[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
[CRICKETS CHIRPING]
[FATHER SIGHS]
[EXCLAIMING IN ANNOYANCE]
[UTENSILS CLATTERING]
Honey, it's family hour,
there must be something on.
DAUGHTER: Oh, wow, Candied Critters!
[FATHER EXCLAIMS]
Oh, great. It's Monsters, our favorite show!
[MONSTROUS LAUGH] [SHUSHING]
It's starting.
[MONSTROUS LAUGH]
[FATHER CHUCKLES]
[KEYBOARD CLACKING]
[TYPING]
[BEEPING]
You haven't been to class in three weeks.
That's not like you, Paula.
What do you got?
On the ninth, I sent out a group of standard mathematical equations
using the same frequency as our unknown wavelength.
Five hours later, I received a transmission back.
With the correct answers.
Now, my reception angle rules out any conventional transmissions.
The intervals, they're too short for interstellar transmission.
It threw me at first,
but then when the intervals got even shorter,
it occurred to me that we might be receiving signals
from a satellite of some kind in geosynchronous orbit.
Paula, I can't publish "might be". I need hard data.
Anyway,
this whole thing might be a prank by some of your fellow students.
Steinberg and Brown love this sort of stuff.
Have you checked the antenna for tap lines?
I built that antenna from scratch.
And I have a computer tie in in my apartment to monitor it.
I'm certain that it hasn't been tampered with.
We are gonna be able to communicate with them directly.
[COMPUTER BEEPING]
[ELECTRONIC ZAPPING]
[GARBLED VOICE] Reply. Reply.
Reply.
This is Dr. Thomas Becker.
Are you receiving me?
Gok hears your words. Are you of the one strain?
I don't understand.
What is the one strain?
The one strain that dwells beyond the water.
Where... Where's this water located, Gok?
Where's your planet?
We do not know of planet.
As the one strain knows the water flows between the walls.
Gok, can you describe the walls for us?
The walls stretch on forever. We dwell near the wall of heat.
We have heard there's a wall of cold on the other side of the water.
But you are the creators.
You know far better than Gok what walls you have made.
All right, you guys. Now you really had me going.
I don't know how you did it but it was first grade. It was brilliant.
Gok does not understand.
What are you doing?
I'm looking for the tap lines that Steinberg and Brown hid.
Gok, can you describe the walls for me?
I'll never hear the end of this in the faculty lounge.
GOK: Do not shake the water, Dr. Thomas Becker.
Do not destroy us!
The cooling tank.
The metal on this side next to the pump, it's warm.
This side is cold.
The walls.
It can't be.
That's why Gok doesn't know about the planets.
This is his universe.
They're microscopic.
They're microscopic, intelligent life.
This just doesn't make any sense.
If intelligent protozoa exist in nature,
we would have found out long before this.
Unless a unique strain mutated in that tank.
Remember legionnaires disease where the organisms multiplied
in a cooling system just like this?
While varying the water's electrochemical resistance,
they were able to send minute electrical impulses to the antenna.
Gok,
listen to me carefully.
We don't want to harm your world, we only want to talk to you
so that we can learn about your strain.
Gok understands. We thank you.
You keep saying "We".
Is there more than one Gok?
Old Gok has many units.
But we are more numerous than all the other thinker strains.
What does the thinker strain know about the place beyond their water?
You created the walls and made the water flow between them.
You placed the first strain in the water
from which all other strains divided.
Doctor.
These creatures think they're talking to their god.
I know, it seems bizarre.
But their thinking is not that from the truth.
I mean, humans did build a cooling system and put the water in it,
and the water must have contained the ancestors of the thinker mutation.
Gok, listen to me. What you say is true, we did those things.
But there's an even greater truth that you're not aware of.
You're water that exists on the surface of a gigantic sphere called Earth.
We are trying to understand.
Would the one strain tell us more?
I will, and about a lot of other things.
There's so much for you to learn.
Gok, as a symbol of my promise...
I'm going to spread light throughout your world.
Doctor, wait!
GOK: Oh! We have never seen this light before, Dr. Thomas Becker.
All the strains are swimming towards the light of the one strain.
Paula, run to the biology lab and get a quart of sugar solution.
We're going to accelerate their reproduction.
Go on!
Gok, let's begin your instruction.
We'll start with the Earth's geography.
One-third of the Earth's surface is covered by dry land.
That's the part where my strain lives.
The other two-thirds
are covered by vast oceans of water.
These oceans are the same as Gok's water?
Similar.
The water in the ocean contains salt.
And all living things, no matter where they are first started in the ocean.
And we that live on the dry land
contain a solution inside our bodies
that's similar to the salt water found in the ocean.
Gok wishes to understand salt.
Ah, you want to know the molecular structure to sodium chloride. All right.
I'll send it to you.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING]
Transmitting it now, Gok.
Here's your sugar solution.
Pour it in the tank.
I said pour it in the tank!
Gok, we have just sent your world a rich new food
and your strains will thrive like never before.
Gok is ignorant of the huge earth sphere beyond our walls.
We ask permission to send a unit of Gok to you
in order to understand your earth sphere directly.
How do you propose to do that?
We have spent many cycles thinking on the metal things that do.
Our thinkers cannot make these metal things themselves.
But Gok conceived plans for a metal thing,
one which would enlarge a Gok unit several times.
We can't do that.
It's out of the question.
Gok, send us the plans to this metal thing. We'll build it.
[ELECTRONIC BEEPING]
You're the expert on machines, Paula.
I'm sure you can handle this.
Dr. Becker, you can't be serious.
Do you have any idea how dangerous this could be?
Paula,
look at it.
Look at it.
A whole new science, principles we never dreamed of.
I know you.
You'll build it.
And if they can do this on their own,
and had access of our knowledge or experience,
imagine what they can do with someone to guide them,
someone to teach them not to make the same mistakes we have.
There's no limit. There's no limit...
...to what we can do.
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
[MYSTERIOUS MUSIC PLAYING]
I can see an amoeba clinging to the tip of the enlarger rod.
By varying the electrical resistance in these strips,
Gok's emissary will be able to communicate
directly through the translator
to us, and to the other Gok strains in the tank.
Now I've given him a slightly different voice just to avoid confusion.
Prepare yourself, Gok.
[MOTOR WHIRRING]
This unit of Gok's strain greets the one strain.
I welcome the unit of Gok's strain.
Your race is about to enter a new age of understanding.
And I will lead you there.
We follow your light...
[VOICE OVERLAPPING]
Wait, there is a disturbance.
Interference.
Which is if someone else is broadcasting on the same frequency.
Dr. Thomas Becker, there is a renegade strain of thinkers.
If they divide further, they will prevent Gok from transmitting.
BECKER: Gok, you got to stop them. Your strain must survive.
Seek out the renegade strain. Seek them out and destroy them.
Are you out of your mind?
You can just order the murder of intelligent beings
because they don't agree with you.
What's the alternative?
We can't let the renegade strain destroy the greatest discovery we ever made.
It's my discovery!
And you don't have the right to play God.
[THUNDERCLAP]
I do have the right. I provided those creatures with food and light.
I taught them everything they know about the universe.
I'm responsible for what happens to them
and for what happens to this project!
I'm sorry, Dr. Becker,
but under these circumstances,
I don't think I can continue to work with you.
We are here to serve you, Dr. Thomas Becker.
ELECTRONIC VOICE: We call those of the one strain. Reply, reply.
We call those of the one strain.
One strain, come in, please.
This is Paula of the one strain.
Is this the renegade strain that is not Gok?
That is we. Please help us. Gok hunts for our strain.
I know.
Dr. Becker ordered it.
I'm sorry.
I wish that there was something that I could do.
The one strain do not understand the true nature of Gok.
It is a new strain, not like the other thinkers.
Gok has a strange hunger,
not for lair or food but to spread Gok everywhere, in all places
and in all waters and beyond the waters.
To spread until there's no life that is not Gok.
Gok units have come. They come in great numbers!
We resist. They are devouring...
We cannot... [SCREAMING]
[FLAT LINING]
GOK: We may communicate freely.
The Becker strains has left the place of work for an interval of feeding.
Let's take all the adaptability for our body.
My thicker membrane has so far resisted the stresses of this environment.
Restoration and locomotion are acceptable.
This strain of Gok can colonize this place.
Activate the thing of metal.
More units will come for further air testing.
The Paula human strain is here.
Ingest the Paula human strain.
[GROWLING]
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING]
[GASPS]
[GROANS]
[SQUEALING]
Good God!
GOK: What has happened, Dr. Thomas Becker?
We have lost contact with our unit.
Are the one strain angry with us?
I killed it.
You killed it?
It attacked me when I went to turn off the machine.
Gok lied.
It lied!
What are you doing with that disinfectant, Paula?
I'm gonna kill Gok.
I'm gonna kill all of it.
GOK: Why do you seek to kill us, Dr. Thomas Becker?
Nobody's gonna kill you, Gok.
Nobody!
I'm sorry, Paula.
I'm afraid there's only room for one god.
No!
[MACHINE WHIRRING]
GOK: We thank Dr. Thomas Becker for the transmission of his unit.
But it appears not to have survived the transferal.
Can Dr. Thomas Becker tell us of our unit?
I'm afraid it didn't survive either.
It's outer membrane was punctured
and it died.
We fear that even with mutations, our strain cannot last long in your world.
It appears that we must remain in water.
Then the experiment is over.
But Gok has thought of another plan for being close with the Becker strain
from within.
We'll make a new mutation,
one that can survive in salt water.
If Dr. Thomas Becker were to place this strain inside his blood fluid,
we can dwell within,
defend against those than invade.
Defend against those that mutate within.
In this way, the Becker strain could be preserved for all time.
Eternal life.
No sickness, no pain, no creeping senility.
Gather up some of your strain
at the tip of the enlarger rod.
We swim gladly for the one strain.
[BREATHES DEEPLY]
There's time now.
There's lots of time now.
There's so much that I can teach you about the world
and the stars and about everything.
There's no limit to what we can accomplish together.
[GROANING]
The second plan appears to have been successful.
We are in control of the Becker unit's body.
Speech and movement present no problem.
We are multiplying within him.
You will take the Becker unit out onto the earth's sphere,
you will place his blood fluid into the great waters of which he speaks.
You will use the needles that inject
to place our strain within the blood of other humans.
Gok will multiply,
Gok will subdue the earth sphere.
[GOK LAUGHS SINISTERLY]
[MACHINE WHIRRING]
[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]