he said to Bertram: ‘Let me know if you find anything interesting.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Bertram said.
Armed with the magnetic pass card, Bertram returned to the lab and
entered Kevin’s space. Locking the door behind him, he first went
through Kevin’s desk. Finding nothing, he made a quick tour of the room.
The first sign of trouble was a stack of computer paper next to the
printer that Bertram recognized as printouts of the island graphic.
Bertram examined each page. He could tell that they represented varying
scales. What he couldn’t figure out was the meaning of all the
surcharged geometric shapes.
Putting the pages aside, Bertram went to Kevin’s computer and began to
search through his directories. It wasn’t long before he found what he
was looking for: the source of the information on the printouts.
For the next half hour, Bertram was transfixed by what he found: Kevin
had devised a way to follow individual animals in real time. After
Bertram played with this capability for a while, he came across Kevin’s
stored information documenting the animals’ movement over a period of
several hours. From this information, Bertram was able to reproduce the
geometric shapes.
‘You are too clever for your own good,’ Bertram said out loud as he
allowed the computer to run sequentially through the movements of each
animal. By the time the program had run its course, Bertram had seen the
problem with bonobo numbers sixty and sixty-seven.
With mounting anxiety, Bertram tried to get the indicators for the two
animals to move. When he couldn’t, he went back to real time and
displayed the two animals’ current position. They’d not changed one
iota.
‘Good lord!’ Bertram moaned. All at once, the worry about Kevin vanished
and was replaced with a more pressing problem. Turning off the computer,
Bertram snapped up the printed island graphics, and ran out of the lab.
Outside, he passed up his car to run directly across the square to the
town hall. He knew it would take less time on foot.
He raced up the stairs. As he entered the outer office, Aurielo looked
up. Bertram ignored him. He burst into Siegfried’s office unannounced.
‘I’ve got to talk with you immediately,’ Bertram sputtered to Siegfried.
He was out of breath.
Siegfried was meeting with his food-service supervisor. Both appeared
stunned by Bertram’s arrival.
‘It’s an emergency,’ Bertram added.
The food-service supervisor stood up. ‘I can return later,’ he said and
left.
‘This better be important,’ Siegfried warned.
Bertram waved the computer printouts. ‘It’s very bad news,’ he said. He
took the chair vacated by the supervisor. ‘Kevin Marshall figured out a
way to follow the bonobos over time.’
‘So what?’ Siegfried said.
‘At least two of the bonobos don’t move,’ Bertram said. ‘Number sixty
and number sixty-seven. And they haven’t moved for more than twenty-four
hours. There’s only one explanation. They’re dead!’
Siegfried raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, they’re animals,’ he said.
‘Animals die. We have to expect some attrition.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Bertram said with a tinge of disdain. ‘You made
light of my concern that the animals had split into two groups. I told
you that it was significant. This, unfortunately, is proof. As sure as
I’m standing here, those animals are killing each other!’
‘You think so?’ Siegfried asked with alarm.
‘There’s no doubt in my mind,’ Bertram said. ‘I’ve been agonizing over
why they split up into two groups. I decided it had to have been because
we forgot to maintain the balance between males and females. There’s no
other explanation, and it means the males are fighting over the females.
I’m sure of it.’
‘Oh my god!’ Siegfried exclaimed, with a shake of his head. ‘That’s
terrible news.’
‘It’s more than terrible,’ Bertram said. ‘It’s intolerable. It will be
the ruin of the whole program provided we don’t act.’
‘What can we do?’ Siegfried asked.
‘First, we tell no one!’ Bertram said. ‘If there is ever an order to
harvest either sixty or sixty-seven, we’ll deal with that particular
problem then. Second, and more important, we must bring the animals in
like I’ve been advocating. The bonobos won’t be killing each other if
they’re in separate cages.’