PART TWO

Written by Ian Briggs

Original air date: 30 November, 1987
Run time: 24:40

Lower level

Mel: Hang on, are you sure this is the right way?

Ace: Course I'm sure. Don't you trust me?

Mel: I don't know. What with the dragon and all that.

Ace: The dragon. It's just something to frighten little children with. It's like witches and goblins. There ain't no such thing.

Ace: Wicked!

Mel: Get down!

Ace: That's not a real dragon. That was a laser beam.

Mel: Look out!

Ice cliff

Glitz: It's no use, Doctor. I've located the Ice Garden but there's a distinct absence of dragon or treasure.

The Doctor: Glitz, I sympathise with your disappointment, but I'm about to plummet to my death.

Glitz: Oh, I suppose you want me to risk my neck and come and help you.

The Doctor: Glitz!

Glitz: All right, all right. Don't get your delicates in a twist.

The Doctor: Glitz!

Refrigeration room

Kane: Belazs, you astound me. Those two girls should have been searched when they were arrested. You seem to be taking advantage of my former feelings for you. Be warned, the past is an empty slate. I demand absolute loyalty now and forever, and I don't forgive those who betray me. The girls must be stopped before they reach Glitz and the Doctor. They must be eradicated.

Kane: What could be more appropriate than to despatch some of Glitz's former crew after the girls. He betrayed his crew, now they can have their revenge. Everyone should be allowed his moment of revenge.

Base of the Ice cliff

The Doctor: I say, thank you.

Glitz: It's no use, Doctor. Even if we did find the treasure, it'd take us longer than seventy two hours, and Belazs said if I didn't return Kane's money within seventy two hours they'd confiscate my spacecraft.

The Doctor: Why don't you explain the problem to him?

Glitz: Oh, he'd slice his own mother up to make a point. If he was a mortician, the corpses would keep their eyes open.

The Doctor: Ah.

Glitz: In fact, if Kane knew we were after the...

Refrigeration room

Glitz (O.C.): Dragon's treasure, your life expectancy wouldn't be looking too clever at the moment. He's a cold man, Doctor. Cut him open and you won't find a heart, just a lump of ice.

Base of the Ice cliff

The Doctor: These types never have any sense of fair play.

Glitz: Exactly. Which is why I've come to the conclusion that play it by the rules is a mug's game. I have decided to hijack the Nosferatu. Which is where you come in, Doctor.

The Doctor: Ah, hang on there a minute, Glitz. I'm engaged in a project of scientific curiosity. I mean, that dragon, or whatever it may turn out to be, could be an undiscovered species.

Glitz: Look, I'll do you a good deal. You help me get the Nosferatu back, and I'll give you the treasure map so's you and Mel can go looking for this dragon. I can't say fairer than that, can I?

The Doctor: You have me there, Glitz. Without the map, I'll never find the creature.

Glitz: You're a man of insight and logic, Doctor.

The Doctor: All right, then. Where's the Nosferatu berthed?

Refrigeration room

Glitz (O.C.): In the lower docking bay.

Restricted zone

Kane: A work of artistry, my friend. Incandescent artistry. I could almost believe Xana lives again. A unique beauty, yes, but more than that, a criminal genius also. Oh, what a waste. It should have been I who was k*lled escaping arrest, not you.

Top of the Ice cliff

Ace: You're joking. I'm not going down there.

Mel: Look, there's the Doctor's brolly. We must be on the right track.

Ace: What did he have to come this way for? I could break my neck.

Mel: How are we going to get down there?

Ace: Hang on.

Lower docking bay

Glitz: There's only one guard. Do you think you can occupy him while I slip on board?

The Doctor: I'll do my best.

Glitz: Go on, then. Away you go.

The Doctor: Excuse me. What's your attitude towards the nature of existence? For example, do you hold any strong theological opinions?

Guard: I think you'll find most educated people regard mythical convictions as fundamentally animistic.

The Doctor: I see. That's a very interesting concept.

Guard: Personally, I find most experiences border on the existential.

The Doctor: Well, how do you reconcile that with the empirical critical belief that experience is at the root of all phenomena?

Guard: I think you'll find that a concept can be philosophically valid even if theologically meaningless.

The Doctor: So, what you're saying is that before Plato existed, someone had to have the idea of Plato.

Guard: Oh, you've no idea what a relief it is for me to have such a stimulating philosophical discussion. There are so few intellectuals about these days. Tell me, what do you think of the assertion that the semiotic thickness of a performed text varies according to the redundancy of auxiliary performance codes?

The Doctor: Yes.

Nosferatu

Glitz: Ah, my ship. Soon be light years away from this place.

Belazs: I wouldn't touch those controls if I were you.

Base of the Ice cliff

Ace: Wicked. And the bilge bag said this was too dangerous for girls.

Nosferatu

Belazs: This spacecraft is mine.

Glitz: Hang on, the seventy two hours aren't up yet. You said if I could get hold of the grotzits I could have the Nosferatu back.

Belazs: Then I shall just have to make sure you don't manage to find the money in time. I shall have to make very sure.

The Doctor: Hello. Not interrupting anything, am I?

Belazs: What are you doing here?

The Doctor: That's a very difficult question. Why is everyone round here so preoccupied with metaphysics?

Glitz: I think she's going to k*ll us, Doctor.

The Doctor: Ah. An existentialist.

Belazs: Quiet! Only one of us can leave Iceworld aboard the Nosferatu, and one way or the other it's going to be me.

Glitz: What about the boss, Mister Kane? Does he know of your little enterprise?

Belazs: Kane doesn't own me.

The Doctor: Oh, I think he does. I think he bought you like he buys everything in Iceworld.

Belazs: What would you know about it?

The Doctor: I think he bought you a long time ago. He paid seventeen crowns for each of Glitz's crew. How much did he pay for you? Was it worth it? Were you worth it?

Belazs: That's what I sold myself for, Kane's mark. I ought to cut my hand off for doing it.

Belazs: Go on, then. k*ll me!

Glitz: Well, come on, Doctor. We've got the Nosferatu back. Let's get out of here.

The Doctor: No, Glitz. You can't go on stealing everything you want, like this Stradivarius and that Dutch master. Pay Kane back his debt, even if it costs a thousand crowns, ten thousand crowns. Pay back the debt. And as for you, your debt to Kane, I don't think you'll be able to pay it off. Ever.

Restricted zone

Kane: The whole of eternity has held its breath for this moment. But no one must ever see your work. It exists, that is enough. No one can ever look upon your work and live. Gaze on it and die fulfilled.

Lower levels

Mel: What's the matter?

Ace: Shush. Did you hear that?

Mel: Hear what?

Ace: I thought I heard something.

Mel: Well, what kind of something?

Ace: I don't know. Can you see anything?

Mel: Look out!

Ace: Run!

The Doctor: I think we go straight on. Either that, or we don't.

Glitz: Well, now that we've found the Dragonfire, what's next on your list of tourist attractions, Doctor?

The Doctor: Well, I'm not absolutely certain this one's over yet.

The Doctor: It must be generating a spot temperature in excess of fifteen hundred Celsius.

Mel: Right, cover your ears.

Ace: Ace! Yeah, good job. Throw the other one.

Ace: Yeah, go for it, tiger. That was well brill.

Mel: We're not in the clear yet.

Ace: I don't believe it. Not after two cans of Nitro. Nothing can survive that. Come on, Mel, shift!

Mel: Okay!

Ace: Come on! Come on, wake up.

Mel: Oh, what happened?

Ace: It's all right, doughnut. He's gone.

Glitz: Get back, Doctor.

The Doctor: No, Glitz, don't.

Glitz: Why?

The Doctor: We've got no right to k*ll.

Glitz: Why didn't it k*ll us?

The Doctor: Perhaps we'd better ask it.

Refrigeration room

Kracauer: Can't sleep, Belazs?

Belazs: How old do you think I am, Kracauer?

Kracauer: Thirty three, thirty four?

Belazs: And how old do you think I was when I first agreed to join Kane? Sixteen. That was a long time ago. Do you see this?

Kracauer: Yes, the mark of the sovereign.

Belazs: You'd have thought it would begin to disappear after twenty years.

Kracauer: We sold ourselves. We knew what we were doing. We had a choice.

Belazs: I was sixteen.

Kracauer: Even at sixteen we had a choice.

Belazs: He'll k*ll us. He'll find someone younger and he'll k*ll us unless we k*ll him first.

Kracauer: How do you propose to do that?

Belazs: With heat. Even here in Iceworld it's too warm for him. I've seen inside the restricted zone. That's where he keeps his refrigeration unit. He has to return there whenever his body temperature rises too high.

Lower levels

Ace: Do you want some coffee?

Mel: Oh, thanks.

Ace: Do you know what I did for a job when they threw me out of school?

Mel: No.

Ace: I worked as a waitress in a fast food cafe. Day in, day out, same boring routine. Some boring life. It was all wrong. It didn't feel like me that was doing it at all. I felt like I'd fallen from another planet and landed in this strange girl's body, but it wasn't me at all. I was meant to be somewhere else. Each night I'd walk home and I'd look up at the stars through the gaps in the clouds, and I tried to imagine where I really came from. I dreamed that one day everything would come right. I'd be carried off back home, back to my real mum and dad. Then it actually happened and I ended up here. Ended up working as a waitress again, only this time I couldn't dream about going nowhere else. There wasn't nowhere else to go.

Restricted zone

Kane: One day, when we return home, I shall erect colossal statues in your honour.

Computer: Current ambient temperature minus ten Celsius. Target temperature minus a hundred and ninety three Celsius. Cabinet temperature dropping.

Lower levels

Ace: There's something I've never told anyone. Do you promise not to laugh, and not to tell no one?

Mel: Of course.

Ace: It's my name. It's not really Ace. My real name's Dorothy. That's how I knew they couldn't be my real mum and dad. My real mum and dad would never have given me a naff name like Dorothy. Come on.

Restricted zone

Computer: Minus one hundred and fifty. Minus one hundred and sixty. Minus one hundred and seventy.

Computer: Cabinet temperature rising. Minus one hundred and sixty.

Ice junction

Mel: Down there?

Ace: I suppose so.

The Doctor: Ah, Mel, you've brought my umbrella.

Mel: Oh, Doctor!

Ace: Professor! Bilge bag.

Glitz: What's that?

The Doctor: Now, now, stop this squabbling. There's no place for animosity on a serious scientific undertaking.

Mel: Do you mean the dragon?

The Doctor: Well, it's not so much a dragon as more of a semi-organic vertebrate with a highly developed cerebral cortex.

Ace: And it's got laser beams in its eyes. It tried to k*ll us.

Mel: Yes.

The Doctor: Really? Well, I wonder what you did to annoy it?

Ace: It just came at us, Professor. No warning.

The Doctor: Really. Well, let's see what this vertebrate with laser beams has got to say for itself.

The Doctor: Hello. Where might you have popped up from, then?

Mel: He's been sent by Kane, Doctor.

Ace: He's got masses of them frozen in his deep freeze.

The Doctor: Cryogenesis, eh?

Glitz: Hang about. I'd recognise that mutinous expression anywhere.

Ace: Friend of yours, is he?

Glitz: Pudovkin, old son, you've no idea how pleased I am to see you again.

The Doctor: It's no good, Glitz. Ace says he's been cryogenically frozen.

Glitz: What about the time we captured that space freighter loaded up with all that natural fruit alcohol. We got well dehydrated that night, didn't we?

The Doctor: It's no use. Deep cryogenics freezes the neural pathways.

Glitz: Oh, come on, old son. A joke's a joke. It's me, Sabalom Glitz.

The Doctor: It's completely impossible for him to recall any events prior to cryogenesis.

Pudovkin: I remember.

The Doctor: Except in cases of overwhelming hatred or anger.

Pudovkin: I remember how you always had the best of our pickings.

Glitz: I don't recall.

Pudovkin: I remember. I remember how you sold our entire crew to Kane to be frozen as mercenaries.

Glitz: Oh now, come on, old son, don't go jumping to conclusions.

Ace: I thought he was a friend of yours.

Glitz: More of an acquaintance, actually.

The Doctor: We don't mean you any harm. Do you understand?

Mel: It's friendly.

Ace: It wants us to go with it, Professor.

The Doctor: Well, let's see what our new friend wants to show us, shall we?

Restricted zone

Computer: Warning, defrost threshold crossed. Cabinet temperature rising. Plus one Celsius. Plus two Celsius. Plus three Celsius.

Computer: Plus four Celsius.

Kane: What's happening? Can't breathe. Too warm. Kracauer, what is this?

Kane: No, not my statue. No! Who has desecrated the monument? Who?

Kane: Belazs.

Computer: Target temperature minus a hundred and ninety three Celsius. Temperature dropping to zero Celsius. Minus ten Celsius. Minus twenty Celsius.

Singing Trees

Mel: This is beautiful, Doctor.

Ace: Here, I can hear singing. Where's it coming from, Professor?

The Doctor: I think he wants us to watch.

Ace: What's he doing, Professor.

The Doctor: Ah, so that's what this is all about, a polydimensional scanning imager. And I bet the creature's using itself as the energy source.

Archivist: Planetary archives, criminal history segment ninety three twelve oh three. Two of the most vicious examples of the criminal mentality have been the leaders of the notorious Kane-Xana g*ng. Until its demise, this g*ng carried out systematic v*olence and extortion unequalled in its brutality. In view of the sheer evil of his crimes, Kane is to be exiled from the planet Proamon and never allowed to return home. He will be banished to the barren planet of Svartos, which has a permanently frozen dark side on which he can survive.

Refrigeration room

Kane: Ah, my dear Belazs. You know, I've been thinking. I've been thinking of your request to leave. You've been with me a long time now. I've grown very fond of you, but I've been thinking it over carefully and I've decided. You may leave me.

Belazs: Leave?

Kane: Whenever you wish. Go in fortune and happiness.

Kane: You traitor. I've been planning my revenge for three thousand years. How can you stand in my way now I am so close?

Singing Trees

Archivist: Kane's partner, the woman Xana, k*lled herself during the final siege of the g*ng's headquarters to avoid being arrested and tried for her crimes.

The Doctor: Fascinating.

Mel: Well, that explains about Kane, but where does the creature come from?

Glitz: And what about the fabulous treasure? Is this it?

The Doctor: Oh, no, no. We might be deep beneath Iceworld, but Kane could find his way here easily enough. No, the treasure's got to be somewhere else, somewhere beyond Kane's reach. What does he fear most?

Ace: Heat. It'll k*ll him.

The Doctor: Precisely. And what better way of protecting the real treasure than to leave a fire-breathing dragon to guard it? What better protection than if the dragon is the treasure.

Mel: The creature, the treasure?

The Doctor: Am I right? Are you the one that everyone's looking for, treasure?

Glitz: It must be worth a fortune.

The Doctor: No, look past the gold and the gemstone, Glitz. Look at the f*re inside. A source of intense optical energy.

Restricted zone

The Doctor (O.C.): Look at it through Kane's eyes. See it as an evil mind would see it.

Kane: At last. After three thousand years, the Dragonfire shall be mine.
{"type": "series", "show": "Doctor Who", "episode": "24x13 - Dragonfire - part 2"}