The City on the Edge of Forever
Page 15
He CONTINUES UNDER as we CLOSE on Kirk and Spock. Spock looks at Kirk with disbelief.
SPOCK
Is this the heritage Earthmen brag about? This sickness?
KIRK
(disgusted)
This is what it’s taken us five hundred years to crawl up from.
49 REVERSE ANGLE—ORATOR’S POV
as he sees Spock in the rear of the crowd. The fanaticism of his harangue is suddenly halted. He rises on tip-toe and suddenly points a finger.
ORATOR
There! There’s one! There’s one of them foreign trouble-makers. Whyn’t we show him how we like his kind!
The crowd turns almost in a body, and there is a definite MURMUR THRU THE CROWD as they see Spock—an obvious alien though they have no idea how alien—who looks around uneasily. Kirk edges away with his phaser leveled, and we wonder for a beat if Kirk is possibly deserting his companion.
ORATOR
(hysterically)
They’re the ones sending this country deeper into the Depression! They’re the ones that want your babies to die with swollen bellies, they’re the ones!
But he doesn’t need to finish. The crowd suddenly HOWLS and goes for Spock. Spock lays about with vigor, sending men sprawling. Kirk backs away. And then, he levels the phaser at a lamppost, and with a SIZZLE the weapon goes off, disintegrating the lamppost. The crowd falls back in horror. Spock and Kirk run like hell out of FRAME.
50 thru 56 EXT. NEW YORK STREETS—LATE DAY MONTAGE
as they run. An attempt should be made in this sequence by use of CAMERA TILT and SMASH-CUT and LAP-DISSOLVE and ARRIFLEX to give a tone of plunging disorientation. They are in another time, strictly speaking an alien world, and they are being pursued by a mob, though we need not show the mob. But by use of ERRATIC ANGLES (up from street-level; flashing past camera; down on them as they race by) with MUSIC OVER we can obtain a sense of phantasmagoria in seven shots:
DOWN A LONG EMPTY STREET OF ECHOING BUILDINGS
AROUND A CORNER AND AWAY FROM US INTO AND DOWN THE LENGTH OF AN ALLEY KNOCKING OVER GARBAGE CANS IN THEIR WILD FLIGHT
STRAIGHT FOR US AS THEY JUMP TO CATCH THE TOP OF A FENCE AND TENNESSEE-ROLL OVER IT
THROUGH A BACKYARD HUNG WITH WASH
KIRK GRABS SPOCK AND PULLS HIM DOWN
SOME STEPS INTO A SHADOWY BASEMENT ENTRANCE.
57 INT. BASEMENT—WITH SPOCK & KIRK
as they plunge through the darkness, their momentum carrying them all the way to the rear near a coal bin from which coal spills onto the basement floor itself. A furnace of the old stoke type. They slip behind it and slide down to sit with their backs against the wall as CAMERA CLOSES ON THEM.
SPOCK
Barbarian world!
KIRK
They were hungry, and afraid.
SPOCK
As violent as any aborigine world we ever landed on.
KIRK
All right, we’re safe now.
SPOCK
I would call this anything but “safe.” Barbarians!
KIRK
You’re an accomplished ethnologist, Spock; you know all races go through a violent phase.
SPOCK
My race never languished in such ignorant behavior for thousands of years. We went to space in peace. Earthmen came with all of this behind them.
KIRK
(aroused)
And that’s why you hit space two hundred years after us!
SPOCK
Try to tell me Earthmen uplifted my race. Tell me that, and use Beckwith as an example of nobility.
KIRK
I should have left you for the mob!
Spock is about to say something that borders on pique. He starts, stops, resumes his mask of imperturbable alien calm.
SPOCK
I spoke out of turn…Captain.
Kirk simmers down. He chuckles.
KIRK
Mr. Spock. You’re picking up dirty habits hanging around with Earthmen. Emotionalism.
SPOCK
(piqued, but not about to show it)
We have some immediate problems…Captain.
KIRK
(bemused)
You draw a certain amount of attention, Mr. Spock. We’ll have to disguise you.
Spock says nothing, but there is a look of disgust on his face. He half turns away. Kirk rises.
KIRK
There’s a line of clothes back there. I’ll see if I can, uh, liberate some period costumes for us.
SPOCK
See if you can locate a ring to go through my nose.
Kirk smiles with amusement, and slips out of the basement as Spock settles back uneasily, looking around, and we
DISSOLVE TO:
58 INT. BASEMENT—ANOTHER ANGLE
ON SPOCK & KIRK now dressed in ill-fitting (NOTE: please please please let these clothes not be tailor-made for them, it always looks phony!) 1930s-style garb. They are buttoning the last buttons as we COME TO THEM.
KIRK
We’d better get out of here.
JANITOR’S VOICE O.S.
What’s your hurry, fellahs?
They turn sharply and in the dim light from the stairwell leading upstairs we see a man in overalls, a JANITOR, who is watching them.
KIRK
We were just going. It’s cold out there.
The Janitor comes down toward them. He has a shovel in his hands, but though he holds it ready, there is nothing menacing about the pose. He is an older man, early fifties, with a friendly, open face. He approaches. Spock fades back a bit, letting shadows obscure him.
JANITOR
Oh, don’t fret it none. I get a lot of bindlestiffs down here. You can hang around awhile if you like, get the chill off.
KIRK
(uneasily)
No, we’d better be going.
They start past him and he turns to watch them.
JANITOR
Hey…Bo.
Kirk and Spock stop, turn around.
JANITOR
I need a couple of men to clean up the alley, sweep out the airshaft—you know, tenants always dumping stuff down there.
(beat)
I’d be willing to let you bunk out down here in exchange. Give you some bedding.
Kirk and Spock look at each other.
KIRK
Well, that’s kind of you, but…
JANITOR
Long as you don’t swipe nothing, it’ll work out fine. You need a place, I need some help.
CAMERA MOVES IN PAST Janitor to CLOSE 2-SHOT of Kirk and Spock as Kirk looks at Spock and murmurs sotto voce:
KIRK
(smiling)
Worse than any barbarians?
HARD CUT TO:
59 INT. STAIRWELL—TENEMENT BLDG.—DAY—SPOCK & KIRK
They are sweeping up. Kirk lays down his broom and starts to wrestle a huge garbage can loaded with refuse toward a small dolly. Spock wears a stocking-cap, pulled down over his pointed ears. He shovels refuse into another can. He pauses, and wipes his perspiring forehead with his sleeve. He has been made up to faintly resemble a Chinese.
SPOCK
It seems dubious we will find the focal point of this period, hidden away in a garbage dump.
Kirk leans on the dolly. He wipes his face, leaving a black smudge.
KIRK
I was thinking about that. If Beckwith will be drawn to it, won’t the same apply to us?
SPOCK
Perhaps. But what if he gets to it before we do?
KIRK
Where’s the tricorder?
Spock disappears into the darkness of the basement, and there is the SOUND of METAL GRATING. In a moment he returns. He hands the tricorder to Kirk.
60 CLOSER SHOT—ON TRICORDER
as Kirk activates it. He speaks into the machine.
KIRK
Memory Banks.
VOICE OF TRICORDER
(filter)
Activated.
CAMERA ANGLE
WIDENS to include Kirk holding the device; almost a 2-SHOT:
KIRK
Integrate all data on Old Earth, year 1930 old style. Compute for variables resulting in major alterations of historical flow.
(beat)
When these variables have been postulated, integrate for the crisis points.
VOICE OF TRICORDER
(filter)
Integration procedure involves seventh level extrapolation and attendant internal function overloads and failure.
KIRK
Give estimated time for completion of procedure.
VOICE OF TRICORDER
(filter)
Procedure initiated.
(click)
Three hours, Earth time.
KIRK
Proceed.
He turns off the tricorder and hands it back to Spock who vanishes once again into the darkness, as Kirk speaks to his unseen presence.
KIRK (CONT’D.)
Think we can keep busy shoveling garbage for three hours?
SPOCK’S VOICE O.S.
(voice from dark)
That is not what troubles me, Captain.
(beat)
That much integrating, at that level, for that intensive a period, may well burn out the circuits. The tricorder is a self-contained unit, with no dependenceon the Enterprise’s power. And as the Enterprise no longer exists, that is fortunate.
KIRK
I hear an unspoken “but.”
SPOCK’S VOICE O.S.
But…it is a unit of finite power. Setting it this excessive a task may burn out the circuits. Its value to us in this barbaric past is inestimable.
KIRK
As long as we get our answer, it won’t matter.
SPOCK’S VOICE O.S.
If we get the answer.
Spock has returned out of the darkness and is at work once more. Kirk stares at him with amusement.
KIRK
You don’t make a half-bad Chinese laborer. They barely looked at you in that “movie theater” last night. Twenty-three skidoo, kiddo.
SPOCK
(not amused)
“Movie theater.” You have an amazing facility for picking up the local language patterns, Captain—“twenty-three skidoo” indeed—but we do not seem much closer to locating that monster, Beckwith.
KIRK
Time is relative. He hasn’t even come through yet. We have a lot of time…
SPOCK.
A lot…and none at all.
SPOCK CLOSE as the preceding line is spoken. He has no humor about the situation. And there is a tone of caution that cannot be ignored.
DISSOLVE TO:
61 INT. BASEMENT—ANOTHER ANGLE
CLOSE ON TRICORDER as Spock holds it in his hands. CAMERA PULLS BACK to MED. 2-SHOT as they talk to machine.
VOICE OF TRICORDER
(filter)
Integration completed.
SPOCK
List all focal points.
VOICE OF TRICORDER
(filter)
Preliminary listing involves six hundred and sixteen thousand five hundred and ninety focal points.
SPOCK
Eliminate all but those within a ten-kilometer radius of our present coordinates.
VOICE OF TRICORDER
(filter)
Unable to comply.
KIRK
Explain.
VOICE OF TRICORDER
(filter)
Circuits damaged in seventh level intensity. Only partial data available. You were warned.
KIRK
(resignedly)
Proceed.
There is tortured clicking and whirring from the machine. Then, amidst static, it speaks.
VOICE OF TRICORDER
(filter)
Blue. The burning sun. The key.
It clicks and hums and then quits entirely. Spock hands the dead unit to Kirk. Kirk hefts it with frustration.
KIRK
That takes care of that. Wasn’t the blue, the sun, wasn’t it what the Guardian said, something like that? Did you make any sense out of it?
SPOCK
A description, perhaps. It was no help before we came through the Vortex, and it is not much help now.
Kirk holds out the tricorder.
KIRK
Can you repair it?
SPOCK
Dubious, Captain. The transistor has not been invented yet; nor the printed circuit; nor the mnemonic(pronounced nee-mon-ic) memory cube; nor—
KIRK
You made your point, Mr. Spock.
SPOCK
But, as always, sir, I can try.
Kirk chuckles and hands it to Spock.
KIRK
I’m going out to get a job today.
SPOCK
Perhaps I should do the same.
KIRK
Forget it. I need you working on that tricorder, so we can get a fix on how long it’ll be before Beckwith arrives.
(beat)
Besides, it’s too risky.
The Janitor emerges from the entrance to the basement.
JANITOR
What’s too risky…?
KIRK
Uh, nothing…his going out for a job…
JANITOR
Listen, these days, everybody’s on the dodge. Least thing’ll get a man pinched. Saw some Bo just last week got thrown in the pokey for tryin’ to steal bread an’ macaroni for his kids.
(beat)
What’d the Chinee do?
KIRK
Some, uh, friends of his are in trouble.
As he says this we
62 INSERT SHOT—TRANSPORTER ROOM ON ENTERPRISE
NOTE: this is intended as a shock-value shot, only a few frames in duration, almost subliminal in nature. It should be there, hold a scant beat, and be gone. Longer will be confusing. It is intended to link the Old Earth action with the imperativeness, the sense of moment, of action in the future. A jab in the eye, not a punch in the mouth.
The beleaguered Enterprise patrol as one of the crewmen wrenches open the door and Yeoman Rand fires a phaser through the instant-open hatch, at the Renegades, and the hatch—with its tell-tale burned spots—is thrust closed immediately by hand. The action takes place in only three or four beats and we
CUT BACK TO:
63 SAME AS 61 PRECISELY
as though we haven’t lost a beat in the conversation, as though we have seen through the eyes of thought of Kirk or Spock, to the urgency of what they must do.
KIRK
Uh…he can work around here…he needn’t go out to work…
But the Janitor is hearing the objection.
JANITOR
Leave it t’me. I got a job down the street he can fill…
CUT TO:
64 INT. RESTAURANT KITCHEN—ANGLE ON SPOCK
FRAME OBSCURED by a large cloud of steam. As CAMERA PULLS BACK we see Mr. Spock, still wearing the stocking-cap pulled down over his ears, in an old-style button-down undershirt with the sleeves rolled up, industriously working over a zinc double-sink filled with filthy dishes. Horsehair scrub brush, cake of brown lye soap. As he works, we HEAR the VOICE of the COOK O.S.
COOK’S VOICE O.S.
Okay, Chinee No-Talk, time to quit!
Mr. Spock straightens up, with difficulty. His face is drenched with sweat, the front of his wool undershirt stained with a thousand kinds of refuse. He turns and CAMERA PANS WITH him as the Cook comes INTO FRAME.
COOK
Night shift comin’ in, you can knock off.
Mr. Spock starts to leave, slowly, painfully, the way it feels after a day of boring, nauseating drudgery. He takes his seedy jacket from a peg near the sinks, and starts away as the Cook stops him.
COOK (CONT’D.)
Hey, Yellow Peril! Payday today. You been onna job a week, doncha even know when you collect?
Spock stops. There is an expression of infinite weariness there, and resignation. The Cook takes some money from his pocket.
> COOK (CONT’D.)
Lessee now…fifteen cents an hour for ten hours a day…that’s, uh, nine dollars fifty for the week…
He starts to count it out. He hands it over to Spock and starts to put the rest of the money back in his pocket. Spock’s hand snakes out quickly, and he grabs the Cook’s wrist in a grip that is obviously painful. The Cook’s face screws up in anguish and he bends a little to the angle of Spock’s pressure. Then, in a very calm voice, Spock addresses him.