There was a knock on the laboratory door. Zira put down the scientific journal she was reading and went to answer it. The golden-furred council Elder Dr. Zaius stood on the stoop, and Zira quickly gestured for him to enter.
"Why Dr. Zaius, what a pleasant surprise!"
She closed the door behind the leader of the council and offered him a seat in the study section of the behavioral sciences lab. But the orangutan philosopher declined, preferring to pace the floor.
Zira smiled at the old ape's prolonged silence. "To what, sir, do we owe the pleasure of your visit?"
"I'm not here for pleasure, Zira, I'm...."
"Zira, who was it?" came a call. "Oh, Dr. Zaius! How nice!" Cornelius stood in the door to the inner laboratory, wiping his hands on a towel. "May I get you a glass of wine, doctor? Do sit down. Would a little Ape Valley burgundy be all right?"
Zaius shook his head. "No, thank you, Cornelius. I'm not here on a social call."
Cornelius looked worried until he saw that Zira didn't seem anxious.
"May we ask why you've come, then, sir?" she said.
Zaius looked from one to the other before answering. "I'm here to find out who really stole General Urko's flying machine...."
Cornelius looked shocked. "Surely you don't think we stole it, sir!"
"You didn't let me finish," Zaius complained mildly. "I also want to tell whoever took it that I am forever in his debt!"
"But we didn't steal it!" Zira protested. "We were right in the stands, talking to you just after, and...."
Zaius raised a hand to stop her remarks. "I know that my dear girl. Perhaps 'stole' was the wrong term to use. 'Appropriated' might be more accurate."
"I don't understand, Dr. Zaius," Zira said, her nose twitching and her eyes blinking rapidly.
"It's very simple, my child." Zaius repeated his searching look at both of them in turn. "I know of your great loyalty to me, and the deep bond of affection between...."
"That's very true, sir," Zira nodded.
The orangutan leader nodded. "Of course it is." He cleared his throat and began pacing about again, without looking at them. "While it was in Urko's hands, the flying machine was a formidable weapon...." He paused, rubbed his orange-yellow beard. "It posed a great danger to the continuation of my leadership. Perhaps it is wrong of me to think so, but I feel the necessity---more than ever before---of continuing my rule....my policies of a balance of power, and of peace." The Elder ceased, looked out a window. Wresting that air vehicle from Urko was a great service to me---and worthy of a considerable reward....."
Neither Zira nor Cornelius said anything, but they looked at each other, their expressions a mixture of hope, suspicion and puzzlement. Zaius cleared his throat again and went on.
"Indeed, whoever even helped in taking the sky machine away from Urko is deserving of any wish I could grant.
He turned around and gave the chimpanzee scientists a long look.
Cornelius gulped, flicked a glance at his wife, then spoke. "We appreciate your sentiments, Dr. Zaius, we really do. But I assure you, sir, neither Zira nor I had anything to do with the appropriation of the flying machine...."
Dr. Zaius quickly snapped out an important question, one that the two scientists had been afraid he would ask. "Perhaps it was the blue-eyed humanoid?"
Just as quickly, Cornelius answered, "N-no. I doubt that very seriously."
"Why?" Zaius pinned Cornelius with his eyes.
Cornelius shrugged. "Because----everyone knows that humanoids don't possess the basic intelligence to operate such complex machinery."
The orangutan lawmaker shifted his piercing look to Zira. "You seem extremely fond of the beast, Zira." He smiled, faintly. "I think too fond....." He let the sentence trail off and the words hang in the air.
Zira laughed weakly and fluttered her hands. "No, no, Dr. Zaius. It's just my love for all animals. Ever since I was a child I've loved them. We had pet chipmunks and a rabbit named Homer, and my parents gave me a pet humanoid who was almost my size and..."
"Urko believes the blue-eyed beast is guilty of the theft," Zaius cut in.
"B-based upon what proof?" Zira stammered.
Zaius raised his hand. "Urko needs no proof! He's convinced that his judgment is infallible." He lowered his head and added in a glum tone, "Just like any other general."
"What is he planning, Dr. Zaius?" Cornelius asked politely.
Zaius sighed. "He intends to lead a thorough search of the humanoid encampment in the caves. That was where he claims to have last made a significant capture. If the blue-eyed one—or any other articulate humanoid—is discovered, he has vowed to make an example of them. Execution, he says, for the guilty and their collaborators. As for the rest…" He folded his hands behind his back, his voice cold. " They will be returned to their proper place—caged in the zoological gardens or perhaps sold to the traveling exhibitions. At least there they may serve some instructive purpose."
Zira and Cornelius struggled to hide a smile. They alone knew the truth: the seven talking humans had left the cave settlement long ago. By now, they were deep in the forest south of the Forbidden Zone—nearly a hundred miles from where Urko planned to search.
The council leader sighed again, deeply. "A huge army is already being mustered for the search. Urko has brought in new equipment from his supplies at Strategic Defense Headquarters to replace the column he lost when he fired recently into that volcano." Zaius raised his head to look gloomily at the chimpanzee couple. "He won’t let the theft of his sky machine go unanswered!"
Cornelius took Zira's hand and held it very tight.258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡihnCu7Rckf
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Nova stepped carefully into the shallow water at the river’s edge, her bare feet making almost no sound as they pressed into the muddy bottom. The last woven basket—bulging with food wrapped in leaves and tied with strips of vine—rested in her arms. She waded out to the raft, water lapping gently at her knees, and placed the basket with quiet precision near the center. Betty was already crouched there, securing the stacked supplies. Without a word, she reached for the basket, gave Nova a small nod of thanks, and looped a length of cord around it. With practiced hands, she tied it tightly to the crossbeams, anchoring it alongside the other bundles lashed firmly in place. The raft bobbed slightly under the new weight, but everything held. The final piece was now aboard.
“Hey, are we done now?” Barry called to Steve, his voice full of curiosity and hope as he walked along the shore.
Steve nodded as he waded out to the raft. "Yup. We're ready to shove off."
Dan admonished Barry to stay away from the raft’s edge. “Easy, kid—don’t get too close. That current’s stronger than it looks.”
Barry plopped down among the jumble of makeshift baskets, his legs crossed and eyes scanning the supplies with curiosity. Valerie caught his eye, smiled warmly, and gave him a little wave.
"Let's get going!" Steve said. "We can cover a lot of distance before nightfall."
Steve signaled to Dan, and the ropes anchoring the floating structure to the shore were pulled free. With a gentle lurch, the ungainly transport began to drift downstream, carried by the steady pull of the current.
Dan and Mark had fashioned rudders for each raft, attached loosely to a Y-shaped limb at the back that had been fixed solidly into the tree trunks of which the raft was made. At Steve’s order, Mark took hold of the rudder, bracing himself as the current began to tug them forward.
As the current caught the raft, it gave an unexpected twist, the front end swinging awkwardly to the side. Within seconds, the entire structure had turned around, drifting backward down the river. Supplies shifted slightly, and a few of the baskets thudded softly against one another as the raft bobbed in the gentle chop. Dan shouted from the front and waved his arms in wide, frantic circles. Realizing his mistake, Mark tightened his grip on the rudder and yanked it into position, fighting the resistance of the water. The long raft groaned as it slowly began to rotate, the rear swinging wide in a lazy arc. Then, finally, the bow faced forward again, catching the current properly. With the rudder held firm, the raft steadied and began gliding smoothly down the river, its wake trailing cleanly behind as the trees on either side rolled past in silence.
"I wonder what Little California will be like," Valerie said. By now, the castaways had begun to think of their future home as "Little California." She looked at Steve and Dan. "Do you think it'll offer the kind of protection we need?"
"Cornelius thought so," Steve answered her. "It's certainly remote---and faraway, and since it's surrounded on 3 sides by sheer rock walls, that makes it almost impossible to enter---even for us. The fourth side, which is somewhat exposed, is fortunately on the north, so that any armored military force that came all the way around to reach that side would arouse our attention by that time."
"But couldn't Urko come down from the north, instead of going around the Forbidden Zone by the southern route, as we're doing?"
"It's impossible to come down from the north. Urko could cross the Forbidden Zone to a point just north of Little California, but he couldn't leave the Zone to reach it: the mountains are almost impenetrable on the western edge of the Zone---at least for wheeled vehicles---and lead all the way north, that same way, up to the near-polar regions!"
Barry suddenly shot to his feet, eyes wide as he pointed ahead. “Rocks! Rocks! Big ones—right there! We’re gonna crash!” he yelled, his voice cracking as panic bubbled up, cutting straight through Steve and Valerie’s conversation.
Dan then picked up one of the two long, slim poles he'd carried aboard the raft. He held off the raft by sticking the pole into the rocks and shoving hard. Once past the obstacle, the three humans watched the other rafts fending safely past.
Dan heaved a sigh of relief as the raft slid past the last of the jagged rocks, the pole still firm in his hands. “Well, that was closer than I’d like. One more foot and we’d be picking supplies outta the river.”
Betty, steadying herself beside a stack of baskets, looked over at him. “Do you think it’s going to be like that the whole way?”
Dan gave a half-smile, wiping sweat from his brow. “If we’re lucky—only most of the way. What do you think, Steve?"258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwWJQRhGdPY
"I think we should appoint someone on this raft, besides Mark, to stay awake and on guard at all times. Not only for rocks or waterfalls, or for any sort of hostile animal that might be living in these waters, but for gorilla patrols on shore as well."
"Or for any villages we find along the river!" Valerie added. "We wouldn't want to float into some ape town without warning, in broad daylight!"
"That's sensible," Steve agreed.
Fitzhugh, who had been sitting with exaggerated calm near the front of the raft, suddenly stood and cleared his throat loudly. “Well, if no one else is going to step up, then I suppose it falls to me—as usual—to assume responsibility for the safety of this expedition.” He straightened his coat and tapped the polished handle of his so-called laser weapon. “I shall take up guard duty. If any apes—or wild beasts—dare to show themselves along the riverbank, they shall find themselves sorely regretting it.”
He turned sharply toward Barry, who had resumed poking at a loose knot in the cargo net. “You there! My assistant. Help me keep watch. Eyes open, lad! Danger could be lurking behind any bush.”
Barry groaned. “Aw, come on, why do I have to? I was just—”
“Because I said so, that’s why!” Fitzhugh snapped, jabbing a finger toward the riverbank as if danger might spring from it at any second. “Now look lively!”
Barry sighed and shuffled over beside him, muttering, “This better not mean I miss lunch.”
Dan sighed. "We'll see that you don't, son."
"Captain Bligh to crew," Steve said. "Get some rest. There'll be a moon later tonight. Maybe we can extend our day's travel a bit. I'd like to get as far away from that cave area as possible!
Nova sat quietly near the center of the raft, her knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around them. Her dark eyes swept the riverbanks and the hills beyond, alert and watchful. There was a tension in her gaze—not the simple curiosity of someone seeing new things, but something deeper. A quiet fear. As if she sensed something the others couldn’t. Something just out of sight.
After a while, she lay down on the rounded bark of the tree-trunk raft, curling onto her side. The creaking of wood and the gentle lapping of water surrounded her as she closed her eyes. But even in sleep, her brow remained faintly furrowed—like someone who wasn’t sure whether rest was safe anymore.258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO2trnptmJS
and then Add to home screen.