Escape From The Planet Of The Apes

by Jerry Pournelle

  “Yeah,” Admiral Jardin said. He looked unhappily at Lewis and Stevie, then back at Hasslein. “Yeah. You sure do.”

  Everyone had been very polite. The chimpanzees had a full day to adjust to their new quarters and move their things into their suite. They had been well fed by white-uniformed hospital attendants, and Lewis and Stevie had been served an excellent meal in the apes’ rooms. They were given rooms of their own, and furnished every convenience.

  Every convenience but one. No one could leave without Dr. Hasslein’s permission. He insisted that it was all a formality, and that he would soon have passes made up for Lewis and Stephanie; but the secretaries were slow, and everything was irregular so that they had to establish some control procedures.

  The one thing certain was that the Marines on guard outside weren’t letting anyone in or out.

  They were introduced to two new staff members. “This is Henry Amalfi,” Hasslein said. “And Larry Bates. Of the National Security Agency. Well, Dr. Dixon, I think it is time to begin. Can you bring the chimpanzees down to room 104, please?”

  The room had been an operating theater. Surgical equipment was still racked against the walls, and there were white glass-fronted cabinets full of gleaming steel instruments.

  Zira looked at the equipment with envy. She hadn’t had gear half this good. Her interest in the set-up was not enough to cover her fears, though, and she clung to her husband’s hand.

  Hasslein, Amalfi, and Bates sat side by side at a long table at one end of the room. The chairs set out for the chimpanzees resembled dentists’ chairs, comfortable, but cold and clinical in appearance. There was no place for Lewis or Stevie to sit, and the guards ushered them out.

  “Now just a minute,” Lewis protested. “I have a right to be here—”

  “No, sir,” Hasslein told him. “I represent the Commission, and you have no medical duties to perform at the moment. I’m sorry, Dr. Dixon, but I must insist that you leave.”

  Lewis shrugged helplessly, and turned away. He was uncomfortably aware of the terrified gaze Zira directed at his back, and he left her looking at him even after the door closed with a hollow sound.

  FIFTEEN

  “Relax,” Dr. Hasslein said. “We won’t hurt you. We only want to find out the truth.”

  Cornelius and Zira said nothing. Finally Cornelius asked, “If you don’t mean us any harm, why did you send Dr. Dixon away? Are you ashamed of what you’re going to do?”

  “That’s no way to talk,” Mr. Amalfi said. “Look, the sooner we get started, the sooner we can all go home. I don’t like it here any more than you do. We’ve just got a job to do, that’s all.”

  “What’s the point of trying to reason with monkeys?” Bates demanded.

  “Aw, Larry, don’t be like that,” Amalfi said. “He hadn’t ought to be like that, had he, Dr. Hasslein? Be nice, Larry.”

  “I don’t have to be nice to monkeys,” Bates said. “They won’t tell us anything. Probably don’t know anything.”

  “I don’t agree,” Amalfi said. “They’re pretty smart. Aren’t you?” He flashed them a smile. “Now, for instance, we need to know about things like this.” He touched a button on a small console on the table in front of him.

  Zira’s voice, somewhat blurred, came from the player: "When we were in space . . . we saw the light. A blinding bright white light, it was horrible. The rim of the world seemed to melt! The whole earth must have been destroyed. Dr. Milo thought it had been. Then there was—I don’t know. Then we were here.”

  “Now, that was you talking, wasn’t it?” Amalfi said. “You saw all that?”

  “I don’t know if I said that,” Zira said.

  “Eh? Why don’t you know?”

  “I don’t remember saying it,” Zira told them. “I was drunk. Dr. Hasslein can tell you, I had too much champagne to drink.”

  “Yes,” Hasslein said. “That’s right, Mr. Amalfi. She probably didn’t know what she was saying.”

  “But we have to check it out,” Amalfi said. “Now, Madame Zira, why would you tell Dr. Hasslein something when you were drunk but hide it from the Commission when you were sober? Were you afraid of us?”

  “No. We didn’t hide anything,” Zira insisted. “Nobody ever asked us about that.”

  “I see,” Amalfi said. He smiled gently. “See, Larry, I told you they’d cooperate. So. Now we do have to ask you about that, of course. You had a war, and the earth was destroyed . . .”

  “But not by us,” Zira insisted. “Chimpanzees had no part in that war or in the destruction. Only the gorillas and the orangutans.”

  “Oh, what’s the difference?” Bates said. “You’re all a bunch of monkeys anyway.”

  “That will do,” Cornelius said harshly. “I have overlooked your insults before, Mr. Bates, but I will not do so again. Please do not employ the word ‘monkey’ in referring to us. We find it offensive and impertinent.”

  “Well, look who’s on his high horse,” Bates said. “For somebody who blew up the world, you’re sure holy and righteous!”

  Cornelius sniffed. “As an archeologist and historian, I studied a very great number of ancient records,” he said. “I have concluded that the weapon which probably destroyed Earth was man’s invention. I am almost certain of it, now that I have seen your atomic power plants—you do have real atom bombs.”

  “But your kind used them,” Bates sneered.

  “Perhaps,” Cornelius said. “But I also know that one reason for man’s decline and fall was your peculiar habit of murdering one another. Man destroys man. Apes do not destroy apes.”

  “Crap,” Bates snapped. “You tried to pull that one before. Run the film,” he ordered.

  There was a screen on one side of the room. It lit with scenes obviously taken from a blind in an animal game preserve. A group of chimpanzees, both adult and young, played together with young baboons.

  Suddenly one of the adult chimpanzees seized an immature baboon and dashed its brains out against a tree. It cracked open the skull and dipped its fingers into the brain case, then licked them off. Other chimpanzees crowded around as the rest of the baboons fled in panic.

  They tore the baby baboon apart and ate it. Finally the screen went dark and the lights came on again.

  “Well,” Bates demanded. “What’s this crap about being peaceful and vegetarian? Aren’t baboons apes?”

  “But we never did anything like that!” Zira protested. “Chimpanzees are pacifists! Only the gorillas wanted the war—”

  “Bates, I’m shocked,” Hasslein said smoothly. “Look how that film has upset Zira. Cornelius, Zira, this is not an interracial hassle. We are trying to find out the facts. For example: we can admit the possibility of the decline and fall of mankind, but we would like to know just how it happened—and how apes rose to take man’s place.”

  “I see,” Cornelius said.

  “As an historian, surely you must have theories,” Hasslein said smoothly.

  “Yes,” Cornelius admitted. He settled back in his chair. “So far as we can tell, it began with a plague that affected dogs.”

  “And cats,” Zira added.

  “And cats. Millions of them died, and there was no antidote. A house that had been infected by the plague could never again have a dog or a cat in it. To bring pets anywhere near that house would be to kill them. And despite the quarantines, the plague spread . . .”

  “It must have been horrible,” Zira said. “And when it was over, man had no pets. None at all.”

  “An intolerable situation,” Cornelius continued. “Men might kill their brothers, but not their dogs. Since they couldn’t keep dogs and cats, men took primitive apes into their homes.”

  “Primitive,” Amalfi said. “Would you explain that, please?”

  “They couldn’t talk,” Zira said. “But primitive and dumb as they were, they were still twenty times more intelligent than dogs and cats. And people bred them for intelligence.”

  “Precisely,” Co
rnelius said. “They lived in houses with people. They shared the same foods, and they copied—‘aped,’ if you prefer—their owners’ habits. And after two centuries of living like this, the apes became more than pets. They became servants. They did far more than tricks, they worked for humans.”

  “Like sheep dogs?” Amalfi asked.

  “Humpf,” Zira said. “Could sheep dogs make beds?”

  “Or cook?” Cornelius asked. “Clean house? Go marketing for groceries with lists from their mistresses? Apes worked in factories, and waited on tables in restaurants. They performed all the menial tasks humans insist on having done for them but won’t do themselves.”

  “Fascinating,” Hasslein said. “But then what happened?”

  “They turned the tables on their owners,” Zira said. Her voice held satisfaction and pride. “They learned they were slaves, and they did something about it!”

  Cornelius gently laid his hand on Zira’s. “First, of course, they had to develop personalities of their own. While they were animals, unaware of anything, they did not feel exploited; but after two hundred years of this, they became aware of their identity. Then they learned to be alert to the concept of slavery—and to slavery’s antidote, which is unity and brotherhood. They learned to act together. They learned to refuse.”

  “I see,” Hasslein said. “Do go on, Professor Cornelius.” His pale eyes were alert and interested, and he leaned slightly forward across the table.

  “At first, they only barked their refusal,” Cornelius said. “But then, one historic day, there came an ape named Aldo who didn’t bark. He spoke. He spoke a word which had been spoken to him, time without number, by humans. He said, ‘No’.”

  “You seem proud of Aldo,” Hasslein said.

  “Of course,” Zira told them. “His is the most honored name among apes. We are all proud of him.”

  “And that’s how it all started,” Hasslein said to himself. “But—what happened to the humans?”

  “We don’t know, exactly,” Cornelius said.

  “Slaughtered by the apes, maybe?” Bates sneered.

  “More likely, by each other,” Zira snapped.

  “Roll that film clip. B-3,” Bates ordered.

  The screen lit again, to show Cornelius and Zira during the first session with the Presidential Commission of Inquiry. “Where we come from, apes talk and humans are dumb animals,” Cornelius’s image said.

  “Those were your words, were they not?” Bates asked.

  “Certainly,” Cornelius answered.

  “So in your culture, humans are dumb,” Bates continued. “Are they happy?” Cornelius looked away from the interrogator’s cold staring eyes. “I asked you, are they happy?”

  There was no answer. “Just what happened to the human culture, Professor Cornelius?” Hasslein asked gently. “Was there a slaughter of humans by apes? Surely you would have records of a triumph like that! You would be proud of it.”

  “No, we wouldn’t,” Cornelius said.

  “After the revolt, the apes enslaved the humans, didn’t they?” Bates insisted. “For revenge. And eventually exterminated every human with intelligence. Destroyed civilization.”

  “No,” Zira protested. “It wasn’t that way at all.”

  “How are humans treated in your time/place?” Amalfi demanded. “What would happen to me, for instance, if I went there?”

  “I don’t know,” Zira answered.

  “Ah,” Bates said. “Sure about that? Real sure? Run that next tape, uh, tape B-5.”

  The screen lit again, to show Zira speaking to the Commission. “As to humans,” her image said, “I’ve dissec— Excuse me. I have examined thousands of humans and until now I have discovered only two who could talk in my whole life. God knows who taught them.”

  “Now,” Bates said, “we presume that you meant you had known two humans who could speak prior to your arrival in our time. Otherwise, your words make no sense at all.” His voice hardened into a whiplash. “Who were the two? Colonel Taylor and who else?”

  “I never met Colonel Taylor,” Zira protested.

  “You came here in his ship,” Hasslein reminded them.

  “Give me that special setup, sound only,” Bates told the intercom.

  Zira’s voice came through. “As to humans, I’ve dissec— excuse me. I have examined thousands of humans . . .”

  “Now what was that word you didn’t finish?” Bates asked. “Just what were you afraid to tell the Commission?”

  “I don’t remember,” Zira said nervously. “I—we weren’t afraid of anything!”

  “Hah. You don’t remember,” Bates said. “We’ll refresh your memory. Run the loop.”

  “Dissec—dissec—dissec—dissec . . .” Zira’s voice said endlessly.

  “Finish the word, monkey,” Bates snarled.

  “I have told you not to use that word!” Cornelius snapped. He stood and advanced toward the table.

  “If you don’t sit down we’ll put the chains back oh you,” Bates said.

  “Dissec—dissec—dissec . . .”

  “Complete the word, Madame Zira!”

  She sniffed. “It sounds as if I had hiccups!”

  “Good girl!” Cornelius encouraged.

  “I see,” Hasslein said. “I take it, then, you refuse to tell us of your relationship with Colonel Taylor?”

  “We never knew . . .”

  “Oh, don’t lie,” Amalfi said. “That won’t do you any good. Come on, tell us about it. You’ll feel better, and we can leave you alone then.”

  “Those monkeys aren’t going to tell us anything,” Bates snapped.

  “You shouldn’t call them monkeys, Larry,” Amalfi said. “Professor Cornelius said he didn’t like that. Won’t you just tell us about it? Please? We have to find out, you know. And we will, too. Make it easier on yourselves.”

  “Good advice,” Hasslein told them.

  “There is nothing to tell,” Cornelius said.

  Hasslein sighed. “You leave us no choice. Send for Dr. Dixon, please.”

  There was a long pause. Then Lewis Dixon came into the small clinic. “You wanted me?”

  “Yes,” Hasslein said. “I want you to administer sodium pentothal to these apes. You may begin with the female.”

  “I don’t think that’s wise,” Lewis said.

  “I don’t care what you think, Dr. Dixon,” Hasslein said. “I have not invited your comments, and I will not listen to your arguments. You may do as I have asked you, or you may refuse. If you refuse, I will have an NSA physician administer the dosage. I only invited you because these apes are under your care, and I thought you might prefer to participate.”

  “I see.” Lewis was silent for a moment. “I’ll get my bag.”

  “That will not be necessary,” Hasslein said. “You will find everything you need in that cabinet there. I trust you already know the body weight.”

  “Yes,” Lewis said. “But I don’t necessarily know the dosage. Or the effect on a chimpanzee.”

  “It should be the same as with humans,” Hasslein said. “Anyway, we’ll try it.”

  “You haven’t the right,” Lewis protested.

  “Dr. Dixon,” Hasslein said, “that is the last argument I will hear from you. Either you do as I ask, or someone else will. Now is that clearly understood? Are you serious, for that matter? These are animals. They have no legal rights. Perhaps their owners have rights—”

  “No one owns us!” Zira shouted.

  “You see?” Hasslein said. “And of course they appeared in a U.S. spacecraft. Trespassers. A prima facie case of skyjacking. Administer the hypo, Dr. Dixon, or we’ll get someone in who will.”

  “All right.” Lewis took the tray from the cabinet. What can I do?” he thought. If they get someone else in, he may not even care if he harms them. At least I’ll be here to protect my—patients. He filled a hypodermic with sodium pentothal and turned toward Zira.

  “No!” Cornelius shouted. He had seen th
e instrument for the first time. “When we use those things, it’s for killing! No!”

  “Restrain him,” Hasslein ordered. Amalfi and Bates took Cornelius’s arms.

  “Killing what?” Bates asked. “Thought you were pacifist vegetarians!”

  “Yes, just whom have you killed with those needles, Professor Cornelius?” Hasslein asked. “Well, we shall know all shortly. Proceed, Dr. Dixon.”

  “This won’t harm her,” Lewis assured Cornelius. “This isn’t for killing. It’s for—well, relaxing.”

  “Will it harm my baby?” Zira asked.

  “No. Please lie down on the table, Zira,” Lewis said. “And bare your left arm.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Zira said angrily. She climbed onto the operating table and lay quietly. Cornelius whimpered and tried to get closer to her.

  “Take Professor Cornelius to his quarters, please,” Hasslein said. Bates nodded and led the chimpanzee away. As he left, Cornelius saw Zira wince as the needle was pushed home into her arm.

  SIXTEEN

  Henry Amalfi and Larry Bates stood outside the interrogation room. Bates pulled at a big calabash pipe, while Amalfi puffed on a black cigar. “You had better stay outside,” Amalfi said. “She’s not going to relax with you around.”

  “Expect you’re right,” Bates said. “Can’t really say I’m sorry to be out of it. This is a weird one.”

  “Maybe.” Amalfi stuffed the cigar into a sandfilled ash tray. “You weren’t on that interrogation of those cats from North Laos, were you?” When his partner shook his head, Amalfi continued, “Now that one was really weird. These monkeys speak English, anyway. That outfit spoke some brand of Gook that nobody else understood. Finally we found a Gook who could speak their gibber and could talk Chinese too, only then we had to get a Chink to translate that. Weird, I tell you. This is pretty straightforward.”

  “I suppose. Only, Henry . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “You really shouldn’t speak of them as Gooks and Chinks. It isn’t nice.”

  “Yeah.” They both laughed, and Amalfi went back into the interrogation room.