Home - Humor from a.r.k Matt McIrvin mmcirvin@world.std.com

We return you to

Space: 1999:

What Really Happened to Victor Bergman,

already in progress.

ACT III

(Moonbase Alpha control room.)

COMMANDER JOHN KOENIG
So we really can't stop the creature?
DR. VICTOR BERGMAN
No, no, I told you... (Takes a puff on cigar.) It's made of pure triperplexium. Enough of that could crush anything. (Blows smoke ring.) We're going to have to try something more subtle.
DR. HELENA RUSSELL
(concerned) John, I have three more dead and six injured.
KOENIG
We're running out of time. And the computer hasn't helped us any.
COMPUTER GUY
But Computer cannot be useless!

(Cut to hallway. The walls are glowing green. The creature engulfs three extras. It looks like an orange shag carpet, with a rotating, spiral-patterned hypno-disk for a head.)

EXTRAS
AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

(Space. Three stars are visible in the upper left corner of the screen. An Eagle wafts by, spewing Freon. Suddenly an enormous, mottled, yellow ball shifts into view.)

(Interior of Eagle. AUSTRALIAN GUY is at the controls.)

AUSTRALIAN GUY
I don't understand it, Alpha. No matter where I go, (cut to KOENIG, listening to transmission) the planet's magnetic force pulls me directly to the east!
BERGMAN
Hmm. Yes. That would be consistent.
RUSSELL
(concerned) Consistent?
BERGMAN
With a polarized energetic disturbance. They tend to... erm... gravitate, so to speak, in an easterly direction. (Gestures noncommittally.)
KOENIG
Could that explain the voices I've been hearing?
RUSSELL
(concerned) Perhaps, John. Polarized disturbances are the first step toward antiperception. It's a well-known fact.
BERGMAN
(Nods) Yes, yes, that it is.
KOENIG
But that still doesn't help us with the creature.

(Cut to hallway. The walls are glowing blue. The shag carpet encounters two more extras. The camera tilts up to give us further evidence that the set has a ceiling.)

EXTRAS
AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

(Commercial)

ACT IV

(Night. KOENIG's quarters. He tosses in bed, unable to sleep.)

VOICE OF DAME JUDITH ANDERSON
(heavy reverb) The creature is your friend! You must not stop the creature! The creature is your friend! You must help the creature!

(KOENIG sits up and jumps out of bed, agitated. He staggers out of his quarters and into a hallway, with walls glowing red. With a horrified expression, he sees AUSTRALIAN GUY firing at the creature with what looks like a staple gun. A beam of light extends intermittently from a point a few inches to the right of the staple gun to a point a few inches to the right of the shag carpet.)

KOENIG
Nooo! (Leaps between AUSTRALIAN GUY and the shag carpet.) You don't understand!
AUSTRALIAN GUY
What? Commander--
RUSSELL
(concerned) John! (Zaps him in the neck with a hypospray. KOENIG crumples to the floor.)
KOENIG
You don't... understand... (Loses consciousness.)

(AUSTRALIAN GUY fires again, and the hypnodisk reverses direction and starts rotating counterclockwise, and shoots sparks; the shag rug backs down the corridor.)

RUSSELL
(concerned) Counterclockwise might be the death direction!

(Sick bay. KOENIG is strapped in a hospital bed, with various blinking devices displaying his vital signs. Suddenly he awakens.)

VOICE OF DAME JUDITH ANDERSON
(heavier reverb) The creature cannot live confined. You must rupture Moonbase Alpha. The creature cannot live confined. You must make holes in Moonbase Alpha.

(With sudden, awesome strength, KOENIG, teeth clenched and face contorted, breaks through the straps holding him in the bed. He leaves the sick bay.)

(Commercial)

ACT V

(KOENIG sits in the transport tube. Stock shot of transport tube car, which is square on the inside and cylindrical on the outside, moving through tunnel.)

(KOENIG leaves transport tube, puts on a spacesuit, and exits Moonbase Alpha through an airlock. He bounds across the desolate lunar surface toward a shed covered with radioactivity warning signs, the interior of which appears to be piled high with Gouda cheese. He lifts one of the cheeses; it is about two feet wide and marked with an enormous "radioactive" symbol. Music sting.)

(KOENIG staggers into the control room, looking totally deranged, carrying the enormous radioactive Gouda. He lifts it high.)

KOENIG
(shouting) Must... make... holes! Must... make... holes!!
RUSSELL
(concerned) No, John.

(KOENIG drops the Gouda. It hits the floor and breaks, revealing... cheese.)

RUSSELL
(concerned) No!
KOENIG
Cheese?
BERGMAN
(excited, smiling) That's it! I've almost got it! The voices... The planet... The creature... of course! You only have to tell me one thing, John.
KOENIG
What?... Cheese?... I thought...
BERGMAN
(suddenly grim) Why did you resign, John?
KOENIG
Why...?
BERGMAN
Why! Did! You! Resign?
KOENIG
(dropping to knees, screaming) NO! NOOOOOOOO!!
BERGMAN
Why, Six? Why?!
KOENIG
NEVER!!!!!

(KOENIG's facial features change: suddenly he isn't Martin Landau, he's Patrick McGoohan. A spherical ceiling lamp illuminates his head, which is also festooned with electrodes. Zoom out: he's kneeling and screaming in a padded room, visible on an enormous wall screen. Lava-lamp-like blobs float around on the screen to the left. The enormous circular set has a huge, hemispherical chair in the center, next to a spherical white balloon, which wobbles slightly. The chair swivels around to reveal BERGMAN, wearing a badge bearing a penny-farthing bicycle and the number 2. Enter RUSSELL, wearing the badge of Number 45.)

NUMBER 2
Damn. Damn Number Six! I almost had him.
NUMBER 45
(concerned) This will have repercussions, you know.
NUMBER 2
Yes, yes... hrmmm... (Blows smoke ring.) I thought this would do the trick. Expose him to a continual tissue of absurdities, a world based on an astronomical non sequitur... one lacking basic coherence, let alone dramatic structure. A few minutes longer and I'd have him pleading for mercy. But I had to let go too soon. (Receives phone call. Picks up enormous receiver, listens.) Hmmm, yes, yes... I... I understand... But, you see... (Crestfallen) Yes, yes, I see. Be seeing you. (Hangs up.)

(NUMBER 2 slowly climbs out of his chair, which recedes into the floor, and removes his Number 2 badge. Enter MAIA, who takes it from him and pins it on. The former NUMBER 2 drops his cigar and walks out in disgrace, head bowed.)

THE NEW NUMBER 2
The experiment will continue.

(Giant face of Patrick McGoohan, flying out of an aerial view of Wales. Bars clang shut over the image. A penny-farthing bicycle assembles itself over the closing credits.)

THE END

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