The City on the Edge of Forever (29 page)

DISSOLVE TO:

21 PLATEAU OF THE GUARDIAN—LATER DAY—CLOSE SHOT

ON KIRK as he climbs up the last of what is obviously a mountain pass. The stones are a peculiar silvery material, with buried shimmers of light in them. As Kirk climbs up onto the plateau, CAMERA GOES WITH HIM as the ANGLE OPENS to show us bracing rock walls and niches all around us.

22 THE PLATEAU—ESTABLISHING SHOT—KIRK’S POV

PANNING SHOT from Kirk’s immediate right, around the bowl of the plateau. Gray sky past the rock prominences, light and eerie mist that gives the entire area an ethereal look, niches up in the rock walls, boulders of the same bright substance here and there, and on a higher peak but still quite far-off—the city, glittering like a hypersensitive’s dream. And as the CAMERA PANS AROUND we see, for the first time, THE GUARDIAN OF FOREVER. The shot continues a beat and then CAMERA ZOOMS IN on “him.” For that beat, he had looked almost like another sparkling rock in the stone walls. But as CAMERA CLOSES in the ZOOM we see “he” is something quite different: The GUARDIAN OF FOREVER is pure thought. Resting in a shallow bowl on a pedestal, he looks like a globe of flickering light…like a shimmering handful of fog…like something totally alien and omnipresent. (Construction of the Guardian should combine a minimum of expense with a maximum of ingenuity.)

23 CLOSING SHOT—KIRK & SPOCK

as they move toward the Guardian. Spock moves in behind Kirk and the others follow, fanning out. They move closer, awed (for it
is
an awesome presence).

SPOCK

(softly)

It’s alive.

KIRK

(with wonder)

The power, Mr. Spock. Can you feel the power coming from it?

There is the SOUND of a deep, sepulchral VOICE OVER. A voice that rings out in the rocky enclosure, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. It is the VOICE of the GUARDIAN.

GUARDIAN

(a voice of power)

I am the Guardian of Forever. Welcome.

KIRK

You live in the city?

GUARDIAN

Once. Before we became pure energy. A time before your sun burned hot in space. Before your race was born.

SPOCK

This place is dead, empty. Why do you stay?

As the Guardian speaks, movement within the fog, light, mist, the substance of “him,” changes, glows, dims, sparkles, changes color…whatever EFFECT has been opted for.

GUARDIAN

Because I am the last of my kind.

KIRK

The last?

GUARDIAN

The city is empty. Built to last even after I am gone.

KIRK

We followed some sort of radiation to this planet…it damaged our vessel—

GUARDIAN

You wandered into the time-flow. This world is the center of the Universe.

KIRK

The center? I don’t—?

24 CLOSER SHOT—ON GUARDIAN

as his form shimmers and pulses.

GUARDIAN

Only on this world do the million pulse-flows of time and space merge. Only here do the flux lines of Forever meet.

(beat)

Only here can exist the gateway to the past, where the Time Vortex of the Ancients can work.

(beat)

My race was set to watch the Time Vortex, so many hundred of centuries ago that even I do not have clear memories of it.

KIRK

The gateway to the past? A timemachine?

GUARDIAN

Not a machine. A creation, a vortex.

Kirk is about to ask what he means but Spock logical—cuts in.

25 ON SPOCK

SPOCK

Have you seen another man, dressed as we are?

GUARDIAN

What I see has already been, or is yet to be. No. No other like you.

CUT TO:

26 ROCKY NICHE—CLOSE PAST McCOY

past him, hidden in a shadowy crevice, listening to Kirk and Spock talking to the Guardian. There is a flagrant madness in McCoy’s face. The feverish color of the poison coursing through his veins can be seen in his cheeks. He sweats. His eyes are bright and wild.

He is a man totally out of his senses. He looks around himself, for a way out, but we see he is in a cul-de-sac. The only way out is past the
Enterprise
patrol. KIRK’S VOICE CARRIES.

KIRK

There are legends in space. About you. About this place.

GUARDIAN

You are the first visitors I have had in twice two hundred thousand years.

27 ANGLE PAST KIRK IN F.G.

to the Guardian, the mist rising, the light changing. Kirk approaches another step. We can see something in him we have never seen before: wonder, absolute all-consuming wonder. He has found a key to the secrets of the universe that compel him. He is being filled to the top with amazement, and he leans forward almost like a child.

KIRK

I always thought stories about time machines were the drunk-stuff of lab technicians when they’d had too much pure grain to drink.

GUARDIAN

The Vortex of Time is real. Look!

Kirk looks and his eyes open wide; delight and amazement and confusion and
belief
there.

28 THE TIME VORTEX—ESTABLISHING

Set in a tall, narrow rocky crevice, it rises up, different to each who see it. A pillar of flame, a shaft of light, a roiling brightness of smoke, whatever wonder you care to make of it, the obvious aspects are light, height and insubstantiality. Construct it as you choose.

GUARDIAN O.S.

Pure matter. Built by a science man will not understand for a hundred thousand times the span of years he has already existed.

29 PAST GUARDIANS TO KIRK

and the others near him, wondering, listening.

KIRK

(awed)

And it’s possible to go back…and forward…in time…?

GUARDIAN

All time, all space. They meet in this brightness, the Vortex.

SPOCK

(very scientific)

Can you give us a demonstration? Is that possible?

The Guardian’s answer is oddly tinged with weariness and pleasure.

GUARDIAN

Time is weary for the craftsman who cannot demonstrate his craft. It would give me pleasure to show you the past.

KIRK

Can you show us the past of any world?

GUARDIAN

I can even show you the past of your own planet…Old Earth.

KIRK

(softly)

The past of Old Earth…please…

The pillar of light blazes and as Kirk turns to look, the CAMERA SHOOTS PAST HIM. In a moment there is movement in the light…a thickening…a roiling like oil…like quicksilver mixed with smoke…and a scene begins to take FORM IN THE VORTEX. (NOTE: this, and other scenes in Vortex will be MATTE INSERTS.)

30 CLOSE ON VORTEX—FEATURING MATTE INSERTS (STOCK)

A
scene
of primordial times; great saurians; a woolly mammoth; steaming prehistoric jungle; reality!

It FADES OUT to be replaced by:

A
scene
in the days of the Clipper ships; something typical of the period; reality!

It FADES OUT to be replaced by:

A
scene
of NYC STREET in the time of the Depression, 1930-32.

(NOTE: At Director’s discretion, INTERCUTS of the Earthmen marveling at this demonstration may be inserted.)

NOTE: The indicated sequence of stock shots is merely offered as a pattern.
Any
stock will suffice, reeled in sequence so that shot 34 occurs at just the time when the Vortex is showing Old Earth in the Depression, 1930s. Facilitation is at the discretion of Production.

31 PAST McCOY TO VORTEX

as he watches in his madness with as much rapt attention as Kirk and his patrol. But the cunning is there, the arched brow and the faintly smiling mouth. The animal has sensed an avenue of escape, as we HEAR KIRK SAY:

KIRK

Could we go back to Old Earth?

32 ANGLE ON GUARDIANS

SHOT FROM TILT rising up, almost Messianic in tone, something reverential as they speak about their religion—time.

GUARDIAN

Yes, but it is not wise. If passage back is effected, the voyager may add a new factor to the past, and thus change time, alter everything that happened from that point to the present…all through the universe.

33 SPOCK AND GUARDIAN PAST HIM

fascinated by the concepts, not the magic of it all.

SPOCK

Then time is not a constant. It isn’t rigid?

GUARDIAN

Time is elastic. It will revert to its original shape when changes are minor. But when the change is life or death—when the sum of intelligence alters the balance—then the change can become permanent…and terrible.

SPOCK

Like changing the flow of a river.

GUARDIAN

A river, a wind, a flow, elastic. It makes no difference how you imagine it to yourself.

KIRK

How long has it been since anyone went—

GUARDIAN

For nine hundred thousand years no one has gone back.

SPOCK

(to Kirk)

I understand now why our chronometers turned backwards.

The Time Vortex has been running through dialogue, now draws near 1930. While CAMERA DOES
NOT
dwell on it, whatever shot we enter, we should see the scene of the Depression back there, to remind us it’s on.

KIRK

They’ve created a zone of no-time here.

SPOCK

But if this is true…if time does not move at its normal rate here…how long have you been here to get as old as you are…

34 FULL SHOT—THE SCENE—HAND-HELD

But they have no time to ponder an answer, for at that moment McCoy breaks from cover and makes a long run toward the Time Vortex. He is halfway there before they realize what is happening. Kirk and Spock plunge forward to stop him. Spock gets to him first but McCoy slams Spock across the jaw and keeps going. He grabs Yeoman Janice Rand as a shield and roughhouses her in front of him, ever closer to the Vortex. She half-turns and elbows him; he leaves her and Kirk reaches him just as he closes on the Vortex. Kirk sees he is going for the Vortex (from which the 1930s scene is gone, but which still flickers and glows so we know it is in operation) and makes a flying dive for him. But McCoy does a little dance-step of broken-field maneuvering and flings himself forward.

35 ANGLE ON McCOY

as he dives headfirst into the Vortex. There is the SOUND of a LOUD WHOOOOSH! as space rushes to fill the vacuum where he has been. Then the Vortex is as it was before. McCoy is gone. Into the past of Old Earth.

FADE OUT

END OF ACT ONE
.