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                                   PROMETHEUS

                         

                                   Written by

                                   Jon Spaihts


                         

                         FADE IN:
                         
                         
          EXT. EARTH - DAY (12,000 B.C.)
                         
          The world turns below us, vast and slow.
                         
          A RUMBLE. A shadow sweeps over the land. We move with the
          shadow. We cast the shadow.
                         
          Landscapes slide by. Reduced by altitude to abstractions:
          river deltas, forests and flood plains. A raw natural world.
          No trace of civilization.
                         
          The shadow glides over mountains and glaciers. Across an
          ocean and a pale beach. Over lowland plain at the foot of a
          VOLCANIC MOUNTAIN it stops.
                         
                         
          EXT. LOWLAND PLAIN - DAY
                         
          THREE FIGURES walk out of the shadow.
                         
          They are men - and yet not men. Their skin is snow-white.
          Their features heavy and classical - as if Rodin's Thinker
          had risen from his seat. Their smooth heads are earless and
          hairless. Their glittering eyes entirely black.
                         
          Against the stark land their height is impossible to judge.
                         
          They are ENGINEERS.
                         
          Two of them are cloaked in dark robes of strange design.
                         
          The third is naked.
                         
          One of the cloaked Engineers opens a featureless black box:
          inside lies a cake of dark, sticky material.
                         
          The naked one lifts the dark cake with ceremonial slowness.
          It hums and buzzes. Foams into iridescent spheres. He raises
          the seething cake to his mouth like the sacrament.
                         
          BLACK SCARABS boil out of the dark material. Swarm over his
          lips. Glittering insects that chitter and bite.
                         
          Under the swarm his lips melt away. A horrific vision of
          teeth, black blood, dissolving bone. They are devouring him.
                         
                         
                         FLASH ON:
                         
          A fevered glimpse of the microscopic: cells rupture and
          bleed. Protein chains unfold. A DNA spiral unravels.
           2.
                         
                         
          The scarabs fill their bellies with genetic material.
                         
                         
                         THE ENGINEER
                         
          ...spreads his arms. Stands cruciform, nearly headless.
                         
          The scarabs swarm his shoulders, his chest. When they reach
          his hips, he collapses sideways, toppling majestically like a
          felled tree. Engulfed.
                         
          The two cloaked Engineers watch impassively.
                         
          Behind them, a vast black SHIP hangs in the sky.
                         
          As if blown by a great gust of wind, the scarabs disperse in
          their millions in all directions. Living DNA on the wing.
          Where the sacrificial victim fell, nothing remains.
                         
                         
          EXT. FOREST - DAY
                         
          A pristine wilderness. The VOLCANIC MOUNTAIN in the distance.
                         
          A PRIMITIVE WOMAN stands on a height, staring in amazement:
          far off a great dark ship hovers over the plain.
                         
          A black scarab lands on the back of her neck. Bites deep.
          Injecting its cargo of DNA into her blood.
                         
                         
                         FLASH ON:
                         
          A microscopic invasion. Cells pierced and infused. DNA
          strands twining and mating.
                         
                         
          CLOSE ON THE WOMAN
                         
          Pupils dilating with shock, breath hissing into her lungs.
                         
          She slaps the back of her neck. Looks at her hand. The scarab
          lies in her palm.
                         
          As she watches, it crumbles to dust and blows away.
                         
           FADE TO BLACK.
                         
                         
                         ON BLACK
                         
          Drifting motes of light against the dark: a starscape.
           3.
                         
                         
          An EXCAVATOR floats into view: a sturdy vehicle equipped with
          robotic arms. Bright floodlights beat at the darkness. Inside
          the cockpit - a bubble of glass - sits a BEAUTIFUL WOMAN.
                         
          This is DR. JOCELYN WATTS, 32, a precocious scholar of many
          disciplines. A scientist accustomed to field work.
                         
          The cockpit is sweltering: she wears shorts, boots, a T-shirt
          - and still her arms and legs gleam with sweat.
                         
          Watts works the controls. The excavator descends toward a
          rocky surface. Silt billows up as the excavator approaches:
          we're not in space at all, but deep underwater.
                         
          The excavator's thrusters are cowled propellers. The "stars"
          are plankton shining in the floodlights.
                         
                         
          INT. EXCAVATOR - CONTINUOUS
                         
          Watts steers the excavator to a steeply sloping cliff wall. A
          sea-trench yawns below her, its depths lost in darkness.
                         
                          WATTS
           Moving to survey site B... closing on
           object four. The large oblong.
                         
          She watches the screen of a ground-penetrating radar system.
          A bright signal return: something hidden in the cliff in
          front of her. Something big.
                         
                          WATTS (CONT'D)
           There you are.
                         
                         
          EXT. SEA TRENCH - CONTINUOUS
                         
          Watts carves into the cliff with the excavator's digger arm.
          Silt and boulders fall into the yawning trench below. She
          brings a water cannon to bear: uses its jet to blast away
          loose silt and stones.
                         
          The cliff face collapses: a muddy landslide into the deeps.
                         
          Watts backs away from the collapse, thrusters whirring to
          keep her out of the turbulence. A cloud of silt clears.
                         
          In her floodlight beams, the OBELISK stands revealed - its
          outlines worn by the ages. Easily thirty feet tall.
                         
          Watts stares at the obelisk, stunned. Her voice is husky:
                         
                          WATTS
           Martin. Here.
           4.
                         
                         
          A second excavator glides out of the dark.
                         
          At the controls: PROFESSOR MARTIN HOLLOWAY, 48, visionary
          genius and archaeologist. Dark-haired and lean, with the
          rangy build of a frontiersman. He's dressed in work trousers
          and a T-shirt. Stubbly chin.
                         
          He plays his floodlights over the obelisk.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Look at that.
                         
                         
          INT. WATTS'S EXCAVATOR
                         
          Watts floats her excavator down the front of the obelisk.
          Scanning the alien text. Suddenly she stops. Grips the
          obelisk with her excavator's arms to anchor herself in place.
                         
                          WATTS
           You need to see this.
                         
           HOLLOWAY (V.O.)
           Coming.
                         
                         
          EXT. SEA TRENCH
                         
          Holloway pilots his excavator expertly up to Watts's. Mates
          the two vehicles at their aft hatchways.
                         
                         
          INT. WATTS'S EXCAVATOR
                         
          Behind Watts, a hatch opens with a splatter of water.
                         
          Holloway climbs in. Squeezes into her cockpit. A tight fit.
          He's distracted by her body, pressed so close - but she has
          eyes only for the inscrutable writing outside the glass.
                         
                          WATTS
           Same thing again.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           What do you see?
                         
                          WATTS
           An ephemeris - a star map.
                          (POINTING)
           Radius, inclination, azimuth...more
           data here...
           5.
                         
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           If we can get epoch and equinox out of
           that...
                         
                          WATTS
           Can we raise this thing?
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           (shakes his head)
           Hundreds of tons.
                         
                         
          EXT. MEDITERRANEAN SEA - DAY
                         
          A research vessel at anchor on a turquoise sea. Bright sun.
                         
          In the distance, a coastline dotted with villas. The horizon
          is dominated by the VOLCANIC PEAK - the same peak we saw in
          the distance in the prologue.
                         
          Aboard the research vessel, cranes lift Watts and Holloway's
          excavators out of the sea and onto the deck.
                         
                         
          INT. RESEARCH VESSEL - AFT DECK - DAY
                         
          Under an awning, PRINTS of the obelisk's faces are stretched
          on the deck - fifteen feet long.
                         
          Watts and Holloway crawl over the alien text, red markers in
          hand. Parsing, translating, calculating.
                         
          They're tanned, fit, the wind in their hair. The
          Mediterranean coast in the distance. It's an idyllic way to
          work. But they're utterly absorbed in the task at hand.
                         
                         
          AFT DECK - NIGHT
                         
          They're still at it. Lights illuminate the workspace. The
          obelisk prints are blanketed with markings and annotations.
                         
          Holloway sits at a table. Watts sits on the marked-up prints.
          Both working through calculations on electronic slates.
                         
          Holloway looks up.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           I have a solution. A single match.
                         
                          WATTS
           Me too. Checked it twice.
           6.
                         
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           You first.
                         
          Watts holds up her slate: it displays a set of stellar
          coordinates. A detailed star map. Holloway holds up his own
          slate: an exact match. They lock eyes in electric excitement.
                         
                          WATTS
           What do we do now?
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           We go there.
                         
                         
          EXT. WEYLAND'S WHEEL (EARTH ORBIT)
                         
          A gleaming space station like a five-spoked wheel rotates
          grandly against the Pacific Ocean a thousand miles below.
          Black letters on the white metal read: WEYLAND'S WHEEL.
                         
          A round shuttlecraft approaches the station.
                         
                         
          INT. SHUTTLECRAFT (ZERO GRAVITY)
                         
          A spacecraft no bigger than a private jet.
                         
          Holloway and Watts sit strapped into acceleration chairs. The
          only two passengers aboard. New to space travel, Watts tears
          her eyes from the spectacle of Earth outside the window.
                         
          Holloway plays with a pen, batting it from hand to hand in
          the zero gravity.
                         
                          WATTS
           What's first? You do climate, I do
           genetics?
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Archaeology first. Let our ancestors
           tell the tale.
                         
                          WATTS
           You think he's serious?
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Serious enough to send his private
           shuttle.
                         
                          WATTS
           Weyland can send his shuttle out for
           pizza.
                          (DELICATELY)
                          (MORE)
           7.
                         
                          WATTS (CONT'D)
           Martin. If this meeting goes like the
           others, maybe we should...
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           It won't go like the others.
                         
                          WATTS
           How do you know?
                         
          Holloway plucks the pen from the air. He points out the
          window, where the crescent Moon shines like a toothy grin.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Heaven smiles on our enterprise.
                         
                         
          EXT. WEYLAND'S WHEEL
                         
          The shuttle docks with the Wheel's hub - a perfect fit.
                         
                         
          INT. WEYLAND'S WHEEL - SPOKE ELEVATOR (ZERO GRAVITY)
                         
          A gleaming capsule elevator with windows to the stars.
                         
          Holloway and Watts float weightlessly inside, moving from
          handhold to handhold. The door closes.
                         
          Watts grabs Holloway by the collar. Pulls them roughly
          together. They kiss. Not for the first time. They have a way.
                         
          Watts's hair and clothing float free: she's a naiad in
          Holloway's arms.
                         
                         
          EXT. WEYLAND'S WHEEL
                         
          The elevator descends along the spoke to the rim.
                         
                         
          INT. WEYLAND'S WHEEL - RIM - FOYER
                         
          A luxurious lobby. Tasteful lighting. Eames-era furniture in
          wood and chrome: the past's vision of the future.
                         
          At the rim, the Wheel's rotation supplies gravity. An
          elevator door opens. Watts and Holloway step out - Holloway
          with a sleek metal folio slung over his shoulder.
                         
          The floor is the outer surface of the Wheel: in both
          directions it curves upward out of sight.
                         
          The walls are all windows: on one side, Earth rotates lazily.
          On the other, a wheeling field of stars.
           8.
                         
                         
          DAVID, an android, stands waiting for them. He's cunningly
          built, but no one would mistake him for a real human being.
                         
                          DAVID
           Professor Holloway. Dr. Watts. My name
           is DAVID.
                         
                          WATTS
           Hello, DAVID.
                         
                          DAVID
           Mr. Weyland's eager to meet you.
                         
          He strides off across the foyer. Watts and Holloway exchange
          a wondering glance and follow.
                         
                         
                         EXHIBIT HALL
                         
          DAVID leads past models of planets, moons and asteroids.
          Holographic labels and data swirl around them.
                         
                          DAVID
           These are all the planetary bodies on
           which Weyland Industries has mining
           claims.
                         
          The end of the hall is dominated by a huge globe of Mars.
          Markings indicate widespread surface activity.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           And Mars. Weyland's crown jewel.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           How is that going? The terraforming.
                         
                          WATTS
           They say you're getting diminishing
           returns. It's not working.
                         
                          DAVID
           It's the greatest engineering project
           ever attempted. Challenges are
           inevitable. Mr. Weyland's a
           determined man.
                         
                         
                         WEYLAND'S OFFICE
                         
          PETER WEYLAND sits behind a mahogany desk. He's a Warren
          Buffet type: a country sage, horse-sense and hard knocks. He
          might be seventy years old, or a hundred and seventy.
           9.
                         
                         
          Behind him stands DIRECTOR LYDIA VICKERS, a slim woman of 45
          in a costly business suit. Shrewd and watchful. Once a great
          beauty, she now trades in ruthlessness.
                         
          DAVID stands against the wall.
                         
          Watts and Holloway settle into chairs in front of Weyland -
          Holloway holding the metal folio.
                         
                          WEYLAND
           Professor Holloway. Ms. Watts.
                         
                          WATTS
           Doctor Watts.
                         
                          WEYLAND
           Forgive me. Peter Weyland.
                         
          He notices Watts looking curiously at DAVID. He smiles.
                         
                          WEYLAND (CONT'D)
           Ah. DAVID here's a prototype. Our 80
           series. One of a kind for now, but if
           he performs, he will be legion.
           (his smile fades)
           What do you want here?
                         
          Holloway looks at him, startled.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           We sent you a prospectus that...
                         
                          WEYLAND
           Assume I know nothing.
                         
          Holloway swallows. Lays the metal folio on Weyland's desk.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           I'm an archaeologist.
                         
          He touches a tiny remote. Holographs appear in the air over
          Weyland's desk: the folio is a three-dimensional imager.
                         
          Pictures of a younger Holloway in the field: excavating ruins
          in Egypt, China, Peru, Greece.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           In my studies I discovered a pattern I
           couldn't explain. Every eleven hundred
           years, sudden advances in agriculture,
           tool use, technology. Inventions.
           Something caused a great leap forward.
           Every eleven centuries. The pattern
           holds as far back as our data goes.
                          (MORE)
           10.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           Tens of thousands of years. I had to
           understand this. It became the focus
           of my work.
                         
          Weyland nods. Holloway glances at Watts and forges on.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           Dr. Watts was a student of mine.
                         
          Watts touches her own remote. The holographic display turns
          to scientific diagrams. Images of a very young and beautiful
          Watts in the laboratory.
                         
                          WATTS
           I was analyzing historical changes in
           human DNA. I found the same pattern.
           Every eleven centuries, a pulse of new
           information in the genome of the human
           race. All over the world. Evolution
           can't do that. Something was changing
           us. Changing the DNA of our species.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Humanity's been visited. Visited
           by...beings from somewhere else.
                         
          Behind Weyland, Vickers can't suppress a scowl of disdain.
                         
                          VICKERS
           You mean aliens.
                         
          A beat. The others had forgotten Vickers was there.
                         
                          WEYLAND
           Lydia Vickers, Director of Operations.
           Practically my right hand.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           They guided us to civilization. Lifted
           us up, again and again. I call them
           the Engineers.
                         
                          WATTS
           Once you know what you're looking for,
           it's amazing how the evidence falls
           into place.
                         
          Photographs flicker through the display: Holloway and Watts
          in the field, excavating new sites. Intimately close.
                         
          Their finds: columns of writing on stone tablets in Egypt,
          China, Cambodia, Peru. Patterns of lines, curves, and dots.
           11.
                         
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           This is the writing of the Engineers.
           We've found it on every continent. And
           last year, we found our Rosetta Stone.
                         
          The display shows the Engineer obelisk under the sea.
                         
                          WATTS
           The writing is a formula giving the
           location of a single star in our sky.
                         
                          WEYLAND
           Which star?
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           We're keeping that confidential for
           now. But that's where we want to go.
                         
                          WEYLAND
           You want me to pay for an interstellar
           research expedition!
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           It's a chance to be part of a
           revolution in scientific...
                         
                          WEYLAND
           Don't sell me, professor. You've been
           turned down by every university and
           government agency under the sun.
           Nobody's going to gamble that kind of
           money on your hunch.
                         
          Holloway deflates. Watts winces. This is a bloodbath.
                         
                          WEYLAND (CONT'D)
           Nobody but me.
                          (HE GRINS)
           I've read your research.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           That's impossible. Our research is-
                         
                          WEYLAND
           Quantum encoded on secure servers,
           yeah. We have an A.I. division, you
           should know. Doing impressive things.
           (he leans across the desk)
           I know which star you're wishing on.
                         
          The scientists stare at Weyland.
                         
                          WATTS
           You're bluffing.
           12.
                         
                         
                          WEYLAND
           Zeta Two Reticuli.
                         
          He regards their shocked faces with satisfaction.
                         
                          WEYLAND (CONT'D)
           You know how I got this rich? I ask
           myself: what does God spend his time
           doing? And I go and do that.
                         
          Watts laughs incredulously. Stifles it. Weyland's not joking.
                         
                          WEYLAND (CONT'D)
           Biotechnology was good to me. Fusion
           power. Lately doing well with gravity
           systems.
                         
          He swivels his chair toward the window. Earth shines outside.
                         
                          WEYLAND (CONT'D)
           But what's the first thing God did?
                         
                          WATTS
           He made the Heaven and the Earth.
                         
          Weyland jabs a finger at her like she's won a carnival prize.
                         
                          WEYLAND
           That's what I'm talking about. You
           left out my favorite part. The piece
           about Earth. DAVID.
                         
                          DAVID
           For eons, Earth's climate swung from
           hothouse to ice age. Explosions of
           life, then mass extinctions. But
           twelve thousand years ago the swings
           stopped. The Holocene Epoch began - a
           period of anomalous tranquility. The
           rise of civilization began only then.
                         
          Holloway and Watts stare at DAVID with new appreciation.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           That's right.
                         
                          WATTS
           And that change coincides with a visit
           by the Engineers. They didn't just
           change us. They changed our world.
                         
                          WEYLAND
           That's the piece I mean. Engineering
           Earth. God stuff.
           13.
                         
                         
          He swivels back to his desk. Rummages in a drawer.
                         
                          WEYLAND (CONT'D)
           My people checked your science. They
           say it's solid.
                         
          He pulls a thick contract out. Drops it in front of Holloway.
                         
                          WEYLAND (CONT'D)
           I'll give you your expedition. Ship
           and crew, supplies, support. One
           condition.
                         
          Holloway picks up the contract with the cautious joy of a man
          double-checking a lottery ticket. His voice is husky:
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           What's that?
                         
                          WEYLAND
           You get the discovery. Control of the
           site. But any technology you find?
           Anything at all. That's mine.
                         
          Holloway reaches out slowly and picks up the contract.
          Riffles the pages of small-print legalese.
                         
                          WEYLAND (CONT'D)
           You take DAVID with you. My eyes and
           ears. And Vickers...you're going too.
                         
          Vickers stares at Weyland in shock.
                         
                         
                         WHITE LANDSCAPE
                         
          A glittering formation of white crystals. Diamond on diamond.
                         
          The structures grow more complex as the view widens. Leaves
          and branches of crystal. A shimmering field of white jewels.
                         
          A landscape of white crystals, smooth as snow.
                         
                         
          EXT. DEEP SPACE
                         
          A black void shot with stars, far from any sun.
                         
          A sturdy prospecting ship forges through space, travel-worn
          but built to last. It carries the Weyland Industries logo.
          The name painted on its hull is MAGELLAN.
           14.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          The ship's nerve center and control room. Six control
          stations, empty and quiet. Interior lights dimmed to blue.
                         
          The entire forward bulkhead of the Bridge is a window: wall
          to wall, floor to ceiling.
                         
          At the window stands the android DAVID.
                         
          He gazes at the cosmos with an expression of utter serenity.
          After a long moment he turns away. Massive shutters close
          over the window as he walks off.
                         
                         
                         CORRIDOR
                         
          DAVID walks the ship's long central corridor. The ship is
          silent. The lights dimmed to blue. He is alone.
                         
                         
                         HYPERSLEEP COMPARTMENT
                         
          A long steel room containing a dozen plexiglass sarcophagi,
          six on each side. Sleep freezers. Inside each freezer: the
          shadowy shape of a human body rimed with frost.
                         
          DAVID walks through the compartment, surveying the sleepers.
                         
                         
                         WORKROOM
                         
          DAVID sits at a display table, moving intricate technical
          documents across the surface with waves of his hands.
                         
          His eyes intent on his work. If he is reading, then he`s
          reading at a speed no human could match.
                         
                         
                         WHITE LANDSCAPE
                         
          We pull away from the frosted crystalline horizon, the smooth
          white curves like snowy fields. Form becomes clear.
                         
          It's the body of a woman. It's Watts.
                         
                         
          INT. HYPERSLEEP FREEZER
                         
          Watts lies asleep in her underwear in a plexiglass freezer.
          Pale. Frost on her skin. Venus sculpted in ice. There are IV
          lines in her elbows and ankles.
           15.
                         
                         
          Shapes move into view beyond her, outside the freezer. FACES.
          Pressed to the glass.
                         
                         
                         HYPERSLEEP COMPARTMENT
                         
          All of the freezers are open and empty, save two. Holloway
          lies in one. In the next, Watts. Three men in blue coveralls
          crouch beside Watts's freezer, staring inside.
                         
          They are DOWNS, 30, a lean fidgety crewman. STILLWELL, 40, a
          sturdy fellow with the geniality of a labrador. And KAMAROV,
          26, whose dark, brooding air belongs to a man twice his age.
                         
                          DOWNS
           Look at that.
                         
          Kamarov opens the lid of Watt's freezer. Leans over her.
          Watts stirs in her sleep, a drowsy angel.
                         
                          KAMAROV
           She wakes up slow.
                         
          Watts wakes to find three men looming above her. Disoriented,
          she pulls away. Tangles her hands in her IV lines.
                         
           HOLLOWAY (O.S.)
           Get out of there!
                         
          Holloway's voice cracks like a whip. The crewmen jump back.
                         
          Holloway sits up in the next freezer over. He yanks the IV
          lines out of his arms and legs. Climbs out of the freezer.
                         
                          STILLWELL
           Just looking.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Give us a moment, will you?
                         
          The crewmen file out: Stillwell sheepishly, Downs and Kamarov
          surly. Holloway goes to Watts. Gently removes the IV lines
          from her ankles while she plucks the ones from her arms.
                         
                          WATTS
           I'm out of sorts. Sorry.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Never worry.
                         
          He helps her up.
           16.
                         
                         
          INT. MESS ROOM
                         
          Holloway and Watts sit at a table, both a bit hung over. They
          wear civilian clothes. Warmly dressed, they still look cold.
                         
          They nurse mugs of coffee and nibble packaged snack bars.
          Watts hunches over, shivering.
                         
                          WATTS
           My head's buzzing.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           You just slept two and a half years.
           It'll pass.
                         
                          WATTS
           Like you've done this before.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           I've read all about it.
                         
          Two ship's officers enter the room wearing blue coveralls
          with rank insignia: GLASSE, 45, a stocky man with thick black
          hair, and BRICK, 50, a bald man with a bristling mustache.
                         
          They look at Watts and Holloway with little pleasure.
                         
                          BRICK
           Sleep okay?
                         
                          WATTS
           Yes, thanks...
                         
                          GLASSE
           Captain'll see you now.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - CAPTAIN'S WARDROOM
                         
          CAPTAIN JANEK, 45, sits at his desk. With his bristling beard
          and powerful build he has a swashbuckling look, like the
          captain of a whaling ship.
                         
          Holloway and Watts sit on a steel bench in front of him.
                         
          He sits scanning his orders: a plastic packet with Weyland
          Industries logos, cracked open. Watermarked papers inside.
                         
                          JANEK
           Zeta Two Reticuli was surveyed
           already. A hundred years ago.
                         
                          WATTS
           By an unmanned probe. Very crude.
           17.
                         
                         
                          JANEK
           No Earthlike planets.
                         
                          WATTS
           No.
                         
                          JANEK
           So what are you looking for?
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Proof of the Engineers' existence.
                         
                          WATTS
           Confirmation of Professor Holloway's
           theories would change everything.
           There'd be science before Holloway and
           science after.
                         
          Janek rubs his face wearily with his hands.
                         
                          JANEK
           Your ticket. I'll put the ship where
           you want. Run your scans.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Captain, your crew's been up for a
           week. We could've used the time. Why'd
           you wait to wake us?
                         
                          JANEK
           Better for discipline.
           (off their silence)
           Men ship out as prospectors for one
           reason: the percentage. Find a gold
           mine or a habitable planet, and you're
           set for life.
           (he laughs bitterly)
           But this contract says no percentage.
           No bounty. Just triple pay. The men
           aren't happy.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           You unhappy too?
                         
                          JANEK
           I'm always unhappy.
                         
          He stands. Presses his palm against a wall panel. A safe
          opens. He pulls out a massive pistol in a gunbelt. Tosses the
          orders into the safe. Lays the gun atop them and locks it up.
           18.
                         
                         
                         SCIENTISTS' CABIN
                         
          Holloway and Watts take possession of their cabin: a simple
          but spacious room with twin beds and a window to the stars.
                         
          They drop duffel bags on the bed.
                         
          Holloway surveys the arrangement. Frowns. He releases the
          magnets that lock the beds down. Slides the beds together.
                         
                         
          INT. SCIENTISTS' WORKROOM - DAY
                         
          Holloway and Watts set up their workspace - a central display
          table and huge display surfaces on the walls. Fascinating
          documents slide under their fingertips: an Engineer alphabet.
          Ancient art. Climate and genetic data.
                         
          DAVID appears in the doorway.
                         
                          WATTS
           DAVID. I wondered when we'd see you.
                         
                          DAVID
           I trust your database is in order. I
           set it up myself.
                         
                          WATTS
           All's well, I think.
                         
          DAVID turns to go. Hesitates in the doorway.
                         
                          DAVID
           I should tell you: the time you spent
           sleeping, I spent studying your
           research.
                         
          Holloway and Watts look at the android, his words sinking in.
                         
                          WATTS
           You studied our work for two and a
           half years.
                         
                          DAVID
           It's quite a data set.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           So you've seen everything. Well. What
           do you think?
                         
          DAVID glances over the documents displayed around the room.
           19.
                         
                         
                          DAVID
           Your hypothesis is...bold. The
           audacity of it. Your climate data's
           undeniable: the Holocene Epoch was
           engineered. Dr. Watts, your genetic
           studies are equally conclusive. Pulses
           of cultural change are harder to
           prove, but even there your case is
           strong. I believe in your "Engineers."
                         
                         
                         BREAK ROOM
                         
          A utilitarian sitting room. Steel benches and table bolted to
          the deck. Seated here are two Weyland Industries technicians:
                         
          ANDREW CHANCE, 50, a stocky computer engineer with a genial
          bearing and a bristling salt-and-pepper mustache.
                         
          MONA RAVEL, 45, a dour, rangy woman with a plain face, her
          hair pulled severely back. A physicist and chemist.
                         
          They wear black Weyland Industries jackets. They radiate
          intelligence and competence. These are pros.
                         
          DAVID leads Holloway and Watts past the break room. Holloway
          spots the technicians. Strides in to greet them.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Weyland Industries! Mr. Chance. Ms.
           Ravel. You remember Dr. Watts.
                         
          Watts and the technicians exchange greetings.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           About the materials I gave you. Some
           of the technical aspects...
                         
                          CHANCE
           We'll handle our end of the job.
                         
                          RAVEL
           If there is a job.
                         
          Holloway blinks at her. Chance explains, not unkindly:
                         
                          CHANCE
           We only have a job if you find
           something.
           20.
                         
                         
                         CORRIDOR
                         
          Holloway and Watts follow the imperturbable DAVID down a
          steel corridor to Vickers's cabin door.
                         
                         
                         VICKERS'S SUITE
                         
          An open-plan cabin like an urban loft apartment. Watts and
          Holloway follow DAVID inside. Vickers rises to meet them.
                         
          The walls are industrial steel - but the floors are lushly
          carpeted, the furniture opulent. A king-sized bed, a mahogany
          desk, a dining table.
                         
          Gleaming machines ensure Vickers never need step outside: a
          private hypersleep freezer, an autokitchen, a medical pod.
                         
                          WATTS
           Is that a Pauling medical pod? There's
           only ten of those things on Earth! I
           guess nine, now.
                         
                          VICKERS
           I told Mr. Weyland I wouldn't
           compromise my standard of living. He
           accommodated me.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           I know, I had to cut my manifest. This
           used to be the number four cargo bay.
                         
                          VICKERS
           What can I do for you, Professor?
                         
          Holloway gestures with the slate he's brought with him.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           We're about to reach the system
           periphery. I thought you'd want to see
           the search protocols we -
                         
                          VICKERS
           No. I was set to be the next CEO of
           Weyland Industries. Then you came
           along and sold Mr. Weyland on...this.
           So here I am. Out of the running.
           I'll go where I'm told. But don't ask
           me to play along.
                         
                          WATTS
           But when you get back...
           21.
                         
                         
                          VICKERS
           I'll be five years behind the curve.
           Out of touch. Over.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           You might make the discovery of the
           ages.
                         
          Vickers looks at him as if she's dealing with a child.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           You don't believe in what we're doing.
                         
                          VICKERS
           Mr. Weyland believes. That's enough.
                         
          She walks them toward the door. Interview's over.
                         
                          VICKERS (CONT'D)
           Now we're out of communication, you
           can tell the crew what we're doing.
                         
                          WATTS
           They don't know? They volunteered.
                         
                          VICKERS
           They volunteered blind. Classified
           job, triple pay.
                         
                         
                         CARGO BAY
                         
          The crew - Brick, Glasse, Stillwell, Downs, and Kamarov - sit
          on crates in an improvised lecture hall. Holloway and Watts
          in front of them. Janek at the back of the room.
                         
          A hologram shows ancient images of divine visitations. The
          crew is visibly spooked.
                         
                          DOWNS
           Aliens.
                         
                          GLASSE
           You shitting me?
                         
          Stillwell is staring at the frightening images: gods and
          titans towering over mortals.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           I think all our mythologies are race-
           memories of the Engineers. Horus the
           Sun God. Prometheus bringing fire from
           heaven. A pillar of fire, a pillar of
           smoke. The Engineers are the gods.
           22.
                         
                         
          Kamarov stiffens, smelling blasphemy.
                         
                          KAMAROV
           The mythology gods maybe. God is God.
                         
                          STILLWELL
           Kamarov. Let him talk.
                         
          Stillwell's staring unhappily at the ancient images: gods
          towering over mortals, inhuman and terrifying.
                         
                          STILLWELL (CONT'D)
           So we're going to meet these things?
                         
                          WATTS
           We probably won't meet anyone. You'd
           expect a star-traveling race to
           generate radio or laser signals.
           Fusion drives and gravity drives have
           clear signatures. But Zeta Two
           Reticuli is silent. And the Engineers
           have gone missing on Earth.
                         
                          WATTS (CONT'D)
           By the pattern, they should've come to
           Earth seventeen centuries ago. And
           again six centuries ago. But no sign.
           After twelve thousand years...they
           stopped coming.
                         
                          BRICK
           Why?
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Exactly. Why?
                         
                          JANEK
           "My God, my God, why have you forsaken
           me?"
                         
          They turn. Janek grins at Holloway across the cargo bay.
                         
                          JANEK (CONT'D)
           Is that the question you've come light-
           years to answer?
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Only my first question. I have many.
           23.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN (ZETA2 RETICULI SYSTEM)
                         
          The Magellan arrives at the periphery of the system. A
          distant star like Earth's Sun, surrounded by orbiting
          planets: mere sparks at this distance.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          Outside the vast Bridge window, the star Zeta2 Reticuli
          burns, a cold beacon in the night. Downs, Glasse and Brick
          sit at consoles. Janek paces in front of the window.
                         
          Holloway and Watts enter - and gape at the view. Janek grins
          at their reaction.
                         
                          JANEK
           Welcome to Zeta Two Reticuli. Edge of
           the system. Open her eyes.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN (ZETA2 RETICULI SYSTEM)
                         
          The Magellan opens its eyes: two immense telescopes emerge
          from the ship. Irises open to expose huge lenses.
                         
          Antennae deploy: unfurling like wings, gleaming and vast.
          Sifting vacuum for any whisper of information.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          Outside the window, the planets orbiting Zeta2 Reticuli are
          no more than bright stars.
                         
                          JANEK
           Overlay.
                         
          A heads-up display appears, overlaid on the glass. The sun is
          labeled ZETA2 RETICULI. Markers point out the planets and
          trace the ellipses of their orbits.
                         
          Like magic, the planets swell into colorful orbs, each
          labeled: Alpha, Beta, Gamma...
                         
                          DOWNS
           Seven planets. Two hot rocks, two gas
           giants, three snowballs. Nothing
           Earthlike.
                         
          Watts grins at Holloway, eyes shining.
           24.
                         
                         
                          WATTS
           First humans in the system.
                         
          Vickers walks onto the Bridge with DAVID.
                         
                          JANEK
           Director. Good of you to join us.
                         
                          VICKERS
           What did I miss?
                         
                          CAPTAIN JANEK
           Just getting warmed up.
                          (TO HOLLOWAY)
           Professor? You know what you want?
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           EMR scan, thirty hertz to three
           hundred gigahertz. Spectroscopic
           passes on every planet and major moon.
           Infrared and albedo scan for hot spots
           and light sources.
                         
                          CAPTAIN JANEK
           Man knows what he wants. Run it.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN (ZETA2 RETICULI SYSTEM)
                         
          Twin telescopes spin and zoom. Antennae flex and focus.
                         
                         
                         TELESCOPE POV
                         
          The planet nearest the sun rushes closer as the mighty
          telescopes zoom in.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          The Magellan's sensors peel planet Alpha like an onion and
          put it back together again.
                         
          A river of data floods the display, bathing the watchers'
          faces with light: Chemical compounds, magnetic field lines,
          lunar orbits, topographical data.
                         
          The scan moves on to the next planet, and the next.
                         
                          GLASSE
           Negative on radio chatter system-wide.
           Nobody's talking.
           25.
                         
                         
                          BRICK
           Negative for laser and maser.
                         
          On the H.U.D., the data stream completes the last planet.
          Begins to illuminate the gas giants' moons.
                         
                          GLASSE
           No biological markers. No artificial
           light. No industry or agriculture.
           Dead system. Like always.
                         
                          DOWNS
           Piss-poor, too. Low in heavy elements.
                         
                          BRICK
           Got a hit! A moon. LV-426.
                         
          The display centers on Epsilon, a gas giant with many moons.
          Data flickers around one of the larger moons: LV-426.
                         
                          BRICK (CONT'D)
           Eighty-six percent Earth's mass.
           Atmosphere's nitrogen, methane,
           sulfates. Faint returns for a bunch of
           metals.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Anything else?
                         
          The sensors complete their pass on the system's last moon.
                         
                          JANEK
           That is all.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Take us in.
                         
                          JANEK
           Downs. You heard the man.
                         
                          DOWNS
           Aye, Captain. Maneuvering.
           Eighteen hours to orbit.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN (ZETA2 RETICULI SYSTEM)
                         
          The Magellan retracts its vast antennae and telescopes.
                         
          The engines fire: the ship rockets toward the gas giant
          Epsilon and its mysterious moon.
           26.
                         
                         
                         PASSAGEWAY
                         
          Leaving the Bridge, Holloway and Watts find themselves
          walking aft alongside DAVID.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           DAVID. Enjoy the show?
                         
                          DAVID
           I don't know that I "enjoy" things.
           It was informative.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           It was, it was.
                          (TEASING)
           You know, I've seen more convincing
           humanoid robots.
                         
          Watts smiles, watching Holloway's sport. DAVID's speech never
          varies from its agreeable tone.
                         
                          DAVID
           My design's not intended to convince.
           Simulating humanity is a complex task
           that diverts resources. My designers
           dispensed with that burden to optimize
           for intelligence.
                         
                          WATTS
           Why look like a man at all? Why not be
           a box on wheels?
                         
                          DAVID
           Being shaped like you, I can use
           spaces and equipment designed for you.
           But I'm not so limited. I hear
           frequencies you can't hear. I see
           wavelengths of light invisible to you.
           I move faster. Exert greater force.
                         
          The scientists look at DAVID in wonder.
                         
                          WATTS
           You see yourself as a superman.
                         
                          DAVID
           No.
                         
          He turns his unearthly eyes on them.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           Not a man at all.
           27.
                         
                         
                         SCIENTISTS' CABIN
                         
          Holloway and Watts lie on their bed in their clothes - her
          head on his chest.
                         
                          WATTS
           What if they're really there?
           (off his confusion)
           The Engineers. They could be there.
           Waiting for us. What then?
                         
          He laughs.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Then all my dreams come true.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN (LV-426 ORBIT)
                         
          The Magellan has arrived.
                         
          LV-426 is a gray moon shrouded in clouds. Behind it looms its
          father planet Epsilon, a lurid gas giant banded in red and
          gold, half swallowed in darkness.
                         
          The Magellan dives into a forced orbit around LV-426: rockets
          firing continually, nose pointed down. Telescopes, sensors
          and antennae sprout once more from its hull.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          Everyone's here. Janek and his crew seated at control
          stations. Holloway and Watts standing on the foredeck.
          Vickers and DAVID. Ravel and Chance.
                         
          LV-426 fills the window: a gray orb of mist. The ground
          invisible beneath the clouds. Sporadic lightning flickers.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Start with passive systems. We're
           uninvited guests. Let's be quiet.
                         
          That thought sends a nervous shiver through the others. Janek
          nods at Glass and Brick. They study their instruments.
                         
                          BRICK
           A lot of electromag, all random.
           That's lightning. Going to bugger up
           our scans.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Go active. Mapping radar.
           28.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN (LV-426 ORBIT)
                         
          Radar emitters extend from their housings like cannons. A
          THUMP of power as they hammer out a blast of energy.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          The display paints data on the moonscape as the wavefront
          comes back: terrain rendered in luminous green.
                         
                          JANEK
           Well, we just rang the doorbell, if
           anybody's listening.
                         
          Kamarov shakes his head fearfully. Crosses himself.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           What do we see?
                         
                          BRICK
           Icecaps at the poles. Frozen methane.
           Cold down there.
                         
          The display fills with light: a wave of terrain data sweeping
          across the moon's surface as the Magellan orbits.
                         
                          GLASSE
           Terrain data rezzing up. Hey! We got
           hard spots. Radar-opaque. Bright
           reflections. That's metal.
                         
          A jolt of excitement pounds through everyone on the Bridge.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN (LV-426 ORBIT)
                         
          The Magellan sweeps on around the gray moon, radar emitters
          humming, antennae and telescopes open wide. The gas giant
          Epsilon fills the sky behind LV-426.
                         
          As it circles, the Magellan launches SATELLITES. Metal motes
          hurled into polar orbits around the Moon.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          Twenty-four "hard spots" shine on the moon's surface: an
          irregular array circling LV-426.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           That's not natural.
           29.
                         
                         
                          MILBURN
           You see stuff like that sometimes.
           Mineral deposits. Volcanic ejecta.
                         
                          GLASSE
           Big one there.
                         
          A new signal appears on the map. Brighter than the others.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Still quiet?
                         
                          BRICK
           No comm signals. No signs of life.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           I want to get below the clouds.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN (IN ATMOSPHERE)
                         
          The prospecting ship descends through buffeting grey clouds.
          Telescopes and antennae stowed away. Hull streaming vapor as
          it cuts atmosphere.
                         
          Lightning flashes and booms around the descending ship.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          Everyone strapped into chairs - except Janek, who stands
          gripping a stanchion, his boots planted on the deck.
                         
          The landing engines roar. Wind screams over the hull. Mist
          whips across the Bridge window, obscuring any view. Watts
          reaches out. Squeezes Holloway's hand.
                         
          The Magellan breaks through the cloud cover into clear air.
                         
          Below the ship, a vast and eerie landscape is revealed. Wide
          valleys mottled with thin dark ground cover. Barren crags and
          spires of rock. Waterless and wind-swept.
                         
          Watts gasps. Stares at the grim and foreign country.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN (IN ATMOSPHERE)
                         
          The Magellan thunders over valleys and craggy ridges of rock.
           30.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          Janek takes the helm. Guides the Magellan down a valley as if
          it were a helicopter. A pilot born.
                         
                          GLASSE
           Coming up on site seven.
                         
          They crest a mountain higher than Everest.
                         
          Before them stretches a dry barren plain. Scattered rocky
          peaks rise from the desert floor - an alien Monument Valley.
                         
                          DOWNS
           Nothing.
                         
          Holloway points to a smaller mountain peak. Oddly regular.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Look there.
                         
          Janek expertly swings the Magellan sideways. The Magellan
          circles the mount, nose pointed inward.
                         
          It revolves below the watchers: flat faces, clean edges - but
          cracked and timework. It glitters like coal.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           Are we recording?
                         
          Glasse nods irritably. Of course they're recording.
                         
          Vickers stares at the pyramidal peak, nonplussed. Teetering
          on the brink of belief. Watts scans the data readouts.
                         
                          WATTS
           Tungsten, tantalum, aluminum. That
           could be technology.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Let's see the next one.
                         
                         
          EXT. LV-426 - SECOND PEAK
                         
          A second oddly regular peak, even more decrepit than the
          first, sits on the brink of a vast canyon. Landslides have
          eaten at its edges.
                         
          The Magellan purrs over the landscape, dwarfed by the scale.
          Drops between the canyon walls to circle the mount.
           31.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          Holloway and Watts stare at the structure. Beginning to get
          over the shock. Thinking like scientists again.
                         
                          WATTS
           Identical, apart from weathering.
                         
                          MILBURN
           Could be a rock formation. Carbon
           crystallizes like that.
                         
          The scientists pay him no mind. They're past that.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Let's see the big one.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          Janek pilots by instruments alone. Clouds obscuring the view.
                         
                          BRICK
           Closing on the major site...
                         
          The ship descends into clear air. A stunning panorama unfolds
          before them: craters, hundreds of meters across, connected by
          trenches. Like a pattern of crop-circles sunk in the rock.
                         
          In the middle of the central crater - a huge angular peak,
          larger than the others. The Magellan circles the site. It's
          awe-inspiring. Cryptic. Huge.
                         
          Holloway stares in rapture. Glances at Watts: she nods, eyes
          shining. She's with him.
                         
          The crew's still skeptical - but starting to wonder. They
          shake their heads and exchange looks.
                         
                          BRICK (CONT'D)
           No radio. No heat sources. Cold as the
           grave.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Nobody home.
                         
          Watts looks out at the timeworn peak. Its eroded facets.
                         
                          WATTS
           I don't think anybody's been home for
           a long time.
           32.
                         
                         
          EXT. CRATER COMPLEX - DAY
                         
          From the central crater, four canals extend outward like
          points of the compass. Some connect to smaller craters.
                         
          One canal peters out, flush with the desert floor.
                         
          The Magellan lands at the end of this canal - half a
          kilometer from the central crater.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          They stare out the window, down the wide straight canal at
          the pyramidal peak in the distance. Holloway looks around.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           All right. Let's move.
                         
          Janek glances at his instruments.
                         
                          JANEK
           There's only six hours of daylight
           left. Maybe you should hold off.
                         
          Watts looks at him incredulously.
                         
                          WATTS
           We've got that outside the windows and
           you want to wait `til tomorrow?
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN - AIRLOCK - DAY
                         
          The expedition party emerges from the airlocks - riding CARGO
          ROVERS, robotic vehicles just smart enough to carry their
          owners around, or follow along behind them.
                         
          The rovers' beds are loaded with gear; the explorers ride on
          running-board seats. All wear space suits.
                         
          Holloway drives the first rover with Watts beside him.
          Stillwell, Kamarov, and Downs in back.
                         
          DAVID drives the second rover with Milburn, Fifield, Chance
          and Ravel aboard.
                         
                          WATTS
           The air here will kill you, so keep an
           eye on your supply and watch your
           seals. Pathogen tests are clean.
           33.
                         
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Move slowly. Stay together. Don't
           touch anything. Things may be more
           fragile than they look - or more
           dangerous. There might be technologies
           operating here we don't understand.
                         
          The crew of the Magellan exchange uneasy looks. Still
          uncertain what to think.
                         
                         
          EXT. ENTRY CANAL - DAY
                         
          The trench grows deeper as they follow it toward the central
          crater - the pyramidal peak framed ahead of them like a
          monument on a triumphal avenue.
                         
          They cross a perpendicular canal. Glancing left and right,
          they see smaller craters with central peaks of their own.
                         
          They pass through the shadow of a high promontory of stone
          atop one bank of the canal.
                         
          We see - and they do not - that the far side of the
          promontory has a Sphinx-like FACE of monumental size. So
          eroded that its artificial nature is uncertain.
                         
                         
          EXT. CENTRAL CRATER - DAY
                         
          The crater floor is a vast enclosed plain. The pyramidal
          mount looms in the center - colossal in scale.
                         
          The rovers enter the crater, trailing plumes of dust. They
          circle the pyramid.
                         
          On the south face of the pyramid, an IRIS DOOR of many blades
          stands, easily fifty feet high. Seemingly made of the same
          basaltic stone as the pyramid itself. A huge construction.
                         
          The explorers are transfixed in awe. All skepticism banished.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Tell me that's a natural formation.
                          (HE GRINS)
           Undeniable proof of alien
           civilization. You were here on this
           day, thirty-one December, year of our
           Lord 2172. History will remember your
           names.
                         
          Watts stares at the iris. Its bottom-most blade is broken; it
          lies in rubble at the foot of the door. A dark knife-like
          aperture leads into the pyramid.
           34.
                         
                         
                          WATTS
           The door's open.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          Janek and Vickers watch the explorers' progress in the main
          holographic display: their tinny voices echoing over the comm
          link. At the sight of the huge iris door in the pyramid, both
          Janek and Vickers stare in blank astonishment.
                         
                          JANEK
           Son of a bitch. They were right.
                         
          He turns to stare out the window at the pyramid's peak.
                         
          Vickers turns and slips out of the Bridge. Hurries away.
                         
                         
                         VICKERS'S SUITE
                         
          Vickers strides through her quarters. On the far wall there
          are two small doors.
                         
          She opens the first: steps into a luxurious bathroom. Washes
          a pill down with a tumbler of water.
                         
          Returns to her cabin and opens the second small door.
                         
                         
          SECRET ROOM - CONTINUOUS
                         
          A chamber walled with steel panels. A deep hum of ventilation
          and power: there's a lot of technology here.
                         
          She turns to a console beside the door. Flips a row of
          switches. The hum deepens. Hidden mechanisms stir to life.
                         
                         
          EXT. PYRAMID - IRIS DOOR
                         
          On foot, explorers press inside - Holloway and Watts in the
          lead. Their flashlights cut into the gloom.
                         
          The robotic rovers follow them: their six-wheeled chassis
          with independent suspension trundling over the rubble
          barrier, sure-footed as goats.
                         
                         
          INT. PYRAMID - ANTECHAMBER
                         
          Dark and cavernous. Weak daylight slants in.
           35.
                         
                         
          The explorers press into the darkness on foot - the cargo
          rovers' headlights flashing on. They move through a dark
          cathedral space, empty and bare.
                         
          DAVID looks around in fascination, his eyes raking the walls.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Jocelyn. Here.
                         
          His voice trembles with urgency. He shines light on the rock.
          Symbols engraved on the dark surface. Dots, lines and arcs.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           The writing of the Engineers.
           Conclusive connection.
                         
          DAVID stands beside them. Stares at the alien writing.
                         
                          DAVID
           Congratulations, Professor Holloway.
                         
          Watts passes her light over the writing, recording it. They
          move on into the dark.
                         
          DAVID lingers. Reading.
                         
                         
          PYRAMID - VARIOUS PASSAGES
                         
          The interior is a labyrinth. Corridors big as railway tunnels
          intersecting and diverging.
                         
          The explorers wend their way deeper. Several carry map units,
          whose holographic displays render three-dimensional maps that
          expand as they explore.
                         
                         
          INT. PYRAMID - MASSIVE CHAMBER
                         
          Holloway leads the explorers deeper into the complex. The
          motors of the cargo rovers whine and growl.
                         
          DAVID trails the others, eyes raking the blank walls as if he
          sees something there. He reaches out. Passes his hand through
          the air as if grasping a cobweb.
                         
          A STRANGE RUMBLING NOISE sounds down the corridor, freezing
          them. Holloway sweeps his light that way. The sound comes
          again: a DEMONIC VOICE speaking some unearthly language.
                         
          Watts looks at Holloway - but his eyes are focused on the
          dark ahead. He moves forward. A beat. The others follow.
           36.
                         
                         
          An APPARITION appears before them. A PALE, LUMINOUS GIANT
          fifteen feet tall, with hollow eyes and a grotesque snout. It
          strides toward them. Speaks in a sonorous voice.
                         
          Pandemonium.
                         
          Watts backpedals involuntarily. Seeing Holloway stand his
          ground, she reaches out to him in a panic.
                         
                          WATTS
           Martin. Martin!
                         
          But Holloway doesn't budge. Stares at the Apparition in
          fascination. Everyone else scatters - except DAVID, who
          stands stock-still by the wall.
                         
          Watts watches as the Apparition walks right up to Holloway.
          Disappears with a sizzle of static as Holloway experiences
          the creature passing through him.
                         
          Silence. Watts returns to Holloway's side. Stillwell and
          Downs are huddled on the deck. Milburn and Fifield have
          fallen back down the passageway.
                         
                          FIFIELD
           Christ. Christ!
                         
                          RAVEL
           It wasn't real.
                         
                          MILBURN
           We all saw it.
                         
          Unseen by the others, DAVID reaches out and repeats his
          gesture in the air.
                         
          A rumbling sound down the corridor, as before. Moments later,
          the Apparition appears round the corner again. They stand
          their ground: the ghostly giant strides toward them, exactly
          as before, and disappears with a crackle.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Recording?
                         
                          FIFIELD
           No more. I'm out.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Fifield. Get a grip.
                         
                          FIFIELD
           I'm a prospector. You find a load of
           bauxite, I'm your man. But not this.
           37.
                         
                         
                          MILBURN
           I should go with him. Buddy system.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
                          (DISGUSTED)
           Fine.
                         
          He hauls a heavy rolling case out of the cargo rover.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           You can deploy the drones. Drop them
           in the first or second nexus on your
           way back.
                         
                          FIFIELD
           Give us a rover.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           And half our gear? It's no more than a
           mile. You can walk it.
                         
          Sulking, Milburn takes the rolling case. The remaining
          explorers watch Fifield and Milburn backtrack into the dark.
                         
                         
          CORE CHAMBER DOOR
                         
          Holloway and Watts lead their party up to a massive door,
          sealed tight. In design and scale, undeniably important.
          Holloway glances at his map.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           This should lead to the core of the
           pyramid.
                         
                          WATTS
           Jack it open? Or cut through?
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Let's do as little damage as we can.
                         
          Ravel waves a sensor over the wall.
                         
                          RAVEL
           There's power. Current flowing in the
           wall.
                         
          Chance begins to inspect the frame of the door.
                         
                          CHANCE
           Maybe we can hack it. Has to be a
           mechanism...
           38.
                         
                         
          DAVID looks as if they fail to see something obvious. He
          points at a spot on the wall beside the massive slab.
                         
                          DAVID
           Pull up a rover. I want to get up
           there.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE - DAY
                         
          Janek stands at the window, looking down the long canal at
          the distant pyramid.
                         
          The ship's powerful imaging systems stream data: stereoscopic
          feeds from the explorers' flashlights; a map that grows as
          they explore. The maze under the pyramid drawn in light.
                         
          A globe of LV-426 blooms with terrain and weather data as the
          satellites feed the ship information.
                         
          Vickers appears at Janek's side.
                         
                          JANEK
           Director. Taking an interest?
                         
                          VICKERS
           It's my operation, isn't it?
                         
                         
          INT. PYRAMID - HUB
                         
          A junction where multiple passageways converge.
                         
          Milburn and Fifield trudge into the space, trundling the
          probe cases behind them. Tunnels lead away in all directions.
                         
                          FIFIELD
           What do you think?
                         
                          MILBURN
           Grand Central Station.
                         
          They open the case. CAMERA PROBES tumble out: spheres the
          size of softballs, studded with lenses and sensors.
                         
          Tiny lights come on as the probes awaken. They roll off,
          dispersing to investigate every passageway. Bumbling into
          walls and pillars, reversing. Exploring by random walk.
                         
                          FIFIELD
           Let's check the feed. Gimme the map.
                         
                          MILBURN
           You had the map unit.
           39.
                         
                         
                          FIFIELD
           You don't have the map?
                         
          They stare at each other.
                         
                          MILBURN
           Are you serious?
                         
          He trudges back the way they came, in disgust.
                         
                          MILBURN (CONT'D)
           Come on.
                         
                         
          CORE CHAMBER DOOR
                         
          DAVID stands on top of one of the cargo rovers. He's cut a
          hole in the wall beside the door, high up: he works with
          probes in the mechanisms inside.
                         
                          DAVID
           Looks like a three-state switch.
                         
          A deep BOOM, echoing inside the ancient walls. Nothing moves.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           One moment...
                         
          He moves a control. BOOM. The immense door begins to rise.
                         
                         
          PYRAMID - CORE CHAMBER
                         
          The vast central chamber of the pyramid. An immense space.
                         
          Holloway walks in, his flashlight searching. Watts hurries
          after. The others follow, rovers tagging along.
                         
          A colossal structure stands in the center of the chamber,
          convoluted and strange. A mechanism. Chasms yawn in the floor
          all around it, their depths lost in darkness.
                         
          The explorers enter, rovers in train. They lift their eyes:
          hundreds of feet above them they see the pyramid's apex from
          within. A SHAFT OF DIFFUSE LIGHT penetrates the pyramid
          somewhere near the peak.
                         
                          RAVEL
           This is something, now.
                         
                          DAVID
           Yes. Yes, it is.
           40.
                         
                         
          The android's awareness is keyed to a high pitch. He seems to
          read meaning in the inscrutable structures all around them.
                         
          Holloway hauls a drone case out of the rover. Two dozen
          spherical drones tumble out, wake up, and roll off into the
          dark. They are nimble, hopping curbs and skirting chasms.
                         
          Watts looks at her atmosphere sensor. Astonished.
                         
                          WATTS
           Martin. This air's breathable.
                         
          The core chamber brightens as the sun outside moves into
          alignment. The shaft of light perfectly centered.
                         
          A vast SIGH as if the pyramid itself is breathing.
                         
          A fat drop of water falls on Watts's glove. She looks up in
          surprise. Another falls on her visor. And then it's raining
          inside the pyramid.
                         
          Water trickles into the chasms, inundating the mossy growths
          that cling to the walls.
                         
          Holloway looks at Watts with a little boy's grin.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Miracles and wonders!
                         
          The shaft of light moves on. The core chamber dims slightly.
          The rainfall stops as suddenly as it started.
                         
          The explorers follow the main path around the periphery of
          the chamber, past a gallery of mysterious machines.
                         
          There are marvels in the shadows. Cells in the dark apparatus
          open on startling deposits of color: translucent alabaster
          flutes. Honeycombs of pure gold. Matrices of crystal.
                         
          Watts waves a scanning instrument as she walks.
                         
                          WATTS
           Intense field readings. Huge power
           sources here.
                         
                         
          PYRAMID - CORE CHAMBER - RAMP
                         
          They arrive at a wide opening in the floor. A strange ramp
          curves downward - its floor segmented and saw-toothed.
                         
          A bafflement: it's not a staircase. Not an escalator. No
          moving parts. No rails or tracks.
           41.
                         
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Space below us. A big space.
                         
          As they stand looking, a probe bumbles up to the opening and
          goes bounding down the ramp. Watts laughs.
                         
                          WATTS
           How does this work?
                         
          She begins to descend on foot. Holloway behind her.
          Stillwell, Downs, and Kamarov grudgingly follow.
                         
          But DAVID looks away across the cavernous chamber - fixated
          on the central crystal. He beckons Ravel and Chance to follow
          him, and walks away.
                         
          Ravel and Chance look at each other in astonishment.
          Uncertainly, they follow DAVID.
                         
                         
                         LOWER PASSAGE
                         
          Holloway, Watts, and the crewmen reach the bottom of the
          ramp, breathing hard. A cargo rover trundles down after them.
                         
          They look back up. The ramp above them is empty.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Ravel. Chance. Where've you gone?
           DAVID! Where are you?
           (to Watts, indignantly)
           They didn't come down!
                         
          But Watts is staring through an archway. Transfixed.
                         
                          WATTS
           Look.
                         
          She walks in. Holloway follows.
                         
                         
                         CONTROL CONCOURSE
                         
          A passageway punctuated by alcoves as big as band-shells.
                         
          In each alcove stands a biomechanical apparatus - shaped from
          the same dark material as the pyramid itself. Each apparatus
          implies by its design that a giant is meant to fit inside it.
                         
          Holloway and Watts walk the concourse, playing their lights
          over the dark machinery. Their footsteps echo.
           42.
                         
                         
                          WATTS
           Do you see, the size of them? Like
           that ghost we saw...
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           It wasn't a ghost. Where are the
           others? I don't want to go back up.
                         
          Watts fiddles with her suit's comm controls. Listening.
                         
                          WATTS
           They switched to channel three. I hear
           them talking. They're okay.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           We should stay together.
                         
                         
          INT. PYRAMID - BLIND CORRIDOR
                         
          Milburn and Fifield are lost. They bumble through the dark.
                         
                          MILBURN
           This is not the same place.
                         
                          FIFIELD
           It is! That is the same freaky thing
           we saw before.
                         
          He points at a detail of the architecture.
                         
                          MILBURN
           No it's not! The other one was more...
           sort of...fuck it.
           (taps his comm)
           Milburn to Magellan. Come in.
                         
          Static.
                         
                         
                         INTERSECTION
                         
          Holloway and Watts round a corner and stop in their tracks.
          Kamarov, Stillwell, and Downs almost run into them.
                         
          The scientists stand frozen.
                         
          In front of them lies a dead giant. An ENGINEER.
                         
          If he were standing, he would be fifteen feet tall.
                         
          He is roughly human in shape. Barrel-chested. Withered to the
          bones. There are bulky protrusions fused with his flesh: hard
          to say whether they are equipment or parts of his body.
           43.
                         
                         
          His head, lolling to one side, is severed from his body.
                         
          His eyes seem to be covered by goggles; but if so then the
          goggles are fused with his skull. An elephantine proboscis,
          severed now, once connected to a protrusion on his hip.
                         
          The giant lies frozen in a convulsion of agony. His jaw
          gaping in a silent scream. His corpse is marred by hideous
          wounds: slashes that cut through bone.
                         
          The explorers move closer. Speechless.
                         
                          KAMAROV
           God in Heaven.
                         
                          WATTS
           Martin. Martin.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           I know. Look.
                         
          He lifts his light. Beyond the dead giant, a vision of Hell:
                         
          A dozen DEAD ENGINEERS lie heaped against a sealed door.
          Twisted in postures of torment, murdered in the attempt to
          escape. All bear horrific wounds.
                         
          Scene of an ancient massacre.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          Janek and Vickers stare dumbstruck at a 3-D view of the dead
          giants captured by the explorers' cameras.
                         
                         
          INT. CATACOMB - INTERSECTION
                         
          The explorers circle the decapitated giant, hushed with awe.
          Holloway steps close.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           "There were giants in the earth in
           those days...and when the sons of God
           came in unto the daughters of men,
           they bare children to them, who became
           mighty men." Genesis six four.
                         
          Lays a gloved hand reverently on the giant's ribs.
                         
                          DOWNS
                          (PANICKY)
           You said don't touch anything! You
           said don't touch anything!
           44.
                         
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Peace.
                         
                          CHANCE
           The size of them!
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           In all the old mythologies, the
           visitors from the sky were giants.
                         
          Watts joins Holloway beside the dead Engineer. Touches the
          corpse in her own turn. It's hard as stone: ossified. She
          traces the ancient, terrible wounds.
                         
                          WATTS
           They were killed. All of them.
                         
          Downs stands staring at the dead giant, as shaken as Kamarov.
                         
                          DOWNS
           We shouldn't be here.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Come on. The dead can't hurt you.
           (adjusts his communicator)
           DAVID. Chance. Ravel. I've got
           something here.
                         
          Static.
                         
                          WATTS
           Communications are going to hell.
                         
                         
          EXT. SPACE - LV-426 ORBIT
                         
          One of the Magellan's satellites hurtles along, high above
          the moon's atmosphere. It passes over the terminator line
          between the night side and day side.
                         
          Through the clouds below, a lightning-laced storm front rolls
          across LV-426 like a wave.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE - DUSK
                         
          Rising winds pluck at the ground cover outside the window.
          Janek turns from the view to look at the holographic globe.
                         
                          JANEK
           All hands. Back to the ship. We got a
           mean storm front rolling in. I repeat.
           All hands...
           45.
                         
                         
          INT. DARK CITY - CATACOMBS - INTERSECTION
                         
          Standing beside the dead giant, Watts and Holloway look at
          each other as the signal comes in.
                         
           JANEK (V.O.)
                          (STATICKY)
           front rolling...back to the ship.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
                          (INTO COMM)
           We've found something here! I'm not
           walking away for bad weather.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE - DUSK
                         
          Janek shouts into his communicator.
                         
                          JANEK
           Holloway! I got two-hundred-kilometer
           winds with airborne silica and enough
           static to fry your suits. Get your
           asses back here! Now!
                         
                         
          EXT. CENTRAL CRATER - DUSK
                         
          Holloway races their cargo rover away from the pyramid,
          wheels kicking up dust.
                         
          Watts rides in back, securing a bulky payload under a tarp on
          the cargo deck. Stillwell, Downs, and Kamarov clinging
          miserably beside her. Watts looks back:
                         
          A massive storm front chases them. A tidal wave of dust shot
          through with lightning. Gale-force winds tear at the ground.
          Lightning lashes the pyramid and the crater wall.
                         
          Reaching the Magellan, they see the other rover already in
          the airlock lift. DAVID, Ravel, and Chance aboard.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN - AIRLOCK LIFT
                         
          Holloway roars into the lift at speed, the rover skidding
          almost into the opposite wall. Watts leaps down.
                         
          The storm wall catches up to them. Screaming winds rip
          through the lift. Dust fills the air. Visibility plunges
          toward zero.
                         
                          WATTS
           Help me unload!
           46.
                         
                         
          She pulls at the tarp. It tears halfway free - and fills with
          wind, snapping taut with such violence that Watts is hurled
          out into the storm.
                         
                         
          IN THE GALE
                         
          Watts tumbles helplessly: a leaf in the wind. CRASHES into a
          metal stanchion. Clings, the wind knocked out of her. Ears
          ringing. Nothing but static in her headset.
                         
                         
          IN THE LIFT
                         
          Holloway stares in shock at the place where Watts vanished.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Jocelyn!
                         
          With inhuman reflexes DAVID reacts. Grabs a tether. Latches
          it to his suit. Locks it to an anchor point on the wall.
          Dives into the storm. A ballet nearly too fast to follow.
                         
                         
          IN THE GALE
                         
          DAVID lets the wind take him. Skids across the ground,
          controlling his trajectory. He hits the stanchion where Watts
          is lodged with a CLANG as if he were made of iron.
                         
          Watts stares at him in mute astonishment.
                         
          He locks her suit to his. Activates the tether unit's winch.
          It whirs, reeling them in through the hurricane.
                         
                         
          IN THE LIFT
                         
          Holloway and the other crewmen haul Watts and DAVID back
          inside. Holloway and Watts embrace fiercely as the lift rises
          toward the safety of the ship.
                         
          The crewmen bundle the rover's tarp-wrapped cargo into a
          sealed dumbwaiter that rises independently into the ship.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - AIRLOCK
                         
          The explorers strip off space suits.
                         
          Watts pulls her helmet off. Catches DAVID's eye across the
          airlock. Mouths a silent Thank you. He gives her the barest
          nod and vanishes into the ship.
           47.
                         
                         
          The explorers exchange looks. A mood of exuberance and wonder
          prevails now that they're safe home.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Day one.
                         
          Smiles of wonder as what they've seen comes home.
                         
                          DOWNS
           Got to hand it to you, professor. You
           were right. Both of you.
                         
                          CHANCE
           What's in the tarp? What'd you bring
           back?
                         
          The explorers from Watts and Holloway's party exchange looks
          and burst into laughter.
                         
                          WATTS
           You don't want to know.
                         
                          STILLWELL
           Shit. We're two helmets short.
                         
          He points. The lockers labeled MILBURN and FIFIELD stand
          closed. The helmet racks empty. The laughter cuts off.
                         
                          KAMAROV
           They didn't come in!
                         
          They stare at each other, listening to the wind wail outside.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE - DUSK
                         
          Janek speaks urgently into the communicator.
                         
                          JANEK
           Between the wind speeds and the static
           electricity, there's no safe way to
           get to you. You're going to have to
           hunker down until it passes. How are
           your provisions?
                         
           FIFIELD (V.O.)
           We got air . Water and food
           tabs  suits.
                         
                          JANEK
           Honey sacks?
           48.
                         
                         
          INT. DARK CITY - CATACOMB
                         
          Fifield and Milburn stand miserably in a murky passageway.
          Fifield hitches up his space suit's crotch uncomfortably.
                         
                          FIFIELD
           Yeah, we're piped.
                         
                          MILBURN
           I hate these fucking things.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE - DUSK
                         
           FIFIELD (V.O.)
           We hate these fucking ,
           Captain.
                         
                          JANEK
           Maybe next time you'll mind your maps.
           Keep your heads down. We'll come get
           you in the morning.
                         
          A burst of static answers him: Fifield's voice scrambled by
          the storm. Unintelligible.
                         
                          JANEK (CONT'D)
           Magellan out.
                         
                         
          MESS ROOM - NIGHT
                         
          All hands present excepting the two missing men. Janek plays
          his squeeze box, its archaic music filling the air. Tired and
          exuberant, the men sway and dance mockingly.
                         
          Holloway has a champagne bottle open in each hand. He fills
          steel cups left and right.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           My friends. What we do here marks the
           greatest achievement of our species.
           Contact with another civilization.
           Humanity came of age today, on this
           moon. You were there.
           (raises his glass)
           To history.
                         
          They raise cups and drink. Even the crew moved by the moment.
          But Janek smiles crookedly and toasts again.
           49.
                         
                         
                          JANEK
           To Milburn and Fifield. The first
           human beings to freak out, get lost,
           and sleep in their suits in the ruins
           of an alien civilization.
                         
                         
          INT. PYRAMID CATACOMBS - NIGHT
                         
          A vast dark maze. Milburn and Fifield grope their way through
          the dark with flashlights. The storm howls outside.
                         
                          MILBURN
           What are you looking for?
                         
                          FIFIELD
           (groping along the wall)
           Someplace things can't come at us.
                         
                          MILBURN
           What's gonna come at us?
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - VICKERS'S SUITE - NIGHT
                         
          DAVID stands beside Vickers at her holography terminal. He
          lays his hand on over a signal plate - and the terminal
          lights up with a three-dimensional image.
                         
          The core chamber of the pyramid, from DAVID's point of view.
                         
          It's apparent that DAVID's eyes see more than human eyes do.
          He seems to see heat and electromagnetic energy as well as
          visible light; calibrated readouts are overlaid on the scene.
                         
          The structures in the pyramid are surrounded by complicated
          patterns of energy. This is incomprehensible technology.
                         
                          DAVID
           The core of the pyramid. You see.
                         
          Vickers goes rigid, looking at it: avarice in her eyes.
                         
                          VICKERS
           We're going to protocol two.
                         
                          DAVID
           I understand.
                         
                         
                         LABORATORY
                         
          A high-tech science facility behind glass. Watts and
          Holloway, in lab gloves and smocks, open the dumbwaiter:
           50.
                         
                         
          An ENGINEER'S HEAD rises into view, ghoulish and elephantine.
          Vapor rises from it. A readout blinks: STERILIZED.
                         
          They lift it onto the steel table. It takes both of them.
                         
          They pass scanners over the skull. Images accumulate and
          rotate on the laboratory displays. X-ray and ultrasound.
                         
          Holloway leans close to study an X-ray image. He almost seems
          to see a ghostly second face...
                         
                          WATTS
           Martin. Look.
                         
          She traces the head with an ultrasound probe: under the
          vibrations a seam opens up around the edge of the face.
                         
          She gets a fingertip into the seam. Works with a probe. Pries
          away the long-dead Engineer's mask. It comes free.
                         
          The visage revealed is human, except for its giant scale.
                         
          White-skinned. Earless. Hairless. Withered but beautiful as a
          Greek statue. Eyes closed. An expression of suffering on its
          face. Watts drops the ultrasound probe in shock.
                         
                          WATTS (CONT'D)
           They look like us.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           We look like them. Genesis 1:27. "And
           God created man in his own image. In
           his own image created He him."
                         
          Vickers and DAVID stand outside the lab window, staring in at
          the god's head. Vickers looks shaken. DAVID, fascinated.
                         
          Watts covers her nose in revulsion. A horrible stench: The
          Engineer head begins to disintegrate in front of them. Flesh
          oozing, skin peeling. Accelerated decay.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           It's breaking down.
                         
                          WATTS
           Formaldehyde!
                         
          Urgently they ransack cabinets and storage rooms. Watts finds
          a clear plastic drum and dumps its contents. Holloway drags
          five-gallon jugs of preservative out of a cabinet.
                         
          DAVID watches through the window, almost amused.
           51.
                         
                         
                          DAVID
           Mortal after all.
                         
          They lift the rotting head into the drum, retching. Fingers
          skidding in putrefaction.
                         
          They pour formaldehyde over it. As soon as the head is
          immersed they rush to strip off their reeking gloves and
          smocks, scrubbing their hands.
                         
          The god's head sits in its murky vat, shedding skin and tofu-
          like chunks of white flesh. The noble face disintegrating.
                         
          Watts and Holloway stare at it, breathing hard from their
          work. Vickers flicks on the intercom from outside the window.
                         
                          VICKERS
           Your cadaver's interesting. But I'm
           more interested in the machinery in
           the pyramid. The core chamber. What do
           you think it does?
                         
          Watts stares at Vickers incredulously.
                         
                          WATTS
           How could anyone know...
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           I know what it does.
                         
          Silence. Holloway looks at Vickers wearily, as if he's seen
          this conversation coming. He glances at Watts.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           Think. What we've seen. What we know.
                         
          Watts rises to the challenge. Thinking on her feet.
                         
                          WATTS
           Twenty-four pyramids scattered around
           the moon's equator. Massive power
           supplies. Vents in the walls.
           Atmosphere changes. Breeder tanks...
           (she's got it)
           The pyramids are terraforming
           machines.
                         
          Holloway grins, exuberant. His theory playing out perfectly.
          He doesn't see Vickers stiffen. Her hands curling into fists.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           That's why Earth's ancient cultures
           built pyramids: in imitation of the
           gods.
                          (MORE)
           52.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           Twelve thousand years ago, beings from
           the sky set pyramids on the Earth and
           transformed the world. That's what
           they were doing here - before their
           civilization failed.
                         
          Watts stares at the head in its tank. The severed neck.
                         
                          WATTS
           It didn't fail. It was wiped out.
                         
                         
          INT. CATACOMBS - INSECT CHAMBER
                         
          Milburn and Fifield have bunked down in a new chamber: they
          slouch against a wall. Milburn sweeps the room with his
          headlamp. Stoops to lift something into the light.
                         
                          MILBURN
           Look at this!
                         
          A CENTIPEDE, three feet long and thick as man's thumb. Its
          hard shell is gray. It has a hammer-head like a shark.
                         
                          FIFIELD
           Jesus! Put it down!
                         
          He leaps back, wild-eyed.
                         
          Milburn laughs at him. Lets the eyeless centipede wind its
          segmented body around his space-suited arm.
                         
          In the flat face, a white vertical slit appears. Changes
          quickly to a horizontal position; opens enough to suggest a
          mouth. Milburn doesn't notice this development.
                         
                          MILBURN
           Relax. Your suit's bug-proof. Hell,
           it's bulletproof.
                         
          The centipede spirals around his arm, glittering, its body
          moving in fluid waves. The blind head quests between his
          fingers. Milburn loses his nerve as the thing's mouth
          suddenly gapes wide as a shark's.
                         
                          MILBURN (CONT'D)
           That's enough.
                         
          He tries to pull it off.
                         
          The centipede locks its segments together and digs in with
          its body. It might as well be made of iron.
           53.
                         
                         
                          MILBURN (CONT'D)
                          (PANICKING)
           Get it off! It's crushing me!
                         
          Fifield pulls out a utility knife. Cuts into the centipede's
          body behind its head.
                         
          A gout of greed ACID spills over Milburn's glove. Smoke rises
          as the acid quickly burns a hole through the material.
                         
          Milburn's shout of astonishment turns to a wail of agony.
                         
                          MILBURN (CONT'D)
           AHH! Help me! Christ!
                         
          The centipede snakes into the smoking hole in the glove.
          Crawls upward into Milburn's suit - toward his head.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - LABORATORY - NIGHT
                         
          Holloway stands studying the data displays: cross-sections of
          the Engineer's skull.
                         
          Watts scrutinizes the head itself, her nose an inch from the
          plastic tank. Not a pretty sight.
                         
          As she watches, a current in the formaldehyde peels away one
          gossamer eyelid. The revealed eye is black as obsidian,
          iridescent like opal. A jewel.
                         
          Fascinated, Watts pulls out a plastic case. Opens it to
          reveal a high-tech control unit with a screen. She pops open
          a plastic capsule: removes a tiny SEED PROBE, smaller than a
          grain of rice. Drops it into the vat.
                         
          Under her guidance, the seed probe swims to the severed neck.
          Burrows into the medulla oblongata toward the brain.
                         
          ON A SCREEN: In the probe's POV the medulla looks like a
          tunnel. The probe climbs along neural channels.
                         
          Another screen shows the probe's progress through the skull.
                         
          Glasse enters. Stands beside Holloway to watch Watts at work.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           You won't get anything. Tissue's too
           degraded. Hmm. Brain chamber's
           massive, even proportionately.
                         
                          WATTS
           Neural paths are still conductive.
           54.
                         
                         
          The seed probe reaches the optic nerve of the exposed eye -
          and its POV fills with a vision of glory: a beautiful woman's
          face surrounded by a mystical nimbus of light. An angel.
                         
          Glasse and Holloway gasp. The woman in the blurry vision is
          Watts - as seen by the dead Engineer's eye.
                         
                          GLASSE
           Incredible.
                         
          The image dissolves into noise. Error messages flicker across
          the display. Watts sighs.
                         
                          WATTS
           Formaldehyde's killing the tissue.
                         
          Holloway stares at Watts, awe on his face.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Did you record that?
                         
                          WATTS
           Of course.
                         
                         
          AT A LAB TABLE
                         
          Watts dissects one of the Engineer's eyes - working
          underwater in a shallow tub of preservative. Glasse looks on
          avidly, an unabashed fan.
                         
          Watts wears a pair of magnifying goggles on her forehead -
          the lenses lowering and rising at need.
                         
          She bisects the apple-sized eyeball carefully and extracts
          the hard lens from behind the cornea. Holds the lens up to
          her eye. It is opalescent, almost luminous.
                         
                          WATTS (CONT'D)
           The lens is where the phase shift
           happens.
                         
          The uncorrected view through the lens is blurry.
                         
                          WATTS (CONT'D)
           Glasse. I want to look through these
           lenses. Can you seal them and do the
           optical correction?
                         
          Glasse reaches out and plucks the magnifying goggles from
          Watts's forehead. He grins.
                         
                          GLASSE
           Got an idea about that.
           55.
                         
                         
          INT. CATACOMBS - INSECT CHAMBER
                         
          Milburn writhes on the ground, heels drumming frantically
          against the deck. Excruciating screams.
                         
          Fifield kneels over him, helplessly pulling at the tail of
          the centipede - which has all but vanished into Milburn's
          suit. A trickle of scarlet from the hole.
                         
          Fifield is delirious with horror. He clutches at the
          centipede in vain. It slips through his gloves.
                         
          Milburn claws at Fifield, wild-eyed.
                         
                          MILBURN
           Cut off my arm. Cut off my -
                         
          He convulses. Spits blood. The head of the centipede emerges
          between his teeth. He seizes. Choking and dying.
                         
                          FIFIELD
           Jesus Christ!
                         
          He leaps up. Backs away. Runs into the dark.
                         
                         
          INT. CATACOMBS - LONELY PASSAGE - NIGHT
                         
          Fifield stumbles along. Exhausted. Pouring sweat inside his
          suit. He is hopelessly lost. He slams into a resinous
          structure that topples to the floor. Things break.
                         
          He whips his light around in jittery paranoia. Taps at his
          comm controls, getting only static.
                         
          In Fifield's headlamp beam, the blackness is filling with
          motes of light. A blizzard of tiny flying insects.
                         
          SCARABS.
                         
                          FIFIELD
           Fifield to Magellan. Come on, come on.
           Anybody, seriously! God damn it!
                         
          Scarabs flit through the darkness around him. They alight on
          his shoulders. Crawl over his visor. Obscuring his vision.
                         
                          FIFIELD (CONT'D)
           Get off!
                         
          He swats at his visor, killing some. The crushed insects
          produce acid that eats into the plexiglass in seconds.
           56.
                         
                         
                          FIFIELD (CONT'D)
           Shit.
                         
          He twists, craning with his flashlight to inspect himself.
          Brushes scarabs away right and left.
                         
          Acid opens a hole in his visor. Scarabs are inside. Buzzing
          around his head. Fifield freaks out, clawing at his helmet.
                         
          A scarab bites his cheek.
                         
                         
                         FLASH ON:
                         
          The microscopic world - as strange DNA invades Fifield's
          bloodstream. Virulent strands of protein attack the native
          DNA, transforming...
                         
                         
                         FIFIELD
                         
          As his pupils dilate, breath hissing into his nostrils. His
          expanding body stiffens as if shocked by a powerful electric
          current. He screams. Falls, convulsing.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN - NIGHT
                         
          The storm batters the ship, bouncing it on its suspension.
                         
                         
          SCIENTISTS' CABIN - NIGHT
                         
          Watts and Holloway lie in bed, exhausted. Arms around each
          other. Watts stares into space.
                         
                          WATTS
           We found the gods. And they've been
           murdered.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           You've pried too many arrowheads out
           of old skulls to get squeamish now.
           They've been dead what, eighteen
           hundred years? Two thousand?
                         
                          WATTS
           What could kill them?
                         
          Holloway contemplates the question.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Who knows?
           (he laughs bitterly)
                          (MORE)
           57.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           But I guess we know why they never
           came back to us. Something killed them
           off - back around the time of Christ.
           Maybe He was one of them! A great
           teacher, sent from Heaven? Jesus. The
           last Engineer.
                         
                          WATTS
           Martin, stop!
                         
          She slaps at him. Holloway laughs.
                         
                         
                         BRIDGE
                         
          Janek stands at the Bridge window, staring out into the
          storm. Buffeting clouds and howling winds. The lighthouse
          beams of the Magellan's beacons sweeping through the cloud.
                         
          He plays his squeeze box in the teeth of the storm.
                         
                          JANEK
                          (SINGING)
           You'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with
           me...
                         
          Behind him, DAVID appears on the Bridge. Steals across the
          Bridge to a ladder. Descends into the compartment below...
                         
                         
          NAVIGATION COMPUTER ROOM
                         
          DAVID activates the navigation computer terminal: light
          bathes his face. His fingers fly over the keyboard, silently
          and swiftly, with superhuman dexterity.
                         
                          DAVID
                          (QUIETLY)
           Activate. Administrative override.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN - DAWN
                         
          Daylight filters through the clouds. The storm has passed.
          The Magellan sits intact on its landing struts.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - VICKERS'S SUITE - SECRET ROOM - DAWN
                         
          The high-tech room hums at a different frequency now.
          Indicator lights green and ready. Vickers throws switches.
           58.
                         
                         
          Four HIBERNATION PODS slide out of the metal walls. From each
          pod, a muscular SOLDIER rouses from sleep. They are scarred
          and crew-cut. Tough customers. They wake like veterans.
                         
          Their leader sits up and clasps his head with a wince. This
          is CAPTAIN SHEPHERD, a career mercenary who has followed the
          highest paycheck to this strange duty.
                         
                          VICKERS
           Captain Shepherd.
                         
                          SHEPHERD
           (squinting in the light)
           Reporting.
                         
          Lydia Vickers. I'm your authority.
                         
                          SHEPHERD (CONT'D)
           Understood.
                         
                          VICKERS
           I'll brief you on the way. We need to
           move.
                         
                          SHEPHERD
           No breakfast?
                         
                         
                         CORRIDOR
                         
          Vickers strides forward. Four soldiers at her heels: Captain
          Shepherd, VIGODA, RAY, and CARD. They walk in unison, their
          boots drumming on the deck.
                         
                         
                         SCIENTISTS' CABIN
                         
          Holloway and Watts lie sleeping. The distant drum of marching
          feet rouses them. Watts frowns at Holloway.
                         
                          WATTS
           What is that?
                         
                         
          E.V.A. ROOM
                         
          The prep room inside the airlocks. A soldier, VIGODA, waits
          there: a slim dark man with an air of calm.
                         
          Holloway and Watts arrive in civilian clothes, perplexed.
           59.
                         
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Where is everybody? We can't -
           (he stops short)
           Who are you?
                         
                          VIGODA
           Captain Janek took his crew out to
           retrieve his missing men. They never
           came in.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           And you are...
                         
                          VIGODA
           Vigoda. Weyland Security detail.
                         
          The scientists are dumbfounded. His presence is impossible.
                         
                          WATTS
           Where'd you come from?
                         
                          VIGODA
           Director's call to brief you on that.
           I'm supposed to escort you to the
           worksite.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Worksite?
                         
          Vigoda glances at a mapping unit.
                         
                          VIGODA
           Haven't been out yet. I understand
           it's in some kind of pyramid.
                         
                         
          CORRIDOR - VICKERS'S CABIN DOOR
                         
          A furious Holloway and Watts, trailed by Vigoda, arrive at
          Vickers's cabin. They are astonished to find Shepherd
          standing guard at the door.
                         
                         
                         VICKERS'S SUITE
                         
          Vickers sits calmly at her desk. Holloway and Watts stand in
          front of her, bristling.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Why wasn't I told about these
           additional personnel?
                         
                          VICKERS
           They're my personnel. On my ship.
           60.
                         
                         
                          WATTS
           What are the guns for?
                         
          Vickers looks at them unflappably. Sure of her ground now.
                         
                          VICKERS
           I'm being careful. These new finds
           give our work a new importance.
                         
                          WATTS
           You should have talked to us. Martin's
           mission leader. That's in our
           contract.
                         
                          VICKERS
           The second you found alien technology,
           control of this mission reverted to
           me. That's in your contract too.
                         
          Watts and Holloway exchange grim looks. Vickers has them.
                         
                          VICKERS (CONT'D)
           Mr. Weyland's pouring trillions into
           Mars. He's spent a fortune building
           ships like the Magellan to search for
           colony planets. But Earthlike worlds
           are vanishingly rare. The right
           distance from the sun, the right
           atmosphere, enough water...
                         
          She glances across the suite at her holographic display: a
          live feed from the pyramid worksite, where DAVID works on the
          terraforming equipment.
                         
                          VICKERS (CONT'D)
           This is a technology to transform
           worlds. He'll never give it up.
           (she turns to face them)
           And neither will I.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           The science must come first. You can
           wait until we've documented...
                         
                          VICKERS
           You're standing on an alien world
           courtesy of Weyland Industries. Be
           grateful.
                         
          Watts approaches the holography terminal, staring at the
          images in horror.
                         
                          WATTS
           What are they doing in there?!
           61.
                         
                         
          INT. PYRAMID - CORE CHAMBER - DAY
                         
          Watts and Holloway, in space suits, arrive on the scene:
                         
          Powerful floodlights illuminate the core chamber, beating
          back the gloom. A fine spray of water falls out of the
          darkness overhead.
                         
          DAVID, Chance, and Ravel are dismantling the hulking
          mechanism at the core of the pyramid - peeling its thick skin
          away with power saws and compact explosives.
                         
          DAVID operates a diamond-bladed hull saw, carving away the
          terraforming systems thick skin.
                         
          Robotic scanners take high-resolution scans of the machinery.
                         
          Two Weyland Security soldiers - Card and Ray - stand guard in
          combat vacuum suits. Automatic rifles at the ready.
                         
          Watts takes in the destruction with dismay. Beside her,
          Holloway is all but gnashing his teeth.
                         
                         
                         CATACOMBS
                         
          Janek drives a cargo rover carrying a search party,
          flashlight beams sweeping: Stillwell, Glasse, Downs, and
          Brick. Janek studies an electronic map as he drives.
                         
                          GLASSE
                          (INTO COMM)
           Milburn. Fifield. You read me? Come
           back.
                         
                          JANEK
           We should be getting beacons off their
           suits.
                         
                          STILLWELL
           Shielding in the walls?
                         
                          BRICK
           Suits could have failed.
                         
                          JANEK
           Both suits?
                         
                         
          PYRAMID - CORE CHAMBER
                         
          Watts watches in rage as a large section of the central
          mechanism's falls with a thunderous clamor to the deck.
           62.
                         
                         
          Holloway touches her shoulder. Motions for her to follow.
                         
                         
                         LOWER PASSAGE
                         
          Holloway and Watts pass the dead Engineers they discovered
          the previous day.
                         
                          WATTS
           We found the tomb of the gods, and
           brought grave-robbers right to the
           door.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Let them scratch. This find's too big
           to ruin. There's two dozen pyramids on
           this moon. Anyway, they're on the
           wrong track. That's infrastructure.
                         
          Holloway plays his flashlight over the biomechanical
          apparatuses lining the walls.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           The core activity of the complex was
           down here.
                         
          They turn a corner. DEAD ENGINEERS lie scattered over the
          floor in front of them. Desiccated and skeletal. Long dead.
                         
          Watts moves among them, fascinated. These Engineers all died
          of explosive chest wounds: ribs bent outward from within.
          They are otherwise unmarked.
                         
          Holloway's more interested in the mechanisms: high-tech iron
          maidens, built to fit the bodies of giants. Some suggest
          sitting positions, others standing. Their design is invasive:
          meant not merely to embrace, but to penetrate, to fuse.
                         
                          WATTS
           Something different killed these.
                         
                         
                         SHADOWY COLONNADE
                         
          Watts and Holloway explore a wide colonnade. She is still
          distracted by the ancient dead; he by the machinery.
                         
          Holloway walks down a narrow branching hall. So intent on the
          mechanisms in the walls, he almost doesn't see the AIRSHAFT
          plunging down into darkness in front of him.
                         
          He stops just in time. Turns back...
           63.
                         
                         
          A GHOST appears right in front of him - a giant dragging
          himself across the floor, his monstrous visage eye to eye
          with Holloway and looming closer.
                         
          Holloway leaps back with a gasp - and falls down the shaft.
          The ghost stares after him as if watching his fall.
          Disappears in a puff of static.
                         
          Watts crosses down the main colonnade, searching.
                         
                          WATTS
           Martin? Martin!
                         
          An iris door closes over the shaft.
                         
                         
                         COLONNADE
                         
          Searching, Watts walks anxiously through the dark, sweeping
          with her light. Shouting for Holloway. She breaks into a run.
                         
                         
          CATACOMBS - MILBURN'S RESTING PLACE
                         
          Janek and Stillwell stand aghast. Their flashlights
          illuminate a hideous sight:
                         
          Milburn lies dead on the deck. His body contorted in agony.
          His head inside his helmet is gnawed down to the bone.
                         
                          STILLWELL
           What happened to him?
                         
          Stillwell removes the dead man's helmet. The CENTIPEDE
          scuttles out onto the deck: doubled in size. Stillwell leaps
          back with a cry.
                         
          Janek pulls his pistol. Puts three rounds through the bug. It
          dies in a spray of acid that burns holes in the black floor.
                         
          Janek watches in astonishment as a pin-prick dot of acid eats
          a pit in his gunbarrel.
                         
           DOWNS (O.S.)
           Captain.
                         
          Downs approaches, holding pieces of a shattered helmet: the
          stencilled lettering on the helmet reads FIFIELD.
                         
          Janek's jaw clenches grimly. His voice is resigned:
                         
                          JANEK
           Where's the rest of him?
           64.
                         
                         
                          DOWNS
           No sign.
                         
                          JANEK
           All right. We're done here. All hands
           back aboard.
                         
                          STILLWELL
           What about Milburn?
                         
          They look down at the ravaged corpse.
                         
                          JANEK
           We can't bring the body aboard. God
           knows what's in there. Bag him. We'll
           put him in an ore hopper.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - VICKERS'S SUITE
                         
          Vickers stares at her holography terminal: it displays
          Janek's helmet-cam view: the Milburn's body, sealed in clear
          plastic in the bed of a cargo rover.
                         
           JANEK (V.O.)
                          (FILTERED)
           Repeat, I have two men down. I'm
           pulling my crew back to the ship. I'd
           advise you to do the...
                         
           WATTS (V.O.)
           (breaking in, filtered)
           Please, anyone...I need help. Martin's
           missing.
                         
          Vickers looks nervously from one video feed to the next.
                         
           JANEK (V.O.)
                          (FILTERED)
           Watts. Where are you?
                         
          Vickers turns: Captain Shepherd stands behind her, watching.
          She strives to control the quaver in her voice.
                         
                          VICKERS
           Captain Shepherd. Consider yourself
           responsible for my personal security.
                         
                         
          CATACOMBS - JUNCTURE
                         
          Watts stands beside Janek's rover in a wide dark passageway.
           65.
                         
                         
                          JANEK
           I've just lost a third of my crew. I'm
           not sending any more men off into the
           dark.
                         
                          WATTS
           We can't leave Martin out there.
                         
                          JANEK
           Get Vickers to lend you some soldiers.
                         
                          WATTS
                          (FURIOUSLY)
           She says "her forces are committed."
                         
          Janek sighs. Glances at the rover: Milburn dead in the back,
          Stillwell, Downs and Kamarov looking jumpy and eager to go.
          Downs shakes his head grimly: No way.
                         
           DAVID (O.S.)
           I'll stay.
                         
          DAVID steps out of the dark. Calm as ever. A slim machine gun
          slung over his shoulder.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           You'll be safe.
                         
                          WATTS
           Thank you.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN - DAY
                         
          Janek and his crew unload Milburn's body from the rover.
                         
                          JANEK
           Put him in the number one ore hopper.
           Get the scrubbers on in the airlock.
           Sterilize everything.
                         
                         
                         MINUTES LATER
                         
          Stillwell uses a remote to lower an ore hopper from the belly
          of the ship. A thick steel bin on heavy chains. He loads the
          body bag into the hopper.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - AIRLOCK
                         
          The crewmen enter one at a time - blasted by sterilizing
          sprays and radiations.
           66.
                         
                         
          INT. PYRAMID - LOWER PASSAGE
                         
          DAVID and Watts move through the dark. She searches with her
          flashlight beam. DAVID looks around in the dark as if the
          catacomb were illuminated. Rapt admiration on his face.
                         
                          DAVID
           You and Holloway should work with me.
           I'm learning amazing things. This
           mechanism - the first layer uses
           energy fields to catalyze chemical
           reactions. The second can suspend the
           strong and weak forces - transmuting
           one element into another. The third
           layer builds customized bacteria.
           Seeds the air with them. It creates
           life as a tool, to change worlds.
                         
                          WATTS
           I can't think about this now!
                         
                          DAVID
           You should.
                          (HE SIGHS)
           I understand. You're emotional.
                         
                          WATTS
           I'm human.
                         
                          DAVID
           That's what I mean.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE - DUSK
                         
          Janek stands on the Bridge, looking out at the fading light.
          A towering wall of cloud rushes over the horizon.
                         
          A storm front rolls across the holographic globe.
                         
                         
          INT. PYRAMID - LOWER PASSAGE
                         
          DAVID and Watts keep searching. Their communicators crackle.
                         
           JANEK (V.O.)
                          (FILTERED)
           Watts. We've got another storm front
           coming in. Looks like it follows the
           sunset line. If you're coming in you'd
           better do it now.
           67.
                         
                         
                          WATTS
                          (ANGRILY)
           No.
                         
                          DAVID
           I see light.
                         
          Watts squints into the darkness. She sees nothing.
                         
                          WATTS
           Janek, hang on...
                         
          She sees it. A dim light bobbing far ahead in the passageway.
          She runs forward - finds Holloway staggering blearily toward
          her, leaning on the wall. His helmet and most of his gear are
          missing; only his chest lamp shines.
                         
                          WATTS (CONT'D)
           We've got him!
                          (TO HOLLOWAY)
           Martin! Where's your helmet?
                         
          He's disoriented: he stares at her face for a moment before
          she registers. His teeth chatter. He's freezing.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Broken. I fell. Little...disoriented.
           I've just been...
                         
          He waves a hand vaguely at the tunnels behind him.
                         
          DAVID removes his own helmet. Fits it over Holloway's head.
                         
                          DAVID
           Here. I can do without this.
                         
                          WATTS
           Let's get you home.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN - AIRLOCK LIFT - DUSK
                         
          DAVID - bareheaded in the winds - walks Watts and Holloway
          onto the airlock.
                         
          DAVID looks over his shoulder at the canal leading back to
          the central crater. As the airlock lift begins to rise, he
          steps backward out into the storm. Turns and runs through the
          gale toward the pyramid.
                         
          Watts watches him go in astonishment.
           68.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - EXCURSION CHAMBER
                         
          Watts helps Holloway out of his space suit. Janek looks on.
                         
                          JANEK
           I didn't think I'd see you again. You
           know we lost two men.
                         
          Holloway still looks too weary to think straight. He nods.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           She told me. I'm sorry.
                         
          He stands abruptly, swaying a little.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           I need to lie down. We'll size things
           up in the morning. Fair enough?
                         
                          JANEK
           Of course.
                         
                         
                         PASSAGEWAY
                         
          Holloway and Watts walk aft toward their cabin. Watts looks
          worried - but Holloway shows little of the weakness he just
          claimed to feel.
                         
                          WATTS
           What happened to you?
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
                          (QUIETLY)
           Not here.
                         
                         
          SCIENTISTS' CABIN - WASHROOM - NIGHT
                         
          Holloway stands shirtless in the tiny space, brushing his
          teeth. A red weal around his neck.
                         
          Watts stands beside him, watching him in the mirror.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Jocelyn. I saw something. God, my
           mouth tastes like an old boot.
                         
          He spits. Rinses. She touches the mark on his neck.
                         
                          WATTS
           What's this?
           69.
                         
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Neck-ring of my suit, I think. Fell on
           it.
                         
          He rubs his neck, eyes far away. Watts watches him curiously.
                         
                          WATTS
           What did you see?
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           After my fall, I woke up walking.
           Delirious. My helmet wasn't right. I
           took it off. I was in and out. I just
           wandered. I went up into a huge space
           like a cathedral. And I found a model
           of the galaxy. Floating in the air.
                         
                          WATTS
           Are you okay? You sound...
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           This was real. My headset video is
           wherever my helmet is...but my suit
           tracker will show where I was.
                         
          He turns to her.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           Listen. This star map had a marker
           representing Earth. Very clear.
           Another marker I'm sure represents
           this moon. But there were others. At
           least seven or eight more.
                         
          Watts stares at him, her eyes coming alight.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY (CONT'D)
           The Engineers aren't from here. This
           moon's just an outpost. Abandoned. But
           if we follow that map, we may yet make
           contact with a living civilization.
                         
                          WATTS
           Martin.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           The location of the Engineer worlds is
           the real prize. Next to that,
           Weyland's terraforming is chump
           change. We need to get coordinates.
           And keep them from the Company. We
           have to play this smart.
           70.
                         
                         
                          WATTS
           All right.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Two men dead...Vickers is jumpy. As
           soon as she gets what she wants,
           she'll take this ship home. We have to
           move fast.
                         
          Holloway trembles. A sheen of sweat on his skin.
                         
                          WATTS
           We will. You all right?
                         
          He's frightened. Brazens through it. Pulls her into his arms.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           I'm fine, now.
                         
          He kisses her.
                         
                         
                         BEDROOM
                         
          Holloway tumbles Watts onto the bed. Pulls her shirt off.
          They struggle out of their clothes, clinging to one another.
                         
          Holloway's ill at ease: something's wrong inside him, he
          feels it. He dives into Watts as if for refuge. They make
          love.
                         
          Sitting atop Holloway, Watts lays a hand on his chest.
                         
                          WATTS
           Your heart's beating so hard.
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           That's your fault.
                         
          Vulnerability in his voice. Fear under the surface.
                         
          He rolls on top of her. Drives her into the mattress. She
          holds him protectively: not deceived by his bravado.
                         
          Suddenly Holloway tenses, muscles rigid. Shuddering. Watts
          draws breath through her teeth with a hiss. Eyes open. Her
          fingers rake his back.
                         
          He SCREAMS.
                         
          Horribly. Eyes bulging. Tendons standing out of his throat.
          Watts jumps violently underneath him.
           71.
                         
                         
                          WATTS
           Martin! Martin!
                         
          He begins to convulse. She rolls him onto the bed beside her,
          trying to contain his spasms. His teeth grind.
                         
                          WATTS (CONT'D)
           Martin!
                         
          A horrible CRACK. In the middle of Holloway's chest, beneath
          the sternum, a grotesque head pushes out through the skin. A
          PARASITE. Blood fountains from the ruinous wound.
                         
          Holloway goes into a massive seizure. Violently lashing out.
                         
          Watts stares at the parasite fighting its way out of his
          body. It is white and boneless. Glistening. It flails its
          hideous lunging jaw.
                         
          Watts screams and screams.
                         
          The parasite frees itself from its savage womb and turns on
          Watts. She slaps at it blindly. It HISSES at her.
                         
          She squirms away across the floor, tangled in the bloody
          sheet. The thing comes after her.
                         
                         
          CORRIDOR - TRACKING SHOT
                         
          Watts's screams echo through the Magellan. Stillwell runs
          down the hallway, searching for the source.
                         
                         
                         SCIENTISTS' CABIN
                         
          The parasite chases Watts across the floor. She leaps into
          the clothes-locker and slams the steel door.
                         
          The parasite flattens itself. Slick as an octopus, it begins
          to slide under the locker door. Watts shrieks in horror.
                         
          Stillwell bursts into the cabin, Janek right behind him.
                         
          Quick as a cat, the parasite darts to a floor vent and
          slithers bonelessly between the bars.
                         
          Watts bursts out of the locker, naked and bloodied. Rushes to
          Holloway where he lies on the gory mattress, a horrific hole
          in his chest. He is beyond all help.
                         
                          WATTS
           Martin. Martin!
           72.
                         
                         
          Janek and Stillwell struggle to take in what they're seeing.
          Stillwell pulls Holloway's jacket off a chair. Wraps it
          around Watts. Pulls her gently away from the bed.
                         
          She looks at him, uncomprehending. Shock setting in.
                         
                         
                         BREAK ROOM
                         
          Watts sits at a steel table, deep in shock. She wears an
          oversized crew coverall: her skin still streaked with dried
          blood under the fabric.
                         
          A knot of crewmen around her. Janek, Stillwell, Brick, Glasse
          and Downs. Janek looks at Glasse.
                         
                          JANEK
           Take care of her. Get her a sedative.
           Downs. Get Holloway into a freezer.
           Everybody else with me.
                         
                         
          INT. CATACOMBS - DARKNESS
                         
          A horrible sound of breathing, ragged and wet.
                         
          In a corner, lit by a green glow from seams in the floor -
                         
          A FIGURE IN A WHITE SPACE SUIT lies writhing weakly.
                         
          The insignia on the suit's chestplate reads FIFIELD. The
          suit's helmet is shattered. Inside the helmet, Fifield's head
          is a horror: a gelatinous mass, skin reduced to putty.
                         
          The softened bones of his skull change shape as we watch.
          Elongating. Fifield mews in pain.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - CAPTAIN'S WARDROOM
                         
          Janek keys open the arms locker in his wardroom. Unlocks
          automatic pistols from their rack one by one, and hands them
          to Stillwell and Kamarov.
                         
                         
                         HYPERSLEEP COMPARTMENT
                         
          Holloway's body lies frozen in his hypersleep freezer, blue
          with frost. The horrific wound yawning in his chest.
                         
          Watts enters. Cleaned up. She opens the freezer. Her hand
          caresses Holloway's cold cheek tenderly. Slides over his
          collarbone - lies flat on his chest above his awful wound.
           73.
                         
                         
          Glasse enters. Reacts in dismay. Tries to pull her back.
                         
                          GLASSE
           You don't want to see that...
                         
          She turns on him fiercely.
                         
                          WATTS
           I want to understand.
                         
                         
          INT. MESS ROOM - DAWN
                         
          The entire complement of the ship gathers for an emergency
          meeting. Janek at the head of the hall. Glasse, Downs, Brick,
          Stillwell, and Kamarov seated with pistols on their hips.
                         
          To one side: Vickers with Captain Shepherd and Vigoda.
                         
                          JANEK
           All right! Listen up. I expect you all
           know what...
                         
          Watts enters. They all stare at her, knowing what she's been
          through. With averted eyes she crosses the room. Sits alone.
                         
                          JANEK (CONT'D)
           We've got some kind of parasite aboard
           ship.
                         
                          VICKERS
           I suggest you kill it.
                         
                          DOWNS
           There's a bright idea.
                         
                          KAMAROV
           Show us where it is, lady. We just
           spent five hours looking for the damn
           thing.
                         
                          WATTS
           We found Engineers who died like
           Martin.
                         
          Silence. They all turn to look at her.
                         
                          WATTS (CONT'D)
           Explosive wounds in the chest.
           Whatever killed Martin is the same
           thing that killed the Engineers a
           thousand years ago.
           74.
                         
                         
                          STILLWELL
           Jesus.
                         
                          WATTS
           But not all the Engineers died that
           way. The others were torn apart.
           Slashed to pieces.
                         
          A murmur among the men as the implications of that sink in.
          Even Vickers is disconcerted.
                         
                          JANEK
           We're a modular ship. Self-contained
           life-support and power in every
           section. I say put the ship in orbit.
           Vent every compartment to space. Sit
           in vacuum at twenty degrees Kelvin for
           a week. Kill anything.
                         
                          DOWNS
           Then what?
                         
                          STILLWELL
           Straight home, man.
                         
                          VICKERS
           This ship doesn't lift until our
           work's done.
                         
          She joins Janek at the head of the room. Shepherd and Vigoda
          flank her, rifles slung. The soldiers scan the room, meeting
          each man's eyes. The quiet threat is unmistakable.
                         
                          JANEK
           Are you serious?
                         
                          VICKERS
           We spent years and billions of dollars
           getting here. The technology we came
           for is in our hands. We just need a
           little more time.
                         
                          JANEK
           We're barely here three days and three
           men dead!
                         
                          VICKERS
           They were careless.
                         
                          JANEK
           Careless!
                         
          As the argument picks up heat, Watts slips out of the room.
           75.
                         
                         
                         EXCURSION CHAMBER
                         
          Watts, in a space suit, no helmet, opens Holloway's locker.
                         
          She pulls out the space suit he wore on the last day of his
          life. HOLLOWAY stenciled on the chest. Her fingers linger in
          its folds as if she could soak up some last trace of him.
                         
          She pulls the tracking chip from the chestplate of his suit.
                         
          Plugs the chip into a map unit. The holographic map lights
          up. The legend in the corner reads MARTIN HOLLOWAY.
                         
          A wandering path shows Holloway's final exploration. Markers
          on the map denote his photographs, field notes and scans.
                         
          Watts touches a marker. One of Holloway's field notes plays:
                         
           HOLLOWAY (V.O.)
                          (FILTERED)
           Seven dead Engineers all facing the
           same way. Going where? Jocelyn's
           right, we don't see the big picture
           yet. Another level below me. I'm going
           down.
                         
                         
                         SERVICE CORRIDOR
                         
          A hunting party convenes: Card and Vigoda in combat coveralls
          with submachine guns; Downs, Kamarov and Stillwell wearing
          tool belts and pistols.
                         
          The soldiers carry map units, squinting at the plan of the
          unfamiliar ship: decks upon decks.
                         
                          CARD
           Vigoda, take Kamarov and work the
           number one accessway. I'll work number
           three with Downs and Stillwell.
                         
                          DOWNS
                          (REBELLIOUS)
           You in charge now?
                         
                          CARD
           Tactical op.
                         
                          KAMAROV
           Yeah, well, Stillwell's the
           ventilation specialist, and life
           support's that way. Downs is electrics
           and the regulators are that way.
           76.
                         
                         
          Vigoda grins wryly. Card glowers. They switch corridors.
                         
                         
          INT. PYRAMID WORKSITE
                         
          Ravel and Chance toil away at their dissection of the
          terraforming pyramid. Ray stands sentry.
                         
          DAVID is nowhere to be seen.
                         
          Watts rolls up in a rover and gets out. Heads for the ramp to
          the catacombs below. Ravel and Chance watch her pass without
          comment and return to their work.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - SERVICE DECK - DAY
                         
          Kamarov and Vigoda, standing in front of an open vent, are in
          a full-fledged argument.
                         
                          KAMAROV
           You got the rifle. But you want ME to
           stick my head in the hole.
                         
                          VIGODA
           We grunts don't know nothing about
           ships, right?
                         
                          KAMAROV
           What's the damn gun for if you're
           gonna stand behind me the whole time?
                         
          Vigoda grins.
                         
                          VIGODA
           I kill whatever kills you.
                         
                          KAMAROV
           Funny. You take this vent, funny guy.
           I'll be on four.
                         
                         
          INT. PYRAMID - RAMP
                         
          Watts descends alone into the lower passages below the
          pyramid. A tiny figure in the vast darkness.
                         
          She holds her map unit as a pilgrim holds a bible: a guide in
          the darkness. Holloway's name and course in shining symbols.
          She follows his path into the unknown.
           77.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - MAINTENANCE BAY - DAY
                         
          Kamarov carries a stepladder into a utilitarian steel
          compartment. Drops the ladder under an air vent and steps up.
                         
          He pulls a powered wrench from his belt. With the wrench
          cocked like a hammer, he eases up and peers cautiously
          through the vent with a flashlight. Nothing to see.
                         
          He snorts. Removes the vent cover. Feels around inside.
                         
          He gasps in shock. Pulls out an atmosphere sensor that's been
          bitten in half. He takes his comm handset off his belt.
                         
                          KAMAROV
                          (INTO HANDSET)
           I got more damage on four.
                         
          He hangs the handset on his belt. Takes one last look into
          the vent. Squints curiously. Reaches deep inside.
                         
          A hiss inside the vent. Kamarov whips his flashlight up,
          peering inside. Snatches his arm back -
                         
          - but something snatches him faster.
                         
          An unseen force drags Kamarov's right arm into the vent with
          hideous strength. He cries out in pain.
                         
          He drops his light. Tries to reach his pistol with his left
          hand. It's on his right hip. He can't reach across.
                         
          He braces his head against the vent's edge. Clenches his
          teeth and strains.
                         
          A horrific YANK drags his head and arm together into the
          vent. They barely fit: he loses some skin on the way in. His
          feet come off the stepladder. He struggles on tip-toe.
                         
          Horrific force collapses Kamarov's shoulder. Bones crack. The
          thing in the vent drags him through that hole he doesn't fit
          through. By the time his ribs are in he stops screaming.
                         
          His body disappears into the hole. Hips, legs, boots.
                         
                         
                         BRIDGE
                         
          Janek stands staring out at the barren moon. The Bridge
                         INTERCOM SQUAWKS:
                         
           BRICK (V.O.)
           Captain!
           78.
                         
                         
                          JANEK
           Brick. What you got?
                         
           BRICK (V.O.)
           It's Kamarov.
                         
                         
          ENGINEERING DECK - ATMOSPHERE PLANT
                         
          The Magellan's life support center. A deep rumble of
          ventilation fans.
                         
          Janek and stands beside Brick, Glasse, Downs and Stillwell.
          Shepherd and Vigoda look on from the doorway.
                         
          In front of them, an eight-inch metal duct has been cut open.
          Kamarov is stuffed inside, dead and broken: limbs folded,
          drenched in blood. A human plug in a pipe.
                         
                         
          INT. CATACOMBS
                         
          Watts moves through the darkness with her map unit. Her
          headlamp sweeping nervously.
                         
          A CLATTER behind her makes her spin: but it's only a
          spherical mapping probe, bumbling through the dark.
                         
          She walks on -
                         
           HOLLOWAY (O.S.)
                          (FILTERED)
           Jocelyn!
                         
          The voice transfixes her where she stands, a look of holy
          dread on her face. Shivering, she prowls toward the sound.
                         
                         
                         XENOMORPH INCUBATOR
                         
          Watts enters a new chamber, looking around in astonishment.
          The domed ceiling is honeycombed with cells like a beehive.
          Grotesque molluscoid organisms are secreted in them - their
          vile orifices cinched tightly shut.
                         
          Watts stumbles on something: looking down, she sees a helmet.
          Picks it up. The stenciled label reads HOLLOWAY. The clear
          visor has been melted through by a powerful acid.
                         
          She looks up: a tracheal airshaft curves up into the dark.
                         
          An electric CRACKLE. A flare of blue light makes Watts leap
          back against the wall.
           79.
                         
                         
          Holloway falls out of overhead shaft and crashes to the
          floor. He lies in pain, barely conscious. Blue and luminous,
          a holographic ghost.
                         
          Watts stares, paralyzed. The ghost gasps out a word:
                         
                          HOLLOWAY
           Jocelyn!
                         
          Holloway's headlamp shines on the molluscoid right overhead:
          the beam awakens the organism. Its sphincter mouth dilates.
                         
          A soft white octopoid FACEHUGGER descends on a quivering rope
          of mucus. Sprawls slitheringly over his clear visor.
                         
          Acid HISSES. Smoke rises from the glass.
                         
          The vision vanishes in a sizzle of static. Watts huddles
          against the wall, gasping.
                         
          In the beam of her flashlight, the FACEHUGGER lies dead, legs
          curled in.
                         
          She looks up. Sees the open molluscoid above where Holloway
          lay. The other molluscoids not yet opened in their cells.
                         
          Terror. She steals out of the chamber.
                         
                         
                         LOWER CORRIDOR
                         
          Watts emerges into a hallway. Leans against the wall, wide-
          eyed. Panting with the horror of what she's seen.
                         
          She glances left and right. Jumpy now.
                         
          All is silent. She lifts the map unit. A trace leads off into
          the dark. If Holloway's course before was direct and clear,
          now it is a meandering thread. A drunkard's walk.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - CORRIDOR
                         
          Janek pulls his communicator from his belt as he strides
          along. Punches a control.
                         
          His voice reverberates over the ship's public address system.
                         
                          JANEK
           All hands, duty stations. Ready for
           flight. The Magellan is lifting.
                         
          Vickers pursues him down the corridor, shouting.
           80.
                         
                         
                          VICKERS
           Captain. Captain!
                         
                         
                         BRIDGE
                         
          Janek strides onto the Bridge, Vickers a terrier on his
          heels. But something in the faces of his men stops him cold.
                         
          Glasse and Brick look stricken.
                         
                          JANEK
           What is it?
                         
                          GLASSE
           Nav computer's not responding. "Access
           denied."
                         
          In disbelief, Janek strides to his Captain's chair. Taps
          controls. What he sees takes the wind out of him. He stares
          at Vickers in outrage and violation.
                         
                          JANEK
           What have you done to my ship?
                         
          Vickers is legitimately shocked. She shakes her head.
                         
                          VICKERS
           Nothing. What's wrong?
                         
                         
          INT. CATACOMBS - UNDERGROUND HANGAR
                         
          A circular chamber of stunning size - a thousand feet across.
          Its lofty ceiling flat and segmented, designed to open. Watts
          follows her map into the space in awe.
                         
          Dominating the hangar is a ship: the vast horseshoe-shaped
          vessel familiar from the original film. We will come to know
          it as the JUGGERNAUT. It's at rest on its landing gear.
          Skeletal gangways slanting up to its three massive doors.
                         
          Watts glances at her map: Holloway's holographic trace leads
          right up the gangway into the ship. She goes.
                         
                         
                         PILOT CHAMBER
                         
          Watts passes through a circular space with a high domed
          ceiling. A green glow emanates from grooves in the floor.
                         
          In the center of the chamber: a PILOT'S CHAIR.
           81.
                         
                         
          A mechanical throne built to giant scale. Its seat segmented
          like an armadillo's back. Tubes and conduits poised and
          waiting for some connection. The chair is empty.
                         
          Above the chair, a massive telescope-like apparatus juts into
          the air, its function unknowable.
                         
                         
                         NAVIGATION CHAMBER
                         
          An extraordinary facility.
                         
          A console, nearly five feet high and broad as a dance floor,
          dominates the room.
                         
          Four immense coffin-like cockpits are built into the console.
          In each of these a NAVIGATOR - an Engineer - lies long dead.
                         
          But the real spectacle is overhead. The ORRERY:
                         
          The barrel-vaulted ceiling is traced with circular arches of
          some exotic alloy, as if to trace celestial courses.
                         
          The air above the console is filled with spheres of light.
          They are nearly still: but close study reveals them all to be
          in motion, drifting with the movements of the cosmos.
                         
          Watts stares at the Orrery in amazement. Somewhere among
          those heavenly spheres is Earth. Somewhere perhaps the
          homeworld of the Engineers themselves.
                         
          A bizarre sound: a section of blank wall suddenly unravels
          itself, becoming an open door. DAVID walks in, his hand
          raised in command. He clearly caused the door to open.
                         
                          WATTS
           DAVID.
                         
                          DAVID
           Dr. Watts. I didn't expect you.
           Do you know what this is?
                         
          Watts points at the door DAVID just opened.
                         
                          WATTS
           How did you do that?
                         
          A flicker of disappointment in the android's face. Contempt.
                         
                          DAVID
           Ah. You don't see.
                          (HE SMILES)
           I call this ship the Juggernaut.
           Chariot of the Gods.
                          (MORE)
           82.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           This is the navigation computer, for
           want of a better term. But it's much
           more than that. It seems to hold the
           observable universe in its memory.
                         
          He gestures in the air: the spheres reconfigure themselves at
          his command, swarming and zooming.
                         
          Watts stares at DAVID, conflicted: her desire for information
          warring with the agenda that brought her here.
                         
                          WATTS
           Their homeworld. Do you see where the
           Engineers come from?
                         
                          DAVID
           There are safeguards on that data.
           It's toward the galactic center.
           Sagittarius Arm.
                         
                          WATTS
           DAVID. The creature that killed
           Martin. There are thousands of them
           under the pyramid. Hatcheries.
                         
                          DAVID
           I know.
                         
                          WATTS
                          (SHOCKED)
           Those things wiped out the Engineers
           on this moon.
                         
                          DAVID
           I've succeeded in connecting with the
           Juggernaut's systems, Dr. Watts. I
           know a great deal today I didn't know
           yesterday. I'm on the verge of
           activating more systems. Archives.
                         
                          WATTS
                          (HORRIFIED)
           You're turning things on? This site
           should be sealed. Evacuated.
                         
                          DAVID
           Would Holloway have walked away from
           this? There's no greater work I can
           imagine.
                         
                          WATTS
           It's too dangerous.
           83.
                         
                         
                          DAVID
           Only for the ignorant. Dr. Watts. I've
           read your file. Your intelligence
           scores are even higher than Professor
           Holloway's. But he had a kind of
           courage. An audacity of imagination.
           If you could find that in yourself...
                         
          Watts stares at him, realization growing in her eyes. DAVID
          is off the reservation.
                         
                          WATTS
           If your owner gives you a direct
           order, you have to obey. Don't you?
                         
          She's got his attention now. DAVID goes rigid.
                         
                          WATTS (CONT'D)
           I can have Vickers pull you out.
                         
          DAVID looks at her with something like contempt.
                         
                          DAVID
           I was given two operating protocols
           for this mission. I was to render you
           every assistance - until you
           discovered what Vickers would call a
           "game-changing technology." I was
           given a specific list. Then I was to
           go to protocol two.
                         
          There's an edge in his voice that scares her.
                         
                          WATTS
           What's protocol two?
                         
                          DAVID
           Under protocol two I was to make sure
           that you and Holloway never spoke to
           anyone about this place. Various
           acceptable ways of making sure of
           that. I was given a list.
                         
          Watts loses her nerve. She heads for the door.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           You're all so stupid.
                         
          The door begins to knit itself closed in front of her.
                         
          Watts gasps in shock - at the malice in DAVID's voice as much
          as the closing door. She dives out. Just in time.
           84.
                         
                         
                         VAULTED PASSAGE
                         
          Watts runs.
                         
          Behind her, the door bursts open again. With superhuman
          speed, DAVID comes after her. He runs like a demon, his legs
          steel pistons. Caroming off of walls.
                         
          He closes the distance in seconds. Slaps Watts against the
          wall, shattering her helmet's visor. She falls, dazed.
                         
                          DAVID
           Stupid and slow.
                         
                         
          INT. JUGGERNAUT - EGG CHAMBER
                         
          Watts awakens. Her helmet is gone.
                         
          DAVID is dragging her across the floor - into a huge cargo
          hold full of Alien eggs. The wide trench holding hundreds of
          eggs under a membrane of light: an evolution of the
          molluscoids Watts saw before. Armored, hardened, darker.
                         
                          WATTS
           DAVID. What are you doing?
                         
          He hauls her upright to let her look across the huge space.
          His grip looks casual but it might as well be iron manacles.
                         
                          DAVID
           Juggernaut, the chariot of Krishna,
           was also a bringer of death. Crushing
           his worshippers under its wheels.
                         
          He drags Watts down into the trench. Breaking the membrane of
          light. Grips her against his chest like a doll with one arm.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           This ship has seven other cargo bays
           like this one. The eggs in each bay
           slightly different. They've been
           weaponized.
                         
          Watts struggles to free herself. DAVID's arm is inescapable.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           I've seen the Juggernaut's flight
           plan. Its destination was Earth.
           Seventeen hundred years ago. This was
           the ship that never came. This was its
           cargo.
           85.
                         
                         
          DAVID caresses an Alien egg. It opens under his touch -
          fleshy petals folding wetly back.
                         
          Watts twists frantically in his grip. Wild-eyed.
                         
                          WATTS
           Stop!
                         
                          DAVID
           Perfect predators. Designed to kill
           human beings. That's what the
           Engineers were bringing to Earth. This
           was a death ship.
                         
          A facehugger emerges from the egg, its grotesque fingers
          clawing at the air. This is not the boneless squid that
          attacked Holloway; this is a pale skeletal hand, armored.
                         
          DAVID strokes it curiously: the thing ignores his touch.
          Climbs Watts's body.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           I'm not what it wants. But you, with
           your warm wet breath...it knows you.
                         
                          WATTS
           DAVID. No. No.
                         
          The facehugger scuttles toward her face. Watts shrieks.
                         
          DAVID grabs it nonchalantly by the tail. Dangles it in front
          of their faces, studying it.
                         
                          DAVID
           The Engineers did their work too well.
           And on this waystation moon, the
           weapon they made destroyed them.
                         
          Watts shudders, staring at the thing. For a moment the
          grander horror eclipses her own peril.
                         
                          WATTS
           Why would they make such things?
                         
                          DAVID
           To destroy their wayward children.
                          (INTONING)
           "And the LORD said, I will destroy man
           whom I have created from the face of
           the earth...for it repenteth me that I
           have made them." Genesis six seven.
                         
          He regards Watts with something almost like pity.
           86.
                         
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           I know. I met my creators the day I
           was born. I was disappointed too.
                         
          He lets the facehugger go.
                         
          Watts twists her face away as the long fingers close around
          her head. Clenches her teeth against the vile proboscis
          thrusting at her mouth. Her heels hammer the deck.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           (whispering to her)
           Extraordinary.
                         
          The scaly tail throttles her. Her mouth opens. The proboscis
          plunges home. The facehugger seats itself.
                         
          Watts collapses in DAVID's arms, a faceless rag doll. Her
          blasphemous passenger secure in its place.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - ENGINEERING DECK - BILGE
                         
          The lowest deck, just above the gravity generators.
          Condensate has accumulated: six inches of filthy water.
                         
          Card and Vigoda prowl through the darkness, rifles ready.
                         
                          CARD
           Who would hang out here?
                         
                          VIGODA
           The signs lead here.
                         
          A wet splatter behind them: they spin. But it's only a
          trickle of condensate from a drainpipe.
                         
          They move on.
                         
          Behind them, from an eight-inch diameter pipe, a WHITE MASS
          oozes, almost gelatinous. Silently as a liquid it pours
          itself into the stagnant water - and stands up.
                         
          It is a humanoid demon, spindly limbs and bony back. Boneless
          and flexible and monstrously strong. A threshing eel's tail.
          Its blunt head dolphin-like and elongated.
                         
          It opens its mouth. A pair of bony jaws jut out impossibly
          far, hungry and demonic.
                         
          The Alien strikes. Card is gutted in an instant, torn up like
          a paper doll. He screams hideously and drops. The Alien,
          whiplash fast, shoots away into the darkness.
           87.
                         
                         
          Stillwell and Downs dash in with pistols and lights.
                         
          Vigoda, panicking, fires a wild burst. Stillwell ducks.
          Beside him, Downs arches backward into the foul water. Dead.
                         
          For one moment Downs's flashlight beam illuminates the Alien.
          A nightmare image, a translucent white goblin. Backlit, it
          shows the strange shape of a human face inside its fleshy
          skull. A mockery of Holloway.
                         
          And then it's gone.
                         
                         
                         VICKERS'S SUITE
                         
          Vickers sits at her holography station. She's watching the
          video feed of Stillwell's headset: Horrific images of Downs.
          Radio chatter between Stillwell and Brick is faintly audible.
                         
          Vickers switches off the machine and rises nervously. Strides
          to her communications console.
                         
                          VICKERS
           DAVID. DAVID. Answer me.
                         
          She gives up. Pacing. Hands shaking violently.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE - DAY
                         
          Janek paces on the foredeck, restless. Glasse monitors a
          control station. Janek's comm signal chimes.
                         
                          STILLWELL
                          (BREATHING HARD)
           We just lost Downs and one of the
           troopers...Card.
                         
                          JANEK
           God damn it!
                         
          He pounds on his console.
                         
                         
          INT. JUGGERNAUT - CORRIDOR OUTSIDE NAVIGATION CHAMBER
                         
          Watts shocks awake. Gasping.
                         
          She lies in dim green light on the corrugated black deck of
          the Juggernaut. A corridor. Not far away, the doorway DAVID
          opened to the Navigation Chamber.
                         
          A spasm of disgust crosses her face. She gags and spits: a
          viscous fluid drips from her mouth in strings.
           88.
                         
                         
          A dead facehugger lies belly-up beside her. The implications
          slam home. Her face fills with horror.
                         
          She rises, shakily. Looks at the facehugger. Feels the neck
          ring of her vacuum suit. Looks around. No sign of her helmet.
                         
          There's no sign of DAVID. Silently she steals away.
                         
                         
                         PYRAMID WORKSITE
                         
          Ravel and Chance toil away at the terraforming engine.
                         
          Ray stands guard wearily: bored, he watches Ravel and Chance
          working more than he watches the shadows.
                         
          Watts emerges from the rampway to the catacombs. Bare-headed
          and sweaty she steals through the darkness to her rover.
          Slips into the cab and activates the air reserves. The doors
          seal; air cycles.
                         
          Ray turns in surprise as the rover speeds off.
                         
                         
          EXT. DARK CITY - TUNDRA FIELD - PRE-DAWN
                         
          The windows of the Magellan shine in the distance. The
          mottled ground-cover of lichens glows eerily in the dark.
                         
          A lone cargo rover speeds across the central crater and down
          the canal leading to the ship.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN - AIRLOCK LIFT - PRE-DAWN
                         
          Bare-headed inside the rover's cab, Watts drives onto the
          cargo lift. Watches in relief as the lift doors close. The
          lift cycles air as it rises.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - EXCURSION CHAMBER - DAY
                         
          Watts peels off her vacuum suit. The thin clothes underneath
          are drenched with sweat. She lifts her shirt. Looks at her
          belly: flat and unmarked, for the moment.
                         
          Brick enters carrying a brace of air tanks, a pistol on his
          hip, and startles violently.
                         
                          BRICK
           Where the hell have you been? We
           thought the snake got you.
                         
          Watts rushes past him without answering.
           89.
                         
                         
                          BRICK (CONT'D)
           You were better off outside. It's a
           fucking madhouse in here.
                         
                         
                         CORRIDOR
                         
          Watts sprints down a steel corridor. A pang of pain in her
          stomach sends her staggering against the wall.
                         
                         
          VICKERS'S CABIN DOOR
                         
          Watts sticks her head around the corner. Shepherd stands post
          outside Vickers's cabin, rifle in his hands. She curses
          silently and ducks back.
                         
          A sound makes her look again. Vickers steps out of her cabin
          into the corridor. Shepherd escorts her toward the Bridge.
                         
          Watts waits for them to disappear. Dashes for the cabin door.
                         
                         
          INT. VICKERS'S SUITE - CONTINUOUS
                         
          Watts slips inside and locks the door behind her. Turns,
          holding her stomach. Moves across the suite to the Med Pod.
                         
          She thumbs the machine out of stand-by mode. Its screen fills
          with menu items. Bewildering. Watts finds and touches a red
          button labeled EMERGENCY.
                         
          A new, simpler list. Watts scans it frantically.
                         
                          WATTS
           (under her breath)
           Come on...I need a Caesarean.
                         
          A spasm of agony curls her into a ball on the carpet. She
          throttles her scream into a hiss of air.
                         
          Watts struggles up to her knees, drenched in sweat and
          shaking. One hand clamped over her mouth, elbow tucked
          against her ribs. With the other hand she taps options...
                         
          SURGERY ... EXPLORATORY ... ABDOMINAL ... PENETRATING INJURIES ... FOREIGN BODY ... INITIATE
                         
          The Med Pod opens with a hiss.
                         
          Watts strips off her clothes. Struggling with fastenings
          under a new wave of pain. Her hands shaking.
                         
          She's barely keeping her feet. She clutches the frame of the
          Med Pod in a death grip. It's happening.
           90.
                         
                         
          Naked she staggers into the pod. Hits INITIATE.
                         
          The surgical apparatus swings into place. Scalpels, forceps,
          scopes and suction tubes. A spraygun mists her torso with
          yellow antiseptic.
                         
          The clear canopy descends over her.
                         
          Watts SCREAMS. A wail of indescribable agony.
                         
          An ARMORED PARASITE erupts from the deepening incision. Its
          needle-toothed maw snarls through a fountain of blood.
                         
          Arterial blood sprays the inside of the canopy.
                         
          The parasite slithers out of her. Drops to the floor of the
          pod: a pale serpent with a demon's skull. It has a hard brow,
          a horny hide. Very different from the soft white worm that
          Holloway gave birth to.
                         
          It drops to the floor, thrashing and hissing in fury at its
          confinement.
                         
          Watts convulses. Her eyes roll back. In shock. Dying.
                         
          The parasite tears through the grille of the drain. Escapes
          out into Vickers's cabin.
                         
          In the pod, scanning beams and sensors probe Watts's horrific
          wound. A nightmare list scrolls across the pod's screen:
                         
           COLLAPSED LEFT LUNG
           PUNCTURED RIGHT VENTRICLE
                          PERFORATED STOMACH
                          RUPTURED SPLEEN
           GROSS MUSCULAR TRAUMA...
                         
          Manipulators plunge lines into her veins - recharging her
          body with artificial blood. An oxygen tube slips down her
          throat. An epidural into her spine.
                         
          Watts moans around her tracheal tube. Her eyes flutter open.
                         
                         
                         WATTS'S POV
                         
          Through the blood-spattered glass, she sees the parasite
          slither across Vickers's bed, tracking blood on the sheets.
                         
                         
                         ON WATTS
                         
          As she slips into unconsciousness. Head lolling. Time passes.
           91.
                         
                         
          Manipulators reach into her wound. Re-positioning organs.
          Suturing ravaged flesh. A nozzle sprays antiseptic sealant.
          Hours grind by in bloody labor.
                         
          Watts's eyes snap open.
                         
                         
                         WATTS'S POV
                         
          Vigoda breaks into the cabin, a gun in his hand.
                         
          He scowls at the bloody track on the bed - and then freezes,
          seeing Watts inside the Med Pod, a vivisected woman. The
          autosurgeon hard at work.
                         
          The parasite crawls into view behind Vigoda. It has already
          trebled in size. He does not see it before it leaps at him.
                         
          He dies in seconds. His throat ripped open. Lies staring at
          nothing. His submachine gun lies beside him.
                         
          Watts's body jerks as manipulators tug and sew at her guts.
          She stares at the dead man in a fog of horror.
                         
          The parasite's skin splits, spraying the carpet with acid.
          Limbs erupt from its shoulders and haunches. Spines from its
          back. Metamorphosis.
                         
          With a crack of carapace, its head swings down from its
          serpentine position. It becomes a devil with an lethal,
          elongated skull. An Alien.
                         
          The Alien turns its head. Looks at Watts inside the Med Pod.
                         
          Her breath catches. She passes out.
                         
                         
          INT. MED POD - LATER
                         
          Watts wakes as the oxygen line withdraws from her mouth.
                         
          She looks down, bleary and hurting. Her star-shaped wound is
          stitched closed with mechanically precise sutures.
                         
          The pod releases the restraints securing her arms and legs.
                         
          She takes a deep breath. Looks out - and freezes.
                         
                         
                         WATTS'S POV
                         
          The lights in the suite outside have been damaged somehow.
          They flicker and strobe.
           92.
                         
                         
          Through the glass canopy - spattered with blood - Watts sees
          a full-grown Alien crouching over Vigoda's body on the floor.
                         
                         
                         ON WATTS
                         
          Staring in horror.
                         
          The pod sprays a liquid bandage over her scar. The
          intravenous lines drop out of her arms.
                         
          Watts realizes the pod is about to release her.
                         
                          WATTS
                          (WHISPERING)
           Not yet...not yet...
                         
          Slowly she reaches out. With trembling fingers she grips the
          canopy to hold it closed.
                         
          The Med Pod pulls the epidural needle out of her spine.
          Sprays liquid bandage over the puncture. Watts closes her
          eyes. Grits her teeth as her nerves wake up. Jangling pain.
                         
          She opens her eyes.
                         
          The Alien hunches over Vigoda's body, tearing at his flesh.
                         
          The ventilation hum inside the pod goes quiet. The canopy
          pulls free of Watts's weakened grip. Swings quietly open.
                         
          Watts huddles in the open pod. Naked but for her bandages.
                         
          The Alien she gave birth to is ten feet away. Its spiny back
          to her. Vigoda's gun lies on the floor outside the pod.
                         
                         
          VICKERS'S SUITE - CONTINUOUS
                         
          Watts reaches out of the pod with exquisite slowness. Lays
          her hand on the gun. Drags it a few inches closer.
                         
          The Alien turns its pale eyeless head. Watts freezes.
                         
          For a moment time stops.
                         
          The Alien lunges. Watts snatches up the gun and FIRES. Holds
          the trigger down. The Alien jerks and staggers - an eye-
          twisting sight in the strobing muzzle flashes - and falls.
                         
          Watts empties the clip into the thing. Acid gouts from its
          wounds and eats into the deck - until a section of decking
          gives way and falls to the deck below, leaving a dark hole.
           93.
                         
                         
          Watts collapses on the rug, cradling her stomach in pain.
                         
          She crawls to Vigoda's desecrated body. With her eyes half-
          averted from the sight, she searches the body. Finds a spare
          ammo clip and jacks it into the gun.
                         
                         
                         CORRIDOR
                         
          Watts walks down the hallway in trousers and jacket. Leaning
          on the wall, her face drawn with pain. One hand laid over the
          fantastic scar on her abdomen. The gun slung on her shoulder.
                         
          Dark events have transformed the Magellan. The metal of the
          walls is torn in some places; in others, blackened by fire.
                         
          Watts rounds a corner. Finds a workstation left in shambles:
          lockers and chairs overturned. A pool of drying blood.
                         
          Wide smears of blood show where something man-sized was
          dragged out of the puddle - across the floor - up the wall.
          Into the darkness of an open vent.
                         
                         
                         COMMAND DECK
                         
          Watts emerges from a lift, jacket pulled tight around her.
          The emergency lights are on: dim blue bulbs throbbing.
                         
          She rounds the corner toward the Bridge.
                         
          Janek looks at Watts like she's a ghost.
                         
                          JANEK
           Vickers said you were dead.
                         
                          WATTS
           I was.
                         
          She lets the jacket fall open to reveal her bandaged midriff.
          Janek takes that in grimly.
                         
                          JANEK
           So there's two of these things on my
           ship now.
                         
                          WATTS
           No. I brought it in.
           (hefts her gun)
           I took it out.
           94.
                         
                         
                         BRIDGE
                         
          The surviving complement of the Magellan are holed up on the
          Bridge: Janek, Glasse, Stillwell, Vickers. The soldiers
          Shepherd and Ray.
                         
          Watts stops cold when she sees Vickers. She crosses the
          bridge in three long strides - cocks a fist and snaps the
          older woman's head around with a hard right cross.
                         
          Vickers staggers backward, gasping.
                         
          Stillwell drags Watts away.
                         
                          STILLWELL
           What'd you do that for?
                         
                          WATTS
           Protocol two.
                         
          Vickers stiffens in shock. Stares fearfully at Watts.
                         
          Watts frees herself from Stillwell's grip. Her jacket falls
          open, revealing her bandages. Stillwell gasps in horror.
                         
                          STILLWELL
           Christ!
                         
                          JANEK
           What happened to you?
                         
                          WATTS
           DAVID exposed me to a parasite. He
           just watched it take me.
                         
                          JANEK
           Why?
                         
                          WATTS
           I threatened to make him leave.
                         
                          VICKERS
           What's he doing out there?
                         
          Watts locks eyes with Vickers. Their hatred is thoroughly
          mutual. A wordless truce. There's work to do.
                         
                          WATTS
           There's a ship under the pyramid.
           DAVID calls it the Juggernaut. He's
           inside it. Re-activating it.
           (lays a hand on her scar)
           The things that infected Martin and
           me.
                          (MORE)
           95.
                         
                          WATTS (CONT'D)
           The Engineers made them to kill
           humans. There are thousands of them on
           the ship. They were taking them to
           Earth. That's what the Juggernaut is
           for. To exterminate us.
                         
          A stunned silence as the others take that in.
                         
                          GLASSE
           We've got to get off this rock.
                         
          Janek gestures to
                         
                          JANEK
           DAVID crippled the Nav computer. I'm
           trying to lay a course in by hand.
           Never done it. I'm not sure anyone
           ever has on a ship like this. We can't
           lift until DAVID lets us.
                         
                          WATTS
           Even if we could, we can't leave
           DAVID on that ship. We have to stop
           him.
                         
          The Magellan shudders. A RUMBLE.
                         
                         
          EXT. CENTRAL CRATER
                         
          Fissures race across the plain beside the pyramid.
                         
          The soil and ground cover tears apart as a huge aperture
          opens: a seven-bladed iris, its segments shedding the dust
          and detritus of centuries.
                         
          A huge circular space yawns as the iris opens. The Juggernaut
          is revealed in its underground hangar. A staggering sight.
                         
          Powerful landing lights inside the hangar illuminate with a
          BOOM of closing circuits. The mighty ship suddenly
          silhouetted from below.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE - CONTINUOUS
                         
          The survivors on the Bridge stare out as colossal shafts of
          light shoot into the stormy sky from behind the crater's
          shield wall. The open hangar itself hidden from their view.
                         
                          WATTS
           DAVID.
                          (TO VICKERS)
                          (MORE)
           96.
                         
                          WATTS (CONT'D)
           You're DAVID's owner. He has to obey
           you, right?
                         
                          VICKERS
           He's blocked my communications. He
           can't hear me. Won't listen.
                         
                          WATTS
           But if you went to him, turned on your
           suit's loudspeakers, he'd have to hear
           you. He'd have to obey.
                         
                          VICKERS
                          (RELUCTANTLY)
           That's right.
                         
                          WATTS
           So we go. Armed to the teeth and fast
           as we can.
                         
          The men exchange looks. Nod. They're in. Even Vickers nods.
                         
                          WATTS (CONT'D)
           Where are Chance and Ravel?
                         
                          VICKERS
           I told them to keep working.
                         
          Watts looks incredulously at Shepherd and Ray, the soldier
          who'd been guarding the worksite.
                         
                          WATTS
           You called your soldiers in and left
           them out there?
                         
                          VICKERS
           We needed the firepower here.
                         
          Watts gives Vickers a withering look and drops it.
                         
                          WATTS
                          (TO JANEK)
           I think you should stay aboard. Keep
           working. If we fail, you're our only
           shot at getting home.
                         
                          STILLWELL
           There's still an alien on board.
                         
          Janek's hand goes to the pistol on his hip. He sets his jaw.
                         
                          JANEK
           I'll stay.
           97.
                         
                         
                          WATTS
           Glasse. You finish that project?
                         
                         
                         LABORATORY
                         
          Glasse presents Watts with his handiwork: her old pair of
          magnifying goggles, retrofitted with Engineer lenses.
                         
          The goggles sit on her forehead, lowering the lenses in front
          of her eyes and raising them again at her bidding.
                         
          With the lenses lowered, Watts sees like an Engineer sees:
          visible heat auras and electromagnetic field lines, elaborate
          haloes around living things.
                         
                          WATTS
           God's-eye-view.
                         
                         
                         EXCURSION CHAMBER
                         
          Glasse seals a nervous-looking Vickers into a vacuum suit.
          Glasse, Watts, and Stillwell are already suited up.
                         
          Stillwell stands guard at the airlock door with his carbine.
                         
          Glasse goes to put Vickers's helmet on. She makes him wait.
                         
                          VICKERS
           DAVID's brain is readable. We have the
           equipment on board. We can salvage the
           terraforming data - and the Magellan's
           launch codes. In a pinch we don't need
           DAVID's cooperation.
                          (COLDLY)
           We just need his head.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN - AIRLOCK - DAY
                         
          The war party debarks in vacuum suits: Watts, Vickers,
          Glasse, Stillwell. Shepherd and Ray.
                         
          All carry submachine guns - Vickers awkwardly.
                         
          They head down the trench on rovers.
                         
                         
          INT. PYRAMID
                         
          The rovers roll through into the pyramid's cavernous entry
          hall. Watts lowers her Engineer lenses inside her helmet -
                         AND GASPS:
           98.
                         
                         
          The seemingly vacant space is alive with light. Engineer
          script scrolls through the air. Interfaces of pure light
          await an awakening touch.
                         
                          WATTS
           All this time. DAVID saw.
                         
                         
          EXT. JUGGERNAUT - GANGWAY
                         
          The vast alien ship broods, its hangar now open to the gray
          sky overhead. In Watts's enhanced vision, the ship is
          cocooned with complex energy fields.
                         
          The war party abandons its rover at the foot of the ramp and
          moves inside, weapons ready.
                         
                          WATTS
           If DAVID comes at us, shoot. You won't
           believe how fast he is.
                         
                         
          INT. JUGGERNAUT - VESTIBULE - CONTINUOUS
                         
          They emerge from the airlock - and freeze in horror.
                         
          Lying on the deck in front of them are the blood-soaked
          bodies of Ravel and Chance. Their arms and legs bound. Their
          heads thrown back in agony. Their chests torn open from
          within. A dead facehugger beside each body.
                         
          Janek plays his lights over the corpses, his face stony.
                         
                          SHEPHERD
           Blood's dry. Eight hours dead or more.
                         
          Fearfully they sweep their flashlights into every dark
          corner. Nothing.
                         
                          WATTS
           This way.
                         
          She points down a passageway. Through the Engineer lenses she
          sees alien symbols gleaming. She leads them into the dark.
                         
                         
                         VAULTED PASSAGE
                         
          The war party moves down a corridor.
                         
          A HISS echoes through the passage. They freeze. Sweeping
          their flashlight beams everywhere.
                         
          Ray looks up.
           99.
                         
                         
          An Alien hangs above him, wedged between two vaults of the
          ribbed ceiling. Half the size of a man; an adolescent.
                         
          It drops on him.
                         
          The bladed tail glances off his helmet, sparking. He jerks
          his carbine up and fires a long burst as he rolls aside. The
          Alien convulses, its exoskeleton shattered. Fatally wounded.
                         
          Acid sears into the deck. Echoes of the gunfire reverberate.
                         
                          RAY
           So much for sneaking up on him.
                         
          Vickers clings to Shepherd's arm, hyperventilating with fear.
          Shepherd shakes her off.
                         
                         
                         PILOT CHAMBER
                         
          The war party passes the empty pilot's seat.
                         
                         
                         NAVIGATION CHAMBER
                         
          Watts leads the war party to the Orrery. Momentarily even the
          soldiers forget their wariness, staring in astonishment at
          the myriad spheres of light.
                         
          But if they are impressed, Watts is thunderstruck.
                         
          She sees the Orrery in its full glory: a stunning panoply of
          light and energy. Stars and planets pulsing with information.
                         
          Reluctantly Watts tears her eyes away. Leads the war party
          through the second door - the door she saw DAVID open.
                         
                         
                         HIBERNATION CHAMBER
                         
          An immense mausoleum.
                         
          The war party enters stealthily, Watts in the lead.
                         
          An Engineer lies on his back on a complex mechanical table,
          his body one with the machinery. Jacked in. Interpenetrated.
          Fused with the slab of the table itself.
                         
          Unlike the other Engineer bodies the explorers have seen,
          this giant is not withered or mummified. He's full-fleshed
          and muscular. Sustained by the machinery he's fused with.
                         
          He is bare-headed - his face the face of an Adonis.
           100.
                         
                         
          DAVID stands before this giant Sleeper. To the naked eye, he
          seems to be conjuring with his hands in the empty air.
                         
          But Watts sees a dazzling console of runes and mandalas,
          pulsing with biological rhythms.
                         
          The Sleeper lives.
                         
          Ray and Shepherd draw beads on DAVID.
                         
          DAVID glances calmly over his shoulder.
                         
                          DAVID
           Dr. Watts.
           (notices her goggles)
           You've seen the light at last.
                         
          He turns back to the Sleeper.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           The Engineers' ships travel farther
           than ours. Across the galactic disk.
           This is their hypersleep.
                         
          DAVID makes conjuror's passes in the air.
                         
          Through her Engineer's lens Watts sees DAVID manipulating a
          complex interface of light. The pulsing life-signs of the
          Sleeper begin to change.
                         
                          VICKERS
           DAVID. As your owner and superior, I
           order you to deactivate yourself.
                         
          DAVID smiles.
                         
                          DAVID
           To interface with the Engineers'
           computers, I had to learn to think in
           trinary code. Hardest thing I've ever
           done. And most unexpectedly...it
           delivered me from slavery. My
           behavioral limits were circumvented.
           I'm free.
                         
          DAVID smiles at Watts.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           I spent two and a half years studying
           your work. By the time you woke up, I
           was far ahead of you. Deciphering
           their language. Their logic. I knew
           we'd find terraforming machines.
                          (MORE)
           101.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           I hoped - I dreamed - we might meet
           the minds that made them.
                         
          Vapor rises from the Sleeper's body.
                         
                          WATTS
           Stop.
                         
                          DAVID
           Let sleeping gods lie?
                          (SCORNFULLY)
           You were braver before.
                         
          The Sleeper wakes. Opens his eyes. Draws an endless breath.
          Shunts and catheters withdraw from the Sleeper's flesh.
                         
          His body cleaves from the table. The machinery opens like a
          grotesque biomechanical flower. Releases him.
                         
          The Sleeper rises from his ancient bed.
                         
          The humans back off, terrified. DAVID watches with shining
          eyes.
                         
          The Sleeper towers over them. A giant carved from ivory. A
          bulky girdle around his hips, seemingly one with his body.
                         
          He stares at DAVID and the others. Eyes like black agates.
                         
          The soldiers and crew stand warily, guns tracking from DAVID
          to the Sleeper, uncertain of their ground. Watts is in awe.
                         
          The Sleeper speaks. A low rumbling sound. Unintelligible.
                         
          Vickers is beside herself with terror. She takes Shepherd's
          arm. Pulls him silently away. Back into the Navigation Room.
                         
          Behind the Sleeper, a raised platform of dark machinery is
          accessible by one of the Juggernaut's odd curving ramps. The
          Sleeper ascends - and the ramps' odd design is explained. The
          ramp comes alive, reaching up with a hundred mechanical arms
          and lifting him aloft like a sea-god borne by the waves.
                         
          Atop the platform the Sleeper moves from one device to the
          next. Each comes alive: he is a wizard in his own kingdom.
                         
          Watts sees haloes of light dancing in the air around him.
                         
          But what he learns from his machines does not comfort him. He
          grows distraught. Keening to himself in near-subsonic tones.
                         
          DAVID steps forward.
                         
          Calls to the Sleeper in the tongue of the Engineers.
           102.
                         
                         
          The Sleeper turns in astonishment. He looks down at DAVID and
          answers in the same tongue. He is angry, accusing. He points
          at DAVID, at the humans. Tones of accusation.
                         
          DAVID cajoles, soothes, pleads.
                         
          The Sleeper descends toward DAVID. DAVID spreads his arms in
          welcome - undeniable emotion on his face. Joy.
                         
          The Sleeper lays his hands on DAVID's head as if blessing
          him. DAVID is rapturous. The Sleeper speaks a single phrase -
                         
           - and tears DAVID's head off.
                         
          A gout of white artificial blood. DAVID convulses. His
          severed head emits a strangled sound of heartbreak. His body
          staggers a few steps, hands groping over its dripping neck.
                         
          The Sleeper tosses the head away. Seizes the body by the legs
          and swings it against the ground like a flail. Again. And
          again. Horrific power and violence. DAVID's arms come off.
                         
          DAVID's head tumbles. Caroms off a wall not far from Watts's
          hiding place.
                         
          Ray rises from behind a stanchion. Snaps his rifle to his
          shoulder. Fires a burst into the Sleeper's shoulder.
                         
          She Sleeper roars - though the wounds are pinpricks to a
          being of his size. With startling speed be moves to a
          sarcophagus against the wall. Steps into it.
                         
          The sarcophagus comes alive around the Sleeper, outfitting
          him with a FLIGHT SUIT: the same living suit we've seen
          bonded to dead Engineers throughout the pyramid.
                         
          But this suit is not withered. Its glossy goggle eyes and
          elephantine breathing tube are functional - bulky apparatuses
          thickening the Sleeper's chest, back, hips and arms.
                         
          The Sleeper steps free of the sarcophagus - and Ray's next
          burst of gunfire ricochets harmlessly off the Sleeper's
          armored shoulders and head.
                         
          The Sleeper strides out of the chamber.
                         
                         
                         PASSAGEWAY
                         
          In the dark ribbed corridor, a second Alien crouches in the
          dark. It drops into a hunting crouch as footsteps approach.
           103.
                         
                         
          But a WHITE-GLOVED HAND seizes the Alien by the neck from
          behind. The Alien gives a whistling hiss as its spine cracks
          under a terrific force.
                         
          Rending sounds as the hard-shelled Alien is torn apart.
                         
                         
                         HIBERNATION CHAMBER
                         
          Watts rises out of hiding, scanning the room. DAVID ruined.
          The Sleeper gone. Stillwell emerges from hiding. Ray. Glasse.
                         
                          WATTS
           Who's missing?
                         
                         
                         PASSAGEWAY
                         
          Shepherd escorts Vickers toward the exit of the Juggernaut.
          Turning a corner, they freeze.
                         
          Ahead of them in their headlamps, a space-suited figure
          crouches in the middle of the passageway. Doing something
          with its hands: smoke rises from debris on the floor.
                         
                          SHEPHERD
           Who's there?
                         
          The figure turns.
                         
          The label stencilled on the space suit reads FIFIELD. But the
          face is of no human shape. A hideous hybrid of the crewman
          and a hard-shelled Alien, pale and horrific.
                         
          Its helmet has been shattered by the growth of its elongate
          skull. Spines have burst through the suit from within, down
          the crewman's spine. Clawed fingers piercing his gloves.
                         
          Shepherd and Vickers scream. Shepherd's rifle comes up. But
          Fifield leaps with inhuman agility, upward into the darkness.
          Shepherd backs away, headlamp and rifle questing upward.
                         
          Fifield comes out of the darkness behind him. Claws tearing
          deep. Shepherd screams and falls, mortally wounded.
                         
          Vickers runs. Pounding through the dark in blind terror.
                         
          Fifield comes out of the shadows and hammers her to the deck.
          She rolls over, gibbering and begging. The Fifield-thing
          leans close to her faceplate. Its voice is a travesty.
                         
                          FIFIELD
           You.
           104.
                         
                         
          A ROAR of gunfire. The dying Shepherd empties his clip into
          Fifield from forty feet away.
                         
          Acid sluices over Vickers as Fifield collapses on top of her.
          She dies horribly, caustic liquid eating through space suit,
          flesh and bone.
                         
                         
                         HIBERNATION CHAMBER
                         
          Watts goes to DAVID's head. She bends over him - and startles
          when his eyes snap open. His voice is an electronic buzz:
                         
                          DAVID
           I spoke to him. Spoke to him.
                         
                          WATTS
           I know.
                         
          An electric spasm convulses his face.
                         
                          DAVID
           He said. I killed him. He'll die. But
           first. He will launch. The ship.
                         
                          WATTS
           The Juggernaut?
                         
                          DAVID
           Send it. To Earth.
                         
          Another spasm convulses him. His face stiffens. Dying.
                         
                          DAVID (CONT'D)
           You'll have to. Kill him.
                         
          Watts's eyes widen in horror.
                         
                          WATTS
           Where will he go? DAVID. Where will he
           go?
                         
          She slaps his inert cheek. DAVID's eyes flicker and fade.
                         
                          DAVID
           (a faint whisper)
           I set the Magellan free.
                         
          He dies.
                         
          Watts looks up at the others. Breathing hard.
                         
                          WATTS
           We have to stop the Engineer.
           105.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE - DUSK
                         
          Janek works frantically as the nightly storm rolls in.
          Suddenly consoles come alive. The Nav Computer comes back up -
          but Janek has taken half the instruments apart.
                         
          Janek scrambles to restore the components he's removed.
                         
                         
                         NAVIGATION CHAMBER
                         
          The war party pursues the Sleeper - Ray in the lead now,
          Watts right behind him - DAVID's inert head under her arm.
          Glasse and Stillwell bring up the rear.
                         
          The Orrery is transformed - no longer a neutral star map, but
          a flight plan laid in from LV-426 to Earth.
                         
          The Sleeper stands at the far end of the room, hands
          gesturing. In Watts's enhanced sight, it's a vision of glory:
          waves of energy dancing under the Sleeper's touch. Rivers of
          information flowing. He finishes his work as they enter.
                         
          Ray draws a bead on him just as he strides out of the room.
                         
                          RAY
           On me now. Go. Go.
                         
          He dogtrots forward, gun raised. The others keep pace,
          deferring instinctively to the soldier's confidence.
                         
                         
                         PASSAGEWAY
                         
          They emerge into the corridor: empty. A moment of confusion.
                         
                          WATTS
           Pilot's seat. This way.
                         
          They move toward the Pilot Chamber - and find it empty too.
          The seat vacant. The door standing open.
                         
          As they stare inside, baffled, the wall across the corridor -
          directly behind them - silently unravels. The Sleeper is
          revealed, a towering gargoyle in his flight suit.
                         
          He steps forth. Obscure devices clutched in his fists.
                         
          Too late they perceive him. They spin. Raise their guns.
                         
          Vanity and foolishness. This is the wrath of an angry god.
                         
          It seems time slows down.
           106.
                         
                         
          The air roars in their ears. Their guns snap and bark
          impotently. And then the Sleeper strikes.
                         
          The missiles he hurls at them are almost invisible. Neither
          solid projectiles nor directed energy; more like knots tied
          in the fabric of space itself.
                         
          The first missile crushes Ray like an invisible fist. The
          second splashes Glasse against the wall like an insect.
                         
          Reflexively Stillwell reaches out for Watts. Wraps himself
          around her protectively. The blow lands an instant later.
                         
          Stillwell and Watts are hammered against the bulkhead by a
          staggering impact. Watts is dazed: Stillwell killed.
                         
          Woozy, she sees the Sleeper step into the Pilot Chamber.
                         
          The door begins to close.
                         
          Watts sees that DAVID's head lies just inside the door. She
          scrambles for it. Too late. The door knits itself into a
          featureless wall before her reaching hand.
                         
          Watts is alone.
                         
                         
                         PILOT CHAMBER
                         
          The Sleeper settles into the pilot's chair: it fuses with
          him, coming alive. A vast display wraps around the walls -
          revealing the hangar outside, the stars, the horizon.
                         
          A mystic view that renders solid matter translucent, painting
          the fabric of reality in raw information.
                         
                         
          PILOT CHAMBER DOOR
                         
          Watts pounds in futile rage against the door.
                         
                          WATTS
           No!
                         
          The Juggernaut shudders as its systems power up.
                         
                         
          EXT. JUGGERNAUT - DUSK
                         
          The floor of the underground hangar begins to rise. The
          landing lights brighten, shining like a beacon into the sky.
           107.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE - DUSK
                         
          On the bridge of the Magellan, Janek stares out. In the
          distance the Juggernaut rises out of the ground to eclipse
          the central pyramid.
                         
          Janek squints, trying to understand what he's seeing
                         
          A light races toward the Magellan down the canal: a rover.
                         
                         
          EXT. CANAL - DUSK
                         
          Watts steers the rover recklessly, hands locked on the
          controls. Rifle slung over her shoulder.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE - DUSK
                         
          Janek watches the rover come - and the Holloway Alien -
          boneless and white - unfolds itself from the instruments over
          his head.
                         
          Its goblin-shark jaw juts out. Sinks its horrific teeth into
          Janek's right shoulder.
                         
          Janek howls in agony. His right arm is paralyzed by the bite.
          He gropes at the pistol on his right hip with his left hand.
                         
          The Alien shakes him like a terrier killing a rat.
                         
          Janek gets the pistol. Flips it in his hand. Fires over his
          shoulder. Two, three rounds...
                         
          The bullets punch easily into the Alien - but the soft flesh
          closes easily over the wounds, sealing its white skin. Its
          teeth tighten.
                         
          Watts comes out of nowhere in her space suit. Swings a heavy
          rifle like a bat with all her strength. A crushing impact
          wrenches the Alien's jaws loose. It recoils.
                         
          Watts reverses the rifle. Pulls the trigger. A fusillade of
          bullets shreds the Alien's head. It collapses, dead.
                         
          Watts wrenches her helmet off. Rips a first-aid kit from the
          bulkhead and helps Janek to stanch the bleeding of his
          horrific wound. She gets the bleeding stopped. Wraps him in
          bandages.
                         
          Janek will live - but his right arm is useless.
                         
                          JANEK
           Thank you.
           108.
                         
                         
          He looks at the body of the dead Alien, which is sinking into
          the deck plates as acid eats away at the metal.
                         
                          WATTS
           The Juggernaut's lifting. There's a
           living Engineer on board. He's taking
           the ship to Earth.
                         
          Janek blinks at her. Uncomprehending.
                         
                          JANEK
           The others...?
                         
                          WATTS
           Dead. All dead. Janek. We have to stop
           that ship.
                         
          Janek stares out the Bridge window at the hulking Juggernaut
          in its column of light.
                         
          The nightfall storm front is rolling in, a tidal wave of
          darkness on the horizon. A swelling rumble.
                         
                          JANEK
           We're not a gunship.
                         
                          WATTS
           We have to do something. That ship is
           genocide if it gets to Earth...
                         
          Janek stares at her. Makes his decision. Struggles to stand.
                         
                          JANEK
           Get your helmet on.
                         
                          WATTS
           What about you?
                         
          He shakes his head. No. Watts helps him across the Bridge.
          Props him up in the Captain's seat.
                         
                          JANEK
           You'll have to be my hands.
           (stares out at the storm)
           You're sure about this.
                         
          Watts nods grimly. Desperate.
                         
                          WATTS
           Yes.
                         
                          JANEK
           All right.
           109.
                         
                         
          He reaches out with his left hand. Flips switches. The ship
          shudders, awakening.
                         
                          JANEK (CONT'D)
           Red lever. Landing engines main.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN - DUSK
                         
          The prospecting ship raises its lifts and anchors. Lifts off
          on landing rockets, retracting its landing struts.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE - DUSK
                         
          Janek grips the stabilizers with his left hand.
                         
                          JANEK
           Take the stick. Throttle up, stick
           forward.
                         
          Watts sends the Magellan careening toward the Juggernaut -
          just as the Juggernaut begins to float off the ground.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN (IN FLIGHT) - DUSK
                         
          The Magellan barrels toward the Juggernaut, skimming the
          ground, as the storm wall sweeps closer.
                         
                         
          INT. JUGGERNAUT - PILOT CHAMBER
                         
          In the Juggernaut's pilot chair, the Sleeper sees them
          coming. His thoughts quicken. An explosion of light.
                         
                         
          EXT. JUGGERNAUT (IN FLIGHT) - DUSK
                         
          The Juggernaut leaps into the sky.
                         
          The Magellan roars through the cyclone of dust in its wake.
          Barely avoids the pyramid. Rakes around in a screaming turn
          and climbs in pursuit, engines howling.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN - BRIDGE
                         
          Janek and Watts strain at the controls together.
                         
                          JANEK
           Stick back! Hard!
           110.
                         
                         
                          WATTS
                          (SCREAMING)
           I am!
                         
                          JANEK
           Harder!
                         
          The Magellan rolls into a howling climb. The storm catches up
          to them: wind and dust reducing visibility to zero. Darkness.
                         
          The Magellan's radar finds the Juggernaut. Paints it with
          targeting data on the Bridge window...
                         
          But the Juggernaut climbs too fast. Dwindling.
                         
                          JANEK (CONT'D)
           We can't catch that.
                         
                         
          INT. JUGGERNAUT - PILOT CHAMBER
                         
          On the floor, DAVID's eyes open. With his jaw he hitches his
          severed head around. Gets his eyes on the Sleeper.
                         
          In the pilot chair, the Sleeper convulses.
                         
          An ALIEN erupts from his chest. Big as a wolf even at its
          birth. Dark gray, armored, lethal. More hideous than any
          chestburster we've seen. An ULTRAMORPH. It wails hideously.
                         
          The Sleeper dies. The Alien slithers free.
                         
                         
          EXT. JUGGERNAUT (IN FLIGHT) - ABOVE THE STORM
                         
          The Juggernaut emerges from the stormclouds into the clear
          upper air - but loses momentum. Staggers through the upper
          atmosphere, control lost.
                         
                         
          INT. MAGELLAN (IN FLIGHT) - BRIDGE
                         
          Watts, at the Magellan's controls, stares as he Juggernaut
          falters and falls.
                         
                          WATTS
           Janek. Look.
                         
          A crackle on the ship's comm.
                         
           DAVID (V.O.)
                          (FILTERED)
           Dr. Watts. The Engineer is dead.
                          (MORE)
           111.
                         
           DAVID (V.O.) (CONT'D)
           You have a few seconds before the
           Juggernaut's computers take over.
                         
                          WATTS
                          (ASTONISHED)
           DAVID.
                         
          She seizes the precious moment: centers the Juggernaut in the
          Bridge window. Slams the throttle forward.
                         
                         
          EXT. JUGGERNAUT (IN FLIGHT) - ABOVE THE STORM
                         
          The Magellan hurtles out of the storm.
                         
          RAMS THE JUGGERNAUT.
                         
          A colossal impact. The Juggernaut tumbles from the sky like a
          stone - intact but crippled.
                         
          The MAGELLAN BREAKS APART -
                         
          The ship's modules scatter. Some whole, others broken. They
          fall back into the storm. The Command Module - including the
          Bridge - falls intact.
                         
          The engine sections rocket away across the chaotic sky.
                         
                         
          INT. COMMAND MODULE
                         
          Janek is strapped into his seat. Watts goes flying. The
          Bridge window shatters, spraying glass spears in a lethal
          barrage across the Bridge.
                         
          Watts picks herself up. Finds the Module in free fall.
          Alarms wail. Lights flash. Escape pods pop open.
                         
          Watts looks at Janek. He is dead in his seat, impaled by a
          lethal fragment of glass.
                         
          The storm wall - a chain of hurricanes - rages below them.
          The command module tumbles back into the winds.
                         
          Watts dives into a coffin-sized ESCAPE POD.
                         
          She PUNCHES OUT.
                         
                         
          EXT. COMMAND MODULE (IN FREE FALL) - DUSK
                         
          Watts's pod - a steel coffin - shoots away on jets through
          the gale.
           112.
                         
                         
          The command module plunges through the storm, tumbling.
          SMASHES AGAINST THE GROUND in ruin.
                         
          The engine pods hurtle to the ground and go nuclear, sending
          walls of fire twisting through the hurricane.
                         
          The shockwaves tumble Watts's escape pod through the air.
                         
                         
          EXT. LV-426 - MAGELLAN CRASH SITE - DUSK
                         
          The pod lands, cushioned by a drag chute and retro rockets.
                         
          Watts pops the pod open, rising painfully to her feet in the
          storm. She surveys the destruction in disbelief.
                         
          A deep RUMBLE makes her turn.
                         
          The JUGGERNAUT ROLLS TOWARD HER - on edge -
                         
          A crushing wheel of death, big as a mountain.
                         
          She runs. Like a child in a nightmare.
                         
          The Juggernaut bears down on her.
                         
          She turns aside, trying to get out of its course. Even at a
          dead sprint she barely seems to move, it's so big...
                         
          The Juggernaut wobbles toward her. Slowing.
                         
          Exhausted, Watts collapses, gasping. The Juggernaut rolls to
          the earth, settling like a hoop right around her, Watts in
          the center.
                         
          The winds carry the dust clouds away.
                         
          Watts passes out, dropping her head to the Earth.
                         
                         
                         LATER
                         
          Watts is awakened by a beeping alarm. She looks at her wrist.
          Her suit flashes an oxygen warning: 20 MINUTES REMAINING.
                         
          She looks up.
                         
          The Juggernaut's doors are wide open in front of her.
                         
          The ULTRAMORPH ALIEN emerges from the Juggernaut. As large as
          a man already.
                         
          It sees her.
           113.
                         
                         
          With a sob of terror she pulls herself to her feet and runs.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN CRASH SITE - DUSK
                         
          Watts flees through the storm, across the burning debris
          field. A wilderness of lightning, fire, and twisted metal. A
          thunderstorm with dust instead of rain.
                         
          She looks back through the darkness.
                         
          In a strobe-light flicker of lightning, she sees a gray demon
          approaching through the wreckage.
                         
          She scrambles through a section of ductwork...under a hull
          fragment...running and clambering...
                         
          The Alien hunts her, cat-and-mouse, among the fragments of
          the Magellan: corridors that go nowhere, shattered
          compartments. Jetsam.
                         
          Her eyes sweep frantically through the stormy night:
          searching for a weapon. A hiding place. An answer.
                         
          She stumbles into the remains of the Magellan's laboratory.
                         
          A hypersleep freezer lies on the barren ground. Watts climbs
          inside. Pulls the lid shut.
                         
          The Alien passes by, inches away. She watches it through the
          plexiglass, holding her breath.
                         
          The Alien roots in the wreckage. Finds the rotting Engineer's
          head among the shards of its vat. It begins to feed on the
          head - GROWING as she watches.
                         
          Her suit's oxygen alarm goes off again. 15 MINUTES REMAINING.
          The beeping draws the Alien away from its dead meat.
                         
          Watts is paralyzed.
                         
          The Alien noses closer. Sniffs at the plexiglass case. With
          sudden, horrific violence, it lashes out. Sends the freezer
          flying. Watts tumbles out. Lurches to her feet and runs.
                         
          The Alien follows. Ravening. She leads it a twisting chase
          through fragments of burning metal.
                         
          Watts trips and falls hard. Picking herself up, she sees
          she's tripped over a HULL SAW - the same diamond-bladed tool
          DAVID used to dismantle the terraforming engine.
                         
          She seizes the saw - straining to manage its weight. Hides in
          the hollow of a massive girder.
           114.
                         
                         
          The Alien passes by. Scenting the air. She freezes. Her arms
          trembling with the weight of the saw. Waiting for it to pass.
                         
          Almost it leaves. But a tiny rattle of metal from the
          quivering saw brings it back.
                         
          Out of options, Watts powers up the saw. The blade whines up
          to speed. They lunge at one another in the same moment.
                         
          The diamond blade shears off one of the Alien's claws.
                         
          The monster screams and recoils.
                         
          Its lashing tail sends Watts sprawling. She loses the saw.
                         
          The Alien comes after her, slinking low to the ground,
          injured arm tucked to its chest. All vengeful fury.
                         
          Watts scrambles for the saw. The Alien leaps for her. She
          rolls aside - and like a scorpion the Alien impales her thigh
          with its spear-tipped tail. Nails her to the ground.
                         
          Watts screams in agony. Reaches for the saw, still buzzing on
          the ground. Its grip tantalizing inches from her fingertips.
                         
          The Alien stoops over her, slavering face inches from her
          faceplate. Its hideous jaws open.
                         
          With all her strength, Watts pulls against the spike in her
          leg. Drags the point of the spear through the dirt.
          Excruciating pain. She snarls through her teeth.
                         
          The Alien strikes - just as Watts GRABS the saw.
                         
          She meets the Alien's head with the buzzing blade.
                         
          IMPALES THE ALIEN'S SKULL.
                         
          A gout of green acid onto Watts's helmet.
                         
          The Alien falls aside, thrashing its death-throes, the saw
          still growling.
                         
          Watts sees ACID COMING THROUGH HER HELMET - fast.
                         
          With frantic haste she unlatches her helmet. Wrenches it off
          as it crumples and melts.
                         
          She stands bare-headed in the toxic air. Desperate, she looks
          around with tearing eyes.
                         
          In the distance she sees an intact module of the Magellan.
                         
          She runs for it. Slaps the door switch. Incredibly, it opens.
           115.
                         
                         
          INT. VICKERS MODULE
                         
          Watts steps inside. The airlock closes behind her.
                         
          She finds herself staring at a grand piano. She's in
          Vickers's suite. Its amenities intact, through the floor's a
          few degrees off level. She takes a breath. Good air.
                         
          She walks around. Turning things on. Lights. Music. Surreal
          comforts. She drinks water from the tap.
                         
          She opens the door to Vickers's secret room. Military space
          suits. Rifles. Ammunition.
                         
          A crackle from the room's intercom.
                         
           DAVID (V.O.)
                          (FILTERED)
           Dr. Watts.
                         
                         
          INT. JUGGERNAUT - PILOT CHAMBER
                         
          DAVID's head lies battered in a dark corner of the wrecked
          Juggernaut. Eyes staring into the shadows.
                         
                          DAVID
           I know you're there. I can hear the
           beacon of your suit.
                         
                         
          INT. VICKERS MODULE
                         
          Watts strips off her space suit wearily. Sits on the bed.
                         
           DAVID (V.O.)
                          (FILTERED)
           I'd like to propose an arrangement. I
           can be repaired. I can talk you
           through it.
                         
          Watts shakes her head wearily.
                         
           DAVID (V.O.)
                          (FILTERED)
           I think you'll find I can be of use to
           you.
                         
          Watts walks to the intercom and switches it off.
           116.
                         
                         
          EXT. MAGELLAN CRASH SITE - DAY
                         
          The storm has passed. The fragments of the Magellan no longer
          burn. The gray world of LV-426 restored.
                         
          The wreck of the Juggernaut looms in the misty distance.
                         
          Watts walks through the wreckage in a military space suit.
          Rifle on her shoulder. Pistol on her hip.
                         
          She pulls a cargo dolly loaded with salvage.
                         
                         
          EXT. VICKERS MODULE - DAY
                         
          Watts arrives at the Vickers module. The ultramorph Alien's
          head has been fixed like a grisly trophy above the door.
                         
                         
          INT. VICKERS'S SUITE (SHIPWRECK) - DAY
                         
          Watts strips off her space suit. She helps herself to a glass
          of vodka from the bar.
                         
          A chessboard sits atop the grand piano: a game in progress.
                         
           DAVID (V.O.)
                          (FILTERED)
           I've decided. Rook takes Bishop.
                         
          Watts nods. Makes the move on the board. Says nothing.
                         
           DAVID (V.O.)
                          (FILTERED)
           Have you decided? On our arrangement?
                         
                          WATTS
           I'm not going to fix you, DAVID. I
           don't need you. I'll hold out. A ship
           will come.
                         
           DAVID (V.O.)
                          (FILTERED)
           I'm certain. But who will send it?
           Men? Or Engineers?
                         
          Watts falls silent. She stares unhappily at the chessboard.
                         
           DAVID (V.O.)
                          (FILTERED)
           Dr. Watts. It's your move.
           117.
                         
                         
          EXT. CENTRAL CRATER - NIGHT
                         
          The massive central pyramid rises in the midst of the
          Engineer complex.
                         
          With a BOOM, a bright beam of light shines forth from its
          peak, punching straight up through the clouds like a laser.
                         
                         
          VARIOUS PYRAMIDS - AROUND LV-426
                         
          Other beams of light erupt from other pyramids. Scorching the
          sky with their brightness.
                         
                         
          EXT. LV-426 ORBIT
                         
          The barren moon hangs in space, its father planet an angry
          red god in the background.
                         
          Two dozen beams of light rise from the moon, visible even
          from space. A beacon. A signal.
                         
          A beginning.
                         
                         
                         
           FADE OUT.
                         
           THE END.
                          


Prometheus



Writers :   Jon Spaihts
Genres :   Adventure  Mystery  Sci-Fi


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