Conquest of the Planet of the Apes - Jakes John - Страница 15

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The supervisor answered the operator’s inquiring look with an upraised hand. He circled the console, approached the first gorilla, who had partially torn one arm strap with his writhing. Gazing down into the gorilla’s pain-wracked eyes, the supervisor said very softly, “No.” And although the operator’s hand did not touch his switch, the effect was precisely the same. The still recumbent gorilla began to twist and grind his teeth and convulse over the entire length of his body. The supervisor gave a satisfied nod, stepped to the next padded table. Again he said, “No.” The second gorilla howled and shook with spasms . . .

And Caesar was on his feet, eyes flaring with hatred.

Morris grabbed his arm, exclaimed sharply, “No!”

The realization that he’d almost betrayed himself rocked Caesar back to sense. With only a split second of delay, he began trembling. He lowered his head, hunched his shoulders in a less violent duplication of the shock-spasms the apes had demonstrated.

Firmly, Morris pushed Caesar’s shoulder until he was seated again. Caesar let his simulated cringing and shuddering gradually work itself out.

The operator and the supervisor began to unbuckle the straps on the now docile gorillas. The supervisor glanced up to the amphitheater seats.

“We’ll take him next, Morris.”

“I think we can skip it, Doctor Bowen,” Morris answered. “He’s got the message.”

To demonstrate, Morris turned to Caesar and said, “No!”

Once more Caesar simulated the cringing and shuddering of the gorillas. The supervisor observed him for a moment, finally gave a crisp nod.

From one set of doors at floor level, handlers appeared with wheeled carts, to which they transferred the semiconscious gorillas. Morris guided Caesar out to the corridor, suffused now with blood-colored sunset light filtering through a distant oval window.

As Caesar followed the handler toward the elevators, the latter said, “Be thankful you were born a chimp, my friend. I’ve been here four years and that section still makes me sick.”

Caesar wished he dared speak his enraged thoughts. Yes, it sickens you. But you still work for them.

Instead, he accepted another banana with a feigned chitter of pleasure.

When the elevator doors opened, Morris preceded Caesar into one of the oversized cars in which he had been lifted to the No Conditioning amphitheatre. Like the other car, this one had thickly padded walls—and some additional telltale signs to show that, despite its calm, scientific atmosphere, the Ape Management Center was still a place that inflicted hurt on animals fresh from the wild.

One of the wall pad sections was torn, spilling out foam-wool stuffing. And on parts of the rear wall and floor, Caesar saw a dried stain. His sense of smell identified it immediately as ape urine.

A terrible scuffle had occurred in this car today. An animal had been so beaten and terrorized that he’d lost control of his bodily functions . . .

Anger simmering again, Caesar realized that the car had stopped sooner than he expected. A check of the indicator showed the numeral three lighted, not B-1, where his original cage was located.

Puzzled, he followed Morris off the car into a reception area. A lantern-jawed woman occupied a central communications desk, surrounded by push-button consoles, tabbed chart racks, a phone director unit and three miniscreen television sets which continually changed images, the interior of one crowded cell dissolving into a view of another. The three screens were labelled G-West, C-North, and O-East.

“Hello, Morris,” the woman greeted him in a bored way. She hardly gave Caesar a glance.

Morris returned her nod. “Miss Dyke, this chimp’s had conditioning. I thought I might as well check him into a training unit before I left for the night.”

The woman proffered a form, which Morris filled in with check marks, signing his name at the bottom. Only when she picked up the form did the woman register a reaction.

“Five-oh-seven I-for-Indonesia? That shipment only came in last night, for God’s sake. You mean to tell me he—?” She gestured at Caesar incredulous.

Morris nodded with just a tiny smile of pride. “In less than twenty-four hours. Dr. Chamberlain’s told me there have been a few cases of chimpanzees flying through conditioning that quickly before I was ever here. But it’s happened. Always chimpanzees. A rare one has a real instinct for survival and learning.”

“A regular Einstein monkey, huh?” Miss Dyke responded, looking askance at Caesar. “Well, as long as you signed, and accept the responsibility in case the conditioning really didn’t take—”

“It took,” Morris assured her. “I keep telling some of these ham-handed fools on the staff that gentle treatment once in awhile will bring a bright animal along a lot faster.”

Miss Dyke flipped a control beneath the C-North monitor screen, causing the images of individual cells to flip by rapidly. “Don’t let that opinion get circulated too widely or you’ll lose your job, Morris,” she said, stopping at an image of a cell occupied by three large chimpanzees. “Go back and tell the hall keeper unit twenty-one. Have him unlock it manually.” She reset the control and the surveillance scenes resumed their normal pace of dissolving on and off the screen.

Morris led Caesar along a corridor identified as C-North. Caesar became aware of quite a large population of chimpanzees—all male—in lightless cages with floor-to-ceiling bars. The cages occupied both sides of the corridor.

Some of the apes slept. Others plucked aimlessly at their own bodies. Still others indulged in minor horseplay or something a little rougher, as occasional yips and grunts testified. Far down the corridor, the keeper was handing bananas through one set of bars.

“This one’s slotted for twenty-one,” Morris called. “He’ll go into training tomorrow.”

The keeper gestured them to the second cell from the end on the left. The three chimps inside were begging and snarling for food, hands extended through the bars.

The keeper snapped, “No!” The chimps scuttled toward the darkness at the back of the cell. To Morris, the keeper explained, “They all get a little uppity before feeding time.”

He set his hamper on the floor, took out a ring of keys and opened the cage door, but not before he had shouted “No!” again, to insure that the inmates didn’t rush forward toward the opening—and the hamper.

With gentle hands, Morris took hold of Caesar’s shoulders and propelled him inside. Caesar accepted the guidance in a docile way, instantly turning his back on the three ravenous, clamoring chimps. The cage smelled of them. Their noise, after all Caesar had seen and heard today, irritated him. He tried not to show this as he peered through the bars at Morris and the keeper. The latter was quickly relocking the door.

Morris smiled, bent, and plucked a banana from the hamper. “That’s for keeping quiet,” he said, handing the fruit through to Caesar.

At once, Caesar heard a chorus of shrill squeals behind him; then a scramble indicating sudden movement. He spun as the three shrieking chimps converged—then suddenly stopped as if struck by some tangible force.

The only illumination in the cell cage came from the corridor’s ceiling fixtures. The light fell obliquely across Caesar’s unusually refined features, made his eyes glitter with a strange brightness. The breathing of the three chimps grew sibilant. There was no more shrieking.

Careful not to look too human, Caesar took a step forward. One of the chimps practically rocketed to the rear wall and huddled down, forearms protecting his face. The other two backed up more slowly. Caesar knew he had established his authority. That might be vital, in the event the three ever turned on him at one time. Now, he thought quickly, it was up to him to see that the notion never entered their simian minds.

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