Текст книги "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes "

Автор книги: John Jakes

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

FOURTEEN

The silence stretched on for thirty seconds, a minute . . . Then a floor-level door opened. A thin attendant reentered, grumbling aloud to show his dislike of the assignment he’d been handed. With obvious distaste, he approached the padded table.

He wiped his fingers on his trousers, then reached down to loosen the electrodes. When he had freed them from Caesar’s temples, he pulled the U-clamp from beneath the hairy head and dropped it to the floor, next to the ape’s green uniform. Moving around the table, the attendant unbuckled and released the straps one by one.

Finishing the last one, at Caesar’s right arm, he started to step back. Suddenly two hairy hands fastened on his throat.

The attendant shrieked but no sound came. Like some apparition, the chimpanzee rose from the waist, his eyes huge, murderous. The attendant clawed frantically at the constricting hands.

Still holding tight, the chimpanzee swung both legs off the table. He used the right one to kick the attendant’s genitals. The man’s body went limp. Breathing loudly, Caesar let go. As the man fell, Caesar’s fist pounded his belly. The attendant reeled, choking. Caesar struck him twice on the back of the neck. The attendant crumpled. Caesar hoisted him onto the table. The dazed man seemed unaware of Caesar slipping the U-clamp over his temples.

Caesar darted to the console, scrutinized it a moment. Then he threw the switch to the on position.

With a little frown of annoyance, he observed that there was no reaction from the semiconscious man. Mr. MacDonald had done his work well, permitting Caesar to feign the agonies of electrocution at the proper moment. But the current had not been restored.

Caesar returned to the table, spotting his green uniform discarded by the pedestal. They must have stripped it from him before clothing him in the hospital gown.

The attendant was struggling to rise on his elbows. He turned his head, saw Caesar watching—and opened his mouth to scream. Caesar delivered a massive blow to the man’s neck. The man reeled backward and sprawled unconscious on the polished floor.

Caesar snatched up his green trousers, pulled them on. He donned his jacket, buttoning it up the front with swift, sure movements. His body still ached from the torture on the table. In spite of that, he felt exhilarated as he studied the various doors by which he might leave the amphitheatre. There were two at floor level, plus the one at the top of the amphitheatre. He chose one at floor level. He must look as if he belonged in the Ape Management Center—as if he were on some sort of official errand—for the time it would take him to begin unleashing what was long overdue.

With an almost jaunty air, he started for the chosen door. There was confidence in his bearing; fierce, hateful pride in his eyes. The time of the masters was finished. The time of the slaves had come.

Approximately five minutes after Caesar’s departure, the opposite floor-level door opened. A white-coated man carrying a black case looked in, said cheerfully, “I’m supposed to certify—”

He saw the contorted body on the padded table; recognized the cruel marks of strangulation. His voice dropped to a whisper as he finished the sentence without thinking, “—a death.”

Then the full impact registered. He whirled in the doorway and screamed, “Security!”

Cautiously, Caesar pushed the service door open. Two floors above, a guard lay dead.

Caesar had encountered the guard on the stairway while hurrying down from the ninth to the third floor. Fortunately the guard was slightly built. Otherwise, when he rounded a landing and gaped at the green-uniformed chimpanzee already leaping down on him, the outcome might have been different.

Weak though he was, Caesar was possessed of an almost maniacal determination. He hurled the guard to the landing under the force of his leap, twisted the truncheon from the man’s hand, bashed him three times across the curve of his forehead.

Bone cracked. The man’s brief yell faded instantly.

Caesar struck the man perhaps a dozen more times—long after he was dead. Then he flung the gory truncheon away and hurried on down the concrete stairwell.

He hoped no one had heard the guard’s outcry. Caesar wanted to do as much damage as possible in the time left to him—and he wanted to stretch that time to the maximum. There were only two possible outcomes. He would live and succeed. Or they would destroy him. He would permit no third choice.

Peering through the crack between the service door and the jamb, Caesar saw rows of cages flanking a hall. This should be G-West. He slipped into the hall, looked into the first cage. The penned gorillas reacted by rushing to the bars, grunting and squealing.

Caesar’s commanding gaze and one low bark quieted them. He repeated this at each cage he passed. But even his authority could not silence the gorillas completely. The right knee of Caesar’s green trousers showed a drying bloodstain; the guard’s blood. Perhaps the apes smelled the blood—and something more—for they massed restlessly at the bars of every cage as he raced along the corridor toward the reception area.

The reception area looked deserted except for a white-smocked figure seated at the console. A woman, judging from the hairdo.

The woman rose abruptly, her monitors showing activity in the gorilla cages. Then she heard Caesar coming. She whirled around. He recognized the lantern-jawed Miss Dyke.

She wasted no time slapping the console switch, bending to a mike. “This is training reception. We’ve got some kind of disturbance. An ape on the loo—”

With a vengeful growl, Caesar was on her from behind, slinging her aside as he leaped to the console and reversed a switch, silencing a voice demanding to know what the disturbance was.

Breathing heavily, Caesar threw Miss Dyke’s chair out of the way and began hitting push-buttons on her console. Cage doors along corridor G-West sprang open. Gorillas surged into the hallway, yipping, snarling. Caesar opened every cell on the floor.

Just as he touched the last one, he heard a familiar voice exclaim from O-East: “Miss Dyke, who opened the cage doors?”

Caesar turned, saw a bushy-haired young man racing toward the reception area only steps ahead of maddened gorillas. With dismay, Caesar stared at Morris—who in turn gaped at the bloodied chimpanzee crouching over the console.

“Morris, get out!” Caesar cried.

The young man turned white, realizing Caesar had spoken human language. Caesar did not have time for another warning. Apes pounced on Morris from behind, clawing and pummeling.

Gorillas and chimpanzees from the other corridors crowded into the reception area. Mercifully, Caesar could not see exactly what happened as Morris went down beneath a howling, biting, tearing pack of apes.

The regret in Caesar’s eyes did not linger long. He signaled a group of apes to follow him toward the elevators. At any moment he expected alarms to begin ringing. And much remained to be done.

He was sorry about Morris’s violent death. Morris was one of the few kind ones. He glanced back, saw the apes hurl the broken body against the wall like a toy. The casualties of war, he thought, and darted inside an elevator with his simian comrades. He thumbed the control to start the car down to the communications center.

On the small paved quadrangle devoted to Night Watch Training, the handler and the trainer were having difficulty with a quartet of male orangutans.

Prodding and sharp commands did little to stir the animals to cooperation. The trainer couldn’t get even one to leave the huddled group and begin the lesson. Under the floodlights, the trainer’s face was strained.

“What the hell’s wrong with them tonight?”

Before the handler could answer, headlights swept across the face of the training building. Three limousines were departing toward the city via one of the service roads.

“Damned if I know,” the handler replied, at last. He gestured to the vanishing vehicles. “But the governor’s been inside for the past hour. That’s his party leaving now. Something big must be going on.”

With an uneasy look at the orangutans, the trainer muttered, “You’d almost think they know—”

He started to loop his silver whistle over the head of the nearest orangutan. The ape knocked the whistle from the trainer’s hand and glared.

The elevator door opened. Caesar and his apes rushed into the reception area, some leaping to overcome the startled guards on duty at the fingerprinting barrier, others following Caesar toward the door that led to the communications center beyond.

A guard at the barrier went down under the ape onslaught. One of the operators on duty beyond the glass saw the sudden carnage and leaped to trigger a locking mechanism that bolted the door from inside.

Frustrated, Caesar let go of the handle and glanced around. He signaled two of the apes. They helped him pick up the fingerprinting table, hurl it against the glass. Inside the communications center, a woman screamed and fainted as Caesar clambered through the sawtoothed opening.

Other apes followed, blood-maddened and less careful about the glass. They landed on the floor with slashed feet, their anger that much greater. They fell on the hysterical men and women manning the center, snarling, battering them down . . .

Caesar scanned the banks of lighted equipment. He freed one man from the grip of two chimpanzees, twisted the front of the man’s smock.

“Can you open all the cages from down here?”

The man’s mouth went slack. “Good God! a talking—”

“I said can you open all the cages from down here?”

“Only—only about half of them,” the helpless man gasped.

“Then do it—or you’re dead.”

He released the man, gestured for the gibbering apes to stand back. The man reeled to one of the equipment boards and began throwing switches. Behind him, Caesar’s mouth curled up at the corners. He waved the eager apes forward.

The man swung around, realizing the betrayal. “You—!” The single syllable of accusation became a scream as a mass of hairy bodies swarmed on top of him. The grunts and exclamations of the apes soon muffled his screams.

A siren began to howl, joined by a klaxon. Caesar ran to the dock side of the room, looked through the glass at more apes struggling with handlers. The sirens and klaxons multiplied, adding to the din of animal voices, triumphant in their fury.

With the sirens, Caesar’s brief advantage of surprise was gone. Now the war would begin in earnest.

One of the operators in Fire Conditioning heard a click. It sounded as if the door of the cage-wall bisecting the room had unlocked. He ran forward to check, pulled—and to his horror, the door opened.

Three female chimpanzees grouped at the rear lunged forward en masse. They bore the operator to the floor on the human side of the bars as the second operator fled.

Eyes glinting, one of the chimps yipped commands. The others hoisted the dazed operator between them while the first chimp surveyed the console. Finally, she poked a control.

With a whoosh-and-roar, the horizontal column of fire jetted from the wall aperture. The chimp at the console signaled, and the other two pitched the writhing attendant directly into the blast of flame. Howling, he hit the floor, all his clothing afire. His hair blazed as he rolled, trying to extinguish the flames devouring him. The bright-eyed chimp at the console continued to scrutinize it, one finger still pressed down to maintain the roaring jet.

The stench of searing human flesh began to fill the oval chamber. The chimpanzee picked up a pen from the console. Experimentally, she wedged it into the switch. She lifted her hand away—and grinned as the column of fire continued to roar.

Chittering delightedly, the chimpanzees ran for the door.

In a dim, hexagonal chamber perched on the roof of the ape management tower, five men hunched over monitors and control boards. Through the smoked glass windows, the floodlit grounds surrounding the center looked peaceful. But the confusion of lights on the boards indicated hell breaking loose.

“This is Master Security,” one man yelled into a mike. “Come in, Reception Communications. I said come—”

He gave up, cursing the garble from the speaker in front of him. He heard glass breaking, apes gibbering, and most frightening of all, humans crying out in pain.

The men in the chamber had already activated sirens and klaxons in response to a sudden influx of alarm signals: the report of a murdered man in No Conditioning on nine; a suddenly aborted request for help from Training Reception on three. Now another cry went up inside the rooftop outpost.

“Where’s the supervisor? I’ve got sensors picking up a fire in Fire Conditioning.”

A shadowy figure shouldered up alongside. “Do they answer?”

“No.”

“Well, I don’t know what the hell’s happening, but we’d better not let all this prime flesh get burned up by accident.” The supervisor slapped a control, swiveled a gooseneck mike up close to his mouth: “Attention all handlers and keepers. Attention all handlers and keepers. This is Master Security. We have a possibility of a serious fire on six, as well as some kind of trouble in reception. We have fifty thousand dollars’ worth of apes in jeopardy if that fire spreads. So get them out of here—repeat, get them out of here, alive. Fire crews, report to six.”

He broke the connection, whipped his head around. “Did the sprinklers kick on?”

“Yes, but the sensors show they’re not doing much good. It’s spreading. There’s enough heat and flame in just one of those conditioning rooms to melt iron—”

“Then I’m not taking any chances.” He grabbed the mike again. “Attention. This is Master Security. We are triggering, repeat, triggering the over-ride to open all the cages in the building. Get those animals out to safety!”

His palm came down hard on the button that opened the remaining cages not yet unlocked from the communications center. Beyond the smoked glass windows, a rosy light was growing.

The supervisor kept his hand on the button longer than necessary, wondering in his confusion whether he had done the right thing—or unleashed some kind of holocaust.

FIFTEEN

In the sumptuously furnished office on the fifth floor, Dr. Chamberlain roused with a groan.

A single lamp on his desk lit the whiskey decanter and glass next to it. After the unnerving session in No Conditioning, the director of the center had retired to his private suite, poured himself three strong shots in a row, sprawled on his leather couch and closed his eyes.

Now a confusion of sounds had jerked him awake. He rubbed his eyes, identifying sirens and klaxons—the harbingers of real trouble at the Center.

Still less than sober, he staggered toward the office wall. He definitely smelled smoke . . .

Chamberlain began throwing switches under monitors set into the wall. One by one they lit, casting pale highlights on his strained face as he stared in absolute disbelief.

The below-ground communications center was a shambles; wreckage, fallen bodies everywhere.

Berserk apes poured through the corridors. One screen showed the apes dodging past doorways filled with flames.

But on other monitors he saw keepers and handlers actually urging apes from their cages. What was happening?

He turned up a couple of the audio controls, heard a dreadful din. Screaming. Gibbering. The crackle of fire. The crash of furniture. Monitor after monitor displayed unbelievable images.

A handler was trying to shackle the right wrist of a just-released orangutan. The ape suddenly raised his arm and brought the free end of the shackle whipping down to smash the handler’s face.

In the midst of blowing smoke, a keeper was desperately trying to subdue a chimp by injecting him with a hypodermic. The chimp twisted the keeper’s arm brutally. The hypodermic dropped into the chimp’s other hand. He rammed it needle-first into the keeper’s stomach.

On the first floor near the main lobby, a squad of security guards confronted a mob of apes that spilled from an elevator. One of the squad members dropped to his knee, aimed a tranquilizing gun at the nearest ape. He fired. The ape slumped. Other tranquilizing guns were leveled—but a chimpanzee sprang, seized the nearest squad member, and used him as a screen at the last second. The man took the deadening, dart in one arm sagging . . .

“Rebellion!” Chamberlain breathed. “Then in Christ’s name—” his glance flashed to monitors showing handlers still busy urging boisterous apes from their cages “—why are they letting out the rest?”

Chamberlain ran for the door. He recoiled at the smoke-filled hallway. The sirens and klaxons created almost unbearable noise. Covering his nose, he dashed for his personal elevator, concealed behind a plain, locked door at the end of the corridor. He did not know what was going on, but he intended to save himself at all costs; seek sanctuary via his limousine in the subbasement garage. Whatever the outcome of this inexplicable nightmare, he would be held responsible by Governor Breck. But he would face that lesser risk in preference to being incinerated.

He fumbled his key into the lock of the plain door. The key slipped, fell to the floor. With a moan, Dr. Chamberlain dropped to his knees. The smoke stung his eyes, he couldn’t find the key . . .!

While he was still scrambling for it, four gorillas appeared from the white billows, seized him and tore him to pieces.

The two-story command tower marked the farthest limit of the center’s grounds. From inside, the Perimeter Watch Commander stared at an almost incomprehensible sight.

The middle three or four floors of the central tower showed flames at every ruptured window. In the wash of sweeping searchlights automatically triggered by the alarm sirens, a mass of apes could be seen charging up the ramp from the underground reception area.

“Get through to the tower—Chamberlain—someone, goddam it!” the commander yelled.

Flipping switches on consoles nearby, his assistant cried back, “I’m trying. Nobody answers. Even Master Security seems to have been abandoned.”

Outside, on the tower’s railed balcony, three guards with tranquilizing rifles peered at the incredible spectacle. The commander kept issuing rapid orders. His assistant began summoning patrols from other points on the grounds.

Grabbing field glasses from a drawer, the commander ran outside.

Against the background of the mindless sirens and klaxons, a roar was rising in the night. It came from the seething mass of apes at ground level near the tower. Half-shackled apes. Burned apes. Bleeding apes—even some animals dragging handlers or keepers—human hostages! Gaping, the commander lowered the field glasses.

What looked to be virtually the entire ape population of the tower was breaking loose!

They milled at the head of the ramp from underground, waving shackles, bellowing, leaping up and down as the flashing searchlights swept back and forth. For a moment, the confusion continued. Then a segment of the ape mob broke away, its destination instantly apparent.

“My God, they’re heading this way!”

“They’re panicking, Commander,” said one of the men with a tranquilizing rifle.

The commander almost agreed—until he saw the tangle of apes rapidly becoming a ragged procession. Three and four abreast, they moved in the direction of the tower.

“Like hell they’re panicking,” the commander breathed. “They’re organized.”

He assumed his tower was the target of the marching apes. He ordered the guards to begin firing. As the searchlights scythed, the rifles went chuff. An ape dropped. Another. The rest kept coming.

The commander’s legs started to shake when he saw that the rebellious apes were not marching leaderless. In front of them, dodging the tranquilizing charges, was a large chimpanzee in a bloodstained green uniform. He walked upright, like a man.

Incredibly, the apes did not bother with the perimeter tower. They surged by it on both sides, the forefront of the column quickly gone into the darkness. From that darkness rose a savage, howling chorus of ape voices that blended into one vast bay of hate.

The shaken commander dashed back inside the tower.

“Send a priority alert! Those damn animals are heading for the city!”

Out in the darkness, the baying grew louder. The last of the long column of apes bypassed the tower, vanishing in pursuit of the one who led them.

Caesar led his band of gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans past the perimeter watch tower and on across the rolling parklands shrouded in darkness. The baying and gibbering of the animals excited him, as did the success of the escape.

Many apes had been left behind, of course—dead or injured, the luckless victims of battles with handlers, keepers, or guards who had realized, finally, what was happening; even though they didn’t know why it was happening. But thanks to a combination of swift action and human error, Caesar had managed to rally enough apes to form the nucleus of a small effective army, an army whose passage was announced by that incessant bloodthirsty howling.

As he tramped ahead of the rest, Caesar planned strategy. He knew that the unfamiliarity of trying to deal with an organized ape force would work against the humans. Still, that advantage could be offset by the superior numbers and armament of police and other paramilitary forces that could be mustered. Warnings were certainly being relayed to Governor Breck by now. Therefore . . .

His decision made, Caesar raised a hand, calling a halt to the march.

Around him lay dark, open grasslands. Caesar had deliberately chosen a route that would avoid the vehicular highways. A glow on the horizon showed the way to the city. It was toward this glow he pointed, as he squatted down and issued instructions to half a dozen apes chosen from the milling ranks.

He selected the six because they were unwounded and looked strong. His instructions would send them racing ahead, to infiltrate the city as best they could. Even if only one or two got through, it might be enough.

Caesar’s orders were explicit. The six were responsible for spreading the message that the hour of the rising had come.

A few moments after the six had gone, Caesar raised his hand and started the little army marching again. By his gait and bearing he tried to inspire them; to make them believe that he, personally, harbored no fear. His chin was high as he strode over grassy hillocks, the ovals of his eyes reflecting the steadily brightening glow of the city.

In the dim Command Post, there was frantic activity—and very little talking.

Governor Breck and his key assistants, including MacDonald, had been summoned to the Command Post not fifteen minutes after their arrival back in the city.

“Emergency curfew to go into effect immediately. Clear the streets,” Breck ordered.

One assistant broke from the group, ran to the far side of the post, pushed a communications operator aside, took the mike personally as Breck continued, “Order full mobilization of all security forces—police, militia, and reserve defense units.”

Another assistant nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“And cordon off every entrance to the city.”

Again the nod. “Are control methods to include the use of tear gas and sedation darts?”

Breck’s eyes moved briefly to MacDonald, standing silent at the rear of the group. The governor’s glance was almost accusing.

Then he snapped his attention back to the man who’d asked the question. “Yes, and there will be one additional control method,” he said. “If necessary, shoot to kill.”

All around the huge shopping plaza, many of the overhead lights were going out. Shop windows darkened too, as their owners hastily locked the doors and hurried away after the few pedestrians scattering for the escalators and walkways. The unseen loudspeaker repeated its strident announcement of curfew—as a panting, unclothed ape slipped furtively along a wall, darted down a passageway and into the rearmost of three washrooms.

The echo of the curfew announcement boomed across the virtually empty plaza. The door of the ape washroom opened again. The naked gorilla slipped out and melted into the darkness along the fronts of the emptied shops. On the paving stones, bloody footprints glistened.

In a narrow thoroughfare just off Civic Center Plaza, there was restless movement near the mouth of another washroom passage. Stretching from the door of the washroom almost to the street, a chain of apes passed containers forward and stacked them. The apes grunted softly, joyfully as they worked. The noises mingled with the sound of the sloshing kerosene.

Coming out of the rear cubicle dragging the refuse container, the elderly female chimpanzee abandoned her servile role of cleaning attendant for a more prideful one. Under the single dim fixture, she removed the container’s lid, began to distribute weapons to the excited, jostling apes packing the place wall to wall.

Knives and butcher’s carvers went to the orangutans and chimps. Gorillas received revolvers. When she tried to hand a steak knife to the chimpanzee busboy, he rejected it with a shake of his head, reached past her to claim his special choice of weapons.

The cleaver blade glared as brightly as his eyes.

Surrounded by his staff members, Jason Breck watched a tiny television screen set into the top of his priceless walnut desk. On the screen, a newscaster was saying, “—and a small mixed group of apes scheduled for intensive reconditioning has escaped from their quarters at Ape Management. Until they have been rounded up by the state security police, all citizens are requested to observe the curfew and remain indoors. A further announcement will be made as soon as recapture is—”

Jason Breck massaged his forehead as the announcer stopped, glancing off-screen. Someone handed a flimsy into the picture. The announcer scanned the bulletin, then confronted the camera lens again.

“Ape Management is in the hands of the apes. Many officials are either dead or held hostage. The main band of rioting apes is, at this very moment—”

The newscaster swallowed, as if unable to believe the copy on the flimsy. Breck slammed a palm on the gleaming desk.

“I’ll kill the bastard who leaked that from the Command Post.”

The announcer resumed: “—marching on the city. It’s rumored that the ape mob is under the command of a super intelligent chimpanzee who has—” another hesitation “—acquired the power of speech.”

The governor leaped to his feet. “Get out a retraction, MacDonald. And I mean quick. Tell them to announce that the talking ape has already been apprehended and put to death.”

Looking miserable, MacDonald hurried out of the room. Breck fumed as the announcer kept talking.

“—would suggest that the ape leader may be the child, thought to have been destroyed many years ago, of the two talking chimpanzees named Cornelius and Zira, who came to Earth claiming to be from outer space. If this proves true, the ape leader could constitute a threat to the future of the human race. Further background is coming on a report—” The announcer glanced sideways again. “Oh, we have that report ready now. Stay tuned as we switch to Network News Analysis for videotapes of—”

Jason Breck’s fisted hand hit the television control. The tiny screen blacked out. He whirled, shoved an assistant out of the way, stormed to the rail of the terrace overlooking the plaza. Deserted now. The pavement reflected the glow of distant lights left burning to afford visibility to the police snipers who would be taking up positions on similar terraces and parapets above the main public areas in the central city, as well as along major thoroughfares. Out in the empty boulevards, Breck detected the growl of engines; police and fire vehicles preparing for the coming onslaught.

An assistant interrupted the governor’s concentration. “Sir—” He whirled. “Command Post says the ape force is approaching the city limits near Alpha Boulevard.”

“Open the cordon. Let them through. Then close the cordon—and order all units into immediate action. We can kill them easier on the streets than in the suburbs.”

Over the shoulder of the retreating assistant, he spied MacDonald’s grave face again. Malice twisted the governor’s mouth.

“Mr. MacDonald, you’re privileged to be a witness to something absolutely unprecedented on this planet. Pitched battle between human beings and animals. Do you still think I am unduly suspicious? An alarmist? Mr. MacDonald—?”

The black man had turned away.

Allowing himself a humorless smile, Breck returned to the terrace. He stiffened at a new sound.

Apes.

Grunting, chittering—somewhere down in a dark street that ran off the right-hand side of the plaza.

His scalp crawled.

The sound seemed to intensify, more sibilant, more urgent. Distantly, gunfire crackled.

Kill them, he thought. Kill every last one of them.

He didn’t like that restless stirring in the dark at the edge of the plaza; he didn’t like the idea of apes abroad in this part of the city. No animals from the rioting band could have penetrated this far already . . .

“I’ve changed my mind. I’m not sure it’s safe to watch from here. Tell the Command Post we’re coming back. We’ll use the underground tunnel.”