Planet of the Apes 01 - Man the Fugitive

by George Alec Effinger

  PLANET OF THE APES

  In the great tradition of the five APE movies (“Remarkable, original, forceful, memorable and unique!” said Newsday), the brand new CBS-TV APE programs offer the best in science fiction adventure.

  Here is the first book based on the fascinating TV series . . . a mind-reeling journey to Earth in the year 3085, when Apes are masters and Men are slaves—a waking nightmare from which there is no escape!

  “The Cure,” based on the teleplay by Edward J. Lakso

  “The Good Seeds,” based on the teleplay by Robert W. Lenski

  ALIEN PLANET

  The fantastic adventures of astronauts ALAN VIRDON and PETE BURKE, accidentally time-warped 1000 years into the future—to the Planet of the Apes . . .

  Of ZAIUS, head of the Council of Apes, who forbids any knowledge of mankind’s long dead civilization . . .

  Of URKO, gorilla leader, who hates all humans and vows death to those who claim superiority . . .

  Of peace-loving GALEN, who could forgive Zaius’ fear of knowledge—but not his hatred of humans nor his vengeance upon the two men who carry the secrets of the past.

  The AWARD books based on the fascinating Planet of the Apes TV series:

  #1 MAN THE FUGITIVE

  #2 ESCAPE TO TOMORROW

  #3 JOURNEY INTO TERROR

  #4 LORD OF THE APES

  FIRST AWARD PRINTING 1974

  Copyright © 1974

  by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

  All rights reserved.

  AWARD BOOKS are published by

  Universal-Award House, Inc.,

  subsidiary of Universal Publishing and Distributing Corporation,

  235 East Forty-fifth Street, New York, N.Y. 10017.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  For Sherry Gottlieb and

  Jim Frenkel, my cavalry.

  THE

  CURE

  based on the teleplay

  by Edward J. Lakso

  ONE

  The village of the humans was called Trion. It was a small village, even by the standards of the other human communities that ringed the inner zone. Ape society and the ape power was at its strongest in the inner zone and the human population meant no more than the size of a potential slave force. The humans who lived in Trion did not live as poorly as the humans who lived in the central ape city, the people of Trion had some degree of freedom, a tiny, half-forgotten shred of pride and dignity. That slight bit of freedom could easily be lost, at the vaguest whim of one of the ape leaders. They could never forget that fact, not while the soldiers of the gorilla army patrolled the boundaries of the village, and watched with contempt while the humans sweated in the fields.

  Life was hard for the humans of Trion, but life was . . . life. The people had learned many years before that to resist the vast number of apes could only bring death. No single man was a match for one of the awesomely powerful gorillas, or even the less brutal, more intellectual orangutans and chimpanzees. Where resistance and rebellion meant death, the only thing that meant life and relative peace was work for the ape masters. This the humans understood and accepted. They labored, and the apes permitted them to live.

  Sometimes, the humans could almost believe that they were happy.

  “I almost wish you hadn’t come here,” said Amy, a bright, pretty girl of fourteen years. She was walking slowly with a man, a stranger to Trion, a strangely secretive visitor who had arrived in the village with his two companions, another man and a chimpanzee. Now Amy and her friend, Alan Virdon, were approaching the village, walking through the fields that surrounded it. The two had spent the morning exploring the forest and marsh lands just beyond the cultivated area.

  Virdon stopped and looked around at the cluster of mud brick huts, and the poor handful of people working silently in their fields. On the far side of the village, beyond the fields, was a low hill. On the top of the rise was a barracks built of wood and stone, where two gorilla guards were tending to their arsenal of weapons. Virdon looked down from the hill and saw another gorilla carrying a rifle, walking along the perimeter of the far fields. The man turned and saw more thatched huts, more fields, and another gorilla, this one watching Virdon and Amy suspiciously.

  “I’m sorry we have to go, Amy,” said Virdon, his eyes still on the gorilla. The gorilla stared back for a moment, gave a derisive snort and turned away, continuing his rounds. Virdon laughed softly to himself, what a pitiable victory that had been for humankind.

  “Why did you tell me who you are?” asked Amy. “Why me and no one else?”

  Virdon seemed to be startled from some deep thought. He studied Amy’s young face for a moment before he answered. His voice was low and filled with emotion. “I don’t know, exactly,” he said. “Maybe because you’re special. Because I look at you and I see how it was when I was young. And I wanted you to know—life wasn’t always like this.”

  It hurt Virdon to say those words, more than he thought it would. Just telling Amy brought back a flood of memories, thoughts which Virdon had to bury in his mind or else they threatened to overwhelm him. Before he and his fellow astronaut Pete Burke had been squeezed through time, into this upside-down, nightmare world, Virdon had a pleasant home in Houston, Texas. He had a wife whom he loved more than any person in the world, aad he had children. One daughter was just about Amy’s age—except that his daughter, and his wife, and everyone Virdon knew in his former life had been dead for two thousand years. Their world was dead. Everything they had built together had crumbled, and this mad dictatorship of the apes had somehow arisen to fill the gap. The insignificant bits of the old ways that Virdon and Pete Burke witnessed on their travels only made them more homesick.

  “Life wasn’t always like this,” said Virdon again, grimly.

  “But if I’d never known,” said Amy, her expression thoughtful, “then I . . . I mean . . .” She looked up at Virdon and shook her head. “You shouldn’t have told me.”

  Virdon touched the girl’s hair. It was exactly the same color . . . he forced the thought from his mind. “Amy,” he said, “knowledge, is a lot like love. You get some pleasure from it, sometimes some pain. Like taking a trip to an unknown place.” He looked up at the central meeting area of Trion, where he stood with Amy. His words were harsh against the gentle, distant sounds of the humans working. “Once you arrive at the unknown place, it’s too late to wish you’d never started.”

  Amy smiled, trying to understand. Virdon gestured, and the two walked toward the hut of Amy’s father.

  Outside the crude shack, Talbert, Amy’s father, was helping Virdon’s companions slip into their backpacks. Talbert was a large man in his forties, browned by the harsh sun, built solid and hardened by long years of endless labor. Talbert held a backpack for Pete Burke, hesitated for a moment, shook his head, and picked up a second backpack. This one belonged to Galen, the chimpanzee who accompanied Virdon and Burke and shared in their changing fortunes. The chimpanzee shrugged his broad shoulders and settled the pack in place. Virdon joined his friends, swung his own backpack up, and waited while Burke thanked their host. Amy, her expression sad and thoughtful, stood a few yards away, listening in silence.

  “Well,” said Burke, a tall, handsome, dark-haired man, “thanks for putting us up.”

  “Why don’t you stay, make your home here?” asked Talbert.

  “That’s a good question.” said Burke with a short laugh. “I guess the answer is—” he jerked his thumb toward Virdon, “—he’s got an itch in his feet, and I’ve got rocks in my head.”

  Talbert frowned, the lines in his deeply-tanned face falling into s
harply outlined creases. Like his daughter, Talbert had difficulty understanding what Burke and Virdon meant most of the time. The two strangers often referred to people and things that made no sense to him, and they used phrases and figures of speech that conveyed even less.

  Burke, seeing Talbert’s puzzlement, tried to give him a better explanation. “We’re taking a survey of the far side of every hill on the horizon.” Burke sounded rueful, but he was cheerfully resigned to Virdon’s consuming urge to explore their new home. Burke smiled, and Talbert only sighed. He still didn’t quite get what Burke was driving at; after all, there wasn’t anything better for a human, any where on the planet of the apes. He shook hands with Burke, and then, solemnly, with Galen.

  “I’d try to give you a better answer,” said the chimpanzee, “but I don’t know what it is myself. Thank you for everything.”

  Talbert nodded. Pete Burke looked at Virdon. “Ready?” he asked.

  Virdon, signalling he was, walked over to Talbert and shook his hand. “She’s very special,” said Virdon, nodding toward Amy. “Take care of her.”

  Talbert didn’t reply. Galen, Burke, and Virdon, their equipment secure, their supplies replenished from the sparse rations of the generous people of Trion, moved away along the narrow road through the village. They passed Amy; the girl glanced at her father, but Talbert’s expression was unreadable. The two astronauts and the chimpanzee paused for a moment to say goodbye to Amy.

  “Will you ever pass by this way again?” asked the girl.

  “Anything’s possible,” said Virdon, as gently as he could.

  Amy gestured that Virdon should bend down. He did so, and she whispered in his ear. “I’ll keep your secrets,” she said, “even from my father.”

  “I may come back just to witness that miracle,” said Pete Burke. Virdon jerked himself upright in surprise, and Amy stared at the darker man, obviously displeased that Burke had overheard.

  “Miracle?” she asked.

  “Oh,” said Burke in a careless manner, “a woman keeping a secret.”

  “Women keep secrets,” said Amy defiantly.

  “I know, I know,” said Burke, smiling. “I was joking. It makes the goodbyes easier.” After a moment, Amy managed a smile herself. Virdon bent again and kissed her forehead.

  “Goodbye, Amy,” he said.

  Now Amy could only nod. Virdon joined his companions, and the three fugitives started off down the road. Amy stood and watched, struggling to hold back the tears suddenly welling up in her eyes.

  The three travelers had already given their attention to the problems that would soon be facing them in their trek through the unmapped territory. Amy watched them go. Talbert, too, watched the three strangers who he had quickly learned to call friends. Standing behind his daughter, unseen, his thoughts were melancholy. The daily life in Trion would be the poorer without Virdon, Burke, and Galen. The strange feeling which filled his body must have something to do with the departure of his guests. He felt a little faint, a little uncertain. He wiped his sweating face, blinked the drops of salty moisture from his eyes. The feeling did not pass away. He shook his head slightly to clear his thoughts.

  On the edge of the village, Burke, Virdon, and Galen stopped, turned and waved. Talbert and Amy waved back. The Talberts watched as Neesa, one of the huge gorilla perimeter guards, paused in his rounds and waited for the three to approach him. Virdon saw Neesa, and put out a restraining hand, holding Burke from getting closer. Galen would have to handle the situation. Neesa raised his rifle.

  “I am transferring these two to the work force in the next village,” said Galen, stepping forward between the humans and the gorilla.

  Neesa looked Virdon and Burke over carefully, studying their faces. Reluctantly, the powerful but slow-witted gorilla lowered his rifle. Galen smiled and nodded, walked past the guard, paying no more attention to the gorilla, as though he and the two humans had every right in the world to travel about freely. Virdon and Burke acted their parts, the roles of two unhappy but docile slaves. Neesa watched them disappear out of sight, scowling and muttering under his breath. At last, he took up his rifle and started his rounds again.

  The day passed slowly for the three travelers. They talked infrequently, saving their strength for the arduous march. Each was occupied with different thoughts: Virdon wondered if their next stop might give them the necessary clue they sought, some vital bit of information that would return them to their own time and their homes. Burke, on the other hand, was not so concerned with escaping back to the world he had been born into. He had a suspicion that he and Virdon were stranded in the ape world forever and that the main thing for them to do was build a new life in the best way possible. He was not unhappy with that prospect. He had no wife and family. He accepted what fate had given him, and he was prepared to make the most of it. Galen, the sympathetic chimpanzee, observed the two humans with a kind of scientific detachment. He wondered about their stories of technological marvels created by their human culture, and, while bound with them in common flight from the head of the gorilla police and military forces, a cunning gorilla named Urko, Galen wanted to learn as much as possible from the astronauts.

  They climbed through rocky wastes beneath a pitiless sun. They waded through foul-smelling swamps. They helped each other along with a guiding hand or a few words of encouragement; but beneath it all, they shared a curiosity and fear of what dangers their journey might present them with.

  The afternoon waned. Back in the village of Trion, Talbert rested on his straw-filled mattress. His face expressed an unaccustomed fear. As he lay, his body convulsed. His face was streaked with sweat. Again, his body shook spasmodically. Trying to raise himself up, the effort proved too great, and Talbert fell back down, swearing softly.

  At that moment, Amy came through the door, a basket of freshly picked vegetables on her arm. Her intended lighthearted greeting was stopped short when she saw her father. Hurrying to the side of his bed, she looked down at him, worried and frightened. “Daddy,” she said, “what’s wrong?”

  Talbert forced a smile to his lips to help remove the fear in her voice. “It’s nothing,” he said weakly. “I’m just a little tired. Little tired . . .”

  “I’ll get you some water,” said Amy uncertainly. She left the bedside to do so.

  Alan Virdon, Pete Burke, and Galen had found a pleasant clearing near a fresh-running stream. It was early evening, and they decided to call a halt to the day’s march. Already, the memories of Trion and the people they had grown to like there were beginning to fade, to blur with the memories of so many other places and people they had met since their unlucky arrival in this undreamed-of future. The rigors of their new life were too difficult to allow the three adventurers the luxury of entertaining fond memories; that only weakened their attention, distracted their alertness. In this alien world, if Virdon, Burke, and Galen weren’t alert, they were dead.

  Swinging his backpack off with a loud sigh, Burke knelt by the stream and splashed the cool water on his face. Virdon set his pack down and began looking through it for their supper rations. Galen stood a little apart, deliberately excluding himself from the activities of the two humans, watching, observing, making mental notes with his shrewd, scientifically trained mind.

  Burke took a long drink of the water, then turned to Virdon. “When we were in training a mere two thousand years ago,” he said, “I used to hate all those hours we spent running on that treadmill. I hated that the most. Upward and onward to nowhere! So we get accidentally pushed twenty centuries into our own future, and do you know what? Nothing’s changed.”

  Virdon gave a little laugh. “Except the world,” he said. Irony hung heavy in his voice.

  “Well, yeah,” said Burke, “there’s that. The old world was the nicest world I knew. Still is; was, I mean. Whatever.”

  “I wish you could have seen it, Galen,” said Virdon. “The way it was . . .”

  The chimpanzee waved the idea away. “Obviously I
can’t,” he said.

  “Maybe you’ll get a chance,” said Virdon. “I still hope that somewhere, somehow, we’ll find a way back.”

  Burke pointed to Virdon. “I’d be ready to certify that guy’s bananas, but I’m going along with him, so what does that make me?”

  Virdon smiled. “An optimist. What are you complaining about? When you were a kid, didn’t you always dream about camping out, roughing it, even if it was only in your backyard? Well, here’s your chance.” Virdon continued to make camp for the night.

  “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” said Burke, grumbling just a little. Taking Virdon’s example, he opened his backpack and rummaged through it. He continued to mutter under his breath. “He’s okay. Everybody else is crazy.”

  Virdon broke up small sticks and built a pile of kindling for their evening fire. Burke gathered the larger logs that would be needed. They worked together in silence: the routine they established during their travels, had become more habit than necessity.

  Galen, in the meantime had moved to the edge of the clearing and stood motionless, listening intently. At this time of the day, his normal chore was to break up the larger logs into usable sizes; with his greater strength, Galen wedged the limbs into the fork of a tree and pushed. Virdon and Burke were always amazed at the great power of the chimpanzee. They knew that the chimpanzees were, on the whole, smaller than the orangutans, the ruling class of the ape world, who were in turn dwarfed by the massive gorillas. It was no wonder that the human population, now shrunken into insignificance in both physical strength and number, had little hope of regaining its former dominance.

  But now, Galen did not join the humans in the work. Every few seconds he cocked his head, or turned it a few inches, his expression showing deep concentration. Virdon noticed this and was immediately concerned. “Do you hear something?”

  “Not yet,” said Galen, waving to Virdon to be silent.