Conflicts of the last progenitors

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. The hover-van shudders and tips forward, SLAMMING Isabel and Lo-Cheun forward into the control board; the walls and floor outside wobble drunkenly.

147.

Lo-Cheun rights himself and looks at the adjacent hover-van: the front is caved in by stone: the craft sinks to the two-hundred sculptors below. Lo-Cheun makes eye contact with Rectangle and the Frenchman; he TAPS his earplug.

LO-CHEUN (CONT'D)

We’ll...we’ll come back for you.

Lo-Cheun looks away, TAPS his earplug, squeezes his fists and looks at Isabel.

LO-CHEUN (CONT'D)

Get out of here.

Isabel dials up the rear thruster. Lo-Cheun shuts his eyes and shakes his head.

LO-CHEUN (CONT'D)

(muttered)

Pook gai.

INT. THE HUMAN PLATEAU - SAME

Hover-van Bodybuilder-2 careens toward the ledge, carrying Lo-Cheun, Isabel and a cargo bay filled with Bullets from the settlement, VWIRR...

The failing hover-van (Quadricep-2) steadily loses altitude; its engine HISSES sparks; motes of light CRACKLE within its damaged thruster, inebriated fireflies; a high pitched EEEEP

sounds in alarm.

Within the cockpit, Rectangle points to the uncut, dark region of the steam cave. The Frenchman piloting the craft steers toward the indicated direction. The shimmying, teetering, drooping craft is swallowed by the darkness.

With a triumphant chorus of discordant PITCHES, the sculptors plunge into the abandoned human settlement. Blue sparks fill the air.

INT. ARMADILLO-5 - MOMENTS LATER

The curly-haired pilot Stanuel guides the crowded transport through the dark night. At the front of the one-hundred-and-four people that fill the hold are Lo-Cheun and Jesca. The Seniors stare at the frozen water below: the cold sheet scrolls past, its crenulated surface like hammered steel.

Seated in a parked hover-van are Sven and Abacus, both exhausted and silent.

148.

INT. MULTI-STAR COUNCIL ROOM - SAME

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. The Seniors look at the convosphere.

LO-CHEUN (V.O.)

We left seventeen Bullets behind.

Hector looks at Graynose; the diminutive man seems to age a decade in the two seconds he takes to reach a decision.

GRAYNOSE

Hold to the daylight rendezvous.

EXT. OPTION-1 OCEAN - SAME

Dragonfly Seraph-3 slowly rises toward the crescentcraft.

A lavender cylinder drops toward it, turns to mist, resolidifies and replaces itself in the undercarriage, the probe imprisoned.

INT. DRAGONFLY SERAPH-3 - SAME

Florida sags back in the webbing of his seat. Fastened in the seats beside him are giant canisters labelled CODFISH

ANTIFREEZE CONCENTRATE. Clutched within each of his hands is a bleach bomb.

The Native American Senior looks at the monitors in the front console of the craft. Graynose’s face shines upon a small panorama.

FLORIDA

Goodbye.

GRAYNOSE

Thank you.

Florida presses his thumbs into the glass-marble detonators in the sides of each of the bleach bombs, CRACK, CRACK. For a fraction of a second he, Antifreeze canisters and the hold are a uniform stark white color.

EXT. OPTION-1 OCEAN - SAME

Within the cylinder of ice, the captured Dragonfly Serpaph-3

implodes and turns white. The lavender cylinder it sits in is bleached: veins of white streak through the crescentcraft, pink antifreeze chases after it, corroding the ice.

149.

INT. MULTISTAR COUNCIL ROOM - SAME

Graynose looks Elysabeth in the eye.

GRAYNOSE

Launch!

EXT. OPTION-1 OCEAN - SAME

Ninety-three (of the one-hundred-and-seventy-two) boosters on Elysabeth’s legs fire; her white jets CRACK the frozen surface of the ocean. Ice shards, water and steam churn behind the two-and-half-mile-long vessel.

Elysabeth soars out of the crescentcraft’s shadow and arcs away, into the sky.

Pieces of lavender ice fall from the wobbling crescentcraft.

INT. MULTI-STAR COUNCIL ROOM - SAME

Some of the Seniors CLAP. Tears pour down Graynose’s face; Hector SINGS a Spanish victory song.

On crutches (but sans escorts), Thakani walks into the room.

THAKANI

I suggest we do repairs after we

rendezvous, in transit away from

this planet.

GRAYNOSE

I concur.

Graynose looks at one of Elysabeth’s eyes.

GRAYNOSE (CONT'D)

Release the prisoners.

THAKANI

Thank you.

Graynose looks over at the solemn woman and gestures to a chair nearby.

GRAYNOSE

Please Thakani- take a seat.

The woman smiles.

150.

EXT. OPTION-1 OCEAN - SAME

Corroded cylinders veined with white drop from the crescentcraft into the ice and water below, CRACKING upon impact. Various pillars PUFF into lavender mist; from these vapors drop ninety-eight ice worms.

The pink slugs frost over the moment they come into contact with the frigid air. Frozen, they drop into the ice and water below; several SHATTER upon ice floes, their viscous innards erupt into welters of clear, white and silver fluid.

A moment later, the seventeen-mile-long vessel teeters and drops atop the fallen pilots with a titanic BOOM.

INT. ARMADILLO-5 - SAME

Sven and Abacus, seated within the hover-van in the docking bay of the transport, stare through the windshield.