Battle for the Planet of the Apes - Gerrold David - Страница 22

Caesar stopped crawling. He stopped trying to get away. He stopped and looked back at Kolp.

Kolp noticed. And smiled. “Ahh, you’re learning,” he said. “That’s good. You’re a clever ape, Caesar. Very clever. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll be one of the ones we let live. And then again, maybe not!” Another scorching blast of flame! Caesar twisted and dodged and tried to roll out of the way.

Kolp giggled at the sight. They were in the center of Ape City. Apes were all around him, on all sides, but not one had even dared move. None would. They were all staring aghast as he humiliated and destroyed their leader. After this, there would never again be an ape threat, not even an Ape City. They would be incapable of organizing. Ever. If any of them survived.

The ape crowd moaned with every burst of the flame thrower. They recoiled at every blast. They wailed and covered their eyes. One ape in particular—Lisa. Hearing the noise below, she had left her son’s body and come to the window, only to watch in horrified silence, the slow, step-by-burning-step, hateful, painful torture of her husband.

Kolp was just loosing a blast. “Crawl, ape!” he shouted. “Crawl!”

Caesar didn’t move. He stayed where he was, even though the flame was only inches from him.

“Crawl! I said, crawl!” Kolp’s voice rose in annoyance and anger. This ape was spoiling the game.

Caesar only glared back.

“I am your master. You will obey me. You will crawl!” This bloody, stupid ape was going to defy him! But he was Kolp! No ape defied Kolp! No ape embarrassed Kolp, not in front of other apes!

Caesar just glared.

“Crawl, ape. I said, crawl, you hear? I’m giving you one last chance. If you don’t start crawling, I’m going to kill you. I’ll burn you!” Kolp’s control was fraying. He was ready to end it now. He had to; the monster had defied him. “Crawl,” he said one more time, gesturing with the flame thrower.

But Caesar was through crawling. He gathered his strength for one last-ditch leap, a spring for Kolp. He tensed.

“All right! You forced me to do this. You did it yourself. It’s your own fault” Kolp raised the flame thrower.

A voice, a shout! “No, Kolp, no!” A female voice. Alma? Here? He whirled.

It was Lisa, clutching the window frame. Lisa? Lisa! An ape? Saying “no” to him?

And then Caesar was on him, pulling him down, pulling at the straps that held the flame thrower in place. They struggled, rolling in the dirt, Kolp kicking and lashing frenziedly, Caesar clawing and grabbing.

Kolp kicked Caesar away, trying to free himself. He rolled, half-twisted, trying to place himself between Caesar and the other mutants, trying to hold onto his flame thrower. And as he rolled the machine went off. The tongues of flame lashed out and touched the jeep. The mutant driver and gunners jumped out, rolling to extinguish the flames. The gasoline and ammunition exploded behind them, enveloping the vehicle in a ball of orange fire and a cloud of greasy smoke.

The blast crashed through Ape City, hurling Caesar and Kolp apart. Kolp was thrown aside where he fell, dazed and unconscious. Caesar rolled and somehow, miraculously, found himself on his feet.

“Caesar!” A voice called. It was Virgil, shouting and running. He tossed Caesar a gun.

Caesar caught it, released its safety catch with familiar efficiency. Watching him from above, Lisa hid her eyes. Caesar let off a short burst at a small crowd of mutants nearby.

Then, suddenly, all the apes began to fire at the mutants.

Startled by the sudden defeat of their leader, the mutants were caught off guard. They began running back down the slope, down the road. They scrambled and tripped over each other in their haste to escape the angry apes.

“Come on!” Caesar was shouting to his comrades. “Let’s fight like apes should! Come on! Kill the humans!”

All around him, chimpanzees and orangutans and gorillas cheered their support. They rallied around him and began charging after the fleeing mutants.

But more mutants were pouring down the road from the ridge. The bulk of the mutant army, a lumbering black mass of smoke-belching trucks, jeeps, and motorcycles, was heading eagerly toward Ape City. Kolp or no Kolp, they were bent on destruction.

The apes caught sight of this unstoppable juggernaut, and for a moment they faltered. They stopped in their tracks and moaned in fear. They wailed in fright, and one or two even dropped their weapons.

But Caesar was shouting, “Come on, apes! Defend your city!” And other apes, caught up in his passion, echoed his cries. “Get to the barricades! Kill the humans!”

The mass of the mutant army rolled on down the road toward them. They moved in a great cloud of dust and smoke and fumes, torching and burning whatever they encountered, leaving only ruins behind, heading inexorably for the apes.

They began letting off rounds, and the apes echoed their fire. The two armies were almost within range of each other now. They were about to touch—the barricaded apes and the rolling black Wehrmacht.

For a moment, the valley held its breath. And then Aldo and the surviving members of his gorilla cavalry, nearly a third of the original force, came down out of the hills above the road. They had regrouped and been tracking the mutants all the way. They appeared suddenly beneath the trees and came sweeping down on the unguarded flank of the mutant army, catching the mutants in a savage pincerlike movement between themselves and Caesar’s angry apes.

Caesar’s troops began firing at the suddenly disorganized mutants. Aldo uttered a throaty scream and charged. The gorillas waded into the mutants with flashing swords.

And machine guns! The gorillas had machine guns! And they knew how to use them. They fired indiscriminately into the mutant ranks at almost point-blank range. Horses fell, throwing their riders. They whinnied and fought for footing, stamping and kicking and trampling.

The mutant captains tried to organize their troops, tried to rally them. But even as they stood up and shouted, they were dying and their men were dying. It couldn’t be done. The men scrambled to desert an ancient school bus as a round of fire blasted out its windows. The gorillas were wielding their machine guns with a fanatic precision. A mutant on a motorcycle was chased by a gorilla on horseback—it was Aldo!

The mutant crashed headlong into a truck as Aldo’s bullets chewed up the ground around him. He fell to the ground and lay there without moving.

Then up from the barricades came Caesar and the other apes. They came running to join the fighting in the grove. Some of the mutants tried to return the apes’ fire from a stake-bed truck, but a hail of bullets ripped through it, splintering the wood and shredding the men.

Caesar led his apes onward into the thickest part of the battle, always after the fleeing humans. The mutants were starting to fall back, starting to retreat.

The mutant advance had slowed, then stopped; the inexorable approach of the black juggernaut had faltered, startled, stopped by Aldo’s warfare. Even now, the mutant Wehrmacht was trying to back up, trying to put itself into reverse. But, like a gigantic millipede whose nerve endings have suddenly become disconnected, the mutant army was confused, disintegrating into its individual segments. Those in the rear were still trying to advance while those in the front were trying to retreat. They piled up on each other and even fought among themselves.

The apes ran from tree to tree along their flanks, always keeping cover, yet always keeping up a steady hail of death. Other apes swung in the branches above, firing down on the hapless men.

The mutants were running now, openly running, back up the road. Running and sometimes falling and dying. Some had lost their goggles and were trying to find safety in the shadow of the trees. They stumbled and groped and found only death as ape snipers picked them off. Others, despite their sun-startled blindness, lurched after their comrades. Gorillas, chimps, and orangutans all came charging after the retreating mutant army.