The Power of Kroll

Part One

[Control centre]

(High tech, with everyone wearing blue and grey uniforms. A tall greying man enters, wearing a short cloak and carrying a rifle.)

FENNER: Thawn, I saw your landing. How did things go on Delta Magna?

THAWN: Oh, fine, but after a few months here you notice how crowded it's becoming.

(Fenner puts Thawn's rifle in the gun rack behind his desk, and Thawn takes a silver bag from a green-haired and green-skinned man who followed him in.)

FENNER: Want a drink?
THAWN: Out. Er, yes, please.

(The green man leaves with a glare at Thawn.)

THAWN: Harg! Your Lytteker micros.

(He hands the bag to a ginger haired man.)

HARG: Oh, thank you, sir.
THAWN: Five hundred of them. I got you the complete library.
HARG: Magnificent. How much do I owe you?
THAWN: Oh, don't worry about that.

(The man at a large control desk groans.)

DUGEEN: Oh.

(Everyone say Hi! to the voice of K9, John Leeson.)

THAWN: What's the matter with you.
FENNER: I didn't offer him a drink.
DUGEEN: I'm getting an echo track on here.
FENNER: Well, try it again.
DUGEEN: I've tried it, I've tried it. Look. Look at this.

(Harg goes over.)

DUGEEN: Now look, that's Thawn's track. He's about twelve miles out there, coming in now. This is where the other track starts to show, do you see?
HARG: Yes.
THAWN: What do you think it is?
DUGEEN: Well, I think you were followed down, sir, by somebody using your track as a cover.
HARG: Who would dare?
FENNER: And it's definitely another ship?
DUGEEN: Yeah.
THAWN: Where has it landed?
DUGEEN: Oh, out in the swamp somewhere.
FENNER: They split off at the last second.
DUGEEN: You see, the scanners were only set to check your approach to the pad. Any secondary plotting would have been irrelevant.
HARG: But who would risk it? There's nothing out there but a wasteland.
THAWN: Gentlemen, there is a rumour on Delta Magna that the Sons of Earth are planning to arm the Swampies.
FENNER: There are times I could well do without those Sons of Earth.
HARG: Oh, but surely nobody would give arms to those savages?
THAWN: Those savages, Harg, are getting a lot of sentimental support. The Company is putting a lot of effort into making a more balanced picture, but you've got to remember that most people on Delta Magna have never even seen a Swampie.
HARG: Oh, but even so, sir, it's un
FENNER: If these Swampies were given weapons that could well lead to them attacking the refinery.
THAWN: It could well lead to that.
DUGEEN: The Sons of Earth wouldn't be likely to arm the Swampies. They've always condemned violence.
FENNER: I don't know. There was a report a couple of days ago in the routine daily circular that Rohm-Dutt's ship had vanished from Elvedon Port and all stations have been told to watch out for him.
HARG: Rohm-Dutt? He is involved in gun-running, isn't he.
FENNER: Yes, he is involved in gun-running.
DUGEEN: Do you think that's his ship out there?
FENNER: I don't know, but whoever it is, if he's making for the settlement, he's got to cross the swamps.
THAWN: In which case, he may never reach the settlement.

(Thawn gets his rifle.)

THAWN: Those swamps can be awfully dangerous. Fenner!

[Swamp]

(The TARDIS materialises in a reed bed that reaches almost to her flashing blue light. This is the Maltings near Snape in Suffolk, a tidal marsh formed by the River Alde.)

ROMANA: Was it absolutely necessary to land in a quagmire?
DOCTOR: Well I told you it was a bit swampy. It's not the TARDIS' fault, anyway. These marshes go on for miles. A little water doesn't hurt.
ROMANA: Try telling that to K9. He's marooned.
DOCTOR: Yes, well, we won't be here long enough to need K9. Come on.

(They clamber up onto a piece of raised dry land. The Doctor raises his arm a few times then drops his hat.)

DOCTOR: Gravity check. Escape velocity about one point five miles a second.
ROMANA: Really? Isn't that a little low for a planet?
DOCTOR: Yes. This must be one of the moons of Delta Magna.

(He wets his finger and holds it up.)

DOCTOR: I'd say the third.
ROMANA: Doctor? Sometimes I don't think you're quite right in the head.
DOCTOR: Never mind about that. Just point the tracer and see where we go next.
ROMANA: Oh, it's not a very clear reading. It's a very diffuse signal. It seems to cover about forty two and a half degrees in that direction.
DOCTOR: Forty two and a half degrees?
ROMANA: Hmm. I don't like the sound of that.
DOCTOR: No.
ROMANA: It either means the source is right on top of us, which it isn't.
DOCTOR: Yeah, or else the tracer's developed a fault.
ROMANA: Yes, well, perhaps the atmosphere here's affecting it. I know, I'll try the higher ground here.
DOCTOR: Yes, why don't you try the higher ground there.

[Outside the refinery]

(Fenner and Thawn have put on plastic jackets and gloves.)

FENNER: What's this Rohm-Dutt look like?
THAWN: Bit of a hard case. Dresses the part. Wide-brimmed hat, bandolier. We can't miss him.
FENNER: I don't intend to.

(The pair set off across the flooded mudflats in a small hovercraft piloted by a third man.)

[Swamp]

(The Doctor has harvested a few reeds and is trimming one of them with a penknife. He turns it into a flute and starts playing JS Bach's Badinere in B minor, from Orchestral Suite no 2. Meanwhile, Romana is failing to get a firm reading from the tracer, and a scruffy man is leading a group of green-skinned men in canoes through the marsh. Romana moves further on, and is suddenly grabbed by two green men. She drops the tracer. The Doctor finally hears the hovercraft approaching.)

DOCTOR: Romana? Romana?
THAWN: There he is.

(Fenner shoots at the Doctor standing on the skyline. He falls.)

THAWN: I think you've hit him.

(Romana has been put into the canoe.)

ROHM-DUTT: Just the one shot.

(Everyone say Hi! to the prolific Glyn Owen.)

VARLIK: We're near the refinery here. Perhaps one of the dryfoots is out hunting.
ROHM-DUTT: What, that lot? They're technicians, Varlik. Technicians don't hunt. They can't use their computers. Come on, now. Come, we must hurry.

(They paddle the canoe away. Fenner and Thawn run over the ridge where the Doctor was standing to find him lying face down on the other side.)

FENNER: So much for Rohm-Dutt. I never did like gun runners.
THAWN: That's enough. That's not Rohm-Dutt.
FENNER: What do you mean, it isn't Rohm-Dutt? You told me. His hat and everything.
THAWN: I tell you it is not Rohm-Dutt. You've shot the wrong man.
DOCTOR: Not quite. You shot the wrong man's hat, though. Fancy taking me for Rohm-Dutt.
FENNER: Who are you, then. Go on, tell us. What are you doing here?
DOCTOR: Well, a sort of survey. I've lost my friend.
FENNER: Who sent you?
DOCTOR: Something must have happened to her. Look at the way those reeds are crushed.
THAWN: The Swampies must have got her.
DOCTOR: Swampies? Are they the local tribes here?
FENNER: Yes. They've never come so near the refinery before. They're getting bolder, aren't they.
THAWN: If they jump us here, we don't stand a chance.
DOCTOR: Listen, how do I get in touch with these Swampies?
FENNER: What's that?
THAWN: You're coming with us.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no. I'm looking for my friend. You see, she's important to me.
THAWN: I insist. There are a lot of very important questions yet to be answered.
DOCTOR: Fine. Shush. Will there be strawberry jam for tea?

(Thawn takes the Doctor away at gunpoint.)

[Settlement]

(Romana has her hands tied behind her back, and then fastened to a rock. Other Swampies carry a long wooden box past.)

ROHM-DUTT: You know, there's a thing called a drill fly in these swamps. Lays its eggs in your feet. A week later, you get holes in your head.
ROMANA: How long am I going to be tied up here?
ROHM-DUTT: Well, that depends.
ROMANA: On what?
ROHM-DUTT: On whether you cooperate. If you don't, you'll rot there. Won't take long in this climate.
ROMANA: And that doesn't bother you?
ROHM-DUTT: Young woman, I'm indifferent.
ROMANA: Emotional insulation is usually indicative of psychofugal trauma.
ROHM-DUTT: I didn't know that.

(Thunder rumbles in the distance.)

ROHM-DUTT: Ah, I've never known such a place for rainstorms. That's why it's so wet.
ROMANA: How do I cooperate?
ROHM-DUTT: Are you with the refinery?
ROMANA: What refinery?
ROHM-DUTT: Ah. Good.
ROMANA: What's good?
ROHM-DUTT: I thought you'd lie. I happen to know they don't employ women there.
ROMANA: Look, I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't heard of any refinery or
ROHM-DUTT: Now, there's no need to get excited. There's plenty of time to dig out the truth.
ROMANA: I am telling you the truth. Who do you think I am?
ROHM-DUTT: Did they send you here alone?
ROMANA: Nobody sent me.
ROHM-DUTT: How many are with you?
ROMANA: Just the Doctor.
ROHM-DUTT: The Doctor? And where is he?
ROMANA: Looking for me, I expect.
ROHM-DUTT: What were you doing in the swamp?
ROMANA: Catching butterflies.
ROHM-DUTT: Oh, I like a joke.
ROMANA: I'll try and think of one.
ROHM-DUTT: What were you doing in the swamp?
ROMANA: Look, you'd be none the wiser if I did tell you.
ROHM-DUTT: What were you doing in the swamp?

[Pump chamber]

(The storm is coming, and we now see that the refinery is like an oil rig, standing in choppy waters. The Doctor is pushed in through the outer door and falls to the floor.)

HARG: Oh, good. You got him.
THAWN: This isn't Rohm-Dutt.
HARG: What?
FENNER: We don't know who it is. We found him in the prohibited area.
DOCTOR: You should put up the usual notices. Trespassers will be shot. Who is Rohm-Dutt?
FENNER: He's a gun-runner. Don't you know him?
DOCTOR: No, I'm new here.
THAWN: What were you doing out there?
DOCTOR: I told you, looking for my friend.
THAWN: Well, looking for a friend in a prohibited area a hundred yards from a classified project could lead you into a lot of trouble.
DOCTOR: What classified project?
FENNER: You're in the middle of it.
DOCTOR: What, this? A methane catalysing refinery, classified?
THAWN: So you admit that you know what it is?
DOCTOR: What? Well, of course I know what it is. I've seen hundreds of them.
HARG: He's crazy.
FENNER: This is a pilot plant, the first ever built.
DOCTOR: You Earth colonists are always so insular. If you'd been to Binaca-Ananda, you'd see one in every town.
THAWN: Get up! Are you claiming that you're from outside this constellation?
DOCTOR: Yes.
THAWN: And how did you get here?
DOCTOR: I have my own transport.
HARG: He is crazy.
DOCTOR: Will you stop saying that? What gives him an insight into my mental processes?
THAWN: All right, expert, what's that?
DOCTOR: That's an air vent.
THAWN: Not that, that!
DOCTOR: It's a funicular gas separator.
THAWN: And that?
DOCTOR: Well, it looks to me like a primitive enzyme recycler, with an injection circuit feeding the bacterium bioplast. I imagine that the raw protein is centrifuged before being freeze-dried and compressed for packaging. I think you'd find it more efficient if you inserted a plasmin catalyst ahead of the bioplast circuit.
THAWN: A plasmin catalyst?
DOCTOR: Yeah, why not?
HARG: But that's brilliant!
FENNER: Oh, yes, that's brilliant.
THAWN: Yes.
DOCTOR: Am I free to go now?
THAWN: No.
DOCTOR: Oh.
THAWN: What were you doing out there?
DOCTOR: Right. A sort of mineralogical survey. Look, I've got to go and find my friend.
FENNER: I wouldn't. You see, if the Swampies have taken him to their settlement, then you'll never reach him, because those swamps are bottomless and only the Swampies know the paths.
THAWN: And you'll get a spear in your back. They've killed two of my men already.
DUGEEN [OC]: Attention. Orbit shot in ten minutes.
DOCTOR: Orbit shot?
THAWN: Right, we'll watch it from the control centre. You come with us.

[Settlement]

(Rohm-Dutt shows the Swampies the contents of the crate to the tribal leader.)

ROHM-DUTT: Sixty calibre gas-operated Stelsons.
RANQUIN: They are old.

(Everyone say Hi! to the wonderful John Abineri.)

ROHM-DUTT: Old? No, they need cleaning. Some of these guns have never been out of their crates. They're in perfect working order.
SKART: Where are the magazines?
ROHM-DUTT: In there. Two for each gun.
SKART: And spare ammunition?
ROHM-DUTT: You have eighty magazines with fifty rounds in each. Is there an army at the refinery?
RANQUIN: You are my brother, and with these weapons we will drive the dryfoots from our waters.
ROHM-DUTT: That's why the Sons of Earth sent them. Oh now, Chief, Chief, Chief, if you'd be kind enough to put your signature on this?
SKART: Signature? What is this signature?
ROHM-DUTT: Well, make your mark or anything you like. Put your seal on it.
RANQUIN: The mark of Kroll is sacred to my people.
ROHM-DUTT: Oh. Oh, that will do very nicely. It's just to say that I've made the delivery.
SKART: We do not understand your dryfoot ways.
ROHM-DUTT: I have to show them the paper back on Delta Magna.
RANQUIN: Ah, I see, my brother. The Sons of Earth do not trust you, is that it?
ROHM-DUTT: Well, it is business, Chief, you know.
RANQUIN: Skart.

(Skart takes the receipt and marks it with the end of a long ceremonial spear, then hands it back.)

RANQUIN: Now, what of the dryfoot woman that you captured? Was she spying on you?
ROHM-DUTT: Oh, thank you, thank you. No, she's stubborn. She admits nothing.
SKART: Ranquin, let us offer her to the Great One. Always in the past, before our people went into battle, we made a blood sacrifice to Kroll, our protector.
RANQUIN: We will sacrifice the dryfoot woman that we may triumph over her kin.

[Control centre]

(The sullen Swampie servant is handing round drinks.)

THAWN: We produce a hundred tons of compressed protein a day and then shoot it into Delta orbit every twelve hours.
FENNER: That's what makes the operation viable. If we used freighters it wouldn't be a commercial proposition.
DOCTOR: Ah.
THAWN: Of course, the plant is fully automated. The computer controls the orbit shot, but we like to double check.
DOCTOR: Very sensible.
FENNER: If there's a misfire then we have a manual override system.
DOCTOR: And just the six of you here?
THAWN: No, five.
DOCTOR: Oh no, I make it six. One, two, three
THAWN: Oh, you're counting Mensch. He's a Swampie.
DOCTOR: Doesn't he count?
THAWN: No.
DOCTOR: Ah. Why are his friends attacking you?
THAWN: Because they're ignorant savages.
DUGEEN: They were the first on Delta Magna.
FENNER: I don't think we owe them very much for that.
DUGEEN: We took their planet. Now they're afraid we'll take what they've got left.
FENNER: You know there are times, Dugeen, that I think the Sons of Earth have got at you.
HARG: Two minutes to shot.
DUGEEN: When we put ten full scale refineries in here, there'll be no room for the natives and they know it.
DOCTOR: In any case, a lake that size couldn't possibly support ten full scale refineries.
FENNER: It can.
DOCTOR: Oh. Then you must have an alternative source of methane feedstock.
FENNER: We have calculated the methane production. We can satisfy the protein requirements of one fifth of Delta Magna.
DOCTOR: Ah. Tell me, where were your men when they were killed?
THAWN: Why do you ask?
DOCTOR: What? Oh, I don't know. Just curious.
THAWN: Out in the baygule, taking samples.
HARG: One minute to shot.
DOCTOR: What happened?
THAWN: We never found the bodies. The Swampies made quite sure of that.
DOCTOR: Then they might just have been drowned.
THAWN: They were experienced men.
DOCTOR: Well, anyone can make a mistake.
HARG: Thirty seconds to shot.
THAWN: Don't you worry about the Swampies. We'll look after them, provided they see reason.
DOCTOR: What, teach them to carry trays?
FENNER: Why not? Tell me, would you let a small band of semi-savages stand in the way of progress?
DOCTOR: Well, progress is a very flexible word. It can mean just about anything you want it to mean.
DUGEEN: Ten, nine, eight
HARG: All external doors sealed.
DUGEEN: Seven, six, five

(The Doctor leaves while all the men are concentrating on the rocket launch.)

DUGEEN: Four

[Settlement]

(Night has fallen. The villagers are dancing in front of two large oval shields with face-like designs on them which form the base of an arch.)

SWAMPIES: Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll!

(Romana is led forward by Skart.)

SWAMPIES: Kroll! Kroll!

(She stops where Rohm-Dutt is reclining by a reed tipi with Varlik.)

ROMANA: I suppose you're enjoying this.
ROHM-DUTT: Makes no odds to me. I'm going back to Delta Magna. Any last messages?
SWAMPIES: Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll!
RANQUIN: All is ready in the Temple of Kroll.
SKART: The offering is prepared.

(Romana is led forward again through the arch.)

SWAMPIES: Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll!

(The processed protein takes off into the night sky.)

VARLIK: Soon we will put a stop to that.
RANQUIN: Open the pit! Let Kroll come from the bottomless deep! Kroll, hear thy people.
SWAMPIES: Great Kroll!
RANQUIN: Kroll, we summon thee!
SWAMPIES: Mighty Kroll!
RANQUIN: Kroll, we offer this life in tribute to thy greatness.
SWAMPIES: Great Kroll!
RANQUIN: Guide and protect us, All Powerful One, in the great struggle which lies ahead.
SWAMPIES: Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll!

[Pump chamber]

(Back at the Refinery pump chamber, the Doctor takes a large torch from a ledge and tests it, then tries the outer door. It is locked. He fiddles with the control box overhead and it unlocks. Someone is coming, so he moves away. It is Thawn and Mensch.)

DOCTOR: Hello.
THAWN: I wondered where you were.
DOCTOR: Well, if you've seen one orbit shot, you've seen them all.
SWAMPIES [OC]: Kroll! Kroll!
THAWN: It's coming from the settlement.
DOCTOR: Are they having a dance?
MENSCH: My people are calling Kroll. They're making a blood sacrifice.
DOCTOR: Who's Kroll?
THAWN: Oh, it's their name for a giant squid. Centuries ago, when we resettled the Swampies from Delta Magna, we shipped along a couple of specimens just to keep them happy.
DOCTOR: Yes, but just the same, a blood sacrifice. I don't like the sound of that.
THAWN: Don't be stupid. You'll never cross those swamps on your own.
DOCTOR: What? Look, I have a shrewd idea who it is that might be being sacrificed, and Romana's not the easiest of guests.
THAWN: It'll be light in one hour, so we'll take a swamp glider and go in force.
DOCTOR: There's no need for you to be involved.
THAWN: You heard Mensch. If they're sacrificing, they're preparing for war, and that means Rohm-Dutt has got through with the guns. We've got gas mortars, so we could knock out that settlement in a couple of minutes. Now that we know they're armed, we can prove that we were acting in self-defence. Let's go.
SWAMPIES [OC]: Kroll! Kroll! Kroll!
THAWN: Not you!

(The Doctor and Thawn leave Mensch behind.)

[Settlement]

SWAMPIES: Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll!

[Pump chamber]

(The Doctor returns to see Mensch go up a short ladder, pick up the large torch and exit through the air vent.)

SWAMPIES [OC]: Kroll! Kroll! Kroll!

(The Doctor quietly leaves through the outer door.)

[Swamp]

(A signal is flashed from the refinery superstructure to Varlik while the Doctor paddles a canoe towards the settlement.)

SWAMPIES [OC]: Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll!

[Settlement]

SWAMPIES: Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll!

(Romana is getting bored waiting for something to come out of the pit in front of her.)

ROMANA: It's all nonsense. Primitive spirit worship.

(Varlik flashes a reply back to Mensch then leaves just before the Doctor glides up.)

SWAMPIES: Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! Kroll! etc, etc.

(The Doctor follows Varlik on the path back to the centre of the settlement.)

RANQUIN: Kroll rises from the depths!

(The chant gets faster. Ranquin kneels and two Swampies close the gates in the archway so that Romana is hidden from view. Something very real with claws reaches for her. Romana screams.)

Part Two

[Kroll's pit]

(The Doctor bursts through the bushes and pulls the 'head' off Kroll. It is a Swampie in a costume. He hits him.)

ROMANA: How did you know?
DOCTOR: Well, he probably looked more convincing from the front.
ROMANA: Too convincing, but there's no need to be smug about it.

(The Doctor unties Romana.)

DOCTOR: I'm not smug.
ROMANA: I can tell that expression even from behind.
DOCTOR: Sucker marks.
ROMANA: Sucker marks?
DOCTOR: Look, sucker marks. Pretty ancient, too, by the way the erosion's
ROMANA: Presumably that was Kroll.
DOCTOR: Oh, they've told you about their local water deity, have they?
ROMANA: Yes. They seem to think I should be quite honoured to be sacrificed to the thing.
DOCTOR: Yeah, or to his memory. Kroll was brought here hundreds of years ago. He must be dead by now.
ROMANA: Then that explains the masquerade. It must have been political.
DOCTOR: Don't talk to me about politics.

(The fake Kroll has recovered his senses and is about to throw a knife.)

ROMANA: Look out!

(He throws, they duck, and he runs off.)

[Control centre]

(Dugeen's radar picks up something strange. He beeps the intercom.)

THAWN [OC]: Thawn here. What is it, Control?
DUGEEN: I'm getting something very odd on the scanner, sir.
THAWN [OC]: What do you mean?
DUGEEN: Well, it's something I don't understand. There's movement underneath the baygule.
THAWN [OC]: How do you know?
DUGEEN: Well, I've just done a routine scan of the bottom. The entire picture's changed during the past hour. The whole bed of the baygule's moved.
THAWN [OC]: Well, it could just be a gas build up.
DUGEEN: Well, I thought of that, but it's changed shape over two square miles.
THAWN [OC]: All right. Well, keep a check on it, but let me know as soon as it starts to cone.
DUGEEN: Right, sir.

[Settlement]

(Ranquin and Varlik go up to Rohm-Dutt.)

ROHM-DUTT: What is it?
RANQUIN: Nual's brought us a message from Mensch. The dryfoots are planning to attack us at dawn.
ROHM-DUTT: What, to attack us? You mean here in the settlement?
RANQUIN: They are coming in their air boats.
ROHM-DUTT: But that wasn't what. You'll have to leave here at once. Get your people to hide out in the swamps.
RANQUIN: We are not running from the dryfoots. We have weapons now.
ROHM-DUTT: But you don't know how to use them.
VARLIK: A rifle's not a difficult weapon.
ROHM-DUTT: You have to know one end from the other, Varlik.
VARLIK: Like all dryfoots, Rohm-Dutt, because we lead a simple life you think we're fools.
ROHM-DUTT: All I'm saying is that you're not ready to fight yet, and if you stay here, you'll get trapped and stand no chance. But if you split into smaller groups and spread your people across the swamps, they'll never hit you.
RANQUIN: Our plans are made. Our men are moving into position. We will ambush them on the lakes, in the open.
VARLIK: We can take them by surprise. There's only a handful of them.
ROHM-DUTT: Chief, Chief, even if you succeed, it won't be the end.
RANQUIN: They're the invaders of our waters, the aggressors. They have no right here. And there are many on Delta Magna who support our cause.
VARLIK: Why else would the Sons of Earth send us weapons.
ROHM-DUTT: I still say it's too soon to fight.
RANQUIN: You would rather we waited until you are safely back on Delta Magna.
ROHM-DUTT: I came here to supply arms, not to fight.
VARLIK: But you will fight with us now, Rohm-Dutt. We need every gun.

[Kroll's pit]

(The Doctor shows Romana the padlock the Swampies had used to fasten her to the stake.)

DOCTOR: I wonder where they found that. Look, it's a genuine antique.
ROMANA: Fascinating.
DOCTOR: Are you all right?
ROMANA: Doctor, there's something I have to tell you.
DOCTOR: What?
ROMANA: I dropped the tracer.
DOCTOR: What! I picked it up.
ROMANA: Oh. Well, let's get out of here and find the fifth segment.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no. It would be extremely foolhardy trying to cross the swamp in the dark, would it not.
ROMANA: Yes, but about our monster? He's liable to be back at any moment with his friends.
DOCTOR: I don't think so. They're more likely to be digging trenches.
ROMANA: Why?
DOCTOR: They expect to be attacked at any moment.
ROMANA: Really?
DOCTOR: Yes. I followed a Swampie carrying vital information.
ROMANA: How did you manage that?
DOCTOR: Well. Shush.

(The drums have finally stopped. They move to the other side of the 'pit'.)

DOCTOR: Well, it wasn't too difficult. The technicians at the refinery were so busy trying to find an excuse to start a massacre, I just slipped away.
ROMANA: What is this refinery? They keep accusing me of coming from it.
DOCTOR: It's a primitive methane catalysing refinery. A pilot plant for bigger things, they hope.
ROMANA: Who's they?
DOCTOR: The Earth colonists from Delta Magna. They're the ones who shipped the little green men up here.
ROMANA: Ah, because they thought this moon was no use to anybody.
DOCTOR: That's right. Of course, that was all a long time ago.
ROMANA: And now they've found something here they want, they're trying to get rid of them again.
DOCTOR: Precisely.
ROMANA: But methane?
DOCTOR: Yes. I wouldn't have thought it was worthwhile, but they're producing a hundred tons of compressed protein twice a day.
ROMANA: As much as that?
DOCTOR: Yes, they're sending it back to Delta Magna in orbit shot capsules.
ROMANA: But it doesn't make sense. I mean, how can they possibly produce that much protein? Where's it coming from?
DOCTOR: I don't know, I haven't discovered that yet. But they're producing it, and in sufficient quantities to make it worth fighting over.
ROMANA: Yes, this lot are spoiling for a war, too. The whole idea of this sacrifice was to propitiate Kroll and get him on their side. That's why I said it was political. And there's a gun-runner here called Rohm-Dutt. He thinks I've been sent here to get evidence against him.
DOCTOR: Rohm-Dutt? So Thawn was right about the guns. I wonder.
ROMANA: What?
DOCTOR: Well, who's paying Rohm-Dutt? I mean, they obviously don't use money here.
ROMANA: Doctor, does it matter? Let's just get out of here and find the segment and leave them to it. It'll be dawn soon.
DOCTOR: At the bottom of that shaft there'll be an underground passage. I wonder where it leads to?
ROMANA: I hate underground passages.

(The Doctor drops a stone down the shaft. It lands with a muddy thunk.)

DOCTOR: So do I.

[Control centre]

DUGEEN: You can see how it's moved. I've been recording these scans every five minutes.
THAWN: What's the latest picture?
DUGEEN: Coming up.
THAWN: That's weird. It's as though something's lifted up the whole bed and then settled back again.
DUGEEN: Yeah. It can't be a gas build-up, not over such a wide area.
THAWN: Well, we'd better sink a probe right into the centre and take some samples.

(Fenner enters.)

FENNER: That fellow's disappeared.
THAWN: Eh?
FENNER: That Doctor fellow has disappeared. Gone. Not a trace.
THAWN: Well, have you looked in his quarters? He said he was going to get some sleep.
FENNER: I have searched the whole station, everywhere, and one of the boats is missing.
DUGEEN: Do you suppose that he could be connected with this?
THAWN: I wonder.
FENNER: Why, what's going on?
DUGEEN: Something very odd's going on on the lake bed. Look.
THAWN: Have you ever seen anything like this before?
FENNER: No, I haven't.
DUGEEN: It's on such a big scale. I doubt our mystery friend could anything that size on his own.
THAWN: If he is on his own.
FENNER: Of course, when we picked him up he was talking about looking for some friend.
DUGEEN: Maybe there's more than one. We don't even know how he got here.
THAWN: Or how long he's been here.
DUGEEN: Well, the only track of anything we picked up apart from your own ship, was of whatever followed you down.
FENNER: I think it's too much of a coincidence. You know we assumed it was Rohm-Dutt's ship that had landed. We haven't found it, though, have we.
DUGEEN: It could have belonged to this fellow, I suppose. He's been here with us, so he couldn't have done much by himself. But if he's got friends out there, then we're in trouble.
FENNER: So what are they up to?
THAWN: Obvious, isn't it. They're trying to sabotage the plant.
FENNER: Well, any activity on the lake bed could disturb the methane source.
THAWN: Of course. Now, I don't know where this fellow comes from, but he's obviously got considerable scientific knowledge.
DUGEEN: Look at the way he knew all about this plant.
THAWN: Unless, of course, he was very well briefed. It could have been an act.
FENNER: No, no, no. Not when he was talking about inserting the plasmin catalyst, no.
THAWN: That's true. But whatever he is, I think that he's helping the Swampies. You say one of the boats is missing?
FENNER: Yeah.
THAWN: Well, if he took a boat rather than a swamp glider, it means that he doesn't want the noise of an engine.
FENNER: It also means he's trying to cross the swamps on foot.
DUGEEN: Why would he take that risk?
THAWN: Because he's a Swampie-lover! I've told you, he's in with them.
FENNER: You think he's gone to warn them that we're coming?
THAWN: Exactly. I had an instinct about him from the very start. He was too glib by half. Oh, yes, he's one of those fanatics from Sons of Earth.
FENNER: Well, they won't be much help to him, will they, when he starts wandering off the path.
THAWN: He can't have got very far, so I'll take Mensch and head him off in a glider.
FENNER: I wouldn't bother. He'll probably drown anyway.
THAWN: Oh, I intend to make quite certain of it.

[Kroll's pit]

(The Doctor comes back out of the shaft with a large bound book.)

ROMANA: What's that you've got?
DOCTOR: I think it's an illustrated history of the tribe. A sort of Bayeux tapestry with footnotes.
ROMANA: Oh, a sort of Holy Writ.
DOCTOR: I think it's atrociously writ, but the pictures aren't bad. Look. That shows them being evicted from Delta Magna.
ROMANA: Where they originally came from.
DOCTOR: That's right, yes. They were given this moon as a sort of reservation. Look, there you are. There's Kroll in his aquarium. What did I tell you? Sucker marks.
ROMANA: What's the footnote?
DOCTOR: Hmm? Let me see. And Kroll. When Kroll awakened, he saw that the people were fat and indolent, and then Kroll became angry and he struck them down, swallowing into him the symbol of his power and killing all who were in the temple, even Hajes the priest. Great was the lamentation of the people but Kroll returned to the water and slept.
ROMANA: Oh, I like a book with a happy ending.
DOCTOR: Thus was the third manifestation of Kroll. Well, he's obviously one of those monsters who's not always about the place.
ROMANA: No, just pops up every couple of centuries.
DOCTOR: Yeah. Still, a dormancy period of that length would indicate a creature of massive size.
ROMANA: You think Kroll really exists?
DOCTOR: Well, does it matter? Hmm? Does it really matter? You know what I think? I think that Kroll's still around and he's just about due for his fourth manifestation.
ROMANA: Well, if we had any sense, we wouldn't stay.

(The Doctor drops the book back down the shaft. Glug.)

DOCTOR: Yeah. Let's get out of here. Come on!

[Swamp]

(A group of Swampies have paddled out to a cleared reed bed.)

ROHM-DUTT: That way.

(Meanwhile, in another reed bed.)

RANQUIN: Where did he come from?
SKART: I don't know. He struck me from behind.
RANQUIN: So the sacrifice was not made. No one must hear of this, Skart. They would think it a bad omen.
SKART: But if the dryfoot woman is gone, we can say that Kroll took her.
RANQUIN: Then there must be fresh blood on the stone.
SKART: I will see to it when we return. Trust me, Ranquin.

(They duck down as a hovercraft approaches. Varlik and his group stand.)

VARLIK: Don't fire yet. There must be a second boat.

(Mensch gets out of the hovercraft to investigate the Doctor's canoe. A Swampie with Rohm-Dutt fires his weapon, which explodes. He dies, screaming. At the same time, a large tentacle comes out of the swamp and grabs Mensch. Rohm-Dutt runs out from the reeds.)

ROHM-DUTT: Thawn! It's me, Rohm-Dutt!

(Just then, a massive octopus / squid thing appears above the surface of the lake. Ranquin runs forward.)

RANQUIN: Kroll! Kroll! Great Kroll!

(Skart rugby-tackles him to the ground.)

RANQUIN: Kroll, Kroll, spare thy true servants.

(Kroll goes back into the lake. Thawn speeds away on the hovercraft.)

RANQUIN: Kroll rose from the deep to protect his people. Let us give thanks to Kroll!
SKART: No, Ranquin. First let us catch Rohm-Dutt. We've a score to settle with him.

[Control centre]

(Thawn sips at a drink.)

FENNER: Feeling better?

(Thawn nods.)

FENNER: So, was Mensch killed?
THAWN: I think so. I didn't stay to watch. Oh, the size of that thing was unbelievable.
HARG: Why haven't we come across it before, sir?
THAWN: It's probably a deep water thing.
HARG: Even so, it's odd we haven't spotted it before now if it's as big as you say it is.
FENNER: You saw nothing of the Doctor?
THAWN: No. He'd obviously arrived there already. The Swampies were waiting for us.
FENNER: So he did warn them.
THAWN: And they were armed!
FENNER: The Swampies with guns?
THAWN: Yes! Rohm-Dutt was with them, so they're obviously all in this together.
FENNER: Yes, so they were the Doctor's friends.
THAWN: Yes, they must have arrived in the same ship. And it's got to be the Sons of Earth who are behind this. They're the only people with the resources or indeed the motive.
HARG: Shouldn't we send for reinforcements, sir? A police unit?
THAWN: No! The authorities are far too soft. Besides, once they start interfering, you can never get rid of them. We'll handle this one by ourselves, and in my way.
FENNER: Your way?
THAWN: Final! We get rid of the problem once and for all.
FENNER: No.
THAWN: It's the only way.
HARG: What about that, that creature, sir?
THAWN: Well, we've got to deal with that first, that's obvious. It's out there lurking somewhere, so once we've located it we can then finish it off with depth charges.
FENNER: I'll see what the underwater scanners are registering. Oh, look at this.
THAWN: What?
FENNER: Well, I think it's a defective scanner.
THAWN: Where's Dugeen?
HARG: It's his rest period, sir.
THAWN: Well, get him down here!

(Harg goes to the intercom.)

HARG: Harg here, Dugeen. You're needed in Control.
DUGEEN [OC]: Now?
HARG: Right away.
FENNER: See, that's scanner twelve. If I try scanner fourteen, it's on the same parallel.
THAWN: Why, it's just the same.
FENNER: We have a signal, but no image.
THAWN: Well, both scanners can't be defective.

(Dugeen enters, fastening his jacket.)

DUGEEN: What's the problem?
FENNER: Scanners twelve and fourteen are not registering anything.
DUGEEN: Well, they were all right when I left them.
FENNER: They're not now.
DUGEEN: They're still functioning.
THAWN: Then why aren't we getting an image?
DUGEEN: Because, because something is blotting them out. Look, I'll try a transverse. There.

(The image changes from straight lines to lots of ridges running out from a central mass.)

FENNER: What do you make of that?
DUGEEN: Well, that's what's covering the scanners. It's probably just a mass of sediment thrown up when the lake bed moved.
THAWN: That's what I saw.
FENNER: Those scanners are four hundred yards apart!
THAWN: I tell you that is what I saw! That thing is alive!

[Swamp]

DOCTOR: I told them they had their figures wrong, but of course I didn't know about Kroll then.
ROMANA: What are you talking about?
DOCTOR: The refinery. There can't be enough sediment in that place to produce the volume of methane they claim to have found, so where's it coming from?
ROMANA: Kroll.
DOCTOR: What?
ROMANA: Yes. If a thing that size takes a nap every couple of centuries, its feeding processes must continue independently, probably through its tentacles.
DOCTOR: Yes. And Thawn's men vanished while they were taking methane samples, drilling into the sediment.
ROMANA: Like prodding a sleeping tiger.
DOCTOR: Yes. Right. Got it! The refinery's heat exchangers must have raised the lake temperature by several degrees already
ROMANA: Doctor.
DOCTOR: And the noise of their orbit shot is rousing Kroll!
ROMANA: Doctor.
DOCTOR: What?
ROMANA: We've got company.

(They have walked into the -)

[Settlement]

(Ranquin and two Swampies walk up to them.)

DOCTOR: What? Well, you'd better introduce me.
ROMANA: As what?
DOCTOR: Oh, I don't know. As a wise and wonderful person who wants to help. Don't exaggerate.
ROMANA: This is
RANQUIN: Seize them.
DOCTOR: I told you not to exaggerate.

(Rohm-Dutt is dragged through.)

DOCTOR: Who's that?
ROMANA: Rohm-Dutt. A popular figure in these parts about an hour ago.
DOCTOR: Ah.
SKART: Soon, dryfoot, you will wish you had died on the Stone of Blood.
RANQUIN: Guard the dryfoots, Varlik. No harm must come to them.

(The Doctor and Romana are taken away.)

RANQUIN: I will talk to Kroll, and he will tell me by which of the seven holy rituals they must meet death.

[Control centre]

FENNER: Those depth charges are not going to make much impression on that creature, not unless you hit a vital spot first time, and you can't guarantee that.
THAWN: We've got nothing else. Can you think of a better way of killing it?
FENNER: Thawn, we've been here months and this is the first time we've ever set eyes on this creature. Now surely, if it were hostile we'd have known of it before.
THAWN: I've seen it! It's hostile!
FENNER: All right. All I'm saying is that those depth charges will only provoke it.
DUGEEN: Director!
THAWN: What?
DUGEEN: This thing's moving again.
FENNER: Is it coming this way?
DUGEEN: Well, it's coming closer, but not directly towards us.
THAWN: Well, this station isn't designed for torsional stresses, not like an ocean refinery.
DUGEEN: It's stopped again now.
FENNER: Then perhaps it might feed on the bottom. It's moving along the lake bed.
THAWN: I'm not interested in its feeding habits, Fenner, unless they happen to include us!
FENNER: Look, if it feeds and lives in the water, then maybe we could poison it by dropping cobalt around it.
THAWN: Radiation? Harg, how long would that take?
HARG: Impossible to say, sir. That size it could be tough enough to withstand a massive dose.
THAWN: I still favour depth charges. I'll go and check how many we've got.

(Thawn leaves.)

DUGEEN: Well, if Thawn wants to depth charge it, he's going to get us all killed.

[Settlement]

ROMANA: I didn't like the bit about death according to one of the seven holy rituals.
DOCTOR: No. Probably the usual things. Fire, water, hanging upside down over a pit of vipers.
ROMANA: That's only three.

(Back in the Refinery pump chamber, Harg sticks a dip stick into a pipe running along the wall. He listens, and hears sounds a bit like dolphins or whales echoing along it.)

ROHM-DUTT: (sotto) Varlik? Help me.
VARLIK: You're a traitor.
ROHM-DUTT: (sotto) Now listen, now listen, Varlik. We're good friends, you and I, huh? Now, I've got a lot of money back in Delta Magna. A lot of money, and I
VARLIK: It's your greed that's brought you to this, Rohm-Dutt. You betrayed the people of the lakes. You brought us weapons that were old and rotten.
ROHM-DUTT: No, I told you, they had to be cleaned.
VARLIK: We examined them. The barrels are bent, the metal corroded. You thought you'd be safely away from here before we tried to use them.
ROHM-DUTT: No, it's not true, Varlik. I bought them in good faith. Now, let me explain to Ranquin
VARLIK: There's nothing to explain. We heard you call out to the leader of the dryfoots. Do you think we're fools?
ROHM-DUTT: I was confused! I mean, the sight of Kroll
VARLIK: It was a plot! You bought us rotten weapons so that we'd enter into a battle we couldn't win. Oh no, you cheated us, Rohm-Dutt, just as the dryfoots have always cheated our people.
DOCTOR: You see? The weight of history's against you.
ROHM-DUTT: What do you know of it?
DOCTOR: I know a rogue when I see a rogue, and I've no desire to die in the company of a rogue, have you? Have you any desire to die in the company of a rogue?
ROMANA: I'd rather not die at all.
DOCTOR: I know that feeling.

[Control centre]

FENNER: It hasn't moved for fifteen minutes.
DUGEEN: There's movement on the edge. Rising and falling regularly. Could be its breathing organs.

(A tentacle breaks through the pipe in the entrance area. Harg screams. An alarm sounds.)

DUGEEN: The pump chamber!

[Settlement]

DOCTOR: Here comes the verdict.
RANQUIN: The Great One condemns the prisoners to die by the seventh holy ritual of the Great Book.
DOCTOR: Seven's my lucky number.
RANQUIN: Take them to the place of execution.
ROHM-DUTT: Ranquin, wait
RANQUIN: Silence!
DOCTOR: Wasting his breath.
ROMANA: I want to know why we're being executed.
RANQUIN: This one knows what he has done. You, dryfoot, have aroused the wrath of the Great One by denying him his promised victim.
DOCTOR: He's not the Great One. He's the Insignificant One. If you're going to have someone imitate Kroll, it ought to be more convincing.
RANQUIN: When the servants of Kroll appear in his guise, they are part of him, doing as he bids them.
ROMANA: They're simply keeping a myth alive. None of you here has ever seen Kroll. You weren't even born at the time of the third manifestation.
VARLIK: Kroll rose before us at dawn today. We were waiting to kill the dryfoots when the Great One appeared and drove them away.
DOCTOR: What?
RANQUIN: Enough talk. Take them away.
DOCTOR: So Kroll's on the move. I've less time than I thought.

[Pump chamber]

(Dugeen and Fenner arrive in time to see Harg's legs vanish into the pipe. Smoke is pouring in from the wrecked machinery.)

FENNER: Harg!
Part Three

[Pump chamber]

FENNER: Shut down the main flow valve!

(Dugeen starts turning a valve wheel as Thawn enters.)

THAWN: What's going on in here?
FENNER: Harg has just been sucked out by the monster!
DUGEEN: One of the creature's tentacles was right inside the main pipeline.
FENNER: He was doing a manual inspectro, then we heard screams.
DUGEEN: Careful. He just crushed the life out of him. Look at this, eighty gauge colodian just ripped to cardboard.
FENNER: We're abandoning the station.
THAWN: In no circumstances! Not while I am Director here.
DUGEEN: It was just a tentacle, sir, the equivalent of one of my fingers. Imagine what's going to happen if that creature decides to attack us!
THAWN: We've put far too much into this project to abandon it now. There's only one thing to do, that is to find this creature and kill it before it kills us.
FENNER: I've got a broken pipeline. That doesn't give us much time, does it.
THAWN: Well, use a secondary line and pump to half capacity until you've fixed it.

[Kroll's temple]

(As clouds gather overhead, the drums beat, and Rohm-Dutt and Romana have already been tied to a pallet with creepers.)

DOCTOR: I don't remember that last night. Early Samoan influence?

(He lies down on the pallet to be tied up.)

DOCTOR: Interesting how traces of old cultures survive, isn't it?
ROMANA: I'm rather more interested in surviving myself.
DOCTOR: Well, that's understandable at your age. Still, I prefer it to Gothic Perpendicular.
ROHM-DUTT: Varlik. Varlik? What is this seventh ritual?
VARLIK: It is the slowest of all.
ROMANA: I knew it.
VARLIK: I tried to persuade Ranquin that only Rohm-Dutt deserved to be punished by the seventh ritual and that you others should die by the first. That's very easy. They just throw you down the pit and drop rocks on you.
ROMANA: Oh, thank you. It's nice to know who your friends are.
VARLIK: Ranquin says that your crimes are too serious. Kroll will only be appeased by extending your death agonies.
DOCTOR: You know, that window's quite out of place. It's not in character at all.
ROMANA: Will you stop babbling about the architecture? We're having a serious conversation about death.
DOCTOR: Well, architecture's quite a serious subject. Skart, where did that window come from?
SKART: What window?

(That big round glazed thing in the roof.)

DOCTOR: What? That window up there.
VARLIK: It was brought from Delta Magna when the temple was first built.
DOCTOR: I'd have sacked him.
ROMANA: Who?
DOCTOR: The architect.
ROMANA: Look, are you trying to take my mind off something, because you're almost succeeding.
DOCTOR: Did I tell you about the time I was a child?
ROMANA: I don't want to hear it.
DOCTOR: It was a question about
ROMANA: I don't want to hear! How long does this take?
VARLIK: To die? Depends on the sun.
ROHM-DUTT: Skart? Skart, what has the sun got to do with it?
SKART: As the creepers dry, it shortens them. It pulls the plank.
DOCTOR: Ah! And snaps our spines. How ingenious. Now I know the purpose of the window.
ROMANA: You'll be able to die happy, won't you.
DOCTOR: What is, what?
VARLIK: I'm sorry this has to happen, but if Kroll's not appeased he will not help the People of the Lakes.
DOCTOR: Well, he didn't do much for you last time, did he. Killing the High Priest and swallowing the Symbol of Power.
RANQUIN: Is all prepared?
VARLIK: All is prepared.
RANQUIN: Great Kroll. Great Kroll, Defender and Saviour, these despoilers and profaners of the temple are condemned to die according to the seventh Holy Ritual of the Old Book. May their torments avert thy wrath from the People of the Lakes, thy only true followers and believers, O most powerful one. So let it be.

(Ranquin lights two torches.)

RANQUIN: Before your deaths, if you have anything to say to the Servant of Kroll, let it be said.
DOCTOR: Why don't you just let the whole thing drop, Ranquin? You've made your point.
RANQUIN: Foolish levity. Leave.
DOCTOR: Oh, you're not leaving. Aren't you going to stay and watch?
RANQUIN: We're not savages. Suffering is unpleasant to witness.
DOCTOR: It's even more unpleasant to experience. Ranquin, what was the secret of Kroll's power?

(Ranquin dismisses Varlik and goes over to the Doctor.)

RANQUIN: What do you know of that, dryfoot?
DOCTOR: I've read about it somewhere.
RANQUIN: Kroll had the power of the Symbol. He sees all.
DOCTOR: Yes, I know Kroll has it now, but what was it?
RANQUIN: The Symbol was a holy relic brought here by our ancestors at the time of the settlement.
DOCTOR: Yes, but what was the power?
RANQUIN: He who holds the Symbol can see the future. The power revealed how the dryfoots would destroy Delta Magna with their fighting and their greed and the evil of their great cities. That is why my people came to settle here.
DOCTOR: Your people were evicted from their homeland, Ranquin. You had no choice.
RANQUIN: What do these questions matter to you who are already dying?
DOCTOR: I like to get things straightened out.
ROMANA: Must you use expressions like that?
RANQUIN: Your mind is bent, dryfoot. It's well that you die.
DOCTOR: He's got narrow little eyes. You can't hypnotise people with narrow little eyes.

(Ranquin leaves.)

ROMANA: Oh, that's what you were trying to do.
DOCTOR: Yes, trying to persuade him to untie us. Our only chance.
ROHM-DUTT: How long have we got?
DOCTOR: I don't know the contraction rates of creeper, or the breaking point of bones and ligament.
ROHM-DUTT: I can feel it dragging already.
DOCTOR: Sorry you didn't stay on Delta Magna now, eh? Who paid you to bring the natives guns?
ROHM-DUTT: Thawn. He wanted an excuse to wipe them out.
DOCTOR: And who do they think brought them?
ROHM-DUTT: I told them the guns were sent by the Sons of Earth. Oh, I got a signed receipt, too, for Thawn to use to discredit them.
DOCTOR: Why the Sons of Earth?
ROHM-DUTT: Do you have to keep asking questions at a time like this now?
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no, shush. Why did Thawn want to discredit the Sons of Earth?
ROHM-DUTT: They're a crank organisation. They support these primitives. They want Thawn's company to pull out.
ROMANA: Why do they call themselves the Sons of Earth? Not that I care very much.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no, that's a very good questions. After all, none of them can ever have seen the Earth.
ROHM-DUTT: Mother Earth, they call it. They believe colonising the planets is a mistake. They want us all to return to the Earth and starve. Oh! Oh! My ankles are breaking!
DOCTOR: Imagination.

[Control centre]

THAWN: What's it's estimated distance?
DUGEEN: Six hundred yards.
THAWN: Six? From the end of its tentacles, that makes it, it must be nearly a mile across!
DUGEEN: Not far off. The central mass is a quarter of a mile in diameter by about a hundred and forty feet high.
THAWN: That radar doesn't show enough detail.
DUGEEN: I've counted thirty tentacles on one side alone.

(Fenner enters.)

FENNER: Well? Anything fresh?
THAWN: It still hasn't moved.
DUGEEN: Probably doesn't need to move much. We were just trying to decide what it'd look like out of the water.
FENNER: Very big and very ugly. What do you think it looks like? The pump chamber's clear now, if you want to start the furnace.
THAWN: Good. I want you to fix that pipeline as soon as possible, but killing this creature's got to be our first priority.
FENNER: These depth charges of yours, how many do you intend to use?
THAWN: Thirty five. It should be enough, but delivery is the main problem. We've got to hit it with a cluster all at the same time.
FENNER: That's why you've got to go dangerously near.
THAWN: Exactly.
DUGEEN: It might help if you knew exactly what it was. There's nothing like it on Delta Magna.
THAWN: I suppose we could always send to Delta Magna for a missile strike.
FENNER: No, because it'd take at least eight hours for it to arrive. If we showed them the target position now, it would certainly have moved by the time the strike arrived.
THAWN: Yeah, it would have to be a low intensity strike as well, otherwise we should all get the blast.
FENNER: These depth charges of yours. What if we packed them into a separate tank, floated it over and then sank it when it was directly over the creature?
DUGEEN: How would you fire the depth charges?
FENNER: Pressure detonators, that's easy enough.
THAWN: Yes, but how would you sink the tank onto the right place?
FENNER: Fix a small charge to the bottom of the tank and then fire it by remote control.
THAWN: But with pressure detonators, the whole lot would go up so you're back to square one.
FENNER: All right, that's more or less what I said at the beginning. It's too dangerous!
DUGEEN: We're getting a mega-head building up, if anybody's interested.
FENNER: Oh, that's all we need. Anybody want a drink?
THAWN: Put the conductors up.
DUGEEN: Right. By the speed this one's forming, it's going to be a daddy.

(Up go the extra lightning rods as the storm crashes around them.)

[Kroll's temple]

(The creepers are drying out, and the planks holding their ankles is moving away slightly.)

ROMANA: I can't breathe.
DOCTOR: Don't give up. Don't give up. How are you doing, Rohm-Dutt?
ROHM-DUTT: Oh! Oh, my back's breaking.
DOCTOR: Stretching's good for the spine. Well, up to a point.
ROMANA: I think I'm past the point.

(Thunder rumbles.)

DOCTOR: I think we're in for a storm.
ROMANA: Oh, no.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no. Electrical storms on planetary satellites can be quite spectacular.
ROMANA: What a pity we can't sit up and watch it.
DOCTOR: Ha, ha. Just relax your muscles.
ROMANA: It's not my muscles I can't relax, it's my vertebrae. They feel like beads on a piece of, ow, elastic.

[Settlement]

VARLIK: They are not from the refinery, Ranquin.
RANQUIN: They are dryfoots.
VARLIK: Well, so are the Sons of Earth, and we need their support on Delta Magna.
RANQUIN: We no longer need their support, Varlik. We have Kroll.
VARLIK: Do we? I begin to wonder.

(Lightning right on cue, then the rain pours down.)

RANQUIN: Have a care, Varlik. Kroll is our god and protector.
VARLIK: Kroll killed Mensch. Is that protection? If he's our god, why has he attacked us in the past?
RANQUIN: He punishes us when we displease him, and he punishes those who displease his Servants, Varlik.

[Control centre]

DUGEEN: Here it comes.
FENNER: Yes, as you said, it looks like a really big daddy.
DUGEEN: The rain's so solid, it's just blotting everything out on these scanners.
THAWN: Put the lightning conductors up. We're going to need them.
FENNER: All checked. Okay.
THAWN: All hatches battened?
FENNER: Every single one, all secured.
DUGEEN: Here we go.

(Lightning and thunder overhead.)

FENNER: Now hold tight, because there's going to be more.
THAWN: Let's hope any damage that creature did hasn't caused any structural weaknesses.
DUGEEN: Right. If this wind gets inside, it could blow us all apart.
FENNER: Just listen to that rain. I pity anybody out in that lot.

[Kroll's temple]

DOCTOR: What we need are hailstones big as bricks.

(The window is leaking. Doctor tries a scream at a specific pitch.)

ROMANA: It's not that bad yet.
DOCTOR: I'll try a pitch higher.
ROMANA: What?

(He does, and the glass shatters.)

DOCTOR: Nellie Melba's party piece, though she could only do it with wine glasses.
ROMANA: The tension! It's easing already.
DOCTOR: Come on. Pull, Rohm-Dutt, pull! We've got to stretch these creepers while they're still wet. Come on, pull! Pull! Another foot. Come on! Come on. You too, Romana, pull. Pull! Pull!

(They get the creepers stretched enough to bend their knees. The Doctor has enough slack to unfasten his hands.)

DOCTOR: There you are. Now you all know what it's like to be within an inch of death.
ROMANA: Doctor.
DOCTOR: Patience, patience. Another minute won't hurt.

(He pulls out the pin and opens the stock.)

DOCTOR: Feet out!

(He takes a penknife from his boot and cuts Romana and Rohm-Dutt free.)

DOCTOR: Come on.
ROMANA: That's funny, my nose has stopped itching. All the time I was tied up
DOCTOR: This is no time to start talking about noses.
ROMANA: Yes, I know, but it's just that it's a textbook example of displacement anxiety.
DOCTOR: Listen, if it's an anxiety you want, look. The storm will be easing shortly and the Swampies will be coming out from under their umbrellas. Let's get out of here. Come on!

[Control centre]

DUGEEN: The mega-head's breaking up. It's dropped four points already on the Diemster scale.
FENNER: A few billion volts in that one.
DUGEEN: Do you know, it touched force twenty. It's the worst I've seen.
THAWN: It does happen to be the season for storms, Dugeen.
DUGEEN: Anyone out on the baygule wouldn't have stood a chance.
FENNER: There's not likely to be anyone out on the baygule, is there. Not with the jemima prowling around.
DUGEEN: Which it is. Look. It's heading for the shore. Going fast, too, at about six knots.
THAWN: Right, you keep tracking it, because I want a very good look at that thing when it does surface.
DUGEEN: Right.

[Kroll's temple]

SKART: They've gone! The sacrifices have gone! Come quickly!
VARLIK: Kroll has been here.
SKART: No, it's not possible. There would have been more damage.
RANQUIN: Someone must have helped them. They could not have freed themselves.
VARLIK: Yes, well, nobody here would help them.
RANQUIN: Are you sure of that, Varlik?
VARLIK: What?
RANQUIN: You argued they should be freed. You were the one who wanted to stop the ritual of Kroll.
VARLIK: I asked you to stop the ritual, Ranquin. That's all I did, I swear that.
RANQUIN: By the powers that I hold, I shall learn the truth. But if the dryfoots are not found and sacrificed according to the Holy Ritual, then all my people will suffer the anger of Kroll!
SKART: They cannot have gone far, Ranquin. No dryfoot knows the secret paths through the swamps.
RANQUIN: Go after them and find them!

[Swamp]

(The Doctor is leading Romana and Rohm-Dutt through the higher patches of squelchy ground.)

ROMANA: Can't we go any faster? They're gaining on us.
DOCTOR: One slip here and you're up to your neck. Next bit of firm ground's there. We'll have to jump.
ROMANA: Are you sure?
DOCTOR: Well, there's no other way of getting across.
ROMANA: I mean, are you sure it's firm?
DOCTOR: No. Here.

(He hands Romana his hat and scarf, then takes the leap in his handy thigh-high waders. He just makes it.)

[Control centre]

THAWN: It still hasn't shown up. Where is it?
FENNER: It's gone right off the screen now.
DUGEEN: Just ploughed straight on. It must be somewhere under the swamp by now.
THAWN: Can't you get a track on it?
DUGEEN: At a viscosity level of forty percent solids, this box goes blind.
FENNER: You know, the incredible thing is, it didn't even slow down. It seems to be able to move as easily through swamp as through water. It was on a bearing of ninety seven degrees. Hmm. Do you know where that's taking it?
THAWN: Where?
FENNER: Straight to the settlement.
DUGEEN: That could just be a coincidence, Fenner.
FENNER: Oh yes, it could have headed off in any direction. It so happens it's heading for the settlement, so the Swampies have some problems.
DUGEEN: How could it possibly know there's anything there? The settlement's two miles away.
FENNER: How did it know that Harg was in the pump chamber? It seems to have a highly sensitive mechanism for detecting food.
THAWN: (laughs) In which case, the Swampies most certainly do have some problems.
FENNER: You know, I don't particularly like the Swampies, but I can't say I really hate them.
THAWN: Oh, I don't hate them, Fenner. I just want them removed permanently. I spent many years persuading the Company to back this project, and now that we're on the verge of success I'm not going to be stopped by lily-livered sentimentalists wailing about the fate of a few primitive savages.

[Swamp]

(Walking through the tall rushes.)

DOCTOR: Not much further now.
ROMANA: What's that?
DOCTOR: Shush. We're being hunted.
ROMANA: Hunted?
DOCTOR: Freeze. Don't even move an eyebrow.

(Bubbles are coming up from the open water, then suddenly a clump of dead reeds disappear down into the mud. Rohm-Dutt turns and runs. He screams, and the Doctor and Romana turn to see him being dragged away by a large tentacle.)

ROMANA: Horrible.
DOCTOR: Well, I told him not to move. It hunts by surface vibrations. Primarily a vegetarian, of course, but over the years it's learnt that anything that moves is wholesome.

(Rustle, rustle.)

ROMANA: What's that?
DOCTOR: Come on.

(They move off. The Swampies come through the rushes. The Doctor and Romana get into the canoe he borrowed from the refinery, and paddle away.)

ROMANA: Doctor!

(The Swampies have arrived at the shoreline.)

DOCTOR: Hold tight.
ROMANA: Look!

(Ahead of them, Kroll has surfaced. The Swampies turn and run.)

DOCTOR: Freeze.

(A Swampie has been grabbed by a tentacle and is being dragged screaming into the lake.)

Part Four

[Swamp]

(Kroll sinks back down into the water.)

ROMANA: It's gone.
DOCTOR: Yes.
ROMANA: What a good thing we remembered it reacts to movement.
DOCTOR: Yes, wasn't it. Let's get out of here before it changes its mind.

(They paddle away.)

[Control centre]

THAWN: If you're right, Fenner, about that thing attacking the settlement, we should be able to see it from here.
FENNER: It's over two miles away.
THAWN: Still, if it's as big as we think it is. Dugeen, train the receptor aerial on that settlement.
DUGEEN: Right.
FENNER: What are you going to do?
THAWN: Just checking that the next orbit shot is charged and ready to fire.
FENNER: It's not due for another two hours.
THAWN: It might be early this time, Fenner.

(Kroll's tentacles are breaking through the woven screens around the settlement.)

DUGEEN: Look at that!
FENNER: It's a lot bigger than we thought.
THAWN: A hundred tons of hydrogen peroxide will still vapourise it.
FENNER: What's that supposed to mean?
THAWN: I'm going to drop our next orbit shot into the neck of that overgrown jellyfish.
DUGEEN: You can't!
THAWN: Bearing ninety seven, maximum depression.
DUGEEN: You're mad. Think of the settlement!
THAWN: Dugeen, have you never heard of the expression killing two birds with one stone?
FENNER: Now, Thawn, you think what you're doing.
THAWN: I have thought.
FENNER: Because you could kill us all. The atmosphere here is thin already. Now a fireball that size could asphyxiate us.
THAWN: I don't think so.
FENNER: You don't think so. Have you worked out the risk?
THAWN: Countdown commencing. Now get to your places.
DUGEEN: You're mad. Fenner, we've got to stop him.

[Pump chamber]

(The Doctor forces open the outer door and enters to see the smashed pipe.)

ROMANA: Kroll?
DOCTOR: It looks like it. Let's see if there are any survivors, shall we? Shush.

[Control centre]

DUGEEN: Thawn, you can't kill innocent people!
THAWN: They're Swampies.
DUGEEN: Call them what you like, they're no different from you or me.

(The Doctor and Romana are tip-toeing unnoticed down the passage.)

THAWN: They are very different, Dugeen! Now get back to your place.
DUGEEN: No.
THAWN: Are you refusing to obey orders?

(The Doctor and Romana go back down the passage.)

DUGEEN: On moral grounds, sir. Look, if you fire that rocket, it's not just the monster that'll die. You'll destroy a civilisation as old as your own.
THAWN: I don't count the Swampies as being civilised. You're talking like one of those cranks from Sons of Earth.
DUGEEN: They're not cranks. All life began on Mother Earth. All life is sacred!
THAWN: I'm giving you one last chance, Dugeen.

(Dugeen tries to take Thawn's hand weapon, and is knocked down.)

THAWN: Now then, Fenner, do you want to give me an argument?

(Fenner sits and starts operating controls.)

FENNER: Countdown in two minutes.
THAWN: Right. Now, keep a track on that thing.

[Passageway]

ROMANA: Where are you going?
DOCTOR: What? Back to the rocket silo. If he fires off that orbit shot, there'll be nothing left of the Swampies, or Kroll. Come on.

[Settlement]

(Kroll is still towering above them.)

VARLIK: Ranquin, what happened?
RANQUIN: Kroll has turned upon us. It was his punishment for letting the dryfoots escape.
SKART: But when we almost had them, Ranquin, it was Kroll himself who came between us.
RANQUIN: It was a test. The Great One was testing our faith.
VARLIK: Nual was killed.
RANQUIN: What's a single life? Where are the dryfoots now?
SKART: They went to the refinery.
RANQUIN: We must follow.

[Outside the rocket bay]

(The Doctor turns the wheel to open the blast door.)

DOCTOR: Thawn's using the override firing mechanism. There must be some way of disconnecting it.
ROMANA: Doctor.
DOCTOR: What is it?
ROMANA: If that rocket fires while you're in there.
DOCTOR: Yes. We'd better say goodbye now. Goodbye.
ROMANA: Goodbye, Doctor.

(The Doctor goes into the silo, and Romana nearly shuts the door.)

ROMANA: Doctor!

(She enters the silo. Red smoke pours from the base of a booster as the Doctor climbs a ladder on the wall of the silo.)

[Control centre]

FENNER: Sixty seconds.
THAWN: Fire primaries.
FENNER: Primary ignition functioning.
THAWN: Continue countdown.

(Dugeen starts to wake up on the floor.)

FENNER: Fifty seconds.

[Firing bay]

(The Doctor climbs up to a control box on the wall and opens it. Romana calls up from below.)

ROMANA: Doctor, we're too late. Come down.
DOCTOR: Get out of here, Romana. Just get out.
ROMANA: We can't stop it now.
DOCTOR: Just get out!
ROMANA: Come down!
DOCTOR: Get out.

[Control centre]

FENNER: Thirty seconds. Burner eight hundred, increasing.
THAWN: Dugeen, get back.
DUGEEN: You can't do it, Thawn.
THAWN: Touch that abort button and I say I'll kill you.
DUGEEN: Then kill me, but you're not going to kill the others.

(Dugeen hits the red button, and Thawn shoots him in the back. Fenner catches Dugeen as he falls.)

THAWN: I warned him, Fenner. You heard me warn him.
FENNER: That was murder. That was cold-blooded murder.
THAWN: The countdown! Look, he hasn't aborted. It hasn't stopped.

(13, 12)

FENNER: The master cut-out's failed. Then you shot him for nothing, didn't you. Didn't you!

(8, 7, 6)

[Firing bay]

DOCTOR: When in doubt, cut everything.

(The Doctor hits the control panel with a hammer.)

DOCTOR: Simple, really.
ROMANA: Doctor!

[Control centre]

(4, 3, then it stops.)

THAWN: But I don't understand. There was no delay in the cut-out.
FENNER: According to the computer, there's a fault in the primary ignition panel.
THAWN: Well, I'll soon fix that.
FENNER: Too late.
THAWN: What?
FENNER: Come and look at this. It's submerging again, back into the mud, and you're not going to hit it there.
THAWN: If that spineless fool hadn't interfered
FENNER: He'd be alive now, wouldn't he, and I'm reporting you for murder.
THAWN: It was justifiable homicide! You heard me warn him not to touch that abort panel. It was an act of sabotage.
FENNER: He didn't like your methods. That did not make him a saboteur.
THAWN: He was a plant from the Sons of Earth! It's obvious that he was sent here to cripple this project any way that he could.
FENNER: You don't kill a man because you suspect he belongs to the Sons of Earth.
THAWN: All right, Fenner. That will sound very good when we get back. But remember this. If we don't get back, it'll be his fault and not mine.
FENNER: Where are you going?
THAWN: To check the ignition, just in case that thing gives us a second chance.

[Firing bay]

(The Doctor is lying on the floor.)

ROMANA: Doctor? Doctor, are you all right?

(He suddenly sits up.)

DOCTOR: What? Oxygen starvation.
ROMANA: Yes, I know.
DOCTOR: Blacked out for a few seconds.
ROMANA: Minutes.
DOCTOR: Yeah, well, I needed the rest. Did you say minutes? Come on!
ROMANA: What's the matter?

[Outside the rocket bay]

DOCTOR: What? If we're caught loitering outside of here, they'll put two and two together

(He stares at the barrel of Thawn's weapon.)

DOCTOR: You're putting two and two together. I can tell by the expression on your face that you're putting two and two together.
THAWN: So you came back.
DOCTOR: Well, I remembered that I forgot to say goodbye. This is Romana.
ROMANA: Hello.
THAWN: What were you doing in there?
DOCTOR: Well, I was closing the blast room door. It shouldn't be left open like that.
THAWN: I wonder who opened it?
DOCTOR: Well, I, maybe your cleaning, I don't suppose you do have a cleaning lady here.
THAWN: I haven't got any time for any games, so put your hands where I can see them and walk straight ahead.
DOCTOR: Ah, haven't you forgotten something?
THAWN: What?
DOCTOR: Shouldn't you say don't make any sudden moves?
THAWN: Don't make any sudden moves. Now get straight to the Centre.

[Pump chamber]

(The Swampies enter from outside, followed by Ranquin. There is a rumble.)

RANQUIN: What's that?
SKART: It is only the machinery, Ranquin.
RANQUIN: This place is an abomination.
SKART: Yeah, on Delta Magna all the dryfoots live in these metal boxes.
RANQUIN: When we have completed our task here, I will ask Kroll to destroy it all.
VARLIK: Ranquin, why should Kroll do as you ask?
RANQUIN: What?
VARLIK: Well, if he's the Great One and you're but his Servant.
RANQUIN: While the People of the Lakes serve and do honour to Kroll, he will protect us against those who invade our waters.
VARLIK: Kroll destroyed our village. Was that to protect us?
RANQUIN: These are blasphemous questions, Varlik!
VARLIK: I'm only asking what must be on all minds.
RANQUIN: We promised Kroll the lives of the two dryfoots who profaned his temple. We failed to keep that promise. I tell you Kroll will not rest easily beneath these waters until he has eaten of their souls.

[Control centre]

(Fenner drags Dugeen's body away to behind the Director's desk as the Doctor and Romana enter.)

DOCTOR: I don't think that was necessary.
FENNER: Not me.
THAWN: He tried to interfere just as you did interfere.
ROMANA: You've no proof of that.
THAWN: You were in the silo, the blast door to the firing bay was open and we had a malfunction in the orbit shot.
ROMANA: That's circumstantial evidence, not proof.
THAWN: Well, it satisfies me. There's no reason why I shouldn't kill you both now.
FENNER: I wouldn't.
THAWN: Why?
FENNER: Because we need as much help as we can get. Just take a look at that.

(Kroll is rising from the mud again.)

DOCTOR: Oh look, it's coming this way.
FENNER: Yes, and it's going to attack us.
DOCTOR: Well, I don't think it's come to shake hands.
THAWN: Shut up!
FENNER: Now look, there's still time to get that shuttle and get out of here.
THAWN: If it had meant to attack us it would have come before going to the settlement.
DOCTOR: Shush. Maybe it's saving you for pudding.
THAWN: I said shut up!
ROMANA: It's still coming.

(Thawn gets a spear through the middle. The Swampie who threw it grabs a rifle from the rack.)

DOCTOR: No, no, no, we surrender, we surrender.

(Kroll surfaces by the refinery. It's head is almost as big as the entire structure.)

DOCTOR: What do we get this time? The eighth Holy Ritual?
RANQUIN: Many have died because of you, dryfoot. You have been promised to Kroll.
ROMANA: And does Kroll know that?
RANQUIN: Kroll is all-wise, all-seeing
DOCTOR: All baloney. Kroll couldn't tell the difference between you and me and half an acre of dandelion and burdock.
RANQUIN: I tell you, Kroll will not be denied.

(The refinery shakes as Kroll drapes a tentacle over it. The Doctor tumbles into Ranquin's arms. A short time later -)

FENNER: What are we going to do, just sit here while that thing smashes this building to bits?
DOCTOR: Oh, I don't know. Ask Ranquin, he's the Kroll expert.

(Ranquin falls to his knees in supplication.)

RANQUIN: You have brought death to us all, dryfoot.
DOCTOR: Hey? Is that your considered opinion? You know something, Romana? I think that if we

(Romana has gone partway down the passage)

DOCTOR: Romana!
ROMANA: There's nothing out here.
DOCTOR: Romana, come back!

[Passageway]

ROMANA: I just want to see if there's anything here.
DOCTOR [OC]: Don't go near that window!
ROMANA: It doesn't know we're here.

(A tentacle smashes through the window. The Doctor grabs Romana and pulls her back into -)

[Control centre]

DOCTOR: The door!

(The bulkhead slams shut.)

DOCTOR: What, doesn't know we're here? It's making some pretty shrewd guesses.
FENNER: That door isn't going to hold. It's got us trapped.
DOCTOR: Fenner, Fenner, can you operate the centrifuge?
FENNER: Yes. Why?
DOCTOR: Switch it on. Come on, switch it on.
FENNER: The fuel tank is only half full. What's the idea?
DOCTOR: Noise, Fenner, noise. The Kroll hunts by sensing vibrations. Give it something to think about.

(The centrifuge starts up. It pulls its tentacle out of the passageway.)

ROMANA: I think it's gone.
DOCTOR: Shush, shush.

(He opens and looks out into the passageway.)

DOCTOR: Yes, but for how long?
RANQUIN: The Great One is merciful. Kroll has heard my prayer.

(Ranquin walks out and down the passageway. Varlik and some Swampies follow.)

VARLIK: All Kroll has heard is the machinery, Ranquin. Ranquin!
FENNER: Doctor, I'll start the compressors. That'll make a racket. Then the emergency klaxon.
DOCTOR: Everything you've got, Fenner. All the noise you've got. That's it, keep it busy.

(The Doctor gives his scarf to Romana.)

DOCTOR: Here.
ROMANA: Where are you going?
DOCTOR: To test a theory. All theories have to be tested sometime, and this seems as good as any. You stay here in case I'm wrong.

(He takes the tracer from his pocket.)

ROMANA: About what?
DOCTOR: The Symbol of Kroll's power.

[Pump chamber]

(Ranquin enters to see a tentacle trying to get out of the broken pipe.)

RANQUIN: Master, hear thy servant Ranquin. Great Kroll, defender and saviour of the People of the Lakes, let not thy wrath fall upon thy true servants. Great One, we ask only that the dryfoots and their abominations be crushed by thy mighty power! Master, this is thy servant!

(The tentacle wraps around Ranquin and he is dragged into the pipe. Varlik and Skart enter and try to pull him back.)

RANQUIN: Argh! Skart!

(Ranquin is pulled from their grasp.)

[Refinery]

(The Doctor is out on the superstructure, looking at a wall of Kroll.)

DOCTOR: Well, I've had a happy life. Can't complain. Nearly seven hundred and sixty. Not a bad age.

(Suddenly a tentacle lashes out, making him jump back and drop the tracer. He backs away, and another tentacle wraps around his waist. Frantically he reaches for the tracer, which is just beyond his reach. With one last effort, he manages to grab it and touch it to Kroll's body. In a series of flashes, Kroll vanishes. The Doctor is left holding the tracer with an irregular perspex shape stuck on it.)

[Control centre]

ROMANA: Doctor!
ROMANA + DOCTOR: The fifth segment!
ROMANA: Oh, well done.
VARLIK: You killed Kroll?
SKART: With that stick?
DOCTOR: Well, it is a bit difficult to explain.
ROMANA: It is rather a special sort of stick.

(Fenner is still staring at the scanner.)

FENNER: Doctor.
DOCTOR: What?
FENNER: There's something blocking the firing bay.
DOCTOR: Oh, don't worry about that, Fenner. You won't be needing the firing bay any more. No more Kroll, no more methane, no more orbit shots. Ha ha!
FENNER: The computer doesn't know that.
ROMANA: You mean it'll just go on running things by itself?
FENNER: That's how it was designed. The next shot is due in fifty seconds and it's already started the countdown.
DOCTOR: Ah. And with the firing bay already blocked
FENNER: That's right. The whole refinery's going to go up.
ROMANA: Well, stop the computer. You must have a master control.
FENNER: The manual override and abort are not functioning. I've already tried.
DOCTOR: Disconnected in the gantry.
ROMANA: Can't you reconnect them?
DOCTOR: What, in fifty seconds?
FENNER: Forty seconds.
DOCTOR: Forty seconds. There's only one thing to do!
ROMANA: What?
DOCTOR: Hold that.

(The Doctor hands the tracer and segment to Romana, and opens a panel in the control console. 28, 27. He cuts as many wires as he can find, but the countdown continues. 9, 8. Finally he pulls out two ends of cables with bare wires sticking out.)

DOCTOR: Let's hope these are the right ones. Stand back, everybody, stand back.

(2, 1. He puts the ends together. Flash. 0. It all goes quiet.)

ROMANA: Doctor?
DOCTOR: Hmm?
ROMANA: Are you all right?
DOCTOR: I think so.
ROMANA: You could have been killed.
DOCTOR: Yes.
FENNER: That looks like the end of this place.
VARLIK: It is finished?
DOCTOR: Yes. Time to say goodbye. Come on, Romana, let's go.
VARLIK: Where are you going?
ROMANA: We've got a lot to do, haven't we, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Oh yes, we have, yes. Listen, Fenner, someone will come here and pick you up. Stay here for a while. Lead a natural life. You might even get to like it. Teach Varlik and his friends how to do a replacement for Kroll, maybe.
ROMANA: Doctor!
DOCTOR: I'm coming!

[Swamp]

(Lost in the tall reeds.)

DOCTOR: I think it's this way.
ROMANA: No, no, Doctor, it was this way.
DOCTOR: No, no, come on. You know I've got an unerring sense of direction. I have.

(He steps into mud and has to pull his foot out.)

DOCTOR: I think it's this way.
ROMANA: Yes, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Come on!
ROMANA: Doctor?
DOCTOR: Yes?
ROMANA: How did you know that the fifth segment was a part of Kroll?
DOCTOR: Well, it all added up. I mean, the obvious disguise for the segment was the Symbol of Power, and that wasn't around any more.
ROMANA: Ah, yes, because according to the old book in the temple, Kroll had swallowed it.
DOCTOR: That's right, along with the High Priest. Of course, it wasn't so big in those days. Kroll, I mean. Just an ordinary giant squid. Hello.
ROMANA: Hello.
DOCTOR: No, no, look.
ROMANA: What is it?

(A normal sized cuttlefish lies on the mud.)

DOCTOR: Cellular regeneration.
ROMANA: Good heavens.
DOCTOR: There must be hundreds of those around now.
ROMANA: What, bits of Kroll?
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no, not bits of Kroll. No, they'll just be ordinary giant squids. Nothing to worry about. Unless, of course, you're a High Priest. There'll never be another Kroll. It was the segment that did it.

(Romana hangs onto the Doctor's coat tails as they return to the TARDIS.)

DOCTOR: Get back, K9! Get back.

(The TARDIS dematerialises.)

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.

Back to top