by Rich Handley
“I kicked my horse into moving more swiftly and saw a human about to climb the mesa. I quickly dismounted and caught up to him, being a superior climber. I hauled him off the rock face and brought him back to the ground. I later learned his name was Bengsten, but it didn’t matter. I snapped his neck with my hands, eliminating one-quarter of the infestation.”
“They were humans, not spiders,” Urso protested.
“They were a threat!” Urko snapped, his anger clear. “You don’t get it, son. Wherever these men came from, they were dangerous. If they taught their ways to the locals, we’d have a clear danger. Today, we have Virdon and Burke posing the exact same threat.”
“Wouldn’t you want to learn how to make machines like the one you describe? Or the subway machine you saw the other day?”
Urko eyed his son with surprise. “What good is a machine that crashes to the ground? Or one that crawls beneath the ground?”
“Okay, then, what about learning how to make sophisticated metals so you can have superior gear for your soldiers?”
That was an argument that actually made sense. Perhaps interrogating Burke or Virdon might yield some useful intelligence. But should the astronauts share it with the local humans and not him, what sort of challenge to his authority would that make?
“Are you sure you are not an orangutan?” Urko commented, attempting humor that neither Elta nor Urso found funny.
“Did you kill them all?”
“One named Charles vanished. I never learned his fate, but can only hope the desert heat got him. Cooked him in that bulky garment he wore.”
Elta placed both hands around her husband’s and held them close to her chest. “I remember this story. Tell him what happened next.”
Urko nodded and continued. “I was so focused on killing Bengsten that I did not notice the approach of a man who called himself LaFever. Such names. He knocked me from my feet and grabbed my rifle. He used the butt-end to pummel me and I was stunned. Rather than shoot me, he hefted a large rock and intended to crush my skull. I was too dazed to do much of anything.”
Urso took in a sharp breath and Elta gripped all the tighter as Urko relived those moments of disorientation and genuine fear. He had never told his wife just how certain of death he was at that moment, and he never intended to share that.
“The fourth man, Thomas, shouldered LaFever and toppled him. Maybe he was trying to keep him from killing me, or just provide a cowardly distraction so Thomas could flee. LaFever fell over, and as I rose, my soldiers finally arrived and surrounded them both. I retrieved my rifle and was about to fire when Zaius showed up.”
“You would have shot him just like that?”
“It’s a kill-or-be-killed situation, Urso; you have to be decisive or die.” Clearly, Urso did not have the instincts for the military. Part of Urko was disappointed while another part, one he rarely acknowledged and tended to keep far from his main thoughts, was thankful he would not be putting his life at risk.
“The thing is, everything changed when Thomas opened his mouth and spoke. Zaius beckoned Zira to his side and the two had us put our weapons down until they could have a conversation.” Even now, a decade later, he remembered the contempt he felt for the councilor risking their lives by having a discussion with the human. His intelligence was dangerous.
“What did this Thomas say?”
“He said they meant us no harm, and claimed that not only did that wrecked machine fly through the air, but it crossed the void, the stars, and came here. He then embroidered his fantastic lies with the suggestion that he had also traveled from another period of time.”
“You mean like from the future?” Elta asked. Either she had forgotten this aspect or he had never shared it before. At the time, Zaius considered such discussions a state secret. To Urko, then as now, it was an absurd notion, the product of a deranged or cunning mind—either way, a problem.
“He claimed his home was a thousand years in his world’s past,” Urko said. His mind returned to the “subway” station and the marvels there. The minds that could build a massive wagon that ran underground on atomic power could also build machines that flew through space. Why not time? The poster swam in his vision once more, linking Burke’s Earth with Urko’s. He stifled a shudder.
“Are you ill?” Elta said, alarm in her voice.
“It’s nothing,” Urko said, resolving not to think of the image again.
“Zira kept asking questions, wanting to learn all Thomas had to share. Zaius kept his own mind at the moment. My riders returned, unable to find Charles. LaFever stayed down, silent. I remember it all sounded insane, and I could not believe Zira and Zaius wanted to bring them back to Central City, to expose them to our society.
“As security chief, I knew my mandate was clear. I was to protect our people at all costs, and it was my final determination as to what presented a clear and present danger. I had seen and heard enough. I picked up my rifle and shot LaFever. I then raised my gun to aim at Thomas, but Zira interposed herself between me and the human. She took the shot meant to end the threat and died for it. The fool.”
“The fool?” Urso said loudly. The incredulity in his voice was clear. “Think of what he could have taught us.”
Urko and Elta both stared at their son.
“You just went and killed someone who could have taught us how to build with metal, not just use it for knives and horseshoes.” Urso paused, waiting for a response. When it didn’t come he asked, “What happened to Thomas?”
“To his credit, he stayed in place, just staring at LaFever and Zira. Zaius yelled at me. I yelled back, both of us exerting authority, both of us convinced we were right. We were younger then and things grew heated. We actually began to fight, which is a clear breach of protocol. Thomas saw a chance to escape, so he began to run away.”
“Good,” Urso said.
“One of my smarter gorillas—Zako, as it turns out—saw what was happening, took aim, and fired. So ended the threat.”
“But Charles got away!” Urso said, sounding actually happy about it.
“He has not been seen since,” Urko said. “He’s dead.”
Urso stared defiantly back at him. “You just shot them dead,” the teen said.
“They were a threat! Humans are always a threat,” his father repeated.
“Why do we let any live, then?”
“They are useful at times,” Urko admitted. “When they are kept docile and know their place. But trust me, at the first sign of danger, they are eliminated.”
“What happened after you slaughtered the humans?” Urso asked.
“Eliminated, Urso,” he replied impatiently. “Not slaughtered. Eliminated. Zaius ordered my soldiers to bury Zira and the astronauts. We dug proper graves and left a marker to note her passing.” Urko had liked Zira, respected her quite a bit, but her good nature had proved her end.
“And their machine?”
Urko let out a snort at the memory. “We were so focused on burying the dead that no one had seen a pack of humans slither all over the machine, stripping it for useful tools. They were like flies around abandoned food, so pitiful. My troops took some shots to scatter them. Whether it was something they did or a lucky shot, the machine burst into flames and eventually warped into a useless hunk of metal. When the fires died out, we brought out animals with tools and buried the remains. No one else would ever touch it.”
“Why wouldn’t you let them speak? What were you so afraid of hearing?”
“Afraid? Nothing of the sort,” Urko said, disliking the defensive tone he had to take with his own son.
“Can we learn nothing from humans?”
Urko shook his head. “They’re simple-minded people,” he said.
“Even Virdon and Burke, the most recent astronauts?”
“I admit they’re clever enough, but actually learn something from them? I think not.”
“Wasn’t it Burke who engineered your rescue? Saved your life?” Elta gentl
y asked.
He thought about the human’s actions underground. Burke really did plan their escape and even managed to find a way to communicate with Virdon, tapping in some sort of code on the metal that connected above and below ground. At the time he hadn’t considered it, but yes, they were clever. And that intelligence is what made them dangerous.
“If humans dug those tunnels, then of course he knew how to get us out,” Urko said, but he didn’t sound entirely convinced, which was doing nothing to prove to Urso the correctness of his actions.
“So, they have nothing at all to teach us,” Urso said. “Doctor Zira seemed to think so. Councilor Zaius still thinks so. Otherwise, he’d have you eradicate them all for miles around.”
“What nonsense are you speaking? Learn from humans? I told you they are not to be trusted.”
“At school, my friends and I have been talking about whether or not there are more of these clever men like the two who trouble you so much, and where they might have come from. If there are intelligent men, then there must also be intelligent women to mate with them and produce children.”
Now that was a troubling thought, Urko concluded. Worse, it came from a teenager who saw this as a good thing.
“Why can’t we co-exist on this world?”
“Co-exist?” Urko dragged out each syllable, his anger, confusion, and frustration vying for precedence. “They are slave labor at best, parasites on our resources at worst. You do not co-exist with vermin.”
“Burke and Virdon saved your life! Don’t you owe them something?”
No, he didn’t. It was a matter of convenience, nothing more. It was weak-willed Zako who guaranteed their lives, not Urko.
“What else do your friends think?”
“It’s not like we talk about them all the time,” Urso said, though he sounded evasive to Urko’s trained ears. “But they cause us no harm, not even Virdon and Burke. I don’t understand why you want them dead.”
“Should they actually come from a village of smarter humans and get home, we may be inundated with more humans. Our way of life, the one that shelters you and protects you and lets you go to school with your… friends… would be over. We’d be vying with them for food and water, for minerals to process and horses to ride.”
“And we can’t share?”
“Urko, Urso, is this really the time for fighting?” Elta asked, finally trying to intervene and calm them down. Urko eyed his wife carefully, taking her measure to see if she, too, had sympathies for the humans. She knew Burke saved his life, so maybe he had earned them, but the others had not. She betrayed nothing.
“Father has spent weeks hunting down these humans who appear so clever they have remained alive,” Urso shot back.
Urko howled at the insult. Had Urso not been his son, he would have struck the boy. The pent-up rage had to be expelled and he roared again, hurling rocks as far as his aching body allowed. The pain felt good, made him feel alive.
“I don’t want to fight,” Urso said, suddenly abashed and genuinely frightened by his father’s display. “I just want to understand.”
Urko was on him in a second, pinning his son to the ground, ignoring Elta’s pleas.
“Humans helped ruin this world, make it resource-poor. Humans ruin everything they touch! Humans are dangerous! Burke and Virdon are smarter than most and that makes them all the more dangerous. All the more reason they have to be taken down. I will do whatever I must to protect us, to protect you!”
With a heavy exhalation, Urko rose, his anger spent. He felt tired and wanted to rest, but they were now far from home.
The boy. The banana. The cage. The vision came back to his mind.
Burke revealed a very, very dangerous secret about their world. It was a secret none, not even Zaius, could learn. Burke and Virdon were the deadliest threat to the apes’ way of life. If Urso was representative of how the next generation saw the humans, then their mere presence was enough to endanger society.
Whatever else Urko did in his life, eliminating those two humans—and the traitorous Galen—would take precedence. He had to save Central City and all of simian society. He had to save his son from their contamination.
Never again would a human feed a banana to an ape.
* * *
There are more apes than were ever dreamt of in the prevailing Planet of the Apes mythologies, as we learn in Greg Keyes’ “Stone Monkey”…
* * *
STONE MONKEY
by
GREG KEYES
Sun had recently come to believe that there was nothing quite so frustrating as trying to enjoy a dowry cake while someone was shooting at him. This insight came just after the first snap of the crossbow string, when he was forced to abandon his perch atop the thatched roof of Lai the baker’s shop and leap into the branches of a nearby loquat tree. Because the tasty confection was in his hands, he had to grab the branch with his feet, so that he then swung upside down. As he took another bite, Lai shot at him again, so Sun had to quickly transfer the cake to his feet, the better to brachiate with his long, slender arms. But this made it all that much more difficult to eat the cake, and indeed, some of the lotus-seed filling spilled out.
“Baker Lai,” he shouted, “what are you about?”
“That’s the last of my cakes you’ll ever steal,” the angry chimpanzee said, working the action on his bow. “I’ve had enough of your thieving ways.”
He fired again, just as Sun stuffed another glob of the cake into his mouth and launched himself out of the loquat tree and into the spreading arms of a nearby ring-cupped oak.
“Be reasonable,” Sun said, after he managed to swallow. “I would never have stolen from you had I known you possessed a crossbow.”
This did not seem to mollify Lai the baker, who shot at him once more. The bolt clipped through the leaves a scant few centimeters from Sun’s face.
“Take heart, Lai,” Sun said. “Your aim is improving.”
“Shut up, you dirty monkey,” Lai shouted, as Sun swung behind the trunk of the tree, where he was able to gobble another few bites. He felt it was a shame to have to eat so quickly. Lai really did make wonderful cakes, and Sun preferred to take his time and savor them.
If his mouth hadn’t been full, he might have corrected the indignant chimpanzee as to his lineage. Sun was not a monkey. He was an ape, and more specifically a siamang. His head was nicely round, his body adorned in lustrous black hair. His arms were longer than his legs, and he had thumbs on his feet as well as his hands.
Lai was sneaking around to get a clear shot, so Sun swung rapidly through the branches and hurled himself into the air so that he landed on the edge of the red-tiled roof of Cong the magistrate’s house. A bolt struck and shattered a roof tile as Sun vanished over the ridge. As he continued on into the grove of trees beyond, he heard the magistrate begin to yell at Lai in his rough human voice.
In the top of a willow tree on the hill outside of town, Sun was finally able to lick his hands and feet clean. He had an excellent view of the valley with its neat little fields and picturesque village, and he began to wonder if—once again—he had overstayed his welcome.
He sunned himself on the branch, and was nearly drowsing when he heard horns blowing. He sleepily pulled himself up so as to see what the commotion was.
A group of horsemen was entering the town from the southern course of the main road. Most of them looked something like chimps, but larger and with bigger skulls. Sun had seen such apes when he was young, but he could not remember what they were called.
The horns were being blown by several of the big black apes, the ones nearest to what Sun guessed to be the leader. Like the others, he wore light armor of leather, cloth, and lacquered wood, but he also had an odd green helmet with a bright red turban wrapped around its base.
Most of the riders were armed with swords or clubs or repeating crossbows like Lai’s, but the leader had something sheathed and attached to his saddle that Sun recognized as a far
deadlier weapon.
The riders, about twenty of them, approached the magistrate’s house. From his vantage, Sun could see the village militia trying to organize themselves, probably scared out of their wits. After a moment, the magistrate himself came out. The ape leader remained on his horse, towering over Cong and his thatch of gray hair. A crowd was beginning to gather, and Sun’s curiosity was piqued—not enough to rouse himself from his well-earned rest, but enough for him to continue watching. It wasn’t often that anything new happened in the village of Four Fortune.
Lai the baker approached the horsemen with a tray of pastries, followed quickly by Chen the wine monger and, soon enough, by most of those who dealt in goods, making all manner of obsequious gestures.
Absently, Sun remembered these apes were called dà xīngxīng, which just meant “big xīngxīng.” Xīngxīng was the old human name for orangutan, but it literally meant “ape-ape.” So these were “big ape-apes.”
After a bit, the leader and his men entered into the magistrate’s house as Cong wrung his hands. After that, the crowd dispersed and the magistrate with them, his shoulders slumped. Sun scratched his head. The sun had shifted, and he was now in shade. He moved further up the hillside to rest further before dinner.
Toward evening, Sun roused himself and made his way back down to the village. He was thinking of dumplings, and thus headed toward the little shed where Mei kept her steamer going. On the way, he passed Lai’s place, but thought the baker might still be vigilant. The door stood open, but Sun imagined Lai inside, hiding behind a bag of flour, crossbow in hand.
Instead, he found Lai at Mei’s hut, chatting about something or other.
So, he returned to the bakery, thoughts of dumplings overwhelmed by the remembered taste of dowry cake and almond biscuits.
Once inside, he stared at all of the beautiful pastries, momentarily breathless. He thought that perhaps he should find a bag or basket to fill, and was undertaking that search when the slanting rays of the sun coming through the shop door were suddenly blocked by three massive, black-haired figures.