They stripped him and put him in a room that felt like the inside of a
packing-house refrigerator. His breath came in little wisps of fog and
if he stood in one place too long, his feet started to freeze to the
floor. He had to keep moving to keep warm and he realized he couldn't
keep moving forever. It was cold and damp and at periodic intervals, it
rained from pipes overhead. Water that quickly froze on the floor and
made his hair a mass of frosted crystals and then started to freeze on
him.
He only lasted four hours in the cold room. When they took him out, his
nails were broken from clawing at the door frame and he had started to
bleed at the fingertips.
Mr. Malcolm questioned him again.
Why wouldn't he admit that he hated his family? His mother was
responsible for his father deserting the family. And his brother used
to squeal on him when he was small and had even taken money that Stan
used to leave on the dresser.
Stan made the mistake of laughing and ended up in a cell where he
couldn't stand, where he had to remain stooped all the time. A small
tray of slops appeared after each time he slept and once every sleeping
period, somebody cleaned it out.
Mr. Ainsworth questioned him next and it meant a bath and food and
cigarettes and rest. He took them and enjoyed them.
Then he told Mr. Ainsworth what he thought of him. They threw him in a
small, pitch-black cell and left him there. For weeks. Months.
He spent his time huddled in a corner, thinking of the city and his
mother and Larry and what Spring looked like and how leaves that ended
up in the Fall as large as your hand, started out as nothing more than
a strip of green no bigger than his fingernail. A dozen times a period,
he went over the last scene his eyes had glimpsed from Mr. Ainsworth's
car. The drab houses and the green trees and the tiny stretch of blue
beyond....
And then there were the days when he didn't think of anything--though
he was to wonder later if it had been days or weeks or even only hours.
There was nothing by which to judge time, though he tried to keep track
of his own pulse and counted the beats into minutes and the minutes
into hours and the hours into days.
It was Mr. Ainsworth who rescued him.
"It's been a long time since I've seen you, son."
"You know where I've been."
"Don't hate me, Stan. I'm only trying to help you."
"I appreciate it," Stan said dryly.
And the odd thing was, he honestly _did_ appreciate it. Ainsworth
represented sleep and a bath and food and clean clothes. And he was
grateful. Like any dog that had been kicked and starved and then wagged
its tail when it was patted on the head.
And knowing all of this didn't change his reactions in the least.
"Stan," Mr. Ainsworth said quietly, "they want you to say that you hate
your family. You say you don't. Perhaps you believe that. But would it
hurt to merely _say_ that you do? You don't have to actually believe
it." He paused. "And to be perfectly truthful, I'm afraid that you
might not live very much longer if you're not willing to go that far."
Stan jerked, as if somebody had jabbed him with a pin. To come so near
to dying so many times had made life seem infinitely precious.
And what did it matter, actually? Some of the things they had been
telling him--they weren't exactly lies.
"All right," he said dully. "So I hate the city. And I hate my folks."
Somewhere in his mind, a keystone crumbled.
"That's the way, son. Play it smart!" Mr. Ainsworth looked very proud
of himself, as if Stan had just passed a difficult test.
"It's not supposed to stop there, is it?" Stan asked. "What am I
supposed to believe in next, so you people won't kill me?"
"I don't think you're looking at it in the right light," Mr. Ainsworth
said coldly, and Stan was panic-stricken for fear he would call in Fred
and have him taken back to the cold room or the small cell. "We're just
telling you things about yourself that you didn't know before."
"Sure," Stan said quickly, trying to sound sincere. "You're just
telling me things I never would have suspected."
He got better treatment after that. They assigned him to a cell where
he could lie down and sleep and when they talked to him, they offered
him cigarettes and joked with him. Even Mr. Malcolm went out of his
way to be pleasant. They were uncannily accurate when they told him
about his past life and he got to thinking more and more that there was
something in what they said.
His mother had been no prize and his brother was a lying, little sneak.
Almost a year went by before they led him up to the big one.
When they told him, point blank, that he hated humanity.
* * * * *
Stan felt like somebody had knocked the wind out of him.
"You can't be serious!"
Mr. Ainsworth sighed and shook his head. "Stan, do you remember when I
first picked you up? Three of your fellow human beings had dragged you
into an alley and were beating you up--you would have been killed if I
hadn't come along." He shrugged. "That's the human race for you, son!"
"But they were only three individuals!" Stan objected.
"And the others are so much different?" Mr. Ainsworth sneered. "Nobody
cared about you, Stan--not even your own family. No human being cares
for anybody else but himself! There's a war every generation where they
slaughter each other by the millions. And sickness. Have they ever made
any really concerted drive against it? Have they ever really tried to
stamp out poverty?"
His lip curled. "They're apes! Nothing but apes!"
"You talk like you're not human!" Stan said, and then realized that he
had made a mistake.
Mr. Ainsworth started to flicker again, like film in a projector that's
run down. Stan gripped the sides of his chair and froze, trying
desperately not to show his fear.
Mr. Ainsworth was watching him closely. "I think we should tell you
what this is all about, Stan. Watch."
He pressed a button on his desk and the wall behind him started to
glow, then drifted away like cigarette smoke. Stan closed his eyes,
feeling dizzy and sick and horribly afraid that he was going to fall.
He opened them again, slowly.
The end of the room opened out on a harsh, black sky dusted with the
tiny pin points of stars. Stars that didn't twinkle but shone with a
bright, steady blaze. To his left and below he could see a huge segment
of a mottled green and blue globe, laced over with shifting shreds of
white.
He was almost sick again and then the grandeur of the scene struck him
and he caught his breath, sharply.
He was somewhere in space, suspended thousands of miles above his home
planet and seeing the universe as man had never seen it before. The
blazing infinity of stars and the slowly rolling, green globe that was
the Earth....
"The home of the apes," Mr. Ainsworth mused. He paused. "We can use
that planet to far better advantage than the human race. We intend to
take it. And you're going to help us."
Stan looked at Mr. Ainsworth coldly.
"What's in it for me?"