The earth,
tumbling grain of sand in the darkness of unending space,
plays host to a strange and awful guest.
Unsought. Uninvited.
Possessor of fearsome power. Purveyor of dark deed.
A relentless traveler on the road to its mysterious goal.
That's it, Adam. 2nd floor. Apartment 17.
Is Minns in there now?
No, but that's his place, all right.
All set?
Yeah, put Hansel on the roof and Dormley on the other building.
A couple of guys, uh, across the street,
and 2 men on the corners. Right. That's about it.
This is Adam Ballard, assistant secretary of science.
Mr. Ballard.
Where's Linett?
One flight up.
I want one of your men covering the stairs,
and two of you here on the door, one on each side.
After he gets inside, you're to avoid looking at him.
Nobody's to look directly at him.
Yes, sir.
Now, the whole buildings been sealed off. The block has been sealed off.
The lieutenant...
Is probably the smartest man you will ever come up against.
Maybe the word is "brilliant." He has extraordinary abilities.
He's pleasant, genial, agreeable,
unstoppable, and as far as we know, deadly.
Unstoppable until now, that is.
Now, we're gonna stop him if we have to kill him.
All right, Granger?
All right, sir.
Have your men searched this place?
Yes.
How about this phone?
We're tapping it.
Oh!
What is it?
I don't know.
Your hand's shaking.
I'm scared to death.
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.
You didn't use your key?
No.
Did you know the door was unlocked? Or that we were in here?
Both.
This is Ray Harris,
deputy director of the federal bureau of security.
How do you do, Mr. Harris?
It must be your man who's staking me out.
Are they that conspicuous?
You knew that and walked in anyway?
You tried to contain me once, it didn't work.
Our weapons are pitiful against you, aren't they?
I didn't mean it that way.
I did.
You smile at me and I get a chill.
You're smiling with a piece of your mind that doesn't belong to you.
You'll lie that way. Cheat that way,
steal that way, if you have to.
You said we can't contain you. Well, I believe you.
I believe you can do almost anything you want to do.
No.
Anything I must do, Mr. Ballard.
But what is it you must do?
What do you want with me?
What laws have I broken? What have I done?
You said you didn't know Hadley or Conover or Renaldo.
You said you had no interest in them,
and had no compulsion about them.
Yes, I did say that.
Within 3 weeks you sent them bank drafts totaling $400,000.
That's quite a gift to people you don't know and have no interest in.
I knew they needed it.
What for?
To make whatever they had to make?
Buy whatever they had to buy? Or create whatever they had to create?
The components, the elements for a spaceship.
What's it for?
I don't know.
Does it matter that it maybe heinous?
Yes, it matters.
There's nothing I can do about it.
You can fight it!
Not any more than you can fight me.
Well, let's see if I can fight you. Let's go!
Where? To Washington.
What for?
To study you, to brainwash you, to stop this project.
You're mortal, lieutenant.
If a bullet shatters your heart, you die.
Yes.
If it does...
This project, as you call it, Mr. Ballard,
won't die.
Minns.
Don't turn, and don't look at us.
Harris has a gun and he'll fire if you move or try to face us.
If he fires, 2 security guards outside the door
have been instructed to break through
and fire without asking questions.
I don't want anyone to get hurt.
Fine, then we'll all go together, as planned.
I can't.
Minns!
I said I didn't want anyone hurt.
It isn't that I'd hurt anyone.
I don't want an accident.
One step, I shoot.
6 bullets fired at point blank range, missed.
Took an elevator to the lower level,
out through the servant's entrance,
to the garage under the building, got in his car, drove away.
And nobody stopped him.
Not for lack of trying.
My men couldn't stop him. They couldn't touch him, they said.
I don't understand that.
Neither do we.
The lieutenant ignored them, just as he ignored us in his apartment.
They fired after him, he drove on.
Fired after him? At what distance?
Less than 15 feet.
There was no way those bullets could miss Lt. Minns.
But they did.
This is Lt. Phillip J. Minns.
That's his encephalograph.
Sgt. James Conover.
He was flown here to Washington last February 13th
for surgery from the same war front.
That's his dual brainwave pattern.
Next, pvt. First class Frances Hadley.
February 26th. Same bit. Everything the same.
April 10th, a month ago,
pvt. Robert Renaldo.
Those 4 men are medical miracles.
They had bullets in their brains,
they should have died, and didn't.
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.
They haven't done anything illegal, have they?
Well, if we have to wait for them to do
whatever it is they're being forced to do,
it may be too late.
Mr. Secretary, I'll be blunt about it.
I think we've been invaded.
This whole world has been invaded.
These 4 men have been given enormous intellectual resources
and they have responded with fantastic accomplishments,
far beyond our greatest scientific conceptions.
I'm not pleading for your time, Mr. Branch. Just reporting.
We've got one thread of a lead.
Lt. Minns is up to something in St. Louis,
and Harris is making a breakdown of some notes we got in his apartment,
we believe that the starship will be assembled in Wichita.
Hello, compadre.
Compadre?
"Brothers under the skin," no?
Or is it freaks under the skull?
You're the metallurgist?
Yeah.
And you?
Physicist.
How many are we?
4. You, me, Hadley.
This is his place, he's the bio-chemist.
And Minns.
Lt. Minns,
the financial wizard.
How'd you know that?
A guy named Adam Ballard looked me up in Tokyo.
He's the, uh, assistant to the secretary of science.
And he told you?
Well, I found out from him, anyway.
With the lieutenant, I just checked back
on who put 90,000 bucks in the bank of Tokyo for me.
I, uh, saw your stuff outside.
Oh, yeah, the crates.
What is that thing?
See that screwdriver?
Pick it up.
Throw it at me.
Uh, go on, toss it to me.
Pick it up. Throw it again, harder.
A force field, a magnetic force field.
I named it "Renaldo's Barrier".
You could set off a bomb, it wouldn't get through.
Where does it end?
I just, uh, set it for around me.
An "a" -bomb couldn't get through it, huh?
Any kind of bomb.
Any kind of bullet, or knife, or anything.
It's impassable. Period.
You ask the lieutenant when he gets here. I sent him a model.
I made it in 8 days.
Of course I used some of the principles of the antigravity device.
Isn't that marvelous?
Isn't that a tremendous achievement?
Why'd you make it?
Why?
Because something told me to and I couldn't stop myself.
Because somebody needed it. The lieutenant.
For our project, maybe. Whatever that is.
To safeguard us. To anticipate trouble.
To fit it into a Jigsaw puzzle that nobody understands.
Have you been doing anything lately
besides working on this project?
Has Hadley? Has Minns?
We're a bunch of freaks, aren't we?
Yeah, I guess we are a bunch of freaks.
And that visitor we got up here
that makes us so smart.
Makes us! Forces us!
I hate that.
Oh, I hate to be forced.
I was a private. I hated P.F.C.s.
Is it the same with you, Conover?
Despite everything,
is there something there for you?
That antigravity thing, I made out of nothing. And... and this.
It's like having a woman you love...
It's different with you?
Huh?
Hadley's designing the atmosphere.
You created the drive and I made the parts.
Without knowing why, I made that alloy strong enough
to withstand any kind of heat or cold.
I made it lightweight, rivet-less.
It's a spaceship.
But what for, Renaldo? Huh? What's the purpose?
It could be for something terrible, couldn't it?
Yeah, I guess it could be.
Yeah, well, that's what it is for me.
That I might be responsible, and even if something is forcing me...
I see terrible things, Renaldo.
I see children who are tortured and... and retarded.
And I see despair,
and rage and fear.
I see grotesque shapes.
Terror.
I... I'm sorry.
It's pretty fanciful, isn't it?
The items are pretty cryptic, Adam,
but we've made some progress.
That first one, "4th at Eden."
An address.
No.
Took us quite a while to read that one out.
Eden's not a street or an Avenue or a boulevard.
At least not in the section of St. Louis we're interested in.
Or rather, the lieutenant is interested in.
Eden is a theater.
A theater?
And "4th"?
A date.
What kind of date?
Calendar date, like "4th of July."
And appointment date.
The 4th of July, say, at Eden theater.
Anyway, that's our conclusion.
"Minerva G., H-O-S-P."
Well, that was an easy one. Obviously, hospital.
We're still checking them out.
Theater? Hospital?
"At Parkville, after two."
Well, that's a school.
"Two" could be time of day.
"John S., 62, Lar."
A John Subiron
lives at 6240, Larchmont Avenue.
That's pretty close to the same neighborhood.
Any questions?
Thanks, Ray, good job.
Nothing any other interpretive genius
couldn't have done in twice the time.
Your father home?
No.
Mother? No.
Where is she?
Shopping.
May I come in and wait for her?
No.
I don't have a father. He died.
I'm sorry.
Why can't I come in and wait for her?
I'm not allowed to let anybody in.
There she is, anyway.
Mrs. Subiron.
Yes?
Uh, my name's Ballard. I'd like to talk to you about John.
OK, what for?
Say, are you the one he calls lieutenant?
He's not the lieutenant.
Well, I'm sorry. I don't have time to talk to you now.
Who is the lieutenant?
Well, that kid's got a great imagination.
Somebody he invented.
Invented, Mrs. Subiron?
Isn't that a kick?
I'm too progressive to threaten him with the bogeyman,
so he invents one to threaten me with.
Mrs. Subiron.
Oh.
Look, I don't know what you're selling,
but you'll have to come back some other time.
And there is no lieutenant,
other than in Johnny's imagination.
Excuse me.
Miss Spenser said Minerva was leaning out of the window
looking and talking to him.
But of course that's impossible.
You talked to the man, didn't you?
To the lieutenant.
How did you know he was a lieutenant?
She doesn't even know what a lieutenant is.
She knew this lieutenant.
Miss Spenser says he wasn't even wearing a uniform.
You just knew he was there, Minerva?
Just knew he was on the street outside?
He didn't even talk to you?
Not out loud, but he was there. He heard me.
What did you say to him?
I said, "yes, lieutenant. I wanna go wherever you go. I want to."
Daniel Newton masters?
That could be Danny masters.
Has he been placed in foster homes several times?
4 times, Mr. Minns.
He's with the Lawsons now. A very nice couple.
Perhaps this will be the charm.
He's a very sensitive boy.
How long has he been with them?
Well, let's see...
3 weeks, now.
Danny's a very nice-looking boy.
I guess that's why he's had so many chances.
It's nice of you to take an interest in one of our older children, Mr. Minns.
It isn't always easy to find homes for our 8-year-olds,
especially one who's a deaf-mute.
Hmm.
Well, thank you, Miss Steen.
Perhaps you'd be interested in one of our other children.
No, I'm sorry. It was Danny masters.
His 4th home.
It must be terrible when you find out you're not wanted.
Danny?
Danny masters?
Don't they love you, Danny?
Are they just like the others?
I'm a lieutenant, Danny.
Wanna come with me?
Did you see a ball come by?
When?
Just right now.
The lieutenant took it.
Who?
The lieutenant.
Whose the lieutenant?
Is this it?
You think you could get away with that?
Lieutenant?
Know him?
No, I never saw him.
He's that made-up friend of that deaf and dumb kid
who doesn't come around anymore.
That's right.
Where is the deaf and dumb boy?
I don't know.
Well, what's his name? Who is he?
Who knows?
At it, aren't they?
Yes.
How far have they got?
It's incredible, they're almost finished. At least with the shell.
Now, they're working on the insides.
Busy, busy.
You, too.
I hear you put security on a few places in St. Louis.
A few?
Hospitals, playgrounds, Johnny's house.
Johnny Subiron.
A dozen men on each, around the clock.
That's Hadley.
He's picked up the antigravity device.
They've got it all there now, all except the lieutenant and the kids.
Let's move in on them, Ray.
Let's move in on them right now with whatever we've got.
We'll never have a better time.
It could be bloody.
What do they want with children?
Harris.
Yeah.
Renaldo.
It's OK. No one's going to get hurt.
Coming along, isn't it?
Hadley's here now. He can mix his gases
and rare herbs and put in his air ducts.
What did you bring, uh, Hadley? The antigravity drive?
No more fighting you? Giving up fighting?
You haven't even found out why you're building this ship.
Well, I found out, Conover.
You ought to be proud to be part of such a noble undertaking.
What do you mean by that?
A bit of kidnapping, that's what.
That's the purpose for this whole thing.
But there's no ransom with these kids.
Their folks can't buy them back. It's a one-way trip
to some fantastic horror some alien monster's got planned for them.
And you're picking the best. A little blind girl,
a deaf and dumb boy, the helpless ones.
All right, knock it off!
I don't believe him.
Don't you? You mean you haven't gotten any instructions about it?
No feelings? No messages?
You mean you have to wait for the lieutenant to, uh, break the news...
If he knows. Well, maybe he doesn't.
Maybe there are some things you're just never going to get to know.
Mr. Ballard, I don't believe you, either.
But if it's true, even if it's true,
we can't do anything about it.
We can't stop what we're doing.
We can't help ourselves.
We aren't even aware from one second to the next what we're going to do.
Don't you understand? We can't stop ourselves.
Stand back, you don't have to get hurt.
What is it, Renaldo? Some kind of force field?
Right, and it's impregnable.
Lt. Minns had one, remember?
Ray?
Even an "H" -bomb, Ballard. Nothing can get in.
There is no way to stop the project.
Yes, lieutenant. Oh, yes, lieutenant.
Hi, lieutenant.
Hi, Minerva.
All right if I call you Minerva?
Oh, that's fine, 'cause everybody calls me Minnie.
Now, just a second. Who are you?
Where do you think you're...
Hello.
We'll go out the service way,
just to avoid trouble. Will you see we're not disturbed?
Yes, sir.
Lieutenant?
Hmm?
Can I see what you look like?
Lieutenant, you're crying.
What makes you such a smarty-pants?
But what are you crying for?
Johnny?
Well, that means they've got about 200 miles of driving ahead of them.
Set up road blocks. Take all precautionary measures.
Get your other men in and surround the factory.
On their way?
Yeah. God help us.
Spread out over in there.
No sweat.
Gets you, compadre?
I've got terrible fears, Renaldo.
Oh, that Ballard?
No, no, before he said anything.
That's what makes it mean something to me.
I saw it all a long time ago.
Desperation, fear.
The hunger, the children.
Better take it like Hadley.
Right, Hadley? No sweat.
Can we change it, Renaldo?
Nope.
Ready for that, now.
They're almost here.
Lt. Minns, the children.
Hello, Ballard speaking.
When?
What's that, about 10 miles from here?
No, captain, I'm afraid there's no way we can prevent
that wagon going right through your roadblocks.
They've gone through 5 of them this side of St. Louis.
It's a force shield, a barrier,
and it's impenetrable. It surrounds the car.
Well, keep me informed about their progress.
Yes, Granger?
They're here?
Yes?
Tell your men to hold their fire.
They're coming in the back way.
All there, lieutenant?
I see Minerva G., a blind little girl.
And Daniel masters, the boy who can't hear or speak.
And Johnny.
Do you always believe the worst, Ballard?
How can you live in a world without faith?
What have you promised those kids, Minns?
A long trip.
A trip in a starship.
It used to be candy, or a ride in a car.
"Your mother's sick, get in and I'll drive you home."
Progress, Ballard.
That's right. Hypnosis, the big promise, the big lie.
And fantastic scientific achievements.
An antigravity machine, a force field.
Conover! Renaldo!
Don't try anything foolish, Ballard.
There's plenty of room inside.
Now, I'm going to close this entrance panel
because the air-conditioning will be on.
And help each other. Learn to help each other.
I hope you rot, Minns! All of you!
I don't care that you couldn't stop what you did!
You could have stopped yourselves!
You could have taken your own lives
without harming those helpless little ones! Now what?
When do they take off and how far do they go?
Which one of you brave geniuses goes with them? What's in store for them?
Do you know that?
Why'd you pick on those particular ones, Minns?
Why the helpless ones?
I don't know why, Ballard.
Well, what's going to happen to them?
They're so innocent and so trusting.
What do you want them for? W-what sacrifices? For what purpose?
Now, let them go, please, let them go.
Lieutenant, I can't stand it anymore.
What do you mean by that?
I gotta stop it! I must try to stop it!
Even if, as Ballard says, I've gotta try to stop myself.
You don't know what you're saying.
He knows what he's saying, all right.
He's been saying it all along.
He is scared.
He's scared to death that what he's doing is evil.
It isn't evil.
Isn't it? The proof is right here, right now.
How do you explain away these kids?
Conover...
I give you my word.
No hurt. No harm.
We've never hurt or harmed anyone.
I beg your pardon, lieutenant. What does your word mean?
I had to do some lying, some cheating, even stealing in Brazil
to get some roots and herbs I needed. I had no compunction about it.
Buying this place, the owner tried to renege on the deal.
I would have forced him to kill himself, make no mistake.
If he hadn't signed that bill of sale,
he would be dead today.
Not that I wanted it, but this project did.
Does that make it right?
Minns, do you think what you did was right?
No doubts in you at all?
Well, Conover's got doubts.
So, maybe we're all different. Maybe Charlie, up here, isn't the same in each of us?
No, he's the same, all right.
Only, he doesn't interfere with our own minds or our own consciences
unless we threaten the project.
That's why this whole conversation is academic.
It's not going to change anything one way or another, is it?
Is it, lieutenant?
Of course it isn't,
because the lieutenant is different,
because he's the guiding spirit behind this whole plot.
It's his doing, he's the master hand, he's the coordinator.
If he needs to lie to you, he will.
But Conover,
you were saying that the project won't let you defect.
All right, then let me.
Renaldo, this barrier, turn it off.
We'll do the rest.
Turn it off, Renaldo.
Turn it off!
Ah, it's all a cheat, anyway.
No hurt, no harm,
unless the project is threatened.
What do they want, a sample of humanity?
Something to experiment with?
Lieutenant, what happens when it's all over?
Does Charlie go away?
What are we left with? What we had before?
We'll stop it.
We'll make it wait, anyway.
We'll get the best scientific people on earth to find an answer.
Turn the knob, take away this barrier.
Renaldo!
No!
You would try anything now. You'd say anything.
Wait a moment.
We've come to a crossroads.
I... I must tell you.
As I speak now, the words are forming in my head.
I don't know. I really don't know what I'm about to say, except...
I have a feeling about it,
that I must repeat now the words that come without my knowledge.
All three of you men will go with the children...
Of your own free will.
Think back, Ballard.
This project has been brought to this point without hurt or harm.
Actually, really, no one was hurt or harmed.
Those children in there,
they're not the helpless, Ballard.
They're the hopeless,
the unloved,
the crippled, and blind, and despairing.
Ones who all their short lives never had anything,
never lived like we did.
Never were whole, never had dreams.
Never had someone to love.
There's a world far out in space,
billions and billions of miles away.
A world filled with wonderful things and wonderful beings.
They look much like we do.
They overcame disease, and poverty, and want, and need,
and their lifespan came to more than 900 years.
That's interesting, isn't it?
Remember your Bible?
And then, not long ago, a blight came to this world,
a terrible blight.
They... they found themselves suddenly unable to procreate.
They could have no children. And so...
In desperation they devised a way to start over again
with new children.
And they sent out into the void of outer space
hundreds and thousands of meteors filled with their own R.N.A. Factor,
the hereditary factor in the genes and chromosomes,
in the hope that, somewhere in space,
one of their meteors would land on a planet like ours.
And a course would follow, much like this course is following us.
But no harm was, or is, intended.
They wanted no one to be hurt.
That's why these children were chosen, Ballard.
The hopeless ones.
The ones who... who never had anything on this earth.
Well, they will inherit a bright, new world
of wonder and greatness.
Even if I believed you...
I've never lied to you.
The hopeless ones? The crippled?
Not Johnny Subiron. Not Johnny,
there's nothing wrong with him.
Oh, you should have asked his mother, Ballard.
Why?
Did you see him out playing?
No.
He had to stay in the house.
He has a blood disease. The doctor said less than a year to live.
We can't let you take away those kids,
without trying to stop you
in every way we can,
even if what you say is true.
Then, Mr. Ballard, go in and get them,
take them home.
Come on, Ballard. Mr. Harris, too.
You can come through the barrier.
Go on, Mr. Ballard.
Is the...
Is the lieutenant still here?
Look what my hands look like.
Lieutenant?
Look!
What is it? What's happened to them?
The atmosphere in there, it's just like on the planet.
Well, they're whole. They're healthy and sound.
Johnny, too?
Well, Ballard?
How can we say yes?
It's not up to us. We can't.
If you take them out, they'll revert.
Crippled again? Blind again?
Lieutenant? Lieutenant?
Is everything all right, Danny?
Yes.
You go with them, Minns?
Yes, I go.
Conover?
Renaldo?
Hadley?
"The inheritors" are on their way.
In a universe of billions of stars,
there are places of love and happiness.
On this earth, in this spot,
magic settled for a moment,
wonder touched a few lives,
and a few odd pieces fell smoothly.
Into the Jigsaw of creation.
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.