North Star Line-by-Line

[Hopeful Romantic]

ARCHER: You didn't get to finish your lesson. I'd like to hear the rest of it.

 

[CaptVader]

BETHANY: You know the story. Everyone does.

 

[May 20]

ARCHER: Everyone seems to have their own version. I'm curious to hear the way you teach it to the Skagarans. That wreck at their settlement, was that their ship?

 

[Orac]

Bethany: They used it 300 years ago to go to Earth and bring our ancestors back here. They were building colonies, they needed workers.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

ARCHER: You mean slaves.

 

[Orac]

Bethany: It was a terrible crime.

 

[May 20]

ARCHER: Tell me about Cooper Smith.

 

[Orac]

Bethany: That's where the stories differ somewhat. To the humans he's a folk hero, our liberator. I'm sure that's what you were taught. But the Skagarans, they call him rakh'tar. It means butcher. He and his men burned the Skagaran ship, destroyed their weapons. They murdered most of them. Entire families. Have you heard that version? Smith wrote the first laws that kept the Skagarans from going to school, owning property, even marrying.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

ARCHER: So they could never enslave the humans again.

 

[Orac]

Bethany: That's how they justified it. Men like Bennings are happy to carry on the tradition.

 

[May 20]

(Bennings opens the cell door.)
BENNINGS: Sheriff wants to talk to you.

 

[Orac]

[Later in the Barber shop]

(The Sheriff is having his stubble carefully removed by cut-throat razor.)

MacCready: Care for a shave, Mister Archer?

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

ARCHER: No, thanks.

 

[May 20]

MACCREADY: You sure? There ain't nothing like a barber shave to make a man feel civilized.

 

[Orac]

Archer: I feel civilized enough.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

(^ love that line!)

MacCREADY: Suit yourself. Thanks, Henry.

 

[Orac]

Barber: Any time, Sheriff.

(The barber leaves them.)

 

[May 20]

MACCREADY: Have a seat. Skagaran whisky. It's illegal, but I've let Henry keep a bottle around for pulling teeth.
(He pours two shots.)
MACCREADY: Packs a hell of a wallop. (he drinks) I thought you were heading south to raise bluehorns.

 

[Orac]

Archer: That's the plan.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

MacCREADY: Then maybe you can tell me why you were out in Skagtown in the middle of the night.