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?"

CHAPTER IV

"Half the world," Mr. Ainsworth said slowly. "One half of your whole, wide world!"

Stan stared at him coldly for a full minute, then started to laugh—laughter that ripped out of him like waves and washed against the sides of the room.

Sick laughter, because he knew the price he was going to have to pay for it.

He sobered. There was a time, he thought, when every human being had to stand up and be counted as a brave man or a coward. This was his.

"And you thought I would take it! You thought I would sell out the whole human race!" His face was seamed with hate and he thumped his chest proudly, suddenly not caring what happened to himself. His voice was hoarse. "I'm one of the apes, remember? They're my people and it's my planet...."

Mr. Ainsworth's face looked like it was carved from a block of ice.

"Look at me, Martin! Look at me!"

Stan looked and felt the sweat pop out on his forehead and his stomach knot into a small, hard ball.

Mr. Ainsworth was fading, the frames slipping past so slow Stan could count them. And the image that was building up in Mr. Ainsworth's place....

Stan screamed and staggered back against the bulkhead, his arm raised before his eyes.

"You're going to help us," the creature said in a horribly liquid voice. "You're going to help us because you want to. We need advance men to soften this planet up. You're going to be one of them. And after you've done your work, our fleet will arrive!"

It paused dryly.

"But I see you've still got some indoctrination to go through!"

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