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Fiction: "That Episode Where God Was a Robot" (preview)

 

 

That Episode Where God Was a Robot

 

By Barry Greenstein

 

Judah, the android we rescued from orbiting that radioactive wasteland, asked me, “Do you believe in God?”

I never believed I would be asked that question by a machine.

I didn’t figure I’d be serving on a starship when I went to law school. But here I do. I’m a land claim and titles attorney, and this is a prospecting ship. A Surveyor-class. Small, underpowered, totally a civilian operation.

“That’s not usually a question people ask their lawyer,” I said.

“I am asking you as a son of humanity,” the android said.

(PURCHASE THE REST OF THIS STORY ON PATREON)

Fiction: "The Boy with the Metal Arm"

 

The Boy with the Metal Arm

 

By Barry Greenstein

 

My cell of Undergrounders controlled tunnel access near the border fence between the human side and the Machine side of town. We patrolled the area regularly. We used the tunnels to hide. We hid in the tunnels. Very rarely, we crossed over to the Machine side to hide from the Establishment. But that felt wrong. As revolutionaries, we sympathized with the Machines’ past struggle against humankind. We didn’t want to intrude upon their spaces. Fleshguilt, I suppose.

It was the Year of the Donkey. Our struggle was difficult. We had lost several good people to drones this year. And finally, the night came when our headquarters in the tunnels was discovered. We suspected a rat. We ran from the Security Service, through the tunnels, into Machine territory, where the Establishment’s authorities did not follow us. They could not, by law, follow us there.

We split up, and I hid in a former discotheque. But I was not alone. There was a boy there, that I recognized. He had a metal prosthetic right arm. The boy with the metal arm begged for money outside Goldberg’s Coffee Shop every day. I saw him on my way to the maglev. I never knew his name until today. I had asked him where his parents were, and he said something about his creator not making him parents. He added “He did not even finish me,” and he gestured with his crude robotic right arm.

I had seen artificial humans before, but they always had the appearance of adults. This boy looked about fourteen. Was he really a Machine? Had he always looked this way? Or had the Machines found a way to sustain biological growth, rather than merely mimicking the appearance of biological organisms?

There were artificial humans, they were rare, but they did exist. Mostly they were rare because they didn’t come here. We don’t have a great history of human-Machine relations on our planet. There was a war here, which other planets consider something of an affront. There was a moral panic about Machinekind that led to hostilities years ago. But it’s in the past. Now we stick to our side of the colony, and they stick to theirs. Mostly.

“I’ve seen you on the other side, begging for money,” I said. “If what you tell me is true, you shouldn’t be there.”

“I am a unique Machine,” said the boy. “I am designed to grow. I must eat. That is why I need money. I must add mass to my body. I am a biological machine.”

“The other Machines don’t accept you?” I asked. “You are too human for them?”

“It is something like that,” said the boy.

“Are you really a Machine, kid, or are you putting me on?” I asked.

“I am incapable of lying to a human, sir,” he said, and I believed him. It wasn’t in his programming.

“Come to my side of the city,” I said.

He might have been incapable of lying, but he was no more obedient and no less argumentative than a typical fourteen-year-old.

“I am not like the other Machines. But I am not like you. I do not have a place to go. I cannot lie and I cannot self-terminate.”

“Do you have a name?” I asked him.

“Caliban,” he said. “My maker named me Caliban.”

What a cruel trick, the thought occurred to me. To name him for a monster.

“Caliban, can I call you Cal for short?”

“You may abbreviate my name if it eases communication,” said the machine-boy.

“My name is Daric. Daric Fennom. Let me take you to the colony’s social service unit,” I said. “They can help you.”

He shook his head, and when he did, he was at his most emotional.

“You cannot do that,” he said. “I am a Machine. The enemy. They will turn me over to the policers, who will destroy me. But first, they will torture me, to find out if there are more like me. There are not any others such as me. But they will not believe me.”

“You’re unique?” I asked. He had already said so, but I wanted him to clarify it.

“I have no serial number,” he said. “I am not a prototype. I am an individual.”

“Do you age?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I am programmed to grow and learn like a human child.”

It really was an exceptionally good imitation of a kid. It knew all the right things to say. I realized that I had begun to think of him as an “it.”

“Look, I can give you a place to stay for a night, but I’m still contacting social services in the morning. I promise I won’t let them hurt you. Deal?”

“Affirmative,” he said, finally agreeing.

“Hold on a minute while I get my breakfast,” I said, and I went into the store. But when I came back out, the kid was gone.

So, then he very much could lie.

I received a message from one of my cellmates that it was safe to cross back over to the human side. That the Security patrol was gone. I went to tunnel access and descended underground to cross back over. I wondered if I would ever see Caliban again.

 

#

 

The local kids knew about the tunnels. It was where they went to smoke jerba leaf and have sloppy sex. My cell only took over Tunnel 3 last year and installed security doors to keep the kids out. The Security Service cut through those doors last night. Fortunately, we kept the place lightly. Most of the items we stored down there were portable. We were able to clear out of there. There were only a few of us left in the cell. Five to be exact. And only four made it back from the Machine side. We didn’t meet again until three days later when we rendezvoused at Goldberg’s as per our emergency plan.

I told them about the kid.

“It must have been a trick,” said Josip. He didn’t believe the Machines had created an artificial human. Our colony didn’t have that kind of technology. Our Machinekind was primitive compared to the Synthetics that inhabited other worlds. Our Machinekind was metal and plastic, not Synthetic flesh.

And yet, I remained half-convinced the boy might have been telling the truth. Perhaps the Machines had made a breakthrough. A perfectly artificial human imitation would have been the next evolutionary step for Machinekind.

Brandi seemed more believing. She said we should help him if we encounter him again.

Eris agreed. That made three out of four. Josip was overruled.

But I hadn’t seen the kid outside Goldberg’s yet.

 

 

The next day, I saw Caliban outside Goldberg’s again. He explained that he hid because he did not want to be reported to social services. I accepted his explanation and took him in my car back to my two-bedroom bungalow on Ranier Street. He was very sleepy, for a robot. I put him to bed, and the next morning, I called social services.

“Look, I have this kid here, the one who always hung out by Tufi’s? You know him? Oh, you do know him… well… thanks. That about explains it,” went my end of the conversation. It turns out Caliban was well known to the folks at social services. He was a chronic runner.

This was no android.

I had been fooled.

 

His name was Anders Kendark, he was from a group home in Sector 3, where the other kids bullied him because of his prosthetic arm. He always had reasons for running away. Social services found it was ineffective to chase him when they could more effectively monitor him in the community. In theory. But then he went over to the machine side, and when he came back, the social worker told me, he started talking like he was a humaniform machine.

“But he’s not?” I must have asked the social worker a dozen times. “He’s a real kid?”

“Machines are too, and some of them have personalities like children, but I’ve never heard of a child machine. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible, just that I don’t think the corporation that built them thought making artificial children was profitable,” said the social worker. “Anders is known to us. He’s always been a little off, he had warning signs, and this is probably early psychosis. A delusional disorder, probably. He does really seem to believe he’s a machine. He’s internalized it. We’ll understand it better after the doctor sees him.”

“Look, I’m no expert on kids, but this can’t be healthy. Are you just going to let him go on believing he’s an android?”

“No, now that you’ve alerted us to this latest development, we’re going to get him help. He’s going to go to the psychiatric unit. Medication and therapy.”

“And he’s definitely a real kid?” I asked, once more.

“Yes, Anders is real. He used to hang out at the central library, I’m assuming that’s where he came across the name ‘Caliban,’ which he’s insisting we call him. Like I said, meds and therapy,” said the social worker, who seemed like he’d had this conversation with other “Good Samaritans” like me before, and this was nothing new to him.

“Can I at least say goodbye?” I asked.

“Yes,” said the social worker.

 

They took me into a small room where Anders was on the other side of a pane of safety glass. He looked angry and sullen.

“You betrayed me. I asked you not to do this. They will torture me and they will destroy me!” he said.

“I had to call them, I was doing the responsible thing,” I said.

“You’ll be responsible for my death.”

You’ll. He used a contraction. Was that the façade breaking?

“You need help,” I said. “You’re going to get help. One day you’ll look back on this and realize what’s been done for you. Until then, I’m sorry,” I said.

The social worker told me it was time to go. Time to take Anders to psychiatric.

I had a tiny, nagging doubt that maybe he really was telling the truth, and he was just a very emotional android. But then, the contraction…

I went home. I kept going to Tufi and Pok’s for my breakfast. But I never saw the boy with the metal arm again.

Script Sample- "The Sirens of Titan" (Kurt Vonnegut adaptation)

 

                                Flying Saucers over Mars                     Salo, the Tralfamadorian

In 2004, while isolated in college, I wrote a screenplay based on Kurt Vonnegut's "The Sirens of Titan." Seen here, for the first time, is an excerpt from that script, the prologue and Scene 1. Please enjoy this adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's famous novel:

Prologue

 

 

Black Screen, Text:

 

“Every passing hour brings the Solar System

forty-three thousand miles closer to

Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules-

and still there are some misfits who

insist that there is no such thing as progress.”

 

-Ransom K. Fern

 

FADE IN:

 

Exterior-Outer Space:

 

EARTH, like a magnificent marble in space.

 

NARRATOR (off-screen): There was a time, not too long ago, when mankind searched and searched for something that would give their lives meaning. They searched for some hint, some clue of a higher order in which they could find their purpose. After millennia of searching the Earth for this higher order, this universal scheme, mankind found only chaos and disorder. And man took the second law of thermodynamics as a personal insult.

War and greed were facets of daily life.

Suffering was rampant.

Gimcrack religions were big business.

The Earth was dying, as mankind exhausted its resources in their fruitless search for an elusive answer to the questions they had been asking since the beginning of time.

 

PAN OVER SLOWLY:

 

To a vast and endless field of stars.

 

NARRATOR: Mankind, ignorant of the truths that lie within every human being, looked outward- pushed ever outward. What mankind hoped to learn in this outward push was twofold: Who was actually in charge of all creation, and just what was all creation all about anyway?

 

The view advances forward, slowly at first, accelerating until we see the stars passing by us in streaks.

 

NARRATOR: Mankind flung its advance agents ever outward, ever outward.

 

We see three SPACE PROBES, with solar panels and rockets and clusters of instruments. The probes cruise silently across the emptiness of space.

 

NARRATOR: Eventually it flung them out into space, into the vast, colorless, weightless sea of outwardness without end. It flung them like stones.

 

The first probe is engulfed by a SPIRAL OF LIGHT and FADES out of vision.

 

The other probes are similarly swallowed by SPIRALS OF LIGHT and fade into the darkness.

 

NARRATOR: These unhappy agents of man found what had already been found in abundance on Earth- a nightmare of meaninglessness without end. The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.

 

CUT TO:

 

Exterior-Outer Space-Mars:

 

Mars rises in the background, as a private SPACE CRAFT that resembles something of a compromise between the Space Shuttle and a fanciful Flash Gordon-era rocket ship, enters our view.

 

NARRATOR: Outwardness lost, at last, its imagined attractions. Only inwardness remained to be explored.

 

The ship coasts through space. Its rockets fire once, and then again as the ship adjusts its course.

 

The ship moves toward us, the cockpit now plainly in view.

 

Through the cockpit we can see the pilot- WINSTON NILES RUMFOORD, a well-dressed man who appears as if he could be anywhere from 30 to 45. Rumfoord’s large canine, a bull mastiff named KAZAK, is beside him in the cockpit, slobbering happily.

 

NARRATOR: Only the human soul remained Terra Incognita.

 

Rumfoord’s ship is enveloped in a SPIRAL OF IRIDESCENT LIGHT.

 

The spiral collapses on the ship, which disappears in a flash of oily, spiraled luminescence.

 

NARRATOR: What were people like, in those times, with their souls as yet unexplored?

 

As the ship fades from existence, a great SPIRAL OF LIGHT illuminates the screen.

 

NARRATOR: The following is a true story from the Nightmare Ages, falling roughly, give or take a few years, between the Second World War and the Third Great Depression.

 

FADE TO:

 

The SUN, burning bright. A LUMINESCENT SPIRAL streams out from the sun, intersecting MERCURY, VENUS, EARTH, MARS, and passing through the ASTEROID BELT before it intersects JUPITER AND SATURN…

 

When the SPIRAL intercepts Saturn’s moon, TITAN, the moon GLOWS.

 

The Spiral continues, intersecting with URANUS, NEPTUNE, PLUTO, a PASSING COMET, and finally spiraling off into space.

 

As it spirals outward, we hear RUMFOORD’S VOICE, echoing as though in an empty hall:

 

RUMFOORD (off-screen): Everything that ever has been… always will be… Everything that ever will be… always has been...

 

FADE OUT:

 

End of Prologue.

  

Act 1

Scene 1

 

FADE IN:

 

Black Screen, Text:

 

“I guess somebody up there likes me.”

 

-Malachi Constant

 

FADE IN:

 

Exterior- the Rumfoord Estate- day

 

On screen Text:

Newport, Rhode Island, USA,

Earth, Solar System, Milky Way

 

Outside the Rumfoord Estate, a CROWD has gathered. An ATTRACTIVE FEMALE REPORTER is present with her CAMERAMAN.

 

REPORTER: The materializations, as everyone knows, occur every 59 days when the Earth intersects with the distorted spiral wave of Winston Niles Rumfoord and his dog, Kazak. Nine years ago, despite, or perhaps, because of the unpredictable threat of Chrono-synclastic-infundibula, and the subsequent grounding of all manned space flights in our solar system, Mr. Rumfoord and his dog deliberately took off in his private space craft. Two days out of Mars, his ship collided with a Chrono-synclastic-infundibulum. Mr. Rumfoord and his dog- Kazak- now exist as a pulsating spiral wave phenomenon, with their origin in the sun and their terminus in the star Betelgeuse. For all intents and purposes, Mr. Rumfoord and his dog have become, as one reporter coined it, "unstuck in time." The reports issued by Mrs. Beatrice Rumfoord after each materialization indicate that Rumfoord now possesses a unique insight into future events…

 

CUT TO:

 

Exterior-Field-Day:

A helicopter lands a good thirty feet from a limousine.

 

We see a MAN (MALACHI CONSTANT) in very expensive clothing, sunglasses, and an obviously fake beard, emerge from the helicopter and run toward the awaiting Limousine.

 

CUT BACK TO:

 

Exterior-Rumfoord Estate (Iron Door)-Day:

 

REPORTER: To date, no one has seen Mr. Rumfoord materialize other than Mrs. Rumfoord and presumably her butler. Only a single five-minute video of his dematerializing has been made public, and that was quickly withdrawn from the eyes of the masses by Mrs. Rumfoord, whose secretary has repeatedly stated that the materializations and her husband’s literally phenomenal nature are highly personal, private affairs.

 

In the middle of the crowd, a few plain-clothed men and women in sunglasses are moving about, spreading bits of gossip about the materialization. As they meander through the mass of people, excitements grows, until we hear the rumor they have spread.

 

MAN: He materialized in the woods!

 

WOMAN: He’s arrived early!

 

MAN: The woods! Let’s go!

 

The crowd flees in search of the man and his dog, as a limousine pulls up to the 4.5 foot high iron door set in the walls of the Estate. Above the strange door is a sign- Beware of Dog.

 

MALACHI CONSTANT, with dark sunglasses and an obviously fake beard steps out. He is dressed like an Edwardian dandy. He produces a key from his pocket, shows a piece of paper to the POLICEMAN at the door.

 

The policeman nods, and the man unlocks the iron door, ducks his head, and enters, shutting the door behind him.

 

Beyond the iron door is an overgrown garden with a path the width of a lawn mower leading to the mansion. The man removes his glasses and false beard, and sets them to hang on the ivy-covered walls.

 

He is MALACHI CONSTANT, richest man in the world. He is attractive, with a light heavyweight build and dark, tan skin. He has soft brown eyes underneath a strong brow. His head is full of dark, thick hair. There is a coat of arms on his jacket, which says underneath, in bold letters: “The Messenger Awaits.”

As he walks, we hear the voice of BEATRICE RUMFOORD, as if reading from an invitation:

 

BEATRICE (voice-over): “Mr. Constant: During my husband’s last materialization, he insisted that you be present for the next one. I was unable to dissuade him from this, despite the many obvious drawbacks. He insists that he knows you well, having met you on Titan, which I am given to understand is a moon of Saturn.

“Oh, and Kazak bites, so do be punctual.”

 

Malachi sees the skeleton of a large dog, a mastiff, strung together with wires and wearing a spiked collar, chained to the wall. There is an empty water bowl in front of the dog’s skeleton.

 

Malachi shrugs, looks at his wristwatch, and walks along the path until he reaches a fountain.

 

The fountain is a forty-foot high shaft, ringed with bowls that decrease in diameter from bottom to top, forming a truncated cone. The lawn-mower path leads through the overgrown New England jungle garden, and forks around the fountain, rejoining and continuing on to the Victorian Mansion.

 

Malachi climbs the fountain.

 

Sitting atop the highest of the bowls, he takes in the VIEW OF THE RUMFOORD ESTATE.

 

We hear the BARKING and GROWLING of a dog.

 

Constant looks at his watch again, and skims down the fountain, running skittishly through the jungle garden to the door of the main house.

When he reaches the door, an ancient butler, EARL MONCRIEF, awaits him. Moncrief opens the door and leads Malachi inside.

 

Interior-Rumfoord Estate-Foyer:

 

The floor is a mosaic, showing the signs of the Zodiac around a bright, abstract sun.

WINSTON NILES RUMFOORD stands in the center, the sun under his feet.

 

He extends his hand to Malachi, smiling broadly.

Rumfoord appears older than last we saw him, and yet ageless at the same time. He could be anywhere from 35 to 55.

 

They shake. A faint electric glow is visible, emanating from Rumfoord’s hand.

 

RUMFOORD: Delighted, Mr. Constant. So nice of you to come.

 

CONSTANT: My pleasure.

 

RUMFOORD: They tell me you are quite possibly the luckiest man who ever lived.

 

CONSTANT: That might be putting it a bit too strongly.

 

RUMFOORD: You can’t deny that you’ve had fantastically good luck financially.

 

CONSTANT: No, I can’t deny that.

 

RUMFOORD: And to what do you attribute this wonderful luck of yours?

 

CONSTANT: I don’t know, I guess somebody up there likes me.

 

Constant gestures upward.

 

Rumfoord looks at the ceiling.

 

RUMFOORD: What a charming concept, someone’s liking you up there.

(a beat)

RUMFOORD: I can read your mind, you know.

 

CONSTANT: Can you?

 

RUMFOORD: Easy as pie. You’re not a bad sort, you know. Especially when you forget who you are.

 

He touches Constant’s shoulder. As when they shook earlier, a faint glow emanates from his hand.

 

RUMFOORD: Oh, and if it’s really of importance for you to feel superior to me at this point in our relationship, think of this: you can reproduce, and I cannot.

 

Rumfoord gestures to Malachi, leading the way through a hall.

He stops in front of a large oil painting.

 

RUMFOORD: I know you appreciate art, Mr. Constant.

 

The painting is of a little girl dressed all in white, riding a white pony.

 

CONSTANT: Nice picture.

 

RUMFOORD: Wouldn’t it be too bad if she fell into a mud puddle?

 

Constant smiles weakly.

 

RUMFOORD: My wife as a child.

 

He leads the way through the hall once more, into a strange little room that is hardly bigger than a walk-in closet, except that the ceiling is 22 feet high. Inside the room are two wing-chairs. A wooden plank on the wall reads “Skip’s Museum.” On the shelves are various articles- fossils and dried skeletons and the like- either found on a beach or purchased in a gift shop. In one corner of the room is a complete skeleton of an adult human male.

 

RUMFOORD: An architectural accident.

 

He looks at the ceiling.

 

CONSTANT: Pardon me?

 

RUMFOORD: This room, it was one of the few things I wanted as a boy.

 

CONSTANT: Who’s Skip?

 

RUMFOORD: I am, or was. Childhood nickname. Just in the family, of course.

 

Rumfoord sits down in a wing chair, and Constant follows.

 

RUMFOORD: Angels can’t either, you know.

 

CONSTANT: Can’t what?

 

RUMFOORD: Reproduce.

 

Rumfoord lights a cigarette, offers one to Constant.

 

RUMFOORD: I’m sorry my wife couldn’t come down to meet you. It’s me she’s avoiding.

 

CONSTANT: You?

 

RUMFOORD: She hasn’t seen me since my first materialization. Once was enough.

 

CONSTANT: I’m sorry, I don’t understand…

 

RUMFOORD: She didn’t like my fortune-telling, what little I told her about the future. She doesn’t care to hear any more.

                        (a beat)

RUMFOORD: I’ll tell you Mr. Constant, it’s a thankless job- telling people that it’s a hard, hard universe they’re in.

 

CONSTANT: She said you’d told her to invite me.

 

RUMFOORD: She got the message from the butler. I dared her to invite you, otherwise she wouldn’t have done it. You might want to keep that in mind: the only way to get her to do anything is to tell her she hasn’t got the courage to do it. Of course, it’s hardly an infallible technique. I could send her a message right now telling her she didn’t have the courage to hear about the future, and she would send a message back saying that I was right.

 

CONSTANT: You- you really can see into the future?

 

RUMFOORD: In a punctual way of speaking, yes. When I ran my space craft into that chrono-synclastic-infundibulum, it suddenly dawned on me, as I was fading out of corporeal existence, that everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever will be always has been.

 

Rumfoord chuckles.

 

RUMFOORD: Knowing that takes the glamour out of fortune-telling, makes it the simplest, most obvious thing imaginable.

 

CONSTANT: You told your wife everything that was going to happen to her?

 

RUMFOORD: Oh, not everything. She wouldn’t let me tell her everything. What I did tell her spoiled her appetite for more.

 

CONSTANT: I- I see.

 

RUMFOORD: I told her that you and she would be married on Mars… Err, not married, but bred, like farm animals.

 

Constant clasps his hands together tightly. He clears his throat several times, tries to whistle.

 

CONSTANT: So… Mars?

 

RUMFOORD: Yes, Mars. Of course, that isn’t you ultimate destination, nor is Mercury.

 

CONSTANT: Mercury?

 

RUMFOORD: Your destination is Titan, but you first visit Mars, then Mercury, then Earth again, and then Titan.

 

CONSTANT: Mr. Rumfoord, you gotta realize, I mean, you do know everything, right? There ain’t been a space launch since you wound up spiraling between timid and Timbuktu.

 

RUMFOORD: I am aware of that, Mr. Constant. This is the so-called dark age of space. Nonetheless, I assure you, your ultimate destination is Titan, just as my destination is to materialize in this house every 59 days.

 

CONSTANT: Well, looks like the messenger is finally going to be used.

 

RUMFOORD: What was that?

 

CONSTANT: My name, it means faithful messenger. What’s the message?

 

RUMFOORD: I know nothing of any message.

 

CONSTANT: I mean, what am I going to go to all this trouble to get to Triton for?

 

RUMFOORD: Titan.

 

CONSTANT: Titan, Triton… why the hell would I go there?

 

RUMFOORD: You do- I promise you.

 

CONSTANT: I’m not going.

 

RUMFOORD: Sorry to hear it.

 

CONSTANT: I’m supposed to do something for you when I get there?

 

RUMFOORD: No.

 

CONSTANT: Then why are you sorry? What’s it to you?

 

RUMFOORD: Nothing. I’m only sorry for you. You’ll really be missing something.

 

CONSTANT: Like what?

 

RUMFOORD: For one thing, the most pleasant climate imaginable.

 

CONSTANT: I have houses on two islands and three continents. Why would I leave Earth for the climate?

 

RUMFOORD: There’s more to Titan than just climate. The women are the most beautiful creatures between the sun and Betelgeuse.

 

Constant opens his wallet, produces a photograph of a stunningly beautiful woman.

 

CONSTANT: Anything like this?

 

RUMFOORD: No, no. Not exactly.

 

CONSTANT: Okay, climate, women, what else?

 

RUMFOORD: Not much else- oh, art objects, if you like art.

 

CONSTANT: I’ve got the biggest private art collection in the country.

 

Constant opens his wallet again to return the photograph, which he does, but there is a second picture in his hand.

 

The picture has more depth than an ordinary photograph- it is like a glass window into a shallow coral bay, with three women- one white, one gold, one brown, beckoning to him. The beauty of the three women compares to that of the earthly girl in the other picture as the sun would compare to a lightning bug.

 

Constant stares, engrossed, at the picture.

 

RUMFOORD: Keep it if you want, it’s wallet-size.

                        (a beat)

RUMFOORD: My wife will be there with you, when you get to Titan, but she won’t interfere if you want to frolic about with these young things. Your son will be there too, but he will be just as broad-minded as Beatrice.

 

CONSTANT: Son?

 

RUMFOORD: Chrono- a Martian name. Born on Mars, by you and Beatrice.

 

CONSTANT: Beatrice?

 

RUMFOORD: My wife.

 

By now, Rumfoord has become transparent, and his voice has a tinny, far-off quality to it.

 

RUMFOORD: Things fly this way and that, with or without messages. It’s a chaotic universe, and make no mistake, for the universe is just being born. It’s the great becoming that makes the light and the heat and the motion, and bangs you from hither to yon. Predictions, predictions… is there anything else? Oh yes, this child of yours, this boy named Chrono. He will pick up a little piece of metal on Mars, and he will call it his good luck piece. Keep your eye on that good luck piece, Mr. Constant. It’s terribly important.

 

Rumfoord is almost completely transparent now. A crackling, electric glow engulfs his ghost-like visage as he VANISHES completely.

 

From the top of a spiral stair case outside the room comes BEATRICE’s VOICE, calling down to the butler.

 

BEATRICE (off-screen): Is it all over now, Moncrief?

 

MONCRIEF: Yes, Ma’am. Mr. Rumfoord is gone now.

 

BEATRICE: And that Mr. Constant?

 

CONSTANT: Yes, that Mr. Constant is still here.

 

Constant makes himself visible to her.

 

BEATRICE descends the stair-case. She is a handsome woman in a long white dressing gown. Her high cheekbones and deep black eyes make her somewhat reminiscent of an Indian Brave. Though she is only in her thirties, she acts like an invalid- tottering, making her voice like wind.

 

She greets Constant emptily.

 

BEATRICE: Oh, how do you do?

 

CONSTANT: How do you do?

 

BEATRICE: Mr. Constant, I can only appeal to your gentlemanly instincts in asking you not to spread the story of your encounter with my husband. I know how tempting it must be.

 

CONSTANT: Well, yeah, with this story I could go public, pay the mortgages on the house, become internationally famous, maybe even buy another Mustang.

 

BEATRICE: You’ll pardon me if I fail to appreciate sarcasm and all the brilliant nuances of your no-doubt famous wit, Mr. Constant. These visits of my husband’s, they make me ill.

 

CONSTANT: You don’t see him any more, do you?

 

BEATRICE: I saw him the first time he materialized. And that was enough to make me ill for the rest of my days.

 

CONSTANT: I liked him very much.

 

BEATRICE: The insane, on occasion, are not without their charms.

 

CONSTANT: Insane?

 

BEATRICE: As a man of this world, Mr. Constant, wouldn’t you say that any man who made complicated and improbable predictions about the future was mad?

 

CONSTANT: Is it really insane to tell the man who owns the biggest spaceship ever built that he’s going into space?

 

BEATRICE: You have a space ship, do you?

 

CONSTANT: You’ve heard of the Whale, by General Spacecraft?

 

BEATRICE: Yes.

 

CONSTANT: My company sold it to the government. Considering the circumstances, I think they’d be delighted if somebody were to buy it back from them for ten cents on the dollar.

 

BEATRICE: Much luck to you on your expedition, then.

 

CONSTANT: Much luck to you on yours.

 

Constant crosses the foyer, leaving the estate.

 

CUT TO:

 

Exterior-Rumfoord Estate-Garden:

 

CONSTANT treads back through the garden jungle, recovers his sunglasses and fake beard before letting himself out the little iron door.

 

CUT TO:

 

Exterior- Rumfoord Estate- Day:

 

Outside the walls. The crowd is back, and so is the limousine. Policemen have cleared a path toward the vehicle, which CONSTANT takes. The crowd jeers at him, insults him.

 

WOMAN: Tell us about the future!

 

MAN: What did he say to you?

 

WOMAN: Rich bastards! We got a right to know, too!

 

As Constant climbs safely inside the Limo, and the sea of flesh closes behind him, the limousine begins to rock.

 

The crowd has begun to attack the vehicle with all manner of weapons- hot dogs, soda cans, eggs.

 

The driver starts the engine, and the limousine creeps through the crowd.

 

A WOMAN with two false teeth bangs on Constant’s window, lets her teeth fall out of place, shrieks like a witch.

 

MAN: We got a right to know!

 

Constant sits back, dazed. Rumfoord’s words echo in Constant’s head:

 

RUMFOORD (voice-over): Your destination is Titan… Titan… Titan…  But first you visit Mars, then Mercury, then Earth again, and then Titan… Titan… Titan…

 

CHAFFEUR: Excuse me, suh?

 

CONSTANT: Hmm?

 

CHAFFEUR: Are you alright, suh?

 

CONSTANT: I knew that nothing would happen to me here, right now.

 

CHAFFEUR: So you must’ve got a… guardian angel or something?

 

CONSTANT: Yeah, something like that.

 

The limousine finally clears the crowd, and the chauffeur presses down on the accelerator, letting the car zoom away.

 

CUT TO:

 

Exterior-Field-Evening:

 

The limousine makes its rendevouz with the helicopter.

 

CONSTANT makes for the chopper, climbs in. The chopper takes off, flying westward in the direction of the setting sun.

 

FADE OUT:

 

End of Scene.