Planet of the Apes Omnibus 3

by Titan Books

The opportunity came, as Burke expected that it would. As the gorilla guard looked the other way, Burke darted from behind the rubble pile, dashed across the street and pressed himself tightly against the corner of the Headquarters building. He was shielded from view by the large rectangular blocks that edged the corner.

  Galen watched Burke’s charge. He relaxed a little when he saw that Burke had managed to reach his goal unseen. Galen now used the two rocks to create a diversion down the street. The first rock landed in a pile of rubble, muffled somewhat by the loose dirt there. Nevertheless, the guard looked up suspiciously.

  “Who’s there?” cried the gorilla.

  Galen tossed the second rock, and it hit the edge of a mound, making other large stones rattle and clatter down to the street level. The guard came out from his post to check on the noise. Now Galen ducked down, took a couple of rocks, and made clip-clopping noises. To the guard, it sounded as though a horse were riding away. The guard, thoroughly confused, stepped into the street. There was, of course, no horse. Galen clip-clopped less loudly, until he made the sound fade away altogether.

  The gorilla guard was very puzzled at the disappearance of a horse that had never appeared, but, in his simple-minded way, shrugged the mystery off.

  Burke, still hidden around the corner of the building, watched the scene tensely.

  Once again, Galen, hidden behind the pile of rubble, started making the clip-clopping sound, very loudly.

  The gorilla was determined to discover the source of the hoofbeats; he strode toward the pile of rubble. Just as he reached it, Burke darted out, around the corner, and made a diving tackle of the guard. The gorilla tumbled onto the pile of rubble. Galen jumped up and grabbed the rifle dropped by the gorilla, as Burke lifted the gorilla’s legs, dumping the now-unconscious guard behind the rubble.

  Burke twisted a piece of rope around the gorilla’s wrists and knelt on the ape’s chest, while Galen held the rifle on him. Slowly, the gorilla regained consciousness. His head hurt, of course, but he couldn’t rub it, not with his hands tied. He looked around him warily, and was frightened to see two of the three enemies of the state they had been chasing the day before. The gorilla was more worried about what Urko would say, than about what this man and this renegade chimpanzee would do to him.

  “All right,” said Burke in a forceful whisper, “I’m not even going to give you the proverbial three chances. I want the truth, and I want it now. Where’s Virdon?”

  The gorilla shook his head and said nothing. Galen gestured for Burke to let him do the questioning. Burke assented.

  “A man,” said the young chimpanzee. “You’ll remember. You were hunting the three of us. We separated. You caught a man. He was captured yesterday.”

  “Yes,” said the gorilla, suddenly brightly. “He was brought in!”

  Burke nodded toward Galen, who only shrugged modestly. “Now, what I’d like to know, and I remind you that your hands are tied up and that I’ve got your own rifle trained on you. Did they take Virdon into that building across the street? If so, which floor did they take him to? Which room?”

  The gorilla studied the building for a few seconds, a frown on his face. He thought hard. “He’s not there,” he said at last.

  Burke moved forward with a strand of strong metal wire. He put the wire around the ape’s throat, garroting him a little. He tightened the wire, choking the ape slightly.

  “You know,” said Galen calmly, “my friend here has a passion for the truth.”

  “A human!”

  Burke tightened the wire even more. The gorilla tried to loosen it with his bound hands, but couldn’t.

  “The truth!” cried Galen.

  The gorilla was looking very frightened by now. “He was taken away this morning. I don’t know where.”

  Burke was furious. He didn’t want to have his plans frustrated so easily. “You’re lying!”

  The gorilla didn’t know anything else to do in order lo convince them. Mere words had had no effect. There was nothing else to say. “The prisoner rooms are empty. You can see for yourself.”

  Galen put down the end of the rifle, sadly and a little hopelessly. “He’s telling the truth,” he said. “He believes that he’d be killed if he lied. No gorilla would be that smart, to lie anyway.”

  “What?” asked the gorilla, sensing a slur on his race.

  “Nothing,” said Galen.

  Burke removed the garrote from around the ape’s neck, but he left the gorilla’s hands tied. “It’s worse than a needle in a haystack. We’re looking for a needle somewhere in a whole city, on a whole planet!”

  Galen and Burke fell into a solemn thoughtfulness. After several possible suggestions occurred and were dismissed, Galen said, “They might actually have taken him back to Central City, instead of questioning him here.”

  Burke shook his head. “Yes,” he said, “and they might not. Okay, we follow orders, Galen. We go with the top priority. Alan said that it was more important to go on than any of us being found…”

  The Headquarters that were being used by the gorilla guards in the city resembled an old, medieval castle. Virdon’s thought was that it had been a museum at one time, perhaps later converted into the main branch of the Scientific Institute. He would have given a lot to know the history of the world between the time he and Burke— and poor, dead, Jonesy—had blasted off and the time the apes came into power. What had mankind done? What advances had been made? That was what the machine in the Institute had been about to tell them…

  * * *

  Virdon was prodded into a large castle courtyard by two armed gorillas. His ankle seemed better, although he still walked with a slight limp. Around the perimeter of the courtyard, a couple of gorillas were standing sentry duty.

  The apes marched Virdon across the courtyard, to a massive entrance closed by two iron-bound oaken doors. One of the gorillas opened the doors and shoved Virdon in, shutting the doors and locking them again behind him. The doors shut slowly with a loud creaking noise, and a dull, final thud. The rasp of the lock made the situation only that much more hopeless. Virdon was caught.

  The first thing that he did inside was the initial reaction of any organism trapped in unfamiliar surroundings; he searched the area. He walked around the walls, studying the bare stone, the damp, chilly expanse of walls, the lack of decoration or ornament. He couldn’t decide if this was the taste of the human builders, the results of subsequent lootings, or the imposed austerity of the apes. In one corner of the large chamber he saw the woman, Arn cowering. He went quickly to her.

  He moved as speedily as his injured leg permitted. “Are you all right?” he asked. Even in the extremity of the situation, which, after all, was the one thing Burke, Galen and he had dreaded since the beginning—recapture—his primary concern was for this seemingly unprotected, yet strong, woman who had tried to warn him of the dangers he faced.

  Arn said nothing. She only nodded, studying his handsome face.

  Virdon was relieved. Arn presented him with a problem, someone to look out for other than himself. He was inclined to take chances, and with Arn to hold his behavior slightly in check, his odds for survival increased. Sure, he wasn’t as impetuous as Burke or even Galen, but the possibility was there, especially when he had fallen into the stronghold of his enemies.

  Virdon looked around in the gloom of the chamber, and he spotted Kraik, sitting huddled up in another corner. Virdon walked over to where Kraik sat kicking some stones from his path along the way. The astronaut tried to appear casual, but the presence of Kraik was becoming just a bit too coincidental. “Who are you?” asked Virdon softly, in order not to make Kraik withdraw into his sullen shell.

  There was ho reply. Any question directed at Kraik, unless by an ape, drew this same reaction. Virdon waited a moment, then turned around and surveyed the room. There was Kraik, and Virdon, and Arn, all silently sitting a large distance apart from the others. “What’s happening?” cried Virdon. “Why do they have us a
ll here?”

  Arn shook her head. It seemed evident that she didn’t know. Kraik just drew himself closer into his protective ball in his corner. Whether the boy understood or not, Virdon knew that the information would stay locked within the boy’s mind.

  3

  The castle courtyard had changed little in the few hours during which Virdon had been kept prisoner. He had examined the area minutely, and the examination boiled down simply to the simple facts: one, the gorillas had him, Arn, and Kraik locked in a room above the courtyard. Two, a pair of armed gorillas guarded the vast, locked gates that opened onto that courtyard. Three, there was no other way out.

  So much for devious or sneaky ways around the obvious limits of the situation. Virdon almost wished for Burke’s irrational turn of mind. Burke—or Galen, even—would think up something that used the gorillas’ strengths against them, the apes. Virdon would only try hitting his head against the strengths, and ending up with a headache for his efforts. And Arn and Kraik were involved now, too.

  Inside the castle, in the main room, Kraik was still cowering in his corner and Arn waited fearfully, unsure why she had been made a captive. She had committed no crime, other than to be found in the same area as Virdon. The apes and the humans of the forbidden city had derived an unusual truce; each side knew just how much the others would accept without rebellion, and neither apes nor humans looked for trouble. Arn felt that she had been treated unfairly, but she didn’t have anyone to whom to complain.

  Virdon walked around the large, spacious, once-grand hall in which they were locked. “No one here but us,” he said to himself, a fact self-evident but somehow important. The knowledge tickled at his consciousness. He turned to the two captives with him. “Are you sure you don’t know what this is all about?”

  Arn only nodded sullenly. She hadn’t spoken in all the time they had been locked in the high-ceilinged room. She was afraid to connect herself in any way with this stranger. Virdon glanced at Kraik. The astronaut had witnessed the transaction between the dirty waif and the gorilla Sergeant. Perhaps there was something more that might be gleaned from questioning the boy.

  “You,” said Virdon suddenly to Kraik. “Did they tell you why you’re here?”

  The boy didn’t appear in the least bit concerned. He did not consider that he had sold out a fellow human being. He had only done what he had to do in order to secure himself the food he needed to live on. “I was caught stealing food,” said Kraik. There was a tinge of fearfulness in the boy’s voice, which might or might not have been genuine. It was difficult to judge just what part Kraik might play in the drama that was unfolding, and that fact made Virdon’s job even more difficult. Could he trust this boy? Could he win him over?

  “A human can be killed for stealing food,” said Arn from her corner. The explanation brought silence to the cell. It was a harsh judgment, but it was one which the humans had always accepted. If it were true, then Kraik might fully expect to die. Virdon felt a flood of pity overwhelm him for the poor boy.

  Suddenly, Virdon felt a cold shiver of fear run through him. He wasn’t certain just what it meant; there was nothing about the circumstances that seemed any more threatening than other critical situations he had faced since coming to this planet of the apes. Or was it? Something tugged at his mind, some line of reasoning that would not speak clearly to him. He recalled the pity he had just felt for the boy; pity was an emotion that had grown extremely rare in this mad future. It was a feeling that Virdon and Burke had had to teach to the apes and humans who would listen to them. It was a feeling that sometimes put the astronauts at a disadvantage, making them act where less sympathetic individuals would run. But just as often, pity had won them friends and allies, like Galen, and it had often opened the door to love.

  Still, wasn’t there something wrong with this situation? Virdon wandered around the drafty room, trying to put his finger on just what it was that bothered him. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he murmured to himself. “Urko doesn’t need an excuse to kill me. He’s proven in the past just how anxious he is to do just that. Well, when he had the chance, why didn’t he?” The question took possession of his thoughts for several moments, and he paced, oblivious to the words and actions of his two fellow captives. The answers he sought were not far away, he could sense that, but they still managed to elude him.

  While Virdon paced painfully around the room, pondering his unanswerable questions, Arn was also examining their place of confinement. She had lived in the forbidden city all of her life, and she knew it as well as any of the other starving humans. This was a good deal better than any of the apes knew the city. But this particular building was strange to her. The ape garrison had always held it off limits to humans. She had never been inside it before, and she was frightened. Human beings were often frightened by things they could not understand or things they had never seen before. “What is this place?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

  Virdon’s reply was automatic; he didn’t really hear Arn’s question. He was busily trying to find answers to his own problems. “This building was famous in my time,” he said. “I remember seeing it. Built by a wealthy man. Oil money. He wanted to live like a sixteenth century baron or something.” Virdon was carefully searching the walls, the fireplace, every possible place that might provide him with a clue to a way out of his current trouble. He searched with all the cunning that his knowledge and experience could lend him. He concentrated on his problem, but the room yielded nothing.

  Arn walked closer to him. Her face was puzzled; she thought about his words, which had tumbled unguarded from his mouth. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  The boy, Kraik, was also curious. He had heard something in Virdon’s answer that he couldn’t explain. “What do you mean?” asked Kraik, “in your time?”

  Virdon was still moving slowly about the room, hoping to find something in it that he could use. He did not reply to his two cell-mates. His attention focused on the stairway. He started for it. Kraik followed after him. “Wait a minute!” cried the boy. “Where are you going?”

  Virdon was jolted from his reverie. He turned to face the boy. “It’s just a thought I had,” he said. “I don’t know what it means. But when Urko has a chance to kill me and get me out of the picture, and then doesn’t do it, I want to know why. I have to figure out his game.” Virdon spoke slowly and softly, staring over the boy’s head at the cold stone of the wall opposite. With a shrug and a sad smile, the blond man turned again and continued up the stairs and into the hallway at the top. Kraik hesitated for a few seconds, then he, too, climbed the stairs, following Virdon. Arn remained below, watching.

  Virdon walked slowly down the hallway, examining it foot by foot as he had the room. He eased himself past piles of debris that lay strewn about. A patch of light made him look up; above his head there was an unbarred castle window, high on the wall. Virdon piled wreckage below the window, and carefully pulled himself up to its level. He boosted himself up into a position where he could view the surroundings outside. He was suspicious—why would Urko imprison him in a room with access to an unguarded window? Virdon looked down.

  He could see the ground at the base of the wall; there was the clean, unexpected green of grass and shrubbery below. The courtyard had apparently been a garden at one time, or the passage of time and the insistence of plant life had broken up the pavement that had once existed. Virdon did not know which. There was no movement in the area, no sounds.

  Virdon was satisfied that no gorilla was around, walking guard duty in the courtyard. He could find no reason for that; still, he could find no reason not to take advantage of the situation. He straightened up on the window ledge and began to look for handholds or ivy vines, something to help him climb down.

  While Virdon was occupied, a gorilla who had been concealed behind the shrubbery stepped quietly out, raised his rifle, and aimed it at Virdon.

  Virdon did not see or hear his enemy. He continued his inspection of t
he wall. The crack of a shot rang out, followed instantly by the splintering of the castle wall less than a foot from Virdon’s hand. Virdon ducked away from the shot instinctively; then he looked down to its source.

  For a brief instant, the gorilla and the human being stared at each other. Virdon felt nakedly helpless, outlined against the window behind him. He saw the gorilla’s finger squeeze the trigger; he heard the loud explosion; he heard the bullet as it spanged off the wall above his head. He could not move for a moment, paralyzed by the closeness of death. He could jump forward, into the courtyard, and fall a long distance; his ankle already was injured, and the fall would likely break some bones. He would be as good as dead, trapped by the gorilla guard. He could jump back into the corridor, but there, too, the leap would leave him helplessly injured. While he hesitated, two more shots in rapid succession hit around the window opening. Virdon turned, jumped, and caught the window ledge as he fell. He hung by his fingers for a few seconds, breathing hard. There were no more shots from the guard. After a while, Virdon let himself down, dropping heavily and awkwardly to the cold stone of the corridor. He favored his sprained ankle, and rolled away from the wall. Kraik rushed up to him.

  “They could have killed you!” cried the frightened boy.

  Virdon stood up and brushed himself off. He looked at the boy, and then up at the window. He stared thoughtfully. The scene with the gorilla just added to his confusion. “They could have,” he said. “But they didn’t. Deliberately. I was an easy shot. None of Urko’s guards are so poor that I wouldn’t have been nailed by one of those four bullets. That was very close range.” He paused, thinking over the implications. “They want me here,” he said. “They want me alive. And why was that gorilla hiding?” He thought some more, trying to add up all the pieces of the puzzle. Then, suddenly, as though someone beside him had whispered the answer in his ear, Virdon understood. “Sure!” he said. “It’s got to be! A trap. And I’m the bait. I’m not the quarry at all.”