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“Yes, General.”
“I’ll make bloody sure of it, Victor. I’m calling Admiral Jardin right now. Meanwhile, you issue the proper orders. And call me if anything new happens.”
They watched the cars full of soldiers race back and forth on the road, and felt increasing horror. Zira moaned again, and finally Cornelius could not stand it any longer.
“I’m going to go get help,” he said. “I’ll find Lewis.”
“No . . . please.” She looked around their small hollow. Chaparral grew thick on all sides, so that they were invisible from the road.
“Look, I only lost my temper with that boy. I hurt him, but he’ll be all right. I owe him an apology. I’ve felt miserable ever since I struck him—and it wasn’t his fault. We’ve got to go back, we’ve got to have help.”
“I can walk,” Zira said. “Or I can have the baby here. We’ll be—”
“No.” Cornelius was firm. “They may punish us, but at least the baby will be delivered with proper care. I’m going to get help. You wait here.” Before she could protest, he scrambled down the hill toward the lower loop of the road.
There were soldiers there. They had a barrier across the road, and they carried rifles. Cornelius waited, afraid, hoping to see someone he recognized. Finally a car came, its lights showing the dozen Marines clearly. One of them came forward and shined a light into the car.
“Miss, I’m afraid this road’s closed,” the soldier said.
“I am Dr. Branton,” she said. “Captain, I have a pass. Here.”
“Oh. Right, Miss.”
Cornelius recognized Stevie and felt relief. He started forward through the bushes, ready to show himself, and the Marine continued to speak. “Better be careful, Dr. Branton. Those monkeys killed one of our troopers, that young orderly Corporal Billings, and they’re on the loose. Out there somewhere. I ought to send a trooper with you, but I don’t really have the men to spare. You lock all your doors and don’t open them ’till you’re at the compound, you hear?”
Cornelius turned away in horror. What had he done? The boy was dead! Dead! What of the law now? He saw Stevie’s car drive away, and remembered how the road looped here.
Quickly, he thought. I have to catch her. He ran uphill, through the chaparral, heedless of noise but silently all the same, ten thousand years of instinct protecting him from being heard. He reached the upper section of the road and stood panting, waiting, as Stevie’s car came up the hill.
She braked hard, and the car stopped with a screech. Cornelius went to the driver’s side. The window was rolled up, and Stevie did not move. Cornelius stood there, silently, in mounting panic.
Stephanie rolled down the window. “Cornelius! What’s happened?” she said. She sounded very frightened.
“Thank you for trusting me,” he told her. “I do not deserve it. But I didn’t mean to kill the boy. He was teasing Zira. Or I thought he was, and I struck him. He fell. It was an accident. You must believe me.”
“I do,” Stephanie said. “But they won’t. Where’s Zira?”
“In the bushes there. She’s in labor, or very nearly so. Stevie, what are we going to do?"
“Oh, God, I don’t know—can you get Zira into the car? We’ll have to find Lewis.”
“I’ll get her.”
“And hurry, Cornelius. The Marines will be all over this road.”
He rushed down the slope, and lifted Zira tenderly. “Can you walk?”
“Yes. It will be all right—where are we going?”
“Stevie has a car. She’s going to help us.” They struggled up the hill. Stephanie had the back door of the car open.
“Get in,” Stevie said. “And get down. Cover yourselves with this blanket. I’ll have to think of a story to get us past that roadblock down below. Don’t move, whatever you do.” She jockeyed the car around in a U-turn, backing up twice to get the long station wagon turned around on the narrow road. Then she drove back down the hill.
“Back so soon, Dr. Branton?” the Captain asked.
“Yes. I’ve been thinking about what you said. If they’ve killed one of your men, I want no part of them, Captain. I’m going home.”
“Don’t blame you, Miss.” He shined his light into her car and glanced in, but made no thorough search. “I’m supposed to open the trunk—you got no trunk in a station wagon, though. Have a good trip, Doctor.”
“Thank you, Captain.” She drove away.
“Killed?” Zira said. “Cornelius, what have you done?”
“I killed that boy. The orderly,” Cornelius said miserably.
Zira groaned. “Would it have helped if we’d called for help after he fell?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Cornelius said, “Be still. Rest. Think of the new life on the way, not about—one dead human. Stevie, where are we going?”
“You’ll see. It’s the only place I can think of. We’ll call Lewis when we get there.”
She drove on into the night, through the brown hills of Orange County. Behind them they could hear the sirens of the Marine trucks, and the sounds of helicopters searching the camp.
They drove through the darkened streets of San Juan Capistrano, past the old mission to a vacant field beyond. There were tents pitched on the field, and a number of truck-mounted circus wagons parked next to them. Stevie drove to a camper-trailer marked “ARMANDO’S SENSATIONAL CIRCUS.” “Wait here,” she said, and went to the door.
After a long time it opened and Stevie vanished inside.
“Can we trust her?” Cornelius asked. There was agony in his voice.
“What else can we do?” Zira said. “Cornelius, if she intended to betray us she need merely have spoken to the Marine captain at the roadblock.”
“Yes, but suppose she has changed her mind? Or—why would this man help us? This Armando?”
“What else can we do?”
Stevie and Armando came out of the caravan. The short, dark man peered into the station wagon, then opened the door. “Come out, come out,” he said. His voice was almost musical. “We have better places than the back seat of a Plymouth for a chimpanzee to be born. Come along, come along.”
His enthusiasm was infectious. Cornelius and Zira were led through the tent and caravan city to a small tent at the end. Inside they found a small infirmary, as well as cages. Armando pointed to the cages and laughed. “You will not be the first chimpanzee to give birth in Armando’s infirmary. Nine, nine healthy young apes have been born here, the last one less than a week ago. Now, Madame Zira, if you will consent to sleep in a cage—”
“Anywhere,” Zira said. “I’m exhausted.”
“Can you send for Lewis?” Cornelius asked.
“Certainly,” Armando said. “Certainly. Although you will find that Armando is not inexperienced in these matters.”
“I already called him,” Stevie said. “You’ll be all right here, Cornelius. You’ll see.”
Zira lay on the pallet in the cage. “If Lewis is going to deliver this baby, he’d better hurry,” she said. “I don’t think he’s going to make it”
“Oho,” Armando said. He looked at Cornelius, then shrugged. “Out. Out! Go to my caravan and wait. You will find cigars and scotch there, if you wish them, but leave.”
“But shouldn’t I stay?” Cornelius said.
The other three laughed in unison. Cornelius let himself be pushed out of the tent, their laughter ringing behind him. “Fathers!” Armando snorted. “I have delivered five human children here, when this circus was on the road, and I tell you, I prefer the animals, because the fathers of apes do not care. Go, Cornelius, you are worse than a human midget.”
He went to Armando’s wagon and found a seat at the dinette. The caravan was small but neat, and there was plenty of room to sit, but none to pace. Cornelius sat in the dark, his face in his hands, and he listened, and waited, while his thoughts haunted him with memories of the dead boy lying motionless on the hospital floor.
They will demand my child’s life as the price of that boy’s blood, he thought. I do not know how I know this, but I do know it. My child’s life for that boy.