Infiniti (2022–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - La Tour de Babel - full transcript
-What's happening?
-TsUP to Kurz.
You're moving off-centre.
You're out of alignment.
Taking over control.
Negative. Get back to procedure.
Notify the embassies and inform the media.
The ISS isn't responding.
They're alive.
Kurz took your place
again at the last minute.
Anthony Kurz, NASA.
Anna Zarathi, ESOA.
Yeah, I know. I'm your new backup.
It seems that you knew him quite well.
That's impossible.
Do you recognise the body?
Kurz is alive.
T minus 5.
Auxiliary power generator ignition.
Roger that.
Booster ignition - check.
Durkhov to Anna.
Your heart rate is too high.
It's because I'm excited, sir.
Liquid oxygen ventilation circuits.
Check all locks.
Pressurisation of the lock tanks.
Anna, what's going on?
I'm sorry. I can't breathe.
TsUP to Soyuz. Sorry.
We have a problem.
Soyuz, repeat.
She's not OK.
She is convulsing! We need an evac!
Repeat.
Anna, can you hear me? She is convulsing!
Retracting locks feeder arm.
Lift-off cancelled.
That's when you're supposed to wake up.
Anna, I'm leaving soon.
I'll be taking your place.
And I need you to know
that I never wanted it this way
and that I'm sorry.
I think things are gonna start happening.
Things I can't explain.
People might tell you
I did all I could to replace you.
That I tricked you.
That I never loved you.
They might want you to believe I'm dead.
That we're all insane and you're insane.
But don't listen to them, Anna.
Please.
Listen only to me…
..and to yourself.
Still think it's him?
Only he knew about the satellite,
he and I.
Then we have a problem.
Let me go and see.
But you've seen his body, Anna.
I've also seen the photographs.
That's all they are, photographs.
And…this is…
..just a body without a head.
I requested a DNA test.
Pending results, I'll back your proposal,
but you must say nothing.
Nothing yet.
OK.
What about Emil?
Let me deal with him.
This is the ISS before the accident.
Kurz was spotted here
and the rest of the crew
must have taken refuge there
in the Unity module.
These are thermal images
from the SALT telescope.
The blinking indicates that
the electrical power is failing.
You know the implications in space.
No electricity means no heating
and no ventilation.
Now all comms are lost and the
emergency capsules are unserviceable
because Kurz used their fuel
to alter the ISS's course.
To save the station.
And make an evacuation impossible.
OK, what's their oxygen supply?
Five days, maybe six.
You're hoping to send up a cargo
in less than five days?
No, that'd be unheard of.
We can't send a cargo at all.
The station's in spin.
We can't dock anything automatically.
It's far too dangerous.
We need to send a crew
and consider extravehicular evac.
That's suicidal.
Nobody will volunteer for that.
I'll do it.
Anna, please.
Ms Zarathi was trained
for this type of mission.
She knows the tech inside out
and her knowledge of the crew
has proven useful.
She's ready.
Don't play this game, please.
Ms Zarathi also caused the launch
to abort.
Anna will be Moscow's chosen candidate.
The Kremlin that I represent here
backs your proposal.
Until I'm told otherwise,
I'm still in charge of
all the manned flights, aren't I?
And I'm in charge of the agency.
I'm not risking one more life
until we have some proof of survival
from the crew.
Find a way to keep them alive and
I'll consider a manned expedition.
Until then, we move forward
with the cargo.
Do you really want to finance
this mission?
At least as much as you do.
I mean, let's face it.
The Chinese space station,
your celestial palace, is the future.
Now, don't tell me China isn't
planning on capitalising on it.
As do all your private launchers.
Oh, come on. Enough of this
cat-and-mouse, Wong. Your move.
The committee decides tomorrow
on Anna Zarathi.
The Frenchwoman is not reliable.
Your launches, on the other hand…
My government would consider
an American-led rescue mission,
a new partnership with China.
If our two countries
were to save the ISS together,
that would launch a new era,
leaving Russia and Old Europe in the dust.
Ah, you sure still know
how to talk cowboy.
Time to forget about Gagarin, right?
Mm.
So, you won't back the Frenchwoman?
Well, just about as much as you will.
You know I never charge you.
It's for you. You're going away.
Your new life starts tomorrow.
Who says I want a new life?
Chingiz is dead.
They killed him.
I did what he asked me to do.
I wiped it all and ran.
Well, it was not enough. Take this.
Don't try to contact me.
I'll contact you.
What about you? Come with me.
Where you go, there is no place for me.
But before you go…
..I have to ask you one last favour.
They might want you to believe I'm dead,
that we're all insane and you're insane.
But don't listen to them, Anna.
Please.
Listen only to me and to yourself.
And we only have four days.
I know.
Listen, I need some predictive.
On January 15 when the storm hit,
the crew was maintaining
the solar wings, right?
I'll call you back. Yes.
Yes.
Yes, they were installing
the 24 lithium-ion power cells,
but the segment
that channels the electricity
was lost in the accident,
otherwise they wouldn't have
those electrical issues.
What about the old batteries?
What did they do with them?
We were going to jettison them
to an unused orbit,
but in the meantime,
they were stored in Z-area.
OK, these are
obsolete nickel-hydrogen cells,
almost 30 years old,
and they've been discharged
and unused for nearly six months.
Even when your phone is empty,
there's still enough battery
to show that little picture,
isn't there?
The nickel-hydro batteries
weigh around 400 pounds each.
Surely there's a few drops of juice
in there somewhere.
That could buy them
a couple more days of survival.
Enough to send a manned mission.
If they were functional six months ago,
then surely they can be reactivated.
That'd require a complex procedure.
Then we have to provide them with it.
We'd need to be able
to communicate with them first.
They'll speak to us.
They probably already are.
We just have to listen.
Oh, jeez.
What is that?
A case that I should never have buried.
Oh. Oh, God.
The capsule.
That's a link to the Cosmodrome website.
Is he a cosmonaut?
Where does this guy come from?
Yeah, all those rockets and stations
were built in the fires of hell.
Are you not reminded of something?
Come, let us build ourselves a city
with a tower that reaches to the heavens.
And the Lord said,
"This is what the heavens have taken
"in defiance of me!"
And the Lord confused their language
and they cannot understand
one another's speech.
Babel!
They build Towers of Babel!
They're speaking to us. Speaking to us.
All we have to do is listen.
Didn't sleep.
Hey.
What did she mean by that?
"They're speaking to us."
Who knows?
They say she hears voices,
but if you ask me,
all cosmonauts are like that.
You'd have to be a little bit mad
to lock yourself in a pickle jar
in the most hostile environment
in the world.
Voices, eh?
Don't stop that.
They are speaking to us!
We just had to listen!
Look.
Ms Zarathi, last week,
you were hospitalised
with a benzodiazepine overdose,
but you didn't find it relevant
to share this with us.
Nor did you, Monsieur De Livier.
You can understand, miss,
that we're questioning the validity
of your candidacy.
After all, this isn't your first fiasco
and mistakes are of
a different order of magnitude.
Anna, you have my full support
and you know it,
but we do need to know,
are you still disassociating?
What does it matter?
What does it matter?
Well, for one,
we are talking about saving a crew.
What if you're up there
and then suddenly you decide
that you need to save France
from being invaded by the English?
We can't risk sending up Joan of Arc.
You'd rather send a robot?
Can a robot tend to the wounded?
Can a robot rescue a terrified crew
about to freeze to death…
..and oxygen-starved?
As of right now,
China does not find you qualified.
You need to know if I'm qualified?
Of course.
I'm not qualified.
For six months, I've been brooding
over the reasons for my failure.
Six months of waking up
in the middle of the night
as if I was…
..up there with them
and as if my life had taken
a very different turn that day.
That I never had that seizure.
Yes, I…
..I do hear voices sometimes.
And I dream strange dreams.
None of it is real. I know that.
The only thing that is real
is that I was made for outer space.
It's in my veins.
It's in my blood. It's in my DNA.
When I was still a blob of cells
in my mother's womb,
I was already floating weightless
aboard Mir.
Yes, angels do talk to me in my mind,
but they are angels of infinity,
the same angels who whispered to
pioneers to go walk on the moon,
to build an international space station,
and one day, those same angels
will send men on Mars and beyond.
So, no, as you can plainly see,
I'm not qualified.
I might even be insane,
but as far as I can tell,
up there, 600 kilometres
from planet Earth,
there's a station gone into a spin,
its crew desperate!
It's not a robot you need.
What's needed up there
is this very insanity.
And for that, you won't find
a better candidate.
The flicker's not random.
The light pulses, they're all spaced
between either 45, 90 or 135 seconds -
all multiples of 45.
45 seconds is the time it takes
to reboot the generator on the ISS.
It's not electrical failure.
No, exactly. It's the crew. They're
turning the station on and off.
If we speed up the footage,
we obtain a Morse code sequence.
45 seconds is a dot, 90 seconds is a dash,
with 135 seconds between each letter.
So, what does it say?
Well, that's the best part.
OK, so, um, we've got three dots.
One dot. Dash. And another dot.
The USA, Russia, France and China
all have citizens affected
by this decision.
It's therefore up to them.
Do you support Anna's candidacy?
Xavier?
Lydia?
So, that is… That's D.
Yes.
Mason?
No.
D. A. N. N.
Wong?
"Send…"
Two votes each.
Emil?
Yes?
What?
Are you sure?
That was TsUP.
The ISS is speaking to us.
Isaak. Isaak. Isaak.
Hey, look.
Anthony Kurz,
Slavek that we dug up together
and Xi Ning that your boss told you about.
They're the crew for
the latest mission of the ISS.
Yeah, I know.
Well, Anthony Kurz, the American,
wasn't supposed to go up.
He stepped in at the last minute
for a Frenchwoman, Anna Zarathi.
Frenchwoman? Yeah.
Kurz was hanging out with
a Frenchwoman at the hotel.
Deliver capsules to this address, OK?
Don't speak to anyone.
Please stay out of sight.
OK? Please.
Don't do it, Emil.
You won't hear your compatriot's call?
That is him speaking to us.
How do you think the world will react?
They won't,
unless, of course, someone leaks it.
Director, we have to answer this.
If we communicate
the NH battery procedure,
they gain a few days' survival.
Long enough to send Anna.
Well, great,
they're communicating with us.
Now how do we respond? Flashlight?
Come on? What?
We'll need the mother of flashlights
for them to see us down here.
That or thousands of flashlights.
Huh?
The results are back.
The DNA's a 93% match.
That leaves 7%.
Not a lot.
I know.
Then why take all these risks?
He warned me.
He told me they would say he was dead.
And they would say I was insane.
He told me to listen to no-one
but him and myself.
So, you are really counting on those 7%?
If you were really sure,
you wouldn't have brought me the results
and I wouldn't be starting quarantine.
Faith isn't enough, Anna.
You don't go out in space on a prayer.
You go with numbers.
So, ask yourself,
what if there is no-one
waiting for you up there?
Listen only to me…
..and to yourself.
We'll see each other again, I promise.
Either here or in another world.
Baikonur urban sprawl is entirely supplied
by a single coal-fired plant.
Cutting the supply to the plant
effectively blacks the city out.
Do you really think they will spot us?
We know Kurz is watching.
Baikonur is a small town, not very bright,
but it's isolated in
the middle of an immense desert,
so, yeah, we turn the city
on and off, as it were,
he could spot the pulse among the steppe.
OK, prepare to launch the sequence.
Thousands of flashlights.
Hoo!
Argh!
Argh!
Move.
Hey!
Turn on.
Turn off.
Turn on.
Done.
Keep at it.
Keep at it until they answer us.
Turn off.
Turn on.
They might want you to believe I'm dead.
That we're all insane…
..and you're insane.
But don't listen to them, Anna. Please.
Listen only to me…
..and to yourself.
Captions by Red Bee Media
2022 SBS Australia
-TsUP to Kurz.
You're moving off-centre.
You're out of alignment.
Taking over control.
Negative. Get back to procedure.
Notify the embassies and inform the media.
The ISS isn't responding.
They're alive.
Kurz took your place
again at the last minute.
Anthony Kurz, NASA.
Anna Zarathi, ESOA.
Yeah, I know. I'm your new backup.
It seems that you knew him quite well.
That's impossible.
Do you recognise the body?
Kurz is alive.
T minus 5.
Auxiliary power generator ignition.
Roger that.
Booster ignition - check.
Durkhov to Anna.
Your heart rate is too high.
It's because I'm excited, sir.
Liquid oxygen ventilation circuits.
Check all locks.
Pressurisation of the lock tanks.
Anna, what's going on?
I'm sorry. I can't breathe.
TsUP to Soyuz. Sorry.
We have a problem.
Soyuz, repeat.
She's not OK.
She is convulsing! We need an evac!
Repeat.
Anna, can you hear me? She is convulsing!
Retracting locks feeder arm.
Lift-off cancelled.
That's when you're supposed to wake up.
Anna, I'm leaving soon.
I'll be taking your place.
And I need you to know
that I never wanted it this way
and that I'm sorry.
I think things are gonna start happening.
Things I can't explain.
People might tell you
I did all I could to replace you.
That I tricked you.
That I never loved you.
They might want you to believe I'm dead.
That we're all insane and you're insane.
But don't listen to them, Anna.
Please.
Listen only to me…
..and to yourself.
Still think it's him?
Only he knew about the satellite,
he and I.
Then we have a problem.
Let me go and see.
But you've seen his body, Anna.
I've also seen the photographs.
That's all they are, photographs.
And…this is…
..just a body without a head.
I requested a DNA test.
Pending results, I'll back your proposal,
but you must say nothing.
Nothing yet.
OK.
What about Emil?
Let me deal with him.
This is the ISS before the accident.
Kurz was spotted here
and the rest of the crew
must have taken refuge there
in the Unity module.
These are thermal images
from the SALT telescope.
The blinking indicates that
the electrical power is failing.
You know the implications in space.
No electricity means no heating
and no ventilation.
Now all comms are lost and the
emergency capsules are unserviceable
because Kurz used their fuel
to alter the ISS's course.
To save the station.
And make an evacuation impossible.
OK, what's their oxygen supply?
Five days, maybe six.
You're hoping to send up a cargo
in less than five days?
No, that'd be unheard of.
We can't send a cargo at all.
The station's in spin.
We can't dock anything automatically.
It's far too dangerous.
We need to send a crew
and consider extravehicular evac.
That's suicidal.
Nobody will volunteer for that.
I'll do it.
Anna, please.
Ms Zarathi was trained
for this type of mission.
She knows the tech inside out
and her knowledge of the crew
has proven useful.
She's ready.
Don't play this game, please.
Ms Zarathi also caused the launch
to abort.
Anna will be Moscow's chosen candidate.
The Kremlin that I represent here
backs your proposal.
Until I'm told otherwise,
I'm still in charge of
all the manned flights, aren't I?
And I'm in charge of the agency.
I'm not risking one more life
until we have some proof of survival
from the crew.
Find a way to keep them alive and
I'll consider a manned expedition.
Until then, we move forward
with the cargo.
Do you really want to finance
this mission?
At least as much as you do.
I mean, let's face it.
The Chinese space station,
your celestial palace, is the future.
Now, don't tell me China isn't
planning on capitalising on it.
As do all your private launchers.
Oh, come on. Enough of this
cat-and-mouse, Wong. Your move.
The committee decides tomorrow
on Anna Zarathi.
The Frenchwoman is not reliable.
Your launches, on the other hand…
My government would consider
an American-led rescue mission,
a new partnership with China.
If our two countries
were to save the ISS together,
that would launch a new era,
leaving Russia and Old Europe in the dust.
Ah, you sure still know
how to talk cowboy.
Time to forget about Gagarin, right?
Mm.
So, you won't back the Frenchwoman?
Well, just about as much as you will.
You know I never charge you.
It's for you. You're going away.
Your new life starts tomorrow.
Who says I want a new life?
Chingiz is dead.
They killed him.
I did what he asked me to do.
I wiped it all and ran.
Well, it was not enough. Take this.
Don't try to contact me.
I'll contact you.
What about you? Come with me.
Where you go, there is no place for me.
But before you go…
..I have to ask you one last favour.
They might want you to believe I'm dead,
that we're all insane and you're insane.
But don't listen to them, Anna.
Please.
Listen only to me and to yourself.
And we only have four days.
I know.
Listen, I need some predictive.
On January 15 when the storm hit,
the crew was maintaining
the solar wings, right?
I'll call you back. Yes.
Yes.
Yes, they were installing
the 24 lithium-ion power cells,
but the segment
that channels the electricity
was lost in the accident,
otherwise they wouldn't have
those electrical issues.
What about the old batteries?
What did they do with them?
We were going to jettison them
to an unused orbit,
but in the meantime,
they were stored in Z-area.
OK, these are
obsolete nickel-hydrogen cells,
almost 30 years old,
and they've been discharged
and unused for nearly six months.
Even when your phone is empty,
there's still enough battery
to show that little picture,
isn't there?
The nickel-hydro batteries
weigh around 400 pounds each.
Surely there's a few drops of juice
in there somewhere.
That could buy them
a couple more days of survival.
Enough to send a manned mission.
If they were functional six months ago,
then surely they can be reactivated.
That'd require a complex procedure.
Then we have to provide them with it.
We'd need to be able
to communicate with them first.
They'll speak to us.
They probably already are.
We just have to listen.
Oh, jeez.
What is that?
A case that I should never have buried.
Oh. Oh, God.
The capsule.
That's a link to the Cosmodrome website.
Is he a cosmonaut?
Where does this guy come from?
Yeah, all those rockets and stations
were built in the fires of hell.
Are you not reminded of something?
Come, let us build ourselves a city
with a tower that reaches to the heavens.
And the Lord said,
"This is what the heavens have taken
"in defiance of me!"
And the Lord confused their language
and they cannot understand
one another's speech.
Babel!
They build Towers of Babel!
They're speaking to us. Speaking to us.
All we have to do is listen.
Didn't sleep.
Hey.
What did she mean by that?
"They're speaking to us."
Who knows?
They say she hears voices,
but if you ask me,
all cosmonauts are like that.
You'd have to be a little bit mad
to lock yourself in a pickle jar
in the most hostile environment
in the world.
Voices, eh?
Don't stop that.
They are speaking to us!
We just had to listen!
Look.
Ms Zarathi, last week,
you were hospitalised
with a benzodiazepine overdose,
but you didn't find it relevant
to share this with us.
Nor did you, Monsieur De Livier.
You can understand, miss,
that we're questioning the validity
of your candidacy.
After all, this isn't your first fiasco
and mistakes are of
a different order of magnitude.
Anna, you have my full support
and you know it,
but we do need to know,
are you still disassociating?
What does it matter?
What does it matter?
Well, for one,
we are talking about saving a crew.
What if you're up there
and then suddenly you decide
that you need to save France
from being invaded by the English?
We can't risk sending up Joan of Arc.
You'd rather send a robot?
Can a robot tend to the wounded?
Can a robot rescue a terrified crew
about to freeze to death…
..and oxygen-starved?
As of right now,
China does not find you qualified.
You need to know if I'm qualified?
Of course.
I'm not qualified.
For six months, I've been brooding
over the reasons for my failure.
Six months of waking up
in the middle of the night
as if I was…
..up there with them
and as if my life had taken
a very different turn that day.
That I never had that seizure.
Yes, I…
..I do hear voices sometimes.
And I dream strange dreams.
None of it is real. I know that.
The only thing that is real
is that I was made for outer space.
It's in my veins.
It's in my blood. It's in my DNA.
When I was still a blob of cells
in my mother's womb,
I was already floating weightless
aboard Mir.
Yes, angels do talk to me in my mind,
but they are angels of infinity,
the same angels who whispered to
pioneers to go walk on the moon,
to build an international space station,
and one day, those same angels
will send men on Mars and beyond.
So, no, as you can plainly see,
I'm not qualified.
I might even be insane,
but as far as I can tell,
up there, 600 kilometres
from planet Earth,
there's a station gone into a spin,
its crew desperate!
It's not a robot you need.
What's needed up there
is this very insanity.
And for that, you won't find
a better candidate.
The flicker's not random.
The light pulses, they're all spaced
between either 45, 90 or 135 seconds -
all multiples of 45.
45 seconds is the time it takes
to reboot the generator on the ISS.
It's not electrical failure.
No, exactly. It's the crew. They're
turning the station on and off.
If we speed up the footage,
we obtain a Morse code sequence.
45 seconds is a dot, 90 seconds is a dash,
with 135 seconds between each letter.
So, what does it say?
Well, that's the best part.
OK, so, um, we've got three dots.
One dot. Dash. And another dot.
The USA, Russia, France and China
all have citizens affected
by this decision.
It's therefore up to them.
Do you support Anna's candidacy?
Xavier?
Lydia?
So, that is… That's D.
Yes.
Mason?
No.
D. A. N. N.
Wong?
"Send…"
Two votes each.
Emil?
Yes?
What?
Are you sure?
That was TsUP.
The ISS is speaking to us.
Isaak. Isaak. Isaak.
Hey, look.
Anthony Kurz,
Slavek that we dug up together
and Xi Ning that your boss told you about.
They're the crew for
the latest mission of the ISS.
Yeah, I know.
Well, Anthony Kurz, the American,
wasn't supposed to go up.
He stepped in at the last minute
for a Frenchwoman, Anna Zarathi.
Frenchwoman? Yeah.
Kurz was hanging out with
a Frenchwoman at the hotel.
Deliver capsules to this address, OK?
Don't speak to anyone.
Please stay out of sight.
OK? Please.
Don't do it, Emil.
You won't hear your compatriot's call?
That is him speaking to us.
How do you think the world will react?
They won't,
unless, of course, someone leaks it.
Director, we have to answer this.
If we communicate
the NH battery procedure,
they gain a few days' survival.
Long enough to send Anna.
Well, great,
they're communicating with us.
Now how do we respond? Flashlight?
Come on? What?
We'll need the mother of flashlights
for them to see us down here.
That or thousands of flashlights.
Huh?
The results are back.
The DNA's a 93% match.
That leaves 7%.
Not a lot.
I know.
Then why take all these risks?
He warned me.
He told me they would say he was dead.
And they would say I was insane.
He told me to listen to no-one
but him and myself.
So, you are really counting on those 7%?
If you were really sure,
you wouldn't have brought me the results
and I wouldn't be starting quarantine.
Faith isn't enough, Anna.
You don't go out in space on a prayer.
You go with numbers.
So, ask yourself,
what if there is no-one
waiting for you up there?
Listen only to me…
..and to yourself.
We'll see each other again, I promise.
Either here or in another world.
Baikonur urban sprawl is entirely supplied
by a single coal-fired plant.
Cutting the supply to the plant
effectively blacks the city out.
Do you really think they will spot us?
We know Kurz is watching.
Baikonur is a small town, not very bright,
but it's isolated in
the middle of an immense desert,
so, yeah, we turn the city
on and off, as it were,
he could spot the pulse among the steppe.
OK, prepare to launch the sequence.
Thousands of flashlights.
Hoo!
Argh!
Argh!
Move.
Hey!
Turn on.
Turn off.
Turn on.
Done.
Keep at it.
Keep at it until they answer us.
Turn off.
Turn on.
They might want you to believe I'm dead.
That we're all insane…
..and you're insane.
But don't listen to them, Anna. Please.
Listen only to me…
..and to yourself.
Captions by Red Bee Media
2022 SBS Australia