Planet of the Apes 02 - Escape to Tomorrow

by George Alec Effinger

  “It’s just some minor bleeding, Doctor,” said Leander, his brows contracting above his mask. “However . . .”

  Leander reached forward and took the clamp from Galen’s hands. Galen quickly and agilely slipped past Leander and let the medical director get to the operating table. Galen pantomimed a sigh of relief behind Leander’s back, and Burke nodded in reply, to show that he understood what Galen hoped to do. Now involved in the surgery, it was possible that Dr. Leander might forget about Galen’s presence, and that Virdon would have the benefit of two top surgeons, rather than a single expert and a puzzled fugitive chimpanzee. Leander applied the clamp and stopped the bleeding. Galen relaxed for a moment.

  “The bullet,” said Kira anxiously. “I can’t reach it.”

  Her words cut through the tense atmosphere of the operating room like a shrill siren in the quiet of night. “It’s trapped,” she said. “Here, between the nerve cluster and a large blood vessel.”

  Leander looked where Kira’s probe was pulling some tissue aside. The dull glint of a portion of the bullet was visible. Leander shook his head and said with cool detachment, “There’s no way of removing that safely. You’d better just close up.”

  But Burke, who had been dreading this very moment, turned to the book and said in a steady voice, “Make a second incision, about three inches below the first. We’ll try to get at the bullet from below the entry point.”

  Burke’s words caused an immediate and diverse reaction among the apes in the operating room. Dr. Kira thought about the suggestion for a brief instant, then nodded her agreement. Galen had nothing to suggest, and he still wanted to avoid Dr. Leander’s notice. The latter, though, responded much more violently. The very idea of a human being speaking at such a time, in such a tone of authority, made the chimpanzee director of the medical center furious.

  “What is he saying?” cried Leander. He turned to Galen and shook a fist at the young ape. “Who is he?”

  Galen kept his voice as steady as he could as he answered, “He’s my orderly.” Galen hoped that Leander would not question him any closer than that, because it would be terribly easy to establish that Galen wasn’t, in fact, Dr. Adrian, but Galen, the renegade chimpanzee, and that his two human companions were the astronauts, whom General Urko never tired of warning the citizens of Central City about.

  “I cannot believe what I’ve heard here tonight,” said Leander. “An orderly giving instructions to Dr. Kira?” He pushed past Burke—and saw the medical text. All activity in the operating room ceased. There was a suffocating hush. If Galen and Burke had thought that things could not have gotten worse, they were wrong. Things had become infinitely worse.

  Leander picked up the book slowly, staring at it. Then, slowly, deliberately, he set it down and said in a calm voice, “It’s obvious to me that you have things well in hand, Doctors. I think that I can return to my other duties now.”

  Leander turned and started to move to the door of the operating room. To any observer who had not witnessed the preceding angry explosion, Dr. Leander might have seemed completely unconcerned with what was happening. But Galen knew better; he barred Leander’s way. “You’d better stay here, at least for a while,” said Galen.

  “Are you feeling unwell?” asked Leander quietly. “Forcing me to stay here could be defined as kidnapping. I’m certain that our guards would define it that way.”

  “I’m not completely convinced that your guards will have the chance,” said Galen.

  “Besides,” said Burke, “I don’t think they could define anything, anyway.”

  “Let’s not talk about the gorillas,” said Galen. He pressed something against Dr. Leander’s throat. It was a scalpel.

  “You are holding me captive, against my will,” said Leander. He exhibited not the slightest sign of nervousness. “You’re foolish, but you’re not insane. Dr. Adrian, whoever you are, you wouldn’t use that scalpel.” Leander ignored Galen from that point on. He turned his attention to Kira. “Did he force you to do this?” he asked.

  The question was vital to Leander’s authority in the situation. Dr. Kira understood what her answer might mean. There was silence for a moment, and then, simply, Kira said, “No.”

  “Then why are you going along with these brutes?” asked Leander.

  “Because I’m a doctor,” said Kira. To her mind, uncluttered with the bureaucratic methods that Dr. Leander lived by, that seemed reason enough. “I have no right to reject the truth,” she said.

  Leander was furious once more. “The truth!” he cried. “That book is not truth! It is treason; madness!”

  Dr. Kira looked calmly at her director. “The book exists,” she said quietly. “To deny what exists is madness.” Then she looked at Burke. “Scalpel,” she said. Burke handed her the instrument.

  Some distance from the medical center, the quiet warm night was broken by the blazing torches of a squad of gorilla police. Their heavy leather uniforms gleamed in the flickering firelight, and bright beams glanced from the metal of their buckles and rifles. Horses pranced and snorted in the street; the gorillas were on guard in front of the house of Zaius, the Prime Minister of the ape world and the President of its Supreme Council.

  Inside the house, Zaius stood in his study, conferring with his rival for power, the fierce General Urko. Zaius represented the rational forces which governed the apes, and Urko embodied all the raw, animal strength which lay beneath the thin veneer of civilization. Now, though, instead of vying for political influence, Urko was investigating a burglary. He walked about the room, frowning. Zaius had been of little help, and Urko could discover few clues to help him further. The rest of the house had been left alone; only this room, a study, with obviously little of value in it, had been disturbed. General Urko was puzzled.

  “There are a few things that I just can’t fit together, Minister,” said Urko thoughtfully. “You suggest that a burglar broke into your house—into the home of the Prime Minister, directly into your study—ignored valuable objects of art throughout your house, and made off into the night with an old piece of sculpture worth, according to you, roughly about the price of a loaf of bread.”

  “I am presenting the facts to you, whether I can draw conclusions or not.” Zaius shrugged. “After all, all critics are not thieves. We may surmise that all thieves are not critics.”

  Urko would not be deterred from his investigation. The circumstances were cloudy enough without Zaius’ word-playing. “I admire your sense of humor, Minister,” he said gruffly. “But don’t you think this is a serious matter?”

  Zaius laughed quietly. There were occasions when he and Urko agreed, but they were rare indeed. “You told me that it was serious, remember? I don’t think that it’s serious enough to keep us from our business. Had I been here instead of at a meeting of the Council, I would not have thought it necessary to call the police over such a minor burglary.”

  “That is one of the main differences between gorillas and other apes,” said Urko defiantly. “In my opinion, Minister, no crime is minor. So let me ask my questions, and possibly we can come to a closer idea of what actually happened. Is there a key to that cabinet?” Urko indicated the cabinet from which Galen and Burke had taken the medical book. The space where the book had come from had been closed up by pushing the remaining books together. But the door to the cabinet stood open, and the marks around the lock indicated to Urko that someone had forced it open.

  “Why do you ask?” said Zaius.

  “Nothing serious, possibly,” said Urko. “In the course of investigating your study here, that cabinet door swung open. It seemed to me that it should have been locked, but that the lock had recently been forced. Call it an intellectual curiosity, but if you have a key nearby, it would show that I was at least partly correct. Even a brutish policeman is entitled to expand the potential of his limited mind.” Urko uttered these words with an unpleasant sneer.

  Zaius stared at him. Then he went to his desk and took out a key fro
m one of the drawers. He handed the key to the gorilla who opened the cabinet and scanned the row of books within. He noticed a place where the dust had been disturbed. He moved the books to the left and right, exposing a place that fit the width of a full-sized book. Urko turned back to Zaius.

  “You know, you do have an impressive collection, Zaius,” he said. “I can’t think of anyone in all of Central City that might have anything to rival it. That’s because I don’t know anyone but you who might be so reckless. It is an impressive collection, and dangerous. You should have burned them as I warned you when they were first discovered.”

  Zaius shrugged. “I did what I thought was best. One day these books will serve us,” he said.

  “They will enslave us!” cried Urko. “And the process already has begun. Look, here. Your burglar was a more clever critic than we supposed, it seems. One of your volumes is missing. What does our burglar have? A text on human politics? A manual of war?”

  Zaius shook his head. He knew how deeply ran Urko’s hatred and fear of the humans. Only these two apes had a genuine appreciation of the fact that the human slaves might once have been—and, even worse, might still be—the intellectual equals of the apes. Zaius saw this as a hopeful sign for the future. General Urko, however, could only see death and destruction at the hands of a human revolt.

  “The burglar took a book of surgery,” said Zaius.

  “You knew it all along, didn’t you?” said Urko. “When will you trust me, Minister? We can’t afford to play games when our civilization might well be in danger at this very moment. I suppose you have an idea who your mysterious burglar might be.”

  “Yes,” said Zaius, “and if I am correct, they are welcome to the book.”

  “They?” said Urko. “Ah, yes. Our astronauts and their chimpanzee friend. Danger, Zaius, our civilization may be in danger.”

  Zaius sighed. “I agree, General, there might be danger. I don’t agree on hysteria as a means of dealing with it. Is there anything else?”

  Urko looked at him, then said quietly, his own plan forming in his mind, “No, Minister. You’ve given me all the information I need.” And on that cryptic, ominous note, Urko turned and left the room.

  The operation on Virdon continued. Beads of perspiration stood out on Kira’s brow, as well as on Galen’s and Burke’s. Only Dr. Leander did not seem to be overly concerned with the outcome of the crucial experimental procedures.

  A transfusion bottle stood on its stand; the bottle was now only half-full, and emptying through a tube in the direction of the surgical table. Kira continued to work over Virdon, who might already have died on the operating table without the transfusion. Burke gave her all the assistance he could; Galen still guarded Leander with his scalpel. Leander watched Dr. Kira’s technique, impressed despite himself by the curious work that was going on before him. “It’s quite fascinating,” he said. “The blood transfer seems to be working.”

  “Then you’d be willing to admit that your pronouncement banning them on the basis of a single experiment might have been premature?” asked Kira without looking up.

  Leander made a noncommittal sound. On the other side of the table, lying tense and still, was the girl. She gave a sigh of relief when she heard Leander’s words and Kira’s reply. The girl relaxed a little.

  “Now maybe you’ll change your mind about us backward humans, too,” said Burke.

  “That’s not as likely,” Said Galen.

  “Very astute, Dr. Adrian,” said Leander. “On the contrary, this whole exercise demonstrates the low level of your intelligence. Even if your friend lives, he can only hinder your escape. He will need postoperative care. He won’t even be conscious for a long while, and then he will be weak and in pain. You would have done better to let him die in the forest.”

  “Ah,” said Burke, “but then several important things wouldn’t have occurred. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to sharpen my breaking and entering skills. And we wouldn’t have had the chance to meet you. That would really have been too bad.”

  Leander laughed loudly. “You show remarkable calmness under pressure,” he said. “I would have to guess that was an act. I suppose that what I said has you genuinely disturbed, but you’re too prideful to let me see. If I shut my eyes, I’d almost think you were an ape.”

  Burke grinned. “Almost, but not quite, huh? Doc, you’ve made my whole day!”

  Galen interrupted the bantering conversation. “Is that supposed to be doing what it’s doing?” he asked, pointing to the respiration bladder. It was, actually, an animal bladder that expanded and contracted with Virdon’s breathing. Now, though, it fluttered weakly, then stopped. “Kira!” cried Galen.

  Kira and Burke both looked up and saw Galen pointing at the unmoving bladder. Burke hurried around the corner of the table on which the book rested and picked up one of Virdon’s limp arms. “I can’t get any pulse,” he said frantically.

  The girl lifted her head up a little. “I killed him, too!” she said in a mournful voice.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Galen.

  “Yes,” said Leander. “I think the problem is that the amount of anesthetic might have been too much for his heart. We have this problem frequently, because operations on humans are generally carried out without anesthetic. The proper dosage is not yet determined.” Burke gave Leander an ugly look. Leander didn’t appear to notice. “There’s a stimulant in the cabinet,” said the ape.

  Burke stared at Leander, not knowing precisely what to do. Leander continued with impatient sarcasm. “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust an ape surgeon? Or are you waiting for verification from your great Dr. Mather?”

  Burke turned and went to the cabinet, muttering dark sentiments under his breath. If Leander was telling the truth, there was no time to waste. If he wasn’t telling the truth, Virdon was a dead man. But Burke didn’t want to think about that last alternative. He took out the bottle of medicine Kira was pointing to. Leander took the bottle from Burke, opened it, and poured some of the medicine onto a rag. Then the ape forced Virdon’s mouth open and squeezed some of the medicine down the blond man’s throat. There was a long, tense silence.

  “I suppose you don’t how know much of that to give him, either,” said Burke.

  Leander was unruffled by the remark. He just handed Burke the rag and stepped away from the table.

  “I’m sorry,” said Burke. Leander said nothing.

  The respiration bladder began its expansion and contraction. A short moment later, Burke announced, “We’re getting a pulse again!”

  Galen and Burke both relaxed. As Kira continued to work at her difficult surgery, Burke turned to Leander. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said.

  Leander shrugged. “I don’t like patients dying in my operating room. It’s bad for morale.”

  Dr. Kira had been working wordlessly through the entire episode. Now she made a final, tiny cut with a small scalpel and pulled aside some tissue. Then, carefully, slowly, she lowered a pair of long-nosed tweezers into the incision. “There it is,” she said, “the bullet.” She closed the tweezers on it, withdrew the bullet and held it up.

  “It’s funny how much trouble a little piece of lead like that can cause,” said Galen.

  “It isn’t funny at all,” said Burke. “I don’t remember it being funny.”

  Kira turned triumphantly to Burke. “Let’s close up,” she said.

  They returned to their work, which from that point on was routine and relatively simple. The wound was packed and stitched closed, the outside was cleaned and sterilized, and the entire area was bandaged over. “There isn’t a great deal of time left,” said Galen, indicating the transfusion bottle, which was almost empty. Even as he spoke, the last of the blood sputtered and gurgled through the tube.

  “We’re done,” said Kira, her voice suddenly full of the tiredness she had repressed throughout the long evening.

  Outside, the night had grown even quieter. All through the medical complex lig
hts went out in windows as apes and humans turned in for the night. But the peace of the evening was shattered by the sound of galloping hooves. Travin was awakened by the racket as it grew louder. He carried a lantern from the humans’ quarters and crossed the courtyard to investigate. As Travin arrived at the main gates, a squad of mounted and armed gorillas, led by Urko, pulled up at the entrance.

  “Come on, come on, open the gates!” shouted Urko to the sleepy gorilla guards stationed at the sentry box. Before the gorillas could move, Travin rushed up and opened the gates, then fell back in fear as the gorillas rode in.

  “We’re looking for two humans and a renegade ape,” said Urko to Travin. “One of the humans was wounded. We think they came to one of the hospitals for help. Have any strangers come here in the last two days?”

  Travin thought for a moment before he answered. “We see many people all the time,” he said evasively.

  Urko was quickly irritated. “These people are traitors,” he said, leaning down closer to Travin’s fearful face. “The penalty for helping them is death.”

  Travin stared up at the gorilla’s fierce expression, torn between his conditioned docility to the apes and a newer, still-unresolved attachment to his fellow humans. Then, in a quiet, tormented voice, Travin said, “I haven’t seen them.” He was a man whose sense of certainty and authority had both been shattered.

  Urko considered what Travin said. Before either could speak again, a voice interrupted them. “He’s lying!” said a human, whose identity was still shrouded by the darkness. Urko raised the lantern which he took from Travin’s grasp. Lafer hurried up to the gorillas and pointed accusingly at Travin. “They’re here,” cried Lafer, still a little ill and unsteady. “Right here in the hospital.”

  Urko glanced first at Travin, then back to Lafer, who was fumbling something out of his pocket. Urko shone the light of the lantern on the object in Lafer’s hand. It was the compass which Travin had stolen from Virdon.