by John Jakes
Quickly, Kolp’s mind evolved a possible solution. The key was to concentrate on locating the talking ape— an assignment which that black man MacDonald had so far botched. MacDonald had come up with precisely nothing. Thus State Security could take credit…
A female hand offered Chamberlain a folder. He riffled through its contents, then sat back with a look of astonishment.
“Gentlemen, according to our records, the chimpanzee in question was sold to Governor Breck himself.”
After getting over the shock, Inspector Kolp finally permitted himself a smile. He thanked Chamberlain in a perfunctory way, broke the connection, and turned to Hoskyns.
“Come on, we’re going to find the Governor.”
“But you said he was locked up in a meeting somewhere—”
“We’ll get him out. This is one success for the Agency we’re going to report in person.”
* * *
“Good God!” said Jason Breck. “We’ve had him under our noses all the time.”
Inspector Kolp nodded. He was speaking with the governor in a small but lavishly furnished antechamber adjoining a conference room on the twelfth floor of the building that housed the Urban Health Agency. Windows in one wall showed dusk falling on the city, lights beginning to glow in the towers.
Only moments ago, Kolp and Hoskyns had arrived and interrupted the proceedings of the twenty-man committee meeting inside. Now Kolp polished his spectacles, studying the lenses as he said softly, “There’s no doubt about what must be done, Mr. Governor. I’m quite willing to execute the ape immediately, on your verbal order alone.”
Breck’s hard face grew harder still. “I appreciate the loyalty, Inspector. But I’ll make sure you have the order in writing.”
“Thank you, sir. However, one small possible problem has occurred to me—”
“Problem?” Breck’s pronunciation of the word indicated he didn’t like hearing it.
Kolp, though, had scored sufficiently on behalf of the agency—and himself—so that he didn’t need to be cowed by Breck’s intimidating stare. “Yes, sir. Supposing the ape can talk, but won’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
Hoskyns stepped forward. “What the Chief Inspector means, Mr. Governor, is that we’d still be caught in a situation of doubt. If the ape’s mouth stays shut, the case stays open—at least theoretically. We’d very much like to close the file.”
At that, Breck smiled. “You will, gentlemen. I promise you.”
Kolp’s plump cheeks showed sudden spots of color. He would very much enjoy having a hand in forcing the ape to speak—before the execution.
Hoskyns asked, “Is the ape back at your penthouse, sir?”
The governor thought a moment. “He was this noon. But I believe my steward ran out of things for him to do. The ape cleans the place like lightning— and flawlessly. No wonder, is it? Considering what we know now? Caesar—‘a king.’ He picked that name deliberately, I’ll bet. Laughing at us!” Face flushed, Breck returned to the question with effort. “Caes— the ape was sent back for more volunteer duty in the Command Post. I think Mr. MacDonald’s there too. We’ll contact him from one of the offices.”
Following the governor as he walked rapidly from anteroom to corridor and into the first unlocked, lighted office, Inspector Kolp said in a bland tone, “MacDonald really shouldn’t be blamed for failure to locate the animal.”
“I suppose not,” Breck said absently, hurrying through the secretary’s space into the larger, inner room. He flung himself into the office chair, reaching for the intercom panel. “But he certainly won’t get any credit—or commendations—on his record.” As Breck concentrated on the pushbuttons, Hoskyns and Kolp exchanged quick, pleased smirks.
When the building operator answered, Breck said, “This is the governor. I want a priority circuit to the Command Post at Civic Center. Mr. MacDonald. On scrambler.” Then he sat forward on the chair, tapping the desk and staring at Inspector Kolp, who couldn’t remember ever having seen the governor look so pleased.
After 6:00 P.M., the light level in the underground Command Post was gradually lowered to provide a sense of the time of day for those working the late shifts. As a result, the monitors and sequencing lights glowed all the more brightly. The human staff members and ape volunteers moving along the aisles became little more than silhouettes. MacDonald sat at a plain, functional desk near the center of the huge chamber. A small lamp shed a brilliant cone of light on the summaries he was reading—disturbing reports of steadily growing incidence of ape insubordination…
“Mr. MacDonald?”
His head snapped up. A supervisor, little more than a shadow, hovered at his elbow. MacDonald had sensed urgency in the man’s voice.
“The governor’s calling. Priority. You’ll have to take it on Station M because the governor asked for a scrambler.”
MacDonald nodded, shoved his chair back. Scrambler. What emergency now? He ran up the aisle past the sorting station where several apes, including Caesar, were collecting color-tabbed stacks of file material. Reaching another desk, he grabbed the special phone.
“MacDonald speaking, Mr. Governor.” A pause. “What?”
It was as if the familiar surroundings—the glowing screens, the muted voices, the bells and chattering terminals—had suddenly become the fixtures of a nightmare. MacDonald could barely speak.
“You want me to turn Caesar over to Inspector Kolp?”
From the receiver in his sweating hand, squawking sounds issued.
“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to react audibly. But there’s no one in the vicinity—”
Half-turning, he realized it was not true. The apes at the sorting station were within sound of his voice. One had swung around to stare. In the gloom, MacDonald couldn’t tell which one.
“Am I to understand,” he said, “that—the ape in question is now on your Achilles list?”
At once, the squawkings became louder, harsher. MacDonald swallowed, wiped sweat from his chin with his free hand, his mind racing.
“No, sir. No, I’m not questioning the order, but—” He barely paused; his temperament, his heritage, his whole personality pushed him to an instant decision, “—as a matter of fact, the animal is not here. I sent him out on an errand.” He fought to keep his voice steady, continuing, “He should be back momentarily, though. Yes, sir, give me your instructions.”
He listened, then pulled a pad toward him, fumbled for a pen, wrote Urban Building.
“They’re coming directly here? Takes about fifteen minutes, I believe. Yes, I know the route the animal should be taking. I’ll pick him up and meet them on the third level of the Mall of the Nations. No, I don’t think it’ll be necessary for them to bring police off—”
He stopped. The governor had already broken the connection.
Sweat rivered down MacDonald’s face into his collar. He had already lied once—an abrupt, gut reaction. Now he had about fifteen minutes to decide whether to lie again.
The Command Post was no place to make such a decision. Here, he was surrounded; without options.
He looked toward the sorting station. Caesar was just returning from the filing room.
MacDonald grabbed the arm of a passing supervisor. “Get me a set of leg shackles right away.”
The supervisor nodded and disappeared. MacDonald remained hunched on a comer of the desk, rubbing the back of his knuckle against his teeth. WHY? That was the tormenting question. Why, without warning, was the chimpanzee to be turned over, not to representatives of Ape Management, but to the police agency? MacDonald almost leaped to a conclusion, but it was so farfetched that he couldn’t bring himself to accept it. He did know one thing. Governor Jason Breck had not confided the reason the ape was going into custody. He had simply barked orders. To MacDonald this indicated a threatening change in his own status.
The supervisor appeared, shackles jingling. MacDonald took them, walked up the aisle to the sorting station just as Caes
ar picked up his next batch of material. There was apprehension in the chimpanzee’s eyes as MacDonald arrived.
The black pointed to the printouts in Caesar’s hand. “No.”
Caesar cringed and returned the pile to the table. The other apes nearby also cringed at the command— and at the familiar clink of the chains. To Caesar, MacDonald said, “Come.”
His whole nature rebelled at the idea of surrendering the intelligent, docile chimpanzee to Kolp, Hoskyns, and that pack of sadists who staffed State Security. Unhappy, he strode toward the exit stairs, Caesar trotting at his heels.
Basic questions plagued him. Were Kolp, Hoskyns, and their crowd trying to curry Breck’s favor by playing to his paranoia about the potential danger of ape rebellion? Of course the possibility of rebellion was less remote than it had been a few weeks ago. The reports he’d been reading tonight confirmed that. But the answer was less brutality and repression, not more.
MacDonald had already plotted his route to the Mall of the Nations. He led Caesar toward a ramp that rose to a second-level walkway.
Jason Breck had paid two thousand dollars for the chimp. To throw away that kind of investment when the animal had done nothing but behave in the most obedient manner simply didn’t add up. And there wasn’t a trace of evidence to suggest a rebellious streak in Caesar.
As they entered a broad, brightly lit second-level terrace between buildings, MacDonald corrected his last thought. No evidence they’ve told you about. Somehow, he’d been cut out of the governor’s confidential deliberations. Perhaps the rift had been inevitable. MacDonald had protested the governor’s suspicions from the beginning—argued repeatedly for more humane treatment of the ape population, then openly protested the preparation and use of the Achilles list. No wonder Breck was dealing directly with those police bastards…
“Mr. MacDonald. Mr. MacDonald, please.”
The black’s head whipped up as the announcer’s voice interrupted the piped music. “If you are near a public phone, please answer.”
Grimacing, MacDonald headed toward a kiosk in the center of the terrace. Caesar followed. MacDonald pointed to the paving stones outside the kiosk. “Wait.”
Caesar held his spot as MacDonald slipped inside. For the sake of privacy, he touched the button that slid the half-cylinder of transparent plastic in place between himself and the ape. Slinging the cumbersome shackles over his shoulder, he dialed a sequence of digits, said, “This is MacDonald, responding to Governor Breck’s public call.” In a moment, he was connected.
“You’re not in the Command Post?”
“No, Mr. Governor, I’m on my way to locate Caesar, as you instructed.”
“Where the hell did you send him?”
“To Substation Forty. He’s carrying some new procedural material for the watch captains.”
“Well, Kolp, Hoskyns, and the officers are on their way.” MacDonald glanced at his wristwatch. Seven minutes gone already. “You find that damned ape, fast, and turn him over to them at the Mall of the Nations. Then get yourself to the nearest phone and report personally that it’s been done.”
“May I ask whether there’s any special reason for the urgent—”
The rest of it went unsaid. Governor Breck had broken the connection.
* * *
MacDonald twisted around in the cramped seat, staring through the transparent plastic. The chimpanzee’s eyes met his, unblinking. All at once those eyes seemed to hold a comprehension far beyond the abilities of even the most intelligent ape.
Or was it only MacDonald’s imagination? Was he too falling victim to the paranoia that somehow drove Breck to his repressive measures?
Dashing sweat from his eyes, MacDonald triggered the opening of the kiosk door, speaking his thoughts aloud. “I wish to God I knew what this was all about. I wish there were some way we could communicate, so you’d understand I don’t want to hand you over—”
The chimpanzee said, “But I do understand, Mr. MacDonald.”
Thunderstruck, MacDonald could only goggle.
* * *
The chimpanzee seemed to grow in stature, east off his slouching posture. He stood nearly upright, looking incredibly human. His eyes darted right, left. A man and woman, arms linked, passed the kiosk. Caesar remained silent until the couple had moved out of earshot. Then he said, “You see, I am the one they’re looking for.”
Still stunned, MacDonald gasped out, “I—I thought about the possibility. Even tonight it crossed my mind. But—I never could bring myself to believe it. I thought you really were a myth.”
The chimpanzee’s face changed, grew ugly. “Now you discover I’m not. But I’ll tell you something that is a myth, Mr. MacDonald. The belief that human beings are kind.”
MacDonald swallowed hard, bolted from the kiosk, nervously surveyed the terrace. “We’ve got to walk— they’re coming for you—”
“Agents of the governor?” Caesar asked as he resumed his shambling posture at the black man’s side. Not sure where he was actually going, MacDonald headed for an up escalator.
“Yes,” he said, “a couple of inspectors from State Security. Somehow they must have found out—”
He clamped his lips shut as a policeman approached. The man gave the black and the chimpanzee a close stare, then recognized MacDonald and touched his helmet respectfully. MacDonald hurried Caesar toward the foot of the escalator, led him around behind it.
Beneath the slanted stair, and screened from the terrace proper by artificial shrubbery, stood a humans-only bench. MacDonald dropped onto it, shaking with tension. “Caesar, what you say about human beings isn’t true,” he gasped. “There are some—”
“A handful!” the chimpanzee snarled, jutting his head forward, his eyes baleful. “But not most of them. And they are the ones who rule. They won’t be humane until we force them to it. We can’t do that until we’re free.”
Still not quite believing that the conversation was taking place, MacDonald whipped up his watch. Barely five minutes left. “And—just how do you propose to gain your freedom with Breck repressing the apes harder and harder?”
“By the only means left to us,” Caesar answered. “Rebellion.”
It was not hard for MacDonald to comprehend the chimpanzee’s vision. Like Breck, he was a believer— now that he had heard the ape speak. And he did understand historical inevitability.
The ape’s eyes burned with a passion that was frightening. MacDonald recalled the mounting incidence of ape insubordination; Caesar’s apparent docility as a servant.
Had the ape been tricking them? Pretending to obey while using the cover to foment…
The press of time jerked MacDonald back to reality.
“Don’t do it. If you claim intelligence, you’ve got to realize that any try at rebellion is doomed to failure.”
Caesar’s shrug was quick and indifferent. “Perhaps. This time.”
“And the next.”
“Maybe.”
MacDonald felt chilled then. “God help us, you mean to keep trying, don’t you?”
“There won’t be freedom until there is power, Mr. MacDonald. And how else can we achieve that power?” After a pause, the chimpanzee added, “You have been kind. You are one of the very few. In—what must come, I would hope to see you spared.”
“Spared—!” MacDonald roared, grabbing Caesar’s jacket with both hands. The shackles fell from his shoulder. MacDonald jumped at the sudden sound. Caesar smiled.
MacDonald darted a glance across the screen of artificial shrubbery. If they’d been overhead…
But the terrace was still empty.
“I should have you killed!” he exploded.
“The way my mother and father were killed?” Caesar asked quietly.
MacDonald looked deep into the glowing eyes, remembering what had been done to Cornelius and to Zira. Despite the personal risks, and the awareness of the harm he might do, his decision, finally, was the only one he could make.
He s
aid, “Go.”
Now it was Caesar’s turn for astonishment. “What?”
“Go on, get out of here. Get away before I change my mind!” MacDonald stabbed a finger toward the mouth of a passageway in the nearby wall. “Go that way, to the next escalator. Try to get down into the service tunnels. Maybe you’ll be safe. Go—” He shoved Caesar, hard.
The chimpanzee did not hesitate. With a last, piercing glance, he spun, ran to the mouth of the passageway, and vanished.
MacDonald pulled out a linen handkerchief and wiped his face. Then he put the handkerchief away, picked up the shackles, and tried to compose himself as he left the secluded area and stepped onto the escalator that carried him upward. The act was done. Right or wrong, it was done. Now he must protect himself as best he could.
The hands of his watch showed him to be a minute late for the rendezvous already. It took him four more minutes to cross another arched bridge on the-third level and reach the more crowded Mall of the Nations. There, standing in a tight group away from people queued up for a solido theatre, he spotted Kolp, Hoskyns, and two state security policemen. Kolp charged toward him.
“You’re late, MacDonald. Where’s the ape?”
Trying to sound appropriately worried, he held up the shackles. “I don’t know. I told the governor I’d dispatched him on an errand, and I’ve been searching between here and the police substation where I sent him. I can’t locate him.”
Hoskyns grabbed MacDonald’s arm. “You let him walk out of the Command Post—?”
MacDonald flung off the hand. “I do it all the time!”
Kolp said, “Did you ask the substation if they’d seen him?”
“Not yet. I was sure I’d find the chimp wandering somewhere between there and Civic Center, but—”