“This might work!” Bill exclaimed, dragging a smaller chain out of the carpenter’s shop at one side of the compound.
Bill took the tire iron and slipped the iron through an end link of the chain, bending the chain to lie along the tire iron, then started stuffing the apparatus into the keyhole.
“It’s a tight fit,” he said, “but it’s working!”
“I’ll back up a truck,” Jeff said. He had quickly grasped what his fellow astronaut was trying to do.
Bill had got the chain and tire iron partly through the huge keyhole, still holding the tip of the rod. Then he took a deep breath and gave the rod a final shove so that it went all the way through, pulling the chain after it. Quickly he yanked the chain back. He heard a clang, and held the chain taut. The tire iron formed a T-bar with the chain inside the door. Bill watched as Jeff backed the truck up to the prison door, then shouted a halt.
Jeff ran around to the back and Bill advised him, “You fasten it on. I’ve got to maintain a pressure or that iron bar will slip through and drop.”
“Right,” Jeff replied, scooping up the loose part of the chain and bending to fasten it to the rear bumper of the troop-transport truck.
As Jeff was fastening the chain, Bill scanned the barred windows of the cell block. Grimy hands and confused faces crowded every window.
Jeff was finally ready. He sprinted around the truck and hopped into the driver’s seat.
“Let it out easy,” Bill shouted as the truck began to inch forward. “Easy… easy… When the chain grew taut, Bill cried out, “Okay! Hold it!” He ran over to Nova and hugged her in his arms, leading her behind a second truck. “Let ’er rip!” he shouted to Jeff.
The big truck ground into low gear and started forward. The big wheels spun at first, and there was the whine of tortured metal. The knobbed military wheels dug smoky ruts into the hard-packed surface of the prison yard. The big engine raced frantically and dust obscured Bill’s vision of the cell-block door. Then he heard the slow scream of ripping metal and the snap-pop of breaking stone. At the sound of a loud crash, the truck lurched ahead, stalled, and stopped. The door lay bent and battered against the back bumper of the truck, and bits of broken stone from the door casing littered the yard.
Bill let out a cry of triumph and Jeff leaped down from the cab of the truck with a big grin on his face.
“Hudson and Allen, jailbreakers extraordinaire!” Jeff said with a smile.
Disconnecting the chain and prison door from the truck’s bumper, the two astronauts leapfrogged the stone fragments over to the shattered prison entrance. Peering into the dark, dusty interior, they saw frightened humanoid faces.
But getting the humanoids to leave their prison was no easy task. Even with Nova helping, Bill had a hard time persuading most of them to come out. They stared at him, questioned his talking mouth, and retreated to hug each other.
The sight of the terrified dumb creatures—who looked so human—horrified Bill. He was nevertheless determined to get them out of bondage. Forced to shout at and pummel the slower ones, he at length managed to clear out the entire cell block.
Jeff was herding them into the two trucks when Bill and Nova emerged at last.
“That’s the lot,” Bill said. He started shoving the last of the frightened creatures into the trucks.
* * *
General Urko’s jeep roared over a hill and screeched to a halt next to an officer who, from the comfort of a shade tree, was observing his men scour a field. The officer came to rigid attention, saluted, and started to report.
“General Urko, there is nothing in this sector to—”
However, the general’s radio, buzzed just then, and the frowning commander snatched up the receiver before his aide could get to it.
“Urko here! What is it?” The heavy-set gorilla leader’s face turned ugly as he listened; then he exploded. “What do you mean, the beast has got clean away? Are you telling me one stupid humanoid escaped my whole army!” He paused a few seconds, listening, then bellowed into the radiophone, “Well, find him! Do you hear me? That’s an order!”
Urko slammed the radiophone into its cradle and sat down abruptly. The driver was looking warily at him as the beefy field officer motioned him to go ahead. The jeep ground into gear with a ear-grating clash and roared off down the hill.
* * *
Bill ran along the side of Jeff’s truck and slapped the door. “Let’s go!”
“Wait!” Jeff shouted. “What about those wagon cages?”
“What about them?”
Jeff leaned out of his cab. “Without the cages, the apes will have a more difficult time recapturing the humanoids.”
“You’re right. We’ll take the time. I saw some cans of gasoline in the guards’ barracks.”
Jeff opened his truck door and jumped down, waving at Nova to stay inside. Quickly the two astronauts dragged several containers of gasoline out of the barracks. As Bill began drenching the wagon cages, Jeff moved his lead truck out of the prison yard. The white astronaut was, meanwhile, preparing a torch.
“Hurry up!” Bill shouted to Jeff, who was sprinting back to get the second truck full of humanoids and move it out of danger.
The stench of the gasoline fumes was powerful as Jeff moved the second truck out. Bill threw the torch into the air, aiming it toward the center of the gasoline-soaked wooden wagon cages. A ball of fire went up when the fuel ignited with a roar, staggering Bill as he ran.
The blond astronaut jumped into his truck, which had its engine running, and threw it into gear. Waving at Jeff in the first truck, he shouted, “Let’s go!”
The trucks sped down the dusty road as the fire started to spread throughout the prison compound.
* * *
In the Gorilla Army command post—a commandeered farmhouse—General Urko was pacing back and forth impatiently. His manner was intimidating to everyone except Dr. Zaius, who sat unmoving in a rustic chair, his eyes staring sightlessly into the fire in the hearth. Both of their officer companions tried to be inconspicuous. Urko had already broken one lieutenant to subsergeant for getting in the way of his pacing pattern.
Everyone jumped when the field radio beeped.
Urko strode over to the operator, who visibly cringed. He handed the receiver up to his commander, saying, “It’s Captain Trimbo, sir.”
Urko snatched the receiver away and growled, “Urko here, captain!” Then once again his face grew livid with rage. His mouth sprayed spittle and his yellowish tusks showed prominently as he bellowed belligerently at the captain. “You fool, Trimbo! I didn’t mean it literally! Don’t you have any brains? You should have left a guard at the stockade!”
Dr. Zaius broke his reverie and looked up sharply at the general. He laboriously got to his feet, carefully smoothing out his light-colored robe, and walked over to Urko, who was still berating Trimbo, who was now suddenly “sergeant” instead of “captain.”
After Urko, with a curse, slammed the receiver back into the hands of the operator, Zaius asked, “The humanoids at the stockade…?”
“They were freed. Two trucks were stolen. The stockade was partially burnt.” He struck the top of the radiotelephone, spilling the operator’s cup of soup and making him look even more afraid. “That stupid Trimbo! When I told him to use every man, he used every man!”
“When you berate your troops for acting on their initiative, you should not also condemn them for taking your orders literally,” the Elder said in a quiet voice. But although outwardly calm, he was actually quite desperate. “You acted stupidly, general!”
Urko bridled, looking down at the golden-furred Zaius with hostility. “Don’t you dare call me stupid, Zaius! This is your doing—allowing those scientists to have their way! Besides, I had no idea the beast was still in the area!”
Zaius was sarcastic as he looked Urko up and down, from his polished stiff leather helmet to his dusty black leather boots. “You had no idea? Hah!”
Urko dre
w himself up to his full height, his clenched fists beating on his leather-clad chest, his eyes growing red. His aides cringed, recognizing the signs of one of his destructive rages.
But before anything could happen to the defiant Zaius, the operator cried out. “General Urko! The two trucks have been spotted moving up the Boropark Mountain road!”
The general turned with a scowl, redirecting his rage.
But Dr. Zaius spoke first. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
The general threw Zaius a venomous look, then grabbed at his gloves. “Let’s go!” he rumbled loudly. “Come on, you idiots. Move!”
* * *
Bill Hudson lay prone in the weeds in front of some trees and a shallow gully which were hiding the two trucks. The young astronaut had caught sight of something ahead and had stopped and hidden the convoy in order to investigate.
Up a straight stretch of road lay a gorilla roadblock. A deep ditch lay along both sides of the road and enough rugged country surrounded it to prevent anything less than a tank from going around the block.
“They picked a good spot,” Bill muttered to himself as he slid back from the edge, and ran along until he was safely out of sight. When he reached the trucks, he found Jeff nervously awaiting his return.
“Say! That’s an idea!” he said, approving what Jeff had instructed the humanoids to make.
They had scoured the surrounding trees to find strong limbs—dry and hard—for clubs, even though they did not as yet know their intended use. They were simply following orders.
“I hope they can use them if they have to,” Jeff mumbled gloomily. “They don’t seem to have much fighting spirit!”
“It was probably bred out of them as a result of their spirit being subjugated by superior ape technology. That left only the meek to breed.” Bill sighed. “I hope there’s some ‘fight’ left, however.”
He squatted in the dirt and grass and picked up a stick. “Here’s what’s up there. Road straight like this, deep ditches on both sides. Little flimsy hut on the left side, with a pole across the road resting on some logs. I counted only three guards, but there might be one or even two more sitting or sleeping in the hut.”
“How alert are they?”
“Well, I don’t think they’re expecting trouble. They’re just a routine patrol, a routine guardpost. However, they have rifles—and a possible clear shot at us for almost a hundred yards while we’re coming at them.”
Jeff shook his head, then squinted at the sky. “We can’t wait until dark to try and surprise them.”
“No, we’ll have to surprise them, all right, but not by sneaking up on them at night.” Bill took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Look, I’ve never done anything like this and neither have you. And it’s a certainty they haven’t.” He pointed at the trucks. “But we must try.” Bill grinned at his mahogany-skinned partner. “Now here’s my plan—as the guy in the dungeon said…”
“It better be good, Commander Hudson, sir,” Jeff said with a rueful grin. “We only got one chance, brother.”
Bill stood and started walking along the trucks, looking in at the humanoids who were fashioning crude clubs by breaking off limbs to a handy length. He spotted one cavedweller, a woman in her twenties, and took her hand.
She tried to pull away, frightened, and her companions were terrified.
It took all of Jeff’s prodding and a lot of Nova’s tugging and pushing to calm the humanoids down, but finally Bill isolated the young woman from the others. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a young man resentfully watching him from under the rear of the truck.
“What’s he up to?” Jeff asked. “A little hanky-panky?”
“Never mind that, just keep an eye on lover boy there.” Bill turned and quietly motioned for Nova to come to him. “Please tell the attractive humanoid girl that I want her dress,” he explained in gestures to Nova.
“Huh?” said Jeff.
“It’s dark fur—not all that different from a gorilla’s,” he said aloud, to Jeff. “In a bad light, that is. But it’s her dress…” He tugged at it and looked at Nova, who looked puzzled.
Bill partially undid his own suit of skins and then suddenly Nova seemed to realize, what was wanted. She did a quick pantomine for the girl, which neither Bill nor Jeff understood, and the girl nodded. She gave Bill a fearful look, but without another hesitation she took off her black fur garment and handed it to the astronaut. She stood naked but unembarrassed.
“I guess they don’t have much in the way of nudity taboos,” Bill said to Jeff.
“Maybe they just wear these things for warmth. Okay, now what are you going to do with it?”
“Nova… Nova?” Bill caught her attention again and, wrapping his arms around himself, pointed to the other girl.
Immediately Nova started to undo her own clothes, presumably to give them to the nude girl.
“No, no!” Bill pointed at the truck and over it at the others. “Find her something else, will you? Maybe the tops of a couple of other garments?”
Nova seemed to grasp the idea, and took the girl by the hand to lead her around the truck.
“I think you are elected, Jeff.” Bill started to shape the fur around Jeff’s head and shoulders.
“Hey! What’s going on?”
“You’re going to become a gorilla truck driver, my friend. Tear off some of the edge there and shape it around your mouth and chin. Hide that handsome nonsimian face of yours.”
“I get it. We take the trucks—”
“One truck. Filled with the most likely humanoids with clubs, and me on the floorboards ready to jump out and surprise the hell out of them.”
Jeff looked at him a long time. “A Trojan horse… of sorts.”
“Of sorts.”
The black sighed. “Well… okay. Mainly because I can’t think of anything better.”
As Jeff began to assemble the fur around his head, Bill went around to determine the most likely club handlers. He ended up picking two women and ten men. Giving them the best clubs, he silently demonstrated their use. But the humanoids just looked at him. Bill shrugged and went back to inspect Jeff’s costume.
“Not bad, not if they don’t get too close before they tumble,” he said. “And only your head and shoulders will show above the truck door. But we’d better not be slow.”
Bill put the clubbers into the first truck; then he herded the others into the second truck, and put Nova in charge of these latter.
“Now you keep them here,” he said, miming the words.
Nova nodded, and Bill climbed into the first truck’s passenger side. He gave a slight and uncontrollable start as he looked at Jeff.
“Not bad!” he admitted.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to be too good,” Jeff complained.
“Don’t smile! It spoils the effect.”
Bill hefted the yard-long hardwood club he had and got down onto the floorboards. Then he tested the door and even tried jumping out once. He climbed back in and knelt down: “Drive on, MacDuff!” he said.
The truck lurched into gear and bounced up over a rock. “Uck! Sorry, but I don’t see too good through all this fur,” Jeff said.
They rolled through the trees, then turned up the road toward the guardpost.
“I see them,” Jeff muttered as he got onto the straightaway. “Two on my side and none on yours. Rifles. Don’t see any others. Oops! One just walked over to your side. One is on this side of the cross-pole and one on the other. But only one had the rifle in his hands instead of in his shoulder strap.”
“Which one?”
“The one nearest me. Better take him first. Sssh! Here we go.”
The truck braked and was grinding to a halt. “Here he comes,” Jeff mumbled. “My side.”
It seemed to Bill that it was the world’s longest wait. He thought of several schemes he should have tried first, including the very risky one of simply charging the roadblock.
“Get ready,” Jeff breathed.
Bill tensed his body.
“All right, there,” came the gruff voice of the guard. “What are you carrying? Humanoids, for Kerchak’s sake? Nasty cargo!” Bill heard the other guard laugh. “So let’s see your pass and—Hey!”
“Now!” Jeff screamed. He threw open his door, smashing it into the armed guard. Bill leaped out of the truck on the opposite side and landed heavily, rolling under the barrier as he saw the startled guard start to unshoulder his rifle.
Bill rolled against his legs and the guard fell. Rising to his knees, Bill smashed his club across the guard’s face. Blood gushed and Bill didn’t wait.
Bill now threw himself under the roadblock pole again and thrust up at Jeff’s opponent with the ragged end of the thick, broken limb. It knocked away the guard’s rifle, which exploded loudly, but smashed into the chin of the hulking gorilla. The guard staggered, and Bill leaped to his feet, swinging his club with both hands. The gorilla went down with a scream and Bill struck him again.
Both guards were dead.
As Bill whirled, he saw the handsome black astronaut leaning casually against the front fender, ripping off his ape disguise.
Breathing heavily, Bill glared at him. “Some help you were.”
Jeff grinned. “Efficiency and dispatch, ole buddy. You took care of mine enemy, so I checked the guardhouse. Only one there, asleep, so I dispatched him. Besides, you looked as though you were having fun. Far be it from me to keep a man from his pleasures!”
Bill couldn’t help smiling. Then he quickly gathered up the rifles and ammunition from the two guards and tossed them into the truck as Jeff ran back down the hill to bring up the second vehicle.
Jeff hopped out, and they redistributed the humanoids to equalize the load. “A lot of good they were,” he grumbled.
“Fighting does seem to be bred out of them,” Bill snapped, “but maybe that wasn’t the right stimulus.” He saw how the humanoids looked fearfully down at the dead apes.
“Come on, let’s roll!” Bill yelled as he ran back to the second truck.
Jeff jumped up into the cab of the lead truck and ground it into gear.
Planet of the Apes Omnibus 4 Page 10