Urko grunted, his eyes flickering up from the map to verify landmarks. “If you’re right,” he grumbled, “we will soon find the Underdwellers, and destroy them!”
Captain Mulla’s bloodshot eyes looked toward the rocky hills ahead. “It’s hard to know, sir. We can’t penetrate their organization with secret operatives—for obvious reasons.”
“Organization!” snorted General Urko derisively. “Motley tribe is what they are.”
Mulla kept silent. He had his own ideas about the humanoids and the Underdwellers—unpopular ideas. But he kept his mind, and his eyes, open. You make too many mistakes around a general—especially one like Urko—and you can easily get in deep trouble, he reminded himself.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “I guess that’s what I meant.”
* * *
Jeff Allen climbed out on top of a rock and leaned against the side of another great clump of stone, for what little shade there was. Pulling his pack around, he glanced up as Bill came up the steep stone side and dropped down next to him. Jeff offered Bill a fistful of berries from the crude backpack he had set aside.
“Thanks,” the blond astronaut said, and tossed them all into his mouth.
He then rummaged through his own pack, made of untanned hides, stiff and still hairy, and pulled out a gourd of tepid water. Washing down the berries, he handed the gourd canteen to Jeff.
“Hot,” Bill grunted.
“Are you always so eloquent?” Jeff asked, his grin threatening to crack his dry lips.
“I thought maybe you hadn’t noticed,” Bill said.
The two men sat looking out over the desert they had crossed, and down on the rocky hillside they had just climbed. The sun was relentless, and nowhere could they see any greeny-only the twisted gray-green of scrawny desert thornbushes.
Bill took out some dried meat and gave half of the tough meal to Jeff. They sat munching it automatically, not enjoying it but knowing they needed the strength it provided.
As Bill swallowed a lump of the unsavory chew, he spoke in a dry, cracked voice. “Jeff, we’ve searched a ten-mile radius around the humanoid caves and haven’t found any inhabitable area at all. The nearest decent place is where they already are, and the best is where Ape City is.”
Jeff nodded wearily, stretching out a sore leg. “It sure is bleak country all right. I don’t think we’ll find anything around here. We’ll just have to go farther away. Only lizards, snakes, and cactus can live out here.”
They chewed some more of the dried meat and washed it down with the warm water from the gourd. Afterward, both arched their backs and got carefully to their feet.
“Think we can get back to the caves by nightfall?” Jeff asked.
“No, too far. Another glorious night on the trail, ole buddy, sleeping under the stars and trying not to lie on a rattler.”
They slung on their packs and started once again to climb. They had hiked up a few feet when a slight movement caught Jeff’s eye and caused him to turn.
“Hold it!” he said to his dusty companion. “What’s that over there?”
He pointed to what appeared to be smoke.
“It’s something moving on the desert floor!” Bill gasped. They squinted their eyes into the sun. “A column of dust! It’s a motored army column!”
“Come on, let’s get out of here!” Jeff exclaimed.
They both started climbing over the rough terrain as fast as they could, their fingers seeking purchase in the rocks, their feet scraping on the hard surfaces.
Jeff eventually found a crevice that seemed to lead toward the top and slipped into it. “Down here,” he called to Bill. “Come on, before they see you!”
“Just as soon as I get over this boulder,” Bill grunted, grabbing at the lumpy protuberance.
* * *
Urko’s jeep had pulled slightly away from the column, and now it came to a halt, letting the thick dust drift away. The ape general was standing up, scanning the rocky hillside restlessly.
“I thought I saw some movement up there,” he muttered. The fieldglasses froze and the general’s beady eyes glittered. “Got him! Just going over that rock! The humanoid who escaped! I’d know his cursed blond hair anywhere!”
The gorilla commander signaled to the leading troop carrier, waving it toward the rocky hills. “Move! We’re going after the animal!”
As the jeep jolted into movement, the general sat back with a thick leer.
“Hah! An unexpected bonus! We set out to wipe out the Underdwellers and instead find the beast with a price on his head!” Urko struck the dashboard of the jeep with his heavy fist. “And this time there is no escape!”
* * *
“They’ve spotted us!” Bill groaned, peering out at the armored column as it veered toward the hills.
The vehicles were now grinding speedily over the desert sands, throwing up spumes of dust, crushing fragile desert plants recklessly. The going was tougher as they left the flatter bottom of the desert valley, but their rugged metal frames were capable. The soldiers in their rear bounced and banged against each other, hanging on for dear life as the column followed the bellowing commander up the lower slopes.
The vehicles soon spread out, for the dust clouds were too thick to see through and two of the trucks had damaged their undercarriages by going over huge rocks they did not spot in time.
Urko, jostled roughly in the jeep’s front seat, was holding on grimly. “He’s behind those rocks,” he gloated. “We’ll have him soon! And when we do, I have some definite ideas about how to treat humanoids!”
Captain Mulla, also rocked by the rough passage, said as respectfully as he could over the roaring engine and the rattle of the vehicle over rocks and gravel, “General Urko, sir, shouldn’t this discovery be reported to Doctor Zaius?”
Urko shot his aide a dark look, then muttered, “I suppose we must.” A leering smile crossed his face. “But don’t be in any big hurry about it.”
* * *
Bill was behind Jeff as they climbed hastily up through the crevice in the rock. Small rocks and pebbles were dislodged and went down in miniature avalanches at almost every footstep.
“Wait a minute,” Bill gasped. “Let’s see what they’re doing.” He jumped across the small chasm and climbed up a rock to where he could look down at the column. “Still coming,” he said.
Jeff crossed and stood beside him. Both men were panting and sweat ran down their bodies in rivulets. The cloud of dust from the column was closer now, and wider as the vehicles spread out.
The black astronaut, coughing from the dust, said, “They know we’re here, no question of that.”
“Wait!” Bill said. He looked at Jeff. “I bet they only saw me. I was stupid enough to be outside, where they could pick me out. Maybe they never saw you at all. I could try and lead them away!”
Jim flashed him a look of disgust. “You wouldn’t have a chance, Bill. You can’t climb any faster than you’re doing already.”
Bill shook his head. “Maybe I wouldn’t have a chance, but you would!”
“Oh, come on, we’ll both—”
Jeff hesitated. His eyes looked startled. The ground was quivering and they felt the rocks vibrating. They gazed down at the desert and heard once again the ominous rumble of an earthquake starting to build.
“Earthquake!” Bill cried.
The two astronauts stared in horrified fascination as they watched the desert below them quiver. The sands seemed to dance; then suddenly, and without warning, great sections fell in. Clouds of dust rose.
And up through the dust came great, sheer cliffs of stone!
Jeff and Bill stared in complete surprise as one, two, three great steep-sided slabs of rock reached straight up out of the depths of the desert. Although the two men were almost encased in clouds of dust, they could see that the rock cliffs were steep, their tops ragged and sawtoothed, matching any of those that surrounded the wide, flat valley.
Bill gasped, “Mountains—from
nowhere!”
Jeff’s awed voice was almost a whisper as he asked, “But how—?”
Then the wave of sound hit the two astronauts: a vast rumbling tidal wave of grinding, tearing, rumbling noise. And the upthrusting mountains had cut off the Earthmen’s sight of Urko’s Gorilla Army column; indeed, they had risen up in majestic might to completely block off the desert valley.
* * *
General Urko stood by his jeep. The column had come to a halt even before the commander’s order. Two trucks had crashed into the rear of those ahead as the stunned drivers stared at the sudden obstacle to their progress in the Forbidden Zone.
In anger and disbelief, the gorilla general stared belligerently at the new rocky ramparts. “Mountains!” he swore bitterly. “Mountains, in the name of Kerchak!”
Mulla, his composure shaken, stared unbelievingly at the sheer rock faces below him.
The mountains had by now stopped moving, and dust was settling. The sudden new range looked as if it had been there since the beginning of time.
“Where did they come from…?” Mulla asked the world at large.
Urko struck at the hood of the command jeep. The hollow thump caused the already nervous driver to jump, and he gave his commander a reproachful look.
“The Underdwellers!” Urko raged. “The Underdwellers and their cursed tricks!” The general struck the hood of the jeep once again, apparently impervious to the pain. “Someday they will pay!”
The mountains were silent. The great new sheer-stone sentries had blocked any further movement across the desert valley.
The gorilla general began cursing.
* * *
Jeff and Bill stood on a rock ledge, looking up at the sheer immensity of the mountain-sized walls of stone that now stretched across the desert valley.
All at once, Jeff’s attention was caught by a movement on the nearer valley floor. “Look!” he exclaimed, pointing down.
The sands were falling in and a rectangular shape appeared. The shape then slowly split as, from out of the darkness of the hole it sat in, came a metallic clang, then a high-pitched whine. A great, coiled column rose up, bright and segmented. Smoothly the column unfolded, curving around until a shallow hemisphere—like a rounded dish—of enormous size had been constructed from its leaf-like sections.
“Those mountains aren’t here to protect us,” Bill said.
“They’re here to protect… that!” Jeff finished.
They stared as the great dish angled toward the sun, which flashed off the metallic edges. The interior of the dish was black, a tightly knit series of smaller black disks which completely covered the metal hemisphere.
“It’s some kind of solar energy collector.” Bill gulped.
“But look at the size of it!” exclaimed Jeff. “If that collector has even fifteen percent efficiency it is gathering an incredible amount of power from the sun!”
Bill rubbed at his cheek thoughtfully. “I was told at NASA that in twenty-two days the sun broadcasts to Earth the same amount of energy as what is in all the coal, oil, and natural gas the world has ever had! So I guess this thing could really be soaking it up!”
Jeff looked at his companion. “Why are we standing here? Let’s go down there! It’s the only sign of civilization we’ve seen out here in this godforsaken desert!”
“You’re right,” Bill said. “Come on.”
The two astronauts started climbing down the crevice they had just so-laboriously gone up. But the going was easier, and they could leap from one rock to another in some places.
“I wonder who—or what—is using all the power…?” Bill asked.
They came to the bottom of the rocky slope and ran quickly across to the huge rectangular opening. The solar energy collector towered above them, casting a vast oval shadow on the rumpled desert floor. When they stood on the edge of the opening they could hear the humming and clicks of some of the machinery that obviously kept the enormous dish pointed at the sun.
The hole they stood near was as long as a football field, and just as wide, but the solar collector was far greater in diameter than that, having folded out from the thick main shaft.
“I can see why they needed something the size of a mountain to hide it,” Jeff remarked, looking up and shading his eyes against the hard glare of the sun.
Bill got down on his knees to peer into the darkness of the pit from which the support column protruded. “I can’t see anything down there,” he said. “It’s so bright out here and so blasted dark below.”
Jeff pointed. “Look at these trapdoors, or whatever you call them. They’re as thick as we are tall.”
“Watch out!” Bill called, holding out a warning hand.
Jeff had stepped closer, and sand from the edges was spilling into the depths in a wispy waterfall. He quickly stepped back.
“It’s a long way down…” he muttered. “I wonder how we can get down there?”
The two astronauts lay on their stomachs and edged close to the lip of the vast artificial hole, trying to see into the darkness. As their eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light they saw a stairway coming up along the wall to the west; it stopped at a platform some distance below the edge of the pit.
“Look, there!” Jeff said. “Probably some sort of service stairs to work on the doors. See where the lower set slid back into the wall there?”
“The top set, the ones directly under the sand, drew back, dumping the sand onto the lower set. Then they pulled back, taking the sand with them. But how does the sand get back onto the top?”
“It must, or they’d have a square depression here in no time,” Jeff suggested.
The ground now began again to thrum with vibrations, and the two astronauts slid back hurriedly from the edge of the great hole. More sand showered into the depths as they scrambled to their feet.”
“Look!” Bill shouted, pointing up. “It’s folding up again.”
“That didn’t take long.” Jeff’s eyes were squinting up at the immense contraption.
“Maybe they don’t have all that much of a power drain,” Bill suggested, “or else that thing is hellishly more efficient than we thought!”
A far-off rumble of sound suddenly came to them and the two men looked at the artificial mountains beyond the hole.
“They’re coming down!” Jeff exclaimed.
Bill pointed at the stairs below. “Let’s get over here and go down!”
“Right!” Jeff said as they started to run around to that side. “Anything’s better than staying out here and waiting for those gorillas!”
Over their head the huge dish was collapsing itself neatly, the black-lined leaves swinging to fold along the big metal trunk that had thrust them out into the hot desert air. Bill and Jeff knew it was going to descend in moments, the mighty doors would slide shut, and they would be left on the surface of the desert valley, wholly vulnerable to the onslaught of the Gorilla Army.
The two men raced around the edge of the great pit until they were just over the stairs. But the platform was still almost twenty feet below, and there were no handholds.
“We’ll have to jump!” Bill yelled above the tumult.
Jeff looked back and saw that the mountains were lower, with gusts of sand, and dust obscuring them. A quick look at the folding dish overhead showed that the time was almost upon them.
“Okay, you go first and catch me!” he said with a grin.
“Shut up, wiseguy, and… jump!”
With his last word, Bill hurtled off the edge of the pit rim, falling through space in a spray of sand. He hit the metal grid of the platform hard, jarring his body roughly, and fell heavily. He had wanted to hit and roll, in order to absorb some of the force of his fall, but the distance was deceptive and the platform small.
“Get out of the way!” Jeff called down.
Bill pulled himself over to the stairway and descended a few steps. He saw Jeff hurtle into the air and followed his body until he, too, crashed heavily in
to the platform.
“Oof!”
Bill ran over to help his companion to his feet. Overhead they saw that the collector had folded itself into a long pod and they heard the squeal as powerful motors, hidden in the depths below, began to lower the monstrous column.
“Let’s get down lower,” Jeff said. “Before the doors close up there and cut off the light.”
“How do your feet feel?” Bill asked.
“Like someone beat on them with a club,” the black astronaut grumbled. “That platform is hard!”
The column rumbled to a halt. Bill and Jeff heard a faraway click; then, with a grinding whine, the lower set of doors rumbled close over their heads. The vast chamber turned dark and they felt their way down the stairs as the upper doors closed. Trotting down the dark steps as fast as they could, they heard the hiss of compressed air.
“That’s how they get the desert to look all right!” Bill explained, stopping for a moment. “They vacuum the sand from the tops of the inner doors. Automatically, I suppose. Then they shoot it out like a great dust cloud and just let it settle down naturally. Very clever. They really thought this out,” he said admiringly.
“Yeah?” said Jeff. “But who are they?”
“Well, we’re just going to have to find out. Let’s hope that Nova and the humanoids remain safe until we can get back to them.”
They groped their way down the seemingly endless stairway as it zigzagged along the sheer wall into the unknown depths.
* * *
Urko and his men sat expectantly in their vehicles, their eyes straining through the clouds of dust toward the quickly lowering mountains.
“Fantastic amount of power needed to do all that,” Captain Mulla said to himself.
The short duration of the earthquake and the sheer sides of the mountains had convinced them that they were artificial, despite the incredible size of the project. Nature was not quite so neat, tidy and convenient.
The terrain was now obscured by fountaining spurts of sand and dust. Nevertheless, Urko ordered the scout jeeps ahead.
One of them radioed back from within the drifting cloud of sand. “General Urko, sir, I wouldn’t believe this if I hadn’t seen it myself, but there isn’t a trace of those mountains any longer!”
Planet of the Apes Omnibus 4 Page 12