This place is dead, empty. Why do you stay?
As the Guardian speaks, movement within the fog, light, mist, the substance of “him,” changes, glows, dims, sparkles, changes color…whatever EFFECT has been opted for.
GUARDIAN
Because I am the last of my kind.
KIRK
The last?
GUARDIAN
The city is empty. Built to last even after I am gone.
KIRK
We followed some sort of radiation to this planet…it damaged our vessel—
GUARDIAN
You wandered into the time-flow. This world is the center of the Universe.
KIRK
The center? I don’t—?
24 CLOSER SHOT—ON GUARDIAN
as his form shimmers and pulses.
GUARDIAN
Only on this world do the million pulse-flows of time and space merge. Only here do the flux lines of Forever meet.
(beat)
Only here can exist the gateway to the past, where the Time Vortex of the Ancients can work.
(beat)
My race was set to watch the Time Vortex, so many hundred of centuries ago that even I do not have clear memories of it.
KIRK
The gateway to the past? A timemachine?
GUARDIAN
Not a machine. A creation, a vortex.
Kirk is about to ask what he means but Spock logical—cuts in.
25 ON SPOCK
SPOCK
Have you seen another man, dressed as we are?
GUARDIAN
What I see has already been, or is yet to be. No. No other like you.
CUT TO:
26 ROCKY NICHE—CLOSE PAST McCOY
past him, hidden in a shadowy crevice, listening to Kirk and Spock talking to the Guardian. There is a flagrant madness in McCoy’s face. The feverish color of the poison coursing through his veins can be seen in his cheeks. He sweats. His eyes are bright and wild.
He is a man totally out of his senses. He looks around himself, for a way out, but we see he is in a cul-de-sac. The only way out is past the Enterprise patrol. KIRK’S VOICE CARRIES.
KIRK
There are legends in space. About you. About this place.
GUARDIAN
You are the first visitors I have had in twice two hundred thousand years.
27 ANGLE PAST KIRK IN F.G.
to the Guardian, the mist rising, the light changing. Kirk approaches another step. We can see something in him we have never seen before: wonder, absolute all-consuming wonder. He has found a key to the secrets of the universe that compel him. He is being filled to the top with amazement, and he leans forward almost like a child.
KIRK
I always thought stories about time machines were the drunk-stuff of lab technicians when they’d had too much pure grain to drink.
GUARDIAN
The Vortex of Time is real. Look!
Kirk looks and his eyes open wide; delight and amazement and confusion and belief there.
28 THE TIME VORTEX—ESTABLISHING
Set in a tall, narrow rocky crevice, it rises up, different to each who see it. A pillar of flame, a shaft of light, a roiling brightness of smoke, whatever wonder you care to make of it, the obvious aspects are light, height and insubstantiality. Construct it as you choose.
GUARDIAN O.S.
Pure matter. Built by a science man will not understand for a hundred thousand times the span of years he has already existed.
29 PAST GUARDIANS TO KIRK
and the others near him, wondering, listening.
KIRK
(awed)
And it’s possible to go back…and forward…in time…?
GUARDIAN
All time, all space. They meet in this brightness, the Vortex.
SPOCK
(very scientific)
Can you give us a demonstration? Is that possible?
The Guardian’s answer is oddly tinged with weariness and pleasure.
GUARDIAN
Time is weary for the craftsman who cannot demonstrate his craft. It would give me pleasure to show you the past.
KIRK
Can you show us the past of any world?
GUARDIAN
I can even show you the past of your own planet…Old Earth.
KIRK
(softly)
The past of Old Earth…please…
The pillar of light blazes and as Kirk turns to look, the CAMERA SHOOTS PAST HIM. In a moment there is movement in the light…a thickening…a roiling like oil…like quicksilver mixed with smoke…and a scene begins to take FORM IN THE VORTEX. (NOTE: this, and other scenes in Vortex will be MATTE INSERTS.)
30 CLOSE ON VORTEX—FEATURING MATTE INSERTS (STOCK)
A scene of primordial times; great saurians; a woolly mammoth; steaming prehistoric jungle; reality!
It FADES OUT to be replaced by:
A scene in the days of the Clipper ships; something typical of the period; reality!
It FADES OUT to be replaced by:
A scene of NYC STREET in the time of the Depression, 1930-32.
(NOTE: At Director’s discretion, INTERCUTS of the Earthmen marveling at this demonstration may be inserted.)
NOTE: The indicated sequence of stock shots is merely offered as a pattern. Any stock will suffice, reeled in sequence so that shot 34 occurs at just the time when the Vortex is showing Old Earth in the Depression, 1930s. Facilitation is at the discretion of Production.
31 PAST McCOY TO VORTEX
as he watches in his madness with as much rapt attention as Kirk and his patrol. But the cunning is there, the arched brow and the faintly smiling mouth. The animal has sensed an avenue of escape, as we HEAR KIRK SAY:
KIRK
Could we go back to Old Earth?
32 ANGLE ON GUARDIANS
SHOT FROM TILT rising up, almost Messianic in tone, something reverential as they speak about their religion—time.
GUARDIAN
Yes, but it is not wise. If passage back is effected, the voyager may add a new factor to the past, and thus change time, alter everything that happened from that point to the present…all through the universe.
33 SPOCK AND GUARDIAN PAST HIM
fascinated by the concepts, not the magic of it all.
SPOCK
Then time is not a constant. It isn’t rigid?
GUARDIAN
Time is elastic. It will revert to its original shape when changes are minor. But when the change is life or death—when the sum of intelligence alters the balance—then the change can become permanent…and terrible.
SPOCK
Like changing the flow of a river.
GUARDIAN
A river, a wind, a flow, elastic. It makes no difference how you imagine it to yourself.
KIRK
How long has it been since anyone went—
GUARDIAN
For nine hundred thousand years no one has gone back.
SPOCK
(to Kirk)
I understand now why our chronometers turned backwards.
The Time Vortex has been running through dialogue, now draws near 1930. While CAMERA DOES NOT dwell on it, whatever shot we enter, we should see the scene of the Depression back there, to remind us it’s on.
KIRK
They’ve created a zone of no-time here.
SPOCK
But if this is true…if time does not move at its normal rate here…how long have you been here to get as old as you are…
34 FULL SHOT—THE SCENE—HAND-HELD
But they have no time to ponder an answer, for at that moment McCoy breaks from cover and makes a long run toward the Time Vortex. He is halfway there before they realize what is happening. Kirk and Spock plunge forward to stop him. Spock gets to him first but McCoy slams Spock across the jaw and keeps going. He grabs Yeoman Janice Rand as a shield and roughhouses her in front of him, ever closer to the Vortex. She half-turns and elbows him; he l
eaves her and Kirk reaches him just as he closes on the Vortex. Kirk sees he is going for the Vortex (from which the 1930s scene is gone, but which still flickers and glows so we know it is in operation) and makes a flying dive for him. But McCoy does a little dance-step of broken-field maneuvering and flings himself forward.
35 ANGLE ON McCOY
as he dives headfirst into the Vortex. There is the SOUND of a LOUD WHOOOOSH! as space rushes to fill the vacuum where he has been. Then the Vortex is as it was before. McCoy is gone. Into the past of Old Earth.
FADE OUT
END OF ACT ONE.
AFTERWORDS
Peter David
D.C. Fontana
David Gerrold
DeForest Kelley
Walter Koenig
Leonard Nimoy
Melinda Snodgrass
George Takei
WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE, AND WHY ARE THEY IN THIS BOOK,
AND WHAT PIVOTAL ROLES DID THEY PLAY
IN THIS CHAPTER OF THE BREATHTAKING STAR TREK SAGA?
PETER DAVID is the author of more than two dozen novels (including Star Trek: The Next Generation titles such as Q-In-Law, Strike Zone, Vendetta, Rock And A Hard Place, and Imzadi). He was the writer on DC Comics’s Star Trek for years, but is now best known as the febrile intellect behind The Incredible Hulk and Aquaman and the weekly But I Digress column in Comics Buyer’s Guide.
D. C. FONTANA started out as Gene Roddenberry’s secretary. When she began selling excellent scripts to such other shows as Bonanza, Roddenberry lured her back to pen such episodes of the original series as “Charlie X,” “Tomorrow is Yesterday,” and “Journey to Babel.” She became story editor on the original series, 1967 and 1968; Associate Producer of the Star Trek animated series, 1974; and Associate Producer of Star Trek: The Next Generation in its first year. She writes books, stories, essays, and award-winning teleplays. She is married to SFX wizard Dennis Skotack.
DAVID GERROLD will be the first to tell you he got his start with Gene Roddenberry and the original ST series, and was both Gene’s and the show’s staunchest supporter for decades. He wrote two hooks about ST…The World of Star Trek and The Trouble With Tribbles. If the title of that latter volume sounds familiar, it is because the episode of the original series bearing it is the only neck-and-neck contender with “City” for Most Popular Episode. He has written movies, excellent novels, won a Hugo and a Nebula this year, and has been affiliated with virtually every incarnation of the ST concept. When you say Trek, you’re saying Gerrold.
DEFOREST KELLEY was already an established feature film star when he was cast as Dr. “Bones” McCoy in the original series. He is a classically-trained actor, and among the films in which he appeared are Warlock and Johnny Reno. He is universally considered the nicest person of all the original cast members. Anyone who says less is automatically a jerk.
WALTER KOENIG has been a novelist, screenwriter, noted acting coach, lecturer, and actor. His credits are extensive, but he appears here due to his assaying of the Chekov character on the original Trek. He appeared in all of the ST feature films and, most recently, created a mini-series for comics, Raver. He writes very well indeed.
LEONARD NIMOY was Mr. Spock. Sometimes he says he was not Spock; and sometimes he says he was Spock. In either case, he has been a friend for thirty years, and the author of “City” owes him considerable weight of favors. He likes Indian cuisine.
MELINDA M. SNODGRASS served as Executive Script Consultant on ST: The Next Generation. She adapted George R. R. Martin’s award-winning Sandkings for the new Outer Limits series. Screenwriter, novelist, short story expert, and asst. editor of the Wild Cards anthology series. She lived in the ST production cauldron.
GEORGE TAKEI played Sulu on the original series. He has been a potent Los Angeles politico, having sat on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, having spearheaded numerous urban development programs, and having cleverly used his celebrity from Trek and many other series to better the condition of life for all Angelenos. He is held in much affection by other actors, by those who worked on the series, and by the rest of us who are privileged to know him.
Peter David
One grows up.
It’s inevitable (unless you’re Peter Pan, or Jeffty) and as the years pass, you discover that the world is not as black and white as you once thought. That many things are possible. And that just because something is different doesn’t make it bad.
I thought the original script for “City” sucked.
I thought this because, the first time I learned of it, I was a snot-nosed kid whose entire view of the creative process behind Star Trek was predicated on the concept that if it was on the air, it was good, and if it wasn’t, then it must be bad because it wasn’t good enough to get on the air.
So when I read about how “City” had undergone massive rewrites to make it good enough to ride the television waves, I thought, “Wow…it must really have sucked.” Furthermore, the publicized reasons as to what made it unacceptable were appalling. A Starfleet officer selling drugs? How ridiculous! Kirk ready to let the universe shift into an unfamiliar, parallel line, out of love for a woman? Preposterous!
Boy oh boy oh boy. What a sucky, sucky script. The fact that it had won the Writers Guild and Hugo Awards merely confirmed for me that the rest of the world was composed of purblind nitwits who didn’t understand that if it wasn’t good enough to air on Star Trek in its original form, then it wasn’t good, period.
And then, some years later, when I’d had a chance to grow up a bit, I happened to buy the Roger Elwood collection that featured the original script.
And I understood.
With a vengeance.
In the words of Yogi Berra, “You can observe a lot by watching.” Watch the story, the original story of Sister Edith Keeler, unfolding, and you will observe a master craftsman at work, producing a story of infinitely deeper meanings, shadings and complexities than what aired.
To a degree, we see a theme present in “City” that recurs in some of Ellison’s most renowned work, and yet it’s not exactly the happiest of themes: those who are the best, the brightest, the most vibrant and alive…they don’t survive. The perpetually unaging Jeffty—the embodiment of perpetual childhood—is battered, bruised and ultimately killed. The Harlequin, shouting defiance, is brainwashed into an obsequious supporter of The Way Things Are. Beth O’Neill, in order to survive life in the city, sacrifices her soul to become one of the grim, faceless beings who observe man’s inhumanity without lifting a