by Maurice
The City, too, was burning. That was the Day and Night of Flame.
In the years to come, we would discover that many of the Great Trees survived the terrible burning. They are strong, and resilient.
Like us.
After the Fire
As the flames in the forest subsided, Caesar took Rocket and me to gather embers. We carried them in containers foraged from human dwellings. We built fires and huddled around them for warmth in the damp, cool night. At first, many were afraid to approach the flickering monster that had nearly killed all of us, and more than one of us was burned early on, learning to use it. But despite its danger, most of us were drawn to its warmth, the mysterious movements in the glow of the coals, the sparks whirling up toward the stars.
The next day we began moving again. Our flight from the flame had taken us into the mountains. Caesar led us up and farther in. In a few days we found a place protected on one side by steep cliffs, with plentiful water falling from above. Caesar decided it would serve until we found something better. The Great Trees didn’t grow there, but they were not far, and the lower-branched trees that did live there suited the gorillas better than the tall giants had. The cliffs gave shelter for our fires, and there was plenty of woods to begin building nests in.
If the humans didn’t come back.
It took two hands of days before we started to believe the humans might really be gone. We watched as the humans at the hunters’ camp packed up their cars and helicopters and drove away on the road by the sea, headed north. Koba wanted to go after them, to make sure they would never come back.
They’re leaving, Caesar said. If we fight them, we would lose many more apes. I’m tired of losing apes.
Yes, Caesar, Koba said. But if they come back—
Then we will deal with them.
When he was sure the human place was abandoned, Caesar led an expedition there. He found that they had departed hurriedly, leaving behind food in boxes and cans. The cars and helicopters were all gone. We found a few guns, but none of them worked. It seemed very strange, this human place, now so quiet.
For several days after the Day and Night of Flame we watched cars coming across the Orange Bridge, bound in our direction. None ever came into the woods, and soon they slowed to a trickle, and then none came at all. The fire in the City subsided, but so did the lights. Every night, fewer of them shone, until at last it was entirely dark.
One day, scouting, Koba saw one of their cars on the road. It wasn’t moving, and after a long time it still didn’t move. He called for Grey and Furaha to join him, and they took their spears in hand to see what was going on. Then he came back and told us about it.
They were dead, he said. There was blood, but they hadn’t been beaten or shot or stabbed. The blood came from their eyes, their noses, their mouths. As if the blood could no longer stand to be inside of them, inside of a human. I know Caesar asked us not to kill them. I follow Caesar. But I’m glad they’re dead. I hope they all die.
Caesar was there, so no one said anything. But secretly, many agreed with Koba. Maybe most of us.
With the metal we found in the abandoned camp, we made better spears, and knives as well. We began to train for war, as we had not been able to before. And to organize. Before, we had been a mass of apes; Caesar hadn’t had the time to understand our talents, to sort out which apes were Changed, and which were still as we had been. The Changed would all learn sign. They would lead under Caesar’s direction. The Ape Council grew larger.
Days gathered into cycles of the moon. We learned more of our new home. We discovered the tree we named Sugar. When its bark is pierced, a sweet sap comes forth. As the weather got colder and other plant foods were failing we discovered certain bright orange berries that were pleasing to everyone. When we were captives of humans, the food was mostly the same every day. Mostly bad, too, at least in the shelter. Here, we began to understand that different foods came and went with the moons.
Caesar and some other apes remembered humans using fire or heat to change food. We discovered meat was easier to eat when it was cooked, even for orangutans. I still didn’t like it, but it was food, and as our hunters grew more adept, there was more and more of it. The acorns Cornelia first tasted also proved better when crushed and boiled in water before eating. The fire took the bitterness away.
We used our spears to take fish from the rivers and from the shallow pools by the sea. On the shore we discovered green plants washed up from the ocean, which could be eaten raw or cooked.
Even so, those first months were hard. What remained of the human food helped, but that was soon gone.
Caesar Courts Your Mother
Caesar never told of his courtship of Cornelia, although many of us watched it from afar. It began, perhaps, before the Day and Night of Fire, when she first groomed him. Only once did he speak to me about it, and even then, without ever touching on the subject. That was when things began to calm down, when we thought the humans were finally gone, but couldn’t be sure. During this time, Rocket’s wives offered themselves to Caesar.
It was the way of things before the Change that the leader of a band or troop had many mates. This was true of all our kind. So when Rocket was replaced as the leader, naturally his wives would go to Caesar.
Caesar was surprised and somewhat upset about this. I know, because he told me so.
I need Rocket, he told me. If I take his wives, won’t he resent it?
Probably, I told him. But he will accept it. Do you want them?
I do not.
But you wish for a mate.
He didn’t sign for a moment.
I was raised by humans, he said. I know too little of the ways of apes. Especially females.
You became out leader easily enough. The other should be easy for you.
Yes, he said. Again he paused.
Will and Caroline. The humans that raised me. They were mated. Will only had one wife.
I shrugged and made a noise that meant nothing.
Caroline argued with Will. Sometimes he made her angry.
So?
Ape females seem more—submissive.
I hooted at that, but then I saw he was serious.
It only seems that way, I said. Because you have not lived as an ape.
Neither have you, he said.
But I watch, I said. You’ve seen how they do it. Haven’t you? How the males signal the females? Or the other way around.
Yes, Caesar said. But apes are different now.
Not from what I’ve seen.
I am different, he said.
You are Caesar. Does Caesar want a submissive wife?
I want a strong wife. A wife who understands other females. Who can help me lead.
One that disagrees with you sometimes? I asked. One that stands on the narrow branch between respect and defiance?
Caesar grunted.
Who might that be? I asked. Perhaps I am not wise enough to know.
He grunted again and left. Those are the only words we ever had on that subject. Nor does any other male remember him discussing it.
The females, on the other hand, have stories.
Tinker, for instance, Rocket’s wife. She was close to your mother, and she remembers Cornelia telling it this way.
Tinker’s Tale
(Tinker is with us yet. She signed this. I wrote it.)
When the rains came, our fires went out, but we managed to keep some of it going in sheltered places. But there were not enough sheltered places, and when our fires were few, we were miserable. The old and young sickened. Cornelia led the females to search for medicines in the leaves and roots. Often, when she rested by the fire, Caesar would sit near. Sometimes she would groom him, sometimes not.
The Forest of Fruit was always warm, Cornelia told Caesar one day, as she sat with him in the shelter of a low tree. It was warm in our cages, when the humans kept us. Apes are meant to be warm.
I know, Caesar said. This is not the Forest
of Fruit, he told her. And we are not the apes that lived in that forest. We are not humans, either. But we will build a city. A city of our own. A place where we can be warm and safe. A place to raise children.
Caesar wants children? Cornelia asked.
I was not there, but she said he grew agitated. Not angry, but unsure. Not something most of us ever saw in him.
What’s the matter? she asked him.
Human males and females… come together, Caesar said. He made awkward motions with his hands. Make… alliance.
Do they? Cornelia said. You mean like for war? Like you and Koba?
She was making fun of him, and he knew it. Without another word, he rose and climbed into the trees. She stayed there, with the glowing coals, feeding them with twigs, until-after a while-he came back.
He sat there with his back to her, for a bit. She let him wait.
Not for war, he said. Alliance. Family. Children.
I have heard apes do this as well, Cornelia said. Rocket had many wives. Other chimps, too. They are all yours now, of course. You are leader. Plenty of alliances for Caesar.
I don’t want Rocket’s wives, he said. That could make for bad feelings.
Zoo apes, then.
He shook his head.
“No,” he grunted.
She shrugged. Cornelia isn’t as smart as Caesar. Maybe Maurice can give you better advice.
He turned then, frowning.
You’ll make me ask? he signed.
Ask what, great Caesar?
He growled, and started away again, but she put her hand on his shoulder. Gently she began to groom him, and he stopped. She felt the muscles of his back relax.
Maybe together, she told him, we can think of someone.
How the Gorilla Guard Came About
We stayed on the high ground where the fire had driven us throughout the cold season. The mountain sheltered us from the coldest of the winds and also supplied some sheltered overhangs to keep our fires dry. The male chimpanzees did most of the hunting. Orangs and gorillas weren’t well suited to it, for several reasons. They were not as adept in the trees as chimps. They were slower. But mostly, they were not very smart.
It wasn’t their fault. They were like most of us had been before the Change. The only orangutan exposed to the mist was me, and the only gorilla was Buck, who died on the bridge.
But as those cold months passed, something happened. Since I was teaching sign, I noticed it first. Apes from the zoo went from knowing a few words to many. They began to understand things more readily. They became more useful. With the help of the gorillas and the orangutans, we were able to move heavier logs, begin building temporary shelters to keep us out of the weather.
Meanwhile, Caesar searched for the place to build his city. Together with Rocket and Koba, they learned every corner of the forest. At every edge, they came to human settlements, but they saw few humans, and only at a distance. But in those abandoned places they found tools to help us, more metal to make knives and spearheads. Wire to lash together logs.
In that first year, large game was not plentiful in the forest. Only small things. Rabbits. Racoons. Later that would change, as beasts moved freely across a landscape without humans. But in his explorations, Caesar found places where elk and deer were plentiful.
In the second winter, he led a large expedition to hunt them. The place was more than a day’s travel from our camp, and he took most of the hunters with him.
While he was gone, the dogs came.
We had been dealing with smaller packs for a while. They came from the City, and gradually their numbers built.
By midwinter, the dogs were starving. A large pack invaded our camp during the night. We fought them off, but they managed to snatch a young chimp, mauling the mother.
The next day Luca, a gorilla from the zoo, came to me. He had several other gorillas with him.
He lowered his head in submission to me, since Caesar was not there.
What is it? I asked.
Luca waved his hand to indicate the settlement.
Build cage, like in zoo, he said.
We are free apes, I said. Why should we build cages?
Big cage, he said. Go around all of the nests. Not keep apes in. Keep dogs out. Keep humans out. One way in. Gorillas will guard.
I wasn’t sure what Caesar would want. He hadn’t found the location for our colony yet, but Luca’s suggestion seemed sensible. And the gorillas felt left out. I didn’t think it would hurt anything.
Caesar and the hunters returned with meat, and we celebrated. When he asked what the gorillas were building—it didn’t look like much then—I told him about the dogs and Luca’s plan.
I told them they could, I said. Until you find the place to build our colony.
Caesar frowned a little. He looked around at our collection of improvised houses and the start of the wall, at the small mountain behind us, the cliff, which no human or dog could climb. He seemed to be seeing everything with new eyes. Then he laughed, in his way. A laugh that sounded oddly human.
We’re already here, he said. This is the place. This is our shelter. This will be our city.
The next day, he made a Luca member of the council, and we began planning how to build the colony we had unwittingly already begun.
Rocket’s son Ash was born the next warm season, in the moon when grapes begin to ripen in the fields beyond the forest. In the same month, Cornelia began to swell with child. With your elder brother, Cornelius.
By that time, we had learned to dry meat and berries in the smoke of our fires, so we would store food for the lean moons. But we knew that the coming dark season would still be hard. Caesar and Cornelia were our king and queen, so we built them a palace, high in a tree on the mountainside. A place where Caesar’s child could be born, warm and safe.
Caesar Becomes a Father
When Rocket’s son, Ash, was born, Caesar did not yet know Cornelia was pregnant. But new life was everywhere. For the first time, more apes were being born than died. The wall around the village was complete, and the gorilla guard was formed to guard the gate. We had been at peace for two winters, and although it was the warm season, we were now moving toward our third.
Caesar was always restless. Even when his body was still, his mind was moving.
Apes are fathers now, he told me. The future of our kind is taking shape.
You want to shape it? I asked.
Apes fought for freedom, he said. We built a home. But we still need more. What we have isn’t enough.
I told him that most apes were happy and content. We were beginning to prosper. I thought maybe we couldn’t ask for much more.
When you think you’ve won, you start to lose, he said.
What worried him was what we didn’t know. The humans weren’t all gone. We still saw some sign of them every now and then. Sometimes lights would flicker on the City, only to die away in a day or two. Occasionally we heard distant gunfire. Apes gathering seaweed and shellfish saw a ship on the horizon one day.
It was easy to believe that the threat from humans was over. It is always easy to believe something you want to be true.
But Caesar wanted to know. He sent scouts in every direction. Some went far from the woods.
But never to the south, to the City. If humans were there, they seemed to have forgotten us. Caesar did not want to remind them.
The Rise of the Midwives
There were many births in that summer and the following winter. Many of them did not go well. Sometimes the child died, sometimes the mother, sometimes both. In the zoo and the shelter, births had been assisted by humans. None of the apes born in the wild remembered how it had been done in the jungle. Maybe it had always been like this.
But the females refused to accept it. They continued to find medicines in the leaves and roots of the forest, herbs to slow bleeding or speed it up, to numb pain, to strengthen. They applied what they remembered of human medicine while inventing their own. And s
ome of these, led by Tinker, Rocket’s wife, became the midwives. They fashioned coverings for their noses and mouths, like those the human doctors wore. The examined the pregnant, made sure they ate the right things. When the time came, they delivered the babies.
Tinker herself delivered your brother, Blue Eyes.
You may have heard that the eyes of apes changed when we did. Before, most of us had brown eyes, of various shades. But after we inhaled the mist, our eyes turned green, like Caesar’s. Over time, as they grew smarter, the zoo apes also became green-eyed.
But Caesar’s son was the first to be born with blue eyes.
Caesar was the first ape to be born already Changed. Blue Eyes was the first ape to be born of an ape born Changed. Caesar took it as a sign that our Change wasn’t complete. He believed that it would continue through the generations, each better, stronger, smarter than the last. Blue Eyes was the living sign of that hope.
But he was more. In his way, Caesar had loved Will, Caroline, and Charles. That had been a child’s love for his parents. It was an affection that looked backward, remembering a simpler, happy time. He loved Cornelia as his partner and companion. That was a love founded in the present, in the moment at hand, in feel and touch and speech, in helping one another with struggles as they came.
But this—what he felt when he looked upon his son for the first time—this was different. It was a love aimed steadfastly toward the future. It was love that required something of him. It required him to always see ahead, even beyond his own death. Even beyond the life of Blue Eyes—to his children, and his grandchildren. And so on.
It was also a love fraught with fear and weighed down by expectation. He thought that weight was only on his shoulders. He was wrong about that.
We Begin the School
We celebrated the birth of our prince for three days. Then we went back to the business of making our world better.