Chapter 5 orangutan pope

One day early last month, when Vandelmans and I were alone with the orangutans in the enclosure, he suddenly said, "I'm going to pass out." It was a scorching May day, But Van Delmans never showed any sign of aversion to heat, let alone painful feelings of heat.I was busy talking to Leo and Mimsy and her daughter, Muffin, so I just took his words down and did nothing about it.When you are actively talking in sign language in engineering (Note ②), you may not pay much attention to spoken language. Then Leo gestured to me that there was trouble. I turned around and saw Vandermans kneeling on the grass, his face was pale, he was panting, and he was covered in sweat.A few orangutans who were not as smart as Leo thought it was a game, and started gesturing with him—the knuckles touched the ground, and the body was soft. "I'm sick..." Vandermans said, "I'm not...well..." I called them for help, so Gunzo took his left hand and Kong held his right arm.Well, he's strong, but we moved him out of the enclosure and up to our headquarters on the hill.Along the way he complained of excruciating pain in his back and under his arms, and I began to sense that he wasn't just fainting from heat.Diagnosed a week later.

It's leukemia. They treated him with chemotherapy and hormone therapy, and ten days later he came back to our project, looking confident: "They've stabilized the disease," he told everyone, "just relieved, I There may be ten to twenty days left, maybe a little more. I want to finish my job." He was still haggard, pale, and his hands were shaking. Terrible thing!He might be deluding himself, though I'm not sure, but he couldn't fool any of us: to us he's a symbol of death, a walking skeleton.A layman would think that we scientists are indifferent to such matters, and even more concerned with accusations against Hollywood.But with a dying man around every day, it's hard to get you to do your work, or count a dying man's wife - Judy Vandelmans' horrified eyes let me know , her grief over Hal Van Delmans' repressed mood.She never thought that she was about to lose her favorite, she was not mentally prepared, how could she let go of such pain?In addition, the news of the imminent death of Vandermans was particularly disturbing to everyone, he was so strong, energetic, wandering, and he was a humorous Rabelaisian.But in that instant he became a ghost. "It was God's will," says Dave Yost, "with a flick of Zeus' little finger, and Hal shrank like cellophane in a furnace." Vandermans was not yet forty !

The orangutans also noticed something! Several of them, such as Leo and Ramona, are fifth-generation signers, whom we call Alphas because of their intellectual prominence, and they can see subtle differences clearly.Visitors commented that they were "almost human". We don't like that name, the important thing about orangutans is that they are not human, they are a different intelligent race, but I also know what people mean.The smartest of the orangutans immediately figured out what was probably wrong with Vandermans, and they began to say strange things.Ramona once said to Mimsy when I was around, "Big rotten banana."

Leo watched Vandermans stagger past and said to me, "He's getting empty." The orangutan metaphors kept surprising me.Then, Gangzuo asked him straightforwardly: "Are you leaving?" "Leave" is not a euphemism for orangutans to use for death.As far as we animals know, no human has ever died.Orangutans die, humans "leave". From the beginning we have adhered to this principle, not intentionally, but such an arrangement has gradually become a kind of custom.The first person in the group to die was Roger Nixon, in a car accident a few years after the project started, shortly before I came here.Apparently no one was going to explain to them what happened to Roger so as not to disturb the animals.I was here for two or three years, and Tim Leppinger died in a ski lift accident, and again we decided not to share the details.It wasn't until Will Bechstein died in that helicopter bombing four years ago that we took definite steps: decided that we didn't interpret his disappearance as a death, but merely "leaved", as if he had retired Same.But Gangzuo's question shows that orangutans understand what death is, and they can even equate death with "leaving".But despite this, they must think that human death is different from orangutan death, which is the process of transformation into another life form, ascending to heaven in a burning car.Eustace believes that they cannot comprehend human death, they think humans are immortal, and they see us as gods.

Now Vandermans was no longer pretending that he would not die.The leukemia is acute, and his body is getting worse day by day. He started off thinking "it didn't really happen" and now he's a little sullen and a little angry.Just four weeks after the onset of the illness, he was admitted to the hospital. He wanted to tell the chimpanzees that he was going to die. "They don't know that humans die," Ust said. "Then it's time to let them know," snapped Vendelmans, "why say something stupid about our immortal myth? Why make them think we're gods? Just tell 'em I'm dying, old man." When Aigbot is dead, it will be Salami and Maotimer's turn."

"But they all died of natural causes?" said Jane Merton. "Don't I?" she was embarrassed. "I mean in ancient times. That's when their life cycle obviously came to an end and they died, and chimpanzees know that. But you..." Her The voice trembled. "I got this terrible disease halfway through my life," Vandelmans said, pausing, gritting his teeth, to get over it.Jane began to cry, it was an ugly sight, and usually Van dermans would have reassured everyone not to, "It would be of great engineering interest to discover how orangutans respond to human metaphysical phenomena. We have done our best to make them understand the nature of death, and now I think we should let them know through me that human beings are also subject to such laws, that we are not gods."

"Gods exist," Eustace said. "They're capricious and unfathomable. Compared to them, we're like chimpanzees." Van dermans shrugged. Time to let them know who we are. Or rather let us know how much they know, and use my death to find out. They go through the whole process of a person's death for the first time, and some other times Some accident." Porter Christensen said, "Hal, did you tell them some..." "No," said Van delmans, "of course not. I didn't say a word. But I saw them talking to each other. They knew." We talked late into the night, and we had to study the issue carefully, so as not to be disturbed by changing our animals. any irredeemable influence on the theological knowledge in it.These orangutans have lived in a closed environment here for decades, and what we choose to teach them forms their culture, which also incorporates their own internal things, plus our unintentional influence on them. Any basic conceptual data we provide them with their conception of "what are we and what are they?" must be thoroughly weighed for impact, because the impact is irreversible.If anyone does something stupid, it will be unforgivable.Since our plan is to look at pre-human primates and study how their intellectual capacities changed as their language abilities increased, we must always be careful to allow them to discover for themselves, rather than go beyond what they already have. The conceptual processing power of the data directly to them.

Van dermans, on the other hand, is dying, giving us a vivid opportunity to convey to them the concept of human mortality.We'd better make a choice within a week or two, or we'll have to wait years for the next opportunity to present itself. "What are you worried about?" Vandermans asked. Eustace said, "Are you afraid of death, Hal?" "Death makes me angry. I'm not afraid. I have work to do, but I can't do it anymore. Why are you asking?" "Because as far as we know chimpanzees see death, of course chimpanzee death, as a simple part of the cycle of things, like day followed by night. But the death of a human would be a major revelation to them, they would be shocked. If they see a little bit of fear or even anger from you, who knows what that will do to the way they think?"

"Indeed, who knows? Then I'll give you a chance to see!" In the end, we reluctantly decided to tell the orangutans the news of Vandermans' death by a narrow margin.Almost all of us have a little reservation about it.But van dermans had decided that this wholesome, meaningful death was the only way he could face his fate, and contribute it to the project.By the end I realized we voted purely out of love for him. We arranged the schedule so that Van Delmans had more opportunities to get in touch with the animals.There are ten people, fifty orangutans; each of us has our own sphere of investigation—arithmetic, grammatical innovation, metaphysical exploration, symptomology, tool use, and so on.We choose which orangutans we want to teach, and the sub-ethnic shifting patterns of obedience and orangutan social bonding come naturally.But we promised Vandermans that he could tell the alphas about it—Leo, Ramona, Glinski, Alice, Attila—whoever the orangutan was studying with now.For example, Leo is learning the concept of changing seasons interactively from Beth Rankin, but Beth more or less readily agrees to give it to Vendelmans, Leo is the most important one .Not so long ago we learned that important news had to be revealed to the alphas first, and then they themselves would tell the other chimpanzees about it.An orangutan also knows how to teach his duller siblings better than a smarter human.

Early the next morning Hal and Judy Vandelmans took Leo, Ramona, and Attila aside and had a long talk with them.I was on the other side of the enclosure with Gangzuo, Mimsy, Muffin, and Qiangpu, and every now and then I'd glance over there to see what they were doing.Hal looked radiant—like Moses coming down the mountain after talking with God.Judy's good mood seemed a bit forced and artificial, and her sadness was palpable; once again I saw her turn her face, put her fingers against her teeth, and looked like she was going to cry, but she held back. Later Leo and Glinski had a meeting in the oak grove.Yost and Charlie Damiano watched them both with binoculars, but they couldn't tell what the orangutans were doing.When chimpanzees talk to each other in sign language, they use modified gestures that are not very precise; we never know whether this is a sign that chimpanzees have evolved into a special code language between chimpanzees that is not understood by humans. , or it just points to a certain dependence of orangutans on ancillary, non-verbal forms of communication.But the truth is, we don't know the language they communicate with, especially the Alphas.Then, as if Leo and the others knew we were spying on them and didn't want us to eavesdrop, he and Glinski had been hanging out in the woods.Later, Ramona and Alice talk in the same way.Now our five alpha creatures are almost on the verge of getting the facts.

We also don't know how the message trickled down to other orangutans. We cannot observe the actual act of spreading ideas.We just noticed that the next day Vandermans was getting more attention than usual.As he moved slowly, with apparent difficulty, around the enclosure, small groups of orangutans appeared beside him.Gang Zuo and Qiang Pu had been arguing for several months, and suddenly they stood beside Fandelmans side by side, staring at Fandelmans intently.Chicoli was usually very shy, but she suddenly appeared and wanted to talk to Vendelmans about the ripening of the apples on the tree, and Vendelmans started talking to her.Monk Shem, Anna Livia's twin daughter, climbed on Vandelmans' shoulders. "They want to know what a dying god looks like," Eustace said quietly. "But look at that," said Jane Merton. Judy Vendelmans has a entourage too: Mimsy, Muffin, Claudius, Buster, and Kong.They stared at Judy fascinated, their eyes were wide open, their mouths were also opened wide, and several saliva flowed out, blowing out small bubbles. "Did they think she would die too?" said Beth in amazement. Eustace shook his head. "Probably not. They know there's nothing wrong with her. But they're learning about the atmosphere of grief and death." "Is it okay to assume they know Hal is Judy's spouse?" Christensen asked. “It didn’t matter,” Yost said. “They could see she was upset. That’s what they were interested in, even if they had no way of understanding why Judy was more upset than any of us.” "There seems to be something going on over there," I said, pointing to the grass. Glinski stood there alone, seemingly thinking about something.He was the oldest of the orangutans, gray-haired and beginning to bald, and a brooding man.He's been here almost since he was born, maybe more than thirty years, and nothing escapes his attention. Far to the left, in the shadow of the beech trees, Leo was lost in thought in the same way alone.He was twenty years old, the alpha male of the pack, the strongest and the smartest.It seemed so strange that they were both in their respective domains, like two sentinels, or statues on Easter Island, caught up in their own fantasies! "Philosopher," Eustace muttered. Van Delmans was back in hospital yesterday, gone forever.Before leaving, he said goodbye to each of the fifty orangutans, even the young ones.His condition has deteriorated significantly over the past few weeks and he is now emaciated and very weak.Judy said he only had a few weeks to live. She's also on leave, and probably won't be back until Hal's dead.I don't know how the chimpanzees will understand her "leave" and her eventual return. She said Leo had asked her if she was going to die too. Maybe things will be better now. Christensen asked me this morning, “When you talk to them these days, do you notice an understanding of death in their words?” I nodded. "Missy asked me one day if the moon died when the sun rose; when the moon came out, the sun died. I couldn't understand it at first. This seemed to be a standard primitive metaphor. But to Minsy, her age Too young to use metaphors that easily, and she's not very bright. Must have been talked about too much by the old guys, and word got around." "Chikeli was learning subtraction with me," says Christensen. "She gestured suddenly: 'There are five people, two are dead, and three are left.' Then she used death as a verb: 'Three One is dead and one is two.'" Others have reported similar things.But the chimps weren't discussing Vandermans and what had happened to him, and they weren't asking openly questions about death.From what we felt, they turned the whole thing into a kind of metaphor.This perfectly symbolizes their great confusion.Like most confused humans, they try to hide what interests them, and they probably think they're doing a good job.We can guess what's going on in their heads. It's not that they are wrong, but, after all, we all maintain this idea that they are just apes. There was a babbling brook in an oak grove, and there they held their meeting.It seemed that only Leo and Glinski were talking, and the others were just sitting there quietly, listening to the lecture.There are about ten to thirty orangutans at a time.We have no way of knowing what exactly they were discussing, although of course we have a little idea in our heads. Whenever one of us goes to such a gathering, the orangutans always pretend to be very casual, and suddenly disperse, and gather together in threes and fours, showing a very innocent look-" Master, we just came out to get some fresh air." Charlie Damiano is going to bug the oak woods, but how do we spy on these guys who talk in sign language?Cameras are much harder to hide than microphones. We laboriously observe as much as possible with binoculars.But the few bits we've observed are even more puzzling.They were talking in a sign language that was more ambiguous than before, as if they were talking in Piggy Latin, perhaps some kind of irony, or some new primitive language. Tomorrow two technicians will come to help us install the camera in the oak forest. Hal Vandermans died last night.It was Judy who called Dave Yost, and she said he died peacefully and was finally relieved.After breakfast, Yost and I told the Alphas the news directly, in the most direct terms.Ramona yelped a few times, as if about to cry, but she was the only one who looked disturbed.Leo looked at me meaningfully for a long time, with deep sympathy in his eyes, and then he hugged me violently.Glinski walked away alone, as if talking to himself.Now, for the first time in over a week, the orangutans seemed to be gathering together in the oak grove again. The camera is ready.Even if we can't decipher their new language, at least we can record it, let the computer analyze it, and maybe figure it out soon. Right now we're watching the first tape of Oak Grove, and I don't think we're getting anywhere. First, they've already damaged two cameras.Attila found them and sent Gonzo and Claudius up a tree to tear them down.I suspect that the remaining cameras have not been found, but either by coincidence, or by deliberate cunning by the orangutans, none of them caught anything.Although we did record some of Leo's utterances and a few of Alice's and Ana Livia's push-and-pulls, and learned from them that they spoke a mixture of Standard and some new language, our I don't know anything about the current situation, and it's even more difficult to understand a sentence.A few gestures, such as "shirt," "hat," "human," "change," "banana flew," mixed with some incomprehensible words, as if to add to something that no one knew what it was.We observe that they make no mention of Hal Van Delmans or a direct representation of death.Perhaps it is our own unfounded worry. Or not.We took note of their new language, and I asked Ramona this afternoon what one of the lines meant.She began to fidget and make noises in her mouth, not simply because I asked her a difficult and esoteric question like explanation of terms.She was a little sullen, looking around for Leo, and when she saw him, she greeted him with that gesture.He hopped over and chased Ramona away.Then he complimented me on how smart, kind, and gentle I was. Maybe he's a genius, but even a genius he's just a chimpanzee, and I told him I wasn't fooled by his flattery, and I asked him what the new gesture meant. "Jump high, then run over." Leo gestured. Is this simply referring to the playfulness of orangutans?That's what I thought at first, including many of my colleagues.But Dave Yost said: "Then why is Ramona so reluctant to explain?" Beth Rankin said: "It's not easy for them to explain terms." "Ramona is one of the five smartest chimpanzees, and she certainly will. Especially if such a gesture can be explained by using the other four established gestures, Leo will." "Dave, what did you find?" I asked. "'Jump high and run over' could be some kind of game they like to play, but it could also refer to an afterlife, a religious discourse, an idea of ​​death and resurrection," Yost said. Simple metaphor, isn't it?" Mike Falkenburg snorts: "Jesus, my Dave, what a frenzied Jesus--" "Really?" "Your analysis is sometimes too sensitive," Falkenburg said. "Are you trying to say that chimpanzees produced theology?" "I mean they might be evolving some sort of religious belief," Eustace replied. is it possible? Like Mike said, sometimes we really don't understand these chimpanzees, and sometimes we overestimate their intelligence.But I think we often underestimate them. Jump high and run over. I am surprised by this.Is it cryptic religious rhetoric?The theology of the orangutans?Faith in resurrection after death?some kind of religion? The orangutans know that humans have a series of rituals and beliefs, which they call religion. How much the orangutans know, we don't know.The chimpanzees got the idea long ago from Dave Yost, when Leo and the other alphas were discussing metaphysics with him.In order for them to understand the biological chain, Dave drew a hierarchical map for them, starting with God, down to humans, orangutans, to cats and dogs, and then down to insects and frogs.The orangutans have seen bugs, frogs, cats and dogs, and they want to see what God looks like.Dave had to say this: God is unreachable, He is high above, but He is everywhere.I'm not sure if they grasped more.Leo's intelligence and research have always inspired us. This time he wanted Dave to explain how we communicate with God since God is not by our side.Dave said that we have a thing called religion, and we use it to communicate with God.Leo turned around and left. Now, we're all watching for signs of religious awareness among orangutans.Even Mike Falkenburg, who had mocked Dave in the first place, and to some extent Beth, and Charlie Damiano, were paying close attention.In a word, the fundamental purpose of this project is to find out how the first hominids crossed the dividing line that developed intelligence, which we usually use to distinguish animals from humans.We can't reconstruct a group of Pleistocene primates to study them, but we can look at orangutans who have been endowed with language and see how they build quasi-hominid societies, which is a much more difficult proposition than going back to primitive societies. tasks we can accomplish.Yost thinks, and I think, and Porter Christensen has come to think that, for the orangutans to see that their gods—we—are also brought down, destroyed by a greater force, and we've been imperiled Greatly aroused their awareness of God, the supernatural power they must worship. There is no clear evidence yet.Attention to Vandermans and Judy; Leo and Glinski's solitary musings, Great Collection in the Grove; Modified Sign Language increasingly used in Collection; From Leo's to "Jump The potential afterlife view can be seen in the interpretation of sign language.that's it.Some of us think these things are the cornerstones of religion, all of which foreshadow something we thought; to others, all are mere coincidences and fantasies.The problem is that we are dealing with inhuman intelligences, and we must be careful not to impose our own ideas on these animals.We have never been sure that the system of our chimpanzee society is valuable.The grammar of sign language used by chimpanzees is so uncertain that the whole thing is complicated.Consider Leo's speech in the oak grove—or was it a sermon? —A phrase used in "bananas fly", think of Ramona's description of the sick Vandelmans as "rotten bananas", in "bananas fly", we use fly as a verb, this One sentence might be a metaphorical description for understanding Van dermans as ascending to heaven.If fly is a noun, Leo might be referring to fruit flies that feed on rotting fruit, a metaphor for the decay of flesh after death.On the other hand, he could be simply describing our litter box. So far, we have agreed not to conduct any direct interrogation of the orangutans.Heisenberg's law is our permanent law here: the observer is also extremely easy to disturb what is observed, so we can only make the most delicate measurement work.Even so, there is an effect of our being among the chimpanzees, but we try to minimize this effect, we just observe them quietly and avoid asking any questions. Two extraordinary things happened today.If you look at these two things separately, they are not important, they are just a little curious; but if you put them together and explain each other, we may start to get enlightenment like never before. One thing is noticed by almost every one of us: Signs of vocalization in orangutans are starting to increase.We know that wild orangutans have a sort of savage colloquial language - some kind of greeting call, a defiant call, some kind of grunt that means "I like the smell", and the loud calls of males in their territory , and so on, none of the sentences are particularly complex, in fact not very much superior in quality to the languages ​​of birds or dogs.They also have a fairly rich non-colloquial language, which includes a large vocabulary of gestures and facial expressions.But it wasn't until decades ago, when orangutans were first taught human sign language, that we began to appreciate that they, too, have overt language abilities.At this experimental station here, the orangutans talk almost exclusively in sign language, which they have been trained to do for generations, and they teach their young to do the same.Only in the most basic situations do they switch to growls and grunts.When we are with chimpanzees, we generally communicate with each other using sign language, and even in meetings with only humans in attendance, we use sign language more because of long-established habits.But suddenly the chimpanzees were making certain sounds to each other, strange, unfamiliar sounds that, some would say, clumsy imitations of human speech.In fact, we can't understand a sentence, and it is almost impossible for orangutans' throats to imitate the phonemes used by humans.But these new grunts, these blurts in pain, do seem to be mimicking our speech.As we watched the tape of the Grove meeting, Damiano pointed out to us that when Attila was using sign language, her mouth moved slightly, no doubt trying to make a human voice. Why? The second thing was that Leo started to put on a shirt and a hat.Originally, it was no big deal for orangutans to dress. Although we never taught them such humane things, many orangutans still enthusiastically asked for clothes from their owners and wore them for days or even weeks from time to time.The difference with this one is that the shirt and hat belonged to Hal Vandelmans, Leo only wore them at the Oak Grove meeting (Dave Yost recently started calling the Grove a Sacred Grove) .Leo found them in the tool room over the vegetable room.Vandermans was so strong that his shirt was ten yards in size, but Leo put the sleeves around his chest and the rest on his back like a cape. How do we explain such a thing? Jane is an expert on the process of colloquialism in orangutans.Speaking at the meeting tonight, she said: "I feel as if they're trying to mimic human speech, despite the fact that they can't produce it. They're playing human." "Speak the language of 'God'," said Dave Yost. "What did you say?" Jane asked. "Apes communicate with their hands. Humans do the same with chimpanzees, but with spoken language. To chimpanzees man is god, and we have to remember that. Conversing with language is a way of remaking oneself into the incarnation of God, a way of endowing oneself with the qualities of God. "Nonsense," said Jane. "not possible for me--" "Wearing human clothes," I interrupted excitedly, "is also a way of assuming godly qualities. Especially if the clothes are—" "—of Vandelmans." Christensen said. "Dead god," Eustace said. We stared at each other in astonishment. Charlie Damiano said, without his usual atheism, but with surprise: "Dave, are you trying to assume that Leo is exercising some kind of priestly function, those Clothes and hats are his religious attire." "Not just priests," said Eustace. "I think bishops. Popes. Popes of chimpanzees." Glinski suddenly became very weak.Yesterday we saw him walking slowly and alone on the meadow, walking around there, as far as the little pond and waterfall, and then staggering gravely to the meeting ground in the grove.Today he sat quietly by the stream, rocking back and forth from time to time, dipping his feet in the stream occasionally. I looked at the records: he was forty-three, about time for an orangutan, although some gorillas live into their fifties.Mike was going to put him in a nursing home, and we were all against it.If he's going to die, as the case may be, we'll have to let him do his own thing.Jane went to the grove to see him, and when she came back she said there was no obvious sign of illness.The eyes are clear and the face is calm.The years are not forgiving, and his time is coming.I feel a huge sense of loss, he is very smart, he has a very good memory, a guy made in heaven.For many years he had been the alpha male of the pack. Ten years ago, when Leo became an adult, Glinski abdicated himself and never competed.The grizzled Glinski must have had a wealth of acute and mystical understandings and insights of which we are practically ignorant, and which we too will soon lose.We can only expect him to impart his wisdom to Leo, Attila, Alice and Ramona. Today there is another strange thing: the ritual of distributing meat. Meat isn't very important in the orangutans' diet, but they do like meat, and I remember Wednesdays being meat day here, and on that day we'd give them a rib of beef, or a couple of slices of lamb, or something like that.The procedure of dividing the meat reveals their wildness. First, the alphas are full of meat, while others are watching, then the weaker males beg to eat a little, and after getting permission, they swarm up, and finally the females and Juniors get bits and pieces.Today is meat day.Leo ate first, as usual, but what happened next was incredible.He let Attila eat it, and then asked Attila to share some meat with Glinski, who became weaker today and was pulled aside by the orangutans.Then Leo put on the Vendelmans hat and began to distribute the wrapped minced meat to the others.According to the current ranking, the orangutans came up one by one, and there was a set of standard begging movements, with the hands placed under the chin and the palms facing upwards. Leo gave each of them a piece of meat. "Looks like a religious event," Charlie Damiano muttered. "Leo is the priest who presided over Mass." Unless our assumptions are completely wrong, there are actually religious activities going on here today, probably founded by Glinski and led by Leo.Hal Van Delmans' faded blue work cap is the pope's triple tiara. Beth Rankin woke me up at dawn and said, "Come on. They're doing weird things to Glinski." I hurriedly woke myself up, got up and got dressed.We now have a closed system that transmits things about the grove to us.We were all waiting in front of the screen and I could see what was happening. Glinski knelt on the edge of the creek, eyes closed, motionless.Leo, in his hat, stood beside him, deftly tying Van dermans' shirt around Glinski's shoulders.A dozen or so other adult orangutans sat in a semicircle. Porter Christensen said, "What's the deal? Reich wants Glinsky to be the pope's assistant?" "I think Leo is giving Glinski the last rites," I said. What else could this be?Leo is wearing a holy hat.最后他用了新的手势——牧师之语，有如拉丁文，希伯来文或梵文的猩猩语，当他的讲演一点点继续，与会的猩猩们不时地爆发出阵阵——我想是回复以及赞同，有些用手语，有些是咕哝作响的非人非语的声音，戴夫·尤斯特认为这些声音就是他们所认为的神的语言。整个过程中格林斯基一言不发，尽管有时他会点点头，呻吟几声，拍几下双肩，我们不理解这是在干什么。仪式进行了一个多小时，接着格林斯基倾倒在地，孔和羌溥把着他的手，安放好他，他的下巴磕在土上。 二分钟，三分钟，五分钟。所有的猩猩都静默不动。最后雷欧走上前把帽子摘了，把它放在格林斯基身边的地上，他小心翼翼的解下围在格林斯基身上的衬衫。格林斯基一动不动。雷欧把衬衫披在自己肩上，重新戴好了帽子。 他对着围观的猩猩们，打着手势，用的是我们完全理解的旧手语：“格林斯基现在成为人类了。” 我们惊讶的面面相觑，有几个啜泣起来，没有人出声讲话。 葬礼看样子结束了。猩猩们散了开来。 我们看到雷欧慢步走着，帽子随手拿着，另一只手拿着衬衫，拖在地上。 留下格林斯基单独在小溪旁，我们观察了十分钟，便去了橡木林。 格林斯基看上去很平静的睡着，可他死了，我们把他搬起来——波特和我带着他，他似乎轻的没有重量——我们把他带到实验室进行解剖。 仲晨时分，天色变暗了，闪电在北方的山麓间忽隐忽现，几乎同时炸雷轰鸣，暴风雨突然而至。 简指着草地那儿，雄猩猩们跳着古怪的舞蹈，叫着，左右摆动，双脚捶地，双手则击打着树干，摘下树枝，捶打着泥土。悲痛？fear?还是对于格林斯基进入神域的欢欣鼓舞？谁能说清呢？ 以前我从来不怕我们的动物——可现在他们让人害怕，这样的景象让人摸不着头脑，冈左、孔、阿提拉、羌溥、巴斯特、克劳迪斯，甚至教皇雷欧自己也在暴雨中四处捶打，显示出这项深不可测的仪式的中间环节。 闪电停止了，暴雨移向了南方，来得快去的也快，舞者们也溜走了，每个都跑到了自己的爱树上。中午时分天爽气和，就好像从没有发生过什么与众不同的事。 格林斯基死后两天，我又在天亮时被叫醒了，这次是迈克·法肯伯格，他摇着我的肩膀，大叫着叫我醒来，我坐在床上，睡眼惺忪，他说：“契柯丽死了。我今早外出散步在格林斯基死的那地方发现了她。” “契柯丽？可她只有——” “十一，十二岁，差不多就那数，我知道。” 迈克把其他人叫醒后，我也穿戴好了，众人走向小溪。 契柯丽平躺着，可情形很是不堪，她嘴角留着血滴，眼睛大睁，很害怕的样子，手扭曲成冰爪一般。她周围的溪岸遍布足迹。我搜寻着脑海，猩猩社会中是否有谋杀之例，可毫无迹象，是的，除了争吵，宿怨，争斗，暴力行为，偶尔会发生严重伤害外。谋杀可是史无前例的。 “祭祀的杀牲。”尤斯特喃喃道。 “或者是献祭？”贝丝·兰金暗示道。 “无论是什么。”我道：“他们也学得太快了。宗教演变的重点全给他们学会了，甚至是最差的那部分。我们该和雷欧谈谈了。” “这明智吗？”尤斯特问。 “怎么不明智？” “我们放手不管这么久了。假如我们想知道事情的发展——” “昨晚，”我说道，“教皇以及他的顾问们联合起来对付一只雌猩猩，还杀了她。现在他们可能在哪里琢磨着把爱丽丝或拉莫娜或者安娜·李维亚的双生子送到猩猩们的天堂去。我想我们得衡量一下事态的发展：观察猩猩宗教的发展较之于弥补猩猩群落中不可替代成员的损失，这两者之间孰轻孰重。我说我们还是叫雷欧来，告诉他乱杀无辜是不对的。” “他知道这个，”尤斯特说：“他肯定知道。猩猩们可不是凶残之物。” “契柯丽死了。” “可假如他们把这视为神圣之为呢？”尤斯特问道。 “那么，我们将一个个的失去我们的动物。到最后我们将只剩下一对圣洁之幸存者。你要这样的结果吗？” 我们和雷欧谈了话。 猩猩们可能很狡猾，他们事事处理得当，可即使最聪明的，像雷欧这样的猩猩中的爱因斯坦，也不懂得如何撒谎。 我们问他契柯丽去哪了，他告诉我们契柯丽现在已经成为人类。听完我背脊发凉。 雷欧说格林斯基也成人了。 我们问他他怎么知道他们成人了。他答道：“他们去了凡代尔曼斯去的地方。人离开后，他们成为神。猩猩离开后，他们成为人类，对吗？” “不对。”我们回答。 猩猩的逻辑没那么容易驳斥。我们告诉他所有的生物都会死，死是自然而神圣的。 但只有神可以决定死的时辰。我们对他说，神，一次只会召唤一个生物，神召唤了哈尔·凡代尔曼斯，神召唤了格林斯基，某天神也会召唤雷欧还有这里的其他人。可神没有召唤契柯丽。雷欧想知道提前送契柯丽去神那有什么错。这不会改善契柯丽的情况吗？ 不会，我们回答。不会，只会伤害她。契柯丽更高兴和我们大家待在这儿。 雷欧不服，他说，契柯丽现在可以用嘴说话，可以穿鞋了。他可非常羡慕契柯丽。 我们告诉他假如还有猩猩死，神会生气的。我们告诉他我们也会生气，残杀猩猩是错的。神可不愿雷欧干这种事。 “我会跟神谈话的，也会知道他要什么。”雷欧说。 今晨我们在池塘一角发现了死去的巴斯特。又一桩祭祀的杀牲。 雷欧平静的注视着我们下了山，他解释说神命令他要尽快让所有的猩猩成为人类。只能用对待契柯丽和巴斯特的方法去完成神的嘱托。 雷欧现在被囚禁在惩戒室。我们暂停了这星期的肉食分配。 尤斯特反对这两项提议，他说这样的话我们会让雷欧冠上宗教烈士之名，这是冒险，这会提高他的相当的权柄。可谋杀得停止。 雷欧当然知道我们对他们感到不安。可是假如他执著于他所认为的正义之举，我们所说的和所做的都将无法改变他的意志。 朱蒂·凡代尔曼斯今天打电话来。她已处理好哈尔的身后事，现如今很想念工程以及猩猩们。我尽可能保持温和，把这里发生的事告诉了她。她沉默了好久——契柯丽是他最喜欢的一只，而且整个夏天朱蒂已饱尝辛酸——最后她说：“我想我知道该干什么。 明天我搭中午的班机回来。”接近傍晚时我们发现敏茜犹如先前几例那样死了。雷欧仍在惩戒室里——这是第三天。群众们已经可以在没有首领的前提下举行仪式了。敏茜的死让我目瞪口呆，大伙都深受影响，几乎无法继续工作下去。有必要进行隔离来拯救动物们。也许我们该把他们送到其他研究中心待几个月，三个留在这，五个去那儿，直到事情平息下来。可假如事情不止呢？假如分离者们将其他人转为雷欧的信徒呢？ 朱蒂一到，她说的第一句话就是：“让雷欧出来，我和他谈谈。” 我们打开惩戒室的门，雷欧走了出来，有点局促不安，在强光照射下遮蔽起眼睛。 他瞥了我一眼，然后目光转向尤斯特，以及简，好像在想我们中哪个会骂他，接着他看到了朱蒂，他像看见了鬼一样，喉咙里发出空洞刺耳的叫声，躲开她。 朱蒂打手势与他问好，向他张开双臂。 雷欧全身颤抖着，他很害怕。 我们中的一个请假离开，一两个月后回来了，事实上他肯定认为朱蒂也去了她丈夫去的地方，她的出现吓着了他。 朱蒂显然明白这一切，因为她机智地利用了这一切，她对雷欧说：“我从凡代尔曼斯那给你带来了消息。” “快说，快说，快说！” “来，和我一起走走。”朱蒂说。 她抓着他的手，温和地领他出了惩戒室，来到了围地，从山上下去，到了草地那。 我从山顶望着，这个高瘦的女人和这个结识的肌肉发达的猩猩紧紧靠在一起，肩并肩，手拉手，现在停了下来，开始谈话。 朱蒂打了个手势，雷欧回应了一连串的手势。过了很长时间又轮到朱蒂，这回雷欧简明的回答了一下。 然后朱蒂又打了一长串的手势，雷欧蹲了下来，抓着草叶，摇着头，手拍拍肘部，表示疑惑。然后他又拍着下巴，接下来握住了朱蒂的手。 他们离开有一个小时了，其他猩猩都不敢靠近他们。 最后朱蒂和雷欧手拉手地平静地来到了山上的总部，雷欧的眼里闪着光，朱蒂也是。 她说：“现在一切都正常了。是不是，雷欧？” 雷欧说：“神总是对的。” 他打了个解散的手势，雷欧慢慢的走下了山。 他一离开我们的视野，朱蒂就转过身哭了起来，不过就一会儿，然后她要了杯饮料，她说：“作为神的信使，真是不容易。” “你跟他讲了什么？”我问道。 “我告诉他我在天堂拜访了哈尔。一直以来哈尔看着我们的一举一动，他为雷欧感到骄傲，只有一件事例外：雷欧派猩猩到神那儿，太快也太多了。我告诉他神还没有做好接收契柯丽、巴斯特和敏茜的准备，他们都将以细胞状储存一段时间，直到他们的真正的日子到来，所以那样做可不是对他们好。我告诉他哈尔想让雷欧知道神希望他停止派猩猩来。然后雷欧就答应了哈尔的愿望，我把哈尔的旧腕表给了他，他可以在他为神服务时戴着它。就这样。我想我还对他们正发展的东西添了一大堆的新的神学理论，希望你们不要对此生气。我想不会再有猩猩被害了。还有，我想再来杯饮料。” 这一天很晚时，我们看见猩猩们聚在小溪旁。雷欧把手举得高高的，阳光照在他细长的多毛手腕上，金黄的表带闪闪发光。与会者们以神的语言发出一阵叫声，他们开始在他面前跳起舞来，雷欧戴上圣帽，穿上圣衣，熟练的移动手臂，打着神秘而又神圣的手语。 再没有发生过谋杀案。我想也不可能再有了。也许一段时间过后我们的猩猩对宗教失去兴趣后，会转向其他消遣活动。但现在还没有，的确还没有。仪式照旧进行，而且变得更精细，我们已装订起几大摞的特殊观察记录，神也满意的俯视着。雷欧呢，每当在圣林中赐福时，都自豪的戴着他的教皇权利象征。 【Finish】 注①：围地（compound），文中是指包含有树和水以及人工建筑的小型的模拟自然环境的一块地。 注②：工程（project），小说描写的背景是一项对猩猩进行研究的长期工程。 注③：阿尔法（alpha），希腊字母的第一个字母，文中是对猩猩们中的五只最为杰出者的代称。 【译后记】 1982年获星云奖短篇小说奖的提名。这个故事的背景是一项对猩猩进行研究的长期工程。当一名科学家患白血病死后，无知而又渴求发展的猩猩们形成了一种宗教。在猩猩们的眼中，人类在猩猩之上，而神在人类之上。猩猩死后，他们成为人类；人死后，他们成为神。 看上去有点荒诞，仔细想想还有点道理。故事发生的时间没有具体说明，小说中也没有提到特别的技术。 我发现美国人很喜欢宗教、语言之类的科幻题材，事实上，假如这样的东西放到我们中国的话可能行不大通。 译者声明 1.译者并未经过原作者授权，纯粹出于个人兴趣翻译，该书版权归原作者及出版社所有。 2.由于本人能力所限，文中可能有误译之处，对此表示歉意，欢迎指正，酬以报告。 3.请尊重译者的劳动，杜绝剽窃行为，转载请保留以上内容。