Ambassador

fiction by michael werneburg

On the screen, a sequence of ancient black-and-white stills of early human rocketry played out. Men in bulky suits, rockets lifting off of launch-pads, and probes flying past Saturn. The waitress returned, and I thanked her for my drink.

"A monkey!" Jane said to the waitress, scornfully. "Just because it can climb!"

I glanced at Jane. Was she trying to goad the waitress into spitting into her next drink?

Some more stills played out on TV. One of them showed a chimpanzee in a space suit.

The waitress barked a short laugh and smirked at Jane without a word. She crossed her arms and watched the show with us.

"Oh God," Jane said, "that's too much."

I nodded, enjoying the irony.

"What was that?" Cuong asked, perplexed.

I asked him, "What's what, Cuong? The chimp?"

He pointed at the screen and said, "Yeah, was that for some sort of promotional thing? A stunt?"

I watched as the screen recounted a litany of explosions on launch pads in Europe, the US, and South America. "That was from the early days of the US space efforts, back in the Cold War. They used chimps in some of the early flights to test the safety of the supersonic environment on a humanoid shape. High gees, low gees; you know."

Cuong reacted as if I had slapped him in the face. He bounced back on the booth's bench, and then forward again. His mouth hung in a big "O" of shock. "But, what did they call that?"

"Call it? I don't know. 'Space monkey program'? I don't think it had a name." I stared back at Cuong. Now he was finally paying attention? "You didn't know about the space monkeys?" I asked him.

"Space monkey?" the waitress repeated, absently.

The two scientists turned to her, and I saw shock appear on their faces.

I looked from one to the other, and back at the screen when the live footage resumed. There was the young Dalai Lama, shaking hands with the secretary-general of the UN. Then the presidents of France and Brazil were greeting our Prime Minister. Everyone was ignoring the wind and drizzle and looked downright pleased with themselves. In all of history, not many firsts would beat First Contact, and their names would be immortalized. Time was now short—the whole thing would be starting soon.

"Look," I said, not taking my eyes from the screen, "you two aren't thinking–"

"Oh yes, we are," Cuong said, cutting me off. Breathlessly, he said, "It explains so much: its lack of response to speech or signing or music; its failure to complete the pattern matching or the mathematical puzzles. The underdeveloped communication center in its brain. It probably communicates, but in a limited way we haven't discovered not only because it's alien but because it's not sentient. We can't get an explanation of its mission or technology because they're not its mission or technology. A different species sent that poor creature across light-years as a test!"

As the image panned across the dignitaries, I caught a glimpse of the young woman from the Prime Minister's office who'd contacted me about this job in the first place. The daughter of an old colleague from decades before. I looked at Jane. "Well?" I asked.

But Jane just nodded at the television slowly, not saying a word. She had gone flush. "This was supposed to make my career. I've been talking to three top Universities...."

Cuong began to laugh. I watched him bouncing his fists lightly on the table with delight. "Rover's a space monkey!" Cuong exclaimed. "Extraterrestrial space monkey!"

Jane gave him a sour look.

"Have either of you heard of Laika?" I asked. I got two blank looks in response. "Laika was a stray dog from Moscow who became the first animal to orbit Earth and return, in 1957."

Cuong consulted his phone. "Looks like the first chimp was in '61. Named Ham."

I realized that it simply hadn't occurred to any of them to consult with our own history of space exploration while conducting their research. And it hadn't occurred to me to ask if they'd brushed up on something I'd seen as a kid way back in the 1970's. Arithmetic told me that these would have been in grade school in the 2000's and 2010's. Had that been too late perhaps to learn about the likes of Laika and Ham? I looked back at the screen. I told the scientists, "The world's leaders are about to introduce themselves to some distant planet's chimpanzee. Or maybe dog."

Jane leaned forward, her chin on her hand. "Won't we look silly when the space craft's true designers arrive?"

Cuong looked at her, his brow furrowed. Gesturing with his phone, he said, "It says here that the first manned flight was the same year as Ham's flight."

Jane gave him a tired look. "So you're saying we have maybe a few months?"

The waitress had listened to all of this. She laughed and walked toward the characters at the bar. "Hey, you should hear this!"

I watched her go in dismay. Our failure was going to lead to humiliating embarrassment at the highest levels of international government. But then I realized with a start that I could still head this off. I reached for my phone and headed outside to call young Anika from the PMO. Maybe I'd land that pay-day after all!