Title and credits with moving cloud-blanket background. Credits fade, camera zooms toward clouds, which thin to show mountain range. Down through clouds, hover over huge misty lake. Water begins to heave, to be turbulent, suddenly shores rush together and water squirts high through the clouds in a thick column. Empty lake rises up out of clouds, is discovered to be Heri Gonza’s open mouth. Pull back to show full face. Puzzled expression. Hand up, into mouth, extracts live goldfish.
Gonza: Welcome to the Heri Gonza show, this week “As you lake it.” (beat) Which is all you can expect when you open with a punorama. What ho is (beat) What ho is yonder? A mountain. What ho is on the mountain? A mountain goat. What ho is the goat mountain? Why, another moun— Fellers, keep the lens on me, things are gettin’ a little blue off camera. Now hear ye, Tom, now hear ye, Dick, now hear ye, hairy Harry, Heri’s here. Hee hee, ho ho, here comes the show.
Soft focus and go to black. Long beat.
Heri took his beer away from his mouth and glared at the wall. “God’s sake, you send all that black?”
“Sure did,” said Burcke equably.
“Man, you don’t do that for anything but the second coming. What you think they expect with all that black? It sucks ‘em in, but boy, you got to pay off.”
“We paid off,” said Burcke. “Here it comes.”
“The horse act, right?”
“Wrong,” said Burcke.
Dark stage. Desk, pool of light. Zoom in, Burcke, jaw clamped. In a face as sincere and interested as that, the clamped jaw is pretty grim.
Burcke: Tonight the Heri Gonza show brings you a true story. Although the parts are played by professional actors, and certain scenes are shortened for reasons of time, you may be assured that these are real events and can be proved in every detail.
“What the hell is this?” roared Heri Gonza. “Did you air this? Is this what went out when I was knocking myself out with that horse act?”
“Sit down,” said Burcke.
Heri Gonza sat down dazedly.
Burcke at desk. Lifts book and raps it.
Burcke: This is a ship’s rough log, the log of the Fafnir 203. How it comes to be on this desk, on your wall, is, I must warn you, a shocking story. The Fafnir is a twelve-cabin luxury cruiser with a crew of twelve, including stewards and the galley crew. So was the 203, before it was rebuilt. It was redesigned to sleep four with no room over, with two cabins rebuilt as a small-materials shop and a biological laboratory, and all the rest taken up with power-plant, fuel and stores. The ship’s complement was Dr. Iris Barran, mathematician—
Fade in foredeck of Fafnir, girl standing by computer.
Dr. George Rehoboth Horowitz, microbiologist—
Bespectacled man enters, crosses to girl, who smiles.
Yeager Kearsarge, pilot first class—
Kearsarge is a midget with a long, bony, hardbitten face. He enters from black foreground and goes to control console’.
Sam Flannel, supercargo.
Widen lighting to pass cabin bulkhead, discovering large man strapped in acceleration couch, asleep or unconscious.
“I got it,” said Heri Gonza in the projection room. “A rib. It’s a rib. Pretty good, fellers.”
“It isn’t a rib, Heri Gonza,” said Burcke. “Sit down, now.”
“It’s got to be a rib,” said Heri Gonza in a low voice. “Slip me a beer, I should relax and enjoy the altogether funny joke.”
“Here. Now shush.”
Burcke : . . . mission totally contrary to law and regulation. Destination: Iapetus. Purpose: collection of the virus, or spores, of the dreaded children’s affliction iapetitis, on the theory that examination of these in their natural habitat will reveal their exact internal structure and lead to a cure, or at the very least an immunization. Shipowner and director of mission: (long beat) Heri Gonza.
Fourteen hours out. . .
Fade Burcke and desk and take out. Dolly in to foredeck.
Horowitz crosses to side cabin, looks in on Flannel. Touches Flannel’s face. Returns to computer and Iris.
Horowitz: He’s still out cold. The tough boy is no spaceman.
Iris: I can’t get over his being here at all. Why ever did Heri want him along?
Horowitz: Maybe he’ll tell us.
Small explosion. High whine.
Kearsarge: A rock! a rock!
Iris: (frightened) What’s a rock?
Kearsarge waddles rapidly to friction hooks on bulkhead, snatches off helmets, throws two to Horowitz and Iris, sprints with two more into cabin. Gets one on Flannel’s lolling head, adjusts oxygen valve. Puts on his own. Returns to assist Iris, then Horowitz.
Iris: What is it?
Kearsarge: Nothing to worry you, lady. Meteorite. Just a little one. I’ll get it patched.
From control console, sudden sharp hiss and cloud of vapor.
Iris: Oh! And what’s that?
Kearsarge: Now you got me.
Kearsarge goes to console, kneels, peers underneath. Grunts, fumbles.
Horowitz: What is it?
Kearsarge: Ain’t regulation, ‘sall I know.
Horowitz kneels beside him and peers.
Horowitz: What’s this?
Kearsarge: Bottom of main firing lever. Wire tied to it, pulled that pin when we blasted off.
Horowitz: Started this timing mechanism. . . . What time did it pop?
Kearsarge: Just about 14:30 after blastoff.
Horowitz: Think you can get it off there? I’d like to test for what was in it.
Kearsarge gets the device off, gives it to Horowitz, who takes it into lab.
Cut to cabin, closeup of Flannel’s helmeted face. He opens his eyes, stares blankly. He is very sick, pale, insane with dormant fear. Suddenly fear no longer dormant. With great difficulty raises head, raises strapped-down wrist enough to see watch. Suddenly begins to scream and thrash around. The releases are right by his hands but he can’t find them. Iris and Kearsarge run in. Kearsarge stops to take in the situation, then reaches out and pulls releases. Straps fall away; Flannel, howling, leaps for the door, knocking the midget flat and slamming Iris up against edge of door. She screams. Kearsarge scrambles to his feet, takes off after Flannel like a Boston terrier after a bull. Flannel skids to a stop by the lifeboat blister, starts tugging at it.
Kearsarge: What the hell are you doing?
Flannel (blubbering): 14:30 . . . 14:30 ... I gotta get out, gotta get out . . . (screams)
Kearsarge: Don’t pull on that, y’damn fool! That’s not the hatch, it’s the release! We got spin on for gravity—y’ll pitch the boat a hundred miles off!
Flannel: Oh, lemme out, it’s too late!
Kearsarge punches upward with both hands so unexpectedly that Flannel’s grip is broken and he pitches over backward. Kearsarge leaps on him, twists his oxygen valve, and scuttles back out of the way. Flannel lumbers to his feet, staggers over to the boat blister, gets his hands on the wrong lever again, but his knees buckle. Inside the helmet, his face is purpling. Horowitz comes running out of the lab. Kearsarge puts out an arm and holds him back, and together they watch Flannel sag down, fall, roll, writhe. He puts both hands on helmet, tugs at it weakly.