Taylor Five Read Online Free PDF Page A

with humans, and it didn’t matter that he didn’t belong in Borneo, because he was too old to be released. He had the run of the compound, but Clint was his special friend.
    Uncle pushed out his lip to the children in greeting and stood knuckling the ground with one hand while he scratched his throat with the other. He gazed severely at Clint.
    “Ah! My secretary!” exclaimed Clint. “It must be time for the team meeting.”
    He glanced at Tay. “Donny, will you go and tell your mum and dad and the others I’ll be there in a few minutes? I want to show Tay how to continue noting this interaction—”
    “Sure thing, pardner.”
    Donny left. Clint put his laptop in front of Tay. “Excuse an old friend, my dear girl, but I’ve heard rumors that you may be having a tough time right about now?”
    “I’m okay.”
    “Uh-huh.” Clint leaned back and tipped the brim of an imaginary hat over his eyes. “You know, Tay, I think you have to ask yourself one question about all of this.”
    “Oh, yeah?”
    She didn’t want to talk about it, but there was something in his tone that was new—
    “You want to be a scientist, I do believe. You want to be out at the edge of human knowledge, making the first footprints into the unknown? So, you have to ask yourself this. If someone had made you an offer, all those years ago, that meant you could be part of something risky but very exciting, something wild and strange that had never been tried before, what would you have said?”
    “That’s two questions.”
    “True,” said Clint, smiling but serious. “You can answer them both.”
    “I want to be a
major
scientist,” said Tay. “And yes. I would probably have said yes.”
    Clint nodded. “I think you would have said yes. Think of that. Remember that.”
    Clint went to his meeting. Tay settled to watch the apes, typing brief notes about what she thought was happening—notes that could be compared later with the videotape. No one could ask me, she thought. It was an amazing thing to be able to do, and they couldn’t ask me whether I would agree to be part of it. Parents can never ask their children if they want to be born, not even ordinary children. No one lied to me. They told me as much as I could understand, from the moment I was old enough to listen. They’ve been as fair as they could possibly be.
    But it’s strange how the more they tell me I’m special, the more I feel like an orphan.
    Me and the apes, she thought. We’re in the same fix. But they can be returned to the wild, where they belong, and I can’t. Clones don’t have a natural habitat.
    Hey, she told herself. Stop thinking about it!
    Uncle had stayed behind when Clint left. He sat in another chair, two places away from Tay along the observation desk, with his feet up, watching Tay out of the corner of his eye. Uncle weighed about a hundred and sixty pounds. His shambling body was full of muscle and his massive jaws were equipped with big teeth. He could have made a formidable predator, if that had been his nature. But it never crossed anyone’s mind to be afraid of him. He reached out with one of his long shaggy arms and gently patted her shoulder. Tay looked around and smiled.
    “Thanks, Uncle.
You
understand. I know you do.”

    Things you’ve planned for and imagined rarely turn out as well as you expected, but Mum’s birthday was an exception. The children had spent two blissful nights at Halfway Camp with Dad, supervising the release of two young apes. A successful release put everyone in a good mood; the rebel situation had calmed down, and the rosebushes had arrived safely. Tessa Mahakam, the head of the ape veterinary team, woke people up before dawn, and they went out into the forest on foot, to an outcrop where they could climb up and watch the sunrise. Tessa was a Dyak. She’d been to university in America and spent years there; but she’d been a little girl in the Kandah highlands: her grandparents still remembered a time when