He wondered if Koba had survived. He hoped so.
He heard excited Waaa!-calls from downslope, the kind that signified danger. He dropped from his branch and went to see what the matter was.
It was Cornelia.
Humans, she signed, pointing downslope. Hiding. Shot Herman with sleepy gun, shot others, too.
Caesar felt his belly tighten. Then he began singling out apes.
Maurice came down.
You need orangs, to carry. Herman heavy.
Caesar nodded, and with six orangs, three gorillas, and five chimps, he started back downslope.
He noticed that Cornelia was with them, and motioned her back.
I know where, she signed, defiantly.
He realized she was right, and he couldn’t waste time arguing with her or putting her in her place. So he gave her a curt nod as they continued on.
Corbin took the walkie-talkie from his belt.
“Stop,” Clancy said.
Malakai turned, but he already knew what was happening. He had known last night, for that matter.
Corbin didn’t turn until he heard the gun cock.
Clancy was pointing a pistol at him.
“They deserve their chance,” she said. “We had ours. They deserve theirs. Don’t you see? They’re not just apes anymore. They aren’t human either. They’re something… different.”
“I’m just calling the capture team.”
“No,” she said. “You’re not. We’ve live-captured all the apes Gen Sys needs. There’s no need to capture all of them for what they want. You said ‘strike.’ You’re going to bomb the shit out of them, aren’t you? That was always the plan.”
“Smart girl,” Corbin said. “But you’re being real stupid right now. Drop that thing, and I’ll forget about it.”
“They haven’t done anything,” she said. “They could have killed us. But they didn’t.”
“They started the plague,” Flores said.
“No,” she said. “Gen Sys did. They’re just cleaning up their mess. Call the strike somewhere else—anywhere. In a week no one will know or care about these apes. Then they can survive or not, on their own terms.”
“Put the gun down, Clancy,” Corbin said.
At the moment, several apes broke into the clearing. Clancy’s hands were already shaking, and now her eyes shifted. Corbin drew his pistol and shot her. She looked vastly surprised and backed into a tree.
Corbin lifted the walkie-talkie with the other hand.
“HQ, we have the flock, repeat, we have the flock. Outside strike radius from these coordinates, running north. Will advise when clear.”
Malakai had never felt so calm, so at peace in all of his life as when he drew his pistol and shot Corbin between the eyes. Flores still hadn’t figured out what was going on when the next bullet took him out of the bright world. The next was for Kyung, who almost got his rifle up in time.
Then Stillman shot, and a white heat exploded in Malakai’s gut. He turned a little and shot Stillman. He fired at Ackers as he felt two more bullets strike him. Ackers fell—that left only Byrd.
But now he couldn’t raise his gun arm, and Byrd had a bead on his head.
Ah, well, he thought.
But then a gun fired, and it didn’t belong to Byrd. He saw Clancy, sitting with her back against a tree, her pistol raised, breathing in great heaving gasps. Byrd dropped without a word.
“Thank you,” Clancy told him. “It was… the right thing.”
“Yes,” Malakai gasped, looking with mild disbelief at the damage done to his body. It wasn’t only gorillas who looked confused when they were shot. He had seen plenty of people who didn’t know they were dead.
Then Malakai saw the apes approaching.
“You have to stop the strike,” Clancy said weakly. “You…”
Her arm dropped and her chin fell to rest on her chest. She took one more breath.
Malakai looked up into the eyes of the chimpanzee, its strange, green-flecked gaze, so full of life and intelligence.
“If you can understand me,” he said, “You need to get your troop out of here, and go fast. There’s going to be fire, do you understand? A lot of fire. I can give you a little more time. Hurry.”
The chimp held his gaze for a moment, and he was suddenly back on Mount Virunga, staring into the eyes of his first gorilla. Into the eyes of every ape, every man he had ever watched die.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
The ape knelt by him.
“Thank you,” it croaked.
For a moment he was so stunned that he couldn’t say anything.
“For God’s sake,” he finally gasped. “Run!”
And with no more hesitation, the chimpanzee ran. The other apes followed, carrying their drugged comrades.
25
From the cover of the trees, Caesar glanced back at the dead and dying humans. He had really begun to despair, to believe that maybe Will, Charles, and Caroline were the only ones in the world who weren’t monsters. But now…
He didn’t know what exactly had happened back there, yet one thing was clear. Two humans—humans he had never met, and did not know—had just given their own lives so that he and his troop might survive. Why they had done so he would probably never know.
But he did not intend to squander the opportunity they had provided.
Maurice, with his long, carrying call, had roused the troop to readiness before he arrived. They only awaited him to tell them which direction, and soon they again were in full motion, as they had been not so long ago. He knew they were tired, that many had little left to give, but he pressed them to follow him, and when that wasn’t enough, he left Maurice at the front and went to the back, where Cornelia and others toiled to keep the wounded and drugged in motion.
He heard the sound long before he saw it—a long hushed tone, growing in pitch. Urging Cornelia to keep everyone moving, he hurried to the upper branches. There he saw something coming. It did not look like a helicopter—it was sleek, like a fish. It was distant, but it was turning toward him, coming from the direction they had come.
Panting, Malaki took out his walkie-talkie.
“HQ,” he said. “Be advised. We are not clear yet. Experiencing difficulty.”
“What sort of difficulty?” the device crackled back.
“Flat tire.”
“Well, high-tail it on foot,” the voice demanded. “Where’s Corbin?”
“Will advise when we’re clear,” Malakai said.
“The drones are on their way. Get clear, now. Corbin, answer!”
It was getting harder to breath, and his head felt very light.
“Will advise when we’re clear,” Malakai said again.
He propped himself against a tree and stared out at the wide, beautiful valley, at the sky and hills. He felt the wind start to blow through him.
“Clear,” he murmured. The walkie-talkie dropped from his hand.
Clear. And he was.
Caesar bit back a shriek as the first plume of flame erupted, engulfing the tops of the redwoods, spewing into the air and falling in long globs and streamers back into the forest. The trees instantly became cyclopean torches. It happened just about where they had stopped; without the warning of the human, his troop would now be burning.
The fish-thing flew on, not directly toward them but a bit to the side.
Another monstrous explosion sent shock waves rippling through the leaves and branches in every direction, and Caesar saw what was happening. The flying thing was making it impossible for them to turn this way or that; it was making an arc of burning trees which would eventually be a circle. They would have to outrun it, be ahead of where the circle closed.