do you have to work tonight?
neither do i.
what's so special about him?
remembers what?
zira, come on. you know they can't -- oh oh. here comes number one.
certainly, sir. i'll get my notes and come right over.
it's a stunt. humans don't write.
where did you learn to do this?
jefferson public school, fort wayne, indiana?
back on that planet you say you came from? um-hm. he may be intelligent, but he's also mad.
now, just a minute --
and they fell out of the sky with you?
flight is a scientific impossibility.
well, now.
we are here .  you were captured about here.
out - of - the - question!.
no creature can survive in that part of the forbidden zone. i've been there. i've seen it.
i don't. and i'm not going to try.
zira, are you trying to get my head cut off?
no, they won't -
it's probably wrong --
the evidence was very meager --
that was before dr. zaius and half the academy said the idea was heresy.
he's touchy, isn't he?
because if he is a missing link, it means the sacred scrolls aren't worth their parchment.
no, thank you'. i won't get into that battle.
zira, listen to me. we've got a fine future ahead of us. marriage. stimulating careers. i'm up for a raise --
dr. zaius --
oh., no., sir. i was just assembling my notes.
certainly, sir. it's a pleasure to see you again.
zira.
be clever. be quiet,
sir? the question is the point at issue: is he a man? or a deviate? or a freak of nature?
may it please the tribunal: i for one grant that this being cannot have come from another planet. but this much is certain -- he comes from somewhere in the forbidden zone. he has described the region to us, and described it accurately, for i have been there.
why, yes, sir. a year ago. with the special permission of the academy.
yes, sir, so it was -- thanks to you. but not before i discovered evidence of a simian culture that existed long before the sacred scrolls were written .
yes! behold this marvel, this living paradox, this missing link in an evolutionary chain!
how did it go?
well, taylor -- we're all fugitives now.
the best. but we won't need them.
look here, taylor. i'm in charge of this expedition --
as you wish.
to the diggings i worked at a year ago. it's a three day ride across the eastern desert, near where you claim you landed from that planet of yours.
it's a long detour to dead lake. what would we find?
sorry, taylor. the terrain around that lake is poisonous. there is no fresh water, no vegetation. nothing.
right. let's put the water and provisions in the wagon.
to scare us, too. we're entering the forbidden zone.
it empties into a sea some miles from here. that's where the cave is.
don't know. at high tide you can't ride along the shore, and we had no boats on the last expedition.
no one really knows. it's an ancient taboo. set forth in the sacred scrolls. the lawgiver pronounced the area deadly.
it makes you look somehow .  less intelligent.
right now, if you like.
lucius -- don't fire at them.
taylor, you're not in command here. put down that gun.
how did you know we'd come here?
we've never meant to be treasonable, sir. but up there, in the face of that cliff, is a vast cave -- and in that cave a fabulous treasure of fossils and artifacts.
taylor, i'd rather you -
it was at this level i discovered traces of an early ape creature -- stage of primitive barbarism, really -- dating back roughly thirteen hundred years. it was here i found cutting tools and arrowheads of quartz and the fossilized bones of carnivorous gorillas.
but the artifacts lying at your feet were found here, at this level. and that's the paradox. the more ancient culture is the more advanced. admittedly, many of these objects are unidentified, but clearly they were fashioned by beings with a knowledge of metallurgy.
indeed, the very fact that these tools are unknown to us could suggest a culture in certain ways almost equal to our own. some of the evidence is uncontestable .
i apologize.
right there. the human doll.
a doll alone proves nothing. true. but the doll was found beside the jawbone of a man -- and no trace of simian fossils has turned up in this deposit.
no sir, i haven't forgotten.
what are you doing there?
they've taken everything.
that was different. we thought you were .  inferior.
'beware the beast man, for he is the devil's pawn. alone among god's primates, he kills for sport, or lust or greed. yes, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. shun him. drive him back into his jungle lair: for he is the harbinger of death'.
they can't convict us of that. you proved our innocence. besides.  .  his culture is our culture.
seal the cave?
you mustn't! you gave your 'word!