Battle For The Planet Of The Apes

by David Gerrold

  “Yes, sir. Special instructions. Oh! Yes, sir!” She practically bounced along to keep up with him.

  Kolp was in a state of fanatical euphoria. He half-strode, half-waddled, Alma beside him, through huge piles of supplies and scavenged materials from the ruined city. There were piles of rusty tin cans, pieces of ancient automobiles, old tires, bottles, stone columns, street and highway signs, street lights, and other useful and useless debris. The area was some kind of blasted tunnel, perhaps an old subway station. Now it was a warehouse, with mutants moving in frenzied preparation for the attack. They were pulling supplies from piles and loading dilapidated old trucks. There was a dusty school bus and a rickety-looking Cadillac. There were motorcycles and jeeps and even an armored troop carrier.

  “We must destroy the whole zoo, Alma,” Kolp was muttering. “Once and for all, we must destroy them. It is not enough to merely cage a dangerous animal.”

  “I don’t quite . . . I don’t quite understand.” She frowned.

  He stopped and took her by the shoulders. She thrilled to his touch. “You will, you will.” He pulled her through a side passage into a makeshift missile silo. The chamber was gray and featureless, strewn with rubble. And it was dominated by a huge cylindrical object.

  Kolp gestured at it, expansively. “Beautiful,” he sighed. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Alma nodded, without comprehension.

  He turned back to her. “Alma, we’ve worked together for a long time, haven’t we?”

  “Eleven years and three months, Mr. Kolp.”

  “Yes.” He stepped close to her, his eyes gleaming. “There’s trust between us, isn’t there?”

  “Oh, yes,” she breathed huskily. “Oh, yes.”

  “And more than trust—right?”

  “Oh, yes.” Her eyes were wide with anticipation.

  “There’s . . . friendship . . . isn’t there, Alma?”

  Alma sighed almost wistfully. “Yes, Mr. Kolp. There’s friendship.”

  “Alma, will you undertake a task that I can only entrust to a true friend?”

  “What task, Mr. Kolp?”

  Kolp pointed at the huge object behind him. “Do you know what this is?”

  “Of course, Mr. Kolp. It’s our nuclear missile.”

  Kolp went up to it and stroked its shaft. “It’s operational. Did you know that?” He gestured to her, and she approached timidly. He kept stroking the shaft of the missile as he reached out and took her hand. Her heart skipped a beat.

  “Come closer, Alma,” he whispered. She did so. “Touch it,” he commanded. She extended her other hand and pressed her fingertips against the cold metal surface, then her whole palm. She began stroking the weapon in time with Kolp. The smooth steel felt so clean, so strong.

  “If the impossible should happen, Alma,” Kolp said. “If we’re defeated by the apes, I will not surrender to animals.” He squeezed her hand and held it tighter. “Neither will my soldiers. If retreat seems necessary, I shall send you a coded radio signal. Fifteen minutes after you receive it, you will range this missile on Ape City and activate it.”

  Alma breathed throatily, “Yes, Mr. Kolp, I will. I can do it from the main control console. What will the signal be?”

  Kolp looked at her carefully. “Alpha and Omega,” he said slowly.

  Alma repeated, “Alpha and Omega.”

  He nodded. “You’re a good girl, Alma.”

  She looked at him adoringly.

  And at last he noticed her. “And a pretty one too.”

  They were still stroking the missile. Their hands moved together across its steel skin. Neither seemed to notice it any more, though. Kolp leaned forward, closer and closer, and kissed her. She kissed him back. Deeply. She stepped closer and slid her arms around his wide frame. “Alpha and Omega,” she breathed. “I will be your tool.”

  Then and only then did Kolp take his slowly moving hand off of his weapon. He pulled Alma close against him and kissed her again. And again.

  SIX

  In Ape City the preparations blurred together.

  Aldo inspected his troops. They were big and hulking and sloppy. They were dirty and hunched over, and they stood in long, irregular lines. The stench of them was unbelievable. But Aldo was happy. They were good, strong gorillas. But they needed weapons. “Guns!” insisted Aldo. “We need guns!”

  Caesar directed the other chimpanzees and the orangutans in the laying out of borders and defense lines. They surveyed the areas around Ape City, trying to decide the best places for their troops to make a stand. They began building woven-branch walls across the slopes below the main part of the city. They brought in wooden furniture and heavy-looking carts as well—anything that could be used as a barricade.

  Aldo trained his gorillas. They used swords and wooden shields; but they pretended that they had guns; they used sticks and branches and went through bayonet drill. They marched and practiced drills from the Manual of Arms. “We need guns!” insisted Aldo. He led his troops in mock battles against each other. Cavalry combat. Infantry attacking up ridges. Defenders holding off attackers. But always, “We need guns!”

  Virgil organized a group of chimps and orangutans. They dug traps and covered them with branches and grass; they dug trenches and set stakes in them. Caesar oversaw the work and was pleased with it. He directed them to raise nets into the trees, so that they could be dropped down onto the road to entrap the enemy.

  Aldo inspected his troops again. They were stronger than ever. And they were neater. Their lines were now straight and polished. The gorillas were a new Wehrmacht, fiercer and more horrifying than the one that had marched the Earth only a few generations before. Their black leather uniforms gleamed. Their boots gleamed. Their swords were raised in upright salute. And they shouted in unison: “We want guns!”

  Lisa watched all of this and wept. She was angry and frustrated, torn between her love for Caesar and her revulsion for what was happening to the city and people she loved.

  Every night when Caesar returned from his preparations, she pleaded with him. “On the night of the Fires,” she said, “you swore an oath that in the future apes and humans would live together in friendship and peace. You swore that we would build a new kind of world, a world where there would be no war. Yet . . . yet, now you allow the gorillas to play at the war they’ve always demanded. Don’t you realize what a dangerous thing that is?”

  Caesar didn’t answer. He set his lip stubbornly. He sat in his chair and folded his arms.

  Lisa tried to reason with him, “Caesar, haven’t you seen how Aldo is training his troops? It’s terrifying! And it means danger to us all! Don’t you see? If you give the gorillas the means to make war, they’re going to use those means. You’ve let Aldo train them into a terrible war machine. He won’t be happy until he tests that machine and sees if it works. What if the people in the city don’t attack us? What then? Aldo will still want to use his war machine—and he will! He’ll use it against you. He’ll use it against all of us!”

  “No!” snapped the chimpanzee. “I am Caesar!”

  “Do you think that will stop them once they make up their minds? You know how gorillas are!”

  “I am Caesar!” he repeated. “And I say that I will control the gorillas. They will make war only with my permission!”

  “But, Caesar—why? Why must we make war at all? Why must we make these horrible preparations? The people in the city might never attack us.”

  “They will!” he insisted. “I know they will.”

  “But how do you know?”

  “Because,” he began patiently, “unlike the humans in our city, those in the Forbidden City are mad. Mad enough to want not friendship and peace but enmity and war.”

  “Did they tell you that?”

  “Yes,” snapped Caesar. “By opening fire without giving us a chance to . . .”

  “. . . to explain why you were trespassing on their territory,” finished Lisa.

  “We didn’t know th
e city was inhabited.”

  “Then how, if you never spoke to them, do you know that its inhabitants are mad?”

  “Lisa, you haven’t seen them. They’re . . . malformed.”

  “Like the freaks in your foster-father’s circus? Were they mad?”

  Caesar opened his mouth to answer the question, but he was interrupted by Cornelius. The little chimp piped up, “What’s ‘malformed’ mean?”

  “Cornelius,” said Lisa. “Go to bed.” She went and turned down the blanket of his cot.

  Cornelius dawdled. “I’ve got to give Ricky his water.”

  “Get into bed, young fellow,” said his father firmly.

  “Wait a minute,” Cornelius said, concentrating on pouring water from a pitcher into a very small earthenware saucer. He inserted it through the cage door.

  Caesar turned back to Lisa. “The freaks in Armando’s circus were different. These people are the end-products of nuclear radiation. Their minds have been . . .”

  Lisa gestured. A not-in-front-of-the-child gesture. She preceded Caesar to the privacy of their bedroom. Caesar followed her, insisting, “They’re mutated, Lisa—and they’re mad!” He slammed the door shut behind him.

  The noise startled Cornelius’ squirrel. Ricky jumped out of the still open cage and through the window. He scampered up a tree and into the night. “Ricky!” yelped Cornelius. He jumped for the window, then hesitated. He looked back. His first impulse was to call his parents, but their quarrel behind the closed door was still continuing. Noisily. Lisa was saying, “No madder than your gorillas. Aldo is bawling for guns.”

  Cornelius acted on his own initiative. He climbed out of the window. Still in his nightshirt, he scampered up the same tree after his squirrel. “Ricky,” he called. “Ricky!”

  The squirrel was chittering in a nearby tree. Cornelius grabbed a nearby vine and swung across, landing on a lower bough. Ricky looked down at him, chittered again, then turned and ran up the trunk. Cornelius scrambled after him.

  Ricky stopped and chattered angrily. He ran out across a branch and leaped into the next tree. “Gorillas!” cursed Cornelius. It was the worst word he could think of. He followed the squirrel.

  He landed in the new tree just before Ricky had leaped for a third. The small gray squirrel was a blur in the night, running and stopping, chattering and running again. He leaped from tree to tree, leading the little chimpanzee on a merry chase. Cornelius was always at least two trees behind. Up trunks, across boughs, through leafy corridors, along twining branches, and over into the next tree to do it all again. “Smelly gorillas!” said Cornelius.

  Ricky went from tree top to tree top until suddenly he was in the last tree in the grove. There was no place left to leap to. He paused indecisively on the end of a long, thin bough. Beneath it glowed the embers of a campfire with hulking ape figures squatting around it. Cornelius began to stalk his pet, silently moving out along the bough. “Dirty, smelly gorillas!” he said to himself. The leaves of the tree kept getting in his way, but they concealed him from the figures below.

  General Aldo, was busy haranguing his troops. “An army without guns has no power!” Aldo was insisting. There were animal sounds of assent. The gorillas nodded and grunted in agreement. “We need power!” Aldo growled.

  Cornelius froze to immobility. Dirty, smelly gorillas, indeed!

  “Guns! Guns are power. We shall get them,” declared Aldo. “And we shall keep them!”

  The gorillas agreed excitedly. They bounced and fidgeted restlessly. “Guns!” they echoed. “Yes, guns! Guns! We want guns!”

  “With guns we shall smash humans—all humans!” Aldo’s expression gleamed with eager anticipation. “And after that . . .” He made a contemptuous gesture. “. . . we smash Caesar!”

  Cornelius started at the sound of his father’s name. The bough moved, so slightly that no one would have noticed it except Ricky, who, quick as only a frightened squirrel could be, leaped from the bough to the ground and escaped. He chattered into the darkness beyond the fire.

  Automatically, the gorillas looked up.

  And saw Cornelius. His nightshirt showed almost luminously white against the night. It reflected back the glare of the fire. So did his frightened face. He was clearly recognizable to the gorillas as he clutched his precarious position on the middle of the branch.

  The gorillas froze. One or two jumped to their feet. Aldo was already standing, angrily glaring. “It’s Caesar’s son!” he declared.

  The other gorillas rose silently, massively, to their feet, staring into the tree.

  “He’s been listening to us,” said Aldo. Without thinking, he drew his sword. The blade flashed in the orange light.

  General Aldo began to climb the tree.

  Cornelius huddled against the branch and whimpered silently. His eyes were white with fear as Aldo came toward him, higher and higher, closer and closer. Aldo’s face was rigid with anger. He held his sword between his teeth like a pirate. The gorillas watching from below grunted in support of their leader.

  “Cornelius,” said General Aldo. “Come down.”

  Cornelius shivered pathetically. He was too frightened even to shake his head.

  Aldo growled and kept climbing. The tree swayed threateningly, and he paused. He surveyed the situation. The branch Cornelius clung to was too thin to support the weight of a full-grown gorilla. But maybe . . . maybe he could reach the chimp . . .

  Aldo leaned as far as he could and made a grab. His big black paw missed Cornelius’ foot by inches. He roared with frustration through his clenched teeth and made another grab. Again he missed. “Come down, you little . . .! Come down, or else!”

  He took the sword from his mouth so he could speak more easily. “Come down, Cornelius!” He waved the weapon threateningly. Cornelius only clung tighter to the branch. Aldo began flailing at him, trying to frighten him, trying to knock him down, trying to get the little . . .

  Aldo stopped, suddenly realizing. Even if he did bring Cornelius down, the little chimp would eventually tell his father. And then Caesar and the other apes would learn of his ambitions. No, that wasn’t a good idea.

  Aldo’s arm stopped in mid-stroke, nicking Cornelius’ branch. Hmm, that gave him an idea. Suddenly, he knew how he could solve his problem.

  He drew his sword back slowly and took careful aim. He struck. Ka-thwunk! The sword bit deeply and viciously into the branch. Again, kathwunkkk! The whole tree shook with the impact. The sword rang in his hand. Aldo took a firmer grip on the tree trunk for better leverage and began hacking steadily, firmly at the branch. With each stroke, Cornelius uttered a soft, childish whimper.

  The big gorilla ignored the sound. He concentrated on his chopping. The blade bit into the bough, a little farther each time. His arm swung repeatedly up and down; his sword flashed over and over again.

  “Father,” moaned Cornelius. “Father!” His throat was almost paralyzed with fear.

  Down below, the other gorillas watched. Their faces were marked with uncertainty.

  Abruptly, the branch cracked—

  “Father!” Cornelius screamed. “Father!”

  Lisa woke suddenly and sat up straight. “What . . .?”

  “Huh?” mumbled Caesar, half-asleep.

  “I thought I heard something. Cornelius?” she called.

  Silence. She must have been dreaming. She settled down again.

  And then the sound came again. A distant scream, cutting off abruptly.

  This time Caesar heard it too. They both came wide awake now. “I dreamed he was calling for you,” said Lisa. She got out of bed and ran for the next room, Caesar following close behind. “Cornelius!”

  She gasped. His bed was empty. So was Ricky’s cage. “Cornelius!”

  Heedlessly, she ran from the room and swung herself down from the tree house. “That was Cornelius I heard!” Caesar followed her as she ran through the grove.

  Ahead were two weaving torches moving in the same direction. MacDonald
and Doctor.

  “We heard a scream,” shouted MacDonald to Caesar.

  “It sounded like a scream of pain,” added Doctor.

  Caesar halted. “Cornelius is missing,” he panted. Lisa didn’t stop. She ran blindly, instinctively, toward the far end of the grove. Caesar, MacDonald, and Doctor moved after her; Caesar poured out a jumble of thoughts. “Ricky’s cage was open. His squirrel must have . . .”

  There was a terrible cry. A long-drawn wail of anguish.

  “Lisa!” Caesar broke and ran. He forgot everything and dashed through the trees toward the sound until he came to the grove’s end, where Lisa was sitting, cradling her son in her arms, like the legendary, long-lost Pietà.

  She looked up at Caesar, tears streaming down her cheeks, and she could barely speak. “He’s . . . hurt, Caesar,” she sobbed. “Horribly.”

  Caesar’s knees gave way under him. He sank to the ground beside her. He felt weak and wobbly; there was an icy, sinking feeling in his stomach, and the world seemed to be shredding into little bits.

  Slowly, he reached his hand out and gently touched his son, trying to discover how badly he was hurt.

  There were a few apes and humans standing around, more arriving every moment. Doctor pushed through them, coming up to kneel beside Lisa and Cornelius. She looked tenderly at Lisa, “May I . . .?” she asked. Lisa nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  At first Doctor didn’t touch the little ape; he was so broken and pathetic. She had to determine what had caused his injury. She saw the broken tree branch, and that made her look up into the tree. The top of it was stark, and broken; the jagged break a clawlike silhouette against the moonlit clouds.

  Doctor bit her lip. She touched Cornelius now with gentle hands. Her voice was very soft amidst the murmur of apes and humans. “I think we’d better make a litter and carry him home.”

  As she rose and turned away, her face was marked with hopelessness. Caesar and Lisa didn’t see it, and when Doctor turned back, her expression was more controlled. “I need some branches and a couple of shirts,” she said and moved out to start picking some up.