STATE OF DECAY

BY: TERRANCE DICKS

Part Four

First Air Date: 13 December 1980
Running time: 24:54

AUKON: No.

ZARGO: Go, Aukon. It is too late to interfere now.

AUKON: I said no. Get back. The boy is the first of the Chosen Ones, soon to be one of us. He is not for you.

CAMILLA: The girl, then. Let us have the girl.

AUKON: The girl is a Time Lord. One of the ancient enemies of the Great One. She is to be held for sacrifice at the time of Arising.

DOCTOR: It's no good, K9.

K9: Master?

DOCTOR: Listen. I'm going to have to go to the rebels for help. But will they help, I ask myself.

K9: Probability of indigenous dissident group rendering effective assistance, very low.

DOCTOR: Shush. I'm thinking. I've got to make a very impressive entrance. Something that'll win them over entirely. Got it! Right, K9, we need a slight spatial movement and no temporary displacement. Very tricky, these short hops.

K9: Information, master.

DOCTOR: What is it?

K9: The relative smallness of E-space should render fractional increments more s*ab.

DOCTOR: But of course. Good boy, K9.

VEROS: We can't let Ivo and the villagers att*ck alone. They'll be slaughtered!

KALMAR: Will it help if we're slaughtered with them, just as we're winning back the old knowledge? I refuse to throw it all away.

VEROS: Ivo was right, then. You do prefer these toys to human life.

KALMAR: Because they are the slow secret of victory. Why do you think they are so afraid of science?

VEROS: The Doctor was a scientist. Like all the rest, he vanished in the Tower.

DOCTOR: Halt! Don't move. Look, I'm awfully sorry to drop in on you like this, but we do have a bit of a crisis on our hands.

AUKON: We stand on the very threshold of our triumph. I have communed with the mind of the Great One and he is ready. Thanks to the blood and souls we have fed to him for so long, his body is healed of wounds, regenerated and whole once more.

ZARGO: And he will arise tonight?

AUKON: It is certain. When all is prepared we will go to the resting place and summon him.

CAMILLA: When he wakes, he will be hungry.

ZARGO: Ivo and his faithful villagers will be able to perform one last service for their masters.

CAMILLA: And when they are consumed

AUKON: We shall leave this miserable space trap for the real universe. Rich, fat worlds teeming with life. We shall suck their life blood until they are empty husks, and pass on to more worlds, and yet still more.

CAMILLA: Countless inhabited planets all waiting to feed our hunger.

ZARGO: I have served a thousand years for this.

AUKON: At midnight, our servitude will end and our glory begin. But the proper rituals must be carried out, or the Great One will be displeased. Zargo, Camilla, you will initiate the boy, after I have sacrificed the girl.

DOCTOR: Lack of w*apon. No experience. Odds almost insurmountable. But! He who outlives this day and comes safe home shall stand a-tiptoe when this day is named and rouse him at the name of E-space!

DOCTOR: Well, that's the problem. There's got to be an answer.

KALMAR: What?

DOCTOR: That's the question.

VEROS: We must join forces with Ivo and att*ck the Tower. Tarak was right!

DOCTOR: Yes, yes.

KALMAR: Where is Tarak now? We dare not att*ck the Tower until we are ready.

DOCTOR: You've got to be ready. You people have had a thousand years to rid yourselves of this evil and now all you've got are three hours.

KALMAR: Do you really expect us to believe that some great creature sleeps beneath the Tower and is about to awake and destroy us?

DOCTOR: Where do you think Zargo and his friends got their powers?

KALMAR: I don't know.

DOCTOR: No, and that's the very devil of it. If I had any instruments with me, I could show you.

KALMAR: The scanner.

DOCTOR: Scanner. Scanner?

KALMAR: The console you got working for us. I discovered another facility.

DOCTOR: Range?

KALMAR: It should reach the Tower.

DOCTOR: Right, Now, Kalmar, you'll see I'm telling you the truth. Gather round, gentlemen. Hang on a minute, hang on a minute. It'll take a moment or two for the picture to steady. There we are. Oh, it seems to scan right through the spectrum.

KALMAR: There's the Tower.

DOCTOR: Yes. The spectrum's a bit weak at the moment. Infra-red. Picking up sleeping life forms. Now we're going into x-ray. Watch the area below the Tower.

DOCTOR: Oh.

VEROS: What is it?

DOCTOR: The heartbeat of the Great Vampire. Well, Kalmar?

KALMAR: See if you can raise Ivo on the communicator.

ADRIC: So the vampires in the stories are just pale imitations of the real thing?

ROMANA: If the Doctor's suspicions are right.

ADRIC: Oh yes, the Doctor. Is he coming back from the TARDIS?

ROMANA: Well, we were supposed to join him there after we'd rescued you.

ADRIC: Only you didn't, did you.

ROMANA: Didn't what?

ADRIC: Rescue me. Tarak got k*lled, you got caught, and the Doctor's safely out of it. He can clear off in the TARDIS whenever he likes.

ROMANA: How dare you, Adric!

ADRIC: It looks as if this is one time the goodies don't win after all. Still, I'm all right, aren't I.

ROMANA: Oh yes, you are all right. You haven't done so much better yourself. You stow away in our TARDIS, you expect us to

ADRIC: Now look! I've been offered a partnership. Power and eternal life, they said.

ROMANA: They are vampires, Adric. Do you want to become one of them?

ADRIC: You said yourself, you're on the menu. If it's a choice between that and joining the diners, I mean, there's no sense in two of us getting the chop.

ROMANA: When the Doctor gets back from the TARDIS, he is going to need your help.

ADRIC: Why am I being kept prisoner like this? She's the sacrifice, not me. I'm supposed to be a Chosen One.

ADRIC: I'm sorry, Time Lady. One of my family's died for your lot already. I reckon one's enough.

ROMANA: Adric, do you know what happens to vampires when they die?

ADRIC: But they don't die, do they, Aukon.

AUKON: Release him, and prepare him for the ceremony. Prepare the sacrifice also.

AUKON: It is time.

DOCTOR: Our HQ, the Tower. Now, we can take the Tower between us.

DOCTOR: Yes, well, I'm pretty sure of that.

IVO: But what about Aukon?

DOCTOR: Aukon and his friends will be distracted by the ceremony.

IVO: But what about the guards?

DOCTOR: Well, there are ways of dealing with guards.

IVO: But how do we deal with that?

KALMAR: You said your people k*lled thousands of them.

DOCTOR: Yes, but that was after a long and bloody w*r, and they had bow ships that f*re mighty bolts of steel and pierced each vampire's heart.

IVO: Maybe there's another way to k*ll them?

KALMAR: Well

DOCTOR: Their cardiovascular system's incredibly efficient. They can just seal over minor wounds. Yes, there's a very practical reason for the traditional wooden stake.

IVO: If we sharpened a tree trunk

DOCTOR: No, I doubt if even that would be big enough, and anyway, how could we propel it? Mighty bolt of steel.

IVO: A catapult?

DOCTOR: Of course. Of course! An arrow of steel, and I've been looking at it all this time. Right, gentlemen, let's gather round and finalise our plans. Now, we need a group of your best men, a sort of commando force.

IVO: You'll lead us then, Doctor?

ALL: Yes!

DOCTOR: No.

DOCTOR: It's all right, it's all right. I've got other things to worry about. But, I can lend you a very useful tool. Armoured. Immune to hypnotism.

IVO: Yes?

DOCTOR: And a d*ad sh*t with a nose laser.

IVO: Good.

DOCTOR: K9.

K9: Reconfigured in aggression mode, master.

IVO: Yes.

GUARD: Guards!

VEROS: Doctor.

DOCTOR: Good, good.

KALMAR: Stay calm, Doctor.

DOCTOR: The others have gone, therefore the ceremony must have started. Now listen to me, all of you. I want you to hold this Tower until K9 gives the signal.

IVO: We will not take orders from that thing.

DOCTOR: One day you'll apologise for that.

IVO: Never!

DOCTOR: Shush. Never mind. Just trust me, it'll work. After K9's signal, you evacuate the Tower and make your way round to the caves. If you should find Romana and Adric, see if you can rescue them and get away from here as far and as fast as you can. Got it? Good. Go. Stop. Don't forget, K9 gives the signal.

ADRIC: Listen, I've got a plan. Can you hear me?

HABRIS: My lord.

AUKON: How dare you interrupt us!

HABRIS: We are att*cked, my lord. The Doctor with rebels and villagers, and some strange mechanical beast that sh**t men down.

ZARGO: We must go back.

AUKON: No. The time of Arising is now.

HABRIS: Then send your servants, my lord. Send the bats.

AUKON: I have need of them. The guards must hold the Tower to the last man.

HABRIS: We are outnumbered. Unless you aid us, we shall all be k*lled.

AUKON: Then die. That is the purpose of guards. Go.

CAMILLA: When they have taken the Tower, they will come to att*ck us.

AUKON: By the time the Tower falls, the Great One will have arisen. We shall be invincible.

DOCTOR: Three scoutships, three chances. Now, which one first? This one.

IVO: Habris.

HABRIS: Ivo.

IVO: This is for my son.

HABRIS: I tried to help him.

DOCTOR: Come on. d*ad as a dinosaur. The circuits must be corroded. Have to try one of the others.

AUKON: Now, the sacrifice is make ready.

AUKON: Seize him.

DOCTOR: Come on.

DOCTOR: One to go.

AUKON: O Great One, hear us. We celebrate your Arising with the sacrifice of a Time Lord, one of the race of your enemies. Drink her soul and grow strong.

AUKON: Come, O servants of the Great One, come. Drink the blood of the sacrifice.

DOCTOR: Come on. Come on! What happened to all that Earth craftsmanship, eh? Just because you've been laid up for a thousand years.

DOCTOR: A scintilla of power left in the energy cells, a few drops of fuel. Oh, lovely Earth craftsmanship.

K9: Leave at once. Evacuate the Tower. Evacuate.

DOCTOR: That should do it. Short trip, quick flip. Time to be going, Doctor.

AUKON: The ship!

ZARGO: What's happening?

AUKON: No!

DOCTOR: Romana! Right, time for me to tell you what happened.

ROMANA: You sent the scout ship on a little trip.

DOCTOR: Right. Yes.

AUKON: He rises! See, the Great One rises!

AUKON: He comes! The Great One comes!

DOCTOR: Don't worry, don't worry. Have you ever heard the expression what goes up must come down?

ADRIC: No.

DOCTOR: I wish I hadn't.

AUKON: No! No!

DOCTOR: Get down! Get down!

DOCTOR: There was never really anything to worry about. Their time was up. Well done. Well done, well done, well done.

ADRIC: So that's what happens to vampires when they die.

ROMANA: Glad you didn't join them?

ADRIC: I'm sorry about that. It was just a bluff. It just so happens I was trying to rescue you.

ROMANA: But you didn't, did you.

IVO: Well, we've dealt with the Tower, Doctor. Now, what about this monster?

KALMAR: What did you do?

DOCTOR: Well, I just fired off one of the rocket ships, you see, and I arranged the controls so that it went straight up

ROMANA: And came straight down again.

IVO: But what about the lords, Zargo and the others?

DOCTOR: Ah. Well, they just went to pieces.

KALMAR: Doctor.

DOCTOR: Yes.

KALMAR: As once scientist to another, congratulations.

DOCTOR: It was nothing.

IVO: There is one thing, Doctor.

DOCTOR: Yes?

IVO: I feel I really must apologise for the things I said about K9.

DOCTOR: Go on, then.

IVO: Well done, dog.

K9: Your thanks are recorded.

DOCTOR: There, that should do it.

DOCTOR: There, that should do it. Well, Kalmar, there's all the knowledge you'll need in there. Use it well, and if that's what you want, you can be a high technological society in no time.

KALMAR: We'll do our best, Doctor.

DOCTOR: Good, good.

KALMAR: Doctor?

DOCTOR: Yes?

KALMAR: If we can get the main ship working

DOCTOR: Yes? Inside, you two. We just have to get on with this.

KALMAR: Is there any way out of this E-space? Perhaps one day we can get back to Earth.

DOCTOR: Well, I really don't know. You see, we came here by accident, but you were brought here by the Great Vampire's brain and his secret died with him. Kalmar, such good luck.

KALMAR: Thank you, Doctor.

DOCTOR: And you, young man, you're going straight home.

ADRIC (OOV.): But Doctor

DOCTOR (OOV.): You're going straight back to the Starliner.
{"type": "series", "show": "Doctor Who", "episode": "18x16 - State of Decay - part 4"}