Beneath the Planet of the Apes - Avallone Michael - Страница 15

A cold, unreal sunlight.

And Brent stared.

And Nova shuddered against him. Helpless and afraid again.

For Brent, the universe had once more turned over.

His intellect dissolved into a thousand more little pieces.

They were on the outskirts of a city.

City.

If he could have imagined a place that a conceivable nuclear war in the year, say, 1990 might have devastated and then become a refuge of survivors trying to evade fallout, this would be that place. How else to account for the parts of a 2000-year-old original structure that now greeted his eyes? His and the girl’s.

He saw twentieth-century brick, stone and concrete, corroded sewer signs, showing through the basic foundations of a metropolis of predominantly white architecture, and the interior decor of a twenty-second-century catacomb complex scooped out of ancient foundations. Narrow streets, more like white corridors, twisted and turned between buildings with windowless walls. There was an unearthly emptiness and nakedness, a lack of ornamentation and color. It was as if a world of impersonal stone greeted them.

“Are we in a city?” Brent whispered. “Or a cemetery?”

Nova stared at him, taking her eyes away from the dead metropolis. She still couldn’t understand his words but she had become very sensitive to his moods and emotions. Fear had made them companions.

Wordlessly she slipped her hand into his.

Brent couldn’t take his eyes away from the dead city.

It was a stone monster out of his wildest nightmares.

At the Research Complex in Ape City, the scarlet-clad minister had lingered to listen to a heated discussion between Minister of Science Dr. Zaius and General of the Armies Ursus. Though the minister was also an orangutan, it was very clear where his sentiments lay. Zaius felt as though he was boxed in by enemies.

“Supposing they turn out to be our superiors?” Zaius was reinforcing his point.

General Ursus unrolled a map, his expression pugnacious.

“Their territory is no larger than ours. We shall not be outnumbered.”

“I was not referring to their numbers,” Zaius said patiently. “My supposition concerned their intelligence.”

Ursus stared at him, his gimlet eyes cold.

“Then your supposition was blasphemous, Dr. Zaius.”

The minister nodded grandly, solemnly agreeing.

“The Lawgiver has written in the Sacred Scrolls that God created Apes in His own image to be Masters of the Earth. We are His Chosen,” he reminded Dr. Zaius.

Ursus glowered at the doctor.

“Do you doubt that?” Ursus snapped.

“What I doubt,” Zaius said softly, deftly parrying, “is your interpretation of God’s intention. Has He ordained that we should make war?”

Ursus rose, pointing with the partly unrolled map.

“Has He ordained that we should die of starvation?”

The minister chimed in again. “Has He ordained that we should make peace with the Human race?”

Zaius brushed that aside. “They are mere animals.” It is Zaius who says this.

Ursus snorted, stabbing at the map with a black forefinger. “And these?”

“They are unknown,” Zaius said.

“A godly Ape,” the minister said unctuously, “is not afraid of the unknown.”

“I,” said Zaius icily, “am not afraid. I am circumspect.”

Ursus jeered slightly, assuming an air of politic joviality, but Zaius was not fooled; there were still those gimlet eyes.

“Still not too circumspect to ride with me on the Day?”

Dr. Zaius seemed to consider that very carefully.

“No.” He too rose to his feet. “As a scientist I am also curious.”

Zira and Cornelius had worked far into the night on their human guinea pigs. Cornelius took copious notes while his wife ambitiously strove to make one of the caged subhumans learn the power of speech. Zira had worked long and hard on one particularly clever human, making lip gestures and sounds through the bar of the cage. The male human had mimicked her lip movements, heroically.

“Ma-ma-ma-ma—” Zira tried and tried again.

The human had tried—but no sounds came forth.

In frustrated fury, Zira had finally given up, turning away in disappointment.

“Oh, Cornelius,” she whimpered. “If I could teach one of them to talk . . .

Cornelius nodded sympathetically.

She had set herself an impossible task to perform.

Teaching a human anything was never easy.

8.

SPECTERS

There was a stone fountain in the center of the incredible graveyard-city. Brent did not notice it until, magically, it began to spout water. A steady, spurting stream which suddenly and gracefully began to spiral before his eyes. The tiny rippling sounds it made drew him and the girl like a magnet. In the harsh glare of the white stone city with its atmosphere of total antiseptic reality, they both began to drink. Nova lapped at the fluid greedily, like a thirsty dog. Brent drank more slowly, finally straightening when he was sated. Nova continued to drink. Brent watched her.

And then . . .

Abruptly, methodically, with no conscious thought of the movement, he reached down, placed both hands around Nova’s neck and forced her head beneath the surface of the pool surrounding the stone fountain.

Nova jerked spasmodically, her entire length stiffening. Brent tightened the grip of his hands, digging into the soft flesh of the girl’s neck. He pressed down, mercilessly.

The water rippled, coalesced, shimmered, shattered and rippled into a million extensions of unreality.

Brent increased his hold. Nova spluttered, fighting. Trying to fight back. Drowning . . .

Through a dim haze, Brent saw his own reflection in the agitated waters. Two reflections, really.

The one reflected in the waters of the fountain was an insane parody of his own face. A mask, depicting some intense struggle of mental combat between some outer and inner force over which he had no conscious control. He continued to hold the girl’s head below the surface of the fountain pool.

His other face mocked back at him.

Full of pity, horror and astonishment.

The reflected other face was distorted into the visage of some strange monster. A demented, rabid animal with bared teeth and glaring eyes.

Brent’s mentality rocked into chaos.

The outer force was saying: Put my hands around her throat. Hold her head down in the water till she dies.

The inner force was fighting back with: Take my hands off her throat. Get out of my head!

Brent groaned, mingling a gasp and a grunt, as both forces locked for possession of his soul.

With his hands still clasped about the girl’s neck, Brent’s voice tore savagely from his throat.

“Take . . . put my hands off . . . round her throat . . . hold her . . . throat . . . get out of my head . . . down in the water . . . till she . . .” his voice rose in a roar of sound, “DIES!” And then, “No . . . ! NO!”

He wrenched his hands from her throat with a Herculean effort, reeling away from her. For a terrible moment he swayed on his feet, dumbly staring. He felt an appalled sense of horror. Nova came up from the pool, splashing, choking, gagging. She sagged against the stone circular side of the fountain, goggling at him with mingled terror and amazement. Brent fought himself not to approach her. The war in his mind was still raging. Kill her. Don’t kill her. He shook his head like a confused dog, fighting the outer pressures that wanted to push him toward her, destruction-bound. But Nova remained motionless, mutely staring at him.

Brent’s lips barely moved.

“Nova, keep away from her throat . . . her bare throat in the water until you get out . . .” His hand came up in a wild wave. As if pushing something away from himself. He stopped up his ears with both hands. “Get out!” he raged at the silence all around them. “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”