Escape From The Planet Of The Apes (9 page)

Dixon shrugged. “Sort of—grape juice plus, I guess. Surely you have had wines?”

“Not this good,” Zira said. She took another big swallow of the champagne. “Excellent.”

Cornelius led Lewis Dixon to the other side of the ornate suite. “All chimpanzees have a tendency to drink too much alcohol. It seems to be inherited—we do not notice it particularly in orangutans and gorillas, although some gorillas are alcoholics.”

“Zira too?” Lewis asked.

Cornelius shrugged. “It is not a real problem. She does not actively seek wine. But, if it is around, she will drink it. So will I.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Lewis said. “We’ll let this glass be the last.”

“Certainly until after the press conference,” Cornelius answered. “You may bring the reporters in now.”

“Right. Stevie—they’re ready.”

“Right.” Stephanie went to open the door as Cornelius took his place on the couch. He sat at the opposite end from Zira. They looked at each other and grinned.

There were four reporters. One, the only girl, wore an enormous floppy-brimmed picture hat which set off her dark features perfectly. She smiled at the chimpanzees and took a seat. The other reporters found their places. Two had cameras and snapped away at the chimpanzees, and all seemed surprised to see Cornelius in a double-breasted suit with necktie and vest. Zira had worn long dresses on television before, but Cornelius had never been so sharply dressed in public.

“Miss Jeanna Robbins,” said Stephanie. “You’re with—?”

“
Fur and Feather,
” the reporter answered.

Zira frowned. “What kind of magazine is that?”

“Well—” the reporter seemed embarrassed. Finally she giggled. “It’s a pet magazine, Madame Zira.”

“Hm.” Zira smiled maliciously. “Do you think I’m a pet?”

“Why yes, I do, rather.”

They all laughed. Zira lifted her glass and drained it of the last of the wine.

“Madam Zira,” Jeanna Robbins asked, “what is your favorite fruit?”

Zira smacked her lips. “Grape.”

“Bill Cummings,
Men’s Hunting and Outdoors,
” one of the reporters said. “How do you find our women, Mister Cornelius?”

“Very human? Really, sir, we haven’t the same standards of beauty. The question makes no sense.”

“No, I don’t suppose it does. Do you ever hunt, Mister Cornelius?”

“No.” The chimpanzee looked rather sadly at them. “Some apes did, but I don’t think I want to tell you about it. It was mostly the gorillas, anyway, and we didn’t know many of them, at least not socially.”

“A caste society, then?” the third reporter asked. “I’m Joe Simpson,
Ebony.
Which was the lower caste, Mister Cornelius?” The black reporter spoke aggressively.

Cornelius shook his head. “None of them. The gorillas were—well, they were the army and much of the government was by gorillas, but with the advice of chimpanzees. The chimpanzees were the intellectual class. Not entirely. Orangutans were also teachers, but they are not very practical, Mister Simpson. They prefer to think and to dream.”

“Seems pretty racist to me,” Simpson said.

Cornelius shrugged. “The differences are observable. Quite real, Mister Simpson. Should we ignore them?”

Lewis cleared his throat. “Perhaps—had you finished, Miss Robbins?”

“No—Madame Zira, I understand you’ll address the Bay Area Women’s Club tomorrow. Do you have any idea of what you’re going to say? I know I won’t be able to get there, and perhaps these gentlemen won’t either.”

There was muttered agreement from the men, although Simpson still wasn’t happy.

Zira grinned. “My husband isn’t going to like it.”

“Oh, no,” Cornelius groaned. “Not that liberation speech again!”

“I’m sorry, but yes, dear.” She turned back to Jeanna Robbins. “In some ways your society is a great deal like ours. Three male reporters and one female—and you’re from a pet magazine! Everywhere I look, the best jobs go to the males. It was the same with us.”

“Really,” Jeanna said.

“Yes. I mean, a marriage bed is made for two, but every morning it’s the woman who has to make it.”

“That’s a good line,” Jeanna said. “I’ll quote you.”

“Not before tomorrow, please,” Zira said. “I have to make the speech first—”

“Oh, we won’t be out for weeks,” Jeanna replied. “You are a physician, aren’t you?”

“Sort of,” Zira said. “A psychiatrist. I worked mostly with, uh, animals.”

“You mean humans, don’t you?” Simpson demanded.

“Yes,” Zira answered.

“And they couldn’t talk. Black or white, they couldn’t talk. Just beasts, is that right?”

“Well—yes,” Zira said.

“There were no black humans that we ever saw,” Cornelius said. “Not where we lived, anyway.”

“And where was that?” Simpson demanded.

Cornelius shrugged. “From a study of the maps, I would say somewhere immediately south of the area you call New York.”

“Then what happened to all the people who lived there?” Jeanna Robbins asked.

“I’m sorry,” Stevie interrupted. “You’re getting to questions that are still under study by the Presidential Commission.”

“Censorship, huh?” Bill Cummings said. “I suppose that figures.”

“Not at all, Mister Cummings,” Lewis answered. “But I do think that the President’s Commission of Inquiry should have first crack at scientific information of that kind, don’t you? Cornelius and Zira are as anxious as you are to find out the truth, but we don’t want to prejudice the Commission’s findings by publishing a lot of speculations.”

“Sounds like a bunch of crap to me,” Simpson said.

“For once I agree.” Cummings looked expectantly at Lewis and Stevie. “You ought to do better than that. We don’t represent the really big papers and magazines, but we ought to get some kind of a story. I don’t know about everybody else, but my readers are going to want to know what happened to the
people
on this earth. All the people . . .”

“Black and white,” Simpson seconded. “There are a lot of black people around New York. In
their
time there aren’t any. What happened to them?”

“If I knew I would tell you,” Cornelius said. “How can I answer for what I do not know?”

“You can bet we won’t be the only ones to ask,” Cummings said.

There were no reporters at the next meeting of the Presidential Commission. The sixteen commissioners sat in a much smaller room, with only their secretary for audience.

“It looks like a trial,” Stevie said. She spoke quietly to the commission secretary; Lewis Dixon had to sit with the other commissioners on the opposite side of the big walnut conference table. The chimpanzees sat with Stephanie at a small table in front of them, and the secretary was just to Stevie’s left. Her stenotype machine ground out yards of folded tape as the conference continued.

“I trust you are sufficiently rested,” Chairman Hartley said. “This may be a long session.”

“We’ll just have to endure it,” Cornelius answered. He did not smile. Lewis frowned, and Stevie nudged Cornelius.

“You’ve got to keep their friendship,” she whispered.

“We will be as cooperative as we can be under the circumstances, Dr. Hartley,” Cornelius said. “Unfortunately, we may not know enough.”

“That remains to be seen,” Hartley said. He seemed less unfriendly, but he obviously did not enjoy conversing with chimpanzees. “Senator Yancey, I believe you were asking about Colonel Taylor when the last session ended at Madame Zira’s request. Would you continue, please?”

“Thank you,” Yancey said. “I believe you told us you never met Colonel Taylor?”

“That is correct, Senator,” Cornelius said.

“But you arrived here in his spacecraft.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How was that spacecraft launched? I am an old Air Force reservist, Mister Cornelius, and frankly, I don’t think anybody, I don’t care how smart he is, could have flown that ship without some instruction. Since you couldn’t teach yourselves, one of the crewmen must have taught you.”

Cornelius shrugged, as Zira looked worried. “Your logic is impeccable, Senator,” Cornelius said. “Unfortunately, your conclusion is not correct. We were not taught to operate that spacecraft by Colonel Taylor, or any other human.”

“This other ape, this Dr. Milo you called him, he learned all that by himself?” Yancey said. His voice was scornful; he obviously did not believe the apes.

“He found books and papers in the spacecraft,” Zira said. “And Dr. Milo was a genius. His theories on the nature of time and matter were causing every physicist to doubt everything that had been taught.” Tears formed in her eyes again. “I wish he had lived, so that he could discuss his theories with your physics experts.”

“Doubtless we would have learned a great deal,” Hartley said. He didn’t sound at all sincere, and Zira winced.

“I want to return to that ship,” Yancey said. “Is it possible that this Milo knew Colonel Taylor and didn’t tell you about it?”

Cornelius shrugged. “I suppose it is possible, but very unlikely. Senator, all we can tell you is that we found the capsule, empty; Dr. Milo studied it and the books and papers aboard it; and eventually he caused it to fly.”

“And why did he pick the two of you to go with him?” Yancey demanded.

“We were willing to go,” Zira answered quickly. “Not everyone believed in Milo—not enough to risk their lives with him! No ape had ever flown, not within our memory! When Dr. Milo said the ship would fly, no one else would believe him.”

“And why did you?” Lewis Dixon asked.

“Because, as an historian, I knew that humans had once had flying machines,” Cornelius answered smoothly. “So I knew such things were possible. Even so, we had our doubts about Dr. Milo’s theories.” He didn’t say anything else, but Lewis knew he was thinking about talks he must have had with Taylor.

“Are you satisfied, Senator?” Hartley asked.

“No, sir, I am
not
satisfied,” Yancey answered. “But I reckon I’ve got all the information I’m going to get on the subject. I don’t like it, Dr. Hartley. I don’t like it at all. Three officers of the United States Air Force took off in that space capsule. A year later that same capsule comes back, and nobody knows what happened to our troops. Now I’m just old-fashioned enough to think this republic exists to defend its citizens, Dr. Hartley, and if there’s any chance those men are alive somewhere we ought to go get them!”

“Colonel Taylor’s ship was not the only one that vanished,” Victor Hasslein said. “Tell us, Cornelius, did the other ship arrive in your, uh, time, as well?”

“Not so far as I know,” Cornelius said quickly. “We found only the one ship.”

He’s getting nervous, Lewis Dixon thought. So is Zira. Old Senator Yancey talks with a mouth full of corn pone, but he’s no fool, and Hasslein is like a snake after a bird. They’re not going to let go of this.

“And yet,” Hasslein said, “your Dr. Milo, genius that he was, was able to deduce what Taylor’s ship was for and how it worked, convince himself that it would still work, and persuade you to risk your lives on it. All this on the basis of one ship and no crewmen. Tell me, Mister Cornelius, does this sound reasonable to you? If I told you that one of your friends had done something like that, would you believe it?”

“I would,” Zira snapped. “My husband has told you that he was an historian. He knew that humans had flying machines. He had told Dr. Milo about them. And once Milo had examined the ship, he said it was obvious what it was for.”

“Obvious,” Hasslein said. He shifted papers and pointed to several passages.

“Interesting,” Dr. Hartley muttered. He looked up. “Tell me, sir, were you actually startled by the light in the refrigerator?”

“What?” Cornelius half stood at his seat in indignation. “I suppose you were spying on us?” He looked at Stephanie and Lewis.

“We only reported what we saw,” Stevie said. “You knew we would—”

Cornelius’s lips were tightly drawn against his teeth. “I had not known you would report such trivia. Yes, sir, I was startled by the light in the re-frig-er-a-tor.” He pronounced the new word carefully.

“And why was that? Because you had no electricity at all?” Hartley said.

Cornelius shook his head. “We were not
that
primitive, sir. We were familiar with the concept of electricity. It was not widely used, and most generators were hand or animal driven. Certainly we did not use it for the little light in the refrigerator. We did not have energy to waste on such things.”

“And why not?” Cardinal MacPherson asked. “Not why didn’t you waste energy on refrigerator lights; I tend to agree with your assessment of that. I mean why was there so little energy?”

Cornelius shrugged. “Our histories are not that complete, Your Eminence. All I can say is that there were very few sources of energy, and very little technology; and things had, we thought, been that way for a long time. At least a thousand years.”

“Would you say that men had destroyed their great civilizations with war, then?” the Cardinal asked.

“I don’t know, sir,” Cornelius replied. “It is possible.”

“Is it possible
you
destroyed the human civilizations?” The questioner was a new man. Lewis thought for a moment before he realized who he was—Dr. Raymond Wilson, a naturalist specializing in great apes.

“Well, I suppose so,” Cornelius said. “Except—” He looked to Zira.

“Our records showed only that humans
had
civilization,” Zira told them. “Such things weren’t even legends to most apes. I doubt if one ape in a hundred would have believed my husband if he told them that humans once built cities and had flying machines.”

“Did you have legends of apes once having great civilizations?” Wilson asked. “I am asking you directly—is it not possible that wars among apes destroyed the cities and power plants and everything?”

“Apes don’t have wars,” Zira protested. “Apes don’t kill apes.”

“Don’t be silly,” Wilson said.

“Yeah, you had an army, you said so,” Senator Yancey pointed out. “If there wasn’t anybody to fight, why’d you have an army?”

“All right,” Cornelius said. “There were other ape settlements. Sometimes the gorillas would go fight them. But they didn’t have any weapons except rifles, that sort of thing. Nothing like the bombs we had legends about—all human weapons. Atom bomb. Does that word mean anything to you? It was a word we used to frighten children, but we weren’t sure it meant anything.”