“Okay, let’s have your next pupil, Morris,” said the keeper. Morris walked over to grasp Caesar’s hand.
“This one learns fast,” he said.
The plaque beside the door read NO Conditioning.
They were on one of the higher floors of the concrete tower that housed Ape Management’s training and breeding facilities. Caesar had glimpsed vistas of green and yellow countryside from an occasional oval window in the various corridors to which elevators had lifted them. The day had been long and tiring, even though Caesar had done well, showing evidence of exceptional learning ability at each of the conditioning locations to which he’d been taken. Along the way, Morris had slipped him an occasional extra banana, and complimented him as if Caesar could actually understand. What a shock the stocky young man would get if he knew the truth!
Morris was the least cruel of any of the handlers, keepers, or equipment operators Caesar had encountered thus far. That tended to blur Caesar’s concentration upon one central fact he had vowed not to forget: this splendid, gleaming scientific center was the instrument for subjugation of the apes, the means by which they were reduced to cowering slave status. And kindly or no, Morris was still a part of the system. As the handler led the way into a small amphitheatre, guiding Caesar to a seat on one of the higher tiers, a gorilla’s horrific scream ripped loose.
Down on the floor of the amphitheater, two gorillas lay buckled and strapped to parallel padded tables. Electrodes attached to the temples of each gorilla ran to connection points on the table pedestals. Nearby, a man in a smock sat at a console, an older supervisor hovering at his shoulder. A voice thundered out of a giant speaker in the amphitheatre ceiling, uttering a single syllable—“NO!” Simultaneously, the console operator threw a switch. Instantly both gorillas went into violent spasms, and both howled.
The operator jerked the switch to off. The speaker blared again, even louder. “NO!” The switch went forward.
The spasms of the gorillas were worse this time. Saliva trickled from their lips as their arms, legs, and chests heaved in reaction to the electric agony being fed through the forehead wires. This time, the operator glancing at a sweep hand on a clock face mounted on his console, kept the current flowing longer. Sickened by the sight, Caesar was still unable to keep from watching.
“Volume all the way up,” ordered the supervisor. The operator turned again. The amplified voice made the bones in Caesar’s skull throb.
“NO!”
Over went the switch. The gorillas arched in agonized convulsions. Their screams made Caesar want to howl his own protest, but he fought the reaction with all of his will. At last, the ghastly yelping ended as the switch returned to off position.
The supervisor answered the operator’s inquiring look with an upraised hand. He circled the console, approached the first gorilla, who had partially torn one arm strap with his writhing. Gazing down into the gorilla’s pain-wracked eyes, the supervisor said very softly, “No.” And although the operator’s hand did not touch his switch, the effect was precisely the same. The still recumbent gorilla began to twist and grind his teeth and convulse over the entire length of his body. The supervisor gave a satisfied nod, stepped to the next padded table. Again he said, “No.” The second gorilla howled and shook with spasms . . .
And Caesar was on his feet, eyes flaring with hatred.
Morris grabbed his arm, exclaimed sharply, “No!”
The realization that he’d almost betrayed himself rocked Caesar back to sense. With only a split second of delay, he began trembling. He lowered his head, hunched his shoulders in a less violent duplication of the shock-spasms the apes had demonstrated.
Firmly, Morris pushed Caesar’s shoulder until he was seated again. Caesar let his simulated cringing and shuddering gradually work itself out.
The operator and the supervisor began to unbuckle the straps on the now docile gorillas. The supervisor glanced up to the amphitheater seats.
“We’ll take him next, Morris.”
“I think we can skip it, Doctor Bowen,” Morris answered. “He’s got the message.”
To demonstrate, Morris turned to Caesar and said, “No!”
Once more Caesar simulated the cringing and shuddering of the gorillas. The supervisor observed him for a moment, finally gave a crisp nod.
From one set of doors at floor level, handlers appeared with wheeled carts, to which they transferred the semiconscious gorillas. Morris guided Caesar out to the corridor, suffused now with blood-colored sunset light filtering through a distant oval window.
As Caesar followed the handler toward the elevators, the latter said, “Be thankful you were born a chimp, my friend. I’ve been here four years and that section still makes me sick.”
Caesar wished he dared speak his enraged thoughts. Yes, it sickens you. But you still work for them.
Instead, he accepted another banana with a feigned chitter of pleasure.
When the elevator doors opened, Morris preceded Caesar into one of the oversized cars in which he had been lifted to the No Conditioning amphitheatre. Like the other car, this one had thickly padded walls—and some additional telltale signs to show that, despite its calm, scientific atmosphere, the Ape Management Center was still a place that inflicted hurt on animals fresh from the wild.
One of the wall pad sections was torn, spilling out foam-wool stuffing. And on parts of the rear wall and floor, Caesar saw a dried stain. His sense of smell identified it immediately as ape urine.
A terrible scuffle had occurred in this car today. An animal had been so beaten and terrorized that he’d lost control of his bodily functions . . .
Anger simmering again, Caesar realized that the car had stopped sooner than he expected. A check of the indicator showed the numeral three lighted, not B-1, where his original cage was located.
Puzzled, he followed Morris off the car into a reception area. A lantern-jawed woman occupied a central communications desk, surrounded by push-button consoles, tabbed chart racks, a phone director unit and three miniscreen television sets which continually changed images, the interior of one crowded cell dissolving into a view of another. The three screens were labelled G-West, C-North, and O-East.
“Hello, Morris,” the woman greeted him in a bored way. She hardly gave Caesar a glance.
Morris returned her nod. “Miss Dyke, this chimp’s had conditioning. I thought I might as well check him into a training unit before I left for the night.”
The woman proffered a form, which Morris filled in with check marks, signing his name at the bottom. Only when she picked up the form did the woman register a reaction.
“Five-oh-seven I-for-Indonesia? That shipment only came in last night, for God’s sake. You mean to tell me he—?” She gestured at Caesar incredulous.
Morris nodded with just a tiny smile of pride. “In less than twenty-four hours. Dr. Chamberlain’s told me there have been a few cases of chimpanzees flying through conditioning that quickly before I was ever here. But it’s happened. Always chimpanzees. A rare one has a real instinct for survival and learning.”
“A regular Einstein monkey, huh?” Miss Dyke responded, looking askance at Caesar. “Well, as long as you signed, and accept the responsibility in case the conditioning really didn’t take—”
“It took,” Morris assured her. “I keep telling some of these ham-handed fools on the staff that gentle treatment once in awhile will bring a bright animal along a lot faster.”
Miss Dyke flipped a control beneath the C-North monitor screen, causing the images of individual cells to flip by rapidly. “Don’t let that opinion get circulated too widely or you’ll lose your job, Morris,” she said, stopping at an image of a cell occupied by three large chimpanzees. “Go back and tell the hall keeper unit twenty-one. Have him unlock it manually.” She reset the control and the surveillance scenes resumed their normal pace of dissolving on and off the screen.