Free Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes by John Jakes

has requested one, repeat one, additional copy of all chimpanzee fingerprints for their files.”
    The uniformed official looked sour. He grabbed Caesar’s hand, pressed it to an ink pad, then forced the hand down on a square of white card stock. He repeated the operation, passing the second card over the barrier to one of the policemen. The policeman slipped the card into a black briefcase.
    Then the official touched another button. The gate opened inward, just as a hefty young man with brown eyes and an immense shock of curly hair appeared from the mouth of a corridor. He carried a prod tucked under his arm.
    “Yours, Morris,” said the fingerprint official, shoving Caesar forward through the open gate. The ape’s resentment flared again. But he controlled his temper, still slumped over in excellent imitation of a wild chimpanzee.
    Morris, the handler, extended his right hand tentatively. After appropriate hesitation, Caesar reached up to grasp the fingers. Morris smiled.
    “He looks like a gentle one,” Morris said, leading Caesar toward the corridor.
    “Bastard,” came the good-natured complaint from behind. “You’ve got the easy duty with the chimps—dammit, no!”
    Caesar turned briefly to see the orangutans lined up in a ragged queue on the far side of the gate. One was being prodded and whipped for having picked up the ink pad. Caesar was glad to enter the corridor and leave the unpleasant sight behind.
    The lighted corridor curved, revealing a long row of steel-barred cages, empty. Morris pressed a control panel in the wall next to the cage identified as Chimpanzees 903.
    The electrically controlled door rolled aside. Morris pushed Caesar forward. As soon as he was inside, the barred door shut.
    Morris pulled a banana out of his pocket, passed it between the bars.
    “Enjoy it while you can, my friend. I’ll be back to see you in the morning—when the fun starts.” His lips quirked. “Damned if you don’t look like you understand me.” He turned, vanishing along the corridor.
    Shortly, other handlers appeared, each with one or two orangutans in tow. Seated in the dark at the back of his cell, Caesar watched the other members of his shipment being driven into the cages for their species. The ink-smeared orangutan required two handlers, one applying a whip, the other a prod, before he would enter his assigned cage. Blood glistened on the ape’s hairy back.
    Finally, the last of the shipment was in place, the cages locked. Caesar remained alone in the chimpanzee cell, suddenly aware that he was exceedingly hungry. He peeled the banana and munched it without enjoyment. He didn’t care for the reference to “fun” made by the handler Morris.
    When he tried to sleep, he found he couldn’t. A simmering mixture of anger, worry over Señor Armando’s welfare, and pity for the orangutans in the adjoining cages kept him on edge. The other apes barked and gibbered most of the night.
    Now and then Caesar wakened from a doze to hear sounds of vicious fighting: Man has done this to us, Caesar thought. His head nodded in exhaustion. Man . . .
    In his mind, the word became an obscene curse. Finally, mercifully, he dropped into total sleep.
    In the morning, when a bell rang loudly, he began to learn the meaning of that conditioning.

SEVEN
    With a roaring whoosh, a horizontal column of flame shot out from a wall aperture. The flame blazed parallel to bars that bisected the floor of the oval chamber. Shooting from one wall almost to the other, the fire was controlled by a smocked operator at a console.
    The Fire Conditioning Area—so identified by a plaque outside the entrance—was the first area to which Caesar’s handler had taken him. He stood beside Morris, who was seated on a bench behind the console, waiting his turn to put his charge through the conditioning process.
    Horrified, Caesar stared past the brilliant column of perfectly controlled fire to the three wretched orangutans crouching and cringing