Everyone had been very polite. The chimpanzees had a full day to adjust to their new quarters and move their things into their suite. They had been well fed by white-uniformed hospital attendants, and Lewis and Stevie had been served an excellent meal in the apes’ rooms. They were given rooms of their own, and furnished every convenience.
Every convenience but one. No one could leave without Dr. Hasslein’s permission. He insisted that it was all a formality, and that he would soon have passes made up for Lewis and Stephanie; but the secretaries were slow, and everything was irregular so that they had to establish some control procedures.
The one thing certain was that the Marines on guard outside weren’t letting anyone in or out.
They were introduced to two new staff members. “This is Henry Amalfi,” Hasslein said. “And Larry Bates. Of the National Security Agency. Well, Dr. Dixon, I think it is time to begin. Can you bring the chimpanzees down to room 104, please?”
The room had been an operating theater. Surgical equipment was still racked against the walls, and there were white glass-fronted cabinets full of gleaming steel instruments.
Zira looked at the equipment with envy. She hadn’t had gear half this good. Her interest in the set-up was not enough to cover her fears, though, and she clung to her husband’s hand.
Hasslein, Amalfi, and Bates sat side by side at a long table at one end of the room. The chairs set out for the chimpanzees resembled dentists’ chairs, comfortable, but cold and clinical in appearance. There was no place for Lewis or Stevie to sit, and the guards ushered them out.
“Now just a minute,” Lewis protested. “I have a right to be here—”
“No, sir,” Hasslein told him. “I represent the Commission, and you have no medical duties to perform at the moment. I’m sorry, Dr. Dixon, but I must insist that you leave.”
Lewis shrugged helplessly, and turned away. He was uncomfortably aware of the terrified gaze Zira directed at his back, and he left her looking at him even after the door closed with a hollow sound.
FIFTEEN
“Relax,” Dr. Hasslein said. “We won’t hurt you. We only want to find out the truth.”
Cornelius and Zira said nothing. Finally Cornelius asked, “If you don’t mean us any harm, why did you send Dr. Dixon away? Are you ashamed of what you’re going to do?”
“That’s no way to talk,” Mr. Amalfi said. “Look, the sooner we get started, the sooner we can all go home. I don’t like it here any more than you do. We’ve just got a job to do, that’s all.”
“What’s the point of trying to reason with monkeys?” Bates demanded.
“Aw, Larry, don’t be like that,” Amalfi said. “He hadn’t ought to be like that, had he, Dr. Hasslein? Be nice, Larry.”
“I don’t have to be nice to monkeys,” Bates said. “They won’t tell us anything. Probably don’t know anything.”
“I don’t agree,” Amalfi said. “They’re pretty smart. Aren’t you?” He flashed them a smile. “Now, for instance, we need to know about things like this.” He touched a button on a small console on the table in front of him.
Zira’s voice, somewhat blurred, came from the player: "When we were in space . . . we saw the light. A blinding bright white light, it was horrible. The rim of the world seemed to melt! The whole earth must have been destroyed. Dr. Milo thought it had been. Then there was—I don’t know. Then we were here.”
“Now, that was you talking, wasn’t it?” Amalfi said. “You saw all that?”
“I don’t know if I said that,” Zira said.
“Eh? Why don’t you know?”
“I don’t remember saying it,” Zira told them. “I was drunk. Dr. Hasslein can tell you, I had too much champagne to drink.”
“Yes,” Hasslein said. “That’s right, Mr. Amalfi. She probably didn’t know what she was saying.”
“But we have to check it out,” Amalfi said. “Now, Madame Zira, why would you tell Dr. Hasslein something when you were drunk but hide it from the Commission when you were sober? Were you afraid of us?”
“No. We didn’t hide anything,” Zira insisted. “Nobody ever asked us about that.”
“I see,” Amalfi said. He smiled gently. “See, Larry, I told you they’d cooperate. So. Now we do have to ask you about that, of course. You had a war, and the earth was destroyed . . .”
“But not by us,” Zira insisted. “Chimpanzees had no part in that war or in the destruction. Only the gorillas and the orangutans.”
“Oh, what’s the difference?” Bates said. “You’re all a bunch of monkeys anyway.”
“That will do,” Cornelius said harshly. “I have overlooked your insults before, Mr. Bates, but I will not do so again. Please do not employ the word ‘monkey’ in referring to us. We find it offensive and impertinent.”
“Well, look who’s on his high horse,” Bates said. “For somebody who blew up the world, you’re sure holy and righteous!”
Cornelius sniffed. “As an archeologist and historian, I studied a very great number of ancient records,” he said. “I have concluded that the weapon which probably destroyed Earth was man’s invention. I am almost certain of it, now that I have seen your atomic power plants—you do have real atom bombs.”
“But your kind used them,” Bates sneered.
“Perhaps,” Cornelius said. “But I also know that one reason for man’s decline and fall was your peculiar habit of murdering one another. Man destroys man. Apes do not destroy apes.”
“Crap,” Bates snapped. “You tried to pull that one before. Run the film,” he ordered.
There was a screen on one side of the room. It lit with scenes obviously taken from a blind in an animal game preserve. A group of chimpanzees, both adult and young, played together with young baboons.
Suddenly one of the adult chimpanzees seized an immature baboon and dashed its brains out against a tree. It cracked open the skull and dipped its fingers into the brain case, then licked them off. Other chimpanzees crowded around as the rest of the baboons fled in panic.
They tore the baby baboon apart and ate it. Finally the screen went dark and the lights came on again.
“Well,” Bates demanded. “What’s this crap about being peaceful and vegetarian? Aren’t baboons apes?”
“But we never did anything like that!” Zira protested. “Chimpanzees are pacifists! Only the gorillas wanted the war—”
“Bates, I’m shocked,” Hasslein said smoothly. “Look how that film has upset Zira. Cornelius, Zira, this is not an interracial hassle. We are trying to find out the facts. For example: we can admit the possibility of the decline and fall of mankind, but we would like to know just how it happened—and how apes rose to take man’s place.”
“I see,” Cornelius said.
“As an historian, surely you must have theories,” Hasslein said smoothly.
“Yes,” Cornelius admitted. He settled back in his chair. “So far as we can tell, it began with a plague that affected dogs.”
“And cats,” Zira added.
“And cats. Millions of them died, and there was no antidote. A house that had been infected by the plague could never again have a dog or a cat in it. To bring pets anywhere near that house would be to kill them. And despite the quarantines, the plague spread . . .”
“It must have been horrible,” Zira said. “And when it was over, man had no pets. None at all.”
“An intolerable situation,” Cornelius continued. “Men might kill their brothers, but not their dogs. Since they couldn’t keep dogs and cats, men took primitive apes into their homes.”
“Primitive,” Amalfi said. “Would you explain that, please?”
“They couldn’t talk,” Zira said. “But primitive and dumb as they were, they were still twenty times more intelligent than dogs and cats. And people bred them for intelligence.”