"And you are a... psychiatrist?" Ann handed the plate to Zana, whose eyes widened a bit at the sheer volume of food heaped on it. Galen hoped she didn't feel obliged to empty it - his mother had prepared at least six or seven courses, if he had counted correctly.

"Thank you. Not a psychiatrist - behavioural analyst." She began to pick at the fruit salad.

"Ah." Ann smiled and sat down. Galen glanced quickly at Yalu, who was sipping his wine. So far, his father had been mostly silent, but polite when prompted to say something. He had even smiled at Zana once. Galen didn't want to get his hopes up - the evening was still young - but if Yalu could keep this up, dinner might not become a total disaster.

"Galen here has studied medicine," Ann informed Zana, who shot him a surprised look. Galen just shrugged. "He had even taken his first exam. If it hadn't been for that girl..." Ann sighed.

"It wasn't Kira's fault, mother," Galen said softly, but Ann ignored him.

"He then started studying the Law," she told Zana, "and he was really good at it, but then he began to add more and more courses, he can be so easily distracted..."

Galen stared down at his plate to avoid Zana's questioning stare. Yes, he had never gotten around to mentioning it to her - all she knew was that he was the proverbial "eternal student," but she probably had just assumed that he had been a typical councillor's son, partying under the guise of some obscure major until his father had made a comfortable bed for him. Funnily enough, it had never seemed to bother her. That she was scrutinizing him now was not without irony.

"I put an end to that this spring," his father's rumbling voice made everyone jump. "I told him it's high time he made himself useful, and what did he do? Became a pen-nibbler in an office. Is that why you're playing with your food, because you're not hungry anymore?" he barked at Galen. "How many pens have you eaten today, huh?" He chuckled.

Zana looked taken aback. The look she sent him clearly signaled confusion. 'Won't you say something?'

But Galen didn't. There was no point in it, the man was just looking for a reason to spat with him, and he really, really didn't want a shouting match at the table, at least not tonight. It was easier to just let it slide.

But his father wasn't finished with him yet.

"I didn't see you at the council session today. Shouldn't you be there, scribbling away with your little nibbly pen, recording every word the important people say?"

Now Galen did look up. "Zaius had a different assignment for me. - I didn't know you'd notice either way." Are you monitoring my whereabouts in the council building?

"You should have been there. You could have learned something for a change - how crazy ideas can upset the natural order of our society." Yalu sniffed and poured himself another glass. "That crazy old woman wants us to send Gorillas to the universities. Gorillas! What's next, I wonder? Letting baboons become midwives?"

"Baboons are related to us, but they are clearly animals without speech and higher reasoning," Zana interjected. "They are not at all comparable to Gorillas."

"No?" Yalu stared at her. "You know what they say - Chimps think fast, Orangutans think deep, Gorillas - not at all." He burst into laughter. Zana didn't smile. She took a sip from her wine glass.

"That woman" - his father refused to even call her by name - "just uses this 'equal opportunity' bla bla as a ruse!" Galen sent a pleading look to Ann, but she ignored him and continued to regally eat her salad, one berry at a time.

And Zana, of course, took the bait. "A ruse for what? Why shouldn't Gorillas have access to higher education if they pass the entrance tests? What harm..."

"What harm?" Yalu pointed his fork at her. "I'll tell you what harm it does! How would you feel if your liver suddenly decided that it needs to go on a retreat and 'find itself', while your feet complain that it's unfair to have them carry the rest of you all day - they want some of the fun that your ears are having!"

Zana frowned. "That is such nonsense! And people aren't organs..."

"No? I'll tell you how you'd feel! Sick! You'd feel sick, because your body would stop functioning! Just like ape society stops functioning when every ape suddenly takes off to 'self-actualize'!" Yalu's voice was dripping with contempt. Galen resignedly speared a mushroom. He knew that speech by heart.

"Society isn't there to cater to people's whims! People are there to do their duty for society, in the place where they belong! Only then will Ape survive!"

"Well, that's just your opinion..."

Yalu growled. "Children! No wonder that woman is throwing her net on the campus! Those young fools are so easily led along, with all that idealistic claptrap! Tell me, young lady, what is the average life expectancy of an ape?"

Zana blinked. "Uh... seventy years? For a Chimpanzee, at least..."

Yalu sniffed. "Ah. And when did the Lawgiver write the Sacred Scrolls?"

Zana tapped the handle of her fork on the table, a sure sign of her annoyance. She was smart enough to realize where Yalu's argument was going, but had no chance to avoid answering his questions.

Galen suppressed a sigh and poured himself another glass of wine. I told you that my father had been a lawyer before he became a councillor. You really should've known better.

"Assuming that he was an actual historical person, seven hundred years ago."

Yalu leaned back in his seat with a thin smile on his lips. "And you really think that the demands of the individual ape with his mayfly lifespan take precedence over the society that guarantees safety and prosperity not only for him, but also for his peers, his ancestors, and his descendants, and does so over centuries? 'Apes die, but Ape lives forever.' Word of the Lawmaker. You young people really should study the Scrolls more seriously."

Zana huffed. "That philosophical argument has been made and refuted since forever! What in the world does it have to do with professor Zibaya's efforts to reform the education system?"

"She wants to destroy our society with her anarchism! Look around - we're already halfway there! Gorillas playing soldier, Chimpanzees who think they're scientists... What has the world come to?"

"Well, apparently Cesar's College also thinks I'm a scientist, judging by the diploma they gave me," Zana remarked dryly. "And your son is neither a soldier nor a policeman, or firef..."

"Galen had a prefecture waiting for him, but my son preferred to skip the menial work to warm his ass in Zaius' lap," Yalu cut her off.

"Yalu!" Ann put her fork down.

For a moment, an awkward silence hung over the room. Galen felt Zana's eyes bore into the crown of his head. She expected him to take up the gauntlet; she couldn't know that this was exactly what his father wanted. He took a sip of wine. He wouldn't be goaded into an argument. Not tonight.

"So, what exactly does a behavioural analyst do, Zana?" Ann asked brightly. Everyone began to breathe again, and Yalu even started to shove some mango slices into his mouth.

Zana put her glass down. "Well, I usually work with human cubs, from when they can walk - we call them toddlers - up to the onset of puberty," she began. Galen exchanged a quick smile with her, grateful that she was willing to play along. If only she understood that the key to this evening was to ignore his father... he had told her on their way here, but she might not have realized that he was being serious when he said it.

"Humans? "

Galen closed his eyes. Of course his father couldn't stay out of the conversation.

"That's what we spend government money on? I thought you worked with apes."

He heard Zana draw a deep breath and glanced at her hands. Her fingers were still, thankfully, but she gripped her fork perhaps a bit harder than necessary.

"Humans are - contrary to baboons - capable of speech, and they are very intelligent. We can learn so much just from..."

"You know what I learned about humans? If you let their leash slip, they lay waste to our crops and torch the farms of your precious Gorilla farmers! Cut the babies out of their mothers' wombs..."

The fork clattered on the plate. "That is not true! That was Urko's propaganda..."

"I was there! I saw what those beasts had done to our citizens! Do you want to call me a liar in my own house, at my own table?"

Zana wasn't cowed. "I studied that rebellion! And I didn't just read Abilan's war journal, I talked to actual veterans! The humans didn't attack anyone first, they acted in self-defense, and that's any animal's instinct, or do you now demand of them the same rational behavior as from apes? Aren't they suddenly animals anymore, when it's not convenient?" She turned to him, her eyes ablaze. "Galen, say something!"

He raised his hands. "I'm not calling anyone on this table a liar. Please, can't we just... serve the next course?"

"You coward!" Zana hissed. Yalu heard it, too, of course.

"So you are calling my son a coward and me a liar? Nice girlfriend you selected there, Galen!"

Zana's index finger was tapping rapidly against the rim of her plate. "I'm not calling you a liar, sir! "

Yalu rose, leaning heavily on the table. "Silly girls should stick to kittens and horsies and not waste the tax money of hard-working apes! Why don't you research something useful? I own half a dozen humans. They do as they're told, or they get the whip. What else is there to know?"

Zana rose, too. "I guess it's difficult to fit new information into a skull already filled with prejudice," she said icily.

Yalu stared at her. "Did you just call me a fool?"

Zana stared back. "No sir. I just called you a damn fool!"

"Well! I think it's time for the main course," Ann said briskly. "Yalu, dear, you can help me in the kitchen." She grabbed the older chimp's arm and pulled him out of the room.

Zana stood frozen to the spot, too livid to even look at him. Galen cast for something to break the ringing silence.

"Well... that escalated quickly," he offered faintly.

Her nostrils flared as she fought for control. "You weren't exactly helpful just now, either, Galen."

He raised his hands. "I told you to ignore his jabs, Zana. I know my father - he just wants to rile people to have a reason to lay into them. It would have been smarter to..."

"Smarter? "

"You just embarrassed him in his own house, in front of his family," Galen said tiredly. "That was a bit... a bit inappropriate, don't you think?"

Zana stared at him, her mouth agape. "He just insulted me, my intelligence, and my work, and you expect me to swallow this load of crap, and nod and smile? Are you insane?"

"He didn't mean it! He just wanted to rile you..."

"Stop making excuses for him, dammit!"

"I'm not making excuses! Perhaps you can't know Chimp etiquette, since you grew up among Orangutans, but as the host and head of the family, he can get away with things you'd call out others for!"

"Don't bring my family into this, Galen! I know well enough about Chimp etiquette and I'll have you know that I don't afford anyone special privileges to be an asshole!"

"Did you just call my father..."

She threw up her arms in exasperation. "No, I didn't, I was talking in general..."

"In general? Ha! You'd never call Zaius a fool... a damn fool to his face, in his own house..."

"You bet I would if he'd spouted that kind of nonsense I just heard from your father..."

"Oh come on, Zana, do you really mean to tell me that you'd endanger your career or even go to jail for insulting the Council Eldest?"

Zana stared at him for a moment. "That's what would happen, wouldn't it?" she asked. Her voice was thoughtful; she had stopped shouting, though Galen wasn't sure if that was a good sign.

"What does that say about us, Galen? How did we come to this, that we don't dare to call others out on their cruelty, or their prejudice, or their injustice? That we nod and smile, and let it slide, and appease our father, or our friends, or our boss..." She pointed at him accusingly. "I'll tell you how - because we tell ourselves it's not important enough, not bad enough to get ourselves in trouble for!

"We draw a line, and when that line gets crossed, we retreat. And the next one, and the next one, and suddenly, we stop even drawing those lines. We huddle in a corner and hope they don't see us. We hope they'll come for someone else."

She grabbed her purse and went to the door. "I'm not like that, Galen, I'll never be, and I thought you were the same. I thought I'd found a man. Now I see you're just a boy. Grow up, Galen. Be a man I can respect."

He felt a stab of panic lancing through him as she took her coat from the hanger. "Where are you going? My mother is preparing the next course..."

"I've lost my appetite, and I'm sure your parents have, too, by now." She shrugged her coat on. "And I need a bit of fresh air."

"I'll bring you..."

"No." She held up a hand. "I can find my way alone, and I'm not in the mood for company right now, Galen." Especially not yours, she didn't say, but he heard it all the same.

She turned around once more in the open doorway. "I think it's best if we don't see each other for a few days. I need to think long and hard about the future this relationship may have... or not have, and I suggest you do the same."

Galen was still staring at the door when Ann returned to living room.

"What a delightful girl," she said, and and snacked on a grape while one of the slaves began to collect the plates. "She reminds me of myself at that age."

Galen couldn't tear his eyes away from the spot where she had been a moment ago.

"I think she just broke up with me," he whispered.

The weather was brilliant - a white-hot sun bleaching the sky from blue to washed-out grey right after sunrise, a warm breeze rustling the leaves, birds cawing somewhere in the thickets. Zana thought that the world could show some decency and send a hailstorm to match her mood; it was just another sign that nobody really cared.

Her eyelids were drooping, and her head was throbbing with the dull ache of a sleepless night. She had wasted precious hours of rest with brooding over the mess that was her relationship, and she still hadn't come to a conclusive result. She didn't really want to break up with Galen, but she couldn't bear to see him right now, either. She hadn't exaggerated when she told him he had lost her respect. Right now, the mere memory of his pitiful face set her teeth on edge.

Zana swallowed a yawn when she leaned against the heavy doors of the institute that always, always refused to open for her at the first try. She didn't think she'd be able to read anything today, so perhaps she should just walk right by her office door and down to the kennels...

"The director wants to see you at once, doctor." The concierge in his glass cubicle didn't even look up from his newspaper. She longingly eyed the steaming cup of tea on his desk when she passed him.

Despite her exhaustion, a tiny knot of apprehension began to build in her stomach as she climbed the stairs. She couldn't think of anything that would make Zorvan want to see her first thing in the morning. Nothing good, anyway.

His face was severe enough to make the knot flare into her chest with alarm. "Your humans escaped from their cage last night," he said abruptly, before she had even sat down. "They managed to break into the council building before they could be caught."

The knot of apprehension exploded white-hot in her chest. For a moment she just stared at Zorvan, dumbfounded. "Escaped," she repeated slowly. She sank into the chair, her knees suddenly weak.

"The door was open," Zorvan confirmed. His eyes bored into hers. "You did lock the door to their cage yesterday, didn't you?"

"Yes... yes, I'm sure," she stammered. "Besides, Gula always checks after me." The head of the zookeepers always made a point of rattling the door when she was still around to see it; for the first time, she was glad for his impertinence.

"Then they must have found a way to manipulate the lock. Wily beasts," Zorvan murmured.

"Where are they now?" Zana managed to ask. Oh please, don't let them have been shot.

"They're being transferred back to the institute as we speak. They spent the night at the city watchhouse, because they refused to give their identities. It was only when we sent a messenger over to the watch this morning that they could be processed." Zorvan drummed his fingers. "I don't have to tell you that this is a grave situation, Zana. What in the world could they have been looking for in the council building?" He watched her as if she had to know.

Zana shook her head. "I have no idea... I'll see if I can find out when they're here."

"You won't be here when they arrive." Zorvan handed her a slip of paper. "Zaius wants to see you right now. Actually, he wants to see you an hour ago, but I wanted to give you a heads-up."

She took the paper with numb fingers. "Thank you, professor. I appreciate that."

The Orangutan looked at her with something like pity in his eyes. "Whatever happens, Zana, you know we're all on your side here."

She smiled weakly at that. Everyone was scrambling to the back of the line right now, but it was nice of Zorvan to lie to her like that. She rose. "Please, don't do anything with them," or to them, "until I'm back. Zaius has the last word on them, so I need to hear what he has to say."

The study was a silent glade, morning sunlight flecking the walls with gold and green. Zaius was reading a newspaper at his desk, his outline a silent, ominous shadow. He said nothing when Zana slipped into the opposite chair, just handed her the paper.

WILD HUMANS CAUGHT INSIDE CITY COUNCIL

Two photos of Alan and Peet - oh Alan, have they beaten you again? - and in slightly smaller print, DANGEROUS HUMANS TRYING TO DESTROY BUILDING?

She dropped the paper. "I didn't know you read the Simian Dawn." It was a weak retort, she knew.

"I read all the newspapers, even the ones that are only good to wrap fish in," Zaius said mildly, "after all, I need to know what the ape on the street thinks." He leaned back and began to pack his pipe.

"Right now, they think that their leaders cannot keep some dangerous humans under control - that wild beasts, dangerous beasts, are free to roam the city at night. Will they run the streets by day next? Crash into their little girls' bedrooms?" He lit the pipe. "You can imagine the uproar I'm having to deal with right now? I've been beating the reporters away with a stick, not to mention the esteemed councillors in this very building."

"I'm so sorry," Zana whispered. "The doors were locked..."

Zaius waved her apology aside. "I'm sure you did everything by the book, Zana. I'm not blaming you. I called you here to reassure you that you won't have to worry about your career over this... debacle. And to officially release you from this assignment."

She had been expecting this; she had, but it still hit her with brutal force. "Who... who will take over?"

Zaius coughed around his pipe, surprised. "Nobody will take over, Zana. This experiment is being shut down." He shook his head as he noticed her look. "I cannot justify this to the council any longer; those two fools have made sure of that last night."

"What will happen to them?" Her voice was thick with fear.

Zaius took a long draw on his pipe.

"You don't have to be there," his voice was soothing, his face blurred behind blue smoke. "Take a few days off... I can give Galen off, too, and you can go on a little holiday together..."

"You don't have to kill them!" Zana felt a sob building in her throat. "We can provide better security, a guard in front of the door... no open-air enclosure..."

"Zana." Zaius voice was calm. Unmoved. Unmoving, like a mountain. "I told you, I can no longer justify their presence... their existence to the council. They have proven that they are unpredictable, uncontrollable, and just too smart for their own good. They pose an incalculable risk to our city, our very society, and we cannot tolerate such a threat in our midst." He paused, waiting for her protest. But she couldn't take in enough air to say anything.

"I'm sorry Zana, I really am," Zaius said finally. "I shouldn't have burdened you with such an assignment. You are so young, and I can see that you have bonded with them... more than you should have. Take that leave, girl, let Galen distract you from your worries. When you come back, your human cubs will already be waiting for you. I heard they've been missing you very much."

Zana wasn't crying, no, she was just taking deep breaths through her mouth. To calm herself down. To regain her self-control.

"I won't take that leave, Uncle Zaius," she finally said when she thought her voice wouldn't waver. "It's my assignment. I'll do it myself."

"Wha... no, Zana. No." Zaius leaned forward, concern written in his features. "That is not part of your job."

She sniffed. "I can send you the regulations for the handling of laboratory animals, if you want to have a look yourself. I've studied them extensively." When I was looking for something that would allow me to take Peet into the city... oh Peet...

"It's a normal part of my job," she insisted, avoiding his eyes. She dabbed at her own, angry at the moisture she felt there.

"They were my responsibility. It's my fault that they found themselves presented with an opportunity they couldn't resist. I cannot back out now. That'd be cowardly." She finally met his eyes. "I should be with them to the end."

Sally told herself that she wasn't haunting the empty rooms to say goodbye. She was merely checking that she hadn't forgotten some odd thing anywhere, something they'd later, after the keys had changed owners, find missing. You only noticed these things after you couldn't retrieve them anymore.

Her steps sounded too loud without the rugs on the floor; it was stupid to roll them up and take them to their new apartment, which was so small that they wouldn't have the space to lay them out again, but... they had picked them out together after Alan had bought the house, and although Sally knew she was being sentimental and stupid, and the rugs were old, she just couldn't leave them behind.

Chris had been furious when she had told him that she had set up the house for sale and found a new job on the West Coast.

"Who do you think you are to decide that over my head?" he had yelled.

"I'm your mother, and it's my job to decide things like that for our family!"

"My friends are here, my school... my project!"

Chris' project. The campaign to bring his dad home had become his obsession, his reason to get out of bed each morning. He had been filled with glee when that job had evaporated in the last moment, even though it meant he now had to live in a tiny apartment. Sally shifted Helen onto her other hip and stared out of the window, not really seeing the fireplace where they had had their last barbecue, the night before lift off.

She shouldn't have allowed Hasslein to bait them, string them along for two years with this fairytale. She couldn't fault her son for falling for it - she had clung to it herself, desperate to believe that she'd see Alan again... how often had she seen herself falling into his arms, the vision so vivid that she could feel the warmth of his body beneath the shirt, breathe in his scent-

She swallowed back tears. Two years - it should be getting better, shouldn't it?

But enough was enough. After all this time, everyone who could authorize the rescue mission was certain that the crew had to be dead. Actually, that had been the argument from the beginning - how would they survive the timespan that was needed to build another ship? Hasslein hadn't told them about the time-travel angle to his technology, and he had sworn her to secrecy about it, too. He had been worried that ANSA would scrap the project altogether out of disbelief; now they had scrapped it for its futility.

She dragged herself up the stairs, to the bedroom where her open travel bag lay on their... on her... on the bed, waiting for those last forgotten artifacts of her former life. She put Helen down on the bed and began to zip the bag closed.

"Mommy!"

When she looked up, her necklace was dangling from her daughter's little fist. It must have fallen between the pillows; strange how she hadn't noticed that it had gone missing.

She gently untangled the chain from Helen's sticky little fingers and sat beside her.

"Look, there's Chris," she held up the pendant with Chris' face etched into it. He had been five when she had a new picture commissioned; on the backside, his baby smile beamed at her.

"Mommy!" Helen pointed.

"Yes, that's mommy. And that's your daddy." Tears sprang from her eyes, blurring Alan's smile.

"Lennie! Look!"

She sniffed and wiped her eyes. "Yes, that's you. We're all together here."

Her fingers caressed Alan's pendant.

She should take it off. Put it in her jewelry box. Acknowledge that they were not all together anymore, and would never be together again.

Thundering footsteps were pounding up the stairs. Chris burst into the room, prompting a hiccup in startled Helen.

"We're a go!" he gasped. He grasped her shoulders when she just stared at him blankly. "Don't you get it, Mom? They've greenlighted the project! They'll build the Daedalus!" He released her and took a step back, fists clenched, cheeks red with excitement.

"We'll bring Dad home!"