Zardoz Comments

Zed: What is it you want?

Friend: Sweet death. Oblivion.

Zed: For yourself, or for the whole Vortex?

Friend: For Everybody. An end to the human race. It has plagued this pretty planet for far too long.

Zed: You stink of despair. Fight back! Fight for death, if that's what you want.

Friend: I thought at first you were the one to help. But it's hopeless. All my powers have gone.

Zed: Where is it? The Tabernacle?

Friend: The Tabernacle... is... I can't remember!

Zed: Who made it? Someone must know how to break it.

Friend: Yes, but you can meet him for yourself! One of our founders, one of the geniuses who discovered immortality.

[Friend goes to the bed of the Old Scientist and, rousing him noisily, shouts]

Friend: We want to die! Hm? What - what's the trick?

Old Scientist: [feebly] Death... death... Talk to May! May!

[Zed stands before a giant screen swarming with microscopic infusoria]

May: Look at it. It's you.

[Zed looks behind him, but May does not see him do so]

May: Your genetic structure, your life chart. Look.

[Obligingly, Zed does so again]

May: You are a mutant, second, maybe third generation - therefore genetically stable. Enlarged brain, total recall. Your potential is... Your breeding potential!

Zed: Breeding?

May: Frayn!

[May spins around to confront Zed]

May: How did you get into the Vortex? What is your purpose?

Zed: I'm just an Exterminator. I know nothing.

May: You must know that you're mentally and physically vastly superior to me, or to anyone else here. You could be anything, could *do* anything. You must be destroyed.

Zed: Why?

May: Because you could destroy us!

Zed: As *you* destroyed the rest of life? Can you un-know what you know now about me?

May: For the sake of science, I will keep this knowledge from the others, for the time being. But you must follow me, obey me, be circumspect, make no disruption, quietly do whatever work is given you. I will watch over you.