- [Rampion is revived after being pulled unconscious from a volcanic vent]
- Simpson: How do you feel?
- Dr. Ted Rampion: Medium rare.
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: Oh, Reynolds, we don't want the commissioners to think we're all mad scientists.
- Dr. Ted Rampion: Suppose the Macedo Trench splits open under the ocean? A crack a thousand miles long, bringing superheated magma in contact with the ocean: earthquakes, tidal waves, mass destruction on an apocalyptic scale!
- Dr. Maggie Sorenson: If the world IS going to come to an end, at least you won't get caught with holes in your socks.
- Dr. Ted Rampion: That's a comforting thought.
- John Masefield: [on radio to missile fueling station] Eight and a half minutes, Jack.
- Fueling supervisor: [wearing heavy gloves and a face shield] I KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS!
- John Masefield: I thought you couldn't see with your gloves on.
- Dr. Ted Rampion: [on radio] Sorenson, can you hear me? Stephen!
- John Masefield: Masefield here. Listen, Rampion...
- Dr. Ted Rampion: What happened?
- John Masefield: He fainted.
- Dr. Ted Rampion: Listen, Masefield, do you know what he wanted to tell me?
- John Masefield: Yes. The crack is moving twice as fast as before.
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: Give me Section 31, the district below Point Albert.
- John Masefield: There's been no activity in that section, none whatsoever.
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: There WILL be in about half an hour. There are TWO fissures now, or rather, two ENDS of the same crack. One of them has changed direction, and if the other one does...
- John Masefield: If they're extended, where would they intersect?
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: At the bore hole, where it all started.
- John Masefield: A circle cut out of the Earth's crust?
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: Yes. And it will break away, acting as a safety valve of immense proportions, twenty-thousand square miles of the Earth's surface thrown out into space.
- John Masefield: And the effect on the Earth's rotation?
- [Stephen shrugs]
- John Masefield: Do you think the Earth can survive?
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: No one has ever observed the birth of a moon, Masefield.
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: After all, how many men have had an opportunity to turn the page of history? Newton, Pasteur, Einstein...
- [first lines]
- Dr. Maggie Sorenson: But, Sir Charles, the project entrance is half a mile further on!
- Sir Charles Eggerston: I know, Mrs. Sorenson. I wanted to stop here to take a better look at THAT. That's your drill tower, isn't it?
- Dr. Maggie Sorenson: Yes, it is.
- Sir Charles Eggerston: What's that missile doing up there? I thought we came here to discuss with your husband the POSSIBILITY of using an atomic warhead.
- Dr. Maggie Sorenson: HALF a missile, Sir Charles. If you look closely, you'll see it's not armed.
- Dr. Ted Rampion: If we can start Tucamoa erupting before the crack gets there, we stand a chance of stopping it.
- Simpson: Yeah, but how do you start up a volcano?
- Dr. Ted Rampion: [pause] With a nuclear bomb.
- Simpson: Another bomb?
- Dr. Maggie Sorenson: This entire area is pressurized and air conditioned, of course - otherwise the temperature would be well over 200 degrees.
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: [standing before a diagram] Now, you all know the purpose of our target is the magma. If we can succeed in bringing this molten mass to the surface under controlled conditions, we'll have all the energy we could use, all the electricity for all kinds of industries. Now, we've drilled down to this point. The only thing that stands between us now and success is this thin layer. Nevertheless, that thin layer has held us up for 17 weeks. No drill that exists will bore through it, not the toughest steel or the hardest diamond. Conventional explosives are useless.
- Sir Charles Eggerston: What do you mean "conventional explosives are useless?"
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: I mean, there are other types. I was thinking of a thermonuclear device.
- [Rampion and Steele are lowering a concrete-encased atomic bomb through a twisted volcanic chimney, stopped at the last ledge above a chamber of molten lava]
- Dr. Ted Rampion: OK Steele, let's push it.
- [bomb doesn't move]
- Steele: It's hung up. I'll go down and free it.
- [to crane]
- Steele: Lower me five feet.
- [Steele gets under bomb and works to free it. As it starts to dislodge, his support cable becomes wedged between the ledge and the bomb casing]
- Dr. Ted Rampion: [noticing Steele's cable] Don't cross over, Steele! Stay on your own si-
- [cable fails]
- Dr. Ted Rampion: STEELE!
- [Steele screams as he falls headlong into the molten lava, disappearing in a flash of flame]
- Dr. Ted Rampion: [softly] Oh my god.
- Simpson: His cable snapped!
- Dr. Ted Rampion: Steele's gone.
- Sir Charles Eggerston: The question now is not who is to blame but how we can stop the catastrophe.
- Dr. Ted Rampion: At present we don't know any way we can stop it. First, we have to learn to understand the natural forces involved and, if possible, find some way to control them in the time permitted to us.
- Sir Charles Eggerston: What is being done? Now?
- Dr. Ted Rampion: Every university, every scientist, every thinking military leader is helping us.
- Sir Charles Eggerston: Is there anything that we can do?
- Dr. Ted Rampion: Pray.
- Sir Charles Eggerston: A crack in the world?
- [the meeting erupts in chaos]
- Sir Charles Eggerston: Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Don't let's fall apart. We have work to do. Please! We must hear Dr. Rampion complete his report. You were saying that the crack is extending to the east.
- Dr. Ted Rampion: Along the Macedo Trench. It's following a geological flaw in the Earth's crust, known as the Macedo Fault. That runs from here, to the tip of India, then veers across towards Indonesia, and terminates off the Australian continental shelf.
- Sir Charles Eggerston: How do you know the crack will stop there?
- Dr. Ted Rampion: We don't.
- Sir Charles Eggerston: What if the crack keeps going? Right around the world? What happens then?
- Dr. Ted Rampion: Where the land masses split, the oceans will be sucked in, and the colossal pressure generated by the steam will rip the Earth apart, and destroy it.
- Indian Ambassador: You mean, the world will come to an end?
- Dr. Ted Rampion: The world as we know it, yes.
- [last lines]
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: I'll keep recording everything that happens as long as I can.
- Dr. Ted Rampion: Sorenson, the whole Project is going! Now open the door and come out with us!
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: If you survive, you'll find all my records in the safe. If everything goes... doesn't matter anyway.
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: [the central operations bunker is collapsing] Maggie what are you doing here?
- [to Ted]
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: You've got to get her out of here!
- Dr. Ted Rampion: You're coming with us!
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: No, I have work to finish. Once in a billion years a moon is born, that's what's happening now. It may destroy the Earth, but it may save it. Whatever happens. I've got to stay here and record it!
- Dr. Maggie Sorenson: We can't leave you, Stephen!
- Dr. Ted Rampion: Don't you realize that the two cracks are going to meet here?
- Dr. Stephen Sorenson: They'll meet at the borehole. The Project is outside the circle!