The Outer Limits (1963) s01e24 Episode Script

Moonstone

l'll put the tapes where they'll be safe.
(clanking hum ) No! No! No! (screams) ( man ) There is nothing wrong with your television set.
Do not attempt to adjust the picture.
We are controlling transmission .
We will control the horizontal.
We will control the vertical.
We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity.
For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all you see and hear.
You are about to participate in a great adventure.
You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to The Outer Limits.
( man ) ln Man 's conquest of space, his own moon must be the first to surrender.
From there he will step his way to the edge of infinity.
Each step will be as uncertain as the last.
Yet each will bring him closer and closer to ultimate truth.
(rumbling ) (clanking hum ) Lunar Expedition One.
A handful of brave scientists and technicians pave the way to the future.
Their mission : to collect information that will enable Man to inhabit the moon , to use the moon as a springboard to the stars.
Once during each 24-hour period, a force of three, commanded by General Lee Stocker and including Lieutenant Travers and Major Clint Anderson , makes its slow, uncharted way across the lunar surface, a surface whose depths and desires are as yet unprobed.
(distant wind howls) Hold it.
l hit something.
Relax the rope a little.
l'm going to try to get it.
OK.
Pull away.
lt doesn 't look natural.
Too perfect, geometrically.
- Looks like they got here first, General.
- The Russians? Perhaps.
Could be payload from one of their moon -shots.
Scientific equipment.
Prize catch.
Boys in the Pentagon will give you another medal.
Did you see his Korean Campaign one? Or have you left your Earthly prizes behind? (electronic humming ) - Oh, Major Anderson - Yes, General? Your gentle wisecracks out there in the presence of another officer lnever crack wise.
Especially when l feel strongly about something.
Your feelings are your own and you're entitled to them.
But how you handle them affects me and the other men .
Your behaviour has gone beyond insubordination .
You've left me no choice.
- You're so practised at making choices.
- You're going back to Earth.
Back to Earth? l've arranged for you to take over a post at the Pentagon .
l came up here intending to stay.
lt's no good, Anderson .
lt isn 't working.
l don 't have to spell it out, do l? Was l really that rough on you? Or doesn 't it take much to irritate a sore conscience? Lieutenant, do you know if there's a court of appeal on the moon ? lf there is, General Stocker is it.
That's what l was afraid of.
l think l'll ask around, anyway.
- A lot of scary things today, Professor.
- Let me see that mysterious moonstone.
Tom, put it on the table, please.
(thuds) (clinks) Careful, it might bite.
Seamless? lt's light, relatively.
- Let's get it open .
- lf it does anything hostile, yell.
Hello, Travers.
(prolonged hum ) All else having failed, we decided to try the laser beam.
Your moonstone remains unscathed, inscrutable and as maddeningly mysterious as A woman scientist.
Try it again , please.
( hum ) A laser beam will cut through anything.
Why, it can drill holes in diamond.
- lt's not even scorching this.
- lncredible.
l'm not certain that this is metal.
lt isn 't radioactive and it has no magnetic properties.
ls it solid? l thought so, until l tried this.
A wideband monitor, similar to the type we use for resolving composite signals.
(resonates) This'll take care of any notions that our moonstone is solid.
(resonance amplified) (screeching ) Cut it! Cut it! (silence ) Electronic equipment? Possibly.
- But what is its function ? - Collecting data for transmission to Earth.
The Russians may be monitoring us even now.
We can 't be sure until we can get inside that shell.
- Have you talked to Washington ? - l'm due to transmit in half an hour.
l'll pass along this information .
Come with me, and bring your notes.
- l've missed you too.
- Let's skip dinner.
- l'm famished.
- Let's stroll in the moonlight.
You're out of your mind.
Maybe that's why l love you : you make me laugh.
- Do you? - What? Love me.
This wouldn 't be because l'm the only woman on the moon ? - Obviously.
Marry me.
- l knew you'd ask me here.
- Pretty sure of yourself, aren 't you? - Up here, the odds are in my favour.
Did you decide what you'd say this time? - l've thought about it.
- And? - lt doesn 't make sense.
- Why? - lt's not in the stars.
- You've taken up astrology? These stars, Lee.
Diana, l've dedicated my entire life getting these stars.
l'm not afraid of them, Lee.
They're keeping us apart.
You sure it's not your involvement with the stars out there? What am l supposed to think, Lee? All my life, l've thought that science and the military are opposed.
That the military is dedicated to destruction and the aim of science is peace and human advancement.
My father preached it at me.
All of my professors implied it.
l've seen it for myself.
Now l say how can two worlds at cross-purposes like ours ever meet? Diana, look at me.
Look through this uniform, at me.
l'm not dedicated to destruction .
l'm Lee Stocker, a man .
A man who wants to spend his life loving you .
When you say it that way, you make me - .
.
feel narrow-minded and foolish.
- Foolish enough to say yes? lt's settled then , Diana.
You'll be my moon bride? How could l resist the novelty value? Yes, Lee.
Yes.
And now can we go to dinner? Clint! Oh, that's very touching.
- ls something the matter? - Yes.
- What is it, Clint? - Let it wait, Anderson .
- Yes, sir.
- Clint - Can l tell you something? - Yes, ma'am.
Lee and l are going to be married.
Well to the happy couple.
Congratulations.
Oh, no, that's wrong.
You congratulate him and give her your best wishes.
My apologies.
Lee, what's wrong between you two? lt goes way back.
He has an old resentment against me.
lt was born in Korea and it's grown and grown .
- A personal thing? - Very.
And unjustified.
lnever minded until recently, but he's begun to undermine my authority.
l can 't let that happen up here.
l'm having him transferred.
Transferred? He's back to Earth on the next supply ship.
He's become a morale problem, - which we simply can 't have here.
- Can 't you talk to him? lt might have been possible once, but not now.
- Does he know he's being sent down ? - His orders came last night.
No wonder he's so miserable.
l wanna talk to him.
No , t won't co a ny good He could use a friend right now.
Please? Clint? Clint? - Clint.
- (slurs) l'm having a little party.
- A little bon voyage party.
- Don 't you think you've had enough party? A bon voyage party is supposed to go straight through until the boat leaves.
That's not until tomorrow.
l'm being transferred to that Siberia known as Earth.
l suppose that's what happens to all undesirables.
- Clint, that's not true.
- How can you do it, Professor? How does a woman like you fall for a gutless coward like Stocker? - He doesn 't deserve that.
- You're marrying a murderer.
What are you saying? Get him to reminisce about Korea.
Ask him about Chi Chang.
What happened there can 't be forgotten , not even here.
We're far from Earth, but we brought our crimes with us.
Ask him if he can forget the promise he made to the people of a certain village to give the full support of his troops if they'd rise up against the Reds dug in there.
And then betrayed that promise when the showdown came.
Ask him what it feels like to know you're responsible for the massacre of a whole village.
Diana! (screams) Clint? Don 't move.
Call the doctor.
(echoing vibrations) (gasps) ( male voice ) Stop! (groans) Do not touch him.
He will live.
Who are you? What are you? We are life.
A form of life.
We come from the planet Grippia in the constellation Zeneez.
- What are you doing here? - We were in flight.
Desperate flight.
We looked to Earth for refuge.
We were heading for Earth.
But we were forced to land here for want of energy.
Refuge from what? We five represent the most advanced minds of our galaxy.
Between us we possess the secrets of the universe.
- What were you fleeing from? - Tyranny.
The government of Grippia wants to use our knowledge to conquer all the constellation Zeneez and then the universe.
We had to escape.
Couldn 't you just refuse to give them this knowledge? meoss ple ong ago , we o u rse ves developed a means of absorbing knowledge from any thinking creature.
That is how we learned what you know.
That is how we speak your language.
You mean that they could assimilate your knowledge? There would be no way to stop them.
We had to escape and seek asylum where our knowledge would be safe.
We could arrange to have you taken down to Earth.
- Can we trust them? - There's no reason not to.
- Who is your leader? - There is no leader.
Our minds are linked.
We share the same thoughts and one voice, the voice you hear, speaks for all of us.
But it wouldn 't do any good to take us to Earth now.
- Why? - We have realised that we could not survive on your Earth.
Your sun is weak.
Even here, its rays do not provide us with the energy we must have.
On Earth, the molecular density and stratification of your atmosphere causes too great a diffraction of your sun 's ultraviolet rays.
We would perish instantly.
So where will you go? There are partisans.
They are coming.
A rescue ship bringing us energy.
- Can we be of any help? - Yes.
We are too weak now to contact the ship .
.
guide them here.
You can do that.
Transmit pulses on ten million megacycles in the direction of Grippia.
We don 't have a transmitter that will go up that high.
Your equipment can be modified to do it.
We will give you the formulae.
The partisans will detect a beam and follow it in .
- How long can you last? - Without more energy .
.
perhaps 24 of your hours.
Will he be all right? He will recover completely.
And if you do not survive, neither will your knowledge.
lt will be lost.
All of it.
You can preserve it.
Arrange for us to feed it into your electronic computers.
But our computers are so slow.
lf we hurry, and if you can guide the rescue ship here .
.
before it is too late l'll get a couple of orderlies.
The trajectory of light matter is paraboloid.
The difference rate of carbon via the density of the emitting matter raised to the cube root of the transient median transmission carriage as determined by direct optical observation applied to galax-gaylar planform M - Diana.
How's Anderson ? - He's conscious now, coherent.
- What caused the accident? - Diana.
Excuse me.
.
.
the square of the deviation .
And inversely, as the direction of radiation changes .
.
or any instantaneous case Everything checks out exactly according to their diagram.
lf they're right, we'll find their planet.
And their rescue ship.
- See how the scanner unit is doing.
- Scanner unit, do you read me? ( metallic buzzing ) - Yes, sir? - How are you doing out there? Just double-checking now, sir.
- Hurry it up, will you? - Yes, sir.
What do you think? l've worked with electronics for ten years and never dreamed of anything like this.
- Communications? - Roger.
Ready, sir.
Scanner rigged and checked out.
You better get to some cover.
- That thing might blow.
- Roger.
- Communications? - Roger.
Scanner unit under cover, sir.
Let her go.
All right.
Pulse supply on .
(bleeping ) She's holding.
She's working, sir! Ten billion miles of mystery.
Somewhere out there is a speck of dust called Grippia.
Contact the base.
Fill them in on our progress.
- Have them relay our report to Washington .
- Roger.
.
.
to the anti-energies in the hyperspace portion .
The trajectory and coherence of each individual pattern is due entirely to this cyclical cancellation of aberrations and is the essence of the solidity of matter, light, anti-matter and anti-light, and all real velocities.
Gravitation , magnetic phenomena, molecular energy and electrical phenomena are all linked - How's it going? - lncredible! Now they're giving us the formula for transmuting matter sequentially into light.
lt'll take our physicists years to make this work.
When they do, we'll be able to turn anything into light and recover it as matter.
Even ourselves.
We'll be able to travel at the speed of light, something we've always assumed was impossible.
Without them, it might have taken us centuries to develop something like this.
Will you have time to get much more? We'd need a decade to get one tenth of what they know.
And we've got only 1 1 hours.
Diana, l must talk to you .
No, Clint.
- What happened? - He fell.
l mean before the accident.
- He was telling me about you .
- About Chi Chang? He won 't forget that.
- ls it true? - l know just what you're thinking.
l've seen that look before.
Like l'm some sort of monster.
lnever thought l'd see it in your eyes.
l was thinking about those people, filled with hope that you gave them.
l had no choice.
The Chinese sent reinforcements.
- We were outnumbered ten to one.
- That sounds like military logic.
lt was a decision l had to make.
Hundreds of my men or a handful of Korean villagers.
lf there was just one chance of saving them, you owed it to them to try.
l'll never convince you otherwise, will l? l'm sorry, Lee.
l try.
lt's just that it's difficult to fight this rigid conception l have when things keep happening that seem to bear them out so strongly.
We've picked up a UFO on that trajectory, Maybe it's a rescue ship.
- What do you think, Professor? - lt's right on the beam, whatever it is.
lts velocity is far in excess of anything we have.
- But nowhere near the speed of light.
- Perhaps they're too close.
Notify Earth base.
This thing overshoots, we don 't want them taking a pot-shot at it.
Have them clear with lnternational.
They're decreasing velocity all the time.
- Where are they now? - Less than 1 00,000 miles away.
Let's inform the moonstone.
They have just enough energy to contact the ship within a range of 50,000 miles.
(rumbling ) (squeaking whirr) - Have you made contact? - Yes.
- Will they reach you in time? - Yes.
- ls there anything more we can do? -Nothing.
They are in control now.
- Where will the rescue ship land? - There is no rescue ship.
-No rescue ship? - The tyrants have destroyed it.
- Then this one - The tyrants are coming to take us back.
- What do they say? - They want you to surrender us.
And if we refuse? They will not leave without us.
But we can 't just hand you over.
Lee, there must be something we can do.
General Stocker, it's reached the scanner area.
- Call the crew in .
- The lines are dead.
We've lost contact.
- They've cut our communications.
- We've gotta do something.
- We didn 't come here prepared for a fight.
- So what's the answer? Surrender them? Our weapons will prove useless against them.
Will they attack if we refuse to surrender you? They know no other way.
They have not the rationality of the less powerful.
- lf only we knew how far they'd go.
- They won 't risk destroying the moonstone.
All right, Diana, what do you want to do? Anything.
Everything.
To protect it.
Tell them we promised you refuge and we intend to keep that promise.
They will not leave without us.
- Will they attack? - What is their alternative? l suggest we put the moonstone aboard our shuttle craft.
lf they attack, we stand a chance of launching them back to Earth.
Detach it.
l'll put the tapes where they'll be safe.
(clanking hum ) No! No! (screams) - Ashes! - Stop them! Stop them! - Diana! - Let me go! Stop them! - How? By giving them what they want? - Yes! We have no other choice! We will inform them of your decision and they will stop.
(squeaking whirr) They will continue the suspension of their attack for one more hour.
By that time, you will deliver us to the site of your farthest excavation .
There, we will be lifted aboard their craft.
lt is the only way.
Their power is too great.
Their madness even greater.
lf necessary, they would pursue you to Earth and destroy your entire planet to get us back.
We cannot allow that.
lf you are ever to destroy evil, you must survive to fight it.
You will be safe now.
We will return with them to Grippia.
- l'm sorry.
- You did what you had to do.
Perhaps that is the most subtle definition of bravery.
Spare your Earthly compassion for the creatures of our distant galaxy.
They will know far more devastation and death than you have seen displayed here.
This we can assure you .
lt will be we who will invent those constantly improved methods of accomplishing it.
ln the end, it is usually the good minds who enable evil to thrive.
l'm sorry you had to learn it this way, Diana.
l don 't think l could have learned it any other way.
Commence all preparations for - Stay with Diana.
- She'll be all right.
- General.
- Yes? l'd like to go with you .
- You feel up to it? - Yes, sir.
Let's see if we can find some undamaged suits.
(rumbling ) (rumbling) - ( moonstone ) Thank you .
- We didn 't earn your thanks.
The mind earns by doing.
The heart earns by trying.
Go.
Quickly.
General, is this what you felt after Chi Chang? You mean remorse, bitterness? Yes.
l didn 't understand then .
lt's not something to understand.
lt's .
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something you live through in a private hell.
ook - What's happening? - What l expected.
Well, that's one way to defeat the tyrant.
Yes, of course.
lt was the only way.
lt was the only way.
( man ) The steps Man takes across his universe are as uncertain as those steps he takes across the rooms of his own life.
Yet if he walks with an open mind, these steps must lead him eventually to that most perfect of all destinations truth.
We now return control of your television set to you until next week at this same time when the control voice will take you to .
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The Outer Limits.

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