keep this from getting wet. go home at late afternoon mealtime and don't come back to work today -- i'll tell the abbot. just rest today. you're lucky you only burned yourself on the side of the furnace. if some of that glass had gotten on your arm -- -- it would've burned clean through to the other side. that's late afternoon. now get on. you're welcome. go! all right, but i'm no father anselm. don't. please don't tell him. at least until i know if there's an infection. you don't, but thanks anyway. i have someone waiting for me. come on, mattias. brother philip. my training has taught me to feed what's hungry. how could i forget? have a good meal. perfect. he likes when i read to him and -- i can't -- father, i --? i'll reserve judgement until the patient lives. thank you. let's go upstairs, boy. walks to the shore of an inland sea. sits on a bare patch of wood. looks up. his eyes grow accustomed to -- in the year of our lord 1348 i, brother gerhado of the minorite abbey helped bury the abbot and my sixty fellow monks, day by day, one by one, until i am the only one left. i stayed as long as i could bear it, then with my dog -- - fled. i have put this to parchment lest this pestilence - this black death - stay my hand. this was finished by another hand. joined by three other monks. they are older than he. the four men watch the sky. is the first to hit the shore. small leather and wood fishing boats tossed by the wake. his coracle is the first into the water. the others running up behind him. he cannot hear the shouts of warning. rows right into it. his coracle pitches in the choppy surf. he scrambles onto the ship's cracked tile surface. teeters -- balances -- moves to the unmistakeable hatch. looks around for a knob, a handle -- looks back towards the door. part of him wants to get the hell out here -- but he fights back his fear. he is a doctor - or trying to be - someone in here may need his help. he presses forward -- averts his gaze from the clothing, up to the blinking and glowing instrument panels and their myraid -- no. no supplies. kyle, there's someone in here -- i don't want to stay. i have to get her out before this sinks. you come in, give me a hand -- all right -- i'm supposed to be a doctor. she could've been lost. lights. so many lights -- machines. buttons. metal. thousands of lights. like the stars. like heaven on earth. he smiles at her. friendly, not sexual. sits next to her. quite asleep. hands swathed in white bandages. book resting on his lap. you're out of it. out of it. i don't think she's here yet. she is close, though. what is it -- what's wrong? but i. her meals -- father, i don't understand -- what?! huh? a woman? one of your sheep? jesus christ. call a vet. you're no help. okay, let me get my bag. all creatures great and small. so would i. it's freezing in here. haven't we all. may be pneumonia. pitch some of that hay around her. stop this damn cold breeze. first, i'll -- wait a minute. i don't know. it's all over the ground. some sort of -- jesus! help m -- face contorted, eyes glued to the burning creature. heaving lungs push air through his diaphram, but no sound comes from his open mouth -- the doctor in training has seen the devil. this woman. ripley. i tended her -- please, sir, let me finish. i feel that there may be something to what she says. i don't understand what you are doing. from what? this woman? you never gave her a chance. how can you be so sure you're right? you didn't see this thing -- this demon -- brother graham and i -- we both saw it. i -- i don't know what it was. but i don't think ripley was a party to it. but she tried to warn us -- but i believe her. i don't know how to describe it -- a feeling. here. it's - it's her conviction. i just think -- that's what she said. but i -- yes, father. picks his way through the mess. like a man possessed he fumbles through book after book. now find john and have him brought to me immediately. i -- abbot. must -- yes. devil. don't humor me -- i'm -- can smell the dank air from the lower tunnels. he must go down -- the hard way. he climbs into the darkness. ripley! anthony? thought you dead fifteen years. i -- i'm looking -- the abbot -- puh. please. wait a minute - i thought you were the expert on this monster. yes. i mean no. i mean, that was part of it. look. i never thought you were wrong. i was wrong not to say anything. i was afraid to speak up. it's hard to be a monk, you know? we all are. took vows. i'm sure he thinks what he did was right. no. charity. arceon. we can't. leave arceon. can't leave the library -- books. the reason we are out here. like the monks who guarded monastery libraries on remote islands off england during the first plague -- some of these books survived the burning of the libraries of alexandria. they contain knowledge that exists in no other record. their value is unestimable. we're supposed to protect them. he's a spy. colony. the order was more of a counter culture, a reaction to the technology that was beginning to take over everyone's lives. it was a simple enough idea - read, don't watch disk. walk, don't pump more carbons into the air. the earliest members renounced technology. started to collect the remaining books. nobody would have noticed if it hadn't been for the virus. after a scare like that, thousands flocked to our retreat. people started clamoring for written information. for our books. they abandoned the modern ways -- they sold the technology. a movement to live simply was quickly twisted by federal agents into a political movement against the company-controlled world government. too much was at stake. we were sentenced as political dissidents. this orbiter is our gulag. all the men were packed up with all our books, and towed into space. ten thousand men. the eldest died very quickly. perhaps. the abbey, the fields -- the sea. as a stone falls --- five miles through the center. ropes cut. there are ladders. you can't -- i need you. i can't do it alone. we renounced technology. it was those things that caused the plague. god? i don't know. i just took it for granted. that's five levels up -- a chance. those things you said before -- i read about it in psychology books. sometimes when people outlive someone they cared for, they transfer some of the guilt for that person's death to themselves. you make it sound human. i think i do. struggles to keep his death grip on anthony's hand. it's all that keeps anthony from falling back down the shaft -- jesus christ. ripleeeee -! breathing heavy - opens his eyes -- he's staring right into ripley's face. less than an inch away. he's laying on top of her. she's breathing heavy too. a long, uncomfortable moment. you're welcome. hold this against your nose. it'll stop the flow. i'm a doctor. visions. they're portents. they stand for an evil yet to come. you need sleep. no. we all need rest. you especially. doctor's orders. besides, you see what happens when you get ahead of us. we should stay together. what do you mean? see my bag? just a book. it's just. a medical book i might need. only if you can eat bandages. you all right? you weren't hurt when i landed on you? bruised a rib? sort of. my father passed on when we first came here. the abbey's physician - father anselm - took me in. he really raised me -- taught me what he could before he passed away. he was schooled on earth. you haven't eaten since i took you out of your tube. blood. mixed with sea water. getting close. father -- no one could be. we are going to the technology room. trying to find some way to fight -- please. sir --? ripley -- brother. i just - are you allright? hello? i think this is it. picks up anthony's staff. begins to flail away at the demon. whacks the alien with anthony's staff -- again. again. the creature will not let anthony go. the android writhes in its grasp, his face now a blistered, pulpy mass, eyes gone. his hand closes around the end of one of the traps -- he brings it up -- snap!! it slams closed on the alien's extended tongue -! the beast bellows!! whips its head from side to side -- can't shake off the trap -- acid blood sprays out --! lands as pools of fire on the wooden floor. pries anthony's ankle out of his trap. scoops up his staff, drags the moaning android -- back up the corridor -- hurry!! i thought we'd lost you. last will and testament. just kidding. resting. he'll be fine. sir. we're all in the same coracle, so to speak. yes. what? ripley, wait -- ripley, don't -- i believe - i know - that we can win -- there is an answer in our books. if that's true, then all of us, the books, are consigned to ashes. how does this explain the thing that came out of the ewe's chest? the abbot's head? no what? brother -- we had better go, then. must be day on the surface of the planet. mirrors. reflect the outside light down great shafts -- through lenses. that's what they make in the glass factory. lenses. look -- opens to the surface. water flows in and out. i don't know how. there's one at either end. i came down on the other side. we cross. they'll be fine. you've been on a boat before. father anselm used to take me on his coracle when i was little. five. the abbot said they put us to sleep for the thirty years it took to get here. we've had almost forty more. until now. never had one. i mean, never knew her. i mean, i did, once. she left my father when he joined the movement. if she hadn't i wouldn't be here. they kept the other children with the women, on earth. that was too long ago now. like a dream. the girl in the ship with -? jesus christ. you didn't choose to get lost in space. brother. from the levels above. he must have slaughtered all -- there's andrew. and raphael. peter. we're right below the abbey now. this is the glassworks. they have tools here -- kyle -- kyle. brother kyle. kyle goddammit! keep singing, my friend. i killed him. i'm a doctor and i killed him. no. he hasn't been up here yet. i did this. here - philosophy - we'll start here -- mattias! he waited. ripley, this is mattias. my dog. good fellow. easy, boy. not that will do us any good. we hurt it. on the roof directly above this room. but the books -- no! the books!! finds himself hanging over the bubbling glass vat - caught - dangling on the flying fox rope. five feet away - the ledge the flying fox is launched from. he looks down: are you all right? has reached the ledge overlooking the furnace. he stands. sees ripley slowly rising -- ripley -! grabs the flying fox handle. swings down the rope - across the room -- past the alien -- ripley - the lever!! saw that happen to a bottle once. we've got to get to the library -- some of them! i've got to save some of them! mattias!! the library -- what does that mean? it means the abbot could've been right -- not everything. some things will be lost forever. what can i do? hey! what?! hey - i'm locked in. what? what?! you can't -- my book -- i know what to do -- you can't do this. ripley - listen to me - you're confusing feeling of guilt for actual sin - i can help you -- no! no, goddammit - you can't do this. you can't let it win. listen to me! you have to let me try! ripley: you're my only chance! i told you father anselm raised me. he raised me and when he was dying i couldn't do anything to save him. i didn't know enough. it was my fault he died. if you don't let me try to save you my body will live but my soul will be dead. please. something that will make you well. something that will make you sick. shut up and drink. choking. it was the only way. gulps back the oozing slime. struggles to his feet. they knew. that's idea. join. my brothers. if we were right, heaven. if we were wrong -- either way, where we belong. world of books. pages. you. are from the real world. stay -- both of you.