by Alex Irvine
He picked up his new piece and moved it, up two and over one, as Will had shown him when he was barely grown. Then he put it back. He had not yet taught Blue Eyes to play, but he should begin. Then Blue Eyes would teach the new child. Ape would pass knowledge to ape, and knowledge was strength.
He stood over his mate and baby, just looking at them. No thinking now, just feeling. Caesar crept quietly around to the other side of the bed and eased himself down next to Cornelia. He felt good. It was time to sleep.
As he closed his eyes, he heard something change in Cornelia’s breathing. She wheezed and shifted, turning a little more on her side and settling the baby against her again. Caesar lifted his head and listened. The motion woke her briefly. She saw him there, and smiled as her eyes closed again and she grew still. Caesar could tell she had never really been awake.
He started to lie back, then paused as the wheezing started again. The talk of sickness was fresh in his mind. He leaned his face close to her, listening and trying to decide how serious this sound was. The newborn made a small sound and opened his eyes. Caesar felt again the emotion he had experienced the first time Blue Eyes had looked him in the eye. A new life, seeing the world around it. Seeing him.
He reached over Cornelia and gently stroked his tiny son’s hand. The hand turned over and gripped Caesar’s finger, startling a smile from him. He stayed like that, looking into his son’s eyes and feeling the grip of his son’s fingers, until both of them were asleep.
9
Blue Eyes and Ash stood in the shallows of the river early the next morning. Mist still drifted in the high valleys, and the sun had just risen high enough to shine down on the river. The gashes from the bear’s claws the day before were still raw, but they were starting to scab over. More than anything else, Blue Eyes was still embarrassed because he had gone after the elk too fast. He had ruined his father’s plan, and almost gotten himself killed. That felt worse than the tears in his skin.
He was also angry at his father for not trusting him. Who could have known a bear would be there? If he wasn’t stuck to his father’s side, Blue Eyes knew he could have led one of the hunting groups. He could have brought down an elk himself, or been part of one of the groups that had divided the herd.
Ash had done that. He’d talked about it all the way from the village down to the river. His father, Rocket, let Ash do things that Caesar would never let Blue Eyes do. It drove Blue Eyes crazy that Caesar treated him like a baby. And it was Koba—not his father—who had tried to make Blue Eyes feel better last night. All Caesar thought about was Blue Eyes’ new brother.
All of this went through his mind as he stood, cold water rushing around his feet and spear poised, looking down at the water and waiting for a fish to move so he could see it. The trout in the river blended into the rocks, and when the sun got higher they would move to other parts of the river to hide from birds. It was hard to get them, but worth it when you were sitting around a fire eating them.
There. Blue Eyes saw the flick of a fin, and all of a sudden the shape of the fish was obvious. He stabbed down and missed, the spear point grating on a rock. As fast as he could, he stabbed again, but the fish was long gone. Ash laughed from his spot just upstream.
Let’s see you do better, Blue Eyes signed.
Ash took a step into deeper water, up around his thighs, paused—and struck. He hooted with delight, drawing his spear back and holding it level with the water. A trout thrashed and wriggled on the end of it.
That’s how you do it, he signed with the hand not holding the spear. Blue Eyes couldn’t stand it. Ash did everything right. Everything was easy for him. And his father let him hunt. Blue Eyes could feel his temper rising. Caesar had taught him control, but it was hard. He got his spear ready again, looking from the water to Ash, who set the butt of his spear into the riverbed so he could reach the fish he’d gotten.
Ash caught the fish and dragged it off his spear, looking smug—and then the fish flipped out of his grasp. He dropped his spear and snatched at it, catching it by the tail for a moment. But it was too slippery. It wriggled free and dropped back into the water.
Now it was Blue Eyes’s turn to laugh as Ash charged through the shallows after his quarry. Blue Eyes saw it go past him. He slapped the water, trying to catch it, but missed, still laughing. Ash bounded along the rocky riverbed. Blue Eyes followed, splashing him on purpose. The fish was gone, he knew. They would never catch it now.
Ash headed for a rocky overhang on the inside of a river bend, as if the fish might hide there. Blue Eyes caught his eye as they stomped through the water.
You’re supposed to hold it by the gills, he signed. He laughed harder as Ash splashed him, then shoved him out into the water.
Blue Eyes tripped over a rock and fell. He sprang back up and went after his friend, who had splashed around the rock, and then stopped short. Blue Eyes swatted at the water again, but Ash didn’t move. Blue Eyes called out to him and churned his way over.
Then he, too, froze.
From where they were standing next to the rock, shallow rapids spread out into the middle of the river just downstream, with the deeper, quiet water at the outside of the bend on the other side. The overhung rock formations created another slow-moving eddy, with a sloping open bank.
On that bank, squatting with his hands in the water to fill some kind of container, was a human.
Blue Eyes had never seen a live human. He’d seen a dead one, once, on the road that crossed the river. He had been very young and only remembered being surprised that the corpse had so little hair. And he had seen pictures, had heard stories, and this definitely was a human. Male, skin the color of wet sand, a little patch of fur the color of a young chimp’s. Blue Eyes did not know how to read humans’ faces, but if he had seen this expression on an ape, he would have thought the ape was scared.
Very scared.
The human stood up, his round bottle dropping onto the bank and spilling its contents. He took a step back and grabbed at something on his belt. It was dark and made of metal. He held it in both hands, his arms straight. A small hole in the tip of the metal thing was pointed right at Blue Eyes and Ash. Blue Eyes felt like he knew what the metal thing was, but it took a moment for his mind to start working again after the shock of seeing a human, alive, almost within shouting distance of the ape village.
Gun, he thought. That was the word. He remembered the sign, a wiggle of the thumb with a finger pointed out.
The sound of the gunshot was the loudest thing Blue Eyes had ever heard.
10
Caesar heard the gunshot and was racing toward the village gate before the echoes had died away down the canyon. He gestured as he ran, signaling his apes to arm themselves and follow, but he did not wait for them. He ran. The sound had come from the river below. The canyon broadened into the wide valley where they had hunted elk the day before.
Blue Eyes and Ash had gone fishing down there.
His mind raced faster than his legs and arms. Just last night he and Maurice had talked about the humans. Now this morning, there was a gunshot. Some of the apes believed that dreams could see what would happen. Some of them believed that certain apes could do the same. Caesar believed none of it, but still… Last night he had wondered if the humans were gone. This morning he had heard a gunshot.
Only a human would have a gun.
He skirted the edge of the canyon, following a steep path and using the trees where the aerial passage was faster. Behind him, he heard the rush and rustle of his troop. Most of them knew the sound of gunshots, from the day they gained their freedom. Even those who did not—the youngest Caesar would allow to fight—could see how their elders were reacting. They hurtled through the trees and along the path as if they were going to battle.
Caesar was first to reach the barren ridge above the river’s edge, between the meadow where they had caught the elk and the wider, slower water downriver, where an old bridge crossed not far from the gas station. He ha
lted on the ridge, looking down the slope as the rest of the apes gathered on either side of him. Koba, as always, was close by his side.
At the edge of the water, across the river, Ash lay against the sloping face of a rock. Blue Eyes crouched over him, protecting him. Both of them were looking at the human, who stood a short distance away on the same bank, his gun still pointed at the two young apes.
Crashing sounds came from the trees beyond the bank, and more humans spilled from the forest. Caesar counted them. Altogether there were five grown males, one female, one young male. Several of them carried guns. The first human pointed up in Caesar’s direction and the humans stared in shock at the massed apes on the ridge.
Yes, Caesar thought. If you are not gone, it is good that you should fear us.
Koba, too, was surveying the scene. Rocket, on Caesar’s other side from Koba, saw that Ash was wounded. He started to scream with rage and anguish, and signed furiously.
Humans shot Ash!
Caesar nodded, holding out an arm to keep Rocket from charging down and across the river. They did not want killing here. He watched the humans react to Rocket’s sounds. One of the males pushed the young male behind him. A father, Caesar thought. So the humans had children still.
Hold, Rocket, Caesar signed.
I will kill them, Rocket answered. He bared his teeth at the humans and screamed again, shaking his spear.
Hold, Caesar repeated, with more emphasis. He looked back to the humans, focusing on the one who had protected the young male. That was the one to whom he would need to speak.
Everything was different now. If apes were not alone, Caesar would have to decide whether human and ape would both live, or whether there would be killing.
He held the gaze of the male human.
Your move, he thought.
11
Leave it to Carver, Malcolm was thinking. He goes to the river to fill his canteen, next thing you know we’re looking up the ridge at a million pissed-off apes with spears.
He couldn’t believe it. Everyone in San Francisco had heard the stories about the cover-up, right before the Simian Flu had scythed through humanity and left the survivors scrabbling in the ruins. But this? An organized group of apes, with weapons they had to have created themselves, rallying to defend two others. Yet not just charging down to kill them. Malcolm’s head spun at the implications of it.
He stepped forward, both hands out in front of him, making sure to keep Alex behind him. The apes had stopped at the top of the ridge, but one of them was still making a hell of a racket, and spears could start flying at any moment.
Malcolm saw the one in the center of the group, his face streaked with red paint of some kind. The others looked to him. He was the one who had stopped the screaming chimp from coming after them. He must be the leader. And he was looking right at Malcolm, as if he recognized his human counterpart.
Okay, Malcolm thought. Chief to chief. Let’s talk.
“We don’t… we don’t mean any harm,” he called, loud enough for his voice to carry over the sound of the river, but not so loud—he hoped—that he sounded threatening.
Ellie spoke just behind him, her voice a terrified whisper.
“Malcolm, what are you doing?”
“They’re apes,” Carver said, louder than Ellie. He was waving his gun around, from the two apes in the shallows near them to the dozens on the ridge. “You think they understand what you’re saying?”
Idiot, Malcolm thought. “They look like just apes to you?” he responded quietly.
They sure didn’t to him. All of them stood looking down on the group of humans with what could only be intelligence. They were assessing the situation, waiting for orders. Next to the one Malcolm took to be the leader, an older chimp—with graying fur and a dead eye—looked at Malcolm with an expression of hate. Not animal, predatory hunger. Not the anger an animal felt toward a rival. Hate. It—He? Malcolm thought—was also staring at their guns.
Malcolm fumbled for what to do or say next.
“Dad?” Alex said.
“It’s okay,” Malcolm said automatically. The next step was clear. If they started shooting, they would never survive the apes’ attack… and Malcolm did not for one minute believe that the guns would scare these apes off. They had heard Carver’s shot and responded in force with arms of their own. That could only mean they knew what guns were. The one-eyed chimp’s glare made Malcolm even more certain.
There was only one way out.
“Lower your guns,” he said, keeping his voice low and even. “Everyone.”
Carver looked at him like he was nuts. Malcolm couldn’t see the others, but he figured they were doing the same.
“Do it,” he said.
They did. Malcolm kept his eyes on the leader, the one right in the middle. They sized each other up. This was what it must have been like for explorers, he thought. Thing is, I’ve got no empire backing me up.
The chimp planted the butt of his spear in the ground.
“Go,” he said.
None of the humans moved.
“Holy shit,” Carver breathed. Malcolm amended his previous thought. This wasn’t like being an explorer. This was like meeting aliens for the first time. The chimp talked.
He slammed his mind back into gear.
“Okay, okay,” he said. He took a step back, motioning for the rest of the group to do the same. “We’re leaving right now! Just—”
The one-eyed chimp leaned forward, out over the ridge crest.
“GO!” it roared.
The other apes—Damn, Malcolm thought, there are even gorillas—started to shriek and roar. They were working themselves up to something.
“Come on,” he said to the others. He turned Alex around and gave him a push. “Now.”
They started to run, propelled by the rising hysteria of the apes’ screaming. Alex’s satchel slipped off his shoulder and fell down the rocks to the riverbank. He stopped, turning back for it. Malcolm reached out to keep him with the group.
“Alexander, leave it,” he said. Ellie tried to catch him, too, but he was panicking a little, and he didn’t have much. The satchel was important to him.
Not as important as staying alive, though.
“I said leave it!” Malcolm shouted, dragging the boy up the bank to the trees. “Come on!”
They ran. He just hoped they would get back to the trucks before the apes caught up to them.
12
Caesar watched the humans go. Around him, the rest of the apes quieted and looked to him for guidance.
He waited until the humans were gone. But where were they running to? Would they return with more humans, and more guns? Everything he had thought yesterday was suddenly uncertain.
Right now he had to take care of his son and see to Ash. He moved down the ridge, keeping a careful eye on the spot in the trees on the other side of the river where the humans had disappeared. The rest of the apes followed him down the rocks and across the river, wary and unsettled. Rocket ran ahead to Ash, lifting him to his feet and helping him out of the water. Ash sat on the bank. The hair on his arm was wet with blood from a wound on the outside of his shoulder. Caesar saw at a glance that the wound was not bad. He left Ash to Rocket, and motioned Blue Eyes to him.
What happened? he signed.
We were chasing a fish, Blue Eyes replied. When we came past the rock, the… He stumbled over the sign. The human was there. He…
Again Blue Eyes paused, not knowing the sign for what he wanted to say.
He shot at you, Caesar said. Blue Eyes nodded.
Caesar patted his son’s shoulder. They had been lucky. The shot could have killed one of them. Still, this was bad enough.
Go to your friend, he signed. Then he moved over to the bag the young male had dropped. For a long moment he looked at it. He prodded it with the tip of his spear. Then he picked it up.
With the humans gone—at least for now—there was time for questions. What were they doin
g here? Where had they come from? No ape had seen any sign of humans living in the mountains, not in several winters. And the city was dark and quiet. Could these humans have come from somewhere else, over the mountains or the ocean? Had the sickness not been able to cross the water?
Too many questions.
They needed answers.
Caesar turned to Koba, who was still watching the woods. He grunted, and when Koba turned to him, he gave a sharp signal.
Follow them.
13
They made it to the trucks at a dead run, throwing their gear into the backs, and grinding gears in their terrified haste to get the hell away from the spear-wielding apes. Malcolm drove one truck, with Ellie and Alexander. Carver drove the other with the rest of the crew. Malcolm had already decided that he and Carver were going to straighten a few things out when they got back to San Francisco.
What the hell was he thinking, shooting at a pair of chimps before he even told anyone else they were there?
That was the problem. Carver wasn’t thinking. He wasn’t much of a thinker. He was good with his hands, but he’d absorbed the legends about wild apes killing and eating people in the mountains, back in the days when the Simian Flu had thrown everyone into a panic. Apes had spread the disease to humans, sure. Fine. But shooting them wasn’t going to make the flu any less contagious—and in any case, if Carver had been vulnerable to the flu, he wouldn’t have lived long enough to be at that river and see those chimps in the first place.
Stupid.
Malcolm’s truck bounced off the dirt road and onto the highway, following it down out of the mountains toward the city.
“What do we tell Dreyfus?” he asked. “You think he’ll believe us?”