by John Jakes
Groaning, Davidson climbed slowly to his feet, making sure the barrel of the gun never wavered from Thade’s chest. He’d almost gotten himself upright when Ari came running into the chamber, saw him, and tried to swerve around Thade.
She never made it. Thade wrapped her up on the way past, pulled her close, and used her as a shield. It all happened so quickly Davidson never had a shot, and when it was over, Thade had one hand wrapped around Ari’s throat like a vise while he leered triumphantly over her shoulder at him.
Davidson set himself and pointed the gun at Thade’s head. But he couldn’t risk it! “Let her go,” he said huskily.
Thade shook his head; “I’m willing to die,” he replied. He gave Ari a little shake, then shot Davidson an evil grin. “Are you willing to see her die?”
Davidson stared at Thade, then at Ari and the terrified look on her face. He could risk a shot, but…
He set the gun down on the floor, and kicked it in Thade’s direction. The gun spun across the steel deck toward Thade, who leaned down to catch it. But it never reached him. A huge, black-furred hand reached out, snagged the weapon, and lifted it.
Attar eyed the thing curiously, but gingerly. He’d overheard the conversation, and knew the thing was a dangerous weapon, he just didn’t know how or why.
“With that weapon they are no longer the weaker race. We can’t allow it.”
“Look around,” Davidson broke in. “This is who you really are. We brought you here. We lived in peace… until Semos murdered everyone.”
His voice rang with the conviction of truth, and Attar heard it.
“No…” he murmured, shocked. He turned to Thade. “Can it be true?”
Thade sneered. “They’d make us their slaves.” He glanced at Davidson. “Bring me the gun,” he roared suddenly.
Attar twitched uncertainly. He looked at Davidson, then at the gun, then at Thade and the terrified chimp Thade still pinioned. Finally, he gave in to his confusion and fear, and responded to the ape on whom he’d depended ever since Krull had vanished from his life.
Slowly, he moved toward the general, extended his hand, and gave him the weapon. Thade took it, wrapped his hand around the butt, slid one long finger across the trigger. He pushed Ari away.
He said to Attar, “Does it really make a difference how we arrived here? We are the only ones who will survive.”
Ari twisted in his grasp, her gaze on Davidson, who stood with his shoulders slumped. “Please don’t hurt him,” she pleaded.
Thade gave a low, bitter chuckle. Her sincerity was as undeniable as the fact that her first concern was for the life of a filthy human, and not for her own. He looked at her with disgust.
“I was always less than a human to you…”
He raised the gun and pointed it at Davidson. His fangs flashed. “Someday,” he said, “if humans are even remembered, they will be known for what they really are. Weak… and stupid.”
He pulled the trigger. The sound was small and sharp in the silence. Click.
But nothing else. Thade stared at the thing in his hand, shook it, pointed it, and pulled the trigger again.
Click. Click click click!
Davidson shrugged. “Stupid people, smart guns.”
Thade whirled, glared at Attar. “Kill them!”
Attar didn’t move, just stared back at him, deeply thoughtful. Looking at him. Looking at Ari. Considering…
Spit flew from Thade’s lips. “I’m your commander! Obey me!”
Attar finally shifted, as if some weight had risen from his massive shoulders, and began to speak. “Everything I have believed in…”
He paused, shook his head “…is a lie. You and your family have betrayed us. I will not follow you anymore.”
He folded his arms across his chest and fell silent.
Davidson had been moving slowly, a step at a time, enough to keep Thade’s attention without alarming him. Thade tracked him with the weapon, even though he knew it was useless. He didn’t care. He’d already come close to ripping the human apart with his bare hands. It would be a pleasure to finish the job.
He threw the gun aside, intending to do just that, but Davidson had finally maneuvered him into the position he wanted. Thade laughed at him.
“When you’re dead and this place is buried beneath the rocks, no one will know the truth.” He stretched out his arms, flexed his fingers, and began to move forward.
Davidson took one last step and said, “You will. Forever…”
With that, he pressed hard on one particular section of the wall. The move was so strange that Thade paused a moment, trying to understand. In the interval, Davidson grabbed Ari and quickly yanked her out of the control room. Behind him, the thick glass security door began to slide shut, faster and faster.
Thade threw himself at it, but the gap was already too narrow for him to squeeze through. He let out a roar, grabbed the edge of the door with both hands, and exerted every ounce of his strength against it.
The door stopped in its tracks, groaned, and then, inch by inch, began to slide open again.
Thade’s roar grew into a bellow of triumph. Until another set of hands closed on his wrists. Big hands. Covered with black fur.
Thade stared up into Attar’s pitying, but uncompromising, gaze.
“Help me,” he gasped. “My friend.”
Attar said nothing.
“I command you!” Thade screamed.
Attar looked down. “I will pray for you,” he said softly, regretfully. Then he ripped Thade’s hands away from the door and shoved him backward. Before Thade could recover, the door slid shut with a solid, echoing thud.
Thade crashed into the thick glass, but even his force was not enough to make more than a quiet thump. He pounded with his fists until the glass was streaked with blood. Attar watched him silently, then turned and walked away.
Thade sank slowly down the glass, his features both wild and crumpled at the same time. Suddenly he sprang up, turned, and leaped at the control panel. But he knew nothing of it, only enough to guess it might help him, if he only knew how. But he didn’t. He slammed his fists down on it and splattered more of his blood across the keys.
In the end, he sank slowly to the floor, weeping in rage and terror. He, who’d intended to bury the evidence of his crimes beneath the earth, now buried himself. For all eternity.
Davidson thought it was fitting. He took Ari’s hand and led her back to the tunnels. In the dim light, he saw a few sticky red splotches leading off in a different direction.
Ari saw them, too. “What…?”
Davidson looked at her. “Pericles.”
She didn’t understand, but she followed him anyway. They ended up in the animal lab, where the corroded sign that read ca… li… ma still hung on the wall. Pericles was near the far wall, his fur streaked with blood, working his way along as if he were searching for something.
Ari started to speak, but Davidson touched her shoulder and she fell silent. They both watched as Pericles found a small, limestone-crusted cave, sniffed, then slowly climbed inside.
Davidson led her over. Pericles was curled up inside his old cage, the only home he’d ever known. He looked up, gave Davidson a sleepy smile, his rasping breath slowing, growing soft.
Davidson reached in, took his hand, held it, smiling down at him. Pericles uttered a sigh, and slowly lay his head down.
* * *
The ape army was long gone, scattered before the winds that now swept the battlefield clean. Near the outskirts of the ruins, Attar knelt beside a mound of stone. He lifted the last stone as Ari came up. On it was written one name: Krull. He brushed it off, placed it on top of the pile.
Ari touched the grave gently, as if afraid to disturb the mighty ape who slept beneath the rock. “All the years you put up with me,” she murmured softly. “This time, I wish I could have protected you.”
Attar glanced at her, but said nothing.
Davidson approached, hanging on to Pericl
es’s hand. The chimp gamboled next to him like a kid.
He handed the monkey into Ari’s arms. Pericles seemed happy enough to be there.
“Take good care of him,” Davidson said.
Ari sniffed at him. “I can promise you I won’t put him in a cage.” She spoke tartly, but there was a suspicious gleam of moisture in her eyes.
Attar turned, stared out across the battlefield. “We will leave the graves here unmarked,” he said slowly. “No one who comes here will be able to tell ape from human. They will be mourned together… as it should be from now on.”
Davidson nodded. It seemed fitting.
A loud beeping erupted from the hatch of the pod behind him. Davidson gave a start. “It’s found the coordinates of the storm that brought me here!” he said, his excitement suddenly at a fever pitch.
Ari moved toward him, trying to look unconcerned, and failing badly. “It would mean a great deal to everyone if you would stay.” She paused, looked up at him. “It would mean a great deal to me…”
Davidson looked torn, but his voice was firm. “I have to leave now. I have to take a chance that it can get me back.”
Ari reached out, touched him, stroked him gently. Finally she nodded, accepting. “One day they’ll tell a story about a human who came from the stars and changed our world. Some will say that it was a fairy tale, that he was never real.”
Her voice broke as her tears welled over. “But I’ll know the truth.”
Davidson looked down into her eyes, then took her hand and squeezed it. The beeping grew louder, more insistent.
He turned and sprinted for the pod. As he reached it, he saw a small figure leap down from the hatch. He stood, waiting, until Limbo turned around, spotted him, and twitched, nearly dropping the thing he held in his hands.
“You gonna sell that?” Davidson asked him.
Limbo had the grace to look sheepish, but his reply was as insouciant—and dishonest—as ever. “No, I wanted something to remember you by,” he said.
Davidson was amazed. Limbo sounded sincere.
Slowly, he extended a plaque embossed with Oberon’s full identification pattern, but gleaming shiny and new. Davidson pressed it back into his hands and grinned faintly. “Make sure you get a good price,” he said.
The delay allowed enough time for Daena to catch him before he entered the pod. She stood off to the side, her shoulders back, her chin tilted proudly. As if she didn’t care he was going.
Davidson went to her, and as he approached, her charade collapsed. She moved forward and wrapped her arms around him, as if she intended to hold him forever.
“You know I can’t take you with me,” Davidson murmured.
She sniffed, mock-glared at him, and said, “Then you’ll have to come back.”
She pressed her lips gently, tenderly, against his, and he found himself responding in the same way. Then she pulled away, turned and bolted into the ruins.
He watched her go, then turned slowly and took a final look at the planet he had changed so much. Far away, Birn sat on his horse at the top of the cliffs and raised his arm in farewell. Davidson smiled, gave him a wave, then turned and slowly climbed into the pod.
Inside, he settled into the familiar confines of the pilot’s seat. He slipped on the helmet, noting that it smelled only slightly of chimpanzee. Pericles always had been a clean little ape.
“Close pod,” he said.
The systems heard him. The hatch slid shut.
A moment later the engines lit, and the thrust of takeoff booted him high into the sky.
Gathered at the edge of Calima, Attar, Ari, Daena, Limbo, and the rest watched his torch etch a path of fire across the suns. At the top of the cliff, Birn watched the streak of white light rise and rise, until finally it dwindled and vanished in the vast blue emptiness.
* * *
The perfect black of space, strewn with stars like uncounted grains of dust, spread to infinity beyond Davidson’s window. He was working hard, trying to recapture the correct coordinates and program them into his flight system.
Without warning, the screen in front of him lit up: Coordinates unknown.
From out of nowhere, suddenly the wormhole was there, twisting space and time in a vast, pulsing blaze of light.
Davidson gritted his teeth and held on as incalculable energies tossed the pod about like a speck of sand.
Then it vanished, leaving nothing behind but empty, traceless space, nothing at all to show that Davidson had ever been there.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
John Jakes is the author of more than a dozen novels under various aliases, including Jay Scotland, Alan Payne, and John Lee Gray. He is now well known for his historical fiction including the acclaimed Kent Family Chronicles and the North and South trilogy. He lives with his wife on the west coast of Florida.
David Gerrold is a prolific sci-fi writer whose TV credits include the hugely popular Star Trek episode ‘The Trouble With Tribbles’ as well as various classic sci-fi novels. His book The Martian Child was awarded Nebula and Hugo awards for Best Novelette of the Year. He is on the board of directors of The Hollywood Science Fiction Museum.
William T. Quick has authored twenty-eight novels, including a six-book series co-authored with Star Trek author William Shatner, along with prehistoric adventure novels under the pseudonym Margaret Allan, and screenplays for TV and film. He hails from Indiana and lives in Hunters Point, San Francisco.
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