Escape from the Planet of the Apes - Pournelle Jerry (книги онлайн бесплатно .TXT) 📗

“I don’t have to be nice to monkeys,” Bates said. “They won’t tell us anything. Probably don’t know anything.”

“I don’t agree,” Amalfi said. “They’re pretty smart. Aren’t you?” He flashed them a smile. “Now, for instance, we need to know about things like this.” He touched a button on a small console on the table in front of him.

Zira’s voice, somewhat blurred, came from the player: "When we were in space . . . we saw the light. A blinding bright white light, it was horrible. The rim of the world seemed to melt! The whole earth must have been destroyed. Dr. Milo thought it had been. Then there was—I don’t know. Then we were here.”

“Now, that was you talking, wasn’t it?” Amalfi said. “You saw all that?”

“I don’t know if I said that,” Zira said.

“Eh? Why don’t you know?”

“I don’t remember saying it,” Zira told them. “I was drunk. Dr. Hasslein can tell you, I had too much champagne to drink.”

“Yes,” Hasslein said. “That’s right, Mr. Amalfi. She probably didn’t know what she was saying.”

“But we have to check it out,” Amalfi said. “Now, Madame Zira, why would you tell Dr. Hasslein something when you were drunk but hide it from the Commission when you were sober? Were you afraid of us?”

“No. We didn’t hide anything,” Zira insisted. “Nobody ever asked us about that.”

“I see,” Amalfi said. He smiled gently. “See, Larry, I told you they’d cooperate. So. Now we do have to ask you about that, of course. You had a war, and the earth was destroyed . . .”

“But not by us,” Zira insisted. “Chimpanzees had no part in that war or in the destruction. Only the gorillas and the orangutans.”

“Oh, what’s the difference?” Bates said. “You’re all a bunch of monkeys anyway.”

“That will do,” Cornelius said harshly. “I have overlooked your insults before, Mr. Bates, but I will not do so again. Please do not employ the word ‘monkey’ in referring to us. We find it offensive and impertinent.”

“Well, look who’s on his high horse,” Bates said. “For somebody who blew up the world, you’re sure holy and righteous!”

Cornelius sniffed. “As an archeologist and historian, I studied a very great number of ancient records,” he said. “I have concluded that the weapon which probably destroyed Earth was man’s invention. I am almost certain of it, now that I have seen your atomic power plants—you do have real atom bombs.”

“But your kind used them,” Bates sneered.

“Perhaps,” Cornelius said. “But I also know that one reason for man’s decline and fall was your peculiar habit of murdering one another. Man destroys man. Apes do not destroy apes.”

“Crap,” Bates snapped. “You tried to pull that one before. Run the film,” he ordered.

There was a screen on one side of the room. It lit with scenes obviously taken from a blind in an animal game preserve. A group of chimpanzees, both adult and young, played together with young baboons.

Suddenly one of the adult chimpanzees seized an immature baboon and dashed its brains out against a tree. It cracked open the skull and dipped its fingers into the brain case, then licked them off. Other chimpanzees crowded around as the rest of the baboons fled in panic.

They tore the baby baboon apart and ate it. Finally the screen went dark and the lights came on again.

“Well,” Bates demanded. “What’s this crap about being peaceful and vegetarian? Aren’t baboons apes?”

“But we never did anything like that!” Zira protested. “Chimpanzees are pacifists! Only the gorillas wanted the war—”

“Bates, I’m shocked,” Hasslein said smoothly. “Look how that film has upset Zira. Cornelius, Zira, this is not an interracial hassle. We are trying to find out the facts. For example: we can admit the possibility of the decline and fall of mankind, but we would like to know just how it happened—and how apes rose to take man’s place.”

“I see,” Cornelius said.

“As an historian, surely you must have theories,” Hasslein said smoothly.

“Yes,” Cornelius admitted. He settled back in his chair. “So far as we can tell, it began with a plague that affected dogs.”

“And cats,” Zira added.

“And cats. Millions of them died, and there was no antidote. A house that had been infected by the plague could never again have a dog or a cat in it. To bring pets anywhere near that house would be to kill them. And despite the quarantines, the plague spread . . .”

“It must have been horrible,” Zira said. “And when it was over, man had no pets. None at all.”

“An intolerable situation,” Cornelius continued. “Men might kill their brothers, but not their dogs. Since they couldn’t keep dogs and cats, men took primitive apes into their homes.”

“Primitive,” Amalfi said. “Would you explain that, please?”

“They couldn’t talk,” Zira said. “But primitive and dumb as they were, they were still twenty times more intelligent than dogs and cats. And people bred them for intelligence.”

“Precisely,” Cornelius said. “They lived in houses with people. They shared the same foods, and they copied—‘aped,’ if you prefer—their owners’ habits. And after two centuries of living like this, the apes became more than pets. They became servants. They did far more than tricks, they worked for humans.”

“Like sheep dogs?” Amalfi asked.

“Humpf,” Zira said. “Could sheep dogs make beds?”

“Or cook?” Cornelius asked. “Clean house? Go marketing for groceries with lists from their mistresses? Apes worked in factories, and waited on tables in restaurants. They performed all the menial tasks humans insist on having done for them but won’t do themselves.”

“Fascinating,” Hasslein said. “But then what happened?”

“They turned the tables on their owners,” Zira said. Her voice held satisfaction and pride. “They learned they were slaves, and they did something about it!”

Cornelius gently laid his hand on Zira’s. “First, of course, they had to develop personalities of their own. While they were animals, unaware of anything, they did not feel exploited; but after two hundred years of this, they became aware of their identity. Then they learned to be alert to the concept of slavery—and to slavery’s antidote, which is unity and brotherhood. They learned to act together. They learned to refuse.”

“I see,” Hasslein said. “Do go on, Professor Cornelius.” His pale eyes were alert and interested, and he leaned slightly forward across the table.

“At first, they only barked their refusal,” Cornelius said. “But then, one historic day, there came an ape named Aldo who didn’t bark. He spoke. He spoke a word which had been spoken to him, time without number, by humans. He said, ‘No’.”

“You seem proud of Aldo,” Hasslein said.

“Of course,” Zira told them. “His is the most honored name among apes. We are all proud of him.”

“And that’s how it all started,” Hasslein said to himself. “But—what happened to the humans?”

“We don’t know, exactly,” Cornelius said.

“Slaughtered by the apes, maybe?” Bates sneered.

“More likely, by each other,” Zira snapped.

“Roll that film clip. B-3,” Bates ordered.

The screen lit again, to show Cornelius and Zira during the first session with the Presidential Commission of Inquiry. “Where we come from, apes talk and humans are dumb animals,” Cornelius’s image said.

“Those were your words, were they not?” Bates asked.

“Certainly,” Cornelius answered.

“So in your culture, humans are dumb,” Bates continued. “Are they happy?” Cornelius looked away from the interrogator’s cold staring eyes. “I asked you, are they happy?”

There was no answer. “Just what happened to the human culture, Professor Cornelius?” Hasslein asked gently. “Was there a slaughter of humans by apes? Surely you would have records of a triumph like that! You would be proud of it.”

“No, we wouldn’t,” Cornelius said.

“After the revolt, the apes enslaved the humans, didn’t they?” Bates insisted. “For revenge. And eventually exterminated every human with intelligence. Destroyed civilization.”