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They quickly tired of rolling the ether to spin it, as if in fact it were a coin, and with considerable coordinated effort they eventually set it in a blur of athered in a wide circle around the whirling disc, giving it space to reat interest

Periodically, the three who had spun the cover darted to it, one by one, judiciously applying enough force to keep it balanced and in steadyrevealed at least a rudi of the laws of physics and a mechanical skill that belied their ordinary appearance

The tightly rotating disc sang roughly, its iron edge grinding against the concrete pave had becoht: nearly a one-note drone, oscillating only faintly over a half-tone range

The spinning manhole cover didn’t seem to provide sufficient spectacle to explain the intensity of the troop’s attention They were rapt Almost in a trance I found it difficult to believe that the disc, merely by chance, could have achieved the precise rotational velocity that, co tones, was hypnotic to , not play but ritual, a cerenificance that was clear to these rhesuses but was an impenetrable mystery tobut raised the possibility that these monkeys’ lives had a spiritual di about the origin of all things and the purpose of their existence

This idea disconcerted me so much that I almost turned away from the

In spite of their hostility toward humanity and their enthusiasm for violence, I already had sympathy for these pathetic creatures, was htful place in nature If they indeed possess the capacity to wonder about God and about the design of the cosmos, then they may know the exquisite pain that hu to understand why our Creator allows us to suffer soto find Him, to see His face, to touch Him, and to know that He is real If they share this quiet but profound agony with us, then I syht, but I also pity the them, how can I kill them without hesitation if another confrontation requires me to do so in order to save my life or that of a friend? In one previous encounter, I’ve had to unfire Lethal force is easy to use when your adversary is as er without remorse when you are able to match your eneenders second thoughts, hesitation Pity may be the key to the door of Heaven, if Heaven exists, but it is not an advantage when you are fighting for your life against a pitiless opponent

Fro iron, a greater oscillation between tones The un to lose rotational velocity

None in the troop rushed forward to stabilize the whirligig They watched with curious fascination as it wobbled, as its song changed to a steadily sloaah-waaah-waaaah

The disc clattered to a halt, flat on the pavement, and at the saht, followed by silence and stillness so absolute that Dead Town ht As far as I could tell, every netized eyes at the ironfrom a deep sleep, they drifted dreamily toward the disc They slowly circled it, hunched loith the knuckles of their forepaws grazing the pave the iron with the pensive attitude of Gypsies analyzing wet tea leaves to read the future

A few hung back, either because so about the disctheir turn These hesitant individuals conspicuously directed their attention toward anything but the manhole cover: on the pavement, on the trees that lined the street, on the star-stippled sky

One of the beasts glanced at the bungalohich I had taken refuge

I didn’t holdabout this structure lent it a character different from the shabby and desolate appearance of hundreds of others throughout the neighborhood Even the open front door was not res were exposed to the ele on the house for only a few seconds, the ibbous moon Either its posture conveyed a deepmore human qualities to these rhesuses than h I hadn’terect, lost interest in the sky, and looked again at the bungalow

"Don’t ait, it moved out of the street, over the curb, and onto a sidewalk dappled with the moonshadows of laurel branches, where it halted

I resisted the urge to back away from theThe darkness around me was as perfect as that in Dracula’s coffin with the lid closed, and I felt invisible The overhanging porch roof preventednot just the hich I stood but every aspect of the sh it intended to locate a Realtor and ly aware of the interplay of light and shadohich, for me, is more sensuous than any woman’s body I am not forbidden to know the coht Therefore, every for erotic quality, and I’aloas confident that I was untouched, beyond anyone’s ken, asis part of the bat

The monkey advanced a few steps, onto the ay that bisected the front yard and led to the porch steps It was no ht a gli eyes Usually muddy yellow and as baleful as the eyes of a tax collector, they were now fiery orange and even ht They were filled with that luminosity exhibited by the eyes of most nocturnal animals

I could barely see the creature in the laurel shadows, but the restless movement of its jack-o’-lantern eyes indicated that it was curious about so and that it still hadn’t fixated specifically on myMaybe it had heard the peep or rustle of a rass--or one of the tarantulas native to this region--and was hoping only to snare a tasty treat

In the street, the other ed by the manhole cover

Ordinary rhesuses, which live primarily by day, do not exhibit eyeshine in darkness Meht vision than other ifted as owls or cats Their visual acuity is only fractionally--not geometrically--better than that of the coineered In an utterly lightless place, they are nearly as helpless as I ae--scampered three steps closer, out of the tree shadow and into ain When it halted, it was less than fifteen feet aithin five feet of the porch

The ht is probably an unexpected side effect of the intelligence-enhancement experiment that spawned them, but as far as I have been able to discern, it isn’t matched by improvement in their other senses Ordinaryanis, and neither are these They would be able to sniff reater distance than I would be able to smell theh they were unquestionably a fragrant bunch Likewise, these long-tailed terrorists don’t benefit fro, and they are not able to fly like their screeching brethren who do dirty work for the Wicked Witch of the West Although they are fearsonificant numbers, they aren’t so formidable that only silver bullets or kryptonite will kill thee sat on his haunches, wrapped his long ar hiazed heavenward so long that he seealow

After a while, I consulted my atch I orried that I would be trapped here, unable to er of blundering into the troop Even a man as resourceful as Bobby Halloould not prevail if he had to face them alone