Think Like a Dinosaur (The Outer Limits)

Introduction

Dinosaur-like aliens have set up an installation on the moon to teach humans interstellar teleportation. When an accidental duplicate of a woman is created by the teleportation process, it creates an ethical dilemma.

Plot

Michael Burr is the only permanent human occupant of the Tuulen station, situated on a vast empty plain of the Moon. His companions are the Hanen, an emotionless dinosaur-like alien species who have developed a highly advanced means of long distance travel by 'jumping' through space. Achieved by creating an exact duplicate of the jumper, the copy is reconstituted at the destination point and the original destroyed, thus leaving only one.

Kamala Shastri is one of the test jumpers to arrive for travel to the planet Gend, but in the final stage of the transfer, something inexplicable happens. Confirmation of her duplicate's arrival is not received from Gend and the procedure is temporarily aborted. When it's later determined that Kamala's copy does indeed exist, Michael is called upon to 'balance the equation' and eliminate the original. Michael knows the human race is desperate to access a technology that would allow them to leave behind a planet now virtually destroyed by pollution and over-population. He also knows it is imperative that he avoid a protocol breach with the Hanen, but can he bring himself to kill Kamala?

Michael slowly develops feelings for Kamala, and he remembers his deceased wife whom he could not save from disease. Because of this, he can't bring himself to kill Kamala. Michael is eventually convinced by the Hanen that "duplicates" create too many problems, and he deceives Kamala into thinking he will help her escape only to release her from an airlock. Two years later, the "real" Kamala returns (she's actually a copy of the copy since she jumped back) and recognizes Michael as her co-ordinator on that original jump. Obviously tormented from murdering her original, Michael claims that she must be mistaken.