Planet of the Apes Omnibus 4

by William Arrow

  “Out! Get out!”

  “Out, you dumb humanoids! Move!”

  Zira buried her face, on her husband’s shoulder. “I can’t watch this!”

  General Urko looked up at the circling dot of the air vehicle. He lifted the walkie-talkie and spoke. “General Urko to Wing Commander Larko. Make your approach!”

  The gorilla general heard Larko’s voice say, “I can’t.” But the voice was from behind him.

  Urko spun around.

  “What—what are you doing here?” He stared up at the tiny spot in the sky. “Then who—?”

  “Sir, I was beaten up and—”

  “It’s going to hit us!”

  Urko turned at the panicked voice of one of the chimpanzee Senators and saw the plane diving down at them, growing larger at an incredible rate. For a moment Urko’s eyes were fixed, motionless, on it.

  The voices around Urko rose to a babble of fear.

  “Look out!”

  “Look out!”

  “But why is he…?” Urko was watching the diving plane; his whole world had collapsed. “Who—?”

  The plane’s engine now drowned out even the screams. Urko dove to the ground behind the platform, joining most of his audience, as the P-40 flashed low overhead, just missing the top of the bleachers. It roared again into the sky, its engine a deep-throated wail.

  Urko shook his fist at the plane. “By the nostrils of Kerchak, I’ll have your head for this—whoever you are!”

  Zira, huddled into Cornelius’s arms on the bleachers, gave a quick smile. “It must be Blue-Eyes!”

  The plane circled, readying itself for another dive, but the distinguished visitors began to run.

  * * *

  The heavy wheels of the train had started to move. Jeff had pulled the control lever back as far as it would go, then locked it in position. Now he scooped up more coal and heaved it into the furnace.

  The train gathered speed.

  Bill had climbed, meanwhile, on the flatcar, and was swinging the big crane sideways. Releasing the cable, he let the hook fall to the ground. The heavy iron hook smashed info a crate labeled machine parts and, hooking it, yanked it into the air.

  The blond astronaut could see that the engine was now passing the hangar, and he swung the crane almost like a bat. The heavy crate on its hook flew out, through the open doors of the hangar, and crashed into a stack of completed tail assemblies. Then the hook, crate, and some smashed airplane parts were hauled back as the train passed. They snagged on the comer of the hangar, just as Bill hoped, ripping into the light metal building with a vicious, ear-splitting noise. The building sagged, then buckled as the crane, driven by the big locomotive, began tearing out the side of the structure. Bill heard airplane parts inside toppling and collapsing even over the racket of the tearing metal wall. The noise almost deafened him.

  A ball of fire suddenly exploded up through the collapsing hangar roof.

  “The fuel supply!” Bill cried happily.

  Cracks, pops, thuds, and metallic screams resounded as the building collapsed into flames.

  Bill jumped out of the crane cab and down onto the bed of the flatcar. Running to the edge, he looked ahead to see Jeff hanging onto the grab handles of the locomotive and gazing back at him. Beyond, approaching at a fearful speed, was the closed door of the aircraft factory.

  Bill jumped and Jeff followed.

  They fell hard in the gravel and dirt, and rolled, stopping against some piles of military equipment. Another explosion rang out, and Bill looked back to see that the crane had overturned a small tank of oil, which split and was ignited by flying, flaming refuse from the hangar.

  The two dusty astronauts scrambled to their feet just in time to see the locomotive knock in the wide factory door. Then they heard the train hit something very solid inside—probably another train—and the whole long, hurtling monster buckled. The crane swung, gathering up debris as it moved, and smashed into the side of the factory. A great, hollow boom came from inside the factory, and the train was kicked off its tracks. The crane had by now toppled into the building with a strident, metallic shriek. A second explosion within the factory broke every window in the base and knocked Jeff and Bill off their feet.

  They got up again and started running back toward the barracks, where they had left the laser drill. Two more, but smaller, explosions clouted their backs. Finally, at the door of the deserted barracks they paused to look toward the hangar and factory.

  The hangar was a flaming wreck. Bill could see the blackened, twisted remains of melting parts and a great smoky, flaming heap in the center. Nothing inside had survived. In the car park, several vehicles had caught fire from falling debris, and a series of rattling explosions told them gas tanks and storage tanks were going up.

  “They’ll never be able to build another plane there!” Jeff said with satisfaction.

  “Or anyplace else, I hope. Judy’s got the plane and we’ve wrecked all their parts—and probably their plans and specifications.”

  “I’ll run up and get the laser,” Jeff said, turning.

  “Hurry up!” Bill called after him. “We’ve got to snag us a truck!”

  * * *

  Urko rose to his feet, dusty and bleeding from small scratches. He stared across at the billowing clouds of smoke pouring out of the two wrecked buildings.

  “What happened?” he asked his aide-de-camp.

  Captain Mulla staggered toward his commander, shaken by the unexpected turn of events, and by the explosions and fire. “We’ll have to start again…” he sighed.

  “Yes, yes…” Urko echoed, brushing his forehead with his hand. “We’ll have to start over…”

  Dr. Lykos looked glum. “But you don’t understand, general. Without the original sky vehicle to study, we are lost.”

  “But your plans! The models you built—!”

  Lykos gestured toward the burning factory. “In there, General Urko. It was a complex machine, and very strange. We didn’t understand why it worked, and—”

  Urko roared. He shook his fist at the tiny speck of the airplane, high overhead. “Someone will pay for this outrage, Lykos. You’ll see!”

  The chimpanzee scientist shrank back. Another explosion resounded in the car park, as well as screams from someone caught by falling debris.

  * * *

  Gorillas were running toward a burning truck at the other end of the line of military vehicles. Bill and Jeff could hear an officer screaming orders.

  “Move those trucks out! Fast! Ranko, Zuira, get those tanks moving over, there! Take that squad over to those jeeps! Get some men and keep those civilians out of here!”

  The two astronauts swung up into the cab of the truck and Bill slid behind the wheel. Started up the truck, he was the first to move out. He roared by frightened apes who didn’t seem to see him at the wheel, then turned out onto the airfield.

  Scattered figures still stood here and there on the field; and at the end of the airstrip, near the wagon-cages, huddled the group of humanoids. Bill brought the truck to a halt before them and Jeff jumped down.

  “Hurry! Get in!”

  The humanoids merely stared at him, gaping as they saw a humanoid like themselves talking. Bill jumped down and ran around, and between them, he and Jeff shoved and yanked at the humanoids.

  “Into the truck! Get into the truck!” Bill yelled uselessly.

  “Get in!” Jeff insisted. He took one man, tugged at his arm, and by sheer force of muscle dragged him to the truck. “Get up in there, dammit!”

  “Into the truck!” Bill ordered once more.

  But the humanoids just scared at them.

  “They won’t move!” Jeff complained.

  Then the man whom Jeff had dragged over began to climb up into the truck voluntarily.

  Jeff grinned fiercely. “Right! Come on,” he said more sweetly, “the rest of you!”

  He pantomimed a getting-in motion. Another humanoid, a female in skins and furs, came hesitan
tly over and was helped up into the truck.

  “They’re coming!” Bill shouted happily.

  With increasing speed, the humanoids climbed into the truck. Bill ran around and got into its cab. A few moments later, Jeff jumped into the front seat alongside him.

  “Go!”

  Bill slammed the truck into gear and started off the end of the airfield, angling toward a nearby road that ran back into the high hills.

  * * *

  Urko seemed to be coming out of his daze. The pressures of command, and of being required to make decisions, seemed to bring him around. He looked about, and began snapping orders.

  “Captain Mulla! See that those undamaged crates are moved! Major Surga, get those trucks into some kind of order! You! Sergeant Tuka! Get some men and put out those fires in the barracks! Sergeant Gurto, escort Doctor Lykos to safety! Lieutenant Samic! Yes, you, lieutenant! See that the Elders and the Senators get an escort and transportation back to Ape City! Captain Kogora, round up those humanoids and—”

  Urko now noticed the empty wagon cages and saw the dust of Bill and Jeff’s truck disappearing up the road. “The humanoids are escaping! After them!” the gorilla commander snapped. “Whoever is driving that truck may be responsible for the explosions!” He pointed at the truck. “After them, Kogora!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  As Kogora ran to gather up a force from the scattered soldiers, he saw General Urko’s own jeep take off in pursuit of the humanoids. Kogora bullied and slapped a number of dazed soldiers into two trucks and started off after his commander.

  “Faster!” he snarled at his driver. “We can’t let the general beat us to them!”

  The truck filled with escaping humanoids was grinding slowly up the steep grade into Mukalla Pass, a narrow one-way cut through the hills. Behind it the general’s jeep was kicking up a long plume of dust. And behind that came the two trucks of soldiers under Kogora’s command.

  Urko’s tusks glinted in the sunlight as he saw where the humanoid escapees were headed. “Mukalla Pass! They can’t go too fast through there! So I have them trapped!”

  The general was almost happy as he thought about the terrible deaths he was going to arrange for the humanoid beasts—and their rescuer.

  * * *

  “They’re gaining on us,” Jeff said, leaning out of the truck to look back.

  “And look ahead!” Bill shouted, shifting to a lower gear. “A wooden guard fence across the pass! And a devilish narrow pass beyond that!”

  “The pass must have been made for scout jeeps or foot soldiers,” Jeff commented. “Billy-boy, I think we’re in trouble.”

  Bill heard the sound of the airplane engine, and thrust his thumb up. “See what she’s doing, will you?”

  Jeff looked out and found Judy’s P-40 banking around not far away. “I don’t know what she has in mind, but it looks like a bomb run commencing!”

  * * *

  “Look, they’re almost to the fence!” Urko exclaimed. “Faster, you humanoid-brain!”

  “I’m going as fast as we dare on this road, sir,” the driver huffed.

  “What’s that blasted air vehicle doing now?” Urko peered at the banking plane suspiciously. “Oh, no!”

  The general saw the plane coming around behind, and suddenly he knew what was going to happen. But before he could think of how to escape or counter it, Judy had swept overhead with a roar and the great circular net fell from the plane, the weighted edges making it spin. It settled over the jeep as Urko cursed. Some of the weights were tangled in his vehicle’s wheels and the jeep took a sudden twist. With the net enclosing the vehicle almost completely, the surprised driver fought the hampered controls. And lost.

  The jeep skidded; its wheels locked. It turned sideways and fell over with a resounding crash. Then the net snagged the stump of a dead tree and whirled the jeep around, jamming it across the narrow road between the two facing hillsides.

  Urko, dazed and angry, tried to fight his way free, but the net was too tough. The driver lay under him, unconscious, bleeding from the mouth. Urko heard the two tracks behind him squealing to a halt, and in moments gorilla soldiers were trying to disengage their leader from the binding net.

  “Never mind me!” Urko roared. “Get after those humanoids!”

  “But we can’t get by you, sir!” Captain Kogora complained.

  “Aarrrh—!” Urko’s snarls frightened even the gorilla soldiers. “Hurry up, you fools!”

  * * *

  The fence across the pass broke under the force of the speeding truck. Its pieces fell under the wheels of the vehicle.

  “Watch it, Bill!” Jeff shouted.

  The sides of the narrow pass scraped against the sides of the truck, jostling the passengers and making a terrible racket.

  “Good going, Judy!” Bill yelled in compliment.

  “Watch where you’re going!” Jeff screamed.

  The truck left thick brown clouds of dust behind and cut grooves into the dirt of the pass, but finally they were through it. Green hills split by a better road lay ahead and below Mukalla Pass.

  “We made it!” Bill cried.

  “Nothing but open road ahead!” Jeff added.

  The truck sped out of the Mukalla Mountains toward freedom.

  Judy’s P-40 zoomed by overhead and disappeared over the green hills beyond.

  * * *

  Cornelius sat up, brushing dust and ashes from himself and his wife. Zira was flicking away the hot debris and scanning the skies.

  “Was it Blue-Eyes, Cornelius? Could you see?”

  “Too much confusion. But who else could it have been?”

  He looked around at the disorganized apes brushing themselves off and trying to calm down.

  “No one else, Cornelius dear. No one else at all!”

  Zira sat back on the bleachers, hands folded in her lap, looking around her at the others’ confusion and at the billowing clouds of smoke nearby. She was smiling faintly. Cornelius hoped ho one would notice.

  * * *

  Dr. Zaius stepped up onto the platform. His orange-gold fur was mottled with ashes and dust, and dirt clung to his peach-colored uniform. He looked around at the wreckage, then walked over and tapped the microphone that still set behind the lectern.

  “Testing in… One, two, three…!” He heard his voice magnified and booming over the cluttered airfield. “Listen to me,” he said to a diminished audience, for many of the apes had fled. “This is Doctor Zaius speaking… Listen to me…”

  One by one the angry gorillas, the stunned and shaken orangutans, and the chattering chimpanzees gave him their attention. Those who remained of the group of foreign dignitaries stopped their bickering and turned toward the Elder.

  “My fellow citizens,” Zaius began. “General Urko said I would have an announcement today… And so I have. An important announcement!”

  Zira clutched at her husband’s sleeve. “What could he—?”

  “Shush, dear!” Cornelius whispered.

  Zaius looked around him in disgust. “Never in all my long life and almost-as-long career as a public servant have I seen a more disgraceful event than—than this!”

  A chimpanzee Senator, his face covered with filth and his clothes in shreds, threw up a fist. “Hear, Hear!”

  Zaius gave him a scowl, but continued. “General Urko’s behavior today shows total incompetence for command.”

  Cornelius jumped to his feet. “You tell ’em, Doctor Zaius!”

  Zira balled her fist and shook it high. “That’s the way!”

  Several gorilla officers, their uniforms in disarray, took steps forward, but none had the nerve to try to stop the venerable Elder. Other Senators and a female scientist from Mechanical Research and Development—all of them dusty and furious—added their approval.

  “You’re so right, doctor!”

  “Give it to ’em, Zaius!”

  “What he did today was a disgrace!” Zaius’s amplified voice broke through the shouts
and mutterings. “I, for one, recommend that a thorough investigation be made as to his ability to lead our military forces.”

  At once a number of voices rose in agreement.

  “We’re with you, Zaius!”

  “Yea!”

  “Urko is a fool!” a strong voice yelled.

  “Strip him of his rank! He’s a general, all right—a general nuisance.”

  There was some laughter at this last remark; then other voices called out their opinions.

  “Urko is a typical gorilla!”

  “Warmonger!”

  “Kills his own kind, that Urko!”

  “Get rid of him!”

  Gorilla soldiers watched as their officers shrank back, afraid of the power that the Elders and others represented. Without Urko to lead them, they were afraid to do anything.

  * * *

  In the cockpit of the P-40, Judy pulled off the heavy flight helmet and peeled back the long white scarf that had obscured her features. She felt quite pleased with herself, and with Jeff and Bill.

  She sighed, and began to study the control panel.

  “Well, I took off, all right,” she muttered to herself. “Now let’s see if I remember how to land a plane like this!”

  * * *

  Bill pulled the truck over to the side of the road, and both he and Jeff jumped out of its cab. The astronauts gestured for the humanoids to stay inside.

  “Hey, I hear her engine!” Bill chuckled. He pointed. “Here she comes!”

  Jeff muttered, by the side of the truck, “I hope this old crate holds together!”

  “And I hope this field by the road is all right for Judy to land in!” Bill said, looking at the flat meadow which had made them decide to stop at this particular spot.

  “Those old prop planes didn’t need the kind of long, fancy runways the jets did,” Jeff reminded him. “Back in the really early days—in World War I, for example—and just afterwards, during the barnstorming days, they used to land in cow pastures!”

  “Yeah, but those planes took off and landed at thirty or forty miles an hour. These Flying Tigers, well, they must do, what? Ninety or a hundred miles an hour?”