Do not betray us.
Our privacy must be maintained.
Total destruction
to anyone who invades it.
Total destruction to anyone who invades it.
Don't worry.
If anyone goes anywhere near
that ship when it lands, it'll be over
somebody's dead body.
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...
Throughout history,
compassionate minds have pondered
this dark and disturbing question...
What is society to do with those members
who are a threat to society?
Those malcontents and misfits whose behavior
undermines and destroys
the foundations of civilization.
Different ages have found different answers.
Misfits have been burned, branded,
and banished.
Today, on this planet earth,
the criminal is incarcerated in humane institutions,
or he is executed.
Other planets use other methods.
This is the story
of how the perfectionist rulers of the planet Zanti
attempted to solve the problem
of the Zanti misfits.
No, thanks, I'll, uh, I'll keep it.
History has been recorded in some
pretty morbid places, Major,
but when a historian named Grave
find himself in a ghost town
called Morgue...
You see it?
I thought I did.
Probably just a silver desert bird.
You don't think they'll land
in broad daylight, do you?
Why not? They have no reason
to be afraid of us.
I wish we could feel the same about them.
Ordinarily, I don't ask you space people
such questions, Major,
but I wonder why
we're allowing this to happen.
We weren't given any choice, Professor.
We were told when the penal ship would land,
we were instructed to keep out of its way.
No interference or else.
Or else what? Did they say?
They assured us they didn't want to attack.
They wanted this to be "a non-hostile sequence,"
as they put it,
but they didn't hesitate to let us understand
that they would attack, totally and devastatingly.
I wonder what they're like.
From our viewpoint, Professor,
they're either superhuman or subhuman.
Or nonhuman.
I'm having your car parked
in the stable behind the building, sir.
The General is waiting for you,
Professor Graves.
Anything on the screen over there?
No, nothing yet.
I'll be at my desk if you want anything.
I'll put this on yours.
Steven!
Well, you're 24 hours late.
I know. I would've been here 2 days ago.
I was all briefed and ready
to leave Washington when, uh...
Some 5-star personality decided
maybe this invasion ought to be covered
by a commissioned officer.
Ahh.
I told him commissioned officers make history,
musty young Professors record it.
You're a new kind of war correspondent,
aren't you, Steve?
Uh, space age style.
Thanks.
Ah, I don't want this.
Come on, I'll show you your desk.
OK.
And this is the new style battlefield here.
It's all automated.
Not quite as messy as the old style,
but, of course, computers don't bleed.
This is the radar section here.
Have you had contact with the Zantis yet?
Not yet, but we know
they're in our atmosphere.
Gentlemen?
May I have your attention, please?
I want you to take a look
at Professor Steven Grave,
this country's official historian
of interplanetary events.
Did I get that title right?
Uh, which means that he'll be observing
everything and everyone,
asking all sorts of nontechnical questions,
writing down everything that he sees and hears
and thinks.
The space agency picked him,
S.A.C. OK'd him,
Congress ratified him,
tax payers pay him, and I like him.
So if he gets into you hair,
try not to brush him out.
That's all, thanks.
Welcome to the sweatbox.
Thanks.
Over here, Steve.
Try this on for size here.
Same old machine.
Hey, you're a sentimentalist, Steve.
I thought you were gonna be
a carbon copy of your father.
My father was a much more a devout
sentimentalist than I'll ever be.
What do you think made him
such a great war correspondent?
But even he'd find it pretty difficult
to be sentimental about war
when your enemy can come out of the sky,
looking like something
out of a nightmare.
Now, wait a minute, Steve. As far as we know,
the inhabitants of the planet Zanti
are not our enemy.
They're not our friends.
According to the history I've studied,
friends don't coerce one another.
You've read the transcripts
of the Zanti government's first contact with us.
Would you call it coercion?
Yes. The kind that makes me
want to grab a rifle
and fight for my country.
Grabbing a rifle is a thing of the past, Steve.
War with another planet?
That's a different brand of war all together.
A psychiatric committee analyzed
those transcriptions, Steve.
According to their findings, the Zantis are
a discipline-oriented society.
They're perfectionists,
and apparently, they're just as unwilling to start
a total war with us as we are with them,
even though they know they'd win.
You really believe that all they want us to do
is let them use our planet as a place
of exile for their criminals and misfits?
That's what they said.
And you believe them?
Well, they claim to be incapable
of executing their own species.
Now, if you can't destroy a criminal, Steve,
you gotta stash him away someplace
where he can't do you any harm.
But why on some other planet?
We have prisons and institutions,
even islands. We don't send them
off to another world.
No, we don't, Major,
but then, we haven't perfected
interplanetary travel yet, have we?
Come on, I'll take you on a tour
of the battlefield.
This is us, Morgue, California.
Any danger of tourists bouncing in?
Morgue never has been a tourist spot.
Anyway, here, here, here, here, here,
and here are our patrol spots,
making a complete circle,
a periphery...
Surrounding the area in which we're allowing
the Zantis to come down in.
The sentries are armed. They have orders to kill.
That means that we're determined to keep strays
from stumbling into the Zanti area,
accidentally or otherwise.
It also means that we're determined to keep
the Zantis inside this circle.
Suppose they decide not to land
where we've, uh...
Offered to let them land.
A missile base here.
If that penal ship is more
than 10 degrees off target,
we destroy it.
We're also equipped to destroy it
after its landed if necessary.
General Hart.
Communications established, sir.
This is General Maximillian R. Hart
of the strategic air command
of the United States of America,
of the planet earth.
Come in, please.
Cut them in, Sergeant.
Zanti penal ship, come in, please.
They couldn't have landed already, could they?
No, sir, our screen would show it,
unless they found a way to beat it.
Zanti penal ship,
this is General Maximillian R. Hart
of the strategic air command.
I'm the same man who concluded negotiations
with your government commander
on our time pattern described as S.E. 6-6-0.
We have cleared the area guaranteed you on that date.
You may expect to land without interference
and without incident.
I repeat, it is safe for you to land.
Please communicate.
Translate.
This is first regent
of penal ship one.
We are ready to land
in designated area.
We have reason to suspect
your good faith.
Landing area surrounded.
Weapons threateningly angled.
We have no other way
of keeping the area open for you.
Our roads and deserts are
Generally open to all men.
The sentries are there
only to guarantee your privacy.
We shall land.
Do not betray us.
Our privacy must be maintained.
Total destruction to anyone
who invades it.
Total destruction to anyone who invades it.
Don't worry. If anyone goes
anywhere near that ship when it lands,
it'll be over somebody's dead body.
You can see it if you're interested, Professor.
I wonder if we'll get to see one of them.
Perhaps more than one.
If they're anything at all like earthmen,
they aren't going to like being cooped up
in a prison ship any more than we like
being locked up behind bars.
I believe they'll try to break free.
The Zanti commander guaranteed
maximum control of the prisoners.
They'll be guarded.
Every prison guarantees
maximum control of its prisoners,
yet men break out.
Excuse me, General.
Yes?
They've spotted something on the radar.
It's inside the periphery.
They think its an automobile.
I'm gonna tell you something.
You're not gonna believe it,
but I'm gonna go ahead and tell it anyway.
I would never kill a reasonable man.
Heh! Open the windows, Ben.
You smell bad when you lie.
Wait a second.
Sweetheart, the guard was not a reasonable man.
He insisted that we turn back.
Maybe it was his job to do so.
Lisa, we can never turn back,
not you and me.
A runaway wife and a 3-time loser
must always go forward.
Heh heh heh!
You know, my husband said to me,
he said, "why do you want to go away"
with him? He's a psychopath
"and he's not beautiful."
And I told him... I told him I wanted
to go away with you because...
Because you weren't sane and safe
and secure.
I told him I was sick to the teeth
with... with sanity and... and safety
and security.
I like bad adventure better.
Always have.
I need it.
I know it'll destroy me someday,
but I need it.
Do anything about the car, Ben?
Heh heh heh!
No, the car wants water and we're in the desert.
Heh heh heh!
Now, pick up the money.
Pick up the money.
Lisa, there's no place to go out there.
I'm going home.
Maybe...
Facing up to what I've done...
Will be the... the baddest adventure of my life.
Lisa...
Come here.
Now pick up the money.
Now.
You know that you can never go home, Lisa.
Your husband would make you tell
this whole story to the police,
and then the police would lock me up... Forever.
Hmph.
People die in the desert.
Establish a red alert at the missile base.
It's patrol 9, General. Corporal Delano,
stuck by a moving vehicle.
Killed?
Yes.
Which way was the vehicle going?
Into the Zanti landing area.
That explains it.
The Zantis won't communicate with us again.
They listen, but they don't respond.
Have they landed?
They've landed.
What do you suppose that is?
Huh?
The person or persons in your landing area
are unauthorized. I assure you
that their presence there is an accident.
They ran down and killed one of our sentries
and probably drove on out of fear.
Please come in.
I repeat, person or persons
in your landing area are unauthorized.
We will send in a party after them.
They are accidents.
We will remove them with no inconvenience to you.
Do not suspect us.
We've kept to our agreement.
We have not double-crossed you.
There is no need for you
to even consider retaliating.
Believe that.
Please, believe that.
Translate.
Total destruction
to anyone who invades our privacy.
Oh, no...
Get off me.
G-get off me.
Get off me.
Get off me!
No!
Help me! Please!
Please!
No!
With your mid-afternoon news!
Well, all of Southern California seems
to have sighted another UFO
in today's sunny, smogless skies.
The official response is, of course,
the usual statement in these cases.
Nobody knows what it is.
At any rate, the space agency officials
contacted by this station
said they didn't see anything,
and neither did the police
or any of the military bases scattered here abouts.
In other words, nobody saw it
but the great uninformed public.
So until somebody comes up with a photograph
or some home movies of it,
today's unidentified flying object
will have to be filed away
with all the UFOs of the past.
Unless you've got a picture of it?
No, sir. I cannot advise you to recommend
or consider going into that area, sir.
Whoever got in there has
already blown their faith in us sky high.
If we go in after it,
they could construe it as an offensive measure.
It would only serve to deepen their suspicions
and further weaken our relationship.
I realize that, sir,
but we don't even know if the man's still alive.
They may have destroyed him instantly.
In which case, we'd be accomplishing nothing,
and touching off heaven knows what!
But, sir, I simply do not want to start anything.
With the Zantis.
Yes, sir. We're keeping the channel open, sir.
If they decide to re-establish communication,
we're ready.
15 minutes?!
Yes, sir.
If they do not communicate within the 1/4 hour, sir.
God help us.
15 minutes is not a long time.
In our conception of time.
For them it could be long enough
to conquer a world.
When a country allows itself to be coerced,
it has to suffer the consequences.
So far, the only real consequence
is uncertainty.
I've always felt that was one
of the worse things a country could suffer.
Ben.
Ben!
B...
Ben?
Ben!
If they retaliate...
It means death and suffering.
Broken bodies and broken hearts.
I can't let everybody break.
May I make a suggestion?
Yes, if you can.
An emissary.
Tell them you're sending in one man
alone and unarmed,
fully informed and prepared
to discuss the situation with him personally.
Tell him your emissary will arrive
in an open vehicle.
Will advance when and only if instructed to do so.
They may decide to keep silent
even after hearing that,
but they'll know what your intentions are.
Will we know theirs?
If they keep silent, will we know whether or not
they'll let my emissary approach?
No. You'll have to take a risk there.
I'll have to take the risk?
What about the man I send?
You and I. You make the decision.
I go.
You?
I've studied history for years, Max,
even before anyone said I had to.
Big moments, small moments,
some so insignificant they barely got recorded.
But it isn't like being there.
It isn't.
And I'm always conscious of it.
Always aware that the clean edge
of participation is missing.
I'd give anything to be there just once.
Alive and awake.
I supposed you'd like to have been at Hiroshima?
If I could have helped.
I'll tell the patrols. They'll let you through.
Ben!
Ben?
Ben? Ben.
B-Ben.
Ohh!
Ben.
Ben!
Aah!
He will be unarmed and will await
your permission to advance.
He will wait one hour.
If he does not receive your permission,
he will return to our base.
Permit this man to approach.
It is vital to our own security
that we know your precise mood and intentions,
just as it is vital to you that you know ours.
I send this man with reluctance
and trepidation,
but I also send him with hope.
Uhh... uhh... uhh!
Uhh! Uhh!
Aah!
I cannot see your ship.
I will not try to.
I will await your signal to advance.
I am in radio contact with General Hart.
If you tell him I may advance,
he will inform me.
I will wait for one hour and then go.
I will wait for one hour
and then go.
The Regent has gone after her.
Our opportunity is now.
Let us take freedom!
Her?
Aah!
Grave, here. Over.
Have you seen the car?
Nothing.
We think there's a woman out there.
A woman?
Shall I look around?
No!
No?
You'd better come back, Steve.
Come back?
The prisoners are going to make a break.
We're going to have to destruct the ship.
Clear the area!
Did you hear me, Steve?
Yes, I heard you.
Get out of there.
A woman?
Over here! Come here!
Wait! Over here!
Come here!
I want to help you!
Uhh!
I want to help you!
You can't stay here!
Where are you?!
We're going to destroy this entire area!
You have to get out!
Let me take you out!
No one will hurt you!
No one ever has.
Except myself.
Ben...
I'm not afraid to die.
No, you... You go away.
This is one mistake I want to deal with alone.
Go!
Don't.
It's all botched up now, isn't it?
I...
I... I tore all the seams apart...
To see what held them together.
And... and then I couldn't get 'em back together again.
I... I did that with a...
With a rag doll.
I've...
Done it with my own life.
And now here I am...
All torn apart...
By my own hand.
Mine own executioner.
Come on.
General Hart.
Steve?
The Zanti ship has just taken off.
Yes, we know.
I had to kill one of them.
You killed one?!
It was about to attack.
Did they tell you where the ship is going?
No. No communication.
We're coming back.
Make it fast, Steve.
We may have to destruct that ship.
War or no war.
Roger.
Shall I get the chief on the red line?
Do you know where that ship
is going, Major?
All I know is they may be getting
out of missile range.
Or maybe they're going back
to their own planet.
Back to their own planet?
Why would they want to do that?
They can be free here!
Destruct that ship, General.
Advise the chief to destruct that ship!
General, it's coming in our direction
and it's coming close.
It's too late, General.
It's too close to destruct.
We'll all be blown to eternity with it.
Are we deaf?
Do we just stand here and wait
for the missile to drop on us?
A missile won't be necessary.
Hey, wait a minute! Wait a minute!
Flame throwers ought to do it.
Hand grenades. Anything.
We have some of that stuff
out in the stables.
If we can get out the back way...
Open it!
Get it off me!
Kill it!
Stop it!
Aah!
You, you, you, go out the back way! Come on!
Let's go! the rest of you, come on!
Aah!
Well, we've done it.
We've let loose the dogs of war.
I wonder how they'll destroy us?
This is the commander
of the government of the planet Zanti.
I speak to you from Zanti.
You have destroyed the misfits.
We will not retaliate.
We never intended to.
We knew that you could not live
with such aliens in your midst.
It was always our intention that you destroy them
and their guards,
who were of the same spoiled persuasion.
We chose your planet for that purpose.
We are incapable of executing
our own species, but you are not.
You are practiced executioners.
We thank you.
Practiced executioners.
Throughout history,
various societies have tried various methods
of exterminating those members
who have proven their inability
or unwillingness to live sanely
amongst their fellow men.
The Zantis tried merely one more method,
neither better nor worse than all the others.
Neither more human or less human
than all the others.
Perhaps merely non-human.
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...