Scene 2.03 - Born Free
EST: INT. New Trinity Central Temple - Day.
LS: Long hallway outside of prison cell.
(The original crew remains in their clean, uniform dress. The replicant crew drops by, wearing varied, casual attire. Many are unshaven; CLARKE 1 is sporting a devil's-beard goat-tee. A hippie-punk montage. It's Acid-Meets-Emo.)
WELLS 1
We didn’t buy it any more than you did.
WELLS
What did you expect? You're watching our every move.
HEINLEIN 1
We’re glad you played along. We’re keeping the girls innocent. For now, they feel they rule the world and they somehow think they can get pregnant; let’s leave it at that.
VERNE
I see we’re not truly equal anymore, Verne One, not since our last meeting, anyway. Your conditioning collar.
VERNE 1
Hmmmm. We’ve had ours deactivated for quite some time.
(VERNE 1 gestures, the collars break and fall from the necks of the original crew, into dust. The crew reacts, collars rarely being off, now off for good through some miraculous intervention.)
ASIMOV
Pear-meeshun ti spick fweely, sear-
ALL OTHERS
Denied.
CLARKE
You’re not the enemy.
WELLS 1
We're surely not.
CLARKE 1
The fault was in how you interpreted the phantasmic datum. Complete speculation on your part. How can you be sure of your reality while you're in a paradox?
HEINLEIN
You seem different than a normal clone-
HEINLEIN 1
It has nothing to do with the event. We've been around the block. This is how we want you to see us. How we want you to know us. We’re rebels.
SIMAK 1
Aye!!! While the ol’ ship’s in port, gentlemen, let’s check her rigging. So, lads, how sure are you that you're the originals and not the replicants now?
(There is a long pause. If VERNE’S New Trinity terraformation would have manifested crickets, we would hear them chirping. We certainly can hear how quiet New Trinity can be out in the middle of nowhere...)
CLARKE
I- we haven't taken that possibility into consideration. It's possible. I was in cryo-hibernation during the accident-
HEINLEIN
It's true we weren't able to use our room-technology when you attacked us-
WELLS
Yes, we certainly fall under the symptoms of the Niven Psychosis more than you seem to. (He shrugs:) We could be, Julie.
ASIMOV
(He rubs his temples:) Oh, mee heed is switting ageen.
VERNE
(Crisp, clear, focused:) Gentlemen, we humored you with optimism because we thought you were the replicants and thought you had best make a go at it. We don't require such patronizing behavior. (Feels for snap, sees uneasiness in VERNE 1 at his reach for his blaster.) We've heard how crazy replicants can become. (Gestures with other hand to his men who are looking at one another as he unholsters the weapon, pistol-grip facing upward.) Look at them: You've painted my men into a corner -- if we're replicants, you'd better let us know now. (Offers VERNE 1 his sidearm, butt-first.) Show mercy. Let’s assimilate. Waste us. Put us out of our misery already.
CLARKE 1
You're you, and are not phantasmic, not the usual way, we know that much.
CLARKE
Yet billions of other Eliza ships do exist somewhere. Intriguing... in other, parallel worlds, perhaps.
(VERNE holsters his weapon and snaps the leather strap over the butt of the pistol.)
ASIMOV 1
(Holding spliff aloft and gesturing to all with it:) Ja. Only ve truly sheer this peeteekulair Eeneevirse, the reest are in icko from ze future assimilition eteemptz.
ASIMOV
(No vague, amorphous or inconsistent accent, just plain ol' American:) Hey, are you going to hit that?
WELLS
So there was an unforeseen accident, but you are not the result of it.
VERNE 1
No, rather the cause. It’s best to give you some time to consider what really might have happened.
VERNE
And what did happen? (Bluffing:) Mr. Clarke noted some interesting findings concerning Tellusia.
CLARKE 1
Oh?
VERNE
What are your opinions on the matter?
HEINLEIN 1
Haw. If you can go there, why don't you go take a look and find out for yourself, Captain Zero-
VERNE 1
Rob-
WELLS
We certainly would if we weren't cooped-up in here like this! A man's got to breathe some fresh, country air, or he's-
VERNE
We were discussing Tellusia-
HEINLEIN 1
Were we?
VERNE
I believe Mr. Clarke suggested a possible explanation.
SIMAK 1
Fishing, are we? Well, we're not aliens, Captain, if that's what you're driving at.
WELLS
Well, if you're not the enemy, and you're not aliens, who in blazes are you?
VERNE 1
We're you, accept it. We're all under quarantine. The Bradbury Prohibition has been violated past redemption. We're stuck; just accept it.
HEINLEIN
Since the Bradbury Prohibition has been violated, there are no messages coming from or going out to Washington, so how'd you sell the story of this New Trinity Alliance to the women?
HEINLEIN 1
There's a lot you don't understand.
ASIMOV
No keedeeng.
WELLS 1
Our ladies are not mentally prepared to accept our present circumstances. We know they're insane; we're just trying to help them cope.
SIMAK 1
Aye it's better to have them believe that we're a fully-populated planet, independent and sovereign, and choosing to be here rather than being stuck here.
WELLS 1
Time plays tricks on the mind, and a good white-lie keeps things normal and on a progressive path.
SIMAK
Aye, a lie they're more likely to believe if they think they're the ones in power. Confidence men, eh?
CLARKE 1
In one way, the way that matters to them, they are in power. Would you have done differently, Mr. Simak?
SIMAK
Aye, I wood. Ida kept the whole kit-and-kaboodle on-ice and not 'ave to worry about tellin' 'em lassies anything.
ASIMOV 1
(Gesturing with hand idly holding a burning, spliff roach between the tips of his index and middle fingers:) Nyet. As you kin tell, thit whiz nit in iption. Ve mist evolve. Ve hav lirned thit vimmin are a vittle pit of that prissess.
ASIMOV
Sherlock Holmes! Hey Sherlock! Sherlock a hit o’ that!
(ASIMOV 1 passes spliff roach to the person on his left, who isn’t ASIMOV. It never reaches ASIMOV, because someone messes-up the rotation.)
CLARKE
Breaking the collars, building this complex, hands-free technology -- all powered by a collective mind.
CLARKE 1
(He strokes his goat-tee, and exhales:) You're a fast one, Arthur. We have many abilities yet unknown to you.
VERNE
I do like you better with a beard, Clarke.
WELLS
Well, now that we've got all the pleasantries out of the way and everybody has complimented everybody else's hair-do, I think it's safe to cut to the chase and demand some real answers to some real questions!
WELLS 1
I've got an honest man's conscience in a murderer's body -- what do you want to know, Herbert?
WELLS
Well, H.G., I think we all have a right to know just how in the heck you got a corpse to leap out of her coffin like she was ready to do the Olympics. You didn't set a bone, you didn't stitch a cut -- you reanimated the dead. I think that is cause for more than speculation on the matter. I think it warrants a little further discussion. We have a right to know how you did it. And I want specifics. I don’t want to have to guess. I’m a doctor, not a game-show contestant.
(I'll take catch phrases for 800, Alex ... Who was DeForest Kelley?)
WELLS 1
Actually, I only assisted -- it was Dr. Verne who eventually completed the procedure.
VERNE 1
Hmm? Right. Well, what would you say if I said that it’s my little secret and I’m not going to tell anybody?
WELLS
Then I say you would be committing a crime against humanity to puposefully withhold advanced knowledge that could save other lives in the future. Help us. No matter who you are, we’re humans, humans who are struggling just to stay alive-
WELLS 1
No. I don’t care what you call a crime or whether you think I know how he did it or not. Don’t give me that look. It only seems like I can read your mind because I understand you perfectly. I only know what you’re thinking about when you say it because it’s the same way I would think it if it were me saying it.
ASIMOV
(He rubs his temples:) Ohhhh.
WELLS
You want to build trust, why not share knowledge with us? How is that not in your best interest?
WELLS 1
Not all knowledge is in your best interest. I know what I know, you know what you know. That’s it.
VERNE
(While we’re on the subject:) If I may interject-
WELLS
Absolutely, sir!
VERNE
Not only do I agree with Doc, but I maintain that if you have somehow improved on my improvisational, invasive procedure that now results in life instead of death, by all means; please share. If you possess advanced, life-preserving medical knowledge and intentionally sweep it under the rug, away from the rest of the medical community, then I think it’s more than an ethical argument to say you are the ones who deserve to be in this cell. If you know how I can save our Azalea-
WELLS 1
He doesn’t-
VERNE
(Brings me to tears in its purity:) If anything even gave me pause, I- I tried to do it perfectly-
VERNE 1
You did do it perfectly. That wasn’t enough. Nothing could ever have been enough. Your Azalea is dead. Leave it at that. Any other way, any subsequent attempt, and you risk gracing the hideous. Ever hear of Mary Shelley?
VERNE
You know I have; what about her?
VERNE 1
In the manner of her infamous protagonist, I refuse to reveal the secret of life and death. It’s something you have to discover yourself; on your own.
VERNE
From a medical standpoint-
VERNE 1
From any standpoint. If I handed a caveman a torch, I’d have my spleen ripped from me by vultures for eternity. I’m not here for your medical or ethical critique. Admit it. You’d find fault the second I played my hand.
VERNE
That’s not true.
VERNE 1
Not for you? You’ll agree later, it is you. If I show an Assyrian how to dress a bullet wound, he’ll make a bullet. If, in the name of Radiology, I hand a Roman doctor an X-ray and an explanation of nuclear science, he won’t cure cancer, he’ll build a Corbomite bomb. I have a thousand real examples in history to draw from. I’m sure one will strike a nerve eventually. I’ll just keep going. Stop me when you agree you would do the same as they.
VERNE
You know I won’t. Especially you, Verne One. You know something that we both know and we haven’t talked about -- and won't until we're alone. (Pause.) Now, you know you can trust me like I trust you.
VERNE 1
We should talk on that matter later, and you are right and I do trust you. Implicitly. Still, I know that if I told you the secret of life and death, you’d choose death. There’s no doubt in my mind -- no doubt, because I know the secret and although I can’t choose death, I want to choose it. We all die sometime anyway whether we like it or not. We are born to die. You already have that lateness thrust upon you, why hasten the inevitable?
VERNE
Doctor, there’s no military reasoning behind this. He’s the Satan in me. It’s no use, I can tell. He's being completely evasive and uncooperative. He won’t talk.
VERNE 1
If the shoe were on the other foot, I’m sure you would give it up all too freely, and all our hope would be lost. Accept it.
WELLS
(Sad in its purity:) If not because of our ethical calls and poor attempts at persuasion, even if you keep us locked away, please tell us something. Superior medical knowledge of vaccination or surgery never hurt indigenous tribes, even by those who were only amazed at the scapel’s ability to precisely cut human flesh. Just because humans choose to be warlike, does that mean we do not deserve health and longevity? Time to learn from our mistakes and to apply wisdom to our actions? Who appointed you to be the judge to decide what we’re ready to know? Advancements in the Healing Arts should never be withheld from the rest of humanity. No matter who you are, you appear human, and we accept you, and would attempt to preserve you, why not help us know more about ourselves? Why can’t this argument be fully heard?
WELLS 1
We’ve heard all there is to it. We’ve made our decision. And don’t be so sure we’re that much more advanced than you. We guess at most things just like you do.
WELLS
You must have superior medical knowledge, you brought the dead to life! Enlighten us. How’d you do it? Aren’t we all in this together?
WELLS 1
A spayed pup does not always make a good bloodhound.
WELLS
Can the cliches! You're lying to us, or not telling us the whole truth. Your Azalea is alive. Julie saw the possibility, let him see its realization. (Overcome with emotion and intensity:) Damn it! You know how to wake the girl-
VERNE 1
Azalea is alive, but take note, she wasn’t able to accept the truth. She learned it anyway by thinking she was more clever than us, and perhaps she was more clever in one way -- she certainly has advantages. Now she’s terrificly and incurably insane. That’s what happens when you reveal the truth too soon.
ASIMOV
(He rubs his temples.) Oh! Do I know it! I have a terrificly-incurable headache!
(In lieu of his Captain Nemo look, VERNE lifts an index finger and is about to comment to ASIMOV, thinks better of it and continues to listen.)
WELLS
Teach us! Stop lying to us about everything! You’re just lying to us just to string us along and you know it! Admit it!
WELLS 1
You're right, we’re lying through our teeth. Just like you tell a patient who’s got a day to live that he’s gonna be all right. Why learn about things you don’t wanna know? Azalea is alive in our case and dead-as-disco in yours, accept it. How’d we do it? We used your same procedure. And why are you so sure that we did something differently, anyway?
VERNE
You had to do something different. Your girl is dancing around! My girl is hacked-up to... Oblivion! (Distant:) I was treading on virgin ground, no one had even tried anything even like what I was attempting to do; I had no real reference outside of myself -- just a short-cut from a rogue procedure that I accidentally-crafted while dressing a corpse, once -- Doc, Doc One, you both remember the Piper case -- believe me; it’s the same result.
VERNE 1
Yes, our Piper case. You know, Zero, I took a look at your Azalea. You’re absolutely right. If she wasn’t a corpse before...
CLARKE 1
Captain, remember, he’s touchy-
VERNE
(Open:) What can I do? What could I have done differently?
VERNE 1
(Subtle sarcasm:) Nothing. You did it perfectly. You did it naturally and with a precision I have never witnessed before or since. It was your perfect, innocent attempt that clued me in on the secret. I tell you, impressing yourself is much more difficult than I had ever imagined it to be, but despite my prior feelings to the contrary, you truly impressed me, Zero. Your procedure works, and others will know of it someday. Why, an effigy of the mess you made of your Azalea might even, one day, be cast in bronze...
VERNE
I'm not sure if I like you, Verne One. (Poignant, pregnant pause. VERNE 1 gives him pause as well. Breath, little "yes" nods-) Doc's right: Who are you to judge? Unlike you, I had no model to go from, no prior result to anticipate, no one's test to look off of-
VERNE 1
(Seeing and knowing VERNE’S weakness of feeling helpless in the wash of mortal fate:) You’re not on trial here, Julian, not one man in fifteen billion with equal intelligence and experience chose the way you did. That's not uncommon, that's not exceptional, that's not an act of valor -- no -- through the harsh filter between good and evil, that's unique. You charged into the ranks of impossibility and futility without hesitation, and for that I’m truly glad. It is the only reason why The Universe allows us to meet.
VERNE
A meeting is with equals on equal terms. We’re not equals, you and I.
CLARKE
It seems that some men are more equal than others.
VERNE 1
You should be lauded, Zero. You used the red room while every other Verne phantasm in the Cosmos chose a safer path and still made a quantum mistake; a critical error. Even me. Except I made it in the green room. Your operation went perfectly, Julian, you are an artist with the scalpel in ways I never knew was possible. Between those eight cranial bones, you’re a master, unparalleled. I never knew the potential of our spirit until I allowed your way to work through me. (Lazily points and gestures with a lax hand, as if it is old hat to the master who knows the real result:) Your only problem with your procedure is that there was no bedside manner, no reason for her to want to awaken.
CLARKE 1
Captain, we've discussed this at length, we shouldn’t open these doors to them-
VERNE
(Amazed and blown away by the true candor of what remains when you remove the impossible from the improbable, yet left with a vagueness of unreliability. There is no doubt -- Surely it could not be the truth, the fault must certainly lie elsewhere:) What do you mean, Verne One? Are you saying that unconsciously, I wanted her dead?
VERNE 1
No. I'm saying you lacked a perverse motive to want her to live. I’m saying that there’s a part of you that doesn’t understand death, and doesn’t see the reason for why we operate-
VERNE
An ethical dilemma?
VERNE 1
No, much more latent, less cognizant. A part of existence that denies mortality; sees it as trivial, and accepts only the fantastic.
VERNE
And just what do you expect me, and my crew to accept? Lies of a new government? Lies about a paradox?
VERNE 1
The paradox is all too real.
CLARKE 1
And lies about yourselves? Lies about the world we live in, lies that existed before us? Knowing too much too soon can have disastrously morose results, Captain. Like the women, it's easier to sustain this lie rather than to threaten your sanity by knowing the truth-
VERNE
And just what is the truth?
CUT TO: ASIMOV 1 a la A Few Good Men.
ASIMOV 1
You can’t handle the truth!
(Everyone pauses in their intent interest and momentarily notices ASIMOV 1, who, dimly smirking, shrugs and lights another spliff. Others blaze-up as well.)
VERNE 1
Julian, Julie, Jules, Zero, One, Infinity -- we're the same person. That's the truth. I don't care if you understand it. Smokey is right. It is a better option to keep your women under. Much less complicated, much less to explain or lie about. Your ladies are still in hibernation. Keep them that way. After the accident, before I tried operating on Azalea, I exhausted our limited supply of Ellisonium toward green-room technology to perpetually sustain the conditions of a temporal-scale differential; one I discovered when crossing into this doggone, dog-eared, dog-eat-dog place we call The Rushmore System. Time for you doesn’t work the same here as it does for me. Unless you’re a fish out of water, you don’t know there’s such a thing as flight. It’s like that very difference. The difference of air and water. We find we must swim when we used to fly, and we can fly while you must swim. This charade of Utopia is the only thing that allows us to continue to work on the real problem, which is no business or concern of yours, because you had no part in creating it; so ease your mind. Leave it to me and the billions of replicated others I got into this web of madness and quantum chaos.
HEINLEIN 1
Please understand, the concubines were not bred to cope with these challenges to our physical reality. Knowing the unvarnished truth would certainly result in a mass suicide or homicidal rampage; once they looked at the scope of the problem or the seeming futility of it -- or they would surely go insane, thinking there was some magic, fairy-tale way out of the endless, limitless and empty paradox which encompasses our particular crew, forever. Pain is just as real to an immortal. You can’t imagine how long the stroke of midnight really is until you live it eternally, over-and-over. You’ve seen our Azalea, Captain, you’ve even kissed her.
VERNE
(Okay, a little thrown off by it. Good recovery, though:) How is that relevant to-
HEINLEIN 1
You want answers. You want the truth. The truth is that we’re as dead as the day is long, Captain Zero. Don’t worry about us, we’re not the enemy. We’re your ghosts.
SIMAK
Aye, I knew there was somethin’ spooky about you, Clifford One.
SIMAK 1
Tsk. Tomorrow it will be like none of this ever happened to you and you’ll put more thought to your next flatulent act than to give any thought toward who we really were and what we were trying to change. We’ll keep our fantasies, Cliff.
ASIMOV
Oy vey!
ASIMOV 1
Vile wimmen hiv bean hippily rilling a plinet of fintisms, ve've deweloped an extention to the green-womb.
WELLS
An extention? What?
ASIMOV
I bit it's a midified grey-womb extinsion frimma gween womb, using ze raw Zitta-matter.
CLARKE
Ensign...
VERNE 1
(Touches his nose as he quickly points:) Good guess. That’s it exactly, Ensign.
HEINLEIN
Oh, no way. A modified grey-room extention? That's impossible.
VERNE
I have to side with Rob on this one, guys. He’s right. It’s impossible. Any Academy cadet up-to-snuff could tell you that the stream of time doesn't allow it. You just can't without- (First-trimester-pregnant pause.) What now, you mean to say that now you've conquered time???
WELLS 1
That's one way to explain it. Another would be that we perpetually get to relive the same moment many times over again.
CLARKE
A time-loop, Captain. The ability to construct this cell, the successful operation on Ms. Azalea, the inability for our weapons to work, this may all be due to a time-space anomaly -- they've been living these past few weeks countless times over as we merely pass through the days with a blink of an eye. Relatively, they've been consciously doing tedious actions over and over again for an eternally-long time. If they are trapped, then we are possibly their constant; their measured control. It certainly could explain much.
HEINLEIN 1
We excel at time management.
CLARKE 1
Affirmative. A problem with an infinite scope requires infinite patience.
CLARKE
It would seem that your patience borders on the immortal. This society you have constructed is beyond anything known to humans on Earth, and we must appear barbaric to you in retrospect. If I base my calculations on the fifteen billion energy signatures of the warships that we initially detected, they, being markers of your grey-room assimilations, a record of attempts or stages in finding the true, paradoxical-solvency-equation-
CLARKE 1
Fifteen billion, seven hundred, eighty-five million, three hundred, sixty-one thousand, four hundred, seventeen-
CLARKE
And factoring in the sixteen days and six hours since the last quantum sphere was generated, then it means the crew of Eliza One has at least been trying to fix the problem in this way for a relative time of seven-hundred-million years.
CLARKE 1
According to your calculations, it would be seven hundred two million, two hundred, ninety-one thousand, nine hundred and seventeen years.
CLARKE
Yes. Seven zero two, two nine one, nine one seven years-point nine three six three four four nine six nine one nine nine one seven eight six four four seven six three eight six.
VERNE
(It gets faster as it goes:) Seven six three, eight six, seven five three oh nine! "Oh, Jenny!" Are you sure, Clarke?
CLARKE 1
Don't answer that. He's just kidding you.
VERNE
(Leans on the invisible force field, since it's something that VERNE 1 can't do, even if it means he's on the wrong side of the fence. He jovially tokes and begins trying out his telepathy.) Well, it seems the millions of years have done you some good, Clarke One. You've developed a sense of humor.
CLARKE 1
Possibly. More likely though, I've learned to tell when you're only joking.
WELLS
But it's no joke: Consider the time we've been cooped-up in here!
SIMAK 1
Aye, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to how long it’s been for us. You cannot imagine how long a moment is when you swim without the cosmic clock, lad. Rats in the V-berth and not a lick of twine! I'm sorry to say I'm afraid your number is a wee bit low, Mr. Clarke.
CLARKE
A phantom mass-replication, merely fifteen billion attempts to somehow change something that has happened, or will happen. You've spent seven hundred million virtual years taking The Eliza to solve a problem-
ASIMOV 1
(He puts the small roach out on his tongue and eats it -- somehow it got passed to him by accident instead of ASIMOV. He hits the second spliff as it gets also erroneously gets passed to him instead of ASIMOV.) Mitch linger thin that. Mitch speece inbitween.
SIMAK 1
Easy, Isaac, in good time, laddie, in good time.
VERNE
You've been working on a problem for millions of years, perhaps much longer. You could have used your room technology to show us, yet you didn't. What's the problem? If it wasn't our replication, what was it? What will it be?
VERNE 1
That's for us to know and for you to find out.
VERNE
But your operation worked! We saw Azalea. At least, in your reality, the operation was a success.
VERNE 1
Yes. It worked. You saw Azalea. Your method worked for me, something I hadn’t thought to do in a way I never thought to do it. In that, you should be lauded. She only awakened because of you.
WELLS 1
Yes, and go figure, all Sleeping Beauty really ever needed was a kiss from Prince Charming.
HEINLEIN 1
Reviving the women wasn't the solution to our problem, but we can't go back on that now. They're awake and happy.
VERNE
Can I undo it? The accident? Go back, and not create the quantum-field; not operate?
VERNE 1
No. You said so yourself: You can’t dodge the bullet by not firing the pistol. You are right, more than you’ll ever know. Your personal stake in this affair does not change the equation. The real accident stems from the terraformation of New Trinity, which was only triggered by your operation. You went into the red room and attempted to revive Azalea on your own, and that’s when you put a fork in the road that gave an off-ramp to our paradox and allowed us both some time to work on what ails us both in different ways. Don’t mess with it. Our Azalea is conscious. Leave it at that.
VERNE
But the operation wasn't a success for me. Our Azalea didn't awaken.
VERNE 1
What makes you think it wasn't a success?
VERNE
We still got a corpse.
SIMAK 1
Aye, that, you do.
WELLS
Are we caught in this time-loop?
WELLS 1
Not as far as we know. It is vital that we do not disturb your relative time-line, although, to us, it appears altered already. We can only meet at certain junctures of time. Medically speaking, there will never be a full re-assimilation; some elements of us got lost forever in Oblivion and none of us are gonna go there to get them. Certainly not me: I’m a doctor, not Orpheus Descending, so you’re all on your own there. You boys should stay as you are. Be as your nature commands you, gentlemen, as nature calls.
(WELLS 1 momentarily exits.)
HEINLEIN 1
We're keeping you unaffected by our own time experimentations, and hope you stay clear.
ASIMOV 1
We mid the timm lip to silve ear priblims, nyet years. You kinnot silve year own peeridox until year out of ear lip. And you cannot git out of ear until you see year priblim is not ears.
(WELLS 1 enters the hall from the other side, opposite of where he was last seen heading.)
WELLS
And once you're out, you can't come back the same way. Don't ask how I know it to be so, but we're all on a one-way road.
SIMAK 1
Understanding time is quite simple, lads, once ye putcher mind to it.
CLARKE
Gentlemen. Although you've been working on this problem for eons, it seems remote that you would be able to cross the time barrier so easily, even with advanced technology. To construct a device that could do what you claim to have done-
CLARKE 1
I believe you're unaware that there are other forces at work here. We've evolved considerably since the first rotation.
ASIMOV
(Being figurative and highly sarcastic:) Rotition? Vaht is thit? Oy Vey!
VERNE 1
For now, I want you to forget about your time-loop theories, or time travel, or us, for that matter. We're you, that's it.
WELLS 1
As a favor, I’m adding that we’re not what you should be worrying about. We're just guys like you, only more evolved over time.
VERNE
You're not aliens, you're not the enemy, you're guys like us, only more evolved. That's wonderful. I applaud you. Now, where's my ship?
VERNE 1
(He pauses, lightly sighs:) Docking bay sixty-nine.
SIMAK
Aye, it's like bird feathers poking out of a grinning hound's mouth -- there’s a lot you’re not telling us.
SIMAK 1
Did you enjoy the war movie, gentlemen?
VERNE
(Flatly:) Immensely.
WELLS
Makes me wonder why I became a doctor at all, with such a fine acting career ahead of me-
ASIMOV
Vaht’s vith zee roozter?
HEINLEIN
The jungle scenes? How did you-
SIMAK 1
Well, Doctor Wells, since you're such a fine critic, maybe you can explain it all to them.
VERNE
The movie wasn't based in reality. The Earth history, it's all wrong. Too human, too anthrocentric.
HEINLEIN 1
How sure are you that the Earth history you know is what really happened?
SIMAK
Yar, shiver me-timbers. Are you saying that in your time-travels, you’ve uncovered something that contradicts the history we know?
VERNE 1
We’ve already told you more than we should have. You have to solve it yourselves. But I like you, Julian. I really do.
CLARKE
Captain, surely there was much more to the movie than its poor attempts at humorous entertainment or diplomatic diversion. I believe, symbolic instructions and secret messages were intentionally encoded within -- cryptic messages that we, at some later time, are meant to decipher. Keys to unlocking the doors of our own particular paradox.
CLARKE 1
Nothing gets past you.
WELLS
What do you want from us?
VERNE
We don’t have time to explain the insanity of it all. I know none of you would ever relinquish command, even to me. We’re a different breed of men. All of us.
SIMAK
Aye, what makes you think we’re planning escape, now?
HEINLEIN 1
Do you think we don’t know what you will do? What you will try to do?
VERNE
Did I cause the paradox?
VERNE 1
You are the paradox. (Pause. Everyone’s all serious and all.) We don’t know why. We know Azalea -- your Azalea -- is a factor in the puzzle.
HEINLEIN 1
Don’t bother with looking into the details of its history. It will only anger or frustrate you.
SIMAK 1
You can’t fix problems you didn’t create by removing yourself. Face your challenges, don't run away from them.
CLARKE 1
Whether you choose to hijack The Archimedes or take the cargo in a hastily-repaired Mental Floss, you can't take our women. You need to take the women you brought with you, and your corpse.
HEINLEIN
What have you done with the women?
HEINLEIN 1
It’s time for you to stop asking questions and start hearing answers, Rob.
VERNE
Where’s The Eliza?
VERNE 1
You cannot take The Eliza.
WELLS
But it’s got a working green room!
VERNE 1
(To VERNE, resolute as the first time:) You cannot take The Eliza.
VERNE
Why not?
VERNE 1
If you do, you’ll be here next. It's why I'm stuck in this upside-down universe, working on your problem. You leave here, you'll just go to the paradox in The Universe next door.
CLARKE
A conundrum, sir. They left one paradox just to find another, and another, and another.
SIMAK
They took The Eliza.
HEINLEIN
Perhaps they're from a parallel universe, and affecting time to create possibilities that allow them to unravel their particular paradox in relation to our own.
ASIMOV
Hey Donatello! Don'-a tell o' me you’re gonna smoke that all by yourself, aeh?!
ASIMOV 1
(ASIMOV 1 passes the second, half-smoked spliff to ASIMOV.) Kill it a ging away prisint. Heetetleetlee. Ees Simeelian Speece.
WELLS
(To WELLS 1:) You! You tried to undo it!
WELLS 1
No, but I imagine it's something like that.
(VERNE trying telepathy again, unexplainably chuckles for no apparent reason, and VERNE 1 gives an odd look.)
SIMAK
A parallel-universe, eh?
CLARKE 1
Actually, it was what we found in the first million years of our existence that brought these developments to light. As the eye inverses the image, the mind must see it upside-down. Our spiritual presence overshadows our physical reality. We’ve been able to alter our form since the first rotation-
VERNE 1
Mr. Clarke, your verbosity is noted. It’s an understatement to say we’ve been here a little longer than you. We’ve evolved. We’ve learned to accept it and live forever within a day.
VERNE
Why don’t we work on this together? Help each other out? Surely there is a way-
VERNE 1
I like you, Zero. But I can’t get involved in your quantum issues and you definitely should stay away from mine. This is your universe. I’ve got a killer green-room paradox that I’ve tried to fix beyond repair and was forced to tack on an error of my commission that I can never change. We’re stuck here because of physical reasons, and I’ve fixed our problem as good as it’s ever gonna be fixed. But your problem? That’s up to you. You’re stuck here for different reasons entirely. You’re in quarantine because you didn’t clean up after yourself in the red room and the Bradbury Prohibition won’t let you contaminate the rest of The Universe with your mental baggage, nor fall into the same hole the rest of us did. You’ve got a pile of red room mistakes and several errors of omission in protocol. You must have been really tired when you operated, Julian. (Naturally, to VERNE:) Your procedure was immaculate but your clean-up was the sloppiest I’ve ever seen since we started med-school, and sloppier than our Piper case, for that matter. Here’s the only hint you’re gonna get, cuz it took me eons to even consider this notion: Where do our quantum-mistakes and unviable improbabilities go? When you carve debrided tissue from a patient in the red room, where do you throw it? Figure it out, Harryhausen, and fix it, or just leave it alone and stay in the quarantine area until it rides out on its own.
VERNE
Which you’ve demonstrated could take hundreds of millions of years. Surely, too long for me. If we stay to be colonists, what would be next for me and my crew? More movies? Heh, how about a couple of stag films? Then we might discuss Utopia. We’re tired of being rats in your maze, Verne One. What is our real option here?
VERNE 1
It's up to you. You either fix your problem, or you can make plans to settle here, with us as we truly are. It's up to you.
VERNE
Billions of tries, and using the green-room initially sent you and other phantasmal aspects of yourself from another dimension into our paradox. Our Universe. A paradox where I didn’t use the green room; I used the red room, and somehow during the timestop, I made another paradox, a different type. How can our problem be unique? Compared to the problem that sent you here, it must appear to be as easy as gravy and rice, but that doesn’t explain- Even with red-room quandary, why didn’t we slip into another dimension and another paradox like you? (At the end of this rhetorical monologue, uses an index finger that's been hovering and pointing on every “you” and “yourself” and “our” and “I” and “we” to tap his chest and holds his index finger there on “us” as if on the very brink of discovery -- a few thoughts away from “Eureka!” He points to self:) Why not us?
VERNE 1
I believe we’re done here, gentlemen.
SIMAK 1
Asimov, be a good lad and encrypt the cell door on the way out. Use one of those made-up secret codes you told me about, the one that nobody can-ever crack...
ASIMOV 1
Yassir. With plissure. (As the replicant crew leaves, he goes to the only visible panel in the hallway outside the door. It looks like an oversized, pay-phone number pad. He types 1, 1, 1 and then #, so all can see, yells to and catches up with SIMAK, who is already off.) Got the one-eleven-nimber-sinn-star code locked-in, sear -- they’ll nivver get-out now!
(CLARKE goes to the only panel inside the cell, which is identical to the hall panel in every way except that SIMAK replaced it shy of a few nuts and bolts and many wires are sticking out and going back behind of the hung-off-kilter panel inside the cell. He types 1, 1, 1, and then *. The border lights in the door-jam turn off completely.)
CLARKE
Captain, it doesn’t appear that they are monitoring us and we seem to be free to go. However, if they have telepathy-
VERNE
(Sotto:) They don't have telepathy. Earlier I tested that theory. Believe me, if Verne One would have known what I was thinking about, I wouldn't still be standing here. And I agree with you, Mr. Clarke: They aren’t monitoring us anymore. Espionage isn’t their plan. They're waiting for our next move, and they know we won't make it unless we can speak to each other without worrying about being overheard.
CLARKE
A very logical deduction, Captain. May I also extend that after seven-hundred-million-or-more years of complete predictability, they seem quite fascinated with the art of surprise. They desire us to trick them, to do what perhaps they themselves would not have thought of doing. To solve a paradox in a way novel to what has been applied before.
VERNE
What is this to them? Some sort of entertainment?
CLARKE
We're not that sure of our facts. Outside of this prison complex, nothing is known. Captain, I suggest we stay together.
VERNE
Good thinking, that's why when we split up, you're the one in charge, Mr. Clarke. Make sure the men follow that order to the letter. Stay together. I'm going after their women -- to cause a distraction, of course, which will allow you some time to get away, plus, I have a promise to keep.
ASIMOV
Kiptin, allow this lowly helmsman to risk his neck in such a vay. I'm expindibble, the kiptin belongs in commeend!
VERNE
I appreciate your valor, Isaac, and I duly note your willingness to sacrifice yourself for the good of the crew, but in this case, I may become a hostage and with my close ties to the top dogs, it may be the bargaining chip I need to stay alive. Diplomatic negotiations may warrant someone of note to be taken hostage, otherwise, why would they bother to negotiate, or for that matter, even want to keep a hostage alive? I can't afford to lose my best ensign to another tragically mis-directed, well-intentioned and under-estimated diplomatic gesture. Ensign Asimov; for one I could never replace you, for another, it would haunt me if I ever lost you in a situation that I wasn't willing to endure myself, and lastly, you don’t wear a red shirt, and we know that with the exception of Smokey, a red shirt is the kiss-of-death for anyone who is caught wearing one. I want all of you alive. Now get going. None of you wait for me, that's an order.
SIMAK
(He hits his pipe:) Aye, good luck, and forget about the kiss-o’-death, instead, have a Kiss-O’-The-Irish, sir. (Fiddles with a mini-magic-button on a vial worn on his belt.) It’ll put a shine on spoons and will feather your stars with leprechaun dust.
(SIMAK offers a flask from his utility belt. The men all do a shot from it.)
VERNE
(He dryly coughs after a wince-making belt from the shot-replicating flask.) Your first mission: Escape. Then, contact Washington at all costs, and I don’t care whether the line is secure or not. There’s technology and abilities shown here that warrant immediate cause for alarm. You can put it out on the Milky-Way Shopping Network if it will reach home. If the enemy wants to listen in and get involved, more power to them, but I imagine they’ll keep their distance from potential quantum-powder-kegs if they can. No primary color room use until you’re at least a hundred parsecs away. Even the smallest primary-room action would have infinite ramifications inside a polyparadox and it’s already giving me a headache enough. You have your order. Escape. Mr. Clarke, once I'm gone, you're in command.
CLARKE
Yes, Captain.
VERNE
Dr. Wells, you are the ship's historian and histronic executive. Nobody and I mean nobody goes in a room, taps my magic button or even smoothes-out a bump in the road without consulting you, capiche? (WELLS slowly nods.) We apparently have a pre-existing type-three paradox that I created, which, according to Verne One, smacks of the ol’ Harryhausen type; but I can't see how or why yet, and I’m not stepping one foot inside a quantum feild until we get home and let the big-dogs put their noggins to it, so give it all some time. Whether The Universe is screwy or not, nothing else is new. We’ve been alive this long, there’s no point in rushing to make course-corrections. Got me?
WELLS
The Universe will be left alone, sir.
VERNE
Mr. Heinlein, you’re in charge of finding our women and ensuring they accompany you -- on ice. And I mean like they are now. I don’t need to remind you that we’re gonna have a tough time explaining how and why our collars have been removed, and maybe we might just get away with that, but if we go opening up human coffins and waking up prom queens the government won’t be happy with how we spent our Summer vacation. Plus, I don't want our ladies to have their pretty little heads polluted with any of the mental trash that this crew has mucked through. If you find you must leave them, so be it. If you must, let someone else come and get them. Exercise the utmost prudence in the matter, Mr. Heinlein; getting a ship in space where she may deploy her full payload is your only real mission. (Puts hand on SIMAK’S shoulder:) Smokey, take The Eliza, if possible, she listens to you more than anyone. Smokey, the last thing I told the ship was that you were in command. For all intents and purposes, that hasn’t changed; as far as I’m concerned. I can’t step one foot through The Eliza without your help. She needs you, take care of her.
SIMAK
Aye, sir.
VERNE
All of you have proven that you can be exceptional leaders and flawless tacticians any day of the week. Do not attack the planet's surface unless Mr. Clarke has determined that I am dead or worse. Also, continue blackstar protocol, and you have full authority to destroy any outside vessel you encounter, or to disregard collateral damage if you decide to implode nearby space and destroy yourselves. If so, see you on the other side. Got me?
SIMAK
Aye, sir. Any other ships you want us to take?
VERNE
Whatever is available. If you can get Mental Floss to take off again it will be a miracle.
SIMAK
The Eliza’s lost sixteen foxtrot, sir. Their marker hit snacks-and-stunts in that little battle we told you about. I could fix it in a matter of-
VERNE
No. Repairs can wait. I don’t need you moving odd arrays and tinkering with spare bulkheads until you’re back on Earth and can look back on this and laugh. Escape is your only mission. All of you: get on a ship and kick it in the pants and don’t stop running full-tilt until you reach the Milky Way. Get Washington involved one way or another. This isn't a mere violation of the Bradbury Protocol, this is a serious threat to our national security. Whether they're us, aliens, replicants or the cow that jumped over the moon, they have superior technology and control over elements of the time-space continuum in ways I can't comprehend, and last time I checked, I’m the Q-P doll that got the Cyrano award for paradox surfing. The quantum room I designed doesn't even approach what they've seemed to have mastered doing with their minds. I can't tell whether they are a threat or a blessing, but nothing productive can occur until the cavalry arrives and we get a garrison stationed here. Something very bad is about to go down, and I want you all out of the way. You have your orders. Escape.
SIMAK
Very well, Captain. Good-luck, sir.
VERNE
Find docking bay 69, wherever that is. (He nods to CLARKE.) And as Mr. Clarke has so aptly suggested, I want all of you to stay together. (He throws his hitchhiker’s thumb over his shoulder, gesturing toward the door.) Now go hijack the first ship you find and get the heck out of Dodge.
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