by John Jakes
That incident removed all trace of the comical from garment training, as far as Caesar was concerned. When he made his own, deliberately “forgetful” mistake—climbed into his trousers backwards, then cringed at the firm, “No!”—he was still full of anger at the treatment of the deranged female.
A special washroom-like facility served as the hygiene classroom. Each ape was put in front of a stainless steel basin whose faucets were foot-pedal operated. Above each basin was a paper towel container; below it, a waste basket. An instructor hovered behind each group of three or four apes, constantly correcting—“No!” “No!”—as the animals tried to imitate earlier demonstrations of the proper way to wash and dry their faces and hands.
To maintain his protective cover, on his first attempt Caesar deliberately ripped off a paper towel first, crumpled it between his hands, threw it away, then pedaled the cold water to wash.
“No!”
On the second try, he washed and dried his face and hands in proper sequence, impressing his instructor. The effect was precisely the one Caesar wanted.
In the table-waiting class, the chimpanzee ahead of Caesar was making his fourth unsuccessful attempt to pour ice water from a huge pitcher into a glass. The chimp, one of Caesar’s group, just kept pouring until the water cascaded over the glass rim and flooded the table top.
“No, damn it!” yelled the instructor, an older man who seemed unusually irritable. He snatched up the glass, flung its contents toward a wet floor drain, and whacked the glass down on the table—looking as if he’d prefer to whack the miserable chimp instead.
“Again,” the instructor demanded.
The chimp started to pour. Caesar could tell the poor creature was confused, and might earn a beating for overflowing the glass this time.
Debating only a moment, Caesar intervened. He reached forward, grasping the startled chimp’s wrist while he watched the glass fill. At the precise moment, he exerted pressure that brought the pitcher lip back up. The chimp turned huge, almost pathetically grateful eyes toward Caesar—while the instructor stood open-mouthed.
Peeling back his lips in a witless smile, Caesar decided that one such deliberate demonstration of his ability per day was about all he could risk. It should be enough to get him out of this terrible place quickly, but not too much to engender extreme suspicion. At least that was the game he played—with apparent success—as the week wore on.
During the second week, Caesar had an opportunity to survey the exterior grounds of the Ape Management complex.
He and his three fellow trainees were taken outside, at night, through a main-floor ramp. A handler with a metal prod kept a watchful eye on them as they proceeded along a walkway past a sign pointing to Night Watch Training.
Letting his eyes rove, Caesar managed a few glimpses of the Ape Management tower, some twelve to fourteen floodlit stories, with smaller auxiliary buildings of square, ultramodern design at its base. Tonight Caesar and his cage-mates wore only their individual leg shackles. Presumably, their next course of instruction required mobility.
When the path veered left between high plantings, one of the chimps wandered straight ahead. The handler’s “No!” brought the animal scuttling back into line. Caesar had grown accustomed to the command. He was able to simulate a ripple of cringing fear almost unconsciously.
The four chimpanzees and their handler reached a small, paved quadrangle in front of an auxiliary building whose lower story was windowless. An instructor in a smock awaited the group under the floodlights bathing the quadrangle.
First the instructor and an assistant performed a demonstration, which Caesar and his companions watched with varying degrees of attention. The demonstration was repeated twice more. Then the instructor said to the handler, “Okay, which one first?”
The handler singled out Caesar. “He’s the brightest—let’s see whether he picked it up.”
The handler took a silver whistle on a chain from the instructor’s hand. He looped the chain over Caesar’s neck: To the instructor, he said, “You’re the visitor, I’m the burglar, right?”
The instructor nodded, maneuvering Caesar close to the windowless lower story of the concrete structure. Then the instructor retreated. After a moment, he returned toward the front of the building at a brisk walk.
He went directly to the first-floor entrance and pressed a bell at one side. The door slid back. The instructor entered.
Caesar remained passive through the entire procedure. But a moment later he bounded into action.
The handler had crept toward the building’s far corner, was now scrambling up the first story by means of a series of rungs projecting from the concrete. Now Caesar ran after him full speed.
The handler reached a narrow ledge where the second floor was set back. He stretched up toward the sill of an open window.
Hand over hand, Caesar clambered up the rungs. He darted along the ledge just as the handler pulled himself up to the window sill. There he teetered, balanced on his belly, then jumped high, seizing the handler’s right ankle. Because of the distance, Caesar’s own feet no longer touched the ledge. He simply gripped the handler’s ankle tightly and hung from it, using his other hand to bring the silver whistle to his mouth, blowing blast after piercing blast.
“Okay, good, let go!” the handler yelled, giving his leg a shake.
Caesar did so, dropping lithely back to the ledge—but continuing to blow the whistle. The handler landed beside him, chuckling as he pried the whistle from between Caesar’s lips. “That’s plenty! Somebody’d buy you for watch duty right now.” In exchange for the whistle he proffered a banana from his pocket. Caesar snatched and peeled it and consumed it in mighty gulps, basking in the admiring gazes of the three other chimps below. Suddenly the floodlights made him think of the circus—and Armando. Playing his little game with his hateful human teachers was no longer a pleasure.
Early one morning toward the end of the second week, Caesar heard an announcement broadcast through the entire training unit floor: “Attention training control. Four females have arrived for insemination. Three gorillas and one chimpanzee. Please select four superior males—three gorillas, one chimp—and send them to the Breeding Annex immediately.”
Caesar didn’t imagine the announcement would have any significance for him until the day keeper unlocked the ceil and motioned him out. Shortly, he was on ground level, being marched down a corridor in company with three immense gorillas.
A glass panel on his left diverted Caesar’s attention. He broke step, paused to glance at a row of tiny cribs lined up on the window’s other side. Smiling, he tapped on the window, trying to attract the attention of one of the tiny, wrinkle-faced, squalling babies. The handler who’d picked up the special group at the elevator gave Caesar a tolerant prod. “Come on, Smiley.”
Caesar moved forward again, unable to erase the haunting memory of the tiny new born apes. A smile, a wave was so little to offer them—considering what lay ahead in their lives.
The corridor angled left. Inset in the walls ahead, Caesar saw a series of apertures. A group of white-garbed men waited for the new arrivals. Each man selected an animal from the quartet, guided him toward one of the entrances. “Playtime, Junior,” Caesar’s attendant said with a cynical grin. He pushed Caesar into the aperture. Its door opened instantly, revealing a similar door a few steps beyond.
Apprehensively, Caesar stepped forward. The rear door closed. Caesar was held a few moments in the lightless space between the walls. Then the inner door admitted him to a high-walled roofless cell, its floor turfed and planted with small shrubs. Well, Caesar thought as he sniffed the breeze, and another, curiously pleasing scent, that was decent of them.
Sitting near one of the shrubs, fingering her right foot and gazing about with what could only be termed a coy expression, was a plump female chimpanzee, young, and not at all unattractive. Then he spotted a large square of black glass in one of the cage walls. The privacy of the shrubbery was
a charade. But of course, the callous breeders—the genetic experts—would want to be sure the rutting took place. In order that more slaves might be produced!
A murmur from the female chimp, and the somewhat more elemental reactions of his own body, diverted him from the angry thought. As long as this was inevitable, why not enjoy it?
Blinking against the brightness of the sunny sky, he gave a small shrug of resignation and started walking toward the female, who was now eyeing him with open admiration.
After two weeks, Caesar was sent to an underground center which resembled the one for arriving apes. He passed from station to station, one of a large group of chimps, gorillas, and orangutans being fingerprinted again and funneled toward waiting vans. He walked meekly past a semicircular communications station at which half a dozen male and female operators were speaking on phones and jotting notes.
“For immediate sale, one female orangutan, yes, got it . . .”
“Fully conditioned bedmaker grade A. Yes, we can take her, we have a vacancy.”
“Our policy is to credit you fourteen days after we auction the animal, sir . . .”
Relaxed handlers stationed inside and outside automatic doors watched the apes as they proceeded past the various inspection stations, left the shipment and auction information center, and crossed the outside dock for loading into an assigned truck. On the dock, Caesar relished another brief scent of the free, sweet air of the open countryside. It had been a horrifying, but in many ways instructive, fourteen days. By listening closely to conversations, for instance, he had learned that the animal population of this particular Ape Management Center numbered in the hundreds. And firsthand experience had taught him that all the animals were handled in small groups—an extremely costly business, he had concluded. Government-subsidized. That showed the tremendous emphasis the government placed on training apes to take over the menial jobs in society. How splendid for human beings, he thought bitterly. The result for the apes was cruelty—subjugation—slavery.
And yet, incidents on the first ghastly day in the city, particularly the rebellion of Aldo, indicated that even the scientific experts of this slave-making tower had their failures.
That left one question uppermost in Caesar’s mind as he ducked into the gloom of his assigned van, the perfect picture of the clever, willing, conditioned, chimpanzee. How numerous were the failures of the scientists?
Might there be dozens of potential rebels among the ape population? Hundreds? Even thousands? Caesar’s eyes lit with a harsh speculation as he dropped onto a bench inside the truck. Even the huge gorillas herded in after him did not sit too close. Caesar was not bothering to conceal the rage he’d suppressed for two long weeks.
NINE
Governor Jason Breck’s European-made airlift limousine came sweeping into the curve of the parkway preceded by half a dozen helmeted state security policemen riding conventionally powered cycles. Behind Breck’s vehicle, a second, less ostentatious limousine followed.
Fender flashers rotating, sirens screaming, the braking cycles announced the arrival of an important personage. The pennants on Breck’s limousine came to rest as the airjets shut off. The gleaming vehicle settled to the ground on its chassis cushion. The policemen parked their cycles in three rows of two each, deployed quickly.
Two of the officers stood guard at the admission booth in the center of the semicircular pillared gallery that backed up the arena. The other four disappeared down steps into the arena proper, to clear the governor’s way.
Jason Breck had only decided during luncheon to attend this particular afternoon auction. A secretarial call had prepared his usual place. He frequently dropped in on the auctions, both to observe the quality of the animals being turned out by Ape Management, and for more personal reasons. He made a fair profit from speculative buys and sells; short-term ownership of particularly good specimens.
Immaculately dressed, the governor climbed out as his chauffeur opened the door. His hair was ruffled by the crisp afternoon breeze. The national, state, and city flags, as well as Breck’s own personal ensign of office, snapped on gleaming poles above the gallery. The sky was deep blue, the surrounding exurban countryside a pleasant green.
Breck could not precisely say why he had made up his mind, on the spur of the moment, to visit the auction—perhaps to escape a variety of unpleasant situations in his office at Civic Center.
Kolp had stopped in, haggard. He’d reported that, after days of interrogation—twice interrupted when Armando had to be rushed to the infirmary for injections to repair the ravages of the questioning—the circus owner still persisted in telling his original story. Kolp and Hoskyns were now asking for the governor’s signed permission to employ the Authenticator.
Signed permission indeed! The pretense of civil liberties was a farce, but Kolp and Hoskyns were shrewd enough not to use the device without higher approval.
Breck had dodged the issue. Although widely used by police departments, the Authenticator was, in the view of the forty jurists who sat on the Most Supreme Court in Washington, an instrument of coercion and, therefore, illegal except in matters of national security.
It would be Breck’s decision. The situation didn’t qualify; and yet, he had a deep-seated worry that perhaps, in a peculiar way, it did . . .
Señor Armando’s ape was presumably still at large, unless it had been killed by accident in the city. That probably was too much to hope for, Breck thought in his mood of pessimism. Then there was MacDonald’s curious, unsettling report . . .
That particular problem came back into focus as one of Breck’s young, hard-eyed administrative assistants thrust out a thick binder. “I’m anxious to have you review the latest I.Q. profile on the metro ape sample given the standard tests last week.”
“Don’t hand me big books unless there’s something essential in them.”
The assistant licked his lips, recovered quickly from the rebuff: “I believe there is, sir. The profile of the sample, which is statistically reliable, indicates that the I.Q. of the ape population has risen three point four in the last two-month interval.”
“Let Mr. MacDonald read that,” Breck snapped. “He thinks I’m imagining things about our simian friends. Who, if that report is correct, are not only becoming smarter, but generally more independent. Despite conditioning.”
Breck let MacDonald have the full force of his challenging stare. As always, he was struck by the steadiness of the black man’s gaze. Damn! If he weren’t so good, Breck would demote him instantly. As it was, he simply tolerated him—with difficulty.
With a smug grin, the assistant with the book started to hand the report to MacDonald. The other waved it back.
“I assembled that data, Morgan. Your summary wasn’t thorough enough. I.Q. has shown a slight rise—but as a result, so has work output of the apes.” The black man smiled a hard smile. “Which I thought the governor might regard as good news for a change.”
Breck returned the smile bleakly, turned and walked to the top of the small, open amphitheatre just beyond the pillars.
The impatient conversation of the well-dressed crowd was instantly silenced. Heads turned. A scattering of applause greeted the governor’s arrival. Breck affixed his politician’s smile, and waved in response as he started down the steps of the center aisle.
The amphitheatre was separated from the wide auction platform and central dais by a thick spike-topped wall of concrete. Near the dais, an auctioneer wearing a lavalier microphone acknowledged the governor’s presence with a smile of greeting. Behind the auction area rose a stark, pyramidal structure of concrete where the latest batch of processed apes was held before entering the arena via a doorway flanked by handlers.
Governor Breck moved briskly down the aisle. Briskness, he felt, was good for his image, but he paused a couple of times to favor an acquaintance with a personal word. One such was an orange-coiffured lady attended by an attractive female chimp.
“Mrs. Riley,” Br
eck nodded. “It was a shame about Leland’s coronary. Is he still in intensive care?”
Mrs. Riley said that was correct, adding, “But I try not to dwell on it. Mr. Governor.”
“Good for you,” Breck smiled, squeezing her shoulder and hurrying on—but not before he caught an almost human glint of amusement in the eyes of the girl chimp. That damned ape was laughing at her mistress! Or was it only a trick of the slanting sun and Breck’s growing, almost maniacal concern about the simian population? He was momentarily disgusted with himself for permitting a probably unrelated series of suppositions, facts, and incidents to weave an alarming pattern. And yet—he governed this city. Should anything go wrong, no one but Jason Breck would be blamed. His career would be finished. Nothing would go wrong. Prevention tinged with paranoia was preferable to disaster.
At the bottom of the aisle, one of the state security policemen snapped to attention and unhooked a plush rope. The governor took a seat in the first row, immediately behind the spike-and-concrete barrier. Unconsciously, he tapped his program against his knee as his staff settled in the rows behind him.
“Start the bidding,” he called. The auctioneer nodded, rapped his gavel. The gleaming alloy door in the face of the pyramid slid aside as the auctioneer’s miked voice boomed. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re offering an exceptionally fine group today, starting with lot number one, a very strong gorilla thoroughly trained in general security duties, including night watch . . .”
For some reason, Breck swiveled around and stared up at the girl chimp sitting beside Mrs. Riley. Thinking the attention was for her, the lady simpered and waved. But Breck’s eyes were on the animal. And something in his mind roared, Now she’s mocking me!
