Escape From The Planet Of The Apes Read Online Free PDF Page A

chimpanzees act that way before. But, he thought, I’ve never seen chimps wearing full pressure suits either. Or carrying a suitcase full of clothes, if I can believe that Navy flight surgeon. “They had to be trained to work some of the controls of that spacecraft,” Lewis said. “May as well make the first tests hard ones. These are probably very intelligent chimps.”
    “All right,” Stephanie called.
    “Try the female first,” Lewis said. “She keeps watching you. I think she wants to play.”
    Jim led Zira to the screen. Stephanie lowered the screen to reveal a red cube. She raised the screen and placed a number of other objects with the cube: a red cone, a blue cube, red sphere, etc., then lowered it again. Zira promptly pointed to the red cube.
    Stephanie smiled. “Very good.” She touched a button in the apparatus, and a compartment on Zira’s side opened. It had raisins, and the chimp ate them quickly, smacking her lips.
    Lewis entered the cage, whistling softly to himself. “You can forget simple discrimination tests,” he said. “Those chimps are trained. Very well trained.”
    “Sure about the others, Doctor Dixon?” Jim asked.
    Lewis nodded. “I was watching them. They reacted when she reached for the cube. These chimps have been exposed to a lot of tests, Jim. We’d better make the next one tough.”
    “Wonder if they can play games?” Stevie asked. She brushed long soft brown hair away from her eyes and put a hair clip back into place. “Tic-tac-toe? Some chimps can play it.”
    Lewis shrugged. “That’s true. OK.”
    They set an illuminated game board on the table. Stephanie handed Zira the stylus and nodded as the chimpanzee made a mark in the center square. “She knows the rules all right.”
    “Try the male,” Lewis suggested. Jim took Cornelius by the hand and led him to the table.
    Cornelius made a mark in the corner. Zira made another. Then Cornelius. Three moves later, Zira leaped up and held her hands clasped over her head, victorious boxer style. She chattered laughter.
    “That settles that,” Lewis said. He took raisins from his pocket and gave them to Zira, then a smaller number to Cornelius. “Stevie, I’ve never heard of chimps who could play Tic-tac-toe by the rules. Not like that, waiting their turn to move—the best I’ve ever seen is a race to make three in a row. Those are the best trained chimpanzees I’ve ever heard of.”
    “Is it just training, Lew? Couldn’t it be intelligence?”
    “It’d be a whole order of magnitude higher than we expect of apes,” Lewis Dixon said. “OK. Let’s find out Kroeger’s test.”
    “Sure.” Stephanie helped him attach a banana to the ceiling. The ladder was removed from the cage. Then several boxes and a stick were laid on the cage floor.
    The three chimps stared at the boxes, up to the banana, and out to Lewis and Stevie.
    “Maybe they aren’t hungry,” Jim said. “Fed ’em a lot last night.”
    “I think they’re too stupid,” Lewis said. “They were only trained, not intelligent. As I thought.”
    Zira snorted. One of the other chimps squalled. Zira looked at the boxes for a moment, then attached two together. She added others until they formed a staircase, and, with the pole, would let her reach the banana. Zira climbed to the top of the box, used the stick to touch the fruit, and climbed back down again.
    “But why didn’t she get it?” Stevie asked.
    Zira turned to the girl. “Because I loathe and detest bananas.” Her voice was very clear and carefully controlled.
    Cornelius shouted: “Zira!”
    Stephanie sat very carefully at the desk outside the cage.
    “You all right?” Lewis asked. His own legs felt a little rubbery.
    “Sure. It surprised me, that’s all. I don’t know why. It’s only a chimpanzee speaking English. We did hear that, didnt we, Lewis?” She continued to sit at the desk.
    “We surely did,” Lewis said. He turned to the chimps. “Can all of you talk?”
    There was no