"How does it look?"
"That suddenly?"
"Oh, there you are, Chief. Any word on the autopsy yet?"
"I agree. How about you, Lieutenant Commander? Shouldn't the night watch be on duty by now?"
"Anything serious?"
"Well, keep me informed. And get some sleep."
"Swell."
"The last time I gave an interview, they told me to just relax and say what I really felt. Ten minutes after the broadcast I got transferred to an outpost so far off the star maps, you couldn't find it with a hunting dog and a Ouija board!"
"'How sharper than a serpent's tooth'!" ���[King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4 "...it is to have a thankless child"]
"When did it happen?"
"What's his condition?"
"You shouldn't be walking around yet."
"Check into it. This Nelson...who was he working for?"
"I still haven't heard a satisfactory answer, Dr Hendricks. And frankly, I'm getting tired of asking for one. Dr. Franklin was attacked by your assistant, covered in some kind of armor which bears a striking similarity to the artifacts which you brought onto this station."
"Whether he was acting under your orders or not, a potentially dangerous alien technology was smuggled on to this station. Now until I hear otherwise, I intend to hold you personally responsible. Is that clear?"
"They're checking him out over at Med Lab 4. He took a pretty bad hit! But I'm told he's going to be okay. He's up and around and trying to go back to work."
"According to Dr. Franklin, just before it fired it said something about 'protect.' Do you think that might be the key to whatever it was programmed to do?"
"Done."
"All right. I'm moving this to a Level 2 alert. Keep this channel open."
"Ms. Kramer. You are in a secure area. You will leave and you will leave now."
"And you have the right to spend the next two days in the brig."
"Lieutenant Commander, I want this weapon triangulated."
"Relay the information to Security. I want this thing pinned down to within ten feet."
"Garibaldi, have your teams sweep through each sector moving inward. Two in each team, five minute perimeter checks."
"If he wants to do the most damage, my guess is he'll head to the area with the greatest population. That makes the central corridor a prime target."
"So, the next chance we get to stop him...might be our last chance."
"Garibaldi, you heard? It's heading your way."
"Drop the pressure doors on all sides. Maybe that'll slow him down, give Garibaldi time to get set."
"Make it short, doctor, I don't have a lot of time."
"Let me know when it's on the move again. Go!"
"Doctor, I'm joining Mr. Garibaldi on the line."
"So, who set the parameters of what it meant to be a 'pure Ikaaran'?"
"Like the Nazi ideal of a perfect Aryan during World War II."
"What about the weapons?"
"Except for Number 12, which is here, now, acting on a program to protect a world that's been dead for a thousand years."
"You said that they incorporated the brain patterns of one of their researchers."
"Is there anything there we can talk to, reason with?"
"Then we'll just have to find a way around the logic of the program. Better head back to the Med Lab, doctor. I suspect we're going to need your services."
(hushed) "Weapon!"
"Not yet. I want it pointblank."
"Fire!"
"Cease fire!"
"Damn."
"How many men do you have stationed down there?"
"Then that's what we'll have to do - - blow out the hull!"
"I'll try to lure it into the docking area. We get it in place, seal the area, and blow out the air lock! Armored or not, nothing can live in a vacuum."
"By going straight to it's personality matrix: I'm going to try to make it mad."
"Tu'Lar. Tu'Lar of Ikaara Seven."
"Your name is dead, Tu'Lar. Your world is dead."
"You failed. You failed in your mission. Ikaara is dead. By your own hand! You, and others like you."
"Ikaara is dead."
"Wait!"
"Come on!"
"Protect who? From what?"
"Yes. Impure. You must protect against all who are not 'pure Ikaaran.'"
"And your own people, how pure were they?"
"How 'pure'?"
"They didn't feed you facts, they fed you propaganda. They programmed you with standards of genetic purity no one could match. Not even your own people."
(hushed) "Seal the area. Stand by to blow the airlock and depressurize."
"Stand by."
"There is no Ikaara. Not the way you remember. The others, like you, they beat the invaders all right, just like they were programmed. They killed anything that was different, alien. But we're all aliens to one another. Flawed, impure, different. Too tall, too short, too dark, too light. Imperfect. They were killed. And the killing went on and on and on. The man you took over, Nelson, he's seen Ikaara. Ikaara after the others finished protecting it, cleansing it of every slightest variation in the genetics. You can access his memories. See for yourself. Look inside his mind. See what he's seen. Go on, look into his mind. He can't hide the truth. He can't lie to you. Look deep. Look at it."
"Yes."
"There's your 'pure' world, your 'perfect' world."
"Damn you, look at it! You and the rest, you forgot the first rule of the fanatic: when you become obsessed with the enemy, you become the enemy."
(laugh, groan) "Come."
"Sure."
"Ah, I didn't risk --"
"I didn't know anyone was counting."
"Finished?"
"Michael. ...I don't have an answer for you. And I�think maybe I should. Thanks."
"No. We have to stay here. And there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on: whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and LaoTsu, and Einstein, Moro Buto, Buddy Holly and Aristophanes and all of this,...all of this was for nothing....unless we go to the stars."