While Dr. Smith is playing baseball with Penny, Will, and the Robot, an alien magician Zalto materializes with his ventriloquist dummy. Unfortunately for Dr. Smith, only he can see Zalto who uses the situation to impress upon Smith the idea he's losing his mind and that Zalto and the dummy are mere fantasies of his unhinged imagination. After a few more such incidents the Robot finally reveals to everyone that the magician and the dummy are real, and Will, Dr. Smith, and the Robot track Zalto down at his camp in a nearby cave. Zalto enlists Smith as an assistant, obstensibly to have him pilot a spaceship to bomb an asteroid with rockets which will then destroy the asteroid while spelling out Zalto's name "in flaming letters." In truth, the mission will kill the pilot, but Dr. Smith intends