by John Jakes
“Alma, you know what this is, don’t you?”
She nodded. Slowly.
“Tell me.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Say it!”
“Nooo!” she moaned.
He slapped her. Hard.
“It’s the Alpha-Omega bomb. It can destroy not only the apes’ city but the entire Earth.” Suddenly, she was babbling. Almost hysterically. “Activate it and we become nothing. Leave it and its very presence will insure that at least we remain something—and may become something better.” She repeated everything she had ever heard about the device. “Mankind must never, never detonate the bomb. Never!”
“Alma,” Méndez stopped her. He held her by the shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. “You are not mad. Do you understand me? You are not mad.”
“Not mad,” she repeated.
Méndez realized then that they were not alone. A small crowd of curious men and women had entered the silo.
He turned to them. “Listen to me. We have been reborn today. This missile, this device, is a symbol of our rebirth. We must venerate it as a responsibility, a responsibility that our ancestors entrusted us with. We were given that responsibility because we are human. Because we are human, we are beautiful, we are good.”
“We are beautiful,” the crowd echoed. “We are good.”
Has face was scarred, his skin ravaged by radiation, but his eyes glowed with a holy mission. Méndez raised his hands and proclaimed, “We are men! We are human!”
And again the crowd echoed him.
Only Alma was silent. Her gaze kept straying back to the bomb. But whatever she was thinking about remained unspoken.
10
Ape City was a shambles. Trees were scorched and toppled, some still burning. The sky was clouded by black smoke from the fires. And there were too many bodies. The chimpanzees were beginning to clear them up. But there were too many bodies. Caesar’s chest ached at the sight of it.
He strode slowly up the long street, Virgil beside him. He was heading for the horse corrals. As he came into sight, the humans there began to rouse. They recognized him and began to cheer and call his name.
At the sound, other apes, chimpanzees and orangutans especially, began to come out of their tree houses or look up from their work. They began to cheer Caesar, too.
Caesar didn’t acknowledge their accolade. He didn’t wave, didn’t smile, just kept walking toward the corral. His face was grim. His body ached, and his arms and legs were sore. He was tired and numb and still shocked at the carnage he had participated in, even encouraged. He had thought—no, prayed—that he had fought his last battle nine years before.
Behind him, the cheering grew louder. He ignored it until he heard the sound of galloping hooves thundering up at his back. The gorilla cavalry was returning.
Caesar didn’t bother to look around. He hurt all over. He didn’t want to hurt any more. He walked the last few steps to the corral and stopped. The humans inside looked at him expectantly. He started to move, then realized he just didn’t have the strength. “Virgil,” he said. “Open the corral. Let them go. Let them all go.” And then he turned to look at the approaching gorillas.
Virgil started to undo the bolt, but General Aldo came pounding up on his horse, shouting. He jerked the animal viciously to a halt, spraying Caesar and Virgil with dirt and rocks; the animal reared once and whinnied in protest, but the gorilla ignored it. He dismounted angrily. “No!” he growled at Caesar and Virgil. He pointed at the humans. “They stay in corral!”
The two apes looked at him.
Aldo thumped his chest. “Aldo will say what to do now!”
Caesar shook his head. “These people did nothing. They can go free.”
Aldo sneered. He looked Caesar over as if he were no longer worth arguing with. “I am General Aldo,” he said calmly. “I give orders.” His expression changed slowly. “You like humans? You want them not in corral? Okay, good—I fix.” He turned to his gorillas, his elite troops who had ridden with him across the desert. They were covered with dust and blood, laughing in their murderous glory. “Kill them!” barked General Aldo. “Kill them all! Kill the humans!”
The gorillas raised their guns to fire into the corral. The humans, terrified, backed away, cringing, some of them moaning with fear.
Caesar stiffened in outrage. Then he seemed to grow in stature. The gorillas stared at him, waiting to see what he would do. Despite his wounds, his numbness, and his shock, he managed to stand tall. He hobbled over to stand in front of the gate, between the humans and the gorillas’ guns. Something about his manner made the two gorillas guarding the gate edge away; they moved to stand with their fellows.
Caesar spoke slowly, and when he did, his voice betrayed his exhaustion. But his words were firm. “There will be no more killing, Aldo. Put down your guns. Take them back to the armory. The war is over.”
Aldo’s anger rose. How dare Caesar speak to General Aldo this way? But he controlled himself. Even his most loyal gorillas were startled by this sudden face-to-face confrontation and might hesitate to shoot Caesar. But Caesar was only a puny little chimp, hardly bigger than Cornelius. Aldo was stronger. Aldo would win. He was general of all the gorillas, and he was in charge now. His chest swelled as he declared, “No! We keep guns now. Move! Or we kill you!”
Caesar shook his head. Beside him stood Virgil. And now Lisa. And Doctor. The four faced the gorillas. A crowd of chimps and orangutans watched, shocked and horrified.
Virgil spoke for Caesar. “Ape shall never kill ape.” It didn’t really need to be said, but the next part did: “… let alone an ape child!”
Aldo’s eyes narrowed. He sneered. He raised his, hand as if to give the order to fire, but behind him the faces of his gorillas showed that the meaning was beginning to sink in. Ape shall never kill ape! Holy words! Yet here they were with their guns pointed at Caesar and Virgil and Lisa!
And Cornelius! Their faces betrayed their realization! Aldo had killed Cornelius!
The rifles wavered.
The gorillas frowned in confusion, puzzling over this terrifying new thought. Apes were better than humans because apes didn’t kill. Apes never killed apes! But Aldo…
They looked at their leader, aghast.
One of them stepped out of the line. He pointed and gestured inarticulately. “Aldo… Aldo…” But he couldn’t, just couldn’t bring himself to utter the deadly words, the ultimate accusation. The thought kept catching in his throat. Behind, him, other gorillas began muttering, began pointing and whispering and grunting nervously. “Aldo… Aldo… Aldo…”
Aldo whirled to stare at his troops. “Get back in line!” he shouted. “Back in line!” But his self-confidence was faltering. They ignored him, and he became flustered. He looked from side to side, as if seeking aid—or an exit.
“Aldo has killed an ape child,” Virgil declared loudly. “The branch did not crack. It was cut by Aldo’s sword!”
Around them the apes gasped. Chimpanzees wept. Orangutans barked in angry reaction. All recoiled as if struck.
Aldo snarled at the accusation and the accuser. His expression froze into a hateful glare. His lips curled back in fury. His posture became more savage, more brutal. Deep in his throat he began making a deadly sound. Aldo had become an animal, a total animal. All pretensions of intelligence had fled in his murderous urge to survive and conquer and kill.
All around him, the apes were pointing. Pointing and staring and muttering among themselves. There was no escape.
In the corral the humans were silent and wide eyed. Except for MacDonald, who murmured softly, “Welcome to the human race…”
The words touched Caesar’s ears, and he straightened. Yes. Welcome to the human race. Welcome to killing and hatred and war. Welcome.
Around him the muttering and whispering was dying out. All were waiting for him to act. He shook off Lisa’s attempt to hold him back and took a step toward Aldo. “You… murdere
d… my… son!”
Aldo’s eyes were wary. He was an animal at bay. He began to edge backward, away from Caesar. Caesar kept moving forward. He was unarmed but he didn’t need a weapon, not now. Weapons were for the weak in spirit.
Aldo drew his sword, the same short sword he had used to chop away Cornelius’ branch. He swung the sword around and pointed it at Caesar.
Caesar didn’t pause. He kept moving toward Aldo.
Aldo kept backing away until he could back no more. He held the sword out in front of him.
Watching, Lisa moaned in fear. Behind her, two of the humans, Jake and MacDonald, were wrenching loose a length of chain that had been entwined in the corral fence. MacDonald wrapped it in a ball. “Caesar!” He threw the chain.
Caesar saw it coming. He sidestepped it as it hurtled past, then scooped it up from the ground. He turned back to Aldo. He started swinging the chain to knock Aldo’s sword from his hand.
But at the sight of the heavy metal links, Aldo panicked. He remembered too well the chains that the humans had put on him so many years before. Now they wanted to chain him again! He broke and ran, pushing his way through his gorillas. He ran for the trees.
Caesar broke into a run, too. The apes cleared a path for him to pass, then flowed after him.
Aldo picked a tree and was up it. Seconds later, Caesar followed. Aldo was up there, terrified now, crashing his way through the heavy branches. Caesar paused and listened. Yes, there he was. He scrambled after.
Aldo stopped near the top; the branches bent under his weight. He cast around nervously for an escape. Caesar was coming! The branches creaked precariously, announcing his position.
Caesar’s face appeared suddenly below, him, then his hand—the chain was wrapped around it. No! Not the chain! He shifted his position so that he could swing his sword.
Caesar peered upward. The sunlight was glaring, turning the treetop into a weird jumble of shapes and flashes. He squinted, trying to make out Aldo’s form in the glare. Trying to…
Wfffftt—thunk! Aldo’s sword bit into a branch only inches from Caesar’s hand.
Without thinking, Caesar swung upward with his length of chain. Aldo leaped to avoid it, but it struck him on the leg. He jumped, but the branch supporting him cracked and gave way.
The crowd below screamed.
But Aldo had managed to grasp a limb of another tree. For a moment he hung there precariously swinging back and forth. Then he swung himself up and moved rapidly across the treetop, leaping across to a third tree.
Caesar followed. Inexorably.
The two apes moved from tree to tree, Aldo fleeing, Caesar pursuing. They moved without words, just an occasional grunt as the air was forced from their lungs by the impact of grabbing or landing on a branch.
They were getting to the end of the grove now. Aldo stopped and turned, jabbing with his sword as Caesar came climbing. He struck and caught Caesar on his side! Then Aldo leaped free as Caesar swung his chain.
Caesar ignored the pain. All he could think of was Aldo—and Cornelius! He kept following. Aldo had moved into the last tree of the grove.
This tree was comparatively isolated. Caesar made his way along the branch of the nearest adjoining tree, trying to figure how he could best make his attack. The branch he was on was a thin one, it began to crack and break, making Caesar’s decision for him. As it fell away, he made a great leap and an arm-wrenching grab.
He was clutching a branch of Aldo’s tree, heaving himself into it, moving in after Aldo. There was no other tree for either of them to move to. Caesar began closing in on Aldo. Aldo clutched his sword and waited.
Caesar paused, listening for the gorilla’s heavy breathing, then moved in. Aldo began swinging his sword, slicing the air, reaching and slashing, trying to kill, to maim, or even to halt the inexorable advance of the murderous Caesar. He was backing along a thick, wide branch, always keeping Caesar at arm’s length— but only with great effort. His sword was getting too heavy. He wished he could drop it, wished he could be free of it. But no, he was a gorilla! The sword made him strong! He kept jabbing and poking and slashing.
Caesar countered with his chain, swinging it through the air, trying to knock the sword from Aldo’s hand, trying to knock Aldo from the branch. He swung again and again.
Aldo backed away. He had reached the end of his branch now—he could go no farther. He raised his sword as if to throw it.
Caesar paused and surveyed the situation, cocking his head and frowning.
The branch creaked and bent. Aldo tensed.
Caesar moved. He brought his chain around.
Aldo struck. He slashed viciously forward, slicing a wicked gash across Caesar’s chest. Caesar toppled backward, grabbing another limb close to the main trunk. But even as he fell, he swung his chain. It wrapped itself around Aldo’s head.
Aldo fell.
The fall seemed to take forever, the body crashing downward through the branches, each impact brutal and graphic, the last one, the most awful of all Aldo hit the ground with a thump. He lay motionless, his eyes still furious and staring.
Caesar began to climb down. He dropped slowly from branch to branch, the blood leaking from his chest and side. He fell the last twenty feet, landing on top of Aldo’s broad body.
Almost immediately Lisa and Virgil were at Caesar’s side, trying to help him up. He shook them off. He rose to his hands and knees by himself and found himself staring into the sightless eyes of his enemy. At the sight of Aldo’s face a wave of nausea and exhaustion swept over him. He allowed himself to accept Virgil’s help and stood unsteadily, supporting himself on the shoulder of the paunchy little orangutan.
“Virgil,” he murmured. “You are the philosopher. Tell me—should one murder be avenged by another?” He looked down at Aldo. “I am no better than he. I have killed too.”
And then he collapsed.
He slipped to the ground in exhaustion, Virgil trying to hold him up, but failing. Doctor and Lisa came rushing in to attend him. “Get some water,” Doctor said. “And some bandages and a splint.”
“He’ll be all right?” Fear edged Lisa’s voice. She had lost too much already.
“Yes, I think so,” said Doctor.
But Virgil murmured, “No, none of us will ever be all right. Never again.”
11
But Virgil was wrong.
When Caesar went to break the lock on the horse corral and free the humans, an odd thing happened.
They didn’t leave.
They didn’t pour out in an eager stream; they didn’t thank him or acclaim him. They just stared and waited.
Caesar frowned, puzzled. He didn’t understand.
“You can come out now,” he said. “You are free.”
MacDonald stepped slowly forward at that. “Free?” he asked. “Free to do what apes tell us to?”
Caesar blinked, confused.
“If you really mean to set us free,” said MacDonald. “Then free us completely.”
“But… but… we have always treated you fairly. Much better than you ever treated us.”
“That was the past, Caesar. That was another time and another people. Two wrongs don’t make a right. One slavery does not avenge another any more than one murder avenges another.” Caesar flinched at that.
Caesar turned to Virgil and Lisa and the other apes behind him. Looking for support. But their faces were as confused as his. He turned back to MacDonald and said slowly, “The human way has always been one of violence and death. Humans came across the desert to kill us.”
“And who slaughtered them from horseback?” retorted MacDonald. “Who chased them across the desert till there were no survivors?”
“That was Aldo and his gorillas!” snapped Caesar.
“And who slaughtered Aldo?” asked Virgil from behind. His tone was quiet but firm.
Caesar whirled, momentarily startled, then seeing the little orangutan, his face softened. “Virgil, you are a wise and good ape.
But…” He raised his hands helplessly. “What can I do?”
MacDonald answered his question for him. “Trust us.”
Caesar looked at him. “Trust you?”
“We want to have honor, too. We want to live with respect. We will live as your equals, Caesar, or life will not be worth living at all.”
“There is everything to gain…” murmured Virgil.
“…and nothing left to lose,” finished MacDonald. “Remember… the last war?”
Caesar’s body ached from his wounds; but his head hurt even more with the weight of the decision he had to make. “Trust you?” he asked MacDonald. “Trust you?”
“You have no choice,” insisted Virgil. “We need their help, their hands, and their hearts to rebuild Ape City. We have to trust them. All apes have to.”
“No,” said Caesar. “Not Ape City, not any more. Now it has to be Our City. All of ours. If we accept their help, then we must accept them as well. All of them. It will not be easy, but let us start here.” He turned to MacDonald. And held out his hand.
MacDonald grinned. He stepped forward and took it.
And then the humans did stream out of the corral, cheering and shouting. And crying too. But the tears were tears of joy.
* * *
As the last gun was cleaned and oiled and put away, Mandemus came to Caesar.
“Caesar, I must ask a favor. This armory has been my home for many, many years.”
Caesar misunderstood. He put his hand on Mandemus’ shoulder. “You may live in it until the end of your days, old fellow. You have earned it.”
“No, no!” insisted the wizened orangutan. “I don’t want to live in it! I want to be free! Now that the danger is over, I want to see this accursed storehouse and everything in it destroyed! Blown up!”
“So do I,” said Caesar. “But we mustn’t. We can’t. The greatest danger of all is that the danger is never over. Mandemus, you must stay here and continue to be our conscience. If we are to be free, we must be responsible. Help us be responsible.”