THE DEADLY ASSASSIN

BY: ROBERT HOLMES

Part Two

Original Air Date: 6 November 1976
Running time: 24:44

HILDRED: There he is.

TIME LORD: What a terrible thing to happen.

RUNCIBLE: Did you see what happened, sir?

TIME LORD: It's terrible, terrible.

RUNCIBLE: But is the President d*ad?

BORUSA: We live in evil times.

RUNCIBLE: Ah, Castellan Spandrell. Perhaps you can tell me what has happened?

SPANDRELL: Will you all stand back, please. We've got the criminal.

TIME LORD: Is that him?

BORUSA: A Prydonian.

HILDRED: He was in the gallery, sir, still holding this.

DOCTOR: Extraordinary. The roof's still on. I could have sworn it fell on me.

SPANDRELL: Get him to a detention room.

DOCTOR: No, no, wait, wait, I

GUARD: Move it.

GOTH: Castellan!

SPANDRELL: Sir.

GOTH: The President is d*ad. The trial will start immediately.

SPANDRELL: I need more time.

GOTH: Time for what?

SPANDRELL: There are unanswered questions.

GOTH: That, presumably, will be the purpose of the trial.

BORUSA: Such haste is against all our traditions of fairness and justice.

GOTH: This is a constitutional crisis. The President died without naming his successor. An election must be held within forty eight hours.

BORUSA: But that is a separate matter.

GOTH: No, Cardinal! The Time Lords must not be seen to be leaderless and in disarray. The assassin must be tried and ex*cuted before the election.

HILDRED: You will confess, Doctor.

DOCTOR: All right. All right, I'll confess.

HILDRED: Very sensible.

DOCTOR: I confess you're a bigger idiot than I thought you were. Argh.

HILDRED: There are fifteen intensity levels in this device, Doctor. At the moment, you're only experiencing level nine. Much easier to talk.

DOCTOR: I've got nothing to say.

HILDRED: Oh, you'll think of something, soon.

DOCTOR: Tweedledum.

SPANDRELL: Turn it off.

DOCTOR: Tweedledee.

SPANDRELL: I must apologise for my subordinate. He lets his enthusiasm run away with him.

DOCTOR: I see. The hot and cold technique.

SPANDRELL: We are simply seekers of the truth, and we haven't got much time. Chancellor Goth has ordered your immediate trial.

DOCTOR: I'd like to help you. How about a signed confession?

SPANDRELL: That will help. I hate going to court without possessing the full facts. Motive, for instance.

DOCTOR: Now that's a sensible question. Why should anyone want to assassinate a retiring President?

SPANDRELL: A personal grudge?

DOCTOR: I never met him.

SPANDRELL: I know. I have seen your biog.

DOCTOR: And you still think I did it?

SPANDRELL: I think you're going to be ex*cuted for it. They are preparing the vaporisation chamber now. You have about three hours to live, Doctor.

DOCTOR: What? Well, that's monstrous. Vaporisation without representation is against the constitution.

SPANDRELL: You are an embarrassment.

DOCTOR: You realise I've been framed, don't you.

SPANDRELL: Framed?

DOCTOR: Yes, framed. It's an Earth expression. It means that someone's gone to a great deal of trouble to get me into this mess.

SPANDRELL: Why did you come back here?

DOCTOR: To try and save the President's life. If you remember, I left a note for you.

SPANDRELL: Yes.

DOCTOR: Which, presumably, you did nothing about.

SPANDRELL: All that I could. So you knew the President was going to be assassinated?

DOCTOR: Yes. In a way, I experienced it.

SPANDRELL: Go on.

DOCTOR (on screen): Well, this is the bit you won't believe. People talk of a premonition of tragedy, but I actually saw it happening. I saw the President die as vividly, as clearly as I can see this room now.

SPANDRELL (OOV.): And where were you when this happened?

DOCTOR (on screen): In the TARDIS, travelling in vortex, after I'd heard the Panopticon summons.

SPANDRELL: What do you think?

ENGIN: Precognitive vision is impossible.

SPANDRELL: He knows that, and he knows that we know it, and yet he maintains it happened.

ENGIN: And that's why you believe him?

SPANDRELL: I'm beginning to.

ENGIN: Nobody else will.

SPANDRELL: I think he's being framed.

ENGIN: Framed?

SPANDRELL: An Earth expression.

ENGIN: Oh.

SPANDRELL: You were going to check for me who had withdrawn the Doctor's DE.

ENGIN: Nobody. I'm afraid you were wrong about that, Castellan.

SPANDRELL: I don't think so.

ENGIN: The machine is infallible. Data extraction is impossible without an operating key like this.

ENGIN: And the code of the particular key is recorded here, opposite the archive number of the data extract.

ENGIN: Now, as you can see, my key is the only one entered against the Doctor's DE.

SPANDRELL: And how many of those keys are there?

ENGIN: They're only issued to High Councillors. Nobody else is allowed to inspect the DE's of Time Lords, except for yourself, Castellan, in the line of duty.

SPANDRELL: The record could have been erased, I take it.

ENGIN: You obviously have no idea of the complexity of excitonic circuitry.

SPANDRELL: No, I haven't, but if somebody knew what he was doing?

ENGIN: It would require a mathematical genius with a phenomenal grasp of applied excitonics.

SPANDRELL: Really? There can't be many of those on the High Council.

BORUSA: We should allow time for reflection, for passions to cool.

GOTH: A wise and beloved President brutally sh*t down in his last hour of office? No matter how much time we allow, that fact won't alter.

BORUSA: A violent action is causing an equally violent reaction.

GOTH: Oh, I understand that, Cardinal, but there is another consideration. Quite possibly, after the election, I shall have the honour of being President of the Council.

BORUSA: You're being over-modest, Chancellor. I'm sure of it. Just as I'm sure that the President would have named you as his successor.

GOTH: Who knows what was in the President's mind? But it is the custom, as you know, for an incoming president to pardon political prisoners. Is he to set free the m*rder of his predecessor, or break with custom? Either course would be difficult. I intend to avoid the dilemma by seeing this affair through before he takes office.

BORUSA: Chancellor, all presidents are faced with difficult decisions. It is by their decisions that they are judged.

HILDRED: The prisoner eluded us at that time. Later I went with Castellan Spandrell to the Capitol Museum where the TT capsule had been transferred. Erogen tracer immediately became active. I concluded the prisoner must have been in the vicinity sometime previous.

RUNCIBLE: He seemed nervous, well, apprehensive. He was looking around all the time that we were talking. Then, just before the President appeared, he turned and started to run across the Panopticon. After that, I thought he said

TIME LORD: He pushed past me in a loutish and unmannerly way. Never in all my years of attendance at the Panopticon can I recall such

GOTH: If you could confine yourself to this incident, sir. What happened next?

TIME LORD: Well, I caught him by the arm to remonstrate with him, and he shouted 'Let me go. They'll k*ll him.'

GOTH: Are you quite sure of that?

TIME LORD: What?

GOTH: Are you perhaps getting a little hard of hearing these days?

TIME LORD: Well, er, at my age one can expect these things. I've been having a bit of trouble with my hip lately.

GOTH: Let me put it to you. Could the accused have said, 'Let me go, I will k*ll him'?

TIME LORD: Well, yes, I suppose it is possible. He could have said that.

GOTH: Thank you. Has the accused anything to say before sentence is pronounced?

DOCTOR: Yes. Article Seventeen.

GOTH: Article Seventeen?

DOCTOR: I offer myself as a candidate for the Presidency.

GOTH: The application is frivolous.

DOCTOR: No, sir. I invoke Article Seventeen of the Constitution which is a guarantee of liberty and says, in part, that no candidate for office shall in anyway be debarred or restrained from presenting his claim.

GOTH: The guarantee of liberty does not extend to m*rder.

BORUSA: As a jurist, Chancellor, I must point out that until the accused is pronounced guilty, he is protected by Article Seventeen.

GOTH: He is abusing a legal technicality.

DOCTOR: No, sir, I am claiming a legal right.

BORUSA: Chancellor, this court must be adjourned until the election is over.

GOTH: Very well. But do not think you will escape justice. Castellan Spandrell?

SPANDRELL: Sir.

GOTH: See that the accused gets no opportunity to leave the Capitol.

SPANDRELL: Yes, sir.

SPANDRELL: Forty eight hours, Doctor.

DOCTOR: Well, it's better than three.

SPANDRELL: What are you going to do?

DOCTOR: Suppose, suppose I can convince you I didn't do it?

SPANDRELL: All right, convince me.

FIGURE: Well?

MAN: The trial was adjourned, master. He pleaded Article Seventeen.

FIGURE: He remains as ingenious as ever.

MAN: He will not escape.

FIGURE: Escape? Escape is not in his mind. Now he is hunting you.

MAN: It was a mistake to bring him here. We could have used anyone.

FIGURE: No, we could not have used anyone. You do not understand hatred as I understand it. Only hate keeps me alive. Why else should I endure this pain? I must see the Doctor die in shame and dishonour. Yes, and I must destroy the Time Lords. Nothing else matters. Nothing!

SPANDRELL: Don't get any ambitious ideas.

DOCTOR: I just wanted to check it was the same staser. You see that symbol at the end of the corridor?

SPANDRELL: What about it?

DOCTOR: You try and h*t it.

SPANDRELL: What?

DOCTOR: Go on. You try and h*t it.

SPANDRELL: Just the kind of hooliganism we're always running the Shabogans in for.

SPANDRELL: Miles away.

DOCTOR: The sights. So you see, I couldn't have sh*t the President if I tried. And equally, I couldn't h*t the assassin. That's why they were fixed.

SPANDRELL: The assassin, according to you, being one of the High Council.

DOCTOR: Yes. Yes, he was in the party surrounding the President. I saw him draw a staser and step forward. I aimed a bolt at him, but at that time I didn't know the sights had been fixed.

SPANDRELL: One of the High Council. It's getting better and better.

DOCTOR: What is?

SPANDRELL: Your story. But still a story. Where's the evidence, Doctor?

DOCTOR: I'll tell you where the evidence is.

SPANDRELL: Where?

DOCTOR: In the Public Register camera. I was standing right beside it.

SPANDRELL: Doctor, you may yet end up as President. Hildred?

HILDRED: Yes, Castellan.

SPANDRELL: Take the Doctor to the Panopticon.

HILDRED: Now, sir?

SPANDRELL: Of course now. And I want Commentator Runcible there too. And wait for me.

HILDRED: Very good, Castellan.

GOTH: That's an unusual request. You want the Panopticon open at this hour?

SPANDRELL: For further investigation, sir.

GOTH: I see. Well, if there is anything further to be discovered, Castellan.

SPANDRELL: Thank you, sir.

GOTH: You're keeping a close watch on the Doctor, I hope?

SPANDRELL: Someone is with him all the time.

GOTH: Good. You know that, apart from myself, he is the only other candidate in this election?

SPANDRELL: Is that so.

GOTH: A m*rder and a renegade. That exposes the highest office in the land to ridicule. Well, my first action as President will be to have Cardinal Borusa draft an amendment to Article Seventeen. I shall see that this sort of thing never happens again.

RUNCIBLE: It's not really my field, of course. The technician would normally be responsible.

SPANDRELL: Your technician disappeared. Probably scared to death of being involved. All I want to see is the last sequence leading up to the assassination.

RUNCIBLE: I expect that will be in the last band of the drum.

SPANDRELL: Splendid. So perhaps you'll be good enough to fetch it.

RUNCIBLE: Yes, all right, Castellan.

DOCTOR: About there.

SPANDRELL: Then the b*llet would have passed over and to the left.

DOCTOR: Yes.

SPANDRELL: Let's see.

HILDRED: Castellan.

SPANDRELL: What is it?

HILDRED: I thought I saw a movement up there.

SPANDRELL: Oh, that's Runcible. Might be something across here.

HILDRED (OOV.): Here, Castellan.

DOCTOR: Is that it?

SPANDRELL: Stasers don't do a lot of damage, except to body tissue. Looking at the President, you couldn't say whether he was h*t in the head or the leg.

HILDRED: That was Runcible!

SPANDRELL (OOV.): Runcible, are you all right?

DOCTOR: Well, at least he's alive.

SPANDRELL: Come on, what happened?

RUNCIBLE: Horrible. Horrible.

SPANDRELL: What are you talking about?

RUNCIBLE: My technician.

SPANDRELL: Where?

RUNCIBLE: In the camera.

SPANDRELL: Good grief. What's happened to him?

DOCTOR: Matter condensation. A particularly nasty sort of death.

HILDRED: No wonder we couldn't find him.

SPANDRELL: I've never seen anything like it.

DOCTOR: I have, I'm afraid.

SPANDRELL: You have?

DOCTOR: Yes. It's a technique the Master picked up somewhere on his travels.

SPANDRELL: Who's the Master?

DOCTOR: Who is the Master? He's my sworn arch-enemy. A fiend who glories in chaos and destruction.

SPANDRELL: A Time Lord?

DOCTOR: Yes, a long time ago. You know, a lot of things are becoming clearer.

SPANDRELL: Not to me.

DOCTOR: If the Master is here on Gallifrey, then this represents the final challenge. It explains why I was brought here. There are old scores to settle. And that's just a sort of greetings card.

SPANDRELL: Shut that thing up. Runcible, we are still waiting for you to find the last sequence.

RUNCIBLE: It's here, Castellan. You can tell by the numbers.

SPANDRELL: I can tell when I see it. Take it to Records. I'll have a look at it there. I want to know all you can tell me about this Master. And I warn you know, if there is some private feud between you, do not try to settle it on Gallifrey.

DOCTOR: It cannot be avoided. Like it or not, Gallifrey is involved, and I'm afraid things will never be quite the same again. Shall we go down?

SPANDRELL: If he's a Time Lord, there'll be a DE on him in the archives.

DOCTOR: Mmm, perhaps, perhaps.

SPANDRELL: What do you mean, perhaps? There's a full biog on every Time Lord.

HILDRED: Runcible.

RUNCIBLE: I'm sorry, so sorry.

SPANDRELL: What?

RUNCIBLE: I'm sorry, so sorry.

SPANDRELL: Four cold-blooded killings in one day.

DOCTOR: Flea-bitings, Spandrell, flea-bitings. Things will get a lot worse.

SPANDRELL: Not here in the Time Lord Capitol.

DOCTOR: Well, it might rouse some of them from their lethargy. They live for centuries and have about as much sense of adventure as dormice.

ENGIN: Nothing, Castellan. There is no record of any Time Lord ever adopting that title.

DOCTOR: I told you so. If there had been a DE on the Master, the first thing he would have done would be to destroy it.

SPANDRELL: According to Coordinator Engin, the Time Lord data extracts cannot be withdrawn without the fact being recorded. I thought that yours had been scanned recently, but he assured me it was impossible.

DOCTOR: Rubbish. Anyone with a little criminal know-how could do it. I could do it myself.

ENGIN: More that criminal know-how, Doctor. Excitonic circuitry.

DOCTOR: Child's play to the Master. Do you think this stuff is sophisticated? There are worlds out there where this kind of equipment would be considered prehistoric junk.

SPANDRELL: What is the Master like on mathematics?

DOCTOR: He's brilliant, absolutely brilliant. He's almost up to my standard. What's that?

ENGIN: The APC control.

DOCTOR: APC?

ENGIN: Amplified Panatropic Computations.

DOCTOR: Brain cells.

ENGIN: Yes. Trillions of electrochemical cells in a continuous matrix. The cells are the repository of departed Time Lords. At the moment of death, an electrical scan is made of the brain pattern and these millions of impulses are immediately transferred to the

DOCTOR: Shush. I understand the theory. What's the function?

ENGIN: Well, to monitor life in the Capitol. We use all this combined knowledge and experience to predict future developments.

DOCTOR: Ah. Like the assassination of a President.

ENGIN: For some reason, that was not foreseen.

DOCTOR: Oh yes, it was foreseen, Engin. It was foreseen by me. How very clever. This time he's surpassed himself.

SPANDRELL: What are you talking about?

DOCTOR: Well, don't you see what he's done? We Time Lords are telepathic. That's simply a brain storage system. He intercepted its forecast that the President was to be assassinated and beamed it into my mind.

SPANDRELL: Is that possible?

ENGIN: No.

DOCTOR: Yes, yes. He could do it. You said my DE had been scanned.

SPANDRELL: Yes.

DOCTOR: Yes. He'd need a biography print to beam a message accurately over that distance. It makes sense, Spandrell.

SPANDRELL: Maybe, but why?

DOCTOR: I told you. Because he has an old score to settle.

ENGIN: Doctor, I simply cannot believe that anybody could do what you're suggesting. How can one intercept a thought pattern from within the Matrix itself?

DOCTOR: By going in there and joining it.

SPANDRELL: You mean a living mind?

DOCTOR: Well, in a sense that's all a living mind is, electrochemical impulses. If I went in there, I could discover where he intercepted the circuit.

ENGIN: I couldn't allow that. It's too dangerous. The psychosomatic feedback might k*ll you.

DOCTOR: I'm aware of that.

ENGIN: It's never been done.

DOCTOR: Well, it's better than being vaporised, and that's what's in store for me if I don't produce the Master.

SPANDRELL: Let him try it.

ENGIN: Well, all right.

ENGIN: Lie down.

DOCTOR: Is this what happens to the near-deceased?

ENGIN: Well, they're normally unconscious. I think there might be some pain.

DOCTOR: I'm ready when you are.

ENGIN: Are you quite sure?

DOCTOR: Get on with it.

ENGIN: It's stopped.

SPANDRELL: What?

ENGIN: Brain activity. Look, there's nothing.

SPANDRELL: You mean he's d*ad?

ENGIN: Virtually. I warned him the psychic shock of that environment

SPANDRELL: But he's still breathing.

ENGIN: Oh, motor functions often continue for some. He's back! His brain must have an unusually high level of artron energy.

SPANDRELL: What do you think happened in there?

ENGIN: I don't know.

FIGURE: You were a fool, Doctor, to venture into my domain.
{"type": "series", "show": "Doctor Who", "episode": "14x10 - The Deadly Assassin - part 2"}