Planet of the Apes Omnibus 4

by William Arrow

  The Senate chamber exploded into arguing voices as ape after ape—orangutan, chimpanzee, and gorilla Senators—got to his feet, arguing with the ape next to him or trying to catch the attention of the council. All the Senators were trying to gain the floor to speak for or against the humanoids. On the platform, Zaius pounded his gavel until the wood of the handle began to split and splinter. But without effect.

  Long minutes passed as ape shouted at ape. Then, slowly, order came to the senate chamber. When it was again quiet, Dr. Zaius passed over the frantic signaling of some fifty Senators urgently, demanding attention, and pointed his damaged gavel at his chief rival for political power, commanding general of the ape armies Urko.

  “Members of the Supreme Council,” said General Urko in a gravely voice, nodding to the Elders on the platform above him, “honored Senators… l am not a scientist, I am a military ape. I have devoted my life to the protection of our beloved nation. I cannot say whether intelligent humanoids might, or might not, exist. That is for the scientists to determine. What I can say, though, is that we cannot afford to take the chance that they might exist! We cannot allow the situation to develop while we look for proof. We must go and look for ourselves, and this time we must enter the Forbidden Zone in full force. We must find these invaders of our planet, and then destroy them!”

  Dr. Zaius leaned forward to look down at the burly gorilla general beneath him. “But what if this expedition simply cannot find them? What then? What if we cannot prove, one way or the other, the existence of intelligent humanoids who have arrived on our planet?”

  “Then we must leave nothing to chance,” Urko said in a deadly voice. “We must totally annihilate all humanoids on the Planet of the Apes! Destroy them before they can destroy us! We must make sure they never have a chance to become intelligent—they must never have time to become a danger to apekind. We must cleanse our planet once and for all!”

  Outside, the crowd, which had been listening to the long debate over the loudspeakers, took, up a new chant, again led by the shaggy-haired orangutan. “Destroy them Destroy them! Destroy them!”

  The chant, screamed by thousands of simian throats, became so loud and forceful that it could easily be heard on the floor of the Senate Chamber. Several Senators looked around toward the massive doors, fear of the mob outside plain on their faces. Fear, also, of the possibility that there might really exist intelligent humanoids.

  “Do you hear that, Senators?” Urko yelled. “That is the voice of the people! Heed it! Give me official authority to destroy the humanoids utterly—or face the people. The people will not tolerate this threat to their very lives while politicians and scientists dither and squabble. Give me the power, or—”

  “You overstep yourself, general,” Dr. Zaius thundered, his amplified voice rolling over the chamber and drowning out even the sound of the mob outside. “I declare this debate suspended. The Supreme Council will meet immediately, and the decision on what is to be done about the humanoids will be made. Until we reach a decision, no action is to be taken. Do you understand that, General Urko? No action of any kind is to be taken without our approval!”

  The general looked up at Dr. Zaius, and something very close to open hatred flashed in his eyes. He knew, however, that he did not have the backing he needed to openly defy Zaius. At least not yet. He nodded his head reluctantly that he understood, then turned and strode out of the hall, members of his personal guard falling in around him in a deliberate show of power to the civilian apes in the chamber.

  Upstairs, in the press gallery, grinning and self-assured Julius was speaking in the slow, “cultured” tone that had made him so famous into the microphone on the table in front of him. His words were going out to radio sets throughout the Simian Nation, shaping opinion and molding loyalties. No Elder or Senator would have admitted that the news-ape Julius had enough influence to affect their policies. But Julius knew better.

  “…The Senate,” he was saying, “seems quite unable to act together in this crisis. This leads us once again to the question of whether giving policy-making power to elected representatives is a wise thing. For generations, apekind got along well with the government of the Supreme Council, who are guided by the Book of Laws. This ‘Humanoid Problem’ appears to have proven, once and for all, that our forefathers knew what they were doing when they created the Supreme Council, and that we are ill-advised to continue with this new form of government called ‘democratics.’ After all, as the great Elder Muvala said, ‘There is absolutely no evidence that one hundred stupid apes are smarter than several intelligent ones.’

  “Whatever our form of government, will ultimately be, however,” Julius continued, “it is apparent that it is in for some major problems. Outside I can hear now, the crowd demonstrators besieging the Senate demanding to know if there is any truth to the rumor that intelligent humanoids from Outer Space have invaded bur fair planet. More and more members of our people are calling on Doctor Zaius, and the other members of the Supreme Council, in the name of the First Lawgiver, to either confirm or deny this rumor. We must know the truth, so that Ape City, if need be, can prepare for the inevitable—war with the humanoids!

  “In this news-ape’s opinion, dark days lie ahead… This is Julius, for the Simian Broadcasting Company, bidding you a goodnight. And, I hope, a safe one!”

  * * *

  The Council Chamber, across the square from the Senate, was where the real power of the Simian Nation was wielded, and where troublemakers such as Julius were never invited, despite their insistence. Dr. Zaius now sat there, behind a gigantic desk of polished stone, facing a decidedly hostile General Urko.

  “Do you really know what’s going on out in the square, general?” he asked. “Do you know what kind of beast you’re unleashing, with your demands for total warfare against the humanoids? What’s more, we have enough to do with our constant warfare against the Underdwellers!”

  “I’m merely stating the case for the common people of our nation—the people you have become to remote from, Zaius.”

  “And glad I am to be remote right now,” Zaius stated with a sigh. “We’ve got near-panic in the streets, and riots are sure to follow. And all because one of your soldiers saw something in the sky over the Forbidden Zone, then went crazy and lost himself in the brush country at the border of the Zone, and only got back to Ape City—hallucinating, I believe—yesterday!”

  “My soldiers do not have hallucinations,” Urko said angrily. “If he said he saw some sort of flying machine, then that is what he saw!”

  “What he saw was something put into his mind by whatever powers of darkness rule the Forbidden Zone!”

  “How can you be sure?” Urko demanded, rising and resting his massive fists on the edge of Dr. Zaius’s desk.

  “That’s what’s troubling me,” Dr. Zaius said with exasperation. “All Apedom knows that a certain blond-haired, blue-eyed humanoid who speaks escaped from the Behavioral Studies Laboratory of Cornelius and Zira. But every fiber of my being, every bit of my training and knowledge, says that your soldier’s story must be nonsense. Where the blond humanoid learned to speak, I don’t know. But he—and he appears to have a companion, you say, a dark-skinned one—can’t have come from Outer Space. Such an idea is an old wives’ tale; it just can’t happen! Come with me, general,” Zaius said, rising from behind his desk.

  He opened a door in the back wall of the Council Chamber and led the massive gorilla down a short corridor. Inset in the wall at the end of the corridor was a glass window, and when Urko looked through the window he saw one of his soldiers strapped to a hospital bed, guarded by two chimpanzees dressed in white.

  “Tell me, General Urko, does this man look like a rational ape?”

  Zaius twisted a knob just below the window, and through a speaker grille came the giggling and laughing Urko had heard once before, when the soldier had first returned from the edge of the Forbidden Zone.

  “…Great silver metal bird. He-he-he!
Landed in the water, splash-splash. Humanoids. Spoke like apes. He-he-he! Talking humanoids. He-he! Talking humanoids that flew like birdies. He-he-he!” Then, in a sudden transformation, the idiot-like expression on the soldier’s face changed to one of fear and panic. “Please don’t make me go back to the Forbidden Zone. Please don’t make me go back, general!”

  Zaius looked sharply at the gorilla commander. Then he gazed back at the insane soldier, who once again was laughing and giggling. Zaius turned the speaker volume back to zero, then turned and walked back down the hallway to the Council Chamber. After a moment’s hesitation, and a last look at the soldier, the general followed.

  * * *

  Two hours afterward, Julius and ten other news-apes assigned to the Senate were called away from the pleasant bar where they had been enjoying fermented mango cocktails. They filed back up into the press gallery of the Senate Building, picked up earphones and notepads, and sat down to watch as the members of the Supreme Council filed back into the hall, taking their places on the raised platform surrounded by the flag and insignia of the Simian Nation.

  A buzz of surprise rose from the floor as the final two figures came in—Zaius in his apricot-colored robe and Urko in his dark green tunic and leggings and black-leather “bib.” Both moved up on to the platform. Never before in history had a military man been allowed to share the platform with the members of the Supreme Council. While the others whispered, Julius was thinking anxiously about his next broadcast, and how he would get across to his audience the facts of the shift of power without offending the Elders of the Supreme Council.

  Dr. Zaius waited for a few moments for quiet, standing next to the dark, hulking form of the general; then he picked up the microphone.

  “Members of the Senate,” he said in a soft, almost apologetic voice, “we have reached a decision.” He looked around, surveying the faces staring up at him. A deathly silence filled the room. “It is the decision of the Supreme Council that an expedition be sent into the Forbidden Zone to determine the truth—or falsity—of the spaceship rumors which have been circulating through this city for the past two days. The expedition will be led by General Urko and myself—in joint command.”

  An instant buzz of voices was heard at this announcement, and one grizzled chimpanzee, a member of the Senate for over two decades, motioned for permission to speak.

  Dr. Zaius nodded his head, and the Senator climbed slowly to his feet.

  “Doctor Zaius…” he said in a slow voice, “exactly what do you mean when you say there will be a ‘joint command’? Who will actually be in charge of the expedition? You, or General Urko?”

  “In all matters pertaining to the investigation,” answered Zaius, “I shall be in complete command. This is to be a civilian mission, under civilian control. In such an emergency as this, we must overlook the Book of Laws, which states that only military expeditions may enter the Zone. However, should a direct threat to our expedition, or its aims, arise, General Urko will assume command.”

  “And who shall decide what might, or might not, be a ‘direct threat’?”

  “I shall,” the chief Elder said flatly.

  “Have you General Urko’s assurance of that?” the Senator asked, bringing a scowl to the general’s face.

  “We will be taking with us several Senators—whoever wishes to go—as well as members of the news media.”

  “Do you wish to come along, Senator?” General Urko asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “I’m afraid my age might make such a trip my last one, general, or I would be most interested in joining you and Doctor Zaius.”

  A junior Senator rose and broke in, “Won’t an expedition into the Forbidden Zone be dangerous to all who accompany you?”

  “I’ll let the general answer that,” Zaius said with a smile. “Danger is his department.”

  Urko shot a quick glance at Dr. Zaius, then turned to face the questioner. “The expedition will be protected by my troops. If we find any trace of a flying machine, or of any more talking humanoids, I guarantee that by the time I am finished with them they will no longer be any possible threat to the Planet of the Apes!”

  * * *

  Cornelius had been listening intently as the debate was broadcast over the radio. When the thundering cheers of the Senate closed the meeting, he turned from the radio, snapping it off with a savage twist.

  “Did you hear that nonsense, Zira? Did you hear what that brute was saying? He’s bound and determined to wipe out the humanoids, and with this expedition he has the perfect excuse. Once they get out of the city, Doctor Zaius doesn’t stand a chance of retaining control of the expedition!”

  “Do you think they’ll find anything in the Forbidden Zone, though?” Zira asked. “Anything to threaten Blue-Eyes and his friend?”

  “I’m sure they will,” Cornelius said. “I heard from a friend who works over in the city hospital that some soldier says he saw Blue-Eyes and Jeff after their flying machine crashed—and someone else. He has given directions on how to find the space machine.”

  “We’re going to have to warn them—before it’s too late!”

  “Yes. I know, my dear.”

  “How are we going to do it?”

  “There’s only one way,” Cornelius said with a sigh, getting up from the easy chair he had been sitting in and starting toward the door of their house. “We’ll have to take the truck, just as if we were going out to dig for artifacts—old dishes and bones and things—and head for the valley where the humanoids have their caves. Blue-Eyes and Jeff will probably be there by now. They don’t know that there’s any reason for them to rush to get that machine they need, or to get the humanoids away quickly.”

  “Do you think we’ll be able to make it through the checkpoints?” Zira asked.

  “I still have the pass Doctor Zaius gave us for explorations outside Ape City. And there should be enough confusion—what with the expedition getting started and all—so that no one will bother to check back with him to see if it’s still valid. Anyway, he’ll be hard to locate. Start getting the tools together, while I get the truck out.”

  * * *

  It took Cornelius and Zira less than a day and a night to drive the distance it had taken Bill and Jeff to cover, on foot, in six days. The road, if the seldom-used dirt track up into the mountains could be called that, was nevertheless easy to follow. And Cornelius knew where to turn off, onto a rutted, path barely visible in the rocks and shrub. It was a path he had made himself, in his original investigations of the humanoids’ culture.

  The path soon began to run parallel to a small river that grew rapidly larger as the track wound around the foot of the protecting mountains. Before long, they began to spot humanoids in canoes on the river—humanoids who seemed to recognize them, and who did not run in fear as they had so many years before, when Cornelius and Zira had first come among them.

  From time to time, one of the canoes would head in towards the riverbank for a closer look. When it did, the canoe would invariably scatter one of the vast assemblies of birds on the water and standing in small sand spits. Although Cornelius and Zira didn’t realize it, the many species of birds here represented almost every continent of Planet of the Apes. Most of them were not native to the area. Cormorants and gulls fought with pelicans, cranes, eagles, and African vultures. All the species of a well-stocked zoo. Here they could survive. Man did not hunt them.

  Cornelius turned the truck to skirt an area of marshy ground next to the river, and when the track turned back to the river he and Zira began to see more and more humanoids on the sandy beaches. Men and children splashed in the sluggishly flowing water; women lined the banks, washing skin clothes and filling large gourds which they bore away on their heads to the caves that spotted the mountainsides nearby.

  The track soon gave way to a more traveled trail, worn into the hard ground by generations of humanoids going from the caves to the river. Again there was a mixture of plants and animals. Small pin
e trees and maples mixed with tropical palms, whose fronds moved gently in the slight breeze blowing through the valley. At one point the truck rolled by a field of naturally growing mangoes. Small humanoid children were running among the dark-green trees picking the fruit and heaping it on palm leaves for larger children to carry back to the caves.

  Cornelius pulled the truck to a stop in a clearing before the caves, and before the dust had settled Bill and Jeff were sliding down one of the vines the humanoids used to climb into the caves.

  “Cornelius! Zira! What brings you here?” Jeff said breathlessly as he grabbed the two of them, one in each arm, and swung them around.

  “Easy!” Cornelius said through his laughter. “We aren’t as strong as you humanoids, remember?”

  “Sorry,” Jeff said, setting them down. “What brings you here?”

  Cornelius’s face sobered immediately, and Bill caught the change of mood. “Trouble, I’m afraid,” the chimpanzee said.

  “What kind of trouble?” Bill asked, speaking for the first time.

  Quickly, leaving out the political implications but none of the hard facts, Cornelius outlined the plans of the Supreme Council and General Urko’s expedition into the Forbidden Zone in search of the crashed spaceship.

  “How long do you think we have before the expedition will be ready to leave Ape City?” Jeff asked.

  “And how long will it take them to reach the Forbidden Zone once they do get moving?”

  “Probably three days before they leave, then two days to get to the edge of the Forbidden Zone.”