Free Escape From The Planet Of The Apes by Jerry Pournelle

both the observers and the observed. And now let us look at time.”
    “What would we see?” Walter asked.
    “We might well see it as an infinity of parallel events, but not always parallel. Science fiction writers once called this, ah, ‘fan-shaped’ time; from ‘now’ there stretches forward a large number of alternative pathways. Some come back to the same path. Others lead very far away indeed. And thus, the choices made here determine different futures. In one of these futures, you will leave this building at eight-fifteen, precisely in time to be killed by an automobile which left the parking garage at eight-twelve.”
    “I think I do not care for that future,” Walter said nervously. He laughed.
    “Yes, but in another, you may leave here at eight-sixteen, and be perfectly safe,” Hasslein said. “Or the automobile does not leave the parking garage until eight-twenty because the driver received a telephone call. Yet, and this is the important point, each of those futures may be as real as any other.”
    “But we wouldn’t experience more than one of those futures, would we, Dr. Hasslein?” the interviewer asked. He was now thoroughly confused.
    “Certainly not,” Hasslein said. “Yet, each one would be real to the mythical observer who has achieved infinite regression. Now, I do not find it at all hard to believe that these apes have arrived here from one of the possible futures of this planet. To them, that future was very real. But, and I want to stress this, it need not be real to us. We can, perhaps, change that future. And indeed, I think it important that we do.”
    “Well come back to Dr. Victor Hasslein as the Big News continues following station identification,” Walter said. “Now an important message.”
    “I wish Milo had been here to explain that,” Zira said. She looked sadly around the cage.
    “I am Chiquita Banana, and I’ve come to say, Bananas must be ripened in—”
    Cornelius flung himself at the set and turned off the sound.
    “That’s all we needed,” Zira said.
    “Inappropriate,” Lewis agreed. “I suppose I should have expected it.”
    Cornelius took a bunch of grapes from the table and passed them around. “Have some, dear,” he said. He gave Zira most of them. They ate in silence until the commercials were over, and Cornelius turned the sound back on.
    “The Big News continues. This reporter will confess that he was impressed by the Ape-onauts, and I certainly applaud the president’s decision to transfer them from the Los Angeles Zoo to a hotel. They are no danger to us, and from what I’ve seen, they will be our friends.
    “In other late breaking stories, criminals struck at a Los Angeles Savings and Loan for the third . . .”
    Lewis switched off the set. “Congratulations,” he told them.
    Zira and Cornelius smiled happily. “We won’t be sorry to leave,” Cornelius said. He looked around the cage, and at the place where Milo died. “We won’t be sorry at all.”

TEN
    Lewis Dixon found the next week unbelievably hectic. First, there was the escorted ride to the Beverly Hills Hotel. The Navy had locked the chimpanzees into a zoo. Now that they were released, Admiral Taylor had been determined to make amends.
    He had persuaded a wealthy retired admiral friend to come for the chimpanzees in a chauffered Mercedes. The City of Los Angeles had provided a motorcycle escort. Navy Intelligence provided a bodyguard. And the general public had provided the crowds.
    Not only was attendance at the Los Angeles Zoo twice the previous record crowd on the day the chimpanzees were to move, but the whole Griffith Park road system was crowded with sightseers. Los Feliz Boulevard was nearly impassable, so that the motorcade finally had to go out the back way, past Forest Lawn of Hollywood Hills, down Ventura Boulevard and up over Laurel Canyon. These streets were normal enough until the motorcade passed—then people fell in behind, until Dixon and his charges were