Conquest of the Planet of the Apes - Jakes John - Страница 9

“Save—your breath—for escape,” Armando panted. “Under the city there’s—a network of tunnels. If we can reach one in time—”

Side by side, they ran into a narrow street, oblivious of the people around them, and not looking back.

Their flight drew stares and occasional exclamations of surprise from pedestrains. They even attracted the attention of a policeman in the center of a footbridge arching over part of a small mall through which they dashed. But they were gone into the relative darkness of another street before the policeman could react.

Caesar, who had started the escape, now let Armando lead. With a ragged explosion of breath, the circus owner suddenly exclaimed, “There!” and thrust Caesar down an alley serving the loading entrances of two back-to-back high rises.

Caesar loped into the semidarkness, leaving behind two astonished human children and their orangutan nursemaid. Armando stumbled, grasped Caesar’s arm for assistance. By the light of a glowing panel halfway down the alley, the alarmed ape saw that Armando’s cheeks were an ugly dark red. His chest heaved violently.

Supporting Armando, Caesar hurried toward the concrete stair that descended from street level under the glowing sign. The sign read: Service Levels Sectors Gamma 9-11.

Within a minute they had pushed through a metal door, descended another stair, and emerged at an intersection of six concrete tunnels, each sparsely illuminated by softly shining globes set in the ceiling at wide intervals. Each of the tunnels looked interminably long.

“Three more levels lie below this,” Armando gasped, still making the most of Caesar’s support. “After midnight the tunnels will be crowded. Pods of refuse going out, pods of produce driving in, with ape crews and human supervisors. But for a few hours we should be safe—let’s go that way. Find a dark spot. I must rest—”

Caesar helped him limp into the tunnel indicated. Occasionally they passed under a ceiling vent. Though dark, and covered with metal grille, the vents admitted sounds from the city above: muted voices, music, the clack of shoes. And the announcer’s strident voice. “—fugitives positively identified while fleeing through the Mall of the Four Muses. All teams in the vicinity—”

Hurrying on, Caesar was glad not to hear the rest.

“By means of these passages,” Armando explained, breathing less raggedly now, “the city above is kept free of delivery vehicles—the ugly sight of its own outpouring of garbage—”

“You mean the city is kept beautiful by its slaves,” Caesar retorted. “The tunnels, the—what did you call them? Pods? Those are incidental. It’s the animal population doing the hard work, the filthy work, to make it all run. Isn’t that right?”

Armando gave a weary nod. “You had to learn it eventually. Here—we’ll stop—”

Slipping from Caesar’s grip, he sank to the concrete floor at a point equidistant from two of the glowing ceiling fixtures. The circus owner’s sweating cheeks glistened with reflected light.

Further along the tunnel, Caesar heard a peculiar, unfamiliar sound. A deep, booming horn that blared once, then twice again. The echo rolled up the tunnel and slowly receded to silence.

Without recrimination, Armando asked, “Why did you run?”

“Senor Armando, I knew I put you in danger by not being able to control my feelings—by yelling what I did—”

The circus owner waved that aside, leaning his head back against the concrete. “You only said aloud what I was thinking.”

“I ran because I believed I could draw the police after me. I suppose I wasn’t thinking clearly, but I hoped they might leave you alone—so you could get away in the confusion. Instead, you followed—”

“I’ve cared for you twenty years, my boy,” said the exhausted man. “Did you think I would abandon you at the first difficult moment?”

Stung with emotion, Caesar could not reply immediately. He shivered. The tunnels were eerie, forlorn. The chimpanzee’s eyes were unhappy as he said at last: “I—I am very sorry for what happened.”

Armando’s shrug was fatalistic. “I was the one who decided on today’s trip. I thought you were ready for it, but I was wrong. That is past history. I might have bluffed it through at the Civic Center if you hadn’t bolted first. Because now you realize how the police will regard you—”

Caesar shook his head, puzzled.

“On top of a suspicion that you can speak, they will be reasonably certain that you understood all that was said. Only a unique ape would have that capability.”

Miserably, Caesar sank down beside Armando. He closed his eyes and said in a small, hesitant voice, “Let’s go back to the circus.”

“Alas, that’s impossible now. The circus is the first place they will search.”

Armando rubbed his eyes, pondering. Caesar wanted to say something to encourage or comfort him. But he could think of nothing appropriate. He watched in helpless silence as Armando continued to rest his forehead on his hand. From down the tunnel, the strange horn sounded again.

Finally Armando raised his head. Then he stood up, brushed off his trousers. “I have decided what must be done. I will go to the police—”

“You don’t dare!” Caesar cried.

“My boy, there’s no other way.” Armando began to pace, as if still taking the measure of his solution to their plight. “I’ll tell them I couldn’t find you. That I only ran off myself in order to capture you. And I’ll say you’ve run away from me before—because cities frighten you. Sounds perfectly plausible, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose. But where can I go while—?”

“You will go nowhere. You will stay here. You’ve always had an excellent sense of time, Caesar. If what I plan works as I hope, I should return within two hours at most. As I told you, there’ll be no activity down here until around midnight. Allow me those two hours and I’ll be with you again.”

“But what if you aren’t?”

The long silence indicated to Caesar that Armando himself had doubts. Caesar blurted, “It’s too risky! Suppose they refuse to let you go.”

“Oh, no, they won’t.” But Caesar was not deceived by the false confidence in Armando’s voice. He’d lived too close to the circus owner for too many years not to recognize uncertainty passed off as just the opposite. “However, just in case I am not back by the time you judge two hours have elapsed—” Armando’s hand lifted, no more than a pale glimmer in the darkness between the overhead lights—“follow along the way we were going. I chose this tunnel because it leads to the harbor. Those horns you heard—ships on the water. Freighters. Should I be detained longer than a couple of hours, you must have a hiding place. You can’t roam loose up above—you’d be picked up at once. And down here, you’ll be surrounded by the service crews after midnight. At the harbor though—the docks are dark. Ape shipments coming in from other parts of the world are frequently unloaded there at night. Perhaps you can find one of those shipments. Infiltrate it—hide among your own kind. Should that fail, at least there are shadowy places along the wharves. Somehow, I’ll get back and find you . . .”

Caesar was not the bold, defiant animal of an hour ago. The prospect of being abandoned in the tunnel filled him with fright.

Armando pressed his arm. “One more thing to remember, should you go to the harbor. Apes imported from overseas arrive naked. You’ll have to get rid of those clothes.”

“But I don’t want to hide and cower like—”

“Caesar, we must have an alternate plan! If I don’t succeed in convincing the authorities quickly, the only true sanctuary for you is among your own kind.”

Caesar knew further protest was useless. Certainly the circus owner would know what the urgencies of the situation required. So the ape simply nodded in forlorn agreement.

Armando forced a smile, patted Caesar’s shoulder. “I am only preparing you for an outside chance. I fully expect to talk my way free in thirty minutes. Wait here and I’ll see you soon.”