"Why are you still here? I told you to go back to the village and take care of Zana." Peet wasn't looking at him; he was staring out at the street, observing the lieutenant who still hovered at the blocked hole.
"I want to see what solution you'll come up with," Galen murmured, and that earned him a sharp glance from the human. He knew he sounded callous, but it was easier to admit curiosity than caring, especially when he wasn't so sure himself why he was still hovering at Peet's shoulder.
Galen remembered how Peet and Alan had worked for Polar, "as if he owned them," as the old farmer had said. They had endured the fate of slaves, with the exception of the beatings, all so that the Gorilla would hide him until his ankle had healed. Galen had told himself that they hadn't done it for his sake, but Zana's, who had never made a secret of her affection for them - a feeling that was obviously returned.
Still - it had been his ankle, not Zana's, and he couldn't help but feel indebted to them. "And I want to help you," he added belatedly, and that earned him another glance, a surprised one this time.
"Okay then," Peet muttered, "I'll let you know as soon as I..." he broke off, his body tensing in silent alert. From the street came the sound of hoofbeats. Two horses.
"How many of those fucking monkeys are there?" Peet hissed.
They were coming from opposite directions, meeting where the lieutenant stood, and exchanging a few words with him, their voices too low to understand what was said. After a moment, they turned their horses and rode off again, perhaps looking for their missing comrades (and good luck finding the one I trapped, Galen thought with a sudden bout of nausea), or the lieutenant's horse that must've run away during the quake.
"That lieutenant doesn't look as if he's going away anytime soon," Galen remarked, "and I've racked my brain, but I still see no way to lift that rock over the entrance. Even an ape isn't strong enough for that."
"No, maybe not," Peet murmured absently. "I have an idea."
"You do?" Galen didn't know whether to be excited or alarmed. "What idea?"
Peet turned his head and smiled at him, and Galen firmly settled on 'alarmed'.
"We turn ourselves in."
Before Galen could say anything, the human had stepped out into the street, hands raised in the universal gesture of surrender. Galen saw Peet's shoulders rise and fall as he took a deep breath; then he began to walk slowly towards the ape, who was looking at him over the barrel of his gun.
"Crazy, suicidal, hairless idiot!" Galen cursed.
Then he raised his arms and followed the human out into the street.
"Let me... get an overview of this particular station first," Virdon said. "Even you must admit that I can't have been here before."
Urko shrugged and smiled, and turned up his palm as if to say 'knock yourself out'. They both knew that right now - trapped, injured, and unarmed - Virdon was completely at his mercy. There was no need to hurry.
Virdon forced another swallow down his swollen throat and turned away as if to search for an exit; actually, he needed a moment to think, and he found that the sight of the gorilla made that impossible. He had to- he didn't want to follow the tunnel if he could help it, there was no light in there at all, and no way to determine if it wasn't filled with debris a mile in, and he had to keep Urko in good mood and interested, because if he got bored, the ape would find ways to entertain himself, ways that would leave him bleeding and writhing in the dust...
"Look," he said and bent down to pick up the flyer that he had let slip when Urko assaulted him, "I bet you never saw a material like this here." He handed it to the ape. "That's plastic. It's practically indestructible - it can last thousands of years." And who'd have thought that he might be grateful for that one day?
Urko took the smooth sheet, intrigued despite himself, and pulled it through his fingers. "What kind of script is that?" he muttered. Virdon hesitated.
"It's a human script," he said. "This was a human city once. That flyer announced a... a sports event. A competition between humans from all over the world."
Urko looked up and snorted. "That's a lie."
Virdon shook his head. "I swear it's the truth. Humans aren't the... the pest you see them as. Once we were great..." he was suddenly breathless. With effort, he continued, "we did great things, knew many things..." We are the king under the hill, and he felt like crying.
But he couldn't, not here, not in front of that ape who hated him with every fiber of his being, for what, he didn't know. Virdon turned away to find something else with which to distract his nemesis.
"Look, this here," his hands wiped over a part of the wall and revealed glass screens, "those were called holographic screens. You projected light into them, and the light would form pictures, not like photographs, but with depth, as if they were real things, just made out of light..."
"Fairy tales," Urko growled. "Where are those pictures now? All I see are dusty glass panels."
"The technology has been lost," Virdon said sadly, "all lost... But look, over there!" He climbed over a pile of rubble and wooden beams that had apparently been there even before the latest earthquake, and pointed towards a dark hole in the far wall.
"That may have been a café where people waited for their next train to arrive. This here was part of a whole underground transportation network, taking people from one end of the city to the other in mere moments."
"And how would that even have been possible?" Urko asked mildly, clearly not believing a single word of his explanations. Virdon didn't care; all he wanted was to be able to walk around freely to scout out his surroundings, and think up a solution for his problem of escape, and keep his captor from torturing him to relieve his boredom.
"They used machines that ran in this small channel here." He pointed to the track bed. "Those machines were faster than horses - much faster..." He turned his head. From the dark hole in the wall came a strange smell; too faint to identify it, but turning his stomach all the same. Not organic... he slid down the pile of rubble, eager to get away from it, and stumbled into Urko. The ape hadn't been there a moment ago. Virdon made two steps back. Urko followed him.
"Now suppose all those stories were true," he said, and his light, conversational tone warned Virdon that something was gravely wrong, "that indestructible paper, those pictures made of light, that... machine that ran faster than a horse..."
He gave Virdon a sudden shove and Virdon stumbled backwards over some rock and fell on his back. The pain from the impact on his raw flesh was so great that he couldn't even breathe. The gorilla loomed over him, his boot planted casually on his chest.
"If all those things once existed, they were thought up by ape scientists, built by ape engineers, operated by ape technicians! Apes! Not humans! I dare you to insult me further with your filthy lies, you little rat." The weight on his collarbone increased as Urko leaned forward. Virdon realized that he could crush his ribcage just by leaning on it. A gorilla could weigh up to five hundred pounds. Urko wouldn't even have to put force into it with a kick.
If he wanted to get out alive, he had to stay on Urko's good... well, less bad side. That meant that right now, he had to grovel, much as he hated himself for it.
"I... I'm sorry, Urko, I... you're right. Humans were never... more than slaves of the apes." His teeth ground at the lie. "This was yours... all yours. You made those things, eons ago. I just... wanted it to be ours, wanted... wanted to make you think... better of us." His hands were gripping Urko's boot, a useless gesture. He pressed on.
"But still - I am from that time. When I traveled through space... time lapsed. I can't explain it, but I swear to God, it's true. I do know this place, Urko, I've been there when it was still alive. You have to believe me!"
The boot was lifted from his chest. Virdon breathed easier for a moment. Then Urko's face bore down on him.
"I've had enough of your stories. And if I find that you also lied about knowing how to get out of here, I'll cut you up right then and there - starting with your lying tongue."
"This is... a bit of an awkward situation."
Burke had stopped at the other side of the hole. The chimp had observed his movements without uttering a word, keeping his rifle trained at Burke's center.
So far, so good. Now about that making friends part of his plan... "Al's actually better with this than me - I'm always a bit short of conversation topics when someone points a gun at me, y'know?"
The lieutenant still didn't answer, but Burke imagined that he saw his finger twitch at the trigger. Better get to the point, then. He moistened his lips.
"But Al's not here right now - he's down there, with Urko. Bet they're having an interesting conversation." Actually, he hoped the old bastard had gotten his head bashed in by a boulder, but knowing their luck, he was probably chasing Al through the rubble. Burke eyed the stony face of his opponent and cursed silently.
You're a lieutenant - you gotta be able to think for yourself once in a while! He dared to move one arm to wave at the rubble between them. "Your commander is still alive, buddy! Galen here saw what happened - the ground opened during that last quake, and both Urko and my friend fell in. And then the house fell on that hole, but underneath, there's still that hollow space.
"They're trapped under that rock, soldier. We gotta get them out before they run out of air, or before there's another earthquake."
The ape didn't even spare a glance for the slab of concrete between them. "Bullshit," he said flatly. "You can always assume that a human lies - saves time."
"Yeah, right." Bet that's something you learned from Urko. "But he's an ape," Burke jerked his head towards Galen, "and he's saying the same, so perhaps you'd better start considering it before the next rumble squeezes the juice out of your commander."
"That rock is too heavy to lift. Even if they were alive," the ape's tone made it clear that he didn't believe it for a second, "we'd have no way to help them." His gun was still staring at Burke's heart, but at least they were talking now. Progress, right?
"See, that's where you're wrong. I know a way how to lift that thing and get them out, and I'm even willing to share my wisdom with you." He forced a smile on his face. "There are conditions, of course."
The ape snorted. "You're in no position to set conditions."
Burke didn't let that faze him. "Sure I am - I have something you want." He pointed to his head. "Knowledge. Don't tell me you don't want to save General Urko."
"The general is dead. That makes whatever knowledge you have to offer worthless. But I am still under orders to bring you back to Cesarea." His gaze flicked between Burke and Galen. "Two out of four ain't bad, and the third one's accounted for. I'll be up for a promotion." For the first time, an emotion moved his stony features - triumph.
This isn't going the way I wanted it to go.
"What if I could prove that they're still alive?"
The chimp lightly shook his head. "How are you going to prove that?"
Yeah, how in hell am I going to prove that?
Burke let his gaze wander over the rubble, desperately looking for something to inspire him. Dust, rock, branch, rock, gravel, rock, metal rod... metal rod. He took a deep breath. If that rod poked all the way through the rubble...
"I'll show you. Don't shoot me for moving, okay?" He slowly bent down, eyes fixed on the lieutenant, and picked up a piece of concrete. When his captor didn't fire, he made his way over to the rod and began to bang against it.
"What are you doing?"
"This thing carries sound. When I bang against it, they'll hear it. When they bang against it, we'll hear it. And then you'll hopefully listen to me for a change."
A - L - A - N - Y - O - U - O - K
Burke paused, waiting for an answer.
Nothing. He tried again.
A - L - C - O - M - E - I - N
Nothing.
"Come on, Al, bang the damn thing already." Behind him, the ape shifted. Burke sighed when he predictably said, "They're dead."
"They could just be unconscious!" Burke snapped. "Knocked out from the fall, or have a broken leg and can't get to the rod, there's a million reasons they can't answer besides 'they're dead'!"
"I'm not going to accept conditions from a human just to secure the body of another dead human!" the soldier spat.
"No?" Burke said caustically. "How about securing the body of a dead gorilla? Don't you think your general deserves a funeral with all..."
P - E - T - E
"There! You hear that?" He whirled around to face the lieutenant and pointed to the rod. "There's your proof! They're alive!"
Virdon sat up and suppressed a gasp. His back felt as if it was one huge wound that had been doused with acid. Urko stood back, his hand loosening the dagger in his belt. Pete's dagger; Urko's trophy... or a substitute until he could collect their hides.
During his little guided tour through ancient Atlanta's subway station, Virdon had learned that there was in fact only one exit if they didn't want to try their luck with the tunnel, something which he categorically excluded, except as a desperate last option to escape Urko and perhaps attack him under cover of the pitch black darkness. Despite his injuries and the gorilla's hostility, Virdon wasn't yet ready to attempt that - it would mean that he was really standing with his back to the wall.
He limped back towards the slope and gazed up into the darkness. A tiny crack let in just enough light to show him that the rest of the opening was covered by one continuous piece of concrete - far too heavy for anyone to lift or shove aside. Virdon coughed and swallowed dust as he climbed up the slope to have a closer look. His throat was burning, and the strange smell had grown stronger; it reminded him vaguely of battery acid, but he had no idea what it really was, or where it was coming from.
"The exit is blocked, but there's a crack running alongside it, and we may be able to widen it sufficiently to fit through," he reported to Urko when he had climbed down again, "but I can't do it alone. The ground isn't solid, with all those fragments moving against each other, and the gap is too far overhead. I know you don't like it, but we need to cooperate here. I don't know if you've noticed that smell..."
"It's vile," Urko confirmed. "What is it? Another human wonder?"
Virdon shook his head. "I've no idea, but it can't be healthy. We need to get out of here before it kills us, and..." he paused at a clink behind him.
"And what?" Urko growled, but Virdon held up a hand to silence him. He strained to listen. It was morse code. Alan, you ok?
Pete. Virdon swallowed, not sure if he should feel relieved. The hunting party had consisted of so many apes... was he a prisoner? He had to be.
Al, come in!
He scrambled up the hill and grabbed a rock to signal back.
Pete...
Hurt?
Virdon snorted and paused for a moment. Then,
No
Urko?
Virdon sighed, then morsed, Ok.
Urko wife name
Virdon frowned. Why did Pete need...
"Urko, what's the name of your wife?"
"What?"
"Your wife's name."
"Are you trying to play games with me?"
"No..." Virdon felt nauseous. The smell had grown even stronger, and was vile, like Urko had said. "These hits against the rod... they're signals. The... the intervals between them - long and short - it's a code. I can communicate with Pete at the other end of that rod, and he wants me to signal your wife's name, because... because your men know that neither I nor Pete can possibly know it." He smiled wryly. "It seems they share your opinion about human honesty."
"Ah." After a pause, "Her name is Elta." For the first time since Virdon had met him, Urko's voice softened.
Elta
Urko coughed.
Air bad
He hesitated, then hit the rod again.
SOS
His arm felt heavy and weak. He slid down the pile of rubble again.
"The others will dig from their side, but we need to do our part here. The air's getting worse by the minute, I'm sure you've noticed that, too..."
Urko took a step towards the slope, but Virdon held him back.
"Wait, we need to... prop up that rock overhead, so that the ceiling doesn't come down on our heads when we start digging."
"I knew that," Urko said indignantly. Virdon went over to the smaller pile of debris near the caved in wall. The smell was originating from that hole, making him gag.
"Of course. I... I learned that from my former master." He pulled a half-buried timber from the rocks and dragged it over to the exit.
"I'll start with this one, but we'd need some more... the more, the better." He left the indirect request hanging in the air, not daring to get more explicit. Urko would never accept orders from a human, no matter how desperate their situation.
The ape shot him an amused glance - he'd taken the hint, of course - but went to collect more beams. Virdon hefted the timber and struggled up the slope. Perhaps they'd get out of here alive, after all.
But would it make a difference?
"'k, here's the condition: we help you to get Urko out, and in exchange, you'll let us go."
Burke crossed his arms and waited. He wasn't so sure about the brilliance of his plan anymore after he had witnessed the lieutenant's easy dismissal of Urko's fate, but after he had proven without a doubt that the old devil was still alive and kicking down there, he hoped that his subordinate felt compelled to negotiate for his rescue.
The ape crossed his arms, too, resting his rifle in the crook of his arm; his comrades had returned in the meantime, and he obviously felt secure enough not to keep Burke in the crosshairs all the time anymore.
"No."
"You wanna let the old man croak down there? I bet that won't be a point in your favour when it comes to promotion."
The ape shrugged. "He'd prefer that I let him die before I make such a deal with you."
That was probably true. Burke tried another angle. "But he's not here to tell you what to do, chief. You're in charge right now, you decide. And whether he'll like it or not, he'll owe you his life after we've pulled him out."
He didn't get an answer immediately - that probably meant the soldier was accessing some unused parts of his brain to think this through. Burke kept silent, too - no need to disturb the man at this unfamiliar task. When there was no answer forthcoming after a minute or two, he dared to give him a little nudge, though.
"My friend told me the air is getting bad down there... we may not have all day."
The chimp jerked a little, as if jolted out of his thoughts. "Alright. I'll let you go if the general gets out alive."
"Excellent." Burke didn't show his relief. "Now I need..."
"I want your word on that, Lieutenant," Galen interrupted him. His voice was cool. "On your honor, from ape to ape."
The lieutenant showed his teeth, a smile or a snarl, Burke couldn't tell. He cursed himself for not having realized - of course you could promise anything to a human , didn't mean you were in any way bound to it...
"You have my word."
Galen wasn't satisfied. "On what, exactly, do I have your word?"
The ape sighed and shifted on his feet. "You have my word that I'll let you go - all of you," his gaze rested on Burke for a moment, "if the general comes out of this hole alive. Satisfied?"
"Barely. Your turn, Peet."
"We don't need to lift that thing," Burke said, "just widen that small gap there." He pointed. "So we'll fasten your ropes around this part here, and let the horses do the pulling."
The lieutenant surveyed the edge of the boulder with a frown. "The ropes will wear through and snap before that rock moves more than a hand's breadth."
"We just need to put something between the ropes and the rock to prevent friction." Goddammit, stop nagging and get the horses lined up!
In the end, they used the horses' saddle cloths to shield the ropes; Galen helped Burke with tying them around the boulder, while the lieutenant commandeered his soldiers to fashion a breast harness for the horses.
"Thanks for nailing down that chimp," Burke murmured.
Galen frowned. "I didn't do that - that sounds horrible!"
"Just a figure of speech." Well, it did sound horrible if you translated it literally. Speaking of idioms and unknown words... "What's that Cesarea he was talking about? Where he wanted to take us?"
Galen blinked. "Oh, that's... that's the main city. Where the council is - and the institute where you were kept."
Oh. That city. "Huh. Can't remember that I've heard the name before."
Galen shrugged and tightened a knot. "It's named after Cesar, our... well, I'd call him mythical ... founder and first ruler. But most apes never call it by its name, they just call it the capital, or 'central city', or just 'the city'."
"The Big Apple... tree?" Burke just couldn't help it.
Galen stared at him. "Why apples?"
"Why not?"
Galen narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. Well, they had more immediate problems right now.
Burke stepped back and surveyed their work. Three horses were rigged to the slab (not Urko's grey, he noticed - apparently, the apes' respect extended even to the bastard's horse), with one ape holding their reins, and the other two keeping tabs on Galen and him.
He wiped a hand over his face. Below his feet, the ground still felt restless, but maybe it was just his nerves. "Okay, gents, you'll let the horses pull at my... at my..." He swallowed. "My owner's sign. Don't let them pull at it too strongly all of a sudden, or the ropes will snap."
The apes were watching him silently; probably disapproving of him - a human - telling them what to do. Well, couldn't be helped now. It was bad enough that he had to leave it to Galen to give the actual command. But damn, he'd call Galen 'massah' and kiss his ugly feet if need be.
Whatever it takes, Al... whatever it takes.
The human was working at the exit now, propping up the boulder hanging over its head with the wooden beams Urko was handing it. It was probably deluding itself that they were now working together, as if they were comrades in the same unit; Urko let it indulge in its fantasy, if it meant it'd work faster.
The way he saw it, he was no more working together with it than a farmer who was loading up a donkey with wares that he was intending to bring to the market. Urko had seen one of them break down under a load of carpets that was almost twice as high as the beast beneath; he wondered if the donkey had deluded itself about its relationship to its owner, too, or if that madness was reserved to the individual currently trapped in this hole with him. It did have some peculiar ideas, after all.
Like this cave being a human construct. Urko shook his head as he went back to the pile of rubble to retrieve another timber. The smell exuding from the hole in the wall turned his stomach, but returning to the human meant he was now engulfed in the stink of the creature's blood and sweat. When he got out of here, he'd break with tradition and take a bath.
Seeking to get away from both odors, Urko took some steps towards the tunnel at the far end of the cave. He had piled up enough beams at the human's feet to keep it busy for a while, and he needed a moment to be alone with his thoughts.
If he was honest with himself, the surroundings were unnerving him - they were unnatural, alien. Urko pulled the glove from one hand and gingerly touched the wall; it was so smooth that it felt almost moist to the touch. He threw a hasty glance over his shoulder, but the human was still busy, dragging another timber up the slope.
Would apes build something like this... of course, the forefathers and -mothers had been more powerful than the apes today - they could easily have built this underground cave; of that, Urko had no doubts, just like he was absolutely secure in the knowledge that humans had never been more than cowering, lying and scheming pests that didn't deserve to be spared, not even so that they could serve the apes.
The question wasn't if apes had once been able to build this underground tunnel. The question was why they would do such a thing. Apes weren't burrowing down like rabbits; humans were. Apes were proud and free, living in the light and air of mighty trees (at least the ones that hadn't degenerated yet). Even the City had once been built in the crowns of a holy grove that the great Cesar had planted for that purpose.
He bent to pick up the sheet of indestructible paper that the human had shoved into his face earlier - then, Urko had focused on the texture of the stuff, as smooth as the wall he'd just touched, but slippery and elastic... as alien as everything else down here. Now, he took a closer look at the pictures on it. There were only two: a huge, round building, higher than the trees in the foreground; and a bunch of humans in strange clothes, obviously racing against each other.
Urko stared at that second picture for a long time. Something about it made him uneasy, but he couldn't put a finger on it. Perhaps the strange script? Urko could read, he had taught himself as a boy, but these shapes were like nothing he had ever seen before. The human had claimed it to be a human script, but everyone knew that humans weren't evolved enough to have developed writing.
His eyes fell on another of these... flyers, as the human had called them. It had thrown about a whole lot of unknown - and probably made up - words in its first bout of desperate babble. Well, it had been entertaining enough to see the frog pull one fantastic story after the other out of its ass in mere moments. Filthy liars, all of them. Urko bent to pick up the sheet, shaking it to get rid of the dust covering the pictures underneath.
It took a moment in the weak light to make sense of what he saw. The first thing jumping out to him was a Gorilla, proud and strong, sitting on some sort of platform; he didn't spare a glance for the humans in the foreground, but was staring directly into Urko's eyes. His stance was regal, calm but powerful. One of the humans was holding up an offering, but it would probably be rejected, just as it should be.
Urko blinked. There was something between the ape and the fawning humans. He took a step back towards the gaps in the ceiling, where the light was better.
Bars.
The pleading smiles of the humans became jeers; the offering a projectile, to be hurled at the prisoner behind those bars. The ape was staring into his eyes, a silent accusation in his gaze. Traitor, it said, how can you tolerate that creature whose race had imprisoned your brother, treated him as if he was an animal?
Urko turned the sheet - there were more pictures on its back, smaller ones showing animals that he'd never seen before... did they even still exist now? One thing was clear from that collection, though - that proud prince of a Gorilla had been seen, and treated, as a mere animal by the humans of that time.
The humans that had built this underground cave.
The humans that this human claimed to belong to.
Urko felt the ground tremble around him and realized after a moment that it was him who was shaking. Vertigo made him seek the support of the wall, that alien thing.
The human hadn't lied. Humans had been great once, humans... had been the masters once.
And this one over there knew it. And was running around to tell everyone, to put thoughts of lost greatness and lost dominion into the heads and hearts of his crawling, sniveling descendants.
Urko's hand closed around the hilt of the dagger in his belt.
This is my world now, frog. And it will stay my world.