Stardate 42494.8: The Enterprise receives a distress call from the transport ship Lantree. The help, however, comes to late because the ship's whole crew has died of old age, although none of them actually was old. Picard sets a course for Darwin Station, the Lantree's last stop. The scientists on the station suffer from accelerated aging as well, only their genetically bred children do not have the disease. In order not to expose the Enterprise to the danger, Pulaski takes a shuttle to examine one of the children. She begins to age rapidly too. It turns out that the children are the actual source of the disease, because their immune system produces an antibody (against a harmless disease of one of the Lantree crewmen) that alters the DNA of every normal human being. Using the transporter and pieces of unaltered DNA, Pulaski and the staff of Darwin Station are cured eventually, whereas the children have to stay in quarantine for their whole lives.

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