The Emancipated

L. Sprague de Camp

Johnny Black said: "Fo-wer sco-wer and-a sev-un yee-yers ago-wa, ou-wer fah-vers... fah-zerf—"

"The word" said Dr. Ewing, "is 'fathers'. With the voiced dental fricative, like this." The good psychologist made a horrible face as he intoned the "th" of "father," so Johnny could see how his tongue was used. Johnny recoiled a little before he remembered that his instructor had no intention of biting him.

"How?" he asked politely.

Dr. Ewing repeated the consonant whereon so many foreign students of English have come to grief. But the foreigners at least had human dentition, with four large chisel-shaped upper incisors flanked by a pair of chisel-shaped canines. Johnny's upper incisors were six small pegs, and the canines were large conical tusks. No matter what he did with his organs of speech, the resulting sound resembled anything but a human "th" sound.

He had numerous other troubles. For instance, the l's defeated him completely. So Johnny at his best sounded like a Voder with a short circuit. But it was doing pretty well, considering that he had not in his youth established those many chains of lightning reflexes that enable men to rattle off threats, promises, excuses and lies so glibly. And that his black bear's anatomy had not been designed for speech in the first place. A man learning to type with his toes would be a good analogue to Johnny learning to talk.

This had been going on for months, since a ripple in the affairs of men had brought Johnny and his boss, Ira Methuen, up from the blue Caribbean. Methuen, who had given Johnny his superbearish intelligence by cerebral injection, was now heading Yale's Department of Biology, and Johnny was studying speech at New York University under Ewing.

Johnny was still struggling bear-fully with the dental fricatives when Chauncey Malone arrived. Like Ewing, Malone had a lot of white hair. But he was as pale and frail as Ewing was pink and robust. Malone was—grace to Tammy Hall—New York City's commissioner of parks— New York had backslid again.

Johnny said: "Herro, Mr. Ma-rone."

Malone nodded absently at Johnny. He could never be at his best in the same room with five hundred pounds of bear. The fact that the bear spoke to him was, if anything, a little more unnerving.

Ewing said in his hearty, crisp voice: "Hello, Mr. Malone. Well?"

"I've been thinking," said Malone hesitantly."I haven't quite made up my mind yet."

"Better decide pretty quick. I can keep one animal in my apartment but not two. As it is, I can't depend on regular milk and newspaper deliveries. The boys throw the bottles and papers in the ash can to avoid meeting Johnny. And my landlord's complaining."

"There's... there's nothing in your lease about bears in the apartment, is there?"

"No, but there's a clause about endangering the other tenants. And I want my bathroom repapered. Been hunting for years for wallpaper with octopuses on it, and at last I've found some. But the landlord won't move while I've got Johnny, to say nothing of Methuen's damned chimpanzee."

"When's the chimp due?" asked Malone. Maybe if he could get Ewing off the subject, he could postpone the moment of having to make up his mind.

"Methuen says he'll be finished with his injections in a few days and will drive McGinty down."

Malone asked Johnny: "What... what do you think of the idea of educating McGinty, Mr. Black?"

Johnny said solemnly: "I sink it is a serious mistake."

"Why?"

"I know McGinty. A self-conceited, mean-tempered individuar. Giving him brains wirr not improve his nature."

"Never mind that," snapped Ewing."Johnny's probably jealous; wants to be the only intelligent animal. Well, how about it?"

"Let me see; I really haven't decided—"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake! It's a simple business proposition. We board Johnny Black and McGinty at the Central Park Zoo; you turn over such of your specimens as we pick for the Methuen treatment. We get specimens; you get publicity. Do you agree, or do I have to approach the Zoological Society again?"

"Oh, well, if you insist—we'll do it. But if you damage one of our exhibits—"

"Not much danger. By the way, you'll have to furnish transportation for the specimens. We haven't got a truck. And Johnny's got to be taken to and from his classes up here."

Johnny didn't mind the change from Ewing's apartment to the Central Park bear dens. He did threaten to become uncooperative if they didn't let him take his mattress along.

His den already contained two female American blacks, Susie and Nokomis, and a male, Ink. They looked at him warily as he toddled into the inclosure with his mattress rolled up and slung over his shoulder. Their smell excited him. They were the first members of his own species whom he had had an opportunity to know personally.

"Herro," he said."My name is Johnny Brack."

The three bears looked a trifle startled. Of course, he thought, they couldn't understand him, yet. So, with his claws, he cut the strings that held his mattress, unrolled it, and spread himself out on the mattress in a sunny spot. He took the spectacles out of the case around his neck and opened the book he had brought along.

A spectator explained to his small boy: "Sure, that's a grizzly beh. No, behs can't read. He's just trained to do like he was reading. To make people laugh. No, I dunno why the other behs don't read. Sure, they eat people."

Johnny looked up sharply at this canard, and was tempted to contradict it. But, he thought, if he started an argument with the spectators he'd never get time to read his book. So he said nothing.

Johnny found that as soon as he got up to go for a stroll, the other bears made a dive for the mattress. So he spent a good deal of time driving them away from it. He made a point of establishing himself as boss of the cage right at the start. His cage mates, he thought, would be pretty dull company until they received brains. After that they might be useful to him.

Johnny happened to be passing Ewing's office when Methuen arrived with McGinty in tow. Johnny's boss led McGinty, trotting along on his knuckles, by a light steel chain, much more ornamental than useful and not very ornamental. Johnny and Methuen said hello and shook paws and grinned, and Johnny said: "Rook, boss, I can talk awmost as werr as you. Rike zis: 'You may talk o' gin and beer when you're quartered safe out 'ere, and you're sent—'"

"Yes, yes, old man," interrupted

Methuen hastily."T knew you'd make a marvelous talker once you got started. You remember McGinty, don't you? ''

"Sure," said Johnny. He reached a paw toward the chimpanzee, who suddenly jerked the end of the chain out of Methuen's hand, whirled two feet of it around his head, and let fly at Johnny. The steel crossbar on the end stung Johnny's sensitive nose.

"Oof!" cried Johnny."I show you!

McGinty was jumping up and down excitedly, grunting, "Keek! Keek!" and showing all his teeth. As Johnny sprang at him he squealed with fear and bolted down the corridor.

Just then the class bell rang. McGinty, terrified, leaped upon the nearest person, who happened to be a girl student, seized her about the neck, and tried to bury his face in her armpit. Now, to have one hundred and fifty pounds of hairy ape suddenly climb your frame is a disconcerting experience. McGinty was merely seeking protection. - But the girl could not be expected to know that. She made a noise like a subway-car wheel on a sharp turn and collapsed. By the time Methuen arrived, shouting, McGinty realized he had done wrong somehow and was quite docile.

"Let him alone, Johnny!" cried Methuen."He doesn't know any better, yet."

Johnny halted. He wouldn't have, for anybody else."Aw right. But I remember zat bump on ze nose."

Ewing appeared and asked: "Does he behave like that always?"

"No," said Methuen."At least, not very often. But you can't depend on him. Want to call the whole thing off?"

"No," said Ewing firmly."I said

I'd teach him, and I will."

After that people saw to it that Johnny and McGinty never met. That was all right with Johnny. He was more interested in his own studies, and in the Central Park bears. Came the day when Ink approached him with a look that Johnny interpreted as signifying an internal struggle: whether physical or mental he couldn't say. Ink stood up, waved a paw at Johnny, and with infinite difficulty managed to groan: "You... Dzon-nee!"

Johnny sat up and banged his fore-paws together."Fine! On'y it's Johnny."

"Dzon-ny!" repeated Ink. Another internal crisis shook him, and then, indicating himself, he ground out: "Me... Hink!"

"Fine! Fine!" encouraged Johnny.

Ink opened his mouth soundlessly a couple of times, then gasped: "What... ' what—" He struggled over some question that was no doubt vital to him, but the words would not come. Johnny could sympathize. He remembered his own feeling of futile struggle to put into intelligible form all the thoughts that had swarmed into his mind when he recovered from his own Methuen treatment.

When one of Johnny's fellow students—human—suggested that he come out for football practice, Johnny's insatiable curiosity led him to go along. As it happened, Coach Cohn was feeling irascible. When he finished telling his first string that they ought to wear lace on their uniforms and bring knitting, he roared: "I bet even that bear could do better. Here, Johnny, take right guard in the scrub line for a little scrimmage."

Johnny, still curious, did as he was instructed. When the ball was snapped, they explained, he was to push through the opposing line and tackle the man with the ball. It was as simple as that.

It was almost too simple. Johnny pushed through the line and tackled the opposing fullback, a youth named Vleck, before Mr. Vleck knew what was happening to him. For that matter he didn't learn what had happened to him until a few minutes later, when he came to. Johnny, meanwhile, turned back to the group surrounding the varsity guard and tackle, between whom he had pushed. Both were lying still and pale, except that the guard, one Martinelli, moaned a bit because of a broken rib. The tackle would be all right when he recovered consciousness.

Cohn shook his head."Too bad. He'd make a perfect lineman. But nobody would play with us. Too bad. What we wouldn't do to Ford-ham—"

Ewing, for all his good intentions, couldn't keep Johnny and McGinty apart indefinitely. One day Johnny strolled into Ewing's office to report on his studies and found McGinty alone. McGinty was lying on his back on Ewing's desk and smoking four of Ewing's cigarettes at once, one in each hand. He jumped up, scattering sparks and ash, and cried: "Hello, Johnny, how's the old boy?"

Johnny was somewhat taken aback by McGinty's cordiality and linguistic fluency. But he merely said: "Fine. How are you?"

"Oh, I'm fine. I speak pretty well, don't I? Just like a man. Men are a bore, aren't they? Always wanting you to do things at certain times.".

"Werr," said Johnny, "you have to do sings at some time."

"Me, I like to do things when I feel like it. They don't understand me. When I want to throw inkwells out the window, I've just got to throw inkwells out the window."

"Have you been srowing inkwerrs out ze window?" asked Johnny, shocked.

"Sure; just the other day."

"Why?"

"You sound just like a man. -They're always asking me why I did this or that. I tell them I just felt like it, but that doesn't satisfy them. How should I know why I feel lifte throwing inkwells? Say!" McGinty suddenly looked sharply at Johnny."I remember why I threw them. It had to do with you. I'd gotten bored with spelling lessons and wanted to play. And Ewing told me you hadn't approved of giving me the brain treatment. I suppose he wanted to encourage me."

"So you srew ze inkwerrs?"

"So I threw the inkwells. But have you been poisoning Ewing's mind against me?"

"No, not at awr."

"No, huh? Did you say he oughtn't to give me the Methuen treatment?"

"No," Johnny lied stoutly.

But McGinty, a suspicious gleam in his yellow eyes, went on: "I bet you did. I just bet. It's like you. You're jealous because you aren't the only animal with brains any more."

"I never—" said Johnny.

But McGinty continued: "I remember when you jumped on me in the hall. I had to use that chain to protect myself. You bully! You bum!"

"What do you mean, protect—" "You stuck-up! You animated rug! You flea hotel!" McGinty's voice rose with each epithet until it reached a scream."I won't stand it! I won't! I won't! I'll fix you! I'll tear you to pieces!" Mc-

McGinty snatched the two inkwells off Ewing's desk. The first went wild. The second was well aimed, but Johnny's lightning reflexes came into play. He dodged and made for McGinty with a squall of rage.

McGinty leaped over Ewing's desk, yelling: "Don't you touch me! I'll tell Ewing! He'll fix you! He'll vivisect you!" He grabbed up two fistfuls of Ewing's papers and threw them futilely at Johnny. Johnny leaped through the storm of paper clear over the desk, fetching up with a crash against a filing cabinet. But McGinty ducked through the knee-hole under the desk and leaped to a chair and thence to the ceiling-light fixture, shrieking: "Help! He's killing me! Help, Dr. Ewing!"

Johnny disengaged himself from the wreck of the filing cabinet just as Ewing and his secretary entered the room. The light fixture came out by the roots just then, and down came McGinty in a shower of plaster.

"Oh, my Lord!" yelled Ewing, surveying his office.

McGinty ran over to him, hugged his waist, and buried his face in Ewing's midriff, crying: "Save me! Don't let him kill me!"

In answer to Ewing's questions, McGinty began pouring out a fanciful account of the preceding events. Johnny tried to break in once or twice. He gave that up, took out Ewing's typewriter, inserted a piece of paper, and with his claws typed:

REPORT ON THE PECULIAR BEHAVIOR OF McGINTY THE CHIMPANZEE

BY JOHNNY BLACK

After that, Ewing saw to it that Johnny and McGinty were not allowed to come within a mile of one another when out of their cages. Johnny, watching his bears' minds grow and burrowing into his own studies, wondered vaguely what McGinty would do next. But, he told himself, it wasn't his business. If McGinty did something horrible to his human mentors, or vice versa, it would probably serve both right.

The months rolled by, though Greater New York still was fascinated by the spectacle of a truck filled with eight bears, ranging from Kobuk, the sixteen-hundred-pound Kodiak, clown to Dato, the diminutive Malayan sun bear, making its four-times-weekly trip between the Central Park Zoo and the Bronx.

April came, and April is a special month in a bear's calendar. Theretofore the two female blacks, Susie and Nokomis, had been just a couple of bears to him—as he had been to them. Now things were different.

Ink objected violently."Rook here!" he squalled."I do not mind one of my girrs. But bot' is no fair."

Johnny, who outweighed Ink by one hundred and fifty pounds, was unimpressed."I can't he'p it if zey rike me better," he said loftily.

"Is zat so?" Ink bared his teeth and swung; not a playful cuff, such as they were always dealing out, but a slash that sent fur flying and drew blood.

Johnny pitched into Ink. Before much damage had been done, Kobuk came in from the adjoining cage. The keepers, at the bears' request, had left the intercage gates unlocked.

Ink scrambled free and scuttled into a corner, wailing: "No fair! No fair!"

"Don't make no difference," rumbled Kobuk."Johnny boss. He smart. What boss want he get, understand?"

Ink understood. Thus Johnny became the acknowledged leader of the bear faction. The other bears looked up to him, anyway, since he knew so much more than they, who could just about talk intelligibly. And if any of them became obstreperous, there was always Kobuk's support. Kobuk fairly idolized Johnny, and what he said went.

Then, one balmly evening in July, Johnny became aware of activity in the central court, which he could see through the arcade from the feline house to the restaurant. A couple of keepers were shepherding four chimpanzees. Presently a couple of sea lions slithered around from the gate in the fence around their pool. And then came a couple of slinking shapes: the two coyotes. Johnny could hear a murmur of talk, human and animal. Johnny called over one of the keepers.

The man explained: "Sure, the boss tells us to let 'em out in the evenings so they can get together for a couple of hours. We got a big wire fence around the whole grounds, so they can't get away."

"Why can't we get out, too?" asked Johnny.

"I dunno. We ain't got no orders to let you out."

At the next opportunity, Johnny took the zoo director, Pound, to task for discriminating against the bears.

Pound said: "Your friend, Ewing, warned us against letting you and McGinty get near each other."

Johnny protested: "So what? McGinty's ze one who's started trou-bre each time. So why should we be punished?"

"We-el," said Pound, "I'll speak to Malone about it."

But Malone was not much help. He kept saying: "I don't know. I can't make up my mind about it. If I could only be sure that there wouldn't be any quarrels—"

"Kobuk wirr keep ze bears in order, I guarantee."

Malone went off, muttering about the harshness of a fate that forced him to make decisions. Eventually he returned, announcing that McGinty had said he'd be glad to have the bears join the circle. The elephants were about due to be added, and Malone got them to promise to keep order.

Johnny was surprised but not convinced by McGinty's cordiality. He was sure that it would take very little to start the chimp off on another tantrum. So he and his bears were rather silent spectators at the evening meetings. The other animals told of their experiences, and asked each other innumerable questions about scenes in their pasts which at the time they had lacked the intelligence to understand.

McGinty suggested that they call themselves "the Emancipated."

"Hey, Johnny!" hissed McGinty.

Johnny's keen ear caught the inflections of secrecy and suppressed excitement."Huh?" he said suspiciously.

"How would you like to do some real exploring this evening?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, how about our taking a little trip around the park, all by ourselves?"

"You mean to sneak out?"

"Sure."

"What's ze idea? Ewing wirr take you for a drive anywhere you want, when he has time."

"Oh, to hell with Ewing! Aren't you sick of having men lead you around like an unemancipated puppy dog?"

"Werr," said Johnny. Come to think of it, he was a good deal more restricted in his movements than he had been at the St. Croix Biological Station. That these limitations hadn't galled particularly was due to the fact that you could immobilize Johnny almost indefinitely by giving him a big enough pile of books to read. But still— "No, I sink not. It wourd cause too much troubre if we were caught."

"Oh, come on!"There's a place over that way, I hear"—McGinty waved west—"where men meet all night long to denounce things. It'll be fun."

Johnny's curiosity was stirred. The relationships of human beings to their rulers fascinated him, but his information on the subject was entirely secondhand from books. This might be an opportunity to get next to the actual workings of these relationships. "How would you get out?"

McGinty snickered in the twilight."I stole a set of keys. I won't tell you how. But we'd be back before anybody missed us."

"Werr—" Johnny's prudence struggled valiantly with his curiosity, -but as usual his curiosity won."Aw right."

Then the keepers came to lock them into their cages.

When it was quite dark, and Johnny's fellow bears were all asleep, Johnny heard a grunt from in front of his cage, and then the click of the lock. He went out. McGinty, shivering with excitement, unlocked the gate in the big wire fence, and the two set out for Columbus Circle. They avoided the paths and the few people still at large in Central Park.

When they reached Columbus Circle, they could see the black masses of people attending the meetings, sure enough. But the meetings were south of the statue of Christobal Colon in the center of the Circle; Johnny and McGinty couldn't get close enough to hear what was going on without coming out in the open.

Johnny, peering nearsightedly over the low stone wall that bounds the Park, voiced his disappointment.

McGinty's excitement reached a fever pitch."Say, Johnny, let's go on over, anyway."

"What?"Exclaimed Johnny."You know zere wourd be a riot as soon as we appeared."

"To hell with that. What's life without an occasional riot? Scared to take a chance?"

"Yes," admitted Johnny."And you'd better be, too."

"Phooey. You've been obeying men so long you think anything they say is right. I'm going, anyway." And before Johnny could protest any more, McGinty was over the wall and on his way to the crowds.

Speeches were being made by representatives of five minor political parties. The Salvation Army was going full blast next to the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, and an elderly Englishman was delivering a highly inaccurate lecture on astronomy. The nearest speaker represented the Left Opposition of the Right Wing of the recently purged Left Deviationists of the Communist Party. He was a young man with a small blond beard. If the beard was an attempt to look like Karl Marx, the young man— who answered to the name of Pfusch —had a long way to go.

McGinty trotted up to Pfusch's crowd. Naturally his presence attracted attention, and in almost no time the Circle's one cop came over. He saw McGinty, blew his whistle, and fumbled for his pistol.

"What's the matter?" asked McGinty.

"Gluk," said the cop, staring at him pop-eyed.

"I said, what's the matter?"

"Oh," said the cop."You're one of these here talking animals, huh?

Thought I was hearing things foist. Whatcha doing here?"

"Just sightseeing," said McGinty.

"Oh, just sightseeing, huh? Well, you don't do no more 'just sightseeing. ' "

"I'm not hurting anybody," said McGinty."Please, can't I just listen?"

The cop thought. Getting the chimpanzee back to wherever he belonged would present a problem."Well, you stay where I can keep an eye on you, and no monkey business."

McGinty looked insulted."I am not a monkey. I'm an ape."

"It's all the same to me. Any monkey business, and I'll run you in."

Comrade Pfusch was at a hopeless disadvantage as long as McGinty was competing for the attention of his audience. They began crowding around McGinty, asking questions like: "Say, buddy, how does it feel to be an ape?"

McGinty called up to Pfusch: "Go on, I'm listening."

Pfusch tried: "These people, who call themselves Marxists, are intellectually bankrupt, as I explained. A real Marxist organization welcomes constructive criticism.... Say, officer, can'tcha take that ape away? He's busting up my meeting."

"Huh?" said the cop, feeling suddenly more friendly toward McGinty."Why should I? He ain't doing nothing."

"I demand that you take him away. I got a right to free speech, haven't I?"

"Go ahead and speech. I ain't stopping you."

"See, comrades? That shows you how much your so-called constitutional guarantees are worth. Well, as I was saying, where were these people in 1959? Recommending revolution at a time when a dialectical analysis showed that a revolutionary situation did not exist. Treachery to the working class, obviously. Then ih 1964, when these traitors, these lackeys of the bourgeoisie— Say, officer, you gotta take the monk away."

"What do you mean, monk?" snapped McGinty.

"I mean you," said Pfusch."Gwan, chase yaself, willya?"

McGinty advanced menacingly."I don't let anybody call me a monkey."

"Gwan, this is a meeting for workers, not monkeys."

McGinty mounted the stand, bared his fangs, and reached for Pfusch.

Pfusch tumbled off the stand and clutched the cop's sleeve."Help! He's threatening me!"

"He don't let nobody call him a monkey," said the cop impassively.

"But he's got my stand! He can't do that! I got a right—"

"Ga wan before I run you in."

The audience, preferring drama to dialectic, cheered McGinty. McGinty hesitated a bit, then launched into a little speechifying of his own: "Equal rights for chimpanzees!" he shrilled, standing on one hand and gesturing with the other three."Smash the tyranny of men over the animal world! If zoo keepers can dictate to chimpanzees, why not chimpanzees dictating to keepers? Say, that's an idea. Your own leaders are in-intel-intellectually bankrupt. Why not try us, the chimpanzees? Only a stranger can be impartial, as Bernard Shaw put it—" There was a lot more, much of it irrelevant or incoherent. But an audience of thousands was still approving when a department-of-parks truck full of keepers arrived to take McGinty into custody.

"There they are!" he screamed, pointing. - "The villains! The tyrants! Tear them limb from limb!"

The audience laughed and opened a lane for the keepers. McGinty, seeing that his appeal was not being taken seriously, made a half-hearted effort to escape. But the crowd could not have opened to let him get away, even had it wished. When keepers and cops appeared on all sides of him, with nets, ropes, hypodermics, buckets of chloroform, and guns, he submitted tamely enough. All the way back to the zoo he wept and shivered with despondent apprehension.

When the keepers, having stowed McGinty, made a checkup of all the cages, Johnny was sound asleep in his den. He had pulled foot for home the minute the truck appeared. When Pound questioned McGinty about his escape next day, McGinty claimed that Johnny had not only accompanied him, but had suggested the escapade in the first place. Johnny denied having left his cage at all. Since nobody had seen him, it was his word against McGinty's. Pound, knowing McGinty's unreliability, believed Johnny and ordered McGinty confined to his cage for a month. By the time the month was up, the autumn was too far advanced for the apes to be allowed out in the open anyway. The sea lions were away most of the time on a theatrical engagement; the elephants disliked the cold; so the meetings of the Emancipated petered out.

With a mind as omnivorous as his digestive system, Johnny was having the time of his life. The New York University authorities let him attend any classes he wished. And among his bears he felt, for the first time in his life, that he belonged. Kobuk appointed himself Johnny's bodyguard, and nobody argued with Kobuk. When a professor of history objected to Johnny's presence in his class because it distracted his human students, Kobuk stood up and coughed. He looked ten feet tall. Johnny continued to attend the class.

Came spring, and when the weather was warm enough the Emancipated recommenced their evening meetings. Johnny expected McGinty to start a row about their respective parts in the Columbus Circle incident. But the mercurial McGinty was this time in a silent and saturnine mood, sitting with his chin —or the place where his chin would have been if he had had one—on his fist. He said he had spent a good deal of the winter reading Sorel and Pareto. Johnny had heard of these direct-actionist philosophers, if he hadn't read them himself. He guessed that they had proved a heavy load for the chimpanzee's brilliant but immature mind.

The cats had all received the Methuen treatment by now. They loudly demanded the right to attend the meetings. Pound referred their demand to Malone, who went around saying, "Oh dear me." When Malone asked the Emancipated what they thought of the idea, there was a unanimous "No!" The elephants, for anatomical reasons, had never been able to learn to talk. But Rosebud pulled the oversized pencil out of the band around her foreleg and wrote on the pavement: "I don't like cats, especially big ones with stripes." She underlined "like" twice.

So the cats stayed in their cages, having to content themselves with occasional plaintive roars of "We want to join you!" during the sessions.

The sea lions were back. Being born extraverts, they enjoyed their work. But their demands for personal salaries, equal billing with the Rockettes, and one spotlight per sea lion had ended the experiment.

When the sea lions had finished barking their tale of woe, McGinty swung himself to the top of the iron fence around the sea-lion pool. He said: "All this proves what I've been saying. You'll never get your rights from man by talk."

"What zen?" rumbled Behring, the male polar bear.

"Force! How did we get here in the first place? Force! How do they keep us here? Force! What settles every question between organisms in the long run? Force! I've read—"

"What is an organism?" asked Kobuk.

"Never mind. What are we? Nothing but a lot of playthings for men! What rights have we? None! What can we do if they decide to starve us and eat us? Nothing!"

The outburst rather staggered McGinty's audience. The elephants shuffled uneasily.

Johnny said: "Some troof in zat. But ze men have awr ze force. Zey treat us pretty werr now. But you try using force; see what happens to you."

McGinty snapped: "Are you so afraid of dying you won't risk anything for liberty?"

"Zat's right," said Johnny.

"You'll have to die some day."

"I know. Don't want to die any sooner zan I have to, zough."

"Coward! I always knew you were on their side. I haven't forgotten your running out on me last fall. If we're going to get anywhere, it must be by united action."

Johnny's thick hide shed McGinty's epithets as easily as it did water. But he did think that obvious misapprehensions should be corrected."I just meant it's no use getting in troubre when we can't do anysing. I know somesing about—" "That's enough!" shouted McGinty."Coward! Traitor! Lackey of the hour— I mean the human race! None of us want to hear you, do we?"

And the other four chimpanzees, who had worked themselves into an almost equal state of excitement, cried: "No! Get out!"

Kobuk stood up and stretched."Sink you can srow us out? Ret's see you!"

McGinty yelled: "No rough stuff! If there's a fight it'll be the end of everybody's privileges!"

The elephants rolled forward a step or two. The bears stood up in a bunch, looking at Johnny for instructions.

Johnny said: "He's right; no rough stuff. Zat doesn't mean we're going to reave."

So the primate and bear factions settled into a state of inactive but watchful hostility. The remaining animals oscillated between the two groups.

Came Independence Day. Malone came around and told the Emancipated that Mayor Coffey was going to speak to them at 7:00 p. m., and would they please behave themselves particularly well on that occasion. He didn't say that he had tried to dissuade the mayor from what he, being a timid soul, considered a rash act. But in the mayor's mind the publicity that would accrue from a speech made under these circumstances outweighed all other considerations.

The mayor arrived, only half an hour late, in a swirl of motorcycle cops. He had already made nine speeches that day, but you would never have known it. Mayor Coffey was a huge bulbous man with little red blood vessels showing through the skin of his nose. He had a voice of thunder and, apparently, a larynx of tungsten steel.

McGinty had suddenly turned cordial. He insisted on shaking paws with all the bears, and to show his trust in them—he said—he asked to be allowed to sit among them.

Malone got Tip and introduced the mayor. There may have been worse speakers than Chauncey Malone, but if so history does not record their names. So Coffey's full-lunged bellow was something of a relief to everybody. He roared: "And so, my animal friends, in consideration of and in recognition of and as a reward for your exemplary behavior, your admirable deportment, your splendid conduct, I am pleased, happy, glad to announce on this historic occasion, this sacred date, this memorable anniversary, that we are going to furnish you with a splendid new structure, a beautiful new assembly building, a magnificent new social hall—"

Dato, the sun bear, whispered to Johnny: "Does he mean one buird-ing or sree?"

"Shh!" hissed Johnny.

"—for which the ground will be broken three weeks—twenty-one days—from today. 1 shall be glad, happy, overjoyed to meet you all here again on that auspicious occasion, that felicitous celebration, that jolly reunion, that—"

"What do zose big words mean?" whispered Dato.

McGinty had been sitting among the bears, quietly smoking a cigarette. Behring, next to him, had gone to sleep. Nobody had seen McGinty, with his left rear hand, slowly insinuate a large wooden match between two of Behring's toes. Nor did they see him lower his cigarette to touch the protruding match head.

But they all heard Behring's sudden bawl, and saw him leap straight up from his seat. Before he came down to earth again, McGinty had scuttled out from among the bears. The mayor stopped in the middle of a metaphor as McGinty dashed past him. After the chimpanzee came one thousand two hundred pounds of polar bear, knocking other animals out of his way and snarling like a thunderstorm.

Everybody screamed and ran. Having their backs turned, they did not see Johnny leap on Behring's back and hold on for dear life while the polar, mad with fury, reared and rolled and foamed. Then the keepers came with their nets. In the tussle Johnny received a couple of nasty gashes from Behring's claws and teeth. But eventually Behring was knocked out with chloroform and returned to his cage. Mayor Coffey went home to nurse his nerves, and to issue an order to Malone that no bears were to be let out of their cages under any circumstances.

Behring, when he came to, tried to explain what had happened to anybody who would listen. They listened, but they didn't let bears out any more. Ewing had to bring all their schoolbooks down from the Bronx so they could continue their studies. Some did; some were too lazy to do so without human supervision. Johnny was irked; he, had enjoyed a good deal of freedom, and being cooped up twenty-four hours a day didn't set well with a bear who held a Master's degree—honorary— from Columbia University.

One evening McGinty came over to taunt him. The chimpanzee said: "Hee-hee! The great Johnny Black locked up like an unemancipated brute! That's funny! If you'd had sense you'd have stuck with me, instead of opposing my plans. Now I've got you where you can't interfere."

"What's zat?" asked Johnny sharply. But McGinty merely hopped up and down and hurled insults. Johnny yawned ostentatiously and went back to his books. But he wondered what McGinty had in mind.

The next day he sent one of the keepers to fetch Pound. He told him a few things about McGinty, and said: "If I were you, I wourdn't ret him out for zis ground-breaking ceremony. He has somesing up his sreeve."

Pound said, "I'll ask Malone." Which he did. But Malone was afraid to bring the matter up with the mayor, who had developed a certain touchiness on the subject of bears.

July 25th was hot and sticky. Mayor Coffey suffered particularly. But the chance to make a speech was too tempting for him to forgo the ceremony.

Johnny found that the scene of the occasion was visible from the top of the rocks in his den. So he sat there, reading with elaborate unconcern, while people and fauna gathered on the spot.

The sun went out. Johnny looked over his shoulder; a fleet of huge dim thunderheads was drifting over the skyscraper apartments on Central Park South. Johnny prudently put his book in his den and returned to his post. The only animals present on this occasion were the five chimpanzees, the orangutan, the gibbon, the chacma baboon, the two coyotes, and the four sea lions. Though the elephants had been well-behaved enough, Coffey didn't trust anything of their size.

Johnny could hear Coffey's bull voice, though he couldn't make out the words at that distance. Then raindrops began to spatter on the rocks around him. They got on the lenses of his spectacles. He irritably put the spectacles away. That would happen just when he was sure something interesting was going to happen!

He couldn't see clearly at that distance without his glasses, especially through a curtain of rain. But he could make out moving blobs that were people leaving the ceremony and running for shelter. Coffey's voice rolled on. It would take more than a thundershower to stop Coffey in a speech.

Then the speech was cut off short. Johnny could see a maddeningly dim blur of motion in the crowd—or what little was left of it. A blob detached itself from the rest and moved swiftly toward the monkey house. There was a chorus of shouts, muffled by the rain. The moving blob passed out of sight. The lions and tigers, between Johnny and the monkey house, woke into a chorus of excited roars.

Johnny fretted with unsatisfied curiosity. He began pacing the length of his inclosure, like any un-emancipated bear. The other bears threw futile questions from cage to cage. Men ran about outside, calling to each other. But nobody said a word to the bears.

Hours passed, until the roars and squeals from the various houses reminded -the keepers that their charges' meals were long overdue. When the black bears were brought theirs, Johnny asked the keeper what was up.

"They kidnaped the mayor!" explained the keeper."Who did?"

"The apes! They jumped on him while he was makin' his speech, and dragged him into the monkey house. The cops couldn't shoot for fear of hittin' him. Now they're holdin' him for ransom. Every time we try to get near, they pinch him to make him yell. Say they'll kill him if we try to rescue him."

"What do zey want?"

"They say they want the department of sanitation's mansion turned over to them and, oh, a lot of things. They ain't gonna let him go, either."

"What are you going to do?"

"Good Heaven!" cried the keeper."How do I know? It serves 'em right," he went on, not explaining whom he meant by "them." "These educated animals are against nature."

That was all the information that Johnny had to work on that night. He thought and thought. He, personally, didn't care the least about Mayor Coffey. If the chimpanzees and their fellow conspirators wanted to take Coffey apart, joint by joint, that was their business. If the officials of the city of New York couldn't think of a method of thwarting the apes' felonious designs, that was their hard luck.

A yelp from the monkey house indicated that the swarms of policemen who infested the zoo had made another attempt to sneak up, and had been detected.

But, Johnny's thought rambled on, he was, through no fault of his own, one of the Emancipated. Whatever one of them did would reflect to some extent on all. If the apes murdered Coffey, the other members of that domineering and vindictive species, Man, might very easily wipe out all the recipients of the Methuen treatment to prevent future revolts. And that would include him, for all Ewing or Methuen could do.

He could see McGinty's point of view, much as he disliked the temperamental chimp personally. If the apes could get away with their daring scheme, he wouldn't be without some slight sympathy for them. But he knew that in the long run they would fail. Men were too numerous and clever and powerful. Besides, self-interest demanded that, if he had an opportunity of thwarting McGinty, he should take it. It would not only save his own hide, but that of the other emancipated bears, whom he liked. And, of course, he would get credit for one more brilliant coup. That wouldn't be hard to take.

But how to thwart McGinty? That was the point. It would be easy simply to storm the monkey house, but that would result in Coffey's death. Perhaps he could gain admittance on the pretext that he was going to join the apes. But it would still be doubtful whether he could release Coffey and get him out unharmed. He could kill a single ape without much trouble, but only one at a time.

Next morning, when a keeper came by, Johnny asked him: "Wirr you terephone to Professor Ewing at New York University, prease?" The keeper thought a good deal of Johnny, and did so.

When Ewing came down that afternoon, Johnny asked him to get several good books on apes.

"What are you up to now, Johnny?" asked Ewing.

"I want to see if somesing can't be don't about Mr. Coffey."

"Have you a plan for rescuing him?"

"No, but maybe I get one."

"But how would you get them to let you out of here?"

"Zat wirr be your job."

"Me? What could I do?"

"Get zem to ret me out when ze time comes."

And that was all Ewing could get out of him. Ewing himself was worried; a slaughter of the Emancipated would be a serious blow to his own researches. So he returned in the evening with a bucket of coffee and an armful of books. He made some feeble joke about needing coffee to rescue Coffey, and departed, leaving Johnny sprawled out on a rock with his own personal reading lamp shining over his shoulder.

Next day the siege continued. One of the apes called out: "He's getting weak. You better send in some food."

But when a cop appeared with a lunch box, the apes chattered excitedly and refused to let the cop approach. They yelled: "Have to send it in by one of the animals. We don't trust you."

So there was another long delay. The female coyote finally agreed to carry the lunch box in. She reappeared in a great hurry, explaining that, once she was inside, the apes accused her of having run out on them after agreeing to join the plot, and, working themselves into rages, had tried to grab her. When she escaped, the apes had nothing to do but take their anger out on poor Coffey, who was pinched and pommeled unmercifully. Those outside could hear his yells, sadly diminished in volume.

Johnny, meanwhile, was deep in Yerkes' "The Great Apes," the chapter on "Affective Behavior of Chimpanzee: Behavioral Patterns of Emotion." He had thought of various expedients: taking a time bomb into the monkey house—no, that would have the same effect on Coffey and—what was more important—on himself. The same objection applied to tear gas. The devil, there must be some agent that would discriminate between apes on one hand and bears and mayors on the other. Drugs? Anasthetics? Poisons? Hypnotism? Threats? Promises? Nope.

Johnny resumed his reading, while outside the grotesque deadlock continued.

Then he had it."Smitty!" he bawled."Get Professor Ewing! Get Mr. Marone! Get Mr. Pound!"

Pound called to the monkey house: "Hey, apes! The smaller animals are all afraid to take your food in. O. K. if we send Johnny Black?"

There was a pause, and then the answer came back: "O. K."

Johnny plodded across the flagstones with a suitcase in his jaws. The suitcase supposedly contained fruit for the apes and more solid food for their prisoner.

The door swung open, just wide enough for him to squeeze in. It was obvious to him that they intended to let him out in their own good time. But he was confident of his ability to handle them all in a rough-and-tumble fight, if it came to that.

The little monkeys skittered uncomprehendingly around their cages. At the far end Coffey's huge form was tied to a cage bar by a steel chain around his leg. McGinty had no doubt stolen the chain and concealed it sometime before. Johnny couldn't help a grudging admiration for McGinty. Right behind Coffey crouched the recently emancipated chacma baboon, with his forepaws around Coffey's neck. Evidently his duty was to rip Coffey's throat out with his great teeth if anything went awry. Two of the chimpanzees, the orang, and the gibbon were at the windows. The other three chimps, including McGinty, squatted on the floor.

"Well, Johnny," said McGinty, "don't you wish you'd joined us: now? This is real fun."

"Yes," said Johnny."Can't I join you now?"

"No. Too late. I don't trust a traitor like you."

"Is zat so?" Johnny put the suitcase down and sat. on it."Zen I guess you don't want any food."

"You've got to turn over that food, or we'll kill the mayor."

"Go ahead," said Johnny."I never riked ze big fat srob, anyhow."

"What if we tell the people you asked to join us?"

"Zey won't berieve you."

"But the mayor heard you say so."

"If he's dead, he won't terr zem."

At this point the mayor wailed: "For Heaven's sake, Johnny, leave that grub here and go. It gives me the creeps, the way you talk about the advantages and disadvantages and virtues and risks of killing me."

McGinty said: "Suppose we take the suitcase away from you."

"Try it," answered Johnny, looking thoughtfully at his claws.

The apes retired to the far corner and muttered. Then they came back. McGinty inquired: "Do you really want to join us? Honest Injun, cross your heart?"

"I said so, didn't I?"

"And you'll forget all those arguments we've had?"

"Sure."

"All right." McGinty extended a hand. Johnny shook casually. He picked up the suitcase in his teeth and padded over to near the mayor. If he was excited, which he was, he didn't show it. The next few seconds would tell.

He pushed the snaps on the suitcase with his claws. Then he picked it up in his forepaws and inverted it. The top fell open.

Out onto the concrete floor poured two dozen live garter snakes.

Eight emancipated primates were watching. From eight primate throats there rose a simultaneous shriek of such bloodcurdling horror that even the cops outside jumped. And, like a flash, eight emancipated primates rose straight up, as if on invisible wings, to the very top of the cages, where the bars entered the ceiling. There the apes clustered in groups of two and three, hugging each other, trying to bury their heads in the center of the cluster, and screaming at the top of their lungs.

The garter snakes rustled on the floor. They tried to crawl, but could make almost no headway on the smooth surface. They went through all the motions, but stayed in the same place.

Johnny looked at the mayor. It was unfortunate that Coffey should suffer from snake phobia almost as violently as apes do. Had he not been chained, he might very well have hoisted his two hundred and fifty pounds to the tops of the bars as his captors had done. Being unable to do so, he had fainted.

Johnny looked at the chain. It had probably served to lead a terrier or Peke at sometime. But a chain that will restrain a dog may not be strong enough for a bear. Johnny hooked his claws into the links and heaved. Snap went the chain.

Presently Johnny appeared at the door of the monkey house with Coffey draped over his shoulder. To Pound he said: "He wirr be aw right. He doesn't rike snakes. Have ze keepers gazzer up zose snakes, prease. Ewing promised zem to me for supper."

"But," cried Pound and Malone together, "what about the apes?"

"Oh, zey are zere. You wirr have to scrape zem off ze ceiring."

"You've done it again, Johnny!" exclaimed Ira Methuen."If you keep on like this, I shan't have to do any more work. I can live on your publicity."

Johnny asked: "What wirr be done wiss ze Emancipated?"

"They won't be killed. But they'll be scattered. The zoo has arranged with other zoos to trade them for other animals, so there won't be more than one in any one place. Too dangerous to let them be together, they say. But, of course, you can have just about anything you want."

Johnny thought. Then he said: "What I want most is to go back wiss you. I want to be wiss somebody who reary understands bears."

Methuen gulped a little."Well, uh, to tell the truth, Johnny, I was beginning to miss you pretty badly myself. How'd you like to drive up to New Haven with me tonight?"

"Fine. But before I go, wirr you prease take me around behind ze monkey house?"

"Why?"

"Ah, zere is a sound I have been practicing. It is a very difficurt sound for a bear. But I sink I have it down pat."

"All right."

So Methuen led Johnny, on an ornamental but entirely useless chain, around to the back of the monkey house.

Johnny stood up on his hind legs and called: "McGinty!"

McGinty's face appeared at the window, scowling through the bars."What do you want, you traitor, you liar, you fiend, you villainous flea-bitten scoundrel?"

For answer, Johnny protruded his lips, protruded his tongue between them, and blew. The unseemly sound that issued would be described by a phonetician as a voiceless labio-lingual roll.

Then Johnny followed his god, Methuen, to the latter's car. He was content.

Content

The Emancipated
L. Sprague de Camp