Land of the Apes. - The Thirty-Foot Tall Ape

While Captain Kronus was writing out his brief report for Lt. Trak to carry back to their field HQ at the foot of the mountains for radio transmission to General Urko, Steve was slowly levering himself upward out of the snow, brushing the cold flakes from his eyes with a hand that was already turning numb in the freezing temperature.

He sat in the snow for a moment, waiting for his head to stop spinning and his vision to clear, then he looked around to see just what their situation was and spotted a crumpled brown-and-green shape half buried in the snow ten feet from where he was sitting. Painfully, he began to crawl that way.

"Cornelius! Cornelius!" he called.

The chimpanzee, stunned, gradually opened his eyes, blinking at the bright, snow-reflected light and wincing at the cold wind.

"You okay?" Steve asked. "Anything broken?"

"I'm too frozen to tell," Cornelius groaned. "There may not be a whole bone left in my body!"

Steve grinned, knowing that his friend must be basically all right if he could make jokes about his condition, and slowly rose to his feet. Wading through the snow to where Cornelius lay, he helped the ape to his feet.

"Maybe we can find some wood and build us a fire," he said. "Otherwise, we're going to freeze to death in no time flat! The temperature up here must be at least twenty below!"

"We could burn the fuel in the gondola," Cornelius pointed out.

"No, we'll need that fuel after the storm breaks. That is, unless you want to try walking down out of the mountains...."

Cornelius shuddered, not bothering to answer. He turned, ready to look for some wood. "I'll look over this way, and....." Cornelius stopped dead in his tracks, a look of astonishment and fear on his face. "Great Simian gods!" he exclaimed. "What's that?"

"What?" Steve asked, glancing in the direction the chimpanzee was pointing.

"By the Gates of Simian Hell, there! On the mountaintop!"

Up on an outcropping of rock above them, gazing over the snow-capped peaks that rose from horizon to horizon, loomed the giant figure of an ice ape.

Almost 30 feet tall, the great ape stood erect on short, tremendously muscled legs. Sunlight reflecting off the snow gleamed on the black, leathery skin of his gigantic face. Except for that leathery shine and the palms of his hands and a bare patch on his stomach, the great ape was covered with long thick, dark fur from the great ridges of bone above his sunken eyes to his solidly planted feet. He seemed to be almost half as wide as he was high, his huge arms bunched with muscles that looked as if they could have ripped the mountain itself apart!

"God almighty!" Steve exclaimed. "What in the holy hell are we looking at?"

Cornelius didn't say a word but just stood staring upward.

For a moment, Steve gazed at the incredible figure looming against the slate-gray sky above them. Then he suddenly realized that, realistic as it was, the creature was not moving, and it was covered with patches of snow.

"Oh, thank God! It's only a statue!"

“That’s no ordinary carving,” Cornelius said solemnly.

"What...? What do you mean?" Steve asked.

“It’s a representation of an ancient ape god," Cornelius pronounced, more clearly this time. "One of the oldest in our mythology. His name is Khan'Gorr, the Mighty Guardian." The ape scientist looked completely humbled.

"And what, may I ask, is the great Khan'Gorr supposed to be?"

"Something.....something I thought was just a primitive superstition. A carry over from our Dark Ages. But, it appears, I was wrong...." Cornelius answered, still staring upward.

"Dammit, Cornelius," Steve admonished, "it's just a statue!"

"Yes, but it's a statue I thought I'd never see. Legend says he ruled the high places and kept watch over the boundaries between ape and... other." He swallowed, visibly unnerved. “Most scholars believed Khan'Gorr was just a story to frighten young gorillas. But that statue—it’s real. And if it’s real... what else might be?”

Steve glanced toward the misty ridgeline. "Then the Forbidden City could be real too," he said. "If it is, maybe we’ll find shelter. Food. Maybe even help getting the balloon off that ledge before the wind tears it loose."

Steve’s words hung in the cold air, hopeful but uncertain. The wind whistled low through the crags, as if in warning.

Cornelius turned, eyes narrowing toward the horizon where jagged peaks clawed at the clouds. “You remember what I told you before,” he said quietly. “It’s said to be uninhabitable, but… others have been there. Survivors, maybe. Or watchers. Whatever they are, they do not welcome outsiders." He cast a glance toward Steve, ears twitching slightly in unease. "And that includes humanoid outsiders. If there's a splinter branch of Apekind living in the Forbidden City, they must be primitive. Isolated. Otherwise, we’d have encountered them by now—during any of our mapping expeditions in the eastern ridges.”

But didn't you say these mountains have never been explored by your people?"

"Yes, I said that. But they have been passed through sometimes by army patrols---even though they lie at the northern extremity of Alvah Province, an outlying region far to the southwest of Ape City. If there were a tribe of 'developed' apes up here, we would have found them. Or they us."

Steve looked up the slope at the statue of the giant ice ape for a long moment. Thinking about it, he admitted to himself that he was somewhat frightened and more than a bit awed at the size and life-like giant look of the thing---especially out here in this frozen, apparently deserted mountain wasteland. Finally, he dropped his gaze from the statue and scanned the snow shelf around them, seeking a suitable path away from the snowy slope.

"It doesn't really matter what the natives up here might be like," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"We're going to have to find them and hopefully get some help from them. Either that---or freeze to death!"

Cornelius glanced fearfully up at the giant ice ape. "Agreed. You lead the way."

Steve quickly got a piece of the mooring rope out of the gondola and tied the balloon as well as he could to several scattered boulders, hoping that they would anchor the flying machine should the wind come up again. Finished, he turned, motioning to Cornelius, and they started off across the snowfield, angling upward and toward the statue of the ice ape.

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Fifteen hundred feet below them, on another ice-and snow-covered ledge, gorilla captain Kronus was peering upward again through the binoculars. He had just sent Lt. Trak off on his mission back to base and had given orders to his sergeants about moving the detachment up to the canyon slope where the balloon lay as soon as the men could be made ready. Now, seeing the chimpanzee and the humanoid apparently trying to escape, he knew he didn't have much time. The mountains were a maze of canyons and spurs, and furthermore, with their head start, the two would soon be lost to him---and the wind would quickly hide their tracks in the blowing snow.

"Sergeant!" he yelled. "Let's move 'em out! If anyone doesn't have his pack, have him leave his equipment! We can pick it up later. But get everyone moving, now!" To himself he said: "Damn this mountain duty! We'll probably break our fool necks!"

"Yes, sir!" the sergeant called, throwing a quick smile to Kronus.

He began to scream at his men, and in moments every gorilla had his snowshoes buckled on and the detachment was ready to move out.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6yyyoJ5ql8
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"Get up, Cornelius!" Steve panted, almost unable to speak. "Keep moving or you'll get frostbite!"

The ape scientist, struggling up the slope into the wind just ahead of the astronaut, had stumbled and fallen and showed no signs of getting up again.

"I can't, Steve!" the chimpanzee gasped. 'I just---can't move anoth---another step!"

The wind began to howl again, sending swirling clouds of snowflakes over the fallen scientist as Steve fought his way up to him. Bending over Cornelius, he struggled to lift his friend out of the snow and away from the creeping lifelessness that the cold was bringing. If I don't get Cornelius moving again fast, my friend will freeze to death, he was thinking.

"C'mon," Steve urged. "I'll carry you."

"Then pretty soon....we'll both be exhausted," Cornelius answered weakly. "I think it would be much wiser...if you left me here and went...to get help."

"No way, buddy!" Steve said. "You're coming with me! We'll find some shelter pretty quick. Then we can both rest."

Picking Cornelius up out of the snow, with the chimpanzee's help he got him into a piggyback position across his shoulders and began to struggle forward through the nearly waist-deep snow. His hips broke through the icy crust that had formed over the snow with each forward step. Then, as if the very gods were against them, a sudden new blizzard hit, pouring over the peak in a numbing wave, its winds whipping the snow around them into an impenetrable curtain.

In minutes, Steve exhausted his final reserves of strength and fell into the snow, Cornelius falling from his back and rolling a few feet away, now completely unconscious and close to freezing to death.

Steve had not yet lost consciousness, but he no longer had any control over his body, and what was happening around him seemed to be happening faraway. He, too, was only minutes from death as drifts began to pile up around him, shrouding his body in a cocoon he would not escape from until the spring thaws released his frozen body. He knew he was dying, but he no longer cared. His eyes were open, staring into the swirling snow, but what they saw made no impression on his slowing mind---until an impression forced its way through the curtain of icy calm, jolting him abruptly back to reality.

It was the impression of a slender ape’s hand, long-fingered and gentle, reaching down to brush his cheek with a strangely tender grace.

Suddenly Steve's mind was churning with life again, though his body remained numb—far past the point of action. He could only look—and wonder—as a large ape emerged from the swirling snow. Its face was strangely humanlike, with deep-set, intelligent eyes and a smooth brow framed by neatly parted, dark hair that had clearly been groomed with care. The jaw was softer than a gorilla’s, the mouth expressive, almost empathetic. Without hesitation, the ape bent low and lifted Steve from his frozen hollow—his sorry coffin—with surprising strength and an even more surprising gentleness.

"Wrap them in warm furs and bring them to the city," said the ape in the weathered parka, his voice calm, resonant—like someone offering a prayer rather than giving an order. His diction was careful, almost musical, the tone of a being for whom all life held sacred weight. His coat, once a vibrant red, had faded to deep rust in places, the fabric softened by years of use. Embroidered patterns—celestial swirls, stylized vines, and something like peace symbols—ran along the hem and cuffs, half-hidden beneath a fine dusting of snow. A strip of woven beads hung from the shoulder, clicking softly with each movement. Behind him stood two other apes, clad in parkas of deep green, more utilitarian but still adorned with subtle hand-stitched details—spirals, sunbursts, and what might have been animal tracks. Their hoods were drawn back, revealing faces alert but gentle. One supported Cornelius in a sitting position, the other adjusted the cloak around his shoulders. They moved with quiet coordination, reverent in their care, as though handling something fragile and precious—not outsiders, but unexpected guests from the edge of myth.

"Yes, Revered Master," one of the apes replied, turning to signal to his fellows that they were to carry the chimpanzee and the humanoid.

"When you get to the city, have the healer minister to them." The large statured rescuer then looked up at the dark figure of the giant ice ape statue, still visible occasionally through the swirling snow, half a mile away. "I go to Khan'Ghorr to pray for their lives----and to find out who and what they are."

Unable to understand just what was happening to them, Steve realized that, for the moment at least, he and Cornelius was safe. And with that understanding came a relaxation that, at last, allowed his mind to slip into painless, healing unconsciousness.

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