"Return to Tomorrow" Line-by-Line

MCCOY: No comment.

 

KIRK: A simple transference. Their minds and ours.

 

MCCOY: Quite simple. Happens every day.

 

KIRK: Scotty, I need your approval, too. Since you'll work with them, furnishing them all they need to make the android robots.
You won't be working with them, you'll be working with us, our bodies. They'll be inside us, and we'll be-

 

MCCOY: It all seems rather indecent to me.

 

MULHALL: I'm not so certain of that, Doctor. It is scientifically fascinating.

 

SPOCK: Once inside their mechanical bodies, engineer, they can leave this planet and travel back with us. With their knowledge, mankind could leap ahead ten thousand years.

 

Kirk: Bones, they'll shows us medical advances, miracles you never dreamed possible! Scotty, engineering advances! Vessels this size with engines the size of walnuts!

 

SCOTT: Ach! You're joking.

 

SPOCK: No, he's not.

 

MCCOY: They're giants, and we're insects beside them. They could destroy us without meaning to. And all he wants is the body of our captain and our second in command, too. Coincidence?

 

KIRK: They selected us as the most compatible bodies.

 

McCoy: What's your attitude on that, Doctor?

 

MULHALL: Well, if we all agree, I'm willing to host Thalassa's mind. I'm a scientist. The opportunity is an extraordinary one for experimentation, observation.

 

Scotty: A starship engine the size of a walnut...? That's impossible.... But I don't suppose there'd be any harm in looking over diagrams on it.

 

KIRK: Bones? You could stop all this by saying no. That's why I called you all here together. We'll all be deeply involved. It must be unanimous.

 

McCoy: Then I'll still want one question answered to my satisfaction. Why? Not a list of possible miracles, but a simple basic understandable ''why'' that overrides all danger. And let's not kid ourselves that there is no potential danger in this!

 

KIRK: They used to say if man could fly, he'd have wings. But he did fly. He discovered he had to.

Do you wish that the first Apollo mission hadn't reached the moon, or that we hadn't gone on to Mars and then to the nearest star? That's like saying you wish that you still operated with scalpels and sewed your patients up with catgut like your great-great-great-great-grandfather used to.

I'm in command; I could order this...but I'm not because Doctor McCoy is right in pointing out the enormous danger potential in any contact with life and intelligence as fantastically advanced as this but I must point out that the possibilities...the potential for knowledge and advancement is equally great.

Risk...risk is our business. That's what this starship is all about. That's why we're aboard her.

You may dissent without prejudice. Do I hear a negative vote?

[No one objects]

Engineer, stand by to beam aboard three receptacles.

 

(Sickbay - The three volunteers are lying on beds, with the spheres on tables beside them)

McCoy: The extreme power of the alien mind will drive the heart action dangerously high, and The body functions will race many times their normal metabolism, so we're going to have to monitor this very carefully.

 

CHAPEL: Yes, sir.