Escape From The Planet Of The Apes Read Free Page B

peeling a second.
    “That’s an interesting behavior pattern too, Admiral,” Ashmead said. “Usually apes won’t share. Occasionally a male will offer something to a female, and of course the big alpha males demand and get whatever they want from the smaller males, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a female offering a male a peeled orange.”
    “She’s giving the next one away, too. Very nice manners, eh Greg?”
    “Yes, sir,” Jardin’s aide said automatically. He couldn’t care less about the manners of a chimpanzee. He wanted to get back to San Diego where a blonde go-go dancer was waiting. She wouldn’t wait long. She didn’t have nice manners at all, but she had other compensations.
    “Now what’s she doing?” Jardin asked. The chimpanzee had eaten the third orange, and was beginning to peel more for the others. She kept the peelings in a neat pile. “Greg, shove that wastebasket over there and see what she does, will you?”
    “Yes, sir.” The chimp pushed the peelings off into the basket. One fell to the deck and she carefully leaned over to pick it up and drop it in with the rest.
    “They sure are well trained, Admiral,” Dr. Ashmead said. “I’d almost think they were somebody’s house pets.”
    One of the chimpanzees snorted loudly.
    Admiral Jardin frowned. “Well, it’s not my problem. For all I care they could stay in the Long Beach Station Hospital—only haven’t I heard you can’t toilet train an ape? Is that right, Doctor?”
    “I don’t think anybody has yet,” Ashmead answered. “Bit out of my line, though.”
    “I suppose the nurses wouldn’t care for apes in their hospital,” the Admiral said.
    “No, sir.”
    Jardin looked at the chimpanzees and shook his head. He’d had sailors with worse manners—there were sailors on this ship with worse manners, he told himself. “Well, they’ll be happier in the zoo, anyway. They’ll even have company. I’m told there’s a gorilla in the next cage.”
    The female chimpanzee slammed the pocket knife to the wardroom table.
    Admiral Jardin laughed. “You’d almost think she understood me and doesn’t like gorillas, wouldn’t you?”

FOUR
    It was dark at the Los Angeles Zoo. Jim Haskins whistled as he made his final rounds of the hospital section. There’d been a lot of excitement earlier, but it was all quiet now, and things were almost normal. He still resented the two Marines with guns outside the hospital section, and the other Marines and their officers camped in trailers not far away, but they weren’t interfering with Jim’s routine now, and he’d finally caught up on his chores. It was time to go home.
    First, though, he looked in on his fox cub. Somehow the poor thing had gotten loose and ended up in the run with the Dingo’s, and those Aussie wild dogs had made a mess of her. Luckily there had been a keeper near enough to rescue her. The fox looked all right now. She had taken sedation nicely, and the IV was dripping properly. Jim nodded in satisfaction. He wasn’t quite a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine yet; he had another year of night school to go. But all the vets agreed that Jim Haskins had a touch about him that was worth more than book learning.
    There was a deer in the next cage, with ultraviolet lights to keep it warm. Jim didn’t think it was going to make it. Pneumonia was always bad with animals, and the deer family hardly ever recovered from it. Too bad, really, but at least it wasn’t one of the rare species. The gorilla was in the next cage, and it seemed to be asleep. That was a bad one, thought Jim. His official name was Bobo, but somebody had dubbed him “Monstro” and that stuck. He had been all right until his mate died, then he’d taken to brooding, and he was getting meaner all the time. Jim hoped the curator would trade Monstro to another zoo, someplace that needed a gorilla. It would be nice if they had an unattached female Monstro could woo, but the chances were pretty slim