Beneath the Planet of the Apes - Avallone Michael - Страница 8

Zira dutifully got to her feet, a split second before a glowering gorilla policeman could reach her to force her to do so.

From the center of the arena, Ursus smiled a triumphant smile. No matter what the brainy fools might think—force was the only answer for all problems. Power. The Big Fist. Ineluctable Power!

Even his most vocal opposition, the chimpanzee claque, were all on their feet now, paying homage to what he had said. His words. His platform. His promises.

Dr. Zaius would learn that someday, the scientific idiot!

Or he too would have to feel a leather truncheon crashing down on his orangutan skull.

Ursus knew that in his own scheme of things it could be no other way.

Nova led the confused Brent through the thick underbrush bordering Ape City. In her dimly lit mind she had realized that perhaps Zira and Cornelius could provide the new man with the answers she was incapable of giving. She had seen that Brent was the same stamp of man as Taylor. There was the clean, bold look of the eyes, the firm carriage of the body, the walk of giants. Even if Brent was confused and obviously dazed, to Nova he represented a species several thousand cuts above the half-savage, brutal race she had grown and lived among. Anything was better than that. Anything was better than the rule of apes.

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.

5.

ZIRA AND CORNELIUS

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.”