“No, Baby!” she chided, pulling a bright red apple away from the bars dividing the spacious lab in two. A gray tentacle waved between the steel rods, snatching at the fruit.

“No! Not till you ask for it politely.”

From her desk nearby, a young black woman sighed. “Jen, will you stop teasing the poor creature?” Pauline Cockerel shook her head. “You know Baby won’t understand unless you accompany words with signs.”

“Nonsense. She comprehends perfectly. Observe.”

The animal let out a squeaky trumpet of frustration.

Acquiescing, it rolled back its trunk to wind the tip round a mat of shaggy fur, hanging low over its eyes.

“That’s a good girl,” Jen said, tossing the apple. Baby caught it deftly and crunched happily.

“Pure operant conditioning,” the younger woman sniffed. “Hasn’t anything to do with intelligence or cognition.”

“Cognition isn’t everything,” Jen replied. “Politeness, for instance, needs to be ingrained at deeper levels. It’s a good thing I came down here. She’s getting spoiled rotten.”

“Hmph. If you ask me, you’re just rationalizing another bout of PNS.”

“PNS?”

“Post-Nobel syndrome,” Pauline explained.

“Still?” Jen sniffed. “After all these years?”

“Why not? Who said anyone recovers?”

“You make it sound like a disease.”

“It is. Look at the history of science. Most prizewinners turn into either stodgy defenders of the status quo — like Hayes and Kalumba — or iconoclasts like you, who insist on throwing stones at sacred cows—”

“Mixed metaphor,” Jen pointed out.

“ — and carping about details, and generally making nuisances of themselves.”

“Have I been making a nuisance of myself?” Jen asked innocently.

Pauline cast her eyes heavenward. “You mean besides coming here randomly, unannounced, and meddling in Baby’s training?”