From the Land of Fear
Page 17
TANNER: You think you can hack it, Tom?
KAGAN (nods): Let me handle it my way, and I think I can get through to him. Trusting me is the key.
TANNER (nods resignedly): Okay, I’ll do the best I can to run interference for you. But I just wish you could give me something to placate The Men Upstairs.
KAGAN (nods agreement): All right. I’ll give you something. (beat) You want to know what he keeps saying, over and over, without any change? He’s saying, “My name is Qarlo Clobregnny, private, six-five-one-oh-two-two-nine.” His name, rank, and serial number.
CAMERA HOLDS on Tanner’s startled face as we
DISSOLVE TO:
42 EXT. COUNTRYSIDE—LIGHTNING AND THUNDER—CLOSE SHOT—ENEMY—NIGHT
Now, although he continues to flail, we can see that as a result of the lightning his body instead of being cut off at the waist is now cut off at the knees.
FADE OUT.
ACT TWO
43 INT. PADDED CELL—CLOSEUP ON PICTURE BOOK—DAY
It is of the Giant Golden Book variety, patently for a child. A hand is pointing to a picture of a dog, a very large picture of a dog. And Kagan is speaking.
KAGAN (V.O.) (repeating): Dog. D-O-G. Dog, it’s a dog, Qarlo, a dog. You know it, you must know it, a dog!
CAMERA PULLS BACK to show us Kagan with the book on his lap, tapping the dog picture over and over, as Qarlo sits on his haunches near him, smoking. It is obvious Qarlo is merely tolerating what Kagan is doing. He smiles, just an edge of a smile. Kagan is infuriated.
KAGAN (continuing): Dog! Stop playing dumb! DOG!
Qarlo claps his hands to his ears as Kagan shouts. His teeth bare. He tears the cigarette from his mouth and grabs the book. He holds it up, smashes his finger into the picture.
QARLO: Dogizzadog! Dog! Dogdogdogdogdog…!
He tears the book in half, flings the pieces against the wall, stares defiantly at Kagan. Then he shrugs bitterly, smiles as though it were spitting, and walks to the other side of the room, where he slides down to a sitting position.
KAGAN (wearily): I give up.
Qarlo snickers. Kagan looks up, angry. Qarlo sneers. And then as camera holds on Kagan he realizes: Qarlo understands! He has reached him.
44 PERSPECTIVE SHOT
FROM QARLO FAR ACROSS THE ROOM TO KAGAN with their faces very distinct, every expression catalogued.
KAGAN: You know, don’t you? You understand everything I’m saying and doing, don’t you? Not in my words, or yours, but you know! And you won’t give me an inch will you? Will you, damn it!
Qarlo says nothing.
KAGAN (continuing): Where you come from, who you are, you’ll tell me; yes, you will; soon enough. But not till I tell you where you are, who I am—right?
Qarlo snickers deprecatingly. His face tells it all.
KAGAN (continuing): How could they have thought you were a dumb brute. You’re quicker than I’d be in your place, soldier. Qarlo. Private. 6-5-1-0-2-2-9.
QARLO: Dogdogdogdogdogdogdogdog…!
KAGAN: A-B-C-D-E-1-2-3-4-5-6-!
QARLO: DogaKaganaDogaKaganaDog…dammit!
CAMERA COMES IN SLOWLY on Qarlo’s face as he spits out the words rapidly one after another, like a machine gun spitting bullets, bambambambambambam as we
DISSOLVE:
45 INT. BALLISTICS LAB ENTRANCE DOOR—DAY
Door opens and Kagan enters. He looks o.s. and sees Tanner. Camera goes with him as he crosses to Tanner who is examining Qarlo’s rifle along with a report in his hand. In the b.g. a ballistics expert is examining a piece of metal under a microscope.
KAGAN: They told me you were here checking his rifle again. I’ve got to talk to you.
TANNER (stunned): Kagan, this weapon is incredible! There’s no power source, none at all. It’s inexhaustible. I could fire it steadily for a month and its power wouldn’t decrease by a kilowatt.
KAGAN: Tanner…
Tanner crosses and removes the piece of melted metal from under the microscope. Shows it to Kagan.
TANNER: This is what’s left of a 4 foot square, 3 foot thick solid steel bulkhead.
KAGAN: My God!
TANNER (cuts him off): Do you know we took this thing apart, disassembled every piece, and it has only three moving parts. (1/2 beat) And they tried leaving out half a dozen pieces, and it still worked! And we don’t know how, not the faintest idea! (then) By the way, what’s so important?
KAGAN (sharply): I broke through this morning. I think we talked.
TANNER: You think you talked?
KAGAN (softly): He’s from the future, Paul. Eighteen hundred years in Earth’s future.
Tanner stares at him incredulously. Camera holds for several long beats as Tanner reorganizes his thinking. He shakes himself physically, draws deep breath.
TANNER: But…how…
KAGAN: He doesn’t really know. I don’t think anyone could know, because it was a freak accident. In his future they fight their wars with beams of force—and he was caught between two of them. And the next thing he knew…(he snaps his fingers)
TANNER (picks it up):…he was here, in the present.
KAGAN: Correction: in the past. His past, our present.
TANNER: He told you all this?
KAGAN (shakes head): Only fragments of it. I had to piece it together and draw my own conclusions from most of it. He was about to attack someone he keeps calling The Enemy…with capital letters…
TANNER: You two are becoming very chummy. Coffee klatsches, yet
KAGAN: It’s only rudimentary conversation. I think he’s been able to decipher what I’ve been saying all along. It must sound to him like a phonograph record of English as spoken by—say—Chaucer, played at the wrong speed, a slower speed, would sound to us.
TANNER: Then it is English he’s speaking.
KAGAN: Not really. Not entirely. It’s what I thought, gutter English, vastly speeded-up, and filled with slang from his time.
TANNER: Eighteen hundred years…
KAGAN:…in the future. Exactly.
TANNER: How did you get that out of him?
KAGAN: I wasn’t certain he was even from this planet, so I—
SHARP CUT TO:
46 INT. PADDED CELL—EXTREME CLOSEUP ON STAR MAP—DAY
spread on floor. Camera pulls back to show Qarlo and Kagan looking at the map.
KAGAN: This is our galaxy. These stars here. This is our sun, light, up there…and here: one, two, three. Third from the sun…Earth…
Qarlo follows his fingers as they point out nebulae, white dots on the blue star map, the larger blowup of the Solar System. Kagan talks, but mostly to himself, knowing Qarlo cannot understand him:
KAGAN (tapping Earth): Here. Here. Earth…(makes wide arm movement in air) Us. This dot. The Earth. Now…(he taps Qarlo) Which one is yours. Which star. Which planet. Qarlo…which…?
Qarlo shakes his head as though Kagan was a dullard. He wipes his hand across the star map, finally settles on the same point Kagan had touched. The Earth.
KAGAN (wearily): No, man, that’s the Earth! Which planet is yours…?
Qarlo taps the paper again. Same spot. Kagan registers a dawning realization. He pulls a large tablet of writing paper from his briefcase lying on the floor nearby, and with a ballpoint pen quickly sketches the Solar System, circling Earth heavily. He gives the pen to Qarlo.
47 CLOSEUP—QARLO
as he looks at the pen. He turns it over and over, examining it as though it were the rarest jewel he had ever seen. Then Kagan urges him, tearing off the top sheet, and indicating Qarlo should write. Qarlo quickly bends to the task, and though at first he uses the pen incorrectly, he masters it in a few moments and draws the same thing Kagan drew.
KAGAN: Great! Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it doesn’t help us much—
Qarlo cuts him off with a rapid wave of his hand. He pulls the star map to him, indictaes the Milky Way, the galaxy in which Earth spins around its sun.
KAGAN (continuing): Right. Our solar system. Our galaxy. Okay. Now what?
Qarlo begins sketching, faster and faster, making dots in concentric patterns. Kagan studies them. Finally Qarlo stops. He taps the Milky Way on the star map, then his own drawing. Kagan picks up Qarlo’s drawing. He stares at it.
KAGAN: It’s our galaxy. The same as the star map, the same as—
CAMERA COMES IN FOR EXTREME CLOSEUP as Kagan’s eyes widen. His mouth opens in astonishment as we
SHARP CUT TO:
48 INT. BALLISTICS LAB
MATCHING SHOT AS SCENE 45 when we cut away. We have been in a flashback as we can see from the fact that Tanner and Kagan are in the same exact positions as when we left them in Scene 45.
KAGAN: Except it wasn’t our galaxy. At least not the way it is today. (beat) I took that drawing to a friend of mine at the Naval Observatory. He thought it was an amusing sketch. But it took him four hours to plot it correctly.
TANNER: Well? What was it?
KAGAN (flat): The position the stars of our galaxy will be in…in eighteen hundred years.
Tanner’s eyes widen. He wipes his mouth which is suddenly dry. He pulls out a pack of gum. Anti-climactically:
TANNER: Have a piece of gum…
CAMERA HOLDS on them as Kagan takes the gum, and they stare at each other across a drawing abyss of fear and anxiety.
DISSOLVE TO:
49 INT. PEDDED CELL—FULL SHOT—NIGHT
MOVIE SCREEN set up at one end of the dark cell. Kagan is running the projector, Qarlo watching various scenes on the screen, (stock). The first scene: a mother affectionately holding child.
KAGAN: Love. Love. Love.
The scene flashes: war; a shot of incredible violence.
KAGAN (continuing): Hate. Hate. Hate.
New scene: man and woman walking through forest, kissing.
KAGAN (continuing): Love. Love. Love.
As the scene of war flashes, Qarlo slides up the wall, watching with fascinated face. As the scenes of love flash, he looks confused, does not understand.
New scene: an attacker, teeth bared, sword raised, large in the frame, bearing down on them.
Qarlo suddenly leaps forward, pushes the projector on its side, knocking the reel off. The projector continues to run as Qarlo rushes to the screen. As he rips it to shreds, literally snaps the steel legs of the instrument, the flickering light continues on him. He spins on Kagan, stops and, pulsing like a furnace about to explode, clenches his fists.
QARLO (furious): Why’dja’yoo peep me thiz?
His speech is still slurred, run together, and dotted with slang from his own time, but we can now understand what he says without translation. Kagan tries to placate him. He turns on a lamp and turns off the projector.
KAGAN: I want you to know. I want you to understand.
QARLO (aims sharp finger): I catch. You! You’re’da drumbum. Send me home’a’ways. Now! Doncha know thereza war-ron?
Kagan comes toward Qarlo. The soldier backs up. He is obviously restraining himself from tearing Kagan in half.
KAGAN (helplessly): I can’t send you home, Qarlo. I don’t know how; no one knows how. Your home doesn’t exist yet.
QARLO: Lovehate, lovehate, fret it.
KAGAN: I can’t forget it.
QARLO: Fret it. Thinkspeek’ll pull me.
KAGAN: I don’t understand that. I’m sorry.
Qarlo snarls. He shakes his head. He taps his head several times, trying to get his meaning across to Kagan.
QARLO: Thinkspeek! Thinkspeek! C.O. See-Oh! See-Oh! Ah, fret it!
He turns away, leans against the wall, and suddenly—but quietly—pounds his fist into the wall pads. His fury is a controlled thing, but the passion is there. Kagan moves in to touch him on the shoulder, a compassionate gesture. Qarlo whirls and with one catlike movement literally lifts Kagan off the floor, pins him against the wall, his feet dangling. The fires that have burned low in Qarlo suddenly blaze forth. He is the kill-machine.
50 CLOSEUP—TWO SHOT—QARLO AND KAGAN
THEIR FACES close together as Qarlo hisses into Kagan’s face.
QARLO: Donnever…touch…me…!
He is banging Kagan against the wall mercilessly, repeating “don’t ever touch me” over and over and over The sound of the door slamming open.
51 WIDE ANGLE—THE SCENE
as two MPs rush in, grapple with Qarlo; Kagan drops, clutching his neck; the MPs are tossed this way and that, finally club Qarlo into unconsciousness. They help Kagan up. He stumbles to Qarlo, looks at his wound. He shakes his head sadly as we
DISSOLVE TO:
52 INT. DISPENSARY—CLOSEUP—NIGHT
on a bare chest being taped up. As camera angle widens we see Kagan being attended by a doctor, who is neatly taping up his ribs in wide, white swaths of tape. Tanner sits nearby, one foot on a small stool, watching.
TANNER: Well, how does it feel to be dribbled like a basketball?
KAGAN: It was my fault.
TANNER: Oh, cut it out, Kagan.
KAGAN: It was my fault! It was literally the first time in his life anyone had ever touched him!
TANNER: You just can’t admit it when you fail, can you? Well get it straight, Tom, that soldier is only a half a step up from a wild animal, and he has to be treated that way. Caged!
KAGAN: Listen, Tanner…ouch!
DOCTOR: It’ll be worse than “ouch” if you don’t stop squirming.
TANNER: Five weeks, and what’ve you got to show? Nothing but a set of staved-in ribs and one beautiful headache from having your skull bounced off a wall.
KAGAN: And I’ve got him speaking our language.
TANNER: Not so’s I noticed. Every third word’s gibberish.
KAGAN: Not gibberish…common usage from his own, time. And have you stopped to think how valuable even those clues are to our future?
DOCTOR: That’s it. Do us both a favor and try not to let him use you for a ping-pong ball. I have to requisition tape, and that’s a nuisance.
Doctor gathers his things and exits. Kagan starts to put on his shirt with Tanner’s help.
TANNER: Tom, we can’t let you go back in there with him. He can’t be controlled, he can’t be predicted…he’s—
KAGAN: He’s a man!
TANNER: He’s not a man, he’s something else. Just look in his eyes, Tom, at the hate in them; you can see he was born to be a killer!
KAGAN: That’s the point. He was born to be a killer; and trained to be a killer; and if he hadn’t found his way into our time, he’d die a killer. But he doesn’t hate, Paul! He doesn’t understand hate…or love…or compassion.
TANNER: And you think you can teach him what they mean?
KAGAN: Not in that cell…
TANNER (suspiciously): Kagan…
KAGAN: I want you to release him.
Tanner looks stupefied.
KAGAN (continuing): I mean it. I want to take him home with me.
TANNER: Home with you! Oh, now come on!
Kagan grabs Tanner’s arm. He speaks with intensity. He has to convince him.
KAGAN: He hasn’t done anything to keep him penned up like a criminal. That old man only fainted, and Qarlo was simply defending himself in a strange situation when he fired at the police car.
TANNER: Don’t you think we’ve considered that? It’s not just a fine legal point, Tom. It’s his freedom, I know that, they know it at the Bureau. But we can’t turn him loose, ready to go off at any moment.
KAGAN: So let me try and teach him what it means to be a functioning human being. He can adapt; he’s quick; he can fit in.
TANNER: Tom, it’s lunacy.
KAGAN: But I can try.
TANNER: Forget it, it’s too risky.
KAGAN: But I can try!
TANNER: I’m trying to tell you, Tom, it’s not my decision to make. The Bureau has kept this thing top secret only by working full time. Right now there are half a dozen newspapermen whose mouths are shut only b
ecause they know what would happen if they leaked something like this.
KAGAN: Fine. Then no one would know he was at my home. We’re in the country, few neighbors around…
TANNER (blurts): Tom, they want him in prison—
Kagan stares at him, dumfounded.
KAGAN (stunned): Prison…?
TANNER (a little ashamed): I didn’t want to say anything. The Bureau’s been getting static. A Top Secret like this is too hot to leave lying around. They want him boxed in permanently.
KAGAN: You can’t do it, Paul.
TANNER: What else can I do?
KAGAN: Give him to me…(beat) Just a month. One month more, Paul. That’s all I ask. I think he’ll progress to a point where they’ll reconsider. Just one month.
TANNER: I’d have to argue it out with the Men Upstairs. They’d never go along with it.
KAGAN: One miserable month!
TANNER: A week.
KAGAN: Not enough time…I need a month. Make it three weeks…
TANNER: Two weeks, can you do it in two weeks?
KAGAN (relieved): All right, two weeks…
TANNER: What about your family? How are they going to like the idea of a potential killer in the same house with them?
KAGAN: I’ve already talked to them about it.
TANNER: And..?
KAGAN: Abby’s not sure. But both the kids are fascinated.
TANNER: I think that soldier’s playing you for a sucker, Tom. I don’t think he’s as wide-eyed to learn as you make out.
KAGAN: He’s confused. He needs to know.
TANNER: You’re wrong, I know you’re wrong. He’s a crafty, dangerous animal. And he’s got you working for him. Don’t forget…even in the future, a captured prisoner of war’s first obligation is to escape.
Tanner spreads his hands helplessly. He shakes his head.
TANNER (continuing): You’re making an old man of me, Kagan.
KAGAN: But you’ll do it.
TANNER: I’ll talk to the Chief. That’s all I guarantee. But after I do, you’ll probably be having conferences with me in the cell next to Qarlo’s.
Kagan fumbles in his pocket, pulls out a pack, extends it.
KAGAN: Have a piece of gum…
Tanner smiles helplessly. Kagan could get around a plaster saint. They start toward the door as we
DISSOLVE TO: