2001: A Space Odyssey Page #3

The family is no longer reposing peacefully outside its cave;

it is foraging, searching for food like any normal hominids.

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A small wart-hog ambles past the group of browsing humanoids

without giving them more than a glance, for they had never been

the slightest danger to its species.

But that happy state of affairs is about to end. The big male

suddenly bends down, picks up a heavy stone lying at his feet -

and hurls it upon the unfortunate pig. The stone descends upon

its skull, making exactly the same noise that Moonwatcher had

produced in his now almost forgotten encounter with Big-Tooth.

And the result, too, is much the same - the warthog gives one

amazed, indignant squeal, and collapses in a motionless heap.

Then the whole sequence begins again, but this time it unfolds

itself with incredible slowness. Every detail of the movement

can be followed; the stone arches leisurely through the air, the

pig crumples up and sinks to the ground. There the scene

freezes for long moments, the slayer standing motionless

above the slain, the first of all weapons in his hand.

The scene suddenly fades out. The cube is no more than a

glimmering outline in the darkness; the hominids stir, as if

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awakening from a dream, realise where they are, and scuttle

back to their caves.

They have no concious memory of what they had seen; but that

night, as he sits brooding at the entrance of his lair, his ears

attuned to the noises of the world around him, Moonwatcher

feels the first faint twinges of a new and potent emotion - the urge

to kill. He had taken his first step towards humanity.

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A12

EXT cave AND PLAINS - Utopia

Babies were born and sometimes lived; feeble, toothless thirty-

year-olds died; the lion took its toll in the night; the Others

threatened daily across the river - and the trib prospered.

In the course of a single year, Moonwatcher and his companions

had changed almost beyond recognition.

They had become as plump as the family in the Cave, who no

longer haunted their dreams. They had learned their lessons

well; now they could handle all the stone tools and weapons that

the Cube had revealed to them.

They were no longer half-numbed with starvation, and they

had time both for leisure and for the first rudiments of thought.

Their new way of life was casually accepted, and they did

not associate it in any way with the crystal cube still standing

outside their cave.

But no Utopia is perfect, and this one had two blemishes. The

first was the marauding lion, whose passion for hominids

seemed to have grown even stronger now that they were better

nourished. The second was the tribe across the river; for

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somehow the Others had survived, and had stubbornly refused to

die of starvation.

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A13

EXT CAVES - KILLING THE LION

With the partly devoured carcass of a warthog laid out on the

ground at the point he hope the boulder would impact, Moon-

watcher and three of his bravest companions wait for two

consecutive nights. On the third the lion comes,

betraying his presences by a small pebble slide.

When they can here the lion below, softly tearing at the meat,

they strain themselves against the massive boulder. The sound

of the lion stops; he is listening. Again they silently heave

against the enormous stone, exerting the final limits of their

strength. The rock begin to tip to a new balance point.

The lion twitches alert to this sound, but having no fear of these

creatures, he makes the first of two mistakes which will cost

him his life; he goes back to his meal.

The rock moves slowly over the ledge, picking up speed with

amazing suddeness. It strikes a projection in the cliff about

fifteen feet above the ground, which deflects its path outward.

Just at this instant, the lion reacts instinctively and leaps

away from the face of the cliff directly into the path of the

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onrushing boulder. He has combined the errors of over-

confidence and bad luck.

The next morning they find the lion in front of the cave. They

also find one of their tribe who had incautiously peeped out to

see what was happening, and was apparently killed by a small

rock torn loose by the boulder; but this was a small price to

pay for such a great victory.

* * * * * * * *

And then one night the crystal cube was gone, and not even

Moonwatcher ever thought of it again. He was still wholly

unaware of all that it had done.

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A14

EXT STREAM - MASTER OF THE WORLD

From their side of the stream, in the never violated safety of

their own territory, the Others see Moonwatcher and fourteen

males of his tribe appear from behind a small hillock over-

looking the stream, silhouetted against the dawn sky.

The Others begin to scream their daily challenge. But today

something is different, though the Others do not immediatly

recognize this fact.

Instead of joining the verbal onslaught, as they had always done,

Moonwatcher and his small band decended from the rise, and

begin to move forward to the stream with a quiet purposefulness

never befor seen.

As the Others watch the figures silently approaching in the

morning mist, they become aware of the terrible strangness

of this encounter, and their rage gradually subsides down to

an uneasy silence.

At the water's edge, Moonwatcher and his band stop. They

carry their bone clubs and bone knives.

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Led by One-ear, the Others half-heartly resume the battle-

chant. But they are suddenly confrunted with a vision that cuts

the sound from their throats, and strikes terror into their

hearts.

Moonwatcher, who had been partly concealed by two males who

walked before him, thrusts his arm high into the air. In his

hand he holds a stoud tree branch. Mounted atop the branch is

the bloody head of the lion, its mouth jammed open with a stick,

displaying its frightful fangs.

The Others gape in fearful disbelief at this display of power.

Moonwatchers stands motionless, thrusting the lion's head high.

Then with majestic deliberation, still carrying his mangled

standard above his head, he begins to cross the stream, followed

by his band.

The Others fade back from the stream, seeming to lack even

the ability to flee.

Moonwatcher steps ashore and walks to One-Ear, who stands

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