Planet of the Apes Omnibus 4

by William Arrow

  “General,” Zaius said, the laughter dying to a chuckle, but still with a bright twinkle in his eyes, “not even one of your soldiers—your personal guard, even—could survive in the lake with that monster. Much less a humanoid!”

  “Well,” Urko asked, unwilling to give up, “what about that explosion just before we got here? What was that?”

  “Just another Forbidden Zone illusion, Urko. No more, nor any less, impressive than any of the others we’ve seen since entering the Zone. And also no more significant.”

  “We’ll search the area anyway,” Urko growled. “There must be some sign of them! Some, tracks! Something left behind…!”

  Seeing that the apes’ attention was fixed on the lagoon and the monster, Bill, Jeff, and Nova crept away behind the low ridge, keeping down, out of sight of the soldiers who were beginning to line the hill bordering the lagoon, all of them watching the show going on out on the water. Five minutes of scrambling from rock to rock took the three out of sight of the ape forces, and they stopped to catch their breath.

  “Well, we made it—so far!” Jeff whispered. “Although I thought for a minute back there that we’d had it!”

  “You should have been in the cave!” Bill said wryly.

  “No, thanks!”

  “Well, we’ve burned our bridges now,” Bill said, turning and looking back toward the lake, now hidden by several rows of intervening hills.

  “What do you mean?”

  “No more ship. No way back home…” Bill said somewhat sadly.

  “Even with the ship, there was no way back,” Jeff said with a similar hint of sadness in his voice. “We are home…”

  “Well,” Bill sighed, looking across the arid wastes of the Forbidden Zone, “at least we salvaged our most important equipment.”

  “And we’re still alive,” Jeff reminded him.

  “And moving. Which we’d best be doing, unless we want to meet the apes again!”

  The two men and Nova gathered up their load of salvaged possessions and started off again, away from the lake.

  After about forty-five minutes’ walking, they spotted a lone truck in the distance—one that General Urko had left behind, at a narrow pass in the hills, to direct cargo trucks coming along behind the main expeditionary force. From where they crouched behind a rock fifty yards away, Bill and Jeff watched the truck for fifteen minutes, until they were certain it had only one soldier to guard it. No cargo trucks were approaching it from the road to Ape City.

  “Well, there’s our transportation out of the Forbidden Zone and back to the valley,” Bill stated emphatically.

  “I don’t remember you doing all that well on the Debating Team,” Jeff said. “So just how do you intend to talk that ape out of his truck?”

  “I guess I’ll simply have to take it away from him, whether he wants to let go of it or not.”

  “A brilliant solution, sir. Worthy of your high intelligence. ‘Me Bill. Want truck.’ Grunt. Thump!”

  “You have a better idea, wiseguy?”

  “Yes. Let the ‘mighty warrior’—me—get it. Remember who got the maps,” Jeff said smiling.

  “I remember. You’re our new resident expert in the manly art of self-destruction. Nope, this time, it’s my turn.”

  Without waiting for further comment from his partner, Bill slid around the rock and started down the hillside toward the parked truck, moving quickly in an attempt to get there before the ape on guard came around to this side of the truck, as he had been doing every few minutes.

  Zutta, the guard on duty at the truck, wasn’t being particularly watchful. Because of the heat, he had even removed his dark-green tunic and breastplate, and wore only his green leggings and black boots. After all, he was reasoning to himself, what’s there to watch against in the Forbidden Zone!

  That was why, when he came around the back of the truck and found the “humanoid” waiting for him, he didn’t have his rifle. If Zutta had remembered his weapon, Bill’s life would have been over in that instant, because he had barely gotten to the bottom of the hill when the gorilla spotted him. He had no chance to surprise the soldier—which had been his original plan.

  Bill had not yet put his T-shirt back on after taking it off before diving into the lagoon, and the contrast between him and the huge ape was dramatic: the smooth, white skin of the human and the matted black fur of the gorilla. Furthermore, Zutta was a soldier by choice, a man of action. His body showed it.

  The ape was a little shorter than Bill, but massive, the muscles under his dark fur bunched in hard knots. On the other hand, except for the deep golden tan on his face and arms, Bill’s skin was pale, and the muscles of his body lay in long, smooth ropes. Both antagonists were broad of shoulder and chest, with heavy upper arms and power in their every move. Bill, though, was much the lighter of the two, perhaps by as much as fifty pounds, and definitely had a shorter reach.

  Zutta looked at the being that had dared to approach his truck and a wide grin split his face. Here was some action for him, to break the monotony of guard duty. Here was a humanoid who, for an ape of his abilities, was meat on the table! After all, humanoids have no fighting instinct! he reminded himself. He moved forward like a wrestler, bent slightly forward at the hips.

  But Bill had no intention of fighting the ape’s fight. That would put him at entirely too much of a disadvantage, considering the gorilla’s greater weight.

  Bill waited for the ape to get within range, then let go with a short, arching uppercut that caught the animal on the side of his outthrust jaw, straightening him up from his semi-crouch. Bill had put a lot of force into the punch—the full power of his arm and shoulder muscles. But it didn’t seem to bother Zutta much. The ape’s only reaction was to lose his grin, his face instead taking on a look of surprise and anger that the humanoid should have the audacity to strike him.

  Zutta came in again, fully upright and more cautious now, and this time Bill caught him with three fast jabs in the face; then he stepped in close and pumped a hard left—right—left into the ape’s stomach. A gasp of pain told Bill that the gorilla had felt his punches this time, but as far as the astronaut was concerned hitting Zutta’s stomach was like punching a rock, and in the end he was sure it would have the same effect. The rock would win.

  However, as a wrestler Zutta may have been excellent, but as a boxer he couldn’t have hit Bill if the human had been tied to a tree. Bill pounded him repeatedly with lefts and rights, until the ape seized his wrist and closed with him. Legs entwined, they fell together and twice rolled completely over in the dirt, fighting for position—which the gorilla won, coming out on top of the frantically heaving human and straddling his chest.

  Zutta immediately grabbed for the human’s throat, ready to end the fight with a quick snap of Bill’s neck. The astronaut caught the ape’s downcoming wrists, however, and the two began a contest of arm power that froze both of them into straining motionlessness. Again and again hooked furry fingers almost grabbed the tanned skin of Bill’s throat, but again and again those fingers were forced back, fraction of an inch by fraction of an inch.

  From his vantage point above, on the hill, Jeff tensed, readying the laser. He was not about to let his friend die.

  Then, with a mighty sidewise lunge, the blond astronaut unseated the ape and the two of them rolled in the dirt, still locked together, until they crashed against one of the wheels of the truck. With that, for the first time the gorilla soldier felt the possibility of defeat, the first cold touch of fear of this strange humanoid who fought so much like an ape.

  Zutta tore himself free from the human and both antagonists tried to scramble to their feet, but the ape was quicker. While Bill was still down, Zutta swung his black-booted foot up in a kick to the astronaut’s face that sent him crashing over backward. Then he tried to jump onto Bill, to pin him to the ground again. But the man caught the ape’s diving body with bent legs, straightening them suddenly and kicking upward with all his strength to sen
d Zutta crashing off to one side.

  Before the gorilla could recover, Bill got to his knees and with fists clenched together crashed a heavy kidney punch into the wide, fur-covered back, raising a cloud of dust particles and bringing a howl of rage and pain from the kneeling ape.

  Zutta spun about, still on his knees despite the kidney punch, and again the two came together, twisting and rolling across the ground, each straining powerfully to get on top. Again they separated and again the ape was the first on his feet, but Bill plunged forward from his knees, grabbing the ape’s thick legs, fingers locking into the dark-green material and pulling forward to flop Zutta over onto his back.

  Now it was Bill’s turn to try to jump his downed opponent—a mistake which earned him a stabbing kick in the face. He staggered back, falling, and the gorilla straddled him. Learning from the human’s earlier behavior, the ape began to rain a hail of punches on the man. Bill turned his head from side to side, frantically trying to avoid the blows, blood running freely from his nose and mouth. Then, suddenly, fur-covered hands were once more at his throat.

  Motioning for Nova to stay hidden where she was, Jeff began a descent of the hill, the laser gun at the ready.

  Bill caught desperately at the ape’s wrists, only keeping Zutta from breaking his neck with a twist of the mighty hands, and now exerted every ounce of strength in his body to break the stranglehold the ape had on him. But the gorilla’s strength more than matched Bill’s own, and he could not break the fingers free from his neck.

  He was choking, his vision going black, his tongue swelling to fill his mouth, and he knew that the fight would soon be over, with the ape victorious if he didn’t do something quickly. Suddenly, taking a chance that the ape would continue to try to choke the life out of him, Bill pulled his hands away from the ape’s wrists and pointed his thumbs at the animal’s eyes, ramming them savagely into the pupils. Zutta screamed with pain and released Bill’s neck to grab the human’s arms, but the thumbs had done their work. Zutta’s shrieks filled the air and he rolled over onto his side.

  Bill rapidly got to his feet, his lungs laboring to replenish his body with, oxygen. He stood still, his chest heaving, wiping the blood from his face with the back on one hand. But there was no hurry now, and he knew it. The fight was over.

  For a few seconds more, he continued to watch the dark-furred ape writhing on the blood-splattered dirt; then he stepped back as the blinded gorilla started to get to his feet. Bill stood less than a yard away, and he took one short step forward, bracing himself. Pivoting on the ball of his right foot, he hit the ape with all the power he could muster. Zutta went down like a falling tree—out, or perhaps dead—and the astronaut turned to meet an anxious Jeff Allen.

  * * *

  Three days later Dr. Zaius, with a new, unsplintered gavel, called the Senate into session. “Order! Order! Order!” he demanded.

  Slowly the members came to order, seeking their seats in the vast chamber. High above the Senate floor, in the press gallery, Julius and his fellow news-apes prepared notepads and pencils, although through rumors and leaks from both the political and military branches, as well as from reporters who were with the expedition, they had a pretty good idea of what the Elder was going to say.

  “It is my pleasant duty,” Zaius began, his voice carried to the people in the square outside the building by loudspeaker, “to call this special session of the Senate in order to hear our report on the expedition into the Forbidden Zone in search of flying objects and talking humanoids.”

  He paused for a long moment, to let the tension build in the room and outside, where a large percentage of the populace of Ape City was listening.

  “I must report to all peace-loving apes everywhere that the rumor of spaceships, and the fanciful tale of talking humanoids arriving were totally false.”

  A roar of excited comment broke out in the chamber, and even through the thick walls of the building the cheering of the crowds outside could be heard.

  “I repeat,” said Dr. Zaius, smiling widely, “we found no strange craft from the skies in the Forbidden Zone. And no intelligent humanoids.” He looked down at General Urko, seated below the platform now—a sign that his rapidly rising political power had suffered a setback.

  The general said nothing, but sat, arms crossed, staring out at the assembly with a heavy scowl on his dark face. He had no facts with which to combat the claims of Dr. Zaius, but he was sure the Supreme Council leader was wrong. Otherwise, he asked himself, why did my soldier report a flying machine and humanoids? And what caused that explosion just before we reached the lagoon? And, above all, who killed the soldier I left on guard at the pass and stole his truck, abandoning it, some twenty miles east of the Forbidden Zone…?

  Urko didn’t have answers to any of these questions, but he vowed to himself as waves of applause for his enemy, Dr. Zaius, washed over his head that he would someday have the answers—and on that day the humanoids, and maybe even the great Dr. Zaius, would die!

  * * *

  As a member of the news media team who accompanied the expeditionary force, Julius had broadcast regularly every day from his jeep, relating the problems of travel in the Forbidden Zone, the almost certainty that a spaceship would be found, with traces of humanoids who had landed on the planet…

  Since the return of the expedition, the Simian Broadcasting Company had kept silent, waiting for the announcement to the nation that had just been made by Dr. Zaius. So had Julius, SBC’s top newscaster.

  He left the Ape Senate Building feeling embarrassed—his predictions, while on the expedition, had sounded so certain. But, as usual, his walk was cocky and he sneered at passersby who looked at him.

  On a bench at the side of the central square sat a mother chimpanzee and her small son. The boy-ape looked up impishly at the familiar newscaster, and yelled, “Hey, Julius! Don’t count your humanoids before they’ve landed!”

  Another young voice nearby joined in. “Nobody here but us humanoids, Julius!”

  And another: “Hey, Julius! Don’t take any wooden humanoids!”

  The ambitious news-ape hurried away from the square, red-faced, as fast as his feet could carry him.

  * * *

  Some hundred and twenty miles away, the humanoids—led by Bill Hudson and Jeff Allen—were on the move. In the few days since their abandonment of the apes’ truck and their picking up of Nova’s tribe, they had traveled far and fast to the south, slogging foot-weary along a broad, fast-flowing river.

  Later, on the day after the meeting of the simian Senate, they came to a succession of low hills that ranged across their line of travel to the south like wrinkles in the earth. To their left—the east—lay the outlying areas of the land of the apes, where vast oceans of wheat and barley waved in the wind and sheep and goats and cattle roamed great parklands. This region to the east had been planted and developed by humanoids, many of them related to the, marchers themselves, though none of those farm slaves—or the apes who supervised them—were visible today. Bill and Jeff’s troop moved carefully, however, to avoid being seen from the flatlands to the east.

  The ridge of hills to the south luckily presented no problem to the migrators because they were not too high, and it was easy to pick out the lower sections from afar—the easiest passes through the hills.

  Four more days were spent crossing the hills; then Bill and Jeff were surprised to see heavy forests ahead of them. At first, the wooded patches they met with had been too sparse to really be called forests, but by late afternoon they were forced into the forest proper.

  Jeff ached to be able to take notes on what he saw around him. He almost could not believe that such a wide variety of plants, so many intermingled types, could have existed on the North American continent. Groves of acacia stood next to sugar pines. Massive oak trees blended with juniper, and the space between the trees was filled with stalks of yellow bamboo. Twisted olive trees with orchids growing in their branches fought for room with massive
mahogany; and stunted grape vines draped around the lower branches of peach and plum trees.

  Twice they stumbled upon deer—which Jeff expected in these latitudes. But the harsh screams of monkeys in the high trees and the South Asian musk ox he could not explain any more than he could the tropical bamboo and orchids. How do they come to be growing so far north? he constantly asked himself.

  In the depths of the forest the light soon became dim, almost as if night was falling, but then the humanoids would suddenly emerge into a small, clear glade of grasses where the light sparkled and butterflies flew in multi-colored beauty. A doe and her fawn bounded away from the travelers soaring with agile legs over a fallen forest giant that looked, to Jeff, like a sequoia; and a mighty bald eagle stared boldly at them from a royal palm at one end of the glade. Then they were back among the trees again, the light once more soft and the air full of the musty smell of dying wood and dead leaves, as well as the cleaner smell of young cedars and pines. All of it was the smell of freedom to Jeff and Bill, as they brought the column of refugees to a halt for the day, planning to camp and rest here awhile before tackling the high and rough country that still lay between them and their new valley home, where they would finally be safe from General Urko and his men.

  While the humanoids scattered themselves about, each family picking out a spot in the glade to settle in for however long their new leaders kept them in the forest, Bill and Jeff, with Nova trailing along behind, walked through the glade to the small stream they had spotted. It was this stream—a certain wafer supply—which made the glade a good spot for their camp.

  Near the center of the glade, they found a shaded pool where a turn in the stream had undercut the bank, leaving a deepish backwater with just enough, current movement to keep the water from stagnating.

  “Hey, lookie what we have here!” Bill said, delight in his voice. “Our own swimmin’ hole, just like back home. And a place to use some of that soap I salvaged from the Venturer. God, it seems like years since I’ve had a bath!”