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Following the joint Urko/Zaius expedition, things quieted down considerably in Ape City, and especially in the laboratory of Cornelius and Zira.
Zira missed Steve almost like a mother would miss her child. Cornelius liked Steve, too, and he was sure that, given a little time together to get to know him, he would also have liked Dan, Valerie, Alexander, Betty and Mark. But the two chimpanzees had thrown themselves into their work after the castaways' escape---both to keep busy and not worry that they might have been seen with the humans, and to get as much work done as possible before Dr. Zaius again turned his attention their way. Both knew how close the elderly orangutan was to ordering their work stopped permanently.
One afternoon, nearly a month after the return of the Forbidden Zone expedition, Zira was sitting in the laboratory, at her sorting table, trying to make sense out of a large box of pottery fragments she had picked up at the sight of Cornelius's latest dig. Her concentration was totally disrupted when Cornelius burst through the door.
"Zira," he shouted, "I've found what we've been looking for! At last, I've got the proof we've needed!"
"What on earth are you talking about?" Zira asked, swinging around on her stool to face her husband.
"This!" he said, holding out a sloppily wrapped package. "The most dangerous thing in the Land of the Apes!"
"Something you found at the dig?"
"Yes."
"I didn't know we were playing twenty questions," Zira said, a little sarcastically, "but my next question will be: How can something thousands of years old be the most dangerous thing in our land? Is it an ancient weapon?"
"No, it's not a weapon," Cornelius answered. "At least, not a physical one. But it's a weapon which could blast minds from here to the Senate Building and back again!"
All at once, Cornelius brushed aside Zira's neat little piles of fragments on the table. Setting the package down on the table, he began to unwrap it slowly and carefully, as if whatever was inside was very fragile---as, indeed, it was!
"A book?" Zira exclaimed when Cornelius had the last of the wrapping off.
"Indeed," Cornelius chuckled. He was careful not to tear any of the flaky, dry pages as he turned the book around and opened it for Zira. "And not just any book. It's an illustrated book!" Though badly worn, the letters A DAY AT THE ZOO were clearly visible among the faded colors on the cover.
"A book written by humanoids!" Zira burst out, something close to awe in her voice. "A book written before the dawn of ape civilization!"
"A book," Cornelius stated triumphantly, "which directly contradicts our Books of Law. There were intelligent creatures on Earth before us apes, and the humanoids are descendants of those creatures!"
"Are you sure it's proof?" Zira asked, with some doubt. "After all, it could have been written by very early apes! Or maybe by a lost ape civilization, before the dawn of our recorded history."
"No, this book was never written by apes. Look!"
Dramatically, Cornelius opened the book to the first page---to a picture of humans at a zoo watching caged monkeys.
"Why, the apes are locked up and the humanoids are free!" Zira exclaimed. "Just like Blue-Eyes said."
"Proof, after all these years, that we were right!"
"But I'm afraid it's proof we can't use now, Cornelius, my love," Zira said sadly.
"What?! Why not?"
"Because if General Urko saw this book, he would have exactly the proof he needs to order all humanoids destroyed."
"But," Cornelius said desperately, "it could prove that all our theories about humanoids preceding us on Earth are correct. It could prove that they're not just dumb animals."
"And in proving that, we would be killing them!" Zira put her hand gently on her husband's arm.
"Dr. Zaius...."
"Forget him!" Zira thundered, interrupting Cornelius with a frown. "He'd be the first to order the roundup and execution of the humanoids if he ever laid eyes on this book. At his age, he cannot admit that everything he's believed in and everything he's taught is wrong. He'll destroy the humanoids before he'll destroy himself."
'I---I can't argue with you," Cornelius agreed mournfully.
"You don't dare. Now, let's figure out what to do with this book."
"I'm afraid it looks like we'll have to burn it."
"Burn it? Certainly not!" Zira said, alarmed, gathering the precious book to her breast protectively.
"Then I'll have to take it back to the dig and re-bury it---as if I'd never found it."
"No." Zira shook her head. "What if one of Urko's soldiers digs it up again? You know how they've been investigating everything we do."
"Give it to me, and I'll tear it up," Corenlius commanded.
"No!" Zira said, almost violently. "It's too valuable, both to us and to the humanoids. Someday, maybe, the world will be ready for the images in this book."
"We cannot wait for someday!" Cornelius insisted. "If we can't reveal the book now, we have to get rid of it. As long as the book is here in the lab, we're in danger. Just because it's been nearly two months since Urko's soldiers searched here the last time, looking for Blue-Eyes, doesn't mean the general won't come back. And this time he might really tear the place apart!"
"Didn't Dr. Zaius order Urko stop harassing us?"
"He did. But you can be sure that if Urko gets the urge to do so again, he'll be able to get a warrant from his cronies on the Supreme Council that'll override Zaius's edict without any trouble."
"Well," Zira asked, "what do we do with it, then? I don't want it destroyed."
"Find someplace safe for it. Somewhere General Urko not only wouldn't---but couldn't---look."
"Where do you have in mind?"
Cornelius shook his head, looking down at the so valuable, and so dangerous, book. "I don't have an answer for you, dear. For the time being, I'll lock it in the safe. And throw this in the trash."
He picked up the paper he'd wrapped the book in, gave it to his wife, and turned away to open the safe.
"What's this?" Zira asked, puzzled.
"What's what?"
"This paper you told me to throw away. Where did you get it?"
Cornelius stopped trying to open the safe and looked back at his wife, who was staring intently at the wrapping paper.
"It's the paper I used to wrap the book in," he said. "It comes from the dig, too, part of the junk that was hiding the book. Why do you ask?"
"It's got some kind of strange drawing on it!" Zira's fingers were tracing the faint lines on the paper.
"Are you sure?" Cornelius asked, stepping back over to the table and looking down at the paper, which Zira had spread out on the spot that Cornelius had cleared of pottery. "I was so excited at finding the humanoid book, I didn't even look at that paper."
"It looks like some kind of plans for---something," Zira said, carefully straightening wrinkles in the heavy, but old and brittle sheet.
Suddenly, before Cornelius could puzzle out what the plans were for, a loud and commanding knock came at the door of the laboratory. Cornelius had locked the door when he came in with the precious book.
"Who's out there?" Zira called out.
"General Urko! Open this door at once!"
"Give us a minute, general......please," Zira called out pleadingly.
Quickly, Cornelius scooped up the paper and the book and stuffed them into a cabinet Zira used for storing unidentified pieces of pottery and glass from the dig. Again, the loud knock sounded on the door, just as Cornelius gently closed the cabinet door, careful not to make any noise that might carry outside.
Without so much as another knock, the door to the laboratory burst open, slamming against the walls with a loud boom. General Urko stormed inside, his massive frame filling the entryway like a thundercloud. His dark leather helmet glinted under the lab’s flickering overhead light as he shoved roughly past Cornelius, nearly knocking the startled chimpanzee off balance.
"Out of my way, scientist," Urko barked, his voice a booming snarl edged with contempt. He swept his glare across the cluttered room—scrolls, tools, strange artifacts stacked high—and then turned it back on Cornelius, his nostrils flaring.
"My soldiers tell me you've been digging again!" he growled, stepping closer until he loomed over the smaller chimpanzee. "Rooting around that cursed archaeological site like some groundhog! And now they say you've dragged more of your junk back into Ape City!" His hand swept toward the lab bench, his upper lip curling in disdain.
"We are seeking---digging for---scientific information. We have in our favor the blessing of Dr. Zaius," Cornelius told the burly gorilla commander. "What we do there is no concern of yours, general."
Urko’s gloved fist slammed down on the table, rattling the instruments and sending a few notebooks tumbling to the floor. His deep-set eyes blazed with fury as he leaned in close, speaking with the righteous arrogance of someone convinced of his absolute authority.
"You listen to me, Cornelius," he growled, his voice low but shaking with barely restrained rage. "As Guardian of the Security of the Simian Nation, everything is my concern. What you dig up, what you study, what you think you know—it all falls under my watch."
He jabbed a thick finger toward the window beyond, where the distant hills marked the borders of the Forbidden Zone. "And that goes double when it involves the humanoids. If you uncover anything—any evidence that proves these creatures are more than mute scavengers—more cunning, more dangerous..." His voice dropped to a menacing rumble. "Then it becomes a matter of survival."
Urko straightened, squaring his shoulders with the swagger of a battlefield commander lecturing a fool. "So don’t give me any more of your academic babble. I don’t care about symbols or notes. I care about the truth—and whether that truth tells me the humanoids need to be wiped out before they become a threat to every ape in this city."
"Speaking as a scientist, general," said Zira, sugar dripping from her voice, "I doubt very much that we would ever find such proof. The idea is absurd!"
Urko’s lip curled back in a sneer, his sharp teeth flashing beneath the brim of his black helmet. The heavy silence in the lab seemed to thicken around him, broken only by the distant hum of machinery and the ragged breathing of the stunned scientists.
Then, without warning, he reared back his head and bellowed, his voice exploding through the room like cannon fire.
“Maybe it’s time I send my troops back in here—tear this place apart from top to bottom!” he roared, eyes wild with fury. “Let them see exactly what you’ve dragged in from your grubhole in the dirt!”
He slammed a fist against his chest armor with a loud clang, the echo rolling off the lab walls. “You think you can hide things from me? From the military?” he shouted. “You’re mistaken, Cornelius. Gravely mistaken!”
He took a step closer, nostrils flaring, breath hot. “If there’s anything down there that proves those filthy humanoids are more than they pretend to be—I’ll find it! And when I do, don’t expect mercy!”
"I thought Dr. Zaius ordered you to stop such harassment," Cornelius said angrily.
Urko’s heavy boots thudded as he paced furiously across the lab floor, his simian frame bristling with rage. His black cape flared behind him as he spun to face Cornelius again, his voice now a guttural snarl.
“Don’t quote Zaius to me,” he spat, pounding his chest with his fist. “The old fool can sit in his council chamber and stroke his beard all he wants—I am the one who keeps this city safe. I command the troops. And I carry the weapons!”
His eyes burned with defiance, and his voice rose to a thunderous growl. “He may have told me to leave you two alone—but I don’t care what he said. His warnings, his restraints—they mean nothing when it comes to protecting our people.”
He leaned in, jabbing a thick finger at Cornelius’s chest. “So if you think Zaius’s orders will shield you, think again. If I suspect for a moment that what you’re hiding down there threatens the simian nation, I will do whatever it takes—with or without his blessing.”
"Dr. Zaius is chairman of the Council of Elders---therefore his orders are to be obeyed!"
Urko let out a low, derisive laugh, thick with scorn, his chest rising with each breath as he stalked back toward the center of the lab. He turned sharply, glaring at Cornelius and sweeping his arm in a grand, mocking gesture at the cluttered shelves and scattered artifacts.
“Orders from Dr. Zaius?” he scoffed, the sneer curling across his broad muzzle. “You think that protects you? You think hiding behind the High Council gives you license to dabble in forbidden truths?”
He leaned in, voice dropping to a growl. “Let me make something very clear, chimpanzee—I have the power to get those orders revoked. And I will. I’ll go before the council myself and demand it. I’ll show them this filthy den of lies—this nest of treason!”
He turned a slow circle, his nostrils flaring, taking in the lab with exaggerated disgust. “This place reeks of it. Books. Relics. Human filth! And if Zaius is too blind—or too soft—to act on it, then I will.”
Then he snapped his fingers, the sound sharp and final. “One word from me, and this lab will be stripped bare, piece by piece. You’ll be lucky if you're left with a broom closet when I’m finished!”
His voice thundered as he delivered the final words: “Treason stinks, Cornelius. And I can smell it all over this room!”
Urko looked once more around the laboratory; then, without warning, he turned and stomped out of the room. Cornelius hurried to escort him through the outer lab room, then returned to take his sobbing wife in his arms.
"Now, now, Zira," he said, patting his wife on the back. "There's no need to cry. We don't have to be afraid of that gorilla."
"I know, but still, he upsets me so. I sometimes wish that we'd never got ourselves involved with this humanoid business. And if he comes back with a search warrant, we will have to be afraid of him. We have that book now---and the plans---remember? If he finds them, we can be sure he'll get rid of us as well as the humanoids!"
"We'll just have to get them away from here. And, speaking of those plans, let's take another look at them. I didn't have a chance to make much sense out of them before General Urko showed u, but something about them looked familiar. They looked like something I've seen before, somewhere."
Zira retrieved the plans from the cabinet and again spread them on the tabletop. Cornelius bent over them, tracking with his finger, trying to make out the faded lines and angles.
"I've got it!" he responded after a few minutes. "I knew I had seen something like this before!"
"What is it, dear?"
"Remember a few years ago, when Professor Virgil tried to build a lighter-than-air flying machine?"
"You mean that bag full of hot air he thought he could use to fly over the city? Bah! He used the wrong hot air. He should've gotten some from the Senate!"
"But that's just it! These are the drawings for just such a flying machine!"
Cornelius was so filled with enthusiasm that he was now dancing around the table, looking at the plans from different angles and trying to understand them more clearly.
"But," Zira said, "I thought that Professor Virgil's machine didn't work. That it was conclusively proved that no matter what kind of hot air you used such a machine couldn't fly. It couldn't lift enough to carry the heavy stove needed to make the hot air."
"His machine didn't work, but this one must work. Otherwise, why would the humanoids of the past draw up such detailed plans for the machine?"
"Maybe what you have there is a drawing of a machine just like Professor Virgil's. Or maybe it's even a joke, about a machine that didn't work.
"No, I don't think so," Cornelius said slowly. "Down here in the corner is a box with the title of the plan in it. It's called 'Design Specifications for a Two-passenger Hot-Air Sport Balloon.' And 'design specifications' are usually plans for something to be built from---not drawings of something nobody would want to build because it wouldn't work!"
"So what're you going to do with them?" Zira asked.
"Well, I've always believed there was a basic design flaw in Virgil's work. A hot-air balloon should work. It's a problem that's intrigued me."
"Cornelius!" Zira sounded a bit exasperated. "It just isn't a practical theory. Professor Virgil wasn't the first ape to try to build a flying machine, you know. And everyone who's tried to build one has ended up a failure. Usually because their silly machines crashed!"
"Yes...." Cornelius replied, nodding his head but not looking up from the drawing, "but they didn't have plans like these to work from. This design looks different from the ones Virgil and other apes have built. It just might work!"
"Cornelius," Zira scolded, "think about what you're saying. Heated air---lifting people into the sky! Why, it's against the laws of nature! If the 1st Lawgiver had wanted apes to fly, he---"
"....would have given them wings!" Cornelius finished with a smile. "Zira, you're supposed to be a scientist, right? Then think like a scientist. Our job is to find the hidden laws of nature. Just as the ancient humanoids who first built this machine did. Why, possession of a flying machine like this one could advance ape civilization a thousand years overnight. It might even 'open up' enough minds so that our theory about the humanoids' former intelligence would get a hearing before the Council of Elders."
"But even if this thing could work, I don't see how we could build it. Why, even if Dr. Zaius or one of the other conservatives on the council didn't stop us, getting the things we would need to build it would. Why, the materials alone---so much cloth and rope. And this basket-shaped thing, with---what is it the plans call it? ---a 'burner and valve'? It's just too much for us!"
"Yes, yes....I know it's a big project. But we can do it," Cornelius said excitedly. "I know we can. Besides, we can use the balloon to solve another problem."
"What problem?" Zira asked.
"The book. If we constructed a balloon, we could ride the air currents east. There’s a peak beyond the Valley of the Winds… Mount Galaneth. It rises above even the Council’s reach.”
Zira narrowed her eyes, arms crossed tightly, but Cornelius pressed on.
“From there, it’s a short descent into the Forbidden City.” He hesitated a moment, carefully choosing his words. “It’s said to be uninhabitable, but… others have been there. Survivors, maybe. Or watchers. Whatever they are, they do not welcome outsiders.”
He gently placed the book on the table, his fingers brushing its cracked cover. “If we left the book there—sealed away in one of the buried archives—they’d likely never find it. But maybe, someday, someone who needs it would.”
Zira stepped forward, her brow furrowed with concern, voice rising above the tension in the room. “Cornelius, the Forbidden City is forbidden for a reason—by both the Book of Laws and the Book of Simian Prophecy,” she said firmly.
Cornelius turned to Zira, his expression softening, though his voice remained urgent. “Zira, please—don’t fall back on ancient fears and dusty prophecies. The Forbidden City isn’t off-limits because of curses or spirits—it’s forbidden because of them… the ones who live there.”
He glanced at Zira, lowering his voice. “They’re not like us, not part of our structured society. They were once a splinter—a branch—of our kind. Quiet, secretive, peaceful in ways we never understood… but also fiercely protective of what remains in that city. That’s why it’s sealed off. Not because of ghosts or divine warnings, but because we fear what we can’t control.”
He placed a hand gently over hers. “But we can’t let fear dictate truth. They may guard it… but they also preserve it.”
"Okay, dear," Zira said with a resigned smile. "If you've got your heart set on building this foolish contraption and flying off into the sky, well, I guess I can help you. But I'm telling you now, this silly thing will never get off the ground! Which, I guess, is a good thing. That way you'll never get high enough to fall and break your fool neck!"18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxBnSzW6Aei
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Two days later, all other work having stopped at the laboratory, Zira came in to find Cornelius sitting at a big table, poring over the plans and surrounded by coils of rope and sheets of thin canvas.
"Here's the air valve," she said. "You were right: the ones they use on the big compressors down at the truck station will work fine."
"Forget it, dear," Cornelius said dejectedly. "It's of no use to us now."
"What do you mean?" Zira questioned him, a touch of fear in her voice. "What's happened? Has General Urko returned already with the search warrant?"
"No, nothing like that," Cornelius answered glumly. "But some of the plans are missing. Destroyed by the ages and the elements, I guess."
"Important parts?"
"I would definitely call the steering mechanism important," Cornelius said bitterly, sweeping the plans off onto the floor in a fit of temper.
"Then we'll just have to invent our own steering mechanism," Zira said, reaching out to comfort her spouse.
"I've already tried that. I've been working on the problem all morning."
"Can't you think of anything that will work?"
"Oh, yes. I can...." Cornelius said with a half-smile. "I can think of a dozen ways to control the direction of the balloon in the air."
"Then what's the problem?" Zira asked. "Pick the one that works best and is easiest to build----and let's get on with it. We don't have all the time in the world, you know."
"I said I knew of a dozen ways to control the direction of the balloon," Cornelius said. "I didn't say any of them would work!"
"Oh, make up your mind, will you?! Can you steer the balloon, or can't you?"
"No, I can't. The steering devices all would work, but all of them are so heavy that the balloon would never get off the ground, so a steering mechanism is out of the question. And, apparently, so is the idea of building a flying balloon!"
"Well, as you said before, these are the plans for a hot-air flying balloon. And if the ancient humanoids could build one, you should be able to. They must've solved the problem of building a lightweight steering mechanism somehow!"
"I'm afraid there's not much consolation in that, Zira." Cornelius sounded defeated. "Even if the humanoids did have a light enough steering mechanism, the last of them died out about forty thousand years ago, so there's no one we can ask for help."
"Isn't there?" Zira was smiling. "What about Blue-Eyes and his friends? They were alive forty thousand years ago, and according to Blue-Eyes they were some kind of flyers. Isn't it logical that, as flyers, they'd know how a hot-air-balloon steering mechanism works?"
"Zira, you're a genius!" Cornelius exclaimed, his enthusiasm returning.
"Not really," Zira said, blushing with pleasure. "If I were a genius, I would've thought about our aeronaut friends two days ago, when we first started building this hot-air balloon of yours. They probably could've saved us a lot of time by their advanced knowledge. And remember, you don't know how old those plans might be. They may have been made up years---even centuries---before Steve and his friends were born. They may be badly out of date, to Steve and Dan, anyway. And since they're flyers, they may know better ways of building a hot-air flying machine than this way."
"Zira, you're right, as always."
"Thank you, dear."
"C'mon. Let's get everything loaded into the truck. We'll leave this afternoon, just as if we were going out to the archaeological site to dig for more pottery and such. We still have Dr. Zaius's pass, so we shouldn't have any trouble getting past Urko's patrols. Then, once we're beyond the patrol area, we can cut over to the west and follow the river to the humanoids' valley. There, we should be able to pick up their trail without any trouble and follow until we catch up."
"They've had a long head start, those people," Zira worried. "Are you sure we'll be able to catch them?"
"I think so. I'm sure Steve guessed that the affair at the riverbed convinced Zaius that no intelligent humanoids have landed here. So they won't be pushing toward their new home too fast."
"Yes, and they're not used to a lot of traveling," Zira said, considering the humanoids' chances of making it through the badlands between their old valley and the new one."
"When they left," Cornelius continued, "Steve said that they would probably only go about halfway to the new valley, then stop and rest for a time. We shouldn't have any trouble catching up to them."18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYckhX3onJy
