by John Jakes
Abruptly the door stuck. It would open no farther. Well, that would just have to do. Caesar squeezed halfway through and looked. There was an exit light very far ahead, a long way off down the tunnel. Yes, this was a way out!
He pulled back and yelled up to Virgil and. MacDonald, “I’ve found it! Come on!”
MacDonald lurched to his feet, Virgil helping him. The two came running down the corridor. They squeezed painfully through the door, first Caesar, then MacDonald—the apes helping him—then Virgil, following. “Hurry!” he yelped. “Hurry!” There were mutants racing toward him from both ends of the tunnel. Somewhere a voice, a strangely reverberating voice, was yelling, “Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!”
Virgil jumped through after MacDonald, he was the smallest of the three, and together they ran toward the distant exit light. MacDonald moved slowest because of his wound; the two apes were almost dragging him. Behind them they could hear the sound of running boots.
There was a junction of corridors up ahead. “Wait!” cried Caesar, skidding to a stop. He sniffed the air, paused to listen. Virgil, too.
The orangutan pointed down one of the side corridors, “They’re coming from down there!”
“No!” said MacDonald, pointing down the other. “From there!”
“You’re both right!” snapped Caesar. “From everywhere!” Behind them, more mutants were pouring into the corridor.
“Ahead!” cried the chimp, and they ran on. They came to the light Caesar had seen; it marked a T-shaped junction. They dashed to the left, then turned the first corner to the right.
Suddenly, they were running straight into a pack of mutants, who were charging down on them. Virgil started firing his tommy gun first, then Caesar. Even MacDonald managed to get off a few quick bursts, the pain in his side was excruciating.
The mutants screamed and tried to retreat, but those in back kept coming. They bunched up in the corridor. And died as the bullets splattered into them.
They screamed. They tried to run. They scrabbled at the walls. They fought to get away from the apes’ blasting weapons. They clambered over one another. And died.
The survivors broke and ran.
The two apes and the man came charging after them, still firing. The grotesque figures ducked into side corridors and disappeared, vanished down junctions or into holes in the walls—anything to escape the savagery following them, hacking at their backs.
“There’s the exit!” gasped MacDonald. “Up ahead. Keep going.”
The end of the tunnel was lit by a stronger and brighter light. It streamed down into the gloomy darkness like a yellow beacon. They headed eagerly for it. Faster and faster. There were mutants pounding at their backs.
And then they were out. In the ruins. Running down a deserted city street. Disappearing into the melted buildings.
* * *
Kolp was livid. His expression was twisted with anger and frustration. He confronted the captain of Security. He raged at him. He bellowed like a wounded bull. He strode and waddled around the man and berated him. He vented his fury on the poor hapless captain, as if he were one of the apes himself.
“You had a hundred armed men!” cried Kolp. “You know these corridors down to the last nut and bolt. Yet they escaped! They escaped! You cretinous troglodyte! You filthy, slime-wallowing, trash-eating son of a worm! You let them escape!”
The captain of Security was as badly scarred as the rest of the men. He looked at Kolp and the rest of the council nervously. “They were fast, sir. And smart—the chimp surprised us, Governor. He found another exit.”
“But he’s only an animal!” shouted Kolp. “Nothing but an animal!”
“No, Governor,” said Méndez. “He’s more than an animal. He can speak. So can they all.”
Kolp was scornful, “Hah! It takes more than the ability of speech to make a creature human!” He scowled, his scarred cheeks creased with pain.
“Speech makes them intelligent,” insisted Méndez. “It gives them the power to manipulate ideas. Intelligence may not make them human, but it might make them humane. Perhaps they came in peace.”
“They were armed!”
“Maybe only for their self-protection.”
“You were looking at the same monitors I was, Méndez,” snapped Kolp. “Did that look like self-protection to you?”
“Yes, it did. They only fired back after they were fired on.”
“You’re soft on apes, Méndez,” Kolp snarled. “And stupid! They shot out one of our cameras. That’s an act of war! And you saw how they hunted down our men and shot them in the back! Those apes are savages!”
“I still say we ought to let them return in peace.”
“So they can raid us again? And again?” And then Kolp stopped. “Return?” he asked. “To where?”
“To wherever they came from. They must have a settlement somewhere.”
“Yes,” agreed the governor, stroking his uneven beard. “Yes… They must have a place somewhere—but where? Where do they live? We ought to know,” he muttered to himself. “They might try to come back. Now that they know we’re still alive, they might try to exterminate the rest of us.”
“They came with few provisions,” chimed Alma. “They can’t live too far away.”
“Which way did they head?” Kolp asked.
The captain of Security was relieved that Kolp was no longer raging at him. “They headed northwest, Governor,” he said quickly.
“Ahh, yes. Good. Organize scout parties. Collect all the equipment that will still work. Follow them. Find their hideout.”
“Yes, sir. Right away, sir!” The captain saluted and wheeling about on one heel, hurried out.
Méndez looked at Kolp. “Why?” he asked.
Kolp grinned at him. “So that we can exterminate them.” He rubbed his hands together and giggled. “Won’t that be fun?”
5
Aldo stood on the ridge and peered out into the desert. Somewhere out there lay the Forbidden City. Someday, someday… He sniffed the air and curled his lip. Someday he would lead an army out there!
Behind him, the other gorillas sat at a small, almost burned-out fire, muttering and grunting, picking their fleas and cracking them.
Abruptly, Aldo stiffened. “Quiet,” he barked to his troops.
Eyes narrowing, he looked out into the desert. Was there something out there? Other gorillas moved up to look, too. They sniffed at the wind.
Far out, almost lost in the sparsely vegetated terrain, were three figures, too distant to be identified. His hackles rose, and he growled deep in his throat. Were they men or apes? “Look… there!” he pointed. The other gorillas looked, then reacted. They snorted, they snuffled, they flared their nostrils and fidgeted; they bounced up and down, they grunted, they made noises. They squinted and sniffed and became excited. They stamped their feet and pounded the ground.
“Quiet!” snapped Aldo again. His eyes narrowed to slits. The short, fat one must be an orangutan; yes, he could tell by the way the paunchy little thing waddled. The one on the other side, the one who was limping, was definitely a man. Aldo sneered. The third figure was walking like an ape. Too skinny to be a gorilla. Must be a chimp. Hmf. What were they doing out in the desert, anyway? The desert and the city were forbidden.
Aldo growled orders to his troops. They backed down off the ridge, out of sight.
As Caesar, Virgil, and MacDonald came climbing up the hill, the gorillas came charging down the slope and flung themselves on the trio.
“Hey, what…?” cried Virgil, as he disappeared under the thundering black bodies. They went tumbling down over the rocks.
There was the flash of a drawn sword.
Caesar was yelling, “Stop… it’s us… it’s Caesar!”
“Caesar?” Aldo frowned. “Stop,” he called. “Stop.” He said it without urgency, only curiosity. “Caesar?” The scuffling muttered off into embarrassed silence. The two apes and the man stood up, brushing off the dirt.
“That’s some welcome,” said MacDonald wryly. “We should have stayed in the city. Definitely.”
“I imagine Aldo was hoping we’d stay there indefinitely,” remarked Virgil.
Aldo came down the slope toward them. “Why were you there? To visit the city is forbidden.” His manner was grim.
Caesar was just as cold. “I know. I forbade it.”
“Then why…?” Aldo frowned in puzzlement. This did not make sense to him.
“Aldo,” said Virgil. “If a king forbids his subjects to wear a crown, that doesn’t mean he can’t wear one himself. Caesar is Caesar. He went to the city for a purpose.”
“What purpose?” Aldo was suspicious.
“I went looking for my past, but I found our future.”
“Huh? Explain.” The big gorilla was aggressively insistent.
Caesar snarled irritably. “You wouldn’t understand.” He started to shove past Aldo.
But Aldo stopped him. He raised his sword and pointed it directly at Caesar’s heart. “Aldo will make the future—with this.”
“No,” Caesar shook his head. “With that, Aldo will find himself in the past.”
MacDonald smothered a smile, but Virgil laughed out loud. The trio moved up the hill and on toward Ape City.
The gorillas snorted in contempt and moved back toward their outpost. Not a single one noticed the three mutant scouts who had been tracking Caesar all the way from the city. The mutants began moving away from the outpost, circling it widely to move toward Ape City.
* * *
The Ape Council meeting was divided into three sections. There were ten representatives of each species. The orangutans were older and more staid; Virgil was the youngest member. The gorillas were all brutish young males; Aldo was chief among them. The chimpanzees included both males and females; they all had kindly faces.
Caesar, Lisa, and Cornelius entered and took their seats on a dais before a table on which were stacked the apes’ laws, a set of hand-lettered parchments. Caesar was deep in thought. He hugged Cornelius fondly and bade him keep quiet, then he called the meeting to order. He rapped the table for silence. “My friends, I have convened this extraordinary meeting of the council in order that I might report on an action that I deemed necessary: a reconnaissance expedition to the Forbidden City…”
At that, all the apes, reacted visibly. Lisa was startled and concerned. The gorillas became restless and fidgety, rattling their swords. The orangutans were outraged, and the chimpanzees were confused. The Forbidden City?
“…with Virgil and MacDonald as my aides,” Caesar finished.
“Why MacDonald?” complained Aldo. “Why not a soldier?”
“You will hear,” said Caesar. Cornelius crawled under the table and stayed there. “When ape history comes to be written, we want it based not on legendary fiction but on facts. We went in search of records that might provide such facts.”
“Did you find them?” asked a chimpanzee.
“Yes,” said Caesar.
“And brought them back?” said an eager orangutan hopefully.
“No,” said Caesar.
“Why not?”
“Because we went in peace to what, we thought, was a dead city; but in case there might still be human survivors, we took MacDonald to parley with them and secure permission for our search.” He paused. “There are survivors.”
The Council murmured. “Survivors?” they echoed.
“Maimed, mutated, mad, hostile, and… human.”
The murmur became a shocked roar.
“They attacked us,” said Caesar.
At that, the gorillas leaped to their feet. “Then let me lead my soldiers against them!” growled Aldo.
Caesar looked at him firmly, “General Aldo, not only are they armed, for they attacked us with sophisticated weapons…”
“We, too, have weapons.”
“…but the radiation in the city is still such that if you and your soldiers fought there for just a few hours, you would become maimed, mutated, and as mad as they. So also would your future children.”
The Council was shocked into silence. Then Aldo said sullenly, “Did the humans follow you here?”
“We saw no sign of it. But you are right to be concerned. We have to plan for a time when they may come out of the city, when they may find us.”
Now the chimpanzees and orangutans rose to their feet: what was Caesar saying?
“Our gorilla army will exercise constant vigilance through continuous patrols. Civilians will assist in building defenses. And we should discuss training a militia.”
Lisa gathered Cornelius up in her arms. “Caesar, is this necessary? Isn’t it possible that the humans will stay in their city and leave us in peace?”
Caesar said gently, “Yes, it’s possible. But if we wish for the peace to last, we must be prepared to fight for it.”
Lisa turned desperately to Virgil, “Virgil…?”
The pudgy little orangutan said calmly, “If light is possible, so is darkness. If peace if possible, so is war.”
Caesar added, “This has not been an easy decision to make, but it is a necessary one. If we are to build a world of peace, we must survive. And if we are to survive, we must be strong.” As this, the gorillas cheered.
Abruptly, there was a scuffle at the door, a flurry of sudden noise as a group of humans tried to enter. Two gorilla guards had grabbed them and were forcibly trying to evict them. The group included MacDonald, Teacher, Doctor, Jake, and a few others. MacDonald was resisting loudly, “Get your filthy gorilla hands off of me!”
“No humans in council,” the gorilla was insisting.
“Stop that!” cried Caesar. “Release them!”
“Huh?” grunted Aldo and the other gorillas. They were standing, ready for a fight. Aldo turned angrily to Caesar; he stalked up to the front of the room to Caesar’s chair. He towered over him. “No humans in council!” he roared.
Caesar remained seated. He spoke calmly, “They are here because I sent for them. Now that we know of the danger in the city, we need their help, their counsel.”
“No,” insisted Aldo. “No! No!”
The other gorillas also began roaring and pounding their tables. “No! No! No!” They began to chant: “No! No! No! No! No!”
Cornelius, intimidated by the gorillas, moved closer to his father. Caesar slipped his arms around the little chimp and stood up. He waited for the uproar to cease. After a moment the gorillas trailed off in their chanting. They weren’t intelligent enough to be embarrassed, just uncomfortable. Caesar said calmly, “I say yes.”
The chimpanzees and orangutans, confused by the rapid pace of events, nodded their heads in agreement with Caesar; he seemed to know what he was doing. “Yes,” they echoed. “Yes. Let the humans in council.”
Cornelius relaxed, realizing that his father had won the point. Aldo realized it too; he was furious as he looked around the room and sensed the support for Caesar’s position rather than his. He growled angrily as he realized that he had lost. He turned to the other gorillas, “Come! We shall not sit with humans. No!”
He strode from the room, and the other gorillas followed. At the door they shoved the humans roughly out of their way. They stamped loudly out of the room.
Caesar walked over to the humans. He clapped his arm around MacDonald’s shoulder and led him, Teacher, Doctor, Jake, and the others over to the empty gorilla seats. He gestured them to sit down.
“Now,” said Caesar, “let us reason together and make plans.”
* * *
Méndez was saying to Kolp, “Governor, somewhere along the line, this bloody chain reaction of violence has got to stop. A destroys B; B destroys C; C destroys A and is destroyed by D, who destroys E—and before anyone knows where they are, there’ll be nobody left anywhere to know anything. Only nuclear dust, like those apes from the future predicted. The Earth will be a dead star.”
Kolp’s eyes blazed. “The star of our city is not d
ead. We shall live to see it rise again.”
Méndez muttered, “At whose expense this time?”
As if in answer, Alma ushered in the travel-stained captain of Security, who had come directly to Kolp’s office. He saluted sharply-and said, “We found it, sir.” He began to unfold a map. “The site of Ape City.”
Méndez looked unhappy. Kolp seemed to grow. “Where?” he asked eagerly. “Where is it?”
The captain laid the map on a table. He began pointing. “There’s a gorilla outpost here. Below that is a valley; it’s planted with orchards and vineyards. There are orange groves and banana palms here. Enough to feed thousands.” He tapped the map, “Their city is here.”
“You saw it?”
“Yes, sir, we did.”
“Did they see you?”
The captain shook his head. “No, sir. They were too busy. They seemed to be holding some kind of a council. Probably a council of war. I’ll bet that Caesar was reporting to them on his reconnaissance. One day soon they’ll be coming for us.”
“No,” snapped Kolp. “We’re going for them. Now.”
Méndez groaned.
“Go and alert your men. You know your orders.”
“Yes, sir.” The captain saluted and left.
Kolp beckoned to Alma.
“Yes, Mr. Kolp?” Her eyes were bright.
“Come with me. Méndez, you stay here and oversee the preparations.” He led Alma out of the room. “I want to give you some special instructions.”
“Yes, sir. Special instructions. Oh! Yes, sir!” She practically bounced along to keep up with him.
Kolp was in a state of fanatical euphoria. He half-strode, half-waddled, Alma beside him, through huge piles of supplies and scavenged materials from the ruined city. There were piles of rusty tin cans, pieces of ancient automobiles, old tires, bottles, stone columns, street and highway signs, street lights, and other useful and useless debris. The area was some kind of blasted tunnel, perhaps an old subway station. Now it was a warehouse, with mutants moving in frenzied preparation for the attack. They were pulling supplies from piles and loading dilapidated old trucks. There was a dusty school bus and a rickety-looking Cadillac. There were motorcycles and jeeps and even an armored troop carrier.