Battle for the Planet of the Apes - Gerrold David - Страница 2

He kicked the horse again, urging it faster. He splashed through a shallow stream. Ahead lay Ape City, nestled in the midst of dense trees. It was an arboreal city, multilevel, with numerous tree houses blending in with the forest around. Vines and ladders hung from openings to permit easy entry, and there were limbs that could be climbed from one level to another. Food hung outside the windows, all vegetables and fruit. Flowers grew in suspended pots. The whole vista was one of tranquility.

Aldo sneered in annoyance. Kicking his horse once more, he galloped at full speed down into the valley, along a narrow road, through a grove of trees leading into Ape City. The wind lashed against his face; the dust of the road made his eyes water, and he squinted in reflex. But he galloped along, anyway, for the sheer brutal joy of it. The feel of the horse’s hooves pounding along the dirt was rhythmic and powerful.

He came loudly around a curve in the road and reined in suddenly. A wagon had collapsed, blocking his way. His horse reared up at the sudden stop; Aldo jerked the bridle viciously, holding the animal in fierce control. It pulled nervously to one side and whinnied in protest, but Aldo ignored it.

One of the wheels had come off the wagon. Overloaded with fruit and vegetables, it rested on the blunt end of its axle. Four human males in identical brown homespun tunics were trying to raise it; they were all unshaven and longhaired.

Off to one side stood a black man Aldo knew as MacDonald; he held a clipboard and a sheaf of papers in his hands. He was looking concerned—more about the broken wagon than about the delay he was causing Aldo.

Aldo snorted. He dismounted and strode over to the wagon. He grabbed hold of it with one hand and lifted; he gestured to the men to replace the wheel, holding the wagon up easily until they were done.

One of them, a broad-shouldered, golden-haired young man named Jake, grinned, “Thanks, Aldo. You’ve got the strength of a gorill . . . oh, sorry.” He stopped himself as he caught the darkening expression on Aldo’s face.

Was it an insult? Aldo snarled. Though Jake was tall and muscular, Aldo towered over him; he slapped Jake’s face hard with a huge, hairy hand. “Man is weak!” He slapped him again, the sound of it cracked in the air. “Man is weak! And you will address me by my rank of general!”

Jake glared at him in a long, tense silence. It was broken finally by MacDonald “Yes, General.” He said it in a deadpan monotone.

Aldo contemptuously pushed Jake aside and remounted his horse. He rode off quickly.

Jake spat after him, “That gorilla makes me sick.”

MacDonald nodded. “I’ll speak to Caesar.”

“What good will that do? Nobody can control Aldo.”

The black man shrugged. “We can try.” But he realized the truth of Jake’s words. He stared off down the road at the rapidly retreating Aldo; Aldo was dangerous, he knew it; he had seen the signs in too many men not to recognize them in the gorilla.

Aldo rode recklessly into Ape City. Apes and humans dodged out of his way as he clattered through the avenues.

In the nine years since its founding, Ape City had established a culture of its own. Apes were the dominant class, humans the servants, though not physically ill treated. Humans could be seen carrying lumber and parcels, sweeping, doing laundry, tending ape children, and building shacks below the tree houses of their masters.

Apes wore uniforms, green and black and tan. Humans wore faded tunics, the same tunics that had been worn by their ape slaves half a generation before.

Aldo pulled his horse up to a hitching post and dismounted. It was good that apes were the masters—but they weren’t firm enough with their slaves. Ape and human children were playing in the streets; apes were riding humans, tossing them things to fetch, and treating them affectionately, like puppies. That was wrong—it might teach ape children to be too lenient with humans. It might even teach apes to like humans. He growled deep in his throat at the thought.

Aldo strode through the street toward a building set on the ground. It was the ape school. Aldo hated it.

Inside, the room was large enough to permit the simultaneous teaching of two classes without either interfering with the other—unless voices were unduly raised; as sometimes happened.

In one class, an earnest but amiable bespectacled human was teaching reading and writing, speaking to a class self-segregated into two groups: in front sat child chimpanzees and child orangutans; in the rear sat the more backward gorillas—both children and adults. They looked sullen and truculent in their black leather uniforms.

The other class was less a class than what a university might have called a tutorial. Three adolescent apes—two chimpanzees and one orangutan—sat raptly at the feet of a young orangutan named Virgil. Virgil was an intellectual prodigy whose witty and fluent speech could only just keep pace with the ideas that fizzed in his remarkable brain.

Both Teacher—for that was the name the apes had given him—and Virgil were equipped with chalk stone to write on two chipped old chalkboards salvaged from the dead city. Their pupils wrote with charcoal sticks on skin parchment or papyrus. If pens, pencils, and paper still existed, they were reserved for the elite.

Aldo surveyed the scene with ill-concealed annoyance. Particularly the human-taught class. Humans teaching apes, indeed! Teacher had just finished chalking up the words “APE SHALL NEVER KILL APE” on the board. The chimp and orangutan children watched attentively. But behind them the gorillas were restless and mumbled to each other.

Teacher turned to the class. “Gorillas! Read me what I have written.”

There was glazed incomprehension and silence from the back row.

Teacher sighed. Then, more hopefully: “Orangutans? Chimpanzees?”

In unison, the front row recited, “Ape shall never kill Ape!”

Aldo moved into the classroom then to stand beside his usual place on the front bench. The class fell silent as he entered. Aldo eyed the teacher and growled, “Can Ape ever kill Man?”

There was a growl of approval from the gorillas in the back. As it subsided, Teacher said coldly, ignoring his question, “You’re late, General Aldo. Again.” He wrote something into a battered book he held.

“What are you writing?” demanded Aldo.

Teacher extended the book. “Come and read it. To the class.”

“I won’t,” the gorilla said sullenly.

“You won’t,” Teacher chided gently, “because you can’t. And you can’t, because you don’t want to learn.” He shut the book. “And it’s my duty to tell that to Caesar.”

Aldo’s growl was silenced by the word “Caesar,” which also prompted an alert little boy chimpanzee to rise to his feet. He said wistfully, “If my father were a gorilla, we’d all be learning riding instead of writing.”

The gorillas howled appreciatively. All the apes laughed, chimpanzees and orangutans too.

Teacher smiled kindly. “Cornelius,” he said to the boy chimp, “Remember you’re Caesar’s son and heir. Being a good rider won’t make you a good ruler. Although,” he added drily, “in human history, quite a number of monarchs—and military dictators—seem to have thought that was enough.” He looked at Aldo as he said this last. He turned back to the class. “Now all of you take your charcoal sticks and copy down what I’ve written. The best shall be hung from this hook on the wall.”

Aldo took his place grumbling and eyeing the teacher. “I can think of better things to hang from hooks.”

He picked up his charcoal stick clumsily and began to make marks on the papyrus. It was difficult; he looked around to see if anyone else was having problems. The chimpanzees and orangutans were writing clearly and rapidly; the other gorillas were working slowly and with difficulty. Aldo bent back to his papyrus; he pressed harder, as if that would help. The charcoal stick snapped in two. “Aaargh!” he snarled. He hated the school! He hated writing! It was a useless waste of time—it was an occupation fit only for men! And for the weaker apes, chimpanzees and orangutans! “Effete intellectuals,” he fumed; they weren’t much better than humans!