The Outer Limits (TV Series)

Demon with a Glass Hand (1964)

Robert Culp: Trent

Photos 

Quotes 

• The Glass Hand : Stay alive. Above all, stay alive. Destiny is in your whole hand.

• Trent : I was in a dark place. Someone was calling my name over and over, down a long corridor.

  Consuelo : [amazed]  You were dead. The hand, it brought you back.

• Trent : Where are the future people of the Earth?

  The Glass Hand : In hiding. You are the key to releasing them.

  Trent : Where? Tell me.

  The Glass Hand : I am unable to answer. My mechanism is not whole.

• Trent : I'm trapped in a building with the Kyben. There's a woman with me. We can't escape. Tell me, what can I do?

  The Glass Hand : One hundred percent possibility of success is not available. Next success quotient only forty-seven percent probable.

  Trent : Well, tell me, what is it?

  The Glass Hand : Let them kill you.

• Consuelo : I'm sorry, it's just that I can't stand violence.

  Trent : When it's gone this far, it's more than just violence.

• The Glass Hand : You come from the Earth one thousand years in the future. The Kyben came from the stars, and Man had no defense against them. They conquered the planet Earth in a month, but before they could slaughter the millions of humans left, overnight without warning, without explanation, every man, woman and child of Earth vanished. You were the only one left, Mr. Trent. The glass hand the vanished earthmen have given you, to help you. They called you, "the last hope of humanity." The medallion you stole let you escape into Now, The Present, Today, and now you are among all the men of Earth who are alive today, but the Kyben gained possession of three parts of your hand, the computer that could answer all the questions. You have to get those three lobes to me, the computer brain, and find out what the alien Kyben really want from you, why you were the only man left alive one thousand years in the future, on the planet Earth. You must destroy the time mirror, to keep them from sending more Kyben through to the present, to close that doorway completely.

• Battle : I'm prepared to die.

  Trent : How prepared? Why not give yourself a couple of minutes?

• Trent : You Kyben were always super patriots, especially when you bombed Earth from ten miles out. How does your patriotism sit with burning women and children alive?

  Battle : That's war.

  Trent : So's this.

• Trent : Explain the gold medallions to me.

  Breech : The time mirror works safely only one way; coming into the past from the future.

  Trent : And when the medallions are pulled off?

  Breech : They're focusing elements for the mirror. It's... it's-it's as if time were a rubber band, and you were on one end stretched out tight. As long as the medallion's present, the band stays tight, but when you rip it off, we snap back up to the future.

  Trent : I'm wearing one. That makes me vulnerable?

  Breech : Yes, you're vulnerable... and we'll get you. We'll have to get you, finally. If you kill me, another will take my place. And if you kill him, another.

• Trent : To save all of Man, I have to become a killer.

• Consuelo : What are you going to do?

  Trent : [sigh]  Try to beat the Devil.

• Battle : We all knew we'd die when we came on this mission. It was worth it.

  Trent : You can stay alive in this time.

  Battle : I don't care about that. Helping my race is more important.

  Trent : Bargain week on patriots.

  Battle : Call it what you like. I'm not afraid to die.

  Trent : Really? Then why are you whispering?

• Battle : You'll never get out of this building alive. We'll bring more Kyben through the time mirror.

  Trent : That's my problem. Right now you have one of your own. I want to know who's carrying the other three parts of my brain.

• Trent : He came from the future... and so do I.

  Consuelo : But you said he wasn't human, that he was some other kind of being.

  Trent : Another world AND another time.

• Trent : What do you want?

  Arch : You, Mr. Trent. Give yourself up. Give yourself up, and we'll let you live.

  Trent : What is it you want? What?

  Arch : I want the 70 billion future earthmen, and you know where they are.

• [Trent surreptitiously enters the building through the basement] 

  Trent : Is this it?

  The Glass Hand : The Dixon Building. Once the most exclusive office building in the city, it has become the center of a slum. Now it houses cut-rate garment-piece goods offices, passport photographers and the like. One of these offices is a front for the Kyben and their time mirror.

  Arch : [off camera]  Welcome, Mr. Trent. I see Breech died a hero, Mr. Trent. He brought you to us. Infinitely easier than going to look for you. Ah, come along, Mr. Trent. We're here, all of us, and we're waiting for you. You don't think you can escape us, do you? One thousand years in the future, we conquered your planet in nineteen days. What chance do you think you have in the present? We've thrown a force bubble around the building. Invisible, impossible to break. You're trapped.

• Trent : [talking to Consuelo about the Kyben lying unconscious in front of them]  This is going to sound insane, but it's true, it's real, and you must listen to me. This is not a human being. He's from another planet, another solar system. He wants to kill me. He and the others like him. There's more, much more, but, uh, I have to get you to believe me, and there's only one way to do it. Now watch.

  [grabbing the medallion around the Kyben's neck, Trent rips it off, and the alien vanishes] 

  Consuelo : Gone! Where?

  Trent : [dropping the medallion on the floor]  Doesn't matter where. Just gone. Now do you believe me?

• Trent : Funny, I never seem to get tired, but I know I haven't slept since this thing began.

• Trent : I was born ten days ago. A full grown man, born ten days ago. I woke on a street of this city. I don't know who I am, or where I've been, or where I'm going. Someone wiped my memories clean. And they tracked me down, and tried to kill me. Why? Who are you? I ran. I managed to escape them the first time. And the hand, my... hand, told me what to do.