Interstellar Page #11

40s, an engineer, begins hooking leads into the probe.

COOPER:

Canaveral's been gone for thirty

years.

Brand ignores him.

Doyle looks up from his monitor, frustrated.

DOYLE:

It's not responding to the handshake.

I can't open anything on primary.

Brand looks up at Cooper.

BRAND:

What did you do to it?

COOPER:

Nothing. I got something off of it.

Cooper looks around. There's a safety station on the wall

with a battery powered defibrillator.

COOPER (CONT'D)

(TO BRAND)

May I?

Brand nods, wary. Cooper walks over to the wall, takes the

defibrillator, and hooks it up to the probe. He taps into

the current and runs a lead into the terminal. Brand's Father

watches, fascinated, as Cooper fires the defibrillator.

32.

OLD ENGINEER:

Of course. The high voltage allows

you to image the entire memory unit

at once.

Information begins appearing on the terminal's screen.

COOPER:

Most of the disk was noise. Couple

of clean sectors, though.

Suddenly, the monitor starts pulling good data off of the

probe. The older man and Doyle begin sorting through it.

Cooper smiles at Brand, who seems less than impressed.

The footage of the ice-covered planet Cooper saw earlier

pops onto the screen.

The engineers and physicists get very quiet, studying the

images.

DOYLE:

It found something.

(READING)

Very thin nitrogen-based atmosphere.

Trace radiation. Surface is ninety

percent frozen water. Ten percent

rock -- sedimentary composition

similar to limestone.

(READING)

Wow. Pockets of oxygen below the

surface. Lots and lots of oxygen.

(EXCITED)

This could be the one, boss.

The older engineer studies the image of the ice-covered

planet, thinking.

COOPER:

There aren't any planets like that

anywhere near earth. Not even if

this thing was gone for thirty years.

Brand looks at Cooper, appraising. She turns to the older

engineer.

BRAND:

He's heard enough. If we're going

to launch, we need to keep them here

until afterwards.

COOPER:

You can't keep us here.

33.

BRAND:

He could endanger the mission.

COOPER:

I'm not going to endanger it any

more than you already have.

Cooper points to a telemetry unit that is being repaired by

a robot on a nearby bench.

COOPER (CONT'D)

Are you using that for guidance?

DOYLE:

Why not? We've tested it a hundred

times.

COOPER:

The power supply is no good. If the

voltage fluctuates under load, the

unit will fail.

BRAND:

Now how could you possibly know that?

COOPER:

Bought thirty of them off a guy in

Florida. Had to rebuild every last

one.

(SMILES)

They work great on a riding lawn mower.

Brand looks back at the telemetry system. The older engineer

watches the exchange, thinking.

CUT TO:

INT. MACHINE SHOP, UNDERGROUND FACILITY -- DAY

Cooper and Murph have been locked in an abandoned machine

shop, surrounded by the massive remains of rocket engines in

various states of disrepair. Tars is blocking the door.

Cooper stands. Tars wags a long, hydraulic finger at him.

COOPER:

You plan on keeping us here forever?

TARS:

(SHRUGS)

My battery has a duty cycle of five

hundred years.

Cooper gives up. He turns back.

34.

The back of the shop is filled with a group of older ROBOTS

who are overhauling an engine. One problem -- the engine

isn't there. Their programming hasn't been updated to reflect

their obsolescence.

Murph watches, entranced, as the robots go about their

business, efficiently TORQUING bolts with impact drivers

into a non-existent thruster cone. The bolts CLATTER to the

ground as the robots stop to reload.

MURPH:

What are they doing, dad?

COOPER:

I guess no one told them they were

out of a job.

(nods at Tars)

Same as the rest of these people.

Cooper notices through the glass door of the lab that Brand

and the older engineer are arguing about something. She

finally relents and walks towards the door.

Brand walks in. She gestures for Cooper to follow.

BRAND:

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