No!
Dixx! Dixx! Dixx!
Get away from me!
Halt!
Don't touch me! Don't touch me!
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 that 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...
A war between worlds
has long been dreaded.
Throughout recent history, man, convinced that life
on other planets would be as anxious and belligerent
as life on his own, has gravely predicted
that some dreadful form of combat
would inevitably take place between our world
and that of someone else.
And man was right.
To the eternal credit of the peoples
of this planet earth,
history shall be able to proclaim loudly and justly
that in this war between unified earth
and the planet Ebon,
Ebon struck first.
Ebon...
It's form of life unknown,
it's way of life unpredictable.
To the fighting troops of earth,
a black question Mark at the end of a dark,
foreboding journey.
We have no way of knowing
what to expect of the enemy.
We have never seen him before.
All of the troops that have gone on before us
have either been destroyed or captured...
Or have simply been unable to remain
in communication with earth.
But we are going to land on Ebon,
and we are going to fight on Ebon.
Now, whatever the Ebonites are,
and however they live or die,
win or lose...
We are going to remember at all times
that we are human beings.
Now, if we...
If we are captured...
Face right, step forward,
and identify yourselves.
Your name alone will do for the moment.
Luke Stone, colonel, United States Astral Force.
Your name alone.
Ezra Kreug, lieutenant, German Europa task force.
Terrance Brookman, captain, Stellar Intelligence Corps,
Great Britain.
Your name alone!
Jong.
James P. Wilimore, lieutenant,
Free Africa Astral Service.
Arthur Dixx, private, United States Astral Force.
In your own earthly phrase,
you are prisoners of war.
You will cooperate in all ways,
resist in none.
Do not hope to escape.
Your ship is destroyed,
as are those that came before yours.
At my command,
proceed at once to compound zero-3.
Face left.
March.
Forward march.
No!
Stay away from me!
Dixx! Dixx!
Get away from me!
Halt!
Don't touch me! Don't touch me!
Now, Dixx, do you have any pain?
I'll stay with him.
Welcome to compound zero-3.
I am your interrogator.
We met upon your arrival,
and we shall soon meet again more intimately.
Have you appointed a spokesman
for your unfortunate group?
Luke Stone, colonel, United States astral forces.
We will need beds, water, and food.
And the proper sanitation facilities...
Your needs are known.
The troops that came before you
whose cooperation enabled us to control your arrival
have taught us the needs and desires of earth creatures.
They, too, made demands,
and once they met ours, theirs were met.
They are a contented lot now.
Perhaps you will be permitted to join them.
Also, immediate medical attention for private Dixx.
Each of you will be invited to participate
in an exploratory interview.
I shall conduct it.
Private Dixx
will be the first to accept my invitation.
I demand that privilege.
Your demands shall be honored
when ours are satisfied.
Private Dixx.
Guards, escort private Dixx
to my quarters.
Wait a minute, Dixx. Listen, Dixx,
go with him. He's not gonna hurt you.
Listen, they're not gonna hurt you.
Now, don't hurt him. He's going to go with you.
Aah! My eyes!
Aah! Aah! Aah!
I can't see!
Oh! Oh. Oh, my god.
My eyes. I can't... I can't... oh. Oh...
Jimmy. Jimmy.
Oh, oh, oh...
Sit down, private Dixx.
Perhaps it is nothing more than thirst
that prohibits the use of your voice.
Guard, bring him water.
Drink, private Dixx.
Now, private Dixx,
tell us true things.
That won't do, Dixx.
Your name, your rank, your serial number
are useful only to those earthly relatives
who will apply for your insurance.
I want my son, not his insurance.
I demand to see the prisoner!
You promised me
I could see the new prisoners!
You may come in, doctor.
I'm doctor Wharf, compound zero-one.
A friend.
Not... not feeling any pain, are you?
The Ebonites can control the senses...
All 5 of them.
They can give you back your voice
any time they choose.
You don't remember me,
but I tested you when you were inducted.
Camp Clifford, remember?
You were very resentful of being examined by a...
"a head shrinker," I think you called me.
I remember you.
I can still recall the results
of your psychological tests.
Shocking.
Shocking in someone so young
and seemingly normal.
But there it was...
The most classic self-destruction complex
I've ever come across.
You're bound to destroy yourself, you know?
Bound and determined.
For example...
You probably refused to cooperate
with the Ebonites,
as you've been trained to do.
And of course, they'll, uh, torture you.
And I have no doubt that you'll die
rather than talk.
But don't you see?
There's nothing heroic about that.
You want to die.
Unconsciously, of course.
Don't let those unconscious drives
win out, Dixx.
Fight them.
Fight them and live.
And you will live
if you cooperate.
And it's so easy to cooperate, really.
That will be all, doctor.
Watch that complex.
Are you ready to talk, Dixx?
Perhaps you could speak if there were someone here
you really wanted to speak to.
Arthur?
Arthur, you can talk to your mom,
can't you, baby?
Mom?
You can talk.
Tell me what they want to know.
Then whisper it to me, baby.
Whisper all about it.
Private Dixx?
You may go.
Hey! Ha ha ha ha!
I can talk again.
Hey, Dixx, they made you talk again.
What happened?
I'm not sure, sir,
but my mother said, "why didn't I whisper?"
Probably a hallucinatory- inducing drug.
It may be, but...
But I didn't say anything to her.
I didn't tell her anything.
I didn't say a word.
Lieutenant Kreug,
proceed at once to my quarters.
No! Me!
Wilimore, please!
Lieutenant Kreug.
I want to see!
Lieutenant Kreug. Ezra Kreug.
I can't stand it, colonel. I feel like I'm suffocating.
When I was a very little child,
I did something very bad.
My nurse would threaten to tell them.
The Nazis?
Yes.
Tell them what?
That I was...
That I was not a pure Aryan!
My grandfather...
My mother's father was.
Ezra!
You have been crying.
Your displays of congenital weakness
convince me more and more
that you are not.
No!
Tell them and get it over with, soldier.
Your buddies will understand.
You turned in your grandfather,
didn't you?
Ahh...
He forgave you.
Ahh...
Well, if any of us talks, it won't be me.
Have you heard tales of the methods
of extracting information during the Korean war?
But then, the Chinese communists
couldn't control the 5 senses.
Which makes me wonder about the Ebonites.
It seems to me that a totally different
form of life would have developed
a totally different form of death.
Oh, shut up.
You know...
Death here will truly be a mysterious adventure.
You may go, Colonel Stone.
Colonel...
Colonel, you won't forget to inform your men
of the fate of poor lieutenant Kreug.
Kreug is dead.
They said he went mad.
They do not permit madness on the planet Ebon.
They destroy the mad.
How was your interview?
It was routine.
When's the next troop ship arriving,
what entrance pattern?
I fell asleep.
Colonel?
I'm here, Jimmy.
I'm thirsty.
Then you may as well drink it.
They make you drink it out there.
Come on.
No, over here. Down.
Do we have to put our hands in it, colonel?
Lieutenant Wilimore.
The guard will lead you.
Thank you.
I'll see you when I get back.
I mean really see you.
Jim, listen.
Yes, Colonel?
Don't let them seduce you with a promise.
No, sir.
Promises just roll off my back.
All right. Fine.
Going to sleep while being interrogated by the enemy,
an especially exotic enemy at that,
is a bit much, isn't it?
I mean, even for a professional soldier?
Brookman, I almost married
the most beautiful woman in the world.
I didn't because she said "professional soldier"
in the same tone of voice.
I just couldn't marry anyone that unfriendly.
As the hours go by, we are all apt to become
increasingly unfriendly.
And suspicious.
We'll muddle through with Major Jong's
sense of humor to guide us.
Don't misjudge the laughter, Colonel.
It's not always a sign of humor.
At the moment, I was laughing
because I felt sudden confidence.
Confidence tickles.
And what do you base your confidence on?
Unfriendliness, suspicion...
Normal, earthbound, basic human emotions.
We're behaving like human beings,
and as long as we continue to do so, we'll survive.
Is that all you're thinking about, major, survival?
That...
And the smell of fog in the San Francisco night.
They said...
My blindness...
Spoiled their fun.
They said...
Would I like to have my eyes back...
And I said...
Yes. Yes. Yes.
And... they said...
Would I be willing to look at lieutenant Kreug's body...
Uh, his corpse.
And I wanted to see so bad I said I'd look at anything.
And I said yes.
And I lost it...
Think of it this way, Wilimore.
Kreug would have wanted some member of his race
to look upon him in death.
He...
He had no heart!
He had...
A big hole in his chest!
They took his heart out!
Terry.
Terry Brookman.
They told me you were here. I couldn't believe it.
Won't the hallucination break down if we touch?
Good heavens, Terry. Do believe that I'm not real?
Are you?
I was captured on the ship before yours.
We lost a great number of men.
A great many good young men.
So did we, sir.
I tell you, Terry, I... I tasted tears.
Well, Lillian was right.
She told me I was too old for this war.
Nonsense, sir. You're doing beautifully.
I tell you, Terry, war is outmoded.
Well, it used to be fairly decent
when it was a question of man fighting against man,
but now it's just computers and technical magic.
It's pointless to fight against brain work, Terry.
Pointless. You can't win.
Did you try to, sir?
I... I tell you... I... I taste guilt.
I... I can taste it.
But if I hadn't been trained to save the lives of my men,
trained like Pavlov's dogs,
I would never have told those bastard Ebonites
a blasted thing.
Training always tells, General.
Well, Terry,
I'm an old friend of the family.
I owe it to your mother and father to see
that you don't break their hearts.
My father's heart is already broken,
and my mother's is unbreakable.
Terry...
Please.
General.
Oh, here's the interrogator.
He's not unlike we earth types.
He demands a great deal of cooperation
and raises the very dickens if he doesn't get it.
Leave him to me, General.
He'll be very helpful, sir.
His father and I went to the same school.
My name is Terrance Ralph Brookman.
I am a captain in the stellar intelligence corps.
My serial number is zero-4-8-zero-zero-7.
My patience grows short, Captain,
and time grows shorter.
Another earth troop is advancing upon us.
We read its signals,
but we do not read them usefully.
The scrambled code devised by your race
is highly successful and entirely frustrating.
We must know when and by which astral path
the ship will attack.
Tell us, Brookman.
My name is Terrance Ralph Brookman.
Stop it!
Guard!
Prepare a chamber.
Ready?
Ready.
Stone.
Next.
May he rest in peace.
Next.
No, I don't think so.
Perhaps.
Recites poetry.
He's my choice.
I've seen these apple pie boys hold up
under almost unendurable stress.
There's too much, uh, mom in those eyes.
He's my choice.
Yours?
Mine.
I thought it was for me.
The interrogator ran out of patience.
He said, "prepare the chamber."
The way he said it, he might as well have said,
"open hell."
He must have meant it for Jong.
Aah!
Oh, my friend, grasshopper,
will you play the kids again to my little grave.
Do not fear or suspect the nourishment.
Its properties are similar to those edibles
you consume on earth.
There is no longer any reason
why we should deny you the basic necessities
you requested.
Henceforth, you will be treated with the honor
and respect due a conquered enemy.
You shall even be unguarded.
Jong must have talked.
Well, maybe Kreug.
They continued to interrogate us after Kreug.
You don't think Jong would talk?
I don't know.
Why not any one of us?
They tortured Jong. They must have.
Immediately afterwards, we were entitled
to honor and respect.
A nice, neat, quick solution.
I would have thought Jong would die first.
For heaven's sake, why?
I don't know. I just did.
Jong didn't want to die any more than you did, Wilimore.
I would have, gladly, rather than talk.
And rather than see?
Yes! Yes!
Ha!
Jim! Jim!
You waited dinner for me?
Is it tasty?
Well, it's better than nothing, Major.
We wouldn't even have this
if it weren't for you, would we?
Traitor!
Dixx!
I never got the chance to be.
I was not brought before the interrogator.
I was taken to a room with ropes and strung there.
I was outraged, of course.
I wanted the opportunity to not answer their questions.
Someone answered them.
Kreug, probably.
Why Kreug?
Why not Kreug?
The dead make such lovely scapegoats.
They strung you up and?
One of them ran a rod up and down my arm gently.
In the opinion of a layman,
the bones were pulverized.
Reminds me of a little rag doll my sister once had.
I wish to congratulate you gentlemen.
Your decision to cooperate was intelligent and brave.
Did you draw straws?
That is how the men of 02
selected their traitor.
There are no traitors here.
The troop ship advancing on Ebon,
ship number X-16,
carries 2 complete battalions,
is commanded by Astro Marshal Henry Keller.
German Europa astro flight command
is automated in an entrance pattern
known as astro path 004...
But why go on?
You know we are not pretending.
It is due momentarily.
We are ready for it.
I say it could only have been Major Jong.
What did I have to gain?
Your left arm!
Surprisingly enough,
when the bones in my right arm began to pulverize,
I slipped off into unconsciousness.
They could have had my left arm for the taking.
And I regained consciousness only moments before
they returned me here to my friends.
So, I had nothing to gain.
Now, let us consider private Dixx.
They had demonstrated that they could
return his power of speech if he talked.
An uneducated man
rarely refuses the opportunity to speak.
And Lieutenant Wilimore, he had his sight to gain.
A very precious thing.
Especially to a man who's had to endure the blindness
of other people's minds.
And Colonel Stone, who thought he slept,
but who might have been in a hypnotic trance.
A man who chooses men and arms
over the arms of a beautiful woman
is not a particularly natural man.
Perhaps he loves his men so fervently
because he cannot face his hatred of them.
That's Sunday supplement psychology, Colonel.
But what spiteful, damaging things
might such a man say under hypnosis?
I have not noticed that you are an impulsive man,
but no one has a greater need
for swift, settling solutions.
If I had talked, why would they have tortured you?
To see if my information checked with yours.
If I had said troop ship X-16,
astro path 0014,
and if that information checked with yours...
But they never questioned you!
They never even brought you
before the interrogator!
Do you think he talked?
Yes.
We all had certain information.
I don't quite understand why, but we did.
But the one thing none of us knew,
not even I,
was the precise entrance pattern
our next troop ship would be using.
And yet, you just named it.
Astro path 0014.
The interrogator named it a moment ago
when he was in here.
Did he?
I heard him, sir.
He said the X-16 is automated
into the entrance pattern
known as astral path 004,
and then he broke off.
I thought I heard 14...
You thought.
I'm also aware that there is no such
astral path coded 004.
It would have to be 14.
Why not 40?
If I said 4 and then broke off,
I could have been going to say 4-0.
We'll draw.
For what, sir?
One of is is going to have to kill Major Jong.
Colonel, what would it accomplish?
I could almost understand killing him before he talked,
when we thought he might be a traitor, but why now?
There's no leniency for a traitor.
None at all.
He earned the death penalty
all by himself.
There's no reason why we should handle Major Jong
any differently here than if he were down on earth.
I told you all before we were captured
the only laws we would have here
are those we brought with us.
We need those laws.
Even the questionable ones, even the painful ones.
We need them.
They reminds us that we were civilized enough
to make them in the first place.
Or perhaps to remind us that we are not as civilized
as we should be?
Go on. Pull.
The short one's the killer.
God help them.
Go on. Pull.
My bare hands?
We have no other weapons.
Well, go on.
What are you waiting for?
Thank you for waiting, Captain.
I'm finished eating.
No! No!
We must not let them do this to us.
We must be human beings! We must hold onto that!
Human beings kill.
Or aren't you convinced of my guilt?
Well, what difference does that make?!
The guy that pulls the switch
in the death house doesn't have to be
convinced of anything!
I am not an executioner!
You pulled short straw!
Short straw is not an order from the court!
Where's my order from the court?
Where are the 12 men
who decided he should be executed?
Are you suggesting that we wait
until we get back to earth, and then
let a military court handle it?
Why not? Yes, that's the civilized way.
Oh, great.
Well, what are we supposed to do until then,
just stare at him?
Dixx...
What did you whisper to your mother?
What did you say?
What did you whisper to your mother, Dixx?
I didn't say anything.
I told you before I didn't say anything to her.
Didn't you?
No!
No, I didn't. I... I know I didn't.
I mean, I couldn't have.
They told me that I could give it to you
in return for telling them
what you told me.
Oh, no, no. No, no, mommy. Please.
No, mommy. Please.
No, tell me that I didn't tell you anything.
Oh, please help me.
Tell me I didn't say anything to you!
Please, Mommy!
Please help me!
Please!
Dixx...
Oh, make her admit it, Colonel.
Make her.
Kill her, Colonel. Please! Torture her!
Colonel, please!
Get up, Dixx. Get up!
You believe her, don't you?
Yes, you always have.
You never believed me.
Come back, Dixx!
Aah!
Yes? Come forward.
Private Dixx has suffered
a complete mental breakdown.
Major Jong will not recover the use
of his right arm for a year or more,
in your measure of time.
Lieutenant Kreug is dead.
Natural causes.
We couldn't have foreseen
that one of the members would suffer a...
There must be no more incidents,
unforeseen or otherwise.
The charade must end.
Those men shall be told the truth.
They must be.
How dare you interfere?
You spoiled the whole game!
Game?
Game.
I'm sorry, Colonel,
but I do not apologize.
I couldn't allow a single one of you
to be in on it, not even you.
But all this...
All this agony.
I mean, lieutenant Kreug's dead!
From a heart attack.
And the Ebonites used their most advanced methods
to try and save him.
But they failed.
This... This is a nightmare.
I mean, is this part of it?
Is this an hallucination?
It is all too real.
It was scheduled to last only a few more days, Colonel.
Then, of course, we would have explained it all to you
and allowed you to join the other fighting men
of unified earth.
We have 3 squadrons here, you know.
I'm afraid we'll have to ask you
to cooperate, Colonel, if we're to continue.
Continue?!
We must Colonel. We must!
Do you realize that before this war...
We are not at war here.
The grief and loss we caused your planet
was an accident.
We promised we would do anything
to rectify this unforgivable mistake.
But we cannot sanction the continuation
of such immoral and inhuman experimentation.
Inhuman?
What do you know of humans, sir?
Have you ever seen the humans
in prisoner of war camps on earth?
I have.
Then you know.
Tell him about the P.O.W.s in the Korean war.
Then I shall tell him.
It's a matter of shameful record
that in the Korean war
no prisoner successfully escaped.
There was no organized resistance.
One out of every group of 10 prisoners was an informer.
A total of 38% of our prisoners died,
many of what the psychiatrists call psychological surrender.
Now, maybe your attack was a mistake.
But what if the next planet attacks deliberately?
How do we defend our planet if we don't know
what to anticipate from our fighting men?
We must know how they will behave or misbehave
under conditions like the ones
we're artificially inducing here.
Then you haven't learned enough yet.
We're interested in how your men
will resolve the problem of Major Jong.
We were going to kill Major Jong.
We will try to prevent that.
And if you can't, an innocent man dies?
At the proper time,
we'll tell your men what we've been doing.
We'll free them to join the other troops up here.
Maybe even let them go back to earth for a rest.
And a citation.
No. I'm not gonna let them suffer another minute. No.
No! No!
No!
He saw his mother.
He actually saw her.
How do they do it?
Drugs. In the water.
Perhaps in the very air.
Private Dixx is dead by now.
They're gonna kill us all, one by one.
And we're gonna sit here and do nothing
and let them do it.
We might pass the time by planning an escape.
But then, there's the other time killer.
The vengeance game.
We keep talking about how many of the enemy
we're going to kill.
We pick out our victims,
and we spend weeks waiting for the chance.
I'd like to kill an Ebonite.
With your bare hands?
Yes. An Ebonite isn't a human being.
I really think I could.
Wilimore?
I regret that I have but one arm
to give for my planet, but I shall give it.
Now, I shall kill the next Ebonite that...
Gentlemen.
You mustn't tell them! You mustn't spoil it!
Stop it! Stop it now! No!
Let him go. That's an order.
Major, if you don't obey, I'll kill you.
No, wait! Don't!
I thought he was...
He wasn't. He was real.
The exploration of human behavior
under simulated conditions of stress
is a commonplace component of the machinery called war.
So long as man anticipates and prepares for combat,
be it with neighboring nations
or with our neighbors in space,
these unreal games must be played,
and there are only real men to play them.
According to established military procedure,
the results of the Ebon maneuvers
will be recorded in books and fed into computers
for the edification and enlightenment
of all the strategists of the future.
Perhaps they will learn something.
We now return control
of your television set to you
until next week at this same time time,
when the control voice will take you to...