I'll put the tapes where they'll be safe.
No! No! No!
Aah! Uhh!
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 man's conquest of space,
his own moon must be the first to surrender.
From there, he will step his way across the heavens,
to the edge of infinity.
Each step will be as uncertain as the last.
Yet each will bring him closer and closer
to ultimate truth.
Lunar expedition one.
Here, a handful of brave scientists and technicians
pave the way to the future.
Their mission, to collect information
that will eventually enable man to inhabit the moon,
to use the moon as a springboard to the stars.
Once during each 24-hour period,
a force of 3, commanded by General Lee Stocker,
and including Lieutenant Travis
and Major Clint Anderson,
makes its slow, uncharted way
across the lunar surface,
a surface whose depths and desires are as yet unprobed.
Hold it. I hit something.
Relax the rope a little.
I'm going to try to get it.
OK. Pull away.
Doesn't look natural.
Too perfect geometrically.
Must have been manufactured.
Looks like they got here first, General.
The Russians? Perhaps.
Could be payload from one of their moon shots.
Scientific equipment.
Prize catch, General.
Boys in the Pentagon
will probably give you another medal.
Did he ever show you
the one he got for the Korean campaign?
Or have you left
all your Earthly prizes behind, General?
Oh, Major Anderson?
Yes, General.
Your, uh, gentle wisecracks out there,
in the presence of another officer...
I never crack wise, General.
Especially when I feel strongly about something.
Your feelings are your own, Major,
and you're entitled to them.
But how you handle them affects me
and the rest of the men on this base.
Your behavior has already
gone beyond the point of insubordination.
You've left me no choice.
And you're so practiced at making choices, General.
You're going back to Earth on the next supply ship.
Back to Earth?
I've arranged for you
to take over a post at the Pentagon.
Look, General,
I came up here intending to stay.
It's no good, Anderson. It isn't working.
I don't have to spell it out for you, do I?
General, was I really that rough on you?
Or doesn't it take much
to irritate a sore conscience?
Lieutenant?
Do you know if there's
a court of appeals on the moon?
Well, if there is, General Stocker is it.
That's what I was afraid of.
I think I'll ask around anyway.
Got a lot of scary things for you today, Professor.
Really? Let me see
that mysterious moonstone
everybody's been alerting me to.
Tom, put it on the table, please.
Careful, it might bite.
Seamless?
It's light, relatively.
Well, let's get it open.
If it does anything hostile, yell.
Hello, Travis.
All else having failed,
we decided to try the laser beam.
Your moonstone remains unscathed, inscrutable,
and as maddeningly mysterious as a...
A woman scientist.
Try it again, please.
A laser beam will cut through anything.
Why, it can drill holes in diamond.
It's not even scorching this.
Incredible.
I'm not certain that this is metal.
It isn't radioactive,
and it has no magnetic properties.
Is it solid?
I thought so at first until I tried this.
A wide-band monitor similar to the type
we use for resolving composite signals.
I think this will take care of any notions
that our little moonstone is solid.
Cut it! Cut it!
Electronic equipment?
Possibly.
But, uh, what is its function?
Collecting data for transmission to Earth.
The Russians may be monitoring us
at this very moment.
Well, in any case, we can't be sure
until we can get inside that shell.
Have you talked to Washington, Professor?
I'm due to transmit in half an hour.
I'll pass along
this information to the committee.
You better come with me, and bring your notes.
I've missed you, too.
Let's skip dinner.
Oh, I'm famished.
I'd rather take a stroll in the moonlight.
You're out of your mind.
Maybe that's why I love you so much.
You make me laugh.
Do you?
What?
Love me.
This wouldn't have anything to do
with the fact that I'm the only woman
on the moon, would it?
Obviously. Marry me.
I knew you'd ask me again.
Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?
Up here the odds are in my favor.
And did you decide what you'd say this time?
I've thought about it.
And?
It doesn't make sense.
Why?
It's not in the stars.
You've taken up astrology?
These stars, Lee.
Diana, I've dedicated my entire life
getting these stars.
I'm not afraid of them, Lee.
They're keeping us apart.
You sure it's not your involvement
with the stars out there?
What am I supposed to think, Lee?
All my life...
I've thought that science
and the military are opposed.
That the military
is dedicated to destruction,
and the aim of science
is peace and human advancement.
My father preached it at me.
All of my Professors implied it carefully.
I've seen it for myself.
Now I say to myself, how can 2 worlds
at cross purposes like ours ever meet?
Diana, look at me.
Look through this uniform at me.
I'm not dedicated to destruction.
I'm Lee Stocker... A man.
A man who wants to spend his life loving you.
When you say it that way,
you make me... Make me feel
narrow-minded and foolish.
Foolish enough to say yes?
It's settled then, Diana?
You'll be my moon bride?
How can I resist the novelty of that?
Yes, Lee. Yes.
And now can we go to dinner?
Clint?
Oh, that's very touching.
Something the matter?
Yes.
What is it, Clint?
Let it wait, Anderson.
Yes, sir.
Clint?
Can I tell you something?
Oh, yes, ma'am.
Lee and I are going to be married.
Well, to the happy couple then.
Congratulations.
Oh, no. Now, that's wrong.
You congratulate him and give her your best wishes.
My apologies.
Lee, what's wrong between you two?
Goes way back.
He has an old resentment against me.
It was born in Korea,
and it's grown and grown.
A personal thing?
Very. And unjustified.
I never minded until recently,
but he's begun to undermine my authority.
I can't let that happen, not up here.
I'm having him transferred.
Transferred?
He's back to Earth on the next supply ship.
He's become a morale problem, Diana.
That's one thing we simply can't have here.
Well, can't you talk to him?
It might have been possible once,
but not anymore.
Does he know he's being sent down?
His orders came last night.
Well, no wonder he's so miserable.
Lee, you go on without me. I want to talk to him.
No, it won't do any good.
He could use a friend right now.
Please?
Clint?
Oh, I'm having a little party here.
A little bon voyage party.
Don't you think you've had enough party, Major?
Now, didn't you know bon voyage party's
supposed to go straight through
until the boat leaves.
That's not until tomorrow.
I'm being transferred
to that Siberia known as Earth.
I suppose that's what happens
to all undesirables.
Clint, that's not true.
How can you do it, Professor?
How does a woman like you
fall for a gutless coward like Stocker?
He doesn't deserve that, Clint.
You're marrying a murderer.
What are you saying?
Get him to reminisce about Korea.
Ask him about Qui Chang.
What happened there can't be forgotten,
not even here.
We may be a long way from Earth,
but we brought our crimes with us.
You ask him if he can forget
the promise he made to a people
of a certain village in Korea...
To give them the full support of his troops
if they rise up against the reds dug in there.
And then betrayed that promise
when the showdown came.
Ask him what it feels like
to know you're responsible
for the massacre of a whole village.
Diane?
Clint!
Aah!
Clint?
Don't move.
Call the doctor.
Stop!
Do not touch him.
He will live.
Who are you?
What are you?
We are life.
The form of life.
We come from the planet Grippia
in the constellation Xenys.
What are you doing here?
We were in flight,
desperate flight.
We looked to Earth for refuge.
We were heading for Earth,
but we were forced to land here
for want of energy.
Refuge from... From what?
We 5 represent
the most advanced minds of our galaxy.
Between us we possess the secrets of the universe.
What were you fleeing from?
Tyranny.
The present government of Grippia
wants to use our knowledge
to conquer all the constellation Xenys,
and then the universe.
We had to escape.
But couldn't you just refuse
to give them this knowledge?
Impossible. Long ago, we ourselves
developed a means of absorbing knowledge
from any thinking creature.
That is how we have learned what you know.
That is how we speak your language.
You mean that they could assimilate
your knowledge.
There would be no way to stop them.
We had to escape and seek asylum
where our knowledge would be safe.
We could arrange to have you
taken down to Earth.
But can we trust them?
Well, there's no reason not to,
is there?
Who is your leader?
There is no leader.
Our minds are linked.
We share the same thoughts, and one voice...
The voice you hear... Speaks for all of us.
But it wouldn't do any good to take us to Earth now.
Why?
We have realized that we could not survive
on your Earth.
Your sun is weak.
Even here, it's rays do not provide us
with the energy we must have.
On Earth, the molecular density
and stratification of your atmosphere
causes too great a diffraction
of your suns ultraviolet rays.
We would perish instantly.
Well, if you can't stay here,
where will you go?
There are partisans.
They are coming.
A rescue ship,
bringing us energy.
Can we, uh, be of any help?
Yes.
We are too weak now to contact the ship.
Guide them here.
You can do that.
Transmit pulses on 10 million megacycles
in the direction of Grippia.
But we don't have a transmitter
that will go up that high.
Your equipment can be modified to do it.
We will give you the formula.
The partisans will detect a beam
and follow it in.
Well, how long can you last?
Without more energy,
perhaps...
24 of your hours.
Will, uh, he be all right?
He will recover completely.
And if you do not survive,
neither will your knowledge.
It'll be lost, all of it.
You can preserve it.
Arrange for us to feed it into
your electronic computers.
But our computers are so slow.
If we hurry,
and if you can guide the rescue ship here
before it is too late.
I'll get a couple of orderlies.
The trajectory of light matter is paraboloid.
The difference rate governed by the density
of the emitting matter
raised to the cube root of the transient medium
transmission cavity.
As determined by direct optical observation
applied to galax gala of plan form "M."
Diana, how's Anderson?
He's conscious now, coherent.
What happened in here, Diana?
What caused the accident?
Diana.
Excuse me.
Directly as the square deviation
and inversely as the direction of radiation change.
For an instantaneous case...
That's it.
Everything checks out exactly
according to their diagram.
And if they're right,
we'll find their planet and their rescue ship.
Get the scanner unit out there,
see how they're doing.
Scanner unit, do you read me?
Yes, sir.
We're all set up here. How you doing out there?
Just double-checking now, sir.
Hurry it up, will you?
Yes, sir.
Ah, what do you think?
Hmm.
I've been working with electronics for 10 years,
and I've never even dreamed of anything like this.
Communications?
Roger.
Ready, sir.
Scanner rigged and checked out.
You and your crew better get to some cover.
That thing might blow.
Roger.
Communications?
Roger.
Scanner unit undercover, sir.
Let her go.
All right.
Pulse supply on.
She's holding.
She's working, sir.
10 billion miles of mystery.
Somewhere out there is a speck of dust
called Grippia.
Contact the base.
Fill them in on our progress up here.
Have them relay our report to Washington.
Roger.
Anti-images in hyperspherical portion
paraboloid trajectory.
The coherence of each individual pattern
is due entirely to this cyclical cancellation
of aberrations
and is the essence of the solidity of matter,
light, anti-matter,
and anti-light,
and all real velocities.
Mutation of magnetic phenomena,
molecular energy, and electrical phenomena
are all meant...
How's it going?
Incredible.
Do you know what they're giving us now?
The formula for transmuting matter
sequentially into light.
It'll take our best physicists years
to make this work, but when they do
we'll be able to turn anything into light
and recover it again as matter...
Even ourselves.
We'll be able to travel at the speed of light.
Something we've always assumed was impossible.
Without them,
it might've taken us centuries
to develop something like this.
Do you think we'll have time to get much more?
We'd need at least a decade
to get 1/10 of what they know.
And we've got only 11 hours.
Diana, I must talk to you.
No, Clint.
What happened?
He fell.
I mean before the accident.
He was telling me about you.
About Qui Chang?
He won't forget that.
Is it true?
I know just what you're thinking.
I've seen that look before.
Like I'm some sort of monster,
military monster.
I never thought I'd see it in your eyes.
I was thinking about those people in that village
filled with hope,
hope that you gave them.
I had no choice. Did he tell you that?
The Chinese sent reinforcements in
to put down the uprising.
We were outnumbered 10-1.
That sounds like military logic.
It was a command decision
I had to make.
Hundreds of my men
or a handful of Korean villagers.
If there was just one chance of saving them,
no matter how small,
you owed it to them to try.
I'll never convince you otherwise, will I?
I'm sorry, Lee. I tried.
It's just that I...
It's difficult to fight this thing,
this rigid conception I have.
When things keep happening,
they seem to bear them out so strongly.
General, ahem,
we picked up a UFO on the grid trajectory
about 200,000 miles out.
Maybe it's a rescue ship, sir.
What do you think, Professor?
Could it be the ship?
It's coming in right on the beam,
straight as an arrow, whatever it is.
It's traveling at a velocity
far in excess of anything we have.
Yes, but nowhere near the speed of light.
Perhaps they're too close for that.
Lieutenant, notify Earthbase.
If this thing overshoots the moon,
we don't want somebody down there
taking a potshot at it.
Yes, sir.
And have them clear it with Conrad international
just in case.
They're decreasing velocity all the time.
Where are they now, Phillip?
Less than 100,000 miles away.
We'd better inform the moonstone.
They say they have just enough energy left
to contact the ship within a range
of 50,000 miles.
Have you made contact?
Yes.
Will they reach you in time?
Yes.
Is there anything more we can do
to help guide them in?
Nothing.
They are in control now.
Where will the rescue ship land?
There is no rescue ship.
No rescue ship?
The tyrants have destroyed it.
Than this one...
The tyrants are coming to take us back.
What do they say?
They want you to surrender us.
And if we refuse?
They will not leave without us.
But we can't just hand you over to them.
Lee, there must be something we can do.
General Stocker, it's reached the scanner area.
Call the crew in.
We tried, sir. The lines are dead.
Everything's out, even the radio.
We've lost contact with them.
They cut our communications.
Apparently, they mean business.
We've got to do something before it's too late.
We didn't come up here prepared for a fight.
So what's the answer then, General?
Surrender them?
Our weapons will prove useless against them.
Will they attack
if we refuse to surrender you?
They know no other way.
They have not the rationality of the less powerful.
If only we knew how far they'd go.
Well, they're not going to risk
destroying the moonstone just to intimidate us.
All right, Diana.
What do you want to do?
Anything...
Everything to protect it.
Tell them we promised you refuge,
and we intend to keep that promise.
They will not leave without us.
Will they attack?
What is their alternative?
I suggest we take the moonstone
and put it aboard our shuttle craft.
Then if they start to attack,
we stand a chance of launching it
back to Earth.
Detach it.
I'll put the tapes where they'll be safe.
No! No! No!
No!
Unh! Uhh!
Ashes.
Stop them! Stop them!
Diana.
Let me go! Stop them!
How? By giving them what they want?
By letting them have that?
Yes, we have no other choice!
We will inform them of your decision,
and they will stop.
They will continue the suspension of their attack
for one more hour.
By that time you will deliver us
to the site of your farthest excavation.
There we will be lifted aboard their craft.
It is the only way.
Their power is too great,
their madness even greater.
If necessary...
They would pursue you to Earth
and destroy your entire planet
to get us back.
We can not allow that.
If you are ever to destroy evil,
you must survive to fight it.
You will be safe now.
We will return with them to Grippia.
I'm sorry.
You did what you had to do.
Perhaps that is the most subtle definition of bravery.
Spare your Earthly compassion
for the creatures of our distant galaxy.
They will know far more devastation and death
than you have seen displayed here.
This we can assure you,
because it will be we who will invent
those constantly-improved methods of accomplishing it.
In the end...
It is usually the good minds
who enable evil to thrive.
I'm... sorry
you had to learn it this way, Diana.
I don't think I could've learned it
any other way.
Commence all preparations for...
Stay with Diana.
She'll be all right.
General?
Yes.
I'd like to help...
Go with you.
You feel up to it?
Yes, sir.
Let's see if we can find some undamaged suits.
Thank you.
We didn't earn your thanks.
The mind earns by doing,
the heart earns by trying.
Go.
Quickly.
General...
Is this what you felt after Qui Chang?
You mean...
Remorse, bitterness?
Yes.
I didn't understand then.
It's not something to understand.
It's... something you live through...
A kind of private hell.
Look!
What's happening?
What I expected.
Well, that's one way to...
Defeat the tyrant.
Yes, of course.
It was the only way.
The steps man takes
across the heavens of his universe
are as uncertain as those steps
he takes across the rooms of his own life.
And yet, if he walks with an open mind,
these steps must lead him eventually
to that most perfect of all destinations...
Truth.
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...