Otto Hasslein

That's your voice, isn't it?

Zira

How can I tell? I- I don't even remember.

Cornelius

Why don't you remember?

Zira

Because Dr. Hasslein made me drunk!

Why did you tell something to Dr. Hasslein when drunk... that you never told the commission when sober? Because you and your husband were frightened... for the safety of yourselves and your unborn child?

Zira

I-I withheld nothing. Nobody asked me.

But if somebody had asked?

Zira

I should have said that chimpanzees... had no part in the destruction of Earth. Only the gorillas and the orangutans.

What's the difference? You're all monkeys.

Cornelius

Please! Do not use the word "monkey. " It is offensive to us. As an archaeologist, I had access to history scrolls... which were kept secret from the masses. And I suspect that the weapon which destroyed Earth... was man's own invention. I do know this. One of the reasons for man's original downfall... was your peculiar habit of murdering one another. Man destroys man. Apes do not destroy apes.

Otto Hasslein

Cornelius. This is not an interracial hassle, but a search for facts. We do not deny the possibility of man's decline and fall. All we want to find out is how apes rose.

Cornelius

Well, it began in our prehistory with the plague that fell upon dogs.

Zira

And cats.

Cornelius

Hundreds and thousands of them died. And hundreds and thousands of them had to be destroyed in order to prevent the spread of infection.

Zira

There were dog bonfires.

Cornelius

Yes. And by the time the plague was contained, man was without pets. Of course, for man, this was intolerable. I mean, he might kill his brother, but he could not kill his dog. So humans took primitive apes as pets.

Zira

Primitive and dumb, but still twenty times more intelligent than dogs or cats.

Cornelius

Correct. They were quartered in cages, but they lived and moved freely in human homes. They became responsive to human speech and, in the course of less than two centuries, they progressed from performing mere tricks to performing services.

Nothing more or less than a well-trained sheepdog could do.

Cornelius

Could a sheepdog cook, or clean the house, or do the marketing for the groceries with a list from its mistress, or wait on tables?

Zira

Or, after three more centuries, turn the tables on their owners.

Hasslein

How?

Cornelius

They became alert to the concept of slavery. And as their numbers grew, to slavery's antidote which, of course, is unity. At first, they began assembling in small groups. They learned the art of corporate and militant action. They learned to refuse. At first, they just grunted their refusal. But then, on an historic day, which is commemorated by my species and fully documented in the sacred scrolls, there came Aldo. He did not grunt. He articulated. He spoke a word, a word which had been spoken to him time and again without number by humans. He said: "No".

Hasslein

So that's how it all started.