Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes Read Online Free PDF Page A

Armando encountered Mrs. Riley again an hour later.
    She was seated with a gentleman ten years her junior at a corner table of a restaurant. Her coiffure now complete, Mrs. Riley drained her demitasse and clutched the young man’s hand.
    “Thursday, then?” Caesar overheard. “The same place?”
    “Yes, I’ll try to make it,” the young man said casually. Mrs. Riley looked unhappy as both rose to leave.
    The young man snapped his fingers. “Hang on, I forgot the busboy’s tip.”
    “Let me get it,” Mrs. Riley said, adding with a touch of sarcasm, “After all, Charles, why should we vary the pattern?”
    From her purse she took a small package. She handed it to the young man. Distributing handbills two tables away, Caesar tried to identify the brightly printed box but could not.
    He put down a flyer, moved to the next table. Two obviously prosperous black men sat talking, oblivious to the white-jacketed captain preparing crepes suzette on his cart. Beside the captain stood a young chimp busboy, studiously watching the human hands manipulate the chafing dish.
    “—real future’s in hydroponic farming,” one of the men was saying. “I was telling my son last night—”
    “Oh, for God’s sake, Harry, why steer him into something like that? The big money’s in synthetic alloys—”
    Caesar laid a handbill between them. The first man picked it up, gave it one look, tossed it aside as his friend argued. “If you’re selling to the government. But look what’s happened to the space program. Cut to the bone.”
    “It’ll come back.”
    “Oh? That’s what you said about the supersonic transport, Harry.”
    Caesar paused at an empty table, pretending to examine his remaining handbills. Mrs. Riley’s friend signaled the busboy, who hurried to him. The young man tipped the package. Six or seven small, wrinkled things dropped into his palm. Caesar craned to see. Raisins!
    Smiling condescendingly, the young man tipped his hand, spilling the raisins into the busboy’s outstretched fingers. With an almost witless look of joy, the chimp immediately carried all the raisins to his mouth and ate them in a gulp. Looking amused, the young man strolled back to his feminine companion. Caesar was disgusted by the mindless pleasure on the busboy’s face.
    The young chimpanzee turned back toward his captain just as the latter, chafing dish in his left hand, used his right to apply a lighted match. With a whoosh and a leap of flame, the alcohol in the dish caught fire—and the chimp let out a cry of fright. He dashed for the street, crashing past Mrs. Filey and her friend, before the enraged captain roared the familiar command, “No!”
    Silence in the restaurant. The two black men looked annoyed. Mrs. Riley was fuming, brushing off the sleeve of her jostled companion. But Caesar could see only the busboy.
    He had stopped short, hearing the captain’s command. Slowly, he turned around. Caesar was sickened by the abject fear in the chimp’s eyes.
    The captain pointed to the floor beside his foot. “Here.”
    Trembling, the chimp took two steps, stopped again.
    “Damn you, I said here!” the captain exploded. But the busboy would come no closer, alternately eyeing the flaming chafing dish, now back on its stand, and the captain’s infuriated face.
    “I apologize, gentlemen,” the captain said to the annoyed customers. “All our waiters and busboys are supposed to be thoroughly conditioned to fire when we buy them.”
    “Well, Ape Management screwed up on that one,” said one of the men.
    Caesar again went rigid with anger. What was this conditioning?
    Whatever it might be, it was evidently responsible for the cringing of the chimp busboy. The burning crepes suzette cast eerie reflections in his huge, still-fearful eyes.
    A forceful tug of the leash drew Caesar out of the restaurant. Armando realized his ape companion was nearing the breaking point.
    An hour later, Caesar and the circus owner were distributing