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Katie struggled futilely in the grip of the
apes that held her. The ape king
approached. Her legs were spread
for his pleasure, but to her surprise and immense relief he made no effort
to rape her. Instead he turned
away, seeming to lose interest.
Katie understood why. He
had just ravaged Princess Marilyn and could no longer sustain an
erection. The apes holding her
let go of her arms and legs. She
had escaped for now, but she knew that he would be back
soon.
Weak with fear and still feeling the effects of the first rape, she scrambled
across the platform to the huddled figure of the
Princess. The girl was bleeding
badly from her vaginal region, but there was nothing Katie could do to help
her. She helped the sobbing girl
to the shelter at the center of the
platform. She had to find a way
out of this predicament. It was
clear that the apes would continue to rape them until they were both
dead.
After a time Marilyn
stopped her sobbing, but continued to shelter in Katie’s
arms.
Katie struggled to find a
solution. There must be something
that she could do. The apes were
animals. There must be something
they were afraid of. Then she
had a flash of inspiration.
Fire! All animals were
afraid of fire. Unfortunately,
she had no matches to start one.
Then she remembered a story Larra had told
her. It was about her first adventure
in
She explained her plan to Marilyn.
The girl was weak, but Katie knew that she was not likely to become
stronger. She had to act
now. Marilyn crowded close, now
curious about how Katie was going to create fire without flint and
steel.
Katie gathered a collection of the driest material together in a small
pile. From the pile she picked
up a small wooden stick about half an inch in diameter and a foot
long. Next she selected a flatter
piece of wood and placed the point of the stick at a ninety-degree angle
on its surface. Then she began
to twirl the stick back and forth against the wood as if she was trying to
drill a hole in the flat piece of wood.
Marilyn watched with interest.
How would that start a fire?
During the entire procedure, none other apes showed the slightest interest
in what Katie and Marilyn were doing.
It was quite obvious that the apes had no knowledge of fire or fire-making
techniques. After a few minutes,
it appeared that Katie did not either.
Her first attempts produced nothing but
sweat. She remembered that Larra
had told her that she had used a bow, but she had no rope or string to make
one. Or did
she?
On the platform, only a few feet away was what was
left of her undergarments. They
consisted of only a few shreds of cloth, but there might be enough material
to do the job. Katie retrieved
the tattered material. Stretching
it out, she found that she had a strip of material about two feet
long. That should be more than
enough. From the overhanging
branches above her she broke off a two-foot length of wood that was strong
and springy enough to serve as a bow.
Then she bent the branch and tied the cloth between
it. Taking her original drill
she twisted the bowstring about it and tried to start a fire
again. By moving the bow back
and forth she was able to make the drill spin
rapidly. This time she experienced
success. A small curl of smoke
rose up from the point of contact between the drill and the flat piece of
wood. Quickly Katie bent and
blew on the base of the drill, scooping a small amount of tinder toward the
glowing wood. The smoke intensified
and then a small flicker of flame
appeared.
Success! She scooped more
material into the flames and watched them
grow. “Quickly,” she
said to Marilyn, “get some larger pieces of
wood.”
Marilyn scampered to do as she was told.
With a minute the two women had a fairly substantial fire blazing
away on the wooden platform. By
this time their work was attracting considerable
attention. This was the platform
inhabited by the ape king after
all. Several apes closed
in on the two women; their massive bodies partially blocking the light, but
Katie had the fire leaping up almost to the top of the shelter by
now. She grabbed a burning brand
and thrust it at the closest ape.
With a howl of pain and fear, the animal jumped
away. Katie then attacked the
next closest ape. Marilyn, taking
her cue from Katie, grabbed another burning branch and used it to drive off
the apes coming from the other direction.
By the now the flames had reached the top of the shelter and ignited
that too. With a roar the fire
began to burn out of control, setting fire to some of the branches of the
tree. Terrified apes began to
scatter in all directions. Fire
was their worst enemy; they had no understanding of it and no way of controlling
it.
A loud roar announced the arrival of the ape
king. “He must have been
on one of the other platforms,” shouted
Katie. Retreating toward the
fire she grabbed up the largest burning branch she could
find. The ape king seemed to
be the only simian not afraid of the
fire. Perhaps it was due to his
status as king, or perhaps it was because he suspected that Katie and Marilyn
were behind the blaze. In any
case, he advanced on them with all of the menace the huge anthropoid was
capable of showing.
Katie was ready for him. As the
howling monster descended upon her, she shoved the blazing branch directly
into his face. With a scream
of pain and rage the ape king staggered back, but Katie was not
finished. She advanced upon him,
driving him toward the edge of the burning
platform. Burned and confused,
the huge ape continued to retreat toward the
edge. Only at the last second
did he stop and attempt one more time to deal with his diminutive
antagonist. Katie repeated her
first attack, thrusting the blazing branch right at the eyes of the gigantic
ape. With a terrible scream of
pain and fear, the ape king leaped back and came down on thin
air. His panicked retreat had
driven him right off the edge of the
platform. Eighty feet below,
the ground awaited him. He screamed
all the way to the ground, and ended only with the sound of his heavy body
striking the forest floor.
Katie turned back to Marilyn. The
fire was now very much advanced.
The entire center of the platform was consumed in flames, and a light
wind was driving the flames toward the neighboring
platform. “Come,” Katie
shouted above the noise of the spreading
fire.
“Now’s our
chance. We have to get
out of here.” Grabbing
Marilyn’s hand she led her toward the neighboring platform, still hold
the burning branch in her other hand.
The few apes that were still nearby scattered as she came, leaping
to other platforms. Katie now
saw that not all of the platforms were of the same
height. There were several platforms
at lower levels than the one she was on.
Pulling Marilyn with her she headed for one of the lower
levels. They had to move
fast. There was no telling how
long the fire would keep the apes
confused.
Moving from platform to platform, Katie and Marilyn managed to make their
way to the ground. They immediately
headed off into the rainforest. The
sooner they got away from the ape city, the
better. Both women, however,
had pretty much reached the end of their
endurance. They could not go
very much farther. Fear, however,
gave them a little added strength and for half an hour they pushed their
way through the forest. It was
Marilyn that brought them to a halt.
The princess could go no farther.
Her exhaustion and deprivation had caught up with
her. Katie did not
object. She too was on the verge
of collapse. Like Marilyn, she
had been beaten and abused. She
looked about for a safe place to hide
out. She found it between the
giant buttress roots of one of the huge rainforest
trees. It created a natural
wedged-shaped shelter. She found
to her surprise that she was till carrying what was left of the branch she
had used to attack the ape king. It
was still smoldering slightly.
Quickly, she placed it on the ground and blew it into life again by
piling leaves and twigs on it.
Then she left Marilyn to tend the fire while she went about improving
their shelter.
Nearby, she found a bunch of fern-like
plants. She tore the fronds from
these and arranged them between the two flaring buttresses of the tree
trunk. This created a crude roof
and protected them from possible detection from
above. She then ventured out
to see if she could find anything to eat.
She came upon a small bush covered with purplish-red berries, but
avoided them. She had no way
of determining whether or not they were
poisonous. A little further on,
however, she came to something she
recognized. It was a plant that
had an edible tuber for a root. She
had read up on it while preparing for Larra’s latest
expedition. It was part of
Katie’s character to be curious about things like
that. It only had low nutritional
value, but it would be better than
nothing. She dug up as many as
she could carry and took them back to
Marilyn. By this time the girl
had the fire blazing well. Spearing
the tubers on a stick, the two women roasted them over the
flames. They ate everything Katie
had brought, and then completely done in, they settled down for the
night. Neither
had the energy to remain on
guard. They would hope
to luck and the fire to keep enemies and animals
away. Just before Katie dozed
off she built up the fire. With
any luck it might last until morning.
Or perhaps when it died down, the cold would wake her
up. Katie closed her eyes and
slept.
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