As the team beams down to attend to the injured and fix the reactor, a father and daughter, Liko and Oji, notice the cave while en route to read the sundial. Liko climbs up and sees the crew, but is then startled and falls, breaking his back. Beverly, not willing to let him die from injuries they caused, beams up to sickbay with him. Picard growls a bit at this, and orders Bev to erase his short-term memory. Liko, however, awakes long enough to hear Picard order the search for Dr. Palmer continued, and his body chemistry prevents the erasure from working. He tells Oji of his journey to a remarkable place, and believes that Picard is their old legend of "the Overseer", a god.
When sensors prove useless to locate Palmer, Riker and Troi, surgically altered to resemble Mintakans, beam down. They hear Liko's talk and inform Picard of the situation, who is understandably distressed. Matters are made worse when the Mintakans find Palmer and decide to hold him for "the Picard". One of the researchers, Dr. Barron, insists that Palmer be immediately beamed up, but Picard refuses. Then, while Troi lures the Mintakans away, Riker frees Palmer and gets him to the Enterprise. Unfortunately, Troi is then held captive to assure "the Picard" that the Mintakans were not responsible. Barron recommends that Picard beam down, pretending to be their god, and give them a set of guidelines, but Picard refuses, saying to do so violates "the very essence of the Prime Directive." When it's theorized that if they can convince Nuria, the tribe's leader, of Picard's humanity, she can convince the others, Picard decides to beam her aboard to "show her how the magic works."
Before long, he manages to convince Nuria to overcome her awe, and even convinces her intellectually that he is not a god, but merely further advanced. However, she does not believe emotionally until she sees the third researcher, Dr. Warren, die, and realizes that Picard is not the master of life and death. She and Picard return just as Liko, filled with religious fervor, is about to kill Troi. When Picard arrives, Liko worships him and asks him to bring back Liko's wife. When Picard says he cannot, Liko insists he can, and threatens to prove he is the Overseer by shooting him with a bow. Picard stands still, willing to die if it is the only way to set matters right. Fortunately, Oji jogs the bow as Liko fires, and Picard is only wounded. They tell Nuria and the tribe that they have been watched, and that revealing themselves in the first place was an accident, and depart.