Salo was holding started screeching in terror, and now, instead of watching complacently, the other males immediately became agitated. Ploxy began screaming, too, calling for help, and within a few moments the entire troop of baboons had assembled around Yobar and were beating him and screaming at him. Confused, frightened, Yobar tried to grab the infant out of Salo's hands, perhaps thinking that if he held the infant, everybody would be on his side, but Luet realized that it wouldn't work. Sure enough, the moment he grabbed for the baby, the others became downright brutal in their beating of him, finally ejecting him from the group and chasing him away. Several of the males chased him quite a distance and then stayed nearby to watch and make sure he didn't come near. Luet wondered if that would be the end of Yobar's attempt to be part of the troop.
Then she looked for Salo, trying to spot him somewhere near Ploxy and the baby - but he wasn't there, though most of the other baboons were still there, chattering and bobbing up and down and otherwise showing how agitated they were.
Salo, however, was off in the brush upstream of the main group. He had got Rubyet away from the rest and now was mounting her. She had the most comically resigned look on her face, which now and then gave way to a look of eyes-rolled-back pleasure - or exasperation. Luet wondered if human faces gave that same weirdly mixed signal under similar circumstances ... a sort of distracted intensity that might mean pleasure or might mean perplexity.
In any event, Yobar, the aggressive one, had been completely defeated - might even have lost his place in the tribe. And Salo, who wasn't particularly large, had lost the skirmish but won the battle and the war.
All because Salo had grabbed a baby away from its mother.
"Lucky Salo," said Nafai. "I wondered who would win sweet Rubyet's heart."
"He did it with flowers," said Luet. "I didn't mean to be off here so long."
"I wasn't looking for you to do anything," said Nafai. "I was looking for you because I wanted to be with you. There isn't anything for me to do now anyway, till supper. I got my prey early this morning and brought the bloody thing home to lay at my mate's feet. Only she was busy throwing up and didn't give me my customary reward."
"Wouldn't you know that I'd be the one who'd get sick all the time," said Luet. "Hushidh burped once and that was it for her. And Kokor tries to throw up but she just can't bring it off, so she ends up not getting the sympathy she wants and I end up having it when I don't want it."
"Who would have thought that it would be a race between you and Hushidh and Kokor for the first baby in the colony."
"A good thing for you," said Luet. "It'll give you an infant to grab, in case there's trouble."
He hadn't seen Salo's strategem, so he didn't understand.
"Salo - he grabbed Ploxy's baby."
"Oh, yes, they do that," said Nafai. "Shedemei told me. The males who are fully accepted in the tribe make friends with an infant or two, so the infant likes them. Then, in combat, they grab the infant, who doesn't scream when his friend takes him.
The other male isn't his friend, so when he keeps attacking the baby gets scared and screams, which brings the whole tribe down on the poor pizdook's head."
"Oh," said Luet. "So it was routine."
"I've never seen it. I'm jealous that you did and I didn't."
"There's the prize," said Luet, pointing to Salo, who still hadn't finished with Rubyet.
"And where's the loser? I'll bet it's Yobar." Luet was already pointing, and sure enough, there was Yobar, looking forlorn off in the distance, watching the troop but not daring to come closer because of the two males who were browsing halfway between him and the rest of the troop.
"You'd better make friends with my baby, then," said Luet. "Or you won't ever get your way in this tribe we're forming."
Nafai put his hand on Luet's stomach. "No bigger yet."
"That's fine with me," said Luet. "Now, what did you really come out here for?"
He looked at her in consternation.
"You didn't know I was down here because nobody knew I was down here," said Luet, "so you didn't come looking for me, you came here to be alone."