“Here’s your wife back, sir,” Tommy Billings said. He wheeled Zira into the suite she had shared with Cornelius. “I know you’ve been worried about her, sir. Here she is, safe and sound.” The orderly helped Zira to her feet, then left them alone.
“Three days,” Cornelius said. “I’ve been nearly out of my mind!”
“Didn’t they tell you I was all right?” Zira asked.
“Of course they said so,” he answered. “But after what they did I wouldn’t believe anything they said. Savages! Barbarians! Jabbing needles into a pregnant woman! Even gorillas wouldn’t think of that.”
“Yes, dear.” She moved closer to him. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“O Lord, yes.” He took her in his arms, then led her to a chair. “You shouldn’t be standing. Sorry the furniture’s so—” he shrugged, “functional.” He gestured at the plain room with its government-issued equipment.
“It’s all right,” Zira said. She took a seat and watched as Cornelius paced around the room.
“Savages,” Cornelius repeated.
“I’ve done as much to humans as they did to me,” Zira said. “And more. Much worse things.” She shuddered. “If we’d only known—you must remember, Colonel Taylor thought we were savages. At first.”
Cornelius looked frantically around the room. “They’re probably listening to us,” he said.
“So what? They know about Taylor.”
“They made you tell about him, too?”
“They made me tell about everything, Cornelius. We no longer have anything to hide.”
“Brutes!”
“And may I tell you something? I’m glad, Cornelius. I’m glad because now there’s nothing to lie about. I hated that. We can’t live with lies.”
“If we live at all,” Cornelius muttered. “They may not let us live, you know.”
“That’s nonsense.” She rubbed her swollen belly. “It is nonsense, isn’t it? They aren’t really savages…”
“I don’t know.” He took her hand and held it to his cheek. “How long, now?”
“A week. Not more. Perhaps less.”
“So close. And they treated you that way. Savages. How could they do that?”
“Cornelius you didn’t really mean it, did you? They won’t—they wouldn’t hurt us? Not now?” She touched her swollen abdomen again. “They wouldn’t—oh!” A key rattled in the lock. Zira looked fearfully at the door.
It opened, slowly, to admit Tommy Billings. “Chow time,” he said. He carried a tray with soup, juice, and sliced fruit. “Time to eat up.”
“Bah,” Cornelius said. “Get out.”
“Aw, that’s no way to talk.”
“I’m not hungry, either,” Zira said.
“Well, maybe you aren’t, Ma’am, but maybe someone else who can’t talk yet is. Come on, at least drink your juice. You need the vitamins. And the soup. You ought to eat, if only for the sake of the little monkey inside you.”
“Damn you!” Cornelius shouted. He seized the tray and shoved it in Tommy’s face.
“Here, now!” Tommy shouted. His arms flailed wildly, as the hot soup blinded him and he struggled to get his balance. “Here, what are you doing?”
“Damn you, damn you, DAMN YOU!” Cornelius shouted again. He took the tray and struck at Tommy’s head.
“But what did I do?” Tommy wailed. He staggered forward, and his foot slipped in the spilled soup and juice on the floor. He toppled forward and struck his head against the table; then he was very still.
“Is—is he all right?” Zira asked.
“Of course he’s all right,” Cornelius snapped. “You know how thick human skulls are. Serves him right. Nobody makes a fool of my Wife.”
“He’s not moving.”
“He’s unconscious. Let’s get out of here.”
“But—Cornelius! Shouldn’t we call for a—”
“We call for nobody and nothing. We leave. We’re intelligent beings; it’s about time we showed some intelligence instead of waiting around to see what these savages will do with us. Let’s go.”
The hall was empty. Cornelius led Zira to its end, and peered out the glass in the door. There were Marines outside.
“Guards out there,” he whispered. “Probably all around the place.”
“Then how do we get out?” Zira demanded. “Cornelius, I think we ought to go back and—”
“No.” He looked around the low building, then went into one of the empty offices, where he examined the ceiling. He looked especially at the ceiling of the closet in the office, then led Zira into another office, where he did the same thing. “Aha,” he said. He pointed to the closet ceiling. “I knew there had to be a way up in this building. There’s an attic up there, and I’ll bet we can find a way onto the roof.”
“And what does that do for us?” Zira asked coldly.
“Humans can’t climb,” Cornelius said. “They don’t think of looking up when they guard a place. I know—I’ve been watching them while I nearly went out of my mind worrying about you. And you can climb better in your present condition than humans can in the peak of health.”
He swarmed up the closet shelves and opened the trap door, then, once up, reached down to help Zira. They were in a dusty attic, and at its end they found a ventilator. Cornelius cautiously removed it, and looked out onto the roof. “Now be very quiet,” he whispered. “There are guards below. But notice, they never look at that tree over there—and we can just reach it from up here. Once we’re out on the roof, don’t talk and don’t stop. Just make for the tree and get down on the far side of it. I’ll be right behind you.”
“All right. I—hope everything will be all right.”
“So do I,” he whispered. “I love you.”
“And I love you.” She climbed out onto the roof.
* * *
Lewis glared angrily at Victor Hasslein. The scientist’s pale eyes glared back and Lewis found it difficult to keep from reaching across the desk and smashing Hasslein in the face. “You could give them a few days,” Lewis said.
“The instructions said immediately,” Hasslein told him. “Immediately does not mean in a few days. Damn it, Dr. Dixon, if something unpleasant must be done, putting it off makes it neither easier nor less unpleasant.”
“So you admit this is unpleasant.”
“Unpleasant?” Hasslein said. “It’s a tragedy! Dixon, do you think I enjoy this? Do you?”
“Yes, I rather think you do,” Lewis said.
“How wrong you are,” Hasslein said. “Sit down, Dr. Dixon. You may as well. I doubt that either of us will convince the other of anything, but you can be comfortable while we argue. When the argument is finished—I don’t suppose you would care to perform the operation yourself?”
“Jesus Christ, Hasslein! I won’t be a part of your monstrous—”
“You don’t have to, Dr. Dixon. I merely suggested it in case you loved them enough to want to be sure it was done as painlessly and efficiently, and as safely, as possible. I see that you do not.”
“That’s hardly fair,” Lewis said. He sat heavily in the padded chair across from Hasslein. “Got another of those cigarettes?”
“Certainly.” Hasslein passed the pack across the desk. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
“I haven’t, for five years. It seems like the thing to do tonight.”
“You are very concerned, and it is fitting,” Hasslein said. “Have you thought that I am also concerned? Consider, Dixon. I am sacrificing what may be one of the most important discoveries in history. Talking animals—intelligent, nonhuman creatures, who are aware and conscious, and who breed true. Marvelous. And I am as uncomfortably aware as you that I have no philosophical grounds for thinking myself any better than they are.”
“But—Dr. Hasslein, if you believe that, why are you doing this?”
“Because if I am right, the human race will be sacrificed if we preserve these animals. If I am wrong, then we have sacrificed only two individuals. Charming. Innocent. But only two.”
“Two? The orders said nothing about the parents. Only the unborn child. You want the parents dead as well, don’t you, Hasslein? Damn it, answer me!”
Hasslein shrugged. “I would be more comfortable if they were all dead. Yes. But the orders are precise, and I will carry them out to the letter. That is why I asked if you wish to perform the operations—so that you can be certain that no more is to be done than we have been ordered to do. I would not care to be accused of killing the adults if—if anything goes wrong.”
“What could go wrong?” Lewis demanded. “There better not be anything. If you murder those chimpanzees, you’ll answer for it.”
“How you misunderstand me,” Hasslein said. “I carry out my duties, Dr. Dixon. I think we are taking sufficient measures to safeguard the human race. I only want to see them accomplished, and until the job is done, I will worry. We are attempting to change the future; and although I believe in theory we can do that, I confess some doubts. Have another cigarette?”
“No, thank you—what’s that?”
There was a disturbance outside in the hall. “It sounds as if someone is shouting,” Dr. Hasslein said. “Come, let us go see what it is…”
* * *
Cornelius looked back at the chain-link fence of Camp Pendleton. “I think that is the last of them, my dear,” he said. “We are outside the camp entirely now, if my memory is correct.”
“But what will we do?” Zira asked. They stumbled along in the light of a quarter moon. The narrow road seemed eerie, and they heard rustlings in the chaparral and scrub oak of the fields around them.
“We’ll have to find clothing,” Cornelius said. “Hats. Enough clothes to disguise ourselves as humans.”
“I don’t think we can do that—oh. Uh!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Calmly, Cornelius. Calmly. Now. Are you calm?”
“Yes—”
“Good. I think my labor has started.”
“You what?”
“It must have been the exertion of climbing. I wonder what it was like for primitive apes, when they had to climb trees all the time, right up to the time—”
“But—but—we have to do something!” Cornelius protested. “I’ll have to go back for help!”
“Nonsense. We had children for thousands of years without help. I’ll manage. And I do have you.”
“But—”
“We had better get off the road, though,” Zira said. “Come on.” She took his hand and led him down the embankment and into the chaparral. “There’s a road on the other side.”
“Same road,” Cornelius said. “It makes a big U here to get up the side of the bluff. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Of course—oh!”
“Again? We’d better—” he broke off, as there was a thunder of wings. A California quail took to the air from beneath their feet.
“Like a machine gun,” Zira said. “Will they come looking for us? With their army?”
“Possibly. You’d better get some rest. Only—if you can still walk—”
“Of course I can still walk. I’m a perfectly healthy female chimpanzee.”
“Then I would like to get further away while we can—” he stopped to listen.
“What do you hear?” Zira asked.
There was the faint wail of a siren behind them. Cornelius turned back to his wife. “Nothing. Just another bird.” He took her hand and led her down the embankment.