In the troubled places of the world,
the devil's hunter finds rare game.
For man-made savagery is only the instrument for a secret terror.
Stirring from its dark place of ambush.
4 square to Muncey. 4 square to Muncey.
Come in, Muncey.
Triangulate from, uh, "S," 9, 2.
"S," 9, 2.
Yeah, save some for me. Out.
I don't understand why he isn't dead. 14 hours in coma,
flown halfway around the world.
Look at the slow, lethargic brain wave pattern, Mr. Ballard.
What we're attempting to remove is embedded in the cerebrum.
There it is.
Another brain wave pattern.
Another brain, Mr. Ballard.
An alien brain.
There are 2 brains in the lieutenant's head now.
There is nothing wrong with your television set.
Do not attempt to adjust the picture.
We are controlling transmission.
For the next hour, we will control all that you see and hear.
You are about to experience the awe and mystery.
Which reaches from the inner mind to...
The outer limits.
Good morning, Adam. Good morning, sir.
Looks puzzling, doesn't it?
I put it together in a hurry.
You been keeping secrets from me, Adam?
You've been kept busy on the hill for the last two days, Mr. Secretary,
and I've taken this opportunity to prepare this presentation.
Important?
Yes, sir, I think so, and puzzling.
But I'll let you see for yourself.
Ready? Fire away.
This is Lt. Phillip J. Minns.
He was brought back from the far eastern front with a bullet in his brain.
He was operated on 72 hours ago.
He's still in coma.
He's doing fine, according to the medics.
That's his encephalograph.
2 brain waves?
2 brains, sir.
But bear with me a bit, I want to present this to you in sequence.
The first such case, exactly like the lieutenant,
wounded with a bullet in the head,
should have died and didn't,
was Sgt. James Conover.
He was flown here to Washington last February 13th
for surgery from the same war front.
That's his dual brain wave pattern.
Next, Pvt. First class Francis Hadley.
February 26th.
Same bit. Everything the same.
April 10th, a month ago, Pvt. Robert Renaldo.
Interesting, isn't it?
Yes.
But that's only the beginning.
Now, see the thin, weaker wave pattern in each?
Yes.
Those are the individual's own brain waves.
Watch when we take them away.
Those are the strangers, the alien patterns.
Now, if we superimpose one on top of the other,
we come up with one.
Just one pattern.
Just one alien brain.
What is it, Adam? Some kind of freak?
No, sir, it's not a freak.
And it's more than just a coincidence.
These 4 men are medical miracles.
They had bullets in their brains,
they should have died and didn't,
and when the bullets were removed,
another brain, an intelligence,
got in and took over. And I mean intelligence.
3 of these men developed I.Q.S over 200.
200!
Over 200. Yes, sir. Above genius level.
What have they been doing?
I don't know.
Where are they now?
Gone. They just up and went.
No precautions were taken with Hadley and Conover.
There wasn't any need to.
But precautions were taken with Renaldo,
for all the good it did.
When he wanted out, he just walked.
I can't find out why the hospital guards didn't stop him.
They just didn't.
Violence?
No, sir.
When was this?
9 days ago.
Now, one of the points of similarity,
each man had a bullet in his brain tissue.
Look.
I see a small,
4-pointed star at the base.
Stamped on, apparently.
Hand-stamped. It's on all of them.
Now, sir, I did what you would have done.
I had them analyzed.
We'll have to go to the metallurgical lab.
Why?
What do you think these stars mean?
Oh, probably just the place of manufacturer.
I've already made inquires about that.
But the main thing is the bullets themselves,
the structure of the metal. That's the important thing.
Cross section of the molecular structure
of those bullets enlarged 100,000 times.
You see the honeycomb effect?
Yes.
What is it?
We don't know. At first, we thought
it might be air bubbles, didn't we, Prof. Whitsett?
But they're too symmetrical.
Then I thought it was the result of a smelting process.
There's been a great deal of homemade smelting in that war theatre.
You know, sir, backyard puddling furnaces to help the war effort, and so on.
But it couldn't do that, make that kind of pattern.
That's not like anything I've ever seen before.
If I had a sample of the ore this metal was refined from...
Is it some kind of rare metal?
No, it's just lead and iron.
It's the structure of the molecules, Mr. Branch. The pattern,
the, uh, honeycomb symmetry.
Looks like the shells of something, doesn't it?
As though there was something in there at one time
and now it's gone.
As though it leaked out.
The honey of the comb.
Is that all of it?
Yes, sir.
Don't you think all of this may have
an innocent explanation, Adam?
No, sir. I don't.
Well, I'm not against
further inquiry on a scientific level.
That's our job.
What have you got in mind?
Well, first I think the federal bureau of security
can help us find those missing men.
Without publicity.
And precautionary guards, lots of them,
should be placed on Lt. Minns.
Of course, he'll be recuperating for the next few weeks.
What else, Adam?
The other end of the problem, what Prof. Whitsett needs.
The ore from which those bullets are made.
You sound as if you're ready to go halfway around the world to find it yourself.
Yes, sir.
I don't know that we're dealing with enemies of some kind,
but I have to assume the worst.
Good afternoon, Mr. Ballard.
Lt. Minns, how are you?
I feel fine.
11 days after surgery?
Yes. Remarkable, isn't it?
Yes.
But then, the whole thing has been...
Remarkable.
Yes, it has.
I'm a lucky man.
I'm also grateful.
I know my body's recuperating from a terrible shock,
and yet I have this wonderful sense of physical well-being.
Maybe that goes with the rising I.Q.
I understand my I.Q. Is going up and that's very funny
because I don't feel any smarter.
No? No new special interest?
Like the others?
Biochemistry,
metallurgy, physics.
No, not at all, Mr. Ballard.
My I.Q. Seems destined to be wasted.
You seemed interested in the others.
Should I be? Well, not particularly.
But I am curious about you.
Why?
What do you want to know about me?
Well, what do you suspect about me, Mr. Ballard?
I know you're trying to make, uh, some connection
between those 3 men and me.
Yes, I am.
But why do you think I suspect anything?
Why all the precautions, Mr. Ballard?
Why all the guards?
Why this kind of subtle probing?
What are you going to do when you get out, lieutenant?
I really haven't thought about it.
I'm pretty happy right here.
Good food. Fine medical attention. Pretty nurses.
Anybody waiting for you?
You must have checked my records, Mr. Ballard.
I have no family.
They wouldn't show a girl.
Oh.
No, nobody waiting for me.
None of those other men have any ties, either.
Link after link.
So many things in common.
There's got to be a reason, a purpose. Is that it, Mr. Ballard?
No clue, lieutenant,
no inkling what it may be?
Something alien in your head,
something guiding you,
pointing you,
directing you?
No.
What are you reading?
Just something I found in the library,
idle curiosity.
Morgan's, uh, theoretical analysis of comprehensive finance.
Ballard?
Capt. Newa, A.I.O.
I'm delighted to meet you, captain.
This is the man we've been waiting for.
He was quartermaster for the guerilla supply depot,
pressed into sniper duty.
He's been most anxious to please.
He cannot speak English.
He knows where those bullets were manufactured?
Yes.
And where there was a concentration of backyard puddling furnaces?
He told me he comes from such a district himself.
How many districts are there, captain?
40, 50, maybe 60.
Well, then the ore we're looking for could come from anywhere.
The same thought occurred to me, Mr. Ballard.
When I questioned the prisoner about it,
he explained that this was not so.
The ore used by all the districts came from the same place.
The place of "the great fire in the sky."
Well, where is that? What kind of place is that?
It's in the Thua Thien province.
Is it far?
Not very far.
OK, then let's get going. That's what I'm here for, a sample of that ore.
Mr. Ballard!
I'm sorry, I thought it was clear when I explained to you
that it was in the Thua Thien province.
That's behind enemy lines.
Well, I can't ask you to come along,
but if you'll give me instructions.
You cannot go.
I've come a long way to let a few more miles stop me.
You cannot go, sir.
Even if I considered to allow you,
it'd be suicide.
This theater of war is totally unlike
any other you've ever known before.
Why, you'd be...
Even I...
You're determined.
Shall we go?
It's rugged. How far now?
Close.
Are we in Thua Thien province?
Just a matter of remembering the place now.
Thanks.
Very sneaky, these northerners.
This way, I think.
It's a crater.
This is the place.
The place of "the great fire in the sky"?
Captain, sure it was. It was a meteor.
Yes, of course, I thought you understood.
I remember when I was very young.
Not much left of it now.
It's enough.
Well there is some substance in these pockets,
or, uh, what do we call them, honeycombs?
At 200,000 diameters
there is some loss of resolution.
The honeycomb effect is not familiar.
The matter inside the pockets is not familiar either.
And yet there is something familiar about the whole of it.
I can recognize, in considerably altered form,
the R.N.A. Factor.
The basic ingredient in the genes and chromosomes
which contain and transmit hereditary characteristics.
Well, what exactly does that mean in this case, professor?
For those dual wave patterns?
Well,
I'd say these particles probably affect mentality.
And intelligence.
What other healing or life-giving factors they may contain,
or compulsions, or tendencies, or capabilities, I don't know.
But I would say, based on the I.Q.S I saw,
that those men may achieve intelligence,
knowledge and capacities.
Far beyond anything mankind has ever known.
Now, Lt. Minns, you know you're not supposed to...
We don't want to disturb anybody.
Now, would you help me with this, please?
Of course.
Thank you.
Would you get my blouse, please?
Of course.
The guard.
Let him in.
Everything all right?
Yes, of course.
Hold on, lieutenant. We've got orders not...
Is there anything I can do?
There are probably a dozen of you between here and the gate,
and I just don't want to cause a disturbance when I leave.
Would you, please?
I had 30 men in and around that hospital, Mr. Secretary.
Not one of them can give me any information at all.
No one even remembers seeing Lt. Minns,
and he must have gone right by at least 12 guards.
The nurse? The guards on his door?
They can't tell us a thing.
A patient in a private room believes he saw a uniformed man
walking down the hall with a guard.
A visitor in the waiting room thinks he caught a glimpse of him,
and that's it.
It's probably hypnosis.
There's no telling what that brain is capable of doing.
Well, now he's gone. That's a fact.
Whatever it is, it's started.
Now he's a part of it.
Well, Mr. Branch, do you still think there's no connection between these 4 men?
No concerted effort? No plot?
I've always understood your position, Adam.
And I think now the possibility is increased
that there is a common design among those men.
And, I think now you ought to put full time in on it.
Assume this office's full responsibility on the matter.
What are your plans, Harris?
I'll have to add the lieutenant to the others we're trying to find.
Still no publicity?
How can we raise a hue and cry against them? What have they done?
It's what they're doing.
Lt. Minns could be any place by now.
On his way to Timbuktu, the Congo,
or a cold-water flat in London.
We don't recommend commodity futures, Lt. Minns.
They're speculative.
I know some brokers are high on them,
but for a beginning investor in the market...
I've done a little studying.
And now you want to take a little fling.
How much did you say, $500?
That's right.
What have you got in mind?
Well, I was thinking of buying, uh, 2000 bushels of wheat.
Do you realize that in less time than it would take me to write the order,
you could be wiped out?
Those commodity prices
sometimes move like greased lightning, lieutenant.
So, I understand.
Well, I'll never be able to say you didn't warn me, Mr. Jessup.
Let's see.
The price is $1.43 a bushel.
It's down 7 cents from the opening.
It's gone down the limit for 4 straight sessions, now.
What makes you think it won't go down some more?
Why, its pattern, Mr. Jessup.
Sell it at $1.60, please.
Buy soybeans at $2.30. Use all of the money, Mr. Jessup.
Sell corn?
And buy cotton.
Isn't there something called pyramiding, Mr. Jessup?
A bit more than $21,000 dollars in your account.
That's pretty sensational for 7 trading days.
Mr. Jessup, I want you to buy me 150,000 shares
of ore and base unlimited.
Average the cost at 14 cents.
A "cat and dog" mining stock.
Don't you think it's speculative?
Have you heard anything?
No, Mr. Jessup. Just my own figures.
I want to clear $2.75 a share.
How could you help hearing about it?
It's been all over the street.
How a man who never owned stock before in his life,
starting with $500...
You know, Ballard, I gave him a cashier's check Wednesday morning
in the amount of $405,572.15.
It restores your faith in the nation's economy
that such a thing is still possible.
That's him. A nice guy, a real nice guy.
Did he do anything wrong?
I tell you, he never did anything wrong here.
What do you want to know?
Ever see any of them?
No.
P.f.C. Francis Hadley, Pvt. Robert Renaldo, Sgt. James Conover.
Never saw or heard of them.
$405,000.
Highland bank and trust company drafts.
At minns' request,
$120,000 was sent to the Swedish exchange bank in Stockholm,
to the account of James Conover.
A draft for $90,000 to the Tokyo guarantee trust in Tokyo,
account of Robert Renaldo.
And a draft for $188,000
to the Kansas bank of Wichita,
account of Francis Hadley.
Any address on the lieutenant?
No.
But he wasn't trying to hide anything, Adam.
According to the vice-president of the bank, anyway.
The lieutenant was so open and above board.
Everything he did and said. Didn't even try to change his name.
The V.P. said he was willing to bet that he was
a completely honest and trustworthy man.
He's a banker.
He shouldn't gamble.
Hello, Mr. Larkin.
What's that smell?
Part of my experiments.
I didn't realize it was so late.
Would you mind dropping me off at the airport
on your way back to town?
I've got a plane to catch.
Oh, Hadley...
I'm going out of the country for a week or so.
Hadley, aren't you interested in what happened at the bank?
That draft from New York came through.
That's good.
Well, I don't understand you, Hadley.
It's for $188,000.
Is it?
Well, this property only cost a $140,000.
Well, I imagine the rest of the money is for parts and equipment,
and expenses.
You know, you sure surprise me.
Seeing this didn't exactly inspire me with confidence
you could come up with a $140,000.
Especially after that haggling over the $30 a month
you've been paying for this room.
What are you working on?
Huh?
Experimenting.
Well, you've got people who believe in you.
Putting up that kind of money.
What kind of experimenting?
Gas compounds.
Exotic herbs.
Air conduits.
Pressure atmospheres.
Well,
you are now the official owner
of 45,000 square feet
of the finest abandoned factory in Wichita county
and homemade laboratory.
What is this? A new kind of air conditioning?
Air conditioning?
Yes, in a manner of speaking, I guess it is, Mr. Larkin.
You fellas and your inventions.
You're sure close-mouthed.
I don't suppose your backers would be
interested in a little investment from me?
Hadley, could you put in a word?
Mr. Larkin, you've got this all wrong.
I have no backers that I know of.
And this isn't any invention,
it's just some experimenting.
That's why I'm going on this trip,
I'm looking for a special herb,
Rara coalinsis.
It's been reported along the Amazon in Brazil.
Mr. Larkin, aren't you supposed to sign those papers
and give me a copy?
Well, ordinarily, yes,
but, you know, I've had 2nd thoughts.
This property is really worth a lot more than you're paying me.
That's the price you asked.
Well, I said, I've had 2nd thoughts.
I want $200,000.
You're reneging on the deal.
Right.
But you got the other money so easily, you can get this.
No, I can't.
I have no time now,
I've got a plane to catch.
I can wait.
Mr. Larkin,
I have no time to argue.
I want you to sign those papers.
You want?
Now, don't threaten me, Hadley.
I know this younger generation,
no respect for the rights of the individual.
I carry this with me all the time.
Mr. Larkin,
the only way that you can use that gun
is on yourself.
But you have a choice, Mr. Larkin.
You can sign the papers
or you can pull the trigger.
I'll sign.
Thank you.
Why don't you lower the gun?
Please, can't you hurry, Mr. Larkin?
I wouldn't want to miss my flight.
Let's take a look at his laboratory.
It's over there.
If I thought he was doing anything against the law,
I... I wouldn't have let him have the room,
much less let him buy the whole place.
We don't know if he's done anything against the law, Mr. Larkin.
We're just investigating. Don't jump to conclusions.
You've told us everything you know, Mr. Larkin.
Would you excuse us for a few minutes, please?
Sure. Sure.
What you'd expect from a biochemist, isn't it, Adam?
Yes.
These look like air ducts of some kind.
Looks like he's experimenting with air or gas.
"Inert gases."
Doesn't look like he's running out on us.
Looks like he's expecting to come back.
Yes.
Want me to go to Stockholm with you?
No. I think you should concentrate on minns.
I think he's some kind of a leader of this thing, a coordinator.
And I think he's probably left New York for parts unknown.
I agree.
Which makes finding him a choice assignment.
Aren't you worried?
Am I fighting a lone battle with this thing?
Don't you understand,
they could be a terrible threat?
That's Hadley.
Well, I don't know him.
Him either.
I never saw him.
Looks like a vehicle of some sort.
A room here. 2 rooms, or areas.
I don't understand some of the designations.
Did Conover design it?
When he first came to me,
I thought he was a jokester.
In 32 years of steel making,
I've never seen anything like them.
Impractical things?
I told him flatly, impossible things,
then he showed me how to make them.
Oh,
he knows things nobody ever dreamed of.
Very light.
It's an alloy, Mr. Ballard.
1st, of 3 elements which don't unite,
2nd, of specific weights,
which totalled more than this finished product.
What's that?
He took 3 weights of metal and put them together.
And it weighed less than one-tenth
than their combined weights.
Do you want to hear the 3rd incredible thing?
Go on.
What you hold in your hand has 2 parts, not 1.
Can you see the place of joining?
Here.
Mmm-hmm.
That is most amazing to me. No rivets, no welding.
Those parts are polarized together.
And they fit as perfectly as they were really one piece.
And that piece, Mr. Ballard,
is stronger than the strongest commercial alloy made,
and lighter than the lightest magnesium alloy.
And more heat- and cold-resistant than any metal known.
You're making them for Conover?
Yeah, yeah, we are fabricating them.
They are tremendously costly.
But the money doesn't seem to bother him.
He's a brilliant man, Mr. Ballard.
And a sad one.
Sad?
I like him.
Uh, I like him for the kind of man he is.
Inside, Mr. Ballard, a troubled man.
Troubled by what he's doing.
But when I ask him to explain what he's about,
he... he could not tell me.
Could not?
Could not.
It was as though...
As though...
As though what?
As though the devil had him under this thumb!
And he had no chance to get out of...
To be his own man.
Excuse me, I...
I...
Just don't think I'm expressing myself well.
You're doing fine.
He is late.
He is always here
at half past 8 in the morning.
He hasn't missed a morning since he first came.
Except today.
Did he know you were anxious to see him?
I don't know how he could have known.
But yes, I think he did.
"The father, the son, the holy ghost."
"Holy Mary mother of god, pray for our sins,
from now to the hour of our death. Amen."
I should be grateful I'm alive.
I was at death's door.
I looked death in the face.
Is it your will?
This... this thing inside my head,
it creates new and wonderful images.
It makes me do things of such beauty,
it can't be bad.
No, it's not bad, it's good.
It is good.
Isn't it, god?
Well, Mr. Ballard.
Hello, Renaldo.
It's been a while.
Yes.
You've been here all the time?
Yeah, practically.
Sit down, Mr. Ballard. Sit down.
For a guy with a big brain like mine, uh,
I got a lot of respect for you.
Have a drink.
No.
Something wrong, Renaldo?
What could be wrong?
I'm celebrating.
I just finished my mission.
Whatever that is.
3 guesses, what is it?
Some kind of motive device.
Hey, well, wasn't I right?
Don't I know my I.Q.S?
You couldn't tell just by looking, Mr. Ballard.
How did you know?
I guessed.
You did?
Hadley's experimenting with some kind of system of air conditioning,
conover, with vehicle design and metallurgy,
obviously whatever's being planned...
Needs a motor.
And I'm the last one with this, uh,
gift, up here.
You're next to last. What is it?
Who's the last?
You don't know?
Lt. Phillip minns.
He's the one that sent me the money?
Yes.
And that's how you found me.
Not that I was hiding.
Wanna show me what it does?
Like everything connected with this thing,
if you need to know...
Suddenly you learn.
If you need money, suddenly you get money!
Anything.
Anything to finish the job.
The... the project!
Nothing can stop it.
But if you want to get it off your back...
If you want to walk out on it,
oh, no, you can't do that.
You're hooked. The monkey's got you.
You do what's inside your head!
No matter how your insides are busting.
Look, Renaldo.
Look, why don't you take a drink!
Watch this, Ballard.
This is motive power like nothing you've ever seen.
No fuel, no moving parts.
You understand, Ballard?
I beat gravity.
The pull of the earth.
You understand that, Ballard?
You can stop fighting now. We're going home.
We're going to put an end to this project.
What did you say, Mr. Ballard?
I said, we're going to put an end to this project.
I don't know what happened, Mr. Branch.
I was talking to Robert Renaldo in Tokyo,
the last thing I remember.
Now I'm here in Indianapolis, at the Memorial Day race.
I've lost more than 2 weeks.
We've been frantic here, Adam.
We put out all kinds of searches.
We couldn't find a trace of you.
Well, I'll catch the next plane for Washington.
Let me sum it up, then.
In Wichita,
a chemical laboratory, an abandoned factory,
and a biochemist experimenting with air components,
gases and atmospheric conduits.
Is that right?
And a missing biochemist.
Vanished up the Amazon,
looking for a rare herb called rara coalinsis.
In Stockholm, a vehicular design
in a metal lighter than wood and stronger than steel.
And a missing metallurgist.
We have no lead on him.
I don't believe he's in Sweden.
I don't believe he's in this country, either.
And, in Tokyo,
an antigravity device.
And a missing physicist.
Does it seem obvious, what's going on?
Each man working independently
under the compulsion of that intruder brain in his head,
each man giving the appearance of not hiding,
they use their own names,
of being honest, above board,
ethical, good men.
I've heard that expression several times.
Go on, Adam.
But each of them subservient
to that monitor in his brain.
That intruder which instructs,
coordinates, protects the project.
Whatever that project is.
I got the impression that these men
hate what has happened to them,
hate what they are doing, even as they unwillingly do it.
It's not just frightening, it's terrifying,
these men are tormented and unable to control themselves.
They'll be charming if they have to be,
and vicious, if they must,
for whatever dark and evil purpose
their efforts are leading them towards.
Lieutenant?
Lieutenant!
How'd you know I'm a lieutenant, Johnny?
How'd you know I'm Johnny?
What can I do for you?
I want to go with you.
Do you, Johnny?
Do you know where I'm going?
I don't care.
Far away, Johnny.
On a starship.
Far away.
Don't you want to take me?
Yes, Johnny.
I want to take you.
That's it, Adam.
2nd floor, apartment 17.
Is minns in there now?
No, but that's his place, all right.
We've got 12 men up and down this street.
4 men inside the building.
We have 3 cars from here to the corner.
2 on each of the side streets,
and one opposite.
You wanna go inside now? He's gonna be along anytime.
All set?
Man looks up at the stars.
And dreams his futile dreams.
Child of the universe,
his toys are ignorance,
his games, fantasy.
Not even master of his own fate,
it is the devil's puppeteer.
Who stretches his fingers to answer the question:
"What will happen next?"
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...
The outer limits.