by John Jakes
Ari’s mouth slowly closed, and her eyes slowly widened. She stared hard at Davidson, as if she’d never seen him before.
“It’s time you told us the truth,” she said. “Who are you?”
Davidson stared back at her, then stiffened, threw his shoulders back, and straightened to his full height.
“I’m Captain Leo Davidson, of the United States Oberon. I come from a galaxy called the Milky Way. A planet in our star system called Earth.”
The look in Birn’s eyes had passed from the everyday hero worship he’d shown previously to something that was very near awe. “Is it far?” he breathed softly.
Davidson gestured at the sky. “Past any star you can see at night.”
Birn blinked. He was a smart kid, and he tried to get his mind around it, somehow take it all in and have it make sense. It was obvious that he couldn’t, but it was equally obvious that he wouldn’t stop trying.
From her expression, Ari was as conflicted as the boy, but written deep in her shining eyes, plain enough for anybody to see, was a simple truth: Leo Davidson, whoever and whatever he was, had captured her imagination, and maybe her dreams as well.
Poor Tival, still confused, blundered timidly forward and said, “Your apes permit you to fly?”
“Our apes live in zoos,” Davidson said scornfully. “They do what we tell them.”
On that note, Davidson picked up the messenger and snapped it closed.
“I’d call this hostile territory. So I’ve got exactly thirty-six hours to rendezvous with them.” He paused, a dreamy look passing across his features. “And then my ass is out of this nightmare.”
Gunnar shoved past Tival, distraught and surly. “What happens to us? Where do we go?”
Gunnar’s question was on everybody’s mind. But nobody knew the answer, not Davidson, not Ari, nobody…
A dark, red-streaked shape dropped from the trees and landed on Gunnar, wrapping him up as tight as a furry straitjacket.
“You’re going nowhere,” Limbo growled into Gunnar’s ear.” He looked up, saw Ari staring at him in horror. “This one still belongs to me!” he snarled at her.
Gunnar was a hard, strong man, and he looked almost twice as big as the chimp slave master. On top of that, panic, fear, and the adrenaline of rage fueled his panicked struggles. No normal man could have held him, but Limbo handled him as easily as a helpless baby.
He let Gunnar struggle for a few moments, then hauled off and delivered a stunning slap to the side of Gunnar’s skull that took all the juice out of him, left him staggering on legs as weak as dishrags. Limbo paid no more attention to the rest of the group than if he’d been standing in the center of his own compound as he pulled out a pair of leg irons and snapped them around Gunnar’s ankles, effectively immobilizing him.
Ari moved toward him, raising one hand. “This is an outrage. Stop!”
Limbo barely spared her a glance, but he did show her his fangs.
“You, I’ve had enough of!”
Birn was the first to break the shock of paralysis. He took off for the jungle like a scalded jackrabbit, dodging and weaving, but as he entered the forest proper, something from the trees reached down, grabbed him, and yanked him off the ground. His legs were still pumping frantically as he rose into the air, the apes hidden in the thick green canopy now becoming visible.
Two more gorillas exploded from the underbrush and charged the rest of the party as, with frightened cries, all the humans scattered.
Davidson sat quietly next to the box he’d retrieved from the sunken pod, watching the chaos. Although only a handful, it seemed as if Limbo’s apes were everywhere, chasing the humans, catching them, slamming them to the ground. The air echoed with screams and shouts of anger and pain, and the satisfied growls and grunts of Limbo’s gorilla slave handlers as they captured another of their escaped cargo.
Limbo was wrestling with Birn, trying to shackle him, but the kid was slippery as an eel and thrashing frantically, so that all Limbo’s superior strength wasn’t doing him much good.
“Hold still!” Limbo panted. “I’m not going to hurt you. I wouldn’t hurt my own property.” The tone of his voice said he couldn’t think of any greater stupidity than that, inadvertently breaking the goods and costing himself money.
But just as he spoke, Birn managed to wriggle one arm free and deliver a sharp punch right in the center of Limbo’s face. The chimp’s reaction was immediate and unthinking. He growled and backhanded the boy right across the chops, leaving behind a red, rapidly swelling bruise.
“For you,” he muttered, “I’ll make an exception.”
Davidson, still calmly watching this, saw Limbo draw back to strike the helpless kid again. He reached into the box, rummaged a moment, and withdrew his hand, which was now holding a compact gray hand weapon. Davidson put his finger on the trigger, then made a small adjustment to a control dial on the butt of the weapon.
Birn twisted away from Limbo’s second blow, but it was a dumb reflex; the boy was too stunned to evade the monkey much longer—and Limbo knew it. He grinned as he drew back, this time with his fingers bunched in a fist—
A sound like a thunderbolt, but sharper, flatter, split the air. A thick tree branch right above Limbo’s head exploded, showering him with splinters.
Everybody froze. Slowly, Limbo looked up to see what had fallen on him, and saw the shattered remains of the branch. He lowered his head and looked over at Davidson, his eyes bulging out of his skull.
Davidson smiled faintly, nodded, and showed him the weapon.
“You saw what it did to the tree,” he said softly.
As Limbo continued to stare in goggle-eyed confusion at the innocuous-looking thing Davidson held so casually, and the immense destruction that had been wreaked right above his head, apparently by the same weapon, the rest of his crew were not so slow to react.
He’d trained them well. They were as loyal to him as he was honest to the rest of the world. They dropped their struggling human captives and vanished into the jungle even more quickly than they’d come out of it. Limbo’s sharp ears could easily hear the rapidly fading rustle of their precipitate retreat. He knew what it meant.
He would have liked to join his employees, but that infuriating, mysterious human was still staring at him with a quizzical, taunting expression, as if he’d like nothing better than to have the slaver make a run for it—and maybe test his weapon again, see how big a hole it would put in a running chimp…
Limbo very carefully raised his head and smiled at Davidson, being careful not to show his impressive canines. He reached down, snagged Birn, and solicitously helped the boy to his feet. Brushed him off a little, and said to him, “No harm done. You’re not hurt. You’re young…”
He turned to Davidson. “These kids bounce right back,” he said hopefully.
Davidson raised his chin slightly, and his weapon a bit more than that. Now it was pointing right at the center of Limbo’s chest.
In the same tone of voice he might use to command a disobedient dog, Davidson said, “Play dead.”
Limbo had never had a dog for a pet, but he understood the tone well enough. He’d used it on his own humans before. A sickly grin played across his features as he slowly sank to his knees and raised his arms high over his head.
Daena came storming over, fire in her eyes as she glared at Davidson. She wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened, but she could see who held the upper hand. She could also see the white, broken remains of the tree limb over Limbo’s head.
“Kill him!” she cried, pointing her finger at the chimp slaver, just in case Davidson had any doubts whom she was talking about.
Gunnar came stumbling up, partly restrained by his shackles, and snarled at the kneeling monkey: “Slave trader!”
He slammed his foot hard into Limbo’s back, then drew back to deliver another blow. But before he could do so, Ari pushed in between him and the slaver, shielding the cowering ape from Gunnar’s wrath.
>
“If you kill him,” she said heatedly, “you’ll only lower yourself to his level.”
Limbo looked up at her earnestly. “Exactly…” he said eagerly. He glanced at Gunnar, then at Daena, and finally at Davidson. “She’s extremely smart. You know I’ve heard her talking… about apes and humans…”
He paused, frantically trying to remember what sort of blasphemous, moronic drivel he’d heard the crazy senator’s daughter spouting on the many occasions she’d tried to make his life miserable. He could recall the misery okay, just not whatever monkey dung she’d been yelling at the time. He felt a sinking feeling at the unfairness of it all. How could he have known that his life might one day depend on having paid attention to a lunatic?
He stuttered a bit, then thought he recalled a few phrases. Had it been she yelling them, or some other moron? He guessed he’d find out soon.
“Separate but equal,” he went on. “Uh, to each his own!” He blinked. “Right? Whatever it is, I agree with it completely!”
This totally insincere speech was received in dead silence.
Limbo blinked again. Not exactly what he’d hoped for—maybe his ability to lie was slipping a bit under pressure—but at least the two wild humans weren’t trying to kick him anymore, and that ugly stranger with the thunderstick in his hand, who was eyeing him the way Limbo might regard a tasty cake with a worm on top, hadn’t blown a large hole in him.
Yet.
And still… how dumb were these humans? In Limbo’s experience, pretty dumb. But was this stranger, this Davidson, as dumb as the rest of them? He’d tricked him once. Maybe…
He put on his best smile, the one he used on human children when he was trying to soothe them for the branding iron, rose shakily to his feet, and keeping his hands high, slowly approached the human male.
“Can’t we all just get along?” Limbo pleaded, counting the inches of his approach. Maybe it would work. The fool was letting him get close enough, anyway.
Gathering himself, never taking his eyes off the weapon Davidson held, Limbo flexed the muscles of his right leg, envisioning the lightning-fast move he’d use to snatch the thing away with his foot.
But he’d barely twitched when the human moved his hand, and a smoking hole about half the size of a chimp’s grave suddenly appeared not more than a hand’s-breadth from Limbo’s right big toe.
“Find a new trick,” Davidson told him.
7
“Take them off,” Davidson said, pointing at the shackles around Gunnar’s ankles.
Limbo could hardly tear his horrified gaze away from the smoldering pit that had nearly swallowed his right leg, but Davidson’s words galvanized him from his terrified paralysis. He might have had questions about Davidson before, but no longer. Whoever the man was, and wherever he had come from, he was the most dangerous being Limbo had ever seen. And there was nothing like the fear of his own imminent death to concentrate an ape’s mind wonderfully.
Limbo leaped to comply. It was but the work of a moment to free Gunnar, who backed quickly away, glaring at the slave master as if he’d like nothing better than to continue his little exercise on the chimp’s ribs with his boot heels. Limbo began to sense that these humans really didn’t like him at all. And if that was the case, discretion was definitely the better part of valor.
He began to edge slowly toward the forest, still smiling hard, trying to look as harmless as he possibly could.
“Well, I’m probably just in the way now. So I’ll get going…”
Daena speared him with an accusing finger. “He’ll lead them to us,” she warned Davidson.
Davidson gave Limbo an appraising glance. “Then we’ll make him our guest,” he said.
He scooped up Gunnar’s shackles and tossed them to Birn, who snatched them from the air with a wide grin. The boy turned to the slaver and snapped the manacles around his wrists. Limbo submitted with a resigned expression. He was a practical ape. He might be chained up now by his former slaves, but at least he wasn’t a smoking hole in the ground.
His natural sneakiness hadn’t totally vanished, though. He looked pleadingly at Birn and said, “Ouch! These things hurt!”
Birn only grinned at him, as if to say they probably weren’t hurting enough…
Suddenly the trees above Davidson’s head rustled as a massive arm covered with thick gray hair snaked down, and fingers like steel cables clamped around Davidson’s gun hand. Davidson leaped backward, rubbing his wrist, as the rest of Krull tumbled out of the greenery, did a backflip, and came to his feet before him. Krull raised the gun he now held and examined it curiously.
“What the hell are you doing?” Davidson demanded furiously.
Krull gestured with the weapon. “You can turn this on me. I can’t allow it.”
Davidson started to speak, but before he could say anything, Ari’s huge servant turned, raised his brawny arm, and smashed the gun down with pulverizing force on a rock. It took him two or three tries before he managed to reduce the high-tech weapon to useless rubble.
Davidson stared at Krull with a stunned expression on his face, unable to believe what had just happened. Then Ari wheeled on him and said, “Who would invent such a horrible device?”
Davidson screamed at her: “That device was going to keep me alive!”
Ari sniffed. “We’re better off without it.”
Right, Davidson thought. You apes are bigger, stronger, and faster than we are. Of course you’re better off. In the Old West, the cowboys who carried them didn’t call them the Equalizer for nothing.
Daena pushed toward the angry female chimp. “There’s no we here,” she said.
Ari misunderstood. “Why must you be so difficult?” she asked sadly.
Daena snarled at her. “Why don’t I act more like a slave?”
Ari backed off, shaking her head. “That’s not what I meant.”
But Daena bored right in, and Ari really didn’t intend to back off that much, so once again the two females began to wrangle. Davidson watched Krull take a final look at the crumpled wreckage in his hand, then shrug and toss the useless shards away.
Davidson could cheerfully have murdered him, but that wouldn’t solve anything now, either. But he needed some outlet for his frustration, or he was afraid his skull would explode.
He whipped around on the two females whose dispute was growing louder and more heated by the instant.
“Shut up!” he roared. He looked around. “That goes for all species…”
Reluctantly, Ari and Daena stepped away from each other, both looking wronged.
Finally Daena muttered, “You can’t trust them.”
Davidson stared at her, utterly disgusted. With Ari, with her, with everything.
“You know who I trust?” he said at last.
Daena gave her head a tiny shake. No.
“Myself,” Davidson snapped.
He picked up the messenger, flipped it shut, and stomped away.
* * *
The city of the apes was like an anthill that had been brutally kicked over. Ape soldiers of every description swarmed everywhere: some in pairs, some in squads, and even a full detachment or two. Young ape males peered down from the roofs of buildings or dangled from windows, excited by all the activity. The females stayed mostly off the streets, while their males stayed close to home and kept watch. The rumors of the wild humans’ escape, even some darkly muttered tales of atrocities committed, had galvanized the city and terrorized the residents into a fever pitch.
Senator Sandar, looking years older than he had only a few days before, walked down one of the main streets with a grim-faced General Thade. Sandar was obviously distraught, his face etched with lines of worry as he knit his long fingers together in his distress.
“If I ever thought that those humans were capable of kidnapping my daughter…” Sandar’s voice cracked with grief, and he fell silent.
Thade’s glowering features were frozen in what seemed to be a permanent snarl. He
glanced at the senator and said, “Don’t blame yourself, Senator. Your family above all tried to be compassionate to the humans.” He paused, looking around at the chaos in the city. “And look how they repaid you.”
Sandar’s shoulders jerked. Next to Thade’s arrogant presence, he looked suddenly frail and weak, almost fragile. He turned to the general, his hands raised in a desperate plea. “Can you find my daughter?” he begged.
Thade gave him a considering look, and then said, “If you untie my hands.”
The senator had evidently been expecting some soothing bromide for a reply, and now he raised his eyebrows, startled at the implications of what he’d just heard.
“What do you want?” Sandar quavered.
Thade stopped abruptly. He turned to Sandar, a bold, almost obsessive light gleaming in his eyes.
“Declare martial law. Give me the absolute power to rid our planet of humans once and for all!”
Sandar’s interlocked fingers now looked like a small nest of nervous worms. He hesitated before replying. He understood far too well what a terrible thing it was that General Thade was asking of him.
But Thade felt the senator’s indecision, and pounced into the breach as he would on any weakness.
“Now is not the time to be timid and indecisive.” He moved closer, violating the senator’s personal space, pressing his advantage. “I am the only one who can bring your daughter back to you… alive.”
Thade’s presence was nearly overwhelming as he waited adamantly for a reply. Sandar backed away a bit, unable to look into the other ape’s eyes. Instead he looked at his city, and saw the panic caused by just a few wild humans. Even that he might have dealt with, except for one thing: those animals had his daughter. In the end, he valued her more than anything else, even justice. Even compassion.
But still, at the very end, he couldn’t bring himself to speak their doom out loud. Instead, he looked into General Thade’s eyes and nodded, once.
With that, overwhelmed by what he had just done, Senator Sandar turned and scurried away, and so he did not see the slow, horrible smile of triumph that came over General Thade’s face as he watched him go.