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March 3976

The heat rose off the desert of the Forbidden Zone in long shimmering waves.  Here and there were outcroppings of rock but little else.  This deep into what had once been fertile land, nothing could grow.  One could pass across it if lucky and a day later the tracks would be gone.  The lone wagon that was crossing this wasteland went slowly, laden with supplies for the long trip.  At its front sat two Chimpanzees, both wearing floppy broad brimmed hats to keep the sun off their heads.  The younger of the two, Lysius, thought his master, Doctor Milo mad.  But in this thought he was no different from many other apes back in their city; Milo had nearly been cited for heresy on more than one occasion.  He’d stood up to Doctor Zaius in council and been reprimanded.  This was why an ape of his stature found himself tutoring students privately and sneaking off into the Forbidden Zone to do what he wanted without Gorilla or Orangutan interference.

Lysius thought that Milo’s latest jaunt was insane.  Friends of his, Cornelius and Zira (who would have been his had he been more down to earth) had told Milo of a man, a different man; one who could think and told a strange story.  Unlike other Apes, Milo had believed them.  He knew that somewhere, hidden in man’s mind was the capacity to think.  He also knew and would have been imprisoned or worse had he let this out; that man had once been the dominant species on the planet; that the apes owed much of their culture to their hairless enemies.  If Zaius had known that Milo had seen papers, papers that were not part of the Sacred Scrolls, but were part of the Orangutan’s secret documents – he certainly would have been quietly killed by now.

Pulling back the reigns, Milo halted the wagon.  Reaching to his side he removed a map, not one of the primitive ones such as Cornelius had shown Taylor; this one was ancient and battered.  On it in red ink was the legend US GEOLOGICAL SURVEY – 1975.  Milo rubbed a hand over the map absent mindedly.  His friend Cornelius would have given a decade of his life to see this – but Milo was cautious.  He’d found this in among things Zaius had scheduled for destruction.  But the Gorilla guarding it had been easy to fool and as such, now it was Milo’s.  He envied a time when there was power to create such things.  As he envied the engineers whose drawings he’d seen in the two books he was able to make off with.  He had them with him and had been reading them for years.  This strange man Cornelius told him about had merely fired his ambition to see if the tale was true.  He believed that at one time Man could fly, indeed had gone into space itself.  The books he had saved – heresy indeed! – from Zaius foolishness was proof of that!   Taking out another map, Milo held them side by side.  The ancient one proved that the planet had suffered a horrible catastrophe.  Where they sat on their wagon had once been water, part of a great harbor.  He had used this one to make a more accurate one of the surrounding area.  The ruins of the Forbidden City were to their west, the ravine that led to dead lake lay ahead.  Still they had to take a longer route; there wasn’t any path for the wagon through the ravine.

"All right, let’s get moving."

It took most of the next day to traverse the ravine to where a gentle slope led down to the shores of the lake.  It was cooler by it, a light breeze ruffling their hats.  As they rode about the lake, its dead waters lapping at the sandy shores, Lysius pointed ahead.  "Doctor, what’s that?"

Milo stopped the wagon and lifted a hand made telescope.  Holding it to his eye he peered ahead.  There, at the edge of the lake was a white triangle.  It was sticking out of the water at an angle, showing that it had washed ashore but could go no further.  Milo could feel his heartbeat increase.  "I think I’ve found what I’m looking for."

As Lysius watched in amazement, Milo stripped off his clothing and waded – waded – out into the cool waters of the lake.  Few apes, if any, were willing to go into open water.  When they bathed it was in safety.  Lysius had never seen one do what Milo had.  The brilliant ape carried only a rope with a grapnel.  Moving alongside the object – which he suspected to be an aircraft of some kind, he paused to look at the blue circle with ANSA stenciled in white.  Licking his lips, Milo moved alongside until he was next to and below a hole in the craft’s hull.  Deftly he tossed the grapnel and tugged back, feeling it bite.  Swiftly he climbed up onto the craft and peered down into its depths.  For a moment he felt around the hole and envied the makers of this craft.  The metal was so smooth, so even.  The best metal smith he knew couldn’t do this.  For a moment Milo wished he could bring Zaius here.  What would this do to his idea of ape superiority?  But no, Zaius would call this heresy and have it destroyed.  Milo squirmed into the hatch and climbed down into the ship. 

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