On the way into the dark mountainslopes of machinery, he stares up at --

That other elevator, carrying its alien cargo up and on up into yet darker cathedral heights.

It reaches the top of the Vehicle Assembly Building a good ten seconds ahead of him. Distantly, we see and hear its door clang wide, and a shadow move.

Reaching the top, the MAN runs by the other elevator, checking it. He glances up and around at further staircases.

The MAN emerges on the roof of the VAB as the last light of day fades.

He looks around at emptiness. The wind mourns up here, as lonely as the wind out in the dunes among the abandoned rocket pads.

A sound jerks him about.

It is the other elevator -- going back down into the shadows 400 feet below. Both elevators, in fact! He has been tricked. Obviously, someone has pushed the button or the second one and leaped out to let it go down by itself.

Cursing, the MAN races to a third bank of elevators, and has to wait, while, far below, the other two elevators reach their destination.

Sliding down out of the darkness, the MAN emerges and looks around at silence and shadows. Whoever led him up to trap him on the roof, was gaining time. They have had a fu11 minute or more to vanish. They are indeed gone.

A VOICE

Hey!

The MAN whirls.

A building ATTENDANT has come out on a catwalk above.

The MAN gazes up as:

The ATTENDANT stares down, blinking at:

The spacecraft, which glows and hums, with the small Christmas tree nearby.

The ATTENDANT, stunned, says:

THE ATTENDANT

Who put that gift under my tree?

CUT TO DARKNESS. A slam of brakes. A car arrives outside.

A door slams.

Feet run.

The MAN is waiting for this arrival outside in the blowing night.

The arrival is the VAB DIRECTOR, who glares at the MAN.

DIRECTOR

You've been drinking , of course?!

He looks into the MAN's face, sniffs, shakes his head.

DIRECTOR

No. I'll be damned. Who shut those doors?

He is glaring at the vast doors now.

THE MAN

I wish I knew.

The DIRECTOR gives him a last glare, plunges on.

DIRECTOR

Get out of the way!

He opens the squall door in the great Gate, steps through. And stops, shocked as:

We see what he sees: the spacecraft, a light unto itself, filling the great church-like interior.

DIRECTOR
(to the MAN)

You just got your job back.

THE MAN

I didn't know I was fired.

DIRECTOR

You were. Come on.

They move off to circle the mystery.

More officials arrive to confer. For now, only a few people know of the alien spaceship’s landing...the MAN, plus the ATTENDANT, plus the handful of Canaveral people gathered here.

The question is asked: why did the craft land here, this place, at this hour?

The MAN, let us call him CHRIS ATKINS, almost responds. A shadow crosses his face. He has half-remembered some-thing about the visiting ship. But he remains silent.

The great doors of the Vehicle Assembly Building are locked shut, the various officials are warned that no single word about this must be said beyond the Base, for the time being.

Someone was aboard the craft. Someone came out. Someone vanished -- where? He, or she, or it, must be found.

How do you do that, without knowing what you're looking for?

CHRIS ATKINS speaks up.

ATKINS

Maybe we don't search. Maybe we wait for it to find us.

DIRECTOR

Why should it do that?

ATKINS

Because -- it knows one of us.

DIRECTOR

Who?

ATKINS

Me. I think. I have a hunch.

DIRECTOR

I hope your hunch is scientific.

ATKINS

And how will your search pay off?

DIRECTOR

It won't. Get home. It's Christmas Eve.

They get ready to go. The spacecraft suddenly stops humming and glowing. It is at rest. They look at the dark shape. Beyond it, the small Christmas tree blinks and blinks its lights.

ATKINS

You'll hear from me.

The DIRECTOR regards him quietly and at last nods.

DIRECTOR

By God, I bet we wi11.

They turn to go when:

The spacecraft gives a short burst of whine and hum.

And all the elevators in Canaveral, empty, begin to glide up their shafts like great dark spiders, moving up toward the unseen stars.

The men below look up, startled.

Four hundred feet above, the elevators arrive in silence and open their doors up high, where the night winds mourn through the interstices. The elevators shut their doors and glide back down.

The DIRECTOR looks at the silent spacecraft.

DIRECTOR

Did it do that?

ATKINS nods.

The elevators arrive, open their doors, stand silent.

ATKINS
Merry Christmas.

DIRECTOR

So they tell me....

They exit. After they are gone...the elevator doors whisper shut.

ATKINS drives to his boarding house. He pauses on the steps to look up at a sign which reads: THE CLEAN, WELL-LIGHTED PLACE. ROOM AND BOARD. Week or month. Founded 1969. MRS. PERKINS, PROP.

Inside, grand festivities. The boarders, ten in all, are trimming the Christmas tree.

ATKINS joins in the trimming, the drinking, the general all-around happiness, but --

His face shadows again and again with remembrance of what he has seen just a few hours ago,

And...there are new boarders at the house, One, a man, and of a most peculiar aspect, ATKINS stares at him. The man flinches self-consciously and at last speaks.

It is a Cockney accent! He's here to write an article on the Space Shuttle for a London news-sheet.

What looked so suspicious at a distance -- and ATKINS has been studying him, across the table, at dinner, where the man spoke not at all, or in murmurs -- now is shattered by the vulgar reality. This simply couldn't be a traveler from across the Universe!

Or ... could it?

There's another new boarder, unseen so far. Arrived today, they say, front upstairs room. A girl, a young lady that is, name of Clapham or Clarkson, something like that, not feeling we11...will be down later, they say, over dessert.

Now, trimming the tree, watching the eccentric-looking Cockney with an ironic eye, ATKINS climbs a small ladder to place the last baubles on the tree.

ATKINS

Now, where's the star for the very top!?

A VOICE

Here...

A hand reaches up. In it is an exquisitely strange and glowing fragment of beauty, a bauble filled with small

lights, like an enclosed universe, a constellation, a bit of comet's bridal veil, a lunar illumination.

ATKINS looks beyond its soft light, down along the hand and arm that has stretched it up, to the face at the end of the arm.

It is a beautiful face. It is a young woman's face, of some twenty-five to thirty radiant years. The light and shadow of the ornament she offers plays over her cheeks and brow, and fills her eyes.

ATKINS
(stunned)
Upstairs -- front room?

Her eyes fix him gently. The fine mouth moves.

YOUNG WOMAN
Upstairs. Front room.

ATKINS is transfixed. His hand moves to touch the glowing ornament.

Everyone laughs. ATKINS flushes, looks dorm at:

The incredibly lovely and fresh young face.

He darts upstairs, dares to open the Upstairs Front Room door, looks around at --

The YOUNG WOMAN's room, which has very little in it. She is obviously traveling light.

An incredibly beautiful slender valise, made of some strange metal, lies on the bed. He touches it, turns it. There is no visible lock. He lets it lie, gives the bed and room a last look as if to pick up some vibrations from so looking.

Turning in the middle of the room, he feels, we feel, her unseen presence. There is a whisper of sound here, a touch of strange, but --

He departs.

On his way out the front door, one of the lady boarders laughs and calls:

LADY BOARDER
How you know where to go?

ATKINS
Woman hide, but men find!

The door slams.

He drives away.

To arrive not long before midnight back at the Cape.

He parks in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building, gets out, stares around in the dark wind. Far off, the surf falls.

The guard outside refuses him entrance. The DIRECTOR drives up, ATKINS argues with him. Do or do they not want to know who or what got off the ship? He, ATKINS, may be able to provide a clue. He will find the 'door' for them.

DIRECTOR

There is no door, no hatch, no port. Find it, and you're the genius of the century.
(a beat)
Go on in. Ten minutes.

Inside, ATKINS stands looking at the ship.

He reaches out to touch it. It hums and glows at his touch, as if in some sort of mechanical recognition.

A shadow crosses his face. His lips whisper, move, and at last remember. He speaks quietly.

ATKINS
Klaatu barada nikto...

The ship hums and glows louder.

ATKINS
(louder, seeing this)
Klaatu barada nikto...

The seam appears.

ATKINS might run, but doesn't, watches fascinated as:

The 'door' -- the light seam in the side of the ship -- parts and lets down the rampway leading up to the revealed port.

From inside come hums and murmurs of machines that ca11 back memory.

ATKINS
(to himself)
Yes.....yes!

Inside the ship, ATKINS almost panics when the great quiet door seals behind him, but the look of the shadowed walkways and corridors draws him on. The sound of dim machineries humming under their breath calls to him. He circles inward to find:

The central room where on quiet display is a crystal block. It is almost like those old magical displays from traveling miracle-magic shows where someone was kept frozen within a long block of ice for hours, or days, on end.

Inside the cube, the crystal, the cold gem-like display lies a man asleep, or dead; probably the latter.

It is, of course, KLAATU, returned across the years to visit Earth, as promised.

ATKINS circles the quiet form in the flawless ice, or glass. Faint music stirs. Old voices whisper.

ATKINS dares to touch the crystal rectangle, the lightest touch. The lights flicker.

KLAATU's voice speaks across Time. We hear fragments of his old promise to return, for Earth to begin to find ways to behave.

ATKINS, listening, remembers hearing some of this as a child.

Finally, KLAATU's VOICE, from a hidden source as his body lies sleeping dead, says:

KLAATU

I have not lived to return, but return I have. I have brought living flesh with me as teacher. In the days ahead, the final teaching begins. Go now, and wait for the one who teaches....

The lights dim. The whispers die. The machineries hum to themselves.

ATKINS departs.

Outside the VAB building, a few reporters have arrived to confront an angry DIRECTOR.

DIRECTOR

How in hell did you get in?!

THE REPORTERS

We just ran over the guard... Snuck around...! Over the wall.

DIRECTOR

Well you can damn well snuck around over the wall out!

ONE REPORTER
Colonel, what's all this about --

DIRECTOR
Not true.

ANOTHER REPORTER
--some sort of space ship...

DIRECTOR
Lies.

The reporters depart. More scientists arrive. The DIRECTOR turns to ATKINS.

DIRECTOR
We11?

ATKINS
Nothing.

DIRECTOR
No entry?

ATKINS
(hesitates, lies)
No entry.
(a beat)
I'll try again, tomorrow.

The DIRECTOR looks at him, smells the lie, but lets him go.

DIRECTOR
Any time.

The DIRECTOR and the scientists go inside. There is a flash of light, a hum of machinery, as they enter and the door shuts. ATKINS is left outside in the blowing night wind.

Far off among the deserted gantries, he sees something move. Instinctively, he walks, then hurries toward that...

Out on the dunes, by the abandoned Apollo pads, ATKINS comes upon the YOUNG WOMAN, who stands looking at the

sea, the rusting space machineries, and the great Vehicle Assembly Building.

He stands looking at her in profile. She is dressed in slacks and a trim jacket with a scarf. Her hair blows in the wind. It is a good clean profile that he sees, with a touch of luminous inner knowledge in the cheeks, in the brow, in the eyes.

She is not startled when he arrives, nor, for a long while does she look at him. Then, very quietly, listening to far radio voices and musics that drift by in the night, Christmas carols coming and going, she says:

YOUNG WOMAN

In a few minutes, it's your Christmas.

He catches the way she has phrased it. And instead of saying hello, introducing himself, he continues as if they were picking up a conversation dropped only a moment ago:

ATKINS
Not yours?

The YOUNG WOMAN looks around at the sea and the land.

YOUNG WOMAN
Not mine.

This quickens him. She is admitting things, half sensed.

She is looking around at the dunes now, and the ruins of the old space pads.

ATKINS
Do you like our world?

The YOUNG WOMAN looks, thinks, responds.

YOUNG WOMAN
Some of it. Not all.

Her eyes are fixed to the rusting machines now. He looks with her.

ATKINS
All of this was -- great -once.

She nods and muses on this truth.

YOUNG WOMAN

I know. What a shame. What a waste.

ATKINS defends the land, the ruins.

ATKINS

It'll be great again some day. We'll rebuild. You'll see --

YOUNG WOMAN
Will I?

He almost backs off, she is examining him so clearly, so easily, so completely.

YOUNG WOMAN

Wi11 I even be here? For that matter -- will you?

Again the clear gaze.

ATKINS
Yes!
(a beat)

That is -- unless something --
happens.

YOUNG WOMAN

Ah! Things do happen, don’t they? People -- go away.

ATKINS

I'm not leaving, till I change all this.

They look at Canavera1, the night, the sea.

YOUNG WOMAN
Then, you're in charge here?

He gazes into her face.

ATKINS
You know I'm not.

YOUNG WOMAN
(after a beat)
That could change.

He senses that she might very we11 be the one to change it.

ATKINS
Oh, Lord, if only--!

YOUNG WOMAN
What?

ATKINS

I lie in bed nights, wishing I ran the world!

YOUNG WOMAN

What would you do if someone gave it to you?

ATKINS
I'd clean it a11 up!

YOUNG WOMAN
Or destroy it...

ATKINS
Yes. If I wasn't careful.
(a beat)
I'd be careful.
(catches himself)
Famous last words.

Far away there are sounds of celebration. A clock strikes midnight.

She turns to look and listen.

The wind blows over the dunes.

YOUNG WOMAN
There. It's midnight.

ATKINS
Time for a Second Annunciation?

She knows what he is speaking about. The knowledge of the Biblical Annunciation is in her glowing face as she turns back to him.

YOUNG WOMAN

What would you like to have announced?

ATKINS looks from her to the world far across the land, past the silent gantries.

ATKINS

That this Christmas morn, we get the grandest gift that man ever got. That something incredible and wonderful is about to happen, that will change us forever and be only for the good!

She is taken and pleased with her possible friend and pupil.

YOUNG WOMAN

Miracles do happen, you know.
Repentance is possible.
The response can be mercy.
The result can be salvation.

ATKINS
For me? For all of us?

YOUNG WOMAN
All.

ATKINS
How do we start?

She looks around.

YOUNG WOMAN
With a premature celebration.

She touches her wrist which is encircled with a silver band with miniaturized computer tabs engraved on it.

The great doors of the VAB thunder open. Light pours out.

She touches her wrist again.

And the lights on the far gantries spring on. They are like immense Christmas trees in the night.

ATKINS stares, stunned and incredulous.

The gantries blaze. The music of the world rises fitfully on the wind.

YOUNG WOMAN
I wish you well.

She steps and takes his face in her hands and kisses him very quietly on the brow. He is immensely moved by a11 of this.

ATKINS
Merry Christmas....

She turns and touches her wrist.

The gantry 'trees', the lights, go out.

She touches his eyelids with two fingers.

YOUNG WOMAN
Stay there.

His eyes are shut. He cannot open them.

She backs off and is gone.

He hears her moving away.

ATKINS
Wait!

From the darkness we see her shape pause, we hear her voice.

YOUNG WOMAN
You know where I'm going.

ATKINS
Your name!?

She responds, further off, turning to send her voice back in the night wind.

YOUNG WOMAN
Klaata.

He quickens, startled, feverish, eyes shut.

ATKINS
Klaatu!?

HER VOICE
No!

A long beat while he waits.

We see her silhouette, further off.

YOUNG WOMAN
Klaata. Klaatu’s daughter.

He almost moves, startled, but...

She is gone. The dunes are empty.

He opens his eyes.

ATKINS
(whispers)
Klaata---

He looks down at:

Her footprints in the sand, which, in a sudden gust of wind, blow away, are erased, gone!

In the deep morning of Christmas, ATKINS drives home.

Stepping inside the silent and sleeping house, he sees, atop the Christmas tree, the small and incredible ornament that glows and pulses with a faint heartbeat of illumination.

CUT TO THE INTERIOR of the Vehicle Assembly Building, where the vast spaceship dimly pulses with a similar beat of light.

Inside the ship, as the CAMERA moves in on the crystal enclosure where KLAATU death-sleeps, the light from the ice-floe mass beats in a long slow pulse.

CUT TO: the interior of the YOUNG WOMAN'S, KLAATA'S, room upstairs, as the CAMERA moves toward her bed where she sleeps, her hair furled out on her pillow.  By her bedside is a crystal cube, opaque, in which the pulse of illumination is repeated again, so we connect it and the ornament downstairs, AND the spacecraft, AND the crystal ice enclosure where KLAATU lies dreaming or dreamless, in suspended animation.

ATKINS, coming upstairs, sees the faint beat of light under KLAATA's door.

He hesitates by KLAATA’s door, reaches out, almost taps it, but the light under the door, and the faint rabbit-run heartbeat that goes with it, stirs fitfully, as if half-alarmed.

He pulls back, takes a deep breath, and leaves.

His door shuts.

Out in the ruins of one of the old rocket pads at high noon, climbing to the top where they can see the entire stretch of Canaveral's machineries for mile on mile, ATKINS finally turns to KLAATA and asks the most important question.

ATKINS

You waited thirty years.
Why did you come back now?

KLAATA
We said we would.

ATKINS

You also said you'd destroy
Earth if we didn't behave. We haven't behaved, have we?
What are you waiting for?

KLAATA turns, surveys the scene, and the world beyond the Cape.

KLAATA

You've behaved better than you think. That's why we delayed. You're strange people. You've actually done some things right!

ATKINS
Like what?

KLAATA

Don’t you know? Must I, from
some other world tell you?
Thirty years ago people still
died from polio, malaria, scarlet fever. You've stopped all that. Your country invented new kinds
of wheat and corn. You send food to 90 countries. Immigrants pour into your land, 500 thousand a year. Why are they coming here if you're as bad as you say?

ATKINS
I didn't say...

KLAATA

ATKINS
And stopped touching...

KLAATA
But you can do it again!

ATKINS

If I had my way...yes. But I’m only one person.

KLAATA
Ah, and so am I. But watch me!

He turns to look at her face.

KLAATA laughs.

KLAATA

But, you don't understand. I'm here to do bad!

He is stunned. She continues, amused, gesturing at the Christmas week landscape.

KLAATA

Oh, yes, I come now with Christmas gifts, but to take away!

ATKINS
Take? Take!?

KLAATA searches the horizon.

KLAATA

There, see? That oil tanker. What if I took it and all the oil in the world away to celebrate New Year's?

ATKINS
You'd be dead by noon tomorrow!

KLAATA
You think so? Well!

She begins to move rapidly down through the ironwork steps toward the ground, half-serious, half-laughing.

KLAATA
You think I'm joking? Come on!

She rushes down the metal stairs. He can only follow, his face shadowed and disturbed.

She is waiting in the car. He tries to start it. It won’t function. He swears at it.

Then he thinks, looks over at her. She nods.

KLAATA
It will start only when I tell it.

ATKINS
Tell it.

She touches her wrist computer. The car guns and thunders its motor. They drive away.

They enter her room, in which she hands him the glowing crystal cube from her night stand.

Its sound, its look, its interior music is special, muted, strange. Its colors and lights play on his face.

ATKINS
Well...?

KLAATA

What if we uninvented all the oil in the Middle East, in the world?

ATKINS

KLAATA
Allow me to convince you --

She touches her wrist band. The crystal in his hand projects a Sun image on the ceiling, boiling with energies.

KLAATA
That was Earth's birthplace, yes?

ATKINS
We came out of the Sun, right.

KLAATA

A11 of Earth, all the elements, everything, was once in the Sun, correct?

ATKINS
Correct.

KLAATA

Only here, when the fire cooled, did the elements separate, yes? This bit of fire became nitrogen, that flame hydrogen, this oxygen... and these two combined - water. And all in pretty pictures we can trace. Nothing we can't figure with pure light.

They watch the changing colors of the solar disc on the ceiling as it becomes, one moment, pure hydrogen color, or pure nitrogen, or combinations of iron and water that swarm and liquefy.

KLAATA

So if we can figure how things are put together, all the things of Earth, list them one by one, analyze their structure --

ATKINS
For instance?

She touches the computer bracelet. The Sun goes out. She opens the night bureau drawer and takes out a packet of needles.

KLAATA
Let's see what these are made of!

ATKINS
Needles--?

She places the needles on top of the crystal cube. On the ceiling a prism pattern, a 'reading' of the molecular structure of the metal needles 'prints out.'

KLAATA

There. That's what needles are made of. And if we know how to make them, then we know how to--

ATKINS
--unmake them.

She nods, takes the cube from his hand, puts it on the table. Touches her computer wristband and--

ATKINS
My God!

The needles disappear.

ATKINS stands stunned by this.

ATKINS
Good trick...

KLAATA
You know it’s not.

ATKINS

Can you make all the needles in the world disappear?

KLAATA
If we wished.

ATKINS
And the thimbles?

KLAATA
Thimbles, yes.

ATKINS

And the nails that hold the pictures on the walls?

KLAATA

We could make a million pictures fall.

ATKINS

And the nail files and the scissors of the world?

KLAATA

The fingernails of the world will be longer next year.

ATKINS
Why are you starting small?

KLAATA

Isn't it more interesting to drop hints? Let the world know, bit by bit, doorknob by doorhinge by clothespin, that it is the time of Indian Giving, the time of taking back, the time of Uninventing all the inventions, large and small, in the history of Man?

ATKINS
God!

KLAATA
Oh, god, indeed.

KLAATA then explains in some detail what their plan, her plan, KLAATU's plan, is. To let the panic grow in little starts and stops, little vanishings, little disappearances, at first unnoticed. Who cares, for instance, if a11 the tiddlewinks in the world vanish on the same day? Or all the collar-stays? Or all the pennies which now burden us and are almost worthless?

In the hours before her final going-away, KLAATA gathers, perhaps by force, an assorted score of military and world leaders. Delivered to Canaveral, packed into the space vehicle, they soar in what seems a few instants, to New York and hover by the base of the Statue of Liberty.

ATKINS squints at KLAATA.

ATKINS
Is this the right direction?

KLAATA looks up along the pointing arm of the Statue of Liberty.

KLAATA
No. That gives us our bearing.

She slams the controls.

KLAATA
Up!

And the ship soars, shrieks, thrusts up along the length of the Statue, the reach of the mighty Arm and Torch, and BANGS! into the stars!

Where, suspended over Earth, KLAATA touches yet other computer tabs.

And the bottom side of the great Disc unshutters its eye, which is to say reveals itself as a great viewing crystal around which the military and power elite circle. They gasp....

For the whole continent of America, leaning into the shadow of night, can be seen below.

KLAATA touches a series of buttons and:

Out beyond, in Space, great platforms construct themselves.

The power elite, stunned, watch as the--

Platforms fit jigsaw within jigsaw, as pieces are brought up through the night heavens by Shuttle and by other rocket vehicles and Astronauts scramble out to unfold the puzzle and slot it back together into a mile long flat mirror surface which blinks and burns with SUNLIGHT!

While below, on Earth, viewed on great screens placed within the Ship's interior, we can see vast receiving Cups being welded into place, here, there, and around the whole continent.

While still more platforms are built in Space, two or three thousand miles apart, circling the Earth.

There is a great hum and stir or excitement amongst the captive audience as--

KLAATA touches the final buttons to finish the work and ATKINS says:

ATKINS
This can't be real!

KLAATA
(smiles)

It's not. Holograms, three- dimensional projections of
things that could be. Images
of possible dreams. There.

She touches a last lever.

The great Solar Platforms (for that is what they are) turn magnificently on their silent hinges.

And catch the Sun!

For they are high enough above the Earth to get the slanted rays of the Sun beyond the night planet!

KLAATA
And here.... and now... here.

She touches the controls.

The light beams flash down to Earth....

Are caught in the receiving Cups!

KLAATA looks upon her work and then says:

KLAATA

Now...let us light the cities of the world.

She moves her hand ever a territorial spread of continental land under her fingers, in miniature.

The audience gasps.

For below in the night world, from New York, then on to Boston and Philadelphia, and across the country, city by city, town by town, lights up!

In a great flare and spread and flash of light, the entire American continent fires its town and city lights!

It is a magnificent moment, at which all can only stare, frozen in awe.

KLAATA moves her hand.

The Ship tilts and moves in Space.

The Platforms flash and turn to drink more Sun!

And the cities of Europe light themselves, one by one.

It is like a scene, reversed, in which all the candles in a great hall or cathedral have been blown out, but now, in a miraculous instant, relight themselves!

KLAATA lights all the night side of Earth.

ATKINS speaks at last, staring down.

ATKINS
Can we do that?

KLAATA looks from him to the illuminated planet.

KLAATA

You know you can. And when it's done, no more navies protecting oil-lines, no more shortages, no more blackmail, no more need. Only light, forever, all night every night for ten thousand years! Will you do it!?

She looks around at the amazed assemblage of faces. The faces look to each other. ATKINS must answer for them all.

ATKINS
(quietly)
Damn...but we'll try.

KLAATA
You'd better.

She pauses and adds, looking at everyone.

KLAATA
That's a threat.

She touches a button and:

The Space Platforms blink out, fly apart; fragmented dreams.

The lights of the world cease.

The faces staring down, turn dark.

KLAATA gestures.

The ship lands back at Canaveral.

And the dignitaries disperse, looking at one another, murmuring, whispering.

ATKINS
(half to himself,
murmuring)

Good God in heaven… will they do it?

KLAATA answers.

KLAATA

Now they're yours. I give them back to you. Tend your sheep.

It is evening near the Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral. It is, in fact, a few minutes before midnight on New Year's Eve.

A car goes along the deserted road on the edge of the sea. We hear fitful rises and falls of music: "Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot".....and a voice, with static, describing Time Square...the crowds...five minutes until the New Year....

Inside the VAB, in the immense darkness, KLAATA, the daughter of KLAATU, is ready to depart on the spacecraft. Her one week, which began on Christmas Eve, is up. She moves through the vast church-like silence with ATKINS, to stand near the spaceship.

She touches a large relief-map chart-computer which stands in the shadow. A whole series of lights come on, each by its own symbol of land, sea, air, problems, people.

He scans the board, the lights.

ATKINS

Everything we’ve done right, the last few years?

She nods.

He looks over at the dark half of the board, with its unlit computer lights. He runs his hand over some tabs, but

nothing lights.

ATKINS
Everything we've done wrong?

KLAATA

Or -- just things you haven't done, or must do over.

ATKINS
It's a long list.

KLAATA
Neglected for a long time.

ATKINS tries again, moving his hands over the tabs, to see the faintest pulsings of lights in the computer layout.

ATKINS

And -- if we do all the things--light all the lights? Do you ink-stamp the green brownie on the top of our paper, give us the gold star?

KLAATA
More than that.

She reaches down and brings up into the light, a cube of pure glowing illumination, roughly six inches by six inches in dimension. There are slots on each side of the cube. She puts the cube on the table near the layout. Beside it she fans out a series of blank computer cards which will one day be printed with data.

ATKINS
Is that the last gift of the season?

She nods, quietly.

KLAATA
Or the death of Mankind.

ATKINS
It doesn't look big enough for that.

KLAATA

Believe me, just as there is death in life, so there is darkness in this light.

ATKINS
You're leaving that behind?

KLAATA

It wi11 stay here, it will stay lit, for twenty years.

ATKINS
And when the light goes out?

KLAATA
(with meaning for
the whole world)
The light goes out.

He looks at the small and innocent looking cube. The illumination plays on his face.

ATKINS
How do we keep it lit?

KLAATA

By doing all the things that you must do. One by one, feed the data in, as you finish your tasks.

ATKINS

You’re asking us to do everything at once!

KLAATA

But that has always been the way, for life, on every world!

ATKINS
And if we fail at just ONE job?

KLAATA
The light goes out.

He looks at the cube, picks it up, hefts it.

ATKINS
The Big Bang?

She nods.

His face takes on a semi-sly look.

KLAATA

No. Don't even think it. You can't fool Gort.

ATKINS
Gort?!

KLAATA

That is his heart -- or what passes for a heart -- that you hold in your hands. There is no way to tamper or pry or change what you hold. And if you try to destroy it....

ATKINS
(finishes for her;
quietly)
The light will go out.

He holds the cube up and stares at it.

ATKINS

And if we do ever thing right and fine and true.

KLAATA
Then –

She touches the wrist computer on her left wrist. The great Gates of the VAB thunder wide.

KLAATA
The Universe is yours.

They look out at:

The great wheeling round of stars, waiting.

KLAATA

ATKINS

Where the angels of the Lord will sing and dance and shout our welcome?

KLAATA
Where I will be waiting.

ATKINS

I must be on that ship, then, mustn't I? And sixty years old.

KLAATA

When you live with us, you'll be thirty again.

What time is it?

ATKINS
You know.

She smiles, nods, touches her computer-wrist-band.

A small radio in the corner of the VAB, in darkness, lights up. "AULD LANG SYNE" is still being sung, faintly, crowds are shouting. There are exp1osions of fireworks. A voice cries: "It's midnight." Other voices: "Happy New Year!"

KLAATA

Listen. Your peop1e believe in the future more than YOU do!

He listens. The mob is in full happy tumult now. "Happy, Happy...Happy New Year..."

KLAATA
Now...

She turns, waits.

ATKINS looks at the waiting spacecraft, cannot say it. She glances at him. This nerves him at last to say:

ATKINS
Klaatu barada nikto....

The ship hums, begins to glow. Its invisible seal splits to reveal its interior. The steps slide down.

He takes her hands, kisses her quietly.

ATKINS
Twenty years!

She sums it up very simply, quietly, philosophically.

KLAATA
Tomorrow morning.

She goes up the steps, does not look back. The seam hisses shut.

KLAATA's spacecraft takes off and flies up.

From his view, we see the ship going away.

In REVERSE, we look back as, the Christmas Tree behind him blinks and flickers on, as we pull away, and leave the tree, and ATKINS holding the bright cube, looking up.

In a series of reversals, the craft flies high, looking back, or, from below, we see it going away and away into the stars.

He stands holding the bright cube, the 'heart of Gort' as it has been said, which hums and pulses in his hands.

The echoes finish it from the radio, and the cathedral dark around him: New Year, New Year, New Year.

We fly away from CANAVERAL leaving it far away below, where we can still see two points of light, the glowing cube, and the small tree.

The spacecraft merges into the stars. MUSIC UP. ROLL THE CREDITS.