27 WITH KIRK
as he crawls back to Spock, who is just rising. Yeoman Rand joins them, and the rest of the crew patrol.
KIRK
(to Spock)
Are you—
SPOCK
I am undamaged, Captain.
Kirk looks at Janice Rand. She nods tightly that she’s fine also. Then Kirk turns quickly, speaks to the Guardians.
KIRK
He went back?
1ST GUARDIAN
(panic)
Yes. The Vortex was active. Your world, Old Earth.
KIRK
But you said—
1ST GUARDIAN
All past history has been changed.
KIRK
But how can that be…it all looks the same here?
1ST GUARDIAN
Yes, here. But from here outward, everything has been changed. It is another universe in which we stand.
SPOCK
How has it been changed?
28 ANGLE ON GUARDIANS—CITY IN B.G.
high on that farther crag, the CITY BEGINS TO PULSE & GLOW. We SEE IT over the Guardians’ shoulders. One of the other two who has been bone-silent all through this action, suddenly begins to show animation. His body quivers ever so faintly under the robes, and his face makes a slight movement.
1ST GUARDIAN
The time-flow has been diverted. We are being summoned. The machines of the Ancients are registering traumas in time. We must return.
And THEY VANISH! The Vortex dies out. Kirk, et al alone.
29 TWO-SHOT—KIRK & SPOCK
with the crew patrol behind them. Yeoman Rand prominent.
KIRK
We have to get back to the ship.
SPOCK
(to Rand)
Yeoman. Signal Enterprise for Transporter pickup; give these coordinates.
RAND
Yes, sir.
She fiddles with the console, BLEEPS a signal.
KIRK
If they were right—If it’s changed…
SPOCK
Conjecture has no merit.
KIRK
Yeoman, stay with us for the second shift. Send the lower ranks up first.
RAND
Yes, sir. Pickup commencing.
CAMERA ANGLE EXPANDS as the six enlisted personnel group together. They begin to shimmer as we have seen previously, then vanish.
RAND
Captain?
Kirk looks at her.
RAND (CONT’D.)
What’s happened up there, sir?
KIRK
(distant)
Beckwith may have killed again…
DISSOLVE TO:
30 INT. TRANSPORTER CHAMBER—CLOSE ON KIRK & SPOCK
in the last stages of materialization. Rand behind them. As they appear corporeally, suddenly we see Kirk’s face assume a BROAD EXPRESSION of disbelief and consternation. Rand’s eyes widen in total confusion. Even Spock is momentarily set back. Rand gives a small YELP of anxiety.
31 REVERSE ANGLE—PAST KIRK IN EXT. F.G.
(NOTE: this must be shot past the three people in the transporter to show the entire chamber before them.)
WHAT THEY SEE: the six enlisted personnel herded into a corner, being held at bay by men and women with weapons totally unlike those used by the Enterprise crew. The captors are RENEGADES. Their dress is not regulation uniforms, but motley garb, each one wearing what he or she feels like. They are unkempt, and as vicious-looking as a crowd of free-booters can look. There are as many in the group as needed to hold the Enterprise crew at bay.
In the forefront of the group stands the RENEGADE CAPTAIN whose evil nature is so evident on his face that no one could doubt for a moment that this man is the vilest scum of a million worlds. He has a weapon of extreme ugliness pointed at Kirk and Spock and Rand. His smile is the smile of an animal.
RENEGADE
(with chill warmth)
Welcome to the Condor.
HARD CUT TO:
32 CLOSE ON KIRK
his expression of—yes, possibly—fear and bewilderment and then dawning realization that he has, indeed, wandered helplessly into a world he never made. HOLD ON THAT thought as we
FADE OUT.
END ACT ONE
ACT TWO
FADE IN:
33 INT. TRANSPORTER CHAMBER—ESTABLISHING
the renegades holding the Enterprise patrol at bay. Kirk and Spock make a slight move, but guns come up, and they settle back. The Renegade Captain seems perplexed, but still a threat.
RENEGADE
Whoever you are, you shouldn’t have come aboard.
34 CLOSE 2-SHOT—KIRK & SPOCK (RAND IN B.G.)
Kirk’s bewilderment has passed. He speaks in an undertone to Spock.
KIRK
He was right. Time’s been altered.
SPOCK
Renegades.
KIRK
This isn’t the Enterprise anymore.
35 PAST RENEGADE CAPTAIN TO THEM
on the Transporter stage. Beside the Renegade is a TECHNICIAN who is operating the complex Transporter console.
RENEGADE
Now step down off that stage slowly.
36 SAME AS 34
Kirk frantically seeks an escape route. We see it in his face.
KIRK
(to Rand, softly)
Yeoman…give that console full feedback!
37 CLOSE ON JANICE RAND
as she hesitates a fractional beat to understand his order. Then CAMERA TILTS DOWN SLIGHTLY to show us the console still strapped on her, and her hands moving to two big calibrated knobs. She suddenly twists them as far as they will go. There is an ABRUPT PIERCING WHINE.
38 SAME AS 33—HAND-HELD
as the Transporter console erupts in a shower of sparks and a WHAMMMM! and the Technician is thrown half across the room. The Renegade Captain and his men naturally turn with a start, and in that instant, Kirk leaps off the Transporter stage.
KIRK
(yells)
Go!
And Spock joins him in a flying leap that carries him off the stage and onto the nearest renegade. The Enterprise crewmen begin punching, grabbing weapons. There is a pitched battle in the cramped confines of the Transporter chamber and the tactic resolves itself into forcing the remaining members of the Condor’s crew out the hatch, and sealing it behind them. The final tally has one Enterprise crewman dead on the floor, and three Condor renegades in similar condition.
39 MEDIUM SHOT—KIRK PROMINENT
as several of the patrol with phasers stand guard at the port, waiting for a counter-attack. The remainder gather around Kirk. Janice Rand is trying to pull her torn uniform around her. Spock has a cut on his cheek. He is bleeding yellow.
RAND
Captain, where’s the Enterprise crew?
KIRK
Not here. Maybe nowhere.
SPOCK
Logically, with time altered, they were possibly never born, or they have become those.
He jerks his head in the direction of the hatch and the renegades.
KIRK
There are 450 enemies out there.
CUT TO:
40 CORRIDOR OUTSIDE TRANSPORTER CHAMBER
as the Renegade Captain regroups.
RENEGADE
Nimblek, Owstian, blast through that hatch!
Two renegades with weird hand-weapons move on the hatch, start to blast at it. The door gets smoky, smudgy.
41 INT. TRANSPORTER CHAMBER—ANOTHER ANGLE
CLOSE ON CREWMAN nearest hatch. He turns head sharply into CAMERA and speaks as FRAME OPENS to SHOW FULL SCENE.
CREWMAN
Cap’n. I feel heat. They’re blasting.
SPOCK
(to Kirk)
There are too many variables to this problem.
KIRK
We have to change things back.
SPOCK
Then all the possibilities come back to a single course of action.
&n
bsp; KIRK
(nods understanding)
Yeoman Rand…can you hold this chamber?
RAND
(unsure)
How long, sir?
KIRK
Indefinitely.
There is a beat of silence. Everyone knows what he means. She nods. Kirk looks at Spock.
KIRK
Let’s get back.
They hasten to the Transporter stage, get on. Rand moves to the main control panel that her feedback exploded.
RAND
I’ll have to cut in alternate circuits, Captain. My feedback burned out the central sources.
KIRK
Do your best, Yeoman.
As she works, rehooking circuits, moving hurriedly, Spock moves off his Transporter plate to Kirk’s side.
42 EXTREME CLOSE TWO-SHOT—KIRK & SPOCK
as Spock leans in to speak so the crew won’t hear him.
SPOCK
They may not allow us to go back after Beckwith.
KIRK
They’ve got to.
SPOCK
Time is something sacred to them. They may not think as we do—that it should be changed back.
KIRK
(more insistent)
They’ve got to!
RAND’S VOICE O.S.
Ready, Captain. It’s jerry-rigged, but it ought to hold.
KIRK
Energize!
43 ANGLE ON KIRK, SPOCK IN CHAMBER
The dematerialization EFFECT—they become transparent…
RAND
Hurry back, we might not be here when you—
…they dissolve. A few faint sparkles fade. Empty chamber.
44 EXT. PLANET—PLATEAU OF THE GUARDIANS OF TIME
as we left it. The REMATERIALIZATION EFFECT occurs: first the sparkling, then the transparent outlines of bodies, then the solid appearance of Kirk and Mr. Spock. They look around and then the Guardians POP INTO EXISTENCE where they had stood before.
1ST GUARDIAN
The universe you knew…never existed. The ship you came in…never existed. The men and women you knew…never existed.
KIRK
(fiercely)
Let us follow Beckwith. We’ll change Time back.
1ST GUARDIAN
The rope of the time stream knots, and knots again. It is far more dangerous attempting to unsnarl the past than it is to let Time flow on. Let it go.
KIRK
(anguished)
Not that easy for us! Everything we knew, everyone we care about…they’re gone…or changed…
1ST GUARDIAN
You are children, believing you can put smoke back in its bottle.
SPOCK
Is Time immutable? Or can it be set back as it was before Beckwith’s intercession caused the knotting?
1ST GUARDIAN
The man Beckwith…he is a serious impediment in the Time-flow. He is scar-tissue. A clot in the chronal bloodstream. Do you know the concept “evil”?
KIRK
(tense)
We do. Send us back. We’ll retrieve him.
1ST GUARDIAN
There is a problem, of course. There is always a problem. Time cannot be doubled.
SPOCK
(grasps immediately)
Basic physics. Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. You cannot send us back to the precise time of Beckwith’s appearance, can you?
1ST GUARDIAN
Before. Or after. But not the same.
Spock looks at Kirk. They communicate silently, analyzing the options, the two intelligent problemsolvers considering all the possibilities. Finally: they nod to each other.
KIRK
Before he gets there. He won’t know we’re already settled in.
(beat)
How close can you set us down in the past?
1ST GUARDIAN
Soon. Close, perhaps. But we have no way of calculating such things.
SPOCK
Captain, the tricorder. I can set it now to resonate in phase with the Vortex. That will establish a baseline for dating, and once in the Past, we can get our chronological bearings.
KIRK
We’ll grab him when he comes through. We’ll be waiting.
(beat)
I just hope we won’t have been waiting for years.
SPOCK
If we bring him back, then the river resumes its natural course, everything goes back the way it was?
1ST GUARDIAN
(nods)
But in each time-period there is a focal point. An object, a person, something that is indispensable to the normal flow of time. Unimportant otherwise, but as a catalyst…
KIRK
And if Beckwith tampers with it—time is changed permanently.
SPOCK
Will Beckwith know what this focal point is?
1ST GUARDIAN
No, but the stresses of the time-flow will draw him to it. If he influences it, nothing can restore the shape of the past.
KIRK
(intense)
Then how can we stop him?
1ST GUARDIAN
(mystically)
Bring him back. He will seek that which must die, and give it life. Stop him.
KIRK
I don’t understand. Can’t you tell us more?
1ST GUARDIAN
Blue it will be. Blue as the sky of Old Earth and clear as truth. And the sun will burn on it, and there is the key.
Kirk and Spock look at each other. The Guardians have obviously said all they can say. They nod with resignation at each other, and turn to the Time Vortex, just as it flickers to life. They move toward it. Flames and light burgeon, and the SOUND of the Vortex is HEARD. Rapidly changing colors wash across Kirk and Spock.
45 ANGLE ON TIME VORTEX
as they step up to it, hesitate a beat, then step in. Flames leap up about them (or whatever SPECIAL EFFECT is employed) and they vanish. CAMERA PANS SMOOTHLY BACK to Guardians.
1ST GUARDIAN
As night falls, they run like hunters, and for all our wisdom, we are helpless.
RIPPLE-DISSOLVE TO:
46 LIMBO SHOT
against the blackness, in SOLARIZED IMAGE, Kirk and Mr. Spock, REVERSE-IMAGE as though they were negatives, hurtling toward CAMERA out of the dark, a sense of intense motion. They hurtle STRAIGHT FOR CAMERA and
FRAME TO BLACK.
47 EXT. NEW YORK STREET—1930—LATE DAY—ESTABLISHING
a seamy, down-at-the-heels street; murky glass storefronts; automobiles of the period, but very few; prominent in the scene is a store with a large sign proclaiming:
CCC CAMPS—SIGN UP HERE
and beside it another store with a sign that says FREE SOUP and a smaller sign with an arrow that says FORM A LINE. In front of these two shops there is a small group of men. They are in a line, and though we can only see six or seven shabby men in caps and shapeless coats outside on the sidewalk, the way they are queued up, with the line disappearing into the soup kitchen, we know there are many more in the crowd. On a soapbox between the two stores, a tall, wild-eyed man with a typical moustache of the time, dressed in the same shabby garb, wearing a frayed “newsboy’s cap,” holding an American flag on a pole, is haranguing the crowd. The penniless men listen to the ORATOR, who is slowly inciting them to riot, as we SEE the sudden materialization of Kirk and Spock at the rear of the crowd. Kirk faces the Orator, but Spock is turned the other way, as though they had come through time turned-about.
48 CLOSE ON KIRK & SPOCK
as they look around, startled and disoriented. They find each other, and there is wonder in their eyes. Not till this moment have they believed what the act of time-travel was really like. Now they turn to the Orator as he howls.
ORATOR
What kind of a country is this, where men have to stand in bread lines just to fill their bellies? I’ll tell you what kind! A country run by the foreigners! All the scum we let in to take the food from our mouths, all the
alien filth that pollutes our fine country. Here we are, skilled workers, and they want us to sign up for CCC camps. Civilian Conservation Corps, men—is that what we’re gonna do? Work like coolies inna fields while these swine who can’t even speak our language take the—
The City on the Edge of Forever Page 14