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DOCTOR WHO
REVENGE OF THE CYBERMEN

Written by
Gerry Davis (and Robert Holmes)

Part One

[INT. Nerva transmat and control area]

(The DOCTOR, HARRY, and SARAH dance/tumble through the stars, with the time ring connecting them. We see them overlaid on the space station, from which they had been hijacked, and this is where they appear once more, on the three transmat pads.)
SARAH: Thank heaven 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: (as he goes to the controls) Doctor?
DOCTOR: Yes?
SARAH: The TARDIS isn't here.
DOCTOR: (looking behind him) 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.
(The time ring, sitting on the control desk, fades away.)
HARRY: (noticing the DOCTOR's grin) You knew that was going to happen, didn't you?
(The DOCTOR presses the control beside the door, which opens. A man had been leaning against it. He falls onto his back at the DOCTOR's feet and doesn't move.)
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.
(Taking the perimeter walkway, they find several bodies. The pathway in either direction is strewn with them.)

[INT. Nerva control room]

(There is a beep. Words come up on one of the monitors:

   PLUTO-EARTH  ONE-FIVE

  Incoming

  Vectors  13.73.74 (para) 

           18.00.36 ...... 

 	       17.55.31 (para) 

 Control 00703009  Positive

Last input update at 22.14.5.

[INT. Crew quarters]

WARNER [on screen]: Commander Stevenson?
LESTER: Warner wants to speak with you, sir.
(The older man heads to the communications unit. A young man wearing a black suit jacket lies on a bunk, awake.)
STEVENSON: Yes, Warner?

[INT. Control room]

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 [OC]: Tell him Colville's fine, and say that our medical staff have got the epidemic under control.

[INT. Crew quarters]

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: (sitting up) 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. (He leaves.)
STEVENSON: I've lost most of my crew in these last months, some good friends among them, 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. (lying on the now-empty bunk) It's only these last few days he's dared poke his nose outside.

[INT. Perimeter walkway]

(Stepping over corpses, the DOCTOR, SARAH, and HARRY - who had stopped for a moment to check bodies for vital signs - reach a door, for Section Q. The DOCTOR passes his hand over the sensor beside the door, and nothing happens. He tries again.)
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: (using a screwdriver on the lock mechanism) 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.
(From behind a body, a small articulated, armoured floor-hugging sleek metallic creature slides along the floor toward us.)

[INT. Control room]

(A monitor shows 'KH 397/ BEARING 172N 43E'.)
STATICKY VOICE [OC]: 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.

[EXT. Mines]

(We are in damp mines. We approach a person with long, white hair, facing away from us.)
VOICE: Does anybody hear me? Can anyone hear me? Can anyone hear-
(The voice stops as the speaker turns. We see that this is an alien creature with a high forehead over large eye sockets, a silvery face, and a large gold neck piece. He raises his hands, and two others of his kind hold out weapons with a round antenna sort of affair at the top. A gun is fired with a bang, and the speaker falls from his seat.)
WARNER [OC]: This is Nerva Beacon calling on three-nine-eight.

[INT. Control room]

WARNER: Do you read me?
(KELLMAN enters the room.)
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-
(WARNER is pressing buttons, and KELLMAN grabs his hand.)
KELLMAN: What are you doing?
WARNER: Logging it. Unidentified call apparently from the direction of Voga.
(The monitor reads: '18.57Hrs \DAY 3 \WEEK 47 \Log unidentified \call apparent \direction 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.

[INT. Perimeter walkway]

(The DOCTOR has the lock unscrewed. We see his arm reaching through to the locking mechanism on the other side.)
SARAH [OC]: 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 [OC]: Like so?
DOCTOR [OC]: Yes.
(He presses the button. The door slides open, taking the DOCTOR with it.)
SARAH: Doctor!
(She and HARRY grab at the door to stop it. They end up on the opposite side, and the DOCTOR is dragged the other way as it closes again.)
SARAH: Wait, wait. Through. Quick.
(She pushes his arm through the hole and presses the button to open the door.)
DOCTOR: Thank you.
HARRY: What have I done now?

[INT. Control room]

(We hear an alarm sound and see a flashing light on a green wall map of the beacon. There is a situation near ENG 3. Warner operates the communication unit.)
WARNER: Hello, Lester. Is the commander there?
STEVENSON [OC]: I'm here, Warner. Go ahead.
WARNER: Sir, somebody has just opened the aft transom shutter.

[INT. Crew quarters]

WARNER [on a small black-and-white screen]: I know it's impossible, but it's happened. The information's right here on the electronic register.
LESTER: Everybody 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.
(He fetches a pair of weapons from a side cupboard.)
STEVENSON: Right, come on. We'll have to check the transom.

[INT. Alien guild room]

(The ALIEN who contacted Nerva earlier, wearing long robes, is on the floor of this tile-and-marble room. Two GUARDS, mostly-bald white-haired men with waist-length black jackets piped in gold, stand over him. A MAN of the same species but with a beard and gold braid everywhere on his short jacket steps in. He kicks the body on the floor. This is VORUS)
VORUS: Take it out and bury it.
(They do so.)
VORUS: Bury it deep. (pause) Why?
(A bearded man of the same species coughs into a handkerchief and speaks in a gravelly voice.)
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.

[INT. Control room]

(The articulated metal thing has entered the room. WARNER stands and sees it. It leaps through the air, toward his neck. He struggles with the creature as it thrashes its metre-long frame about. He is finally able to throw it to the ground with a cry. He staggers.)

[INT. Perimeter walkway]

(STEVENSON and LESTER, with the guns, reach the door that has no lock.)
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.

[INT. Control room]

(KELLMAN finds WARNER on the floor. At the desk, he rips off a section from each reel of the magnetic tape that recorded the contact earlier.)

[INT. Just inside main control room]

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.

[INT. Control room]

HARRY [OC]: Doctor, do you expect me to believe that that old police box is just going to materialise out of nothing?
(KELLMAN hears this and stands.)

[INT. Just inside main control room]

STEVENSON: Right, get your hands up. I said 'Get your hands up!'
(They raise their hands.)
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.
(The door to this section opens, and KELLMAN enters.)
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.

[INT. Control room]

(STEVENSON runs to WARNER and rolls him onto his back. He is unconscious but alive. STEVENSON takes a step back and raises his gun.)
DOCTOR: (intervening) 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 him-
KELLMAN: Commander, I'm afraid you'll have to kill 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: (bending down) Thank you.
STEVENSON: But not here. It'll have to be done in the crew quarters. The control room must be kept operational.
KELLMAN: (sarcastic) Oh yes, at all costs. (He leaves.)
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: (taking the gun) I'll help you.
(LESTER and HARRY carry the now-wheezing WARNER from the room.)

[INT. Kellman's quarters]

(KELLMAN enters his quarters, grabs a communication device from within his wardrobe, sets it up, then pulls the back off his hairbrush and uses a cable to connect the electronics thus revealed to the comms device. He turns it on, and we see a colour image of the control room, from a camera mounted high on the wall.)
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 attacks 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.

[INT. Crew quarters]

(The veins of WARNER's neck and face are pulsing in fluorescent pink. He is breathing heavily.)
HARRY: I've never seen anything like this before. His temperature's just shooting 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.

[INT. Kellman's quarters]

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'd already been thoroughly studied.
STEVENSON [on screen]: Yes. He's interested in its new satellite.

[INT. Control room]

DOCTOR: What, do you mean there are now thirteen?
STEVENSON: (pulling up an image of the asteroid on a wall monitor) 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: Neo-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 died out centuries ago.
DOCTOR: They disappeared after their attack on Voga at the end of the Cyber-War. Not the same thing as dying out, Commander. They're utterly ruthless. Total machine creatures.
(He runs from the room, STEVENSON picks up his gun and follows. We see KELLMAN turn off his monitor. He opens a drawer of the desk where he sits and pulls out a large box, which he plugs into the wall. He begins entering a message in Morse code. We see the recipient of his signal, a silver-coloured spaceship. It rotates toward us. One of two CYBERMEN at the controls operates a lever, and the ship accelerates.)

[INT. Crew quarters]

DOCTOR: How is he?
HARRY: I'm afraid he's had it, Doctor.
STEVENSON: You'd better take over the control room, Lester.
(He does so.)
DOCTOR: (inspecting WARNER) 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're you going?
DOCTOR: I smell a rat. (He exits the room.)
STEVENSON: You know, I sometimes wonder if your friend is quite right in the head.
SARAH: If the Doctor scented a rat, Commander, he'll find one.

[INT. Kellman's quarters]

(The DOCTOR sprints along the perimeter walkway and out of the way of KELLMAN, who heads anti-clockwise, away from him. The DOCTOR creeps out and breaks into Kellman's quarters with his sonic screwdriver. The first thing he does is open the wardrobe. Then he sits at the desk, where the hairbrush sits on its own. He picks it up, then opens the desk drawer containing the large transmitter. He lifts that onto the desk, finding a pouch too in the drawer. Opening it, the DOCTOR pours out some of the contents onto his palm.)
DOCTOR: Gold.
(From the perimeter walkway, KELLMAN returns to his quarters. He notices that the hairbrush is open, then looks around the room frowning as we see the DOCTOR's foot retreat under the bed. KELLMAN turns his head, perhaps detecting the motion. He then attaches two crocodile clips from the room's power-supply cabinet to a ventilation grille at the base of the wall. He turns a control in the power cabinet and leaves the room.
As soon as the DOCTOR emerges from under the bed, we see purple smoke begin to pour through the metal flooring. An electric charge at his feet prompts the DOCTOR to jump onto the bed.)

[INT. Crew quarters]

(HARRY pulls a sheet over WARNER's face.)
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.
(HARRY and LESTER carry the stretcher out, with STEVENSON following. SARAH turns on the news on the black-and-white monitor. A solar flare is shown.)
MAN [OC]: ...observation of 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.
(The DOCTOR operates a control in the electrical cabinet. We see that he is standing on the countertop next to the bed. He grabs hold of the wardrobe door and thereby swings across to the work surface by the sink next to the door. Coughing, he stretches out the sonic screwdriver beside the door.
Meanwhile, the bored SARAH has found some reading material.)
MAN [OC]: Star charts for Outer Space Section 4 carry a two per cent error factor. Solar readings should be independently taken when patrolling that area.
(Behind SARAH, a familiar silver critter enters.)
MAN [OC]: ...on Earth...
(Meanwhile, the DOCTOR is still trying to open the door to Kellman's quarters amidst the fumes.)
MAN [OC]: [indistinct] Comm. opt magazines which departed from the ship's cell. In the constellation of Zerus X20, the intensity of radiation caused severe distortion. When the computer dealt with the trouble...
(SARAH is bored. She gets up and turns off the monitor. Turning round, she sees the silver thing approaching, and it jumps up for her neck.)

The above notes, transcription, etc. by Anna Shefl

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