A DAY AT THE HUMAN ZOO — MATTHEW SPENCE
Gath and his mating partner had taken their eldest hatchling to the Zoo to see the humans. K’Gath had been wanting to go, and he needed to see live humans for a report for his nature class. Gath considered themselves to be especially fortunate this particular trip, since the Zoo had just captured a fresh clan of wild humans from the highlands on the other side of the world, where wild humans were far more rare, and valuable as specimens.
“Is it true they can speak?” K’Gath asked, with the enthusiastic curiosity of a student in training.
“Not the way we do,” Gath’s partner answered before he could. “They use signage, but their vocal cords aren’t as developed as ours. But they do have a language…”
“It’s a simple one, at most,” Gath reminded her. They were both natural historians, and were hoping that K’Gath would follow their path, although they’d both told him that he could do whatever he wanted once he passed his final testing cycle. “They live in loose tribes, with no real sense of unity or community. They’re hunter-gatherers, and follow their prey with the seasons.” Much to the annoyance of farmers, he told himself, who would eagerly hunt wild humans for bounties as compensation for lost crops or livestock-but K’Gath didn’t need to know that, yet.
They landed their air skimmer and paid their digital admission at the gate. The Zoo was indeed crowded, with many out-of-territory tourists having come to see the newly arrived humans, many wearing eye cams and carrying 3D recorders. Gath was glad he’d brought his own along. All in all, it promised to be an interesting day at the Zoo.
They’d arrived just in time. The humans were gathered in the main display pit, where some of them sat on artificial rocks while others milled about on the pit’s floor. It was supposed to simulate their natural habitat, a mixture of caves and forest, but they seemed to know that they were not home, as they tried to avoid eye contact with the tourists, hovering near the cave formations while a guide’s voice described their natural habits in common language terms.
“They don’t seem to like it here,” K’Gath said, appearing to feel some sympathy for them. Gath understood the sentiment. He wasn’t overly fond of wild humans, but he was a civilized theropod, and had no desire to see any animal mistreated. But they weren’t,he reminded himself, although it was true that many humans died in captivity before their natural lifespan ended, and their remains given to universities and hospitals for study-but that was something else that K’Gath didn’t need to know about just yet. He was here to see what they looked like in real life, not just in flat recordings, and Gath wanted to make sure he wasn’t disappointed.
“What are those two doing?” K’gath pointed a talon at two humans, one male, the other female, who had separated themselves from the rest of their clan.
“Going through a mating ritual,” Gath explained. “Their pheromones aren’t as strong as ours, so they use direct contact to seek out mates. Those two seem to be right at the earliest breeding stage, when their females’ desire to have offspring is at its strongest-ah, yes, they are going into one of the caves now for their privacy.”
K’gath nodded. He was old enough to know about the facts of life, after all. “What about those two?” he asked, pointing at two males who were circling each other.
“A territorial conflict,” K’gath’s brood mother answered. “They are highly territorial, even more so than we are, and don’t often tolerate differences with each other. You’ll notice how one of them has darker scaling—excuse me, skin—than the other. Some of the others do, too. See how they’ve separated into groups? They are more comfortable with those who are like them.”
“Then isn’t it dangerous to put them together? For them, I mean.”
“They’re put together as part of a social experiment-to see if they can learn to work together as a newer, larger clan. Sometimes it works…”
“But other times it doesn’t,” Gath finished for her, as the two humans began fighting each other. Others joined in, but some seemed to prefer to stay out of the melee, although many of the tourists cheered them on. Some of them booed when Zoo caretaker broke up the fight with air guns and pressure hoses, causing the groups to scatter back to their respective parts of the pit.
K’Gath frowned. “They don’t seem that different from us, sometimes,” he said. “I mean, we fight, too, don’t we?”
Gath had to admire his offspring’s perception. “Not as much as our ancestors did in prehistoric times, but yes, we do…” We have wars, but our fights are more civilized, with protocols and rituals. After all, we’re more advanced now, or so we keep telling ourselves, he thought.
They watched the humans for a while linger, but they seemed to have tired of the fighting, and were staying in little groups, trying to ignore the tourists. Some of the tourists were already leaving, claiming to be bored. Gath decided it was getting time for them to leave, too, but not before taking some final recordings of the humans for K’Gath’s class. We have wars, and nations of clans that prefer their own kind, he thought. He saw that often enough on the news feeds. Maybe K’gath is right—we’re not so different from them, after all.
Maybe K’gath’s generation would learn something from that.
Matthew Spence was born in Cleveland, Ohio.