Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: The Official Movie Novelization

32

A rustling outside of the tent nudged him to consciousness.

Malcolm would never have guessed that he would need to be awakened on a day when he was going to be escorted by armed chimpanzees to work on a dam to bring electricity to San Francisco. But that’s what had happened.

At the end of the previous evening, Kemp and Foster had argued halfheartedly about whether or not to post guards. When it became clear that neither of them wanted to take the first shift, everyone gave up and went to bed… And, judging from the fact that neither Alexander nor Ellie seemed to be awake, they all must have slept like the dead.

Clean air, Malcolm thought. The air in San Francisco was clean compared to what it had been ten years before, but still not like it was up here.

Alexander had fallen asleep with a comic spread across his chest. Now, starting awake, he looked at something out the tent flap. Still lying down, Malcolm leaned to see out, and found himself peering straight into the wrinkly, bemused face of an orangutan.

Not ten feet away, the creature sat observing them. It was the one Caesar always kept close.

Alexander sat up, and the comic fell to the ground next to his sleeping bag. The orangutan watched it. Alexander saw this, and Malcolm could see him trying to decide what to make of it. Beyond the orangutan there was a cluster of chimpanzees. Malcolm thought he recognized one of them, another of Caesar’s confidantes.

He flipped the flap of the sleeping bag back, and ducked out into the camp, nodding to the apes. There were maybe twenty of them, armed and watchful.

“Morning,” Malcolm said, because why not.

Foster, Kemp, and Carver had exited their tent, and were standing in a tight knot. Carver looked jumpy and ill at ease. No surprise there.

Foster and Kemp didn’t look happy, either. Malcolm thought he understood them. They were the kinds of men who were a little too easily led, not because they were stupid but because they were ever so slightly lazy, and thinking for themselves took too much work. They were both good mechanics, and generally good people, but Carver was a bad influence on them… and, it had to be said, an influence they too easily accepted.

He was thinking all this when he walked over to them.

“Well,” he said, “if everybody’s up, let’s go.”

“Hell, yes,” Carver said. “Get this over with.”

It took only twenty minutes or so to hike from the campsite directly to the logjam, even with packs full of gear. Malcolm had gathered everything he thought they could possibly need to get the dam working again, from electrical tape right on up to explosives. He hadn’t told Caesar about the explosives. Better to let their use explain itself later, when he could show that they had not endangered the apes, rather than promising that they wouldn’t. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, as the old saying went.

The apes did not go with them across the logjam. They crowded the lower branches of the trees on either side of the slot canyon, and took up stations on the ground where the path snaked back up toward the village. Malcolm led the way to the point where they could drop to the catwalk. He stopped there to help each of the others get braced and make a clean drop. A broken leg would throw a serious monkey wrench—so to speak—into their plan.

First Foster dropped. Then Malcolm lowered their packs to him, one by one. Then Carver, Kemp, Ellie, and Alexander jumped down to the catwalk. None of them bothered to talk, since the waterfall’s thunder was louder than any of their voices. As Alexander dropped, he was looking back at the apes, both nervous and curious.

That right there is why Caesar’s demand was never going to work, Malcolm thought. Once we knew the apes were here, how could he think we wouldn’t come out here to take a look?

It was a philosophical problem for later, he decided, and he made the jump to the catwalk.

From above, near where Malcolm had dismounted and led them down to the logjam the day before, Caesar and Blue Eyes sat on horseback, and watched. Soon it would be their turn to assume guard duties. For the moment, however, Blue Eyes held his baby brother.

Caesar watched the humans cross the logs, so awkward on their long legs and their arms that hung only to mid-thigh. They tripped and fell much more easily than apes did, especially when they carried heavy loads. Caesar did not laugh often, but at times he wanted to chuckle at humans when they did things like struggle across slippery logs. What stopped him was knowing how chimps felt when humans laughed at them.

Clinging to his older brother’s hair and peering over his shoulder, the youngest member of their troop took in the world, wide-eyed and round-mouthed. He scrambled up and down his brother as if Blue Eyes was a toy like those they’d had in the animal shelter—wood or plastic carved in the shapes of trees, rope ladders and swings, and from the top arc of the swings you could see the rows of steel cages…

Caesar shook off the memory. He looked at his sons. They and Corneila gave him joy. He could ask no more of life than for them to survive.

Rocket and Maurice rode out of the forest, joining them at the lookout over the logjam.

Do you think they can do it? Caesar signed.

Both Rocket and Maurice shrugged.

If they do not do it, what will happen?

Rocket didn’t try to answer this question. Maurice did.

They will go away and leave us alone for a while, he signed. Then either they will return because their leader has decided to fight, or they will die out, or they will return because their leader wants to make peace…

I understand, Caesar signed. There were too many possibilities.

I think they will keep coming back no matter what, Blue Eyes signed.

Caesar and Maurice responded simultaneously.

Why?

Because humans will not be able to stand knowing they do not control us.

“Blue Eyes,” Caesar said. “Take…brother. Play.”

“I am fighter,” Blue Eyes said. “Not child.”

Caesar stared at him. Blue Eyes stared back. Caesar saw something in his son’s expression that he had never seen before, and he realized with a shock that there was now a shadow of Koba cast over Blue Eyes’ face. He did not let Blue Eyes see his emotions, nor Rocket or Maurice. He held his son’s gaze until Blue Eyes swung down from the horse, the tiny baby squeaking in surprise. Blue Eyes flipped the baby over his shoulder and cradled it in one arm, then scooted off into the trees.

He will be a good brother, Caesar thought. And a good son. The only danger was that Blue Eyes would travel too far and too fast down the rebellious path, and then find himself stuck there. It would be up to Caesar to prevent that.

Then Caesar noticed that he had not seen Koba, Grey, or Stone that morning.

Where is Koba? he asked Maurice.

Grey said they were going hunting, Maurice signed. Probably for the best.

Caesar nodded. It might well be for the best, if Koba’s temper was going to get the better of him, and start something with the humans… but Koba’s absence concerned him. Koba would not lie, Caesar thought. At least he never had before. But hunting was a broad word. Many ideas fit inside it.

What quarry, exactly, was Koba hunting?

And where had he gone to find it?

The last of the humans dropped over the edge of the logjam.

Now what? Rocket signaled.

Caesar shifted his weight in the saddle. Now we wait.