by Rich Handley
His thoughts were interrupted by a gentle voice from behind. “Zaius, what’s troubling you? You are unable to sleep?”
“Karah.” Zaius chuckled as he turned to face her. “You startled me.”
“The Forbidden Zone is not a good place to get lost in a daydream.” Karah’s soft brown eyes glimmered in the torchlight.
“Is there another kind of dreaming I should be doing?”
Slipping her arm around his waist, Karah stepped close. “You will be an important ape someday, Zaius. You have no need for daydreams.” Her lips curved in a provocative smile. “And I will always be with you to make sure your nights are pleasant.”
He nuzzled the side of her face. “Always. But not yet. Once we have graduated the Academy, we will both have more say in our lives.”
A distant, decidedly un-simian scream rent the desert night, sending a deep chill down their spines. He sniffed the air as the gorilla soldiers scrambled awake, ready to fight any monstrous attackers from the night. The chimpanzees stood together, frightened and muttering. But the scream did not recur, and eventually the apes settled back down to sleepless waiting for the dawn.
Zaius looked out into the mysterious darkness and whispered to Karah. “The Forbidden Zone is not as lifeless as it appears.”
* * *
Bringing his scientific mind to bear, Zaius looked over the shoulder of the gorilla tracker who was examining the ground with Caetus. Although the sun was high and the loose dirt pristine, the giant three-toed prints were strikingly out of place, unlike any species Zaius had studied at the Academy.
“Ape tracks? Single file, stepping in the same place to hide their number?” The tracker’s suggestion was obviously absurd. “That would put the opposable toes off to either side like this.”
Caetus stood, brushed dust from his knees, and grimaced at the soldier, obviously disgusted by the assessment. “Bird. A large one, but obviously just a bird.”
“But, sir…” The soldier followed Caetus back to the horses.
“Bird!” Caetus finished the discussion and re-mounted, turning his horse back toward the others.
Zaius watched them leave, then put his foot next to the ominous track, pushing into the red dirt. His footprint, while similar in size, sank less than half as deep. An enormous bird indeed. He could not forget the loud, chilling sound that had shattered the night.
* * *
“They are circling us at night,” the gorilla soldier reported as he reined his mount into camp. “Many more tracks out there.” The red dawn on the horizon backlit his dark form, glinting off his leather armor and rifle barrel.
Caetus nodded as the rest of the expedition muttered, uneasy after another tense night in camp, far from Ape City. “Whatever they are, the creatures must be afraid of the torches. Keeping their distance, hiding and watching. Many animals fear fire. You’ve seen how man runs from it. Their limited intelligence disappears completely when faced with fire.”
“Or perhaps they are hunters circling prey,” Zaius offered, “looking for weakness in the herd. Prey animals do not approach what they fear, Captain—and they do not avoid that which they do not fear. We should be cautious.”
Turning past Zaius, Caetus announced to the rest of the expedition, “Tonight, when we set up camp, we will make a different kind of perimeter. We will leave an inviting hole for them to explore, and when they do, we will finally get a look at our giant birds!” He chuffed with laughter.
By applying a psychological analysis of the brusque gorilla, Zaius recognized the technique Caetus used to maintain control. In announcing his orders for all to hear, he ensured that no one could question them without risking public dissent, which would be sternly dealt with. It was not an invitation for open discussion, such as at the Academy. Zaius was in charge of the expedition, though, and he would have to counter the gorilla’s dismissive behavior. He had to show his command here; to challenge a blustering, ignorant opponent would serve him well if he ever became a Board Member.
He was sure the other orangutans and chimpanzees would back him up. He would publicly question the captain’s decisions, which would make Caetus think twice before announcing them like this. Glancing to Karah for support, Zaius took a breath to speak out against Caetus’ plan.
But the gorilla blurted out first, “If we catch one of the creatures in our nets, we can release it in the morning, follow it back to its nest. Then we will not have to live on dried fruit and canned water for the entire expedition!”
The cheer that went up among all the apes, even the chimpanzees and orangutans, kept Zaius quiet.
* * *
By midafternoon, the landscape of the Forbidden Zone changed into even more bizarre terrain. Among rounded hillocks cut by wandering washes and canyons, strange rock formations spotted the reddish tan desolation. Some of the tortured rocks were smooth to the touch, others razor-sharp. The formations reminded Zaius of discarded slag at the blacksmith’s shop. But this was stone….
Running his hand over a smooth, gray protrusion speckled with large holes, Zaius wondered if, like metal, rock could be heated until it ran liquid, and then be molded. Perhaps only in the Forbidden Zone.
He sniffed, felt the dry, bitter burn in his nostrils. Even the air was different here. More than just hot, it was acrid. Zaius plodded on, pulling his horse by the reins.
“Over here!” At a nearby hillock on the edge of a deep arroyo, one of the chimpanzees was jumping and waving for attention. It was Markos, the secondary leader of the archeological expedition. “I found something, Zaius! Artifacts—with markings!”
Yanking his horse’s reins, Zaius trotted over to the hillock and the rock formations, feeling a twinge of jealousy that he hadn’t been the first to make a discovery. He came closer to Markos to see a giant crescent-shaped rock formation, as if a wave of water had turned to stone.
The other two chimpanzees, Cassius and Aelia, pushed past Zaius as he gawked at the strange formation. Too excited to be irritated by their presumptiveness, Zaius tied his horse to an outcropping and followed them into the cave Markos had discovered.
Just above Zaius’ head, a stone sign with the engraved word “TRUTH” was embedded into the rock wall. The anomalous word beckoned Zaius closer. The letters were so smooth, so evenly spaced. As he reached up to touch it, marveling that even the best craftsmen couldn’t compare to the skill behind this one, perfect word, the chimpanzees excitedly worked at loose stone farther down the cliff. They yelped and jumped out of the way as rock crumbled down, sliding aside to reveal a second stone sign, this one bearing the word “KNOWLEDGE.”
Karah came up to Zaius. “That is a portent if I have ever seen one! This expedition set out in search of truth and knowledge, but I never guessed that we would literally find them.”
* * *
Caetus was unimpressed. “Just words on a wall left by some fool who didn’t know better. They mean nothing more than words on paper or scratched in dirt.”
“But much more permanent,” Zaius said, still touching the engraved letters. “These could have been here for centuries.”
The gorilla impatiently turned away from Zaius and the excavation site. “Fortunately, this canyon is ideal for setting a trap. We still haven’t seen any sign of the human infestation. My soldiers will stay here for a day or two, until we catch one of those birds. Then we will be ready to hunt for humans again!” He trudged off through the loose sand as he spoke, leaving Zaius to catch the end of his words and allowing no room for a retort. Studying this, Zaius nodded to himself. That was another way Caetus made sure he always got the final word.
No matter. It was exactly what Zaius wanted anyway. Meanwhile, there were too many interesting things here to waste time quarrelling with a gorilla.
He hurried back to where the others were digging. The words had been revealed to be carved into bricks of a wall that extended belowground. Broken fragments of statues and the top of an exposed archway made it clear that an entire building was
buried there in the desolation.
“What could possibly be inside a building called Truth and Knowledge?” Aelia mused as Zaius approached the line of apes digging at the bottom of the cliff. No one answered. She had asked the question many times already.
“Truth and knowledge, undoubtedly,” Zaius said. “Maybe the Lawgiver himself placed this here for us, as a test.”
“Or a reward,” Karah said.
“I wish we had humans here to do the digging,” Cassius complained as he shoveled.
“Yes, yes…” Neaus, working much more slowly than the other members of the team, agreed. “This type of work does not befit such as us. Maybe you should tell the gorillas to do it, Zaius. We are here to learn, not to dig.”
Zaius knew that demanding such work from Caetus and his soldiers would backfire on him. The gorillas would never agree, and he would look weak. Zaius chose a different tactic. “And what better way to learn, than by doing?” He picked up a shovel and joined in, setting an example with his pace. “Every scoop of dirt could contain a delicate and mysterious artifact. We would have to watch over every shovel they raised—either humans or the gorillas. They are not scientists.” In low voices, the chimpanzees and orangutans muttered with amusement at how he had lumped gorillas with humans. Both would have been in the way.
Karah shrieked as the sand opened beneath her, sucking her down. In a heartbeat, she had been swallowed up, gone. Dirt and sand still slid into the hole where she had been.
Zaius lunged after her, falling onto his chest and looking down into the cavity, dangling his arm down. “Karah!”
Surprisingly, wonderfully, her voice echoed back up. “I’m all right. I think I found an entrance!”
* * *
The gorilla argued with Zaius’ simple and obvious suggestion. “We need those ropes for our nets!” He placed his gloved hands on his hips, making no move to follow Zaius’ order.
Zaius tried to sound like Doctor Tullius, firm and completely in command. “Caetus—”
“Captain Caetus!” the gorilla corrected.
Impatient, Zaius made the harmless concession. “Captain Caetus, the Defender of the Faith did not dispatch our expedition to hunt birds, no matter how large they may be. We were sent to make archeological discoveries. Right now, we have the opportunity, and the obligation, to investigate. We need the ropes so we can descend into the cavern and explore the ruins buried there.” They had already pulled Karah back out, but she had talked about other passages down there, more artifacts, more mysteries.
Caetus waved his fists and turned in a circle, taking in the camp with the traps. “The nets are already in place! And it will be dark soon—we have to be ready for the creatures.”
Zaius noted the sun low in the shimmering sky. With torches, they could explore the ruins underground, day or night, but it had been an exhausting day, particularly for Karah.
Sighing as though Caetus was a petulant child who had begged long enough, Zaius raised his voice and spoke so the entire camp would hear, using the gorilla’s own technique. “Very well, Captain. I will allow your soldiers to use the ropes until morning, but at first light you will take them down and make them available to the research team.”
Caetus turned back and flashed a glare at Zaius, who walked away as he spoke, not allowing the gorilla a chance to retort. “I wish you luck in catching your bird.”
* * *
The nervous whinny of a horse stirred Zaius from his uncomfortable sleep. His quiet room at the Academy was far different from the constant restless noises of camp. He rolled over, but the gruff, urgent voice of a gorilla woke him instantly. “Something is in the net!”
He heard a strange coughing noise, then the sounds of a struggle. As he emerged from his tent, he looked around in the darkness. Rousing apes rushed about the camp. Twin screams filled the night—one sounded like the chilling cry from two nights earlier, but the other scream reminded him of the terrified squeals of wild humans hunted down by gorilla soldiers.
This time, though, the scream belonged to an ape.
Zaius looked around in the darkness, the bright spots of flickering torches, tried to see what was happening. Gunshots cracked, and deep-voiced gorillas shouted. A moment of silence covered the surprised camp, then chaos reigned.
“By the Lawgiver…” Zaius hardly had time to regain his wits before the horses tore free from the makeshift corral and stampeded through the camp, fleeing the terrified screams and charging toward the excavation.
More simian cries of alarm rang out as Zaius dodged charging horses, sliding between dark forms and fending off muscular flanks. As the animals thundered past, leaving him bruised but intact, a yelp, cut short, told him that not everyone had been so fortunate.
He spotted the orange robes of a figure sprawled in the sand. He uprooted a torch and ran toward the figure. “Karah…” The name involuntarily escaped his lips as he saw dark blood staining the hair and clothing. He gently rolled the body over—Neaus, not Karah.
Vacant eyes stared up at the night sky. A last rattling breath was the only indication of life in the limp body.
“Over here!” Zaius shouted. “Neaus is injured!”
Only gunshots and angry shouts answered his plea. Torches bobbed in the night, running away from camp. Another scream pierced the darkness, this one fading terribly toward an end that seemed to never come.
Zaius hooked his hands under Neaus and began dragging the injured orangutan away, into the safer center of camp, but a heavy impact ripped the other scientist from his grasp. Stunned, Zaius stumbled back, fell to the ground, and looked up into a nightmare.
A hideous giant “bird,” featherless and with a maw full of naked teeth, raked into the dying orangutan’s abdomen with three-inch talons. Clawed arms that could never be mistaken for wings reached out and lifted Neaus by the head, as though to examine the face. Its long scaly tail twitched, and the creature opened its jaws to take a bite. With a snap of razor-sharp fangs, it bit off Neaus’ face.
Zaius gasped, scrabbled backward as he fought to control his roiling stomach.
At the sound, the creature cocked its head sideways, birdlike, and eyed Zaius. A blue nictitating membrane flashed over its golden eye. Dropping the bloody body of Neaus, the giant lizard-bird coiled to pounce.
Gunshots roared, and red splotches blossomed on the creature’s scaly hide, knocking it off-balance. Then Zaius was up on his feet again and running.
Soft sand slipped under his splayed feet as he left the torchlight and bounded into darkness. Twice he resorted to running on all fours to keep from falling. Then the cliff face loomed, trapping him inside the little crescent valley within which the camp had been set up. His eyes still hadn’t adjusted, and he could barely see among the shadows on top of shadows.
“Be careful!” Someone called from out of the darkness, a voice close to him. “Don’t fall into the hole!” A horse screamed, and Zaius saw its shadowy shape vanish into the ground just in front of him, followed by a dull thump and sickening squeals of pain from the underground cavern.
The nearby voice grunted, “That’s at least three horses and one ape.”
“Markos?”
“Yes.” He heard a snuffling sound. “Zaius?”
“Yes. Is anyone else here?”
“Me—Aelia,” said another voice. “I think it was Cassius who fell in.”
They fell into a tense hush as heavy footfalls approached, panting hard—someone running blindly in the dark. As his eyes adjusted, Zaius saw an ape running right toward the hole, a bright orange uniform, an orangutan—Karah! “Stop!” He sprang to catch her. Colliding, they tumbled into a heap as Zaius rolled them away from the dropoff. He knew the feel of Karah in his arms, and the familiar smell of her pressed against his face. “Thank the Lawgiver!”
She buried her face into his shoulder, snuffling and sobbing. “In the net—it wasn’t a bird. A monster! It killed one of the gorillas, maybe two. And there were more bird-things… circling
out there.”
He held Karah as they heard more gunshots from the camp, and torches began moving toward them in a tight grouping. By the time Captain Caetus and four gorilla soldiers arrived, Karah, Aelia, Markos, and Zaius had found shovels from the excavation and stuck them in the soft ground to mark the perimeter of the pit.
“Scientists!” Caetus snorted when he saw what they had done. “Protecting your precious dirt at the expense of all else.” The other gorillas laughed but their eyes watched the darkness beyond the torchlight.
Karah huffed. “You know very well that is not—”
Caetus angrily waved her off. “Would you rather I accused you of running away like cowards?”
Zaius stepped forward, squared his shoulders. “That’s enough, Caetus.”
“Captain Caetus!”
He ignored the gorilla’s rage. “How many casualties?”
“Four of my soldiers, two horses, and one orangutan.” Caetus skewered the scientist with his gaze. “So far.”
Zaius watched the nervous eyes of the four remaining gorilla soldiers as they shifted around with torches in one hand and rifles in the other. “What were their names, Captain?”
“What?”
“Neaus was the orangutan who died. I saw the creature kill him. I request to know the names of your soldiers who died protecting us.” Zaius kept his attention on the remaining gorillas.
Caetus made a low, respectful sound deep in his throat. “Acutus, Ulos, Mephitis, and Corax.”
Zaius repeated the names slowly. “We honor them for their sacrifice in defending our vital expedition. Captain Caetus, please tell me the names of these remaining soldiers, so I might thank them in person.”
Frowning, Caetus pointed the soldiers out, one by one. “Crispus, Bovarius, Verus, and Avilius.”
Zaius bowed his head slightly to each gorilla in turn. “On behalf of the Academy, the Defender of the Faith, my fellow scientists”—he motioned to the apes behind him—“and myself, thank you all. Your bravery is beyond reproach.”
