5.
ZIRA AND CORNELIUS
En route from the dissatisfying public display of sentiment at the arena, Zira paused on the threshold of her home to give further vent to her chagrin. Cornelius, dutifully following behind her, allowed her to continue. He had learned a long time ago that in dealing with a female, a male has no recourse but to give her tongue free rein. Cornelius was a very intelligent young chimpanzee, as well as a scientist. He also set great store by Zira’s intellect—and heart.
Zira was still fuming in an undertone as they reached the front door of their habitat.
“If I had any sense of scientific purpose, Cornelius, I shouldn’t be cutting up the healthy heads of humans. I should be dissecting the diseased brains of gorillas to find out what went wrong.”
Cornelius smiled. “And how would you put it right?”
He opened the door for her but she paused, striking herself on the breast. Her cute little face was puckered up in a scowl.
“Wet-nurse their babies on the milk of chimpanzees. The milk of kindness. At least when our child is born, it won’t be breast-fed on bile.”
Cornelius chuckled and pushed her gently into their house. Zira flounced in, still angry, heading for the kitchen. Cornelius took off his shoes, settled himself in an easy chair and groped for his pipe. The interior of their home never failed to fill him with a sense of comfort and well-being. They had wooden table and chairs, framed pictures included the gilt portrait of the two of them on their wedding day. An open archway in the living room led into Zira’s kitchen where she cooked and baked so many fine things. All in all a very domestic hideout for a pair of chimpanzee scientists. Cornelius sighed, thinking about that and what Zira had said, as he sat back in his worn old chair.
“The trouble with us intellectuals, my dear,” he said as he filled his clay pipe, “is that we have responsibility but no power.”
Zira didn’t answer him. She had already put on her white apron, taken out a China bowl and a box of ready-mix, and with a fork was stirring up some sort of batter. He could already smell the ingredients of something.
“I think I’ll make chocolate icing. Do you like chocolate? No—you don’t. Well, I do . . .”
Cornelius frowned. Perhaps she hadn’t heard him. He tried again.
“And if we did take power into our hands, we’d be as bad, or worse, than Them.”
She’d heard him, all right. Mixing furiously, her next words had absolutely nothing to do with chocolate icing.
“I don’t agree. They’re a genetic accident. A mistake of nature. The gorillas are cruel because they’re stupid. All bone and little brain . . .”
“Ssshh!” Cornelius begged. “My dear. I wish you wouldn’t talk like that. Somebody may hear you.”
Zira snorted and Cornelius sighed in despair.
It was at this precise moment that Nova emerged from the tiny curtained alcove to the left of the living room. Behind her, Brent swayed, tall and shadowy in the dimness of the aperture. Nova stood stock-still, her eyes fastened on Zira, hoping for the best.
“Nova!” Zira blurted, as if she had seen a ghost.
Cornelius came up out of his chair, as startled as his wife.
“What are you doing here?”
Knowing the girl could not speak, Zira’s eyes went to the figure of Brent whose face she could not yet identify in the shadows.
“Taylor—” she began, a sound of hope in her voice.
“My name isn’t Taylor,” Brent spoke up. “It’s Brent.” He stepped into the light of the room. But Zira and Cornelius had recoiled, almost as if he had struck them. They were doing a double take of wonder.
“You talked!” Zira gasped, looking around the room as if she expected some sort of trick.
“Impossible,” Cornelius agreed.
Zira stared at Brent. Her tiny eyes marveled. She shook her head, Nova almost forgotten in this fresh miracle.
“In a whole lifetime devoted to the scientific study of humans, I’ve found only one other like you who could talk.”
Brent nodded. “Taylor,” he said. His eyes roved the room, fearful.
“Taylor!” Cornelius echoed. “Is he alive? Have you seen him?”
“Where?” Zira pleaded. “Where? Tell us!”
Brent stared at them, still everlastingly confounded by the image of apes who could speak English as plain as he could. But he was adjusting. If this was lunacy, then so be it. They were all at least on the same wave length. Talking about Taylor—there was something reassuring about that, mad as it was.
“I don’t know where,” he faltered. “I’m trying to find him and the longer I’m here, the less I’m beginning to care.” He held his hand against his damaged shoulder, wincing. Nova hung back, staring at the people who could talk, but somehow looking happy that things were being accomplished. Brent smiled at her, faintly.
“We loved Taylor,” Cornelius said proudly. “He was a fine, a unique specimen.”
Brent reacted to that almost violently. His face flew from Cornelius to Zira and then to Cornelius again.
“And if it had not been for Zira,” Cornelius continued passionately, “he’d be here still—a stuffed specimen, with glass eyes, in the Great Hall of the Zaius Museum. Like his two friends.”
“Like his two friends,” Brent echoed slowly, suddenly realizing the monstrous truth of what had happened to Taylor and the others if all that he had seen and heard was true. “I don’t plan to stay quite that long. Look, can you give us some food, water, and a map, so I know where I’m going.”
Zira nodded, looking at his red-stained shoulder.
“Your arm also needs some care.” Without another word, she went out through the curtained doorway.
“I’ll get the map.” Cornelius walked to a cabinet in one corner, plucked a rolled scroll of paper from it and brought it back to the table where he spread it out for Brent’s examination. Nova hovered at Brent’s shoulder, silent, wide-eyed. Cornelius, his brows beetled in concentration, began to explain the curious red and blue markings on the map. Brent was fascinated.
“Here is our city. And here, to the north, is where Zira and I . . .”
His wife had come back, laden down with a cloth, water pitcher, a bowl, forceps and sticking plaster. As Cornelius continued, Zira deftly began to treat Brent’s shoulder. When she sprinkled the wound with some sort of powder, Brent gasped. The powder stung.
“What’s that damn stuff you’re using?” he barked.
“You wouldn’t know if I told you,” she said placidly. “Just relax. Among other things, I’m a trained vet.”
“Thanks,” Brent apologized. “Go on, go on . . .”
Cornelius indicated the map. “We last saw Taylor with Nova going through the gap between this lake and the sea.” He pointed. Brent saw the spot and nodded. A dot in that hellish wasteland . . .
Zira said, “They were heading deep into the territory we call . . .”
“Yes, yes—I know,” Brent said. “The Forbidden Zone.”
For a moment, there was a pindrop of silence. Then Zira finished dressing Brent’s wound, putting the bandage into place. Her face was expressionless. Only her eyes held a glow.
“Who told you that?” she asked.
“Your glorious leader back there.” Brent jerked his good shoulder in the direction of the arena.
Before Zira could respond, there was a knock on the front door of the house. Everybody stiffened, right where they stood. Then, as the knocking became louder, there was sudden activity. Cornelius jumped for the map on the table, Brent moved back to the curtained alcove, Zira hustled the petrified Nova in the same direction. She drew the curtains and shut them both in, out of sight. Cornelius rolled up the map quickly, taking it back to the cabinet. Zira calmly straightened out her skirt. “Open the door, Cornelius,” she said.