Free Dawn of the Planet of the Apes by Greg Keyes Page B

inappropriate,” she said, coloring a little. “I just had that image of her raising her hand, and swearing she would never go hungry again.”
    Malakai shrugged. “I swore that, too,” he said. “And yet here I am, sleeping on the ground, and hungry.”
    “And agreeing that it’s a good morning,” she added.
    “All right,” he said. “Try not to become irritating.”
    He gathered up his things as she continued writing, and then set off. Clancy looked up, and called after him.
    “Where are you going?” she asked.
    “Where do you imagine?” he replied. “I’m tracking the apes.”
    “You’re not going to wait for Corbin?”
    “No, I think not,” he said.
    “Fine,” she said, stowing her notebook and standing up. “I’m coming with you.”
    He shrugged and waited for her to prepare. Then they went down the embankment, and he found the trail again.
    “Did you hear anything last night?” he asked. He kept his voice pitched low.
    “I thought I did,” she replied. “An orang, maybe. It might have been nothing.”
    “No,” he replied. “I heard it, too.”
    They walked in silence for a bit.
    “I don’t know very much about orangutans,” he admitted.“My experience has been mostly with African apes.”
    Clancy was frowning, and it seemed in danger of becoming her permanent expression. The happy, babbling girl of yesterday seemed gone—perhaps forever.
    One can only hope
, he mused.
    “There’s an old zookeeper’s joke,” she said.
    “Oh, yes?”
    “One night while locking up, the zookeeper accidentally drops his keys in front of the gorilla cage. Next morning, the keys are still there, so he picks them up. Another time he drops his keys in front of the chimps. They all start screaming. He looks down, sees that he has dropped his keys, and picks them up. The next night, he drops his keys in front of the orangutan cage. The next morning the keys are gone, the orangutan is gone, and so is every other animal in the zoo.”
    “Not exactly a joke, is it?” He smiled. “So they’re smart.”
    “It’s more that they’re deliberate,” she said. “They take their time. They don’t freak out the way chimps do. They are really good problem-solvers.”
    “Do you suppose it was an orangutan that organized the—I don’t know—prison break?”
    “Orangs are sort of solitary,” she said. “They don’t live in social groups the way chimps and gorillas do. But sure, maybe. I mean, none of this makes any sense to me. Sure, some apes could escape from a zoo or shelter or whatever. But everything they did after that—and the way they’re behaving now—it’s completely out of the box. I almost feel like there have to be people involved in leading them.”
    “People in ape suits?”
    She actually smiled at that.
    “I don’t know about that. But apes can be trained to do things way outside of their natural behavior. What I wouldlike to know is what they were being taught in that shelter.”
    “Well, that’s a hypothesis,” Malakai said.
    “You’re making fun of me,” she said, accusingly.
    “No,” he replied. “I was thinking along those lines myself. And I’m also wondering what our contractor friends have to do with all of this.”
    “They’re a little scary, aren’t they?” Clancy said.
    He nodded.
    “You’re scarier,” she said.
    “And yet here you are,” he replied.
    “Yeah,” she said. “Here I am.”
    * * *
    They had been on the trail about fifteen minutes when Malakai’s walkie-talkie started squawking, demanding his attention. By that time they were well up the southwest slope of Mount Tamalpais. The trail continued along the ground, and in some cases the chimps had left the trees entirely to traverse grassy meadows.
    He took out the walkie-talkie and answered it.
    “Youmans,” he said.
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Corbin demanded, his voice thin and metallic on the small speaker.
    “Hunting for apes,” Malakai said.
    “Well, get back