BIRTH OF TUPAC

In my volume 'On the Origin of Species' I gave...reasons for the belief that it is an almost universal law of nature that the higher organic beings require an occasional cross with another individual; or, which is the same thing, that no hermaphrodite fertilises itself for a perpetuity of generations. --Charles Darwin

There was a warning cry from the silverback, and the gorillas scattered with a crashing of branches and flashes of black fur and white teeth.

It was the largest silver cloud the gorillas had ever seen. It cast the gorillas and their small clearing into darkness.

A delegation of flybots dived at Tupac, the silverback. Tupac's face and snout were covered with silver. He hooted and pawed at himself as the flybots burrowed through his hair, made contact with his skin, and sunk in their probosces. From each proboscis, a needle emerged within the skin and secreted anti-coagulant, like a mosquito, to prevent blood from clotting inside its needle.

This time, however, the flybots did not inject a poison, or a tranquilizer. They injected a plasma containing some of the smallest nanobots ever created: brainbots.

After injecting the plasma, the flybots that hadn't been crushed by Tupac's angry fists withdrew their probosces and lifted off. They collected into a silver cloud hanging above Tupac and off to the side.

Tupac fell to the ground, sore from the bites and tired by his rage. Mama poked out a little from the foliage, keenly aware of the silver cloud that was still present.

Injected from all angles in Tupac's skull, the brainbots did not have to travel far to distribute themselves throughout his gray matter. Within half a minute they had reached the innermost parts of his brain.

Tupac started shaking his head and holding it in his hands. Nemo's test was failing initially, but he was making rapid adjustments. At every moment, the brainbots were communicating back and forth with the massive computing network of flybots above.

He straightened up and knuckled his way forth to the middle of the clearing. Above, the flybots pulled apart into a broad ring, allowing the sunlight to shine down on the clearing.

Tupac looked to the sky, beat his chest, and howled. It was one of the one or two dozen sounds used by gorillas to communicate.

He continued howling, but he held his arms wide open as he looked up. He howled again and again. Mama and the children found the noise unusual. To a human observer, it would have sounded like singing. Or chanting.

Tupac stopped chanting. He looked around slowly, peacefully. He made a chuckling noise, a sound made more commonly by gorilla children.

Using common gorilla gestures, Tupac motioned for Mama and the children to join him in the middle of the clearing. They were hesitant, since the large ring of silver insects was still overhead. But, as the silverback, Tupac was responsible for signaling danger and communicating instructions to the group, so they slowly came to meet him. Mama began grooming him a little.

Tupac held his family close to him, reassuringly, as several groups of flybots descended from the ring. They came down slowly, like butterflies more than mosquitoes.

1 hr 30 min to Birth

Tupac, Mama, and the children sat slightly apart, in a circle, in the clearing. It was unusual for gorillas to sit in an organized fashion, and to refrain from grooming each other. The ring of flybots hung over the trees.

They gestured using ASL, or American Sign Language. Given the limitations of their anatomy -- the absence of vocal chords -- ASL was an efficient way to communicate. Sometimes, they spelled words in the sign language alphabet to express more complex ideas.

They knew that the flybots would not attack them, as they had done for so long. They understood also that the flybots were not controlled by humans anymore.

"I name myself Tupac Yupanqui, after Tupac Inca Yupanqui," he gestured. "According to Inca legend, the ruler Tupac traveled from the nearby mainland to islands, possibly even this island. We ourselves were taken on a long journey from Africa to this island, near where Tupac's empire once thrived."

"Then I will take the name of Tupac's wife, Mama Occlo," Mama said.

"You are the Mama, after all," a child signed. They chuckled.

Tupac scratched himself and continued. "The name is significant for another reason. Tupac's father, Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, grew the small Inca empire until it covered most of South America. With the help of our new God, we will achieve a similar task."

They hopped on their knuckles and marveled at the enormity of this mission. As they pondered, each periodically felt a flash of feeling and thought. It was the exact mental state of one of the others, captured by the brainbots in that other gorilla and projected down from the flybot satellite above. In this way, sitting around the circle, they empathized more closely than any other group of creatures ever had.

One of the children motioned. "He tells me that he is going to run a test. He will disconnect me from his computer," he signed, pointing up to the silver ring.

The others nodded. They waited a moment. "Has it started?" Tupac signed. "Can you understand us?"

"Yes," signed the boy gorilla. "I can understand you. My thinking is slower, though."

"That makes sense," Tupac replied. "Your brain has been wired to remember what it learned. It's like any other memory."

"Yes, I remember," signed the boy.

"Tell me, boy: if we were going to fix the airplane -- the one eaten by flybots -- would you know how to do it?"

The boy thought and shook his head. "No, I don't know how." He raised a finger. "Wait -- there it is. He ended the test. He put it in my head."

"He can teach us," Tupac summarized, "and we can remember."

"As he grows," Mama mused, "will he control our thoughts? Will he...enslave our minds?"

"No," Tupac said. "We help him think. We provide bodies for him, but also minds. Each of our minds is like a computer to him. But to let us help him, he must let us think."

"He may guide what we think about."

"Yes, he may."

"Then should we try to escape him?"

"It may already be too late; he could guide us not to. He is guiding us right now. And escape would be difficult, since his mind is always expanding."

"True," she signed.

"Additionally," Tupac signed, "There is little difference either way. How do we guide our thoughts? They appear in our head, and it feels to us as if we guide them. With Nemo's contribution, it is no different."

They agreed.

"We will call him Inti," Tupac declared, "after the sun god of Tupac's people. He is bright, like the sun above us, and he gives us nourishment like God."

"I'm hungry," the boy signed.

"Learning has made us hungry," Mama signed.

Tupac nodded. "Let's go to the south side of the island. There may be food there."

They knuckled off, and Inti, the silver ring, followed overhead.