Moon Cross

An Earth 2 Episode Summary
by Ariadne[April 10, 1995]

CONTENTS:

• Teaser
• Act I
• Act II
• Act III
• Act IV

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Screenplay by: Carol Flint
Directed by: Sandy Smolan

Teaser

As Alonzo, Adair, and Yale look at the hologlobe, Yale says that the temperature is 2 degrees colder. Alonzo asks if anyone misses the stations where it's 28 degrees year around. Yale never knew what cold actually felt like.

Danziger returns from a scouting expedition - the to the south it is even colder, with lots of snow. As Alonzo prepares to head out southwest in the ATV, Adair asks him if he has had more dreams last night. He says they've been the same; a night sky, 2 full moons crossing, and the Terrians asking if their boy is ready. They don't say what for.

Alonzo, in narration, says it is day 61 on the new planet. He knew Adair was worried about what the Terrians had in mind for Uly. Alonzo, however, believed their worst enemy was the coming winter. As usual he was wrong.

Adair wakes Uly, who says it is too cold to get up. She says they must pack up to find a good place to camp for winter. He says they can stay here; they'll be safe in Mary's Garden. He'll show her; he runs out of the tent in his pajamas, followed by Adair and some others. He stops at a ravine that has a domed shelter in it.

The group investigates the battered and abandoned shelter. Inside it is warm and full of plants. Adair finds a watering can with the name Mary on it.

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Act I

The group is setting up camp by the dome. Adair asks Danziger if he thinks the penal colonists built it. He replies that whoever built the sphere knew what they were doing; it's been on a self-perpetuating cycle for 15 - 20 years. Maybe Yale can do a search on the sphere's logo to find out about the occupants. Magus says they've found more prefab structures and some cold weather clothes. She and Danziger agree this would make an ideal winter camp.

Adair tells Julia, who has been scanning the vegetation and looking about, that Alonzo will be back soon. Are they all supposed to pretend they haven't noticed?

In the dome, Julia tells Adair that it seems habitable. How did Uly know about it? Adair apparently cannot get straight answer from him. Julia asks if it has to do with the Terrians and how they changed Uly genetically. Adair says they healed Uly and in return they got rid of Gaal; they have no right to expect anything else from the colonists.

As Adair puts Uly to bed, she asks him where he got the name Mary's Garden, but he doesn't know. She asks him about the night the Terrians healed him. He says that when he was in the ground, the Terrians were all around him and he was sort of getting buried. It was fun; he wanted to stay. They said it wasn't the right time; he had to come back.

Alonzo, in a makeshift camp, looks at the two moons.

Adair has been looking at them as well. She hears ghostly moans, see shadows in the dome, and heads there to investigate. She climbs a ladder to a loft and sees a moving rocking chair with a doll on it. A child's voice cries Mama! Two Terrians appear on top of the dome. Then suddenly everything is normal. Adair is startled by Uly entering the dome, looking for her.

Two punk Terrians seize Alonzo while he sleeps. A Terrian staff fires at them and they run off. Alonzo says thanks and the staff fires at him. He ducks in time and creeps around a rock to capture the holder of the staff. It is a woman, who strikes him in the face, knocking him out. She is puzzled by him and starts to trill.

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Act II

Alonzo is in a dream cavern, and Terrians are circling him. What are you doing? The woman is with them, and she says they are saving him. Who are you? They drop out of the dream plane, and the Terrians crouch in a circle around him. He asks the woman how she got there and who she is. A Terrian brings him back to the dream plane and tells him the Terrians who attacked him were outcasts.

Alonzo is alone in the cavern, but walks to where the Terrians are gathered around a smoky pool. In narration, he says it wasn't until later that he realized that this is what he had been dreaming about. Moon cross. It was a special season where the Terrians perform a ritual they call going in, back to the earth, what we would call dying, but to them it was heaven. As the two moons start to cross, a light fills the pool. Terrians enter it.

The woman hands Alonzo a staff and trills. He asks her so what if the outcasts out casts are coming; why should he help?. He insists she respond in voice, not dreaming. With difficulty, she says the outcasts will kill him. Can these Terrians help? She answers Moon Cross.

It is snowing and some of the group are repairing the dome. Adair talks to Yale. She didn't sleep well last night. She is not sure this is a good place to bunker down for the bad weather. The kids come up, arguing about their game of hide-and-go-seek, and Adair agrees to be "it". As they had off, Yale gets quick bright flashes that include images of the logo. He thinks he triggered an aversion mechanism when searching for information about it; he gave himself quite a shock. He suspects he would be discouraged from inquiring about events overlapping his own past to prevent his discovering his prewash identity. He reminds Adair about the kids.

The woman leads Alonzo through the cavern. Referring to the staff, Alonzo says he can't fire one of these. They hear the outcasts coming. The woman sinks into the ground as the outcasts arrive. She rises up in another location and fires her staff at them. They are not dead; they cannot go into the pool because they are outcasts. What did they do wrong? She says he asks so much. Alonzo says it's because he is human, like her. She trills and leaves.

The kids are hiding in the dome. Adair enters, searching for them and finds Uly. As they look for True, Adair finds a child's growth marks on a support and sees a spirit woman calling for Mary. As she chases her, she finds True.

The Terrians carry the outcasts out of the cavern. Alonzo, in narration, says it took a few trips to the dream plane but he got the woman to explain that the outcasts would not be a threat until midnight when the 2 moons would rise. Whatever crime they had committed had been so heinous, they had been banished and forbidden to go into the pool. The sentence of life without death had driven the outcasts to more and more violence.

The woman tells Alonzo to go and get the boy. When he says his mother would have something to say about that, she slaps the ground and says it is his mother. He suggests she come back with him and tell Adair that herself. As the Terrians enter beds in the walls, she says they sleep now until the moon comes up. He says she is different from them; does she go in the pool? She pushes him into a Terrian bed, and it's the closest thing to flying he ever felt. He understands her and why she did what she had to do; it's not a bad life. He convinces her, however, to come to the camp and tell his people what she has to say. If she thinks he is interesting, wait until she sees the others.

The woman is alarmed by the ATV. He helps her sit in it, and as they drive off, she puts her arms around his waist.

Adair hears ghostly voices of a man and woman. Adair runs to the dome, and inside, she hears a woman cry that they want to take her child She sees a bloody hand print on a door. It disappears as Danziger enters the room. She tells him that something terrible must have happened there. He agrees and shows her what he and Morgan found. It is two human skeletons and two Terrian staffs.

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Act III

Alonzo, in narration, says it's hard to say what this woman was. She was a woman, but she was also part child, part Terrian, part wild animal; it wouldn't be easy to introduce her to the group.

They stop for a break. She does not want to stop holding him and asks him what it is called. He says it is called touching; men and women do it when they know each other better. She asks if this feeling is human; her family does not touch. What about her real family? She trills and says the Terrians are her family.

Once back at camp, the group looks at the woman. She is frightened and trills. Adair asks if she understands them. Morgan is surprised that this little thing saved Alonzo from renegade Terrians. Alonzo says she needs to talk to them about Uly. Bess says to her that she bets she knows something she'd really like.

In the dome, Bess and True give the woman a bath, which she doesn't much like. Julia and Adair approach with clothes. Julia tells her she will touch her with the diaglove to check her health. The woman says Alonzo showed her touching. Adair suggests that they call her Mary and that maybe she knows what happened to the people who lived in the dome before. Mary is frightened.

Later, in the dome, Adair tells Yale that Mary must be connected with whatever happened with the original settlers. He says the people were radical biologists who were outlawed on the stations for proposing domes to preserve botanical species from Earth. He is shocked to realize that he said this from memory. Julia approaches and says Mary's DNA has not been altered as much as Uly's; if she were an early attempt at assimilation, they've improved their technique. As Alonzo joins them, she says Mary is biologically human, but socially she has bonded with the Terrians. Glancing at Alonzo, she says her human side could be nurtured. He tells Adair she always trusted the Terrians. She says the more they trust them, the more they want from them. Bess come up and tells them to see something outside.

Mary has been showing Uly how to use the Terrian staff to shoot water jugs off the back of the dune rail. He tells his mother he has been learning how to stop outcasts. When Adair touches the staff, it shocks her. Mary says he needs to learn if he's to join them; she came to get him. Adair says he is not going anywhere. Mary trills and leaves. Alonzo starts to follow, but Adair stops him.

That night, Mary rubs dirt on her face and looks up at the moons; the smaller is in front of the larger.

Uly asks Adair how he could shoot like that. He says Mary was right in what she was thinking, and he promises it will all be alright. As he goes to bed, he trills.

Mary reenters the camp. She hears the spirit woman's voice calling for her and goes to the dome.

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Act IV

Adair hears the spirit voice and runs for the dome. She sees Mary climbing the ladder and follows. Mary is holding the spirit woman and telling her not to be scared. She tells Adair her mother was worried about her, and now she knows she is alright.

Adair and Alonzo question Mary about what she remembered of the fight with the Terrians. At first they were friends, then her mama told her she had to stay away. When she was young, the outcasts broke in and killed her mama and daddy. She cries and is confused by it. Alonzo tells her crying is what humans do. She continues: the Terrians punished the outcasts and adopted her because the tribe didn't want anyone hurt. They must let the boy go so it doesn't happen again. Yale enters and tells them Uly is gone, and he took the ATV. Mary is concerned because he doesn't have lightening.

Uly has the ATV bring him to the spot where Alonzo had camped the night before. The outcasts capture him.

Adair, Alonzo, Danziger, and Mary arrive in the dune rail and enter the cavern. They see Uly trilling to the tribe. Mary translates: Uly is telling them it is time for the outcasts to be forgiven. The outcasts enter the pool in great relief, and Uly follows.

Uly leaves the pool and trills. It is over now, and they can stop fighting. As the moon crossing finishes, Uly asks what happened. Adair tells him he helped the Terrians.

In narration, Alonzo says that a small boy was initiated as the link between two species and brought peace to the Terrians, and a mother's fears were calmed. For now Uly would only be changed in moon cross.

In a dream Mary shows Alonzo why she had not become the Terrian's human link when they had taken her in. When she lost her parents, she lost her link to humans; she became too like the Terrians.

Out of the dream, he tells her she can join them, but she enters a Terrian bed and says this is her family.

As they come back to camp with Uly but without Mary, Alonzo says, in narration, that they took comfort in knowing that the spirits of her parents finally rested. The outcast Terrians who has slaughtered them could finally rest, too. The chance for making a better home was where it belonged, in the hands of all the species who shared this second earth. Alonzo ducks into the tent Julia entered

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