by John Zakour
One of the apes, one with gray bordering on white fur, led the group towards us. They came within three or four meters from us before I waved my .44 at them, cueing them to stop. They did.
‘‘My name is Priscilla, Ape Commander,’’ the gray ape said in a higher pitched tone.
For the first time I noticed this gorilla’s uniform protruded in the chest protector more than the others’, plus she had longer hair.
‘‘Priscilla the gorilla,’’ I said with a slight giggle.
The big ape sighed. ‘‘Yes, my cousin Maurice was your driver when you arrived. He informed me you would get a kick out of my name.’’
‘‘Maurice is a smart man, ah, ape,’’ I said.
Priscilla arched her shoulders. ‘‘He’s a big fan of your work.’’ Priscilla pointed at my gun. ‘‘We would be grateful if you lowered your weapon,’’ she said. ‘‘We have no intention to harm you. You’re actually cute, for a human,’’ she said with a wink.
Though the wink freaked me out, she seemed sincere. I just needed a better reason to lower my gun than sincerity.
‘‘If we wanted to blow you away we could have killed you while your were unconscious or simply blown up the building,’’ the big ape said.
‘‘Yeah, well, Sputnik wants us all alive,’’ I countered.
‘‘If you haven’t figured it out yet, Sputnik’s wants are low on our priority list,’’ the ape countered.
She had me on that one. I dropped my gun to my side. I didn’t put it away, but it was no longer on a hair trigger. The apes all seemed more relaxed.
‘‘So, you guys aren’t Sputnik fans?’’ I said.
‘‘Pleeease!’’ Priscilla said, spraying her words. I guess that’s why the apes signed so much.
‘‘Why are you apes helping us?’’ HARV asked.
‘‘We all have friends and family on Earth; we don’t want them killed,’’ an ape from the back row said.
‘‘Makes sense,’’ HARV agreed.
‘‘And Sputnik is a radical nutcase squared,’’ Priscilla said. She looked at Carol and me for a reaction. We didn’t give her any so she went on. ‘‘Everybody is happy and treated fairly, my not-so-hairy ass!’’
‘‘You’ve noticed the discrepancies?’’ I said, more cynically than not.
Priscilla pointed to the top of her skull. ‘‘When you’ve been on the bottom of the totem pole as long as we’ve been, you can’t help but notice the footprints on your head.’’
‘‘Good point. Are all the apes with you and against him?’’
Priscilla shook her head no. Of course she did; it would have been too easy if she didn’t. ‘‘Sorry. We’re split pretty much fifty-fifty on this one. Lots of our comrades don’t want to change the status quo. They know Sputnik is bad. Hell, his ego is so powerful it gives off its own scent. But they are afraid the alternative could be worse. And they don’t want to mess with his psis.’’
‘‘They can be formidable,’’ Carol said, speaking from experience.
Priscilla dropped her hands to her side. ‘‘The bottom line is, cutie, some of us just aren’t that smart and some of us hate change.’’
‘‘Apes are no different than humans,’’ HARV said. ‘‘Actually, apes admit it. So they are probably smarter than humans.’’
Priscilla gave HARV a big toothy grin. The other apes behind her did too. Priscilla held out her hand to me.
‘‘Do we have an understanding, Mr. Johnson?’’
I studied her hand and arm; her rippling muscles were apparent, despite her fur. If we were going to get out of this we were going to need all the friends with muscles we could find.
I shook her hand, trying to ignore the fact that she had called me cutie.
‘‘I can never have too many friends.’’
‘‘How true,’’ HARV said. ‘‘Zach’s list of enemies is large enough to fill a small stadium. Not just the enemies, the list itself.’’
Priscilla reached behind her back, grabbing something. She brought her hand forward holding GUS. ‘‘How’s this for a peace offering?’’
I took GUS from her. GUS blinked to life.
‘‘Greetings, Zachary Nixon Johnson. Your DNA has been detected on my hilt. I will now reactivate myself on your command.’’
‘‘Go for it,’’ I said.
‘‘Is that a yes?’’ GUS asked.
‘‘Yes,’’ HARV, Carol, and I all answered.
‘‘I am now activated and ready for action!’’
I popped GUS back up my sleeve.
‘‘Speaking of action,’’ Priscilla said. ‘‘What’s your plan, honey buns?’’
HARV chuckled. ‘‘I don’t believe the word plan is in Zach’s dictionary.’’
I ignored HARV. ‘‘What’s the status?’’
Priscilla looked away from me. I knew she didn’t want to tell me. Problem was, not telling wasn’t helping.
‘‘Spill it, Priscilla.’’
‘‘We should have been quicker to react,’’ she said, then hesitated.
‘‘Spill it, you big ape.’’
Priscilla slumped over, hands behind her back. ‘‘Things are bad . . .’’
‘‘Define bad,’’ I said.
‘‘Ah,’’ Priscilla said fingering her lips, ‘‘Sputnik has already pushed the ZAP asteroid towards Earth.’’
‘‘That is bad,’’ I said. ‘‘Has Earth noticed yet?’’
Priscilla shook her head no. ‘‘Not yet. By the time they do they won’t have any chance to stop it. They trust us.’’
‘‘Why?’’ Carol, HARV, and I all asked simultaneously.
Priscilla shrugged. ‘‘They’re politicians. Like Sputnik, their egos are so big they probably can’t conceive of us turning on them.’’
‘‘But they’ll figure it out and respond with force.’’
Priscilla and all the apes behind her nodded. ‘‘Yep, probably. What they lack in brains they overcompensate for with brawn.’’
‘‘Isn’t Sputnik worried about this?’’ I asked.
Priscilla shrugged again. ‘‘He probably hasn’t considered the possibility of something going wrong. In his mind, he thinks anything he thinks becomes reality.’’
I considered what Priscilla said; it was deranged, therefore it probably all made sense in the world of politics. Like they say, ‘‘those who do, do, those who can’t go into politics.’’ The powers that be weren’t going to stop any of this. It was up to us.
‘‘First off we need to prevent that asteroid from hitting Earth.’’ I thought for a nano. ‘‘I suppose the Blocking and Tracking Station is heavily guarded?’’
All the apes nodded yes.
‘‘How about the beam itself?’’
The apes all shook their heads no.
‘‘There are no guards there because even if you destroy the beam the asteroid will still hit Earth,’’ Priscilla said.
Now it was my turn to shake my head. ‘‘I’m not going to destroy it. I’m going to use it to push the asteroid past Earth.’’
‘‘But the controls are in the Asteroid Tracking and Blocking Station, hence the name,’’ Priscilla said, very slowly, as if I was slow.
I looked at HARV. ‘‘Can you do it?’’
‘‘From the beam itself?’’
‘‘Yes.’’
‘‘By bypassing the station?’’
I shook my head impatiently. ‘‘Yes.’’
‘‘Easy as you calculating the square root of four.’’
‘‘Really?’’ all the gorillas asked at one.
HARV turned to them and gave them his ‘‘ah, I can tell you haven’t evolved yet’’ look. ‘‘Or as easy as me calculating the square root of 444444444.’’
‘‘So can you get us there?’’ I asked the apes.
They all nodded yes.
‘‘Let’s make it so.’’
Chapter 34
Racing through the thin Moon atmosphere toward the deflector beam, I did some r
eflecting. The plan, such as it was, was simple in theory. Priscilla and two of her best apes were to escort Carol, HARV, and me outside the city to the deflector beam. Once at the beam, HARV would reprogram it to push the incoming asteroid out of Earth’s way at the closest to the last possible moment. With the killer rock no longer a threat to Earth, my team and I would swoop into the Blocking and Tracking Station and take control of it, thereby making it impossible for Sputnik to push it back at Earth. While we were doing that, some of the other apes were to bring the ARC conference members out of stasis.
We were staging a coup, attacking Sputnik, his apes, and his psis. If were going to succeed we were going to need more help, powerful help.
‘‘We have to free Elena,’’ I said out loud, to nobody in particular.
‘‘Ah, why?’’ Priscilla asked. ‘‘She’s a bit of a loon.’’
‘‘True, but she’s a powerful loon and we need all the power we can get right now.’’
Carol nodded in agreement. The others looked on, trying to cover the fear in their eyes. Even HARV was leery.
‘‘I don’t like anybody who can shut me down,’’ he said, hands on hips.
‘‘Don’t worry. She won’t turn you off,’’ I said to HARV. I looked at the apes. ‘‘And she’ll help us.’’
‘‘You base this on what?’’ HARV was the one to ask the question but the apes nodded their approval.
‘‘Her hatred of Sputnik,’’ I said.
‘‘Ah, the enemy of my enemy,’’ Priscilla said.
‘‘Exactly.’’
‘‘Cute and smart,’’ Priscilla said.
‘‘If we can get Elena and turn a few more psis and apes we’ll have a chance here,’’ I said, still ignoring Priscilla.
‘‘Do you really believe that?’’ HARV asked.
‘‘I do,’’ I said with as much conviction as I could muster.
Truth was, I wasn’t sure at all. Elena was a wild card at best. Even if she was on our side, if we couldn’t turn any other psis it would still be an uphill fight. This wasn’t even taking into account Earth’s reaction to the entire ordeal. The members of the World Council weren’t the most mellow, easy to deal with, turn the other cheek bunch in the world. They weren’t going to take lightly to the Moon trying to destroy them. It was going to take some smoother talking on my part to convince them not to retaliate. My job would be easier if Sputnik was out of the way. Things would have to fall just right if we were going to have a chance. All I could do was hope they did.
Continuing our flight through the Moon sky, the deflector beam slowly came into view. I had a plan— it may have not been the best plan, but it was better than no plan at all. Plus it was flexible; I would be able to adapt it quickly to any problems that might pop up. Having lived as long as I have, doing what I do, I knew unexpected problems were inevitable. As my old mentor used to say, ‘‘Expect the unexpected, especially when you least suspect it.’’ (Okay, she drank a lot, but there is still a certain Yogi Berra wisdom to those words.)
As we flew, Priscilla and her team filled me in on some of the missing blanks about Elena. They told me that her parents were not only the identical twins of Bo and Melda but they were also rivals. Both couples’ goals were to create the perfect psi, the next step in human evolution. They each believed the Moon presented the perfect environment for this as there was less corruption of the gene pool and in society in general on the Moon. Both couples believed the Moon was purer and free of mental and physical pollution.
Experience has taught me that when folks get involved with something because they believe it is pure and good, no good can come of it. Pure, by definition, means that people haven’t tried to manipulate it or change it. Once a second party jumps in and tries to improve on pure, you taint the purity. Scientists and politicians just can’t resist the urge to tinker. In baseball they say, ‘‘Sometimes the best trades are the ones you don’t make.’’ This holds true with science— sometimes it’s best to leave well enough alone. Of course, like Randy once told me, ‘‘Why settle for nearly perfect when you may be able to make it even closer to perfect?’’ Randy would always say that achieving perfection is impossible, but the goal of science is to make something as close to this impossible goal as possible. When a scientist sees something that is 99.9 percent perfect they can’t resist the urge to try to make it 99.91 percent perfect. This especially holds true if the scientist can convince some politician that this extra improvement is worth them throwing money to the scientist, which will, in turn lead to the politicianand scientist helping the world and turning a tidy profit. It’s like Everest to a mountain climber—you don’t really need to do it, but you have to do it for the challenge and the glory. The thing is, changing something for the sole sake of changing it doesn’t always work. There are times when good enough really is good enough and adding more good can lead to bad.
Things get especially mucked up when humans try to improve on purity. For one thing, one man’s purity is another man’s boredom. It’s all just different perspectives. Of course, Bo, Melda, Mo, and Shara didn’t see this. They were determined to make pure purer. After years of dealing with the darker sides of human nature, I knew this couldn’t end well.
The apes, having a surprisingly good grasp of human nature, also filled me in on Elena’s psyche. While she and Lea share DNA, the same emerald green eyes, dark blue hair, killer bods, superpsi powers, and love of purple microminis, their attitudes and demeanors were polar extremes. Elena was never a fan of Bo’s but wasn’t out-and-out hostile until the untimely death of her father. After Mo’s death, which Priscilla did say was under quite questionable circumstances, Elena stopped holding back. She become colder than the dark side of Pluto, wanting to salt the very ground Bo walked on.
After the death of Mo, Lea became even warmer and devoted to Bo. Bo could do no wrong in her eyes. That worried me. I’m a P.I.; I can deal with blind hatred. I know where that is coming from. The blind devotion, that was a whole new ball of wax. It’s a lot harder to predict how devotees will act.
The apes also clued me in on Shara Lee Sputnik. Priscilla thought she’d be sympathetic to our cause but couldn’t be certain.
‘‘Why does she support Bo at all if there is any suspicion that he killed her husband?’’ I asked.
‘‘Because she is a smart woman,’’ Priscilla answered. ‘‘There is no proof Bo had anything to do with Mo’s hover accident. Mo was a bit of hot-rodder. He preferred to drive hovers manually.’’
‘‘So it’s possible he just crashed on his own then,’’ I said.
‘‘Yes,’’ Priscilla said.
‘‘Then why does Elena hate Bo so?’’
Priscilla looked at me. ‘‘She is convinced Bo wanted more control over her, control he could never have with Mo around.’’
‘‘Is that true?’’ I asked.
‘‘Well, it could be,’’ Priscilla said. ‘‘Being an ape I’m not one for idle speculation, though.’’
‘‘So Shara is no fan of Bo’s either?’’ HARV asked before I could.
Priscilla shook her head. ‘‘No, he’s always rubbed her the wrong way. Once, he tried giving her a neck massage after a late night lab session. She hated it. He longed to marry both sisters, but Shara would have nothing to do with that. She desired a more thoughtful man.’’
‘‘How do you know all this?’’ I asked.
Priscilla pointed to where I assume her ears were. ‘‘We apes may not talk much, but I assure you we do listen.’’ Priscilla continued, ‘‘Bo even offered to marry Shara after his brother’s death, claiming it was the right thing to do.’’
‘‘That’s our Bo, always doing the right thing, as long as he’s got something to gain by doing it.’’
‘‘Shara refused. She is a very proud woman.’’
I turned to Carol. ‘‘You met Shara. What did you think about her?’’
‘‘She reminded me a lot of Melda,’’ she said weakly.
‘‘T
hey are twin sisters,’’ I said.
‘‘I mean, in demeanor. She was very cool and professional. They don’t look like identical twins.’’
‘‘She uses her mental powers to change her appearance,’’Priscilla said. ‘‘So she separates herself from her sister. She’s a little off.’’
‘‘That’s not exactly a big surprise. Hopefully, we’ll be able to convince her to help us anyhow,’’ I said.
‘‘With Shara, you never know,’’ Priscilla said.
We would know soon enough. Once HARV rigged the deflector beam to push the ZAP asteroid past the Earth then shut down, I was heading to the psi center. For now, first things first. HARV and I (well mostly HARV) had to concentrate on the task at hand.
‘‘How close to the deflector beam do you have to be before you can reprogram it?’’ I asked.
HARV appeared from my wrist communicator, shaking his head. I knew that look. I had seen it way too often. It was his ‘‘My, you are a dense human’’ look.
‘‘I need a direct physical link,’’ he huffed. ‘‘If I didn’t need to touch the thing we could have done this from anywhere.’’
‘‘By I, you mean me,’’ I said.
‘‘By I, I mean us,’’ he corrected.
‘‘So you need a direct line of sight,’’ I said.
HARV nodded. He gave me a cynical pat on the head. ‘‘Yes. Once into the inner workings of the deflector beam I will clone myself onto its operating system. I will be in control.’’
‘‘So you will be in control of a device that is capable of destroying the Earth.’’
HARV simply nodded.
‘‘And that’s a good thing because?’’
HARV sighed. ‘‘I am not a madman bent on destroying one civilization so his little corner of civilization can carry on with his vision of what he believes the human race should be.’’
