“They’re humanoids—not humans,” Jeff broke in, annoyance in his voice. “Even your precious Nova. What help can a bunch of dumb animals be?”
“Potentially, I think they are humans,” Bill answered. “With help, with leadership, and with teaching, I think they can be helped. And in helping them, we help ourselves. We sure as hell aren’t going to be able to survive here—here on… Earth—without help from someone. And it won’t be the gorillas or Underdwellers!”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
“I know I am. And what choice do we have?”
Jeff didn’t answer the question. Bill waited for a minute, then grunted, and rolled his body into another position, trying to ease the pain in his leg. But it didn’t help.
Again he tried to discipline his mind to sleep, but again it didn’t work. He glanced down at his watch. At least four more hours until dawn, he thought. He flipped open the tiny, sealed medical pack at his waist and pulled out a Paingone. Pressing the slim tube hard against the skin, of his arm, he winced slightly as the high-pressure capsule inside forced the medication through his skin and into his bloodstream. In moments, the medication had relaxed his tight nerves and muscles.
Bill Hudson—astronaut lost in his own future—finally slept.
* * *
The sky was turning gray and the light mist that cloaked the rolling nearby plain and the jungle from midnight on was slowly lifting. Bill awakened and sat bolt upright. He could see the dim outline of Jeff sitting a few feet away, his chin down on his chest, sound asleep.
Blond, handsome Bill listened to the sounds of the dawn, barely breathing, trying to isolate the sound that had awakened him. Then it came again, and with it a slight smell.
It was the sound of men—or in this case probably gorillas, he reminded himself wryly. They were talking, and the smell of wood smoke and cooking food came to him. Somewhere, somewhere close, an ape patrol had made camp during the hours of darkness, while the hunted astronauts slept.
Quietly, moving slowly so as not to disturb his companion, Bill got to his feet and crept off through the underbrush and trees. Twenty minutes later he was back. With a finger to his lips, he woke Jeff with a light shake on his partner’s shoulder; then, signaling for him to follow, he again slipped away through the shadow-shrouded jungle.
Without a word, Jeff followed the former commander of the Venturer through the tangle of shrubbery, stepping carefully to make as little noise as possible. They were headed roughly in the direction of the rising sun. For almost a quarter-mile they slid through gradually thinning brush, before coming out on a hillside above the wide dirt road Bill had spotted earlier. It was the road to Ape City that they had been seeking.
They kept to the top of the hill, paralleling the road, until they came to a sharp bend. Bill dropped to his knees, then inched forward along a rocky outcrop, flattening himself as he crawled in order to keep from being seen from below.
Jeff did likewise, and when he reached the edge of the outcrop Bill motioned him to keep his head as low as possible. The two astronauts peered cautiously over the edge of the rock shelf, down to a small clearing that held an ape patrol camped for the night, but now getting ready to move out.
A burly gorilla with the insignia of sergeant on his black harness was striding about, delivering kicks and threats at random, getting his troops prepared to move out. Under cover of all the activity below them, Bill and Jeff worked their way down the hillside, from rock to bush to outcropping, until they were close enough to hear what was going on.
“Come on,” the sergeant was bawling, “get your lazy butts in gear. We’ve got a lot of miles to cover today, and I don’t intend to be explaining to the captain why we didn’t get them covered before dark.”
He aimed a kick at a young, stocky gorilla orderly who was packing a stack of maps and papers into a leather bag. The maps went flying into the bushes at the side of the clearing.
The young gorilla scrambled quickly to retrieve the papers, which were spreading rapidly in the light wind. But, quickly as he moved, Jeff moved quicker, darting from his hiding place ten feet away and diving into the line of bushes at the edge, of the clearing, among the scattered papers.
The patrol was moving out onto the road under the sergeant’s loud cursing when Jeff and the orderly came together behind the bushes, both of them grabbing for the same maps. Jeff was reaching forward to pluck one of the brightly colored sheets from the branches holding it, when the gorilla spotted him.
It was then that the gorilla made the mistake that was to cost him his life.
In the last fraction of a second before contact, Jeff threw up one arm, hitting the gorilla in the shoulder as the ape flew through the air. That blow slightly deflected the ape’s leap. Not much, but enough so that they hit the ground with the man on top. Almost instinctively, Jeff’s hands grabbed for the gorilla’s fur-covered neck. Then he flung a leg across the ape soldier’s back, straddling him and dragging his own weight up on top of the now frantically heaving gorilla. Digging his knees tight into the ape’s ribs, he pinned him tight beneath him.
The black astronaut’s nails bit deep into the gorilla’s neck fur, and he began to squeeze with all the power of his wrists and biceps. He knew that, if he let the thrashing body break from under him, if he let the gorilla turn face-up, the soldier’s stronger hands and great, sharp teeth would tear him to pieces.
It became a contest between Jeff’s weight pinning the gorilla down, and the muscles of the ape trying-to lever upward. Jeff hung on grimly, forcing all the power of his arm muscles into his aching wrists, his fingers dug deep into the cord-like neck. But the soldier’s struggles went on and on, undiminished, even fiercer as the gorilla realized that this humanoid was different—it was a killer!
Desperately Jeff held, on, his strength reinforced by his knowledge that the slightest slip would lead to his own death. But the powerful squirming under him was as strong as ever. Then, abruptly, the gorilla began to make choking sounds.
The sounds recharged Jeff’s determination, just as he felt his grip beginning to loosen. He made one last tremendous effort, tightening the squeeze and bearing down with every ounce of his weight—and felt the “gorilla weakening. He was winning, he realized, and the thought changed his attitude from dread to exaltation. For a moment after the soldier’s body had gone limp he hung on, silently shouting his victory to the world.
Jeff got to his feet on shaking legs and stumbled back toward the bushes where Bill was still hiding, unaware of what had happened. Just before leaving the line of bushes, however, Jeff remembered what had brought him close to the clearing to start with, and he turned back to snatch up the maps and papers. He pulled the partially filled leather bag from around the dead soldier’s neck.
“Quick! Let’s get ourselves out of here,” he hissed at Bill when he got back to his partner’s hiding place in the rocks.
“In a minute,” Bill whispered. “I’ve been listening to them, and it seems as though they’re looking for us—and for any other humanoids they can find!”
“You can bet your sweet life they’re looking for us. Or will be in just a few minutes. As soon as they find the body back there in the bushes.”
“Body? What body?” Bill asked, confusion plain in his voice as he looked up at Jeff.
“I had to kill one of them,” Jeff said simply. “The sergeant’s orderly. And you can be sure the sarge’ll be looking for him before long.”
Bill didn’t say a word. He turned and started back up the hillside, moving fast but making certain he kept out of sight of the road below. Jeff paused long enough to strap the leather bag around his shoulder; then he followed.
* * *
For almost fourteen hours, until the sun had set and the two astronauts were sure they had lost the patrol, they kept up a murderous cross-country pace, drawing on what little reserves of energy they had left to keep going. They were sure the enemy was close behind.
Twice they he
ard shouting behind them, and twice they redoubled their efforts, striking off at angles to confuse the trail, dashing across rocky ridges to conceal their tracks—anything to make the job of tracking them more difficult. By nightfall, it had been six hours or more since they’d last heard any sound of pursuit behind them.
Bill did not bother suggesting that they stop. He just dropped to the ground, his lungs, laboring to supply his exhausted body with oxygen, his legs refusing to carry him another foot without rest.
Jeff dropped to the ground beside him, and for ten minutes neither moved, neither spoke. The black reached for the canteen strapped to his waist, took a deep pull, then passed it to Bill. While his partner drank, Jeff pulled open the leather map case and quickly sorted the maps from the other papers. He turned slightly to catch the last dying light of the sun on the sheets of crinkled orders and plans, and began to read.
Five minutes later, a look of terror on his brown features, he glanced up at Bill. “This is a death warrant,” he said.
“For whom?”
“For us. And for all the humanoids!”
Bill sat up quickly. “Have they discovered the Venturer?”
“No. Or at least these orders don’t say much about it. They do indicate, though, that some sort of Unidentified Flying Object was seen in an area called the Forbidden Zone.”
“Then what makes you think that’s a death warrant for us?” Bill asked.
“Listen. This is a general directive to all commands, and especially to the Command Troops, whatever they are. It says that there’ve been reports of an Unidentified Flying Object landing in the Forbidden Zone, possibly crewed by humanoid-like creatures.’ I guess that’s supposed to be us. ‘Because of this,’ it says, ‘all humanoids are to be rounded up and examined.’ And the way it’s worded, there’s a strong implication that the high command, a General Urko, wouldn’t mind a bit if the examinations proved fatal to the examinees.”
“That means we’ve got to do something about getting the humanoids away,” Bill said.
“That means we’ve got to do something about getting us away,” Jeff answered. “Let’s forget about the humanoids.”
“They’re people, Jeff. And right now they’re in trouble because of us.”
“They’re humanoids—not humans. Not people. They’re animals who happen to look like us, and they’re in trouble because the apes want to wipe them out anyway, not because of anything we’ve done.”
“Jeff,” Bill said slowly, looking at the ground in front of him rather than at his partner’s anger-twisted face. “It wasn’t long ago—or at least it wasn’t very long ago for us—that my people, the white people, were saying the same sort of things about your people—that blacks were almost, but not quite, human. Is that why you’re so strongly against the humanoids? Do they remind you too much of your own race’s past?”
“I didn’t know you had a degree in psychology,” Jeff said bitterly.
“I don’t. It’s just that I’ve known you for a long, long time. The color of our skins doesn’t matter. We’re brothers. And like brothers, we often think alike. Admit it, and admit why you’ve begun to dislike the humanoids. Get it out in the open, where you can see it and understand it, before it eats you up like a cancer.”
Jeff bowed his head for a moment, and shook it; then he looked up, grinning, at his partner. “You do a pretty good job of looking into a man’s soul, don’t you?”
“Only when it’s like looking into my own soul, man,” Bill said, returning Jeff’s smile.
“Okay, so we’ve got to do something about saving the humanoids, as well as ourselves. Any ideas on how we’re going to go about it?”
“Well,” said Bill, lying down and looking up at the few stars visible through rents in the clouds, “one of the first things we’ll have to do is get the humanoids out of those caves they’re in now. Not only do the apes know where they’re at, but there’s no way those caves can be defended against any kind of serious attack. Those secret holes at the back of the caves won’t save all of them!”
“So where do we move them to, that the apes won’t be able to find them?”
Dammit, I don’t know! But we’ve got a whole planet to pick from. There’s got to be someplace they’ll be safe.” There was anger plain in Bill’s voice, but it was anger at fate, not at Jeff’s question.
“We may have a whole planet here, but we don’t have a whole planet to pick from.”
“What do you mean?”
“Wherever we take the humanoids, Bill, it’s going to have to be within walking range, remember? No planes, trucks, or trains here. Well, trucks maybe, but we’d have to steal some from the apes again. And anyplace we could take a truck, they could sure follow in other trucks.”
“What about in the Forbidden Zone?” the blond astronaut asked. “Or the north side of the Forbidden Zone, for that matter?”
“From what we’ve seen of the Forbidden Zone, if that’s the desert where we walked for days and where the ship crashed in that lake surrounded by mesas and yellow-brown hills,” Jeff said, “I don’t think anyone could live there on a permanent basis. No water, except in the lake. No food, probably extremes of temperature. Then, the Underdwellers aren’t faraway. No, I don’t think the Forbidden Zone is the answer we need.”
“So what about the other side, of the Forbidden Zone?” Bill asked again. “Put that wasteland between the apes and us, and even if they do follow, their supply lines will be so long, and they’ll be so worn out from crossing the Zone, that with a little basic military training and a few weapons the humanoids should be able to handle them.”
“One question, though,” Jeff said. “What makes you think there is another side to the Forbidden Zone. The whole continent—except for this strip we’re in now, and east of here, where the apes live—may be a desert. This isn’t our old Earth, remember.”
“Do those maps you grabbed show anything?”
“Nope. They just-cover the strip between Ape City and the edge of the Forbidden Zone. From the line of green hills on the edge of the Zone westward it’s just a blank.”
“There’s one person who probably knows what there is on the other side of the Forbidden Zone. Assuming there’s anything on the other side,” Bill said.
“Who?”
“Cornelius.”
“The chimp who captured you?” Jeff asked, surprise in his voice.
“He didn’t capture me. He and his wife, Zira, were in charge of the Behavioral Studies Laboratory where I was taken after the gorillas caught me with the humanoids.”
“So what makes you think an ape will help you against his own people?” Jeff asked, a trace of scorn in his voice.
“He and Zira helped me to escape when the Supreme Council of the apes was going to have me disposed of, permanently, as a potential danger to ape-kind. And I think they’ll help me again, once they know the circumstances.”
“Which means we’re going to have to go right into Ape City.”
“That’s the way we’ve been headed anyway. East,” Bill said. “I don’t particularly like the idea of putting my neck back in the noose either, so if you’ve got a better idea…”
“I don’t even have a worse one. Which is only right, since you’re the mission commander, sir. Where you lead, I’ll follow, massa.”
“Not fair, friend. I’m the mission commander only because I joined NASA a few days before you.”
“Friend, regardless of the reason, you are the mission commander. And among my people, we have an old saying about the situation. If the boot fits, kick somebody with it. And, buddy, you’re wearin’ the boots.”
“Very funny!” Bill said. Then his eyes closed as exhaustion dropped a blanket over his mind. “One other thing,” he said, sleep slurring his words. “If we can find someplace to take the humanoids, someplace safe, we’ll have a base from which to operate. A base from which to go back to look for Judy. She’s depending on us to get her out of the caves. Both of us. Remember that
!”
* * *
“What! By the claws of Kerchak, I’ll have you demoted for letting this happen!” shouted burly General Urko into the field telephone. Turning to his aide-decamp, Captain Mulla, he exclaimed, “The humanoids—probably that blond terror they call Blue-Eyes—have killed one of our orderlies in the mountains south of here!”
Mulla frowned deeply and squirmed uneasily in the seat of the command jeep. Just what we needed, he thought. Something else to disturb Urko. He’s been like the devil himself to work with lately!
“But we’ll capture those sniveling humanoids yet!” the general growled. “Or my name’s not Urko!”
The jeep started up again with a roar and drove off among the hills.
* * *
Morning came slowly to the Planet of the Apes, the dawn masked by low-hanging mists and clouds. Jeff had the map he had stolen from the gorilla soldiers propped up on a big, almost cubical block of granite a few feet off the dirt road.
A few days before, Jeff might have thought how strange nature was that she could produce a piece of stone so large and carved into an almost perfect cube. Now he wondered, briefly, if nature had had anything to do with it, or if the cube was instead the remnant of one of man’s lost buildings or monuments.
Thin shafts of light filtered down through the trees around the two astronauts, and Jeff had to concentrate to make out where this new road was supposed to lead them. His dark hands were braced on either side of the map, holding the edges flat against the breeze, feeling the bone-cold surface of the rock. A penetrating cold passed through his hands, up the length of his arms and into his body.
Through with the map for the moment, and wondering how accurate it might be, Jeff gazed down the rutted dirt ribbon of road. The still feeble and partly covered sun gave no warmth to the world. The mist hung in the lower branches of-the trees, and created gray blanks along the road like pieces of the canvas of an unfinished painting. Then, suddenly, a single burning beam of sunlight broke through the mist and clouds. The column of light revealed the road like some scene out of the Land of Oz, twisting and turning in gentle bends down the sloping mountainside. It ended faraway, among the red-tiled roofs and white marble columns of a city. Ape City!
Planet of the Apes Omnibus 4 Page 19