The Apocalypse Element

TRINKETT: Well, personnel restrictions do apply to Time Lords too. You've placed us in a difficult position, Delegate Doctor.

DOCTOR: For which I cannot apologise enough, so I shan't even start. Now, tell me, Monitor Trinkett, have you noticed anything untoward in this sector of space recently?

ROMANA: Even after twenty years, I still fear them coming for me. They leave me here in the cell for days at a time, no distractions, no exercise, no food, and you never hear them coming, and it's dark, so you never see them. They roll along that metal floor, closer and closer, soundlessly, nearer, nearer. Stop outside the door.

VRINT: Please I...

ROMANA: That voice, the orders, the pushing you down the corridor for the special service, and you see them crowding around you, all sharp lines and angles and sticks, watching you do whatever it is they can't or choose not to do for themselves.

VRINT: I am not one of the slave elite.

ROMANA: They may look like the robots, but you know what, what you've become. And just as we wouldn't thank a robot when the work is done, they send you away again in silence. Silently up the corridor, the black plastic poking you in the back, and you look down and you remember when your body was full and young and fit and not emaciated, atrophying in some stinking hole in the rock. And you come back, step after step, and the numbers are always the same, just as the days and the nights are always the same. And all that's changing is a little bit of you is dying, day after day after

VRINT: You're unit one one seven...

ROMANA: I am not unit one one seven! I am Romanadvoratrelundar. I have no choice but to let the Daleks dehumanise me, but I will not tolerate the same treatment from you. Who are you?

VRINT: Unit sixty three.

ROMANA: Your name, you idiot. You have a name, don't you? Or have the Daleks taken that from you with everything else.

VRINT: My name is Vrint. I am Vrint of the Monan Host.

ROMANA: (sighs) That's better.

DALEK: Surrender the crystal!

DOCTOR: Oh, all right. (stops running) You can have it. But let my friend here go first.

DALEK: She must be exterminated.

DOCTOR: Let her go, or I'll smash your crystal against this wall. Go on, Romana, to the end of the corridor.

ROMANA: Doctor, another one.

DALEK 2: Do not move.

ROMANA: Your friend just said I could.

DOCTOR: Afraid so. Don't kick him out of the union or anything, will you. | did threaten to destroy your precious crystal. What you might call a Mexican stand-off. Ever exterminated any Mexicans?

DALEK: You will be...

DOCTOR: Exterminated? Yes, I dare say I will. (sotto) Back away, all of you.

ROMANA: Daleks, wait. I'm too old, and frankly, too important to be taking orders from you, Doctor.

EVELYN: That's what I always tell him, but is this really the time for a mutiny?

ROMANA: Daleks, I may have been slave unit one one seven on Etra Prime, but here I am President of the High Council of Time Lords. These people are my subjects, and useful to me, for now at least. I won't have you kill them.

DOCTOR: Well, here we are. The Vault of the Eye of Harmony. Let's get unpacked.

ROMANA: The atmosphere here. You can feel the power, can't you?

DOCTOR: The secret power of a syphoned singularity, the sacred heart of the Time Lords.

ROMANA: And we're reducing it to the equivalent of an electric socket.

DOCTOR: Well, that's all it is when you strip away the mystical mumbo-jumbo. A phenomenal power source.

DOCTOR: There's no time to do this by the book.

ROMANA: What book? Half the science we've used is nonsense.

DOCTOR: No change there, then. Increasing power.

DOCTOR: I need the boosters. Why have you not gone for them?

EVELYN: We're going for them now. Doctor, I've never seen you so upset.

DOCTOR: You can't take it in, can you? Oh, the blessing of a human mind.

EVELYN: Well, if you're going to be all high and mighty.

DOCTOR: It's a matter of perspective, Evelyn. Let's take your own galaxy, the Milky Way. An area of space so vast that if it were reduced to the size of the United States of America, the Earth would be less than the smallest mote of dust, barely visible through an electron microscope.

EVELYN: Oh.

VANSELL: Doctor.

DOCTOR: Seriphia is four times as large as the Milky Way, and in just a few hours six hundred billion stars will be as snuffed out candles to a new sun, a ball of fire four hundred thousand light years across. And from there it will spread on and on and on through the hundred billion other galaxies in the universe. The death toll will be as incalculable as it will be absolute. And by the end there'll be nothing left! Nothing!

VANSELL: You've made your point, Doctor.

EVELYN: All right, Doctor. I understand. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, all right?

DOCTOR: No. No, Evelyn. No, I'm sorry.

EVELYN: We can still stop the Daleks, can't we?

DOCTOR: Of course we can. And we will. I'd better help Romana with the repairs.

EVELYN: Come on, Vansell. Let's get the man what he needs.

VANSELL: Good luck, Doctor.

DALEK: Rise!

EVELYN: You could help a girl up, Dalek. A pretty face like mine could open a lot of doors for you.