Escape From The Planet Of The Apes Read Free Page A

can’t let them starve.”
    “No, sir. I’ve got a sack full of oranges. One of the pilots had a supply. I thought I’d take those below.”
    “Good thinking.” They walked through the ship and down two levels to the wardroom. A Marine sentry stood outside the door.
    “You have them alone in there, Corporal?” Admiral Jardin demanded.
    “No, sir. The surgeon’s inside with them, sir. But—”
    “But what, Corporal?”
    “You better look for yourself, Admiral. Them apes ain’t normal, sir. Not like any apes I ever saw.” He opened the wardroom door.
    Surgeon Lt. Commander Gordon Ashmead, USNR, stood in one corner of the wardroom staring at the chimpanzees. The three apes were seated at the wardroom table. On the floor between them was a large valise.
    Three full pressure suits lay stretched out on the Wardroom floor. Coveralls were hung across chairs. As the admiral entered, two of the chimps stood, exactly as a junior officer might stand when an admiral enters; the third chimpanzee struggled to close a zippered housecoat.
    “Excuse me,” Admiral Jardin said. “I didn’t mean—good Lord. What am I saying?” He looked at the apes, then at Ashmead. “Good afternoon, Lieutenant Commander,” Jardin said. “I see you’ve undressed them.”
    “No, sir. They took off the suits themselves.”
    “Uh?” Jardin frowned. There was nothing easy about getting out of a full pressure suit. They fit like gloves, and had dozens of snaps and laces that had to be loosened. “With no help?”
    “They helped each other, sir.”
    “And now they’re pretending to dress,” Jardin’s aide said.
    “Pretending hell,” Admiral Jardin snapped. “They are dressing. Doctor, where did they get those clothes?”
    “They brought them with them, sir. In that valise.”
    “Now just a bloody minute,” Jardin protested. “You’re telling me that three chimpanzees got out of a space capsule carrying a suitcase. They brought that suitcase down here, took off their pressure suits, and out of their suitcase they took clothes that fit. Then they put on the clothes.”
    “Yes, sir,” Ashmead said emphatically. “That is precisely what I am telling you, Admiral.”
    “I see.” Jardin looked at the three chimps. They had all resumed their seats at the wardroom table. “Do you think they understand what we’re saying, Doctor?”
    Ashmead shrugged. “I doubt it, sir. They are very well trained, and chimps are the most intelligent of the animals. Except, perhaps, for dolphins. But all attempts to teach them languages have failed. They can learn signals but not syntax.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Well, sir, a dog, for instance, can understand commands. The command is a signal. When he hears it, he does something. But you can’t tell the dog to go around the block and up the stairs, then execute the command. You could train him to do it that way, of course, but you couldn’t tell him to do it. He wouldn’t understand. That would take language.”
    “They sure look like they’re listening to us,” Admiral Jardin said. He turned to his aide. “Greg, give them their oranges. Maybe they’re hungry.”
    “Yes, sir.” Hartley laid the bag on the wardroom table. One of the chimpanzees took it and carefully lifted out each orange. Another reached into the valise and took out a small pocket knife.
    “Here now! Wait a second,” the Marine shouted. He advanced toward the chimpanzee.
    “Hold it,” Dr. Ashmead said. “It’s all right, Corporal. The knife’s very short and not sharp at all. It’s the second tool they’ve employed—they used a small pick to untie a knot in one of their suit laces.”
    “Um.” Admiral Jardin nodded to the Marine. “It’s all right if the Lt. Commander says it is, son. Look, you go out and arrange for an MP van to meet us at the docks, uh? We’ll want to take these critters to the zoo.”
    The chimpanzee carefully peeled the first orange and passed it to another ape. She began