Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes (13 page)

Caesar realized MacDonald was watching the byplay—and that he himself was standing much too straight. Hunching over, he started on down the steps. But MacDonald’s surprised look showed that he knew something very unusual had just happened.

A state security policeman grabbed Armando’s elbow to keep him from falling.

The older man was too tired even to mumble an acknowledgement. He did not know where he was. All corridors, all rooms in this building, which he hadn’t left since entering it voluntarily, had begun to blur together with a frightening sameness.

Armando knew he was being destroyed. Not with physical abuse, not with starvation, but with a much more subtle form of torture. Disorientation . . .

In those windowless chambers to which he was frequently taken without warning, he never knew whether it was day or night. His food—cups of gray, tasteless pudding; small plastic flasks of a brown nutrient drink—arrived via a pneumatic wall tube.

At intervals a matron opened the door of his cubicle and accompanied him down a short hallway to a bathroom. There he was permitted to relieve himself while the matron watched from the open doorway, disinterested. He was also allowed to sprinkle water on his hands and face.

But no showers. No baths. The sense of his own filthiness increased his anxiety, as did his fretful sleep under the lights. Such sleep came to him only when he reached periods of total exhaustion.

Often, that sleep was interrupted by a summons to yet another interrogation. Some were short. Some seemed to last for hours. Several times he had collapsed during the longer sessions. He had wakened for brief intervals in what appeared to be an infirmary, been injected with a hypodermic, drifted off again . . .

Generally, Kolp and Hoskyns handled the questioning together, going over and over the same ground, trying to get Armando to make a mistake. So far he hadn’t. So far he had withstood the assaults of Kolp, Hoskyns, and the other hard-faced investigators who occasionally replaced them.

But now, stumbling to what he presumed was one more such interview, Armando wondered whether resistance might not, by this time, be totally futile. Surely Caesar had been caught or killed.

“In here,” the policeman said, shoving Armando through a door, then following him.

Armando blinked, attempting to focus his eyes. He couldn’t believe the sensation that came from his slippered feet. Softness. The softness of carpet . . .

The lighting was subdued, the furnishings comfortable, much like the governor’s office where he had first been questioned. Kolp sat at a desk, a pleasant, relaxed expression on his face. Behind him, an open doorway led to a tiny terrace with a waist-high concrete railing.

Armando licked his dry lips, sucking in draughts of the fresh air. He was almost overwhelmed to see the outside world again; lighted towers against the darkness.

Kolp actually stood up, smiled broadly. What was happening?

With a start, Armando realized Hoskyns was also present. He too was smiling. Legs crossed, he relaxed on a divan along the wall.

Kolp took off his spectacles, began to polish them with a tissue. “No more interrogation rooms, Señor Armando. This is my personal office.” To the policeman, he said, “That’ll be all, thanks.”

The officer wheeled and left. Kolp gestured to the chair facing his desk. “Please, Señor. I know you’re exhausted.”

Not quite believing the evidence of his senses, Armando still lost no time reaching the chair. He practically fell into it as Kolp reseated his spectacles on his nose and walked around the desk. He perched on the corner, still smiling.

“I realize we’ve held you an unusually long time, Señor. You’ll understand we were only carrying out our assignment.”

Armando gave a weak nod. He allowed himself to hope that—miraculously—something had happened to change the dreadful pattern of the past days. Kolp’s next remark confirmed it.

“We have some good news for you.”

Armando could only repeat hoarsely, “Good news?”

“Right. You’re to be released. Tonight.”

Armando fought back tears as Kolp went on, “Inspector Hoskyns and I have become convinced that your ape is not the child of the two talking chimpanzees.”

“You’ve found him?” Armando exclaimed.

“I wish that were the case,” Hoskyns said in a pleasant tone, rising and walking over to stand beside Kolp. “But we’re sure he’ll turn up eventually. When he does, we’ll make certain he’s returned to you. We hope you can excuse all that’s happened, Señor Armando. You understand that we have to be thorough—satisfy the higher-ups—”

“Of course,” Armando nodded quickly. “Of course, it’s perfectly understandable. Actually, I’ve been treated very well. It’s just that, at my age, lack of sleep—all the questioning—they have an effect.”

Kolp’s nod was crisp. “Surely. We sympathize. But it was your consistency in telling the same story through a deliberately extended period of questioning that helped convince us.”

“Then—” Armando half rose from the chair. He risked the question. “I’m free to leave here?”

Nodding, Hoskyns picked up a sheet of paper and pen from the desk. “That’s right. Just as soon as you give us your signature on this sworn declaration.”

“What does it say?”

“Only what you’ve been telling us all along,” Kolp answered. “That your circus ape is incapable of human speech, and has never, to your knowledge, uttered a single word.”

A relieved breath hissed out between Armando’s teeth. “Certainly I’ll sign that.”

Hoskyns placed the paper on the desk, handed Armando the pen. The circus owner scrawled his signature on the indicated line.

Kolp stepped away from the desk. So did Hoskyns. “Excellent,” said the latter. “We’ll just check this for veracity, and you can be on your way.”

Sudden apprehension tightened Armando’s belly. “Check it? But I swore to it with my signature.”

“Yes,” Kolp agreed, “but we want to double-check with the Authenticator. Governor Breck’s given us the necessary written permission in order to close out our file.”

“What—” Armando had trouble speaking. The smiles on their faces had begun to look false. “What is the Authenticator?”

“Purely a formality,” Kolp assured him. “Sit right where you are. It won’t take a moment.”

Kolp reached for a switch-laden desktop panel Armando hadn’t noticed before. Kolp threw two of the switches. The various small lamps around the office began to dim. A motor hummed softly overhead.

Armando jerked his head back, saw a section of ceiling slide aside. Kolp threw one more switch over. Two thin beams of violet light speared down from the ceiling aperture, converging diagonally on Armando’s head.

The light frightened him. But there seemed to be no sensation of pain. No sensation at all, in fact, save for a peculiar ringing in his ears.

Armando swallowed. “What does this—Authenticator do?”

“Makes people tell the truth,” Hoskyns answered. “It’s quite painless.”

“For example,” Kolp put in quickly, “you maintained that, to the best of your recollection, you first heard the name Cornelius in this building. Is that true?”

The violet beams made the sudden sweat on Armando’s forehead glisten. He knew how he should answer, but he immediately said the opposite.

“No.”

Then came the reaction—the real fear. He’d spoken against his will, powerless to do otherwise!

He started to rise from the chair. Hoskyns seized his shoulder, pushed him down again. The ringing in Armando’s ears intensified. His heart beat faster, thumping in his chest.

Kolp leaned forward. “There, you see? You
had
heard the name somewhere else, not just from the governor. You forgot, that’s all. It’s not a damaging point—” He plucked the paper from Hoskyns’ hand. “Now, as to your declaration under oath that the circus ape is totally incapable of human speech—”

Fear pumped adrenalin through Armando, gave him the energy to leap to his feet, kick the chair over backwards, escape from between the converging rays of light with a yell. “I WON’T SUBMIT TO THIS!”

Hoskyns started toward him. “Oh, but you will.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong! You’re treating me like a criminal again—”

“Sit down!” Kolp roared, closing in from the other side.

With another yell, Armando dodged Hoskyns’ lunge. He stumbled to one side of the room as Kolp exclaimed, “For Christ’s sake grab him!” Then he bellowed toward the hall. “Guard!”

Armando fought as Hoskyns seized him, tried to pin his arms. Somehow Armando found strength to ram his elbow into Hoskyns’ middle. The investigator cursed, his grip momentarily loosening. Armando broke free, darted toward the hall door. It flew open. The silhouette of a policeman loomed against the light.

Backtracking, Armando sidestepped another grab by Hoskyns, climbed up on the desk trying to reach the other side. He was wild with fright now, all sense of direction gone.

Kolp seized his legs. Armando kicked free, tumbling off the desk and striking his head on the arm of Kolp’s chair. He slumped on the floor, dizzy.

The policeman rounded one side of the desk, Hoskyns the other. Both grabbed Armando, hauled him to his feet, and started to pummel him. The grunting policeman managed to crook an elbow around Armando’s neck as Kolp joined the struggle.

The policeman’s grip turned Armando’s fear to total panic. Bellowing, he jerked away from the others with one savage effort.

Armando windmilled his arms, fighting for balance. But the force of his forward movement was strong, violent. He felt chilly wind on his cheeks, lost a slipper, realized that what was so cold against the sole of his foot was the terrace flagging . . .

The policeman reached him first, closing a fist on the lapel of Armando’s filthy maroon jacket. Armando clawed at the man’s face, pulled away—and heard the fabric tear.

Off balance again, he ran backwards. The small of his back struck something hard. His momentum carried him over the concrete railing.

The lighted high rises tilted and blurred as he fell straight down toward the pavement of the Civic Center, screaming.

A day’s duty in the Command Post beneath the Civic Center Plaza revealed to Caesar that here indeed was the nerve center of the metro complex.

The huge, brightly illuminated room served as the government’s sensory system. Human beings manned a vast array of computer terminals, message boards, and video monitors that not only kept routine track of conditions in major public areas, but interconnected with state security substations, fire equipment bunkers, hospitals, and similar installations.

The place was constantly noisy with voices and chattering machinery. Alarm bells rang frequently. Quite soon, Caesar understood the full scope of Governor Breck’s ability to maintain order in the city under his charge.

A percentage of the incoming alarms and outgoing responses dealt with situations in which the citizens were obviously served. An attempted robbery resulted in the almost instant deployment of squads of policemen. A flash fire sent crews roaring through the nearest service tunnels aboard silver-and-yellow pumpers. An incident of ape rebellion, or even simple misconduct, produced a barked order for the dispatch of a police team of the appropriate size and strength.

When less urgent, or perhaps confidential, messages required delivery, some of the chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas assigned to the Command Post were used for delivery service. Caesar, however, was given a more menial job.

After being fitted with a civilian defense armband—more than half the apes down here wore them, he noted—he was taken by a staff supervisor to a semicircle of computer terminals. There, he was shown how to file stacks of the printout material.

A large file room adjoined the Command Post. The file fronts were color-coded. Red-tabbed printouts went into red wall files, blue into blue, and so on. It was idiot’s work, but Caesar pretended to have a little difficulty learning the basic routine so that later, as he moved slowly through the aisles, feigning perplexity but in reality observing the various work functions, he would not be too closely scrutinized.

MacDonald departed after observing Caesar’s first few minutes of instruction. He promised the staff supervisor that he would return later that night, after he attended a civic banquet with Governor Breck, to check on the progress of the new “volunteer.”

So that was the significance of the arm bands, Caesar deduced. Extra duty. Service to the state, over and above the regular work of many of the apes, whose slow pace Caesar matched with little effort.

His mind constantly sorted and analyzed the incoming sensory data. Not all the apes were working here in addition to laboring for human masters. Aldo, who came and went frequently with message pouches, wore no armband. Caesar therefore decided he was on permanent assignment.

As he was leaving the file chamber, he saw a new arrival—Mrs. Riley’s Lisa. She wore one of the armbands, so in her case, too, it was slavery piled upon slavery. He gave Lisa a warm look of acknowledgement and admiration as they passed one another. Lisa reciprocated with her soft, round eyes.

During trips to the files, Caesar assimilated another fact. The Command Post was apparently vital to security and control of the city since it was so heavily patrolled by helmeted policemen. They guarded the entrances and also kept a close watch on the apes.

Late in the afternoon, a gong rang three times. The puzzled Caesar was suddenly prodded by a nearby policeman.

“Go! Stupid ape. Don’t you know when it’s feeding time?”

Stifling his anger, Caesar followed the other animals shuffling down a corridor that led off one side of the Command Post.

In a sort of scaled-down cafeteria at the corridor’s end, the apes filed past counters where female apes handed out rations of fruit, barely cooked meat, and disposable cups of water. The apes ate standing up; there were no benches or tables provided.

On the way back to the Command Post, Caesar saw another corridor branching off the one to the meal room. A glowing sign pointed the way to Staff Messenger Quarters. He imagined sourly what those “quarters” must be—cells or cages for Aldo and his fellows.