Here There Be Tygers

HERE THERE BE TIGERS

based on the short story with the same name by R. Bradbury

It had travelled millions upon millions of miles.

Earth was somewhere very far away.

People have forgotten the look of the Earth's Sun.

Our solar system was already settled and investigated

and profited on, and other systems

rummaged through and milked and tidied up,

and now the rockets of these tiny men

from an impossibly remote planet

were probing out to far universes.

In a few months, a few years, we could travel anywhere,

for the speed of our rockets was the speed of a god,

and now for the ten thousandth time

one of the rockets of the far-circling hunt

has feathered down into an alien world.

Air on a new planet,

planet 7 of star system 84

was wonderful.

Here there be tigers...

Captain Forester,

did you remember to take your gun along?

Only in my holster.

If ever a planet was a woman...

this one is.

this one is...

Don't let the cosmetics fool you, Forester.

Underneath there is iron, copper, uranium, gold...

All hard underneath, all male.

Well fix this planet sir, we'll fix it good!

It doesn't like you, Chatterton.

Nonsense!

Feel it, by God, the wind!

You know, we never have really flown by ourselves like birds fly...

to themselves.

Wouldn't it be nice to put your arms out like this...

and run...

and fly!

Driscoll, come back!

Sir, tell him to come down. He'll be killed!

Do you see?!

My God, I'm flying!

I asked the wind to fly me,

and it did!

I'll chance it next.

Stand still, you idiots!

Haven't you felt it?

This world's alive, it's looking at us,

playing with us... biding its time!

I'll be the judge of that.

You're going to stay on the ship, under arrest

If you don't put down that gun immediately.

You're fools!

You can stay there if you want to.

I'm going... I'm going there,

get my samples,

and get back to the ship.