ELLIE: A triple, no, quadruple system. Oh, it's beautiful. (She sees a spaceport on the planet below her.) They're alive. (The IPV gets pulled into another wormhole. She's experiencing massage amounts of turbulence. ) Another wormhole. This one has more turbulence.

HADDEN: They still want an American to go, doctor. Wanna take a ride?

CONSTANTINE: Twenty million people died defeating that son of a bitch and he's our first ambassador to outer space?

(Ellie wears a pair of headsets. We hear the SOUND of the COSMOS, the background wash of empty STATIC and a faint BEEPING, FADING IN and OUT of reception. Ellie slowly swims up to consciousness. After a moment her eyes open. She sits up...)
ELLIE: Holy Shit!

ELLIE: (To David Drumlin) Look, I don't consider what could potentially be the most important discovery of the human race nonsense, ok?

ELLIE: Alright. So what's more likely (Joss puts his jacket around Ellie), thank you...

PALMER: You're welcome.

ELLIE: ...An all powerful and mysterious God created the Universe, and then decided not to give any proof of his existence, or that he simply doesn't exist at all, and that we created him so that we didn't have to feel so small and alone?

ELLIE: (To Palmer Joss) For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something, some reason why we're here -- what are we doing here, who are we? If this is a chance to find out even just a little part of that answer, I don't know, I think it's worth a human life, don't you?

KITZ: Those look like engineering schematics, almost like blueprints.

DAVID DRUMLIN: Yea.

ELLIE: Yes, It is our belief that the message contains instructions for building something. Some kind of machine.

CONSTANTINE: A machine? That does what, doctor?

ELLIE: Well, we don't know. It might be some type of advanced communication device, or it could be a teaching machine of some kind, or it might... turn out to be some kind of a transport.

KITZ: Transport?

DAVID DRUMLIN: There's no proof of that.

PALMER: (To Ellie) SETI, man. That's fringe. I've crossed paths with this guy before. I mean something like that must really chap his ass, huh?

ELLIE: Well, when I was about eight years old, I was watching the sunset, and I asked my dad, "what's that bright star over there", and he said that it wasn't really a start at all, but it was actually a whole planet called Venus. (pointing to the sky) Which should be over there soon. He said, "you know why they called it Venus? because they thought it was so beautiful and glowing. And what they didn't know is that it was filled with deadly gases and sulfuric acid rain", and I thought, "this is it, I'm hooked".

ELLIE: You know, there are four hundred billion stars out there, just in our galaxy alone. If only one out of a million of those had planets, and just of out of a million of those had life, and just one out of a million of those had intelligent life; there would be literally millions of civilizations out there.

PALMER: Well, if there wasn't, it'd be an awful waste of space.

ELLIE: Amen.

DAVID DRUMLIN: One, there is intelligent life out there, but it's so far away you'll never contact it in your lifetime. And two, (she tries to cut him off, but he raises his voice), there's nothing out there but noble gases and carbon compounds, and you're wasting your time. In the meantime, you won't be published, you won't be taken seriously, and your career will be over before it's begun.

ELLIE: You're right, it's crazy. In fact, its even worse than that, it's nuts. (slams her presentation books closed) You wanna hear something really nutty? I heard of a couple guys who wanna build something called an airplane, you know you get people to go in, and fly around like birds, it's rediculous, right?! And what about breaking the sound barrier, or rockets to the moon? Atomic energy, or a mission to Mars? Science fiction, right? Look, all I'm asking is for you to just have the tiniest bit of vision. You know, to just sit back for one minute and look at the big picture. To take a chance on something that just might end up being the most profoundly impactful moment for humanity, for the history... of history.

KENT CLARK: Umm, these are government owned telescopes, they can lease them to whomever they want, and they don't want the high priestess of the desert using them anymore.

ELLIE: What?

KENT CLARK: Staring at static on TV for hours at a time. Listening to washing machines. Did you really think these stories wouldn't get out?

ELLIE: I was looking for patterns in the chaos, common!

KENT CLARK: It doesn't matter anymore. We're a joke to them. They want us out.

HADDEN: First rule in government spending, why build one when you can have two at twice the price. Only, this one can be kept secret. Controlled by Americans, built by the Japanese sub contractors, who also happen to be recently acquired, wholly owned subsidiaries of...

ELLIE AND HADDEN: ...Hadden Industries.

HADDEN: They still want an American to go, doctor. Wanna take a ride?

TED ARROWAY: Hiya Sparks.

ELLIE: Dad? (She gives him a hug. )

TED ARROWAY: I missed you.

ELLIE: I missed you (crying).

TED ARROWAY: Oh, I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you sweetheart.

ELLIE: You're not real. None of this is real.

TED ARROWAY: That's my scientist.

ELLIE: When I was unconscious, you downloaded my thoughts, my memories, even Pensacola.

TED ARROWAY: We thought this might make things easier for you.

ELLIE: Why did you contact us?

TED ARROWAY: You contacted us. We were just listening.

ELLIE: Then there are others?

TED ARROWAY: Many others.

ELLIE: They all travel here through that transit system that you built?

TED ARROWAY: We didn't build it, we don't know who did. They were gone long before we ever got here. Maybe some day they'll come back.

ELLIE: All the other civilizations that you find, they come here?

TED ARROWAY: Not all.

ELLIE: Is this some test?

TED ARROWAY: No, no tests... (holding Ellie's hand) you have your mother's hands... You're an interesting species, an interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You fell so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we found that makes the emptiness bearable, each other.

ELLIE: What happens now?

TED ARROWAY: Now, you go home.

ELLIE: Home? But I have so many questions, do we get to come back?

TED ARROWAY: This was just a first step. In time you'll take another.

ELLIE: But other people need to see what I've seen, they need to see...

TED ARROWAY: This is the way it's been done for billions of years. Small moves, Ellie. Small moves.

KITZ: Now, you tell me, what is more likely here? That a message from aliens results in a magical machine that wisps you away to the center of the galaxy to go windsurfing with dear old dad, and then a split second later, returns you home without a single shred of proof? Or, that your experience is the result of being the unwitting star in the farewell performance of one S. R. Hadden?

ELLIE: I had an experience I can't prove, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was part of something wonderful, something that changed me forever; a vision of the Universe that tells us undeniable how tiny, and insignificant, and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us we belong to something that is greater than ourselves. That we are not, that none of us are alone.