The Urban Safari – 6.
Ridcully and his party made their careful way forwards and deeper into the Park, on the opposite Rimwards bank of the lake from the one taken by Emmanuelle. It wasn't as thickly forested on this side: there were just a couple of isolated coppices of trees that did not significantly impede vision.
Behind them, a clear-up squad was just leaving the park, a troll and a golem carrying a cage in which were three soundly sleeping lions.
Ridcully and the Zulu girl took stock of where they were. Some distance away in the lake, they could see two large indeterminate brownish-grey somethings, followed by two smaller ones, wallowing slowly in the waters. They looked perfectly and blissfully at home.
"Hippopotamuses?" Ridcully ventured.
"A femily group." the girl confirmed. "Best we leave them for now. They'll do no demmege end they're heppy there. They will not leave, and they cen get ennoyed with people who try to make them."
Right on the other shore of the lake, they could pick out Emmanuelle's expanded group, cages abandoned for the moment, adopting an all-round defensive position. After a while, they picked out the man-like simians in the trees, watching from the woods' edge.
"Hopefully, Miss Smith-Rhodes will hev noticed thet. Perheps we should back-track and move thet wey to offer support?"
Ridcully, still hankering for a couple of trophy heads, sighed regretfully.
"Wouldn't do, m'dear. The woods are solid on that side. You can't go any further by walkin' around them, you have to go through them. You don't follow a dangerous animal into its own sort of country, that's askin' for trouble, followin' a bunch of killer monkeys into a forest where they can get into the trees over your head. We'll all just pile up in a heap, in front of a forest we can't enter, and nothing gets done."
They heard the lowing of a large bovine in the distance.
"But that interests me. Shall we go and run an eye over the beef?"
Ridcully's mixed group walked on, with care. Then Miss N'golate signalled for a stop. Ridcully breathed out covetuously.
"I say! Take a look at the horns on one of those fellows!"
"Bewildebeeste, Mr Ridcully."
Six or seven adult animals. One definitely a bull, most of the rest cows, with some young protectively herded into the middle if their elders. They were all facing outward with "Are you feeling lucky, punk?" gleams in their beady bovine eyes, following the movements of a pack of lions who were as yet only circling, stalking the massive cows.
"Lions will only go for en edult bewildebeest if they are desperate." the girl whispered. "They will try to take a celf, or en old sick enimel, but they know en edult cen kill a grown lion. Either with the horns or by trempling under the hooves."
"I'd say while their attention is elsewhere, you people could bag a couple more lions with those clever drugged darts of yours" suggested Ridcully. She nodded.
"I wes thinking thet too."
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Meanwhile, Vimes was gloomily contemplating the bottleneck of returned cages that was building up.
"Where the Hell are we going to send them, Carrot?" he demanded. "They won't stay asleep for ever and the squads going back in to pick up more are soon going to run out of empty cages. Wish that bloody woman would stop joy-riding and come back down to earth again!"
"I've got an idea, sir." Carrot said, diffidently. "You know I spend my days off walking around the city and getting to know things, where all the Guild museums and curiosities are? Well, you know there's a menagerie at the Patrician's Palace? He was kind enough to let me tour it one day. The thing is, sir, Lord Vetinari told me he considers it a relic of the past that he wants to let run its course naturally.. He's maintaining it and looking after the animals that are still there – he uses Miss Smith-Rhodes as an advisor, incidentally – but he isn't replacing them as they get old and die off. When I visited with Angua, more than half the cages were empty. And I have to say, the animals were pretty subdued. Most of them dived out of sight when she passed. I can't think why."
"No, nor can I." Vimes murmured, crossing his fingers behind his back. "But you've hit on something there, Carrot. Let's get a couple of these carts loaded up and start 'em off. Get a clacks to the Palace advising them, and asking if we can use the spare cages. I can't see either Vetinari or The Wild Woman of the Jungle complaining about that."
Carrot went off to supervise the loading and jolly the carters into action. Vimes sighed, and listened to a sudden explosion of ape voices in the near distance, as if there were a loud argument going on. In among a cacophony of half-familiar whoop-a-whoop-awhoop-aWhoop! noises, he thought he could hear quieter, more patient, but stern, Oook!'s.
He shook his head. Sybil had been musing about following in her grandfather's footsteps, and having a long holiday in Howondaland, if only to view the family history Sir Joshua had left behind, and the battlefields he'd fought at. Sam, who couldn't face a five-week sea voyage and at least five weeks in a hot uncomfortable foreign country whose politics he wasn't at home with , had so far been able to talk her out of it. Right now, he thought, I'm getting all the Howondaland I need to see, without even leaving town. Lions, rhinos, Zulu war-song in the distance – and that had been eerie – chattering monkeys in the trees, and the Great White Huntress, laying down the law in that peculiar accent of hers. What do those people have against the letter "a", anyway? It's always seemed a useful and inoffensive vowel to me.
He took sentinel alongside Constable Bluejohn and looked down the path into the park. In the distance, he saw the Librarian knuckling his patient way over to the lakeside, the stony mass of Detritus keeping station a short distance behind him. The Librarian appeared to be carrying a lot less bananas than he'd gone in with. Vimes remembered the crescendo of ape-voices, and speculated on where the bananas had gone, and to what purpose. He turned in a different direction. Through the patches of trees obscuring his line of vision, he caught glimpses of Ridcully's party facing down some large cow-like animals. Buffalo of some sort? And wasn't that Hancock? He'd been sent in with a follow-up squad and told, like the other Watchmen, to load and carry cages as directed by the Assassins, to get them back to a gate and then go in again, and to take no un-necessary risks. And what was the idiot doing? Oh, no…. he watched, and winced. Then turned.
"Igor, Miss Igor. Stand by. Your first casualty is on the way."
"Oh, good. An Assassin or a Watchman?"
"A Watchman, unfortunately."
Igorina looked glum. Igor smiled at her.
"I'd love you to help, though."
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The first few baboons went down in a flurry of tranquiliser darts. Most of the attacking simians hung back, seeing their fellows dropping, but several, braver than the rest, larger, almost man-sized, pressed their assault. Next to her, Emmanuelle heard, and viscerally felt, a low long threatening growl emanating from Angua's throat: it scared the apes off from attacking where she was. Mes dieux, that werewolf growl is frightening me!
Emmanuelle tapped Angua on the shoulder. "They are scared of you, cherie. Go round the circle. Spread the fear around!"
Angua nodded, and walked round behind the Watchmen and Assassins, aiming the growl at the attacking animals, who fell back from wherever she was.
And then the baboon, almost as tall as she was and with foetid stinking breath from a mouth full of fangs, leapt for her face. Emmanuelle had no false modesty: she knew she was beautiful. She had spent a life shamelessly playing her beauty for advantage, and at one point had nearly joined the Seamstresses' Guild. Her greatest fear was damage to her face, a wound or accident that would forever mar her looks. In fact, this was how Chrysophrase had snared her and assured himself of her services: he had demonstrated the potency of the strong acid used by engravers, by making her watch the torture of a troll who had failed to display the appropriate degree of respect. She had seen what acid could do to troll-hide, and her imagination had completed the argument for her.
And here, it was a screaming animal, with huge fanged jaws and breath smelling worse than Foul Ole Ron, leaping for her face…
Without conscious thought, her sword leapt up in a glittering arc of polished gunmetal-black, moving straight from its scabbard into the simian's body, piercing it front to back in a fraction of a second. The shorter poignard in her left hand completed the argument, and the scream died in the animal's throat as its head flew from its body. The watchmen standing to her right were deluged in a stream of blood that barely sprinkled Emmanuelle, as she freed her sword and dirk for the next onslaught.
As she descended from the quiet place of the trained swordfighter and conscious thought resumed, she heard screaming from further down the line. The baboon onslaught retreated as the surviving and living animals retreated outside weapon range and faded back into the cover of the wood.
Emmanuelle raced to the side of the fallen figure in black, and suppressed a gasp. Heidi van Kruger and the watchwoman Jolson were kneeling at the side of Catherine Perry- Bowen, who was moaning incoherently and bubbling blood. Another dead baboon laid nearby, riddled with crossbow bolts.
Jolson looked at her and shook her head, silently. Emmanuelle forced herself to look into the ruin of the girl's face, and her own worst fear surfaced again.
"She's bleeding freely, medem. Not good, but et least it is flushing the wounds clean of eny filth the claws end teeth put in there."
Heidi held up a tranquiliser dart, and her eyes made an unspoken question. Emmanuelle realised. Anaesthesia.
"Oui. " she said. "Plus certainement oui!."
Heidi nodded, and inserted the point of the dart into a vein on the girl's arm. Assisted by field medicine, the girl's breathing became slower and more regular and her struggling ceased.
"We can apply field dressings and do what we can here." Jolson said. "But she needs an Igor immediately."
"She will be blind for life. Not even en Igor cen repair eyes destroyed so completely. She will elso be disfigured." Heidi said, sadly.
"Oh, I don't know, though." Angua and Jolson mused together.
"Let's get her out of here!"
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The Librarian had set out, full of purpose and energy, following the sound and the unmistakeable family smell of fellow apes. The two full hands of banana swung gently at his back as he knuckled along in the direction of the noise. He moved swiftly and cautiously, as he could also smell lions. He had no fear of them: he had the strength of an orang-utan combined with what he'd, uniquely, been able to select as worth keeping from having once been human. He'd fought and knocked out lions while visiting Roundworld(1): his attitude here was "bring 'em on!"
But he could now see his immediate goal. The park bandstand had been colonised by a tribe of black apes, mostly less than half his height, who like him had what by human standards were comically exaggeratedly long arms and bandy legs. They were variably fighting, singing, foraging for food, freeing each other of fleas and bugs, and in one or two cases doing something else beginning with "f".
But as the Librarian approached, all activity ceased and he became the focus of attention. From behind him, he heard running feet, a suddenly curtailed growl, and a dull thump. Detritus being discreet, he thought, and shook his head. He risked a glimpse backward, and saw the troll holding an unconscious lion up by the tail, wondering what to do with it.
"Ook ook?" he requested. Detritus nodded, and stepped to the rear.
The Librarian took a hand of bananas, and laid it in the ground.
"OOOOK!" he opened, loudly. (May I have your attention, please? Thank you.")
A villainous looking chimpanzee, the largest and fiercest of the bunch, knuckled forward and bared its teeth at him. The Librarian did not flinch.
"Whoop-a-whoop-a-whoop- a WHOOP!" it exclaimed. The Librarian focused, and made the necessary adjustments of language and comprehension. The alpha male was challenging him, he knew, and had just said Big Ugly with the red hair! Leave now or we kill you!
"Ook ook ooka-OOK!" the Librarian replied. (Calm down and listen! What I have to say is important! Have a civilised friendly banana. You must be hungry!")
"Whoop whoop whoo-OOOH whoop!" (Why take only one, when I can drive you away and take them all?"
The Librarian sighed as the alpha chimp rushed at him. He placed one proprietorial foot on the bunch and steeled himself.
The alpha chimp's eyes crossed with surprise as he belatedly realised an orang-utan can throw a punch like a steel rail. He was stopped in his tracks, stood frozen for a second, then fell over unconscious.
Right, now I have your whole and undivided attention. We must talk.
The Librarian's attention was diverted by one of the smallest chimps, which cautiously scuttled forward and sat just out of reach with a look of infant pleading in its eyes. There are very few things more appealing than a baby chimp. And care for the very young is hardwired in all great apes and crosses species.
Please, mister?Please?"
The librarian separated out a banana and, with great care and slowness, unpeeled it. He leant slowly forward and offered it to the infant chimp, who took it with care and then took a bite.
The chimpanzees relaxed collectively, as if a barrier had been crossed. An older female came forwards, gave the child a motherly clip round the ear, and asked it What do you say to the nice…ape…, then?
T'nks, mist'r! the child shyly said, through a mouthful of banana. Following its lead, other juvenile chimps shuffled forward to receive a banana each. This act of banana diplomacy was working. After the children, the mothers, and then the more suspicious adult males, came forward for bananas, which the Librarian dispensed with kind firmness.
First they caught us. In pits and nets. Then they stuffed us into cages and we were in the dark in that bloody boat for ages, pitching and rocking. First decent banana we've had for months!" said a talkative medium-ranking male.
The Librarian nodded, sympathetically.
"This is the biggest human colony in the world" he said. "I've lived here for all my life and I'm known and respected by them. Take it from me, they're stupid, with a few exceptions, but they're not, on the whole, cruel or evil. Now you're here, they'll have to find you somewhere to live. But they won't let you go free. I have contacts among the alpha humans and pack leaders. I'll try to get the best deal I can for you."
"Don't suppose you could manage a cup of tea, could you? I'm parched, me. I could kill for a decent cuppa!"(2)
"Oh, pay no attention to him, Mr Orang-Utan. He was in acting before they released him back into the wild. He picked up a few human tastes!" This was from the mother of the first baby chimp who had approached the Librarian for a banana. Well fed, the baby was now holding on to the Librarian's chest with all four limbs, and had fallen peaceably asleep sucking its big toe.
The Librarian gently cuddled the baby who was seeing him as foster-father, and said In my experience, the brighter humans are the ones with red hair. He looked down at himself and said
It sort of follows on, really. There's an alpha male, stands this tall, wears armour, called {pointy-vegetable-that-grows-in-ground}. He's bright, for a human, and quite decent. And there's a woman, she's from Howondaland, come to think of it, she's got red hair and I can actually have a conversation with her. Dresses like this, and carries a whip…"
"Her? She's here?"
The chimps whooped in apprehension. Some of the more fearful ones hugged each other.
"Miss Smith-Rhodes?"
"We'd better give ourselves up peaceably!"
One chimp held out a foot in indignation.
"She actually put a tag on me! An actual bleedin' tag, right? Like I was some sort of bloody criminal! All we was doin' was turning over a fruit plantation near Piemburg! You gotta eat, right? Then she comes along with her tags and her tranquiliser darts and before we know it, right, we'd all woken up with a bleedin' headache at the other end of Natal!"
"She won't use the darts if you give yourselves up peaceably. I'll have a word with her, I'll say you've met her before back home and you know her reputation. She's firm, but she loves animals and she will be very fair with you. She will make sure you get a good place to call your own. But now I can see you've got a lot to discuss, so I'll leave you the rest of these bananas."
The Librarian stood up and gently passed the sleeping infant back to its mother. He picked up the second, untouched, hand of bananas again.
"When he wakes up, tell him I'm happy for him to carry on being your pack leader. Perhaps save him a banana or two? When you're ready to talk, send a delegation to the humans at the park gates over there. There are more bananas there."
"Will we see you again?" asked the mother chimp.
"I hope so! But now, I've got other apes to see."
"Oh, the big slow clumsy ones. They're over there, by the water."
The Librarian waved a goodbye to his new friends, and knuckled off.
"He's nice, isn't he?" the mother chimp said to her child.
"Y's. Gimme 'nana, mummy!"
"Educated."said another mother chimp. "Not like {Brute-Force-And-Ignorance} over there!" She indicated the knocked-out alpha male with disdain.
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From several hundred feet up, Johanna watched the scene unfold on the ground with great interest.
"It looks as though he's talking to them, Johanna. And they're listening. The bananas help, of course." Ponder said.
"I've met him before" Johanna said. "He wes very helpful when we needed edvice on growing benenas and plantains in the hothouses at the AMU. So if he is persuading the chimpanzees to give themselves up quietly end without fuss, we must see the Watchmen et the gete know this! But first, Ponder, take me to madame Deux-Épées, please? So I cen be sure her essignment is going eccording to plen."
Ponder turned the broomstick in a low descending bank. Then they saw, and he put maximum speed on, coming in to land with Johanna clinging on tightly. Again, the rarely used parts of his hindbrain were singing glory halleluiah in exultation at the sudden unexpected stimulus of an attractive woman who was content to press herself that close to him. He shivered slightly as she gave him a spontaneous friendly hug before leaping off the broomstick to confer with Emmanuelle and Angua.
Johanna looked down at the two dead baboons, and said "It cannot be helped. You did whet you hed to," before turning her attention to the injured student.
"Ponder," she said, "There ere Igors et the commend post. Could you transport this poor girl by air and get her there the sooner?"
"Tie her to me, in front. Is it just her face that's injured? I think I can steer the broom and hold her upright… there. I can get her to the Igors inside a minute. "
Johanna stepped forward, and impulsively kissed him on the cheek. He coloured red. She carefully hugged him where she could.
"Safe journey, Ponder. End swift!"
Emmanuelle smiled slightly to herself and stored a mental note for use later. This could be a source of harmless amusement later, perhaps. And also some little nudges to ensure she sees more of the young wizard. I'm glad for Johanna that I saw that little interaction there. Mes Dieux, she's taken her own sweet time about some things!
Ponder waved, and took off with all the speed consistent with a comfortable journey for a wounded passenger. He set off, low and straight over the lake and trees.
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More to come! Just a bit tired right now, but be patient...
(1) See the Science of Discworld series, where the Librarian wins over proto-humans looking not unlike himself by preparing barbecued lion steaks, on the Mrs Beeton "first catch your lion and then invent fire to cook it on" principle.
(2) For non-British readers: the phenomena of the Chimpanzees' Tea Party, in which chimps dressed as humans would pour cups of tea for each other and ape human manners. was a common sight in British zoos until more enlightened animal management practices banned it as being demeaning to the chimps. The PG Tips tea company picked up on this British zoological quirk, and for thirty years used tea-drinking chimps in its TV advertising to shift the product.