Roswell

Theogony
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Act Three
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EXTERIOR - NIGHT - RUSSIA

Yalta, in the Crimea, February 6, 1945

Yusopov Palace is a huge glittering old Russian Palace, and

PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT enters in his wheelchair,
pushed by a military AIDE. He is smiling, the familiar face,
in a suit.
Waiting for him by a huge fireplace is STALIN, with a young
Russian TRANSLATOR by his side. Stalin is dressed in a
uniform - a stiff mustard-colored jacket with red pants;
also the familiar mustached world leader. He is not smiling.

Stalin speaks in broken English:

STALIN
I stand because all day I sit.
ROOSEVELT
I sit all day Marshall. And I sit all night also.
STALIN
Cognac?
ROOSEVELT
Thank You. Mike, I won't be needing you.

The AIDE exits quietly, leaving only the 2 world leaders and
the young translator in the ornate room, with a fire
roaring. Stalin pours them both a cognac.

STALIN
Za pabiedu.
TRANSLATOR
To victory.
ROOSEVELT
To peace.

Stalin speaks in Russian, but the Translator speaks in

English - and cut to Stalin speaking in English and the
Translator quietly in the background translating.

STALIN
Does the President not find Prime Minister Churchill

somewhat changed these days? More argumentative, more easily

annoyed and carrying many chips on the shoulders. Perhaps he
is afraid that after we barbarians finish with the Germans,
we will not stop and come right across the channel after
him?
ROOSEVELT
His people have suffered a great deal - not as much as have
yours, to be sure - but he must act in their interests as he
sees them. We all must do that. I realize for the first time
the changes that come from approaching a long-desired and
awaited goal. We all are somewhat changed by our successes,
are we not?
STALIN
When I look around the conference table, I realize that in
ten years we all will - may - be dead. Old men are sitting
at the table. Ten years is not a long time in the world. In
twenty years a new generation may not understand what the
war has been about. In thirty, they may have made Hitler a
hero again. Our grandchildren may be the enemies of each
other if we do not make the proper settlements here.
ROOSEVELT
I have come to discuss a matter of great delicacy. Da,
Marshall Stalin. I ask that your translator convey this as a
matter of great importance. A matter of the greatest
secrecy. I would like him to honor my request for secrecy.
TRANSLATOR
If you will forgive my suggestion, Mr. President, I can work
more effectively if you would speak naturally and to the
Marshall. Thank you. The Marshall offers his word that all
will be held in confidence of the strictest order.
ROOSEVELT
I have a specific proposal to make, one which will be, in a
sense, between my government and yours, or more accurately,
strictly between you and me. There is, before I begin,
however, a crucial preliminary question I am confident you

will respond to candidly.

STALIN
Yes?
ROOSEVELT
Are you aware of our project to make a superbomb?
STALIN (long pause)
Manhattan.
ROOSEVELT (long pause)
There exists a form of negotiations in America known as an
escalating agreement. Are you familiar with the way it
works?
STALIN
No.
ROOSEVELT
The first party, in this case it is I, will offer you
something of value on the basis of your promise to
reciprocate in the future. When you do reciprocate, I shall
offer you something more valuable, and the process is
repeated until each of us has attained his goal.
STALIN
What is to be exchanged?
ROOSEVELT
I would like your agreement to establish and support a world
organization - a United Nations - under the blueprint I have
submitted in my report to this Yalta Conference.
STALIN
That is all?
ROOSEVELT

In addition, after Germany has been defeated, you will be a

full participant in the attack on the Japanese mainland
should such an attack prove necessary.
STALIN
To the first, I say I do not like the arrangement of power
within such a body as you have proposed. To the second,
Russia has paid by far a greater price in lives than anyone
else in this war. An attack on the Japanese, if they decide
to fight to the death, is something I cannot ask the Russian
people to do. No, no, these are things too costly to
consider. If a world organization is not fair for the
Russian people, we would be fools to join. And the attack on
Japan this year, or even next year, no, no, no. And what
would the Russian people be offered in return for such
sacrifices?
ROOSEVELT
You would be given the plans for the Manhattan Project
weapon.
STALIN
No.
ROOSEVELT
That is why I have designed an escalating agreement. Here is
specifically what I propose. If you agree to the general
plan, I will arrange to have you given the first part of the
information for producing the weapon. When you formally
agree to participate in the United Nations, you shall have
the second part. After the Japanese attack, part three. The
agreement may be terminated by either side at any stage. I
would be the one taking the greatest risks. Let us assume
you decide to join and then withdraw from the world
organization, you would already possess a significant amount
of information on the superbomb.
STALIN
It is not my nature to break agreements if I have given my
word on behalf of the Russian people.

ROOSEVELT
I merely was attempting to show that a control mechanism
exists if either side finds itself unhappy with the terms of
the agreement later on.
STALIN
I believe this to be an informal understanding. Not a matter
for governments. A matter, rather, between ourselves. It
would not be put on paper.
ROOSEVELT
That is correct. It would be a verbal commitment between us.
The world needn't know. If either of us felt it was not
being honored, it would be terminated.
STALIN
And Churchill? Where is he in this?
ROOSEVELT
His scientists will give him a weapon before too long, but
neither he nor anyone else knows of my offer to you tonight.
STALIN
For when is the attack on Japan scheduled?
ROOSEVELT
Tentatively, early this autumn. As you know, our B-29
squadrons are already bombing the Japanese mainland. But it
can be adjusted to meet your military requirements.
STALIN
In these United Nations, as you call them in your report,
Russia would have to keep the power to veto, and she must
have many votes to counteract the ganging up of other,
smaller countries against her.
ROOSEVELT
No, you may not have both. The veto power is sufficient

protection. I wish it for my country as well, but not it and

a weighted voting system. But, Marshall, I assure you, these
are details. I understand that you may publicly have to say
many different things. It matters not to me how it looks to
the world. I may even have to do the same from time to time,
but for the continuation of this agreement between us we
must act as we have pledged. Only then will the other have
to reciprocate.
STALIN
You call this by some fancy name - escalating. For us it is
nothing more than an old-fashioned carrot and stick.
ROOSEVELT (smiling)
With a slight difference. We each carry both the carrot and
the stick for the other.
STALIN
And so, when do you wish a response to your proposal?
ROOSEVELT
Since you have to invest nothing tangible until you receive
my first offering, I thought I could have your agreement in
principle tonight. Now.
STALIN (sputtering his cognac, and laughing)
Remarkable. You are indeed everything I have heard about. I
had never quite believed the words. But if I say I agree ROOSEVELT
In principle.
STALIN
Very well, in principle, you will give me stage one of the
Manhattan bomb ...?
ROOSEVELT
We will have to make arrangements, but you will have the
information shortly.

STALIN
How long?
ROOSEVELT
No more than one month.
STALIN (shaking hands)
Well ... I would be a fool not to say I agree - in
principle. I get something valuable just to say I agree. And
because I trust you, I agree. We drink to escalating
agreement also called getting your way with carrots and
sticks.
ROOSEVELT
To peace.

Stalin pours them another Cognac and they clink glasses.

CUT TO:

EXTERIOR - DAY - IN THE AIR, B-29 Formation OVER THE PACIFIC

OCEAN

The PLANES are roaring loudly - 15 bombers at 20,000 feet

above the water, no land in sight anywhere, with heavy thick
white clouds everywhere.
TIBBETS is the pilot in the lead plane, with oxygen mask on.
TIBBETS
Navigator, how far to Pearl Harbor?
NAVIGATOR
Another six hours Sir, we just passed the 'Point of No

Return' halfway from San Francisco. Holding steady at three

hundreds miles per hour, headwinds fifteen knots.
TIBBETS
20,000 feet. 509th Bomber Composite Group remain steady in
formation. Over.

SCOTT is piloting a bomber back in the formation.

SCOTT
Yes Sir. Steady as she goes.

He's in the left seat with another, unfamiliar crew we

haven't seen before. He opens his mask a moment and drinks a
sip of coffee.
Then, in voiceover that he doesn't hear, OUROS comes on:

OUROS (v.o.)
Thoth's function was to record the deeds of the dead at all
funeral rites; but that makes him the original Judge.

CUT TO:

Egypt

EXTERIOR - DAY

But it is not the familiar land of pyramids and great

temples - it is only a plain desert beside the Nile River -

no people or boats or anything. Blazing hot SUN.

OUROS in plain, very ancient clothes, brown skin, barefoot,
walking casually along, talking.

OUROS
He is called "the self-begetter" and appeared at the
beginning of time in a lotus flower. He is called the
Divine Scribe. So how is it he even had a mother or father
at all, if, as the Egyptians say, creation is sexual? When
Osiris has been hacked up by Set, Isis calls on Thoth to
heal the great king - Osiris himself superceded by a wise
and prompt all-healing Thoth. Isis herself can do nothing
compared to the "Demi-Urge who created everything from
sound", the author of 42 or 44 Books of instruction on how
to achieve immortality. Who is this husband of "The Law of
Ma'at" of KHEM, a country or a world in its own kind of
existence long long before anything we recognize as "EGYPT"?

CUT TO:

Arizona

HIGH AERIAL SHOT - OF THE COLORADO RIVER roaring into the

GRAND CANYON

Very similar to Egypt and the Nile, the DESERT, on the

ground, is empty also of people or anything but the hot SUN.

CUT:

INTERIOR - DAY - FLAGSTAFF

The O'BRIEN HOUSEHOLD, on a cold snowy day. In the Living

Room, on the floor in his pajamas, and with a week's
scraggly growth of beard, DAVE sits on the floor in front of
the coal-burning stove, with papers and books scattered all
over the floor, coffee cups, dirty dishes.

DAVE
Molly, I've got it, c'mere!

MOLLY enters from the kitchen, wiping her hands.

MOLLY
I can't believe this mess. Dave -DAVE
This is it. The connection from Mars to Earth. Listen to
this, Herodotus, back in 550 B.C. Tell me if this doesn't
sound like Percy Lowell's description of the Martian canals
and the oasis junctions.
MOLLY (sitting)
What?
DAVE (reading)
Herodotus, in my Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University.
Quote: "Pharaoh Chephren also built a pyramid, of a less
size than his brother's -- "
MOLLY
Who's his brother?
DAVE
Cheops his elder brother, the Great Pyramid.

MOLLY
Oh.
DAVE (reading)
"I have myself measured it."
MOLLY
This is who?
DAVE
Herodotus, damnit. The great Greek historian, he visited
Egypt and wrote all this down.
MOLLY
Okay.
DAVE (reading)
"It has no underground chambers." We know this now not to be
true, from excavations. " ... nor is it entered like the
other Great Pyramid by a canal from the Nile, but the river
comes in through a built passage and encircles an island, in
which, they say Cheops, himself lies." A Canal, Molly!
MOLLY
Yes.
DAVE
He goes on: "Thus far I have recorded what the Egyptians
themselves say. Now I will add thereto somewhat of what I
myself have seen."
MOLLY
Dave -DAVE
"The Egyptians made a labyrinth, a little way beyond the
Lake Moeris and near the place called the City of the
Crocodiles. I have myself seen it, and indeed no words can

tell its wonder: were all that the Greeks have builded and
wrought added together the whole would be seen to be a
matter of less labour and cost than was this labyrinth,
albeit the temples at Ephesus and Samos are noteworthy
buildings. Though the pyramids were greater than words can
tell, and each one of them a match for many great monuments
built by Greeks, this maze surpasses even the pyramids. It
has twelve roofed courts. There are also double sets of
chambers, three thousand altogether, fifteen hundred above
and the same number underground. We ourselves viewed those
that are above ground, and speak of what we have seen; of
the underground chambers we were only told; the Egyptian
wardens would by no means show them, these being, they said,
the burial vaults of the kings who first built this
labyrinth, and of the sacred crocodiles. Thus we can only
speak from hearsay of the lower chambers; the upper we saw
for ourselves, and they are creations greater than human."
Did you hear that Molly!? "They are creations greater than
human! The outlets of the chambers and the mazy passages
hither and thither through the courts were an unending
marvel to us as we passed from court to apartment and from
apartment to colonnade, from colonnades again to more
chambers and then into yet more courts ... Hard by the
corner where the labyrinth ends there stands a pyramid forty
fathoms high, whereon great figures are carved. A passage
has been made into this underground."
MOLLY
Where's Percy's book. Jack Scott send it back I think?
DAVE
Yes. It's right there in front of your nose. Jack said he
read it twice and was very excited about it, and wants to
talk to me more next time he's here.
MOLLY
Oh yes here it is. I think he and Kathleen are getting
serious.
DAVE (reading more)

"Such is this labyrinth; and yet more marvellous is the Lake

Moeris by which it stands. This lake has a circuit of three
thousand six hundred furlongs, or sixty schoeni, which is as
much as the whole seaboard of Egypt on the Mediterranean
Sea! Its length is from north to south; the deepest part has
a depth of fifty fathoms. That it has been dug out and made
by men's hands the lake shows for itself; for almost in the
middle of it stands two pyramids, so built that fifty
fathoms of each are below and fifty above the water; atop
each is a colossal stone figure seated on a throne. Thus
these pyramids are a hundred fathoms high; and a hundred
fathoms equal a furlong of six hundred feet, the fathom
measuring six feet and four cubits, the four foot spans and
the cubit six spans. The water of the lake is not natural
(for the country here is exceeding waterless) but brought by
a channel from the Nile; six months it flows into the lake,
and six back into the river."
MOLLY (looking in a book)
You're right, that does sound like the barren reaches of
Mars. I'm looking for the passages in Percy's book.
DAVE
Why would anybody live in that desert, in the Sahara Desert,
in North Africa, unless ... unless it was like home.
MOLLY (reading)
Here's something: "When the great continental areas, the
reddish-ochre portions of the disk, are attentively examined
in sufficiently steady air --"
DAVE
He couldn't always see the canals either, if Flagstaff's
atmosphere wasn't always clear, and not snowing like now. It
take a real steady atmosphere -MOLLY (reading)
-- "their desert-like ground is seen to be traversed by a
network of fine, straight, dark lines. The lines start from
points on the coast of the blue-green regions, commonly

well-marked bays, and proceed directly to what seem centres

in the middle of the continent, since most surprisingly they
meet there other lines that have come to the same spot with
apparently a like determinate intent. And this state of
things is not confined to any one part of the planet, but
takes place all over the reddish-ochre regions."
DAVE
Pyramids all over the Earth too! Mexico, under the Oceans,
Arizona. They were colonizing our whole planet, Molly!
MOLLY (reading)
"The lines appear either absolutely straight from one end to
the other, or curved in an equally uniform manner. There is
nothing haphazard in the look of any of them."
DAVE (reading)
"When the Nile overflows the land, the towns alone are seen
high and dry above the water, very like to the islands in
the Aegean Sea."
MOLLY (reading)
"Their length is usually great, and in cases enormous. A
thousand or fifteen hundred miles may be considered about
the average. The Ganges, for example ... " Lowell named all
these, right? ... "The Ganges ...which is not a long one as
Martian canals go, is about 1,450 miles in length. The
Brontes, one of the newly discovered, radiating from the
Gulf of the Titans, extends over 2,400 miles; while, among
really long ones, the Eumenides, with its continuation the
Orcus, the two being in truth one line, measures 3,540 miles
from the point where it leaves the Phoenix Lake to the point
where it enters the Trivium Charontis."
DAVE (reading)
"These alone stand out, the rest of Egypt being a sheet of
water. So when this happens folk are ferried not, as is
their wont, in the course of the stream, but clean over the
plain. From Naucratis indeed to Memphis the boat going
upwards passes close by the pyramids themselves ..."

MOLLY
Incredible.
DAVE
Yeah.
MOLLY
He says that at times the canals are invisible, though.
DAVE
This invisibility is real, not apparent.
MOLLY
What do you mean?
DAVE
What did Percy Lowell mean? He wrote that it is not an
invisibility due to distance or obscuration of any kind
between us and them, but an actual invisibility due to the
condition of the canal itself. With our present optical
means, at certain seasons they cease to exist.
MOLLY
Like the Egyptian labyrinth and underground chambers, which
nobody can find today, even though Herodotus and a lot of
others saw them, way back when.
DAVE
"For aught we can see, they simply are not there."

SLOW FADE OUT

INTERIOR - NIGHT - PRINCETON

A cluttered little living room in an ordinary house. ALBERT

EINSTEIN is sitting on the floor surrounded by papers and

books, in a bath-robe, unshaven, hair mussed up, the
stereotype picture of the famous scientist.
NEILS BOHR is also there, an old European scientist, in a
suit; and ROBERT OPPENHEIMER, much younger than them, in a
rumpled suit.

EINSTEIN
General Groves doesn't know anything about this?
OPPENHEIMER
It's about the only thing he doesn't know about the atomic
bomb project, I'll say that.
BOHR
Doctor Oppenheimer -OPPENHEIMER
Sir?
BOHR
You know it is our position, Sachs, Szilard, Fermi, and
Doctor Einstein, that we sincerely wish your work on the
bomb project suspended.
EINSTEIN
It's too late, Neils.
OPPENHEIMER
They're already building mass production factories all over
the country, Doctor Bohr. General Groves is in charge of it.
And OSS men are following all of us, including you, right
now, parked out in the street in their awful black cars
watching us in here.
BOHR
That isn't paranoia?

OPPENHEIMER
You don't know Groves and these military fanatics, I'm
telling you. The security at Los Alamos is ... is Gestapo.
Winston Churchill is also acting like a maniac, our
colleagues in Britain tell me, screaming for the bomb for
himself; and to go to war with Russia, when Hitler is
defeated. Roosevelt has to always dance around the damned
Aristocrat. Churchill hates Stalin not just because he is a
devoted Communist, but probably more so because he is a
"peasant" as he always calls him.
EINSTEIN
I'm afraid that's true, Neils.
OPPENHEIMER
Doctor Bohr -BOHR
And Albert, what exactly has President Roosevelt given
Stalin, you say?
EINSTEIN
It's in four steps, deliveries to the Russians, as he and
his son, Major James Roosevelt has -OPPENHEIMER
A Marine major. He's also been to see us at Los Alamos.
BOHR
We know it is a practical impossibility that the Nazis would
have sufficient fissionable material.
OPPENHEIMER
That doesn't matter anymore. The Uranium Bomb is ready to go
at any time. Right now! It just needs a live test, at the
Salton Sea maybe. But President Roosevelt is going slow,
apparently, for some reason. The Plutonium Bomb will take us
a little longer, summer maybe.

EINSTEIN
Four steps, as we have given them to Roosevelt, for delivery
to Stalin.
BOHR
God, this is a nightmare.
EINSTEIN
The President's son has already handed over the mathematics
and engineering designs for the first step, to Stalin's son
Major General Vasily Stalin, Soviet Air Force, in
Switzerland, last week.
OPPENHEIMER
They have the crucial first steps for making a Soviet bomb?
EINSTEIN
Correct. It's the only thing we could do. The Congress has
given Groves over two billion dollars to build up the
nuclear weapons industry after the war.
BOHR
It was never about stopping Hitler and the Nazis, then?
OPPENHEIMER
No. We know that now, too late.
EINSTEIN
The Soviets have step one, the first package we have given
them. Fermi built the atomic pile in Chicago, and in it he
controlled the release of energy from certain kinds of
metals. He proved that the theory is right. Step two is U235 and Pu-239.
OPPENHEIMER
And they have to be manufactured, which has taken a lot of
time. We couldn't find the right technique.
EINSTEIN

Step three is the greatest theoretical problem.

OPPENHEIMER
Determining
bomb design
"gun-type"
wedge of one

critical mass. Step four we already have - the

and triggering, for the Air Force. That's the
as Groves likes to call it, simply shooting a
atomic metal of the right weight into another.
EINSTEIN

Otto Frisch is working on the critical mass problem at Los

Alamos.
OPPENHEIMER
And he's the one most opposed to the whole program.
BOHR
So you need to find a specific weight for the material?
OPPENHEIMER
And it's a lot of painstaking trial and error.
BOHR
I don't understand why they don't stop.
OPPENHEIMER
It's not in the hands of the scientists, and I don't think
it ever was.
EINSTEIN
Our only hope now is that the President won't use it on
German or Japanese cities, and I know he is considering my
proposal, which I have also discussed with Mrs. Eleanor
Roosevelt, to do a demonstration of the bomb, perhaps on an
uninhabited Pacific island. Roosevelt has told me
specifically that is his personal preference.
BOHR
Just to show the world we have it?

OPPENHEIMER
For some crazy idea of peace. A stalemate.
EINSTEIN
It's the best we can hope for. The science is out of our
hands, Gentlemen.

SLOW FADE OUT

EXTERIOR - NIGHT - IN THE AIR

The B-29 Squadron still in formation over the Pacific Ocean.

INSIDE A BOMBER
LT. SCOTT is lying on a bunk behind the cockpit reading a
book. Other crewmen are playing cards in the background.
One of them passes by SCOTT:
CREWMAN
What're you reading?
SCOTT
'I, Claudius', about the Roman emperors.
CREWMAN
Egghead, huh?
SCOTT
Yeah, I guess. It's amazing, these guys, Augustus Caesar was
pretty good, but the others are crazy. The author really
knows a lot about the gods and mythology, though. It can get
real confusing if you don't study up on it. Cronos married
his sister Rhea -CREWMAN

Who's the author?

SCOTT
Robert Graves.
CREWMAN
Never heard of him.
SCOTT
But it was prophesied by Mother Earth, called 'Gaia' in
Greek, and by his dying father Uranus, Ouranos, that one of
his own sons would dethrone him.
CREWMAN (sitting)
These are Roman emperors?
SCOTT
No, Greek gods. Their names are, in Latin, changed to, uh,
Cronos is Saturn, I think. And like that. The Greeks were a
big influence on the Romans. Julius Caesar was really
influenced by them. So, Rhea bore Saturn's sons and
daughters, like, the famous Demeter and Hades, who was Pluto
in Rome, and even back to Egypt where he was Osiris, one of
their most important gods.
CREWMAN
Who was Pluto?
SCOTT
Osiris, in Egypt. He's also a composite of Pluto and
Dionysos, you've heard of him, the god of wine. So anyway,
it goes back to Uranus who was castrated by Gaia, and so was
Osiris, chopped up into pieces by his brother Set, and maybe
their sister Isis too, because they wanted to be Pharaoh.
CREWMAN
Pagans, huh? Castrated? Jesus.
SCOTT

Yeah, in fact, Graves says Jesus was modeled on Osiris and

Dionysos. You know, hacked up, mutilated, in the crucifixion
too.

Co-PILOT shouts from the cockpit.

CO-PILOT
Pearl Harbor coming up, Lieutenant.
SCOTT
I'll be right there.

He takes his seat in the left side.

Outside, they see the Hawaiian Islands coming up in front of
them, beautiful, green, with white surf on the beaches, etc.
The other B-29s are landing in front of them.

RADIO VOICEOVER
509th, approach Hickam runway north heading, you are cleared
for landing.
SCOTT
Roger, Hickam control.

EXTERIOR - NIGHT - LANDING

The 15 B-29s are landing perfectly in formation, one after

another, in the clear warm night; screeching on the runway
and engines roaring in reverse, braking, and then rolling to
the gray Air Force Terminal Building.

TIBBETS (voiceover)
Only time for re-fueling and a piss, then we head for
Midway. Stay close on the Flight Line.
BOB LEWIS (v.o.)
Damn, Colonel, no time for Hula Girls?

TIME LAPSE
SCOTT and his crew get out of their plane and walk to the
Terminal, and a dozen ground crews and mechanic work on the
plane.
SCOTT
Did you see those wrecks over in the Harbor? I think it was
the USS Arizona underwater. It's still torn up three years
after the Japs attacked. I can't believe I'm here.
CREWMAN
We're really on the way to the War, Lieutenant.
They all go in the Terminal and everybody is listening
around radios, some are even crying.
RADIO
"President Roosevelt is dead. April 12, 1945. He didn't even
live to see the end of the War and Victory. The Nation is
mourning, and in shock. His wife Eleanor and oldest son
James, a major in the United States Marines, are at the
White House and will accompany the fallen Commander-in-Chief
to his home in Hyde Park, in upstate New York, for burial.
The new President, Vice-President Harry S. Truman will take
the reins of the Country now. Our prayers are with him."

FADE OUT

INTERIOR - NIGHT - MOSCOW, THE KREMLIN

STALIN angrily bangs the wall and stares out the window over
the city.
STALIN
Damnit! Everything is ruined. Without the Superbomb ... the
new President will give Churchill control over everything,
and the first thing he will do is come after me. A plot.
This death of Roosevelt right now, is a plot, I'm sure of
it. It has to be. In any other country it would be a
revolution, a coup d'etat. He's been assassinated, it's
obvious. And a so-called smooth transition of democratic
power? Bullshit. We have a good start on the Superbomb, at
least we got that crucial information about the atomic pile
and we have Uranium and Plutonium. Ha, what were those Greek
Gods, Uranus and Pluto? Damnit though, Roosevelt and I could
have worked together. We were ... hell ... we defined each
other. I liked him. Now ... We could have ... oh ...
He sighs angrily and sits, and lights his pipe.

FADE
CUT:
EINSTEIN in his bedroom, in his pajamas, lighting his pipe.

EINSTEIN
It is the end. My shame, for ever suggesting we build a
bomb. My good friend Franklin. God bless you. God bless you.

FADE

EXTERIOR - DAY - IN THE AIR AGAIN, THE 15 B-29s

SCOTT in his left seat, flying. Everybody is quiet in the

Crew, thinking, looking at the vast blue sky with lots of
white clouds too, going west into the bright SUN.
OUROS comes in again, voiceover:
OUROS (v.o.)
Can such a powerful force also be a thief at the gates, the
Greeks describing the African more completely for us? And if
a Scribal Healer was self-begotten he had to be a creator.
But where does that leave Heaven, Earth, the Sky, the Sun,
for instance? Who is this Messenger of Mercury and where
does he fit, if anywhere, in the pantheon of our linear
Literature? He is confusing like hieroglyphs, alien and
foreign.
NAVIGATOR (on intercom)
Midway Island approach, Sir.
SCOTT
Thank you. Re-fueling and a piss, as the Colonel would say.
Look at all that debris too - airplanes, ships - from the
great battle in '42. God, the U.S. Navy aviators sunk three
Jap aircraft carriers in five minutes, they say. Turning
point of the Pacific War, only six months after Pearl
Harbor. Midway across the Oceanus.
LONG SHOT
The Squadron of B-29s come in to landing on the little atoll
landing strip, where, indeed, many piles of destroyed planes
and bomb craters are everywhere from a very great battle.
Large albatross birds scatter by the hundreds in the path of
the landing bombers, on the sandy little island.
SCOTT (v.o.)
The Albatross, gooney bird. What's that poem?
"Water water everywhere, and all the boards did shrink,
water water everywhere, nor any a drop to drink."

That's it boys, 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. The

Albatross was the unlucky bird of fate, it hung around the
neck of the doomed mariner.
NAVIGATOR (v.o.)
You are a poet and a philosopher, Lieutenant Scott.
SCOTT (v.o.)
Touchdown!
OUTSIDE:
His plane screeches to a landing, smoothly, and rolls on the
tarmac to taxi with the rest of the great Squadron.

FADE:
EGYPT - DAY
OUROS still plain and simple by the Nile, unoccupied desert.
OUROS
Maybe Homer's tale of Hermes stealing Apollo's cattle herd
is as good a place to start as anywhere; where the animals
are, and try to listen to the sounds of the prehistoric
buffalo I love so much, on the Kansas prairie, and along the
Colorado River like the Nile; where Jack Scott was born and
raised; and that are so important to the primeval land where
men grow up. Where gods are. Prehistoric bull-cults
remembered on temple walls at Carnac and Karnak and both
Thebes. Prophecy of those times and places is memory. Isis
as the cow-queen Hathor suckling the Pharaohs. Plenty of
golden rams were all over Luxor and Flagstaff too, Abydos,
the flocks and herds so important to Navajo shepherds and
wolves that I love, weighing my animal heart against an
albatross or an ibis feather for the degree of truth in me,
Thoth balancing the act, a creature long before
anthropormorphic pictoglyphs, petrograms, grammar, phonemes
judging honesty and ethics. Hermes far transcended the
ordinary morals Apollo screams about at first, shocking his

brother with a new idea of sacrifice, of meat-savouring,

vegetarian rituals. All the poems.
VOICEOVER OF TIBBETS
Next stop Men, the Marianas Islands, Guam, Saipan, and
Tinian.
OUROS
I had some of the rage of Hercules and the lust of Dionysos
in me, as I had claimed before in the matriarcho-centric
books of Homer in my earlier poems; but in evolving I
suspect now they had more of Hermes and Thoth in them than
he or I in them. But why an ibis? Why a bird? A heavenly
Uranus was more of a goddess in prehistoric Libyo-Africa
over-covering an earthly castrated male, in Memphis and the
Nile Delta. Earth was male and the Sky female. It's all
topsy-turvy genetically speaking, Genesis-wise,
inconsistent, contradictory. Egypt makes that clear. Sound
is as good a creative origin as anything, a duck's quack,
the flap of some kind of wing, e-motion, wind. A B-29. It
was only a voice I heard in the blackness between here and
Mars, Ares, Eros, after all, and maybe I was putting my own
voice to it and that's what made it God, redeeming me.

CROSS-FADE:
EXTERIOR - DAY - ISLANDS IN THE OCEAN
The B-29s are coming in for another landing, title :
Marianas Islands.
SCOTT (v.o.)
Oh my God, look at that. Is that the United States Navy?
SHIPS as far as the eye can see, from horizon to horizon,
all around the islands far below.
TIBBETS (v.o.)
You boys continue on to Tinian, while I peel off to Guam to
talk to the 21st Air Force H.Q. See you in a while.

The LEAD PLANE peels off to the left to the southerly island
of GUAM, far off; while the rest of the formation goes in on
TINIAN for Landing.
Tinian
The 14 bombers land one after another on one of 4 Huge
Runways, with massive amounts of B-29s parked everywhere,
and some flying as well, all around the crowded little
island.
Scott's Plane comes in to the roughly-constructed Terminal
and the engines finally shut down.
SCOTT
Whew, we made it. Did you guys see all those ships?
C0-PILOT
Unbelievable, musta been thousands of them. And how many B29s?
SCOTT
I had no idea. You read about it, the invasion of Okinawa,
and Iwo Jima, I guess, but to actually see it ...
CO-PILOT (getting up)
I hope I can walk. Thirty hours in the air from Travis Field
in San Francisco. And it's still a helluva long way to
Japan.
The CREW all get out of the plane, and limp across the
runway.
BOB LEWIS comes over to them, also in his flightsuit and
exhausted.
BOB
Scotty, great news, you have orders to turn around back to
Wendover.
SCOTT

What?
BOB
The OSS prick will be here in a minute with your orders.
SCOTT
You're kidding me? Lewis, if this is another of your jokes
-BOB
Sorry, direct command from the Colonel. I don't know what's
up. Can you believe this place? The OSS told me we've had
almost fifty thousand dead from Okinawa, and three times
that in wounded Americans. And I read 34 of our warships
sunk and another 400 badly damaged.
SCOTT
Jesus God.
BOB
Yeah. This is massive. But they said, in three months
110,000 Japs have been killed. The bad news is that they
think there are still two million battle-hardened troops in
China coming over to protect the mainland of Dai Nippon,
joining another two million soldiers of the Imperial Forces
ready to fight.
SCOTT
Four million Japanese soldiers still left?
BOB
That's what they say. I don't know if we can believe
anything. Did you see all those Hospital Ships? And this
island looks like one big hospital. Here they come, the
brass Wheels. Good luck Scotty.

Bob leaves with the other crew men, as 5 MEN we've seen
before approach him - LANSDALE, PARSONS, RAMSAY, Lt. BESER,

FEREBEE.
LANSDALE
Lieutenant Scott?
SCOTT
Yes Sir?
LANSDALE (handing him papers)
Your orders are to proceed to Wendover AAF with us,
immediately. We have a B-25 fueled and about ready to go.
SCOTT
A B-25?
PARSONS
That's all that's available. Your crew will meet us over
there on the Flight-Line of the second runway, which is
eight thousand feet long, and we are your passengers. No
further questions, Lieutenant. Your orders will be waiting
in Wendover.
SCOTT
Yes Sir.
BESER (shaking hands)
Hi, I'm Beser, radar man. Colonel Tibbets personally
recommended you as our pilot.
SCOTT
Howdy.

PLANES are landing and taking off non-stop all around them,
as they walk over to the next runway.
PARSONS
There's some threat of Kamikazes coming in here today, is

the report, so we'd better get the hell out of here pronto.

They get to a B-25, with ground crew working on it, and the
men climb aboard, with another CREW.
SCOTT takes the left seat, saying hello to his co-pilot, and
the others all get settled.
SCOTT
Check list, Gentlemen.

CUT:
TIBBETS in a makeshift office, title over: HQ, USAAF XXI
BOMBER COMMAND, 20th AIR FORCE, GUAM
Bib Brass are grilling him - GENERAL CURTIS LEMAY, and
ADMIRAL CHESTER NIMITZ, and half a dozen other high ranking
officers in the Army and Navy.
LEMAY
I still don't know what the hell you are doing here, Colonel
Tibbets?
TIBBETS
You got my clearance code of Silverplate. We are the five
Squadrons of the 509th Composite Group, attached to the
315th Bombardment Wing of the Second Air Force.
LEMAY
This is the fucking 20th Air Force under my command!
TIBBETS (calmly)
Formerly the 393rd Squadron out of Nebraska. Our groud
echelon is leaving Seattle soon with 800 men, but today we
have arrived in the Marianas, and the Squadron is landing on
Tinian, as ordered by the President, with 225 officers and
1,542 enlisted men total, with the ground echelons.

LEMAY
Which President? And by the way, there is no such thing as
"A Composite Group" in our Air Force.
TIBBETS
There is now.
LEMAY
Tibbets, I know you. You and those assholes Captains Lewis
and Sweeney presumed to train me in the B-29 ...
NIMITZ
General Lemay, I believe you have also received orders
clarifying Colonel Tibbets Group from the Top Brass in
Washington, as I have -LEMAY
Yeah, so fucking what, Chet?
NIMITZ (calmly)
So we have our fucking orders, Curtis. I don't know what's
going on either. All I got from CINCPAC was that a unit
neither I nor my staff, or anybody in the United States Navy
apparently, knows anything about, coming into my theatre of
operations.
LEMAY
There are 1,300 miles of sky between the Marianas and Japan.
Fierce jet-streams criss-cross the void buffeting my bombers
and using up their precious fuel. Over Japan we were visible
one minute, and the targets the next minute, with fierce
winds and heavy clouds. Bombs dropped from 30,000 feet were
blown far from their Aiming Points by these sub-strata
gales. And results using even the latest radar equipment
were proving unsatisfactory. We were failing. The B-29s
weren't doing hardly any damage to the Nips.
TIBBETS
The tactics were wrong. In Europe and China the methods we

flew were proving useless over Japan.

LEMAY
We stripped the 29s of their arsenal of machine guns and
cannons. Then we struck in darkness, and down to 5,000 and
9,000 feet, carrying only incendiaries to put the torch to
Japan's wooden buildings.
NIMITZ (with a letter)
Here's the damn letter I got from Fleet Admiral King: "My
dear Nimitz: - It is expected that a new weapon will be
ready in August of this year for use against Japan by the
20th Air Force."
TIBBETS
Sir, if I may ask your staff to leave the room. This is
beyond Top Secret Crypto-security clearance?
LEMAY
Yeah yeah, everybody else out.
Everybody leaves except the 3.
NIMITZ (reading further)
"By the Personal direction of the
pertaining to this development is
order of secrecy, and there should
beyond one other officer, who must

President, everything
covered by the highest
be no disclosure by you
be suitably cautioned."

LEMAY
So what is this thing? MacArthur and Eisenhower have both in
touch with me and they don't know a fucking thing about
anything either, they said.
TIBBETS
An Atomic Bomb, equal to about 20,000 tons of TNT.
LEMAY
Fuck!

TIBBETS
Or rather, there are two different types, one with Uranium
and one with Plutonium. The Uranium Bomb has been ready to
go for months, and one of my best pilots is going to drop it
live in California in a week or so, at the secure test site
on the Salton Sea.
LEMAY
Fuck! You know we sent 365 B-29s over Tokyo in March, in one
night, and burned half the city down?
TIBBETS
Yes. And you lost a dozen planes. We can do the same with
one plane at 30,000 feet, with no danger to us, and destroy
an entire city.
NIMITZ
What city? there's not much left of Tokyo, or anywhere else.
TIBBETS
Constant test-flying and training has almost worn out most
of your bombers, General LeMay. They are in the process of
being exchanged for the very latest models, from the Martin
plant in Omaha, where I personally picked out my own plane.
LEMAY
Are you shitting me, you can pick out your plane at the
factory?
TIBBETS
Yes. That's the Silverplate priority clearance. We can go
anywhere and do anything. These new planes have fuelinjection engines, electronically controlled reversible
propellers, and are the best fleet that America can provide.
They are stripped down of all armament and guns so we can go
6 miles above sea level. One A-Bomb in the hold weighs
10,000 pounds, and the boys are rigging radars and fuses to
light them at ground level, or 2,000 feet or whatever is
safest and most efficient for us. I have personally hand-

picked the best fucking pilots in the United States Air

Force, veterans of combat, and even some green hot-shot
geniuses right out of Cadets. These boys can fly. My copilot Bob Lewis can land a box crate in a tornado and laugh
while he's doing it. These are the greatest men in the
world, as far as I'm concerned, and we're going to make
history and end this goddamn war in the Pacific, like we did
in Europe, the minute the new President gives the word. I am
ready to go right now, or as soon as the Navy ships the
Bombs over here on their Battleships.
NIMITZ
That's affirmative. The USS Indianapolis is transporting at
least one of these freaking things soon.
TIBBETS
As soon as it gets here, General, we'll join you.
LEMAY
That was a great speech.
NIMITZ
Sounded like Bull Halsey.
TIBBETS
Any more questions?
NIMITZ
About a thousand.
PULL BACK, as they talk
FADE OUT
EXTERIOR - DAY - OVER THE PACIFIC
The B-25 is flying east over the Ocean, with an escort of 2
Fighter Planes and another B-25 Bomber.
In his B-25 Scott is suddenly under attack by 2 Japanese
ZEROES!

SCOTT
Bogies, twelve o'clock high, in the Sun!
Air Battle
Machine-gunners in Scott's B-25 are shooting at the Zeroes,
who are shooting back, but they miss; his Crew is shouting
all at once, and so are VIP Passengers - who are hiding on
the floor of the fuselage - while Scott tries to hold the
wheel and evade the attack.
Then the Zeroes veer off and leave. No planes are shot down
on either side.
SCOTT
Holy ... where did they come from? I thought we were out of
range.
CO-PILOT
We are. That was very strange, Lieutenant.
SCOTT
Joe, how far ... Navigator, How far to Wake Island?
NAVIGATOR
Almost six hundred miles, Sir. Those Zeroes must have been
flying out of ... I don't know.
PARSONS and LANSDALE come forward to the cockpit.
PARSONS
Keep on your bearings, Lieutenant.
LANSDALE
Our escorts have us covered.
SCOTT
That was wild. Joe, you were over Tokyo, weren't you?
JOE (Co-pilot)

Yeah, I'm glad to be heading back to the States. Were afraid

we'd get caught in the fires, when we were flying at only
9,000 feet, dropping the incendiaries. The thing I remember,
is, the smell.
SCOTT
Smell?
JOE
Burning bodies. I'll never forget it. We could smell the
city burning 2 miles up. Lemay said at least a hundred
thousand Japs were killed, mostly civilians.
LANSDALE
That's enough chatter, Fellas. Keep on course.
EXTERIOR - FLYING
PARSONS (v.o.)
You can get some shut-eye on Wake. We'll take transports
back to Wendover, out of the battle zones.
SCOTT (v.o.)
C-54s?
PARSONS (v.o.)
Yep.
CUT:
NIGHT - WAKE ISLAND< BARRACKS
SCOTT is asleep in a private room, sacked out still in his
flying boots and suit and heavy jacket, snoring deeply.
2 DOCTORS enter quietly - and one gives him a shot in the
arm while he sleeps. And they leave.
CUT:
EXTERIOR - NIGHT - WENDOVER

Floodlights - circling a B-29, with dozens of CREWMEN

working on it, on the Apron of the Runway by the gray ugly
HANGARS: and scientists are working on a Bomb, loading it in
the Bomb-bay of the shiny, unmarked, new B-29.
GENERAL GROVES is overseeing the secret operation, with
OPPENHEIMER standing by him, and SECRETARY STIMSON, 60, in a
suit, and a dozen other well-dressed, older men, obviously
important, in expensive suits, watching the activity.

STIMSON
Now, this is what again, "Fat Man", the Plutonium Bomb?
OPPENHEIMER
No Sir, Mister Secretary, this is "Little Boy", one of the
Uranium Bombs.
GROVES
Fat Man will be tested this summer, probably in July for the
media, down at Alamagordo, on the White Sands Range.
STIMSON
I don't know what to tell Molotov and Gromyko who are
already on their way from the Soviet Union, to New York, for
the damned opening session of the United Nations.
GROVES
Why do you have to tell them anything, fucking Commies.
STIMSON
They're our allies, General Groves. Marshall Stalin has been
acting very suspicious. MY OSS Chief Allen Dulles tells me
in Switzerland that Stalin knows all about this Manhattan
Project. Now how is that possible?
GROVES
We've identified a couple of low-level Jewish low-lifes in
Oppenheimer's Laboratories, passing on secret information --

OPPENHEIMER
Fuchs doesn't know anything. I don't believe that.
GROVES
These fucking Jews know a lot more than they're letting on.
They're fucking Germans after all, to start with.
STIMSON
I don't think that's necessary, General -GROVES
Truman has already activated the Interim Committee in
Congress to authorize what I want. Tell that to the fucking
Commies.
STIMSON
President Truman -GROVES
Oppenheimer, have you clarified that the proximity fuses
will detonate at 2,000 feet above ground?
OPPENHEIMER
If the weather over the target makes it impossible to bomb
visually, the weapon should be brought back.
GROVES
We have three weather ships already on the way to the Salton
Sea. They say so far it looks good and clear, by dawn. Now
what about the fuses?
OPPENHEIMER
They'll be set. I don't think it's safe -GROVES
Two other bombers will accompany this primary bomber, if
they need any help. The operation inevitably involves some
risk for the crew --

OPPENHEIMER
But if they have to jettison the bomb over a town or a city
on the way? It could set off a nuclear reaction.
STIMSON
Jettison the bomb?
GROVES
We can't pussy around worrying about a few civilians.
OPPENHEIMER
In Utah and California? This isn't -GROVES
Truman and Chief of Staff General George Marshall have given
us the go-ahead for this test, correct Secretary Stimson? No
one, I repeat, no one will ever EVER fucking know about
this. Or the underground tests in Nevada.
OPPENHEIMER
Did President Roosevelt ever countenance anything like this?
STIMSON
No.
GROVES
Oh you fucking Democrats make me sick. Roosevelt authorized
the atomic factories years ago. What do you think is going
on here?
OPPENHEIMER
But Colonel Tibbets isn't even here. Who's flying the test
run?
GROVES
Expendables. Punks out of Cadet School, green behind the
ears.

STIMSON
What do you mean? I thought we had a first-class pilot and
crew?
GROVES
We do. But -OPPENHEIMER
I don't think they can survive the Blast.
STIMSON
What?
GROVES
What d'you think this is Stimson, a girl scout's picnic? We
have to see, one, if the bomb works, and two, if the plane
can survive it. I'm not going into Japan with just my dick
in my hand. And neither is Tibbets. He's in Guam, under
orders, and knows all about this. We have 1,200 men of the
509th already on Tinian and twelve of the Group's B-29s. He
has personally recommended a Lieutenant Walter Jackson Scott
to pilot this mission, one of his best instructors. He's
flown this test run dozens of times over the Salton Sea.
He's been followed for months by OSS men and passes security
clearances perfectly. He'll just be flying a live one, this
time. There they are, they've just been de-briefed by
Colonel Lansdale and Navy Captain Parsons, who will be on
the plane too to make sure the Bomb works, risking their
lives too. They're all goddamn heroes, okay? We'll send
their families a nice telegram of sympathy and commendation.

SCOTT enters from the Hangar, in full flight gear, with his
CREW - including FEREBEE, PARSONS, and LANSDALE in flight
suits; and the sole Woman pilot of the 509th, DORA
DAUGHERTY.
SCOTT
Good to see you Dora, you'll be my co-pilot?

DORA
Beats making the milk run from Albuquerque a hundred times.
SCOTT
You can out-fly most of the boys, we all know it.
DORA
But Washington doesn't.
FEREBEE
Looks like a small army of technicians.
PARSONS
Let's get aboard, no fanfare. Look at all the Big Wheels
everywhere.
LANSDALE
This is the big one, for history, or rather, not for
history.
DORA
You look groggy Jack?
SCOTT
No, I got too much sleep, I guess. Last I remembered we were
on Wake Island. And then I woke up here, landing in a
transport plane, a couple of days ago. I got this
assignment, in the First Ordinance Squadron, Detachment, to
Roswell AAF.
DORA
The elite of the elite 509th, the 1st O/S.

They all get on the plane in the steps behind the nose
wheel.
INSIDE THE BOMBER

BESER immediately reports to Parsons:

BESER
She's armed and ready with the red plugs, Sir.
PARSONS
Check list for loading charges in the plane with the special
breech plug?
BESER
Yes.
SCOTT (to Lansdale)
Can we take a look at it, Sir?
LANSDALE
Go ahead.
Scott, Dora, and Ferebee crawl in the back and look down the
bomb-bay, at the huge black Bomb hanging inside, by one big
hook.
DORA
Damn.
SCOTT
How does it work?
PARSONS
Shielded by half a ton of ballast, at the muzzle-end of the
gun inside the bomb, is a ring of uranium. I insert a charge
of high-quality gunpowder, along with its electrical
detonator, into the breech, behind the "bullet". When the
timer fuse is set for 2,000 feet above the target, the
detonator ignites the powder, which would propel the uranium
slug down the fifty-inch barrel at 900 feet per second, into
the center of the uranium ring.
DORA

How much uranium?

PARSONS
Twenty-two pounds. Five pounds at one end and seventeen at
the other. As the bullet travels down the barrel, a small
device made of Polonium 84 would begin emitting neutrons,
initiating the chain reaction. Beyond that, don't ask me,
what the hell. I don't know what happens next. I know what's
supposed to happen, but nobody knows for sure, including
those eggheads standing safely out there on the apron.
FEREBEE
That's right after I drop her out and the fused timer starts
the show.
LANSDALE
Back to your seats. Let's get going.
They all climb through the plane - Scott taking the lefthand pilot's seat, Dora in the right.
DORA
Every pilot in the world would want to be sitting here.
SCOTT
That's right. Start number 3 engine.
The inner engine on the right side sputters to life, with
smoke and fire.
DORA
Number three.
SCOTT
Engineer, start number 4. Then number 1, and finally number
2 fired. This is Wendover eight-two to North Tower. Ready
for taxi out and take-off instructions.
RADIO (v.o.)
Tower to Wendover eight-two. Clear to taxi. Take-off on

Runway A for Able.

A jeep with headlights on leads the plane down to the
runway. Fire-trucks and ambulances are parked every fifty
feet down each side of the airstrip.
SCOTT
Dora, call the Tower.
DORA
Tower, clear for take-off?
RADIO
Tower to Wendover eight-two. Clear for take-off.
SCOTT
Final check: 150,000 pounds weight, to simulate exact
conditions for a flight from Tinian to the Japanese
mainland, with fuel; 65 ton B-29, with 7,000 gallons of
fuel, a five-ton bomb, and twelve men and one woman on board
- including scientists in addition to the regular crew of 9,
we have to build up enough engine thrust to lift an overload
of 15,000 pounds into the air. I must hold the airplane on
the ground until the last possible moment. Dora, keep a
close eye on the RPM counter and the manifold pressure
gauge.
DORA
Yes Sir. We are well overweight.
SCOTT
I know. We need 2,550 rpm for take off.
DORA
Pressure gauge only registering forty inches - not enough.
SCOTT
Let's go!
Close up of his foot letting off the brake.

OUTSIDE
The tires squeal and smoke goes up as it takes off down the
cement runway.
IN THE COCKPIT
DORA
She's too heavy! Pull her off - now!
She reaches for her control column.
SCOTT
No! Leave it!
Her hands freeze on the wheel.
BESER
Hey, aren't we going to run out of runway soon?
Dora looks panicked. But then Scott eases his wheel back.
OUTSIDE
The Nose lifts off and the bomber roars off the ground, at
the very end of the runway!
It roars beautifully up into the air.
SCOTT (calmly)
The wild blue yonder.
2 other B-29s take off a few minutes after it.
NAVIGATOR (on intercom)
The three weather-scout planes and now all three combat
planes of 'Special Bombing Mission 3' are airborne, Captain,
and strung out over several hundred miles of airspace,
heading, on course and on time, for California target.
SCOTT
Any weather report yet?

NAVIGATOR
No Sir.
SCOTT
At 2:55 a.m., ten minutes after take off, Air Speed 213,
True course 336, True head 338, Temperature +22 C, Distance
to target 622 miles, height, 4,700 and climbing to 31,000.
Lieutenant Daugherty, continually check bearings and make
radar wind runs.
DORA
Yes Sir.
SCOTT
Radar, switch on IFF and adjust the A and B band screws.
RADAR
Tuned in to transmitter, Sir, checking the marker beacon and
the compensation on the radio compass.
DORA
Climbing at 195 speed south southwest to target, in two and
half hours. Sir, I intended in no way to reflect on your
action at take-off.
SCOTT
Perfectly understandable, lieutenant. It was the normal
response of a man used to sitting in the driver's seat. Tail
gunner, to simulate a combat condition, in case of defense
in a war zone, expend a few rounds of your 1,000 rounds to
test your guns.
TAIL GUNNER
Yes Sir.
OUTSIDE
Machine gun fire from the rear turret of the plane.
INSIDE THE COCKPIT

PARSONS taps SCOTT on the shoulder.

PARSONS
We're starting the final arming.
SCOTT
Wendover Tower, the Judge is going to work.
RADIO TOWER
Roger, eighty-two.
FEREBEE
Checking bomb's circuits on the monitoring console.
ENGINEER
Paralleling generators, to ensure that the four motors are
remaining smoothly synchonized.
RADIO TOWER
Eighty-two, both planes following you report "conditions
normal". Weather-ships report clear skies over the target
and primary target is clear, with a large opening in the
clouds.
SCOTT
Thank you Wendover. We go for Primary Target. Over.
RADIO TOWER
Affirmative, eighty-two.
DORA
Altitude, 26,000 feet and climbing at 205 speed. Time of
arrival at target, 75 minutes.
SCOTT
We won't trim the controls today, for automatic pilot, to
engage the elevators.
DORA

Affirmative.
ENGINEER
Everything is okay, Cap'n.
SCOTT
I know you'll all do a good job. Remember to hang on tight
after 'Bomb Away' for the steep left-hand dive. You
civilians on board, it might get pretty rough, fasten your
seat belts.
DORA
Checking wind velocity and calculating drift, it looks
nominal. All three bombers in a V-formation with us in the
point. The weather ships have turned back to Base. We're
climbing easily, at 500 feet a minute, to 29,000 feet, speed
still exactly 205.
RADIO TOWER
Eighty-two, rescue craft on station for the atomic strike,
simulation of sea craft as rescue ships, on the ground.
Ambulances and fire trucks at half mile intervals away from
the Aiming Point.
BESER
Simulated enemy radar has picked us up, Sir, under battle
conditions.
SCOTT
Thank you.
DORA
Levelled off at maximum altitude, 31,000, icy conditions.
The bomb-bay is unpressurized and well below freezing.
FEREBEE
The electrical circuit to the weapon's fusing chain is now
open. The bomb is ready for dropping. All monitoring lights
remaining green.

RADIO
7310 kilocycles, coded message from weather-ship - "cloud
cover less than 3/10ths at all altitudes. Advice: bomb
primary."
DORA
Nine minutes to go. On time. All clear.
SCOTT
Everybody but pilots and bombardier, put on your polaroid
glasses.
FEREBEE
Stand by for the tone break - and the turn.
A continuous low-pitched hum whines throughout the plane,
starting the automatic synchronization for the final 15
seconds of the bomb run.
PARSONS
A mile behind us, the second ship's bombardier toggles his
doors open and drops the blast gauges, parachuting like
weather-balloons earthwards.

SCOTT
There it is! Salton Sea!
FEREBEE
Bomb Away!
OUTSIDE
The Bomb-bay doors slam open - the huge BOMB falls out - and
the doors immediately slam shut.
PARSONS
Monitoring cables pulled away!

FEREBEE
Tone signal stops!
DORA
We've jerked upwards nearly ten feet, suddenly 10,000 pounds
lighter!
SCOTT
Hang on!
OUTSIDE
The B-29 jerks violently to the left and dives straight
down, and angling back around where it came from, into a 180
degree turn.
INSIDE
Screams, as the plane goes into an incredible dive. Parsons
falls to the floor where he was standing. Coffee cups crash,
and other things flying loosely.
SCOTT is holding it tight with all his might, and so is
Dora, both on their wheels!
OUTSIDE
The other 2 planes behind them dive the other way, to the
right, also.
SCOTT (screaming)
Tail gunner, you see anything?!
TAIL GUNNER
Nothing!
FEREBEE
Forty-three seconds before detonation!
DORA
Five miles from the target site! Six miles! Seven!

Then Everything Explodes in a blinding white flash, like

the SUN

SHOCKWAVE

BLACKOUT

END OF ACT THREE