Battle for the Planet of the Apes - Gerrold David (полная версия книги TXT) 📗

And Cornelius! Their faces betrayed their realization! Aldo had killed Cornelius!

The rifles wavered.

The gorillas frowned in confusion, puzzling over this terrifying new thought. Apes were better than humans because apes didn’t kill. Apes never killed apes! But Aldo . . .

They looked at their leader, aghast.

One of them stepped out of the line. He pointed and gestured inarticulately. “Aldo . . . Aldo . . .” But he couldn’t, just couldn’t bring himself to utter the deadly words, the ultimate accusation. The thought kept catching in his throat. Behind him, other gorillas began muttering, began pointing and whispering and grunting nervously. “Aldo . . . Aldo . . . Aldo . . .”

Aldo whirled to stare at his troops. “Get back in line!” he shouted. “Back in line!” But his self-confidence was faltering. They ignored him, and he became flustered. He looked from side to side, as if seeking aid—or an exit.

“Aldo has killed an ape child,” Virgil declared loudly. “The branch did not crack. It was cut by Aldo’s sword!”

Around them the apes gasped. Chimpanzees wept. Orangutans barked in angry reaction. All recoiled as if struck.

Aldo snarled at the accusation and the accuser. His expression froze into a hateful glare. His lips curled back in fury. His posture became more savage, more brutal. Deep in his throat he began making a deadly sound. Aldo had become an animal, a total animal. All pretensions of intelligence had fled in his murderous urge to survive and conquer and kill.

All around him, the apes were pointing. Pointing and staring and muttering among themselves. There was no escape.

In the corral the humans were silent and wide eyed. Except for MacDonald, who murmured softly, “Welcome to the human race . . .”

The words touched Caesar’s ears, and he straightened. Yes. Welcome to the human race. Welcome to killing and hatred and war. Welcome.

Around him the muttering and whispering was dying out. All were waiting for him to act. He shook off Lisa’s attempt to hold him back and took a step toward Aldo. “You . . . murdered . . . my . . . son!”

Aldo’s eyes were wary. He was an animal at bay. He began to edge backward, away from Caesar. Caesar kept moving forward. He was unarmed but he didn’t need a weapon, not now. Weapons were for the weak in spirit.

Aldo drew his sword, the same short sword he had used to chop away Cornelius’ branch. He swung the sword around and pointed it at Caesar.

Caesar didn’t pause. He kept moving toward Aldo.

Aldo kept backing away until he could back no more. He held the sword out in front of him.

Watching, Lisa moaned in fear. Behind her, two of the humans, Jake and MacDonald, were wrenching loose a length of chain that had been entwined in the corral fence. MacDonald wrapped it in a ball. “Caesar!” He threw the chain.

Caesar saw it coming. He sidestepped it as it hurtled past, then scooped it up from the ground. He turned back to Aldo. He started swinging the chain to knock Aldo’s sword from his hand.

But at the sight of the heavy metal links, Aldo panicked. He remembered too well the chains that the humans had put on him so many years before. Now they wanted to chain him again! He broke and ran, pushing his way through his gorillas. He ran for the trees.

Caesar broke into a run, too. The apes cleared a path for him to pass, then flowed after him.

Aldo picked a tree and was up it. Seconds later, Caesar followed. Aldo was up there, terrified now, crashing his way through the heavy branches. Caesar paused and listened. Yes, there he was. He scrambled after.

Aldo stopped near the top; the branches bent under his weight. He cast around nervously for an escape. Caesar was coming! The branches creaked precariously, announcing his position.

Caesar’s face appeared suddenly below him, then his hand—the chain was wrapped around it. No! Not the chain! He shifted his position so that he could swing his sword.

Caesar peered upward. The sunlight was glaring, turning the treetop into a weird jumble of shapes and flashes. He squinted, trying to make out Aldo’s form in the glare. Trying to . . .

Wfffftt—thunk! Aldo’s sword bit into a branch only inches from Caesar’s hand.

Without thinking, Caesar swung upward with his length of chain. Aldo leaped to avoid it, but it struck him on the leg. He jumped, but the branch supporting him cracked and gave way.

The crowd below screamed.

But Aldo had managed to grasp a limb of another tree. For a moment he hung there precariously swinging back and forth. Then he swung himself up and moved rapidly across the treetop, leaping across to a third tree.

Caesar followed. Inexorably.

The two apes moved from tree to tree, Aldo fleeing, Caesar pursuing. They moved without words, just an occasional grunt as the air was forced from their lungs by the impact of grabbing or landing on a branch.

They were getting to the end of the grove now. Aldo stopped and turned, jabbing with his sword as Caesar came climbing. He struck and caught Caesar on his side! Then Aldo leaped free as Caesar swung his chain.

Caesar ignored the pain. All he could think of was Aldo—and Cornelius! He kept following. Aldo had moved into the last tree of the grove.

This tree was comparatively isolated. Caesar made his way along the branch of the nearest adjoining tree, trying to figure how he could best make his attack. The branch he was on was a thin one, it began to crack and break, making Caesar’s decision for him. As it fell away, he made a great leap and an arm-wrenching grab.

He was clutching a branch of Aldo’s tree, heaving himself into it, moving in after Aldo. There was no other tree for either of them to move to. Caesar began closing in on Aldo. Aldo clutched his sword and waited.

Caesar paused, listening for the gorilla’s heavy breathing, then moved in. Aldo began swinging his sword, slicing the air, reaching and slashing, trying to kill, to maim, or even to halt the inexorable advance of the murderous Caesar. He was backing along a thick, wide branch, always keeping Caesar at arm’s length—but only with great effort. His sword was getting too heavy. He wished he could drop it, wished he could be free of it. But no, he was a gorilla! The sword made him strong! He kept jabbing and poking and slashing.

Caesar countered with his chain, swinging it through the air, trying to knock the sword from Aldo’s hand, trying to knock Aldo from the branch. He swung again and again.

Aldo backed away. He had reached the end of his branch now—he could go no farther. He raised his sword as if to throw it.

Caesar paused and surveyed the situation, cocking his head and frowning.

The branch creaked and bent. Aldo tensed.

Caesar moved. He brought his chain around.

Aldo struck. He slashed viciously forward, slicing a wicked gash across Caesar’s chest. Caesar toppled backward, grabbing another limb close to the main trunk. But even as he fell, he swung his chain. It wrapped itself around Aldo’s head.

Aldo fell.

The fall seemed to take forever, the body crashing downward through the branches, each impact brutal and graphic, the last one, the most awful of all. Aldo hit the ground with a thump. He lay motionless, his eyes still furious and staring.

Caesar began to climb down. He dropped slowly from branch to branch, the blood leaking from his chest and side. He fell the last twenty feet, landing on top of Aldo’s broad body.

Almost immediately Lisa and Virgil were at Caesar’s side, trying to help him up. He shook them off. He rose to his hands and knees by himself and found himself staring into the sightless eyes of his enemy. At the sight of Aldo’s face a wave of nausea and exhaustion swept over him. He allowed himself to accept Virgil’s help and stood unsteadily, supporting himself on the shoulder of the paunchy little orangutan.