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"Milk," she said, pointing. "A glass of milk."
Timmie made what she took to be the hunger-clicks.
"Yes. Hungry. Do you want some milk?"
No response.
She tried a different tack.
"Timmie-you. You-Timmie." Pointing.
He stared at her finger but said nothing.
"Walk."
"Eat."
"Laugh."
"Me-Miss Fellowes. You-Timmie."
Nothing each time.
Hopeless, Miss Fellowes thought bitterly. Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless!
"Talk?"
"Drink?"
"Eat?"
"Laugh?"
"Eat," Timmie said suddenly.
She was so astounded that she nearly dropped the plate of food she had just prepared for him.
"Say that again!"
"Eat."
The same sound. Not really clear. More like "Eeeh." She hadn't been able to detect the final consonant either time. But it was the right sound for the context.
She held the plate toward him, too high for him to be able to reach it.
"Eeeh!" he said again, more insistently.
"Eat?" she asked. "You want to eat?"
"Eeeeh!" Real impatience now.
"Here," Miss Fellowes said. "Eat, yes, Timmie. Eat! Eat your food!"
"Eeeh," he said in satisfaction, and seized his fork and fell to vigorously.
"Was it good?" she asked him afterward. "Did you like your lunch?"
But that was expecting too much of him. Even so, she wasn't going to give up now. Where there was one word there might be others. Had to be others.
She pointed to him. "Timmie."
"Mmm-mmm," he said.
Was that his way of saying "Timmie"?
"Does Timmie want to eat some more? Eat?"
She pointed to him, then to her mouth, and made earing motions. He looked at her and said nothing. Well, why should he? He wasn't hungry any longer.
But he knew that he was Timmie. Didn't he?
"Timmie," she said again, and pointed to him.
"Mmm-mmm," he said, and tapped his chest.
There could be no mistake about that. A stu
Then she ran for the intercom. "Dr. Hoskins! Will you come in here, please? And you'd better send for Dr. Mclntyre, too!"
"It's Bruce Ma
Ma
"Yes, Mr. Ma
"I just wanted to let you know that I've discussed the results of my very amiable conversation with you last week with my board of advisers."
"Yes?" Hoskins said, not so jovially. He hadn't found the last conversation quite as amiable as Ma
"I told them that you had answered my preliminary queries very satisfactorily."
"I'm glad to hear that."
"And the general feeling around here is that we don't intend to take action at this time concerning the Neanderthal boy, but that we'll need to monitor the situation closely while we complete our studies of the entire question. I'll be calling you next week with a further list of points that need to be satisfied. I thought you'd like to know that."
"Ah-yes," Hoskins said. "Thank you very much for telling me, Mr. Ma
He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe slowly in and out.
Thank you very much, Mr. Ma
The day Timmie spoke his first words of English was a wondrous one for Miss Fellowes. But other days followed soon afterward that were much less wondrous.
The problem was that Timmie wasn't just a little boy who happened to have been placed in her care. He was an extraordinary scientific specimen, and scientists from all over the world were jostling with one another for the privilege of studying him. Dr. Jacobs and Dr. Mclntyre had been only the tip of the wave, the first indications of the deluge to follow.
Jacobs and Mclntyre were still very much in evidence, of course. They had been lucky enough to have first shot at Timmie, and they still had the inside track with him because of their priority status. But they were aware that they could not have a monopoly on him. A horde of anthropologists, physiologists, cultural historians, and specialists of a dozen other sorts was at the door, knocking to get in. And each one had his own agenda for the little Neanderthal boy.
The fact that Timmie could speak English now made them all the more eager. Some of them acted as if they could simply sit down with the boy and start asking him questions about life in the Paleolithic Era as he remembered it:
"What species of animals did your tribe hunt?"
"What were your people's religious beliefs like?"
"Did you migrate with the seasons?"
"Was there warfare between tribes?"
"What about warfare between your subspecies and the other one?"
He was the only possible source. Their minds bubbled with queries that Timmie alone could answer. Tell us, tell us, tell us, tell us! We want to know all that there is to know about your people'skinship structures- totemic animals- linguistic groups- astronomical concepts- technological skillsBut of course no one got to ask Timmie any of these fascinating and important questions, because Timmie's command of English, though it was growing stronger day by day, was still confined at the moment to phrases like "Timmie eat now" and "Man go away now."
Besides which, Miss Fellowes was the only one who could understand Timmie's words with any degree of reliability. To the others, even those who saw the boy virtually every day, his thick, strangled attempts at pronunciation were only barely recognizable as carrying meaning. Evidently the original speculations about Neanderthal linguistic ability were correct, at least in part: though the Neanderthals obviously did have the intellectual capacity for speech, and the anatomical ability to produce intelligible words, their tongues and larynxes were apparently unable to create sounds with the degree of articulation required by modern-day languages. At least, Timmie couldn't manage it. Even Miss Fellowes had to strain much of the time to figure out what he was trying to say.
It was a frustrating business for everyone-for Timmie, for Miss Fellowes, and especially for the scientists who were so anxious to question the boy. And it reinforced the poignancy of Timmie's isolation. Even now that he was begi
How lonely he must be! she thought.
And how baffled and frightened by all the hubbub that went on constantly around him!
She did her best to protect him. She could not and would not allow herself to accept the fact that what she was engaged in was simply a scientific experiment. It certainly was that; but there was a small unhappy child at die center of it; and she would not let him be treated only as an experimental subject.
The physiologists put him on special diets. She purchased toys for him. They plagued her with requests for blood samples, X-ray pictures, even clipping of Timmie's hair. She taught him songs and nursery rhymes. They put Timmie through exhaustive and exhausting tests of his coordination and reflexes, his visual acuity, his hearing, his intuitive intelligence. Miss Fellowes comforted him afterward, holding him and stroking him until he was calm again.
They demanded more and more of his time.
She insisted on strict limits to the daily inquisitions. Most of the time her wishes prevailed, though not always. The visiting scientists undoubtedly thought she was an ogre, an impediment to knowledge, a stubborn and irrational woman. Miss Fellowes didn't care. Let them think whatever they wanted; it was Timmie's interests that concerned her, not theirs.
The closest thing to an ally she had was Hoskins. He came to visit the dollhouse virtually every day. It was obvious to Miss Fellowes that Hoskins welcomed any chance to escape from his increasingly difficult role as head of Stasis Technologies, Ltd., and that he took a sentimental interest in the child who had caused all this furor; but it seemed to her also that he enjoyed talking to her.
(She had learned a few things about him by this time. He had invented the method of analyzing the reflections cast by the past-penetrating mesonic beam; he had been one of the inventors of the method of establishing Stasis; his often chilly, exceedingly businesslike ma
One day Hoskins walked in on her just in time to catch her in the process of erupting.
It had been a bad day, very bad. A new team of physiologists from California had showed up with a whole new series of tests they wanted to put Timmie through-right now-something having to do with his posture and pelvic structure. The tests involved an intricate arrangement of cold metal rods and a lot of pushing and pressing. Timmie wasn't much in the mood just then to be pushed and pressed against cold metal rods. Miss Fellowes, watching them manipulating him as though he were some sort of laboratory animal, found herself being swept by the hot urge to kill.
"Enough!" she cried, finally. "Out! Out!"
They gaped and gawped at her.
"I said, Out! Session's over! The boy is tired. You're twisting his legs and straining his back. Don't you see that he's crying? Out! Out!"
"But, Miss Fellowes-"
She began to gather up their instruments. They snatched them hastily from her. She pointed to the door. Muttering among themselves, they scuttled out.