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DOCTOR WHO
THE PIRATE PLANET

Written by
Douglas Adams

Part Two

[INT. Bridge]

(Overlap from 'Pralix, can you hear me?')

[INT. Main part of Balaton's home]

(It's the DOCTOR's turn on the recliner. He wakes.)
KIMUS: Doctor.
DOCTOR: Sshh.
K9: Master.
DOCTOR: What hit me?
KIMUS: The Mentiads did something. I don't know what I can tell you.
DOCTOR: I wasn't asking you. What hit me, K9?
K9: A gestalt-generated psychokinetic blast, Master, on a wavelength of three three eight point seven nine micropars with OKA interference patterns reaching a peak power level of five three four seven point two on the Vantalla Psychoscale.
DOCTOR: Five four three point seven two?
K9: Affirmative, Master.
DOCTOR: (to camera) That's what I thought.
(BALATON, on Pralix's bed, is agitated.)
BALATON: Pralix has gone. The Mentiads have taken him.
DOCTOR: Don't worry, don't worry, I'll find him.
KIMUS: That's if he's still alive.
DOCTOR: Do you know where the Mentiads live?
KIMUS: No. They just arrive in the city and then depart. They're all too scared to follow them.
DOCTOR: They? Who's they?
KIMUS: The cowards who live in this city.
DOCTOR: You're not frightened?
KIMUS: No.
DOCTOR: You just didn't get round to it, is that it?
KIMUS: I mean I will follow them.
DOCTOR: So will I.
MULA: And so will I.
BALATON: No, Mula. Haven't we lost enough already?
K9: Master?
DOCTOR: Not now, K9, not now. Now, K9, can you track the Mentiads by their psychospore?
K9: Affirmative, Master. Psychokinetic energy on that level leaves considerable disturbance in the ether.
DOCTOR: Excellent, excellent. Right, who's coming? Kimus? Mula? Balaton?
BALATON: No, I don't want any part of this madness. I don't want to hear Mentiads, guards, madness...
DOCTOR: All right, all right. Romana? Romana? Where's Romana?
K9: She has been arrested, Master. (The DOCTOR crouches beside K9.)
DOCTOR: What?
K9: She sent me to inform you.
DOCTOR: Why didn't you?
K9: I made four attempts, Master, but you would not allow me to tell you, Master.
(The DOCTOR heads out, placing his arms across the shoulders of MULA and KIMUS.)
DOCTOR: It just means two rescue attempts in all. Romana has the tracer, you see. Now, where will they have taken her?
MULA: To the bridge.
KIMUS: No-one ever comes back from the bridge.
MULA: Except the guards.
DOCTOR: No-one?

[EXT. City]

(ROMANA is taken to an aircar in a plaza, sort of a boat-like affair.)
GUARD: Get in.
ROMANA: I shall take that as an invitation.
(ROMANA pushes the GUARD's weapon down and hands him the telescope.)
ROMANA: Thank you. Will you drive? I assume you know where we're going.

[INT. Main part of Balaton's home]

(The DOCTOR produces a palm-sized coin.)
DOCTOR: Right. Heads we go after Romana first, tails we go after Pralix first, hmm?
(MULA nods. The DOCTOR throws the coin into the air. When it eventually falls, he catches it.)
MULA: Tails.
DOCTOR: Heads.
(He shows that it's come up heads.)
MULA: How can you take such a dangerous decision like that, just leaving it to chance?
DOCTOR: Two kings on Aldebaran 3. (He shows us.)
MULA: That's not fair.
DOCTOR: Oh yes, it is. If my guess is correct, Romana's in much greater danger than Pralix. Now, how do we get to this bridge?
MULA: I'm not going there. I'm going after Pralix.
DOCTOR: But Mula-
MULA: I'll find my own way!
(MULA runs outside. Meanwhile, KIMUS has a weapon that was hidden in Pralix's bedroom.)
KIMUS: Oh, it's no use once she's made up her mind. I'll have to go after her myself.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, you stay here.
KIMUS: But Mula needs me.
DOCTOR: I need you here. It'll be all right. K9?
K9: Master?
DOCTOR: I'm putting Mula in your charge. Take her to the Mentiads, but look after her. Is that clearly understood?
K9: Affirmative, Master.
DOCTOR: Off you go. We'll follow along later.

[EXT. Aircar]

ROMANA: I had an aircar rather like this once. It was a present for my seventieth birthday. Did you know that if you realign the magnetic vectors and fit a polarity oscillator, you get twice the speed for half the energy?

[EXT. City]

KIMUS: That's the bridge, up there.
DOCTOR: How do we get to it?
KIMUS: We don't.
DOCTOR: One of those, is it? How do the guards get there?
KIMUS: Well, in their aircars, of course.
DOCTOR: Aircars?
KIMUS: Yes.
DOCTOR: Aircars?
KIMUS: There's one over there.
DOCTOR: Well, we borrow it.
KIMUS: Borrow it? That's the Captain's.
DOCTOR: Well, I don't mind going first class, do you?
KIMUS: No.
DOCTOR: Come on.
(The GUARD in the aircar wakes when the DOCTOR throws a bag on top of the aircar. The GUARD points his gun at the bag, then gets out to investigate. He follows a trail of allsorts, leading behind the pillar that had been hiding Kimus and the Doctor from view. This gives KIMUS and the DOCTOR the chance to take off in the aircar.)
DOCTOR: Bye-bye!
(He waves, and the GUARD raises his hand, to see or to wave back.)

[INT. Bridge]

(FIBULI rushes in, between two techs.)
FIBULI: Er, Captain? Captain, sir.
(The YOUNG WOMAN removes a pipe or similar from the CAPTAIN's mouth, which seems to function as a sort of dummy.)
CAPTAIN: Speak.
FIBULI: Bad news, sir.
CAPTAIN: By the horns of the prophet Balag, speak!
(The woman, his NURSE, puts the dummy back into the CAPTAIN's mouth. He becomes quiescent.)
FIBULI: The macromat field integrator has burnt out, sir. It's one of the four components we can't replace ourselves, sir. Well, we are faced with two alternatives, Captain. Or three alternatives. We can try to find a new macromat field integrator, though I can't envisage how we would do that. Alternatively, there is a very rare mineral, PJX one eight, which would, conceivably, do the same job as the integrator, if we could find any. Either way, sir, in our current condition, we could only possibly make one more jump, and that would be risky in the extreme.
(The NURSE removes the dummy.)
CAPTAIN: And the third alternative, Mister Fibuli?
FIBULI: Is for Zanak to settle where it is, sir.
CAPTAIN: No! By the sky demon, I say no!
(He smashes a control panel with his cybernetic arm. ROMANA is brought in.)

[EXT. Aircar]

KIMUS: Hey, this is marvellous. Freedom at last!
DOCTOR: You're not free yet.
KIMUS: Free to think. It's amazing. The city looks so pretty from up here. Yes, even the mines do. You know, that's our entire life.
DOCTOR: Tell me about those mines.
KIMUS: Well, we extract all the raw material that we need from them.
DOCTOR: Who goes down them? Do you go down?
KIMUS: No.
DOCTOR: Mentiads?
KIMUS: No.
DOCTOR: No-one?
KIMUS: No. They're automated, you see. We just run the equipment.
DOCTOR: What happens when they run out?
KIMUS: The Captain announces a new golden age of prosperity. They just fill up again.
DOCTOR: What, just like that?
KIMUS: Yeah. Well, you don't think that's wrong, do you?
DOCTOR: Wrong? It's an economic miracle. Of course it's wrong.
KIMUS: Oh. Oh, well, then, of course, the lights change.
DOCTOR: What lights?
KIMUS: You know, the lights. The ones on the sky at night. Little points of light.
DOCTOR: Do you mean the stars?
KIMUS: Look down there. I think there's some sort of entrance into the mountain.
DOCTOR: Might be the way to the bridge.
KIMUS: Say, you're very good at this. Do you drive these things for a living?
DOCTOR: No. I save planets, mostly, but this time I think I've arrived far, far too late.

[INT. Bridge]

CAPTAIN: What is your function?
ROMANA: Well, as a Time Lord, I can travel about in space and, of course-
CAPTAIN: Pah! Common space urchin. Pah! You shall die.
ROMANA: And, of course, time. Hence Time Lord.
CAPTAIN: Time travel? You expect me to believe such nonsense?
ROMANA: Yes, it is a difficult concept.
CAPTAIN: The insolent breath of idle fantasy! Death comes now!
(The electronic parrot takes off from his shoulder. When the NURSE speaks, it lowers.)
NURSE: Captain? Captain? The excitement of more than one execution in a day is bad for your blood pressure. Perhaps you should postpone it till tomorrow.
CAPTAIN: (whining) Postpone?
NURSE: Yes. I think her story sounds quite interesting, even if it is idle fantasy. Why don't you ask her how this machine she mentions travels.
CAPTAIN: Speak.
ROMANA: Well, roughly speaking, and putting it terribly simply, it dematerialises in one location, passes through a space-time vortex, and then rematerialises again in a new location.
NURSE: I think that sounds terribly interesting, don't you?

[EXT. Ground-level entrance to mountain]

(The DOCTOR and KIMUS stand next to a slanted red door in a silver slanted wall at the mountain.)
DOCTOR: Well?
KIMUS: It's locked. We'll never get it open. It's impossible.
DOCTOR: Huh. Impossible? That means it'll take seventy-three seconds. We can ill afford it. Move over.
KIMUS: What, you mean you can open it?
DOCTOR: Well, of course I can open it. It's just a question of how.
KIMUS: How?
DOCTOR: I haven't got the faintest idea.
(His sonic screwdriver has no effect.)
DOCTOR: Hmm.
KIMUS: But it's still locked.
DOCTOR: I haven't finished yet. Bent hairpin. The more sophisticated the technology, the more vulnerable it is to primitive attack. People often overlook the obvious.
(The door opens quietly as he walks away from it. He had been pulling the wrong way to open it.)
KIMUS: Doctor, that's amazing.
DOCTOR: Shall we go?
(KIMUS dashes inside. The DOCTOR follows him.)

[INT. Bridge]

(ROMANA turns a cage-like apparatus in her hands. It has clearly seen better days.)
ROMANA: Well, whatever it is, it's obviously burnt out.
CAPTAIN: A whining infant could tell me that. Your time is running out.
ROMANA: I'm sorry. I was never any good at antiques. It's probably just an old macromat field integrator or something.
FIBULI: Captain, she does know.
CAPTAIN: By the beard of the sky demon, the jaws of death were hot about your neck.
ROMANA: That must be part of a massive dematerialisation circuit.
CAPTAIN: It is part of a system that transports us instantly through space.
ROMANA: You mean the whole mountain? You take this whole mountain with you through space? Amazing.

[INT. Just within the mountain]

(At the entrance to a corridor.)
KIMUS: Doctor, this goes on forever.
DOCTOR: Yes, certainly looks like it.
KIMUS: Come on - we'd better hurry.
(KIMUS runs into the corridor and runs in place. He stops, noticing that something's wrong.)
KIMUS: Doctor, what's happening?
DOCTOR: Come on.
(The DOCTOR pulls KIMUS to his side.)
DOCTOR: Kimus, I want you to do something very important for me.
KIMUS: Yes.
DOCTOR: Go out to the aircar. Fetch the guard's gun,
KIMUS: Right!
DOCTOR: Stand outside on guard.
KIMUS: Ah, no, Doctor, I'd rather come with you.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's the most valuable thing you can do. There are so many things here you can't understand, and a linear induction corridor is one of them, eh.
(The DOCTOR knocks to open a box on the wall. He presses a button within, then knocks twice to close it. He enters the corridor.)
DOCTOR: See you later.
(The DOCTOR waves and then is sped away, holding his arms up in reaction to the speed.)
DOCTOR: I'll never be cruel to an electron in a particle accelerator again.
(KIMUS knocks on the box on the wall. Nothing happens, so he leaves. The DOCTOR reaches the other end of the long corridor.)
DOCTOR: Good heavens. Ah, of course. It isn't a linear induction corridor. It must work by neutralising inertia.
(A door closes abruptly behind him, with two triangles on it flashing.)
DOCTOR: A lift?
(He presses the green-flashing 'up' triangle, as opposed to the red 'down' one. A sound is heard.)

[INT. Bridge]

CAPTAIN: Do you think she can repair it, Mister Fibuli?
FIBULI: Well, sir, in my opinion it's irreparable, but it occurs to me she must have something similar aboard her own vessel.
(The CAPTAIN approaches ROMANA, who is fiddling with the interior of the cage-like device, using small instruments.)
CAPTAIN: Girl, what is your diagnosis? Can it be repaired?
ROMANA: Repaired? Yes, I should think so. You'd have to ask the Doctor, though.
CAPTAIN: Doctor? Are there more intruders upon this planet?
ROMANA: Oh, yes. I'm only his assistant. He's the one you should be talking to. Or, rather, listening to, if you have the stamina.
CAPTAIN: All guards on alert! There is an intruder on the planet. His name is the Doctor. I repeat, the Doctor.
(A door begins rising.)
CAPTAIN: He must be found and brought to the bridge instantly.
(The GUARDS react to the door's motion.)
GUARD: We must find the Doctor.
(The DOCTOR enters before the door is finished rising.)
DOCTOR: Hello, hello.
FIBULI: Hello.
DOCTOR: (to FIBULI) I'm the Doctor. Delighted to meet you. Heard so much about what a splendid chap you are. I see, I see you've met my assistant, Romana. Getting on like a house on fire, are you? She's a lovely girl. What a splendid place you've got here. Are you having a spot of bother?
CAPTAIN: Seize him!
DOCTOR: Such hospitality. I'm underwhelmed.
CAPTAIN: Doctor, beware. Your manner appeals only to the homicidal side of my nature.
DOCTOR: My manners are impeccable. (ROMANA approaches him with the fried macromat field integrator.)
ROMANA: Doctor, I think this is the root of the trouble.
DOCTOR: Macromat field integrator. Has the whiz-bang gone wrong?
ROMANA: Yes, and the amblicyclic photon bridge.
DOCTOR: And the amblicyclic photon...? Would you mind if I examined its locus?
CAPTAIN: Locus?
DOCTOR: Locus.
FIBULI: There, there, Captain.
CAPTAIN: Release him. Take them to the engine room. If they make one mistake, kill them.
(The GUARDS lead him away.)
ROMANA: Oh, Mister Fibuli?
(ROMANA throws the integrator at him on her way out.)

[INT. Engine room]

(After a shot of KIMUS crouching and playing with the gun he is carrying while guarding the mountain entrance, we return to the DOCTOR and ROMANA, who enter a massive engine room.)
DOCTOR: Whoa. Look at that, Romana.
ROMANA: Amazing. I suppose you're going to tell me you've seen it all before.
DOCTOR: No, actually. Not like this.
ROMANA: Really?
DOCTOR: Really. I suspected something of the kind. Come on, let's look busy.
(The CAPTAIN and FIBULI watch from above. The DOCTOR goes over to some units.)
ROMANA: What do you mean you suspected?
DOCTOR: Shh.
ROMANA: What do you mean you suspected?
DOCTOR: (loudly) Gravitic anomalising input reading, 9.5.
ROMANA: (loudly) Gravitic anomalising input reading 9.5, check.
DOCTOR: I mean I had my suspicions.
ROMANA: You mean you knew they were here? You knew that this mountain's really a spaceship and it's broken down?
DOCTOR: More or less, yes.
ROMANA: But how? How did you know?
DOCTOR: Well, I just put 1.795372 and 2.204628 together.
ROMANA: And what does that mean?
DOCTOR: (loudly) Four!
ROMANA: (loudly) Four!
FIBULI: What are they after, Captain, and what do they want here?
CAPTAIN: That is what we must find out. We must let them lead us into their vessel. The guards have tried to gain entry to it but have failed, so we must allow them a little rope.
(We return to the pair below.)
DOCTOR: Romana?
ROMANA: Hmm?
DOCTOR: We are in very, very, very great danger.
ROMANA: What, from the Captain?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ROMANA: Oh, he's just a terrible old bully. All that 'By the evil nose of the sky demon!' nonsense is just bluster.
DOCTOR: The Captain is a very clever and very dangerous man. He's playing with us. He wants to find out why we've come here.
ROMANA: The reason why we've come here is to find the second segment of the key, in case you'd forgotten. Getting involved in all this-
(ROMANA holds the tracer.)
DOCTOR: Is the only way to find it. What does the tracer say?
ROMANA: I just don't understand it. It seems to give out a continuous signal wherever we go. (It crackles to illustrate this.)
DOCTOR: What? That's it, then.
ROMANA: What?
DOCTOR: The answer. Romana, we've stumbled on one of the most heinous crimes ever committed in this galaxy. We've got to get out of here and get out of here quickly.
DOCTOR: (loudly, waving for attention) Ahem. Er, Captain? Your magnifactoid eccentricolometer's definitely on the blink.
CAPTAIN: You know what will happen if I even begin to suspect you of sabotage?
DOCTOR: Sabotage? Captain, it's more than my reputation's worth.
CAPTAIN: Or your life?
DOCTOR: Or my life, as you say. Yes, yes. We've got to go back to our own ship now and prepare some special equipment.
CAPTAIN: The girl stays here.
DOCTOR: Well, I'm afraid that's not possible. You see, we have a special lock fitted to the TARDIS door, and it requires the physical presence of both of us to open. That's clever, don't you think?
CAPTAIN: Guards, escort them to their ship. Any attempt to escape is to be met with instant obliteration.
DOCTOR: It's a pleasure to work with you, Captain. Well, come on. (he beckons) Don't just stand there; escort us.
(We cut to KIMUS walking around aimlessly at the entrance. We pan over to a GUARD running below. KIMUS hears him and raises the gun.)

[INT. The corridor in the mountain]

(The GUARDS, ROMANA, and the DOCTOR speed along the corridor.)
DOCTOR: (to his assigned GUARD) Standing around all day looking tough must be very wearing on the nerves, hmm?
(He knocks on Romana's GUARD's helmet.)
DOCTOR: (loudly) I said 'Standing around all day looking tough must be very wearing on the nerves!'
(KIMUS and the GUARD outside approach each other as the others reach the entrance.)
DOCTOR: Long hours, violence, no intellectual stimulation.

[EXT. Mountain entrance]

(The DOCTOR is the first outside.)
KIMUS: Doctor!
(He points to the arriving GUARD, behind KIMUS. The other GUARDS begin firing as ROMANA and the DOCTOR hit the ground. Shots are exchanged.)
DOCTOR: And now this happens.
(KIMUS brings down the last GUARD.)
DOCTOR: (to a GUARD's body on the ground) I'd give it up if I were you. Kimus?
KIMUS: Doctor?
(The DOCTOR takes the gun from him.)
DOCTOR: We've got a lot of travelling to do.
KIMUS: Where are we going?
DOCTOR: To investigate your miraculous mines. Come on.

[INT. Entrance to Mentiad base]

(K9 stops at a door at the end of a corridor.)
K9: This is where the Mentiads' psychospore ends.
MULA: You mean they live there? The Mentiads?
K9: Affirmative.
(MULA goes inside.)

[INT. Bridge]

CAPTAIN: (to the assembled techs) Escaped? Escaped? Your incompetence beggars the imagination! Teeth of the devil, there will be blood for this. There will be blood!

[EXT. Mine head]

KIMUS: (as he leads them inside) This way. The interior of the mines are fully automated. There is an ancient lift shaft, but nobody's used it in living memory.
ROMANA: Why not?
KIMUS: The penalty is death.
DOCTOR: I can see there wouldn't be much incentive.
(The DOCTOR considers the cage at the end of the mine-pit railway.)
DOCTOR: You know, I think that'll work. Let's see.
(They enter the cage.)
DOCTOR: Right. Now hold on very tight.
(They do. The cage begins its descent.)

[INT. Bridge]

(The round viewscreen shows that someone is being wound down into the mine.)
FIBULI: Captain, they're in the mine shaft.
CAPTAIN: The mine shaft. Moons of madness! Mister Fibuli?
FIBULI: Yes, sir.
CAPTAIN: We must find a way of breaking into their vessel without their help. Once they have seen what lies at the bottom of the mine shaft, they must never leave alive. Never! Guards, the intruders in the mine shaft must be obliterated!

[EXT. Cave]

(We are in a dank, echoey cave with the sound of running water.)
ROMANA: Where are we, Doctor?
DOCTOR: About three miles beneath the surface of Zanak, I'd say.
ROMANA: Three miles?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ROMANA: But it's so cold.
DOCTOR: Yes. And wet and icy. Ah! Romana, this entire planet's hollow.
ROMANA: Hollow?
DOCTOR: Yes, hollow. Hollow! Can't you work it out? Go on, take a look. Go on, look. Look! You all right?
KIMUS: It's all beyond me, Doctor. I don't know where I am.
ROMANA: It's frozen ground, Doctor. I don't understand. Cold, wet.
DOCTOR: Come here and listen. Now listen, Kimus. The reason the stars in your sky change is because they don't.
KIMUS: They don't?
DOCTOR: No. Your entire planet jumps through space
ROMANA: Those engines!
DOCTOR: Yes, those engines. Huge enough to dematerialise an entire hollow planet, flip it halfway across the galaxy, and rematerialise it round its chosen prey.
ROMANA: You mean other planets?
DOCTOR: Yes, like a huge fist. (ROMANA breathes in in surprise) It's one huge mining machine that mines planets, extracts all the valuable minerals, and leaves the rubble behind.
ROMANA: Then what we're standing on now...
DOCTOR: Is the planet we originally came looking for.
DOCTOR+ROMANA: Calufrax.
ROMANA: Buried inside Zanak?
DOCTOR: Buried inside Zanak, the pirate planet, and having the goodness sucked out of it.
KIMUS: What, do you mean that whole other worlds have died to make us rich? Whole other worlds like ours?
DOCTOR: Whole other worlds.
ROMANA: Some of them inhabited.
DOCTOR: The oolian stone I picked up in the street. (lifting the green stone, now with a slightly different name) Bandraginus 5! I knew I'd heard that name somewhere before. I remember now. About a hundred years ago, it disappeared without trace. A planet of a thousand million souls, Captain fodder.
(The DOCTOR drops the green stone onto the ground, and KIMUS picks it up.)
KIMUS: (addressing the oolian) Bandraginus 5, by every last breath in my body, you'll be avenged.
(ROMANA takes out the tracer.)
ROMANA: Doctor?
DOCTOR: Yes?
ROMANA: The tracer, it's gone mad. The second segment must be down here somewhere.
DOCTOR: Yes, I thought so.
KIMUS: Doctor!
GUARD: (approaching) There they are! Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!
(The three intruders run further into the cave. The GUARDS start shooting. KIMUS shoots one of them. The other two round a corner and run into a group of MENTIADS.)
MENTIAD: Doctor, we have come for you.

The above notes, transcription, etc. by Anna Shefl

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