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

7

The village was quiet the next day, as it always was after a celebration. Apes slept and rested, their bellies full and their minds at ease.

Cornelia, exhausted, slept most of the day, the newborn cradled to her breast. Caesar stayed near enough to hear them but not so near that he would disturb her. In his hand he held a pair of stones, using one to carve the other, then smooth its rough edges.

He found himself thinking of the years just past, the desperation of their escape from the human city and then the slow disappearance of the humans themselves. It was natural to think about the past when a child was born, he thought. The past had brought them to where they were, to this moment where he had two children whose future would be his greatest concern, for as long as he lived. All apes were his family, but only Cornelia, Blue Eyes, and the new son were his blood.

Caesar had gotten them off to a good start. He would lead the apes until he was no longer able, and then his children and their children would spread over the world.

Perhaps someday they would return to the city where they had come from. He looked over it now from the upper part of his house, the side that faced away from the canyon and toward the jumbled hills and the ocean, far away, gleaming orange under the setting sun. Caesar remembered the first time he climbed one of the great redwoods and looked at the city, back when Will was alive. There had been so much motion then—cars on the roads, ships on the water, planes in the sky. The air had been brown over the city.

Now he saw the city from much farther away. The air was clear and nothing moved. In the shadows among the buildings, no lights came on as the sun sank into the ocean.

He worked a piece of stone in his hands, needing something to do other than sit and stare and wait for time to pass. A rustling in the branches behind him drew his attention away from the darkening city. He looked to find Maurice clambering over the edge of his perch. Maurice paused with his head, shoulders, and one foot over the edge, waiting to see if Caesar preferred solitude.

Caesar waved him up. Together they moved higher in the tree, to avoid waking the new mother.

Maurice settled next to him and patted his back.

Another son, he signed.

Caesar nodded and smiled.

Makes me think how far we’ve come.

Nodding back, Maurice traced Caesar’s gaze and looked out over the humans’ city. After a silent moment, he signed again.

Seems so long ago. After another, he added, Do you still think about them?

Humans? Caesar signed. Sometimes. His expression betrayed his mixed emotions, though. One open hand wiggled back and forth, a human gesture they had adopted to mean uncertainty.

Maurice looked at his old friend and replied, I didn’t know them the way you did. Only saw their bad side.

Good and bad, it doesn’t matter now. We watched them destroy each other. It was their nature.

It was Maurice’s turn to wiggle his hand.

Apes fight, too, he signed.

But we are family, Caesar answered firmly. All of us.

Maurice considered this. He nodded, but Caesar could see he was being agreeable, rather than agreeing. Considering what that meant, he looked back toward the city. The sun was almost gone into the ocean. Streaks of orange and pink in the sky reminded him of a flavor of ice cream Will had gotten him once after a trip to the woods.

I wonder if they really are all gone, he signed.

Ten winters now, Maurice signed. And for the last two, no sign of them. He shrugged. They must be.

Caesar wasn’t so sure. Humans had been strong enough and smart enough to create great cities. They had made roads across the world. They had built machines that could fly. Will had told him once that humans had even walked on the moon. If they could do that, what could kill all of them off? He knew some of them had been sick when the apes had escaped after becoming smarter, but apes got sick sometimes, too.

Yet no sickness killed them all.

The last of the sun’s rays glowed on the high parts of the orange bridge that crossed the narrow water separating the city from the land where they now lived. Looking at that bridge took Caesar back, as it always did, to the day ten years ago when he had led the escaping apes across that bridge to…

He had not known then what he was leading them to. Only that he was leading them away from cages and pain. The images from that day would never leave Caesar’s mind.

Riding a horse for the first time.

The gorilla, Buck, sacrificing himself to bring the—helicopter, that was the word—crashing down out of the sky.

An even darker memory, of the human, Jacobs, pleading for mercy as Koba tipped the broken helicopter off the edge of the bridge.

Will saying goodbye.

The troop charging across the land on the other side of the bay, through the streets that wound up into the hills, over the hills and into the woods. The humans had chased them, of course. Men with guns and trucks and more helicopters hunted them. Then they stopped. Caesar did not know why, but when the sickness began to spread he guessed that they were turning on each other.

Those first years were hard. Apes died from the cold and from starvation, before they learned what foods grew in these woods and which animals could be hunted.

Now, ten winters since the day they had broken free, the woods belonged to the apes. As Maurice said, they had not seen a human in two winters.

So many of them, Caesar thought. Can they really all be gone? He wished for it, and at the same time the idea made him sad. Humans had been cruel to him, and kind. He was proud of what he had done, but he also missed Will. Other humans, too. Will’s father, some scattered few others who had treated him well. But it was hard to think of many. Most of them had feared him, caged him, tried to kill him.

Maybe it was better that they were gone… but still it made him sad.

He watched the sun vanish into the ocean, dragging the last light out of the sky. The city vanished, too, slowly fading into the darkness. He did not see a single light.

Perhaps one day they would return to the city and see what the humans had left behind. Caesar had talked about this with Maurice, who said it would be dangerous. What if the sickness could spread to apes? The orangutan’s caution made sense to Caesar, and the apes stayed in the mountains. They had everything they needed here. Caesar’s children would live in a world without cages, without needles, without humans in masks making soothing words while they caused apes pain.

If the humans all had to die to create that world, it was worth it.