangulation.
Deeps pulled me onto the rooof of the Captain’s lair, where, we realized, we were trapped.
“Though you-mens can’t jump a gap like that,” she said—like that, a long way to the nearest container, dull red.
“Not sure monkeys can either,” I said.
“Imagine tree to tree down the avenoos of Nyork, it’s not further.”
“True enough-ish.”
So we waited. Perhaps everyyou-mee would calm down, make a blunder, free a path to the starwell, to which we could jump in safety.
Seaman Gruff shouted, “I know you’re up there, monkeys! I’ve been up there meself, and not even you could jump s’far!”
And here he came, making use of a series of horizontal bars meant as a climbing device.
“Labber,” Deeps said. “That’s called a labber.”
“Learning never ceases,” I said.
And a slowblink passed between us. Gruff’s face appeared above the rooofline, red and sweaty and gruff, all right. He brandished something unrecognized, a fish nett, Deeps called it, known from the Bronzoo, a great circle on a stick with extremely loose-woven fabric.
“Shall we?” Deeps said.
“Indeed,” I said.
And as Gruff lunged, we darted around him, Deeps first to the labber, and then I, large crew of lesser nobles below us. The nett swiped at us from above. From below, a grander nobleman on a rung reached for our feet.
“See the red noopsook on that seaman’s back?” Deeps said. “Use it as a stepping stone, push off hard for the next jump to that enormous cleat, and then we leap the gap—I see a britch of sorts.”
