- Dr. Susan Verner: What can you read that's in my head?
- Mara Chaffee: Everything that is active in your mind. However, the path that leads to the speaking process eludes us. Why to you speak some thoughts but not others?
- Dr. Susan Verner: Wouldn't it be a noisy world if we all said what we thought?
- Mara Chaffee: You are a prisoner of your values, and you won't be able to deceive us. You know that, don't you?
- [smiles sweetly and looks up at him]
- Mara Chaffee: father...?
- Dr. Susan Verner: [sees the group of alien children] Oh!... I... I'm glad you're all here, I really think that I could help you...
- [the children stare at her with glowing eyes and she falls into a trance, leading them to the basement where David's partner was autopsied and preserved in a jar. The children force Verner to lie down on a steel exam table and disembowel herself, and David smiles thinly in revenge]
- Jill McGowan: [Jill reluctantly drives David up to the abandoned barn to be with the other children, but does not open the door for him] ... I'm not lettin' you go.
- David McGowan: You haven't been given an option...
- Jill McGowan: Have YOU?
- [David stares off into space thoughtfully, pondering this]
- Jill McGowan: You know, you don't always have to do everything they say.
- David McGowan: We are the same.
- Jill McGowan: [smiles sadly, close to tears] No, you're not! You're David, you're different!
- [David looks like he's about to cry, but he silently exits the vehicle and joins his companions]
- Mara Chaffee: You are thinking of the one who died
- David McGowan: She was to be my partner
- Mara Chaffee: Yes it's true. Without a mate you are of less importance to us and your development of emotions is disturbing. We can't leave you behind David, it's time we resolved this.
- David McGowan: What is that word you're thinking? What is empathy?... So if I have felt pain I should be able to identify with others who feel pain
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: [Alan finds David in the cemetery, standing over his stillborn companion's tombstone - unknown to him, the grave is empty, as the baby's corpse was taken by Verner] David...? What are you doing here?
- David McGowan: [solemn] Looking for the baby...
- [Alan, shocked that David even knows of the baby's existence, walks over]
- David McGowan: The one who was born with us. The one who died.
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: How do you know about that?
- [David shrugs his shoulders]
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: The baby's not really here. She was taken away.
- David McGowan: Where?
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: I dunno... do you have a memory of the baby?... So, it bothers you? It hurts, it hurts to lose a loved one.
- David McGowan: She was to be with me...
- [gazes off into the distance]
- David McGowan: we were to be together.
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: [grabs David's shoulders firmly] How do you know that?
- [getting no answer, he walks away from David, towards Barbara's grave]
- David McGowan: [surprised] ... You've lost someone, too...
- [David walks forward and reads the name on Barara's tombstone. He reaces out silently and holds Alan's hand, and Alan realizes that David is the first of the blackout children to display emotion or grief]
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: [walks into the barn where the children are] Another man is dead. Why do you hate us so much, Mara?
- Mara Chaffee: It isn't a matter of hate. It is a biological obligation.
- [short pause]
- Mara Chaffee: You are thinking of what happened to the others. Then our actions shouldn't surprise you. We have to survive no matter what the cost; we are the only ones left now.
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: I don't see why we can't reach an understanding. Why can't we just live together?
- Mara Chaffee: If we coexist, we shall dominate you. That is inevitable. Eventually you will try to eliminate us. We are all creatures of the life force. Now it was set us at one another to see who will survive.
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: That's a cruel sport.
- Mara Chaffee: Life is cruelty. We all feed on each other, exploit each other in some way to survive.
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: [shakes his head] I don't agree with you.
- [walks over to where Mara is sitting]
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: I think that adaptation is the key to survival. Cooperation and symbiosis...
- [kneels by Mara's desk]
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: and compassion.
- Mara Chaffee: Why do you think your own survival depends upon emotion from us? Shoul we pity you? Empathize with your plight?
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: [bangs his fist on Mara's desk]
- [shouting]
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: You should feel! You should feel something!
- [stands up]
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: Without feelings, you're nothing. You're just second-rate mimics of a higher organism. That's right, higher organisms. We're your superiors in our capacity to love. Without compassion you're a doomed species.
- Mara Chaffee: Emotion is irrelevant. It is not our nature.
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: [looks back at David] Well, I'm not so sure you're right about that, Mara.
- Mara Chaffee: Emotion is irrelevant, it is not our nature
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: I'm not sure you're right about that, Mara.
- Mara Chaffee: Still you are aware of the others so you must be in some basic sense aware of who... what we are.
- Jill McGowan: Something very strange is happening to all of us... you know, they say the Roberts girl is a virgin.
- Dr. Susan Verner: Come back to the project, Alan. It's not just a matter of protecting your daughter anymore, as you can see it goes... far beyond that.
- Dr. Susan Verner: Let's cut to the chase here... it has become an interest to national science that we carefully research and monitor their developing powers. I ask for another year's grant.
- Older Deputy: Look, there is no research lab, there is no chemical plant! There is no toxic waste dump, there is no nuclear plant! There's no nothin' around here.
- Melanie Roberts: [David finds Melanie getting drunk in the cemetery, crying next to her stillborn child's tombstone] What's the matter?
- [sobbing miserably, she shakes the bottle of booze at David]
- Melanie Roberts: You want some?
- [David only stares blankly]
- Melanie Roberts: ... I'm sorry... I just can't hack it.
- [Melanie walks away, but first she gives a final backwards glance at David, tears streaming down her face. David has a vision of her wearing a bathrobe and using a revolver to kill herself. He blinks back tears, looking horrified]
- Carlton: Well, ain't ya gonna do somethin', or ya just gonna cry like all the other little pissants? Well do somethin' goddammit!
- Dr. Alan Chaffee: I can build a wall!
- [he passionately kisses Jill and then leaves, locking her in the schoolhouse]
- Jill McGowan: ...No! No, not David! No, he's not one of 'em!
- Carlton: I know your game. I know what you're up to. Ever since you got here, I been watchin'... watchin' people leave this town... watchin' things die. You ain't right. None of ya'. And one of these days, somebody's gonna do somethin' 'bout it.