PART TWO

Written by Marc Platt

Original air date: 11 October, 1989
Run time: 24:18

Cellar

Voice (O.C.): There's a new scent in the dark. There's a warming, pulsing, racing blood! Smells like ratkin.

Voice (O.C.): Wake up. Move yourselves. Come on. Ratkin's come to visit. Come on, move, move. Run, ratkin, run. Better get away.

Voice (O.C.): Fetch!

Ace: You don't frighten me! Doctor!

Voice (O.C.): Ratkin! Ratkin!

Voice (O.C.): Ratkin!

Study

The Doctor: Beetles and bluebottles.

Gwendoline: It's one of my favourites in the whole collection. It's from Java.

The Doctor: Java?

Gwendoline: The Reverend Ernest Matthews will be leaving for Java soon. Perhaps he'll see my father.

The Doctor: Your father, is he there?

Gwendoline: Uncle Josiah sent him there after he saw what was in the cellar.

The Doctor: Gwendoline, do you know where Ace is?

Cellar

Voice (O.C.): Revenge is nearer. Revenge, ratkin.

Nimrod: Get back! Back! Are you all right, miss?

Ace: They don't like the flame, do they.

Voice (O.C.): Door must open.

Nimrod: We must leave the chamber now.

Voice (O.C.): Open door! Quickly, quickly!

Ace: It's getting out! Give me that!

Nimrod: Stay calm! Follow me to the tunnel. While we have the lamp, we're safe.

Voice (O.C.): No more lamp.

Voice (O.C.): Stop ratkin.

Ace: I'll sort you lot out.

Entrance hall

The Doctor: Josiah, where's Ace?

Josiah: How should I know? Have you considered my offer, Doctor?

The Doctor: What, to m*rder your enemy? I'm not your pet executioner. Ace is in trouble.

Josiah: Be careful, Doctor. To cross me could be a serious error.

Pritchard: Miss Ace has already retired to bed, sir. Come, I will show you.

Gwendoline: Here, Doctor, to light you to bed.

Gwendoline: Sleep well. Goodnight.

The Doctor: Good night, sleep tight. Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire, otherwise known as Java. Well, not tonight, Josiah-phine!

The Doctor: Your puppet show doesn't fool me. Sorry to spoil your big game hunt, but Ace need my...

The Doctor: Help.

Cellar

Ace: Let us go or I'll smash it!

Nimrod: Give it to me! You are profaning the temple of light.

Ace: I'll profane you in a minute. And shut that thing up.

Nimrod: You are afraid and do not understand.

Nimrod: The sleeping one must not be woken!

Entrance hall

Josiah: The fool! What's it done?

The Doctor: Right, Josiah. Let's get down the rabbit hole. Get that lift!

The Doctor: Open those doors! Quickly!

Cellar

Ace: Steam power! Oi, Tarzan. Nimrod! What's happened? Nimrod!

Josiah: Light.

The Doctor: At the end of the tunnel. Get a move on. Ace?

Ace: Doctor, where have you been?

The Doctor: Where haven't I been. I came as quick as I could.

Josiah: What have you done to my observatory?

Ace: Get off! It's what it nearly did to me.

The Doctor: Ace, you haven't been tampering?

Ace: It was an accident.

Josiah: All my work could be ruined.

The Doctor: That's my girl.

Ace: Oh, come on, Professor. Let's get out of this madhouse.

The Doctor: No, keep him covered.

Ace: But...

The Doctor: Shush.

Ace: Move it, you.

Entrance hall

Gwendoline: Why did Father go to Java and leave me? And where is Mama? I try and try, but I can't understand.

Pritchard: That is a wicked thing to say. Wicked. Your mother would be ashamed if she could hear you. Sitting there dressed like a music hall trollop. It's this Doctor, filling your head with his ideas.

Gwendoline: His words are so confusing. Uncle Josiah's ideas are much clearer.

Pritchard: Go upstairs and dress yourself decently.

Cellar

Ace: Don't try anything.

The Doctor: Oh, not a patch on the Flying Scotsman.

Josiah: Nimrod! Get up, you fool. It's got to be stopped.

The Doctor: Better not to move him.

Ace: He fell against that thing.

The Doctor: He disturbed whatever's hibernating inside.

Josiah: Don't touch it!

Ace: You're scared of it too, just like the others.

The Doctor: Because you know what's in there, don't you, Josiah?

Josiah: There's an energy escape. I must stop it.

The Doctor: Don't worry. I always leave these things to the last moment. These husks. Old cast-offs of yours, I take it?

Ace: They att*cked Nimrod and me.

Josiah: You're insane! If the membrane is broken...

The Doctor: Yes?

Ace: Oh, what?

The Doctor: Genetic codes.

Ace: DNA.

The Doctor: You've done a lot of exploring in here, haven't you, Josiah?

Ace: This is a stone spaceship.

The Doctor: Yes, and the real owner won't be pleased when it wakes up.

Josiah: I am the real owner.

The Doctor: Oh no, you're not. You're just part of the cargo.

Josiah: You're so smug and self-satisfied, Doctor.

The Doctor: I try.

Ace: Drop it.

Josiah: I'm not a simpleton. That device is a radiation detector, not a g*n.

Josiah: You're going to help me s*ab the energy loss, or most of southern England goes up in a firestorm.

Voice (O.C.): Set me free.

Redver's room

Redvers: Not much time left. Soon be light.

Gwendoline: Mister Fenn-Cooper.

Redvers: So, you've seen Redvers, too. Where are they holding the poor devil? I know he's close by.

Gwendoline: I'm lost. I'm so lost and alone.

Redvers: Redvers got used to loneliness in the bush. He understands.

Gwendoline: I cannot find my mother. I'm sure she was here.

Redvers: Don't be alarmed. Redvers Fenn-Cooper always escapes in the end. He knows where the greatest secret of all is hidden. It sleeps in the depths of the interior, and it must never be woken.

Cellar

Josiah: Drive in the crystal rods when I instruct you.

Ace: After this I'll get a job at Sellafield. It'll be safer.

The Doctor: (quietly) Just do what I do when I do it.

Ace: Hmm, very helpful.

Josiah: Lower the first rod.

The Doctor: Oh dear, oh dear. Skeletons in the cupboard. Husks in the cellar.

Ace: Bats in the belfry.

Josiah: Do it!

The Doctor: Now, now, don't shout. You'll never evolve into a nice Victorian gentleman if you shout.

Ace: Did those husks really used to be him?

The Doctor: Yes. Not much improvement on the reptile, is he?

Josiah: Just do it! Now!

The Doctor: Well, I think congratulations are in order.

Ace: Congratulations? Maybe not. Professor, the husks!

Voice (O.C.): Give me freeness. I want freeness!

The Doctor: Quick, get up! Move! Move!

Voice (O.C.): Control needs freeness now!

Lift

Ace: Quick, Doctor!

Voice (O.C.): Help me be like you.

Ace: Look out!

Control (O.C.): Give me my freeness!

The Doctor: Ah, how do you do. I'm the Doctor and this is my friend Ace.

Ace: Just call me ratkin.

Control (O.C.): Ah, poor Control. No way out. No escaping. No hoping.

Josiah: Don't listen to it. It's a depraved monstrosity.

The Doctor: Depraved or deprived? There, there, Control. There, there. Now, which of you is the Jekyll and which is the Hyde?

Control (O.C.): Spare a farthing, Guv'nor. Pity poor Control, locked away all alone.

Josiah: Fie!

Entrance hall

Pritchard: They're coming. It's almost first light.

Lift

Ace: He's getting weaker.

The Doctor: It's been a hard day's night. He's evolving again, to his next stage.

Entrance hall

Josiah: I've sealed the lower observatory. Let Control rot down there.

Pritchard: You are ill, sir.

Josiah: It's getting light. Secure the house. I must change.

Pritchard: Take him to the upper observatory.

Gwendoline: Uncle!

The Doctor: We won't see them till nightfall.

Ace: Shouldn't we follow them? What about Josiah?

The Doctor: He sounded a little husky.

Ace: Oh, you mean he's changing into one of those things?

The Doctor: Yes.

Attic

Matthews: So, here you are at last. Haven't I been kept waiting long enough?

Josiah: Reverend Matthews.

Matthews: I perceive you are a sick man, sir. Divine retribution for your blasphemy, perhaps?

Josiah: It will pass.

Matthews: And so will your unholy theories of evolution. It's a complete absurdity that the line of my ancestors could be traced back to a protoplasmic globule.

Josiah: Please, go on.

Matthews: Man has been the same, sir, since he stood in the garden of Eden, and he was never ever a chattering gibbering ape.

Matthews: What are you laughing at? Devil take you, why are you laughing?

Drawing room

Gwendoline: Can Nimrod be woken now?

The Doctor: Oh, don't rush me, Gwendoline. The sun has got its hat on, and we've got all day before Uncle Josiah dare show his face.

Ace: Professor. Josiah's lucifigus.

The Doctor: Yes. He doesn't like light, either.

Ace: What about the spaceship in the cellar? It's knackered, isn't it?

The Doctor: Yes. I fixed it. Uncle Josiah knows as much about it's secrets as a hamburger knows about the Amazon desert.

Ace: Sounds a bit like you and the TARDIS.

Gwendoline: Light!

The Doctor: Let her go. Come on, Ace. We've only just started. Now, there's one thing you haven't told me. What was it that frightened you so much when you entered this house in a hundred years time?

Attic

Josiah: Reverend Matthews, I thought you would amuse me, but you bore me just as much as you did before.

Josiah: Gwendoline. Come here, dear child.

Gwendoline: Are you unwell, Uncle?

Josiah: Only sick at heart, my dear. Soon I shall restore the blighted British Empire to its full power and vigour.

Matthews: You're no better than animals.

Josiah: The Reverend makes such a tedious toy, don't you think?

Gwendoline: Dear Uncle.

Josiah: We're so glad he has to go.

Gwendoline: And where is he going?

Josiah: To Java!

Drawing room

The Doctor: Time to call out the constabulary. Now, Inspector, perhaps you can assist us with our enquiries.

Bedroom

Ace: Hello?

Grose: The Doctor said that you'd be fair famished when you woke up, so here's scrambled egg, hot buttered toast, kedgeree, kidney, sausage and bacon.

Ace: Cholesterol city.

Grose: Oh, no dear. Perivale village. Properly exhausted you were when I put you to bed. Oh yes, and there's a message. Would you join the Doctor and the police gentleman in the drawing room.

Ace: Police?

Grose: It's high time they were called. I've said as much to my husband, Mister Grose.

Ace: I think I'll give that a miss, actually. I want to have a walk round Perivale village before lunch. Is there a blacksmith on the village green?

Grose: Mercy me, no, dearie. There's only seven houses. Besides, you've missed lunch. Why, it must be all of five o'clock by now.

Ace: What!

Grose: Yes, almost evening. Now, we must hurry. No one in their right mind stays in this house after dark.

Drawing room

The Doctor: Snap out of it, Nimrod. If I didn't know better I'd say this was deliberate. Ten minutes was all it took to wake up the more sophisticated, civilised, police inspector.

Mackenzie: Ah, you say this house is owned by Josiah Samuel Smith.

The Doctor: I didn't say owned, I said inhabited.

Mackenzie: Then where is he? This whole house is deserted.

The Doctor: He will appear.

Mackenzie: I suppose this must be the manservant. Nasty looking customer. Must be a foreigner.

The Doctor: Neanderthal.

Mackenzie: Ah, gypsy blood. I can see it in him. Lazy workers. What's this one playing up over? Oh, beg your pardon.

The Doctor: He's mesmerised.

Mackenzie: No self-control, these Mediterraneans. Too excitable. Nasty tempers, too.

The Doctor: Yes, especially when roused. Which is exactly what is eluding me at the moment.

Bedroom

Grose: Have you finished, dear? Oh, is anything wrong?

Ace: Where's my clobber? My gear? My clothes.

Grose: Those shabby old things? Why, the Doctor had me lay out this for you. Well, will it do, my dear?

Ace: No bustle. Okay, Professor, you win.

Grose: Much more fitting for a young lady.

Lift shaft

Control: Control be free to change.

Drawing room

The Doctor: I'm busy, Inspector.

Mackenzie: And I have my investigation to complete.

The Doctor: Still not found the mustard? Since I awoke you, you have consumed three English breakfasts, two elevenses and one four-course meal. Why don't you go and get Mrs Grose to make you some afternoon tea.

Mackenzie: She's hiding facts from me, and so are you, and if you don't tell me where the rest of the household is, I shall arrest you for obstructing my enquires.

Ace: Professor, you could have woken me sooner.

The Doctor: This is Inspector MacKenzie from Scotland Yard. He was sent here in 1881 to investigate the disappearance of the owner, Sir George Pritchard.

Ace: But that was two years ago.

The Doctor: Yes, he's been in Josiah's cupboard ever since. Preserved, hypnotised. Humour him.

Ace: Preserved?

The Doctor: Inspector? This is my friend, Ace.

Ace: Hello. All right?

The Doctor: I like the dress.

Mackenzie: Perhaps you can tell me where Lady Pritchard is, Miss?

Ace: Oh, you mean the old bag, the housekeeper?

Mackenzie: I gather you live in Perivale village.

Ace: I'll be moving to the area, sometime. How's Tarzan?

The Doctor: Still no change. Still out like a light. Light!

Outside the drawing room

The Doctor (O.C.): The fang of the cave bear calls you, Nimrod. Tell me your tale.

Drawing room

Nimrod: At the season when the ice floods swamp the pasture lands, we herded the mammoths sunwards to find new grazing.

Mackenzie: Tricky things, mammoths.

Nimrod: Wise men cast bones to make hunting magic and spoke with the voice of the Burning One.

Ace: Is this a race memory?

The Doctor: No, these are his own experiences.

Nimrod: Now the wild world is lost in a desert of smoke and straight lines. There is smoke thickening.

Nimrod: But light will return.

Lift

Control: Light will return.

Entrance hall

Mackenzie: This madhouse needs one more good going over.

The Doctor: Good idea. But try and be back by six.

Ace: Professor, look.

The Doctor: Yes.

Mackenzie: Why?

The Doctor: Around here, the forces of darkness don't wait until midnight to appear.

Ace: Professor.

The Doctor: I know.

Ace: I thought the lift was broken.

The Doctor: I mended it. It's very clever, climbing up the lift shaft, but I had hoped that Control creature might bring something with it, and for that it will need the lift.

Ace: Professor, what's going on?

Drawing room

Ace: Professor?

The Doctor: Quiet. Josiah Samuel Smith and Control are frightened of it. Redvers Fenn-Cooper saw it and lost his mind. Nimrod, he worships it.

Ace: Let there be light?

The Doctor: It's asleep down there in its spaceship and Josiah doesn't want it awoken.

Ace: Well, maybe that's a good idea. Maybe it should be left alone. Professor, just this once.

The Doctor: It's very, very old. Perhaps even older. Just one chat.

Ace: Professor. Where's Nimrod?

The Doctor: Gone to see a man about a god.

Ace: Urgh! They're alive.

The Doctor: Yes. Things are hotting quicker than I anticipated. Quick, run and get Inspector MacKenzie.

Redver's room

Redvers: Redvers knew the relief column would arrive.

Nimrod: Excuse me, sir, but you speak with the wildness of the old world. Is it appropriate to seek your wisdom?

Redvers: You won't get far without good supplies. Baggage animals, porters.

Nimrod: The one I serve, sir, the Burning One, he's waking. What should I do?

Redvers: Stanley found Livingstone. I found Redvers, once. You must hunt the dark continent. Seek out what you desire. But be warned, you may find it.

Nimrod: I must free you from your bonds, sir.

Redvers: The Doctor did that hours ago. Redvers only wears it against the cold of the night air.

Cellar

Control: Move! Time going faster than you. Move. Light angry, burning angry, but not at poor Control. Control going showing Light way up. Then Control on way up too!

Corridor

Ace: Inspector? Found anything?

Mackenzie: Nothing. This place has more locked doors than Reading Gaol.

Drawing room

The Doctor: All civilisation starts with hunting and foraging, but don't worry, you'll work your way up. You must excuse me. Things are getting out of control.

Attic

Mackenzie: No one up here, either.

Ace: Josiah.

Mackenzie: Disgusting object. What is it?

Ace: It's what's left of Josiah Smith. It's just a husk. I think we should get out of here.

Mackenzie: Nonsense, young lady. That thing isn't dangerous.

Mackenzie: Lady Pritchard!

Ace: Lady?

Mackenzie: Sir George's wife.

Ace: Gwendoline. She's their daughter, isn't she.

Mackenzie: What's happening in this house?

Ace: They're just toys. They're just Josiah's toys.

Ace: h*m* Victorianus Ineptus. Oh no, I don't want to see.

Ace: Reverend Matthews. I think I'm going to throw up.

Entrance hall

The Doctor: Nimrod, where's Ace?

Nimrod: I have not seen her, Doctor. I must seek the truth from the Burning One.

The Doctor: Stick around. I'll save you a trip.

Nimrod: Can you summon it, then?

The Doctor: Let's just say I've made a deal with its agent.

The Doctor: That'll be them now. Where's Ace got to? It's not dark yet, but I don't want Josiah to miss the show.

Attic

Ace: Let's get out of here, quickly.

Mackenzie: Let go of her! I am a police officer. You will do as I tell you.

Mackenzie: Let go of me!

Ace: It's Josiah!

Ace: Stitch this, Dracula.

Josiah: I no longer need to crouch in shadows, young lady.

Ace: You're no gentleman. Scratch the Victorian veneer and something nasty'll come crawling out.

Josiah: Your meddling Doctor thought to get the better of me, but I'll see him squirming yet. Bring her!

Mackenzie: Let go of me! I am a police officer. You will do as I say.

Entrance hall

The Doctor: That's quite enough of that.

Nimrod: Doctor, you are as powerful as you are wise.

The Doctor: Cut the homespun twaddle, Nimrod. It's not wise. I've lit the blue touch-paper and found there's nowhere to retire to. Ladies, I do hope you enjoy indoor fireworks.

Nimrod: The Burning One is coming.

The Doctor: Hmm. I'd stand back from that lift, Nimrod, if I were you. To catch a wolf, I may have unleashed a tiger.

Josiah: Doctor, what are you doing? Stop the lift!

The Doctor: Ah, Josiah. So you've finally evolved into a Victorian. How quaint. And Ace, you've made it in time.

Ace: Sorry, Professor.

The Doctor: Oh, don't apologise. Come and meet Josiah's new guest.

Josiah: Nimrod, stop the lift! Stop it!

The Doctor: Much too late for that. It's now time to shed a little light on your plans.

Pritchard: Hold him.

Ace: Doctor!

The Doctor: Don't worry, Ace.

Josiah: You've made a pact with that creature. You don't know what you're doing.

The Doctor: No, but I'm about to find out. You can come out now! We're all waiting!

Josiah: Control, quintessence of wickedness, corruption incarnate.

The Doctor: Thank you for trusting me, Control.

Control: My half agreeing done. You desiring, in the darkness you shall find it.

Josiah: Don't let it out!

Control: Too late!

The Doctor: Light?
{"type": "series", "show": "Doctor Who", "episode": "26x06 - Ghost Light - part 2"}