Planet of the Apes Omnibus 2 E-Book

John Jakes

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

When men discovered that the Planet of the Apes was their own Earth, it was only the beginning of the most incredible adventure of all time...CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APESBy John JakesIn the future, the Earth thrives from the enslavement of its apes. Caesar, the son of Cornelius and Zira, has been in hiding for decades, but surfaces to launch a revolution to overthrow humanity and free his kind.BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APESBy David GerroldIt is ten years since Caesar freed the apes from slavery. He wants peace between his kind and the surviving humans, but there are whispers of mutiny among his people, and human survivors who also refuse reconciliation.PLANET OF THE APES (2001)By William T. QuickCrash-landing on an unfamiliar planet, Captain Leo Davidson finds humanity enslaved, and thinking, speaking apes in charge. Desperate, he must sow the seeds for a rebellion...

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Copyright

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

Prologue

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Battle for the Planet of the Apes

Prologue

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Epilogue

Planet of the Apes (2001)

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About the Authors

OMNIBUS 2

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

PLANET OF THE APES OMNIBUS 1

Beneath the Planet of the Apes by Michael AvalloneEscape from the Planet of the Apes by Jerry Pournelle

PLANET OF THE APES OMNIBUS 3

(September 2017)Man the FugitiveEscape to TomorrowJourney into TerrorLord of the Apesby George Alec Effinger

PLANET OF THE APESOMNIBUS 4

(February 2018)Visions from NowhereEscape from Terror LagoonMan, the Hunted Animalby William Arrow

OMNIBUS 2

JOHN JAKESDAVID GERROLDWILLIAM T. QUICK

TITANBOOKS

Planet of the Apes Omnibus 2Print edition ISBN: 9781785653919E-book edition ISBN: 9781785653926

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: April 20171 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes ™ & © 1974, 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

Battle For the Planet of the Apes ™ & © 1973, 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

Planet of the Apes (2001) ™ & © 2001, 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

OMNIBUS 2

CONQUEST OFTHE PLANETOF THE APES

JOHN JAKES

PROLOGUE

Under a red-tinged moon, the dark towers of the central city thrust against the sky. Black glass facades caught the moon’s reflection, sectioned it like so many endlessly repeated blank faces.

Aerial walkways arched gracefully between the cubistic towers, empty at this hour. From the buildings, and from intersections along the walkways, ramps led down to the perimeter of a vast mall, a checkerboard of small green pocket parks and paving blocks that reflected the moon from their mica flecks. There was no sound except the tack-tacking of the boots of a helmeted state security policeman walking along a parapet above the plaza. His rifle barrel glittered, slung over his shoulder, muzzle upward.

The policeman drew in a breath of the cool, fresh air. Two years ago, in 1989, the last of the huge air-scrubbing plants, constructed at a cost of billions along the mountain chain a hundred miles eastward, had, in combination with stringent laws, made it pleasant to breathe again—at least in this American city. The policeman couldn’t speak for others, never having traveled much.

But he’d heard it was the same in all the great metro sprawls. An ordered society. Law breakers—including polluters—were promptly, severely punished. And the masses of people had been relieved of menial chores by the careful conditioning of thousands of…

Abruptly, the policeman stiffened, cocked his head. His helmet flashed moon reflections. Somewhere deep in the glass and steel canyons surrounding the mall, he heard soft, urgent footfalls.

Then another sound made him glance quickly up and down the mall. The second noise was—a jungle sound.

He had seen pictures of the world’s few remaining jungle places on solido shows. The policeman reached up, slowly unslung his rifle. He was sure now. What he’d heard was the whimpering cry of a frightened animal—a running animal.

His face tense, the policeman headed for the nearest ramp. His boots clacked as he ran down to the mall proper. He searched one direction, then another. Nothing but shadows, glass, silence. The footfalls had stopped.

But in thicker shadow beneath another ramp angling down to the pavement far on his right, he swore he heard the light, raspy sound of something breathing.

He whipped around as a shadowy figure broke from under the ramp. The figure began to zigzag between the pocket parks in an unmistakable shambling stride.

Almost before he realized it, the policeman was running himself. He understood the nature of the humped silhouette; understood why it scurried so rapidly across the plaza, dashing past building entrances, temporarily vanishing behind ramp pillars, then plunging frantically on again.

High on another parapet to his left, he heard a word barked by a human voice, then realized it was his own name, called out by a colleague who patrolled blocks Q four through seven. Moving fast, trying to keep the fleeing figure in sight, the first policeman shouted up to the other: “Runaway!”

The cause of the flight, or the identity of the fugitive, he did not know. But he knew that what was happening violated their conditioning, and therefore could not go unchecked. He breathed hard, gripping the rifle in a sweaty palm as he ran. Finally the fleeing figure broke into plain sight, forced to cross a wide paved area in order to reach the sanctuary of the streets opening from the mall’s far side.

The state security policeman halted, braced his booted feet, brought the rifle halfway to his shoulder. He yelled the command that carried more power— with them—than lethal weapons:

“No!”

The echo bounced off the high buildings. And, for a moment, the fleeing figure did react, break stride—almost hesitate. But ultimately, the traditional command failed to work. The figure went shambling on, the emptiness flinging back the whimpering, terrified sound it made.

“Jesus Christ,” said the policeman with a violent swallow. “A real renegade.”

His training had the rifle at his shoulder by then. With only an instant’s pause, he squeezed the trigger. The first thunderous report was followed by a second.

The distant figure spun, toppled to the paving stones, flat on its back, arms flung wide. It let out a piercing bellow of animal agony. The policeman had never shot one of them before. There was a shock reaction as he dashed forward, sourness rising in his throat. Coming down the ramp from above, the boots of his colleague slammed like ghostly echoes of the shots.

The policeman knew what he would find—an ape. He discovered it was a large, mature, male chimpanzee. It wore only green trousers now, the rest of its servant’s garb cast off somewhere as part of its desperate flight to freedom. What the policeman and his companion had not expected to see was the condition of the chimpanzee’s face and hairy upper body.

Welts—open wounds—glistened in the moon’s orange light.

“God, his master must have beat the hell out of him,” breathed the second policeman, peering at the fallen simian with a grimace of distaste.

“Maybe that’s why he tried it,” said the first, wiping sweat from his upper lip. He’d just noticed something else. The ape’s eyes were not completely closed. Nor was his breathing completely stopped. The powerful chest continued to pump ever so slightly—and the chimpanzee stared at them with eyes momentarily bright with hatred.

Then a cry of pain ripped out between the ape’s lips. The eyes glazed, closed slowly. The chimpanzee was dead.

The first policeman didn’t move. His thin voice expressed his shock: “I yelled at him. You heard me—”

“I heard you.”

“Didn’t do a damn thing. Slowed him maybe a second, no more.”

“A lousy conditioning job,” said the other, trying for a callous shrug.

“I wonder how many other lousy conditioning jobs are wandering around this city grinning and lighting cigarettes and cleaning toilets.” The first policeman glanced uneasily at the moon splinters on the towers. “I hope to God not many. If enough of them hated us the way that big bastard hated us when he was dying—” He let the rest trail off, too unpleasant to contemplate.

His colleague’s laugh sounded forced. “What’s with the God bit? It’s the government that keeps ’em from running wild.”

“But did you see the way he stared at us? I just think that if a couple of hundred of those bull apes ever went really wild, this city’d need a hell of a lot more than the government to protect it. I hope I’m not on duty if it happens.”

“You will be,” grumbled the other. “You are the government, my friend.”

The two stared at each other in glum silence. From far away down one of the dark boulevards came the shrilling sound of another one of them crying out.

In pain—or fury.

1

The passenger helicopter swept down across the glass-faced cubes of the city in the bright morning sunshine. Rotors whipping out wind and noise, it descended to the heliport pad atop one of the largest high rises near the city core. When the hatch opened, a file of suntanned commuters from the northern valley descended one by one. But the last two out of the ’copter were hardly typical commuters.

The man came first—heavy-set, florid, with gray in his wavy hair, and a maroon suit whose rather bold, showy cut instantly said that he was no conservative toiler in a futures’ exchange or ad-sell shop. He dressed like someone connected with the entertainment industry. Still, the cuffs and elbows of his jacket revealed wear. He was, then, in some less lucrative sector of the business.

The man had a stout leash looped around his right wrist. And it was his companion, at the other end of the leash, who continued to produce over-the-shoulder stares of curiosity from the commuters lining up at the rooftop check-in point.

At the end of the leash was a young but full-grown chimpanzee; a magnificent specimen, with alert eyes. The chimp blinked in the sunlight as he surveyed the panorama of towers and cubes ranged below the heliport on every side.

He was unusually dressed: a bright checked shirt; black breeches, black riding boots. In one hairy hand he carried a sheaf of colorful handbills.

The pair took places at the rear of the check-in line. Ahead, each passenger was having his or her identity card examined by two uniformed men from State Security. There was nothing perfunctory about the examination; each person’s card was scrutinized closely by the unsmiling officers. Finally, the heavy-set man and the leashed chimp reached the desk.

While one of the officers stared disapprovingly at the ape, the other accepted the card handed over by his master.

“Armando—is that a first or last name?”

With a shy smile and a bob of his head, the heavy-set man answered, “Both, sir—that is, it’s my only name now. A professional name. Legally registered. I am the proprietor of a traveling entertainment. We are currently playing a two-week stand in the northern exurbs.”

The second officer jerked a thumb at the ape. “Do you have authorization to dress him like that?”

“Oh, yes, sir.” Armando flashed an official-looking, stamped document from under his coat, and handed it across.

The second officer unfolded the document, scanned it, then returned it with another glance at the docile animal on the leash.

“A circus ape, huh?”

“That’s correct, sir,” said Armando, with obvious pride. “The only one ever to have been trained as a bareback rider in the entire history of the circus.”

“I thought circuses were definitely past history,” observed the first man.

With a smile, Armando plucked one of the handbills from the ape’s fingers. “Not while I live and breathe, gentlemen!”

Colorful type announced ARMANDO’S OLD-TIME CIRCUS. Smaller type below listed performance dates, times, and location. The handbill’s main illustration was a rather blurry photograph of the ape in the checked shirt. In the photo, he was standing on top of the bare back of a galloping white horse.

“Mind if I hang onto this?” the first officer asked. “My kid might get a kick out of an old-fashioned show like yours.”

“My pleasure, sir,” Armando said, still smiling his sleek, professional smile. “To promote attendance is precisely why we’ve come into the city with all these handbills.”

The officer tucked the flyer in his pocket, then passed the identity card back to its owner. “Okay, Señor Armando. Go ahead—and good luck.”

The officer pressed a button. A barrier gate slid aside. Armando gave a gentle tug on the leash.

“Come, Caesar.”

Armando started toward the elevator loading area, but doors were closing on the last carload of commuters. He paused, looked around, spotted an illuminated directional sign. Giving another tug on the leash, he led the ape toward the door to an interior staircase.

They’d gone down two flights, and reached a turning between floors, when Armando felt a tug from the other end of the leash. He turned to see the young ape looking at him alertly and with interest.

“Señor Annando,” the ape said distinctly, “did I do all right?”

Armando glanced uneasily down the stairwell, then smiled. “Yes. Just try to walk a little more like a primitive chimpanzee.” Relaxing the leash, he illustrated: “Your arms should move up and down from the shoulders— so! Without that, you look far too human.”

Vaguely puzzled for a moment, the ape nevertheless nodded. He slumped a little, imitating the circus owner’s movements. Armando was pleased.

“Much better.”

But there was a touch of sadness in the man’s eyes as he went on, “After twenty years in the circus, you’ve picked up evolved habits. From me, principally. Always remember—those must be disguised. They could be dangerous. Even fatal.”

“I know you keep telling me that, Señor Armando. But I still don’t really understand wh—”

Caesar broke off as Armando made a cautionary gesture. Two levels below, a woman and her daughter were coming up the stairs. Armando signaled Caesar to follow, darted down to the next landing and out through the door. In the bright corridor, another illuminated sign pointed the way to Aerial Cross-Ramp 10. They hurried that way, past closed office doors muting the sounds of voices and machines.

Once into the oval-windowed cross-ramp with the crowded plaza far below, Armando paused again. He risked speaking with quiet urgency.

“Caesar, listen to me most carefully. As I have reminded you before, there can be only one—one!— talking chimpanzee on all of earth: the child of the two other talking apes, Cornelius and Zira, who came to us years ago, out of the future. They were brutally murdered by men for fear that, one very distant day, the apes might dominate the human race. Men tried to kill you, too, and thought they had succeeded, but Zira took a newborn chimp from my circus and left you with its mother, hoping to save your life. I guarded you—even changed your name from the Milo they had given you—and raised you as a circus ape. But of course you inherited the ability to speak.”

The chimpanzee’s large, luminous eyes looked troubled. “But outside of you, Señor, no one knows I can speak.”

“And we must keep it that way. Because the fear remains. The mere fact of the existence of an ape with the capability to speak would be regarded as a great threat to mankind. That’s the way the world is today. When you realize how apes are treated—the roles they’ve come to occupy in society—”

The words trailed off. Armando stared glumly out one of the oval windows.

Caesar touched his arm. “Please finish what you were going to say.”

Armando turned back, said with obvious effort, “The comradeship of the circus, where humans are generally kind to animals, is very different from what you are about to see. That is why I’ve kept you away from all but our own people until I felt you were sufficiently mature. And I have kept your secret to myself, not willing even to trust our fellow performers with the staggering truth of—what you are.”

“But I don’t see what difference my speaking could—”

“Sssh!” Armando broke in. “From now on—no talking whatsoever!” For the benefit of a businessman approaching briskly, he tugged on the leash and said in an irritated voice, “Come, come!”

Pulled off balance, Caesar lurched clumsily forward. The businessman passed them with a curious stare. Caesar’s mind tumbled thoughts one on top of another.

What was so terrible about the populated cities that Armando had insisted on keeping him away from them until now? And why would the fact that he was able to organize his thoughts, articulate them aloud in Armando’s own language, endanger him? He’d heard it often before, but it still made no sense!

Caesar wished that Armando had not decided to bring him to the city at all, to try to generate business for the struggling little circus. All at once Caesar wanted to be back in the comfortable, familiar surroundings, traveling between the tiny outlying towns in the circus vans; performing his horseback tricks under the lights, warmed by the applause. In the circus, the names Cornelius and Zira were only mysterious tokens of his past; the names of a father and mother he had never seen. Here, as he scuttled obediently behind the striding Armando, the names assumed new dimensions; what he had inherited from Cornelius and Zira somehow threatened him.

And so he must conceal that inheritance. Keep silent. For the first time that he could remember, the constraint of Armando’s leash—employed only in public—angered him.

“Moving stair,” Armando warned, stepping onto a down escalator at the end of the ramp. “Mind your balance—”

Caesar needed little more cautioning that that. He kept his eyes glued to his feet as the stair carried them downward. Armando was one step below, his dark eyes still unhappy. Finally he swung his head around, gave the young chimpanzee a look of deep sympathy.

“When we reach the bottom—the first of the shopping areas we will visit today—prepare yourself for a shock. And above all—do not speak.”

Crowd noise, the bustle of a thronged plaza, drifted up from the bottom of the escalator. Caesar stumbled when the stair deposited them on the main level. Armando clutched him to keep him from falling, noting with new dismay the shock and astonishment that filled Caesar’s eyes in response to what he saw before him.

2

Though it was only a few minutes past ten in the morning, the plaza was already crowded with human beings, and with apes. Apparently vehicular traffic was barred from the central city. A few moments of scrutiny revealed other, more upsetting distinctions to Caesar.

The groups, human and ape, did not intermingle. The humans, a mixture of whites, black, and orientals, seemed to move at a leisurely pace, chatting with animation, virtually ignoring the chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans shuffling in and out among them. Only here and there did Caesar notice a quick-darting human glance settle on one of the apes, as if the man or woman were watching for some sign of trouble.

Caesar immediately decided that the smiles on the human faces looked forced, as if the apparent casualness of the people hid some inner tension. Why should that be so when the plaza, a place of sparkling miniature parks, shooting fountains, shop windows colorfully lit to highlight the endless displays of consumer goods, appeared so peaceful and prosperous?

He noted glances being cast his way—and a servile smile on Armando’s face as they drifted through the crowd, Armando handing out flyers. Caesar took the cue, offering handbills to some of the humans. They accepted them warily, as if concerned about coming too close. What were they afraid of? He had no clear notion.

A few more minutes of wandering through the crowds sharpened Caesar’s awareness of another distinction. The humans’ clothes, though expensively cut, were austere, generally monochromatic. But the costumes of the apes were variegated. Observation revealed that gorillas wore red, orangutans a rich tan, and chimpanzees like himself were garbed in green. There was also a distinct and consistent style for each sex. The females were clad in long-sleeved, full-length robes; the males in trousers and tight-fitting, high-collared coats. Occasionally an adult ape would stare briefly at Caesar, and—unless he was imagining it— react with a twitch of the nostrils or a blink of the eyes. Caesar tended to stop and gawk back. Armando’s tugs on the leash—“Come!”—occurred more frequently.

Caesar realized he was attracting undue attention with his staring. He tried to keep pace with his master, passing out the handbills while still absorbing as much information about his surroundings as he could.

He sorted out the sights and sounds, rearranged them in another, emerging pattern: the humans, while moving with some apparent purpose, did not seem to be engaged in any kind of physical labor. This was the function of the apes! The realization impacted his mind with stunning force. The moment it flashed through his mind, he saw it validated on every hand.

He noted a large, handsome female orangutan carrying a hamper of clothing. Then, on the far side of the plaza, a group of male gorillas in a line, sweeping the paving blocks with brooms. A pert female chimp with bright eyes gave Caesar an interested glance as she went by, carrying over her arm several women’s dresses wrapped in glistening plastic.

So the humans and the apes did not intermingle, except in an isolated case or two, where an ape seemed to be trailing the heels of a human master or mistress. And the apes served the humans…

Those two realizations were enough to jam Caesar’s mind with new, disturbing implications. But the shocking learning process of which Armando had warned him was only beginning.

After another twenty minutes of distributing the handbills, Caesar grew aware of a deception. The docility of the servants was a veneer.

He saw an ape glare at a nearby human on more than one occasion. Then Señor Armando’s route led them near the squad of broom-wielders. Caesar heard an occasional resentful grunt. One or two gorillas seemed to wear sullen looks.

The closer Caesar looked, the more apparent became this subsurface resentment. No wonder the humans shied from physical contact with Caesar’s outstretched hand, or carefully chose their paths through the crowd to avoid bumping into their inferiors.

On some ape faces, Caesar recognized outright fear. It registered most strongly among the females. He watched a soft-eyed girl chimp, a market basket laden with brightly wrapped food packages in each hand, cast a nervous glance toward helmeted police officers patrolling the plaza in pairs. Once Caesar looked for these figures of authority, he was amazed at their number. All were armed with thick truncheons, or gleaming metallic rods whose function he did not understand…

Until one of the gorillas flung down his broom and simply stood, snuffling 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 comers 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.

Earnestly trying to obey Armando’s suggestion, Caesar found that he could not. With every few steps, he saw apes subjected to unexpected humiliations, indignities…

At an outdoor cafe, they passed a table where a group of female humans were enjoying pre-lunch cocktails. One of the women popped a slim, pale green cigarette from her perspex case. Instantly, a huge gorilla waiter, a tray of empty glasses in one hand, proffered his lighter with the other.

Inhaling, the woman said, “Thank you, Frank,” with empty courtesy. Then she smiled in a bored way, waving the cigarette in the gorilla’s direction. “It’s odd—now that I know cigarettes won’t hurt me, I hardly enjoy them.”

Her friends laughed, a brittle sound, as the lady stubbed out the cigarette in a tray. The gorilla quickly substituted a clean ashtray from an adjoining table.

Armando grinned his warmest grin, slipped a handbill onto the table. A woman remarked: “Well for God’s sake. A circus! I saw one once in Europe, when I was tiny—”

Caesar, meantime, was peering at the gorilla waiter, trying to fathom whether the ashtray substitution was an intuitive or an intelligent reaction. Certainly there was no mistaking the gorilla’s exterior manner. His posture spoke only of servility as he trundled away with the tray of glasses held high.

* * *

Passing in and out of various shops along the plaza’s perimeter, they encountered two uniformed ape handlers hustling another gorilla along. Shackles connected the gorilla’s wrists. Separate chains from a wide iron collar were held in the fists of the handlers.

Because the area was crowded, it was momentarily impossible for Armando and Caesar to pass. There was an instant when the evolved and the primitive ape locked glances, instinctively surveyed one another, Caesar desperately trying to understand what his poor chained brother felt.

One of the handlers tugged the collar chain. “No, Aldo. Come!”

At once, Caesar knew what the gorilla felt; Caesar saw him literally cringe, and grow smaller.

Cringing on command? How was it possible? Caesar wondered.

Armando deemed it necessary to pull Caesar’s leash and say, “No.” Caesar did his best to feign a cringe also. It felt humiliating. But as a result, Aldo’s handlers lost interest in the chimpanzee, occupying themselves with getting their huge charge moving again.

A few paces ahead, Caesar noticed a young female chimpanzee entering a book shop. “Jolly’s is always a good place for handbills,” Armando commented, leading the way into the store. “What few readers of books remain in this world are frequently nostalgic types. They find a circus irresistible.”

Caesar found the task of counting off a few handbills eminently resistible, fascinated by what was happening at the counter.

Behind it sat a female clerk, with large spectacles and a sour expression. Standing patiently to one side, but behind her, was a male orangutan. The lady addressed the young female chimpanzee on the other side of the counter.

“Yes, Lisa?”

From her robe the girl chimp, whom Caesar found physically attractive, produced some sort of red ticket with writing on it. The female clerk glanced at it. “A Young Queen Falls. Mrs. Riley has a short shopping card today.”

Lisa the chimp nodded, her expression so fearful, so hesitant, that Caesar wanted to exclaim in anger. But he noted Armando watching him carefully, and did not.

The lady clerk consulted a catalog. Then she indicated a tall bookcase to the orangutan behind her.

The orangutan turned toward the bookcase even as he watched the lady extend all five fingers of her left hand, then three of her right.

The orangutan shuffled to the case. Touching each shelf, he counted five shelves down from the top, then—mistakenly—two titles from the left. He shuffled back to the counter bearing The Story of Servant’s Lib by one Herbert Semhouse.

“No,” said the clerk.

Stunned and confused, the orangutan halted dead in his tracks.

“No!” the woman repeated angrily. The simian helper cringed.

The woman strode to the shelves, seized the correct book and slapped it on the counter. Still cringing, the orangutan looked utterly miserable.

Lisa picked up the book, turned to go. Her glance met Caesar’s. He thought he detected a flattering indication of interest. He wanted to smile at her, but felt he dare not. Lisa bent her head and moved out of the shop as the clerk wheeled crossly on the circus owner, “Yes?”

“My name is Señor Armando—Mr. Jolly is out of the store?”

“That’s right. What do you want?”

“Mr. Jolly permits me to leave my advertisements on your counter. Also, could you possibly be so kind as to display one in your window? Mr. Jolly is a circus buff, you see, I’m sure he—”

“Mr. Jolly’s on vacation. I’ll put your junk up if I have time.” Turning away, she made it evident she’d be quite a while finding that time.

Armando looked downcast as they walked out of the shop. Caesar searched for the chimpanzee Lisa in the nearby crowds, but failed to find her.

The circus owner led him toward an illuminated sign above a passageway. The sign read Public Facilities.

Another shock awaited Caesar in the passage. Shapes were stenciled on the three doors. The first was a stylized treatment of a man’s figure; the second, a woman’s— both obviously human. On the third door Caesar recognized the outline of a generic ape, its thrusting jaw and sloping shoulders deliberately exaggerated.

Even as he watched, this door opened. A female chimpanzee emerged, smoothing her dress and taking a firmer grip on her bag of groceries. Armando, starting into the men’s, spoke to Caesar.

“Wait.” His eyes tried to express his sorrow and shame at what Caesar had seen thus far.

As the female chimpanzee clutched her groceries and hurriedly left the passageway, Caesar’s reaction did indeed show on his almost human face. He didn’t care. Let them see his anger over the humiliation of creatures just like himself. Let them!

3

When Armando emerged from the washroom reserved for human males, he read Caesar’s expression instantly. First making certain they were again unobserved, he stepped close and whispered: “Please. I know what this must be doing to you, but it was inevitable that you find out at some point in your life. And we have more work to do before we catch the chopper back to the valley. For my sake, Caesar, as well as the sake of your own sanity, do not see too much. And what you do see, try to ignore.”

Responding to the appeal of the kindest human being he’d ever known, Caesar said, “All right. I’ll try.” And he consciously attempted to order his feelings as they resumed their circuit of the shops around the plaza.

He realized the wisdom of Armando’s caution. He had no desire to sample the brutalizing shocks of the metallic rods carried by the ubiquitous policemen. Nor did he want to bring down trouble on Armando.

As they emerged from a music shop, Caesar’s spirits lifted. He glimpsed the young female chimp, Lisa, in the crowd. Still carrying the volume from the book shop, she was entering an establishment identified as Mr. Phyllis—Coiffures.

Armando started to go into the next shop, a health food bar. Caesar’s lingering gaze caught his attention. For the first time all morning, Armando’s laughter was genuine—like old times.

“Well! I’m delighted to see you haven’t lost all your instinctual traits. All right, we’ll stop there next. But remember, just look! She’d probably scream and run away if you asked for a date.”

The lines of strain momentarily erased from his face, Armando proceeded to the shop of Mr. Phyllis, who turned out to be a willowy, nervous young man. He invited Armando to leave his flyers “just anywhere,” bustling from cubicle to cubicle, clucking and fussing over his customers. All human; all female.

Armando began to hand flyers into the booths, using his standard patter. Caesar searched for Lisa, noting in the process that the operators working on the customers were female chimpanzees.

At last Caesar spotted the girl chimp. She was standing near the last booth. He heard a raspy female voice say: “All right, Lisa. The book. Then home.” A ringed hand, extended from behind the partition in a peremptory way.

Lisa carefully placed the book into the hand of her mistress; turned up the aisle to leave. She saw Caesar. She hesitated, her eyes registering surprise and what Caesar took to be pleasure. He could barely keep himself from making some sign to her. Armando tugged gently on the leash.

At the same time, the harridan face of Mrs. Riley popped into sight from behind the partition. “Lisa, did you hear, me? I said home!”

At once the girl chimp started forward. She passed Caesar with another lingering glance.

Armando insisted on proceeding down the line of booths, offering a handbill to each lady. Some took them. Others waved the offering away disdainfully, Mrs. Riley was one of the latter. Peering into her booth, Caesar saw a female chimpanzee working on Mrs. Riley’s orange-tinted coiffure with a hand drier.

Armando shrugged philosophically at the rebuff, about to start back up the aisle when he, as well as Caesar, was caught by a sudden change in the chimp attendant’s expression.

It became simple, almost comically so. The attendant bent forward, began to pick and search through Mrs. Riley’s hair. When the chimp found something, Mrs. Riley dropped her book and shrieked.

“Oh, dear, what’s happening?” cried Mr. Phyllis, fluttering toward the commotion.

Mrs. Riley looked too stunned to cry out again. From her fingers, the chimpanzee attendant was daintily eating whatever it was she had found on her customer’s head.

Amused, Caesar mentally filed another fact about the society into which he’d been precipitated today. Despite an immaculate facade, the humans were not as clean as they looked.

Mr. Phyllis’s face was a study in pink, petulant rage: “No, Zelda—no!” And once again, Caesar saw that horrible reaction: terror in the eyes, cringing, cowering. Mr. Phyllis stamped his foot and pointed. “You nasty little beast—home!”

Mr. Phyllis snatched the drier from the offender’s hand. As the chimp left through a rear door, Mr. Phyllis tried to placate Mrs. Riley: “I’m so terribly sorry! I’ll have someone come right along to finish you.”

“You’d better, or I’ll take my business to a shop where those stupid beasts are properly conditioned!”

Mrs. Riley’s tone was so ugly that it completely erased pleasant memories of Lisa from Caesar’s mind. He was plunged back into his earlier mood of stunned rage. The mood returned when he and Armando encountered Mrs. Riley again an hour later.

She was seated with a gentleman ten years her junior at a comer table of a restaurant. Her coiffure now complete, Mrs. Riley drained her demitasse and clutched the young man’s hand.

“Thursday, then?” Caesar overheard. “The same place?”

“Yes, I’ll try to make it,” the young man said casually. Mrs. Riley looked unhappy as both rose to leave.

The young man snapped his fingers. “Hang on, I forgot the busboy’s tip.”

“Let me get it,” Mrs. Riley said, adding with a touch of sarcasm, “After all, Charles, why should we vary the pattern?”

From her purse she took a small package. She handed it to the young man. Distributing handbills two tables away, Caesar tried to identify the brightly printed box but could not.

He put down a flyer, moved to the next table. Two obviously prosperous black men sat talking, oblivious to the white-jacketed captain preparing crepes suzette on his cart. Beside the captain stood a young chimp busboy, studiously watching the human hands manipulate the chafing dish.

“—real future’s in hydroponic farming,” one of the men was saying. “I was telling my son last night—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Harry, why steer him into something like that? The big money’s in synthetic alloys—”

Caesar laid a handbill between them. The first man picked it up, gave it one look, tossed it aside as his friend argued. “If you’re selling to the government. But look what’s happened to the space program. Cut to the bone.”

“It’ll come back.”

“Oh? That’s what you said about the supersonic transport, Harry.”

Caesar paused at an empty table, pretending to examine his remaining handbills. Mrs. Riley’s friend signaled the busboy, who hurried to him. The young man tipped the package. Six or seven small, wrinkled things dropped into his palm. Caesar craned to see. Raisins!

Smiling condescendingly, the young man tipped his hand, spilling the raisins into the busboy’s outstretched fingers. With an almost witless look of joy, the chimp immediately carried all the raisins to his mouth and ate them in a gulp. Looking amused, the young man strolled back to his feminine companion. Caesar was disgusted by the mindless pleasure on the busboy’s face.

The young chimpanzee turned back toward his captain just as the latter, chafing dish in his left hand, used his right to apply a lighted match. With a whoosh and a leap of flame, the alcohol in the dish caught fire— and the chimp let out a cry of fright. He dashed for the street, crashing past Mrs. Riley and her friend, before the enraged captain roared the familiar command, “No!”

Silence in the restaurant. The two black men looked annoyed. Mrs. Riley was fuming, brushing off the sleeve of her jostled companion. But Caesar could see only the busboy.

He had stopped short, hearing the captain’s command. Slowly, he turned around. Caesar was sickened by the abject fear in the chimp’s eyes.

The captain pointed to the floor beside his foot. “Here.”

Trembling, the chimp took two steps, stopped again.

“Damn you, I said here!” the captain exploded. But the busboy would come no closer, alternately eyeing the flaming chafing dish, now back on its stand, and the captain’s infuriated face.

“I apologize, gentlemen,” the captain said to the annoyed customers. “All our waiters and busboys are supposed to be thoroughly conditioned to fire when we buy them.”

“Well, Ape Management screwed up on that one,” said one of the men.

Caesar again went rigid with anger. What was this conditioning?

Whatever it might be, it was evidently responsible for the cringing of the chimp busboy. The burning crepes suzette cast eerie reflections in his huge, still-fearful eyes.

A forceful tug of the leash drew Caesar out of the restaurant. Armando realized his ape companion was nearing the breaking point.

* * *

An hour later, Caesar and the circus owner were distributing the last of their handbills in a smaller but no less imposing plaza which they had reached via a boulevard from the larger one. They stood near an illuminated information board, Caesar listlessly watching the crowds and fretting at the inescapable piped music from hidden loudspeakers.

Perhaps Armando also regretted his decision to enter the city. He no longer gave a little talk with each handbill, merely thrust it out.

Caesar understood that the various gleaming high rise buildings fronting the smaller piaza must all be connected with the government. The illuminated panel at the top of the information board identified the complex as Civic Center, but he was too exhausted and miserable to devote any interest to the long list of bureaus, agencies and departments listed below.

The angle of the sun slanting through adjoining streets indicated that the afternoon was almost gone. Caesar was grateful. He wanted nothing more than to be aboard the helicopter, on his way back to the familiar environment of the circus. He wanted to leave the shock of today’s discoveries behind, even though he knew they would remain in his memory forever.

Dully, he proffered a handbill to a woman who refused it. But he had already let go of the paper. It fluttered to the pavement. He didn’t bother to pick it up.

Suddenly there was a vocal commotion across the plaza, outside a glass-fronted first floor office whose glowing sign read: Nationwide Ape Employment, Inc., Civic Center Branch.

Shielding his eyes against the sun’s glare, Caesar saw a number of human males, some wearing uniforms resembling the restaurant captain’s, marching around in a circle in front of the hiring agency.

Caesar plucked Armando’s sleeve, let his eyes indicate his curiosity.

“Ah, just another labor protest,” Armando shrugged. “They happen all the time.”

Caesar could just make out some of the legends on the signs carried by the pickets.

UNFAIR TO WAITERS! SLAVES ARE SCABS! HIRE MEN—NOT ANIMALS!

The commotion grew louder as the pickets noticed the approach of a chained ape whom Caesar recognized. The two handlers still held the chains that restrained the gorilla Aldo.

Caesar’s pull on the leash told Armando he wanted to go forward, to see. The circus owner scowled, then sighed reluctantly and accompanied his chimpanzee.

The waiters’ voices grew more and more angry as Caesar and Armando crossed the plaza. With a squawk, the amplified music was interrupted by one of those strident announcements: “Attention! The labor demonstration in the Civic Center Plaza will be terminated in five minutes. Repeat, the labor demonstration in the Civic Center Plaza will be terminated in five minutes. Failure to comply with this government order can result in a one-year suspension of your right to bargain collectively.”

The waiters jeered and crowded around Aldo and his handlers. The two men were vainly trying to get the gorilla into the building. As they approached, Caesar heard one of the handlers shout, “Damn it, quit pushing! We’re not taking him to the hiring agency. We’re just trying to reach an upstairs office.”

“Oh yeah?” one of the waiters challenged. “What’s his job?”

“Staff messenger for the governor. So get the hell away.”

“He’s not a very good messenger if you gotta keep him chained up!” another waiter yelled.

“We just had a little trouble today. Aldo’s edgy. And you’re not making things any easier by—for Christ’s sake get off my foot!” The handler shoved the nearest waiter. He stumbled back, propped up by his companions, who instantly surged forward again. Caesar saw a punch thrown. The first handler dodged, suddenly raised both fists in panic as he realized he’d have to fight. Finally discovering some tangible target for their anger, the yelling waiters grabbed both handlers and started kicking and punching.

Surrounded by the noisy mob, Aldo the gorilla let out a bellow of panic. Through breaks in the melee, Caesar saw Aldo’s hands close on his own collar chains, which the handlers had released in order to defend themselves. Terrified, the powerful gorilla began to flail the lethal chains like whips.

A waiter caught one across the forehead, and shrieked as blood poured down over his eyebrows. The wrath of the pickets instantly shifted to the animal. Armando jerked Caesar’s leash, whispered: “Let’s get away. What’s the point of torturing yourself by watch—?”

He didn’t finish, because Caesar startled him by taking two angry steps forward—and pulling the leash completely out of his hand.

Armando’s brows flew upward in genuine alarm as he dashed to recapture his end of the leash. Caesar’s eyes were fixed almost hypnotically on the struggle; a struggle whose focal point had become the big, chain-flailing gorilla.

Whistles shrilled. Pairs of state security policemen came running from other sections of the plaza. Two more popped from the main doors of the building housing the hiring agency.

Six strong, the police kicked and elbowed through the press of waiters. They began beating Aldo with their truncheons, jabbing him with their prods. In a moment the gorilla was shielding his head with his arms. Caesar’s teeth ground together as the gorilla fell, bludgeoned to the pavement.

Another man ran out of the building, a young, trim black in a conservative but expensive-looking suit. He pushed waiters and policemen aside with equal unconcern.

“Stop it!” he shouted.

A policeman’s raised truncheon was tom from his fingers by the man, who finally made himself heard.

“All of you stop it—right now!”

The policeman whose truncheon had been seized checked a punch he’d been aiming at the black’s vested stomach. He recognized the man. “Mr. MacDonald!”

At the sound of the name, the other policemen ceased beating Aldo, who was now slumped on the ground, whimpering.

The policeman started an explanation. “Sir, we were just trying to—”

“I saw what you were doing,” snapped MacDonald, his brown eyes furious. “The people in the hiring agency rang upstairs and said there was trouble. It’s bad enough, trying to cave in that gorilla’s head, without adding the stupidity of doing it right under Breck’s terrace.” His glance of recrimination included the two handlers.

“Aldo’s assigned to the messenger staff,” one of the handlers panted. “We were sent to bring him in when he didn’t show up at the Sanitation Bureau with a delivery. We found him wandering in Plaza North. He’s been balky lately—”

“I wonder whose fault that is,” MacDonald said. “Sedate him and get him out of here, fast. Sometimes you people make me wonder which are the animals and which are the human beings.” And, pivoting, he stalked back to the building.

Disgusted, one policeman asked another, “Who the hell was that?”

“Take it easy. MacDonald’s the governor’s number one assistant.”

“What’s the matter, he loves apes?”

Seeing that the young black had vanished inside, the policeman allowed himself a smirk. “Doesn’t it figure?”

Caesar barely heard; his gaze was fixed on the shimmering smoked glass doors through which MacDonald had disappeared. In all the agony of the long day, the governor’s assistant had displayed the first and only sign of genuine compassion that Caesar had seen. But the crowd around the fallen gorilla— the waiters, and especially the policemen—didn’t share MacDonald’s outlook. Even the handlers looked irritated, one of them producing a hypodermic needle from his pocket. The handler bent down, brutally jabbed the needle into Aldo’s side.

Abruptly the gorilla came to life, sitting up with a shriek and flailing his chains. He whipped them right and left as the policemen jumped back, on the defensive. The waiters shouted encouragement. “Beat his hairy brains out!” “Show ’im who the hell’s boss!”

The helmeted officers needed no further prodding. Truncheons began to rise and fall, thumping Aldo’s shoulders and skull with crunching sounds. Caesar started to tremble. Just a little at first, then more violently, in response to the repeated blows rained on the gorilla.

Aldo was already feeling the effects of the injection. He swayed sluggishly as he sat on the ground, groping, trying to find the tormentors who dodged in and out, hitting harder, harder…

Caesar heard Aldo moan; saw blood over the gorilla’s eyes. And all the horrors of the day found release in one long, agonized cry:

“You—lousy—human-—bastards!”

4

Aldo the gorilla pitched over on his side, blood from his head smearing the pavement. No one noticed. The waiters, the half-dozen policemen, the handlers, a scattering of ordinary citizens drawn to the scene, had all turned in the direction of the outcry. Caesar confronted a wall of eyes—some merely curious, most hostile.

The policeman who had recognized the governor’s assistant stormed forward. “Who said that?”

Armando’s face glistened with sweat as he replied, “I did.”

The policeman looked dubious. He and his colleague approached Caesar, studied him with stony-faced thoroughness. Caesar fought to subdue his own trembling; to appear docile, witless. He knew it was a matter of survival now, because the expressions of the officers said that they weren’t buying Armando’s explanation.

Neither was the murmuring crowd. Here and there, Caesar saw a hand pointing in his direction.