Alan Virdon held up his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. He looked down the narrow cliffside waiting for his friends Galen and Burke who were to rendezvous with him nearly an hour before. As his mind drifted he couldn’t help but think of home.

**

“Dad?” came a voice just over Alan’s head.
“Yes, Alex?” said the fair haired father of one and Air Force Cornel Alan Virdon.
“Are apes really stronger than men?” came the question. “Because that’s what Tommy’s older brother said, but he always tells lies.”
This day at the Central Zoo was becoming educational for all involved as Alan mulled over not so much the question but the reasoning behind it. Alan could now feel his son’s weight barring down on his shoulders, and while he still loved to carry his son around he knew he couldn’t do it much longer. “Of course,” came the reply, as the two, father and son watched a full-grown gorilla manhandle an over turned log.
Suddenly, and without provocation the gorilla picked up the log and heaved it in the direction of the Virdon’s. Alan lurched back and quickly took his son down from his shoulders.
“What made it do that”? Alex exclaimed.
“I’m not sure,” Alan said. “Go over there and wait for me,” Alan said pointing to a nearby bench.
“But…”
“But nothing! Do it!” Alan said raising his voice. He hated to do it but sometimes to get results he had to step outside of himself. He wanted to get a closer look at this ape; he took the violent gesture almost personally. He hopped over the small guardrail and got directly in front of the secured steel bars. He tried to catch the apes attention but couldn’t at first, and then, again without warning the ape lunged at the bars and got no less than an inch from Alan’s sunburned face. As the two locked eyes Alan got a sense of intelligence and was suddenly more afraid of the mind than the mass.

**


“What took you two so long?” Virdon said now taking out his makeshift canteen to share with his tired friends. He first passed it to Galen, a chimpanzee from this time period who put up a hand stating he didn’t need it.
Peter Burke, Alan’s human friend and another unfortunate captive in this Earth time period smiled and took the canteen. He pointed over his shoulder without looking back and said, “We missed our bus.”
Galen instantly looked back in the direction they had come from and with his familiar sniff tried to figure out what it was Pete was talking about.
Burke plopped down on a stump and took another swig and then closed the canteen. “Urko’s men, well, apes are all over the place in the city, it’s no use going back.”
The trio had found an abandoned city due south of San Francisco that was reasonably intact; in fact it looked as though it had somehow avoided the cataclysm that had affected the rest of Earth, which turned it to near rubble. They had been living there in peace for nearly six months and were becoming confident that Urko, the gorilla in charge of chief security for this region had given up his search for the time traveling astronauts.
The city was a marvel. It was certainly a newer creation, not older than a couple of hundred years. Since Virdon and Burke had been catapulted over two thousand years though time and had landed back on earth in this ape ridden period, that would put the city and more importantly its technology they found, nearly eighteen-hundred years more advanced than anything they’d ever encountered.
“Look, Alan, we were there for nearly six months and didn’t come across anything of value much less anything that could send us home, let’s forget about it.” Burke said wedging the canteen between his feet. “Besides, you know those gorillas are tearing everything apart that even resembles human superiority.”
“I told you Urko would never give up looking for you two,” Galen said almost proudly. Pointing at Burke and then at Virdon. He chalked it up to ape determination but then remembered what Burke couldn’t wait to blurt out.
“If he’s still looking for us, he’s still looking for you. Remember?”
Suddenly Galen’s foolish pride was just that. This was his Planet but how often he forgot he too was “on the lamb” as Alan put it. He still couldn’t imagine standing on such a nervous creature.
Alan took out a piece of paper that was torn from one corner to the other, although some text still remained. Escape Through Time it read and the lower half of a machine could be seen with a wire grating all around it. Sadly, the top half of the paper was missing. “I found this about a month ago,” Virdon said. I didn’t want to say anything so you wouldn’t get your hopes up Pete.”
“So, why are you showing me now?” Burke said taking the paper from his commander almost unwillingly. He looked the paper over and could almost see Urko’s men with some well-placed rocks doing what a cataclysm couldn’t. “And what difference does it make? You know what’s going to become of it?”
“Maybe not,” Virdon said more positively. “We were there for nearly six months, and we didn’t find it. Maybe it’s hidden? Maybe it’s in a neighboring city?” Alan took the paper from Pete and almost tried to will the missing half to make its presence known.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Galen said. He began dusting off his green and black travel suit that had become soiled from his escape through the city sewers. “I thought you two were brought here by accident, with your ship? How can a device be used to recreate what nature herself didn’t mean to do?”
“Galen, that city is very different from the one’s we left behind in 1980. The technology they have there is over two thousand years ahead of what Pete and I knew on Earth.”
“So that’s why you wouldn’t let us leave the city?” Burke said finally putting things together. “You could have told us you know. That way we all could have been looking for the device.”
“You’re right Pete, sorry about that, but I was sure I would stumble across it after awhile. I wonder where it is,” Virdon said staring at the machine’s half image.


“Burke! Virdon! It will do you no good to hide, if you show yourselves now I will consider letting Galen live!” Urko said thundering through the city’s wide streets on his white steed. He would of course kill Galen first for insolence, but he guessed it did no harm to lie to fugitives. Urko was a gorilla of large stature and it didn’t do for him to be constantly outwitted by mere humans. The counsel had only now considered taking him from his post and replacing him for his apparent lack of results but after he found this city in its original pristine condition he knew the runaway trio was here, he could taste them. He envisioned the day he rode through Ape Central with Galen, Burke, and Virdon strung up like an animals meal. He would revel in the ropes and chains. He would smile at the gasps of onlookers. He would feel exonerated by the wide eyes of the counsel. But first things first; he had to find them.
“Commander Urko,” said Sellis his newly placed second in command, “perhaps they are not here after all?”
“And perhaps you wish to be reduced in rank?” Urko said not even bothering to look at the young gorilla. He clicked his heels in anger which told the horse to move along and then decided to split up his team. “Sellis, I’ll take these three and investigate the hollow tunnels with iron rails, you take to the tops of the buildings, these would seem to be the most rational hiding places…”, catching himself almost praising the humans in front of his men he changed the course of his thoughts; “for foolish humans and treacherous apes.”
As Sellis rode away to find his higher ground, he wondered if his own command was drawing near.



“I’m not going back Alan, no way. Look even if we found this probably non existent time machine and it worked, we don’t even know how to operate it. Be sensible for once. Can we at least put this to a vote?” Burke looked over at Galen and tried to judge his support but decided all apes have unintentional poker faces.
“We’ll put it to a vote when my command becomes a democracy,” Virdon said, sounding abnormally moody.
“Dem-ocracy?” Galen said glancing at his two companions. Saying the word was as foreign as the concept. Even though this ape culture had a tribunal and even a “court” or sorts it was generally never fair and often brutal. In the end, Galen wrinkled up his nose at the strange word.
“Can we at least wait for some time to pass and maybe Urko will have left the area?”
“Sure Pete, so he can trash the machine and our chance of ever getting home?” Alan said, actually becoming irritated with his best friend.
“Better it than me” Burke said. “You can go back if you want but there’s not a snowballs chance in hell I’m going to go back to that city which I know has a deranged ape that is looking for me in it.”
Galen knew of hell, but snowbells, snowballs, or whatever they were was a different matter. “Look, if you want to know what I think…”
“I guess I’m about to find out what you think,” Alan said and hefted his gear bag over one shoulder and without so much as looking at Burke headed back down the steep path.
Galen looked back at Burke, then at Virdons back. He could play it safe and stay here with Pete, but then who would look out for Virdon? He extended a hand to Peter Burke and without saying anything hoped he wished them both luck.
As Burke watched Galen leave, he kicked the dirt and ran a sweaty hand through an even sweatier head of thick black hair. All for one and one for all? He pondered the concept for a moment. Then he snatched up his bag, began his trip down the steep hill and tried to picture Galen as a Musketeer. And for a brief moment actually smiled. Apparently, another snowball was entering hell.