“We were wondering about quarantine, General,” Admiral Jardin said. The voice was gruff and hard, rasping. “Both ways. What might we catch from them, of course, but if they’ve been a long time in space they have been in a sterile environment. What might they catch from us? Whoops!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Excuse me, General, the problem’s not ours anymore. Whoever’s inside is opening the hatch. See it?”
“Yes.”
The hatch cover opened very slowly. Brody watched as it swung all the way, and a ladder was rolled up. Three figures climbed out. A bit clumsy, Brody thought. Why not? They were a long time in space. Only how had they managed that? Could that be Colonel Taylor and his crew?
The astronauts wore complete space gear: full pressure suits, coveralls over that, helmets with mirrored visors dogged into place. They’d be roasting in there, Brody thought. A man sealed into a full pressure suit and disconnected from cooling air can quickly generate enough heat to cook himself to death, and there is no place for the heat to go.
A Navy flight surgeon came forward and gestured at the helmets. The astronauts nodded and reached up to the latches, began undogging the faceplates.
“Welcome aboard, gentlemen,” Admiral Jardin said.
The helmets opened. Brody’s TV screen gave a perfect view into each faceplate. His sergeant was watching intently too. He looked at the astronauts and roared with laughter. “Monkeys!” he shouted. “Holy clout, General, they caught themselves three monkeys in space suits!”
“Admiral Jardin,” Brody said quietly into the phone. His voice was the same deadly calm that Ray Hamilton had used when he alerted SAC. “Admiral—”
“Yes, General. You are seeing it. That is what you wanted to ask, isn’t it? I’m seeing it too,” the Admiral said. “No question about it, our astronauts are chimpanzees.”
“And just where the devil did they come from?” Brody demanded.
“I’ll just ask them, shall I?”
“Admiral, I have to report to the president. I do toot need your jokes.”
“Sorry, Len. Well; have you any suggestions? This is a bit stranger than I’d expected. I’m at a loss.”
“Yeah. So am I. Well, the president wants an examination of that capsule made. Immediate and thorough. Meanwhile, take the—uh, the passengers somewhere secure. Someplace that knows how to take care of them. You got any labs around there? A university maybe?”
“Not secure.” Admiral Jardin was quiet for a moment. “I have a friend in the LA Zoo Commission. I expect we could get them lodged there without anybody’s knowing it. We can’t keep this secret very long, General. The whole crew of this ship knows…”
“Yeah. But the president decides when to break this, and to whom. Right? OK, take ’em to the zoo. That seems an appropriate place for chimps. Get somebody to examine them. Somebody with clearances.”
“You save the easy jobs for the Navy, don’t you?” Jardin said sourly.
Brody made a face at the phone. “You think you have troubles? I’ve got to report to the president. He’s going to just love this.”
3
Admiral George “Snapper” Jardin was not a happy man. What made things worse was that none of these problems were his own fault. His Navy people had performed flawlessly. Within minutes of the signal that an unscheduled spacecraft was going to splash down, be had a Navy interceptor fighter in the air over the predicted splash area, a rescue helicopter airborne and on the way, and a recovery carrier speeding to the scene at twenty-eight knots. The chopper crew put inflation collars around the spacecraft and kept it upright and afloat. His carrier came alongside and hoisted it aboard. Everything went fine—until the astronauts turned out to be chimpanzees. Snapper Jardin shuddered again. How did they get in the ship? “Where have we got them now?” he asked his aide.
“In the wardroom, Admiral,” Lt. Commander Hartley said. “We had them in sick bay, but there are too many things they might get hold of down there. They could hurt themselves.”
“I bet the ship’s officers like having monkeys in their wardroom. Did anybody object?”
“No, sir.” How could anyone object? Hartley wondered. They hadn’t been asked. In his experience, nobody ever asked in the Navy; the brass sent down The Word, and that was that.
“Did you get the LA Zoo?”
“Yes, sir,” Hartley said. “They’re ready. Tight security. The apes can go into the sick bay. Nothing in there right now, except a mauled fox cub, a deer with pneumonia, and a depressed gorilla who’s lost his mate. The apes will be out of sight, quarantined, and there’ll be plenty of facilities for medical and psych examinations.”
“Sounds good.” Jardin lifted the phone by the chart table. “Bridge? My compliments to the Skipper, and please take this ship into Long Beach Navy Station, standard cruising speed.” He turned back to his aide. “You found the experts yet?”
“Sir, there are a couple of animal psychologists on the UCLA staff. There’s some Army grant or other funding their work, so they’ve got clearances. They’ll start in on the apes tomorrow morning.”
“Good.” Jardin stood. “Let’s go see those apes, anyway. Has anybody fed them? There ought to be steaks aboard this ship—would they want them raw or cooked?”
“Sir, I’m told that chimpanzees are pretty much vegetarians.”
“Oh. Well, we can’t let them starve.”
“No, sir. I’ve got a sack full of oranges. One of the pilots had a supply. I thought I’d take those below.”
“Good thinking.” They walked through the ship and down two levels to the wardroom. A Marine sentry stood outside the door.
“You have them alone in there, Corporal?” Admiral Jardin demanded.
“No, sir. The surgeon’s inside with them, sir. But—”
“But what, Corporal?”
“You better look for yourself, Admiral. Them apes ain’t normal, sir. Not like any apes I ever saw.” He opened the wardroom door.
Surgeon. Lt. Commander Gordon Ashmead, USNR, stood in one corner of the wardroom staring at the chimpanzees. The three apes were seated at the wardroom table. On the floor between them was a large valise.
Three full pressure suits lay stretched out on the wardroom floor. Coveralls were hung across chairs. As the admiral entered, two of the chimps stood, exactly as a junior officer might stand when an admiral enters; the third chimpanzee struggled to close a zippered housecoat.
“Excuse me,” Admiral Jardin said. “I didn’t mean—good Lord. What am I saying?” He looked at the apes, then at Ashmead. “Good afternoon, Lieutenant Commander,” Jardin said: “I see you’ve undressed them.”
“No, sir. They took off the suits themselves.”
“Uh?” Jardin frowned. There was nothing easy about getting out of a full pressure suit. They fit like gloves, and had dozens of snaps and laces that had to be loosened. “With no help?”
“They helped each other, sir.”
“And now they’re pretending to dress,” Jardin’s aide said.
“Pretending hell,” Admiral Jardin snapped. “They are dressing. Doctor, where did they get those clothes?”
“They brought them with them, sir. In that valise.”
“Now just a bloody minute,” Jardin protested. “You’re telling me that three chimpanzees got out of a space capsule carrying a suitcase. They brought that suitcase down here, took off their pressure suits, and out of their suitcase they took clothes that fit. Then they put on the clothes.”
“Yes, sir,” Ashmead said emphatically. “That is precisely what I am telling you, Admiral.”
“I see.” Jardin looked at the three chimps. They had all resumed their seats at the wardroom table. “Do you think they understand what we’re saying, Doctor?”
Ashmead shrugged. “I doubt it, sir. They are very well trained, and chimps are the most intelligent of the animals. Except, perhaps, for dolphins. But all attempts to teach them languages have failed. They can learn sig
nals but not syntax.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, sir, a dog, for instance, can understand commands. The command is a signal. When he hears it, he does something. But you can’t tell the dog to go around the block and up the stairs, then execute the command. You could train him to do it that way, of course, but you couldn’t tell him to do it. He wouldn’t understand. That would take language.”
“They sure look like they’re listening to us,” Admiral Jardin said. He turned to his aide. “Greg, give them their oranges. Maybe they’re hungry.”
“Yes, sir.” Hartley laid the bag on the wardroom table. One of the chimpanzees took it and carefully lifted out each orange. Another reached into the valise and took out a small pocket knife.
“Here now! Wait a second,” the Marine shouted. He advanced toward the chimpanzee.
“Hold it,” Dr. Ashmead said. “It’s all right, Corporal. The knife’s very short and not sharp at all. It’s the second tool they’ve employed—they used a small pick to untie a knot in one of their suit laces.”
“Um.” Admiral Jardin nodded to the Marine. “It’s all right if the Lt. Commander says it is, son. Look, you go out and arrange for an MP van to meet us at the docks, uh? We’ll want to take these critters to the zoo.”
The chimpanzee carefully peeled the first orange and passed it to another ape. She began peeling a second.
“That’s an interesting behavior pattern too, Admiral,” Ashmead said. “Usually apes won’t share. Occasionally a male will offer something to a female, and of course the big alpha males demand and get whatever they want from the smaller males, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a female offering a male a peeled orange.”
“She’s giving the next one away, too. Very nice manners, eh Greg?”
“Yes, sir,” Jardin’s aide said automatically. He couldn’t care less about the manners of a chimpanzee. He wanted to get back to San Diego where a blonde go-go dancer was waiting. She wouldn’t wait long. She didn’t have nice manners at all, but she had other compensations.
“Now what’s she doing?” Jardin asked. The chimpanzee had eaten the third orange, and was beginning to peel more for the others. She kept the peelings in a neat pile. “Greg, shove that wastebasket over there and see what she does, will you?”
“Yes, sir.” The chimp pushed the peelings off into the basket. One fell to the deck and she carefully leaned over to pick it up and drop it in with the rest.
“They sure are well trained, Admiral,” Dr. Ashmead said. “I’d almost think they were somebody’s house pets.”
One of the chimpanzees snorted loudly.
Admiral Jardin frowned. “Well, it’s not my problem. For all I care they could stay in the Long Beach Station Hospital—only haven’t I heard you can’t toilet train an ape? Is that right, Doctor?”
“I don’t think anybody has yet,” Ashmead answered. “Bit out of my line, though.”
“I suppose the nurses wouldn’t care for apes in their hospital,” the Admiral said.
“No, sir.”
Jardin looked at the chimpanzees and shook his head. He’d had sailors with worse manners—there were sailors on this ship with worse manners, he told himself. “Well, they’ll be happier in the zoo, anyway. They’ll even have company. I’m told there’s a gorilla in the next cage.”
The female chimpanzee slammed the pocket knife to the wardroom table.
Admiral Jardin laughed. “You’d almost think she understood me and doesn’t like gorillas, wouldn’t you?”
4
It was dark at the Los Angeles Zoo. Jim Haskins whistled as he made his final rounds of the hospital section. There’d been a lot of excitement earlier, but it was all quiet now, and things were almost normal. He still resented the two Marines with guns outside the hospital section, and the other Marines and their officers camped in trailers not far away, but they weren’t interfering with Jim’s routine now, and he’d finally caught up on his chores. It was time to go home.
First, though, he looked in on his fox cub. Somehow the poor thing had gotten loose and ended up in the run with the Dingos, and those Aussie wild dogs had made a mess of her. Luckily there had been a keeper near enough to rescue her. The fox looked all right now. She had taken sedation nicely, and the IV was dripping properly. Jim nodded in satisfaction. He wasn’t quite a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine yet; he had another year of night school to go. But all the vets agreed that Jim Haskins had a touch about him that was worth more than book learning.
There was a deer in the next cage, with ultraviolet lights to keep it warm. Jim didn’t think it was going to make it. Pneumonia was always bad with animals, and the deer family hardly ever recovered from it. Too bad, really, but at least it wasn’t one of the rare species. The gorilla was in the next cage, and it seemed to be asleep. That was a bad one, thought Jim. His official name was Bobo, but somebody had dubbed him “Monstro” and that stuck. He had been all right until his mate died, then he’d taken to brooding, and he was getting meaner all the time. Jim hoped the curator would trade Monstro to another zoo, someplace that needed a gorilla. It would be nice if they had an unattached female Monstro could woo, but the chances were pretty slim at his age.
Then there were the three new chimps. Nice healthy ones. They must have been somebody’s house pets, because they insisted on wearing clothes. They wanted to keep knives, too. Jim had been firm about that. The zoo rules had to be kept, even by chimpanzees brought in by the Navy and a lot of doctors and armed Marines. The lights were still on in the new chimps’ cage. Jim made sure there was plenty of bed straw and that the floors were clean, and they had oranges and bananas to eat. They were acting a bit scared. They hadn’t eaten anything, and they wouldn’t climb on the jungle gym or swing on the tires, but maybe they’d get over that in a day or so. Chimps were always fun. Jim had never had any trouble with chimps. He liked them.
The female seemed lonesome, sitting there at the edge of the cage. Jim found an especially nice banana and peeled it for her. He reached through the bars. The regulations said he wasn’t supposed to get that close to the cages when he was alone. Apes could grab a man and hurt him. They wouldn’t mean to, usually, but they could play rough, and it might be necessary to hurt one of the animals if it got loose.
But he’d never had trouble with chimps, and she looked so lonesome sitting there.
She slapped the banana away. Then she slapped him.
Jim stepped back from the cage and shrugged. “Have it your way, mate. Good night.” He flipped out the lights, and swung his flashlight around for a final inspection. Everything was in order, and he left the hospital ward, carefully closing the door.
The chimpanzees stared at the closed door.
“I’m not his mate,” the female said carefully. “I’m yours.”
“Zira, please. Control yourself, my dear. I think they’re trying to be kind.”
“This, cage stinks of gorilla,” Zira insisted. She sat on the straw. One of the males joined her and took her hand. “But—Cornelius, where are we?” she asked. “And why are we pretending to be dumb animals?”
Cornelius looked up at the other male. “It was your idea, Dr. Milo. You haven’t had a chance to explain before. I think now would be a good time.”
“I did not think it wise to let them know we can speak, before,” Milo said carefully. He peeled an orange and ate it, grimacing as the juice ran across his fingers. “Now I’m sure of it. Consider. As we achieved orbit in Colonel Taylor’s spacecraft, we saw an explosion below. At least one entire hemisphere was destroyed. I do not doubt that the entire earth was made uninhabitable. Are we agreed?”
The seated chimpanzees nodded. “But if Earth is destroyed, where are we?” Zira asked again.
“I’ll tell you in a moment. Consider the situation, then. We are possibly the only survivors of our civilization. The last of the apes have killed each other in a war that no one could win. The fools have accomplished what they’ve been tryi
ng to achieve for centuries, and we can never go home. Now. As to where we are. I believe that in some fashion—and I lack the intellect to know precisely how, although I have theories—we have traveled from our own time into the past. Our civilization, the time of the apes, is in the distant future of this time. We are in our dim past, at a time when men are the dominant species on Earth, and apes cannot as yet speak.”
“But—we saw the earth destroyed!” Cornelius insisted.
“And Earth will be destroyed,” Milo said evenly. “Just as we saw it. But it destroyed itself in such a manner that we were sent into the past.”
“How?” Cornelius insisted.
“I told you, I am not precisely certain,” Milo said. “The philosophers have shown there is a definite relationship between time and velocity. Somehow, we had, through the combined orbital velocity of our spacecraft and that imparted to us by the greatest explosion in Earth’s history, just the right velocity to send us into the past. If you do not like that explanation, call it magic; I have no better one. The important thing is, we are here.”
Cornelius nodded. “All right. We’re in our own past. What an opportunity!”
“For an historian like yourself, yes,” Milo agreed. He looked around the cage and up at the electric lights, and waved his arms expansively. “Marvelous equipment! Think, Cornelius, all the old legends are true. Humans did have a machine civilization, with power to do almost anything they wished!”
“And destroyed it,” Cornelius reminded him.
“And destroyed it,” Milo repeated. He lowered his voice in wonder. “But why, Cornelius? With all this, with so many amazing things, so much we have not seen but must exist for all this to exist, could they not have been happy with it? We would have been dazzled by a tenth of this.”
“For how long?” Zira asked.
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