by Titan Books
“Yes…” The word sounded brittle and dry to Zoran’s ears. The girl’s voice sounded like the voice of a dying person. Zoran swallowed and forced himself to continue. “Your friend,” he said brightly, “from the… ‘other place’…”
“Yes… said Amy.
Zoran tried to sound like an interested friend. He hoped that in Amy’s delirium, she would imagine that she was talking to one of the other people of Trion, to her father, perhaps. “Where is that ‘other place’?” he asked, trying not to sound like he was interrogating her. “Where did he come from?”
Amy answered, but Zoran had to bend close to her lips to catch her words. “Here…” she said.
Zoran was puzzled and disappointed. “Here?” he asked.
“From… before.”
Suddenly Zoran caught a glimmer of the truth. It was more important and more startling than he had even dared to hope. “Another time,” he suggested.
“Yes…” said Amy weakly.
“A long time ago?”
This was the critical bit of information. Zoran listened closely, but all that he could hear was his own heart beating, the blood rushing in his ears. Amy did not respond. “A long time ago, Amy?” asked Zoran forcefully.
“Yes…” she said at last.
Zoran’s eyebrows went up. Zaius would be impressed. Even General Urko would have to admit that Zoran had made a significant contribution, if the tall blond human with the blue-green eyes, and the tall dark-haired human with the brown eyes were whom Zoran suspected they were. “An ‘astronaut’,” asked Zoran, not really understanding the word, but recalling it from a council meeting some months before, when Urko and Zaius had gotten into a more heated argument than usual. “Is your friend an ‘astronaut’?”
Amy drifted off again into sleep. Cursing in frustration, Zoran tried to hold himself in control. “Amy,” he said, almost pleading with the human girl, “listen to me, Amy.”
Zoran tried to revive her. After a time he realized that it was useless to try any further. Cursing again, he stood up. As he turned to leave the hospital, he stopped short.
Standing a few feet away, studying him, was Galen.
Despite pulling himself up to his full height, Zoran was not imposing; he was defensive, uncertain. “Why are you sneaking up behind me?” demanded Zoran.
Galen kept a casual manner. Here he was not dealing with simple human beings; he was confronting another ape, another chimpanzee. Zoran had quite a few years more learning and more experience than he. If they came to any kind of struggle, it would be one of wits, not, force. Zoran was certainly no exponent of Urko’s kind of tactics. “I was just coming to look at the girl,” said Galen. “Is she… talking strangely again?”
Zoran looked at Galen closely, trying to understand the chimpanzee’s connection with the girl and with the two strange humans. “Yes,” he said vaguely, “strangely.”
Galen knelt beside Amy’s mattress, and wiped her face. The young chimpanzee felt a curious attachment to this human girl, perhaps because of her intelligence, her devotion, her courage. These were qualities which Galen had thought to be all but nonexistent in the human race. Of course, Virdon and Burke had taught him differently, but then, of course, Virdon and Burke were actually from a different human race. Galen looked at the girl’s face and wondered if that was exactly true.
“Have you heard her speaking strangely?” asked Zoran.
“Yes,” said Galen, remembering what he had recently witnessed. “The fever. It makes her say… impossible things. She has a very good imagination. For a human.”
“Yes,” said Zoran airily. “I could make no sense of it.” The Medical Officer turned and walked away, apparently giving no further thought to the girl and her delirious ravings.
Nonetheless, Galen was worried. He watched the departure of Zoran with growing fear, wondering if the village of Trion might yet turn out to be the death trap he had first imagined.
The long night passed. On the edge of Trion, gorilla guards marched the perimeter, just as they had before the fever came to the small village. Only now, the four gorillas garrisoned near the town had been reinforced by dozens of other troops, and the situation had attracted the attention of General Urko himself. The pale light of the moon flickered on the metal uniforms as gorillas moved slowly through the night.
Nothing moved in the fields outside the village. In the huts, the candles and lamps had long since been extinguished, except those in the hospital hut. No one moved on the road, no one disturbed the deep stillness of the night. Only the occasional sound of one of the sick people in the hospital broke the tense quiet. About an hour before dawn, Virdon awoke and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He looked about himself; for a moment he couldn’t recall where he was. Lately, that happened to him often. It came from moving around too much, waking up too many mornings in too many different, unknown places. His weariness only made his mind foggier: he had not slept well.
Virdon came to the door of the hospital hut and looked out across the village, up toward the hill where the gorilla guard was stationed. Inta, Zoran’s assistant, was seated by the entrance to the hut, evidently taking a break from his job as night attendant. Virdon greeted him, and Inta grunted a tired reply. They both fell silent again, and once more Virdon’s attention wandered to the hill beyond the fields. A single torch burned brightly there; from the village it looked like a huge, flickering star.
The light from the torch was almost hypnotic in its effect on Virdon. He stared at it for a long while. For a moment, he could not remember why that torch might have been put there, but then he recalled what Zoran had told him earlier, about what had happened on that hill between Zoran and Urko. Virdon took a deep breath and let it out. He shrugged helplessly—how could he hope to fight the obstinacy of the gorillas? He turned to go back into the hospital, to return to his mattress and his interrupted night’s sleep; he stopped, struck by an idea. He continued on into the hospital hut, and emerged with one of the small canteens. He swung the strap of the canteen over his head and then hurried off into the darkness.
On the hill, the torch had been stuck into the ground next to Kava, who was otherwise unattended. It would be considered ungorillalike to have one of the troops watch the dying Kava through the night. No one volunteered to do so, and it was certain that Kava would have been humiliated if he knew that anyone had. The only gorilla guard near him was the regular sentry, who was many yards away, watching for what only the gorillas could imagine. Perhaps the sentry himself did not know exactly what he was watching for, but he could not take the risk of questioning one of General Urko’s orders.
Virdon cautiously approached the area. He had slipped through the gorillas’ defenses easily, giving the lie to their claims of military invulnerability. He could see Kava from his place of concealment. Virdon stopped for a few minutes to study his next move.
The sentry moved restlessly at his post. Every once in a while, he looked at Kava. He knew that it was unmilitary for him to show any emotional response to Kava’s trouble; but Kava was, after all, a comrade. Perhaps, thought the sentry, perhaps Urko was being too strict in his orders. The sentry shook his head to rid himself of these thoughts; it was late, and he had been on guard duty for several hours. One was bound to be troubled by crazy thoughts after a while…
Virdon picked up a large stone and tossed it down the loose shale face of the hill. The stone set up an ominous noise, as the loose rock rattled down the incline.
The guard was immediately alarmed. He brought his rifle up. “Who’s there?” he called loudly. There was no answer. The sentry was certain that he had not imagined the noise. He moved away to investigate. “Who’s there?” he called again, his voice growing softer in the distance. Virdon smiled to himself. The gorillas really had a very subjective view of their strengths. They actually weren’t very bright.
The blond astronaut took advantage of the situation to sneak closer to Kava. He moved in quickly, opened the canteen, and gave K
ava a long drink of the quinine medicine within. Kava tried to protest; he raised one hand, but he was too weak.
Meanwhile, the gorilla guard had gone as far as he thought wise, and was returning to his post. It was not wise, he knew, to be caught away from his station. If General Urko saw him wandering around, and asked for a reason, saying that he had “heard a noise” would not be very good for the guard’s career.
As he returned, he saw a dark form bending over Kava. He was startled; his first thought was to shoot, but even his slow-witted gorilla mind realized that it might not be wise. He didn’t know who the intruder was. It might even be Urko, himself; the general might have had a change of heart. The guard stumbled forward, calling out “Who goes there?” he shouted.
Virdon cursed under his breath. He had counted on the gorilla’s being gone a little longer. The trouble with the soldiers was that they were so stupid, and their attention span was so short, that they couldn’t be relied on to keep anything in mind for more than a couple of minutes at a time. The gorilla couldn’t have made a very thorough search of the area. But it was too late to worry about that. Virdon was forced to drop the canteen and run for his life. Some of the liquid splashed on Kava’s face.
When the stranger did not answer, and began to run away, the gorilla raised his rifle and fired.
Virdon heard the bullet rip through the leaves of a tree not far to his right. He heaved a sigh; he was glad that the gorillas were as bad marksmen as they were sentries.
Virdon ran like he had never run before. The gorilla’s shot would soon have the rest of the gorilla garrison aroused; there was a good distance back to the village to cover before Virdon could relax and think that he was safe. And every step of the way, he imagined that there were gorilla soldiers riding murderously after him, ready to shoot him down in his tracks.
The sentry did not try to follow, however. It was very rare that the soldiers actually got to do anything; they had received quite a bit of training, and, for the most part, saw no action. After the guard fired his first shot, he was so excited that he kept firing, blindly into the darkness.
The shots tore wildly through the foliage on both sides of Virdon. The man crouched low as he ran. When he got to the fields, losing the cover of the trees, he ran along the edge of the small farms, all the way around the village, approaching Trion from the side opposite the gorillas’ hill. Then he slowed down and walked calmly into the town. It would be best to establish some kind of alibi, in case General Urko investigated the identity of the mysterious intruder.
About the time that Virdon was arriving at Trion, the gorilla guard heard the reassuring sound of hoofbeats. His comrades had arrived at last! Reinforcements! They would see what a splendid job he had done of routing the enemy. He stopped firing and turned to see General Urko riding up. Urko hurriedly dismounted and ran to the sentry. “What is it?” he asked.
The guard was a little dismayed to be face to face with the general himself. “I heard a sound, sir,” said the sentry. With those words, the gorilla remembered the thought he had had earlier, and he knew that his worst fears were being realized. “I went to see. When I came back, there was someone with Kava.”
“Who?” asked Urko. The tone of voice indicated that the guard had better have a good explanation.
“I… I couldn’t see, sir,” said the gorilla weakly.
Urko knelt by Kava. The general examined the unconscious soldier and the ground nearby. Immediately, Urko saw the abandoned canteen. The general was alarmed; he shook Kava until the gorilla regained consciousness. “Who was here?” Urko demanded.
There was no response from Kava.
Urko shook him again, and slapped the suffering gorilla’s face. “Who was it?” asked Urko. “Was it Zoran?” Urko shook the canteen. “Did you drink this?”
Kava managed to give an affirmative nod. “Yes,” he whispered hoarsely.
Urko let Kava’s head fall heavily back to the ground. Kava’s face showed frustration and anger at his weakness; but the emotions there did not come close to matching the strength of Urko’s rage.
Urko stood slowly and walked to where the sentry was watching. With one vicious blow, Urko knocked the gorilla guard to the ground. “If Kava dies,” said Urko with real hatred in his voice, “if they’ve poisoned him with this ‘medicine’, I’ll have you shot!”
Urko walked to his horse and mounted. He pulled on the reins and turned the horse in the direction of his tent, leaving the stunned and bewildered sentry where he had fallen.
The shooting attracted the attention of the villagers. They poured out of their huts, awakened by the unaccustomed clamor. Galen, Burke, and Zoran stumbled out of the hospital, blearily looking for some kind of explanation in the morning’s light. There was no longer anything to be seen on the gorillas’ hill. They turned, shrugging, to go back into the hospital, when a voice stopped them. “Looks like it’ll be a nice day, doesn’t it?”
Burke and the two chimpanzees turned around in surprise. Virdon was approaching along the road, from the other direction. “A nice day, for sure,” said Burke wonderingly. “And where have you been taking a pleasant morning stroll?”
“We heard shots,” said Galen, watching Virdon curiously. The chimpanzee had his head cocked to one side, as he usually did when he was faced with something he couldn’t completely comprehend. “What happened? Where have you been?”
Virdon smiled. He answered casually. “Oh,” he said, “a small mission of mercy.”
Zoran was surprised. He could hardly believe what Virdon was suggesting. “You treated Kava?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Virdon.
“You risked your life,” said Zoran in amazement. “For an ape?”
“I’m sure his pain hurts as much as those in there,” said Virdon, indicating the hospital hut. “Unfortunately, I left the evidence behind when I ran.”
Burke was suddenly fearful. “Could anyone up there identify you?” he asked.
Suddenly Virdon became serious. He realized that his, simple act of compassion could have grave consequences, not only for himself and his two companions, but also for Zoran and the townspeople. “It was dark. I… I can’t be sure,” he said.
Galen and Burke exchanged worried looks: Their concern did not go unnoticed by Zoran. He looked back up at the hill. “I wonder if it really matters,” he said thoughtfully.
Virdon didn’t know what the chimpanzee was talking about. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Whether Urko thinks it was you… or me… the result is the same,” said Zoran.
Virdon, Burke, and Galen turn to look. There was considerable activity around Urko’s command tent. They could see campfires blazing. Gorilla troopers could be seen fashioning torches, attending to their horses, and bustling back and forth from Urko’s tent to the large group of gorilla soldiers that was assembling.
The most frightening aspect of the soldiers’ activity was the stockpile of torches that had been made. “If Zoran loses,” said Galen, “Urko wins. More authority, more freedom to run things the way he wants. Urko wants power to do things his way, and it’s not a very nice way.” No one could come up with a simple answer to that for several moments.
“We’d better pull something out of our hat soon,” said Burke. “Or else this village will be nothing but ashes.” Silently, the two men and the two chimpanzees watched the preparations being made on the gorillas’ hill.
There didn’t seem to be anything that they could do. Not far away, according to Urko’s instructions, torches were lit and horses were saddled. Things would begin to happen very soon.
5
East of Trion, the road seemed to run directly into the rising sun. The morning’s natural elements were as unhurried and peaceful as ever. Birds were in the cultivated fields, robbing the villagers of an early breakfast. A couple of chipmunks were chewing on some dried kernels of corn in the shade of a hut. A gray squirrel, standing on its hind legs, peered over the edge of an empty bucket lef
t beside the village well. Everything was well and normal with nature. It was only with the human and the simian communities that one could find fault; it was there that one had to look for disturbing factors.
On the outskirts of the village, the gorillas’ preparations were nearly complete. Urko sat astride his horse and shouted the final orders. His followers shouted back; they raised rifles and torches and shook them. It would not be long before the huge gorilla soldiers worked themselves into the proper mood of warlike hysteria, and the headlong charge would begin, one that would mean the end of the village of Trion.
Inside the hospital hut, Burke sat beside Amy. It was his turn to watch the sick in the room. Although Burke never neglected any of the others, he spent most of his time beside the young girl. She had come to represent everything that he denied himself in his old life. Burke was bathing Amy’s face and arms when Virdon and Zoran came into the hospital, conversing in worried and uncertain tones.
“Hello, Pete,” said Virdon. “Still working?”
“Sure,” said Burke gloomily. “Aren’t you? Isn’t everybody?”
“What do you think?”
Burke looked down at the peaceful face of the young girl. “She’s resting,” he said. “Her fever seems to be down some.”
Virdon seized upon his words ferociously. “The others, too?”
“Well,” said Burke, “when they wake up, we’ll give them another dose.” He paused and stared levelly into Virdon’s eyes. “We need time, Alan,” he said.
Zoran shook his shaggy head. “Zaius gave us until noon,” he said. “If he can keep control of the situation.”
Even as Zoran spoke these words, there came the sound of shouting from outside. The clamor was great, but it sounded too distant to be coming from any of the villagers. Zoran and the two astronauts stepped outside.
In front of the hospital, Galen was supervising the preparation of cinchona bark, in the way he learned from Virdon. He did not greet the men and the chimpanzee when they came out of the hospital. He was too occupied with the horrible sight beyond the village.