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“Cornelius has just come back. He wants to see you.”
At the moment I don’t give a damn about Cornelius or the chimpanzees or the gorillas or any other creature in heaven or in hell. I point at the cell with my ringer.
“Where’s Nova?”
“She’s ill,” says’Zira. “She’s been transferred to a special wing.”
She beckons to me and leads me aside, out of earshot of the warder.
“The administrator made me promise to keep it secret. But I feel you ought to know.”
“She’s ill?”
“Nothing serious; but it’s important enough to put the authorities on their toes. Nova is expecting.”
“She’s ...”
“I mean she’s pregnant,” the she-ape announces, observing me with a curious expression.
CHAPTER THIRTY - TWO
I am stupefied without yet fully realizing what this news implies. At first I am assailed by a mass of trivial details and above all tormented by the disquieting question: why was I not notified of this? Zira does not give me time to protest.
“I noticed two months ago, on my return from the trip. The gorillas had not seen a thing. I phoned Cornelius, who had a long conversation with the administrator. They agreed that it would be better to keep it secret. No one knows about it except them and me. She’s in an isolated cage and I’m looking after her personally.”
I regard this concealment as an act of treachery on Cornelius’ part and I can see that Zira is embarrassed. It looks to me as though some plot is being hatched in the background.
“Don’t worry. She is being well treated and there’s nothing she needs. I’m doing everything I can for her. No pregnancy of a female human has ever been so carefully watched over.”
Under her mocking gaze I lower my eyes like a schoolboy guilty of some misdemeanor. She makes an effort to assume an ironical tone, but I can see she is perturbed. True, I realize my physical intimacy with Nova has vexed her ever since she recognized my true nature, but there is more than vexation in her expression. It is
her affection for me that makes her anxious. These mysteries concerning Nova presage nothing good. I imagine she has not told me the whole truth: that the Grand Council is well aware of the situation and there have been discussions at a very high level.
“When is her confinement due?”
“In three or four months.”
The tragi-comic side of the situation overwhelms me suddenly. I am about to become a father in the system of Betelgeuse. I am going to have a child on the planet Soror by a woman for whom I feel a great physical attraction and sometimes even compassion but who has the mind of an animal. No other being in the cosmos has found himself involved in such an adventure. I feel like weeping and laughing at the same time.
“Zira, I want to see her!”
She gives a little pout of annoyance.
“I knew you would ask me that. I’ve already discussed it with Cornelius and I think he will agree to it. He’s waiting for you in his office.”
“Cornelius is a traitor!”
“You’ve no right to say that. He is divided between his passion for science and his duty as an ape. It is only natural that he should feel extremely apprehensive at this impending birth.”
My anguish increases as I follow her down the corridors of the institute. I can imagine the attitude of the learned apes and their fear of seeing a new race arise that— Good heavens! I now see exactly how the mission with which I have been entrusted can be accomplished.
Cornelius greets me in a friendly manner, but a permanent awkwardness has been created between us. At times he looks at me as though in terror. I make an effort not to broach the subject on my mind at once. I ask him about the voyage and the end of his stay among the ruins.
“Fascinating. I have a mass of irrefutable proof.”
His clever little eyes are sparkling. He cannot prevent himself from exulting over his success. Zira is right; he is torn between his love of science and his duty as an ape. At the moment it is the scientist speaking, the enthusiastic scientist for whom only the triumph of his theories counts.
“Skeletons,” he says. “Not one, but a whole collection, discovered in such order and circumstances as to make it incontestably clear that we had come upon a graveyard. Enough evidence to convince the most obtuse mind. Our orangutans, of course, insist on regarding it as a mere coincidence.”
