back to Yonada, and Spock removes the device from McCoy while Kirk tries to explain the truth to Natira. When Natira's own device is activated, McCoy removes it while Kirk and Spock again deal with the Oracle. Spock learns from the Book how to enter the control room behind the Oracle's altar, where they discover the ship's navigational controls and correct Yonada's course. Spock also discovers the Fabrini archives, which contain a cure for McCoy's condition. McCoy returns to the Enterprise where he is successfully treated, hoping to see Natira again when Yonada arrives at its new homeworld in about a year. Reception Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode a 'B−' rating, describing it as having potential, but being hampered by a script that fails to act on that: "we have Kirk and Spock unraveling the mystery by the halfway mark, and then spending the rest of the episode on clean-up duty. You know McCoy is coming back, you know he'll be cured, and you know that the computer will be defeated. About the only question is whether or not Natira will make it to the end credits, and happily, she does—which means McCoy, unlike Kirk, isn't a widower." Star Trek novelist Dayton Ward wrote, David Alan Mack, also a Star Trek novelist, remarks on the episode's Mack writes that he "simply didn't buy the romance between McCoy and Natira," but otherwise liked the characterizations: Samuel Walters called it "a surprisingly effective episode about blind faith in rules and dogma, as well as a touching love story," with the qualification that the story "does a good job of providing character growth for McCoy. Had the episode not succumbed to an easy solution to his predicament—purely because these episodes need their characters to remain, essentially, the same—then this could have been a profound, moving narrative." A negative review by Michelle Erica Green focused on plot illogic: "Why are the men wearing shiny plaid suits and carrying swords when wrongdoers can be punished for their crimes by a computer? Why are the women wearing provocative gowns when only the priestess is allowed to choose her own mate?" A 2018 Star Trek binge-watching guide by Den of Geek recommended this episode for featuring the trio of characters Kirk, Spock, and Bones of the original series. Legacy Captive Universe, 1969 novel by Harry Harrison, in which a centuries-long voyage in an