Sphere Page #9

HARRY:

It's nonsense. There's enough

difference between our own species

to prove that.

BETH:

Take politics, our views on

abortion, the death penalty...

HARRY:

Cannibalism, to be extreme. And now

we're talking about a new life form.

Their values and ethics may be

incomprehensible.

BARNES:

Like "Thou shall not kill"?

NORMAN:

Or maybe, it can't be killed.

BARNES:

You mean, what's in that thing is

immortal?

NORMAN:

I don't know. That's the point.

BARNES:

Everything can be killed.

BETH:

Not everything. Even on earth. Take

...yeasts.

BARNES:

Yeasts? Thank you, Beth, but I don't

think we're gonna open it up and

find a loaf of bread.

HARRY:

And we're just talking about three-

dimensional creatures. What if it's

five or six or seven-dimensional? So

dimensional that we couldn't even

see it to kill it.

NORMAN:

Good point. I don't know what you're

talking about, but good point.

BARNES:

Or it could contain some great

benefit to us, some astonishing new

idea or technology to help mankind.

HARRY:

It could. But the odds of it being

any use to us are against it.

BARNES:

You don't know that.

HARRY:

Let's say whoever made this thing is

a thousand years ahead of us, just

like we are to, say, medieval

Europe. Suppose you went back to

medieval Europe with a TV set. There

wouldn't be any place to plug it in.

BARNES:

Just tell me worst case. Worst case

of what we might find?

BETH:

It could breathe in air and exhale

cyanide gas.

NORMAN:

Disrupt our brain waves, interfere

with our ability to think.

HARRY:

Produce radioactive waste and

disintegrate us into nothing.

CUT TO:

CLOSE ON PRINTER, TYPING: "Surface winds at 25 knots - Estimated Time

of Departure - 01:45 hrs"

CUT TO:

INT. DH-8 HALLWAY

Empty, sterile. WE HEAR the repeating sound: THWAP. Almost like a

dripping faucet. THWAP...THWAP...

INT. LIVING QUARTERS

Harry on his bunk, staring at the wall, flicking his middle finger at

his cheek:
THWAP...THWAP.

HARRY:

You realize, Norman, that we are all

going to die.

Norman is lying in his own bunk, below Harry.

NORMAN:

Don't be so optomistic, Harry.

HARRY:

I'm completely serious. There is

something very important missing

from that spacecraft. You know what

that is?

NORMAN:

Not a clue.

HARRY:

A sign that the builders knew time

travel through a black hole was

possible.

NORMAN:

I don't follow you.

HARRY:

On that flight recorder, they called

the black hole an "Unknown Entry

Event." They didn't know what a

black hole was. Fifty years from

now, men are going to build that

ship in a very tentative,

experimental way, with no knowledge

that time travel through a black

hole is possible.

NORMAN:

So what?

Harry leans his head over his bunk.

HARRY:

So, we know.

(beat)

We know it went through a black

hole. We saw it. Norman -- when we'd

get to the surface, we'd tell

someone about the black hole,

wouldn't we? It'd go in some report

like some big discovery. So in fifty

years when they build that ship,

they'd make precautions for a black

hole.

(beat)

But they didn't. The called it an

Unknown Entry Event.

NORMAN:

Meaning we're never gonna get the

chance to tell anyone.

HARRY:

Meaning we're never gonna get to the

surface alive...to tell anyone.

Norman gets out of his bed.

NORMAN:

I can't believe that, Harry.

HARRY:

Gimme another explanation.

Norman pacing.

NORMAN:

I can't. If I had a minute to think,

maybe, but I know you're wrong.

HARRY:

Am I?

NORMAN:

Look -- we're under a lot of

pressure, we're tired, you're not

thinking straight.

HARRY:

You mean, you think I'm cracking?

NORMAN:

No. I didn't say that.

HARRY:

Then what, Norman?

Norman stops pacing, a beat.

NORMAN:

It's what's in that sphere, isn't

it, Harry? Whatever you think is in

that thing -- you think it's going

to kill you.

HARRY:

Curious, isn't it? What's inside?

Before I die, I'd sure like to open

it and see.

INT. VIDEO FEED ROOM

CLOSE ON MONITOR: Video of the sphere. RAPIDLY rewinding.

BARNES:

What caused it?

EDMUNDS:

Nothing. I don't know. Everything

was normal. No changes at all.

HARRY:

When did it happen?

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