Data Stellare 5843.7: A causa di un'epidemia di febbre rigeliana a bordo dell'Enterprise, Kirk, Spock e McCoy scendono su Holberg 917G per cercare della ryetalina, l'unico antidoto per quella malattia. Qui trovano Flint, un umano che sembra aver vissuto sulla Terra secoli addietro, e la sua protetta Rayna Kapec.

Rayna Kapec: What is loneliness?
Flint: It is a thirst... it is a flower, dying in a desert. [T:07:54]

McCoy: Mr. Spock, I know you won't have one [100 year old Saurian Brandy]. Heaven forbid those matematically perfect brainwaves be corrupted by this all too human vice.
Spock: Thank you, Doctor. I will have a brandy.
McCoy: Do you think the two of us can handle a drunk Vulcan? [T:08:49]

Spock: I am close to experiencing an unaccustomed emotion.
McCoy: I'll drink to that. [T:09:11]

Flint: ...the intellect is not all, but its cultivation must come first, or the individual makes errors... wastes time in unprofitable pursuits. [T:12:47]

Kirk: Those pressures are everywhere... in everyone, urging him to what you call «savagery». The private hells -the inner needs and mysteries -the beast instinct. As human beings, that is the way it is. To be human is to be complex. You can't avoid a little ugliness, from within, and from without. [T:15:13]

Flint: To be human is also to seek pleasure. To laugh... to dance. [T:15:49]

Flint: Death, when unnecessary, is a tragic thing. [T:24:45]

Spock: The joys of love made her human and the agonies of love destroyed her. [T:44:25]

McCoy: ...the things love can drive a man to -the ecstasies, the miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious failures and the glorious victories. [T:46:34]

Spock: Forget. [T:47:36]