Kill the Moon

[The Moon 2049]

(Clara is using a communications console. She and Courtney Woods, Miss Disruptive Influence, are wearing orange spacesuits from the TARDIS.)

CLARA: Hello, hello. Hello, Earth. We have a terrible decision to make. It's an uncertain decision, and we don't have a lot of time. The man who normally helps, he's gone. Maybe he's not coming back. In fact, I, I really don't think he is. We're on our own. So, an innocent life versus the future of all mankind. We have forty five minutes to decide.

(Because that is how long is left on the countdown to detonation of the 100 nuclear devices within range of the trigger.)

[Coal Hill School]

(Previously, in the now time.)

CLARA: Courtney Woods. Doctor, she has gone crazy. She's uncontrollable. She took your psychic paper. She's been using it as fake ID.
DOCTOR: To get into museums?
CLARA: No, no, no. To buy White Lightning or alcopops or whatever.
DOCTOR: I've no idea what you're talking about. What, what is Courtney Woods?
CLARA: She's one of my year tens. She was in the TARDIS.
DOCTOR: Doing what?
CLARA: Throwing up.
DOCTOR: Oh, her. Oh, that was ages ago.
CLARA: Look, she says that you told her that she wasn't special.
DOCTOR: Rubbish.
CLARA: She says that's what sent her off the rails.
DOCTOR: Pffff.

[Store cupboard]

(The TARDIS has found a larger place than the previous supply cupboard, with glass panels in the door.)

CLARA: Doctor. I know, I know. But, you say something like that to somebody, it hurts. Especially if you're somebody of her age, especially if you're you. Doctor, it can affect her whole life.
DOCTOR: Bah.

[TARDIS]

(Courtney is inside, at the console. The Doctor runs over to her.)

DOCTOR: Oi! Give over!
COURTNEY: I got stuff to clean up with.

(She holds up paper towels)

DOCTOR: What?
COURTNEY: And I got these from the chemist.
DOCTOR: Vortex manipulators?

(Magnetic bracelets on her wrists.)

COURTNEY: Travel sickness.
DOCTOR: Good. Because I don't like people being sick in my TARDIS. No being sick. And no hanky-panky.
CLARA: Doctor!
DOCTOR: Sorry, that's the rules.
CLARA: Look, Courtney, you're not going to be needing those because you're not going to be doing any travelling. Doctor, will you just, just tell her?
DOCTOR: Tell her what?
CLARA: (through clenched teeth) Tell her that she's special.
DOCTOR: Have you gone bananas?
COURTNEY: Do you really think I'm not special? You can't just take me away like that. It's like you kicked a big hole in in the side of my life. You really think it? I'm nothing? I'm not special?
DOCTOR: (sotto) Pfft. God. (normal) How'd you like to be the first woman on the moon? Is that special enough for you?
COURTNEY: Yeah, all right.
DOCTOR: Okay. Now we can do something interesting.

(He sets the TARDIS flying.)

CLARA: Hey, Doctor!

[Cargo bay]

(They step out of the TARDIS in full spacesuits into a storage area filled with cylindrical objects, some in racks. Some have a US flag on them, some have Cyrillic writing.)

COURTNEY: This isn't the moon. Where are we?
DOCTOR: On a recycled space shuttle. 2049, judging by that prototype version of the Bennett oscillator.

(They take their helmets off.)

DOCTOR: Where's the gravity coming from?
CLARA: What are they?
DOCTOR: About a hundred nuclear bombs.

(An alarm sounds. The Doctor looks out through the airlock window.)

DOCTOR: Ah. We're on our way to the moon. Check that. We're about to crash into it! Hold on! Hold on!

(They grab hold of cargo nets.)

CLARA: Why didn't you just tell her you didn't mean it?

(The space shuttle belly-flops onto the moon's surface and skids to a halt. The three person shuttle crew enter, lead by a woman.)

LUNDVIK: Who the hell do you think you are?
DOCTOR: Why have you got all these nuclear bombs?
LUNDVIK: I'm not going to give you another chance.
DOCTOR: Oh? Well, you're just going to have to shoot us, then. Shoot the little girl first.
COURTNEY: What?
DOCTOR: Yes. She doesn't want to stand there watching us getting shot, does she? She'll be terrified. Girl first, then her teacher, and then me. You'll have to spend a lot of time shooting me because I will keep on regenerating.

(Courtney sits on the deck behind the big Russian bomb and sulks.)

DOCTOR: In fact, I'm not entirely sure that I won't keep on regenerating for ever.
CLARA: Doctor, what are you doing?

(The Doctor is making slow steps backwards and forwards. He ends up doing bunny hops.)

DOCTOR: Gravity test. So, it'll be very time-consuming and messy, and rather wasteful, because I think I might just possibly be able to help you. You see, I am a super-intelligent alien being who flies in time and space. Are you going to shoot me?
LUNDVIK: No.
DOCTOR: Good. Why have you got all these nuclear bombs? No, no, no. Easier question. What's wrong with my yo-yo?

(Just like the Fourth Doctor did once, he uses a yo-yo to test the gravity.)

CLARA: Doctor, it goes up and down.
DOCTOR: Bingo.

(The penny finally drops.)

CLARA: Ah.
DOCTOR: Ah ha. We should be bouncing about this cabin like little fluffy clouds. But we're not. What is the matter with the moon?
LUNDVIK: Nobody knows.
CLARA: Do you know what's wrong with the moon?
DOCTOR: It's put on weight.
LUNDVIK: How can the moon put on weight?
DOCTOR: Oh, lots of ways. Gravity bombs, axis alignment systems, planet shellers.
LUNDVIK: So it's alien.
DOCTOR: Must be causing chaos on Earth. The tides will be so high that they will drown whole cities.
LUNDVIK: Yeah.
DOCTOR: So what are you doing about it?

(Lundvik takes a case from the wall.)

DOCTOR: This?
LUNDVIK: That's what you do with aliens, isn't it? Blow them up?

[Moon]

(Helmets on, they open the airlock onto the moon's surface. Courtney goes first. Okay, it is actually Lanzarote. At least they got to go on location - to the same place as in Planet of Fire.)

COURTNEY: Wow. Wow! One small thing for a thing. One enormous thing for a thingy thing.
LUNDVIK: So much for history.

(They leave the scorched and pretty much wrecked unnamed space shuttle and walk over to a modular settlement in a nearby crater. Courtney takes her mobile phone from a pocket and takes lots of photos, as a half-Earth hangs in the sky.)

LUNDVIK: There was a mining survey, Mexicans. Something happened up here. Nobody knows what. That's when the trouble began back on Earth. High tide everywhere at once. The greatest natural disaster in history.

(They walk around the building. The airlock is wide open.)

CLARA: Cobwebs?
LUNDVIK: Henry, go back and prime the bombs.
HENRY: Er, is there any instructions?
LUNDVIK: There's a switch on each of them. The light goes red.
HENRY: They won't go off?
LUNDVIK: No, not till I fiddle with this thing.

(The red case she has kept with her since she took it off the wall. Middle-aged Henry turns back, looking worried.)

HENRY: Okay.
LUNDVIK: Shall we?
DOCTOR: Is that the best you could get?
LUNDVIK: Second-hand space shuttle, third-hand astronauts.

[Module]

(A remarkable lot of cobwebs for a building open to vacuum. They close the door to the corridor behind them.)

DOCTOR: How many people here?
LUNDVIK: Four. Minera Luna San Pedro. It was privately financed. They where doing a mineral survey up here.
DOCTOR: Messages? Mayday? SOS?
DUKE: Pretty much all the satellites had been whacked out of orbit. They managed to send back some screams.
DOCTOR: So then you came up here to rescue them with your bombs?
DUKE: Not quite.
LUNDVIK: They disappeared ten years ago.
DOCTOR: Nobody came?
LUNDVIK: There was no shuttle.
DOCTOR: You had one.
LUNDVIK: It was in a museum. They'd cut the back off it so kids could ride in it. We'd stopped going into space. Nobody cared. Not until

(Courtney screams.)

CLARA: Courtney!

(Courtney has found a spacesuit hanging in a cocoon.)

CLARA: Oh, my God. Doctor, tell me there wasn't anyone inside that thing.

(He scans it with his screwdriver.)

DOCTOR: I could, but it wouldn't make it true.
DUKE: I'll get some power back on.
CLARA: Come on. Now, Courtney, come here. Don't look. You all right?
COURTNEY: I'm okay.

(The Doctor cuts the corpse down.)

CLARA: Hey. Look. Look at me. Look. It's all right if you're not.
COURTNEY: I'm fine. What did it?
DOCTOR: Maybe something trying to find out how you're put together. Or maybe how you tasted.
COURTNEY: Do we have guns?
LUNDVIK: Not unless you brought some.
DOCTOR: Chicken, apparently.

(The settlement powers up.)

DOCTOR: Save the air.

(They take their helmets off. A few notes of that Psycho shower scene theme sound in the background. The Doctor powers up a computer console and looks at the survey records.)

DOCTOR: They didn't find anything.
LUNDVIK: Eh?
DOCTOR: The Mexicans. They didn't find any minerals on the moon at all. Nada.

(He looks at photographs of the moon strewn on a table.)

DOCTOR: Oh.
CLARA: Oh?
DOCTOR: Lines of tectonic stress.
LUNDVIK: That's the Mare Fecunditatis. It's been there since the Apollo days. It's always been there.
DOCTOR: No, no, no. These are much, much bigger. Sea of Tranquillity. Sea of Nectar. Sea of Ingenuity. Sea of Crises.
CLARA: Meaning?

(The lights flicker.)

DOCTOR: Meaning, Clara, that the moon, this little planetoid that's been tagging along beside you for a hundred million years, which gives you light at night and seas to sail on, is in the process of falling to bits.

(Bang! Everything shakes.)

[Moon]

(Henry, who is still on his way back to the shuttle, is knocked to his knees. He gets back up on his feet and tries to use his communicator.)

HENRY: Hello, Captain? Captain? Captain?

(Something is going on inside a nearby slit in the ground. We see him shine his torch in, then stagger backwards and fall as if something is heading for him.)

HENRY: Argh!

[Module]

(There is a high-pitched sound and a scuttling noise.)

COURTNEY: What the hell was that?
LUNDVIK: Duke, is that you?
DUKE [OC]: I don't sound anything like that.
LUNDVIK: Can you try and get the lights back on?
DUKE [OC]: That's what I'm doing.
DOCTOR: Torch. Give me your torch. Whatever it is, it's in here.

(Sounds of running claws.)

DOCTOR: I think we've found your alien.

(A giant space spider with luminous red knees heads for them down an adjoining corridor.)

DOCTOR: Back, back, back! We need a door. A door, a door!
CLARA: Here! Here! The door's locked.
DOCTOR: Come on, come on! There's no power to work it. Come on!
CLARA: Doctor.

(He drags them down behind the table.)

DOCTOR: Stay still. It's sensing movement. It can't see you. Fast movement. There must be another exit through there. Slowly. Slowly. Head to that exit. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly, slowly. (They inch their way.)
DOCTOR: Gently, gently. When I say run, run.
LUNDVIK: Who made you the boss?
DOCTOR: Well, you say run, then.
LUNDVIK: Duke!

(The giant spider leaps on Duke as he comes in from another corridor.)

DUKE: Argh!
LUNDVIK: Duke!

(The locked door opens.)

DOCTOR: Run! We have power. Run!
CLARA: Quick, it's shutting.

(The door slams shut, and Courtney is on the wrong side, because her feet are no longer in contact with the floor.)

COURTNEY: Miss!
CLARA: Courtney! Courtney!
COURTNEY: Miss!
CLARA: Courtney! The power's gone again.

(Courtney is floating in mid-air.)

COURTNEY: It's killed him. It's coming in here! Doctor, it's coming in here!
DOCTOR: You'll be okay!

(Lundvik uses her communicator.)

LUNDVIK: Henry? Henry?
DOCTOR: Courtney, look at me. Look at me! Courtney!

(The spider is walking across the ceiling.)

DOCTOR: Try and get to the door! Try and get yourself down here.

(The Doctor gets the glass pane out of the door.)

DOCTOR: Courtney, grab my yo-yo!

(She does, just as gravity returns and she drops to the floor. The spider rears over her and she screams, then reaches for something in her backpack.)

DOCTOR: Courtney!

(Courtney stands and pumps something out of a bottle at the spider. The others re-enter.)

CLARA: Courtney.
COURTNEY: Kills ninety nine percent of all known germs.

(The clean-up stuff she brought with her.)

DOCTOR: Good stuff, Courtney. Just don't try that at home, okay?
CLARA: You all right?
COURTNEY: Why did I just fly? This is nuts.

(The Doctor scans the remains of the spider with his screwdriver.)

DOCTOR: Did you say germs? Oh, God, this is incredible. Look at the size of it. It's the size of a badger.
CLARA: Doctor
DOCTOR: It's a prokaryotic unicellular life form, with non-chromosomal DNA. Which, as you and me know. Well, not you and me. Well, you, certainly not. You and me, yes, scientists know, this is a germ. You flew because that one point three billion tonnes shifted. It moved. It's an unstable mass.
COURTNEY: I'm scared, Miss.
CLARA: Okay.

(Lundvik has looked at what is left of Duke.)

LUNDVIK: He'd just had a grand-daughter. Elina. She was his first. He was my teacher. He taught me how to fly. We were both given the sack on the same day.
DOCTOR: Which way to the Mare Fecunditatis?
COURTNEY: Please can I go home now? I'm really. I'm really sorry, but I'd like to go home.

[Moon]

(The Doctor leads them in single file.)

LUNDVIK: Henry, come in. If you don't mind, Henry, come in.
CLARA: Doctor, this is dangerous now.
DOCTOR: It was dangerous before. Everything's dangerous if you want it to be. Eating chips is dangerous. Crossing the road. It's no way to live your life. Tell her. You're supposed to be teaching her.
CLARA: Look, I have a duty of care, okay? You know what that is?
DOCTOR: Course I know what a duty of care is. What are you suggesting? She's fine. What are you, thirty five?
COURTNEY: Fifteen.

(Clara shakes her head.)

[TARDIS]

DOCTOR: Now, don't touch anything.
COURTNEY: You got any games?
DOCTOR: Oh, don't be so stupid!
COURTNEY: Can I get reception up here?

[Cargo bay]

(Lundvik is setting the triggers on the nuclear devices.)

DOCTOR: Get in.
CLARA: Why are you shutting her in? We don't need to stay, do we?
DOCTOR: Eh?
CLARA: It's obvious, isn't it? The moon doesn't break up.
DOCTOR: How do you know?
CLARA: Because I've been in the future, and the moon is still there. I think. You know the moon is still there, right?
DOCTOR: Maybe it isn't the moon. Maybe it's a hologram or a big painting, or a special effect. Maybe it's a completely different moon.
CLARA: But you would know.
DOCTOR: I would?
CLARA: If the moon fell to bits in 2049, somebody would've mentioned it. It would have come up in conversation. So it doesn't break up. So the world doesn't end. So, let's just get in the TARDIS and go.
DOCTOR: Clara, there are some moments in time that I simply can't see. Little eye-blinks. They don't look the same as other things. They're not clear. They're fuzzy, they're grey. Little moments in which big things are decided. And this is one of them. Just now, I can't tell what happens to the moon, because whatever happens to the moon hasn't been decided yet. And it's going to be decided here and now. Which very much sounds as though it's up to us.
LUNDVIK: Neither of you are going anywhere. I've lost my crew. We were the last astronauts. This is the last shuttle, these are the last nuclear bombs. We're the last chance for Earth, and you're staying to help me.
DOCTOR: Decision made.
CLARA: Yeah.

(In the TARDIS, Courtney walks around with the phone, bored. She touches some controls, which burble and release a bit of steam, then she sits down.)

[Moon]

(Looking down on the Mexicans' survey and sample equipment.)

DOCTOR: What is killing the moon?
CLARA: How can the moon die, though?
DOCTOR: Everything does, sooner or later.
LUNDVIK: Can we save it?
DOCTOR: Depends what's killing it.
LUNDVIK: There are the other three.

(They go down to the spacesuits in cobwebs near cracks in the crust.)

CLARA: Is it those germ things, then? Are they like cockroaches? Is it, is it an infestation?
LUNDVIK: Is it?
DOCTOR: Well, I've only seen one of them. It would take an awful lot more to cause the moon to put on one point three billion tonnes.

(A giant spider-germ comes out of its lair next to a spacesuit and jumps the Doctor.)

DOCTOR: Argh!
CLARA: Doctor!

(Clara tries the disinfectant spray.)

LUNDVIK: It's a vacuum. It won't work.

(They grab at its legs and get it off the Doctor's faceplate. It scuttles back into its lair.)

DOCTOR: Well, that makes two.
CLARA: Sunlight.
LUNDVIK: Sunlight?
CLARA: If they're germs. My nan says it's the best disinfectant there is.
DOCTOR: Shine your light down there.

(Lundvik does. There are lots of the red-kneed germs.)

LUNDVIK: Where have they come from?
DOCTOR: Maybe they've been there all the time. It's warmish. They're multiplying, feeding, evolving.

(They leave, rapidly.)

LUNDVIK: Doctor, if the moon breaks up, it'll kill us all in about forty five minutes.
DOCTOR: I agree. Unless something else is going on.

(He uses his yo-yo to get a sample from another fissure. It comes back wet)

LUNDVIK: There's no water on the moon.
DOCTOR: It's not water. It's amniotic fluid. The stuff that life comes from. I've got to go down there.
LUNDVIK: Doctor.
DOCTOR: Back to your shuttle. Get your bombs ready. You, get to the TARDIS. Get safe. Get Courtney safe. I will be back.

(He takes germ killer spray from Clara.)

CLARA: What? No. Doctor. Doctor!

(The Doctor jumps down into the fissure.)

CLARA: Doctor!
LUNDVIK: Will he?

(Clara raises her arms in surrender, then lowers them and sighs.)

LUNDVIK: Will he be back?
CLARA: If he says so, I suppose he will.

[TARDIS]

COURTNEY: Miss? Come in.
CLARA [OC]: Courtney?
COURTNEY: I'm bored. When are you coming back?
CLARA [OC]: We're on our way. What you doing?
COURTNEY: Putting some pictures on Tumblr.

(She flicks through pictures of the Doctor and Clara in space suits on her phone.)

[Moon]

CLARA: No! Courtney, don't put any photos on Tumblr.
LUNDVIK: My granny used to put things on Tumblr.

(A small moonquake makes them stagger.)

LUNDVIK: There he is.

(They have reached Henry. His helmet is open to the vacuum and he is a skeleton now. Clara looks across at the shuttle, on the opposite side of a ravine.)

CLARA: Was that where we landed? It looks so different.

(Cracks form in the moon's crust.)

LUNDVIK: It's going down.

(The shuttle tumbles into the widening ravine.)

CLARA: Courtney! Doctor!
LUNDVIK: We going to have to take cover. We're running out of oxygen.
CLARA: Doctor!

(He appears behind them.)

DOCTOR: Today's the day, humankind.

[Module]

CLARA: Where's the TARDIS?
DOCTOR: She's in the shuttle, isn't she? She'll turn up.
CLARA: Last time you said that, she turned up on the wrong side of the planet.
DOCTOR: You two have never gotten on, have you?
CLARA: Look, we need to know where Courtney is.
DOCTOR: Courtney is safe. Och. Well, do you have her phone number?
CLARA: No, no, no. Of course I don't have her phone number.
DOCTOR: Well, what about the school? Does the secretary have her number?
CLARA: I can't. The secretary hates me. She thinks I gave her a packet of TENA Lady for Secret Santa. Look. Courtney's posting stuff on Tumblr. Doesn't that know where you are?
LUNDVIK: I don't know. I'm not a historian.
DOCTOR: Phone. I know what the problem is. Oh, she can't post that. She can't put pictures of me online.

(He sonicks Clara's phone then aims at a monitor up on the wall. Shades of the Three Doctors.)

COURTNEY [on monitor]: Yeah?
DOCTOR: You can't put pictures of me online.
CLARA: Are you okay?
COURTNEY [on monitor]: Er, I'm fine. What's up?
LUNDVIK: You said you know what the problem is.
DOCTOR: Yes, yes. It's a rather big problem.
CLARA: Okay,.do you want to share it with the class?
DOCTOR: Well, I had a little hypothesis. The seismic activity, the surface breaking up, the variable mass, the increase in gravity, the fluid. I scanned what's down there.

(He moves a mobile console and sonicks it, then creates a 3D projection of the moon.)

DOCTOR: The moon isn't breaking apart. Well, actually, it is breaking apart, and rather quickly. We've got about an hour and a half. But that isn't the problem. It's not infested.
COURTNEY [on monitor]: What are they, then, those things?
DOCTOR: Bacteria. Tiny, tiny bacteria living on something very, very big. Something that weighs about one point three billion tonnes. Something that's living. Something growing.
CLARA: Growing?
DOCTOR: That.

(He sonicks the image to show what looks very like a baby dragon curled up inside the moon.)

COURTNEY [on monitor]: That lives under the moon?
DOCTOR: No.
CLARA: What?
DOCTOR: That doesn't live under the moon. That is the moon.
LUNDVIK: What the hell are you talking about?
DOCTOR: The moon isn't breaking apart. The moon is hatching.
CLARA: Huh?
DOCTOR: The moon's an egg.
CLARA: Has it, er, has it always been an egg?
DOCTOR: Yes, for a hundred million years or so. Just, just growing. Just getting ready to be born.
CLARA: Okay. So the moon has never been the moon?
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no. It's never been dead. It's just taking a long time to come alive.
COURTNEY [on monitor]: Is it a chicken?
DOCTOR: No!
COURTNEY [on monitor]: Cos, for a chicken to have laid an egg that big
DOCTOR: Courtney, don't spoil the moment.
CLARA: Doctor, what is it?
DOCTOR: I think that it's unique. I think that's the only one of its kind in the universe. I think that that is utterly beautiful.
LUNDVIK: How do we kill it?
CLARA: Why'd you want to kill it?
COURTNEY [on monitor]: It's a little baby.
LUNDVIK: Doctor, how do we kill it?
DOCTOR: Kill the moon?

(Lundvik nods. He turns off the hologram.)

DOCTOR: Kill the moon. Well, you have about a hundred of the best man-made nuclear weapons, if they still work. If that's what you want to do.
CLARA: Doctor, wait
LUNDVIK: Will that do it?
DOCTOR: A hundred nuclear bombs set off right where we are, right on top of a living, vulnerable creature? It'll never feel the sun on its back.
LUNDVIK: And then what? Will the moon still break up? You said, you said we had an hour and a half?
DOCTOR: Well, there'll be nothing to make it break up. There will be nothing trying to force its way out. The gravity of the little dead baby will pull all the pieces back together again. Of course, it won't be very pretty. You'd have an enormous corpse floating in the sky. You might have some very difficult conversations to have with your kids.
LUNDVIK: I don't have any kids.
CLARA: Stop. Right, listen. This is a, this is a life. I mean, this must be the biggest life in the universe.
COURTNEY [on monitor]: It's not even been born.
LUNDVIK: It is killing people. It is destroying the Earth.
CLARA: You cannot blame a baby for kicking.
LUNDVIK: Let me tell you something. You want to know what I took back from being in space? Look at the edge of the Earth. The atmosphere, that is paper thin. That is the only thing that saves us all from death. Everything else, the stars, the blackness. That's all dead. Sadly, that is the only life any of us will ever know.
COURTNEY [on monitor]: There's life here. There's life just next door.
LUNDVIK: Look, when you've grown up a bit, you'll realise that everything doesn't have to be nice. Some things are just bad. Anyway, you ran away. It's none of your business.
COURTNEY [on monitor]: Doctor, I want to come back.
CLARA: Courtney, you'll be safer where you are.

(Lundvik enters the code to start the countdown on the bombs.)

[TARDIS]

COURTNEY: Doctor, I'm sorry. I want to come back, okay? I want to help.
DOCTOR [OC]: Ah, there's some DVDs on the blue book shelf.

[Module]

DOCTOR: Just stick one into the TARDIS console. That'll bring you to me.
COURTNEY [on monitor]: Right.
DOCTOR: And make sure you hang on to the console, otherwise the TARDIS will leave you behind.
CLARA: So what do we do? Doctor? Huh? Doctor, what do we do?
DOCTOR: Nothing.
CLARA: What?
DOCTOR: We don't do anything. I'm sorry, Clara. I can't help you.
CLARA: Of course you can help.
DOCTOR: The Earth isn't my home. The moon's not my moon. Sorry.
CLARA: Come on. Hey.
DOCTOR: Listen, there are moments in every civilisation's history in which the whole path of that civilisation is decided. The whole future path. Whatever future humanity might have depends upon the choice that is made right here and right now. Now, you've got the tools to kill it. You made them. You brought them up here all on your own, with your own ingenuity. You don't need a Time Lord. Kill it. Or let it live. I can't make this decision for you.
CLARA: Yeah, well, I can't make it.
DOCTOR: Well, there's two of you here.
CLARA: Well, yeah. A school teacher and an astronaut.
DOCTOR: Who's better qualified?
CLARA: I don't know! The President of America.
DOCTOR: Oh, take something off his plate. He makes far too many decisions anyway.
LUNDVIK: She.
DOCTOR: She. Sorry. She hasn't even been into space. She hasn't been to another planet. How would she even know what to do?
CLARA: I am asking you for help.
DOCTOR: Listen, we went to dinner in Berlin in 1937, right? We didn't nip out after pudding and kill Hitler. I've never killed Hitler. And you wouldn't expect me to kill Hitler. The future is no more malleable than the past.
CLARA: Okay, don't you do this to make some kind of point.
DOCTOR: Sorry. Well, actually, no, I'm not sorry. It's time to take the stabilisers off your bike. It's your moon, womankind. It's your choice.
CLARA: And you're just going to stand there?
DOCTOR: Absolutely not.

(The TARDIS arrives, and Courtney comes out.)

CLARA: Doctor?
DOCTOR: A teenager, an astronaut and a schoolteacher.
LUNDVIK: Hang on a minute. We can get in there, can't we? You can sort it out with that thing.
DOCTOR: No. Some decisions are too important not to make on your own.
CLARA: Doctor. Doctor? Doctor!

(The Doctor goes into the TARDIS and shuts the door. It dematerialises.)

LUNDVIK: Oh, what a prat.

(Another moonquake. The germs come flooding onto the surface from new fissures.)

LUNDVIK: I'm going to detonate the bombs, agreed? Agreed?

(A porthole breaks and the air rushes out.)

LUNDVIK: Hang on tight, there's been a breach!

(The vacuum sucks a handy piece of metal over the hole and seals it.)

CLARA: If we let it live, what would happen if the moon wasn't there?
LUNDVIK: Listen, we haven't got time for this.
CLARA: We're discussing it! What would happen if the moon wasn't there?
COURTNEY: I have a physics book in my bag. There's this thing on gravity?
LUNDVIK: Super. Is there a word search?
CLARA: Okay, there would be no tides. But we'd survive that, right? They've knocked out the satellites. There's no internet, no mobiles. I'd be fine with that.
LUNDVIK: It's not going to just stop being there, because inside the moon, Miss, is a gigantic creature forcing its way out. And when it does, which is going to be pretty damn soon, there are going to be huge chunks of the moon heading right for us, like whatever killed the dinosaurs, only ten thousand times bigger.
CLARA: But the moon isn't make of rock and stone, is it? It's made of eggshell.
LUNDVIK: Oh, God. Okay, okay, fine. If, by some miracle, the shell isn't too thick, or if it disperses, or if it goes into orbit, whatever, there's still going to be a massive thing there, isn't there, that just popped out. And what the hell do you imagine that is?
COURTNEY: Loads of things lay eggs.
LUNDVIK: It's not a chicken.
COURTNEY: I'm not saying it's a chicken. I'm not completely stupid.
LUNDVIK: It's an exoparasite.
COURTNEY: A what?
LUNDVIK: Like a flea. Or a head louse.
CLARA: I'm going to have to be a lot more certain than that if I'm going to kill a baby.
LUNDVIK: Oh, you want to talk about babies?. You've probably got babies down there now. You want to have babies?
CLARA: Well, yeah.
COURTNEY: Mister Pink.
CLARA: Shush!
LUNDVIK: Okay. You imagine you've got children down there on Earth now, right? Grandchildren maybe. You want that thing to get out? Kill them all? You want today to be the day life on Earth stopped because you couldn't make an unfair decision? Listen, I don't want to do this. All my life I've dreamed about coming here. But this is how it has to end.

(Lundvik sets the trigger.)

COURTNEY: Oi!
LUNDVIK: I've given us an hour. There's a cut-out here. If anyone has any bright ideas, or if he comes back, that stops it. But once it's pressed, it stays pressed.
CLARA: And if he doesn't come back?
LUNDVIK: I didn't expect to survive anyway.
COURTNEY: He's going to come back, though, right? Isn't he, Miss?
CLARA: Hey, why don't you call me Clara?
COURTNEY: I prefer Miss, Miss. We just need to make up our minds, that's all. Well, you know him.
CLARA: I think he really might just be leaving it to us.

(The communications system on the computer console crackles.)

MCKEAN [OC]: Can anybody hear me? Come in, please. Can anybody
LUNDVIK: Lundvik.
MCKEAN [on monitor]: This is ground control.
LUNDVIK: Yeah, yeah, I can tell by your haircut. How are things down there?
MCKEAN [on monitor]: Pretty bad. Yeah. Pretty bad. Listen, we're patched in to one of the TV satellites. We haven't got long. How are things up there?
CLARA: Can we broadcast on this?
MCKEAN [on monitor]: Who are you?
CLARA: School trip. Can we broadcast on this?
MCKEAN [on monitor]: Well, yes.

(And now we have caught up to the teaser.)

CLARA: Hello, Earth. We have a terrible decision to make. It's an uncertain decision and we don't have a lot of time. We can kill this creature or we can let it live. We don't know what it's going to do, we don't know what's going to happen when it hatches. If it will hurt us, help us, or just leave us alone. We have to decide together. This is the last time we'll be able to speak to you, but you can send us a message. If you think we should kill the creature, turn your lights off. If you think we should take the chance, let it live, leave your lights on. We'll be able to see. Goodnight, Earth.

(Transmission ends.)

CLARA: Was that okay?
COURTNEY: Yeah.

(Bang! The lights flicker. Clara takes Courtney's hand.)

CLARA: Come on. Let's see.

(Lundvik picks up the trigger case and they walk along a corridor. The moon shakes and the power fluctuates. They run to a porthole as something explodes in flames behind them, and Clara looks out at the Earth with a small pair of binoculars. The only visible artificial lights are of course Europe and the Americas. Africa, Asia and Australia don't get a vote in this. Thirty nine minutes to go, then thirty two. Lights go out across the world. Eighteen minutes, five. The planet finishes going dark.)

COURTNEY: Night, night.
CLARA: Oh, Doctor, where have you gone?
LUNDVIK: We can't risk it all just to be nice.
CLARA: Okay.
COURTNEY: Miss?
LUNDVIK: Nine seconds.
COURTNEY: You can't!
LUNDVIK: Sorry, girls. See you on the other side. Two

(Clara hits the cut-out switch. Detonation aborted.)

LUNDVIK: Hey!

(The TARDIS materialises.)

DOCTOR: One, two, three, into the TARDIS.
LUNDVIK: What's happening?
DOCTOR: Let's go and have a look, shall we?

[TARDIS]

(The Doctor sets the TARDIS flying.)

LUNDVIK: Bloody idiots. Bloody irresponsible idiots.

(The Doctor walks over to her.)

DOCTOR: Mind your language, please, There are children present.
LUNDVIK: You should have left me there, let me die. I wanted to die up there with the universe in front of me, not being crushed to death on Earth.
DOCTOR: Nobody's going to die.
LUNDVIK: Could you please let us see what's happening?

[Beach]

(The TARDIS lands on a Lanzarote beach below a full moon in a bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds. The moon is falling apart as the baby spreads its wings.)

COURTNEY: What's it doing?

(There is a faint image of a giant winged creature in the sky, making noises.)

DOCTOR: It's feeling the sun on itself. It's getting warm. The chick flies away and the eggshell disintegrates. Harmless.
CLARA: Did you know?
DOCTOR: You made your decision. Humanity made its choice.
LUNDVIK: No, we ignored humanity.
DOCTOR: Well, there you go.
LUNDVIK: So what happens now, then? Tell me what happens now.

(The Doctor turns his back on them and closes his eyes briefly.)

DOCTOR: In the mid-twenty first century humankind starts creeping off into the stars, spreads its way through the galaxy to the very edges of the universe. And it endures till the end of time.

(He turns back to them,)

DOCTOR: And it does all that because one day in the year 2049, when it had stopped thinking about going to the stars, something occurred that make it look up, not down. It looked out there into the blackness and it saw something beautiful, something wonderful, that for once it didn't want to destroy. And in that one moment, the whole course of history was changed. Not bad for a girl from Coal Hill School, and her teacher.
COURTNEY: Oh, my gosh. It laid a new egg. It's beautiful. Doctor, it's beautiful.
DOCTOR: That's what we call a new moon.

(A blank white round thing in the sky waiting for fresh meteorites to start decorating its surface.)

COURTNEY: You can be the first woman on that.
DOCTOR: I think that somebody deserves a thank you.
LUNDVIK: Yeah, probably. (to Clara) Thank you. Thank you for stopping me. Thank you for giving me the moon back.
DOCTOR: Okay, Captain. Well, you've got a whole new space programme to get together. NASA is er, it's that way. About two and a half thousand miles. (to Courtney) You still got your vortex manipulators? I'll give you a run home.

[TARDIS]

(Courtney and Clara come back upstairs from below the console after getting changed back into their school clothes. The Doctor is dropping books on the steps to the gallery.)

DOCTOR: Not that it's any of my business, but I think you did the right thing.
CLARA: Yeah, you're right. It's none of your business. Come on, Courtney, off you go. Double Geography.
COURTNEY: Can we do it again?
CLARA: Go. Go, go. Chop chop.

(Courtney leaves the TARDIS, and the Doctor sets it flying. Clara stops it.)

CLARA: Tell me what you knew.
DOCTOR: Nothing. I told you, I've got grey areas.
CLARA: Yeah. I noticed. Tell me what you knew, Doctor, or else I'll smack you so hard you'll regenerate.
DOCTOR: I knew that eggs are not bombs. I know they don't usually destroy their nests. Essentially, what I knew was that you would always make the best choice. I had faith that you would always make the right choice.
CLARA: Honestly, do you have music playing in your head when you say rubbish like that?
DOCTOR: It wasn't my decision to make. I told you.
CLARA: Well, why did you do it? Was it for Courtney, was that it?
DOCTOR: Well, she really is something special now, isn't she? First woman on the moon, saved the Earth from itself, and, rather bizarrely, she becomes the President of the United States. She met this bloke called Blinovitch

(Check out the Blinovitch Limitation Effect on TARDIS.Wikia.com)

CLARA: Do you know what? Shut up! I am so sick of listening to you!
DOCTOR: Well, I didn't do it for Courtney. I didn't know what was going to happen. Do you think I'm lying?

(Clara is crying with rage.)

CLARA: I don't know. I don't know. If you didn't do it for her, I mean. Do you know what? It was, it was cheap, it was pathetic. No, no, no. It was patronising. That was you patting us on the back, saying, you're big enough to go to the shops by yourself now. Go on, toddle along.
DOCTOR: No, that was me allowing you to make a choice about your own future. That was me respecting you.
CLARA: Oh, my God, really? Was it? Yeah, well, respected is not how I feel.
DOCTOR: Right. Okay. Er.
CLARA: I nearly didn't press that button. I nearly got it wrong. That was you, my friend, making me scared. Making me feel like a bloody idiot.
DOCTOR: Language.
CLARA: Oh, don't you ever tell me to mind my language. Don't you ever tell me to take the stabilisers off my bike. And don't you dare lump me in with the rest of all the little humans that you think are so tiny and silly and predictable. You walk our Earth, Doctor, you breathe our air. You make us your friend, and that is your moon too. And you can damn well help us when we need it.
DOCTOR: I was helping.
CLARA: What, by clearing off?
DOCTOR: Yes.
CLARA: Yeah, well, clear off! Go on. You can clear off. Get back in your lonely, your lonely bloody TARDIS and you don't come back.
DOCTOR: Clara. Clara.
CLARA: You go away. Okay? You go a long way away.

(Clara slams the door shut behind her. The TARDIS dematerialises as she leaves the store cupboard, leaving a few papers flying around in the resulting breeze as the air rushes into the hole it has left.)

[English classroom]

(The study book this time is David Copperfield, according to the white board.)

DANNY: Hello.
CLARA: Hey. Now then.
DANNY: What've you been up to?
CLARA: The usual.
DANNY: It happened, didn't it?

(A little later, after she has told it all from her point of view.)

CLARA: Well, he was wrong, wasn't he? Wasn't he? Danny, what do you think?
DANNY: I think I've seen this look before.
CLARA: No, you haven't. This is new for me.
DANNY: No, not on your face. On mine.
CLARA: What did you do?
DANNY: I left the army.
CLARA: You loved the army.
DANNY: Yep. And then one day I didn't.
CLARA: I'm done, I'm done. I am finished with it. I am, I am, I'm done. It's over. I'm finished with him, and I told him that. What is that face for? Why don't you believe me?
DANNY: Because you're still angry. You can never finish with anyone while they can still make you angry. Tell him when you're calm, and then tell me.

(Clara hugs him.)

CLARA: When did you get to become so wise?
DANNY: Same way as anyone else. I had a really bad day.

(Clara goes home with her shopping and pours herself a glass of red wine, then looks out of the window at the impossibly big full moon with exactly the same crater markings as the old one.)

Transcript originally provided by Chrissie. Adapted by TARDIS.guide. The transcripts are for educational and entertainment purposes only. All other copyrights property of their respective holders.

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