Beneath the Planet of the Apes - Avallone Michael. Страница 24

“You talked,” Taylor said simply, kissing her gently. “And we’re alive.”

She looked up at him, pleased at his evident pleasure. Then he kissed her again. A prolonged kiss. Brent smiled, but in the sudden silence he could hear a soft but steady rush of sound. Like—air! Coming from—Brent’s eyes searched the room rapidly—there was a six-inch impenetrably grilled vent in the wall behind Taylor, just above his head. Taylor broke from the kiss.

“It’s no use,” he told Brent, quick to the direction of his gaze. “I’ve tried. We’re near a main air-conditioning vent.”

“It’s cold,” Brent said.

Taylor eyed the inert body of the Negro with distaste.

“Just as well.” His nose wrinkled. “We may have to wait, and I’m allergic to the stink of death. Now, talk some more, Brent. And make it quick.”

Brent fingered his bandage, fighting the pain.

“They have an atom bomb.”

Taylor’s eyes narrowed. “Operational?”

“Yes. And they intend to use it.”

“What type is it?”

“That’s just it—I don’t know. It belongs to a series I’ve never seen before. Maybe because I don’t have top clearance as yet.” This last was almost rueful.

“I do,” Taylor said grimly.

“Or did,” Brent tried a small joke. Gallows humor. “Two thousand years ago.”

Taylor wasn’t listening.

“Did you see a series number?”

“Yes—on one of the fins. Except there were no numbers. Just two Greek letters. Alpha, omega”

Taylor’s face tightened into a mask of inner pain. “May God help us,” he said in a low voice.

Brent started. “What is it? What does it mean?”

“Doomsday Bomb,” Taylor said. “Cobalt casing. The last we ever made. Only one. One was enough. The idea was to threaten the enemy by the very fact that it existed. A bomb so powerful it could destroy—not just a city—not just a nation—no, not just every living cell on earth, every insect, every blade of grass—but set nuclear fire to the wind, to the air itself. Scorch the whole planet into a cinder! Like the end of a burnt match. The ultimate bomb—” His voice trailed off into a whisper.

Nova, always responsive to his moods, huddled closer to him.

Brent had forgotten all about the throbbing discomfort of his damaged shoulder.

The baffled guard who had allowed Nova to elude him was still searching for her. Without any success. He had not entered the catacomb complex but had returned to the Corridor of Busts to make a fresh start on his hunt. He was startled to see someone in the renowned corridor. Somebody wise and all-powerful.

Mendez in his purple robes was kneeling before the stoic bust of MENDEZ I. He was silent and immobile. As if his entire being was as one with his legendary ancestor.

Mendez seemed to commune with the inanimate bust.

The guard withdrew very carefully, anxious not to make a whisper of sound. He stole up the long corridor like a wraith.

The posture of the leader disturbed the guard.

Was something wrong that Mendez had to take this time to pray on the eve of a great conflict?

But the guard removed the thought from his already worried mind. There was still the girl to find . . .

Angrily, impatiently, the guard moved down the corridor past the closed doors of the Inquisition Room.

Nothing stirred.

Not even the kneeling figure of Mendez behind him, beyond the turn of the passageway.

12.

DR. ZAIUS

The Grand Army of the Apes had achieved the frontier zone of the designated area. Now, as the hot sun beat down in a cobalt-blue sky, General Ursus initiated the opening steps of the invasion. Beyond the burning rim of the horizon, the skyline of buried New York steepled eerily. Silhouetted and somber. From his horse, with Zaius at his side, Ursus’ medals shone in the sunlight. He raised a glittering sword.

His army moved. Quickly, in full military pomp and precision. Orders were shouted, marching feet thundered, equipment rolled into position. Squadrons formed. Gorilla infantry, about fifty apes to each group, with a commissioned officer and a noncommissioned officer leading every command, flanked into attacking formation. The gun carriages wheeled up, clanking noisily. Bayonets gleamed from rifle tips. The assembled apes were ready to attack. To fight. To obey the Ursus dictim of Invade, Invade, Invade! Dr. Zaius looked on almost sorrowfully at the spectacle of force of arms triumphing over sober reflection and discourse with the enemy. Ursus, eyes shaded against the sun, peering toward New York in the distance, summoned a bugler to his side. His gimlet eyes were twin pools of ecstasy. His black gorilla face was exalted. The morning heat set a shimmering haze over the scene. It was a lovely day for the Invasion.

“Sound the advance,” Ursus commanded the bugler in the sudden total hush that preceded the strike of lightning forces from the kingdom of Ape Gty.

The horn brayed, a pealing blast of sound wafting over the formation. The army, in extended order, advanced. Uphill. Toward the visible reaches of the Forbidden Zone. Ursus’ mount pranced in the vanguard. Zaius trotted along behind him.

The hill was steep, sloping upward at a hazardous angle. The ape army swarmed upward, a vast body of moving gorillas, horses and ordnance. With skilled coordination of all units and a minimum of stumbling blocks, the advance platoons of Ursus’ forces gained the crest of the mountain which overlooked the buried grandeur of New York.

Ursus reached the pinnacle first. Then Zaius, then the troops directly behind them. Ursus lifted a paw to signal a halt. The army came to a stop. Waiting legions, motionless in the sun.

Zaius’ breath caught in his chest. Ursus groaned mightily.

The spectacle before them defied belief.

Where before there had been nothing but limitless expanses of arid desert in the vast sun-bleached acreage leading to buried New York, there was now nothing but horror.

Row upon row of naked gorillas, hanging from inverted crosses staked to the ground, glowed wickedly in the sunlight. A mass crucifixion, awesome in all its implications, to match the Roman massacre of Christians along the Appian Way in another equally terrible time. Zaius’ scholarly blood ran cold. Ursus’ face darkened. Fire and smoke, both sourceless and spread out like a blaze encompassing the world, had also appeared, seemingly from nowhere. And still the mutilated gorillas hung crucified from their upside-down crosses.

The ape army, particularly the infantry, closest to the sight, aghast and quivering in horror at the devastation below them, began to panic. A great tumult of shouting and anguished cries went up. Ursus, livid with rage, found himself being berated by Dr. Zaius.

“Ursus, I warned you! Look what we are faced with! I told you we should wait!”

“Whoever did this,” Ursus growled, “will pay heavily.”

The groans of the crucified gorillas were clamorous, rising from the bloody desert plain like a universal wail of misery, sorrow and agony. Dr. Zaius shuddered, reining in his horse.

“If you have any pity, order your soldiers to shoot our people.”

“I cannot order what the Lawgiver has forbidden. Ape shall not kill Ape,” Ursus snarled, wheeling his mount to shout an order to one of his nearest commanders. “Prepare to attack!”

“Attack what and whom?” Zaius demanded softly, his orangutan face constricted in lines of bewilderment and compassion.

The ape army suddenly rallied.

Gorillas, horses and guns moved up over the ridge, pounding over the crest, swarming down the other side. Ursus led the way. The infantry rushed forward, racing across the desert to the grim spectacle of their slaughtered comrades. Shouts and gunfire filled the air. Gorillas yelled and screamed, summoning up a banzai-like courage to grope with the situation. Or cope. The hot sun blazed down, as if trying to pierce the gathering smoke and fire filling the landscape. The infantry rushed. Ursus spurred his mount. Zaius galloped alongside.