Galen jumped up from his bunk in alarm, but slumped against the wall with a sigh when he saw who was entering his cell. "If I don't die in the main square, it will be because you gave me a heart attack before," he greeted Dolan.
The other ape didn't smile. "I'm sorry to have frightened you," he said absently, "but you're safe for the time being. Aken will first kill the humans before he..." He sank down on the bunk, which creaked ominously.
"I really tried to talk him out of it," he continued. "But he wouldn't listen to me. This whole business with the HLF has gotten out of hand, and he felt he had to send a signal." He met Galen's gaze. "They had sent another list, threatening to kill Lora if he didn't meet their demands for food and weapons in the next two days; that's when Aken decided to go through with the executions."
Galen slowly sat down beside him. "It seems that the HLF is doing everything in their power to escalate this conflict, too."
"They will kill Lora," Dolan repeated in a quavering voice.
Galen put a hand on his shoulder. "Peet won't allow that to happen. He'll bring her safely home, Dolan. I trust him completely."
Dolan clenched his fists in his lap. "How can you be so sure? He's a human..."
Galen studied his face for a moment. "Because he suffered so that I could survive, when nobody was there who could have forced him to. He did it because he felt a friendship towards me. He's a free human, Dolan, and he does this out of his own free will."
"Well, I suppose he feels friendship towards the other human, at least," Dolan murmured. "But there are no free humans, Yuma - they have no legal status at all, you couldn't free them if you wanted to. There's no concept for such a thing in the law."
"Laws are ape-made," Galen pointed out. "They can be changed, if perception of what is just changes."
Dolan snorted. "That is a dangerous thing to say - or even to think. It's heresy. Everyone knows that the law was received as a spiritual revelation by the Lawgiver, and any change to it presumes to be somehow more evolved than him." He shot Galen a meaningful look.
Quoting official doctrine now could mean that Dolan thought they had listeners, or that he had decided that his dabbling in the resistance had become too dangerous and that he wanted to return to the orthodox fold - maybe he thought it would move Aken to pursue the rescue of his niece more vigorously. Or...
Galen smiled innocently. "I see you found my book interesting."
"I have no idea why you'd say such a thing," Dolan murmured.
Well, maybe that was even true; there was no reason to assume that a human rights activist would automatically be interested in suppressed facts about simian history, no more than an Equal Opportunities activist would be moved by human plight. Dissenters' groups and secret societies had been mushrooming in every province in the last fifty years; Galen would've found it hilarious that their competitiveness and mutual distrust helped to keep each other in check much more thoroughly than even Zaius' secret police was able to, if he hadn't been caught up in a dissenters' group himself... even if that group currently consisted only of him.
Well, if he wanted to get out of here alive, he just had to assume that Dolan had read the book, and proceed from there.
"Ah, forgive me if I presumed too much," he said with the same faked innocence. "It was in the way you stressed the 'everybody knows'..."
"I wouldn't be caught dead reading a heretic book," Dolan said in the same low voice, "But if I'd read it, I'd be shocked at the discrepancies between the official version of the rise of apekind and the one I'd have found inside its pages..."
"Yes, I can imagine you would be," Galen murmured. "I know I was. In fact, I was so beside myself that I walked out of the council house without even realizing that I had tucked that book under my robes."
Dolan chuckled, then coughed to mask the sound. "Would you say you were gripped by a higher understanding and guided by an irresistible force?"
"That is a most apt description," Galen agreed. "I'm glad the higher wisdom has found a way to stay out of governmental confines again."
Dolan cleared his throat. "What did you have in mind with it, if you hadn't run into Aken's men?"
"Well, I'm still optimistic that we'll part on friendly terms," Galen began. He ignored Dolan's sad chuckle and continued, "but in case that we don't, I'd still hope that the truth will prevail. We cannot hope to build a lasting civilisation on a foundation of lies."
"Distributing copies of that book would be a very subversive thing to do," Dolan mused, not looking at him.
"It would be an exceptionally dangerous thing to do," Galen pointed out.
Dolan shrugged. "No more dangerous than forwarding money and information to people claiming to fight for a better world. But perhaps more rewarding." He looked at Galen from the corner of his eyes. "You are willing to take that risk."
"I don't have a family to suffer for my sins." He had broken off all contact to his parents, which was something that Dolan couldn't do with his wife and daughter - they depended on him.
"They are fully on my side. And yes - my own child had been caught up in the middle of it. But it is too late now to pull back. The tiles are being arranged on the board as we speak, and once they start falling, nobody will be able to stop the avalanche anymore. We need to make sure that they are arranged in the right way before it's too late."
He rose. "Don't worry about your book, Yuma - you know what they say about the truth: once the flame has jumped to your roof, the whole town will be on fire shortly."
"That's what they say about gossip," Galen said mildly.
Dolan smiled, a bit embarrassed. "Well, I found it fitting for any kind of information that someone doesn't want to be known..."
"And you're right, of course. I can't thank you enough, Dolan. Now let's just hope that Peet will return in time, and none of this will become necessary."
The murmuring of the crowd had swollen steadily in volume, as more humans were herded towards the main square. Aken had carted half of his prefecture to the execution site, at least from the human side of it. The apes were there of their own choice, Virdon assumed - they didn't look half as frightened or hate-filled as the humans. For the humans, attendance was obligatory; the prefect wanted to make sure that his message reached every human, including the HLF's informants. Especially them.
Virdon had an excellent view of the execution platform, which probably wasn't a coincidence. By the natural order of ape society, he would be next, because Aken would reserve the most painful loss for Gres - a fellow ape - for the end. That was a serious miscalculation on Aken's side - naturally, since the prefect believed them all to be members of Gres' organization.
From Aken's point of view, Gres would lose three of his fighters, including an ape, if he didn't return Lora. In reality, Gres would lose one of his fighters, two strangers he didn't care for at all (one of whom would still serve to incite hatred against Aken in the human population by his sacrifice), but win Burke and Zana in exchange. All while still keeping Lora.
By now, Virdon was fearing for the girl's life - a man who was ruthless enough to sacrifice the lives of three hostages for a tactical advantage wouldn't stop at killing an innocent girl if that meant he could strike a killing blow against the prefect. Lora's death would have the simian part of the population clamoring for Aken's head. He'd be forced to deliver a major victory against the rebels to keep his position. Like a campaign against the rebels' headquarters...
A sharp crack tore him out of his vision of fire, blood, and screaming human children. It reverberated from the walls of the surrounding buildings like a gunshot. Virdon craned his neck to see where it was coming from.
A gorilla was walking towards the execution platform, cracking two rods together in a steady rhythm; with each crack, the murmur was dying down until a deadly silence had descended upon the square. He was followed by two chimpanzee soldiers with Boone between them, his hands tied behind his back. The crowd parted, giving them a wide berth.
Another crack sounded, sharp like a whip, and Virdon winced.
They had reached the platform when the prisoner's legs collapsed under him at the foot of the stairs. Virdon's mouth went dry; he couldn't tear his eyes away from the drama below. He remembered how Boone had gone back to sleep, soothed by the absolute certainty that his leader would come and save him.
The chimpanzees hoisted him up under the arms and dragged him up the stairs and towards a massive block of wood. Its top was hollowed - to fit a head, human or simian. The crowd stirred, shifted, a nervous beast. Murmurs rippled through it like a breeze over the lake, chopping the waters.
The soldiers walked their prisoner to the block and forced him to kneel. One of them pressed his head into the hollow. The murmurs grew louder, a low, angry hum, and the soldiers surrounding the square took a step forward and raised their weapons as one man.
The crowd hushed, but the silence was thick with tension.
"Oh my god," Virdon whispered.
The executioner had stepped forward and lifted...
... not a sword. A club.
Virdon hadn't expected a firing squad, but... but this?
The gorilla bent back a little further to build up momentum...
Don't look, don't look
"Lord, have mercy on this man's soul," Virdon said hastily.
The club came down.
"... grant... grant him your everlasting peace, Amen," he had to raise his voice, so he wouldn't hear the sound of wood connecting with... connecting with...
The crowd cried out, once.
Virdon leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
"Have mercy on us all."