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...
In dreams, some of us walk the stars.
In dreams, some of us ride the whelming brine of space,
where every port is a shining one,
and none are beyond our reach.
Some of us, in dreams,
cannot reach beyond the walls of our own little sleep.
Goldsmith, Hadden, Rivera here, sir.
Let them come in.
Wait outside, please.
This man is an astrophysicist.
He needs somebody for an experiment.
And he has the government's permission
to pick a volunteer out of the inmates
in any prison in the United States.
6 men have already turned him down.
Talk to them.
We need a man who will allow us
to break him up into electrical particles
and transmit him into space
at a speed greater than that of light.
That's it, simply. It's called teleportation.
When he gets to where he's going,
he'll be reassembled.
If he survives the experience,
he comes back to earth the same way.
He gets put back together again?
Yes.
The same as he was before?
Well, it's worked with inanimate objects.
And it's worked with mice.
Well, it ought to work with a man.
All right, Hadden.
He's entitled to his bitterness, Warden.
And he's right.
You men are being asked to volunteer.
Now, you don't have to if you don't want to.
There'll be no special privileges
or rewards for it.
It'll be taken into consideration
by the parole board when they review,
but that's all.
Now, if you're not interested,
just say so.
The transmission will have to be effected
at a precise hour... Tomorrow at 3 P.M.
It's quite a distance from here
to the point of transmission,
at the center,
so I can't give you
too much time to think about it.
We'd have to leave right away.
You said, uh,
when he gets where he's going.
Where's he going?
To another planet.
Are you interested?
Mm-mmm.
What planet?
Would it make a difference?
Take them out.
Tell mom I won't be home tonight.
Uh, is it true, Dr. Harrison?
Is what true?
That, uh, convicted murderers have no heart?
Mr. Rivera has the steadiest heartbeat
I've ever listened to...
And the loudest. Go and listen.
Oh, no, no, no.
Hearts are of no interest to scientists.
He just sits there reading?
His tests show he's in perfect health,
so he has nothing to worry about.
Anybody got a cigarette?
Oh, yeah. Sure.
You can put your shirt on now.
Thanks.
I guess I ought to tell you,
I've changed my mind.
Why?
One day I was real hungry. I was just a kid.
So I yelled to the old lady,
"Hey, go buy me something to eat!"
She said, "there's no money, I bought lots with the money."
I said, "lots of what?"
Lots in the cemetery,
6 of them for the 12 kids, like bunk beds.
So when I die,
I gotta go get buried in my lot.
My belly paid for it.
Hi.
I'm Chino.
Richardson. Robert Richardson.
All right, Rivera.
You've had your little excursion
into the country. It's over now.
I didn't think you'd go through with it.
We'll send you back. Come on.
I was kidding.
None of this has really sunk in yet, has it?
Or are you just completely devoid
of conscience and concern?
Conscience... Who needs one?
The whole world's my conscience.
And what are you so concerned about? Me?
I didn't make you volunteer.
So I volunteered.
So that lets you treat me like
something in a bottle?
Well, maybe you'd like to
get into that contraption.
Maybe you'd like to have
your soul splattered all over space.
No, I wouldn't.
And I don't particularly
like the idea
of it happening to yours, either.
You think I've got a soul?
I think so.
I'm not just one of your mice.
You take it out of a cage. You see if it lives or dies.
You put it back.
No. You're not just one of my mice.
Well, then, if I'm a man, treat me like a man.
You examine me, take my blood.
It's, "take off your shirt. Put on your shirt."
Cough. Breathe."
Is that how you treat a man?
Is that how men work together?
You treat him like that?
Forget it. I just remembered.
Mice don't complain.
I had to have some positive reports
on some of those tests.
I didn't want to bore you
with the background until I was certain
you were perfect enough to go.
Trouble with me, I'm too perfect.
We were experimenting with the motion of sound.
We made contact with the Planet Kromo.
Our computers rearranged the mosaic of their language.
And we understood that they wished to understand ours.
We fed them a mathematical compilation of English science,
and they learned it immediately,
indicating that the Kromoites
have a cerebral consumption velocity
equal or close to the speed of light.
After that, we couldn't get them to communicate
in anything but English.
We sense no hostility,
and our psychiatric division
found none in their analysis of the Kromoite communications.
So, when they proposed a meeting,
we had no reason to feel anything but...
Well, the way most men feel
when they're about to experience
a significant adventure.
Only nobody wanted to be first.
They wanted to be visited
by a major member of the human race,
and to have an equivalent member of theirs visit us.
Neither of us wanted to risk losing such a person.
So, up go the mice.
No, the mice wouldn't have proved enough to risk.
I mean me, uh, whoever they're sending.
A man can think of himself
as making a contribution to humanity.
A mouse can't.
Why don't you try thinking like a man?
So I'm making a contribution.
Do I have to make it on an empty stomach?
I'll have some lunch brought in for you.
No restaurant?
You'll have to stay in here, Chino.
Until you go.
That's my getaway car!
What time do I go?
3 P.M.
Right after their man arrives.
Good afternoon, gentlemen.
Will you step over this way, please?
Our scientists and technicians have constructed
this teleportation agency
according to instructions and formuli
given to us by the government of Kromo.
A genuine explanation of its principles
would be time-consuming and extremely unenlightening
for any but the painfully initiated.
What you will witness, simply, is this.
On the planet Kromo, which is 10 light-years away,
an experimental animal,
in this case, a member of their race,
will enter a similar machine.
He will be transmitted
as television images are transmitted,
and will arrive here for reassembly.
No matter will be lost,
and no atomic disintegration will occur.
Immediately upon arrival and reassembly of the Kromoite,
our experimental...
Our subject will enter this booth,
and by the same process, arrive on Kromo.
As sure as God made little green apples.
Mr. Rivera is the gentleman
who has volunteered to leave from this end.
Transmission from Kromo
will begin in approximately 3 minutes.
Gentlemen, if you will move to that area,
and do not approach the T.A. during operation.
Excuse me, gentlemen. Excuse me.
Are you getting established yet?
Transmission point, Kromo.
Subject stable.
Sequence commences. Initiate systems.
Transmission point, earth.
Systems initiated.
Transmit.
Transmission accomplished.
Richardson!
Back! I said back!
No! Don't!
Hey! Hey!
Is anybody else in here?
Hi.
Hello.
I can't eat this stuff.
Is there anything else
to eat around here?
Well, you had cream of tomato soup yesterday.
Jellied Madrilene, the day before.
And rich, pure glucose the day before that.
Intravenously, of course.
Meat. A man needs meat.
He needs his doctor's authorization
to get it, first.
Well, they gonna give me meat up there?
They don't have any.
They don't have any food at all on Kromo.
Sounds like my old lady's icebox.
What do they eat?
Nothing.
Well, how do they keep alive?
The way a plant does, through photosynthesis.
Photo...
I better bring
a couple of hero sandwiches with me.
Supplies will be teleported the moment we know
your transmission has been a success.
It'll be successful.
If a thing like that monster can make it,
so can I.
Well, I wonder if you'll look like a monster to them?
Everybody looks like a monster to somebody.
It's Dr. Kellander.
Just a moment.
Hello, Julie.
Kelly. I thought you forgot about me, Kelly.
No, I stayed away deliberately.
I wanted to give you a chance to think.
I don't like to think when I'm this sick.
My thoughts turn green, you know?
You were hit hard, Chino.
Every window in this building
is screened with an electric force field.
It's impossible to break.
If it's cut off inadvertently at the power plant,
a very loud alarm
sounds all over this entire center,
inside and out.
You must have had a lot of fun
keeping it a big fat secret from me.
I didn't think you'd try to escape.
Neither did I.
No? I think you had it in mind
the minute you walked out of the Warden's office.
That's probably the only reason why you volunteered.
Come to think of it, you're right.
What's the matter with you, Chino?
Are you a psychopathic liar?
Do you know when you're lying
and when you're telling the truth?
What's the difference if I know?
What's important is if you know.
Yes?
It's, uh, Richardson.
Dr. Kellander...
There's something here you ought to know about.
Just a minute.
Maybe tomorrow I'll feel good enough
to take some sun outside.
No, Rivera.
You let that monster walk around
free as a cockroach.
Can't I get a little sun?
No, the juxtaposition phase between earth and Kromo
will pass by 6 P.M. tonight.
You go by that time, or you don't go at all.
Go back to prison
to finish out your life sentence.
Maybe that's where you belong.
Get up and get dressed, Rivera.
And be ready.
I guess there's nowhere to go but up.
You ever see a smear like that before?
I never have. What is it?
It's this.
And it's alive.
It's alive.
Have you isolated any of its properties?
As many as I could. All alien.
Where did it come from?
Well, I found a few droppings of it
in the corridor
just, uh, 2 days ago.
Today I found what appears to be its source.
It's the lake.
Our lake? Here on the grounds?
Mm-hmm. I think it's gestating
just below the surface of the water.
It's washed up like scum all along the bank.
What's the chemistry unit doing about it?
First thing we did was try to find a way to kill it.
That sounded awfully cold-blooded, didn't it?
Well, anyway, we did find a way to kill it.
It's a compound of several common insecticides.
And I'm going down to the lake
to test its efficacy
right at the stuff's origin point.
Aah!
A disease that walks like a man
and strikes and kills.
And for no reason.
He could have knocked him out
and let it go at that.
He didn't have to drown him.
Kelly.
The security engineer examined the force field
in the infirmary window.
The field wasn't cut off there.
Now, Chino couldn't have cut it off anyplace else.
He was locked in the infirmary.
He picked the door lock and got out.
Must have escaped through some other window.
His shoe was found right outside the infirmary window.
He wasn't wearing it when he was caught.
He must have gone out that way.
And that's what he insists.
And you believe him?
Well, it's the way he insists...
Without really insisting.
The same way he denies killing Dr. Richardson.
Yes?
It's Dr. Kellander.
I didn't kill him.
You've killed before, Rivera.
That man I knew. I knew what he was like.
And I knew what he was doing to my sister.
I warned him to stop, a lot of times,
but he didn't stop.
Since he didn't mind killing her little by little,
I didn't mind killing him all at once.
That's why I got life.
And that's why I don't rate parole.
"No remorse," they call it.
But your man I didn't know.
I don't kill strangers.
You make it sound believable.
But then you have that talent.
I didn't kill him.
You were escaping.
I was dreaming.
I was back in the ring.
I heard the bell and I came out fighting...
For my life. It's reflex.
All my life I've been fighting for my life.
I just can't get it through my head
that some guys were born to just lie down and die.
I guess I never will.
I'm gonna keep trying to escape...
Even up to the last minute when I'm in that machine
and somebody's finger
is that much away from the blast button,
I'm gonna keep trying to escape.
I want free, understand?
I don't want to go back to prison.
Free! I want!
Maybe you weren't meant to be free...
On this earth.
Maybe you'll find freedom in some other world.
You'll do anything to get me
to make the trip, won't you?
I like you for that.
But I don't like the idea of me settling down up there.
I've been out with some dogs in my time,
but if those yo-yos up there come from
the same neighborhood as that garbage eater
that they sent down here...
This is the only ring that I want to fight in!
If you fight like a man instead of a fighter,
you might win sometime.
Volunteering to do something useful is fighting like a man.
Walking into that machine in there
with your head up and your hands open,
instead of being balled into permanent fists
is fighting like a man.
Remember what the Warden said?
The parole board takes into consideration these things.
You know why you're so dumb?
You don't see it's a waste of time to send me up now.
Why, Rivera?
That machine worked for one mouse,
it's gonna work for another.
You don't want to waste your time with mice,
send up a man!
The fact that success was achieved
by the form of life on Kromo doesn't mean
that it will hold for the form of life on earth.
The experiment is only half-completed.
We transmit you sharply at 4:00.
I wish I didn't have to be there at 4:00.
He might need some of that compassion, Julie.
Compassion?
That's just a word people use when they're ashamed of
feeling plain, old-fashioned, uncivilized pity.
Well, I feel pity, Kelly.
He'd hate it.
Wouldn't you?
Transmission point Kromo.
Ready to receive transmission.
Transmission point earth.
Subject stable. Initiate systems.
Help!
Oh! Aah!
Please! I know what the orders are!
You ring through anyway!
Aah!
Oh!
What is it? What's wrong?
Get that bell fixed, quick!
Stay here!
How is he?
I can't find anything wrong with him.
He's sleeping now.
It's probably shock.
Something went wrong with everything.
We even lost the ability to communicate with them.
It's never happened before.
The instructions they gave us were flawless.
We could talk to them as easily
as we could make a local phone call.
It tried to kill me.
It must have killed Dr. Richardson.
It broke the force field
and started to climb into the infirmary.
I thought the alarm
had something to do with the T.A. Failure.
A short-circuit or something.
Oh!
Here, sit down, Julie.
I... I went for a walk...
To be alone and... and to scold myself
for pitying somebody just because I understood him.
And I saw it... By the lake.
You remember when Chino got hurt escaping?
And we told them up there that there'd be a delay,
and they were so understanding and told us
not to transmit him until we wanted to.
And you asked them if... if they wanted us to...
Send their man back...
And they told us, "no, let him stay here a while."
Let him explore."
I remember their saying that.
Can you go on, Julie?
Well...
Well, it was by the lake...
Throwing something in...
And then...
Then...
Then it began to eat.
Kelly, it looked like it was eating.
No mouth, but it kept consuming.
The stuff that Richardson found.
I wondered why Chino called it a garbage eater.
They told us they lived through photosynthesis.
They lied, Kelly.
What's security's extension?
276.
Johnson? Kellander.
Put out your full squad.
Cover the grounds. Especially the lake area.
And all the buildings in the center.
I want the Kromoite.
Bring him here. This is urgent!
If it puts up a fight, throw a net over it.
But do not kill it.
You all right, Julie?
Yeah.
Whatever that stuff is,
the Kromoite didn't want Richardson to destroy it.
I'll be in administration.
I think we'd better keep the Washington line open.
Is Dr. Kellander there yet?
Williams. I have to speak to him.
I'll hold.
Aah!
Oh, doctor, could you get over here right away?
I picked up an alien beep transmission.
I thought it might have
something to do with the breakdown.
It could be urgent. It sounds it.
Aah!
The lab! Stop him!
Hey! Aah!
Unh!
Julie, get some help!
Hurry! Break it in!
No, Chino! Don't shoot! Don't kill it!
Just holding him for you, Kelly.
Couldn't let him escape, could I?
He's a killer.
Transmission point Kromo.
The Kromoite prisoner must be returned to us.
We have failed.
No further attempts upon earth will be made.
Initiate transmission.
Prisoner is most eminent scientist of planet Kromo.
Vital to Kromo's survival.
You have deceived us!
Your scientist is a murderer.
What in heaven's name was your purpose?
Kromo soil no longer yields.
Seeking overtake planet
for production of Kromo staff of life.
You should have asked.
Remember what the Warden said, Chino?
The parole board takes into consideration
these contributions.
If I don't bleed to death first.
All you had to do was to ask.
Hunger frightens and hurts
and it has many faces...
And every man must sometime face the terror of one of them.
Wouldn't it seem that a misery known and understood by all men
would lead man, not to deception and murder,
but to faith and hope and love.
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...