Plunging down the steps into the cool shadows of the building, he was again at war with himself, angry, yet frightened—because the unsettling image of Governor Breck’s suspicious stare refused to leave his mind.
Caesar was kept in the holding cage at the ape mart until the following morning. Then he was loaded into the rear of a van whose gleaming side panels bore the great seal of the city, complete with upraised torch and Latin motto. He was the sole occupant of the locked cargo compartment—another sign of the prestige and power of the man who had bought him.
The van sped toward the city’s perimeter along busy highways. The highways fed into a vast, multilevel vehicle park at the city limits. Handlers were waiting with a light wire cage into which Caesar dutifully marched and, ten minutes later, he was on duty in Governor Jason Breck’s living quarters, atop the same building at Civic Center that housed his operations suite on a lower floor.
Jason Breck had risen late, with a headache and a sour stomach from last evening’s dinner party. Clad in an expensive dressing gown of rare natural wool dyed deep blue, he was busy at the small period desk in his penthouse sitting room.
As the last assistant but one departed through the foyer, Breck belched softly and glanced at MacDonald.
“I think I need a drink. And I know I don’t need a luncheon with a lot of windbag oratory. Where am I scheduled this noon?”
“The honors presentation by the Aesthetics Board.”
“Cancel me out and get me a drink.”
Breck rubbed his forehead and turned his chair as MacDonald bent to murmur into an intercom. MacDonald uttered smooth, convenient lies about the governor suffering an illness. No, nothing serious, but he sent his regrets . . .
Brooding, Breck stared through tented fingers at the high rise towers outside. The room was flooded by noon light mercifully softened by ceiling-to-floor windows of smoked, bulletproof plastiglas. A soft chime range twice. Breck swiveled around.
MacDonald walked to the foyer, admitting two handlers and the robust, green-uniformed chimpanzee Breck had ordered the black man to buy for him yesterday. The handlers presented a paper. MacDonald signed and they left. MacDonald said to the ape: “Come.”
Dutifully, the chimp shambled after him to the bar.
Hardly looks like the same animal, Breck thought, staring at the chimpanzee with a half-lidded gaze. For a moment yesterday, the chimp had appeared almost human. That had triggered suspicion in the governor’s mind, and prompted his sudden instruction for MacDonald to enter the bidding. Now the chimp was plucking nervously at the front of his uniform jacket, a rather foolish, bemused expression in his luminous eyes.
“I still need that drink,” Breck said. “See whether he can mix it.”
MacDonald walked behind the bar, set a decanter of whiskey, a siphon of soda and two glasses on the polished top. To Caesar he said, “Watch.”
The chimp studied MacDonald’s hands as the man poured whiskey into one glass, then squirted in soda, filling the glass about three quarters to the top. MacDonald pointed at the second glass.
“Do.”
With only the slightest hesitation, the chimp closed his fingers around the decanter, tilted it, poured the whiskey. Breck slouched in his chair, continuing to watch through tented fingers. The ape set down the decanter and glanced quickly at the governor.
Breck kept staring, his eyes hooded. A peculiar tension filled him, banishing the dull throb in his temples, the sour taste at the back of his throat. The ape knew he was being closely scrutinized. His hand shook noticeably as he lifted the siphon, pressed down on the top control . . .
Soda began to foam over the lip of the glass, puddle the top of the bar. “No!” MacDonald exclaimed, cuffing the chimpanzee lightly on the hand.
In his alarm, the animal nearly dropped the siphon. Only MacDonald’s deft grab rescued it. “Clean it up.” MacDonald indicated the overflow. “Clean, clean!”
Clumsily, bumping the whiskey decanter and the siphon, the chimpanzee began to mop up the spilled liquid. Slowly, Breck’s tension drained away.
He stood up, smiling as he emerged from behind his desk. “It seems he’s not so bright after all.”
“No—but then—” MacDonald grabbed for the siphon, which nearly went over as the chimp mopped with wider, clumsier motions “—isn’t it true that brightness has never been encouraged among slaves?”
“Stop being so damn touchy, MacDonald!” Breck stabbed his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown, stalking to the windows. “We’ve all been slaves at one time or another. I can trace my family back to Breckland, in Suffolk, England. We were the slaves then. To the lord of the manor,” He glanced at Caesar, who was still witlessly mopping the bar with the sopping towel. The ape’s posture and expression registered confusion. “They’re animals,” the governor went on. “What they need is a firm hand. Rub his nose in it so he gets the idea permanently.”
MacDonald was just turning from a small refrigerator, a tray of ice cubes in one hand. For a moment he stared hard at his superior. Breck rankled at the hostility—real or fancied. Then MacDonald smiled politely. “What? And risk having him develop a taste for scotch?”
Breck laughed, as another staff man let himself into the foyer. The man carried a leather-covered binder.
MacDonald emptied the ice tray into an exquisitely engraved silver bucket. He tonged two cubes into the glass he had filled as an example for the ape, handed the drink across to the governor. Then he took the sopping towel from the ape’s fingers and disposed of it below the bar.
As MacDonald again picked up the tongs and began to demonstrate to the animal how cubes were properly dropped into a glass, Breck took a long, soothing swallow and permitted himself a touch of whimsy. “What you suggest might not be a bad idea. Up to a point, alcohol has a tranquilizing effect.” Less amused, he shook his head. “But I imagine their tolerance for whiskey—like their temper threshold—is dangerously low.”
The newly arrived assistant said, “If you feel the ape’s unsatisfactory, Mr. Governor, we can always send him back and insist on a full week’s reconditioning.”
“That’s not necessary,” said MacDonald, fast.
“Indeed it isn’t,” Breck agreed, sipping more of the whiskey. It seemed to be quieting the nervous turmoil of his stomach. “But not because of your soft-hearted reasons.”
The other assistant, looking vaguely annoyed because his attempt to win points had failed, abruptly found himself the subject of the governor’s attention: “That’s always everyone’s first thought—recondition them!” Breck swept his arm out in a broad gesture, spilling some of his drink on the thick carpet.
“Mr. Governor, I only meant—” Sputtering, the flustered assistant turned red. MacDonald handed the silver tongs to the chimpanzee. Clumsily, the ape tried to grasp and lift an ice cube from the bucket. Breck continued.
“If we were to send every lousy ape that muffed an assignment or disobeyed an order back to reconditioning, Ape Management would become impossibly overcrowded!”
A sharp clack whirled Breck around. The ice cube had dropped from the ape’s tongs and hit the bar. It skittered off and struck the carpet as the animal stared at the governor again, transfixed with terror—or something else.
Breck slammed his drink on the desk. He reached the ape with two long strides, smacked him in the side of the head. “Clean!” he shouted, pointing at the cube melting on the rug.
The ape cringed, bent over, retrieved the ice and juggled it a moment. Finding no ready receptacle except one, he dropped the cube back in the ice bucket.