Beneath The Planet Of The Apes (5 page)

The habitations were as she had remembered them. Domelike huts and houses scaled on different levels of the ground, terracing down like so many beehives. She spotted Zira’s home almost immediately. Brent tethered the horse once again in the leafy undergrowth and they proceeded on foot when she pointed out the way. Between the houses and huts, the brush was dense and almost impenetrable. But it made concealment easier. Brent stumbled along behind her, his mind still reeling from the spectacle of the arena. Behind them, the hoarse ovation for Ursus’ speech still lingered in the air. Nova suddenly halted as Brent came down too heavily on a twig beneath his heel. The noise cracked out clearly in the stillness of the brush. Nova pulled Brent to the soft earth.

A uniformed patrolman, his gorilla face savage beneath a visored cap, paused for a routine check. Through the density of foliage, Brent saw that they were only yards away from the guard. He held his breath, oddly terrified and bewildered. An ape in uniform walking around like any security policeman! With a weapon, too.

The gorilla cop was scanning the landscape with great care, trying to pin down the strange noise on his patrol. Crouching in the bushes, Nova and Brent lay very still. Suddenly there was an abrupt whirring noise. A bird, strangely multicolored, shot from a nearby thicket and whirled overhead. The patrolman quickly drew a heavy revolver from his belted holster and snapped off a shot. The bird was out of sight almost immediately, but Brent had to hold his teeth together to keep from screaming out loud. Nova’s quick hand once more closed over his mouth as she saw the widening red stain on his shoulder. Brent closed his eyes against the sudden agony. The random shot had caught him as surely as if it had been aimed at him.

The patrolman, satisfied that the bird had been the source of the strange sound, holstered his pistol and continued on his way through the brush. His boots made clumping noises along the path.

Brent sagged against the earth, his face drawn with pain, as Nova bent over him helplessly.

From the distant arena, heavy shouts again filled the air.

The steam room, banked benches of stone nearly obscured by the rising clouds of vapor, was the scene of an important conference. A little gorilla boy, busily ladling cold water over the hissing hot stones, might have been a statue devoid of life. Dr. Zaius and General Ursus had repaired here to discuss the important issues evoked by the open forum in the arena of Ape City.

Lolling in loincloths, ministered to by the gorilla boy, Zaius and Ursus were airing their views (and their differences) in a more intimate and unguarded atmosphere. Sometimes, disparate minds may meet in private where they cannot come together in public.

Zaius fervently hoped so. His reddish-blond orangutan coloring was in marked contrast to Ursus’ jet black, shaggier gorilla proportions. Both apes liked the steam room. It was a good place to sweat out differences and divergences of opinion.

“General Ursus,” Zaius suggested, “I can only pray that you know what you are doing.”

Ursus shrugged his mammoth shoulders, sweat trickling down off his snout of a nose.

“How can you doubt it, Dr. Zaius, after the reports we have been receiving of strange manifestations in the Forbidden Zone? Manifestations which you, as Minister of Science, have been unable to fathom. Twelve of my scouts have vanished into thin air.”

“Eleven,” Zaius reminded him, with his fetish for exactitude.

“
Eleven
. And the twelfth came back with incredible reports of huge walls of fire and strange earthquakes. His mind was shattered—undoubtedly by some un-Simian torture.”

“Inflicted by whom?”

“Who knows? but they live. Therefore they eat.”

“I still think you are being—hasty.”

“No,” Ursus snorted mightily. “Decisive!”

Dr. Zaius shook his head.

“Decisions come from weighing evidence. It is through evidence that a scientist arrives at the truth.”

“And a politician?”

“At expediency.”

For a long, crucial second, both apes regarded each other eye to eye. The steaming vapors swirled and eddied about them. General Ursus chuckled almost softly.

“Then let us discuss what is evident and what is expedient. What is evident is that by this overpopulation, we face famine. What is expedient is . . .”

“. . . that we should control it,” Dr. Zaius interjected quickly.

Ursus glared. His nostrils quivered.

“And be outnumbered by our enemies? I look to the day when not thousands but millions will march under the Ape banner.”

“Should we not wait until then, if we must invade?”

“And let our enemies invade us first?” Ursus wagged his mighty head. “I would sooner attack at
my
convenience than be forced to defend at theirs. We invade or we starve. It’s as simple as that.”

“And as dangerous,” Zaius said slowly.

Ursus frowned at his gentle foe, barely concealing the wrathful scorn he felt for all thinkers such as the eminent doctor.

“What is more dangerous than famine?” he demanded, almost shouting. The little gorilla boy paused dumbly in his labors.

“The unknown,” Dr. Zaius said.

Steam rose and hissed over the hot rocks as the cold water hit them, seeming to fan the atmosphere with the import of Dr. Zaius’ warning.

General Ursus could only glare anew.

Words of wisdom.

Intellectual thin-skinnedness.

Psychological hogwash.

Cowardice.
Anything to avoid direct action or confrontation! It was no more than he expected from the likes of Dr. Zaius.

En route from the dissatisfying public display of sentiment at the arena, Zira paused on the threshold of her home to give further vent to her chagrin. Cornelius, dutifully following behind her, allowed her to continue. He had learned a long time ago that in dealing with a female, a male has no recourse but to give her tongue free rein. Cornelius was a very intelligent young chimpanzee, as well as a scientist. He also set great store by Zira’s intellect—and heart.

Zira was still fuming in an undertone as they reached the front door of their habitat.

“If I had any sense of scientific purpose, Cornelius, I shouldn’t be cutting up the healthy heads of humans. I should be dissecting the diseased brains of gorillas to find out what went wrong.”

Cornelius smiled. “And how would you put it right?”

He opened the door for her but she paused, striking herself on the breast. Her cute little face was puckered up in a scowl.

“Wet-nurse their babies on the milk of chimpanzees. The milk of kindness. At least when
our
child is born, it won’t be breast-fed on bile.”

Cornelius chuckled and pushed her gently into their house. Zira flounced in, still angry, heading for the kitchen. Cornelius took off his shoes, settled himself in an easy chair and groped for his pipe. The interior of their home never failed to fill him with a sense of comfort and well-being. They had wooden table and chairs, framed pictures included the gilt portrait of the two of them on their wedding day. An open archway in the living room led into Zira’s kitchen where she cooked and baked so many fine things. All in all a very domestic hideout for a pair of chimpanzee scientists. Cornelius sighed, thinking about that and what Zira had said, as he sat back in his worn old chair.

“The trouble with us intellectuals, my dear,” he said as he filled his clay pipe, “is that we have responsibility but no power.”

Zira didn’t answer him. She had already put on her white apron, taken out a China bowl and a box of ready-mix, and with a fork was stirring up some sort of batter. He could already smell the ingredients of something.

“I think I’ll make chocolate icing. Do you like chocolate? No—you don’t. Well, I do . . .”

Cornelius frowned. Perhaps she hadn’t heard him. He tried again.

“And if we did take power into our hands, we’d be as bad, or worse, than
Them.”

She’d heard him, all right. Mixing furiously, her next words had absolutely nothing to do with chocolate icing.

“I don’t agree. They’re a genetic accident. A mistake of nature. The gorillas are cruel because they’re stupid. All bone and little brain . . .”

“Ssshh!” Cornelius begged. “My dear. I wish you wouldn’t talk like that. Somebody may hear you.”

Zira snorted and Cornelius sighed in despair.

It was at this precise moment that Nova emerged from the tiny curtained alcove to the left of the living room. Behind her, Brent swayed, tall and shadowy in the dimness of the aperture. Nova stood stock-still, her eyes fastened on Zira, hoping for the best.

“Nova!” Zira blurted, as if she had seen a ghost.

Cornelius came up out of his chair, as startled as his wife.

“What are you doing here?”

Knowing the girl could not speak, Zira’s eyes went to the figure of Brent whose face she could not yet identify in the shadows.

“Taylor—” she began, a sound of hope in her voice.

“My name isn’t Taylor,” Brent spoke up. “It’s Brent.” He stepped into the light of the room. But Zira and Cornelius had recoiled, almost as if he had struck them. They were doing a double take of wonder.

“You talked!” Zira gasped, looking around the room as if she expected some sort of trick.

“Impossible,” Cornelius agreed.

Zira stared at Brent. Her tiny eyes marveled. She shook her head, Nova almost forgotten in this fresh miracle.

“In a whole lifetime devoted to the scientific study of humans, I’ve found only one other like you who could talk.”

Brent nodded. “Taylor,” he said. His eyes roved the room, fearful.

“Taylor!” Cornelius echoed. “Is he alive? Have you seen him?”

“Where?” Zira pleaded. “Where? Tell us!”

Brent stared at them, still everlastingly confounded by the image of apes who could speak English as plain as he could. But he was adjusting. If this was lunacy, then so be it. They were all at least on the same wave length. Talking about Taylor—there
was
something reassuring about that, mad as it was.

“I don’t know where,” he faltered. “I’m trying to find him and the longer I’m here, the less I’m beginning to care.” He held his hand against his damaged shoulder, wincing. Nova hung back, staring at the people who could talk, but somehow looking happy that things were being accomplished. Brent smiled at her, faintly.

“We loved Taylor,” Cornelius said proudly. “He was a fine, a unique specimen.”

Brent reacted to that almost violently. His face flew from Cornelius to Zira and then to Cornelius again.

“And if it had not been for Zira,” Cornelius continued passionately, “he’d be here still—a stuffed specimen, with glass eyes, in the Great Hall of the Zaius Museum. Like his two friends.”

“Like his two friends,” Brent echoed slowly, suddenly realizing the monstrous truth of what had happened to Taylor and the others if all that he had seen and heard was true. “I don’t plan to stay quite that long. Look, can you give us some food, water, and a map, so I know where I’m going.”

Zira nodded, looking at his red-stained shoulder.

“Your arm also needs some care.” Without another word, she went out through the curtained doorway.

“I’ll get the map.” Cornelius walked to a cabinet in one corner, plucked a rolled scroll of paper from it and brought it back to the table where he spread it out for Brent’s examination. Nova hovered at Brent’s shoulder, silent, wide-eyed. Cornelius, his brows beetled in concentration, began to explain the curious red and blue markings on the map. Brent was fascinated.

“Here is our city. And here, to the north, is where Zira and I . . .”

His wife had come back, laden down with a cloth, water pitcher, a bowl, forceps and sticking plaster. As Cornelius continued, Zira deftly began to treat Brent’s shoulder. When she sprinkled the wound with some sort of powder, Brent gasped. The powder stung.

“What’s that damn stuff you’re using?” he barked.

“You wouldn’t know if I told you,” she said placidly. “Just relax. Among other things, I’m a trained vet.”

“Thanks,” Brent apologized. “Go on, go on . . .”

Cornelius indicated the map. “We last saw Taylor with Nova going through the gap between this lake and the sea.” He pointed. Brent saw the spot and nodded. A dot in that hellish wasteland . . .

Zira said, “They were heading deep into the territory we call . . .”

“Yes, yes—I know,” Brent said. “The Forbidden Zone.”

For a moment, there was a pindrop of silence. Then Zira finished dressing Brent’s wound, putting the bandage into place. Her face was expressionless. Only her eyes held a glow.

“Who told you that?” she asked.

“Your glorious leader back there.” Brent jerked his good shoulder in the direction of the arena.

Before Zira could respond, there was a knock on the front door of the house. Everybody stiffened, right where they stood. Then, as the knocking became louder, there was sudden activity. Cornelius jumped for the map on the table, Brent moved back to the curtained alcove, Zira hustled the petrified Nova in the same direction. She drew the curtains and shut them both in, out of sight. Cornelius rolled up the map quickly, taking it back to the cabinet. Zira calmly straightened out her skirt. “Open the door, Cornelius,” she said.

“But—” he indicated the medical apparatus, frightened.

“Open it.”

Cornelius spread his hands and did as she told him.

Dr. Zaius came bounding into the room, walking springily for an ape of his great years. His shrewd old face was furrowed with sternness. There was an air of great urgency about him.

“Dr. Zaius!” Cornelius stammered. “We were just going to eat . . .”

Zaius brushed by him, wagging a cane.

“Not before I’ve talked some sense into that headstrong wife of yours. Where is she?”

“Well—she’s . . .”

Desperately, Cornelius turned. He was shocked to find Zira lying down on the divan, which was located near all the medical apparatus. He blinked. Zaius blustered by him, going toward Zira on the couch. The cane clumped along the floor.

“Good day, Dr. Zaius,” Zira said wanly.