Evolution

He wasn’t conscious all the time, as a human was. He was conscious intermittently. He was only truly aware of his own thoughts, of himself, when thinking about others in the troop, because that was the primary purpose of consciousness, to model the thinking of others. He wasn’t conscious in the same way about other domains of his life, like food-gathering or even tool using: those were unconscious actions, as peripheral to his awareness as breathing or the working of his legs and arms when he climbed. His thinking was not like a human’s; it was simplified, compartmentalized.

His mind was a sophisticated machine, basically evolved to handle complex social situations. And he had a good innate understanding of his environment. He had a kind of database in his head of the resources he needed to stay alive and where they could be found. He was even good at dead reckoning navigation, and could easily compute good shortcut courses from one site to another. It was his environmental awareness that had prompted his concern about the shrinking forest patch.

It was hard for him to put together the elements of this puzzle: the danger posed by the shrinking forest, what he needed to do with his troop. But the danger was very real to him, and every instinct screamed at him to get away from here. The troop had to follow him. It was as simple as that; he knew it deep in the fibers of his being. If they stayed here they would surely die.

So he roared to get his blood flowing, and threw himself into the most energetic display he could. He raced up and down among the troop, slapping, punching, and kicking. He tore branches from the trees and waved them over his head to make himself look even bigger. He swung and vaulted over branches and trunks, drummed ferociously on the ground, and — as a climactic gesture to reinforce his victory of yesterday — he threw Boulder to the ground and shoved his own puckered anus in the younger male’s face. It was a magnificent spectacle, as good as any Capo had mounted even in his younger days. Males whooped, females flinched, infants cried, and Capo allowed himself a glimmer of pride in his work.

But then he tried to lead them away, toward the fringe of the forest. He walked backward, shaking branches and running back and forth.

They stared. Suddenly he was behaving like a submissive junior male. So he displayed again, drumming, vaulting, and hooting, and went back to the follow-me routine.

At last one of them moved. It was Frond, the spindly young male. He took a couple of tentative knuckle-walk steps. Capo responded with a chattering cry and threw himself at Frond, rewarding him with a burst of intense grooming. Now more came forward: Finger, a few more of the junior males, eager to be groomed in turn. But Capo noticed that Boulder aimed a sly kick at Frond’s backside.

And then, to Capo’s intense relief, here came Leaf, her infant riding on her back, knuckle-walking grandly if a bit stiffly. Where this most senior female came, others followed, including Howl, the near-pubescent youngster.

But not all the females followed — and not all the males. Boulder stayed behind, sitting squat under a tree with his legs ostentatiously crossed under him. Other males gathered around him. Capo displayed at them furiously. But they huddled and groomed each other as if Capo no longer existed. It was a deliberate snub. If he wanted to maintain his position, Capo was going to have to break up this knot of rebellion, perhaps even face down Boulder once more.

But, almost to his own surprise, he gave up his displaying and stood back, panting.

In his heart he knew he had lost them, that he had pushed them too hard, that his troop was fissioning. Those who chose to follow him would find their way, with him, to a new destiny — a destiny he himself couldn’t yet imagine. Those who stayed behind would just have to take their chances.

He loped quickly away, out of the heart of the forest and toward the daylight, without looking back — although he was unable to resist a final valedictory liquid fart in the direction of the rebels.

In the end about half the males and rather more of the females stayed behind. It was a drastic diminishing of Capo’s domain. And as he walked toward the bright light of the plain he could hear the whoops and howling of the males. The battles over the new hierarchy had already begun.

At the forest’s fringe, on the edge of emptiness, Capo paused.

Just as yesterday, gomphotheres grazed on damaged, half-drowned trees. To the north the grassy plain stretched to its misty horizon, littered with glimmering lakes and marshes, herbivore herds passing like shadows. To the south, beyond a kilometer or so, the ground gleamed white as bone. The salt pan would be a difficult place to cross. But Capo could see how the land rose, up toward a green plateau, where — it seemed to his poor eyes, adapted for the short focuses of the forest — a thick blanket of trees lay draped over the rock.