Planet of the Apes 03 - Journey into Terror

by George Alec Effinger

  Galen, Burke, and Virdon realized that they didn’t have enough warning to hunt out a secure place of concealment. They would have to take their chances with what fate provided. They ducked behind a badly deteriorated wall that more closely resembled a pile of rubble without a building attached.

  Just as they dropped their heads out of sight, a squad of mounted, armed gorillas rode around a corner and into the street. They were patrol gorillas, not looking for anything out of the ordinary, and their leisurely pace indicated that they hoped that they wouldn’t find anything, either.

  “I don’t care if these gorillas grew up in Serbia-Croatia,” said Burke, in a hoarse whisper. “They’re part of Urko’s force, and they all have descriptions of us.”

  “They have orders, too,” said Galen with some amusement. “They’re ordered to shoot to kill.”

  “We’ll just stay here for a while, then,” said Virdon. “The shade is restful.”

  The apes continued their patrol up the street. They drew abreast of the fugitives’ hiding place. Burke and Virdon squeezed themselves closer to the mound of debris; Galen watched them curiously, then did the same thing. Occasionally it was difficult for the young chimpanzee to realize the horrifying consequences that his natural curiosity might bring. The patrol gorillas noticed nothing unusual and rode by, their view of the two men and the chimpanzee hidden by the rubble.

  After the apes passed, Virdon, Burke, and Galen breathed a slight bit easier. Still, they waited for a moment to make sure that the patrol had passed out of hearing range. This was what their lives had become, and it wasn’t something they enjoyed or had chosen; still, without their watchfulness, they might have been killed on many, many previous occasions. They waited.

  After a time, Burke murmured, “Okay to get my heart started again?”

  Galen snorted. He raised himself up so that just his eyes peered over the edge of the mound. The apes were nowhere to be seen.

  “It seems to be all clear,” said the chimpanzee.

  “But we know it isn’t,” said Burke. “It never is.”

  “We’d better hole up for a while,” said Virdon. “That’s the wisest choice. This city has been here for a while. It’ll keep another few hours.”

  Burke looked imploringly up at the sky. “Well,” he said dryly, “another day, another hole.”

  Virdon surveyed the nearby buildings, looking for one that might offer them a good chance of combining safety with comfort. These buildings had been erected after the astronauts’ departure from Earth; some gave Virdon trouble, merely identifying them. At last he chose the large, central building that had first caught his attention. “Let’s try this one,” he said. He scrambled over the rubble, hoping that the ape guard had not circled back within earshot. Behind him came Burke and Galen. Bending low to avoid being seen, the three ran for the entrance.

  “Are we really going in there?” asked Galen, who, despite his good ape education, was still a little afraid of the forbidden areas.

  “Unless you want to try out Urko’s hospitality, you’re coming in with us,” said Burke. Galen shrugged.

  “I wonder what this place was,” said Virdon, looking up at its towering, almost unspoiled face.

  Galen glanced around at the shabby, decayed buildings in the neighborhood. “I would guess that it was something important,” he said. “It was built well.” Virdon walked slowly up to the entrance.

  “So was the Colosseum,” said Burke, behind them.

  Galen stopped and turned. He wrinkled his face in the quizzical look that so often initiated long question and answer sessions. “The Colosseum?” he asked.

  “An arena,” said Virdon. “Humans were forced to fight animals. It was a long time ago. Someone was trying to combine sporting events with social reform, of a strange type.”

  “The smart money was on the animals,” said Burke.

  Galen stared. The ideas were so chilling, and the astronauts’ discussion so . . . unconcerned . . . that Galen could not decide whether this was another of their jokes or a cruel facet of human life he had never before encountered. He could think of nothing to say.

  Meanwhile, Virdon had spotted something near the door, and had begun to brush away the dust and rubble. Burke and Galen went to help him; after a moment they uncovered what Virdon had seen—a barely readable bronze plaque bolted to the building’s front. Even though the sign had been damaged and corroded through the millenia, the three companions were able to read it. It said, OAKLAND SCIENCE INSTITUTE.

  “Well, how about that?” asked Burke.

  “ ‘Oakland Science Institute,’ ” said Virdon. “If I remember right, that was one of those government think tanks. I wonder if this building is holding what those people thought up.”

  “So you think this is Oakland?” asked Burke.

  “Why not?” asked Virdon. “It has to be someplace.”

  Burke looked around him with more interest. Before, the city had been nameless, without personality. Now the human tragedy of the place hit him. “Even George Blanda has gone to dust by now,” he said.

  “Who?” asked Galen. “Did he fight animals in the Colosseum?”

  “He fought Lions, and Bears, and sometimes Saints,” said Burke. The astronaut shook his head. Galen was completely confused by Burke’s football references, but it wasn’t a new feeling. The chimpanzee just shook his head, too, and looked at Virdon.

  “Let’s have a look inside,” said the blond astronaut.

  With him in the lead, the trio moved slowly through the empty doorway of the building. Piles of rubble and sections of walls inside littered the floor. The high, vaulted ceiling of the entranceway had collapsed a long time before, and the fugitives had to climb laboriously over the debris. The air inside was stifling and bad. There were no sounds, not even the faint rustling of vermin. It was as silent as an empty grave.

  “Interesting decor,” said Burke, looking around the main hall. “What would you call the style? Early American Disaster?”

  “Close enough,” said Virdon. He moved away from the other two in order to examine a section of broken wall. The part he was looking at seemed to jut out from the main hall’s perimeter, destroying the rectangular spaciousness of the area. “I’ll bet the original designer didn’t put this here,” said Virdon. “There could be something behind it.”

  Burke and Galen watched him curiously. Virdon was never one to let the unknown possibilities of a situation remain that way for long. He started to tug at something embedded in a section of the crumbling wall. The entire part of the wall immediately began to fall down upon them. “Be—” shouted Burke, but he was interrupted by the crash of stone, brick, and mortar all around them. The three desperately dived for cover.

  “—careful,” finished the dark-haired astronaut. They were out of the pile of debris that had toppled over, standing now in the protection of an archway. They watched the rest of the wall slip, tumble, and crash to the floor. The air was filled with dust. They choked while the dust settled once again to the floor.

  “You’re very good at that,” said Burke, still coughing. “Have you ever considered taking it up as an occupation?”

  The gray dust settled in Galen’s thick, hairy coat and on the astronauts’ heads and arms. They slapped as much of it off as they could. Virdon returned his attention to the wall, which had completely fallen down. He saw a wheeled vault lock and a steel door. He stepped carefully across the debris, making loud crunching sounds in the echoing chamber; he grasped the wheel and turned it. They were all startled by the loud whoosh of air. Virdon turned back to his friends. “Vacuum sealed,” he said. Galen did not understand, but he was too curious to ask for an explanation. He wanted to see what was inside.

  Beyond the swinging vault door was a small alcove. The back wall was the original wall of the Institute’s lobby; this small place had been built afterward, to house the odd-looking machine that rested on a pedestal in the center, just behind the door. Virdon stepped in to look a
t the device. It was a rectangular box of clear plastic. There were no control knobs, buttons, or switches. “Pete,” called Virdon, “here, look at this.”

  Galen and Burke joined Virdon in the alcove. The three looked over the machine, each as puzzled as the others. “It was made after our time,” said Burke. “That’s for sure.”

  Galen looked from Virdon to Burke. “What do you think it is?” he asked. The apes had avoided the technology that produced anything but the most primitive and utilitarian objects.

  Virdon had been looking at the pedestal that the device rested on. It was apparent that there was a kind of storage battery and electrical connections behind a smooth gray metallic panel. With close scrutiny, Virdon could make out a confusing arrangement of lenses. But there didn’t seem to be anything to focus, no film threader or slide feeder. “It could be some kind of projector,” he said, “but what kind I don’t know.”

  “Projector?” said Galen. “I don’t understand. Not only do I not understand what you don’t understand, I don’t understand your explanations.”

  “Try to put yourself in our position,” said Burke. “How do you think that makes us feel? We thought we’d done a good job of filling you in on the last two thousand years or so.”

  “Burke,” said Galen coldly, “there are things about you which I will never understand. I can accept that. But there are things which I should understand, for the safety of all of us.”

  “I’m sorry, Galen,” said Burke, truly apologetic. “I usually get that way when I don’t know what’s happening either.”

  “Whatever it is,” said Virdon, “it was well-protected and hidden.”

  “Yeah,” said Burke. “It might even work.”

  “What’s a projector?” asked Galen.

  “It’s a machine to reproduce—” Virdon was cut off by Galen’s deepening look of puzzlement. Virdon sighed. “Look,” he said, “it takes little pictures and makes them look big by putting an enlarged image on a flat surface.”

  Galen still looked bewildered. “The basic thing that I don’t understand,” he said, “is how you take little pictures and make them look big. It’s very easy to do the opposite. You just walk away.”

  “That’s a thought,” muttered Burke. He was glad that Galen could not hear him. Burke turned to Virdon. “This thing must have been important,” he said. “Somebody sure wanted it to last. Who knows? Maybe it will work.”

  Virdon merely grunted in reply. He had removed part of the device’s front panel and had discovered what were apparently the controls. He looked these over and traced the connections of wires and printed circuits. His engineer’s training let him have some insight into the almost completely alien machine.

  “Do you realize that I still don’t understand?” asked Galen petulantly.

  Virdon put his thumb in a small depression among the controls.

  “Look,” said Burke, “the thing is probably—”

  “In the years to come . . .” The voice that spoke those words belonged neither to Burke nor Virdon. Both men jerked around. Galen looked up, his eyes wide, startled, frightened. The voice was deep and full of authority. The three companions each found his heart beating loud and fast. Each was afraid, but each for different reasons.

  Besides the surprising suddenness of the voice, there were overtones to the situation that made it more dramatic than it might have been on another occasion. For Virdon, it was the first concrete clue to a way back to his wife and family, all of whom had been dead for many, many centuries; for Burke, it was the defeat of emotion at the hands of intellect, once more, and he pitied Virdon for the hope that it would stir in him; for Galen, it was the first real connection between what the astronauts had been telling him for so many months, and the truth.

  Before them was the image of a gray-haired scientist, dressed in a loose white robe. The man was evidently in his eighties, but that was only his evident age; his voice was much younger, his eyes seemed much older. Who could tell what human medical skill had been able to accomplish after Burke and Virdon left their home world? The projection moved against the wall opposite the projector; even though Virdon tried blocking the device with his body, the image did not waver or disappear.

  “Whoever finds our Institute,” said the scientist, now long dead, as was his science, “we, the scientists, greet you. The destruction of our world, as we know it, is imminent . . .”

  Galen stared, unblinking, at the projection. Here was truth and knowledge, the very things he had yearned for throughout his short life. Here were the answers that even Burke and Virdon did not know, answers that the ape leaders either did not know or kept suppressed.

  “. . . but our civilization’s great advances must not vanish,” said the ancient scientist gravely. The man paused, as though waiting for his listeners of future generations to puzzle out the meaning of his words thus far.

  Virdon looked at Burke; the latter was about to speak, but Virdon gestured for him to be silent. The scientist continued.

  “We have therefore deposited the sum of all our scientific knowledge in a number of vaults which are located in various cities throughout the world.”

  Burke nudged Virdon. Included in that knowledge was the skill that had gotten them into space; with it, they might be able to trace the process backward and end up home again. With it, they might be able to liberate the human beings left in this ape-ruled world; Virdon, Burke, and Galen might be able to disprove the prejudice and cool the hate so that the species might live together in peace. It all depended on knowledge. The astronauts waited for the image to speak again.

  “We want and hope this will be found by future generations,” said the scientist. Now, however, the image began to flicker, and there was a strange slurring to the scientist’s voice. “In this city, the vault is embedded—”

  The sound faded abruptly, and the image of the old scientist mouthed unheard words for three or four seconds. Then the image, too, faded and the machine was dead. Virdon turned and hurried to the device, trying various connections and various combinations of the controls. Everything he did was useless.

  “How are we supposed to know what’s wrong?” asked Burke in frustration. “This thing was invented a long time after we left. It probably runs on flower power or something like that.”

  Virdon looked up suddenly, a dawning look of comprehension on his face.

  “What did I say?” asked Burke, puzzled. “Power?”

  “It just may be,” said Virdon. He turned back to the machine, looking for a way to open the back of the device and examine the rest of its components. “This baby’s been here a long, long time. Whatever kind of battery it runs on could have leaked off most of its charge by now. I don’t think those scientists expected their descendants to wait this long before starting the climb back up.”

  Galen watched them in silence. He saw Virdon trying vainly to pry the back of the device off. The chimpanzee looked around himself and picked up a sharp-pointed piece of metal. He held it out to Virdon. “Will this help?” he asked.

  “Thanks,” said the blond man, taking it. He started to lever the panel open.

  “You’re welcome,” said Galen. “About once every month or two I like to feel that I’ve contributed something. Then I don’t feel so bad about asking for explanations all the time.”

  Burke looked at Galen, wondering just what the young ape was thinking. “If we understood anything, we’d tell you,” said Burke. “But you saw and heard everything we did. If anything, I’d think your people would be able to explain things to us. We’re the strangers here.” Galen didn’t answer.

  “Uh,” said Virdon. The back panel came off suddenly and he fell backward with it. Galen and Burke went around to the other side of the projector. Inside the machine was a tangled forest of strange circuits, utilizing components that neither Burke nor Virdon could even name. Galen moved to one side, although interested; he knew that he could be of no assistance.

  “There,” said Virdon, poi
nting to a small section of the wiring. “That’s got to be the battery. But they sure didn’t make units that looked like that when I was a kid.”

  “What did you expect?” asked Burke. “Did you want this whole thing to be run on two flashlight batteries, not included?”

  Virdon thought for a moment. “Still, no matter how advanced it is, there will probably be zinc in the power unit. We should be able to find copper plumbing pipe nearby. All we need is a container and some sulphuric acid.”

  Burke was not quite as quick at technical solutions as his fellow astronaut, but after a moment’s thought, he figured out Virdon’s plan. “And we rig a battery and get this thing going again.”

  Galen was unsure what a battery was. He had no idea at all what the excitement was about. “Does it matter?” he asked.

  “You heard the man on the wall,” said Burke. “ ‘The sum of all our scientific knowledge.’ He meant everything from nuclear fusion to freeze-dried coffee.”

  “It could give us the answers we’ve been looking for, Galen,” said Virdon. “For the apes as well as the humans.” The blond man’s mind turned to more practical thoughts. He looked at Burke. “We need some copper,” he said.

  At that, all three took a final look at the dormant projector and headed back toward the door.

  After nearly an hour of searching, Burke and Virdon had located what they sought: a source of copper tubing which they had wrestled out of place and broken or sawed into small bits. The two men and Galen were carrying these pieces back toward the Institute, along a tortuous path among the hills of rubble. Burke spotted something else useful amid the junk around them. “Over there,” he said. The three moved to the crumbling section of a building wall, which Burke had indicated. Virdon quickly tore off some of the insulation material from the interior of the wall, looked at it for a moment, then turned to Burke.

  “Good job, Pete,” said Virdon. “This insulation should do as well as anything else we might be able to dig up.”

  “Do what?” asked Galen, who was growing exasperated at being left out of everything except the carrying.