Phral materializes in the Enterprise transporter room, but falls dead with a dagger in his back. The royal palace from which he was beamed informs Kirk that no one assaulted him on the planet. Captain's log supplemental: If Ambassador Phral was alive when he left the planet, and dead when he reached the Enterprise, he must have been stabbed while in transit. Yet a transporter functions by separating its subjects into their component atoms and reassembling them elsewhere!