THE ARK IN SPACE
BY ROBERT HOLMES
PART ONE
Original Air Date: 8th February, 1975
5:30pm - 5:55pm
NOAH: You fool, Libri.
HIGH MINISTER (OOV. Recorded message on the intercom): Allo, Space Station Nerva...
HIGH MINISTER: ...this is the Earth High Minister. The fact that you are hearing my voice in a message...
HIGH MINISTER: ...recorded thousands of years before the day in which you are now living, is a sure sign that our great undertaking...
HIGH MINISTER: ...the salvation of the human race, has been rewarded with success.
HIGH MINISTER: You have slept longer than the recorded history of mankind. And you stand now at the dawn of a new age. You will return to an Earth purified by flame, a world that we cannot guess at. If it be arid, you must make it flourish. If it be stony, you must make it fertile. The challenge is vast, the task enormous, but let nothing daunt you.
HARRY (To SARAH.): Sounds like a pre-match pep talk!
HIGH MINISTER: Remember, Citizen Volunteers, that you are the proud standard-bearers of our entire race.
HIGH MINISTER: Of the millions that walk the world today, you are the chosen survivors. You have been entrusted with a sacred duty - to see that human culture, human knowledge, human love and faith, shall never perish from the universe. Guard what we have given you with all your strength.
HIGH MINISTER: And now, across the chasm of the years, I send you the prayers and hopes of the entire world. Godspeed you to a safe landing.
HARRY: I bet that did your female chauvinist heart a power of good!
SARAH: Why?
HARRY: Well, fancy a member of the fair sex being top of the totem pole!
NOAH (OOV. On the intercom.): Vira! Vira!
VIRA: Yes, Commander?
NOAH (OOV.): Vira, hear me. This is an order. Expedite revivification. Commence main phase now.
VIRA: But, Noah, the safety checks...
NOAH: Ignore safety checks! We... you... are in great danger... Get our... your people to the Earth before...
VIRA (OOV.): Noah?
NOAH: ...before... the Wirrn... Vira, take command! Hear me! You take command!
VIRA: What has happened? Commander, are you there?
NOAH: The Wirrn are here... They will... (His voice changes.) We shall absorb the humans... The Earth shall be ours!
VIRA: Noah! Noah!
NOAH (Whispering.): Vira... Vira... there's no time... They're... in my mind... getting stronger... Libri is dead... You will all die... Must save our people... You must!
VIRA (OOV.): Noah!
HARRY: The chap sounds in a bad way.
VIRA: What did he mean - they're in his mind?
DOCTOR: Absorb? ''We shall absorb the humans''? Endoparasitism?
SARAH (To VIRA): He talks to himself sometimes because he's the only one who understands what he's talking about.
DOCTOR: If the Wirrn can do that, we've no chance at all! Complete physical absorption.
VIRA: Of us?
DOCTOR: They'll literally eat us alive. (To VIRA.) Vira, I must talk with Noah. You’d better come with me. He trusts you.
VIRA: My duty is to supervise the revivification.
DOCTOR: No! Noah passed command to you. Your duties have been widened.
VIRA: What is your intention?
DOCTOR: To find out exactly what it is we're facing. And only Noah knows that.
VIRA: But I can't leave until the last of our technical section have awakened.
DOCTOR: Harry can handle that. (To HARRY.) Can't you, Harry?
HARRY: Well, I...
DOCTOR: You've watched Vira. You know the procedure.
HARRY: Yes, I...
VIRA (To HARRY.): One gramme of scropholine when the neural register enters the red zone.
HARRY: Right...
DOCTOR: He'll be all right.
VIRA: The injection must be over the pectoralis major.
HARRY: Oh, yes, that I do understand.
SARAH (To HARRY.): Good luck!
DOCTOR (OOV.): And, Sarah, you stay and help Harry.
HARRY: Yes, come along, Nurse Smith.
HARRY: See? This chap's in the red zone.
SARAH: Hey, there's another one seems to be awake here.
HARRY: Well, after 10,000 years, he can't be in that much of a hurry.
SARAH: I hope you know what you're doing!
HARRY: Oh yes. Dead simple, really. Medicine by numbers.
SARAH: Oh, yes! Dead simple!
HARRY: That’s just a question of fixing a fresh ampoule thing into here.
NOAH: Keep back! Don't touch me!
VIRA: Noah!
NOAH: Keep back, I said!
DOCTOR: Tell us one thing. How much time do we have?
NOAH: Time?
DOCTOR: Before the Wirrn reach their adult form?
NOAH: It feels near...very near... The tearing free and then the great blackness rushing through...
VIRA: Noah and I were pair-bonded for the new life.
DOCTOR: Let's go back.
ROGIN: Dune and Libri? And Noah?
SARAH: I'm sorry. It must be a terrible shock for you.
LYCETT: So there's just two of us to check the ship?
SARAH (OOV.): And Vira. She's taken command.
LYCETT: Where is she?
SARAH: She's gone with the Doctor. They're trying to contact Noah.
ROGIN: There's been a snitch-up! Didn't I tell you, Lycett? 5,000 years ago, I said there'd be a snitch-up!
LYCETT: 10,000!
ROGIN: Oh, beautiful... We should have taken our chance with the solar flares and gone into the thermic shelters! We'd have been happily dead by now!
LYCETT: What was that that k*lled them? Their lungs, was it?
LYCETT (OOV.): Dune and Libri?
LYCETT: We were told our lung tissue might atrophy.
HARRY: Well, no...
SARAH: Something got in here.
HARRY: Yes... Some sort of space creature.
SARAH: It cut through your alarm clock system.
ROGIN: What?
SARAH: Look. Oh, it's OK - it's dead.
DOCTOR (OOV.): But, unfortunately...
DOCTOR: ...its larvae are still very much alive!
LYCETT: Vira!
ROGIN: Vira! Vira, it's gone wrong!
VIRA: Welcome, Lycett. Rogin. You feel well?
LYCETT: Yes... Commander.
HARRY: What are we going to do with it?
DOCTOR: How much anatomy do you remember, Harry?
HARRY: Quite a lot, I think. But you need a blooming entomologist, for this!
DOCTOR: We need to find its weaknesses, and we need to find them quickly.
VIRA: Can we help?
DOCTOR: Not at the moment, thank you.
VIRA: Then, we will commence the main phase. Lycett, Rogin.
DOCTOR: What was that she just said?
SARAH: They're going to start the main phase.
DOCTOR: Carry on with that thoracic incision. Not too deep.
LYCETT: But the safety checks?
VIRA: We shall over-ride them.
ROGIN: Why?
LYCETT: We can't!
VIRA: That is my decision. Take your operating stations.
DOCTOR (OOV.): Vira, the main phase must wait.
VIRA: Noah said we should expedite the revivification programme and get our people to Earth.
DOCTOR: No, he was wrong. How long would it take?
VIRA: 72 hours for complete revivification. Another 24 to evacuate the Ark.
DOCTOR: Four whole days? At the rate the Wirrn are developing, they'll have pupated to imago long before that, you know what that means?
VIRA: We must try!
DOCTOR: You can't do it, Vira! The Ark will be crawling with those creatures within hours!
VIRA: Doctor, the fate of all humanity might be decided within the next few hours!
DOCTOR: Vira, if you fail, your people will die in pain and fear. If I fail, they'll die anyway, but at least only the six of us will know anything about it.
VIRA: You have an alternative plan?
DOCTOR: Between the larval and the imago forms, there must be a pupal stage. Now, the Wirrn will be dormant and defenseless. If we can find their weaknesses...
VIRA: We might destroy them?
DOCTOR: Yes.
VIRA (To ROGIN and LYCETT.): Very well. Stand down.
DOCTOR: Good.
LYCETT: There's a power flutter in Section 4, Commander.
VIRA: What does that indicate?
LYCETT: Some external fault. Shall I check the stacks?
DOCTOR: No! The larvae have taken over the infrastructure. They seem to need solar radiation.
ROGIN: We should have stayed on Earth, Lycett! I liked the Earth! I like heat!
HARRY: Curious lung structure, Doctor - look at it.
DOCTOR: Yes, fascinating. A superb adaptation.
SARAH: What is it?
DOCTOR: Obviously, the creature's lungs recycle the wastes, almost certainly by enzymes. Quite wonderful. Carbon dioxide back to oxygen.
SARAH: You mean the way plants make oxygen?
DOCTOR: Exactly right. It must live in space, probably just occasionally visiting a planetary atmosphere for food and oxygen, the way a whale rises from the ocean.
HARRY: Judging by the size of his mandibles, this chap doesn't live on plankton!
VIRA: Noah spoke of a great blackness... rushing in... He meant space, but how did he know?
DOCTOR: He now has the race memory of a Wirrn. Symbiotic atavism, to be precise. I'm going to need your help now, Vira.
DOCTOR: Do you have any spare extension leads, Rogin?
ROGIN (OOV.): Yes, but what do you want to...
DOCTOR: Hurry! Fetch them!
VIRA (OOV.): What are you going to do, Doctor?
DOCTOR: A little experiment. Circuit display, Lycett.
VIRA: It's forbidden to alter those circuits.
DOCTOR: I need the neural cortex amplifier. Not for long - don't worry.
DOCTOR: Right, switch on the video circuit, Lycett. It'll take a little time to warm up.
HARRY: Doctor, what are you trying to do, exactly?
DOCTOR: Well, sometimes latent neural impressions can be revived.
HARRY (OOV.): Really?
DOCTOR: Yes.
HARRY (OOV.): I've never heard of that!
DOCTOR: Advanced technology. Gypsies used to believe that the eye retained its last image after death. Not so far out. No... It's not going to work. Switch off, Lycett.
SARAH: Now what?
DOCTOR: It should work! The coil isn't giving a strong enough stimulus. I'll have to link in my own cerebral cortex. That's the only thing.
VIRA: That is highly dangerous!
DOCTOR: I know. Two more leads, Rogin.
VIRA: The power could burn out a living brain!
DOCTOR: I agree. An ordinary brain. But mine is exceptional.
VIRA: I cannot permit it! The shock might k*ll you.
DOCTOR: I think not. Unless, of course, the experiment was interrupted. That could be dangerous.
SARAH (OOV.): Do you have to do it?
HARRY (OOV.): Yes, why take the risk?
DOCTOR: If I find out what it was that k*lled that creature, we might have a chance of fighting the Wirrn. That's our only hope.
SARAH: Yes, but do you have to be...?
DOCTOR (OOV.): It's not just our...existence that's at stake, Sarah!
DOCTOR: It's the entire human race. It may be irrational of me, but human beings are quite my favorite species. Vira...
VIRA: Yes, Doctor?
DOCTOR (OOV.): Take this. (He gives her NOAH’s g*n.)
DOCTOR: Don't hesitate to use it if anything goes wrong. You won't have much time.
HARRY: What do you mean?
DOCTOR: Switch on, Lycett. Lycett!
SARAH (OOV.): Doctor!
VIRA (OOV.): He's joining his mind to the Wirrn!
VIRA: He could remain a part of it for ever!
ROGIN (OOV.): Look! It's working!
LYCETT: What was that?
ROGIN: We'd better look.
LYCETT: Over here! Case-hardened diranium - bent like tin!
ROGIN: Look out! Behind you! Shut the door! Shut the door!
HARRY: What's going...?
ROGIN: Get out, man! Get out!
ROGIN: They've k*lled Lycett! There's some sort of huge grub in there!
HARRY: Stop the experiment!
SARAH: No, can’t, you'll k*ll him!
VIRA: The armory, Rogin! Get the fission g*ns!
ROGIN: Right!
HARRY: I'll come with you!
VIRA: Hurry, Rogin!
SARAH: That door won't hold much longer!
VIRA: Dune!
NOAH: Fools! Human fools!
SARAH: Help me with him, Vira!
VIRA: Wait! Come away!
DOCTOR: Wirrn... Wirrn...
VIRA: Doctor... Doctor! Doctor!
DOCTOR: Wirrn!
SARAH: No, you can't! I won't let you!
DOCTOR: Can't what? Is it time to get up?
SARAH: Doctor, you're going to be all right!
DOCTOR: Is that noise in my head?
HARRY: Doctor, come back!
SARAH: Doctor, don't! Doctor! Doctor!
DOCTOR: Aim lower!
ROGIN: It's gone back through the grille.
HARRY: That was a close one! You all right, Sarah?
SARAH: Yes.
HARRY: Doctor?
DOCTOR: Why? Why have they gone on to the att*ck?
VIRA: They want to destroy us.
DOCTOR: But they've only to wait. In their adult form, they'll be a thousand times deadlier. Fission g*ns will have no effect, then.
SARAH: How many of them will there be?
DOCTOR: At a hatching? A hundred...
HARRY: A hundred? We won't stand a chance! How can we fight a hundred of those?
DOCTOR: Electricity! Only by electricity! That's the one thing I found out!
SARAH: Electricity?
DOCTOR: Yes... It was the auto-guard that k*lled the queen - half a million volts.
HARRY: We found the queen in the cupboard!
DOCTOR: Amazing willpower! I could feel it struggling against death until its task was done. (To ROGIN.) Rogin, is there any way we can electrify the infrastructure?
ROGIN: Not from here, Doctor. We'd have to run cables from the Control Centre.
DOCTOR (OOV.): Control Centre?
DOCTOR: Right, let's go!
HARRY: You can't go that way, Doctor.
ROGIN (OOV.): Noah's waiting out there. Put one foot inside the transom and you're dead!
DOCTOR (OOV.): Yes...
DOCTOR: I was forgetting Noah's extra mobility.
VIRA: We are trapped.
DOCTOR: The Wirrn are using Dune's knowledge of the Ark. Perhaps there was something he didn't know.
ROGIN (OOV.): Dune was first tech. He knew it all!
VIRA (OOV.): He helped design the systems.
DOCTOR: Nobody knows it all! Perhaps he's forgotten that these transmats are reversible!
ROGIN: Oh oh oh! That's clever!
DOCTOR: Isn't it? And as you appreciate it, Rogin, you can go first! I'll give you a hand! Come on.
ROGIN: Oh, well... I never liked it here anyway!
DOCTOR: You next, Harry!
HARRY: I say!
ROGIN (OOV.): Are you all right?
HARRY: What a marvelous way to travel!
ROGIN: It always sets my teeth on edge!
DOCTOR: That was a power drain. Hello, Control Centre?
ROGIN (OOV. On the intercom.): Hello, Doctor. We've got a power failure.
DOCTOR: It's general, then. Do you have a fault reading?
ROGIN (OOV. On the intercom.): Section 4... That's the secondary stack. There's no power... (his voice fades.)
VIRA: All power systems are self-repairing.
DOCTOR: Malicious damage excluded.
SARAH: Oh, well, obviously, I am not going anywhere! Help me, Doctor.
VIRA: The oxygen pumps have stopped.
DOCTOR: Of course! In their pupal stage, the Wirrn don't need oxygen. An easy way of k*lling us.
VIRA: Well, suffocation is not the most unpleasant death!
DOCTOR: What? We're not finished yet! You two stay here.
SARAH (OOV.): Where are you going?
DOCTOR: The infrastructure. If they've entered the pupal stage, they'll be dormant. Could be our chance to get down there and switch the power back on.
VIRA: You're forgetting Noah.
DOCTOR: No, I'm not. I think his job's done now. He'll be metamorphosing, too.
`
Doctor Who
TOM BAKER
Sarah Jane Smith
ELISABETH SLADEN
Harry Sullivan
IAN MARTER
Voices
GLADYS SPENCER
PETER TUDDENHAM
Written BY: ROBERT HOLMES
Production Assistant
MARION McDOUGALL
Title Music by
RON GRAINER &
BBC RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP
Incidental Music by
DUDLEY SIMPSON
Production Unit Manager
GEORGE GALLACIO
Title Sequence
BERNARD LODGE
Special Sounds
d*ck MILLS
Visual Effects Designers
JOHN FRIEDLANDER
TONY OXLEY
Costume Designer
BARBARA KIDD
Lighting
NIGEL WRIGHT
Make Up
SYLVIA JAMES
Sounds
JOHN LLOYD
Designer
ROGER MURRAY-LEACH
Producer
PHILIP HINCHCLIFFE
Directed by
RODNEY BENNETT
COLOUR
© BBC 1975
TOM BAKER
Sarah Jane Smith
ELISABETH SLADEN
Harry Sullivan
IAN MARTER
Voices
GLADYS SPENCER
PETER TUDDENHAM
Written BY: ROBERT HOLMES
Production Assistant
MARION McDOUGALL
Title Music by
RON GRAINER &
BBC RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP
Incidental Music by
DUDLEY SIMPSON
Production Unit Manager
GEORGE GALLACIO
Title Sequence
BERNARD LODGE
Special Sounds
d*ck MILLS
Visual Effects Designers
JOHN FRIEDLANDER
TONY OXLEY
Costume Designer
BARBARA KIDD
Lighting
NIGEL WRIGHT
Make Up
SYLVIA JAMES
Sounds
JOHN LLOYD
Designer
ROGER MURRAY-LEACH
Producer
PHILIP HINCHCLIFFE
Directed by
RODNEY BENNETT
COLOUR
© BBC 1975