BY: GERRY DAVIS AND ROBERT HOLMES
Part One
Original Air Date: 19 April 1975
Running time: 24:19
SARAH: Thank heavens for that! We've made it. Haven't we?
DOCTOR: Of course we've made it. Did you think we wouldn't?
SARAH: Well, in these past few weeks, yes.
DOCTOR: There's really nothing that can go wrong with a Time Ring, except a molecular short circuit.
SARAH: Doctor?
DOCTOR: Yes?
SARAH: The TARDIS isn't here.
DOCTOR: Well, it probably hasn't arrived yet. We're a little early.
HARRY: Hasn't arrived yet?
DOCTOR: No. You see, the TARDIS is drifting back through time, Harry. We just have to wait for it to turn up.
HARRY: I say, Doctor, do you want this Ring thing?
DOCTOR: What, that?
HARRY: Yes.
DOCTOR: No.
HARRY: Oh, well, I'd rather like to have it.
DOCTOR: Well, you take good care of it, Harry.
HARRY: Of course I will. Thank you.
HARRY: You knew that was going to happen, didn't you.
HARRY: He's dead. Been dead some time.
DOCTOR: How long?
HARRY: A week or two, I'd say. There's very little sign of putrefaction, though.
DOCTOR: Sterile atmosphere.
HARRY: Yes, exactly. And no sign of injury. Nothing to indicate the cause of death.
SARAH: But he was just sitting against the door as though he'd collapsed.
DOCTOR: He wouldn't have been left there for two weeks unless
SARAH: Unless what?
DOCTOR: Unless there was something seriously wrong here. Come on.
WARNER: This is Nerva Beacon calling Pluto Earth flight One Five. This is Nerva Beacon calling Pluto Earth flight One Five. Pluto Earth flight One Five, are you reading me?
COLVILLE (OOV.): Hello Nerva Beacon, we read you fives clear. Our dropover tango oscar alpha estimated at 13.20.
WARNER: Pluto Earth flight One Five, ex notice urgent. This beacon is a quarantine zone. We have a plague infection. I repeat, we have a plague infection. Your dropover is transferred to Ganymede Beacon 19067 on zero 2. Do you require a repeat on those vectors?
COLVILLE (OOV.): No thanks, Nerva. We got them. How bad are things there?
WARNER: They're pretty bad.
COLVILLE (OOV.): Hello, Nerva, Crewmaster Colville, I say again, Crewmaster Colville is doing a tour with you. He's my brother. Is he all right?
WARNER: Hold, Pan-Tec. I'll check.
WARNER (on monitor): Commander Stevenson?
LESTER: Warner wants to speak with you, sir.
STEVENSON: Yes, Warner?
WARNER: Sir, I'm in contact with the Pluto Earth flight. One of the crew wants news of his brother, Crewmaster Colville. What shall I tell him?
STEVENSON (OOV.): Tell him Colville's fine, and say that our medical staff have got the epidemic under control.
STEVENSON: Just that, and nothing else. Thank you, Warner.
KELLMAN: Why don't you tell them the truth, Commander?
STEVENSON: I'm just following the orders I was given by Earth Centre.
KELLMAN: Operating the Beacon to the last man?
STEVENSON: If necessary, yes. You're a civilian, Kellman. You wouldn't understand.
KELLMAN: How much longer can you go on? Three of you doing the work of fifty men.
LESTER: We've managed for one week, we can manage for another.
KELLMAN: And another after that? No, Lester, this beacon's job is finished.
STEVENSON: Nerva Beacon has a thirty year assignment, and it'll be that long before the last inward bound ship has this new asteroid on its star chart.
LESTER: Until then, there's a constant danger of space collision.
KELLMAN: You deserve a medal for self-sacrifice beyond the bounds of stupidity.
STEVENSON: I've lost most of my crew in these last months, some good friends among them, and yet a thing like that is still alive.
LESTER: It's probably because he locked himself in that cabin of his at the first sign of the plague.
LESTER: It's only these last few days he's dared poke his nose outside.
SARAH: Is it jammed?
DOCTOR: The control's locked.
HARRY: You mean we can't get any further?
DOCTOR: Those poor fellows couldn't. They were trapped in the after end and left to die. Whatever did it might be on the other side of this door. There might be a way of opening it.
SARAH: Look, are you sure we're in the right place, Doctor? I mean, this doesn't look like our Ark.
DOCTOR: Well of course it doesn't. This is a different point in time.
SARAH: How can you tell?
DOCTOR: Some of that equipment. This is probably a beacon, put in orbit to service and guide space freighters.
HARRY: So this is before the time of the solar flares, when the Earth was evacuated.
DOCTOR: Thousands of years before, Harry.
SARAH: Oh, I'm not even going to think about it. I'll only get a headache.
DOCTOR: All you have to remember is that this is where we parted company with the TARDIS.
SARAH: What is it?
DOCTOR: If they've changed things round, the TARDIS might materialise in the forward control rooms.
(OOV.): Can anyone hear me? I'm calling Nerva Beacon.
WARNER: This is Nerva Beacon. I repeat, this is Nerva Beacon. Hello, are you reading me? This is Nerva Beacon.
ALIEN: Does anybody hear me? Can anyone hear me? Can anyone hear
WARNER (OOV.): This is Nerva Beacon calling on 398.
WARNER: Do you read me?
WARNER: Professor, this new asteroid, this rock or whatever it is, are you sure there's no life on it?
KELLMAN: On Voga? Of course not, how could there be?
WARNER: I don't know, Professor, but I've just picked up a call and that's the only place it could have come from. It's the only place near enough.
KELLMAN: Hallucinations, Warner. You've been sitting here too long.
WARNER: Where did that rock come from, anyway? What system?
KELLMAN: Nobody knows. It was first detected in our system fifty years ago and it was captured by Jupiter.
WARNER: So there could be life on it.
KELLMAN: Impossible. An asteroid that size, drifting in the vacuum between star systems? Nothing could have lived under those conditions.
WARNER: All the same, I'd swear that's where the transmission was from.
KELLMAN: Warner, I'm an exographer. I've been down there. I've set up a transmat station there. I spent the last six months studying rock samples from
KELLMAN: What are you doing?
WARNER: Logging it. Unidentified call apparently from the direction of Voga.
KELLMAN: You're mad. I've said all along it was a mistake to keep this control room operating.
WARNER: Commander Stevenson's decision. Nothing to do with you, is it.
KELLMAN: Every time someone goes down that transom, there's a risk of spreading the plague.
WARNER: If the Commander says this Beacon is staying operational, it stays operational.
SARAH: Can you reach?
DOCTOR: Yes, I think so. If you two could put your weight on the door and stop it opening too suddenly. Don't want to lose my arm. I'm rather attached to it. It's so handy.
HARRY: Like so?
DOCTOR: Yes.
SARAH: Doctor!
SARAH: Wait, wait. Through. Quick.
DOCTOR: Thank you.
HARRY: What have I done now?
WARNER: Hello, Lester, is the Commander there?
STEVENSON (OOV.): I'm here, Warner. Go ahead.
WARNER: Sir, somebody has just opened the aft transom shutter.
WARNER (on monitor): I know it's impossible, but it's happened. The information's right here on the electronic register.
LESTER: Everyone in that after section had the plague, so no one can be left alive.
STEVENSON: Exactly. And the shutters were sealed. They couldn't possibly be operated from the after section.
STEVENSON: Right, come on, we'll have to check the transom.
VORUS: Take it out and bury it.
VORUS: Bury it deep. Why?
MAGRIK: Your plan frightened him, Vorus. Sometimes it frightens me.
VORUS: What, would you warn the humans? Do you feel kinship?
MAGRIK: No. No, it's simply that there are so many things which might go wrong.
VORUS: Of course. It's a big plan. But it will work. You and I together, Magrik, will make it work.
MAGRIK: Yes, but can we trust our agent?
VORUS: We can trust in his greed. Gold buys humans. And we have more gold here on Voga than in the rest of the known galaxy.
MAGRIK: But he has not communicated.
VORUS: Better he should not at this time. The Cybermen may be monitoring our radio frequencies.
MAGRIK: The mention of Cybermen fills me with dread.
VORUS: You feel fear, Magrik, because you've lived for too long in this underground darkness. When I lead our people into the light, all those ancient fears will fall away.
MAGRIK: The light. Yes, I believe you, Vorus.
STEVENSON: The rivets have been taken out.
LESTER: What, from the other side, sir? But that's impossible. They're blind-headed.
STEVENSON: They could have been loosened with a sonic vibrator.
LESTER: Well in that case Warner's right. Somebody has come through.
STEVENSON: Right, then we'll have to check every section. Come on.
SARAH: We just left here.
DOCTOR: No, this is the forward control room.
HARRY: Well, the TARDIS doesn't seem to be here either, does it.
DOCTOR: No, but the Time Ring is designed with a slight safety margin. We can expect it to arrive soon.
HARRY (OOV.): Doctor, do you expect me to believe that that old police box is just going to materialise out of nothing?
STEVENSON: Right, get your hands up. I said, get your hands up!
LESTER: Now, who are you? How'd you get here?
DOCTOR: I'm the Doctor. This is Sarah Jane Smith, Harry Sullivan. We're travellers.
KELLMAN: You'd better step in here, Commander.
STEVENSON: What is it?
KELLMAN: See for yourself.
STEVENSON: Watch them.
LESTER: Follow them. Come on, move.
DOCTOR: What are you going to do?
STEVENSON: Get back, he's got the plague. This is the only way to deal with it.
DOCTOR: The man's sick. He needs treatment.
LESTER: There is no treatment. All we can try to do is stop the infection spreading.
DOCTOR: Sorry, gentlemen, I can't allow it.
STEVENSON: You can't allow it!
DOCTOR: My colleague is a doctor of medicine and I'm a doctor of many things. If we could examine
KELLMAN: Commander, I'm afraid you'll have to k*ll these people, too. They've brought the plague in here.
DOCTOR: Who's the homicidal maniac?
STEVENSON: You say you're doctors. Did Earth Centre send you?
DOCTOR: Yes, we're from Earth. We want to help you.
LESTER: Help us? Don't you realise you've brought the infection through from the after section?
SARAH: Oh don't be ridiculous. How could we have brought it through when he's infected and we aren't?
HARRY: Quite impossible. We've had no contact with him.
DOCTOR: I don't believe you've got the plague here, Commander.
STEVENSON: According to our own medical team, we have.
DOCTOR: Did they identify it?
LESTER: They didn't have time. They were among the first victims.
DOCTOR: Well, now you've got a new medical team. Well, Commander?
STEVENSON: All right, you can examine him.
DOCTOR: Thank you.
STEVENSON: But not here. It'll have to be done in the crew quarters. The control room must be kept operational.
KELLMAN: Oh yes, at all costs.
STEVENSON: Lester, help the doctors with him. I'll take over the console.
LESTER: Once the infection develops, they've got a few minutes to live.
SARAH: I'll help you.
DOCTOR (on screen): Have you noticed these rather strange scratches, Commander?
STEVENSON (on screen): Can't say that I have.
DOCTOR (on screen): They're all over the ship. I've seen them somewhere before, if I could only remember where.
STEVENSON (on screen): Is it important?
DOCTOR (on screen): Everything's important. Well, well, well.
STEVENSON (on screen): What is it?
DOCTOR (on screen): I've just made a third interesting discovery about your plague virus, Commander.
STEVENSON (on screen): A third?
DOCTOR (on screen): Yes. One, it scratches metal. Two, it att*cks its victims so suddenly that they become unconscious before they can even raise the alarm, and three.
STEVENSON (on screen): Go on.
DOCTOR (on screen): It removes tape from radio logs. It must be a very literate and inquisitive virus.
STEVENSON (on screen): What exactly are you trying to tell me, Doctor?
DOCTOR (on screen): Whatever it is that's attacking your crew, Commander, it's certainly not a plague.
HARRY: I've never seen anything like this before. His temperature's just sh**ting up and up.
SARAH: Harry, I make his pulse a hundred and twenty.
LESTER: It's always the same. They just seem to burn up. Warner's lasted longer than most.
HARRY: Strong constitution.
LESTER: He's as tough as an old boot.
SARAH: How long since all this started?
LESTER: This? This is the seventy ninth day.
SARAH: And you've had no outside help?
LESTER: Earth Centre decided to isolate us.
HARRY: That's a bit ruthless, isn't it?
LESTER: Well, they reckoned it was better to lose one space crew than take the chance of carrying an extraterrestrial disease back to Earth.
DOCTOR (on screen): Who's your civilian?
STEVENSON (on screen): Professor Kellman. He's an exographer.
DOCTOR (on screen): Interesting. Planetary survey. Of what?
STEVENSON (on screen): Jupiter.
DOCTOR (on screen): I thought Jupiter had already been thoroughly studied.
STEVENSON (on screen): Yes. He's interested in its new satellite.
DOCTOR: What, do you mean there are now thirteen?
STEVENSON: Turned up fifty years ago. That's why this beacon's out here. A lot of the Great Circle freighters haven't got it on their charts yet.
DOCTOR: What's it called?
STEVENSON: New Phobos, originally, but Kellman's renamed it Voga.
DOCTOR: Voga. Of course. Has he been down there?
STEVENSON: Kellman? He set up a transmat. Why?
DOCTOR: Voga. Voga. Planet of gold. Yes, it's all coming back to me now.
STEVENSON: What's coming back to you?
DOCTOR: Cybermen. That's what we're up against, Commander. Cybermen.
STEVENSON: But surely, Doctor, Cybermen d*ed out centuries ago.
DOCTOR: They disappeared after their att*ck on Voga at the end of the Cyber w*r. Not the same thing as dying out, Commander. They're utterly ruthless. Total machine creatures.
DOCTOR: How is he?
HARRY: I'm afraid he's had it, Doctor.
STEVENSON: You'd better take over the control room, Lester.
DOCTOR: Yes, just as I thought.
HARRY: You mean the two puncture marks?
DOCTOR: Yes, like a snake bite.
SARAH: You mean venom?
DOCTOR: He's been injected with poison.
SARAH: Poor man.
DOCTOR: If only I'd been quicker, I might have saved him.
STEVENSON: How? Is there an antidote?
DOCTOR: The matter beam disperses human molecules. That type of alien poison might be separated and rejected.
SARAH: Alien?
STEVENSON: Now where are you going?
DOCTOR: I smell a rat.
STEVENSON: You know, I sometimes wonder your friend is quite right in the head.
SARAH: If the Doctor scented a rat, Commander, he'll find one.
DOCTOR: Gold.
HARRY: Where are we going to put him, Commander?
STEVENSON: When this trouble first started, we turned part of the infrastructure into a mortuary.
LESTER: Yes, we used to leave them where they dropped.
SARAH: We saw.
MAN (OOV.): Zero six twenty. The intensity of radiation caused severe distortion. When the computer dealt with all original errors it was found that the intensity was minus three.
MAN (OOV.): Starcharts for outer space section four carry a two percent error factor. Solar readings should be independently taken when patrolling the area.
MAN (OOV.): Comm. ops magazines which departed from the ship's cell. In the constellation of Zerus X 20, the intensity of radiation caused severe distortion. When the computer dealt with the trouble
`
The Doctor
Tom Baker
Sarah Jane Smith
Elisabeth Sladen
Harry Sullivan
Ian Marter
Commander Stevenson
Ronald Leigh-Hunt
Lester
William Marlowe
Kellman
Jeremy Wilkin
Tyrum
Kevin Stoney
Vorus
David Collings
Warner
Alec Wallis
Magrik
Michael Wisher
Sheprah
Brian Grellis
Cyber-Leader
Christopher Robbie
First Cyberman
Melville Jones
Assistant Floor Manager
Rosemary Hester
Russ Karel
Costumes
Prue Handley
Designer
Roger Murray-Leach
Film Cameraman
Elmer Cossey
Film Editor
Sheila S Tomlinson
Incidental Music
Carey Blyton
Peter Howell
Make-Up
Cecile Hay-Arthur
Producer
Philip Hinchcliffe
Production Assistant
John Bradburn
Production Unit Manager
George Gallaccio
Script Editor
Robert Holmes
Special Sounds
d*ck Mills
Studio Lighting
Derek Slee
Studio Sound
Norman Bennett
Theme Arrangement
Delia Derbyshire
Title Music
Ron Grainer
Visual Effects Designer
James Ward
Tom Baker
Sarah Jane Smith
Elisabeth Sladen
Harry Sullivan
Ian Marter
Commander Stevenson
Ronald Leigh-Hunt
Lester
William Marlowe
Kellman
Jeremy Wilkin
Tyrum
Kevin Stoney
Vorus
David Collings
Warner
Alec Wallis
Magrik
Michael Wisher
Sheprah
Brian Grellis
Cyber-Leader
Christopher Robbie
First Cyberman
Melville Jones
Assistant Floor Manager
Rosemary Hester
Russ Karel
Costumes
Prue Handley
Designer
Roger Murray-Leach
Film Cameraman
Elmer Cossey
Film Editor
Sheila S Tomlinson
Incidental Music
Carey Blyton
Peter Howell
Make-Up
Cecile Hay-Arthur
Producer
Philip Hinchcliffe
Production Assistant
John Bradburn
Production Unit Manager
George Gallaccio
Script Editor
Robert Holmes
Special Sounds
d*ck Mills
Studio Lighting
Derek Slee
Studio Sound
Norman Bennett
Theme Arrangement
Delia Derbyshire
Title Music
Ron Grainer
Visual Effects Designer
James Ward