The Sontaran Experiment

Part One

[Transmat station]

(A number of globes nestle amongst the heather of Headland Warren, Dartmoor, just north of Widecombe. They buzz, then the Doctor appears. He has just transported down from Space Station Nerva, the Ark in Space. After a few moments, Harry appears, disappears, and appears in another place.)

HARRY: Ah, Doctor.

(Harry disappears again, then finally reappears.)

DOCTOR: Are you coming, or going? Or going or coming?
HARRY: I feel a bit like a Morse message. Slightly scrambled.
DOCTOR: Yes. Well, let's get on with it. These must be the refractors.
HARRY: Er, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Yes?
HARRY: I can see you're busy, but what about Sarah?
DOCTOR: Sarah?
SARAH [OC]: Help!
DOCTOR: That sounds like Sarah.
SARAH: Help me!

(A pair of legs in bright water-proofs are waving amongst the heather. The Doctor listens to a globe.)

DOCTOR: It's not only oscillating, it's ellipsing as well. You'd better give her a hand, Harry.
HARRY: Righty-o.
DOCTOR: Hmm, I see the problem. Focus gone a bit fuzzy.

(A little way away, Harry pulls Sarah up onto her feet.)

HARRY: Okay, old thing?
SARAH: Harry, I'm not a thing.
HARRY: The Doctor says it's the refractors.
SARAH: Is it? Ow.
HARRY: I say, you're not hurt, are you?
SARAH: Only in my dignity.

(They walk back to the transmat circle.)

SARAH: Ahem.
DOCTOR: Ah, Sarah. You're looking well. Look, er, it's going to take some time to do the whole lot. Why don't you two make the most of it?
SARAH: Make the most of what?
DOCTOR: Glorious day. Beautiful unspoilt countryside. No one's set foot here for thousands of years.
SARAH: What you're trying to say is that you're busy and you'd like us to push off.
DOCTOR: I'd phrase it more elegantly myself, of course. Yes.
HARRY: Oh well, might as well have a recce while we're here. Coming old thing? Coming, Sarah?
DOCTOR: Enjoy yourselves. Trafalgar Square should be that way.

(The Doctor points in the opposite direction to where they're going.)

SARAH: Trafalgar Square?
DOCTOR: If this is Piccadilly.
SARAH: You're joking. Aren't you?
DOCTOR: Mind the traffic.

(Harry and Sarah set off in the indicated direction.)

[Headland Warren]

(Plenty of heather and granite outcrops.)

SARAH: Trafalgar Square, my foot. Not a pigeon in sight.
HARRY: Well, I don't suppose many of our feathered friends survived, you know. Not much in the way of life, is there.
SARAH: It's rather creepy. Doesn't seem like Earth at all.
HARRY: Oh, I don't know. Nice and tidy, anyway. No lolly sticks.
SARAH: It's not what I expected.
HARRY: Well, it'll all change when they get down from Nerva. Their animal botanic section's packed with stuff.
SARAH: What's that?
HARRY: What?
SARAH: Shush. Listen.
HARRY: I can't hear anything.

(There's a whirring sound, and something moves just below the ridge above them.)

SARAH: It's over there.
HARRY: Oh, come on, Sarah. You're imagining things. Look, Sarah, there's been no life on Earth, not of any size, for ten thousand years.
SARAH: Now look, we don't know that, do we? There could be anything here.
HARRY: Such as what?
SARAH: I don't know. Mutations, creatures?
HARRY: Come on.

[Transmat station]

(Someone with a hand weapon is watching the Doctor working on a globe. He and his companion are both wearing spacesuits.)

ERAK: Keep him covered, Zake. I'll get the others.

[Base of Tor]

HARRY: Hey, Sarah. Come and have a look at this. Whoops!

(Harry loses his footing and falls down the steep slope.)

SARAH: Harry! Harry, are you all right?

(Harry is lying at the bottom of the tor cliff face.)

[Camp site]

(Part way up another cliff side, a man is tending a fire. Erak runs up. We see that he has a short sword in a sheath at his waist.)

ERAK: Krans! Krans! I've seen some guy. A stranger.
KRANS: What?
ERAK: Zake's watching him, down by that circle. I thought maybe Vural ought to know.
KRANS: No, no, no, he's out looking for grub. Down by the circle, eh?
ERAK: Yeah. Hey, could be it's something to do with this mess, eh?
KRANS: Well, we'll soon find out.

[Base of Tor]

(Harry gets up by himself.)

HARRY: No bones broken, I don't think. All the same, I'm stuck, aren't I?

(Sarah calls down to him.)

SARAH: Harry! Harry, there's something wrong here. The edge of this hole's been covered.
HARRY: Of course it has. That's why I fell. Oh, I see what you mean. A deliberate trap, eh?
SARAH: Shush. I'm going to fetch the Doctor.
HARRY: All right. Well, I'll wait here then.

[Transmat station]

(A bizarre contraption trundles through the heather, rounding up Zake and following him as he runs away. The Doctor continues working, unaware. Zake runs to the edge of a cliff, and falls over it. The Doctor hears his scream.)

DOCTOR: Harry?

[Halfway down the cliff]

(The Doctor clambers down to where Zake lies as Erak and Krans arrive at the top.)

KRANS: Hold it!
DOCTOR: Is he a friend of yours?
ERAK: He's killed Zake!
DOCTOR: No, I

(Erak shoots the Doctor.)

[Transmat station]

SARAH: Doctor! Doctor?

(Sarah sees the Doctor's sonic screwdriver on top of a globe, and picks it up.)

[Base of Tor]

(Some stones fall.)

HARRY: Sarah? Hey, who's there?

(Big rocks come down. Harry avoids them.)

HARRY: Hey! Now, look here.

(He finds a hole in the rock hidden by creepers.)

[Transmat station]

SARAH: Doctor!

(Meanwhile, another man watches Erak and Krans carry the Doctor away.)

[Base of Tor]

SARAH: Harry! Harry, I can't find him.

(The pit is empty.)

SARAH: Harry?

[Camp site]

(Erak and Krans put the Doctor down and go up to the fire.)

ERAK: How long before the dope wears off?
KRANS: He's coming round now.
KRANS: Cut him loose, Erak, but leave his hands tied, eh.

(Erak uses his big blade to cut the ropes around the Doctor's legs. Krans comes down with a piece of white hot wood from the fire.)

KRANS: All right, now talk.
DOCTOR: Certainly. What would you like me to talk about?
KRANS: What have you done with our crewmates?

[Base of Tor]

(Sarah has found a dead tree and is dragging it to the pit. She hears that whirring sound again. Meanwhile, Harry has found that his hole is a tunnel that brings him out below Hound Tor, a magnificent piece of weather-carved granite. Sarah lowers the tree into the pit to act as a ladder. Someone creeps up behind her and puts his hand over her mouth, then drags her away from the edge to cover. The contraption trundles up, stops and scans, then leaves.)

SARAH: What on Earth?
ROTH: Shush!

(He checks that the coast is clear.)

ROTH: Who are you? Where are you from?
SARAH: That's what I was going to ask you. Okay, my name is Sarah. What's yours?
ROTH: Sarah.
SARAH: What's you name?
ROTH: Roth.
SARAH: Do you live here, Roth? No, those are space clothes, aren't they?

(Roth goes to the edge of the pit.)

ROTH: I covered this, you understand, to catch the machine.
SARAH: Tell me about the machine.
ROTH No!
SARAH: Why are you so frightened of it?
ROTH: The machines serves him. Captures my crewmates.
SARAH: Serves who?
ROTH: The thing in the rocks. I'll not get caught. No, not again.
SARAH: No, wait. What thing in the rocks?
ROTH: The alien in the rocks. The machine captures us, takes us for torture. I got away, see?

(He shows Sarah a scar on his forearm.)

SARAH: Those are burns, aren't they? Did the alien do that? Is that what you're saying?
ROTH: He killed Heath and Splier. I got away. Understand?
SARAH: I think I'm beginning to. Look, take me to these rocks.
ROTH: No!
SARAH: Oh look, Roth, you've got to help me. I came here with two friends and they've both vanished, understand? I mean, you understand?
ROTH: I saw them.
SARAH: Then it was you following us?
ROTH: One of your friends is with Vural.
SARAH: Vural?
ROTH: He was in the circle. I saw them take him.
SARAH: Then you know where the Doctor is.
ROTH: Yeah.

[Camp site]

DOCTOR: I told you, I just got here.
ERAK: How, eh? We've seen no ship.
DOCTOR: I didn't use one. I came by transmat beam.
VURAL: That's a lie.
DOCTOR: That's the truth. Who are you?
VURAL: Vural. I'm the leader of this party.
DOCTOR: Ah.
VURAL: Where'd you find him?
ERAK: First saw him creeping about that circle.
DOCTOR: Not creeping. I was repairing the
KRANS: Shut up! By the time we caught up with him, he was bent over Zake.
KRANS: He killed him.
DOCTOR: I'd not kill him. I heard a cry and found him with his neck broken in a gully. An accident, I imagine.
VURAL: You say you came here by transmat beam?
DOCTOR: That's right.
VURAL: There's no transmat beam on this planet. The Earth's been junked.
DOCTOR: Temporarily abandoned perhaps, but not junked. Oh, no.
VURAL: It's worn out, useless, and too far from the freight routes. Nobody comes here so there's no transmat beam. Check?
KRANS: Check.
VURAL: So you better start telling the truth or you night find things getting a little rough.
DOCTOR: I'm sorry to keep contradicting you, but there is a transmat beam from Space Station Nerva.
KRANS: From where?
DOCTOR: Space Station Nerva.
ERAK: Is he crazy?
KRANS: A joker.
VURAL: You don't expect us to believe that.
DOCTOR: Nerva, transmat beam, Earth. It's as simple as that. Why don't you believe me?
VURAL: Because Nerva doesn't exist, that's why. There's no such place.
DOCTOR: Fascinating. You don't believe it exists, yet you've obviously heard of it.
KRANS: Everybody's heard of the lost colony.
DOCTOR: Lost colony? Ah. You mean it's become a legend like lost Atlantis?
ERAK: Like what?
DOCTOR: Lost Atlantis. It's a legendary city. A go, never mind. This is extremely interesting. Are you going to cut me loose?
VURAL: No, we're going to get the truth out of you first.
KRANS: Too right.
DOCTOR: Very colonial. You are from a colony, I take it?
VURAL: GalSec.
DOCTOR: Of course, on Nerva, they know that various colony ships left Earth. They'll be delighted to know that they're not the sole survivors of the human race. You are human?
KRANS: What do you mean?
ERAK: Of course we are.
DOCTOR: Oh, no offence, no offence. Do you mind if I take a close look at that?

(The Doctor peers at a small metal stud on the front of Vural's spacesuit. Our viewpoint switches to the Doctor's face on a screen somewhere.)

DOCTOR [on screen]: I' d say it's not a product of human technology, eh, Vural?
VURAL [OC]: You're a freak!

(A hand with massive nails presses a couple of buttons and the contraption rises up from the heather where it has been hiding, scans and heads off. A little while later, the men are eating as the Doctor sits just down the slope.)

ERAK: I say let's get rid of him now and save ourselves the trouble later.
VURAL: Krans?
KRANS: If he had landed by ship we'd have heard. Maybe he did come by transmat beam.
ERAK: From Nerva?
KRANS: Maybe.
VURAL: Aye, I remember the old story. Back in the days of the expansion, a bunch of survival sleepers went to Space Station Nerva to wait for the Earth to cool down again.
ERAK: So? Earth's cooled down and they've never come back. And Nerva's never been found. It's just a story.
VURAL: Yeah. I reckon if it ever existed, it got burnt up in the sunbursts.
KRANS: You know what makes me half believe him? It's such a crazy story, that's what.
ERAK: You mean, if he was making it up, he'd think of something better?
KRANS: Check.
ERAK: Never.
KRANS: I'll question him again.
VURAL: No. I'll handle this.

[Headland Warren]

(Sarah and Roth run through the heather. She slips.)

SARAH: Whoops!
ROTH: Shush! It's just a-ways down there.
SARAH: Well, what are we waiting for?
ROTH: No, no.
SARAH: Look, Roth, if you're in Vural's crew, why are you so frightened of him?
ROTH: He's been to the rocks. I saw. I saw.
SARAH: What do you mean, you saw?
ROTH: The alien let him go. You understand? Vural's hooked.

(Sarah goes on, then Roth follows.)

[Camp site]

VURAL: Right. How long have they been in deep freeze on Nerva?
DOCTOR: Ohm ten thousand years?
VURAL: And you woke up before the others?
DOCTOR: Well, no. I'm a sort of travelling time expert. As you can see, Earth's been habitable for several thousand years, but they didn't wake up. Why? Clock stopped. Overslept. So here I am.
VURAL: Clock expert?
DOCTOR: Horologist, actually. And chronometrist. I just love clocks. Atomic clocks, wall quartz clocks, grandfather clocks
ERAK: He's still lying.
VURAL: Shut up, Erak.
DOCTOR: Cuckoo clocks.
VURAL: You got any proof?
DOCTOR: Well, no, but then I didn't expect to meet anyone. I understood Earth wasn't inhabited.
KRANS: Yes, that's what we thought until we got a distress call from around here.
DOCTOR: A mayday? Then you're a military expedition, I take it.
VURAL: One of our GalSec freighters went missing. We er, we picked up a distress call and came down for a look-see. Soon as we stepped from the ship it was vapourised. Nine of us were stuck here.
DOCTOR: Nine? Where are the rest?
VURAL: Vanished.
ERAK: And we reckon that that circle of yours has got something to do with it.
DOCTOR: Oh, rubbish. That's just the reception point for the transmat beam.

(Sarah's head peeps over a rock behind the men.)

ERAK: Let's kill him now and get it over with.
KRANS: No.
DOCTOR: Thats wild talk, Erak. Far from killing me, you should treat me as an honoured guest.
KRANS: Why?
DOCTOR: Well, you don't want to be stuck here forever, do you.
VURAL: Go on.
DOCTOR: I might consider helping you.
VURAL: How do you reckon to help us?
DOCTOR: Simple. I finish refocusing the matter beam then we all pop up to Nerva, you get in touch with your headquarters and they send a ship for you.
VURAL: Listen. If you are one of the Old People, were not taking orders from your lot. While you were dozing away, our people kept going and they made it. Weve got bases all across the galaxy now. Youve done nothing for ten thousand years while we made an Empire. You understand?
DOCTOR: Oh, absolutely.
VURAL: Were not taking any of that Mother Earth rubbish!
KRANS: Hey, look! Its Roth.
ERAK: Hey, Rothy! Hey! Hey, Rothy!

(Erak runs after Roth.)

KRANS: It is Roth! Come on! Hey!
VURAL: Roth!

(Krans and Vural run off too. Sarah comes out of hiding and uses Erak's discarded sword to cut the Doctor free.)

ERAK [OC]: Hey! Roth!
DOCTOR: Good girl, Sarah. Whos your fast friend?
SARAH: Come on, Doctor, I'll explain later.

(Sarah and the Doctor run up into the rocks.)

VURAL: Roth! Roth!
ERAK: I've got cramps. Hes bunked.
KRANS: I saw him, plain as daylight.
VURAL: Now whyd he run like that? Whyd he run from us?
ERAK: He must have gone bush.

(Erak taps his head. They return to the campsite.)

VURAL: Hey!
ERAK: That freak. He's got away.
VURAL: All right, get your guns.

[Headland Warren]

(Roth joins Sarah and the Doctor.)

SARAH: Doctor, the pit's this way.
DOCTOR: I've lost my sonic screwdriver. I feel completely lost without it.
SARAH: I found your sonic screwdriver. Doctor, the pit.

(The Doctor takes the screwdriver back.)

DOCTOR: Shush. What would I do without you?

(Meanwhile, elsewhere.)

VURAL: Any luck?
ERAK: Nothing.
VURAL: Keep your eyes peeled. He can't have got far.

[Base of Tor]

DOCTOR: He couldn't have climbed out.
SARAH: Not without help.
DOCTOR: That machine you told me about, could that have lifted him?
SARAH: No, he'd already gone by the time the machine came.
DOCTOR: Excuse me.

(The Doctor sniffs at some tracks in the soft ground.)

DOCTOR: Terullian drive.
SARAH: What?
DOCTOR: The machine. Now that's very interesting, because there's no terullian to be found in this galaxy.
ROTH: Ja, ja, alien. Alien, you understand?
DOCTOR: Yes, don't you worry about it, old chap. He's half demented with shock.
SARAH: He's been tortured, badly by the look of it. He's terrified of everyone now, especially his old crewmates.
DOCTOR: Yes, well, I can't say I blame him for being wary of friend Vural, at any rate. You know, it's absolutely typical of Harry! How anyone in his proper mind could fall down a whacking great subsidence like. That's it!
SARAH: What is?
DOCTOR: Subsidence! A sewer or something. Maybe it's the Central Line.
SARAH: I'm not with you.
DOCTOR: I mean here must be some way out at the bottom. Hang on, Sarah. I'll just go down and take a look.
SARAH: Hey, you be careful, Doctor. If you break a leg or something, we'll never get you out.
DOCTOR: It's perfectly safe.

(The Doctor loses his footing and falls to the bottom. Is that when Tom Baker broke his collar bone?)

SARAH: Doctor, Doctor!

(The contraption comes up behind Sarah and Roth. Meanwhile, Harry climbs up through the granite rocks at the top of Hound Tor and starts down the other side. He ducks down into hiding when he spots a circular spaceship of a style we first saw over a season ago in Mediaeval England. Later, water dripping onto the Doctor's face wakes him.)

DOCTOR: Oh. Ow. Sarah? Sarah? Sarah, are you there?

[Outside the Spacecraft]

(Harry sneaks up for a closer look at the spacecraft when the contraption arrives with Roth and Sarah tied to ropes behind it. The spacecraft opens and a squat alien emerges, one whose head is as wide as his shoulders.)

STYRE: Ah ha!
SARAH: Linx.

(The Sontaran - played by the same actor in the same costume as before - removes his helmet.)

Part Two

[Outside the Spacecraft]

(The Sontaran comes over to inspect the new captives.)

STYRE: The female of the species.

(Styre releases them.)

SARAH: Linx. A Sontaran. Can't be. You were destroyed in the thirteenth century. You were blown to smithereens.
STYRE: You may have seen one of us.
SARAH: But you're identical. The same ugly
STYRE: Identical, yes, the same, no. I am Styre. Field Major Styre, as you will address me, of the Sontaran G3 Military Assessment Survey. And your opinion of my looks is of no interest to my programme.

(Styre speaks into a dictaphone.)

STYRE: Female number one, first assessment. Would appear to have no military justification. Offensive value therefore nil.
ROTH: You won't get me. You won't torture me again.

(Roth starts to run away, and Styre shoots him with his red-beam hand weapon. Sarah screams.)

STYRE: Why did you make that disagreeable noise?
SARAH: You killed him!
STYRE: That is my function. I am a warrior.
SARAH: Murderer. Murderer!
STYRE: Silence! The moron was of no further use to me. I had already tested him. You, as a female, are far more interesting. And soon I will have the rest of your companions.

(Harry sidles away, concealed by the boulders.)

[Base of Tor]

(The Doctor is putting Sarah's dead tree up against the side of the pit when he hears a noise.)

DOCTOR: Hello? Sarah?

(No, it is Erak, Krans and Vural.)

DOCTOR: Oh, it's you again. Can't say I'm delighted. It's no use pretending.
VURAL: Just keep climbing, nice and quiet.
DOCTOR: If you insist.

[Hound Tor]

HARRY: Sarah? Sarah, old girl, you here anywhere?

(Groans.)

HARRY: Sarah, where are you?

(Harry finds Roth chained to the rocks by his wrists.)

HARRY: All right, old chap?
ROTH: No. No.
HARRY: It's all right, old chap, I'm not going to hurt you. Let's have a look.
ROTH: Water.

[Base of Tor]

(The Doctor has almost made it out of the pit.)

VURAL: Krans.
KRANS: Go on, and no tricks now.
DOCTOR: Behind you!
KRANS: I said no tricks.

(The Doctor ducks down as the contraption wheels up behind the men. They start firing at it with no effect. It lassoes them with its metal ropes.)

[Hound Tor]

(Harry has soaked his handkerchief and brings it to Roth for him to suck on. He cannot undo the metal shackles.)

HARRY: Look here, old chap, I'm going to have to go and get help. You understand? The Sontaran put you here? What for? Do you know why?
ROTH: To, to die.
HARRY: Die? Are there many more of you?

[Base of Tor]

(The Doctor finds the tunnel. He sniffs the air.)

DOCTOR: No, it's not the Central Line.

[Hound Tor]

(Sarah is sitting down and shackled by her wrists to a rock. She has a device fastened to her forehead.)

STYRE: When I ambushed the GalSec there were nine survivors. I have already used up five of them and I have been studying the free behaviour patterns of the remaining four.
SARAH: So?
STYRE: So it is useless lying to me. I know you were not on that GalSec ship. Where do you come from? What is your planet of origin?
SARAH: Earth.
STYRE: That is a lie. There has been no intelligent life on this planet since the time of the solar flares.
SARAH: How do you know?
STYRE: I have the reports.
SARAH: They can't be wrong, can they?
STYRE: Silence. You are nothing, do you understand? You are a mistake and must therefore be eliminated. According to my data you should not exist.

(Styre presses a button on his dictaphone/control pad and leaves. Harry, who has got himself a very large stick, hides from him. Meanwhile, the Doctor has followed the tunnel out to below the other side of the Tor, just like Harry did.)

HARRY: Sarah?
SARAH: Harry! Over here.

(Harry runs up to where Sarah is shackled.)

HARRY: Sarah.
SARAH: Well, come on, help me.
HARRY: Oh, hang on, old thing.

(Harry walks straight into an invisible barrier, and is knocked down. Twice.)

HARRY: I can't get in.
SARAH: There must be a forcefield.
HARRY: Eh?
SARAH: That's it. He's locked me inside a forcefield, Harry, It's no good.
HARRY: Well, don't you worry, old thing. I'll find a way. I'll get you out of there if I have to knock his bally head of and grab his keys. Just don't you worry, Sarah.

[Coms device]

(An orange sphere nestles amongst the granite. Styre presses a button.)

STYRE: G3 intelligence. G3 intelligence. Field Major Styre reporting from Earth base.
MARSHAL [on monitor]: Well, Styre?
STYRE: My report, Marshal.
MARSHAL [on monitor]: Get on with it, then.
STYRE: As we knew, the Earth has not been repopulated. I have therefore carried out my instructions and lured a group of humans to the planet for testing. The results of my experiment indicate that they are puny beings with little resistance to physical stress, and are totally dependent on organic chemical intake for their energy supply.
MARSHAL [on monitor]: Thank you, Styre. Then your report is complete.
STYRE: Not quite, Marshal.
MARSHAL [on monitor]: Why must there be any delay?
STYRE: Some inconsistencies have arisen. Small mistakes that will soon be eliminated. My final intelligence report for the assault will be with you within the hour, Marshal.
MARSHAL [on monitor]: It must be, Styre. It must be.
STYRE: Very good, sir.

(The transmission ends. Styre speaks into his dictaphone.)

STYRE: Experiment seven. Subject, female. Project, resistance to fear.

(Styre switches the monitor to a view of Sarah.)

[Hound Tor]

(Thanks to the device on her forehead, Sarah believes she is seeing a snake at her left arm. She looks away, then back again, and it is gone. Then she thinks the rocks are about to fall on her, and she screams. Next is mud creeping up over her legs.)

DOCTOR: Sarah! Listen to me, Sarah! It's not real. Do you understand? Nothing is happening to you. It's only in your mind.

(The Doctor uses his screwdriver on a plate fastened to a rock. It melts.)

DOCTOR: Fight it, Sarah. Fight it.

(Forcefield eliminated, the Doctor goes to Sarah and takes the device from her forehead. She screams and passes out.)

DOCTOR: Oh, Sarah.
STYRE: Very touching.
DOCTOR: You unspeakable abomination!

(The Doctor actually tries to attack Styre with his bare hands, but is easily thrown off.)

STYRE: Words, Earthling, will never prevail against Sontaran might.
DOCTOR: Why did you do it to her?
STYRE: I did nothing. I merely resurrected those things which lay buried in the depths of her pathetic little mind. She was a victim of her own fear. And now, your turn.
DOCTOR: Well done, Harry.

(Styre turns and the Doctor pushes his gun arm. Styre spins and the Doctor runs away. But Styre shoots him on the second attempt.)

STYRE: Worm.

[Outside the Spacecraft]

(The contraption arrives with its three captives.)

KRANS: Now we know what happened to our mates.
ERAK: We've still got a chance. If this intended to kill us

(Styre comes out of the spaceship.)

KRANS: It might have been the best thing.
STYRE: Good. The final batch of material.
VURAL: But not me. No, not me!
STYRE: All of you.
VURAL: But I helped you. I did everything you said.
KRANS: What?
VURAL: You said you'd save me if I
STYRE: Oh, why should I save you, a traitor to your own miserable kind.
ERAK: Why you stinking, lousy swine, Vural! You tried to do a deal with this thing?
VURAL: It was all I could do. It gave us more time.
KRANS: That first night, he was gone for hours. Lost, he said.
VURAL: No, I did it for us.
STYRE: Enough of this bickering.

(Styre takes the mini-camera from Vural's spacesuit.)

[Hound Tor]

(Harry has returned to find Sarah still unconscious.)

HARRY: Doctor.

(He scrambles down the rocks to find he is out cold too.)

HARRY: Not both of them.

(Harry grasps his big stick and returns to Roth's alcove. He's dead.)

HARRY: Murdering swine.

(Harry hides as Styre comes down a tight gully to inspect Roth.)

STYRE: Field Major Styre, Sontaran G3 Military Assessment Survey. Experiment five, human resistance to fluid deprivation. Data, subject died after nine days, seven hours. Impairment of mental faculties, motor reflexes and physical coordination noted after only three days. Conclusion, dependence on fluid is a significant weakness which should be exploited in our attack. As a rider to the above, we should also like to take into account the successful conclusion of experiment four, where immersion in the fluid H2O produced asphyxiation in less than three minutes.

(During this speech, Harry started to creep up on Styre, but the Doctor put his hand over his mouth then beckoned him away.)

STYRE: Conclusion, this species has little resistance to immersion in liquids.

(Further away.)

HARRY: Doctor, I thought you were both dead.
DOCTOR: Not me. Piece of the synestic locking mechanism from Nerva's rocket. Popped it in my pocket.
HARRY: Fortuitous.
DOCTOR: Foresight. You never know when these bits and pieces will come in handy.

(He throws it away.)

DOCTOR: Never throw anything away, Harry. Where's my five hundred year diary? I remember jotting some notes on the Sontarans. It's a mistake to clutter one's pockets, Harry.
HARRY: Yes, Doctor.
DOCTOR: What's Styre doing here?
HARRY: Well, he's killing people. He's on some kind of ghastly experiment. Look what he's done to Sarah.
DOCTOR: Harry, Sontarans never do anything without a military reason. You look to Sarah.
HARRY: And what are you going to do?
DOCTOR: Find out what's behind all this.

(The Doctor heads off up through the granite. Meanwhile, Vural is fastened down on a flat rock while Erak and Krans hold a large weight over him.)

STYRE: Experiment eight, resistance to pressure on the human breast cage and muscular strength. Are you prepared?
ERAK: What are you up to, you lump of filth?
STYRE: You are holding a gravity bar. At the moment it is a mere forty pounds Earth weight. I will increase that weight to two hundred pounds.

(Styre turns a button on his pad and the men's knees sag.)

STYRE: Three hundred pounds.

(Erak and Krans are on their knees, with the bar just above Vural's chest.)

[Outside the Spaceship]

(The Doctor discovers the contraption.)

DOCTOR: Hello. Hello. Don't be alarmed, old thing. Not going to hurt you. Everything's going to be all right.

(The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver and the contraption collapses.)

VURAL [OC]: Please!

[Hound Tor]

VURAL: Please! Please!
KRANS: You murdering fiend!
STYRE: He is not your friend, he is a traitor, yet you struggle to save his life. Five hundred pounds.

(Something beeps.)

STYRE: Enough.

(He turns the bar off.)

STYRE: I must delay the experiment.

(Styre moves away.)

KRANS: Erak, the knife. The knife!

(Erak tries to reach the blade at Vural's feet.)

[Coms device]

MARSHAL [on monitor]: Styre. Field Major Styre, I order you to report.
STYRE: This is Field Major Styre, sir.

(The Doctor looks down on this.)

MARSHAL [on monitor]: Styre, your constant delays are causing alarm. We must have your report.
STYRE: I am just completing my final experiment, the compressibility test of human tissue.
MARSHAL [on monitor]: The entire invasion fleet is being held up. How much longer must we wait?
STYRE: My programme was ordered by the Grand Strategic Council. The invasion cannot begin until all experiments are analysed.
MARSHAL [on monitor]: Then get a move on, Styre. The fleet is waiting for my signal.
STYRE: Very good, Marshal.

[Hound Tor]

SARAH: Doctor!
DOCTOR: Ah, Sarah, feeling better? No, don't tell me. No time. We've got an invasion on our hands.
HARRY: Invasion? Oh, you mean Styre?
DOCTOR: Him, and thousands exactly like him.
SARAH: They're going to invade Earth?
DOCTOR: The entire galaxy suddenly acquired some strategic importance in their endless war against the Rutans.
HARRY: Why on Earth is Styre torturing people?
DOCTOR: He's making an assessment of human physical limitations. Sontarans are very methodical people, and that might give us a slight advantage.
HARRY: Oh, I hadn't noticed, frankly.
SARAH: What are you going to do?
DOCTOR: I'm going to take him on in single combat.

(The Doctor takes Harry's large stick.)

DOCTOR: It's the only way.
HARRY: You're what?
DOCTOR: Sontarans never turn down the chance to kill someone.
SARAH: Well you're not going to let him kill you?
DOCTOR: I hope not. I'm going to try and tire him out. He's pretty unwieldy, for all his strength, and he's not used to Earth's gravity. The thing is, if I can get him exhausted, he'll have to go back to his ship to reenergise. Are you with me?
HARRY: Just about.
DOCTOR: While I keep him busy, I want you to get into his ship. Now, once you're inside, this is what I want you to do, Harry.

(The Doctor gives Harry the screwdriver. Meanwhile, back at the experiment.)

STYRE: Increase to six hundred pounds.

(The gravity bar is resting on Vural's chest as Krans and Erak struggle to hold the massive weight.)

DOCTOR: Styre!

(Styre spins around.)

DOCTOR: Still about your butcher's ways, Styre?
STYRE: You? But I killed you.
DOCTOR: Another mistake, Styre. You've fallen right into our trap.
STYRE: Trap?
DOCTOR: Yes. Those people you've been so cleverly evaluating are not Earth warriors. They're our slave class, the lowest form of human intelligence.
STYRE: You lie!
DOCTOR: Do you think those puny creatures could conquer half a galaxy? No, Styre, I represent the true warrior class. Evaluate me if you dare.

(Styre draws his weapon.)

DOCTOR: Ah. Is that the Sontaran way? The mighty warrior sheltering behind his gun? I challenge you, Styre. Single combat. Or are you afraid?
STYRE: Afraid? A Sontaran afraid?

(Styre throws down his gun and picks up one of the Earth men's knives.)

STYRE: All right, come to your death!

(The Doctor comes down from the rocks and they start to fence, the Doctor easily dodging Styre's swings. Meanwhile, Harry and Sarah go to help Krans and Erak move the gravity bar away from Vural. The Doctor lures Styre up into the rocks.)

[Outside the Spaceship]

(Harry dashes round to the spaceship and opens it with the sonic screwdriver. Styre is starting to tire after chopping the Doctor's stick in half, and makes to leave.)

DOCTOR: Styre, it's not over yet.
STYRE: I'll finish with you later.

(The Doctor leaps onto Styre's back. Then Vural joins in the wrestling match as Harry carries a component away from the spaceship.)

DOCTOR: You're weakening, Styre. You're weakening.
STYRE: Am I? I shall kill you all now, but first I have more important tasks to perform.

(Styre goes into his spaceship, and Harry shows the module to the Doctor.)

HARRY: Is this what you meant?
DOCTOR: It had better be. Let's get out of here.
SARAH: Doctor, Styre's killed Vural. He saved your life.
DOCTOR: I know. Everybody out, fast as you can. Come on!

(They run for some rocks as Styre staggers out of his spaceship amidst a lot of smoke. He collapses as the ship makes an increasingly high-pitched noise, then his head and body collapses in on itself like a punctured balloon. The spaceship goes KaBOOM! leaving nothing behind.)

SARAH: What happened?
DOCTOR: Ask Harry, he did it.
HARRY: What did I do? What is this thing anyway?
DOCTOR: It's a sort of terullian diode bypass transformer.
HARRY: Oh.
DOCTOR: Yes. Sontarans, as I told you, sometimes need to feed on pure energy, and by removing that you altered things slightly, and the energy fed on him.
HARRY: That's taken care of one of them, but what about the rest of the invasion fleet waiting to blast us out of the galaxy?
DOCTOR: Yes. Well, I'll just attend to that.

[Coms device]

MARSHAL [on monitor]: Styre, your report? The intelligence. What is this?
DOCTOR: Your Waterloo, Marshal. Your intelligence mission has been destroyed and your invasion plans are in our hands. One move across the buffer zone, Marshal, and your entire fleet will be destroyed.
MARSHAL [on monitor]: We shall destroy your planet.
DOCTOR: What, without Styre's report?
MARSHAL [on monitor]: Next time, Earthling, we shall utterly destroy you.

(Transmission ends.)

DOCTOR: Not today, thank you. (to Sarah and Harry) Brinkmanship, I think they call it.

[Transmat Station]

(The Doctor has finished mending the globes.)

DOCTOR: Sure you won't join us?
KRANS: No, we'll wait until that lot from Nerva get here, thanks all the same.
ERAK: Don't trust those transmat beams. They never work too good.
DOCTOR: As you wish. I should stand back if I were you.

(Krans and Erak leave the circle.)

DOCTOR: I mean, it should be all right.

(The Doctor, Sarah and Harry disappear. Then the Doctor reappears.)

DOCTOR: But you never know quite, do you?

(And vanishes again.)

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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