William Fichtner credited as playing...
Kent
- Dr. Kent Clark: [Kent is blind] Nice to smell you again, Mr. Kitz.
- Michael Kitz: You too.
- Dr. Kent Clark: [aside] Wouldn't have pegged him as a Polo man.
- Dr. Kent Clark: Dr. Arroway will be spending her precious telescope time listening for... uh... listening for...
- Ellie Arroway: Little green men.
- Dynamics: 100% target velocity.
- Electrical: Steve, picking up tremendous E.M.I. levels around the machine. All field measurements are pegged off-scale high.
- Dynamics: Steve, we're approaching our abort limits.
- [Mission director reaches for the abort switch]
- Ellie Arroway: Okay to go!
- [Mission director unlocks abort control and prepares to push the button]
- Dr. Kent Clark: I hear her! I hear her. Barely, but, but she's there.
- Ellie Arroway: [weakly] Okay to go...
- Dr. Kent Clark: She says she's okay to go.
- Dynamics: Steve, we're real close.
- Mission Director: Electrical, what's your reading on the core?
- Electrical: [puzzled] The internal environment looks normal. Inside the core, the... weather's beautiful.
- [Mission director re-locks abort control]
- Ellie Arroway: [softly] I'm okay to go... okay to go... I'm okay to go...
- Mission Director: Initiate drop sequence on my mark. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three two...
- Ellie Arroway: I'm okay to go...
- [pod drops into machine]
- Ellie Arroway: OH GOD!
- Dr. Kent Clark: Uh... 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 Arroway: What?
- Dr. 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 Arroway: I was looking for patterns in the chaos, come on!
- Dr. Kent Clark: It doesn't matter anymore! We're a joke to them, they want us out.