Planet of the Apes Omnibus 4

by William Arrow

  It was as if it had never existed.

  * * *

  The room was old, used by generations of leaders. The stone rectangles of the floor were worn, as were the tiers of stone seats. A statue of the First Lawgiver stood in a niche and dominated the chamber. Below, on a dais, was the long table of the Council of Elders, and today the entire council was gathered there.

  Doctor Zaius stroked the fur of his beard, blending it in unconscious vanity into a smoothly flowing whole with the long yellow-orange hair from his head. The venerable leader of the council turned his pouched old eyes from contemplation of the statue of the First Lawgiver and looked at his fellow Elders.

  Like himself they were golden-furred, the orangutan leaders of the entire simian society: the philosophers, lawgivers, and moral leaders of Apedom. Clad in their apricot-colored, leather-paneled robes, they were an imposing sight as they looked down upon the dark-furred figures before them.

  Dr. Zaius’s eyes traveled across the chamber to the apes who sat on the stone tiers listening, then finally down to the massive figure of General Urko, bulky in his black-leather-trimmed dark-green tunic and trousers, and to Urko’s opponent in the furious debate that had been going on for some time: Cornelius, the slim chimpanzee scientist.

  Dr. Zaius sighed. The argument was an old one, a battle that had been fought in these very chambers countless times. Zaius remembered attending just such a debate as a child, watching his father seated on the platform and old General Kurda, hero of the Battle of Silkor, arguing endlessly with the bent, wizened figure of Boniface, one of the early greats in the field of humanoid anthropology. The words, the speeches, the arguments were much the same now as they had been then, Zaius thought.

  “…and, therefore, I urge our august body to dispatch our great and valiant Gorilla Army to seek out and destroy every humanoid who roams our planet.” The black-furred gorilla commander paused for effect, his deep-set eyes raking across the council. “It is the only solution to the present crisis.”

  The gorillas in the audience rose to cheer noisily, causing Dr. Zaius to frown and glare in their direction.

  The chimpanzees seated in the tiers of seats looked nervous and defiant, but kept silent. Zaius stopped several orangutans seated high in the tiers, and noted with approval their neutral expressions. Two of these gold-furred onlookers were but children, but equally as solemn-faced and stolid as adults. He made a mental note to commend their elders for properly training their young to respect the ancient conventions. It did no good to have unauthorized opinions coming from orangutans who were not on the Supreme Council. It confused the population, angered the gorillas, and caused the chimpanzees to chatter even more than usual.

  Dr. Zaius looked down to the first row, where Cornelius’s wife sat impatiently, watching her husband with alert eyes. As directors of the Humanoid Behavioral Studies Laboratory, it was right and proper for them to be at the debate and for Cornelius to participate, but Zaius held little hope for Cornelius to sway the council.

  Zaius picked up the gavel and pounded hard upon the table, timing it so that the cessation of cheers seemed in response to his show of power. The wily Zaius knew you never gave a command that you knew would not be obeyed, and he was well aware of the conditioned reflexes of Urko’s admirers and followers. They will cheer if he says night is day, Zaius thought. But he was too shrewd, after a lifetime of politics and threading a thin line between gorilla ambitions and chimpanzee interests, to try and buck certain types of demonstrations. Let them wear themselves out, he told himself.

  “Cornelius,” Zaius said in his gravelly voice, “would you care to respond?”

  The chimpanzee took an immediate step forward, then ruined his bold move by giving his wife a quick look. She twitched her nose at him and gave him a slight gesture of “Get on with it.”

  Dr. Zaius covered his smile with a hand and fixed his eyes on the young but respected chimpanzee scientist.

  Cornelius cleared his throat. “Honored council… Doctor Zaius… General Urko… distinguished guests…”

  Zaius groaned inwardly. Cornelius meant well, and he wasn’t stupid, but he had a boring sense of the obvious.

  “With all due respect to the revered and distinguished General Urko, I must plead for an alternate course—”

  The sudden roar of boos and rude noises brought Zaius’s nodding head up sharply. He glared at the spectators and saw that it was the gorilla faction that was booing so strongly. His face darkened with anger as he snapped up the gavel and pounded heavily upon the table.

  “Silence! Silence!”

  His glare and authority subdued most of the big gorillas almost at once, and the diehards soon quieted down when they saw they had no backing. Zaius glowered at them. Everyone knew he did not like, nor would he tolerate, excessive noise and demonstrations in the Council Chamber.

  “Cornelius…”

  “Thank you, Doctor Zaius.”

  Throughout the short but noisy demonstration Cornelius had ignored the shouting, jeering gorillas with a certain dignity. He gave Zira a quick glance, tugged at the green tunic he wore, and continued in a normal voice.

  “If humanoids indeed now possess the ability to speak, as General Urko maintains, they must not be destroyed—they must be studied!”

  A murmur sounded in the audience, but again Zaius’s threatening look quieted it.

  “This gives us the greatest opportunity we have ever had to do research on our simian origins. If we—”

  “Rubbish!”

  The general’s rough voice cut through Cornelius’s measured words like a drill sergeant. He stepped toward the smaller ape, who gave him a sharp look but did not retreat.

  “Humanoids are nothing but a scourge to all of us!” Urko said harshly. “They should be eradicated, not studied!”

  The gorilla commander gave Cornelius a triumphant and challenging smile as the cheering broke out again from the gallery of spectators. Several of the bigger gorillas rose and stepped down onto the floor, their clenched fists menacingly close to the chimpanzee scientist.

  One of them bent over Zira from behind and murmured something in her ear that made her jerk to one side and give the leering brute a sharp and reproachful glare. She glanced quickly at her husband, grateful that he seemed not to have noticed. Cornelius took offense whenever he felt the soldiers were humiliating Zira, and every time he suffered from the brutality of their anger. But he never stopped trying, and Zira was afraid for him. Someday, she thought, they will kill him. They’ll be sorry, or say they are sorry, but my dear fighting heart will be gone.

  Dr. Zaius was pounding his gavel, standing now, glaring down at the apes who were filtering out onto the floor. More and more of them surrounded Cornelius, looming over him, trying to intimidate him with their size.

  “Silence! Silence, I say!”

  Moodily, the gorillas lumbered back to their seats under the glare of the full council of orangutan Elders. Zaius glanced at the venerable Zao and saw that he was as shocked at the ungoverned conduct of the gorillas as he was.

  When the room had returned to something like normal, Zaius spoke. “This debate is over,” he announced firmly. “We have heard the arguments from both sides and will now confer.”

  The Elders bent their heads together and the buzz of conversation in the chamber rose sharply. Zaius went from Elder to Elder, conferring and conversing, then returned to his seat at the head of the table.

  “We, the Council of Elders of the Simian World, issue the following decree,” Zaius said in his most stentorian tone. “Since it has not been ascertained with certainty that humanoids do, indeed, possess language…”

  In her seat Zira raised her eyes to look again at the frieze that covered the wall high up near the ceiling. In a band of painting that ran around the entire Council Chamber were depictions of ape-humanoid history. The frieze showed humanoids being hunted by apes, led on leashes, used as targets by the gorillas, working in the fields, and in other such activ
ities. As she heard the words of Zaius, the chimpanzee scientist wondered about this pictorial reminder of her planet’s history.

  “…we are not prepared at this moment,” Zaius continued, “to condemn their species to extermination. They may be hunted in the usual and traditional manner for legitimate sport… they may be captured alive and used for menial labor and as domestic pets—” Zaius paused to look at the section of seats that was occupied by the gorilla partisans of General Urko—”and they may be used for target practice by our gorilla soldiers, and—” There was a cheer, short-lived under the glare of the council; then Zaius looked at Cornelius and Zira. “And for study by our chimpanzee behavioral scientists.”

  Cornelius and Zira broke into wide, happy smiles, but the gorillas muttered noisily under their breath.

  Zaius raised his hand to caution them. “However…” He looked around the chamber alertly, his manner bringing everyone’s attention to him. “However, if indeed it is proven that the humanoid animals have developed language, then, according to Article 18, of the Book of Simian Prophecy… we will destroy them no matter what the cost be.”

  Zira was startled at the intense savagery in the Elder’s voice, and for the thousandth time she wondered why humanoid studies were always considered such controversial and dangerous areas.

  Dr. Zaius banged his gavel sharply. “This emergency session of the Supreme Council is now adjourned.”

  * * *

  Desolation met desolation. As Bill stood on the shore of the immense lake, his sense of relief at being alive was melting into a feeling of awe, which flowed into a kind of wonder. Looking about, he saw almost nothing to relieve the mind, to lead to hope or to tell where they were or what had gone by.

  Jeff lay on the rocky shore and Judy just beyond, exhausted by their narrow escape. As the ship sank beneath the waters, they had crowded into the Venturer’s airlock, then opened it, escaping out into the chill waters of the lake. They had reached the surface, gasping for air and frightened, and had inflated the ship’s life raft, which Jeff had pulled out along behind him.

  Jeff coughed, then gave Bill a weak smile. “Well, that’s finding out about a planet’s water and air the hard way!” He coughed again. “Tastes fine and the air is good.”

  “Everything is good after you’ve just missed getting killed,” the pilot said.

  He was scanning the surrounding desolation, but saw no sign of civilization. It was a totally intimidating stretch of lifeless, barren, arid desert, surrounded by immense sandstone buttes, massive mesas, and forbidding pinnacled battlements of stone and sand.

  Jeff struggled to his feet and joined Bill in his visual search of the surroundings. “Where are we?”

  Bill didn’t answer, but Judy spoke up. “Looks like parts of New Mexico or Arizona, except they have more vegetation than this.”

  “I saw some patches of green as we came down,” Bill said, “but they’re obviously not around here.”

  Jeff sighed and said softly, “There’s something else…”

  Bill looked at him with raised eyebrows, and Judy got weakly to her feet to join them.

  “Did you see the clocks as we left?”

  Bill frowned. “Not the last numbers. We got out of there pretty fast!”

  Jeff nodded. “I saw them. The last figure was 3979.”

  Judy’s face twisted in disbelief. “But that’s impossible! I mean, it must be some kind of instrument failure! That would mean we’ve come more than two thousand years into the future…”

  Jeff sighed. “I saw it. Clearly. And I don’t think it was a malfunction.” He gazed at Bill. “Remember the deviation I noticed? It just grew and grew, until… well, until this.” He gestured around them wearily.

  “And it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting back to Earth soon, either,” Judy said, “unless someone comes to get us.”

  Bill glanced around at the motionless landscape, broiling in the hot sun. “Let’s get over to the shade of that butte. Then we can take stock.”

  They crossed the hardpan dirt and stretches of rock until they found dubious shelter against a sheer cliff, where they slumped down in the shade. Bill opened the survival pack and began pulling out sealed containers of food.

  “It’s a good thing you thought fast enough to grab that,” Judy sighed.

  “Jeff got one, too, but I saw it snag on the airlock as we left and he had to drop it.”

  “I couldn’t help it, man,” Jeff apologized, shaking his head. “The pressure of the water and the lack of air. I just couldn’t stay around to fight it loose.”

  “That’s all right,” Bill said. “Look, we’ve got—um—two days’ rations here for the three of us, so we’d better find food and shelter quick. There’s some water in here, but I think if we empty this bag of energy bars we can fill it with water from the lake and extend our supply.” Bill looked at his fellow astronauts. “I don’t suppose there is anything in the pockets of your clothes…? Me, neither.” He glanced down at the close-fitting T-shirt and leggings they wore most of the time as a “sock” between them and their spacesuits. “They didn’t design these things to carry much in, did they?”

  Jeff grinned. “NASA didn’t think we were going to be strolling around in our underclothes on strange planets.”

  Judy stood up. “I’m almost dried out. This heat is really something.” She sighed and, with forced gaiety, asked Bill, “All right, Commander Hudson, sir, which way?”

  Bill smiled and got to his feet, shouldering the pack. He handed Jeff the empty energy bar bag. “Fill this, will you? We’ll start in that direction and you catch up.”

  “Okay, but why that direction?”

  “It’s as good as any other. And I believe that’s the way toward one of those green patches I think I saw, coming down.”

  “Good enough for me, chief. I was glued to the console.”

  Judy and Bill started walking across the rock, up a slope toward the hills, while Jeff trotted back to the lake and filled the bag. Sealing it carefully, he then trotted quickly to catch up to them just as they topped onto the higher level.

  Pausing for a moment, they surveyed the desert before them. Then they all took a deep breath and began walking. The sand crunched beneath their feet but it was surprisingly hard-packed. The three astronauts saw no markings of man or animal, only the rhythmic curves of windswept sand waves and the rolling of the dimes against an outcropping of rocks.

  * * *

  Their footprints stretched across the dunes erratically. Mostly they were together, one nearly atop another, but occasionally wandering apart. A sand slide down one dune showed where Judy had fallen, and a disturbed spot on an upslope indicated where Jeff had rested on his hands and knees. Nearby was the discarded ration bag that had contained the lake water.

  In the shade of a rock, Bill, Jeff, and Judy lay slumped, their skin parched and their eyes red and gritty. The commander offered the last few drops of water from the emergency ration pack to Judy, but she shook her head.

  “No. You’ve given me… more than my share…”

  Bill wordlessly raised the container to her mouth, but she turned her dry and chapped lips away, managing a weak smile. “No, you… male chauvinist… this is share and share… alike… And I’ve had mine.”

  Jeff spoke, his voice raw from the heat and the sand. “There’s got to be food… and water out there somewhere…”

  “Not necessarily,” Bill advised him. “This whole planet could be like this and… that green stuff I thought I saw… just lichen or colored rock, or…”

  “I’m so tired,” Judy moaned.

  Her right hand tugged weakly at a finger of her left hand and she slipped a ring from it. Putting out her hand to Jeff, she dropped the ring into his palm.

  “If… if you get out of this alive… give this to my sister, Lily… back on Earth…”

  Jeff glanced at Bill, but neither spoke. If the ship’s clock had been right, Lily was dead more than two millennia before. Eve
n before they had been trapped in whatever it was they had been caught up by, Judy’s sister had died of old age. But neither Bill nor Jeff wanted to point that out to her at that point. Jeff took the ring and slipped it into his pocket.

  Bill peeled off his T-shirt and draped it over Judy’s head. “This will give you some shelter from the sun,” he said.

  “What about you?” she said weakly. “You’ll burn…”

  “Well, I’ve always wanted a really good tan,” Bill chuckled.

  Jeff managed to grin at Judy with his dry lips. “Ought to let me give you my shirt,” he said. “I already have a tan.”

  She smiled weakly and let the two men help her to her feet. “Come on, Judy,” Jeff said, “you can make it.”

  The trio staggered out into the sun again, paused to get their bearings. They had been walking for two days and it was now the morning of the third day.

  “Let’s head for those rocks over there,” Bill said. “There might be shade and there’s more chance of water collecting in a place like that than out here in the sand.”

  Wordlessly, the three astronauts trudged along. It was midafternoon before the “rocks” had resolved themselves into a rampart of stones and sheer cliffs. But there were some breaks in the rock walls and they headed toward them.

  Lurching gratefully into the shadow of the first cliff, they were just starting to get their breath when they heard a rumbling above them. Jeff looked up in time to see a boulder rolling down the cliff face, bouncing and bringing down with it an avalanche of stones and shattered fragments of rock.

  “Watch it!”

  He hurtled himself against Bill and Judy, pressing them back into the cliff as the boulder struck the sand where they had been standing, burying itself deeply. The cascade of pebbles, dust, and rocks showered all around them.

  Coughing with the dust, Bill lunged outside the cloud and looked up at the cliff. All seemed quiet now.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  They nodded, and as the dust cloud settled they began brushing away the choking dust and flicking stone chips off their shoulders and hair. Aside from torn clothing, no one seemed hurt.