But in each time-period there is a focal point. An object, a person, something that is indispensable to the normal flow of time. Unimportant otherwise, but as a catalyst…

KIRK

And if Beckwith tampers with it—time is changed permanently.

SPOCK

Will Beckwith know what this focal point is?

1ST GUARDIAN

No, but the stresses of the time-flow will draw him to it. If he influences it, nothing can restore the shape of the past.

KIRK

(intense)

Then how can we stop him?

1ST GUARDIAN

(mystically)

Bring him back. He will seek that which must die, and give it life. Stop him.

KIRK

I don’t understand. Can’t you tell us more?

1ST GUARDIAN

Blue it will be. Blue as the sky of Old Earth and clear as truth. And the sun will burn on it, and there is the key.

Kirk and Spock look at each other. The Guardians have obviously said all they can say. They nod with resignation at each other, and turn to the Time Vortex, just as it flickers to life. They move toward it. Flames and light burgeon, and the SOUND of the Vortex is HEARD. Rapidly changing colors wash across Kirk and Spock.

45 ANGLE ON TIME VORTEX

as they step up to it, hesitate a beat, then step in. Flames leap up about them (or whatever SPECIAL EFFECT is employed) and they vanish. CAMERA PANS SMOOTHLY BACK to Guardians.

1ST GUARDIAN

As night falls, they run like hunters, and for all our wisdom, we are helpless.

RIPPLE-DISSOLVE TO:

46 LIMBO SHOT

against the blackness, in SOLARIZED IMAGE, Kirk and Mr. Spock, REVERSE-IMAGE as though they were negatives, hurtling toward CAMERA out of the dark, a sense of intense motion. They hurtle STRAIGHT FOR CAMERA and

FRAME TO BLACK.

47 EXT. NEW YORK STREET—1930—LATE DAY—ESTABLISHING

a seamy, down-at-the-heels street; murky glass storefronts; automobiles of the period, but very few; prominent in the scene is a store with a large sign proclaiming:

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