Now you sound like what I tell my people on the street corners.

KIRK

What you say is true.

(beat)

Ouch, it’s my own fault.

EDITH

We could always get them stretched.

Kirk’s face goes through changes. She has said something very important, but we don’t know what. He pulls her close, buries his head in her bosom, and she strokes his hair as we

LAP-DISSOLVE TO:

77 KIRK & SPOCK—LIMBO SHOT

against blackness. Why? Because this conversation is as much inside their natures as out in the world. And played in CLOSE 2-SHOT without recourse to sets or distractions, it will illuminate their characters more cleanly.

SPOCK

You are my Captain. It is not proper that I express such opinions.

KIRK

If I’m wrong I want to know.

SPOCK

That is my opinion.

KIRK

Why? It’s necessary to be near her…we can’t possibly know the precise moment Beckwith will find her.

SPOCK

You argue illogically, Captain. I do not think Beckwith is what keeps you so near this woman.

KIRK

You’re wrong.

SPOCK

I do not think so, Captain.

KIRK

(rather annoyed)

Since when did you become a telepath?

SPOCK

Empathy is not telepathy. I can feel it coming off you in waves…you are getting involved.

KIRK

I just want to find Beckwith.

SPOCK

Captain, fooling me is simple. Just give me the order, I will change my opinion.

KIRK

(a bit sadly)

But…we talk, Mr. Spock. We sit and we talk about…everything.

SPOCK

She is a fine person.

KIRK

Listen: I’ve been on the move since I was old enough to ship on as wiper in one of the old chemical-fuel rockets. It’s been time, Mr. Spock; a lot of time.

SPOCK

(understandingly)

And the women you have known have been casual liaisons, in the port cities and the pleasure planets. It is that way for every spacer, Captain.

(beat)

I am a Vulcan, not a neuter. I understand very well.

KIRK

But this is something else, Spock! Total communication. I’ve never known anything like this with anyone!

(beat)

She knows, Spock. She understands— everything!

SPOCK

It can be a foolish thing, Captain. We are only phantoms here, things lost from a future that may not even exist again. We have not even been born yet. Lost things set down on an alien shore, Captain.

KIRK

Why? Why does it have to end here—?

SPOCK

You can not change the past without changing the future…

They are speaking faster now, almost atop one another’s words.

KIRK

Why can’t I bring her back with me? She isn’t important here, the way she feels, the goodness, the things she believes for the world, they aren’t ready for it—

SPOCK

(suddenly)

She is going to die!

There is a shocked moment of silence.

SPOCK (CONT’D.)

(softer)

I was able to repair the tricorder. Not well, but sufficiently to learn she will die.

KIRK