Battle For The Planet Of The Apes Read Online Free PDF Page B

it too much with the human cities and the time of their oppression. Worse, they associated it with the electrical cattle prods that had been used to condition them. But still . . . MacDonald shuddered, there must be a safer way to light the armory.
    Caesar was moving around the cases, inspecting and frowning. Mandemus followed, waving his keys and gesturing. “Well, what is it Caesar needs?”
    Caesar said without looking up, “Three machine guns.”
    Mandemus dropped his keys. “Three machine guns?”
    “And ammunition,” added MacDonald.
    “For the removal of obstacles,” put in Virgil.
    Mandemus picked up his keys, muttering to himself. “Three machine guns. And ammunition. For the removal of obstacles.” He looked from case to case, from pile to pile, from wall to wall, from dump to dump. “I don’t really hold with this. Searching for knowledge. Learning the future. I don’t even want to know my own, which will be brief.”
    “And a Geiger counter,” said Virgil.
    Mandemus didn’t hear him. He muttered on as he led them to the appropriate cases. “I mean if we knew for a fact that there was an afterlife and that the afterlife was bliss eternal, we’d all commit suicide in order to be able to enjoy it. But if there were an afterlife, what would be the purpose of this life? Except maybe to provide a place for us to earn the afterlife? But why must we earn an afterlife? Shouldn’t we live this life for its own sake?”
    Caesar, Virgil, and MacDonald ignored him. They had heard his incessant philosophizing before and had learned to ignore it. Mandemus babbled like a brook without saying anything. He was out of his time.
    As Caesar and Virgil began unpacking the machine guns and ammunition, MacDonald thought of something else. “Pistols,” he said.
    Mandemus turned to him, eyeing him sharply. “For the removal of smaller obstacles?”
    “This is a three-day journey,” said Virgil. “With Caesar’s permission, MacDonald may want to shoot, cook, and eat a rabbit.”
    MacDonald looked up sharply at this. Did Virgil know about his secret meals with Doctor and Teacher? Did Caesar know?
    Mandemus snorted. “Who needs three pistols to shoot one rabbit?” He took a single Smith & Wesson out of a box and tossed it to MacDonald. A pack of ammunition followed. “Here. Enjoy your meal.”
    The old orangutan bowed to Caesar then and ceremoniously ushered the trio out the great door, slamming it behind them. Mandemus didn’t disapprove of weapons. He only disapproved of their use.
    MacDonald commented wryly, “He may be old, but he has a mind like a razor.”
    Virgil agreed. “When I was a child, he was my teacher.”
    Caesar rumbled in his throat. “Enough. Let’s get going.” And the three moved off into the predawn darkness, not noticing that behind them the old orangutan was watching through the grille in his door. His face was skeptical, and his simian features were pursed in disappointment. Shaking his head sadly, he clanged the peephole shut and turned back to his armory.
    The gorillas were the guardians of Ape City. It was the closest they could come to playing war. They built and manned their outposts and pretended they were important.
    They didn’t really care about Ape City, but they did care about being strong and fierce. And if the only way that they could be strong and fierce was to become the protectors of Ape City, then they would protect Ape City with all the fervor they could muster.
    But for nine years there hadn’t been a single threat against Ape City. None at all, aside from a few natural disasters. There had been an earthquake once, but it had been a little one; nothing had been broken. There had been a couple of floods, and once a landslide, which had ruined half an orchard. But there had never been the threat against Ape City that had required the gorillas to stand up and fight.
    No armies of men had ever come rolling across the desert from the Forbidden City, threatening with