Planet of the Apes Page #5

TAYLOR:

(calls Dodge)

Got your sensors?

DODGE:

Yo!

TAYLOR:

Geiger counter?

DODGE:

Yo!

TAYLOR:

(taking inventory)

One pistol... twenty-four rounds of

ammo. two medical kits.. one camera...

one TX9.

(loudly to the

others)

We've enough food and water for three

days.

DODGE:

But how long is a day?

TAYLOR:

Good question.

(turning)

Landon -- check your communications

kit.

39ANOTHER ANGLE - FAVORING LANDON

He seems not to have heard.

TAYLOR:

(sharply)

Landon! Join the expedition.

LANDON:

(rising)

Sorry...

(crossing to his kit)

I was thinking of Stewart. What

d'you suppose happened?

TAYLOR:

(flatly)

Air leak. Died in her sleep.

LANDON:

You don't seem very cut up about

it.

TAYLOR:

It's a little late for a wake. She's

been dead nearly a year.

LANDON:

Then we've been away from Earth for

eighteen months.

TAYLOR:

By our time.

(smiling at Landon)

You've turned gray.

Landon involuntarily touches the gray hair of his temple as Taylor

adds lightly:

TAYLOR:

Apart from that, you look pretty chipper

for a man who's two thousand and thirty

one years old.

(casually)

I read the clocks. They bear out Hasslein's

hypothesis. We've been away from Earth for

two thousand years, give or take a decade.

(pause)

Still can't accept it, huh?

LANDON:

long pause)

You know it.

TAYLOR:

Because time has wiped out everyone and

everything you cared for -- they're dust.

LANDON:

Prove it. If we can't get back, it's still

just a theory.

TAYLOR:

It's a fact, Landon. Buy it. You'll sleep

better.

Dodge enters scene. A handful of reddish sand dribbles through his

fingers.

DODGE:

Nothing will grow here .... there's just a

trace of hydrocarbons, and most of the

nitrogen is locked into nitrates.

TAYLOR:

Any sign of dangerous ionization?

DODGE:

No.

TAYLOR:

(rising)

Okay. If there's no life here, we've got

just seventy-two hours to find it. That's

when the groceries run out.

He picks up one of the rucksacks and puts it on. The others follow

suit.

DODGE:

Which direction?

TAYLOR:

(decisively, pointing

west)

That way.

DODGE:

Any particular reason?

TAYLOR:

None at all.

He moves out. Dodge follows. CAMERA PANS with them. They have gone

only a few paces when Taylor looks back over his shoulder and halts.

40REVERSE ANGLE - FEATURING LANDON

Landon is squatting in the sand, sticking something into the soil.

It is a small American flag, the size of a handkerchief.

41REVERSE ANGLE - FEATURING TAYLOR AND DODGE

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