:44:01
who are still subjecting
the spaceship to microscopic scrutiny,
:44:05
the precise year ofwhat
you merely infer to be Earth's destruction
:44:08
is recorded on the flight synthesizer as 3955.
:44:13
AD, presumably.
:44:15
Now, what do you expect me
and the United Nations,
:44:18
though not necessarily
in that order, to do about it?
:44:23
Alter what you believe to be the future
by slaughtering two innocents,
:44:27
or rather three,
now that one ofthem is pregnant?
:44:30
Herod tried that and Christ survived.
:44:33
- Herod lacked our facilities.
- He also became very unpopular.
:44:37
Historically unpopular.
And we don't want that to happen, do we?
:44:41
- Are you saying...
- l am saying that our two visitors
:44:44
seem to be very charming, peaceful people,
or rather, creatures, and the voters love them.
:44:50
Do you want their progeny
to dominate the world?
:44:53
Well, not at the next election, no.
:44:56
But, one day, ifthe progeny turn out
as well as the parents, who knows?
:45:00
- They may do a betterjob of it than we have.
- By destroying the world?
:45:05
Are you quite sure that what
they saw destroyed was the world?
:45:08
Well, aren't you?
:45:10
l consider it dispassionately as a possibility.
Not hysterically as a fact.
:45:15
We have their own testimony
that they provoked the war.
:45:18
And they seem to have
provoked you into the bargain.
:45:20
l'm not saying that you're wrong, Hasslein,
but before l have them shot against a wall
:45:25
l want convincing that the handwriting
on the wall is calculably true.
:45:31
Now... convince me.
:45:36
By their own testimony, we know that apes
will acquire the power of intelligent speech.
:45:41
By Zira's testimony,
we know that she's pregnant with child.
:45:45
By my testimony, we know it
is genetically possible for this child,
:45:48
provided that we permit its birth,
:45:51
to bear or beget a talking ape by a dumb one
:45:53
in a present-dayjungle or a present-day zoo.
:45:57
But do you truly believe
that by deliberate present-day action