Guys, come on. It opens up down here.
Oh, my God. Guys, over here.
What do you got?
I don't know. It's some kind of writing.
After three months' exploring, it'd be only fitting...
to make a discovery like this on our last day.
Definitely man-made...
by some other kind of intelligent creature.
Unbelievable.
- So there is intelligent life out here. - Or was.
You know, maybe there is something to this "face on Mars" theory.
I mean, the writing's here.
Why can't the face be real?
I mean, maybe some ancient civilization just left it here...
as some sort of beacon.
Dear God.
Barkley, Claridge.
Look at this.
What is it?
I have no idea.
Looks like some sort of pod.
Think we can take it back to the ship?
It's too heavy.
There is nothing wrong with your television.
Do not attempt to adjust the picture.
We are now controlling the transmission.
We control the horizontal...
and the vertical.
We can deluge you with a thousand channels...
or expand one single image to crystal clarity...
and beyond.
We can shape your vision...
to anything our imagination can conceive.
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 deepest inner mind to...
The Outer Limits.
The book ofJob tells us...
that he who discovereth deep things out of darkness...
bringeth out to light the shadow of death.
Will man's unquenching thirst for discovery...
ultimately be his undoing?
- Everyone okay? - How long have we been unconscious?
Looks like almost an hour.
We only have enough oxygen left to get us back to the capsule.
So that means we have four hours to liftoff before we miss the window.
We're not gonna be able to come back.
We have the find of the ages...
and we have to leave before we can document it properly.
Let's go back to the ship.
...to win a national championship in his first year.
Go for it. Go for it.
Come on, NU. Hold the line.
Defense, come on. Go for it. Go for it!
The NorthAm Bowl hangs on this play.
Everyone in the country, including the Mars III astronauts-
Come on, NU. Come on, hold the line. Defense!
- Come on, last play. Come on, come on. - Go for it. Go for it!
- Hold 'em. Defense! - All right, all right, all right. Oh, no!
Yes! Yes! Interception!
Yes! Man, ever since Northwestern left the Big Ten, they have kicked butt.
- Who would have thought? - Don't worry. Wait till next year.
Maybe, but in the meantime you owe me a hundred bucks, payable when we get home.
- Just don't tellJenny. She'll kill me. - Hey, Jenny loves me.
She'll be glad to hear you contributed to my retirement fund.
Okay, fellas, it's time. Let's see if Houston's home.
Houston, this is Mars III. Come in, Houston.
This is Mars III. Come in.
Houston, this is Mars III. Come in.
This is Houston. We're reading you loud and clear.
Hello. How's everybody feeling today?
Well, you try waking up to these two morons every day for a year and a half.
- See how you feel. - Aw, come on.
We're three days away from home.
My alma mater just kicked UVA's asses all over the field.
This is perfect.
We're on an open channel here, Mr. Barkley.
Please restrict your language.
I'm sorry. Stomped their asses.
- That better? - I believe I speak for all of NASA...
when I say we'll be very happy to have you back on terra firma.
I'll make you a deal. One date, and I'll be a good boy.
Afraid that wouldn't wash very well with my husband.
Houston, this is Claridge. How are my wife and child?
They're fine, Doctor, and looking forward to seeing you.
Well, tell them that I miss them...
and that I love them very much.
Come on, Pete, everybody knows- especially them- how much you care about them.
Yeah. You don't know. You don't even have a family.
What? Three ex-wives don't count as a family?
We're ready for your status report.
Yeah, okay. Checklist-
We lost comms.
Okay, go to the bridge. I want reports now!
- What the hell was that? - Best guess, something hit us.
Could be a micrometeorite.
Okay.
Eddie, give me numbers.
I have telemetry. Give me some numbers. Give me a status report.
Pete, get that fire!
Ed, I need numbers. Let's go.
We're off course. Primary guidance system down.
Okay. Let's go to manual.
Down to 35,000 miles per hour. Off course 21.01 degrees port.
Get ready to manually fire the boosters.
Okay, go. Give me the numbers.
Give me the numbers now.
Okay, give us a 12-second burn on number-three booster.
Twelve seconds, number three.
Get ready for a four-second burn on number two.
On number two.
Pete, come on!
Ed, stay with me now. Come on!
Booster number two. Now!
Come on. Come back. Okay.
Okay. She's back.
We're locked.
Okay. Good job, guys.
Let me take a look at that head.
- It can wait. It can wait. - Give me a status report.
Good news and bad news. Hull integrity seems to have held.
And the bad news?
Communications are out. One power cell down.
And our external oxygen tank is reading zero pressure.
We've lost half our oxygen.
The impact must have caused the tank to leak.
- What the- - Hey, don't touch it.
- What is it? - I have no idea.
Where'd that come from?
Take a look at this.
- Okay. So what is it? - Never seen anything like it before.
Probably some of that gel they use in the insulation.
Must have fallen from the ceiling panels when we got hit.
Except there's no trace of it in the ceiling.
No, this isn't insulating gel.
It's living matter, and it's multiplying and changing form...
faster than I've seen anything change before.
Which means?
Well, I've seen just about every type of microorganism on Earth.
I'm trying to tell you guys, this ain't one of them.
Oh, my God.
We must've picked up some microscopic organism...
down on the planet and brought it aboard with us.
We must have got it from that thing in the cave.
It got into our space suits when we were unconscious.
We decontaminated our space suits and our tools.
We sealed all our samples. That's impossible.
And why is it showing up now?
We've been on this return leg for more than five months.
You said it was multiplying really fast.
Maybe it started as just one and multiplied to this point.
There's a short in the passive thermal control unit.
- We've lost capsule rotation. - I thought it was hot in here.
- Check thermostat. - Seventy-eight degrees and rising.
If we don't get this crate rolling over again fast, we're gonna fry.
- I'll get down and get on it. - Hey, wait a minute. What about-
Forget that, okay? If we don't do this right now and fix this, we're dead...
so that's not gonna matter.
Ed, are you all right?
Give me the tools. I'll go.
I'm sure you can do it, Doc, but I can do it faster, right?
Somebody do it. It's 86 degrees in here and rising.
Hey, buddy, don't worry about me, huh?
There'll be plenty of time to relax as soon as we get home.
A little relaxation and a lot of scotch, I'll be as good as new.
All right, I'm at the service module...
approaching the unit.
Man, this is a mess down here.
- At the unit. - How badly is it damaged?
I don't know yet.
The door is wedged shut.
The walls must have gone out of alignment during impact.
It just went from warm to hot.
It's 94 degrees and rising up here, Ed.
It's not exactly snowing down here, guys.
I think I've got it.
Okay, beautiful.
What's the PTC unit look like?
Barbecued.
I think I can fix it, but it's gonna take a while.
Hey, shut off the secondary electrical unit.
We'll burn up. We'll burn up!
I need it off to work on it or it'll fry me. Shut it down.
That'll turn off what little air conditioning we're getting.
It's gonna be like an oven in here.
I'm going in. It better be off when I get to it.
You got it.
Secondary unit's shut down.
Okay, Al, you keep an eye on our levels...
and get ready to give me thejuice the second I've got this going.
Okay, brother.
All right, stand by and try to think cool.
Where are we?
Cabin temperature is 123 and rising.
You okay?
Yeah, I'm fine.
I don't know how you do this.
Up in Alaska we don't get weather like this.
Being raised in North Carolina...
you learn to adapt to all kinds of weather.
Don't worry.
Everything will be fine as soon as Barkley...
gets that PTC unit back on line.
It better be quick.
We've come too far to fail.
Somewhere out there it's cold.
Give me a reading. Give me a reading.
- What's going on? - Al, get back into your chair.
You've got to monitor the telemetry.
When this ship...
heats up another 30 degrees, we'll die.
Eventually the capsule will crack...
and our bodies-
our bodies will be swept...
out into infinity.
Sit down and do your job.
Even in death there'll be no rest.
Our bodies will explode into...
a million minute fragments...
each molecule...
floating off into...
eternity.
It's been a long trip.
It's perfectly understandable, you feeling this way...
but you gotta hold on just a little while longer.
In a few days we'll be back on Earth...
at my cabin on the lake...
reeling in a striped bass.
You don't have a cabin on a lake, do you?
How's everything in there?
Levels in telemetry are holding...
but it's hotter than hell up here.
- What's your status? - Making progress.
By the way, I've been to hell- my second marriage.
It was hotter than this.
How much longer?
A few minutes.
Do me a favor. Have a cold beer waiting for me...
when I get back.
Just try to relax. He'll have us back on line in a few minutes.
L-
I can't breathe.
All right, I'm almost there.
See?
Cut the power.!
What is going on? Kill the damn power!
What the hell is going on up there? Kill the goddamn power!
You may have a death wish, but I plan on making it home.
Barkley, are you all right?
My hand is toast, my head hurts...
and I have heat prostration.
Aside from that, I'm great.
What happened up there?
We had a temporary malfunction in the system.
I think we've got it under control.
- What's the cabin status? - Temperature is at 116.
All other levels are red-lining because of the heat.
Be ready to go back on line the minute I give you the word...
- but not a second before. - Roger.
All right.
Hold on.
Okay. Power up.
Okay.
I gotta re-insulate the wiring down here so we don't short up again.
I'll be up in a while.
- We're gonna make it. - No thanks to you.
Hey, look, I don't know what happened, okay?
Must have been the heat.
Did you touch any of that stuff?
What stuff?
The organism. The ooze. Did you touch any of it?
No. Why?
You're not acting like the Al Wells I know.
Well, you're not acting like the Pete Claridge that I know.
I'm not the one who freaked out.
Oh, I see, so I swallowed some of that stuff or something...
and now I'm infected with a Martian bug.
I don't know what to think.
All I know is, the Al Wells I knew on Earth wouldn't have reacted like that.
This is a joke, right?
Humor me.
Let me check you out, run some tests.
You know you're acting incredibly paranoid?
You may be right...
but you can allay my suspicions...
with a few drops of blood.
You know, I think the heat's gotten to you too.
But... okay...
if it's gonna make you feel better.
Pete was feeling dizzy, so I sent him down to lay down for a while.
- I think the heat got to him. - How are the readings?
All levels are in the black zone. We're out of the woods.
Not yet.
Shutting down all nonessential systems.
We gotta cut power usage by half.
We also have to reduce our water intake to two ounces a day.
That's a quarter of what we need.
Up here water deprivation can be fatal.
We have no choice.
Next 60 hours or so are gonna be tough...
but we'll make it, we'll make it.
We'll make it.
You know, I think when Pete comes back up...
you should go down and rest for a while.
You know, a lot of the skeptics...
said I was pushing my luck, going up for a third time.
Hey, they were almost right.
But I'm still here.
And I'm making it.
I'm gonna be able to write my own ticket when I get back home.
The first man to set foot on Mars.
Come on, that's gotta be worth a few million in endorsements alone...
not to mention the book deal, the lecture circuit...
the fact that we found evidence of life on that planet.
Whoa! Bingo. We hit the old lottery.
I would like to think that our discovery will be of more value...
than to serve as your personal platform for wealth and fame.
The beauty of it?
On the surface, we are the most altruistic people on the planet.
We've sacrificed a year and a half of our lives on this mission...
and made the most important scientific breakthrough in space travel history.
In the meantime, hey, we'll just happen to get filthy rich.
You're missing the big picture.
There's life out there.
Right.
Well, the scientific ramifications will take care of themselves, I think...
but I worked my ass off for the ASA for 20 years.
You know what, Al?
It's time for a little payback.
- What's that? - Nothing.
Roll up your sleeve.
I just brushed up against something, that's all.
Come on, Al. Roll up your damn sleeve.
It's not what you think.
Pete, wake up!
Pete! Get up!
What the hell is going on?
- Ed! Ed! What are you doing? - It's not Wells.
Pete, he's crazy! Let me out of here!
Ed, don't do anything stupid.
He's crazy.
You got hit on the head. You're imagining things.
It's not Wells.
Don't do this! Let me out of here!
It's not Wells.
I know, I know, I know.
I know it seems crazy, man.
I know I don't know how to explain this, but it was real. It was real.
It had that- that alien goo oozing out of the cut on his arm...
and that's wh- the first time I realized.
Like, I saw it in his arm, and then the next thing I knew...
it had started to transform into this huge thing-
this- this thing that- this alien thing.
What ha-What happened to- What happened to Al?
He was like my brother. What did it do to the real Al Wells?
Pete, where's Al?
Ed, you ejected him into space.
- No, you're not hearing me, Pete. - You killed him.
- That wasn't him. - Now, listen to me.
- That was real, Pete. - Okay, whatever.
What's important now is that you let me help you.
There's nothing wrong with me. There's nothing wrong.
Okay?
It was real.
It was some kind of chameleon, like-
No, it was more than a chameleon, 'cause it didn't just look like him.
It was like it knew everything there was to know about Wells.
It's like it had downloaded everything out of Wells's brain...
like, right out of his brain.
Ed, you're not making any sense.
- Let me take a look at that head. - You stay away from me.
How do I know you're not one of them too?
Take mine.
Don't tell me you're not thirsty.
No, I'm parched. You need to stay hydrated.
So do you. We got over 36 hours left in this can.
I can live without it for a while.
It's more important that you stay sharp.
I mean, if something ever happened to you...
I'd never be able to get this ship home by myself.
It takes two of us to pilot it.
We'll share it later.
We lost another power cell. We're down to one.
Operating at one-third power and less oxygen.
We can keep the oxygen level in here stet if we seal off...
the rest of the ship.
Terminating circulation to isolated rooms.
All available air will be restricted to main cabin.
Service area.
Look, Pete-
if you are Pete-
I'm sorry for the way I'm acting...
but if you saw what I saw, you'd understand.
But I didn't see it, Ed.
I'm gonna go check the O2 levels and the power cell levels...
down in the service module.
Make sure the readings jive with what we're getting up here.
We didn't have time to eject the body.
All right, give me a chance to explain.
Ed, I know this is a shock...
but you've gotta understand, the last thing I want to do is hurt you.
Right, you just wanna kill me and duplicate me.
I can only proliferate once every 30-day cycle.
Proliferate? Is that what you call it?
That's an awfully polite word for sucking somebody's brains out...
or whatever it is you do.
Actually, I introduce a spore into the body...
which leaves the body and replicates it.
I assure you, Neither one of your friends felt any pain.
Oh, no pain, just death. That's a relief.
Ed, relax. You have nothing to worry about.
We only produce one spore every 30-day cycle.
Oh, that makes me feel better.
Who are you? Where are you from?
I'm from a planet...
many light-years from your solar system.
When our sun died out, we had to find a new home.
So you chose Mars?
A few of us were put in cryo-hibernation with the hopes that one day...
we would have the opportunity to begin again.
We are a peaceful species.
Once we get to Earth, I promise you. There will be no more taking of lives.
What is it?
There's a vapor stream coming from the starboard side, aft section.
We're venting.
There's a breach in the integrity of the ship.
I guess I won't have to kill you.
If we lose pressure, our lungs will explode instantly.
You don't want to die up here.
Think of what awaits you back on Earth-
the fame, the riches.
Living out the rest of your life as a national hero.
Ed, you can't deprive your world of the gifts I bring.
Your mother died of cancer, did she not?
I can give your doctors the cure for cancer.
I have the solutions to the problems...
your world has been pondering for years.
You can go back and be the hero you always wanted to be...
but, Ed, I cannot repair the ship by myself.
Well, neither can I, with one hand.
Then I think we should do it together.
I'm coming up.
The valve in the back-
you have to tighten it.
Just tell me what to do.
Go on under. I'll- I'll be above, watching.
Be careful. Gently.
If you snap that off, we're both dead.
That's it.
Tighten it until the point around the torque meter goes to red.
There you go. Slowly.
That's it. Slowly. Slowly.
More. Little more, little more.
That's it.
See? I told you we'd make a good team.
It won't be much longer, Ed. You just have to hold on and get us home.
It's not your damn home.
Is the AC down again?
Cabin temp is stable at 80 degrees.
You probably have a fever.
Is that what it is?
Or is this one of your spores running around my body? What does that feel like?
It's painless. You wouldn't feel it at all.
Whatever you're feeling has nothing to do with me.
A few more hours till splashdown. We're gonna make it, Ed.
Just think of how good it's gonna be to see home again.
Houston calling Mars III.
Mars III, this is Houston. Do you read?
Houston, thank God. I thought our comm was out completely.
You had us a little concerned there.
It's great to see your face, Mr. Barkley.
It's great to be seen, Houston.
We have somebody here who'd like to say hello to Dr. Claridge.
- Just look right in there, sweetheart. - Hey, honey, are you okay?
I'm doing just fine, sweetheart.
Daddy, I lost my front teeth.
That's terrific. You can tell me all about it when I see you.
We have so much to catch up on.
We'll be home soon. I love you.
I love you too.
So, do you want to tell me what happened up there?
And where's Commander Wells?
Just a moment, Houston. You're breaking up.
If you tell them about me, they will abort the landing.
They don't know me like you know me.
They don't know my good intentions.
Ed, don't you want this to be your decision...
about whether we should abort or not?
If you tell them about me, they will leave us out here to die.
Houston, you there?
I'm reading you, Mr. Barkley. You were saying?
Yes, I was saying...
that the best we could tell, we were hit by a micrometeorite.
- Something's happened to Al. - Al's injured.
Well, where is he? Is he all right?
He's incapacitated, but don't worry. He's stable.
All right. What's the extent of your damage?
Substantial. We're praying that this bucket holds together.
All right, we're tracking you now on the big screen.
Do you want to switch your primary guidance systems over to auto-
- leave the driving to us? - No can do, Houston.
That system's down. We're gonna have to bring her in manually.
All right. I'll be back at you in a few minutes...
with your reentry vectors.
You know, as soon as we touch down...
I'll tell them about you.
Of course.
I would expect nothing less.
They'll probably isolate you and study you.
I'm prepared for that.
All right, your trajectory is almost perfect.
You need to trim your burn five percent and hold your speed constant.
That's it. Splashdown will occur at 0530...
200 miles northwest of Hawaii.
Thanks, Megan. I could use a few months on the beach.
Roger that. So could we all, Mr. Barkley, so could we all.
Okay, boys. You're drifting out ofline.
Engage right booster. Five-second burn.
Five-second burn, right booster. Go.
Try and hold it, Ed.
Come on. Come on.
Great. Thirty seconds to reentry...
- then gravity will do the rest. - We're gonna make it.
- Twenty-eight... - I knew you could do it.
Twenty-seven, twenty-six, twenty-five, twenty-four...
twenty-three-
You're almost home, boys. That's it.
Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen-
Greatjob. Fifteen seconds to reentry.
- The capsule is offline. - What are you doing?
I repeat, the capsule is offline.
Barkley, Claridge, please respond.
- You don't know what you're doing. - I know exactly what I'm doing.
The moment we splashdown you want to proliferate me...
and throw my dead body into the ocean.
I have no intention of doing that.
Come in.! This is Houston. The capsule is offline.
You convert ten people, and they convert ten.
Please respond. This is Houston. You're off course.
What is going on? Barkley, Claridge, please respond.
That'll depressurize the cabin. We'll be blown to pieces.
- That's right. - Do you read?
Our species is millions of years old.
It is our right to take lives in order to continue.
Then you better find someone else to carry the torch...
'cause your existence has just been discontinued.
The true measure of a hero...
is when a man lays down his life...
with the knowledge that those he saves...
will never know.