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 Nova 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.