Burke tried to calculate the number of days they had spent on the farm, but they all bled into each other, and he finally settled at "about a week." Then, to give his brain something else to focus on than the heat and the moving ground under his feet, he tried to count backwards to when they had crashed on this world, but tangled up even more. Four months? Six? Eight? He couldn't come to a consistent result. It was this running around in circles all day; each rotation screwed his head off a little more. The spinning was already invading his dreams.

The musky smell of the ox reached his brain before he registered the sound of its hooves and the mass of its body. When he finally lifted his head, his bleary eyes needed a moment to notice Remo at its side. The boy reached out and stopped the bar from moving on, and Burke stumbled from the sudden break of his momentum. He blinked at the boy.

"What's the matter, boss?"

"We'll help father and your friend with the second wall," Remo told him. He gestured at the ox. "Father decided that he wants it finished before you leave."

"What, you mean we can check out from Hotel California after all?" Burke mumbled and grabbed the water jug from Remo's hands. The irony of dying of thirst while operating a water pump wasn't lost on him, but the brown liquid that slushed into Polar's field would give him a giant quickstep if he'd take a sip.

He put the jug down with a sigh and hugged the ox that Remo had harnessed to the bar in the meantime. "Thanks for taking over my shift, man!" Remo shook his head at his antics like an old man.

Burke's step faltered when they passed the half-finished "windy mill." It was just a model, not big enough to ever drive the water pump, but Burke hadn't thought they'd stay long enough to build the real thing; this had been meant to demonstrate the principle of the matter.

"Damn shame," he murmured, his gaze wandering over the structure. It was almost done, even - they just needed to assemble the sails and mount the rotor to the body. It wouldn't take long...

"Come on, human! If Anto catches you lazing around, you'll get a caning!"

Burke looked up to where Remo was hovering under the trees. "Aren't you curious how it'll work when it's finished?" He gestured to the parts lying in the grass. "It's almost finished anyway. C'mon - it'll just take a few moments! Nobody will notice a thing."

Remo reluctantly came over to him. "Anto says it's cheating," he murmured. Burke bent down and picked up a rod.

"It's too small to harness it to the water wheel, so it can't cheat Anto out of his virtuousness," he said. "Look, this'll be the shaft of the blade, and we'll connect it, here, to the brake wheel, like this..."

He was right - it didn't take long to assemble the sails and mount them to the body. Remo was quick on the uptake, and immediately understood how the cogs fit into each other and worked together. Finally they stepped back, admiring their work.

"So..." Remo said. "What does it do?"

Burke scratched his scalp. "Yeah... it needs some wind to do anything. Ya know? That's why it's called a windmill."

Remo's shoulders slumped. "It's just standing there," he muttered. "Anto was right - it's a waste of time." He turned to leave. Burke grabbed him by the shoulders.

"No, it's not," he insisted. "Look, I can't make wind for you any more than I can make rain, but I can turn the windmill as if the wind was blowin', and you'll see how it'll be like, with all the parts moving, okay?" He stepped back. "Don't go anywhere! Lemme show you!" He turned, grabbed one of the vanes, and gave it a push. The rotor moved slowly, the cogs beginning to move inside the body.

Burke turned back to Remo and grinned when he saw the boy's eyes widen.

A streak of white-hot pain slashed across his back and threw him forward to his knees. For a moment, the pain clamped around his chest, making it impossible to breathe.

Then his reflexes kicked in, and he rolled away over his side, and the next blow hit the ground instead, kicking up a small cloud of dust. Burke bolted to his feet and jumped back, and the rod hissed past his face. Anto advanced on him, the white of his eyes visible. Burke had no idea where he'd come from so suddenly.

"Stay still and take your beating like you ought to," Anto snapped. Burke snorted and ducked behind the ox.

"The hell I'll do! You have no right to lay a hand on me, Anto - I'm not your property!"

"You're ours as long as your owner puts his feet under my father's roof, and you're supposed to work and not play in the mud and keep my brother from working, too!" Anto growled and sprinted behind the ox. Burke jumped to the other side of the beast, keeping its body between them. The ox jerked up his head and bellowed nervously.

"We were already on our way - and the new fence your father liked so much? I showed your brother how to build it. And that," Burke pointed to the windmill, "is also a useful thing, you're just too damn stubborn to admit it."

"You're just collecting more strikes with this backtalk of yours," Anto growled; then he let his rod sink as if a sudden thought had hit him, and stepped back.

"I don't need to chase after you," he sneered. "You'll get your beating tonight, instead of dinner." His smile widened when he saw Burke's wild mood deflate.

He was right, Burke realized - there was no escaping his punishment, unless he could plead with Polar. Well, better get to that wall, then. But Anto was standing in the middle of the path, the smile still on his lips, rolling the rod between his fingers.

Burke itched to get in a swift kick to his head. He had never fought against a gorilla, but he figured it was just like fighting against any other bully in Jersey City - you had to be faster than them and get your strikes in before they could lay a hand on you.

Thing was, he might not survive that fight. By the look in Anto's eyes, the ape was just as eager to work off his frustration on him.

Burke stepped back and held his hands up in defeat. "Alright," he said. "Tonight, you tell your father and he'll determine my punishment. I'll take a beating from him, but not from you." His back was already burning as if on fire from that one strike. Damn that monkey! He licked his lips. "And if you don't give way now, I'll tell him it was you who kept me from getting to work, an' we'll see who of us gets more strikes with that rod."

Anto scoffed and lazily bent the rod between his hands.

And then the cow cried out as if she was being slaughtered.

Anto's eyes widened, and Burke took another hasty step backwards. "I've been at this wheel all morning..."

But Anto had let the rod drop to the ground and was already sprinting down the hill, towards the barn. Burke let out a long breath.

"Y'know," he said to Remo who had watched the whole drama with wide eyes, "if I never see or hear a thing from that cow again, I'll be a happy man."

Loran slowed his horse to a walk - no need to wear it down by chasing it up and down the prefecture. He didn't mind the fresh air and the fact that he had no idiots bumbling behind him who couldn't keep their mouth shut if their life depended on it, for a change. As far as he was concerned, that manhunt could last all spring; it was almost like a holiday.

He brought his mount to a complete stop on the crest of a hill to take a swig from his flask. "Grass for you, water for me," he told the mare that was already grazing at the side of the road. "Well, better than water, actually." He took another draw.

Smacking his lips, he surveyed the valley below. It was one of the more remote ones, the fields trying to fling themselves into the creek at the bottom. Loran shook his head. How anyone could plough the sides of these steep slopes was beyond him. Their chickens probably all had one short and one long leg. He chortled at his own joke and squinted at the buildings clutching at the side of the hill. The dim sound of a bell drifted up to him.

Whose farm was this again? Polar's, right? Those Gorillas all looked the same to him, perhaps with the exception of Yuba, who claimed to be a hunter, but who he suspected to use that story to have a reason for vanishing into the woods all the time. Loran would bet his horse that the Gorilla was raising dream beans or some other weed deep in the forest; everyone knew that Gorillas were vegetarians by nature. No way was that ape killing little bunnies.

A tiny figure was washing up at the well behind the main house, partly hidden from view by the branches of the big walnut tree. Ah, yes - Loran glanced to the horizon - the folks would be coming home from the fields now. Time for dinner. He could use something to eat now, too.

"Time to call it a day, honey," he said and took up the reins. The horse shook its head and strained against the pull, trying to reach another bundle of grass. Loran sighed and let her graze for another moment. It wasn't as if anybody was waiting for them back home. He leaned on the pommel and stared absentmindedly down at the farmhouse once more.

It took a long moment for his brain to get his attention, but then it was like one of those trick pictures they sold at the market, the ones where there's a face or some other thing hidden in the landscape; once you saw it, you asked yourself how you didn't notice before.

Whoever was washing up there wasn't black. In fact, they didn't have any fur save for a patch on their head, as far as he could see. Loran scratched his brow and took another swig from his flask. He knew of only one animal that was almost completely naked.

Human.

Loran grinned and took up the reins. This time, he didn't allow for any discussion from the horse. "We have work to do, honey," he admonished the mare. "I want to see Yuba's face when we bring them the news. Best tracker of the district, my arse!"

He spurred the horse into a gallop.

Polar was still ruminating about Virdon's introduction to crop rotation when they were climbing down hill that evening. The farmers knew to let their fields lie fallow between crops to let them regenerate; but of course they knew nothing about nitrogen fixing plants... or nitrogen in the first place. Virdon still wondered why they hadn't found out about that technique by trial and error - but from what he had learned about gorillas so far, they weren't prone to experiment. He supposed that living in a fragile environment had taught them to stick to what had already proven to work without detrimental side effects.

Behind them, two murals glowed weakly in the indigo air. Virdon's project was finished; Burke and Remo had dragged sacks of gravel and sand uphill from the shores of the creek all day, for drainage behind those walls. His friend had been unusually silent the whole afternoon, although once or twice, it had looked as if he'd been about to say something to Polar, but he had backed off each time. Virdon had wondered if something had happened before Burke and Remo had joined them, but hadn't gotten an opportunity to ask. Maybe it was just because farm work really wasn't Pete's way of life.

They all stopped for a moment when they heard the deep sound of a bell drifting up to them. Polar grumbled something under his breath and shook his head before walking on. Virdon looked over his shoulder at Burke and shrugged. "What's going on?" he asked the farmer. "What does that sound mean?"

Polar didn't slow his step. "It means that the cow is giving birth; the bell is asking for the calf to be a bull." He glanced to Virdon. "You were right - it's much earlier than we'd thought. At least three weeks early." He shook his head again. "Anto's convinced that you upset the cow and made her ill; let's hope it is a bull calf in the end." He made his way to the main house with heavy steps. Burke closed the distance to Virdon, who stood in the middle of the yard, undecided.

"That sounded a bit ominous," he muttered. "What will happen if it isn't a bull?"

Virdon sighed and rubbed his neck. "If anything goes wrong, it'll be our fault. I guess that means it's Anto's decision what'll happen to us. If it was Polar's say, I bet he'd demand that Galen pass ownership of us to him. But Anto..." He shrugged.

"I'd say we leg it in either case," Burke declared. "I don't fancy spending the rest of my life chained to that wheel any more than being beaten to death by a crazy gorilla."

Virdon shook his head. "Let's make sure it won't come to either of those." He started for the barn.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Al!" Burke called after him. "Let the man toll his bell in peace!"

Virdon didn't break his stride, just lifted a hand to signal that he'd heard him. A last glance over his shoulder showed Burke turning to the well to wash up.

Well, he wouldn't be able to help him with the cow, anyway. Virdon silently opened the barn door and peeked inside.

Anto was kneeling in the straw, swaying back and forth with each tolling of the bell in his hand. The ape seemed to be lost in a stupor, whether from the monotonous movement and sound, or his conviction that he was tolling the death knell for the calf and its mother, Virdon couldn't say. He hoped it would give him an opportunity to examine the cow. Eyes fixed on Anto, he eased into the box.

When he returned a few minutes later, Burke had followed him into the barn, probably fearing for his life. "Trouble, doc?"

Virdon nodded. "She's trying to give birth, but the calf hasn't turned."

"You mean it's stuck?"

Virdon suppressed a grin; Burke truly didn't know the first thing about cows and their troubles. Then he sobered. "No, it means it can't even reach the exit."

"Damn." Burke raked a hand through his hair. "That means they'll both die, right? Let's get the hell outta here, before Anto wakes from his self-hypnosis and decides to skewer us for that."

"And what about Galen?"

"I'll carry him all the way from here to the North Pole on my back, okay? I'm not going to die for a damn cow, and not for an ape, either, even if I know his name!"

They both knew that Burke's proposal was unrealistic. "If I could turn the calf..." Virdon mused. "I've seen the vet do it so many times, and I helped birth a calf more than once..."

Burke was flabbergasted. "Turn the calf? Inside the cow? You mean you wanna stick your hand into her..." he gestured, "you know?"

Virdon grinned. "There's plenty of space in there, Pete," he said. "Yes, you can turn a calf inside the cow. But I need to convince Anto to let me near her first... I don't want him to notice when I'm already up to my armpit in his cow."

"Well, good luck with that. I guess I'll tell Galen to pack our bags in the meantime." Burke gestured to the swaying gorilla who accompanied each toll of his bell with a moaned "dying... dying... she's dying..."

"You really think you can reason with him? After he kicked and yelled at us even in his better moods?"

Virdon shrugged. "I have to at least try." He went over and knelt in the straw beside the ape.

"Look, Anto... listen to me."

Anto didn't react, swaying back and forth with moans of "dying... dying..."

Virdon tried again. "The cow is trying to give birth... and she's suffering because the calf is lying the wrong way inside her. Do you hear me?"

He suspected that Anto did hear him, but chose to ignore the human trying to talk sense into him. But he couldn't give up; this was the only chance not only for the cow, but also for Pete and him. "The cow needn't die - I can help. The calf must be turned around, I've seen how the doctors do it..."

It happened so quickly that neither of them had a chance to react. One moment, Anto was tolling the bell; the next moment, the bell lay in the straw, and Anto's hands clamped around Virdon's throat.

The moment after that, Burke's foot connected to the ape's temple, and Anto let go and tumbled into the straw, dazed, but not out - maybe nothing short of a falling piano could knock out a gorilla.

"Jesus Christ, Al," Burke growled, and hauled him up to his feet, "you never learn." He dragged him to the barn door, where they almost collided with Remo.

"Get your father here, stat," Burke told the boy. "Before this barn turns into a slaughterhouse."

"Told ya, it was a human! Skin shone like the moon from under that tree!"

Bela leaned back in his seat and rolled the toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other while he gave the chimp a long look. Loran was an old-timer, he knew the more remote valleys, he knew the farmers, and he was one of the few chimps who actually talked to the gorillas. He walked the beat, instead of lording over the population from his high horse like the younger ones did, literally.

But he also liked to doze the days away under the wild wisterias uphill, and he spiked his water with whatever he was brewing behind his hut. He talked to his horse as if the beast would talk back any minute - well, he'd started that after his wife had died, and they had no children, so Bela didn't hold that against him; it had to be lonely for him out there, all by himself.

Still. His shift was almost over, he knew that Reisa had a fine roasted lamb waiting for him, and it was already dark. He didn't really feel inclined to ride all the way out to Polar for nothing, just on the word of an old drunkard.

Or for something. Bela shifted uncomfortably. If Loran had seen right, they wouldn't just have to catch some runaway humans; they'd have to arrest the whole family for helping and hiding them, and that was a drama the chief had no taste for.

"Ah, dammit." He rose from his desk. It didn't matter if he liked it or not, it was the law, it was his duty, end of story. He waved to Loran, who grinned a delighted, if toothless, grin.

"Fine, let's get the boys."