The Thing

'Your move: Bishop to knight four.

'My move: Knight to rook three.'

Poor baby, you're starting to lose it, aren't ya?

'Your move: King to rook one.

'My move: Rook to knight six.

'Checkmate. Checkmate.'

You cheating bitch.

- Childs, what's he doing? - Circling the camp.

Who is he?

- Said "Norge" or something on the side. - It's Norwegian.

- George, are you okay? - Yeah, yeah, I'm okay.

- Are you? - Yeah.

What's going on there?

Watch it.

Get back.

Easy.

Easy.

Easy, easy, easy. Yes.

First goddamn week of winter.

Oh, come on. Four stitches. Barely grazed you.

What were they doing flying that low, shooting at a dog, at us?

Stir-crazy. Cabin fever. Who knows?

U.S. Number 31, calling McMurdo. Come in. Over.

U.S. Number 31, calling McMurdo. Urgent. Come in. Over.

Great.

- Come on, come on. - Nobody!

Nobody. Get a hold of somebody.

Get a hold of anybody. We gotta report this mess.

Look, I haven't been able to reach shit in two weeks.

I doubt if anybody's talked to anybody on this entire continent,

and you want me to reach somebody!

Maybe we're at war with Norway.

I was wondering when the El Capitan was gonna get a chance to use his popgun.

- How long have they been stationed there? - It says here only eight weeks.

Well, that's not long enough for guys to go bonkers.

Bullshit, bwana.

Five minutes is enough to put a man over down here.

Damn straight.

I mean, look at Palmer. He been the way he is since the first day.

How many in their party?

They started with 10. There'd be eight others left.

How do we know? Guys as crazy as that could have done a lot of damage

to their own before they got to us.

- Nothing we can do about that. - Yes, there is. I wanna go up.

- In this weather? - Bennings?

Winds are gonna let up a tad next couple of hours.

A tad?

Can't condone it much myself, but it is a short haul.

An hour there, an hour back.

Shit, Doc, I'll give you the lift. No problem.

- (Garry) Forget it, Palmer. - Hey, thanks for thinking about it though.

Loaded with kerosene. I count 15 cans.

MacReady! Mac, get your gear on!

- Mac, it may not clear up for a week. - Yeah.

- We're the closest ones to them. - It's all right by me, Doc.

I'm just letting you know we're taking a chance.

Quit the griping, MacReady.

Those clouds keep moving over the sun, we're gonna get a whiteout.

We get caught in that, you can scratch one doctor and one pilot.

This is real thin. It'll clear as soon as you get up.

It's up to you, Mac. If you don't wanna fly, we don't fly.

You really wanna save those crazy Swedes, huh?

Norwegians.

- Which way, Doc? - Southwest.

You're gonna have to read the map. 'Cause I'm gonna be busy.

Mac's really taking it up, huh?

He knows what he's doing.

Nauls, will you turn that crap down?

I'm trying to get some sleep. I was shot today.

Read, bwana. Will do.

Anybody there?

Hey, Sweden!

They're not Swedish, Mac. They're Norwegian.

Mac!

My God. What the hell happened here?

Come on, Doc.

- Portable video unit. Anything? - It's all in Norwegian.

What are you doing, Doc?

Could be important work. I wanna take it back with us.

Well, it's getting late. Let's hurry it up.

I'll check out the last few rooms.

Hey, Copper, come here!

Maybe they found a fossil,

the remains of some animal buried in the ice, and they chopped it out.

- But where is it? - Look at this.

What is that?

Is that a man in there or something?

Whatever it is, they burned it up in a hurry.

Help me find a shovel, Doc.

We found this.

Jesus Christ.

Blair, I'd like you to start an autopsy right away.

Did you reach anybody yet?

Reach anybody? We're a thousand miles from nowhere, man,

and it's gonna get worse before it gets better.

Well, stick to it, Windows. Stick to it.

Nothing wrong with this Norwegian, physiologically anyway.

No drugs, no alcohol. Nothing.

Well, what we got here is what appears to be, anyway,

a normal set of internal organs.

Heart,

lungs, kidneys, liver.

Intestines.

Seem to be normal.

'One, door number two and door number three.

'And I think that Dawn Screen here has got the one to trade in the most.

'I went to you first. You brought your friend Anna.

'You've been consulting Anna all through the show anyhow.

'You may as well consult her one more time.'

I know how this one ends.

Clark, will you put this mutt with the others where it belongs?

Yeah, okay.

Go ahead.

Go ahead. What are you waiting for?

I don't know what the hell's in there, but it's weird and pissed off, whatever it is.

Bennings, go get Childs.

What is this? What's going on?

- Hey, Palmer, what is this? - I don't know.

- Childs, Mac wants the flamethrower! - Mac wants the what?

- That's what he said. Now, move! - Damn it.

- Stay back. - Hey, Mac, what is it?

- Don't! No! - Get away!

Get back! Get back!

Get your ass over here!

Burn it.

Damn it, Childs. Torch it!

Oh, my God.

Oh!

Oh!

Look. Son of a bitch. Oh.

You see, what we're talking about here is an organism

that imitates other life-forms, and it imitates them perfectly.

When this thing attacked our dogs, it tried to digest them,

absorb them,

and in the process, shape its own cells to imitate them.

This, for instance. That's not dog.

It's imitation. We got to it before it had time to finish.

Finish what?

Finish imitating these dogs.

Easy, easy. Good.

Easy, easy.

- Clark. - Yeah?

Did you notice anything strange about the dog, anything at all?

Strange? No.

What was the dog doing in the rec room?

I don't know.

He was just wandering around camp all day.

Are you saying to me the dog wasn't put in the kennel until last night?

Right.

How long were you alone with that dog?

I don't know. An hour. Hour and a half, maybe.

What the hell you looking at me like that for?

- I don't know. - What?

I don't know. It's probably nothing.

It's nothing at all.

How much more of this crap is there?

I don't know. About nine hours, I'd say.

- We can't learn anything from this. - (Doc) Guess not.

Where'd they take these shots?

Seems like they were spending a lot of their time

in a little place northeast of their camp about five or six miles.

What's that?

It looks like something buried under the ice.

And look at that. They're planting thermite charges.

Whatever it was, it was bigger than that block of ice you found.

Here. This is it. The place where they were spending most of their time.

- Pretty nasty out, Mac. 35 knots. - Screw it. I'm gonna go up anyway.

Half a mile due east.

Jesus, how long do you figure this has been in the ice?

Well, the back scatter effect's been bringing things up

from way down around here for a long time.

I'd say... I'd say the ice it's buried in is 100,000 years old, at least.

- And those Norwegians blew it up? - Yeah.

I don't know.

Thousands of years ago, it crashes, and this thing...

gets thrown out or crawls out, and it ends up freezing in the ice.

I just cannot believe any of this voodoo bullshit.

Childs, it happens all the time, man.

They're falling out of the skies like flies.

Government knows all about it. Right, Mac?

Do you believe any of this voodoo bullshit, Blair?