by John Jakes
Within each circle was a maze of pulsing, crisscrossing lines of light. They brightened, darkened, changed colors even as he watched. MacDonald’s face reflected the different colors as he punched a frustrated fist against the lower part of the glass.
The glass vibrated faintly. Licking his bruised knuckle, he realized what he’d struck. Not the glass itself but a double row of toggle switches under the center circle. Dazzled by the array of flashing light-stripes, he hadn’t seen the switches at first.
He discovered a similar double bank beneath each of the etched circles. He squatted, face close to the toggles under the circle representing floor nine. Then he uttered a ragged sound of relief.
Along with individual numerical identification for each toggle, groups of them had small embossed label-plates. On the bottom row, above a battery of some dozen switches, a long, narrow plate bracketed the twelve as No. Cond. Amphi.
He ran his index finger across the plates for the individual toggles. Speak. Syst., Ovhd. Lghtng., Cons. Master, Tab. One. Tab. Two. Tab. For table? All right.
He threw both table switches to off position. Parallel yellow green lines near the center of the circle dimmed to darkness.
A moment later he inched the landing door open. All clear. He started down the stairs again, this time more slowly.
His watch showed that almost seven minutes had elapsed since he had feigned illness and left the amphitheater. That could have been six minutes, fifty-nine seconds too long. All his effort might be wasted. Still, he’d done all he could, short of seizing a policeman’s weapon and blasting everyone in sight. And that would have gotten him shot, and done nothing at all for the chimpanzee.
MacDonald reached the ninth floor, began to walk back toward the intersection that would lead him to No Conditioning. In another minute or two, he’d find out whether he had succeeded or failed. Depressed and weary, he suspected it was the latter. He approached the door to the amphitheater with hesitation, paused to listen. Inside, he could hear no distinct sounds. With a heavy swallow of dread, he forced himself to tug on the handle, open the door, and enter.
* * *
An almost sensual thrill coursed through Jason Breck in those seconds when the supine ape screamed two words in the human tongue. Then he felt a new, euphoric calm.
He need no longer fear his enemy. He could marvel at him.
Breck’s face was almost benign as he dismissed the queasy-looking MacDonald and stepped down from the amphitheater seats. The police and attendants backed out of his way. Breck approached Dr. Chamberlain, who only now appeared to be returning to a state approaching sanity. On Chamberlain’s smock huge sweat-rings showed beneath the armpits.
“Is he alive?” Breck asked. The ape’s white-gowned chest did not appear to be moving.
Dr. Chamberlain crossed to the table, placed his ear near Caesar’s lips, then listened to his chest. “Yes. Barely.”
“It’s amazing, absolutely amazing!” Breck breathed. “I want to hear him say something else.”
“We may need to stimulate him with a light injection,” Chamberlain said. Breck’s nod gave permission.
An attendant produced a hypodermic, injected Caesar’s arm below the cuff of his gown, stood back. No one in the room spoke. A minute passed. Another.
With a restive groan of pain, the chimpanzee stirred. Shifted his head from side to side. Opened his eyes slowly and blinked once. Then he rolled his head over until his left cheek pressed the table. His eyes were blank, unreadable.
Breck watched with total fascination. “Ask him—” he thought a moment. “Ask if he’s capable of abstract reasoning.”
No one seemed quite certain about who was to pose the question. Inspector Kolp took the initiative, striding to tableside, crimping the chimpanzee’s jaw between thumb and fingers.
“You heard the governor,” he said.
Caesar’s blank expression changed to one of open defiance. Kolp applied more pressure.
“Answer Governor Breck!”
Savagely, Caesar wrenched free of Kolp’s grip. He moved his head to signify refusal. To Breck it seemed a movement of great strength.
Kolp reacted with a gesture toward the console. “Perhaps a little more persuasion, Mr. Governor—?”
“No,” Breck said, his tone almost mild. He’d checked a major threat to the smooth functioning of his city. He could savor victory.
Circling the table, Breck went on, “He can’t help what he is. Or how he reacts to us. You know, looking at him, it’s almost like looking at a deadly plague bacillus—knowing you’ve got it bottled up where it can’t harm anyone.” With a last, lingering glance that mingled loathing with a certain limited admiration, Jason Breck turned his back. Passing Kolp, he said, “You handle the rest.”
As Breck returned to the first row, Kolp retrieved his briefcase. He pulled a thick document.
“Dr. Chamberlain, as a representative of the agency, I have signed authority for the animal to be destroyed.”
Breck glanced at Caesar. The chimpanzee’s defiance changed to rage.
How had the ape withstood all the pain and come back to react as he was reacting now? Only the strongest, most basic emotions gave a man—or an animal—that sort of strength. Hatred was one such emotion.
“All in order,” Dr. Chamberlain said, refolding the document. “I’ll summon a vet with the proper injection—”
Kolp seemed annoyed. “He’s wired for electrocution, isn’t he?”
“Yes, of cour—”
“Then electrocute him.”
Dr. Chamberlain began, “We do not normally—” He hesitated, looked at Jason Breck.
Beginning to feel truly at ease for the first time in many weeks, the governor nodded.
“Do it now,” Kolp added.
The doctor sat down at the console. He tripped additional switches, rotated two more controls up to maximum. Then he moved the switch to the closed position.
For an instant there was no reaction from Caesar. Then—a howl of hurt. The howl was cut off as the chimpanzee’s jaw clenched shut. His eyes bulged. His back arched so steeply that the curve almost reached the limits of anatomical possibility.
Near the console, someone gagged. Dr. Chamberlain’s fingers began to flutter at his cheek. His lips moved. He seemed to be counting to himself, even while he watched the sweep dial of a timer, set in the console deck.
When the timer passed the ten-second mark, Dr. Chamberlain pulled the switch back.
Caesar hit the table with a thud. His head lolled to one side. An attendant rushed forward, bent down for a moment. Then he straightened.
“Dead.”
Now Jason Breck was all brisk movement, animation. He hurried to the amphitheater floor to thank Dr. Chamberlain, who looked vastly relieved. Breck also pumped Kolp’s pudgy hand.
“Inspector, once again I congratulate you.”
Kolp smiled. “I’m only sorry Mr. MacDonald wasn’t here for the finish.”
Breck managed a small laugh. “You are a cold bastard, Kolp. But then, that’s why you’re excellent at your job. And successful, eh? I’m afraid Mr. MacDonald’s sensibilities are more tender than yo— ah, but there he is.”
Dr. Chamberlain and the various attendants were departing from the amphitheatre. Still looking shaky, MacDonald had entered at the top of the tiers of seats. Breck mounted the steps quickly, Kolp right behind with the helmeted officers. MacDonald’s eyes drifted past Breck’s shoulder to the still form on the nearer table.
“I gather it’s all over?”
Breck could afford to be magnanimous. Sometimes the whip was required; sometimes the velvet glove. This was an occasion for the latter. After all, MacDonald too was superb at his job, even if he were less realistic than Inspector Kolp. The governor laid his arm over MacDonald’s shoulders, turned him toward the door, saying in a not unkindly way. “Yes, it’s all over. Let’s get back to work running the city, shall we?”
He shepherded MacDonald into the corridor.
&nb
sp; Not a little disgusted, Kolp walked after them. The last policeman filed out, leaving the amphitheater to emptiness and silence.
On the padded table, Caesar’s form remained unmoving.
14
The silence stretched on for thirty seconds, a minute… Then a floor-level door opened. A thin attendant reentered, grumbling aloud to show his dislike of the assignment he’d been handed. With obvious distaste, he approached the padded table.
He wiped his fingers on his trousers, then reached down to loosen the electrodes. When he had freed them from Caesar’s temples, he pulled the U-clamp from beneath the hairy head and dropped it to the floor, next to the ape’s green uniform. Moving around the table, the attendant unbuckled and released the straps one by one.
Finishing the last one, at Caesar’s right arm, he started to step back. Suddenly two hairy hands fastened on his throat.
The attendant shrieked but no sound came. Like some apparition, the chimpanzee rose from the waist, his eyes huge, murderous. The attendant clawed frantically at the constricting hands.
Still holding tight, the chimpanzee swung both legs off the table. He used the right one to kick the attendant’s genitals. The man’s body went limp. Breathing loudly, Caesar let go. As the man fell, Caesar’s fist pounded his belly. The attendant reeled, choking. Caesar struck him twice on the back of the neck. The attendant crumpled. Caesar hoisted him onto the table. The dazed man seemed unaware of Caesar slipping the U-clamp over his temples.
Caesar darted to the console, scrutinized it a moment. Then he threw the switch to the on position.
With a little frown of annoyance, he observed that there was no reaction from the semiconscious man. Mr. MacDonald had done his work well, permitting Caesar to feign the agonies of electrocution at the proper moment. But the current had not been restored.
Caesar returned to the table, spotting his green uniform discarded by the pedestal. They must have stripped it from him before clothing him in the hospital gown.
The attendant was struggling to rise on his elbows. He turned his head, saw Caesar watching—and opened his mouth to scream. Caesar delivered a massive blow to the man’s neck. The man reeled backward and sprawled unconscious on the polished floor.
Caesar snatched up his green trousers, pulled them on. He donned his jacket, buttoning it up the front with swift, sure movements. His body still ached from the torture on the table. In spite of that, he felt exhilarated as he studied the various doors by which he might leave the amphitheatre. There were two at floor level, plus the one at the top of the amphitheatre. He chose one at floor level. He must look as if he belonged in the Ape Management Center—as if he were on some sort of official errand—for the time it would take him to begin unleashing what was long overdue.
With an almost jaunty air, he started for the chosen door. There was confidence in his bearing; fierce, hateful pride in his eyes. The time of the masters was finished. The time of the slaves had come.
* * *
Approximately five minutes after Caesar’s departure, the opposite floor-level door opened. A white-coated man carrying a black case looked in, said cheerfully, “I’m supposed to certify—”
He saw the contorted body on the padded table; recognized the cruel marks of strangulation. His voice dropped to a whisper as he finished the sentence without thinking, “—a death.”
Then the full impact registered. He whirled in the doorway and screamed, “Security!”
* * *
Cautiously, Caesar pushed the service door open. Two floors above, a guard lay dead.
Caesar had encountered the guard on the stairway while hurrying down from the ninth to the third floor. Fortunately the guard was slightly built. Otherwise, when he rounded a landing and gaped at the green uniformed chimpanzee already leaping down on him, the outcome might have been different.
Weak though he was, Caesar was possessed of an almost maniacal determination. He hurled the guard to the landing under the force of his leap, twisted the truncheon from the man’s hand, bashed him three times across the curve of his forehead.
Bone cracked. The man’s brief yell faded instantly.
Caesar struck the man perhaps a dozen more times— long after he was dead. Then he flung the gory truncheon away and hurried on down the concrete stairwell.
He hoped no one had heard the guard’s outcry. Caesar wanted to do as much damage as possible in the time left to him—and he wanted to stretch that time to the maximum. There were only two possible outcomes. He would live and succeed. Or they would destroy him. He would permit no third choice.
Peering through the crack between the service door and the jamb, Caesar saw rows of cages flanking a hall. This should be G-West. He slipped into the hall, looked into the first cage. The penned gorillas reacted by rushing to the bars, grunting and squealing.
Caesar’s commanding gaze and one low bark quieted them. He repeated this at each cage he passed. But even his authority could not silence the gorillas completely. The right knee of Caesar’s green trousers showed a drying bloodstain; the guard’s blood. Perhaps the apes smelled the blood—and something more—for they massed restlessly at the bars of every cage as he raced along the corridor toward the reception area.
The reception area looked deserted except for a white-smocked figure seated at the console. A woman, judging from the hairdo.
The woman rose abruptly, her monitors showing activity in the gorilla cages. Then she heard Caesar coming. She whirled around. He recognized the lantern-jawed Miss Dyke.
She wasted no time slapping the console switch, bending to a mike. “This is training reception. We’ve got some kind of disturbance. An ape on the loo—”
With a vengeful growl, Caesar was on her from behind, slinging her aside as he leaped to the console and reversed a switch, silencing a voice demanding to know what the disturbance was.
Breathing heavily, Caesar threw Miss Dyke’s chair out of the way and began hitting push-buttons on her console. Cage doors along corridor G-West sprang open. Gorillas surged into the hallway, yipping, snarling. Caesar opened every cell on the floor.
Just as he touched the last one, he heard a familiar voice exclaim from O-East: “Miss Dyke, who opened the cage doors?”
Caesar turned, saw a bushy-haired young man racing toward the reception area only steps ahead of maddened gorillas. With dismay, Caesar stared at Morris—who in turn gaped at the bloodied chimpanzee crouching over the console.
“Morris, get out!” Caesar cried.
The young man turned white, realizing Caesar had spoken human language. Caesar did not have time for another warning. Apes pounced on Morris from behind, clawing and pummeling.
Gorillas and chimpanzees from the other corridors crowded into the reception area. Mercifully, Caesar could not see exactly what happened as Morris went down beneath a howling, biting, tearing pack of apes.
The regret in Caesar’s eyes did not linger long. He signaled a group of apes to follow him toward the elevators. At any moment he expected alarms to begin ringing. And much remained to be done.
He was sorry about Morris’s violent death. Morris was one of the few kind ones. He glanced back, saw the apes hurl the broken body against the wall like a toy. The casualties of war, he thought, and darted inside an elevator with his simian comrades. He thumbed the control to start the car down to the communications center.
* * *
On the small paved quadrangle devoted to Night Watch Training, the handler and the trainer were having difficulty with a quartet of male orangutans.
Prodding and sharp commands did little to stir the animals to cooperation. The trainer couldn’t get even one to leave the huddled group and begin the lesson. Under the floodlights, the trainer’s face was strained.
“What the hell’s wrong with them tonight?”
Before the handler could answer, headlights swept across the face of the training building. Three limousines were departing toward the city via one of the service roads.
With an uneasy look at the orangutans, the trainer muttered, “You’d almost think they know—”
He started to loop his silver whistle over the head of the nearest orangutan. The ape knocked the whistle from the trainer’s hand and glared.
* * *
The elevator door opened. Caesar and his apes rushed into the reception area, some leaping to overcome the startled guards on duty at the fingerprinting barrier, others following Caesar toward the door that led to the communications center beyond.
A guard at the barrier went down under the ape onslaught. One of the operators on duty beyond the glass saw the sudden carnage and leaped to trigger a locking mechanism that bolted the door from inside.
Frustrated, Caesar let go of the handle and glanced around. He signaled two of the apes. They helped him pick up the fingerprinting table, hurl it against the glass. Inside the communications center, a woman screamed and fainted as Caesar clambered through the sawtoothed opening.
Other apes followed, blood-maddened and less careful about the glass. They landed on the floor with slashed feet, their anger that much greater. They fell on the hysterical men and women manning the center, snarling, battering them down…
Caesar scanned the banks of lighted equipment. He freed one man from the grip of two chimpanzees, twisted the front of the man’s smock.
“Can you open all the cages from down here?”
The man’s mouth went slack. “Good God! a talking—”
“I said can you open all the cages from down here?”
“Only—only about half of them,” the helpless man gasped.
“Then do it—or you’re dead.”
He released the man, gestured for the gibbering apes to stand back. The man reeled to one of the equipment boards and began throwing switches. Behind him, Caesar’s mouth curled up at the corners. He waved the eager apes forward.
The man swung around, realizing the betrayal. “You—!” The single syllable of accusation became a scream as a mass of hairy bodies swarmed on top of him. The grunts and exclamations of the apes soon muffled his screams.