by John Jakes
“What other way would they be?” she asked.
Davidson snorted. “They’d be begging me for a treat.”
This confused Daena even further. She shook her head slightly, as if something had gotten stuck in her ear. Finally she spoke.
“What tribe do you come from?”
Davidson’s jaw tightened. “It’s called the United States Air Force. And I’m going back to it.”
The stairs leading down from the dining patio abruptly creaked as somebody heavy approached. A moment later Krull entered the kitchen. He regarded his two unwelcome new charges with disapproval.
“Finish your work. And no talking.”
He glared at them a moment, but then a crescendo of noise from the stairwell reminded him of his primary duties. Several trays of food were arranged on the top of a preparation table. He picked one up, turned, and hurried out.
Davidson waited until the big gorilla was gone, then picked up a tray, went to the door, and peeked up the stairway.
By the time Krull returned to the dining patio, Sandar had everybody seated around the long table. Ari and Leeta were placed across from each other. Senator Nado and his new wife were next to Leeta. The space next to Ari remained empty.
As Krull moved up to the table and began to serve, as he overheard Nado say, “We just returned from our country house in the rain forest.”
Sandar replied politely, “And how was it?”
Nova leaned toward the two older men, her eyes sparkling. “Boring!”
Sandar and Nado exchanged glances over her head. “I find it relaxing,” Nado protested. “Being away from the frantic pace of the city.”
It was obvious Nova disagreed. “I wanted to go out. But there was no place to go. Nothing but trees and rocks.” She glanced at her husband accusingly. “All you did was nap.”
Krull worked his way around the table, offering each guest something from the platter.
“Exactly,” Nado replied. “A bit of time away from politics is what is needed for a weary soul like me.”
Nado reached up to Krull’s tray, took a bite, nodded his thanks. Sandar examined Krull’s tray carefully before selecting a particularly appetizing piece of fruit.
Ari leaned closer to Leeta and whispered, “Look at the old fool. He left his wife and children for her. Now he can’t keep up.”
Leeta had her own priorities. “But he’s worth a fortune,” she protested.
Nado touched Sandar’s hand, a gentle, friendly gesture. “We used to lose ourselves for days in the forest when we were young. Now I can barely climb a tree.”
Sandar chewed, swallowed, and nodded agreement. “It’s trite, but true. Youth is wasted on the young. Now that I have so much to do… I’m exhausted. Still, some nights I dream of hurtling through the branches…” He sighed heavily. “How did I get so old so fast?”
A voice from the shadows of the garden answered him. “Living with your daughter would age any ape quickly.”
Startled, everybody turned just in time to see General Thade, trailed by the hulking Attar, enter the dining patio. As Thade stalked toward the table, Ari jabbed her friend in the ribs and hissed, “Quick! Switch seats!”
Leeta shook her head. “No, he’s here to see you.”
Thade waited for Krull to pull out his chair, but the old gorilla didn’t move. Attar saw this, and moved quickly to take the back of the chair next to Ari and pull it out for his commander. Thade grunted at him and sat down without much grace. Attar sat down next to him.
And though Sandar’s daughter did not seem as pleased as she might have been with the new arrivals, her father was a picture of hospitality.
“You are too long a stranger in our house,” Sandar said.
Thade nodded brusquely. “My apologies, Senator. I stopped to see my father.”
“How is my old friend doing?”
General Thade shook his head and sighed.
“I’m afraid he’s slipping. I wish I could spend more time with him. But duty keeps me away. These are troubled times. Humans infest the provinces.”
Ari wasn’t about to let that pass. Her eyes flashed as she replied, “Because our cities encroach on their habitat.”
Thade spoke with both condescension and distaste. “They breed quickly, while we grow soft with our affluence. Even now they outnumber us ten to one.”
Nova broke in. “Why can’t the government simply sterilize them all?”
Nado answered her. “The cost would be prohibitive. Although our scientists do tell me the humans carry terrible diseases.”
“How would we know?” Ari said scathingly. “The army burns the bodies before they can be examined.” She glanced at Sandar. “Father!” she pleaded for support.
Now Thade also turned to give the senator a questioning look. Sandar dithered from one to the other, obviously not enjoying being caught between them. He flushed. His discomfort made him stumble a bit before he finally managed to say, with precarious delicacy, “At times… perhaps… the senate feels the army has been a tad… extreme.”
Thade’s eyes turned to stone. “Extremism in defense of apes is no vice.”
Senator Nado had been following all this, apparently with mixed feelings. Absently, he raised a piece of fruit to his mouth, but before he could bite into it, a guttural growl froze them all.
Attar, the gorilla commander, had a beatific expression on his face as he closed his eyes and began to pray.
“We give thanks to you, Semos, for the fruit of this land. Bless us, Holy Father, who created all apes in His image. Hasten the day when you will return, and bring peace to your children. Amen,” he declaimed in deep, sonorous, reverential tones.
When he finished, Attar sat in silence, without opening his eyes. He seemed to be waiting for something. General Thade cast an inclusive glare around the table, and was quickly rewarded with an emphatic chorus of “Amen!” from the rest of the guests.
Attar looked up and saw Krull staring at him. He seemed to wince, and looked away from the old ape’s eyes.
Ari stared down at the table, deep in thought. She’d been trumped with religion, and could not continue the argument without appearing to be sacrilegious. She was conscious of Thade surreptitiously glancing at her from the next chair, but she didn’t look up. It was going to be a long evening.
* * *
In the foyer at the top of the stairs from the kitchen, Davidson, wearing a hastily supplied brown robe that matched Tival’s, stood holding a tray as he listened with one ear to the buzz of conversation from the patio. However, he had no intention of joining the dinner party.
There has to be a way out of this place, he thought. All I have to do is find it.
But his search was interrupted by one of Thade’s bodyguards lounging in a corner. The big soldier saw him standing there, grunted, and shoved him through the entry onto the patio. Davidson stumbled, caught his balance, and quickly covered himself by carrying his tray toward the table and beginning to serve.
Thade looked up and saw Davidson. Evidently he remembered their initial confrontation, because his lips curled in a half snarl, exposing a fair amount of yellow fang.
“What is this beast doing in your house?” he asked angrily.
Ari exchanged a worried look with her father, but when she realized Sandar was too befuddled to reply, she quickly said, “He’ll be trained as a domestic.”
That didn’t please General Thade at all.
“Your ideas threaten our prosperity. The human problem will not be solved by throwing money at it. The government tried once, and all we got was a welfare state that nearly bankrupted us.”
His voice rose as he spoke. It was obviously a subject to which he’d given a great deal of thought.
As had Attar, who piped up from Thade’s other side. “And changed the face of the city,” the big gorilla added.
Now even Ari’s friend abandoned her. Leeta leaned forward and joined the conversation for the first time.
“I th
ink the city has about as much diversity as I can handle,” she said firmly. Ari shot her a betrayed glare, which Leeta ignored.
Still trying to hold her anger in check, Ari held up one edge of the beautifully embroidered scarf that draped her shoulders. She turned to show the lovely handwork to everyone at the table.
“This garment was made by one of my humans.”
As she spoke, she glanced up at Bon, and smiled at the Chinese serving woman. Bon gave a little jump and averted her eyes nervously.
Ari turned back to the table, her voice now intense with deep conviction.
She said, “Can you deny the skill? Isn’t it obvious they are capable of a real culture?”
Thade eyed the scarf with distaste, obviously unimpressed.
“Everything in ‘human culture’ takes place below the waist,” he growled.
This sally brought a roar of laughter from all the guests, Sandar most loudly of all. After a moment, Nado, still chuckling, turned to his host’s daughter.
“Next you’ll be telling us that these beasts have a soul.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Ari could see the new wild human male, who had been holding a spear at her throat just a short time before, watching her intently. There was something about him. He was different from any human she’d ever known before. Nor was she certain of her own feelings regarding him. One thing for sure: his steady, burning gaze wasn’t helping her peace of mind any.
She looked quickly away and took a moment to gather herself. Finally she answered Nado’s question.
“Of course they do.”
Attar had finally roused himself from his religious contemplation. It was quite obvious that Ari’s words offended him deeply, because there was a disgusted scowl of anger on his face as he replied, “The senator’s daughter flirts with blasphemy.”
This dark, threatening pronouncement brought the entire conversation to a screeching halt. Thade turned and looked at Attar. The moment of silence stretched. Suddenly Thade leaped from his chair, whirled, and grabbed Davidson by his shoulders so powerfully that he knocked Davidson’s tray to the floor. He slammed Davidson backward against the table, pushed forward right into the human’s face, pried his clenched jaws open, and stared deep into his gullet, as if searching for something there.
“Tell me,” he grated. “Is there a soul inside you?”
Then, disgusted, he threw Davidson aside.
Davidson felt his own rage ignite all over again. He was shaking as he knelt and began to scrape up the spilled food. As he scrabbled in the mess, his fingers closed on one of the small, pronglike instruments the apes used as a fork. Covering his action with his body, he slipped the utensil into his robe.
He’d just finished doing this when Thade made a disgusted sound deep in his throat and pushed Davidson away as if he’d touched something filthy. He held up his hands. “Quick,” he said, “a towel.”
Almost everybody laughed at this sally, but Ari, her face stiff with anger, pulled her beautiful shawl tightly around her shoulders and pushed her chair back.
“You’re all cruel and petty. And I’ve lost my appetite!”
She stood, ignoring the sudden air of embarrassment that seemed to settle over the gathering.
What’s the use? she thought. I’ll never make them understand.
She turned and stormed away from the table.
Everybody at the table was either too polite or made too uncomfortable by the scene that had just played out to watch her departure. Only Davidson, still scraping garbage off the floor, watched her go, his forehead creased in thought.
Finally Sandar glanced at Thade, and gestured for him to go after her.
* * *
Ari’s bedroom was large, but cozily furnished. Shelves and tables were filled with hundreds of handmade human artifacts: bright scarves and hangings, colorful woven baskets, intricately painted pottery, carved figurines all jostled for space in the inviting room. Next to her bed, which was covered with a spread that had obviously been loomed by human hands, was an icon of Semos that portrayed His divine self, surrounded by a golden penumbra, descending from the clouds.
Beyond the bed, a door opened onto a balcony that overlooked the gardens. The sweet evening scents of ripe fruit and new blossoms wafted in through the opening.
As Ari stooped to light a candle set in a beautifully worked piece of human-crafted glass, the back of her neck suddenly prickled. She froze for an instant, and then her sensitive nostrils told her who had silently entered her room.
“I have no patience for these society dinners,” Thade rumbled. “I only came to see you.”
“Then you’ve wasted your time,” she cut him off.
She finished what she was doing as Thade crept up softly behind her. He began to run his fingers through her pelt, the rhythmic motions somewhere between grooming and a lover’s caresses. Against her will, she felt herself beginning to respond, and hated herself for it. Hated her weakness. Suddenly he gripped her hard, held her tight.
“My feelings haven’t changed,” he rasped huskily. “You know how much I care for you.”
Repulsed, as much at herself as at him, she pushed him away.
“You only care about my father’s influence… and your own ambition.”
He flashed his fangs at her.
“I know about the trouble you caused today. I could have you arrested.”
She faced him. “What I did was right. And I’d do it again.”
The general’s big hands reached slowly for her neck. She gave a slight start when his fingers gently lifted the scarf from around her shoulders. When she turned, Thade was running the rich cloth lightly through his hands.
She spun away, moved to the edge of her bed, and sat down. She folded her hands in her lap, and began to examine the pattern of the bedspread, as if it were the most interesting thing in the room.
His fingers suddenly closed on the scarf, crushing it. It was obvious that whatever he thought his mission here had been, he now understood it was done. He spun on his heel and stalked toward the door, then suddenly paused. From where she sat, it looked to her as if his shoulders might be shaking. His voice was so soft and choked with emotion she had to strain to make out his words.
“You feel so much for the humans. Yet you can’t feel anything for me.”
A moment later he was gone, leaving her to stare out into the empty night for a long time.
* * *
The street outside Senator Sandar’s house looked almost empty, except for Attar standing beneath the shadows of several huge trees as he held the reins of both his and Thade’s horses. He looked up, his ears twitching and his gaze intent, then stiffened as General Thade, still holding Ari’s scarf, came storming out of the house.
The general’s rage was plain for anybody to see as he stomped up, snatched the reins from Attar’s hand, and turned to mount his charger. Before he could leap into the saddle, Attar made a quick move, touched his elbow, and stopped him.
“A moment, sir.”
Thade was so lost in his anger that Attar wasn’t sure the general even saw him, but at least he stopped. He looked down at the bright scarf he was still holding, as if surprised to find it in his hand.
Attar spoke gently but firmly. “It’s important.”
General Thade took a deep, shuddering breath, and seemed to visibly pull himself up out of whatever fog he was in. He stared at Attar blankly.
“What is it?”
Attar made a sharp hand gesture. There was a soft rustle, and then two ape soldiers stepped out of the deeper shadows beneath the trees, and marched toward them. The troopers looked nervous, even a bit frightened, but determined nevertheless. They approached the general and the commander and came to a rigid halt.
“My men insist on speaking to you. They won’t tell me what it’s about.”
General Thade eyed the soldiers, then raised his eyebrows in question. After a moment one of the soldiers began to speak.
* * *
And in various hovels, kennels, pens, and cages throughout the city, human slaves curled tighter against their straw mattresses and bundled rags, moaning softly as nightmares chased them through the land of sleep.
In the kitchen of Senator Sandar’s villa, the old gorilla majordomo, Krull, slammed shut the door on the cage that housed his master’s slaves. Krull’s bones ached, his feet hurt, and after the exhausting tension of the dinner party that evening, he was feeling more tired than usual. He rattled the lock on the cage door to make sure it was secure, then turned and trudged away, thinking no more of locking up Tival and Bon and the two new wilding slaves than a human would have thought about putting a dog in its crate for the night.
As soon as the door slammed shut, Bon immediately curled up on her blanket on the floor. But Davidson waited by the cage door until he heard Krull’s heavy tread vanishing up the stairs. When he was certain the old gorilla was gone for good, he reached into his shirt and carefully withdrew the small pronged fork he’d salvaged from the mess at the dinner party and hidden in his robe. Squinting in the dim light, he crouched down and hunched over the lock mechanism. He had to reach through the gate in order to work on the front of the lock, but he managed. At first it was slow going, especially as sweat bloomed on his forehead and dripped down into his eyes. Behind him, the black slave, Tival, sank down on his own sleeping mat and closed his eyes, ostentatiously ignoring what Davidson was doing.
But not Daena. With her fierce barbarian eyes wide open, soaking up what little light there was, she edged closer, watching Davidson work. He was aware of her presence but didn’t allow it to distract him, though her earthy, musky scent was strong in his nose.
Senator Sandar evidently didn’t spend much time worrying about his house slaves escaping, because after only a few minutes of work, Davidson gave a final twist to the fork, and heard a sharp click from the lock’s innards. He breathed a sigh of relief and jerked the bolt out of its socket. A moment later he pushed the cage door wide and stepped out into the freedom of the kitchen.