Nova, always responsive to his moods, huddled closer to him.
Brent had forgotten all about the throbbing discomfort of his damaged shoulder.
* * *
The baffled guard who had allowed Nova to elude him was still searching for her. Without any success. He had not entered the catacomb complex but had returned to the Corridor of Busts to make a fresh start on his hunt. He was startled to see someone in the renowned corridor. Somebody wise and all-powerful.
Mendez in his purple robes was kneeling before the stoic bust of MENDEZ I. He was silent and immobile. As if his entire being was as one with his legendary ancestor.
Mendez seemed to commune with the inanimate bust.
The guard withdrew very carefully, anxious not to make a whisper of sound. He stole up the long corridor like a wraith.
The posture of the leader disturbed the guard.
Was something wrong that Mendez had to take this time to pray on the eve of a great conflict?
But the guard removed the thought from his already worried mind. There was still the girl to find…
Angrily, impatiently, the guard moved down the corridor past the closed door of the Inquisition Room.
Nothing stirred.
Not even the kneeling figure of Mendez behind him, beyond the turn of the passageway.
12
DR. ZAIUS
The Grand Army of the Apes had achieved the frontier zone of the designated area. Now, as the hot sun beat down in a cobalt-blue sky, General Ursus initiated the opening steps of the invasion. Beyond the burning rim of the horizon, the skyline of buried New York steepled eerily. Silhouetted and somber. From his horse, with Zaius at his side, Ursus’ medals shone in the sunlight. He raised a glittering sword.
His army moved. Quickly, in full military pomp and precision. Orders were shouted, marching feet thundered, equipment rolled into position. Squadrons formed. Gorilla infantry, about fifty apes to each group, with a commissioned officer and a noncommissioned officer leading every command, flanked into attacking formation. The gun carriages wheeled up, clanking noisily. Bayonets gleamed from rifle tips. The assembled apes were ready to attack. To fight. To obey the Ursus dictum of Invade, Invade, Invade! Dr. Zaius looked on almost sorrowfully at the spectacle of force of arms triumphing over sober reflection and discourse with the enemy. Ursus, eyes shaded against the sun, peering toward New York in the distance, summoned a bugler to his side. His gimlet eyes were twin pools of ecstasy. His black gorilla face was exalted. The morning heat set a shimmering haze over the scene. It was a lovely day for the Invasion.
“Sound the advance,” Ursus commanded the bugler in the sudden total hush that preceded the strike of lightning forces from the kingdom of Ape City.
The horn brayed, a pealing blast of sound wafting over the formation. The army, in extended order, advanced. Uphill. Toward the visible reaches of the Forbidden Zone. Ursus’ mount pranced in the vanguard. Zaius trotted along behind him.
The hill was steep, sloping upward at a hazardous angle. The ape army swarmed upward a vast body of moving gorillas, horses and ordnance. With skilled coordination of all units and a minimum of stumbling blocks, the advance platoons of Ursus’ forces gained the crest of the mountain which overlooked the buried grandeur of New York.
Ursus reached the pinnacle first. Then Zaius, then the troops directly behind them. Ursus lifted a paw to signal a halt. The army came to a stop. Waiting legions, motionless in the sun.
Zaius’ breath caught in his chest. Ursus groaned mightily.
The spectacle before them defied belief.
Where before there had been nothing but limitless expanses of arid desert in the vast sun-bleached acreage leading to buried New York, there was now nothing but horror.
Row upon row of naked gorillas, hanging from inverted crosses staked to the ground, glowed wickedly in the sunlight. A mass crucifixion, awesome in all its implications, to match the Roman massacre of Christians along the Appian Way in another equally terrible time. Zaius’ scholarly blood ran cold. Ursus’ face darkened. Fire and smoke, both sourceless and spread out like a blaze encompassing the world, had also appeared, seemingly from nowhere. And still the mutilated gorillas hung crucified from their upside-down crosses.
The ape army, particularly the infantry, closest to the sight, aghast and quivering in horror at the devastation below them, began to panic. A great tumult of shouting and anguished cries went up. Ursus, livid with rage, found himself being berated by Dr. Zaius.
“Ursus, I warned you! Look what we are faced with! I told you we should wait!”
“Whoever did this,” Ursus growled, “will pay heavily.”
The groans of the crucified gorillas were clamorous, rising from the bloody desert plain like a universal wail of misery, sorrow and agony. Dr. Zaius shuddered, reining in his horse.
“If you have any pity, order your soldiers to shoot our people.”
“I cannot order what the Lawgiver has forbidden. Ape shall not kill Ape,” Ursus snarled, wheeling his mount to shout an order to one of his nearest commanders. “Prepare to attack!”
“Attack what and whom?” Zaius demanded softly, his orangutan face constricted in lines of bewilderment and compassion.
The ape army suddenly rallied.
Gorillas, horses and guns moved up over the ridge, pounding over the crest, swarming down the other side. Ursus led the way. The infantry rushed forward, racing across the desert to the grim spectacle of their slaughtered comrades. Shouts and gunfire filled the air. Gorillas yelled and screamed, summoning up a banzai-like courage to grope with the situation. Or cope. The hot sun blazed down, as if trying to pierce the gathering smoke and fire filling the landscape. The infantry rushed. Ursus spurred his mount. Zaius galloped alongside.
And then…
A colossal effigy of the Lawgiver, the Great Ape reading a book, materialized in view, his stone feet among the scorching flames, his head seeming to touch the sky. The apes in the oncoming infantry group braked to a halt. Utter consternation and dread took over where before nothing but fear had ruled. These emotions—and a great joy!
“The Lawgiver!” a gorilla soldier squealed in delight. He dropped his rifle and kneeled. The soldier beside him, humbled by the vision of ape greatness, cried out, “He will avenge our crucified brothers!”
“Vengeance!” shouted the next soldier.
And the cry was taken up by the rest of the ape infantry. A mighty chorus of adulation, happiness and sheer exaltation echoed over the scene. Baffled by what he saw, General Ursus roared at all of his commanders, “Hold your positions!”
The gigantic figure of the Lawgiver now seemed to show the many holes and perforations in his great body. From these openings, red blood flowed in a scarlet spiderweb of color. Pumping, welling, spurting terribly. Ursus, in fear and horror, had to cling to his mount for support, his eyes two black marbles of disbelief. The Lawgiver, the Almighty, the Great One, the Nonpareil, the Master of all Apes, was bleeding to death before his very eyes!
“He bleeds!” General Ursus boomed. “The Lawgiver bleeds!”
An atavistic growl thundered from his chest; a trumpeting blast of animal sound that must have echoed in the days when his ancestors swung from trees and loped along the ground for their food. As for the ape infantry, it was completely demoralized by the spectacle. They threw down their rifles, pointing and gibbering with dismay at the Thing In The Sky. Simian cries of alarm and dismay rose in a blended medley of vocal terror that sounded exactly like the monkey house in a twentieth-century zoo. Above the blasted, cursed desert, the effigy of the Lawgiver, flung there by the hypnotic powers of the leaders of the Forbidden Zone, continued to bleed to death.
Only Dr. Zaius was able to retain his wits, to keep his head. The fulfillment of all his hopes for a compromise of the minds hung on the action he was now steeling himself to take. Turning, he faced the paralyzed, screaming infantry of gorillas and raised his cultured voice to an unfamiliar authoritative s
hout.
“The spirit of the Lawgiver lives! We are still God’s chosen! And this is a vision and it is a lie!”
Before they could digest his words, he charged. Alone. On horseback. Out toward the bleeding image of the Lawgiver. The astounded gorillas quietened, stunned by the sight of the old scientist, the Minister of Science, galloping out toward his inevitable doom.
Dr. Zaius rode into the Vision.
Rode out between the row upon row of crucified apes. Past the inverted crosses, through the veritable forest of slaughter—toward the Effigy of the Lawgiver. His horse shied and whinnied but Zaius kept a tight rein. Soon the clattering hooves had led him up to the vision. The smoke and the flame. The scorching fingers of the blaze eating away at the very feet of the Lawgiver.
Behind him, General Ursus and the Grand Army of the Apes looked on in mounting wonder.
Zaius’ horse reared, kicking at the smoke and the flame.
The Vision.
And slowly, inexorably, the Vision toppled, falling down, hitting the sandy earth. It exploded with great violence, creating a huge sheet of flame and roaring black smoke.
The entire tableau vanished in an instant.
And then—suddenly—the smoke was gone. The flame was gone. So was the image of the Lawgiver. And the forest of crucified apes. There was nothing on the vast, empty, rocky and sandy landscape but the figures of Dr. Zaius and his horse. Everything had faded away, leaving only what was really true and the reality that was really there.
General Ursus, staggered, and insanely jealous of Zaius for doing what he should have done, could only gaze on the scene with utter wonder and regret for a marvelous opportunity lost. One that he would never have again.
Dr. Zaius had passed through the Vision, triumphed over it. In the name of his science. He turned and waved to the Army of Ursus. There was nothing interposed between him and his people on the slope of the hill. The stage of desert and landscape was desolate.
General Ursus reformed his army.
He coldly acknowledged the signals of his revitalized commanders and troops. Dr. Zaius remained where he was, waiting for the Grand Army to rejoin him. Ursus’ color was malignant. He was furious. It was Zaius, and not he, whose gallant action had turned the tide of battle. Mottled, Ursus summoned the bugler again.
“Sound the advance,” he said dully.
Once more the braying notes of the horn filtered out over the baked panorama of landscape. In the visible distance the steeples and tombstone tops of New York lay illuminated in the sun. The tips of the Empire State, the Chrysler Building—and the face of Miss Liberty poking from the earth like a milestone—stood like markers along the route. General Ursus dug his spurs into his horse’s flanks and raced out to join Dr. Zaius where he still waited. A solitary figure on the desert plain.
Damn the good doctor!
There would be no living with the orangutan now…
The Grand Army of the Apes moved out toward the city on the horizon.
* * *
In the Inquisition Room, Mendez and his surviving inquisitors, seated on their curved chairs, had their eyes focused on the opposite wall level with their heads. Caspay, the fat man and Mendez, projecting purple, green and red, were throwing mental images to keep themselves abreast of the military situation. Albina’s blue was negative.
Which was critical now.
They saw General Ursus and Dr. Zaius, at the head of the Grand Army of the Apes, defeat the specter of the desert, move into the city and press onward. Zaius’ face appeared on the wall. Dismounted from his horse, he was pointing to the ground, calling Ursus’ attention to a six-foot-square octagonal vent just beyond his horse’s hooves. The same octagonal vent which had guided Brent and Nova into the very heart of the metropolis.
“There are ways down,” Zaius was shouting.
The perfect color on the wall dissolved as Mendez and Caspay and the fat man rose from their chairs. Mendez’s smooth face was calm but his eyes moved strangely. Flakes of gold in a mysterious wind of inner turmoil.
Caspay addressed the fat man.
“You know the range of their city?”
The red-clad fat man nodded.
“Set it in the mechanism and wait for me.”
The fat man left the Inquisition Room.
Caspay smiled at the beautiful Albina.
“I want a public thought projection at adult and infant level. ‘Clear the streets. Stay indoors.’”
Albina nodded too. Then she also rustled out of the room.
“What will you do, Holiness?” Caspay asked Mendez.
Mendez’s marble face was fixed with confident placidity.
“Everything necessary,” he murmured.
Caspay smiled his benevolent puckish smile and fondled his green robes.
All would be well, no matter how well organized and powerful the ape army might be.
There was still the Almighty Bomb!
And Mendez, whose brilliance outshone even the sun.
* * *
The last of the ape infantrymen had clambered down into the six main vents. Nothing remained on the surface of the Forbidden Zone but endless scores of tethered horses, waiting patiently for the eventual return of their riders. Four young gorilla sentries guarded the mounts as the main force pushed on.
An aura of excitement prevailed.
General Ursus and Dr. Zaius led the way along the narrow, glaringly white passageway. The cool air, the almost antiseptic texture of the corridor fascinated Zaius but Ursus could now smell blood. His gorilla face was beaming with expectancy. The unexpected rise of Zaius to hero status no longer disturbed him. There would be fresh battles, new conquests, and soon! He could almost feel the proximity of combat, the matching of arms with this rabble who had to live underground like worms and play tricks with gorilla minds. Well, he would show them. Show Zaius too. Show everybody—the unimpeachable wisdom of Invade, Invade, Invade!
Everything was going so smoothly now.
Once out of this damnable corridor, they would come face to face with the half savages who had dared to mock gorilla might and abuse gorilla people.
Yes, he would show them.
Show everybody.
The ineluctable power of Force.
There was just no other way to run a country. A people. A civilization. Foolish man had learned that, hadn’t he, to his sorrow. Trying to rule a world with the milk of kindness.
Damn chimpanzee philosophy.
Weak-kneed, thin-skinned. Hopelessly…
Grunting happily, his eyes shining, General Ursus moved down the long shining corridor at the head of his troops.
Dr. Zaius tagged along, just behind him.
Zaius was still unhappy.
He did not like the signs all around them of a vastly superior race of beings.
A race of intellects.
For which no gorilla could ever be a match.
* * *
Beyond the maze of octagonal corridors, in the cold glare of the metropolis above, nothing moved on the streets of the Forbidden Zone. There was a curious, almost frightening emptiness to the streets. No little knots of playing children, no passers-by, no single solitary streetwalkers. Nobody.
Only the wind fanning eerily over the half-buried building tops, the windowless structures which resembled so many headstones and tombstones jutting from the depths of the faraway mountains.
Only the mammoth silhouette of the great cathedral poking into the slate-gray skies.
The cathedral that housed the Bomb.
The Almighty Bomb.
Dedicated to the Holy Fallout.
And ultimate Oblivion.
13
APE AND MAN
“They’re coming,” Brent said.
Outside their cell, they could hear the thunderous united tramp of marching feet. The sudden rumble of movement and equipment moved Taylor faster than any warning could have. Quickly he lugged the corpse of the Negro to the base of the cell wall. Brent and N
ova joined him there, flattening out along the ground, hugging the wall. Out of sight of the peephole in the door of the cell.
A helmeted gorilla face loomed there.
He couldn’t see Taylor, Brent and the girl, or the Negro lying directly below him out of his line of sight. The gorilla face winced briefly and then the black muzzle of a machine gun appeared, poking into the cell.
The weapon stuttered, erupted, blasted and raked the interior of the cell with lateral fire. The stench of cordite filled the room. Soon the firing ceased and the gorilla moved on, joining the tramping hordes in the corridor. Not until the sound of marching feet diminished did Taylor, Brent or Nova move.
“Wait,” cautioned Brent.
They didn’t know that Company A of the ape army had just trooped by their place of confinement.
The marching sounds faded into silence.
Taylor rose to his feet, picking up a club which lay in one corner of the cell. He used this now to batter away at the cell door, smashing it open with a burst of tremendous blows. Brent’s bandages were oozing blood. He was sweating and his face was gray with pain. Taylor hesitated, but peered down the corridor beyond the battered door. Then he looked at Brent. Brent looked at him. Each man in that instant recognized what the other had in mind. Nova stood, waiting eternally, as she always had to, with her men.
“Let’s go!” Brent snapped impatiently. “Let’s go!”
Taylor nodded, and let Brent push into the corridor. He took Nova’s hand and led her out.
The corridor was empty.
Taylor eyed Brent with fresh respect.
“You’ve got the same crazy thought I have, haven’t you?”
“Except, it’s not crazy,” Brent panted, the pain searing him. “If these—’people’—think they’re going to lose to the apes, they’ll explode the bomb. Which is the end of the ape, but also the end of everything else. The end of life. The end of the world. You told me that yourself.”
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