Escape From The Planet Of The Apes by Jerry Pournelle Page B

can’t talk and don’t appear to be able to learn,” Hasslein said. “Had you asked me before those three appeared in that capsule, I would have said it was absolutely impossible for apes to learn to talk at any time within the foreseeable future. That it would be at least hundreds of thousands of years before they learn.”
    “Yet we have two who can.”
    “Precisely!” Hasslein smacked his left fist into his open right hand. “Because these two apes are genetically different! Yet, I expect, they can interbreed with other apes. They can transmit that distinguishing characteristic, the ability to learn speech, to their progeny. If that gene is distributed among apes, then all apes will eventually have the ability to speak.”
    “Oh, come now, Victor, that’s a paradox! You’re saying that they come from the future to our present; they interbreed with other apes; and by interbreeding with them, they create their own future ! That if they didn’t come here to be their own great-great grandparents, they couldn’t exist at all! You don’t really believe that, do you?”
    “Yes, sir, I’m afraid that’s precisely what I believe.”
    “Impossible! Rubbish!”
    “No, sir.” Hasslein’s eyes blazed as he glared at the president. “I can prove it. What you think of as a paradox, as a violation of the laws of causality, only appears that way because you have a very distorted view of causality to begin with. Now, let me show you.” He took a sheaf of papers from his pocket and laid them on the table. “Look here—”
    “Oh, no,” the president protested. “Victor, I never got past college algebra! You take those equations and put them back in your pocket.”
    “But I can’t prove it to you without them.”
    “We’ll assume you prove it, all right? But what do you want me to do?” He looked at the pale blazing eyes. “No! You really think we can alter the course of the future?”
    “Yes, sir. Their future is not necessarily our future. Even though it is just as real. I can—”
    “I heard you on the Big News show. Not that I understood you. So you want me to alter what you believe may be the future by slaughtering two innocents. Three, now that one of them’s pregnant.” The president nodded grimly to himself. “It’s an old tradition with kings, isn’t it? Herod tried it. He wasn’t successful, either. Christ survived.”
    “Herod lacked the facilities we have,” Hasslein said grimly. “And we have only two apes to deal with.”
    “Victor, have you any idea how unpopular such a thing would be?” the president demanded. “I’d go down in history as another Herod. No, thank you. I’ve a good record, and I don’t need that on it.”
    “You are putting your sentiments for these apes ahead of your duty to the people.”
    The president half stood, his mouth a grim, tight line of anger. “I do not need you to remind me of my duties to the people, Doctor Hasslein!”
    “I beg your pardon,” Hasslein said formally.
    “You beg it, but you aren’t sorry,” the president said. He sighed and sat down again. This interview wasn’t going well at all. “Victor, I’ve seen the chimpanzees on television, I’ve met them briefly—they seem very charming, very harmless, and very popular with the voters. You speak of my duties to the people. One of those duties is to carry out the popular will, and I think being courteous to those chimpanzees is very much what the people want.”
    “Not all of them,” Hasslein said. “The Gallup poll shows a lot of undecided. Especially when they’re asked about Colonel Taylor—”
    “Yes. But the fact remains, they’ve done nothing to us, and have made no threats. In God’s name, Victor, how would we justify anything like that?”
    “It would look like a tragic accident,” Hasslein said. “The CIA could arrange it.”
    “They could, eh? How do you know?”
    “Well, sir, I assumed—”
    “You can keep your assumptions to yourself, Dr. Hasslein. No.