Virdon was prodded into a large castle courtyard by two armed gorillas. His ankle seemed better, although he still walked with a slight limp. Around the perimeter of the courtyard, a couple of gorillas were standing sentry duty.
The apes marched Virdon across the courtyard, to a massive entrance closed by two iron-bound oaken doors. One of the gorillas opened the doors and shoved Virdon in, shutting the doors and locking them again behind him. The doors shut slowly with a loud creaking noise, and a dull, final thud. The rasp of the lock made the situation only that much more hopeless. Virdon was caught.
The first thing that he did inside was the initial reaction of any organism trapped in unfamiliar surroundings; he searched the area. He walked around the walls, studying the bare stone, the damp, chilly expanse of walls, the lack of decoration or ornament. He couldn’t decide if this was the taste of the human builders, the results of subsequent lootings, or the imposed austerity of the apes. In one corner of the large chamber he saw the woman, Arn, cowering. He went quickly to her.
He moved as speedily as his injured leg permitted. “Are you all right?” he asked. Even in the extremity of the situation, which, after all, was the one thing Burke, Galen and he had dreaded since the beginning—recapture—his primary concern was for this seemingly unprotected, yet strong, woman who had tried to warn him of the dangers he faced.
Arn said nothing. She only nodded, studying his handsome face.
Virdon was relieved. Arn presented him with a problem, someone to look out for other than himself. He was inclined to take chances, and with Arn to hold his behavior slightly in check, his odds for survival increased. Sure, he wasn’t as impetuous as Burke or even Galen, but the possibility was there, especially when he had fallen into the stronghold of his enemies.
Virdon looked around in the gloom of the chamber, and he spotted Kraik, sitting huddled up in another corner. Virdon walked over to where Kraik sat, kicking some stones from his path along the way. The astronaut tried to appear casual, but the presence of Kraik was becoming just a bit too coincidental. “Who are you?” asked Virdon softly, in order not to make Kraik withdraw into his sullen shell.
There was no reply. Any question directed at Kraik, unless by an ape, drew this same reaction. Virdon waited a moment, then turned around and surveyed the room. There was Kraik, and Virdon, and Arn, all silently sitting a large distance apart from the others. “What’s happening?” cried Virdon. “Why do they have us all here?”
Arn shook her head. It seemed evident that she didn’t know. Kraik just drew himself closer into his protective ball in his corner. Whether the boy understood or not, Virdon knew that the information would stay locked within the boy’s mind.
THREE
The castle courtyard had changed little in the few hours during which Virdon had been kept prisoner. He had examined the area minutely, and the examination boiled down simply to the simple facts: one, the gorillas had him, Arn, and Kraik locked in a room above the courtyard. Two, a pair of armed gorillas guarded the vast, locked gates that opened onto that courtyard. Three, there was no other way out.
So much for devious or sneaky ways around the obvious limits of the situation. Virdon almost wished for Burke’s irrational turn of mind. Burke—or Galen, even—would think up something that used the gorillas’ strengths against them, the apes. Virdon would only try hitting his head against the strengths, and ending up with a headache for his efforts. And Arn and Kraik were involved now, too.
Inside the castle, in the main room, Kraik was still cowering in his corner and Arn waited fearfully, unsure why she had been made a captive. She had committed no crime, other than to be found in the same area as Virdon. The apes and the humans of the forbidden city had derived an unusual truce; each side knew just how much the others would accept without rebellion, and neither apes nor humans looked for trouble. Arn felt that she had been treated unfairly, but she didn’t have anyone to whom to complain.
Virdon walked around the large, spacious, once-grand hall in which they were locked. “No one here but us,” he said to himself, a fact self-evident but somehow important. The knowledge tickled at his consciousness. He turned to the two captives with him. “Are you sure you don’t know what this is all about?”
Arn only nodded sullenly. She hadn’t spoken in all the time they had been locked in the high-ceilinged room. She was afraid to connect herself in any way with this stranger. Virdon glanced at Kraik. The astronaut had witnessed the transaction between the dirty waif and the gorilla Sergeant. Perhaps there was something more that might be gleaned from questioning the boy.
“You,” said Virdon suddenly to Kraik. “Did they tell you why you’re here?”
The boy didn’t appear in the least bit concerned. He did not consider that he had sold out a fellow human being. He had only done what he had to do in order to secure himself the food he needed to live on. “I was caught stealing food,” said Kraik. There was a tinge of fearfulness in the boy’s voice, which might or might not have been genuine. It was difficult to judge just what part Kraik might play in the drama that was unfolding, and that fact made Virdon’s job even more difficult. Could he trust this boy? Could he win him over?
“A human can be killed for stealing food,” said Arn from her corner. The explanation brought silence to the cell. It was a harsh judgment, but it was one which the humans had always accepted. If it were true, then Kraik might fully expect to die. Virdon felt a flood of pity overwhelm him for the poor boy.
Suddenly, Virdon felt a cold shiver of fear ran through him. He wasn’t certain just what it meant; there was nothing about the circumstances that seemed any more threatening than other critical situations he had faced since coming to this planet of the apes. Or was it? Something tugged at his mind, some line of reasoning that would not speak clearly to him. He recalled the pity he had just felt for the boy; pity was an emotion that had grown extremely rare in this mad future. It was a feeling that Virdon and Burke had had to teach to the apes and humans who would listen to them. It was a feeling that sometimes put the astronauts at a disadvantage, making them act where less sympathetic individuals would run. But just as often, pity had won them friends and allies, like Galen, and it had often opened the door to love.
Still, wasn’t there something wrong with this situation? Virdon wandered around the drafty room, trying to put his finger on just what it was that bothered him. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he murmured to himself. “Urko doesn’t need an excuse to kill me. He’s proven in the past just how anxious he is to do just that. Well, when he had the chance, why didn’t he?” The question took possession of his thoughts for several moments, and he paced, oblivious to the words and actions of his two fellow captives. The answers he sought were not far away, he could sense that, but they still managed to elude him.
While Virdon paced painfully around the room, pondering his unanswerable questions, Arn was also examining their place of confinement. She had lived in the forbidden city all of her life, and she knew it as well as any of the other starving humans. This was a good deal better than any of the apes knew the city. But this particular building was strange to her. The ape garrison had always held it off limits to humans. She had never been inside it before, and she was frightened. Human beings were often frightened by things they could not understand or things they had never seen before. “What is this place?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
Virdon’s reply was automatic; he didn’t really hear Arn’s question. He was busily trying to find answers to his own problems. “This building was famous in my time,” he said. “I remember seeing it. Built by a wealthy man. Oil money. He wanted to live like a sixteenth century baron or something.” Virdon was carefully searching the walls, the fireplace, every possible place that might provide him with a clue to a way out of his current trouble. He searched with all the cunning that his knowledge and experience could lend him. He concentrated on his problem, but the room yielded nothing.
Arn walked closer to him
. Her face was puzzled; she thought about his words, which had tumbled unguarded from his mouth. “I don’t understand,” she said.
The boy, Kraik, was also curious. He had heard something in Virdon’s answer that he couldn’t explain. “What do you mean?” asked Kraik, “in your time?”
Virdon was still moving slowly about the room, hoping to find something in it that he could use. He did not reply to his two cell-mates. His attention focused on the stairway. He started for it. Kraik followed after him. “Wait a minute!” cried the boy. “Where are you going?”
Virdon was jolted from his reverie. He turned to face the boy. “It’s just a thought I had,” he said. “I don’t know what it means. But when Urko has a chance to kill me and get me out of the picture, and then doesn’t do it, I want to know why. I have to figure out his game.”
Virdon spoke slowly and softly, staring over the boy’s head at the cold stone of the wall opposite. With a shrug and a sad smile, the blond man turned again and continued up the stairs and into the hallway at the top. Kraik hesitated for a few seconds, then he, too, climbed the stairs, following Virdon. Arn remained below, watching.
Virdon walked slowly down the hallway, examining it foot by foot as he had the room. He eased himself past piles of debris that lay strewn about. A patch of light made him look up; above his head there was an unbarred castle window, high on the wall. Virdon piled wreckage below the window, and carefully pulled himself up to its level. He boosted himself up into a position where he could view the surroundings outside. He was suspicious—why would Urko imprison him in a room with access to an unguarded window? Virdon looked down.
He could see the ground at the base of the wall; there was the clean, unexpected green of grass and shrubbery below. The courtyard had apparently been a garden at one time, or the passage of time and the insistence of plant life had broken up the pavement that had once existed. Virdon did not know which. There was no movement in the area, no sounds.
Virdon was satisfied that no gorilla was around, walking guard duty in the courtyard. He could find no reason for that; still, he could find no reason not to take advantage of the situation. He straightened up on the window ledge and began to look for handholds or ivy vines, something to help him climb down.
While Virdon was occupied, a gorilla who had been concealed behind the shrubbery stepped quietly out, raised his rifle, and aimed it at Virdon.
Virdon did not see or hear his enemy. He continued his inspection of the wall. The crack of a shot rang out, followed instantly by the splintering of the castle wall less than a foot from Virdon’s hand. Virdon ducked away from the shot instinctively; then he looked down to its source.
For a brief instant, the gorilla and the human being stared at each other. Virdon felt nakedly helpless, outlined against the window behind him. He saw the gorilla’s finger squeeze the trigger; he heard the loud explosion; he heard the bullet as it spanged off the wall above his head. He could not move for a moment, paralyzed by the closeness of death. He could jump forward, into the courtyard, and fall a long distance; his ankle already was injured, and the fall would likely break some bones. He would be as good as dead, trapped by the gorilla guard. He could jump back into the corridor, but there, too, the leap would leave him helplessly injured. While he hesitated, two more shots in rapid succession hit around the window opening. Virdon turned, jumped, and caught the window ledge as he fell. He hung by his fingers for a few seconds, breathing hard. There were no more shots from the guard. After a while, Virdon let himself down, dropping heavily and awkwardly to the cold stone of the corridor. He favored his sprained ankle, and rolled away from the wall. Kraik rushed up to him.
“They could have killed you!” cried the frightened boy.
Virdon stood up and brushed himself off. He looked at the boy, and then up at the window. He stared thoughtfully. The scene with the gorilla just added to his confusion. “They could have,” he said. “But they didn’t. Deliberately. I was an easy shot. None of Urko’s guards are so poor that I wouldn’t have been nailed by one of those four bullets. That was very close range.” He paused, thinking over the implications. “They want me here,” he said. “They want me alive. And why was that gorilla hiding?” He thought some more, trying to add up all the pieces of the puzzle. Then, suddenly, as though someone beside him had whispered the answer in his ear, Virdon understood. “Sure!” he said. “It’s got to be! A trap. And I’m the bait. I’m not the quarry at all.”
“I never understand you when you talk,” said Kraik. “What do you mean, a trap?”
Virdon answered exuberantly, finally glad to have the whole thing so clear. “Yes,” he said, “a trap. For my friends, not for me. But it won’t work! Urko’s trap won’t catch anybody. The trouble with these gorillas is that they think that everyone else thinks the same way they do. But not my friends!”
Kraik’s brows came together as he frowned. “Why?”
Before Virdon could answer, Arn hurried into the hallway and up to Virdon and Kraik. “I heard the shots,” she said worriedly. “Are you all right?”
Kraik nodded and Virdon said, “Fine.”
“He tried to escape,” said Kraik.
Virdon leaned against the wall. “I won’t try again,” he said, musing. “Not yet, anyway. I’ll stick around and give a couple of pigeons more time to fly the coop.” He stopped speaking; it was evident to his two companions that he was thinking about something private. Whatever it was, it brought a smile to his face. “Then maybe we’ll find a way to fly,” he said, his smile already fading away.
Again, both Arn and Kraik were puzzled by Virdon’s cryptic remarks. They wondered where this strange man had come from, with his odd way of speaking. Virdon gave them both reassuring smiles, but said nothing more.
There was a woman who bore a slight resemblance to Arn. The hair was cut differently and of a different color, and Arn had been starved a good deal thinner, but the resemblance could not be entirely discounted.
The woman was Virdon’s wife.
In a deserted building not far from Virdon’s prison, Zaius studied a picture of Virdon’s wife and son. In the picture that Zaius held the human boy was about the same age and size as Kraik. Near him, Urko stood tensely, staring from a window. Zaius examined the picture for a few more seconds. “I wonder how they do this?” he said at last.
Urko, startled, turned around. “Hm?” he asked.
Zaius held up the picture. “This, of course,” he said. “This picture that Virdon carried with him. I can’t imagine how it was made. Those humans were able to do things that we cannot. And we have far more proof than this picture.”
Urko slapped his gloved hand against the wall in agitation. “You waste time thinking about a stupid picture!” he shouted. “Zaius, he tried to escape!”
“Think, Urko,” said Zaius mildly. “If you were ever taken captive—”
“Me?” roared the gorilla general. “Captive?”
“Think, Urko,” said Zaius, “or is that asking too much? If you were ever taken captive, what would you do?”
“Escape,” said the gorilla. As soon as the word left his lips, he hit the wall again. “He tried to escape!”
“But he didn’t succeed.” Zaius held up the picture again. “Here,” he said, “I think that this will be the key to our problem. You’ll see.”
“I can’t believe this,” said Urko impatiently. “We have him there, helpless, guarded. You agree with me that we’d be better off with him dead. Yet we don’t kill him. I don’t understand. I’m sorry I let you talk me into this.”
Zaius laughed softly. “Urko, you can’t be talked into anything unless you think there’s a fair chance that you’ll end up with ample rewards. You know that as well as I do. But I’ve studied the humans. They are extremely vulnerable when it comes to situations concerning their families. It’s only a matter of time until Virdon will come to think of that woman and the boy as his own family. They certainly bear enough resemblance to the wife an
d son he left in his own time. He’ll lower his defenses with our humans. Then he’ll tell that boy things that all your tortures could never drag out of him.”
Urko stared past Zaius’ shoulder toward a blank wall for several seconds, thinking. Then he moved his head slightly and looked evenly into the eyes of the prime minister. From the gorilla’s expression, Zaius could tell that Urko was not completely convinced about Zaius’ way of doing things. It seemed that Urko was spending all of his energy just trying to keep his temper in check.
At the scientific institute, Galen and Burke had piled several crumbling wall sections together to make a flat surface on which to work. On this rough table sat a makeshift battery case, made from clay and mud. It was drying in the stale air. Burke was hard at work trying to assemble a battery from the materials they had scavenged together. The rifle they had taken from the gorilla stood against the table, near at hand.
Galen watched, not comprehending what Burke was doing. The young chimpanzee was impatient. “How much longer?” he asked.
Burke did not look up from his labors. “I have to make the sulphuric acid,” he said. “Then we’ll put it all together and see if it will start that projector.”
Galen wasn’t satisfied with Burke’s answer. He walked around the table, to the astronaut’s side. “Then what?” he asked.
Burke still didn’t look at his friend. “We find out where that hidden vault is,” he said. “And we go there.”
“And then?”
“We clean it out, and split,” said Burke, without the urgency and doubt he felt inside.
Galen gave him a puzzled look. Burke did not see it. “I don’t understand,” said Galen.
“We get out of town,” said Burke simply. “Leave.”
Planet of the Apes 03 - Journey into Terror Page 6
