The Enterprise comes acrossa huge, antiquated vessel floating in space and carrying a colony of primitivehuman beings who have been lost in space. While the colonists are in perfecthealth, they must deal with the culture shock of learning that a world existsoutside of their spaceship. Their initial reaction is fear, as they believethe crew of the Enterprise to be "demons." And their fears are heightened withthe belief that Captain Kirk and his crew are unaware of an outside forcepulling them into a whirlpool of death.