Conquest of the Planet of the Apes - Jakes John - Страница 4

Until one of the gorillas flung down his broom and simply stood, snuffing and swinging his massive head from side to side.

Two policemen strode forward. One jabbed his metallic rod against the gorilla’s back. The gorilla stiffened, roared. Obviously he had received some sort of strong shock.

The gorilla glowered at the policemen standing shoulder to shoulder. The rest of the sweepers began to push their brooms faster. Finally, the rebel bent over, snagged his broom from the ground and resumed his work.

The hard-eyed policemen watched the offender a moment longer. Then they walked away. Caesar pulled against the leash in order to see the conclusion of the scene.

Free of his tormentors, the gorilla thrust his broom to the right, the left, scattering the pile of trash he had accumulated. The movements were clumsy, but the rebellion was clear.

The gorilla trudged forward over the litter, an idiotically triumphant grin on his face. He caught up with the line of sweepers, apparently satisfied by his small act of defiance.

Soothing instrumental music provided an aural background to the stunning visual panorama that was fast overloading Caesar’s mind with almost more data than he could sort and understand. He had been marginally aware of the music ever since entering the plaza, but he was jerked to full awareness of it when it ended abruptly.

“Attention! Attention! This is the watch commander. Disperse unauthorized ape gathering at the foot of ramp six!”

Immediately, from all corners of the plaza, pairs of state security policemen began to converge on the run. Through the crowd Caesar glimpsed three chimps and a gorilla, who were doing nothing more sinister than standing at the foot of the ramp, staring mutely at one another. The harshly amplified voice went on.

“Repeat, disperse unauthorized ape gathering at the foot of ramp six. Take the serial number of each offender and notify Ape Control immediately. Their masters are to be cited and fined. Repeat. Their masters are to be cited and fined!”

Instantly the music resumed. The shifting crowds soon hid Caesar’s view of the altercation, but not before he distinctly saw truncheons and metal prods coming up to chest level in the hands of the running policemen.

Behind the indifferent throngs—a few humans bothered to glance around, but most simply moved on—Caesar thought he heard an ape yelp in pain. He couldn’t be sure.

Then, just ahead, he saw a sluggishly moving female orangutan, obviously no longer young. She lowered two shopping baskets to the ground. She placed one hairy hand to her side, as though in pain, searching for a place to rest. A few yards away, at the edge of one of the pocket parks, stood a comfortable sculptured; bench. There was an inscription in black letters across its curving back:

NOT FOR APES.

Staring at the bench, the elderly female wavered. Then she shambled forward. In front of the bench she halted again, staring at the lettering with dull eyes. Finally, with a little cry of pain and another clutch at her side, she turned fully around and lowered herself to the bench.

Her expression suggested to Caesar that she sensed there was something wrong in what she was doing; he was virtually certain she could not have understood the stenciled message.

But the pair of policemen who approached on the double understood it. The younger policeman enforced the warning with two quick whacks of his truncheon.

The female orangutan cringed in pain as the officer snapped, “Off, off!” Then, loudly, his truncheon raised for a third blow: “No! Don’t you see the sign?”

The older lawman was grimly amused. “Take it easy, they can’t read.”

“Not yet they can’t.” The other lifted his truncheon higher. “Off. No!”

In obvious pain, the old female stood up. She lifted her shopping baskets as if each contained great weights. Watching her wobble off, Caesar experienced a mingling of intense pity and equally intense anger. Armando automatically tightened his grip on the leash.

Caesar stepped close to the circus owner, risking a whisper: “You told me humans treated the apes like pets!”

Armando’s dark eyes grew sorrowful. “So they did—in the beginning.”

Through clenched teeth Caesar said, “They have turned them into slaves!”

Armando’s grimace of warning urged Caesar not to speak again. He darted a glance past Caesar’s shoulder, fearful they’d been observed. Apparently they had not, because he said in a low voice, “Be quiet and follow me. I’ll show you what happened.”

The circus owner led Caesar around the far side of one of the miniature parks at the extreme end of the plaza. There, facing the broad paved area where three wide avenues converged, twin pedestals rose. One was crowned by the carved, highly sentimentalized figure of a mongrel dog, the other by a similar treatment of an ordinary house cat.

The animals were identified by respective plaques as “Rover” and “Tabby.” The quotation marks suggested to Caesar that these were symbols, rather than particular animals. The inscription read: In Loving Memory 1982.

Caesar was careful not to let too much of his astonishment show on his features. Armando bobbed his head to suggest they had best move on before he explained.

They entered the tiny park. Armando settled on a bench. Observing the stenciled warning, Caesar remained standing. After a glance to assure himself that no one was seated within earshot, Armando said to his ape companion: “They all died within a few months, nine years ago. Every dog and every cat in the world. It was like a plague, leaping from continent to continent before it could be checked—”

Eyes still roving nervously across the park, Armando waited till a young couple had moved out of sight, then went on.

“The disease was caused by a mysterious virus, apparently brought back by an astronaut on one of the space probes. No vaccine or antidote could be found in time to stop the deaths.”

Caesar was unable to hold back a whispered question: “Then—the disease didn’t affect humans?”

“No, for some reason they were immune. And so, it was discovered, were simians. Even the smallest ones. That is how—” he gestured in a vague, rather tired way toward the bustling plaza “—everything you see began. Humans wanted household pets to replace the ones they’d lost. First the rage was marmosets, tarsier monkeys. Then, as people realized how quickly they learned—how easy they were to train—the pets became larger and larger, until—

He didn’t need to finish. What Caesar had already seen told the story’s end.

“It’s monstrous!” he breathed.

Armando could only nod. “But now you understand why I’ve kept you away until I was reasonably certain you could withstand exposure to all this. I doubt I’d have risked bringing you into a city at all if attendance hadn’t fallen off so sharply these past months. Perhaps the novelty of old-fashioned circuses has faded. Three of the six remaining touring troupes disbanded in the last year and a half. I thought the sight of my star performer distributing flyers might increase the trade—”

Caesar hardly heard, his mind grappling again with the enormity of what had befallen his own kind. Abruptly, he felt the yank of the leash as Armando jumped up. “Come, come!”

They hurried toward an exit on the park’s far side, away from a strolling state security policeman who was staring after them, studying Caesar’s unusual wardrobe.

“All right,” Armando said as they re-entered the busy plaza. “Now you know the worst. Let the shock pass if you can, while we get on with the job.” He forced a smile, accosted a man: “Armando’s Old-Time Circus, sir. Now playing—you’ll enjoy it and so will your little ones.” With a smooth maneuver, he took one of Caesar’s flyers and slipped it into the astonished gentleman’s hand before moving on.