The war was going well!
There had been an interesting diversion on the way to the cathedral. A bit of sport. For himself and his gorilla squads of highly efficient soldiers.
In the stone plaza outside the church, they had encountered three robed figures hurrying across the square. A huge fat man encased in scarlet robes, an elder-statesman type in brilliant green, and a tall, lean, hooded man. These had been, of course, the fat man, Caspay and the verger. General Ursus had not even bothered to halt them to ask questions. Rather, he had raised one authoritative paw and the machine gunners flanking him had done their specialty. A withering, blasting, raking crossfire of a thousand bullets which had seemed to pluck up the robed figures and send them skittering like puppets along the hard earth until the guns had closed down. General Ursus had never seen, in all his military past, such effectiveness of machine gun fire on mere flesh. The dull, bleak buildings bordering the plaza, with their curious starkness and contrasting moldiness and fresh stone architecture, had shown no signs of life. The streets and the alleys of this tomblike metropolis had been curiously empty.
Save for the three hurrying figures in robes.
General Ursus had not been disposed to take them prisoner to ask them questions. He somehow felt that the imposing edifice of the cathedral held all the answers he might need to know.
In any case, the machine gun exercise had been a necessary tactic for his troops. Lest their fingers grow stale from disuse.
Ursus hardly gave the bullet-riddled, blood-soaked corpses a second look as he trundled up to the mighty double doors at the head of his troops. He felt an imminent end to this war.
Genuine resistance had been virtually nil. These people, whatever they were, were certainly no warriors!
He had waited for Dr. Zaius to join him at this hour of ultimate conquest. Still smarting from the heroics of Zaius on the plain, before the whole of his Grand Army, Ursus was anxious to get some of his own back. And now was the time.
The great doors of the cathedral unhinged, broken open by the force of the ram. General Ursus and his troops piled through the new opening. Dr. Zaius accompanied them.
With nearly three hundred elite gorilla troops behind him, General Ursus stalked into the cathedral proudly. Mightily. The great dim hall lay in gloom. Only the half light of the prie-dieu on the high altar showed any illumination. Ursus moved toward this, his troops and Zaius following. Their feet made gobbling echoes in the gigantic nave.
There was only one man in the cathedral.
Mendez. The Twenty-Sixth.
Dr. Zaius recognized the glasslike, marble-like face.
The altar screens were closed behind Mendez. In his purple robes, Mendez awaited his conquerors.
Ursus and Zaius, flanked by gorilla machine gunners, stalked up the nave to a point midway where Ursus imperiously motioned for a halt. Mendez did not move. His face was impassive in the dim light.
“Arrest that—creature,” Ursus commanded the guards. “And bring it to me.”
The guards moved forward, machine guns leveled, reaching the sanctuary.
Behind the prie-dieu, Mendez pressed the emerald button on the panel board. It glowed green.
The altar screens parted noiselessly. The guards looked up, hesitating. And in the moment of their indecision, Mendez’s powerful voice filled the cathedral, echoing off the vaulted ceiling.
“This is the instrument of my God.”
The first guard recoiled, batting his eyes at his partner.
“He can speak!”
Mendez pressed the second button on the bejeweled panel. The topaz one. It glowed yellow.
General Ursus snorted, angry with the delay. He started forward, snarling, “Your God . . .!”
Spurred by his voice, the guards seized Mendez, attempting to drag him off the high altar. Zaius caught his breath in a gasp of wonderment. And new knowledge.
The Bomb was in view.
Resplendent, frightening, all mighty, its sinister fins and snoutlike nose magnificently awesome. It had begun to rise—very very slowly, in response to the mechanism triggered by the topaz button. And now, as it would have been obvious to Taylor and Brent, the Bomb was poising itself on a mammoth launching pad.
The steel sides of the monster glistened out over the cathedral. Mendez began to raise his own arms in genuflection and homage. General Ursus’ face twisted with sheer rage and hate.
“Your God didn’t save you, did he?” he snarled, motioning to the soldiers. Before Mendez could speak again, the guards has brutally knotted the purple robes about his defenseless throat, and with both of them vising from each side, had strangled him where he stood. It took only two minutes. Mendez flopped like a limp doll when they finally released him, falling to the floor of the high altar. Ursus laughed sardonically at the sight.
Then he snatched a machine gun from one of the guards and aimed it up at the Bomb. Directly at the glistening metallic body of the thing. Dr. Zaius moved quickly, speaking in a furious undertone. “Ursus, you fool! That’s a weapon built by Man . . .”
Ursus spat full in his face.
Zaius was heedless of that. He gestured at the Bomb suspended on the launching pad.
“You can’t shoot it down with a clip of bullets!”
Ursus sneered. He was a simple soldier. The Devil take Zaius and his intellectual claptrap! He tugged back the cocking handle of the machine gun with one black paw. His gimlet eyes were beady with joy.
“It’ll kill us all—” Zaius begged, trying to knock the gun aside. Uysus growled, pushed him aside, leveled the machine gun upward and fired. The cathedral rocked with the sounds of automatic fire. Ursus kept on firing until the machine gun closed down on an empty drum of cartridges. His face was angry again.
The impenetrable armor plating of the Bomb had deflected all the bullets of the bursting gunfire. Ricochets had whined and howled all over the nave. General Ursus flung the machine gun back to its owner. He brushed his paws together. His troops were still waiting, crowded behind him in this enemy cathedral.
“Well, if we can’t shoot it down, we’ll haul it down. Rope and tackle!” he bellowed in a voice used to giving commands and being obeyed. Zaius fell back gratefully. All was not yet lost.
Thirty soldiers came forward, put down their weapons and mounted the high altar, making preparations to do as the General ordered. Thirty apes began to climb up the great golden brackets that supported the Bomb. They climbed agilely, quickly, efficiently.
As only apes can.
General Ursus waited, smiling.
Dr. Zaius could only hope for the best.
At the dark end of the cathedral, behind the massed troops at the edge of the battered double doors, with the diversion of the activity on the high altar aiding their surreptitious entrance, Taylor and Brent crept into view.
Their faces were damp, strained and unearthly.
Their eyes could have belonged to madmen.
Far away in Ape City, the house of Zira and Cornelius had grown unaccountably colder. Cornelius checked the barometer on the kitchen wall. He frowned. Almost perfect for the season—then why was the place so drafty? It wasn’t at all logical.
Zira came in from the living room, her cute nuzzle wrinkling.
“Well?” she asked, hugging her forearms.
Cornelius shrugged. “Doesn’t make sense. Shouldn’t be cold at all. Not for this time of year.”
Zira shuddered. Her tiny eyes sparkled.
“Maybe it’s an omen,” she laughed. “That things aren’t going so well for our glorious ape army.”
“Zira,” Cornelius said wearily.
“Oh, you!” she raged suddenly. “You’ll never do anything about anything, will you?”