The small raft was still drifting south, but the current of the river had become sluggish. Even worse, the sun---in a cloudless sky---had begun to sear their bodies.
Steve, Dan, Mark, Betty, Valerie, Fitzhugh, Barry and Nova had found relief by diving off their raft from time to time, holding on to the raft’s edges and climbing quickly back aboard whenever they felt a passing fish tickle their feet.
It was the afternoon after they had passed the gorilla camp, and Fitzhugh sat limply by the raft’s rudder. “Well,” he drawled with theatrical disdain, “it’s perfectly obvious this river’s in low gear now. At this rate, we’ll arrive sometime next year—if we don’t simply die of boredom first.”
“It’s spread out here. That’s why,” Dan explained. “And what worries me is that, if it spreads out even more—and gets shallower and shallower—we may be headed into a swamp!”
“Oh, boy! Just what I wanted: bugs!” Barry said without enthusiasm.
"At least it’s easier than walking, and faster—though not much now!" Steve commented. "But I’m beginning to get worried, Dan… You remember the last time we came south—on foot—how we turned west, into the forest, after we’d passed over some ridges? I wonder if we’ve already passed the ridges—maybe sailed between them last night…"
Fitzhugh sniffed and gave a smug little tilt of his head. “I hardly think so,” he said in his most superior tone. “I was on the rudder after the moon went down, and I daresay I’d have noticed if we were meandering among a bunch of ridges. One does tend to be aware of such minor details when one is singlehandedly keeping us afloat.”
But was Fitzhugh certain....? Steve asked himself.239Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaSzR337ZYZ
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The quiet was broken only by the sudden, raucous laughter of hidden tropical birds. The water was very slow and the humanoids were propelling the raft along by sticking their poles into the black muck at the bottom and shoving.
A green jungle now grew thick around them. Viney trees were decorated with brilliant flowers. Sometimes they saw snakes slithering along the tree limbs, or watching their passage with motionless stares. Once in a while a snake dropped into the water, holding on to a branch with his tail until most of his length was in the water, then letting go with a slight splash. The group batted at those snakes that swam to their raft, and no one went into the water to cool off anymore.
Sometimes the castaways saw movement in the thick green bushes along the riverbank, but never actually saw what caused it. Steve hoped it was jungle animals, and not hostile apes watching them.
“This place is like the Amazon,” Valerie said.
Fitzhugh smirked and spread his hands in mock grandeur. “Ah yes—only three days southwest of good old Metropolis, the Big Apricot! A veritable tropical paradise… if you don’t mind the humidity, the insects, and the constant threat of being skewered by our simian friends.”
Mark was at the helm. “Could we be near the old site of Washington? Or the Carolinas?”
“Chesapeake Bay maybe,” Steve answered. “But have things changed!”
“A couple of thousand years can change a lot of places,” Dan said, shifting his position on the hard logs. “Ur and Babylon were in a lush country when they were founded. But three thousand years later, in our time, their country was desolate and dry.”
Fitzhugh gave an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes. “Honestly, I do wish we could find some term other than ‘in our time.’ This is our time, after all! Like it or not, this is when and where we’re living now—and I, for one, am getting rather tired of pretending otherwise.”
Valerie sighed, gazing out over the murky water. “Someday,” she said softly, “I’m going to write all this down—not as a history book, but as an adventure story. Something that’ll make people feel like they were right here with us.” She gave a faint smile. “I’ll call it Through the Land of the Apes—has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
Steve shoved himself erect. "Still the same ole jungle! I never thought the trip would be this difficult." He struggled to his feet and took the pole from Dan. "But there's no turning back---not until we reach the end of this swamp and jungle. We wouldn't stand a chance getting through this area on foot!"
Barry grinned and piped up, “Aye-aye, Captain Bligh, sir! Gotcha, gotcha!”
"Jungle rot has gotten to Barry's mind," Betty said with a dry laugh.
The female flight attendant sighed, looking at the dark and spidery jungle around her. She appreciated Steve and Dan's attempts to keep them all in good humor, but faintly resented being "protected." Nevertheless, she also realized they doing it to each other as well, this jollying-up process. But she did wonder, looking around her, if the jungle was going to continue forever.239Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdcLkA8yVG2
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The alligators came slithering noisily down the mud banks and plopped into the water. Mark, at the rudder, shouted an alarm. Fitzhugh came out of a restless, sweaty sleep to grab at his trick laser. Valerie stopped poling the raft at the alarm.
Fitzhugh squinted groggily and smirked, “So, tell me, are they heading this way, or is this just my imagination playing tricks before dawn?”
Dan said, “I think so! They disappeared underwater... No, look there! You can see their eyes, just barely breaking the surface!”
Fitzhugh fumbled with the small device strapped to his wrist, pressing a hidden button with a practiced flick of his thumb. A sharp, scarlet beam shot forth from the trick laser, slicing clean through the head of the nearest alligator. The beast’s body jerked violently, reflex muscles spasming as it thrashed and flopped wildly on the water’s surface. The sudden commotion caught the attention of nearby alligators, who hissed and surged forward, their eyes gleaming with hunger. In seconds, they tore great chunks of bloody flesh from the scaley, greenish corpse, disappearing beneath the surface once more.
Steve shouted, “Hold steady, everyone! Don’t let the current push us off!”
The raft was slowing in the sluggish water, beginning to drift out of line. Fitzhugh quickly steadied himself, gripping the compact laser tightly with one hand while bracing against the raft with the other. He aimed the lightweight device along the water’s edge on one side of the raft and fired. A sharp scarlet beam sliced through the surface, instantly heating the water until steam hissed up in a sudden cloud, creating a barrier that nudged the raft back on course.
“Get the poles!” Steve ordered urgently.
Mark was on his feet at the rudder and Valerie poled for all she was worth! Additional gators flopped into the water from their sunny banks. Fitzhugh killed another one that came too close, slicing through its back and breaking the spine cleanly.
The raft began to drift sluggishly, pushed off course by the lazy current and hidden snags beneath the water. Steve’s shout cut through the tension, rallying the crew. Mark stood steady at the rudder while Valerie pushed hard with her pole, muscles straining against the river’s pull. Fitzhugh’s scarlet laser sliced through the water alongside the raft, sending up a cloud of hissing steam that pushed the craft gently back into line. Slowly but surely, the raft righted itself, cutting smoothly through the murky river once more as the alligators lurked just beyond the banks, watching and waiting.
Steve grabbed the coil of rope from where it lay beside the stacked baskets. Carefully, he secured the bundles of supplies more tightly to the raft’s center, looping the rope around each basket and knotting it firm. “We can’t afford to lose anything if the current kicks up,” he muttered. As the raft drifted closer to a low riverbank, Steve coiled some rope loosely in his hand, ready to throw it if anyone slipped overboard—or if they needed to moor up for the night.
Suddenly, a sharp, terrified scream cut through the jungle air. “Help! Help me, someone!” came the frantic voice—clearly human, yet strangely urgent and high-pitched. Steve’s eyes snapped toward the riverbank just in time to see a chimpanzee clad in jungle gear, complete with a tilted pith helmet, flailing wildly as two alligators lunged from the water. Before Steve could react, Fitzhugh raised his laser, firing precise scarlet beams that struck both reptiles, killing them instantly. But when the water stilled, the chimpanzee did not resurface. The river swallowed its mystery whole.
The sudden death of the chimpanzee galvanized the castaways into urgent action. Grabbing their poles, they shoved frantically into the thick muck of the swamp, muscles straining as the raft began to inch forward through the sluggish water. Fitzhugh fired his laser twice more, swiftly killing two more alligators that lunged from the shadows. At last, they passed the alligator nest.
Mark, coiling the wet rope morosely, broke the heavy silence. “Who was that ape? Where’d he come from?”
But no one answered.
The raft drifted on silently through the endless green swamp, mystery and unease hanging thick in the humid air.239Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0sTKySL2VB
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Because of the slow-moving water, the swampy jungle lasted another full day.
The castaways were attacked by swarms of voracious insects, hit another gaggle of alligators, and finally ran into a flight of bats after sunset the next evening. They didn't leave the raft when they tied up that night, preferring to fight only bugs and an occasional water snake that slithered aboard, rather than face the creepy-crawlies and other nocturnal predators on shore.
They came out of the jungle into a wide savannah and saw some distance ahead of them high ramparts of rock, extending in ridges miles-long in each direction and broken only by a single cleft straight ahead.
The water speeded up as it was confined to the narrow cut between the cliffs. The sides of the gorge rose steeply on both sides, with centuries of water-cut traces seen on the cliff faces. Only a little greenery grew along the edges of the river, in side pools and rock tanks.
Valerie eyed the canyon walls in amazement. "It's really incredible! One moment we were in a jungle swamp that was thicker and nastier than I thought could ever have existed---certainly on America's Eastern Seaboard---and the next we're in a place where there's not a solitary sign of animal life!"
Just as Valerie finished speaking, the river---moving ever more swiftly now---made a turn. Ahead was only a rock wall. The river was vanishing into a hole in that wall, moving underground to no-one-knew where!
Acting as fast as their reflexes allowed them, the eight humans poled their raft up against the right wall of the canyon. In another minute, the raft would have ben swept into the dark, deep opening that loomed not more than 100 yards beyond!
Dan and Mark reached up and caught a jagged spur of rock, gripping it with all their strength to steady the wildly rocking raft while Steve hurled them one end of the raft’s rope. Water surged and slapped at the logs, threatening to tear them loose, but Mark’s swift hands tied the rope securely to the rock. That single, desperate knot was all that kept them from being swept away into an unspeakable doom.
Slowly and cautiously---for the rope must not break!---the raft's supplies and human occupants gained a narrow ledge of rock below the spur.
All, humans and their sole humanoid passenger, collapsed on the ledge. Nobody moved for some time.239Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwYmz3VPoyI
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Zira paced like a caged animal in the Behavioral Sciences Laboratory, her sandals whispering against the floor. One arm clutched tightly across her chest, the other twitching in restless, jerking motions. Cornelius sat nearby with a scientific journal open on his lap, but his eyes strayed from the printed page to the taut, prowling figure of his wife. At last, Zira’s voice broke the silence, low and urgent.
“It will be a catastrophe for Blue-Eyes and the others—those wayfarers out of another age—if Urko’s army runs them to ground…”
Her voice faltered, fading into a whisper as Cornelius closed his journal with a soft thud and crossed the room to enfold her in a steadying embrace.
“Isn’t there anything—anything at all—we can do to help them, Cornelius?” Zira pleaded, her eyes searching his face. “You’re so brilliant, so resourceful. Surely you can think of something.”
She looked up at him, her brow furrowed in a mix of hope and desperation. “Dr. Zaius promised to grant us any request. Maybe—just maybe—we can persuade him to call off Urko’s relentless hunt. What do you think?”
Cornelius’s shoulders sagged with a weary shrug. “It’s too late for that, Zira. Urko is already on the move.”
“But—” Her protest caught in her throat, swallowed by the weight of their grim reality.
"Besides, dear, things have gone pretty far, you know. I doubt whether Urko would even obey Zaius now. He must be very angry at the things Dr. Zaius said after the sky vehicle demonstration---and at his own failure. He'll try to set things right, and the only means an ape like Urko knows how to employ is force and more force! You and I have already done more for Blue-Eyes than any other apes have ever done for all of the humanoids. And you know it." He shook Zira slightly. "Isn't that right?"
She nodded weakly. Cornelius released his wife and stepped back.239Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZuJ4ee4Epz
"The only thing we can do is hope that maybe our friends will get to New Valley before Urko and his army catches up with them!"239Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1FcAS9frQj
and then Add to home screen.