Martian Seashells INT. LAB - DAY A female lab-technician leans over a can-shaped piece of crimson rock. Over her shoulder are portholes, and a red plain against a pale pink sky – The Martian horizon. Jedah's gloved hands place the sample in a bowl, half-full with clear liquid. The material disintegrates, fizzing gently, giving a cloudy solution. JEDAH Core sample, 1251-d, from the Damien mine. She looks up and straight at us –we are startled- then places her hands on both sides of our vision and adjusts are gaze to focus on the bowl. JEDAH I'm going to the bathroom. I'll sieve in a moment. She leaves through a narrow hatch that opens at her approach. DISSOLVE TO: Sample: A few minutes later, now a milky pink. Jedah looks in, cynical but not yet bitter, executing a simple procedure performed many times previously. JEDAH Well I haven't missed much. She tips the liquid into a device. The machine vibrates slightly, and pisses a stream of transparent fluid into a flask at its base. At intervals separated by height, different funnels collect similar samples. At the top are charcoal-black fingernail sized rocks – Martian pebbles. Then smaller rocks – Martian gravel. Then Martian sand. Finally a rose powder that could be dehydrated Martian soil. In a beaker, on the other side, TINKER an unsteady stream of particles, that bounce frantically before lying still. Almost as if they are alive. We CLOSE and see- Dozens of tiny Martian seashells. She adjusts the camera so we can see them better. JEDAH Yeah, there you are. Martian seashells. She probes them with fine tweezers. Turns a few over. For evidence of alien life, they are as dull as they are sterile. JEDAH But no life. She reaches at us. CLICK! Vision goes to black. JEDAH (V.O) Call me this time, if you get this ok. TITLE CREDIT: MARTIAN SEASHELLS – MAIL: 4201: It fades. Replaced with: TRANSMISSION BLOCKED: JEDAH (V.O) Goddammit. FOOTSTEPS quieten with distance. INT. OPERATIONS - EVENING: A large room. A long jet-black conference table runs at a distance and parallel to a glass wall. Two men with binoculars look beyond and observe- Below, work two multipurpose vehicles (MPVs), churning up dust that hangs in the reduced Martian gravity. We can hear the vibrating-ROAR of their engines and the hydraulic HISS of the loading forks as they traffic cargo-crates from a drop-zone 150m away to hangers jutting out from the base-proper. Almost at the horizon, is a red smear – a dust storm. TUFFANT What do you reckon? SAMUEL Third one this month. A bad one too. BINOCULAR'S POV – ZOOM PICTURE A raging whirlwind of red, a dusty haze that is almost static. But not quite. Cornered green digits mark gradual progress- Range: 1404m ETA: 1:23 TUFFANT (V.O) Have you warned the others? Range 1401m ETA: 1:22. SAMUEL (V.O) No Linex wired us. No news from TELNET either. Accelerating too. Range 1399m ETA: 1:19 TRUFFANT (V.O) I'm gonna seal the exterior and retract the solar array. Can't be too careful. Samuel HUMMS thoughtful approval. Truffant walks to a wall-mounted interface. Types. High-definition CCTV displays the exterior of the outpost in four segments. On the split screen, we observe- 1-An array of solar panels begins folding from their flat structure. They retract slowing, folding up on themselves, not quite in sync with one-another, but in identical motion. 2-Portholes iris-close, leaving a tiny central hole. 3 and 4-The Garages we saw earlier retreat with perspective. The three left cells, on the left screen, the three right cells, on the right screen. Two are already fully stacked, and rack-security gates descend, and lock. The MPVs step up their operations, stacking cargo modules haphazardly in the mostly empty loading bays. An invisible gust strikes. Kicking a thin sheen of crimson dust that arrives almost simultaneously on all four screens. The solar panels pause, looking like the mid-rife of an accordian. Dust silts them. The portholes vanish. The truckers are almost completely veiled, only detectable by the solid white rhombuses of their cab-mounted floods. They reappear in different positions, their floodlights slicing segments of white and pink in the haze. Then vanish again. It clears suddenly. The black-lattice panels continue folding with the natural grace of a venus flytrap, tipping powder from their faces. The portholes are revealed. Crates are slotted onto forks, lifted, and raced back to the hangers. SAMUEL'S POV Range 1245m E.T.A 1:12 Joined by: Wind-velocity: 9.6ms-1 This value jumps and skitters constantly. TRUFFANT (V.O) Yeah, it's picking up, alright. SAMUEL (V.O) TELNET didn't pick up anything on any of their satellites? Christ you better warn JEDAH in the lab. They're gonna be in for- As if on cue, JEDAH enters. JEDAH (accusatory) You blocked my transmission. Jedah and Truffant are clearly a couple. He nods to the crimson beyond. TRUFFANT I'm sorry sweetheart. No comms until after the storm. SAMUEL'S POV Range 1245m ETA: 0:59 Wind velocity 10.0ms-1 The red haze grows. The digits jump to yellow then an urgent red. They flash in warning. Range 233m ETA: 0:13 Wind velocity 14.5ms-1 SAMUEL (V.O) Shit, it's crossed a ridge. The Storm suddenly grows huge, filling the rectangle of our vision. It eats up the ground between us. INT. OPERATIONS - EVENING Samuel drops his binoculars. TRUFFANT (into mouthpiece) Biggs, Taylor, it's only a few minutes away. Leave the crates. Get inside immediately. TAYLOR (V.O) Roger that. How much time do we have? SAMUEL Estimated time of arrival; 10 minutes. TAYLOR (V.O) Shit! They turn tightly. And trundle towards the hanger base, ungainly machines with a marginal acceleration and nominal top-speed. The dust churned up by the caterpillar tracks spins slowly before being lost to the encroaching darkness. The white-floods of the cabs begin to silhouette the rocky terrain hurtling beneath. INT. TAYLOR'S CAB The glass has the curved distortion of fusion-welds (see later). Taylor bent over the controls. Glances behind him. Terrorised. He forces the yoke even further back. It heaves forward, and the engine couplings begin to SHREEK protest. Pebbles rain in front, falling like sparse meteorites. One DONKS off the cab, and spins away into darkness. A second and third follow quickly. One strikes the windshield, starring it. The MPV's cradle forms a pressurised environment, and atmosphere immediately begins to HISS. A KLAXON chimes a warning. One strikes the crate being held, destroying it. It disappears down from view. The front heaves up then slams down as the crate KA-CRUNCHES underneath. INT - LOUNGE. Eerily calm. Very silent. Shutters descend over the window. They look through the venesian armoured blind at the darkening landscape. SAMUELS Gonna be close. TRUFFANT Get Smith in that hanger with a medikit. INT. - TAYLOR'S CAB The engine SQUEALS and bucks, kicking him back and forth. It shudders. Stalls. Grinds to a sickening, shuddering stop. Overtaken by Biggs. TAYLOR Shit-shit-COME-ON-YOU-BITCH! He cranks, it hiccups forward. Stalls out. He cranks, it hiccups forward. He looks over his shoulder. TERROR. Cranks. The engine roars into life. He revs until the gears SCREAM, then dumps the clutch and sends the MPV tearing forward. Closing on the base. Accelerating. GONKS on the roof. One dents in the interior ceiling. Another reduces a side window to a fuzzy mess of crystalised glass. Taylor leans over his controls. EXT. TAYLOR'S MPV. Powders rock beneath it's revolving caterpillar tracks. The rolling rocky terrain gives way to the flat-packed shingle between the hangers. INT. BIGGS'S MPV. Biggs dumps the traction from one caterpillar track onto the other. The engine ROARS protest and pulls hard right. He eases forward into the hanger. Hits a button in the cab. The shutter sinks down behind him. Red smoke roils inside. The door seals and pressurises. The dust dissipates. INT. TAYLOR'S MPV. The base is lost in the orange fog. More rocks ball down. One hits a flood, tinkering glass and sudden darkness. TAYLOR Ah, shit come – A window blows in, then out in the same motion– decompression. Taylor falls across the controls, instantly unconscious. The engine's GROWL, begins to slide off, approaches normal levels, as the base suddenly looms large out of the fog. INT. LOUNGE The floor QUAKES. The SCREECH of stressed bulkheads. Samuel falls ungracefully, but Truffant drops to a crouch. The window fractures, but holds. DOOR seals automatically, locking them in. The CRY of the storm fills the room, not quite drowning the snake's HISS of decompression. The lights flicker. BLACK! Dim emergency reds show two men on the floor, inert enough to be dead or unconciousness, and a third crawling for the closed exit. DOOR CAM'S POV Leaning up and into our vision is Jedah, not feeling well, and struggling to stand unaided. JEDAH You there, David? DAVID (V.O) Yeah, I got you. What was that? JEDAH I don't know. We're decompressing in here. A drop of blood falls from her nose, and rolls over her lip and chin. She wipes it away. JEDAH The trip's been activated. I can't open it from in here. The master switch is in the lab. DAVID (V.O) Ok, I'm on it. Jedah slumps down, she scratches at her ear and her bloody fingertips look almost black in the darkness. The storm rages outside. Stones rattle against the roof and walls. INT. CORRIDOR David races through hatches. INT - LOUNGE Truffant slumps by the controls. JEDAH What have you got? TRUFFANT We're in a bad shape. He toggles switches. The CCTV display flickers on. He types. The display jumps to artificial colours –nightsight. He enlarges the two hanger-Cams to adjacent full screens, then begins rotating the camera- Revealing the shell of the MPV embedded, burning in a hanger. Smoke is whipped away by the fierce wind, but a jet of flame periodically shoots from the wreckage. INT. LAB David sits at the interface. The plastic-woodpecking of his fingers at the keypad summon a map of the base, with the room we recognise as OPERATIONS a throbbing red. OVERIDE DENIED He types. ACCESS DENIED He types OVERIDE INITIATED INT - LOUNGE The red lights dim further as the door opens. Air WHOOSHES through the gap, blowing Jedah's hair forward. They stagger through. It slams shut. EXT - BASE - DAWN The Martian dawn is hard and brutally clear. The sun is an angry white circle, still bitten at the edge by the horizon, casting the figures in stark relief, and throwing long shadows. The base is a mile behind them, sitting in a small depression, surrounded on all sides by the foothills of a formidable mountain range. 12 people in skin–hugging white spacesuits are gathered round a pile of loose rocks topped by a white cross (formed by two bulkheads, cut to size and riveted together). Taylor's funeral. They stand in silence. BIGGS (OVER INTERCOM) Does anybody have anything to add? All are still. Biggs turns and begins to hike home. The others fall into file behind him. A loosely knit band of survivors, returning to a lonely, forgotten outpost. EXT. OPERATIONS – NOON Pete, a suited redneck in his mid-thirties, hangs suspended by several cables. Beneath him, is David. Behind him are the charred remains of the MPV, and garages. Biggs searches through the wreckage. The exterior looks like a network of giant mechanno meshing, securing the fabric of the base proper. Across the roof of the still-operational garages, are scattered pebbles and rifts of orange sand. PETE How am I doing? David moves to say, but- TRUFFANT (over intercom) Good. We got 870 KiloNewtons on the bulkhead, but we're steady. David looks distracted. Pete applies a torque wrench. TUGGA-TUGGA-TUGGA. He sends a bolt spinning home. The Operations platform takes on a more square-looking angle. Pete begins to repeat the process on adjacent fixings. David wonders over to Biggs. DAVID Hi. Looks up. BIGGS Oh. Hi David. Quite a mess we got here. He lifts over an impossibly large joist. Underneath, is more blackened wreckage. Dust, red and black, spins away in a sudden breeze. Biggs looks suddenly distracted. Fearfully, he scans the horizon, but sees nothing. He tosses the girder onto a scrap-metal pile. BIGGS You know, I love Mars - nowhere like it. Except the weather. Which is a bitch. He picks up a stone, and throws it angrily away. It flies for miles, falling in a gentle arc. Puffs up a red cloud. BIGGS Gonna get away to Saturn, as soon as I can. Do you think they'll be a war? But David has slipped away. EXT. AIRLOCK - NOON David watches the interior pressure fall slowly. 75%… 74%… 73%… There is the soft THRUMMING of air compressors operating inside. David scrutinises his suit. His white-suit is hairy. He turns his arm in the sun. The sun-sided hairs lie down, while the ones in shadow become erect. PING! The door opens slowly on well-oiled hydrolics. He steps inside. INT. AIRLOCK Air ROARS inside. A display shows air pressure esculate rapidly… 10%… 20%… 30… At 50% he begins removing his suit. It comes off easily with experience and efficiency of design. INT. STORAGE FACILITY He hangs his suit in a row of them. Different sizes for different crewmembers. INT. CORRIDOR He walks through passages, doors silently opening-closing automatically. EXT. OPERATIONS The door is sealed. He operates an override. It SCREECHES open on damaged fittings. INT. OPERATIONS Truffant is watching Biggs's progress visually, and statistically on a data-readout. TRUFFANT (INTO INTERCOM) Yeah, that's good. Three-thirty Kays. David isn't quiet, but Truffant doesn't appear to notice him. TRUFFANT (INTO INTERCOM) Better. Great. DAVID Dad? TRUFFANT (DISTRACTED) Hey, David. How are you? DAVID Ok. TRUFFANT (INTO INTERCOM) Right. Secure that. DAVID When are we going to Nexus-33? TRUFFANT Pete. Huh. Oh, this weekend. David's disappointment goes unnoticed. He turns away. TRUFFANT (back to intercom) Pete? … No. That was David… yeah. I'm sorry… David leaves. INT. DAVID'S ROOM The bed is a single, foldable bunk. The small room looks typical of teenagers, but with a hi-tech edge. He flicks through a few pages on his terminal. Schoolwork. Looks distracted. He looks at the terminal's cornered clock. Bored. He flicks a switch. COMM. LINK POV Our vision becomes split-screen, half-black, half him, facing us, waiting. He checks the configuration of the comm-link. It reads Transmission OPEN. David scratches himself. Is he nervous? Maybe, but he would never admit it, if we took the trouble to ask him. At last- Jessica appears on the other half. She smiles. A pretty blonde girl, about 16 years of age. JESSICA Hi. Your early. DAVID Hi. Yeah. Um, sorry. JESSICA How have you been? DAVID Not so good, you? JESSICA Ok. Mum wants a divorce. She pauses. They burst out laughing, David half-heartedly, enjoying a shared joke. JESSICA (sobering) Are you coming over this Friday? DAVID Is that ok? JESSICA Sure. DAVID I like what you've done to your hair. JESSICA Oh? Suddenly self-conscious, she smiles reluctantly. Swipes a lose cluster of hairs back into her ponytail. JESSICA You noticed! DAVID (NODS) It looks nice. Jessica's image is gripped by a little static. David and Jessica reach forward. But David gets there first. It clears. JESSICA Thanks. DAVID No problem. JESSICA Have you started your Synther-creature? DAVID Hang on. He disappears off screen. Returns a moment later. Whatever it is, it is very incomplete. JESSICA Is that all you've done? That was expensive, David! DAVID (SHEEPISH) Sorry. I am doing it. It's just really hard, Jessy. JEDAH (O.S) David! DAVID (to Jessica) Can I call you back? JESSICA Sure. Anytime. David reaches by our vision, but his half of the screen remains live. He stands up excited, balls his fist. Yes! He smirks. JESSICA Um, David. Your smirking. Turns suddenly. Realises he failed to turn it off. DAVID Uh. Damn, sorry. He reaches to us. Pauses. DAVID Jessica? I'm sorry. JESSICA (Suddenly sad) That's ok. The silence between them is uncomfortable. Jessica shifts slightly, and it sinks in that while they share our vision, in reality they are probably hundreds of miles apart. DAVID Well. Bye. JESSICA (nods) Take care. Jessica signs off first, and David is wrenched by her loss. With half the screen blank, he looks only half-complete. INT. CORRIDOR – DAY Jedah meets David outside operations. He does little to hide his annoyance. JEDAH You can have Taylor's place if you want. DAVID I'll sit where I normally do. Doesn't Jamie have to be here? JEDAH He's too young - you know that. The operations doorway slides open smoothly at their passage - it has been fixed. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - NIGHT The argument must have been raging for a while, as the various fractions have reached the point of heated summations. Taylor's chair looks conspicuously empty. TRUFFANT We have nineteen crates left. We eat four a day. So we have four weeks- BIGGS So we arrange another dispatch ASAP. JEDAH If there is a war, they will be stockpiling in preparation. BIGGS So we risk our last MPV outside? TRUFFANT NO! You don't have to come. We'll get one or two caches from Nexus 33. But we need more. For a moment all are lost, as they talk over one another. David leaves unnoticed. INT. DAVID'S ROOM – NIGHT David returns to his room to find his synthercreature pushed to one side, it's desk space occupied by Jamie, playing a computer game on the terminal David was at moments ago. JAMIE (eyes not leaving the screen) Hi. DAVID Just make yourself at home, why don't you? David picks up the synther-creature and places him on his bunk. It's innards snake from his belly. He has three of his legs attaches, and he screws a forth onto the chasis. He adjust the lamp above for better illumination. Seals the abdomen, and turns him over. Switches him ON. Sam looks all-machine, but his behaviour defines him as human. He has two red LED-antenna eyes. Sam has a small flip-up message board. On it reads- HELLO I'M SAM! DAVID Can you hear me okay? Jamie twitches his way. YES. He stumble-walks towards DAVID. And apparently studies him. HELP! DAVID Wassup? SAM I'VE ONLY GOT FOUR LEGS DAVID Sorry. I wanted to see if you work okay. SAM NOT WITH ONLY FOUR LEGS He stumble-walks over to the construction-packet. Sees bits of himself in rows and stacks. He finds the four legs. Pokes them with one of his legs. Wiggles his stumps. YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED ME YET. DAVID I know He switches him off. Sam slumps as if hypnotised. David moves to finish Sam, David's face a picture of concentration, the inanimate machine slowly becoming whole. EXT. NEXUS 34C – MORNING TRUFFANT and DAVID ride in the cab of an MPV. Behind them they tow an empty trailer. This Nexus station is similar to David's, but in place of the hangers are greenhouses and assirted and unamed heavy duty bioengineering equipment. Poking arrogantly from the hard-packed orange clay is an array of shoots. They are clearly dying. Arllo walks among them, unhurried, head down, depressed. Truffant moves to Arllo as David goes inside. TRUFFANT How’s the terraforming? Arllo stubs his boot at one of the vertically coiled blades. Then kneels down, and pulls a stork up by the base. It comes up easily - there is almost no rootstock. The edge and tip are browning, although the interior still retains a little green. ARLLO Depressing. TRUFFANT These are your latest? ARLLO Yep. Lasted nearly two weeks. They sit on an outcrop of rock, considering. Above the network of plants is a retractable network of irrigation apparatus. Occasionally, oversized water drops fall lazily and PUTT against the hollow Earth. Beneath, the sick plants sway slightly. ARLLO (sighing) They’re all dead. Like the ones before. Like the ones after. TRUFFANT Let's go inside. INT. JESSICA'S ROOM A room identical in design and orientation to David's but tidy and slightly feminised. JESSICA I was sorry to hear about Taylor. He looks up sharply. Stung. DAVID (HOSTILE) How did you know about that? Jessica pauses. Didn’t expect this. JESSICA (CAUTIOUSLY) I saw it on the news. DAVID Oh, sorry. JESSICA That’s okay. There is distance between them. And silence. David suddenly collapses into tears. Surprised, Jessica takes him in her arms. He subsides, eventually. Jessica passes him a tissue. He cleans himself up. Embarrassment, is preferable to the silence and their expressions reflect guarded relief. DAVID (lamely) Sorry. JESSICA (instantly) That's ok. DAVID I brought your creature. He removes it from his rucksack, and kneels down. Jessica mirrors his movement. DAVID On! Sams legs immediately begin turning in space. He places him down. He scutters forward, and turns to face them. JESSICA How's it doing? DAVID Pretty good. It's still learning to walk. Jessica pulls a red ball from a box jumbled with toys a teenager has long since grown out of. She rolls it across the floor. JESSICA Fetch! The robot races jerkily after it. He reaches it, but his own momentum sends it spinning into the corridor. He keeps up the chase. He tries to clamber over it. David's stands suddenly. Looks at the porthole. He feels watched. JESSICA David? She stands too. DAVID Is anyone out there? I swear I saw something. JESSICA My dad is. Are you alright? DAVID (uncertain) Yeah, sure. Sam is kicking the ball back across the floor. David picks it up. He sends it rolling again; Sam in hot pursuit. JESSICA It's just us. David. She steps in closer. Somehow she finds his lips. They kiss. At their feet and suddenly ignored, Sam wheels the ball to a standstill. INT. NEXUS 34 – FRONT ROOM The atmosphere is relaxed. ARLLO Beer? TRUFFANT Please. They drink from thin bottles. A terminal shows the structuring of cells, and a segment of rotating DNA. Beyond, is their attention - a football game. A player dressed in bright red runs through two in turqoise. Touchdown! COMMENTATOR 12 – 5 to the Martians. They aren’t green and they aren’t friendly tonight, No –sirree. MARIA (O.S) Shall I put Supper on? ARLLO Huh? (turning) Oh, sure. He turns back to the game. MARIA (jokingly) Humph! She reaches across and hits one button once. Inside the diner, we see food being prepared automatically. Maria sits down beside the terminal and begins working on a new plant. She cuts and pastes a piece of DNA from a cactus, onto the plants we saw before. The plant schematic changes. It has a double leaf structure, and a central flowering stalk. MARIA Has Arllo shown you are latest crop? TRUFFANT Yeah. Maria runs a demo. We watch the plant grow rapidly in a time-elapsed diagram. It shoots, stalks, flowers. PASS. The temperature, sunlight, u-v and other tolerances are comfortably within the estimated specs. Maria shakes her head. MARIA I can't understand it. If I didn't have my PhD, I'd swear it was trying to kill them. TRUFFANT Your telling me. We lost Taylor. A shocked pause. ARLLO Your not serious? TRUFFANT His MPV crashed into his hanger. Damn near lost the entire base, too. Didn't Jedah tell you? Arllo and Maria exchange a glance. Evidently not. MARIA No, she's been quiet of late… I got her last report on the seashells… TRUFFANT (tentatively) Would you maybe mind talking to her…? Maria and Arllo exchange another glance. MARIA It… She peters out. Maria cannot seem to find the words… MARIA She hasn't exactly been talking to me much, either. Truffant looks like he understands this. A thoughtful pause. TRUFFANT She's so involved in her work. ARLLO The seashells? TRUFFANT (agreeing) The seashells. I brought some over. I didn't know if you were interested. MARIA Actually, we've already got some. Truffant is genuinely surprised. Jedah picks up a small dish from the space beneath a porthole. The crimson seashells look neither appealing nor special. EXT. NEXUS 34C - EVENING The sun sets in a furnace of oranges. Evenings are marked by the crimson tones gifted to the rocky broken terrain. The gaze marvels desperately, across a contrast so red tilted that it almost assaults the eye, leaving us reeling, yearning for the green of plant life, and the eggshell blue of the summer sky. Ignoring it, all five shuffle crates into the MPV's trailer. Their substantial bulk implies a false sense of weight - in the reduced gravity they are moved easily enough. Arllo secures the last of the cargo modules. TRUFFANT Thank you They shake hands. Most of the trailer is empty space. ARLLO I'm sorry we can't spare more. TRUFFANT (politely) It's more than enough. I had better fetch David. As if at his command, David appears fully suited. He seals the airlock behind him, and pads over. JEDAH (to David) Ready to go now? DAVID Sure. They mount the cab, and are waved off by Truffant and Arllo. INT. CAB - NIGHT, MUCH LATER The MPV RUMBLES smoothly forward. David looks over his shoulder. Pairs of yellow beacons, mark the edges of the supply line recede with perspective. By the red of the Cab's taillights, the crates also look bad. DAVID It's not gonna be enough, is it, Dad? Another MPV trundles by in the opposite direction, it's floods suddenly growing dazzling bright... and then gone, it slips forgotten into the distance. TRUFFANT No, I don't think it is. EXT. CLIFF TOP - NIGHT The MPV is no more than an illuminated speck in the giant black desert, the yellow markers almost invisible at this range. To the fore are the silouhettes of ruined buildings. Patterns of constellations, more than we could possibly count, arch over the forgotten land. Amongst them we see roaming stars, satellites and spaceships crawling across the cosmos. EXT. NEXUS 30 - NIGHT The base is in darkness, the exterior lights turned down, except for a small spotlight at the rear. In the white, Jedah, Biggs and Pete work. INT. MPV Truffant is still at the controls, but in a slack posture. David wakes at his side. Bleary eyed, he stretches. Truffant stations the MPV near them and depressurises the cab. EXT. NEXUS 30 - NIGHT Around three individuals are power tools, several external hull segments, thick sections of insulation and a white glittering frost of crystallised water vapour. TRUFFANT How's it going? The removed segments leave a window revealing circuitry, piping and brightly coloured cabling. Biggs's visor reflects the steel-blue of his welding torch and extenuates the hard-lines of his cheeks and jaw. He is about to remove a length of plumbing. PETE (simply) We're leaking water and oxygen. Fluid spurts. It boils and freezes violently, spraying a fine mist of snow that fuzzies our vision. Truffant and David step back, nervous. Jedah and Pete stay put. Perhaps they've seen this several times earlier. Biggs wheels shut a valve and the swirling cloud slowly clears. He secures a length of flexible tubing above the damaged section, and the other end beneath it. The valve is released, and the flexible tube flexes slightly under the pressure. BIGGS I've bypassed it. We'll be ok for now. Pete passes him sections of hull. WRRRR! He drills bolts into the corners. Jedah takes a few steps away with Truffant JEDAH (quietly) How did it go? A barely perceptable shake of the head. Not good. She walks round the edge of the trailer. Her emotions flash like memory cards across her face. Surprise. Shock. Horror. The last one lingers longest. INT. JEDAH AND TRUFFANTS BEDROOM Jedah is in bed, turned away from Truffant. TRUFFANT You know how i love you... She ignores him, but sighs slightly. She was never Juliet, him never her faithful Romeo, and the years past haven't improved them enough to make up for the difference. TRUFFANT I did it for you. JEDAH No you didn't. He accepts this as true. TRUFFANT We'll pull through. She scoffs. Had she turned round, she would have seen his hurt followed by a stab of resentment. JEDAH We'll talk in the morning. EXT. NEXUS STATION – DAWN Dawn scrapes at the horizon. The Nexus station sits smoking slightly along its bruised flanks, a forgotten outpost surrounded by the vast expanse of nothing. INT. OPERATIONS – DAWN Briggs is scared witless. The others look at him, and the fear spreads around the table. There are no lights on within the room – and those present are bathed in the sickly red glare, of the plate window. PETE Ok… problem. TRUFFANT Why are the lights off, and the doors broken? PETE We've lost about 84% of our H-2-O. There is plenty to drink, but not enough to cool the reactor. TRUFFANT We can't process the atmosphere? PETE We can process until the batteries run dry. Then the only oxygen we've got left is bottled. JEDAH How long do we have? BIGGS What about the MPV's? PETE I'm gonna draw off what's left in the MPV to feed the core. BIGGS Aw, shit, man. How we s'posed to get around? JEDAH How long have we got? TRUFFANT What about an SOS? PETE We lost comms in the storm. You didn't switch them off, the dish was messed up by the storm. JEDAH HOW LONG DO WE HAVE? PETE (stuttering) Ab.. ab..4.. about 48 hours with what we've got left. But there are air cylinders at the quarry. BIGGS Well, that's a hell of a goddamned hike with no transport. Didn't you say anything to Arllo? TRUFFANT Godammit, I thought we still needed food. Truffant stands slowly, and looks round the group expectantly.
Copyright © 2001 Joel Harper |