The City on the Edge of Forever (21 page)

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—

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.