Free Congo by Michael Crichton Page A

winter. She preferred men to women, and she was openly jealous of Elliot's girl friends. He rarely brought them around to meet her, but sometimes in the morning she would sniff him for perfume, and she always commented if he had not changed his clothing overnight.

This situation might have been amusing if not for the fact that Amy made occasional unprovoked attacks on strange women. And an attack by Amy was never amusing.

Amy returned to the easel and signed, No like woman no like Amy no like go away away.

"Come on, Amy, be a good gorilla," Peter said.

"What did she say?" Ross asked, going to the sink to wash the finger paint from her dress. Peter noticed that she did not squeal and shriek as many visitors did when they received an unfriendly greeting from Amy.

"She said she likes your dress," he said.

Amy shot him a look, as she always did whenever Elliot mistranslated her.

Amy not lie. Peter not lie.

"Be nice, Amy," he said. "Karen is a nice human per-son."

Amy grunted, and returned to her work, painting rapidly.

"What happens now?" Karen Ross said.

"Give her time." He smiled reassuringly. "She needs time to adjust."

He did not bother to explain that it was much worse with chimpanzees. Chimps threw feces at strangers, and even at workers they knew well; they sometimes attacked to establish dominance. Chimpanzees had a strong need to determine who was in charge. Fortunately, gorillas were much less formal in their dominance hierarchies, and less violent.

At that moment, Amy ripped the paper from the easel and shredded it noisily, flinging the pieces around the room.

"Is this part of the adjustment?" Karen Ross asked. She seemed more amused than frightened.

"Amy, cut it out," Peter said, allowing his tone to convey irritation. "Amy..

Amy sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by the paper. She tore it angrily and signed, This woman. This woman. It was classic displacement behavior.

Whenever gorillas did not feel comfortable with direct aggression, they did something symbolic. In symbolic terms, she was now tearing Karen Ross apart.

And she was getting worked up, beginning what the Project Amy staff called "sequencing." Just as human beings first became red-faced, and then tensed their bodies, and then shouted and threw things before they finally resorted to direct physical aggression, so gorillas passed through a stereotyped behavioral sequence on the way to physical aggression. Tearing up paper, or grass, would be followed by lateral crablike movements and grunts. Then she would slap the ground, making as much noise as possible.

And then Amy would charge, if he didn't interrupt the sequence.

"Amy," he said sternly. "Karen button woman."

Amy stopped shredding. In her world, "button" was the acknowledged term for a person of high status.

Amy was extremely sensitive to individual moods and behavior, and she had no difficulty observing the staff and deciding who was superior to whom. But among strangers, Amy as a gorilla was utterly impervious to formal human status cues; the principal indicators-clothing, bearing, and speech-had no meaning to her.

As a young animal, she had inexplicably attacked policemen. After several biting episodes and threatened lawsuits, they finally learned that Amy found police uniforms with their shiny buttons clown like and ridiculous; she assumed that anyone so foolishly dressed must be of inferior status and safe to attack. After they had taught her the concept of "button," she treated anyone in uniform with deference.

Amy now stared at "button" Ross with new respect. Surrounded by the torn paper, she seemed suddenly embarrassed, as if she had made a social error.

Without being told, she went and stood in the corner, facing the wall.

"What's that about?" Ross said.

"She knows she's been bad."

"You make her stand in the corner, like a child? She didn't mean any harm."

Before Elliot could warn against it, she went over to Amy. Amy stared