by John Jakes
THE TIME: 1990
THE PLACE: A gray, tightly computerized city-state, somewhere in North America
THE INHABITANTS: Apes who serve as terrified slaves. Men who function as brutalized masters
Until the Apes revolt . . . in a battle as savage and monstrous as the bondage they’d been forced to endure for decades!
20th Century-Fox Presents
An Arthur P. Jacobs Production
CONQUEST OF THE PLANET
OF THE APES
Starring
RODDY McDOWALL and DON MURRAY
and
RICARDO MONTALBAN
as Armando
Produced by
APJAC PRODUCTIONS
Directed by
J. LEE THOMPSON
Written by
PAUL DEHN
Based on Characters from
PLANET OF THE APES
Music by
TOM SCOTT
CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
FIRST AWARD PRINTING February 1974
Copyright © 1972, 1974 by
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation.
All rights reserved
AWARD BOOKS are published by
Universal-Award House, Inc., a subsidiary of
Universal Publishing and Distributing Corporation,
235 East Forty-fifth Street, New York, N.Y. 10017
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
Title
Copyright
CONQUEST OF THE PLANET
OF THE APES
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
PROLOGUE
Under a red-tinged moon, the dark towers of the central city thrust against the sky. Black glass facades caught the moon’s reflection, sectioned it like so many endlessly repeated blank faces.
Aerial walkways arched gracefully between the cubistic towers, empty at this hour. From the buildings, and from intersections along the walkways, ramps led down to the perimeter of a vast mall, a checkerboard of small green pocket parks and paving blocks that reflected the moon from their mica flecks. There was no sound except the tack-tacking of the boots of a helmeted state security policeman walking along a parapet above the plaza. His rifle barrel glittered, slung over his shoulder, muzzle upward.
The policeman drew in a breath of the cool, fresh air. Two years ago, in 1989, the last of the huge air-scrubbing plants, constructed at a cost of billions along the mountain chain a hundred miles eastward, had, in combination with stringent laws, made it pleasant to breathe again—at least in this American city. The policeman couldn’t speak for others, never having traveled much.
But he’d heard it was the same in all the great metro sprawls. An ordered society. Law breakers—including polluters—were promptly, severely punished. And the masses of people had been relieved of menial chores by the careful conditioning of thousands of . . .
Abruptly, the policeman stiffened, cocked his head. His helmet flashed moon reflections. Somewhere deep in the glass and steel canyons surrounding the mall, he heard soft, urgent footfalls.
Then another sound made him glance quickly up and down the mall. The second noise was—a jungle sound.
He had seen pictures of the world’s few remaining jungle places on solido shows. The policeman reached up, slowly unslung his rifle. He was sure now. What he’d heard was the whimpering cry of a frightened animal—a running animal.
His face tense, the policeman headed for the nearest ramp. His boots clacked as he ran down to the mall proper. He searched one direction, then another. Nothing but shadows, glass, silence. The footfalls had stopped.
But in thicker shadow beneath another ramp angling down to the pavement far on his right, he swore he heard the light, raspy sound of something breathing.
He whipped around as a shadowy figure broke from under the ramp. The figure began to zigzag between the pocket parks in an unmistakable shambling stride.
Almost before he realized it, the policeman was running himself. He understood the nature of the humped silhouette; understood why it scurried so rapidly across the plaza, dashing past building entrances, temporarily vanishing behind ramp pillars, then plunging frantically on again.
High on another parapet to his left, he heard a word barked by a human voice, then realized it was his own name, called out by a colleague who patrolled blocks Q four through seven. Moving fast, trying to keep the fleeing figure in sight, the first policeman shouted up to the other: “Runaway!”
The cause of the flight, or the identity of the fugitive, he did not know. But he knew that what was happening violated their conditioning, and therefore could not go unchecked. He breathed hard, gripping the rifle in a sweaty palm as he ran. Finally the fleeing figure broke into plain sight, forced to cross a wide paved area in order to reach the sanctuary of the streets opening from the mall’s far side.
The state security policeman halted, braced his booted feet, brought the rifle halfway to his shoulder. He yelled the command that carried more power—with them—than lethal weapons:
“No!”
The echo bounced off the high buildings. And, for a moment, the fleeing figure did react, break stride—almost hesitate. But ultimately, the traditional command failed to work. The figure went shambling on, the emptiness flinging back the whimpering, terrified sound it made.
“Jesus Christ,” said the policeman with a violent swallow. “A real renegade.”
His training had the rifle at his shoulder by then. With only an instant’s pause, he squeezed the trigger. The first thunderous report was followed by a second.
The distant figure spun, toppled to the paving stones, flat on its back, arms flung wide. It let out a piercing bellow of animal agony. The policeman had never shot one of them before. There was a shock reaction as he dashed forward, sourness rising in his throat. Coming down the ramp from above, the boots of his colleague slammed like ghostly echoes of the shots.
The policeman knew what he would find—an ape. He discovered it was a large, mature, male chimpanzee. It wore only green trousers now, the rest of its servant’s garb cast off somewhere as part of its desperate flight to freedom. What the policeman and his companion had not expected to see was the condition of the chimpanzee’s face and hairy upper body.
Welts—open wounds—glistened in the moon’s orange light.
“God, his master must have beat the hell out of him,” breathed the second policeman, peering at the fallen simian with a grimace of distaste.
“Maybe that’s why he tried it,” said the first, wiping sweat from his upper lip. He’d just noticed something else. The ape’s eyes were not completely closed. Nor was his breathing completely stopped. The powerful chest continued to pump ever so slightly—and the chimpanzee stared at them with eyes momentarily bright with hatred.
Then a cry of pain ripped out between the ape’s lips. The eyes glazed, closed slowly. The chimpanzee was dead.
The first policeman didn’t move. His thin voice expressed his shock: “I yelled at him. You heard me—”
“I heard you.”
“Didn’t do a damn thing. Slowed him maybe a second, no more.”
“A lousy conditioning job,” said the other, trying for a callous shrug.
“I wonder how many other lousy condition
ing jobs are wandering around this city grinning and lighting cigarettes and cleaning toilets.” The first policeman glanced uneasily at the moon splinters on the towers. “I hope to God not many. If enough of them hated us the way that big bastard hated us when he was dying—” He let the rest trail off, too unpleasant to contemplate.
His colleague’s laugh sounded forced. “What’s with the God bit? It’s the government that keeps ’em from running wild.”
“But did you see the way he stared at us? I just think that if a couple of hundred of those bull apes ever went really wild, this city’d need a hell of a lot more than the government to protect it. I hope I’m not on duty if it happens.”
“You will be,” grumbled the other. “You are the government, my friend.”
The two stared at each other in glum silence. From far away down one of the dark boulevards came the shrilling sound of another one of them crying out.
In pain—or fury.
ONE
The passenger helicopter swept down across the glass-faced cubes of the city in the bright morning sunshine. Rotors whipping out wind and noise, it descended to the heliport pad atop one of the largest high rises near the city core. When the hatch opened, a file of suntanned commuters from the northern valley descended one by one. But the last two out of the ’copter were hardly typical commuters.
The man came first—heavy-set, florid, with gray in his wavy hair, and a maroon suit whose rather bold, showy cut instantly said that he was no conservative toiler in a futures’ exchange or ad-sell shop. He dressed like someone connected with the entertainment industry. Still, the cuffs and elbows of his jacket revealed wear. He was, then, in some less lucrative sector of the business.
The man had a stout leash looped around his right wrist. And it was his companion, at the other end of the leash, who continued to produce over-the-shoulder stares of curiosity from the commuters lining up at the rooftop check-in point.
At the end of the leash was a young but full-grown chimpanzee; a magnificent specimen, with alert eyes. The chimp blinked in the sunlight as he surveyed the panorama of towers and cubes ranged below the heliport on every side.
He was unusually dressed: a bright checked shirt; black breeches, black riding boots. In one hairy hand he carried a sheaf of colorful handbills.
The pair took places at the rear of the check-in line. Ahead, each passenger was having his or her identity card examined by two uniformed men from State Security. There was nothing perfunctory about the examination; each person’s card was scrutinized closely by the unsmiling officers. Finally, the heavy-set man and the leashed chimp reached the desk.
While one of the officers stared disapprovingly at the ape, the other accepted the card handed over by his master.
“Armando—is that a first or last name?”
With a shy smile and a bob of his head, the heavy-set man, answered, “Both, sir—that is, it’s my only name now. A professional name. Legally registered. I am the proprietor of a traveling entertainment. We are currently playing a two-week stand in the northern exurbs.”
The second officer jerked a thumb at the ape. “Do you have authorization to dress him like that?”
“Oh, yes, sir.” Armando fished an official-looking, stamped document from under his coat, and handed it across.
The second officer unfolded the document, scanned it, then returned it with another glance at the docile animal on the leash.
“A circus ape, huh?”
“That’s correct, sir,” said Armando, with obvious pride. “The only one ever to have been trained as a bareback rider in the entire history of the circus.”
“I thought circuses were definitely past history,” observed the first man.
With a smile, Armando plucked one of the handbills from the ape’s fingers. “Not while I live and breathe, gentlemen!”
Colorful type announced ARMANDO’S OLD-TIME CIRCUS. Smaller type below listed performance dates, times, and location. The handbill’s main illustration was a rather blurry photograph of the ape in the checked shirt. In the photo, he was standing on top of the bare back of a galloping white horse.
“Mind if I hang onto this?” the first officer asked. “My kid might get a kick out of an old-fashioned show like yours.”
“My pleasure, sir,” Armando said, still smiling his sleek, professional smile. “To promote attendance is precisely why we’ve come into the city with all these handbills.”
The officer tucked the flyer in his pocket, then passed the identity card back to its owner. “Okay, Señor Armando. Go ahead—and good luck.”
The officer pressed a button. A barrier gate slid aside. Armando gave a gentle tug on the leash.
“Come, Caesar.”
Armando started toward the elevator loading area, but doors were closing on the last carload of commuters. He paused, looked around, spotted an illuminated directional sign. Giving another tug on the leash, he led the ape toward the door to an interior staircase.
They’d gone down two flights, and reached a turning between floors, when Armando felt a tug from the other end of the leash. He turned to see the young ape looking at him alertly and with interest.
“Señor Armando,” the ape said distinctly, “did I do all right?”
Armando glanced uneasily down the stairwell, then smiled. “Yes. Just try to walk a little more like a primitive chimpanzee.” Relaxing the leash, he illustrated: “Your arms should move up and down from the shoulders—so! Without that, you look far too human.”
Vaguely puzzled for a moment, the ape nevertheless nodded. He slumped a little, imitating the circus owner’s movements. Armando was pleased.
“Much better.”
But there was a touch of sadness in the man’s eyes as he went on, “After twenty years in the circus, you’ve picked up evolved habits. From me, principally. Always remember—those must be disguised. They could be dangerous. Even fatal.”
“I know you keep telling me that, Señor Armando. But I still don’t really understand wh—”
Caesar broke off as Armando made a cautionary gesture. Two levels below, a woman and her daughter were coming up the stairs. Armando signaled Caesar to follow, darted down to the next landing and out through the door. In the bright corridor, another illuminated sign pointed the way to Aerial Cross-Ramp 10. They hurried that way, past closed office doors muting the sounds of voices and machines.
Once into the oval-windowed cross-ramp with the crowded plaza far below, Armando paused again. He risked speaking with quiet urgency.
“Caesar, listen to me most carefully. As I have reminded you before, there can be only one—one!—talking chimpanzee on all of earth: the child of the two other talking apes, Cornelius and Zira, who came to us years ago, out of the future. They were brutally murdered by men for fear that, one very distant day, the apes might dominate the human race. Men tried to kill you, too, and thought they had succeeded, but Zira took a newborn chimp from my circus and left you with its mother, hoping to save your life. I guarded you—even changed your name from the Milo they had given you—and raised you as a circus ape. But of course you inherited the ability to speak.”
The chimpanzee’s large, luminous eyes looked troubled. “But outside of you, Señor, no one knows I can speak.”
“And we must keep it that way. Because the fear remains. The mere fact of the existence of an ape with the capability to speak would be regarded as a great threat to mankind. That’s the way the world is today. When you realize how apes are treated—the roles they’ve come to occupy in society—”
The words trailed off. Armando stared glumly out one of the oval windows.
Caesar touched his arm. “Please finish what you were going to say.”
Armando turned back, said with obvious effort, “The comradeship of the circus, where humans are generally kind to animals, is very different from what you are about to see. That is why I’ve kept you away from all but our own people until I felt you were sufficiently mature. And I have kept
your secret to myself, not willing even to trust our fellow performers with the staggering truth of—what you are.”
“But I don’t see what difference my speaking could—”
“Sssh!” Armando broke in. “From now on—no talking whatsoever!” For the benefit of a businessman approaching briskly, he tugged on the leash and said in an irritated voice, “Come, come!”
Pulled off balance, Caesar lurched clumsily forward. The businessman passed them with a curious stare. Caesar’s mind tumbled thoughts one on top of another.
What was so terrible about the populated cities that Armando had insisted on keeping him away from them until now? And why would the fact that he was able to organize his thoughts, articulate them aloud in Armando’s own language, endanger him? He’d heard it often before, but it still made no sense!
Caesar wished that Armando had not decided to bring him to the city at all, to try to generate business for the struggling little circus. All at once Caesar wanted to be back in the comfortable, familiar surroundings, traveling between the tiny outlying towns in the circus vans; performing his horseback tricks under the lights, warmed by the applause. In the circus, the names Cornelius and Zira were only mysterious tokens of his past; the names of a father and mother he had never seen. Here, as he scuttled obediently behind the striding Armando, the names assumed new dimensions; what he had inherited from Cornelius and Zira somehow threatened him.
And so he must conceal that inheritance. Keep silent. For the first time that he could remember, the constraint of Armando’s leash—employed only in public—angered him.
“Moving stair,” Armando warned, stepping onto a down escalator at the end of the ramp. “Mind your balance—”
Caesar needed little more cautioning than that. He kept his eyes glued to his feet as the stair carried them downward. Armando was one step below, his dark eyes still unhappy. Finally he swung his head around, gave the young chimpanzee a look of deep sympathy.
“When we reach the bottom—the first of the shopping areas we will visit today—prepare yourself for a shock. And above all—do not speak.”