"woman:" "spectroscopic readings indicate the atmosphere is at perfect equilibrium." "predominantly carbon dioxide with traces of methane and ammonia." "what gives the atmosphere that sickly yellow color?" "iron oxides from the rusting cities." "and the sensors show no life form whatsoever?" "nothing-- not even the presence of simple amino acids in the oceans." "it's a dead world." "there was a name for this one wasn't there, professor?" "yes... it's earth." "they called it earth." "not much left after 1,000 years, is there?" "donald, earth was stripped of artifacts long ago." "what are you looking for?" "i don't know..." "a feeling." "a sense of place." "what it felt like to live here when the skies were blue and the oceans green with plankton." "too many historians never get to see the things they write about." "thank you for getting me on this mission." "a very kind gesture for an old academic." "not that kind, and not that old." "good luck, donald, because in four days, i must give word to the mining vessels to extract what is salvageable." "when they do, there will be precious little left of your earth." "archer?" "bledsoe?" "did you hear that?" "man:" "hear what?" "you got a problem, professor?" "no, no problem." "i'll see you back at the ship in about three hours." "knowles out." "(chopin's nocturne in e-flat, opus 9, no. 2 playing)" "don't you remember us, professor?" "donald, you're up late." "so are you." "lots of data to log." "there's still a treasure trove of minerals in this planet." "the inhabitants bled it dry of all fossil fuels but there's a wealth of basalt, iron, uranium." "it was really quite a beautiful planet-- amazing variety of flora." "climates ranging from the temperate to the tropical from the arctic to the desert." "this is where it all began." "this is where webegan." "how did it happen, donald?" "how did the planet end up like this?" "greed, stupidity... the usual catalog of sins." "they used refrigerants that slowly ate away the ozone layer." "they burned the tropical rain forests to make way for farmland using the ashes for fertilizer, and entire species simply vanished forever from the earth." "by the time they poisoned the whole biosphere, they had the technology to leave it behind." "so they fled into space and cast the earth aside like a half-eaten apple." "and with humanity gone, the biological changes collapsed." "you know the irony of it?" "the earth today is almost exactly as it was millennia ago before the very first rainfall." "for millions of years, there had been no rain." "when the earth cooled enough, rain fell, delivering nutrients to the oceans and life emerged." "and here we are." "here we are." "returned to commit the final indignity on the planet that nurtured us." "here to put the knife to her one last time." "our ancestors killed this world, not us." "the law prohibits us from mining any living world-- only dead ones." "like it or not, donald earth is a dead world now and there's nothing we can do about that." "except, i suppose, be grateful that we finally learned our lesson." "do you remember us now, professor?" "man:" "you won't be needing your helmet anymore, professor." "the air is breathable." "we sort of used a part of our etheric energy to change the molecular structure of the gases." "we've been waiting so long." "why did you leave us?" "are you back to stay?" "all of you?" "where are the others?" "will they follow in more ships?" "woman:" "yes, yes, where are they?" "when are they coming?" "my god." "all of you." "you're... the ones you left behind." "all the souls that ever were." "all the ones that stood and watched as your ships vanished forever from our sight." "all of us that couldn't follow." "we never knew." "we never knew that you even existed." "didn't you?" "didn't a part of you always know?" "why is it so important to you to... follow us?" "you're our children-- our future, our immortality." "since time began, we've walked among you, sharing in your triumphs... your despair." "now... now there's nothing." "no children. no future." "just a ruined playground you left behind." "it doesn't have to be this way." "you can follow us." "our ship... your ships warp space in ways we can't." "those who have tried came back disfigured or insane." "it's a large universe, professor." "and not nearly as benign as you living like to think it is." "well, then... what can i do?" "put your helmet back on." "i know why you're here." "not you, personally, but your ship, your crew." "we're shadows." "we're helpless to stop them." "but you..." "you have to do something." "you have to explain to them that this planet still contains life of a sort." "this earth-- ruined and gutted as it is-- it's all we have left." "please, don't let them take it from us." "you can't be serious." "do you know what the others would say?" "i'm just asking you to keep an open mind." "give me a chance." "i'll prove it to you." "prove to me that earth is some sort of haunted planet?" "how?" "gycinda... you were always my best pupil." "let me teach you one last thing." "hello?" "i've brought someone-- someone who can help." "please..." "let us see you." "please." "it's all right." "she has to see you." "she has to know." "donald." "for god's sake, she can help." "why are you doing this?" "please, let us see you." "donald, that's enough." "don't... damn you!" "show yourselves!" "donald!" "it's my fault." "i knew what this planet meant to you." "i shouldn't have invited you to watch it be... why don't we just... forget we ever came here, all right?" "my god." "what are you doing?" "what arewedoing?" "!" "what wereyoudoing?" "donald, how could you do this to us?" "to all of us." "i swear... i... the last thing i remember was being... asleep in my cabin." "it was them." "don't you see?" "i... it wasn't me, it was them." "he's crazy." "i told..." "mr. bledsoe, kindly shut up." "mr. archer... please assess the damage to the sensor web and then raise central on subspace." "tell them we'll be returning dr. knowles to outpost 12-- medical emergency." "we'll also be staying over for repairs, and... and then we will be back to finish our assignment." "you cowards." "you liars." "show yourselves." "i dare you to show yourself to me." "go back to your ship, professor." "you might as well." "because if i don't you'll just take over my body and make me go, won't you?" "that's right." "you wanted me to make a fool of myself." "you wanted me shipped back to civilization." "and you... you'd come with me, wouldn't you?" "please understand, there's no other way." "we can't travel through warp space in this form." "but in yours, that's a different matter." "you can serve as a beacon to the others, showing them the way." "and me?" "what happens to me-- my body-- when you're done with it?" "i'm not sure." "i have to merge myself fully with your body in order to weather the journey." "i'll try to leave it once we get there but... you don't know if you can." "please try to understand." "all we want is to reclaim our future." "your future?" "you don't deserve a future, any of you." "we may have fled the earth once it became uninhabitable." "but you... you're the ones who made it that way." "you could have saved it." "you could've done something, every one of you." "but you didn't, did you?" "how many of you thought you'd be on one of those spaceships fleeing the dying earth?" "how many of you thought you'd escape?" "but died before you could." "what you're saying may be true, but it's over and done." "there's nothing we can do about it now." "isn't there?" "you changed the air in this building from methane to oxygen." "from poisonous to breathable." "that's a different matter." "this is a small, controllable environment." "we're talking about a planetary scale." "even if we could, we might lose our consciousness, our awareness." "like you propose to do to me." "cowards." "you're still the same cowards who let this planet die aren't you?" "go ahead." "take my body, my life." "save yourselves." "at least... at least i'll know that when my times comes i can die with a hell of a lot more courage and dignity than you." "(buzzer sounds) come in." "we're about to lift off." "i told central that you requested a medical leave." "stress reaction to space travel." "it's not uncommon." "the damage to the sensor web was minimal." "i didn't log your actions yesterday." "i appreciate that." "you're looking better, rested." "yes, you might say i'm expecting to be a new man once we leave the planet." "gycinda... if i should not see you again after this, i just want you to know that i'm grateful for the chance you gave me and for your friendship and for... (thunder rumbling) what's that?" "i don't know." "it sounded like thunder." "impossible." "the atmosphere is at equilibrium." "there can't be any." "(thunder rumbles, rainfall begins) it's raining." "it can't be." "what's going on?" "is that really rain?" "not just water, either." "amino acids, nutrients-- raining into the ocean." "bledsoe:" "good god!" "i'm getting life-form readings in the oceans." "that's impossible." "it takes thousands of years for the simplest life-form to develop." "it's as if something is accelerating evolution." "this can't be right." "the sensors must be out of alignment after yesterday's damage." "my god, he's right." "the ocean's suddenly swarming with cyano bacteria." "cyano what?" "cyano bacteria was the first complex organism to evolve on the earth... and it led the way for all life-forms to come, including us." "does this... mean what i think it means?" "what it means... is we're out of a job." "i don't know if you can hear me anymore." "maybe you can't." "but... we'll be back, i promise." "someday." "we'll be back."