Page 9 - Fables volume 3

Pithecanthropus Rejectus

Young male (sitting on log, staring at hands): I..I..I see! My hands!
(Looks at others in clearing) Not me! Their hands! Sounds in head—what?
(Attempts vocalization) Not good. (Stands, stamps ground in
frustration; others look at him, alarmed) No..no..no danger. (sits down,
stares at feet) My toes. Moving toes. Funny!

(Usha, Uma, Uk and Ulla, chewing leaves at edge of clearing)

Ulla: Did you see that? He just gained awareness. A juvenile!

Usha: No doubt about it. What went wrong? Uma: isn’t that your
offspring?

Uma: Yes. I don’t understand it. I mated with the stupidest male in
the troop. Look at my daughter over there: no self-consciousness at
all. Too bad: we need to bring new members into the sisterhood.

Uk: I wish we could predict the outcome of our breeding. We don’t
dare mate with a half-aware male. It could produce a very smart
female—or a male we could not control: strong and intelligent! It
makes my fur creep just to think of it.

Usha: So we must keep our daughters away from him, even the ones
who have yet to show any signs of understanding. That will require a
lot of effort: concealing our advancement from him and denying him
the opportunity possibly to sire our nemesis.

Ulla: A lot of work, with an uncertain reward! Are we not simply
delaying the inevitable for a generation or two?

Uk: You know the alternative: an end to our manipulation of the
males. Endless fear of random violence and irrational decisions for
the troop we won’t be able to correct. Mating with undesirables. Ugh!

Uma: Are you sure we couldn’t just take our little klatsch somewhere
else and start a new order, a matriarchy?

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