God's Grace Read Free Page B

under the galley double-sink.
    Who would that be?
    The question frightened him. Cohn looked around for a cleaver and settled on a long cooking fork hanging on the wall. Holding the instrument poised like a dagger, he strode forward and pulled open the metal door.
    The shriek of an animal sent his heart into flight. Cohn considered pursuing it in space but took an impulsive look inside the under-sink cabinet and could not believe what he beheld—a small chimpanzee with glowing, frightened eyes, sitting scrunched up amid bottles of cleaning fluid, grinning sickly as he clucked hoo-hoos. He wore a frayed cheesecloth compress around his neck.
    “Who are you?” Cohn cried, moved by his question—that he was asking it of another living being. A live chimp-child, second small error by God Himself? The Universal Machine, off by a split cosmi-second, allows a young ape also to survive?
    That being so, the realm of possibility had expanded. Cohn’s mood improved. He felt more the old Cohn.
    The chimp, swatting aside the cooking fork, bolted out of the cabinet, scampering forward on all fours to a swing-door
that wouldn’t budge. Scooting behind a tin-top work table, he climbed up a wall of shelves and sat perched at the top, persistently hooting. The chimp chattered like an auctioneer encouraging bids as he awaited Cohn’s next move. At the same time he seemed to be eloquently orating: he had his rights, let him be.
    Cohn kept his distance. He guessed the chimp had belonged to Dr. Walther Bünder, had heard the scientist kept one in his cabin; but Cohn had never seen the animal and forgot it existed. He had heard the doctor walked it on the deck late at night, and the little chimp peed in the ocean.
    The ape on the shelf seemed to be signaling something—he tapped his toothy mouth with his fingers. The message was clear—Cohn offered him what was left of his own glass of water. Accepting it, the chimp drank hungrily. He wiped the inside of the glass with his long finger and sucked the juice before tossing the tumbler to Cohn. Hooting for attention, he tapped his mouth again, but Cohn advised him no more water till bedtime.
    They were communicating!
    Sitting on a kitchen stool, Calvin Cohn carefully observed the young chimpanzee, who guardedly returned his observation. He gave the impression that he was not above serious reflection, a quite intelligent animal. Descending the shelves, he self-consciously knuckle-walked toward Cohn, nervously chattering as the other sat motionless watching him.
    Then the little animal mounted Cohn’s lap and attempted to suckle him through his T-shirt, but he, embarrassed, fended him off. “Behave yourself.” The chimp sat grooming
his belly as if he had lived forever on Cohn’s lap and punctually paid the rent.
    He was a bowlegged, bright little boy with an expressive, affectionate face, now that his fear of Cohn seemed to have diminished. He weighed about seventy pounds, a large-craniumed creature with big ears, a flat nose, and bony-ridged curious dark eyes. His shaggy coat was brown. He seemed lively, optimistic, objective; did not say all he knew. He sat in Cohn’s lap as though signifying he had long ago met, and did not necessarily despise, the human race. When in his exploration of his body hair he came on a tasty morsel, he ate it with interest. One such tidbit he offered Cohn, who respectfully declined.
    He, feeling an amicable need to confide in somebody, told the little ape they had both been abandoned on this crippled ship, to an unknown fate.
    At that the chimp beat his chest with the fist of one pink-palmed hand, and Cohn wondered at the response; protest, mourning—both? Whatever he meant meant meaning, comprehension. The thought of cultivating that aptitude in the animal pleased the man.
    What would you tell me if you could?
    The young chimp’s stomach rumbled. Hopping off Cohn’s lap, he reached for his hand, and tugging as he knuckle-walked, led him to a cabin in the