Next: A Novel by Michael Crichton Read Free Book Online

look upward.

    “That was a swear word,” the teenager said. “In French. I know it was a swear word. In French.”

    “Hush,” his mother said.

    The group stared up at the canopy, searching the dense mass of dark leaves. They could not see the ape up there.

    The heavyset man yelled,“Qu’est-ce que tu dis?”

    There was no answer. Just the crash of an animal moving through branches, and the distant cry of a hornbill.

    CHEEKY CHIMP CHEWS OFF TOURISTS

    (News of the World)

    AFFE SPRICHT IM DSCHUNGEL, FLÜCHE GEORGE BUSH

    (Der Spiegel)

    ORANG PARLE FRANÇAIS?!!

    (Paris Match,beneath a picture of Jacques Derrida)

    MUSLIM MONKEY BERATES WESTERNERS

    (Weekly Standard)

    MONKEY MOUTHS OFF, WITNESSES AGAPE

    (National Enquirer)

    TALKING CHIMPANZEE REPORTED IN JAVA

    (New York Times, subsequent correction printed)

    POLYGLOT PRIMATES SIGHTED IN SUMATRA

    (Los Angeles Times)

    “And, finally, a group of tourists in Indonesia swear they were abused by an orangutan in the jungles of Borneo. According to the tourists, the ape swore at them in Dutch and French, which means it was probably a lot smarter than they were. But no recordings of the cursing chimp have turned up, leading us to conclude that if you believe this story, we have a job for you in the current administration. Plenty of talking apes there!”

    (Countdown with Keith Olbermann,MSNBC News, no correction) CH005

    Get this,”Charlie Huggins said, looking at the television in the kitchen of his house in San Diego.
    The sound was turned off, but he was reading the crawl beneath. “It says, ‘Talking Ape Cited in Sumatra.’”

    “You mean it got a speeding ticket?” his wife said, glancing at the screen. She was making breakfast.

    “No,” Huggins said. “They must mean the ape was ‘sighted.’ With an ‘s.’”

    “The ape was sighted? Meaning the ape could see?” His wife was a high school English teacher.
    She liked these jokes.

    “No, honey. The story says…some people in Sumatra encountered an ape in the jungle that talked.”

    “I thought apes can’t talk,” his wife said.

    “Well, that’s what the story says.”

    “So it has to be a lie.”

    “You think? Uh, now…Britney Spears is not getting divorced. I’m relieved. She may be pregnant again. From the pictures it looks like it. And Posh Spice wore a nice green dress to a gala. And Sting says he can have sex for eight hours without stopping.”

    “Scrambled or over easy?” his wife said.

    “Tantric, apparently.”

    “I mean your eggs.”

    “Scrambled.”

    “Call the kids, will you?” she said. “Everything’s almost ready.”

    “Okay.” Charlie got up from the table and headed for the stairs. When he got to the living room, the phone rang. It was the lab.

    In the laboratories of Radial Genomics Inc., in the eucalyptus groves of the University of California at San Diego, Henry Kendall drummed his fingers on the countertop while he waited for Charlie to pick up. The phone rang three times. Where the fuck was he? Finally, Charlie’s voice: “Hello?”

    “Charlie,” Henry said. “Did you hear the news?”

    “What news?”

    “The ape in Sumatra, for Christ’s sake.”

    “That has to be bullshit,” Charlie said.

    “Why?”

    “Come on, Henry. You know it’s bullshit.”

    “They said the ape spoke Dutch.”

    “It’s bullshit.”

    “It might have been Uttenbroek’s team,” Kendall said.

    “Nah. The ape was big, two or three years old.”

    “So? Uttenbroek could have done it a few years ago. His team’s advanced enough. Besides, those guys from Utrecht are all liars.”

    Charlie Huggins sighed. “It’s illegal in the Netherlands to do that research.”

    “Right. Which is why they would go to Sumatra to do it.”

    “Henry, the technology’s much too difficult. We’re years away from making a transgenic ape.
    You know that.”

    “I don’t know that. You hear what Utrecht announced yesterday? They harvested bull stem cells