a transparent door. A switch is ritualistically thrown and the chamber floods with blinding light; to the Alphans' horror, the mute's body evaporates. Lowry is selected next and, during the examination, is declared a mutant when the priest discovers a joint of his left ring finger is missing. He, too, is sent to his death. Guided to the Survivors' settlement by the male mute, Morrow and Carter arrive in time to witness this butchery. Helena's turn comes next. She sobs, petrified, as the high priest runs his hands over her face and body. Finding no deformity, he cries out, 'Clear!' Turning to the icon on the wall, he orders the summoning of the Spirits. In the command area, Kara presents Koenig and Bergman to Neman, the ship's commander. (Unknown to them, he is the spitting image of the painting depicting the Survivors' god.) Koenig insists the Darians locate his missing people immediately. Leading them along a mile-long gantry suspended above massive mechanical structures, Neman drolly demonstrates the vastness of this ship and the absurdity of Koenig's demand. He informs them the Daria is a generation ship, preserving the life and skills of the Darian race after the destruction of their home planet—à la Earth's own Noah's Ark. The ship's drive is still functioning; in one hundred years, they will arrive at a new world. Neman invites the Alphans to join them and share the future that awaits them. At the Survivors' camp, Helena has been dressed in tribal garb. In the name of the Survivors of Level Seven, the high priest offers her perfect body to the god Neman. The icon wall opens and two silver Spirits—Darians wearing radiation suits—emerge to take Helena. Carter and Morrow burst from the underbrush and attack the 'Spirits'. In the ensuing mêlée, Morrow fells one with a stun-blast, but the other 'Spirit' manages to hustle Helena through the door. Following, Morrow dives through the closing hatch. Carter, though, is overwhelmed by the savages. Seriously considering Neman's offer, Koenig and Bergman investigate the feasibility of co-existing with the Darians. The professor soon makes an unsettling discovery. The Darians are practically human and have the same nutritional requirements. A study of their food production system shows no inventory of raw materials on the ship—yet the recycling plants are stocked with a steady supply of all the essential elements. Bergman concludes the only possible source of these