Starman Page #6

When he has absorbed them he walks through the trees to get

a better look at the town. On the wind he can hear shouts

from students boarding a line of yellow buses in front of a

grade school off to his right. Suburban houses have begun to

snuggle up to the base of the hill he is on.

Keeping to the tree line well above them he continues his

search for an avenue of escape. His head swivels to watch a

Volvo station wagon come down the street. It swings into the

driveway of the house directly below him and stops next to a

Mustang Hatchback. The back door opens and JENNY HAYDN, a

pretty girl in her mid-twenties, gets out carrying a crudely

lettered be-ribboned sign 'Welcome Back, Mrs. Haydn.' Female

voices drift up to the STAR MAN from inside the car.

VOICES:

It was great to have you back... The

kids loved it. We loved it. You're

doing the right thing...

EXT. HOUSE - DAY

JENNY:

I hope so... We'll see... See you

tomorrow... Bye. Bye.

VOICE:

(as the Volvo backs

out of the driveway)

Remember you're required to have a

lesson planned tomorrow.

Jenny laughs and waves. With the Volvo moving away up the

street Jenny picks her newspaper off her walk and goes into

the house.

EXT. HILLSIDE - DAY

The STAR MAN presses on through the trees. He hears a light

plane overhead. He stops and watches until the branches cut

off his view. A path between two logs leads him to the tip

of a promontory. From behind the cedars growing there, he

sits and looks down on the center of Eau Claire.

Arm in arm, a YOUNG COUPLE meander through the trees. The

boy has a blanket over his shoulder and the girl's hair is

disheveled. Without seeing him, they walk past the STAR MAN

crouched in a thicket of small pines. After they've gone by,

he straightens up and watches them walk down toward the

highway.

EXT. HILLSIDE - LATE AFTERNOON

The sun is setting over suburban Eau Claire. The colors are

reflected in the STAR MAN's faceplate as he watches Jenny

push a hand mower over her back yard.

He takes a dusty gray marble out of a leg pocket and while

Jenny finishes the lawn he rolls it between his gloves. It

turns a glowing gold as it grows in size. When it reaches

the dimensions of a baseball, he brings it close to his

faceplate and speaks into it.

STAR MAN:

(subtitles)

Iron channel message. Suit and rockets

destroyed. Radical mixture of this

atmosphere and ours in helmet allowed

chemo-ion response time to adapt my

body to this air. Am going to attempt

extreme transformation in order to

cross land mass to site of our

practice landings. If transformation

is not fatal, second message ball by

next darkness.

He opens his hands and the ball rises quickly into the sky.

Jenny is dumping the grass clippings into a garbage can at

the side of the house when the sudden motion of the message

ball catches her eye and she watches it quizzically until it

disappears.

EXT. WISCONSIN SKIES - LATE AFTERNOON

We are on the belly of Shermin's helicopter looking at the

tree tops rushing underneath.

INT. HELICOPTER - LATE AFTERNOON

Shermin is standing back of Lyman and Bell who are seated in

front of the square of television screens watching various

shots of the wooded landscape flowing by under them. Shermin

scrubs his hands over his face then bends over to stretch

his back.

SHERMIN:

Aghh... I'm supposed to umpire a

little league game tomorrow.

LYMAN:

I wouldn't worry about it... There

might not be any little league

tomorrow.

Pause.

MAJOR BELL:

I'm telling you they're probably

friendly.

LYMAN:

Then why did they try and sneak in

the back door? Tell me that. Why

didn't they contact us first and

say...

RADAR TECHNICIAN

(loud)

UFO coming out of the grass.

SHERMIN:

Lock in.

RADAR TECHNICIAN

Got it.

Lyman and the technicians tap out orders to their tracking

units and the views of the forest on three of the television

screens change to images from their microwave scanners,

neutron back scatters and doppler radar. On a fourth screen

the forward-looking infrared module begins creating a picture

of the UFO. The men relax as they recognize the configurations

of a light sea plane.

LYMAN:

This is crazy. What were we going to

do if that had been the ship? We

have two thirty calibre machine guns,

three M16's and some handguns.

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