Doctor Rat (21 page)

“We’ve got ambulances and medical people all around here.”

“The number of dead animals…”

“The job isn’t a pretty one.”

“Thank you, Captain. This is John Cooke for…”

Doctor Rat wins! Yes, Humaniacs, take a little bit of this! Down go the special Army Mixtures, Agent Blue, Agent Orange, and Agent White. Down, down, down, the secret chemical agents float, exploding open. Ha ha, look at the rebels backing away from the rainbow of death! They can’t escape. What horrible shapes I’ve released, one after another, morbid and foaming, fists of steel knocking the rebels over. Agent Blue is spreading everywhere with his secret commando corps, their fangs dripping, claws sharp and shining. I’ll get the Distinguished Service Medal for this day’s work! Memo to the Defense Supply Agency:

Gentlemen:

Thanks to our suppliers—Dow, Diamond Alkali, Uniroyal, Thompson Chemical, Monsanto, Ansul, and Thompson Hayward—I have managed to contribute my share to our lasting peace.

Dead rebels everywhere, males, females, ratlings. Look at them crawling and gagging. There’s no escape, you Commies! Your colony has been wiped out, and your cages contaminated for years to come. This is what you get for your rebellious activity, for sympathizing with those dirty dogs on the treadmill. Aiding and abetting the enemy. Well, take this!

Down go the bottle bombs, how wonderful they look when they burst open and spread. God is on our side, and this is the proof of it. Those pantywaists at Harvard and MIT who protested chemical agents should see what happens when you let a revolution get ahead of you. This is big business, gentlemen; we’re talking about five hundred million dollars’ worth of contracts. I regret a few noncombatants got smoked out. So we killed a few rabbits and some cats. What can I tell you? All these gooks are alike, if you ask me.

Singing and fighting I carry on. Upon the battlements I stride, one rat alone. Fighting for international goodwill and a better world, I dump enough defoliants to burn the hair off a brass monkey’s balls, taking care to select those areas in which most harm will be done to the guerrillas and least harm to local populations, covering everything in sight.

My shell has been crushed. A giant rumbling thing passed over me and I lie broken in the dust. Now the riddle is in pieces, the lines of fate and fortune marred, distorted, and the meaning of my life a-jumble. I am a shellful of blood.

The sound of men’s voices fill the air. They rolled over me.

I crawl feebly, a ruined oracle in the animal’s graveyard. There is no future for us. My broken lines indicate extinction; I saw it as I split in two. I feel the shattered network of our kingdom. The mutilated lions moan their secret names, crying out that which they’ve long held secret. Now my legs refuse to move. My blood trickles from the living cup, and stains the sand.

Man came to the meeting. He attended in great numbers.

I must find shade, but it’s impossible to withdraw into my shell. The dome is wrecked and does not admit me any longer. What a fine home it was; what peaceful dreams and meditations I had inside there, securely enclosed, protected. The finest of homes is eventually undone.

Men’s voices nearing, and their shadow falls upon my cracked carapace. I’m lifted, tossed into a dark sack. The sack swings back and forth. The shade I wanted is mine, but with it is blended the design of man.

The sack swings back and forth, back and forth. In the distance the monkeys scream their curses; but man answers with his more powerful curse, the ear-piercing whine and clatter. And the monkeys are silent.

The lowing of the hippos takes up the dying chant—the deep
ba - ho - ho - ho
which we have heard on peaceful nights. We hear it now, in the burning day, and man replies, and we hear it no more. Man’s voice silences all.

The sack is opened, I am falling to the ground. I can’t withdraw into the shell. Men’s laughing voices. There is the sound of fire. They hold me now.

Pounding me with stones. Sharp through the roof. Cracking completely open. My body is naked. They tear me from my shell. They hold me up, laughing at my puny nakedness. I don’t care, for my only interest is to turn, to squirm, to see the shell at last, to see its outer surface.

They toss me through the air, through steam—burning water! Naked, boiling, I flounder…salt fire…trying to rise…the cup… I drink the fire…

“…John Cooke for CBS News here in Chicago, at the outskirts of the city, where the sanitation department has started bringing the carcasses from another day of slaughter. A huge incinerator is spewing forth the smoke from thousands of burning bodies. The sky has been darkened by the smoke…a truck coming now…the carcasses are all mangled and crushed…giant claws and shovels scoop out piles of bullet-riddled dogs and cattle.

“Flesh and bones, oozing tangles of intestines, with horned heads and matted tails strung on them. Hoofs and stiffened legs are sticking out between the great iron teeth of the machinery. The huge fork moves—the head of a dead beagle is speared right on the end of one of the fork’s tines.

“And the incinerator continues to belch forth flames as the bodies are dumped into it, here in the city where the animal uprising may have had its first beginnings. Now the mass exodus, as it is being called by the biologists, has spread everywhere. Scenes like this are being enacted around the globe, as the hysterically surging animal nation undergoes its most terrible hour.

“John Cooke, CBS News, Chicago…”

Yikes! The rebels are regrouping and advancing again. Look at them coming, with their dogs and monkeys. They’re approaching stealthfully, and I must stand here alone, defending the nation! Very well, if I must I will. Doctor Rat is no pantywaist. He’ll fight the guerrilla forces with everything at his disposal. Telegram to Edgewood Arsenal, Dover, New Jersey:
Keep it coming, Fellow Patriots!

I see that still stronger measures are called for. So over to the most devastating collection of bottles known to man, over here, at the far end of the shelf, to Defense Department Contract AD-13-045-AML-164. We’re getting 350 million bucks a year for this one, friends, us and fifty other American universities—see
Viet Report,
1969. It’s high-class stuff, the cream of the crop, good old bubonic plague!

Go, bub, go!

Down he goes, crashing open on the floor, a masterfully developed strain resistant to all antibiotics! We’ve been working on it for years. Look at it spreading. Hurray, hurray! (cf., twenty-two out of twenty-nine provinces north of Saigon hit by plague)

Oh, this is great stuff. Those bacilli are tough little bastards. The Learned Professor and I have been developing them now—go, go—for ten years, highly pathogenic.

Thanks to the cooperation of Cornell, we’ve determined the most effective way to deliver these agents (see
Science Mag.,
Feb. 23, 1967).

“Gimme a
B,
gimme a
U,
gimme a
B,
gimme an
O,
gimme an
N
, gimme an
I
, gimme a
C! Bubonic, bubonic, bubonic,
go!” Look at him charging through that line, Cornell defenders all around him, trampling over the rebels. Touchdown!

My old tusks are lowered, the mighty shivering instinct is upon me. I feel young again. I shiver among the other bulls. We make a mighty charge. Forward, bulls, we must charge through them to the jungle. I know a river we can all go to.

Beware men’s tusks of fire. His tusks speak fire and thunder. Our leader moves us forward and we turn as he turns. Largest animal on the plain, great bull, lead us to the jungle. As in the old days, the grand days of my youth, I am beside you again.

We see and smell the distant forest and we’ll eat there tonight. We’ll stand beneath the trees at twilight and munch down the green leaves. Don’t stand in the way of our dinner, little pygmy, or we’ll shatter you down. We are the mustering!

Can you thunder this loud! Can you shake the plains, pygmy, like this! We shake the plains and you are as puny as a gnat. You’re all the same to us, little beasts of prey, and we shall trample you down!

Herd leader menacing forward, his ears out wide, as we approach them in the enormity of our front view, our ears spread out wide. We are the biggest elephant in the world.

Rise up thunder shaking. Run over the sands. We are the forward-charging elephant with ears out, breaking through man’s tusks of fire.

Tumbling…the herd thundering past me. I crawl on the sands as they thunder past me. Something has struck me in the belly. Too old for the mustering…too old…

“…here at our special CBS Control Center for the Animal Crisis. The latest reports continue to confirm the global proportions of the crisis. In what biologists now call an unprecedented radiation of the instinctive urge toward mass movement, the animals have gathered in tremendous groups on every continent. Many of these gathering places are remote, but others are quite close to major cities. In Kinshasa, Jim Winthrop reports:”

“From the top of Stanley Hill, one can see Kinshasa spread out below—wharves, skyscrapers, building cranes—a modern city on the move. And in the streets, herds of antelope frantically stampeding. On the steps of the Roman Catholic cathedral, a dead water buffalo, his huge head wedged against the door. In the big central square, the Armée Nationale has its hands full with charging wild boars and menacing cats. On every street one sees abandoned automobiles, and the normally overflowing sidewalk cafés are deserted—except for the animals who wander aimlessly and fearfully through the overturned tables and chairs.

“Along the banks of the Congo, the coffee, palm, and rubber plantations have suffered severe damage from the great stampeding herds and from the army troops and heavy equipment which is in pursuit of them.

“In every direction, on all the highways and byroads, the animals have appeared, caught in the movement, driven by unnamable instinctual forces which have thrown the Congo into yet another war, this one the strangest and most terrible, by far, that it has ever fought. Jim Winthrop, CBS News, Kinshasa…”

I lie on the great plain with death inside me, with death sunk deep into me. My trunk is all that is left to me; I stretch it out, but it fills with dust. I have toppled. My tusks are dug into the sand. I thought to die by the river, but it was not to be.

I hear the screaming of the she-lions; upon the wind is the sighing of the hippo. He opens his mouth to the sky, to swallow it, to live a moment longer. From the corner of my eye I see him on his back, his stumpy legs in the air. He was too fat to fare well on this plain. But he wanted to come. They all wanted to be here. It was worth having been here, in the one moment when we surged. Then I felt us all united. Then I saw the meaning of the earth. Could I have forgotten it already?

Yes, I’ve forgotten. I’m old and badly wounded. And were I to speak the little bit I remember of the surging moment, the fierce badger would bite me.

The smoke is drifting over us. We lie in a heap, the quivering elephant nation. The mightiest bulls are fallen beside me, their tongues hanging out, their eyes staring into the sand. We bought the one moment with our blood. It seems a high price to pay, but we stood imperturbable, in the knowledge.

I don’t feel any sharp teeth. The badgers are all dead. But even so, I cannot elaborate further on the surging. We touched our trunks, we were one. I miss the riverbank. It isn’t easy to die. All my careful preparations—it isn’t easy. My breath is leaving me. My breath is departing. I’m sorry for the young ones, for the newborn calves. They barely tasted the sweet leaves.

My breath goes further… I cannot call it back. The path is black. This is the great fear. The plums, the plums…

They’ll make shoes out of me if they catch me. They’ll be wearing this old chimp on their feet. I went to the center of the plain, like the old fool I am. Went and got trapped.

Desire to test the Great One Animal led us here. Desire to be the One Great Animal, to feel the power of his kingdom.

Feel it trembling now, feel it trembling about us, the thunder of war. They love it; we are their sport. Terrified trembling nation, thunder on the plains, my body keeping the awesome drumbeat. Their drums are much louder than ours. What chimp can drum as loud as you, oh man! We cannot match your mighty
tr-ump tr-ump
! Our tree-stump drums are too small. We couldn’t sound like you.

This way, rush through the yellow sand, over the fallen bodies of the others. Must make the jungle wall. Must reach the treetops again.

We wanted to know the One Animal, and man had to be there too. For one moment of completeness we give our life. We bought it with our life, but we had it, masters. We had our illumination. We all stood together on the plain with you. We appreciated our perfect plain with you.

We had the one moment.

Down, bend your head low, chimp. Crawl along through the hairy bodies. Fur all around me, much trembling, blood-oozing. Man, the animal, with his fiery horns.

Man’s horns of fire.

Playing his drum of mightiness.

Roar, roar!

This old chimp is going to make the jungle wall. They haven’t seen me yet. I’ll get away. Get back to the little babbling stream and dream beside it all day long. Never go away from it, never leave it. Listen to it night and day. I want to listen to you, little stream, lead me back to you. You are magic, this I know. Help the old chimp now, give him your protection, guide him by your magic power.

Baby chimp on the sand. Pick him up, scoop him in my arms. “Hang on to me. Wrap your arms around my neck.” Now which way do I go? Man’s horns of fire everywhere. His magic is great.

Baby chimp’s heart pounds against my back. He cries. I run. Babbling little stream, help us get to you. Help us through the horns of fire. If I can get to you and plunge into you, little stream, we’ll be saved. Nobody will be near us, for you are far back in the forest where man has never been.