Suddenly, before Cornelius could puzzle out what the plans were for, a loud and commanding knock came at the door of the laboratory. Cornelius had locked the door when he came in with the precious book.
“Who is it…?” Zira called out.
“General Urko! Open this door at once!”
“Just a moment, general…” Zira called out sweetly.
Quickly, Cornelius scooped up the paper and the book and stuffed them into a cabinet Zira used for storing unidentified pieces of pottery and glass from the dig. Again the loud knock sounded on the door, just as Cornelius gently closed the cabinet door, careful not to make any noise that might carry outside.
“What can we do for you, general?” Cornelius inquired politely as he opened the door.
“My men tell me you’ve been digging at that archeological site again,” the general said, shoving past the scientist into the cluttered inner laboratory. “They say you’ve brought more of that junk back to Ape City!”
“We are seeking—digging for—scientific information. With the permission of Doctor Zaius,” Cornelius told the burly gorilla commander. “What we do there does not concern you, general.”
“As guardian of the security of our nation, everything concerns me,” Urko said pompously. “Especially any information about the humanoids. Any proof that the humanoids are too dangerous to be allowed to continue to exist!”
“Speaking as a scientist, general,” said Zira, sugar dripping from her voice, “I doubt very much that we would ever find such proof. It’s a ridiculous idea.”
The general frowned dangerously. “I think it’s about time my men had another look through your laboratory to see what you might have brought back from your grub hole in the ground!”
“Doctor Zaius ordered you to stop such harassment,” Cornelius said angrily.
“Doctor Zaius is an old fool!”
“Still, he is chairman of the Council of Elders, and his orders are to be obeyed.”
“I think,” General Urko said, “that I can have his orders revoked. Yes, I believe I’d better do that. This place smells of treason!”
Urko looked once more around the laboratory; then, without warning, he turned and stomped out of the room. Cornelius hurried to escort him through the outer lab room, then returned to take his sobbing wife in his arms.
“Now, now, Zira,” he said, patting his wife on the back. “There’s no need to cry. We have nothing to fear from that gorilla.”
“I know, but still he upsets me so. I sometimes wish that we had never got ourselves involved in this humanoid business. And if he comes back with a search warrant, we will have something to fear. We have that book now—and the plans—remember? If he finds them, we can be sure he’ll get rid of us as well as the humanoids!”
“We’ll just have to get them away from here. And, speaking of those plans, let’s take another look at them. I didn’t have a chance to make much sense out of them before General Urko showed up, but something about them looked familiar. They looked like something I’ve seen before, somewhere.”
Zira retrieved the plans from the cabinet and again spread them on the tabletop. Cornelius bent over them, tracking with his finger, trying to make out the faded lines and angles.
“I’ve got it!” he responded after a few minutes. “I knew I had seen something like this before!”
“What is it, dear?”
“Remember a few years ago, when Doctor Pleta tried to build a lighter-than-air flying machine?”
“You mean that bag full of hot air he thought he could use to fly over the city? Humph! He used the wrong hot air. He should have gotten some from the Senate!”
“But that’s it! These are the drawings for just such a flying machine!”
Cornelius was so filled with enthusiasm that he was now dancing around the table, looking at the plans from different angles and trying to understand them more clearly.
“But,” Zira said, “I thought that Doctor Pleta’s machine didn’t work. That it was conclusively proved that, no matter what kind of hot air you used, such a machine could not fly. It couldn’t lift enough to carry the heavy stove needed to produce the hot air.”
“His machine didn’t work, but this one must work. Otherwise why would the humanoids of the past draw up such detailed plans for the machine?”
“Maybe what you have there is a drawing of a machine just like Doctor Pleta’s. Or perhaps it’s even a joke, about a machine that didn’t work.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Cornelius said slowly. “Down here in the corner is a box with the title of the plan in it. It’s called ‘Design Specifications for a Two-Passenger Hot-Air Sport Balloon.’ And ‘design specifications’ are usually plans for something to be built from—not drawings of something no one would want to built because it wouldn’t work!”
“So what are you going to do with them?” Zira asked.
“Well, I’ve always believed that there was a basic design flaw in Pleta’s work. A hot-air balloon should work. It’s a problem that’s intrigued me.”
“Cornelius!” Zira sounded a bit exasperated. “It just isn’t a practical theory. Doctor Pleta wasn’t the first ape to try to build a flying machine, you know. And everyone who has tried to build one has ended up a failure. Usually because their silly machines crashed!”
“Yes…” Cornelius replied, nodding his head but not looking up from the drawing, “but they didn’t have plans like these to work from! This design looks different from the ones Pleta and other apes have built. It just might work!”
“Cornelius,” Zira scolded, “think about what you’re saying. Heated air—lifting people into the sky! Why, it’s against the laws of nature! If the First Lawgiver had wanted apes to fly, he—”
“—would have given them wings!” Cornelius finished with a smile. “Zira, you’re supposed to be a scientist, right? So think like a scientist! Our job is to find the hidden laws of nature. Just as the ancient humanoids who first built this machine did. Why, possession of a flying machine like this one could advance ape civilization a thousand years overnight. It might even ‘open up’ enough minds so that our theory about the humanoids’ former intelligence would get a hearing before the Council of Elders.”
“But even if this thing could work, I don’t see how we could build it. Why, even if Doctor Zaius or one of the other conservatives on the council didn’t stop us, getting the things we would need to build it would. Why, the materials alone—so much cloth and rope. And this basket-shaped thing, with—what is it the plans call it?—a ‘burner and valve’? It’s just too much for us!”
“Yes, yes… I know it’s a big project. But we can do it,” Cornelius said excitedly. “I know we can. Besides, we can use the balloon to solve another problem.”
“What problem?” Zira asked.
“The book. If we can build a balloon, we can fly to the top of Mount Garr. We can leave the book there, in the Forbidden Temple. No one will disturb it there!”
“But the Forbidden Temple is—is—forbidden—by both the Book of Laws AND the Book of Simian Prophecy!”
“Zira, please! No superstitions. The Forbidden Temple is only forbidden because there is something in the ground—something natural—which makes people sick if they stay too long. But staying only a few minutes can’t hurt.”
“Okay, dear,” Zira said with a resigned smile. “If you’ve got your heart set on building this foolish contraption and flying off into the sky, well, I guess I can help you. But I’m telling you now, this silly thing will never get off the ground! Which, I guess, is a good thing. That way you’ll never get high enough to fall and break your fool neck!”
* * *
Two days later, all other work having stopped at the laboratory, Zira came in to find Cornelius sitting at a large table, poring over the plans and surrounded by coils of rope and sheets of thin canvas.
“Here’s the air valve,” she said. “You were right: the ones they use on the big compressors down at the t
ruck station will work fine.”
“Forget it, dear,” Cornelius said dejectedly. “It’s of no use to us now.”
“What do you mean?” Zira questioned him, a touch of fear in her voice. “What’s happened? Has General Urko come back already with the warrant to search?”
“No, nothing like that,” Cornelius answered glumly. “But some of the plans are missing. Destroyed by the ages and the elements, I suppose.”
“Important parts?”
“I would definitely call the steering mechanism important,” Cornelius said bitterly, sweeping the plans off onto the floor in a fit of temper.
“Then we’ll just have to invent our own steering mechanism,” Zira said, reaching out to comfort her husband.
“I’ve already tried it. I’ve been working on the problem all morning.”
“And you can’t think of anything that will work?”
“Oh, yes. I can…” Cornelius said with a half-smile. “I can think of a dozen ways to control the direction of the balloon in the air.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Zira asked. “Pick the one that works best, and is easiest to build—and let’s get on with it. We don’t have all the time in the world, you know.”
“I said I knew of a dozen ways to control the direction of the balloon,” Cornelius said. “I didn’t say any of them would work!”
“What on earth do you mean? I wish you’d make up your mind. Can you steer the balloon, or can’t you?”
“No, I can’t. The steering devices all would work, but all of them are so heavy that the balloon would never get off the ground, so a steering mechanism is out of the question. And, apparently, so is the idea of building a flying balloon!”
“Well, as you said before, these are the plans for a hot-air flying balloon. And if the ancient humanoids could build one, you should be able to. They must have solved the problem of building a lightweight steering mechanism somehow…”
“I’m afraid there’s not much consolation in that, Zira.” Cornelius sounded defeated. “Even if the humanoids did have a light enough steering mechanism, the last of them died out about two thousand years ago, so there’s no one we can ask for help.”
“Really?” Zira was smiling, “What about Blue-Eyes and his friend, Jeff? They were alive two thousand years ago, and according to Blue-Eyes they were some kind of flyers. Isn’t it logical that, as flyers, they would know how a hot-air-balloon steering mechanism works?”
“Zira, you’re a genius!” Cornelius exclaimed, his enthusiasm returning.
“Not really,” Zira said, blushing with pleasure. “If I were a genius, I would have thought about our astronaut friends two days ago, when we first started building this hot-air balloon of yours. They probably could have saved us a lot of time by their advanced knowledge. And, remember, you don’t know how old these plans might be. They may have been made up years—even centuries—before Bill and Jeff were born. They may be badly out of date, to Bill and Jeff. And since they are flyers, they may know better ways of building a hot-air flying machine than this way.”
“Zira, you’re right! As usual.”
“Thank you, dear.”
“Come on. Let’s get everything loaded into the truck. We’ll leave this afternoon, just as if we were going out to the archeological site to dig for more pottery and such. We still have Doctor Zaius’s pass, so we shouldn’t have any trouble getting through Urko’s patrols. Then, once we’re beyond the patrol area, we can cut over to the west and follow the river to the humanoids’ valley. There, we should be able to pick up their trail without any trouble, and follow until we catch up.”
“They’ve had a long head start,” Zira worried. “Are you sure we’ll be able to catch them?”
“I think so. I’m sure Bill guessed that the affair at the lagoon convinced Zaius that no intelligent humanoids have landed here. So he and Jeff won’t be pushing our humanoids toward their new home too fast.”
“Yes, and they aren’t used to a lot of traveling,” Zira said, considering the humanoids’ chances of making it through the badlands between their old valley and the new one.
“When they left,” Cornelius continued, “Bill said that they would probably only go about halfway to the new valley, then stop and rest up for a time. We shouldn’t have any trouble catching up with them.”
* * *
It took Cornelius and Zira only a few days’ driving to catch up with the astronauts and their humanoid charges—but only because he and his wife were familiar with the route the party was taking. It was nearly the same route Cornelius had followed in his earlier, secret explorations along the edges of the Forbidden Zone. However, Cornelius had figured without Jeff’s knowledge of the outdoors. Quite carefully, the black astronaut had hidden their trail, disguising their tracks and frequently going in zigzag directions, so that from time to time Cornelius had to halt his truck and ponder about which way to proceed. Not knowing the intended route of the traveling humanoids, General Urko would have needed much more time than the two chimpanzee scientists if he had learned of the humanoids’ move and attempted to follow them with his personal guard.
Locating the humanoids’ camp was a happy moment for the astronauts and the two ape scientists. As well as for the humanoids. For, since the two chimpanzees’ last visit, the tribe had come to realize that they were in no danger of being caged and carted off to Ape City. Cornelius sat with Bill and Jeff, discussing the proposed balloon, while his wife sat a few feet away, listening, but spending most of her time cuddling runny-nosed humanoid children while their parents prepared a feast for the visitors.
“Of course we’ll help you with your project, Cornelius!” Jeff was saying. “In any way we can.”
“Well, the thing that really has me stumped, that brought us all this way,” Cornelius said, unrolling the brittle paper of the plans on the flat ground, between them, “is the directional apparatus. I was hoping you could tell us how the balloon can be steered from the passenger basket.”
“The basket was called a gondola,” Bill interjected.
“Gon-do-la?” Zira inquired, looking up from a child who had been crying and who was now laughing merrily as it played with the fur below her chin. “What a beautiful name! Was it a scientist who thought of that, or an artist?”
“The Italians had men who were both—like Leonardo da Vinci,” Bill said.
“Frankly,” Cornelius commented, a bit of doubt creeping into his voice, “I had hoped that the man who invented the steering mechanism was a pure scientist. Artists seem to be a bit—uh—out of touch with reality. And if I’m going to ride in this thing.”
“Cornelius, you wouldn’t!” Zira said, shocked.
“Come now, Zira,” He turned around to face her. “Where’s your spirit of experimentation?”
“Right where yours should be. Safe on the ground! I’ve gone along with you building this thing, but I really think you should let some other man test it.”
Wanting to head off an argument between his friends, Jeff broke in at that point. “I’m afraid I’ve got a bit of bad news for you, Cornelius.”
“Oh? What?” the chimpanzee asked, turning back to the design.
“Balloons such as this one were made only for sport, not for any really practical use.”
“So?”
“Well, the main reason balloons—hot-air balloons like this one—were not practical was that there was no way to steer them once they got off the ground.”
“What?” Cornelius exclaimed, shocked.
“There were controls for going higher or lower,” Jeff explained, “but there was no way to determine direction. You went whichever way the wind pushed you.”
“Then what good is a flying machine,” Zira asked, “if it only goes where it wants to go, and hot where the flyer wants it to go?”
“Oh, we had steerable flying machines,” recalling the propeller and jet aircraft of his youth, Bill pointed out. “But almost all of them were heavier-than-air craft. Of cou
rse there was a thing called a ‘dirigible’ or ‘zeppelin’ that was lighter than air—sort of a balloon with a framework—but it was very complex. You needed hydrogen or helium, gases even lighter than hot air, to get enough lift. Otherwise, with the framework and engines and so forth, it would never get off the ground.”
“So this has all been a waste of time,” Cornelius said bitterly.
“Not at all.” Jeff reached over to clasp the ape scientist on the shoulder. “You’ve got the balloon almost finished, and it can be flown the same way balloons were flown back, well, before our time—in France for example, even before the Revolution. You must carefully chart the winds, then pick the right conditions for your flight.”
“I don’t understand. What conditions?”
“Well, every morning there’s a strong breeze that blows in off the sea, right?”
“Yes, it usually brings in the fog, but it doesn’t last very long. The sun burns the fog off, then we start getting the normal winds down from the mountains.”
“And there you have your flight plan,” Bill said.
“I’m afraid I still don’t understand.”
“Look,” Jeff said. “Suppose you want to make a flight up into the mountains?”
“I do,” Cornelius answered.
“Okay. Then you arrange your flight plan so that you cast off just before dawn. The winds carry you inland, toward the mountains, and chances are you’ll make it before the wind changes.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you ground for the day, and continue the next morning.”
“Yes! Yes, I see it now,” Cornelius said, excited. “And when I want to return, I wait for the afternoon breeze from the mountains toward the coast. Just as a matter of interest, what about if I wanted to go north or south?”
“Well,” Bill explained, “once you really get into ballooning, you’ll find that the wind blows in different directions at different altitudes. The wind usually—and remember that I said usually—blows inland in the mornings and out in the afternoons, here at sea level. But at seven thousand feet, say, it may be blowing due north all day! And at ten thousand feet, there may be no wind at all. You just have to work up and down until you find an air current to take you the way you want to go.”
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