"The reading's growing stronger, Captain." "Coming from a star system directly ahead." "It's not a signal, sir." "It does not seem to even exist, and yet it's affecting all my channels." "Well?" "Someone or something is attempting to attract our attention." "Someone or something has succeeded." "Our distress signal relays have been activated." "We've been given a direction to follow, but how?" " What's causing it?" " I do not know." "Not even a Vulcan can know the unknown, Captain." "We are hundreds of light years past where any Earth ship has ever explored." "Planet dead ahead, Captain." "Becoming visual." " Class-M planet, Captain." " Close to Earth conditions." "With two very important exceptions." "It is much older than Earth, and about a half million years ago, its atmosphere was totally ripped away by some sort of cataclysm." "The planet has evidently been dead since then." "Sensors detect no life of any kind." "All your questions will be answered in time, Captain Kirk." " Are your hailing frequencies open?" " No, sir." "I am Sargon." "It is the energy of my thoughts which has touched your instruments and directed you here." "Now, at this closer distance, I can speak to you at last." "Who are you, Sargon?" "Please assume a standard orbit about our planet, Captain." "Is that a request or demand?" "The choice is yours." "I read what is in your mind." "Words are unnecessary." "The planet is dead." "There's no possibility of life there as we understand life." "And I am as dead as my planet." "Does that frighten you, James Kirk?" "For if it does, if you let what is left of me perish, then all of you, my children, all of mankind must perish too." "Space, the final frontier." "These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise." "Its five-year mission:" "To explore strange, new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before." "Captain's Log." "Stardate 4768.3." "The Enterprise is in orbit above a planet whose surface, our sensors tell us, is devoid of all life." "A world destroyed and dead for at least a half million years, yet from it comes a voice, the energy of pure thought, telling us something has survived here for those thousands of centuries." "Since exploration and contact with alien intelligence is our primary mission," "I've decided to risk the potential dangers and resume contact." "Log entry out." "How long before Starfleet receives that?" "Over three weeks at this distance, sir." "Captain." "Got something?" "Sensors registering some form of energy deep inside the planet." "Your probes have touched me, Mr. Spock." "Reading energy only, Captain." "No life forms." "I have locked your transporter device on my coordinates." "Please come to us." "Rescue us from oblivion." "Coming from deep under the planet surface, Captain under at least 100 miles of solid rock." "I will make it possible for your transporter to beam you that deep beneath the surface." "Have no fear." "Reading a chamber now." "Oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, suitable for human life support." "Lieutenant Uhura, have Dr. McCoy report to the Transporter Room in 10 minutes with standard landing-party equipment." "Yes, sir." " Spock." " Captain." "Captain," "I do wish to inspect whatever this is that lived that long ago." "And I'd want my Science Officer with me on something as unusual as this, but it is full of unknowns, and we can't risk both of us being off the ship." "All power gone, sir." "On the other hand, perhaps this Sargon would like you to come with us." " Fascinating." " All normal." "No damage at all." "I see." "Will you transport down with us, Mr. Spock?" " Evidently, Captain." " Mr. Sulu, you have the conn." "Why no briefing on this?" "I'd at least like to know what we're getting into." "Easy." "As long as you know there's something down there you know as much as we do." "The rest is only guesses." "I don't like it, sir." "The transporter coordinates preset by an alien of some sort." "You could materialize inside solid rock." " Inside solid rock?" " Unlikely." "These coordinates correspond with the location of the subterranean chamber." "I have a feeling that they, or it, could destroy us just standing here if they or it wanted to." ""They or it"?" " Who are you?" " Dr. Ann Mulhall, Astrobiology." "Well, I was ordered to report here for landing-party duty." "By whom?" "Strange." "I'm not sure." "Well, I'm not a liar, Captain." "I did receive an order to report here for duty." "I'm sure she did, Captain, just as you received an order to bring me along." "Oh, yes." "Let's get back to this solid rock business." "Just how much rock are we going to go through?" "Approximately 112.37 miles, doctor." "Miles?" "Are you joking?" "No, we're not." "Let's go." "Please stand ready." "I will operate your controls." "Doctor, if you prefer to stay behind..." "No." "No, if I'd be useful." "As long as you're going down," "I might as well take a medical look at whatever this is." "Captain, the security guards." " Kirk here." " Can you read me, Captain?" "Yes, Scotty." "And I shouldn't be able to this deep inside the planet." "But perhaps that's been arranged for us too." "Is the security guard up there?" "They're fine, Captain." "They just didn't dematerialize." "I don't like it, sir." "No problem yet." "Maintain alert." "Kirk out." "Atmosphere report, Captain." "A fraction richer in oxygen than usual for us, but otherwise normal." "This vault was constructed about a half million years ago." "About the same time the planet surface was destroyed," " if our sensor readings are accurate." " Composition of walls?" "They're an alloy or substance completely unknown to me, much stronger and harder than anything I've measured before." "All readings are off the scale, Captain." "The air seems fresh." "It must be re-circulated somehow." "Is that for us?" "Or does "it" need fresh air?" "Welcome." "I am Sargon." "Sargon, would it harm you if I..." "You may use your tricorder, Mr. Spock." "Your readings will show energy, but no substance." "Sealed in this receptacle is the essence of my mind." "Pure energy." "Matter without form." "Impossible." "But you once had a body of some type?" "A body much as yours, my children, although our minds were infinitely greater." "That's twice you've referred to us as "my children."" "Because it is possible you are our descendants, Captain Kirk." "Six thousand centuries ago our vessels were colonizing this galaxy just as your own starships have now begun to explore that vastness." "As you now leave your own seed on distant planets, so we left our seed behind us." "Perhaps your own legends of an Adam and an Eve were two of our travellers." "Our beliefs and our studies indicate that life on our planet Earth evolved independently." "That would tend, however, to explain certain elements of Vulcan pre-history." "In either case, I do not know." "It was so long ago and the records of our travels were lost in the cataclysm" " which we loosened upon ourselves." " A war?" "A struggle for such goals and the unleashing of such power that you could not comprehend." "Then perhaps your intelligence wasn't so great, Sargon." "We faced a similar crisis in our earlier nuclear age." "We found the wisdom not to destroy ourselves." "And we survived our primitive nuclear era, my son." "But there comes to all races, an ultimate crisis which you have yet to face." "I don't understand." "One day our minds became so powerful we dared think of ourselves as gods." "You said you wanted our help." "What is it you wish?" "Just a moment, doctor." "I am Sargon." "Where's our Captain?" "Where's Jim Kirk?" "He is unharmed." "I have taken his body to demonstrate." "I won't go along with this!" "Back to where you were, Sargon, or whatever you are." "And if he refuses, doctor?" "What do you propose to do with your phaser?" "That is still Jim's body." "Lungs filling with air again to see again heart pumping, arteries surging with blood again." "I can feel." "After a half a million years to be again." "Your Captain has an excellent body, Dr. McCoy." "I compliment you both on the condition in which you maintained it." "What are your plans for it?" "Can you exchange places again when you wish?" "Have no fear." "Your Captain is quite unharmed." "Although his mind generates insufficient energy for him to speak from there as I do." " Doctor." " Yes, I have the same readings." "Are you aware of what's happening to his body?" "Heart action doubled, temperature 104 degrees." "He'll die if you don't leave his body soon." "What is it you want of us?" "In the next room there are other receptacles." "The other two of us that survived." "You, Dr. Ann Mulhall and you Mr. Spock we require your bodies also." "We must have Captain Kirk and you so that we may live again." "Even for us, a half million years is almost too long to wait." "Two others still survive, Henoch and Thalassa." "Thalassa, my Thalassa I am pleased you survived." "Forgive me." "It has been so very long." "When the struggle came which devastated your planet..." "Only the best minds were chosen to survive." "Thalassa, my wife, as you may have guessed." "Henoch, from the other side." "Realizing our mistake, we attempted to perpetuate both sides." "We built this chamber here in order to preserve our essence in this fashion." "Fascinating." "We knew the seed that we had planted on other planets would take root, that one day you would build vessels as we did." "And one day you would come here." "These others, they were stored differently than you." "But it was your task to remain in the receptacle out there..." "And search the heavens with my mind, probing, waiting, probing." "And then one day my mind touched your vessel and brought you here." "So you could steal our bodies from us?" "To steal?" "To take them from you?" "No, my children, you misunderstand." "We mean only that you should lend us your bodies for a short time." "And destroy them." "Just as you're burning that one up now." "Heart beat 262, Spock, the entire metabolic rate correspondingly high." "I will return your Captain to you before the body limit has been reached." "Our bodies, Sargon." "For what purpose?" "To build..." "To build humanoid robots." "We must borrow your bodies long enough to have the use of your hands, your fingers." "Then you intend to construct mechanical bodies, move your minds into them, and then return our bodies to us." "We have engineers, technicians." "Why can't they build your robots for you?" "No, our methods our skills are far beyond your abilities." "It is time." "Is it you, Jim?" "Good." "His metabolic rate is back to normal." "Captain, do you know what happened?" " Do you remember any part of it?" " Yes." "Sargon borrowed my body." "I was floating in time and space." "He doesn't appear to be harmed physically anyway." "Spock, I remember!" "When Sargon and I exchanged, as we passed each other for an instant we were one." "I know him now." "I know what he is, and what he wants." "And I don't fear him." "That's the most ridiculous statement I've ever heard." "An alien practically hijacks your body and then corks you into a bottle..." "I'm afraid I must agree with Dr. McCoy." "You could be suffering from a form of false euphoria." " Sargon." " I understand, my son." "Go to your vessel." "All who are involved must agree to this." "After all these centuries, we can wait a few more hours." "And what if we should decide against you?" "Then you may go as free as you came." "You're going to what?" " Are they all right in the head, doctor?" " No comment." "A simple transference, their minds and ours." "Quite simple." "Happens every day." "Scotty, I need your approval too, since you'll be working with them, furnishing them with all they need to make the android robots." "You won't be working with them you'll be working with us, our bodies." " They'll be inside us and we'll be..." " It all seems rather indecent to me." "I'm not so certain of that, doctor." "It is scientifically fascinating." "Once inside their mechanical bodies, Engineer they can leave this planet, travel back with us." "With their knowledge, mankind could leap ahead 10,000 years." "Bones, they'll show us medical advances, miracles you never dreamed possible." "Scotty, engineering advances, vessels this size, with engines the size of walnuts." " You're joking." " No, he's not." "They're giants and we're insects beside them." "They could destroy us without meaning to." "And all he wants is the body of our Captain and our second in command too." "Coincidence?" "They selected us as the most compatible bodies." "What's your attitude on that, doctor?" "Well, if we all agree I'm willing to host Thalassa's mind." "I'm a scientist." "The opportunity is an extraordinary one for experimentation, observation." "A starship engine the size of a walnut?" "That's impossible." "But, I don't suppose there'd be any harm in looking over diagrams on it." "Bones, you could stop all this by saying no." "That's why I called you all here together." "We'll all be deeply involved." "It must be unanimous." "Then I'll still want one question answered to my satisfaction." "Why?" "Not a list of possible miracles." "But a simple basic understandable "why" that overrides all danger." "Let's not kid ourselves that there is no potential danger in this." "They used to say, if man could fly, he'd have wings." "But he did fly, he discovered he had to." "Do you wish that the first Apollo Mission hadn't reached the moon, or that we hadn't gone on to Mars and then to the nearest star?" "That's like saying you wish that you still operated with scalpels, and sewed your patients up with catgut, like your great-great-great- great-grandfather used to." "I'm in command." "I could order this." "But I'm not because Dr. McCoy is right in pointing out the enormous danger potential in any contact with life and intelligence, as fantastically advanced as this." "But I must point out that the possibilities the potential for knowledge and advancement is equally great." "Risk." "Risk is our business." "That's what this starship is all about." "That's why we're aboard her." "You may dissent without prejudice." "Do I hear a negative vote?" "Engineer stand by to beam aboard three receptacles." "The extreme power of the alien mind will drive the heart action dangerously high and the body functions will race many times their normal metabolism." "So we're going to have to monitor this very carefully." "Yes, sir." "Well, I guess we're about as ready as we'll ever be." " Jim." " Ready, Sargon." "The transference is complete." "Metabolic rate is doubled and rising, doctor." "Hello." "You are a lovely female." "A pleasant sight to wake up to after half a million years." " Thank you." " You're welcome." "I'd forgotten what it felt like even to breathe again." "Sargon?" "Here." "In this body." "I am not displeased, my husband." "Your body is not unlike that which was your own." "And I too, am pleased, beloved." "After so long so very long." "Yes." "This is an excellent body, doctor." "I seemed to have received the best of the three." "Strength, hearing, eyesight, all far above your human norms." "I'm surprised the Vulcans never conquered your race." "Vulcans worship peace above all, Henoch." "Yes, of course." "Just as we do, doctor." "Nurse." "Doctor." "Henoch, you'd better get back to bed too." "It will be unnecessary, doctor." "This Vulcan body is accustomed to the higher metabolism." "Sargon, it won't work." "You've got to get out before you kill them." "We will vacate at once until you can administer a metabolic reduction injection." " A what?" " I'll prepare the formula, Sargon." "Henoch, your condition?" "I can continue in this body for several hours." "Fortunate." "We will vacate at once." "This woman will assist me." "You will take me to your pharmacology laboratory." "Bones, what..." "It was close, Jim." "You both barely got back alive." "Unless the formula works, we can't risk it again." "Now, this formula will reduce the heart action and the bodily functions to normal." "While the bodies are occupied, you will administer one injection of 10 cc's each hour." "I understand." "This hypo you will code mark for Thalassa." "And this one, you will code mark for me." "Yes, sir." "This one, you will administer to Captain Kirk while Sargon is in his body." "This hypo does not contain the same formula." "No, that's correct." "But since I will arrange for you to administer each of the injections, no one else will notice." "But without the same formula, Captain Kirk will die." "What were you saying?" "I was..." "I wanted to say something." "I've forgotten what it was." "You were about to say that you watched me prepare the formula and fill each of the hypos." "Yes, that was it." "I will inform Dr. McCoy that each is properly filled for each patient." "Very good." "You see, Sargon would not permit me to keep this body." "It is therefore necessary for you to kill your Captain so that Sargon will die with him." "Enterprise Medical Log." "Stardate 4769.1." "Three alien minds now inhabit the bodies of Captain Kirk," "Science Officer Spock, and Dr. Ann Mulhall." "As planned, the construction of android robots is underway." "All is proceeding as expected and as promised." "I can find no reason for concern but yet, I am filled with foreboding." "Sargon, I remember a day long ago." "We sat beside a silver lake." "The air was scented with the flowers of our planet." "I remember." "You held my hand like this." "I think it best not to remember so well." "In two days you'll have hands of your own again, Thalassa." "Mechanically efficient and quite human looking." "Android, robot hands, of course." "Hands without feeling." "Enjoy the taste of life while you can." "Our minds will have survived." "And as androids we can move among the people who do live teaching them, helping them not to make the errors we did." " What is it, Sargon?" " Nothing." "Our next injection will renovate me." "Do not be concerned." "Nurse, how are the last metabolical readings on our patients?" "You'll find them excellent, doctor." "Well within normal." "Is something wrong, Miss Chapel?" "Yes I had something to say." " I can't seem to remember." " Regarding our patients?" "Yes." "That must be it." "I am so pleased the way they are responding, doctor." "The formula is working perfectly." "You look tired, Miss Chapel." "Perhaps you'd care for me to administer the last few injections." "Tired?" "Not at all, doctor." "Thank you for asking." "Thank you." "Have you prepared the megaton hydra coils for the drawings Sargon supplied?" "For all the good it will do you." "It's a fancy name but how will something that looks like a drop of jelly make this thing work?" "You'll need micro-gears and some form of pulley that does what a muscle does." "That would be highly inefficient." "I tell you, lady." "This thing won't work." "It will have twice the strength and agility of your body, Engineer, and will last a thousand years." "That is, assuming you'll stop wasting your time and allow us to complete it." "A thousand-year prison, Thalassa." "When it wears out, we'll build another one, and we'll lock ourselves into it for another thousand years, and then another and another." "Sargon has closed his mind to a better way with these bodies." "They're not ours, Henoch." "When you awoke in this body, Thalassa you said how good it was to breathe again to have eyes and to see again, to feel to live and feel again, Thalassa." "Just think, how much we can do for mankind." "Are these bodies too much to ask for in return?" "Would you prefer this?" "No." "I'm beginning to hate it." "Sickbay." "Sickbay." "McCoy." "Sargon here, McCoy." "I'm in your..." " Deck 6 briefing room." " You sound terrible." "Wait there for me." "Sargon, what is it?" "Nothing of importance." "Fatigue perhaps." "Henoch's formula." "Yes, I wanted to be certain there was no error." "The formula is correct." "Don't be concerned." "It is an excellent body." "There you see, I feel better already." "In time our host body will become accustomed to us, husband." "Injections will no longer be necessary." "That will take months, perhaps years." "We haven't that choice, Thalassa." "Husband feel the touch of my hand, husband." "No, beloved." " If we torment ourselves..." " Beloved." "What will that word mean to a machine?" "Our thoughts will intertwine." "Will they, husband?" "Will they intertwine like this?" "Can two minds press close like this?" "Can robot lips do this?" "Sargon, what is it?" "Hypo." "Doctor, help him." "He's dead." "Medical Log." "Stardate 4770.3." "Do I list one death or two?" "When Kirk's body died," "Sargon was too far distant from his receptacle to transfer back." "Sargon is dead." "But is Captain Kirk dead?" "His body is, but his consciousness is still in the receptacle, into which it was transferred earlier." "All his vital organs are now working, doctor." "Yes, we can keep them going for a few weeks or a month, for all the good it'll do." "Why pretend to work on that thing, Henoch?" "You know you never intended to leave Spock's body." "This is your new home, Thalassa." "Once occupied, I'll add female features and some texturing." "You, no doubt, want the mechanism to at least appear to be a woman." " It is ready, Thalassa." " No!" "You have no excuse to keep the real body any longer." "Sargon would have required that you enter the mechanism immediately." "I cannot live in that thing." "Doctor?" "Yes?" "Would you like to save your Captain Kirk?" "But you said that was impossible." "We have many powers Sargon did not permit us to use." "He thought them too tempting to us." "This body pleases me." "I intend to keep it." "I see." "And Henoch intends to keep Spock's body, of course." "Henoch's plans are his own affair." "I wish only to exist in peace as a living woman." " If you're asking my approval..." " I require only your silence." "Only you and I will know that Dr. Mulhall has not returned to her body." "Isn't that worth your Captain's life?" "Doctor we can take what we wish." "Neither you, this ship, nor all your worlds have the power to stop us." "Neither Jim nor I can trade a body we don't own." " It belongs to a young woman." " Who you hardly know." "Almost a stranger to you." "I will not peddle flesh." "I'm a physician." "A physician?" "In contrast to what we are you are a prancing savage medicine man." "You dare defy one you should be on your knees worshiping?" "I could destroy you with a single thought." "Stop!" "Sargon was right." "Temptations within a living body are too great." "Forgive me." "I am pleased, my beloved." "It is good you have found the truth yourself." "Sargon." "Where are you?" "I thought you destroyed by Henoch." "I have power even Henoch does not suspect, beloved." "Yes, I see." "I understand." "Just as we would have placed our consciousness within robots Sargon has placed his into your vessel." "Doctor." "Doctor, leave us." "Sargon has a plan." "We have much work to do." "This is the Sickbay." "Get me..." "Nurse Chapel, what in the devil..." "Jim, are you all right?" "Yes, I'm fine, Bones." " Thalassa?" " She is now with Sargon, doctor." "I'm Ann Mulhall, back in my own body." "Jim, the receptacles." "Spock's consciousness was in one of them." " It was necessary." " What are you talking about?" "There is no Spock to return to his body." "You've killed a loyal officer." "Your best friend!" "Bones, prepare a hypo." "The fastest, deadliest poison to Vulcans." "Spock's consciousness is gone." "We must kill his body the thing in it." "Must I make an example of you too, Helm?" "Pain, Captain." "And you, my dear..." "Fortunately, doctor," "I know every thought of every mind around me." "See?" "Take the hypo from him." "And inject him with it." "You fools!" "I'll simply transfer to another place, another body." "Sargon." "No, Sargon, please, let me let me transfer..." "Spock." "My friend, Spock." "If there'd only been another way." "I could not allow your sacrifice of one so close to you." "You're alive." "There was enough poison in that hypo to kill 10 Vulcans." "No, doctor." "I allowed you to believe that to be true so that Henoch would read your thoughts and believe it also." "Sargon." "It seems, doctor, the injection was only enough to cause unconsciousness." "But Henoch believed and fled the body." "He is destroyed." "But your vessel was destroyed too." "Where was your consciousness kept?" "The place Henoch would least suspect, Captain." "That is why I was summoned into the Sickbay, doctor." "Mr. Spock's consciousness was placed in me." "We shared consciousness together." "We now know we cannot permit ourselves to exist in your world, my children." "Thalassa and I must now also depart into oblivion." "Is there any way we can help you, Sargon?" "Yes, my son." "You can allow Thalassa and me to share your bodies again." "A last moment together." "Oblivion together does not frighten me, beloved." "Promise we will be together." "I promise, beloved." "Together forever." "Forever, beloved forever." "Well, I'm sure that Sargon appreciated your cooperation, Dr. Mulhall." "Yes, I was happy to cooperate, Captain." "It was beautiful."