Scene 6.16 -The Swee Fruss Trayt Sharla Mayn
Zeta, First orbit, Time-Shuttle Demetridon
ANIMATION STYLE 1
INT. Demetridon.
(Everyone’s crowded-around AZALEA, who has a portable quantum generator set on a table. It looks like a microwave oven. She puts a final swab into its innards, closes the door and touches several unmarked buttons.)
SIMAK
Are ye sure of what ye doin’, there, lass?
AZALEA
The time police assured me that this would work. It’s got to. (Reading the Chinese instruction manual in English.) According to these instructions, as long as we're orbiting within Zeta's magnetic field, this grey-room setting should merge all our personas and send everyone back to where they really belong.
SIMAK
I’ve ne’er seen a quantum-generator so small before, lass. Are ye sure it will work now?
AZALEA
It has to; it was built in the future. Now I want to say before I activate this device that it’s really been a pleasure knowing all of you over the years and I hope you all weren’t too inconvenienced by-
(Impatiently, RONNIE hits the start button.)
AZALEA (Cont’d)
Ronica!
RONNIE
(A la Elizabeth Montgomory’s catch-phrase in Bewitched:) Well?
(In a matter of seconds, a small rising note quickly rises to an inaudible frequency. A small pop like a Champagne bottle and suddenly, ACTRESS ALPHA, ACTOR CHARLIE, ACTOR DELTA, ACTOR BRAVO, AZALEA, assorted cameos and the other concubines all vanish. The room grows darker.)
ASIMOV
Oy vey, Toto, E din’t theenk ve’re in ze spiss innymore.
(There is a horizon line outside the window. Outside, the floor is black. Outside, the ceiling is white. It looks oddly-familiar to us.)
SIMAK
Aye, we’ve done it now.
ASIMOV
Stringe, Eve git all ze mimmor-ees of Actor D, he vas phintismick. We’ve re-assimilitted.
SIMAK
Aye, I got Actor B all-up-inside me head now.
ASIMOV
Yiss! Actor D, he’s in here with me!
CAMEO TEN
What gives? I know who I am now. I ain’t no thug from Lost Angeles, I’m Ensign Davidson, aboard The U.S.S.S.-
ALL EXCEPT ARCHEMEDES CAMEOS
Enrapture.
(The crewmen from the Archemedes look to one another, remembering.)
SIMAK
Aye, it seems our real personas have been restored now.
RONNIE
Then the grey-room setting worked! We’ve fully been restored to reality. I positively know I’m Admiral Ronica Xanadu Jeremy and that in the real world, I'm aboard The Enrapture. (Pause.) Now where’s the ship?
SIMAK
Aye, where are we? (Hits pipe.) I hate to tell ya now...
ASIMOV
Ind vere’s ze ladies? Oh, E theenk me head is switting aggin...
RONNIE
We’re missing some of the crew. (Pause.) I remember, it’s all so clear now. Commodore Zale's missing... The magic show... That’s all I can remember.
ASIMOV
Yiss. I remember! Ze ion-storm! Me nim eece Zack Isaac. I villy am a lieutenant!
CAMEO SEVEN
Mam, I’m know I’m just a red-shirt-wearing ensign, but I think I know what’s happening here...
RONNIE
If you have a clue, Ensign, speak-up.
CAMEO SEVEN
The Archemedes -- I was the Q-P doll on my ship before it was scuttled. I see a quantum trend here... Something must have created a paradox on Tellusia, and the closer we came to it, the stranger things became, like how those old-school Testi (test-tee) Improbability Drives used to make things go all crazy sometimes. The Enrapture must have been caught as well -- now that we’re somehow escaping the paradox, we’re beginning to know more about who we really are and why we’re here.
(After “here,” SIMAK audibly guffaws, almost being annoying.)
RONNIE
That sounds reasonable Ensign; noted. Keep pursuing that possibility with further analysis. (Turns to a smug SIMAK. He’s smug, but it isn’t a self-satisfied-kind-of smug or a happy smug. He’s in fact, quite the opposite. He’s feeling ugly-smug. Feeling smugly. It’s as if someone turned off the happy switch in his heart, for, not only is he in Oblivion again, ACTRESS ALPHA was taken away before he got to third. He braces for RONNIE’S brash reply to his outburst, but only gets:) Lieutenant Commander Ford, what do you think?
SIMAK
Admiral Jeremy, you-a don’t-a wanna know what-a I’m-a thinkin’ about now.
RONNIE
Try me. It’s vital that we get back to the way things were before all this mess began.
SIMAK
That sounds mighty honorable, Admiral. Now if’n we could only get ourselves outta this trap we’ve done walked into now...
RONNIE
Trap?
SIMAK
Lieutenant Isaac is right, Admiral. We’re not in space anymore. Not any real space. We’ve done gone and put ourselves away now.
RONNIE
Away? You mean interdimensionally fixated? We're ghosts?
CU: SIMAK
(He draws from his pipe. Pause.)
SIMAK
Aye.
(The crew rushes to the window a second time, this time, much-less excited about the view. Nazi scrap metal from Verne-and-company’s earlier encounter is seen littering a small area in the distance.)
ASIMOV
Oh no! Veer did! Veer gointill! Zere’s no vay out of zere!
SIMAK
Of here, lad, of here. Best face it, now. Denial only buys you madness, laddie. And aye, there is a way out, I’ve dreamt that I've done it, but it takes a whole dung-pile o’ patience.
CAMEO TWENTY
Apparently, we’ve got all the time in the world.
RONNIE
I wish you hadn’t put it that way.
SIMAK
In my dream, we escaped this with a trick o' the mind.
RONNIE
Really? You dreamt you had escaped?
SIMAK
Aye.
RONNIE
How did you do it?
SIMAK
Aye, it took a little stash, a spider’s tenacity, a boat-load of concentration and the power of the buzz now.
RONNIE
The buzz? Yes! The ancient mental discipline of controlled intoxication. Yes. It may be our only hope.
SIMAK
It was a bit o' a dream, but perhaps it had a bit o' truth innit.
RONNIE
It has got to work. We become one with The Universe and separate in a more fitting situation. We could modify this shuttlecraft and use this as a vehicle out -- why, it should work -- we could fly ourselves out of here! There’s no time to waste. We’ve got to get the rest of the crew up to speed on using the buzz and get ourselves out of this hole.
SIMAK
Aye, it will take a while, now; and that’s not even thinking about the Devil’s Dementia...
RONNIE
Kubrick’s Closet Conundrum? We can’t have any of that... Dr. Mondavi, (Cameo Nine), I need you to make us a decompression chair post-haste.
CAMEO NINE
Yes, mam.
SIMAK
Nay, lassie. Admiral, I mean. When you're crazy, those chairs can be used for torture.
RONNIE
I weigh that point, see its logic and concur. Doctor, belay that order; no hot-seats for now. We all need to situate ourselves and plan for our mutual escape. We might only be here for a month, or we might be here for what might seem like eons. (Long, silent pause.) Or maybe longer.
CAMEO SIX
Admiral, I’m frightened.
RONNIE
We’ll have to all work together like never before. One way or another, we’re gonna get out of this mess. The others might still be experiencing the paradox, still unaware of who we really are and what is really happening.
ASIMOV
I knew ze filling!
CARLTON
Admiral, why did only some of us land up here? Did we die?
RONNIE
We're not dead; not yet. As for the others -- from here, everything’s pure speculation. If you can’t see the limits, you can’t see the possibilities.
ASIMOV
Yiss, dee-dick-tive reese-on-een!
CAMEO TWENTY-ONE
Who’s missing? Ensign Lo, Lieutenant Nelson, Nurse Madison, Ensign Dickson, Yeoman Adams, Commodore Zale, Lieutenant Thorne -- they were all with us only a moment ago.
SIMAK
Aye, but were they? Or were we just dreaming before -- remember?
CAMEO FIVE
And Bunion's missing. This is not a dream, I know I’m really a quantum-technitian aboard The Enrapture. But in my dream I felt like I was- What does that mean?
RONNIE
I’m not sure. If we could only retreive the log tape! There might be a partial-explanation to what happened to us in the storm and how we got in here. Or maybe it could help us chart a path out of here. (Pause.) And what's happened to the rest of the crew? Whew! I can’t seem to find any rhyme or reason in any of it.
ASIMOV
Me ease-her. Zat micks tewiffiss.
RONNIE
All right, let’s hit the bricks, people, we’re burning daylight. We need to set up a perimeter, make camp. Mr. Ford, you’re in charge. Ensign Washington (Cameo Twelve) make a duty roster. Let’s get cracking, folks. It’s up to us. A solution to this timeless mess isn’t going to just fall out of the sky...
(HEINLEIN drops from the sky and falls through the craft’s ceiling, adding light. He hits with a thud. Luckily, a few bulky cushions from a few items of furniture just happened to be piled in a stack in the center of the room. The items break his fall considerably.)
RONNIE
Mr. Roberts!
(CAMEO TWENTY-FIVE and SIMAK and ASIMOV rush over. Others move in to see.)
SIMAK
Are you okay, laddie?
HEINLEIN
(Shaking-it-off:) Yeah, I got sent here from Zeta.
SIMAK
(Soft:) Dear lad, search your brain now. There is no such place as Zeta now. It’s mythical. Search your heart. We’re really officers aboard The Enrapture now.
HEINLEIN
Yes, that’s true! I remember! I'm Lieutenant Rio Roberts!
CAMEO SEVEN
Hey brother-
HEINLEIN
Jimmy!
(Embraces him.)
SIMAK
Right. No Zeta, no Titans, that’s just in your mind now.
HEINLEIN
Only Tellusia. The captain went to the planet to negotiate-
SIMAK
Aye.
(HEINLEIN looks around, hits his joint, passes it to ASIMOV.)
ASIMOV
Oy vey! Ze Blau Veal-vit Gibstippear!
(He tokes deeply.)
HEINLEIN
But, the Titans-
SIMAK
No Titans, only this world now.
HEINLEIN
(Holds-up a prismatic rattle. It rattles!) Then what about this?
SIMAK
What is that?
ASIMOV
Vaht izzit?
HEINLEIN
A rattle.
RONNIE
Rio, where did you get that?
HEINLEIN
One of the Titans gave it to me.
CAMEO TEN
That’s impossible, the Titans aren’t real. They’re only quantum-concepts. Phantasmic Myths in a place where everything that doesn’t fit has to go.
RONNIE
Perhaps the Laws Of The Universe are working differently. We won’t know until we’re out of here.
HEINLEIN
(Catching the tone of it:) Where’s here?
SIMAK
Aye, laddie, we're back in Hell now.
HEINLEIN
Oh. (Pause. Back to reality. Deep breath. He’s got someone to go see...) Great.
SIMAK
Welcome-back, laddie.
HEINLEIN
Hmmmph. It feels like I never left.
DISSOLVE TO: