by Rich Handley
“Explain,” Mendez said.
“The old track from the west has become too dangerous for pilgrims to pass along it without protection,” Taul said. “Far more dangerous than it was in past years.”
“The rise of the Third Race has made it so,” the woman said.
“It has,” Taul agreed. “The apes are very strong.”
“Your sect, though?” Mendez asked. “It yet endures?”
“Yes, Mendez,” Calio said. “It survives, as do many others, dotted throughout the western wastes, and into the mountains, too. We live beneath, as you do, in the safety of the earth.”
“It was of the highest importance that we made this track,” Arnia said. “Our elders decided it to be so.”
“This was discovered,” Calio said, gesturing to the relic, “in a ruin beneath the ground out in the west. This was a year or two ago. Our elders studied it, and saw it to be scripture. It was decided unanimously that it must be brought here.”
“Despite the danger of the track?” Mendez asked.
“Despite that,” Calio said, “even despite that. The track long abandoned had to be followed again. It was too important to communicate the word of God. Thus, it was decided we needed protection. And Taul stepped forward.”
Mendez turned his gaze back to Taul.
“Why you?”
Taul shrugged. He was easily the biggest and most robust figure in the room. The shrug let them see the breadth of his shoulders and the size of his arms.
“I volunteered. Scripture prohibits killing.”
“It does,” Mendez agreed.
“But survival requires an ability to kill. To defend. To fight. To fight with more than inmost fire, which is weak against the Third Race. I had to be able to fight with these—”
He raised his hands.
“And this—”
He set his left hand on the rifle at his side.
“And with blades, and other means.”
“You have killed, Taul?” the woman asked.
“I have. It was necessary, so that we could make the track. And in order to be able to kill, I consented to a procedure. I said goodbye to God, and turned my true face away from him, so that he would not be offended when I broke scripture. I gave up my inmost self.”
“In what way?” Mendez asked.
Taul turned his head, and showed them the surgical scars that ran parallel down the base of his bald scalp. “The elders of the west operated. They made me unfired so I could do what God would not permit.”
There was a long silence.
“You are a blasphemy,” Mendez said. He sounded impressed.
“I take that as a compliment, Mendez,” Taul said.
Mendez looked down at the relic. He turned a few more of the laminated pages that the folder contained.
“All for this?” he asked.
“Yes,” Calio began.
“It is scripture,” Taul said. “The holiest scripture. God is here, in this place. The essence of God is absolute murder, the murder from which we all were born. We have the power of death over life, but only in our resolute determination never to unleash that power do we define ourselves and witness God’s love. We celebrate God’s wrath, for it brought us into being, and the summit of that celebration is that we possess that wrath, yet choose steadfast never to unleash it again.”
The elders nodded.
“Except,” Taul said, “that is only faith. Faith alone. We firmly foreswear the unleashing of God’s wrath. We are proud of that forbearance. In truth, however, we could not, even if we wanted to.”
He paused.
“Until now.”
Mendez peered at the pages of the relic, tracing words with his fingertips.
“This is…” he began. “This says… ‘arming codes’…”
“It is the Book of All Books,” Calio said. “The holiest of scripture.”
“It is named ‘Activation and Ignition Codes and Arming Sequence, US Defense Department Administration,’” Taul said.
“‘Us’?” Mendez echoed.
“The language is archaic,” Calio said. “I think that means ‘our.’”
“That book,” Taul said. “It strengthens our belief and binds us to God. Our faith rests on our conviction not to fire God. Now that choice has meaning, because we can.”
“Proof denies faith,” Mendez began.
Calio shook his head.
“Proof fortifies faith,” he said, “for without arming codes, we are nothing.”
Mendez closed the book.
“You have done a great thing,” he said. The elders nodded.
“You have brought us closer to God,” the woman said.
Taul rose to his feet.
“Taul?” Mendez asked.
“I will go now,” he said.
“Go?”
“I have no place here,” Taul said. “I am not of your kind. I knew that when I made my choice and set out to come here. I am an aberration, unfit to live amongst the fires of God’s house with God’s Children. I see that I make you uncomfortable, the way you look at me.” He smiled sadly, and picked up the rifle. “The way you look at this.”
“Taul? Where will you go?” Arnia asked. She was genuinely upset.
“I don’t know,” Taul said. “I don’t know of a place where the unfired might live. I will… go and look. I will make a new track.”
“You will not be forgotten,” Mendez XXI said. He had risen to his feet.
“I should be,” Taul said. “I am unfired and unfit.”
He turned to leave, then paused. “Bold of me, but may I ask one favor before I go?”
“Ask it,” Mendez said.
“I would like to look upon the face of God.”
Mendez paused. He glanced at the other elders, then nodded. He raised his hand and gestured for Taul to follow him.
“You may,” he said. He placed a hand on Taul’s shoulder and led him through into the cathedral.
“I want little,” Taul said. “I only want to remember a man’s name to him. Pardel. That’s the name.”
“Very well,” Mendez said, “but God will not be able to see you.”
“Of course not,” Taul said.
* * *
In Nancy Collins’ “More Than Human, Less Than Ape,” we travel alongside a younger Cornelius on one of his first expeditions into the unknown, a quest for truth that will reveal much more to the studious, bright-eyed chimpanzee than he ever bargained for…
* * *
MORE THAN HUMAN, LESS THAN APE
by
NANCY A. COLLINS
“I’m going to miss you.”
She shyly dropped her gaze as he spoke, then flashed him a glance. It was the same look she’d given him from across the lecture room on the first day of Doctor Orson’s comparative zoology class. The one that told him she was the only female who would ever matter to him.
“Not as much as I’m going to miss you,” Zira replied with an impish smile. “Do you really have to go?”
“It’s a great honor to be invited on one of Professor Tarquin’s expeditions. And if he’s right about the Southern Valley being the original Garden described in the Sacred Scrolls—the very cradle of ape civilization—it will look very good on my résumé when the time comes.”
“That’s what you said when he claimed to have found the burial vault of Caesar—but that turned out to be a lot of nothing.”
“Archeology may be a science, my dear—but it is far from a ‘sure bet.’ You should know that by now.
“There’s no need to worry,” he said, placing a reassuring hand atop her own.
“What are you waiting for? Kiss your sweetheart goodbye and saddle up! The others are waiting for us at the city gate.”
Cornelius puffed out his cheeks in consternation, glancing toward Professor Tarquin. The elder chimpanzee was on the other side of the low adobe fence that marked the boundary of Zira’s family home, seated upon a roan stallion outfitted with heavy s
addlebags and a bedroll. Beside the professor stood Cornelius’ own mount, a chestnut mare identically outfitted, waiting patiently for its rider.
“You heard the professor,” Zira said, taking her lover’s chin in her hands and pressing her muzzle against his. They stood there for a long moment, brows touching, eyes closed, inhaling one another’s scent a final time.
“Don’t worry, Zira,” Cornelius whispered as he broke their embrace. “I’ll stay safe—I promise.”
“I hope you realize you’re a lucky young chimp,” Professor Tarquin remarked. “Zira’s a fine female—beautiful, smart, and from an excellent family, if I do say so myself.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Cornelius replied as he swung himself into the saddle. “There is no ape happier than I am when I’m with her.”
As the duo proceeded to head down the cobbled streets toward the gates of Ape City, Zira ran to the end of the walk and shouted: “You better bring him back in one piece. You hear me, Uncle Tarquin?”
The elder chimpanzee barked a laugh that swelled his throat sac, and then raised a hand in farewell without turning about in his saddle.
* * *
Twelve days’ ride later…
“Hurry, Cornelius!” Fausto yelled. “It’s gaining on us!”
Cornelius did not have to look over his shoulder to know that his fellow student was telling the truth. He could hear the creature’s angry squeals and the sound of its massive body crashing through the underbrush behind him.
Barely twenty-four hours earlier, the expedition had crested the final foothill to find a fertile, heavily forested valley spread before them, bisected by a gleaming ribbon of river fed by the waterfalls that poured down from the surrounding mountains. At the time, Cornelius had thought it was the most beautiful place in the world. However, although the Southern Valley, with its deep glens and natural groves, did not suffer the blight of the Forbidden Zone, that did not mean it was without danger, as he and his fellow student Fausto quickly learned during their trip to the river to bring fresh water to the camp.
Spurred on by sheer terror, Cornelius instinctively dropped his shoulders and began to knuckle-run, doubling his speed. There was a large palm tree ahead of him, its wide bole rising from the jungle floor at a sloping angle. Without thinking twice, he scampered up the trunk, praying that it was sturdy enough to take not only his weight, but that of Fausto as well.
“Up here!” he shouted. However, as Cornelius turned to see if his friend was following, he saw him trip and fall to the ground. Without thinking, Cornelius slid back down the tree trunk to try to help the young chimpanzee to safety, only to have the creature pursuing them charge out of the surrounding foliage, screaming at the top of its lungs.
Cornelius had seen pigs before on the farms that ringed Ape City, but they were a different breed from the feral beast before him. Covered in coarse, matted fur, it was more than eight feet long and weighed nearly a thousand pounds, making it a match for even the strongest gorilla. Its small, beady eyes glittering with blood-lust, the monster slashed at Fausto’s prone body with the seven-inch tusks jutting from its slavering jaws. The terrified student’s screams launched a covey of brightly colored birds into the jungle sky.
He lunged forward, grabbing at Fausto in a desperate attempt to drag him free, but it was no use. Then, with a brutal lashing of its huge head, the wild boar turned the chimpanzee’s panicked screams into a wet gurgle. Cornelius stared in mute shock at the blood gushing from his friend’s throat, momentarily paralyzed. He had never seen a fellow ape die before. As he met the creature’s murderous gaze, the only thing he could think of was Zira, and how he would never hold her in his arms again.
Suddenly, a silvery blur leapt from the surrounding overgrowth, putting itself between Cornelius and the wild boar. There was an angry scream of pain as a wooden spear punctured the beast’s throat and then pierced its chest. The feral hog staggered backward, gore spurting from its wounds, and then dropped onto its knees. The spear struck a third and final time, driving deep into the beast’s left eye socket.
Within seconds of its final, high-pitched squeal, a strange figure unlike any ape Cornelius had ever seen before leapt onto the vanquished boar’s back, lifting his bloody weapon above his head and shaking it at the sky, as if to stab the sun, while issuing a series of sharp, guttural calls and displaying a pair of large, curving fangs that made Cornelius’ heart lurch.
Although powerfully built, the stranger was short and covered in silvery gray hair, which was thickest about his shoulders and back, framing the long, squarish muzzle that jutted from the middle of his face like a loaf of bread. On either side of this prodigious snout, as well as across an equally prominent brow ridge, were smears of paint, the colors of which mimicked the bright flowers of the surrounding foliage. His only other adornments were a necklace fashioned from bones and teeth and a leather loincloth cinched about his narrow waist. However, it wasn’t until Cornelius spied the two-foot-long tail dangling between his strange savior’s bowed legs that he realized his true nature.
“You’re a baboon!” he exclaimed in amazement.
“I am Baako,” the baboon replied, thumping his chest for emphasis. His voice was little more than a grunt, as though the very act of making words was painful to him.
“And you speak ape language!”
“I speak our words,” Baako replied gruffly as he hopped down off the dead boar.
The implications of his discovery were enough to make Cornelius stammer. “B-but, you’re supposed to be extinct!”
Baako frowned, causing his paint-daubed brows to draw down even further. “What is ‘extinct’?”
“It means dead—like poor Fausto over there,” Cornelius explained, gesturing to the torn remains of his fellow ape. “Thank you for saving my life, by the way. My name is Cornelius.”
“I am sorry about your brother,” Baako said, making a circular gesture on his chest with his fist. “But it is dangerous to enter the battle pigs’ territory during the rut season…”
“My brother—?” Cornelius blinked in confusion for a second, before realizing what the other meant. “No, Fausto was not my brother.”
“Sister?”
“No, he wasn’t that, either. He was my friend.”
“Friend?” Now it was Baako’s turn to look baffled. “We have no such things in the band. Only brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers.”
“Sounds very… cozy,” Cornelius replied diplomatically.
“This is not a good place for apes,” Baako said matter-of-factly. He put aside his spear and removed a flint knife from a sheath attached to his loincloth, then dropped down onto his haunches and began slicing into his kill. “Leave. Before Shaka and the others return. They are away on a hunt, but will be back soon.”
“Who is this Shaka?”
“He has the largest harem. The most young.”
“He’s your leader, then?”
“He is Shaka,” Baako repeated, as if that explained everything. “And he does not like apes.”
Cornelius nodded and turned his attention back to Fausto’s torn and trampled body. “I can’t just leave my friend here. Will you help me take him back to my camp?”
Baako heaved a large sigh as he halted his butchering. “Are you sure he is not your brother?”
* * *
The camp was set up in a clearing a quarter-mile from the river. There were three canvas tents, one each for Professor Tarquin and his associate, Doctor Atticus, and one shared by the students. The horses and pack animals quietly grazed on the lush grass, grateful for the rest after days spent trekking through the high mountain passes.
Doctor Atticus, a distinguished ape of letters and an esteemed primatologist, sat on a folding camp chair, cleaning his rifle, while a young orangutan named Ovid and a chimpanzee called Quintus busied themselves with preparing the afternoon meal.
“I wonder what’s keeping Cornelius and Fausto?” Ovid asked. “We can’t start cooking until we get
some water.”
“Maybe they got lost?” Quintus suggested, less than helpfully. He turned to look at Doctor Atticus. “Should we go look for them?”
The older chimpanzee tilted back his head and squinted at the steadily rising sun. “Damn it, I was hoping we could go twenty-four hours without a student disappearing on us. If they’re not back within the hour, we’ll send out a party.”
Ovid gave an abrupt hoot of surprise. “There he is!” he exclaimed, pointing to the edge of the clearing. “There’s Cornelius!”
Doctor Atticus turned in the direction Ovid indicated to see the young chimp emerge from the surrounding jungle, dragging a travois fashioned from palm fronds and tree branches. Walking behind him was a short, hideously ugly creature, naked save for a loincloth and covered in silver-gray hair.
Doctor Atticus leapt to his feet so quickly he sent the camp chair flying. “In the Lawgiver’s name—what is that thing with you?” he shouted as he raised his rifle.
“Don’t shoot!” Cornelius yelled back. “It’s all right! He’s friendly! Moreover, he isn’t a thing, Doctor Atticus. He’s a baboon—one who saved my life.”
“What’s all this noise about?” Professor Tarquin barked as he emerged from his tent. “Atticus! Put that gun away before you shoot yourself in the foot!”
The primatologist grudgingly lowered his weapon, but did not take his eyes off Baako. “What happened to Fausto? What did that savage do to him?”
“He didn’t do anything to him,” Cornelius replied, trying to control the growing exasperation in his voice. “We were attacked by a wild animal while getting water from the river. Baako managed to save me, but it was too late for Fausto. In fact, Baako helped me make this litter so I could bring the body back. He was also good enough to escort me to camp—otherwise, I’d still be wandering around in the jungle.”
“Ovid! Quintus! Don’t just stand there gawking! Help Cornelius with poor Fausto!” Professor Tarquin ordered. As the two students scampered forward to relieve Cornelius of the travois and its grim burden, the archeologist clapped a hand on his prize pupil’s shoulder. “My boy, do you realize what this means? You’ve managed to prove my theory without us having to turn a single spade! The Southern Valley is the Garden! It is the birthplace of the ape, monkey, and human species alike! It wasn’t destroyed after all—and neither were the baboons! My young chimp, they’re going to chisel your name in marble when we get back!”
