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DOCTOR WHO
THE POWER OF KROLL

Written by
Robert Holmes

Part Two

(Overlap from the signal lights)

[EXT. Pit of Kroll]

(The DOCTOR hears ROMANA screaming. As RANQUIN salaams, the DOCTOR bursts into the 'pit' from another angle and pulls Kroll's head off. We see a Swampie in a squid costume. The DOCTOR knocks him out rather softly.)
ROMANA: How did you know?
DOCTOR: Well, he probably looked more convincing from the front.
ROMANA: (as the DOCTOR unties her) Too convincing, but there's no need to be smug about it.
DOCTOR: I'm not smug.
ROMANA: I can tell that expression even from behind.
DOCTOR: Sucker marks.
ROMANA: Sucker marks?
DOCTOR: Look, sucker marks. Pretty ancient too, by the way the erosion's-
ROMANA: Presumably that was Kroll.
DOCTOR: Oh, they've told you about their local water deity, have they?
ROMANA: Yes. They seem to think I should be quite honoured to be sacrificed to the thing.
DOCTOR: Yeah, or to his memory. Kroll was brought here hundreds of years ago. He must be dead by now.
(The KROLL-SWAMPIE is recovering his senses.)
ROMANA: Then that explains the masquerade. It must have been political.
DOCTOR: Don't talk to me about politics.
(The KROLL-SWAMPIE is about to throw a knife.)
ROMANA: Look out!
(They duck out of the way, and the knife misses them. The KROLL-SWAMPIE runs off.)

[INT. Control room]

(A bored DUGEEN sees something odd in the waves on the radar screens and activates the intercom.)
THAWN [OC]: Thawn here. What is it, Control?
DUGEEN: I'm getting something very odd on the scanner, sir.
THAWN [OC]: What do you mean?
DUGEEN: Well, it's something I don't understand. There's, there's movement underneath the baygule.
THAWN [OC]: How do you know?
DUGEEN: Well, I've just done a routine scan of the bottom. The entire picture's changed during the past hour. The whole bed of the baygule's moved.
THAWN [OC]: Well, it could just be a gas build-up.
DUGEEN: Well, I thought of that, but it's changed shape over two square miles.
THAWN [OC]: All right. Well, well, keep a check on it, but let me know as soon as it starts to cone.
DUGEEN: Right, sir. (He twiddles some knobs.)

[EXT. Swampie settlement]

(ROHM-DUTT is still sitting, when RANQUIN and VARLIK approach him.)
ROHM-DUTT: (standing) What is it?
RANQUIN: Nual's brought us a message from Mensch. The dry-foots are planning to attack us at dawn.
ROHM-DUTT: What, to attack us? You mean here in the settlement?
RANQUIN: They are coming in their air-boats.
ROHM-DUTT: But that wasn't what-. You'll have to leave here at once. Get your people to hide out in the swamps.
RANQUIN: We are not running from the dry-foots. We have weapons now.
ROHM-DUTT: But you don't know how to use them.
VARLIK: A rifle's not a difficult weapon.
ROHM-DUTT: You have to know one end from the other, Varlik.
VARLIK: Like all dry-foots, Rohm-Dutt, because we lead a simple life, you think we're fools.
ROHM-DUTT: All I'm saying is that you're not ready to fight yet, and if you stay here, you'll get trapped and stand no chance. But if you split into smaller groups and spread your people across the swamps, they'll never hit you.
RANQUIN: Our plans are made. Our men are moving into position. We will ambush them on the lakes, in the open.
VARLIK: We can take them by surprise. There's only a handful of them.
ROHM-DUTT: Chief, Chief, even if you succeed, it won't be the end.
RANQUIN: They're the invaders of our waters, the aggressors. They have no right here. And there are many on Delta Magna who support our cause.
VARLIK: Why else would the Sons of Earth send us weapons?
ROHM-DUTT: I still say it's too soon to fight.
RANQUIN: You would rather we waited until you are safely back on Delta Magna.
ROHM-DUTT: I came here to supply arms, not to fight.
VARLIK: But you will fight with us now, Rohm-Dutt. We need every gun.

[EXT. Kroll's pit]

(The DOCTOR looks at the padlock that the Swampies used to keep Romana tied to the stake.)
DOCTOR: I wonder where they found that. Look, it's a genuine antique.
ROMANA: Fascinating.
DOCTOR: Are you all right?
ROMANA: Doctor?
DOCTOR: Hmm?
ROMANA: There's something I have to tell you.
DOCTOR: What?
ROMANA: I dropped the tracer.
DOCTOR: What?! (pauses and pulls something from behind his back) I picked it up.
ROMANA: Oh. Well, let's get out of here and find the fifth segment.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no. It would be extremely foolhardy trying to cross the swamp in the dark, would it not?
ROMANA: Yes, but about our monster? He's liable to be back at any moment with his friends.
DOCTOR: I don't think so. They're more likely to be digging trenches.
ROMANA: Why?
DOCTOR: They expect to be attacked at any moment.
ROMANA: Really?
DOCTOR: Yes. I followed a Swampie carrying vital information.
ROMANA: How did you manage that?
DOCTOR: Well-. Shhh.
(The Swampies outside are quiet. The pair move to the other side of the room.)
DOCTOR: Well, it wasn't too difficult. The technicians at the refinery were so busy trying to find an excuse to start a massacre, I just slipped away.
ROMANA: What is this refinery? They keep accusing me of coming from it.
DOCTOR: Ah, it's a primitive methane catalysing refinery. A pilot plant for bigger things, they hope.
ROMANA: Who's 'they'?
DOCTOR: The Earth colonists from Delta Magna. They're the ones who shipped the little green men up here.
ROMANA: Ah, because they thought this moon was no use to anybody.
DOCTOR: That's right. Of course, that was all a long time ago.
ROMANA: And now they've found something here they want, they're trying to get rid of them again.
DOCTOR: Precisely.
ROMANA: But methane?
DOCTOR: Yes. I wouldn't have thought it was worthwhile, but they're producing a hundred tons of compressed protein twice a day.
ROMANA: As much as that?
DOCTOR: Yes, they're sending it back to Delta Magna in orbit shot capsules.
ROMANA: But it doesn't make sense. I mean, how can they possibly produce that much protein? Where's it coming from?
DOCTOR: I don't know, I haven't discovered that yet, but they're producing it - and in sufficient quantities to make it worth fighting over.
ROMANA: Yes, this lot are spoiling for a war too. The whole idea of this sacrifice was to propitiate Kroll and get him on their side. That's why I said it was political. And there's a gun-runner here called Rohm-Dutt. He thinks I've been sent here to get evidence against him.
DOCTOR: Rohm-Dutt. So Thawn was right about the guns. I wonder...
ROMANA: What?
DOCTOR: Well, who's paying Rohm-Dutt? I mean, they obviously don't use money here.
ROMANA: Doctor, does it matter? Let's just get out of here and find the segment and leave them to it. It'll be dawn soon.
DOCTOR: At the bottom of that shaft, there'll be an underground passage. I wonder where it leads to.
ROMANA: I hate underground passages.
(He drops a stone into the shaft. From the sound, we know that it's hit mud at the bottom.)
DOCTOR: So do I.

[INT. Control room]

DUGEEN: (looking at the screens) You can see how it's moved. I've been recording these scans every five minutes.
THAWN: What's the latest picture?
DUGEEN: Coming up.
THAWN: That's weird. It's as though something's lifted up the whole bed and then settled back again.
DUGEEN: It can't be a gas build-up, not over such a wide area.
THAWN: Well, we'd better sink a probe right into the centre and take some samples.
(FENNER comes in.)
FENNER: That fellow's disappeared.
THAWN: Eh?
FENNER: That Doctor fellow has disappeared. Gone. Not a trace.
THAWN: Well, have you looked in his quarters? He said he was going to get some sleep.
FENNER: I have searched the whole station everywhere, and one of the boats is missing.
DUGEEN: Do you suppose that he could be connected with this?
THAWN: I wonder.
FENNER: Why? What's going on?
DUGEEN: Something very odd's going on on the lake bed. Look.
THAWN: Have you ever seen anything like this before?
FENNER: No, I haven't.
DUGEEN: It's on such a big scale. I doubt our mystery friend could manage anything that size on his own.
THAWN: If he is on his own.
FENNER: Of course, when we picked him up, he was talking about looking for some friend.
DUGEEN: Maybe there's more than one. We don't even know how he got here.
THAWN: Or how long he's been here.
DUGEEN: Well, the only track of anything we picked up apart from your own ship was of whatever followed you down.
FENNER: I think it's too much of a coincidence. You know, we assumed it was Rohm-Dutt's ship that had landed. We haven't found it, though, have we?
DUGEEN: It could have belonged to this fellow, I suppose. He's been here with us, so he couldn't have done much by himself, but if he's got friends out there, then we're in trouble.
FENNER: So what are they up to?
THAWN: Obvious, isn't it? They're trying to sabotage the plant.
FENNER: Well, any activity on the lake bed could disturb the methane source.
THAWN: Of course. Now, I don't know where this fellow comes from, but he's obviously got considerable scientific knowledge.
DUGEEN: Look at the way he knew all about this plant.
THAWN: Unless, of course, he was very well briefed. It could have been an act.
FENNER: No, no, no. no. Not when he was talking about inserting the plasmin catalyst, no.
THAWN: That's true. But whatever he is, I think that he's helping the Swampies. You say one of the boats is missing?
FENNER: Yeah.
THAWN: Well, if he took a boat rather than a swamp glider, it means that he doesn't want the noise of an engine.
FENNER: It also means he's trying to cross the swamps on foot.
DUGEEN: Why would he take that risk?
THAWN: Because he's a Swampie-lover! I've told you, he's in with them.
FENNER: You think he's gone to warn them that we're coming?
THAWN: Exactly. I had an instinct about him from the very start. He was too glib by half. Oh, yes, he's one of those fanatics from Sons of Earth.
FENNER: Well, they won't be much help to him, will they, when he starts wandering off the path?
THAWN: He can't have got very far, so I'll take Mensch and head him off in a glider.
FENNER: I wouldn't bother. He'll probably drown anyway.
THAWN: Oh, I intend to make quite certain of it.

[EXT. Kroll's pit]

(The DOCTOR emerges from the shaft with a large and thick, not particularly damp-looking book.)
ROMANA: What's that you've got?
DOCTOR: I think it's an illustrated history of the tribe. A sort of Bayeux tapestry with footnotes.
ROMANA: Oh, a sort of Holy Writ.
DOCTOR: I think it's atrociously writ, but the pictures aren't bad. Look. That shows them being evicted from Delta Magna.
ROMANA: Where they originally came from.
DOCTOR: That's right, yes. They were given this moon as a sort of reservation. Look, there you are. There's Kroll in his aquarium. (taps the page for emphasis) What did I tell you? Sucker marks.
ROMANA: What's the footnote?
DOCTOR: Hmm? Let me see. And Kroll. 'When Kroll awakened, he saw that the people were fat and indolent, and then Kroll became angry and he struck them down, swallowing into him the symbol of his power and killing all who were in the temple, even Hajes the priest. Great was the lamentation of the people, but Kroll returned to the water and slept.'
ROMANA: Ooh, I like a book with a happy ending.
DOCTOR: 'Thus was the third manifestation of Kr-.' Well, he's obviously one of those monsters who's not always about the place.
ROMANA: No, just pops up every couple of centuries.
DOCTOR: Yeah. Still, a dormancy period of that length would indicate a creature of massive size.
ROMANA: You think Kroll really exists?
DOCTOR: Well, does it matter? Hmm? Does it really matter? You know what I think? I think that Kroll's still around and he's just about due for his fourth manifestation.
ROMANA: Well, if we had any sense, we wouldn't stay.
DOCTOR: Yeah. (he drops the book back into the shaft, and we hear it hit watery mud) Let's get out of here. Come on!

[EXT. Swamp]

(SWAMPIES are arriving at a cleared area of swamp by canoe.)
ROHM-DUTT: That way.
(He runs. In tall grasses elsewhere, RANQUIN and SKART confer.)
RANQUIN: Where did he come from?
SKART: I don't know. He struck me from behind.
RANQUIN: So the sacrifice was not made. No-one must hear of this, Skart. They would think it a bad omen.
SKART: But if the dry-foot woman is gone, we can say that Kroll took her.
RANQUIN: Then there must be fresh blood on the stone.
SKART: I will see to it when we return. Trust me, Ranquin.
(A hovercraft approaches. They step back. In contrast, VARLIK and others in his area stand with their guns at the ready.)
VARLIK: Don't fire yet. There must be a second boat.
(MENSCH leaves the hovercraft and checks out the canoe the Doctor took. A SWAMPIE next to ROHM-DUTT fires his gun. It explodes and said SWAMPIE falls, crying out. MENSCH cries out at the same time - a giant tentacle has emerged from the swamp and grabbed him around the torso. He topples downward. ROHM-DUTT runs into the open, toward the hovercraft.)
ROHM-DUTT: Thawn! It's me, Rohm-Dutt!
(Before anyone can say more, the head of a supersized squid-like creature appears on the horizon, on the lake.)
RANQUIN: (running forward with his arms out) Kroll! Kroll! Great Kroll!
(SKART tackles him. The creature makes general squealing noises.)
RANQUIN: Kroll, Kroll, spare thy true servants. (Other SWAMPIES step out.)
(Kroll submerges again, as THAWN rapidly heads the other way, never having left the hovercraft.)
RANQUIN: Kroll rose from the deep to protect his people. Let us give thanks to Kroll!
SKART: No, Ranquin. First let us catch Rohm-Dutt. We've a score to settle with him.

[INT. Control room]

(THAWN sips his drink.)
FENNER: Feeling better?
(He nods.)
FENNER: So, was Mensch killed?
THAWN: I think so. I didn't stay to watch. (leans back in his chair) Oh, the size of that thing was unbelievable.
HARG: Why haven't we come across it before, sir?
THAWN: It's probably a deep-water thing.
HARG: Even so, it's odd we haven't spotted it before now if it's as big as you say it is.
FENNER: You saw nothing of the Doctor?
THAWN: No. He'd obviously arrived there already. The Swampies were waiting for us.
FENNER: So he did warn them.
THAWN: And they were armed!
FENNER: The Swampies with guns?
THAWN: Yes! Rohm-Dutt was with them, so they're obviously all in this together.
FENNER: Yes, so they were the Doctor's friends.
THAWN: Yes, they must have arrived in the same ship. And it's got to be the Sons of Earth who are behind this. They're the only people with the resources or indeed the motive.
HARG: Shouldn't we send for reinforcements, sir? A police unit?
THAWN: No! The authorities are far too soft. Besides, once they start interfering, you can never get rid of 'em. We'll handle this one by ourselves, and in my way.
FENNER: Your way?
THAWN: Final! We get rid of the problem once and for all.
FENNER: (considers) No.
THAWN: It's the only way.
HARG: What about that, that creature, sir?
THAWN: Well, we've got to deal with that first. That's obvious. It's out there lurking somewhere, so once we've located it, we can then finish it off with depth charges.
FENNER: I'll see what the underwater scanners are registering. Oh, look at this.
THAWN: What?
FENNER: Well, I think it's a defective scanner.
THAWN: Where's Dugeen?
HARG: Uh, it's his rest period, sir.
THAWN: Well, get him down here!
(HARG goes to the intercom station and activates the intercom.)
HARG: Harg here, Dugeen. You're needed in Control.
DUGEEN [OC]: Now?
HARG: Right away.
FENNER: See, that's Scanner Twelve. If I try Scanner Fourteen, it's on the same parallel.
THAWN: Why, it's just the same.
FENNER: We have a signal but no image.
THAWN: Well, both scanners can't be defective.
DUGEEN: (entering) What's the problem?
FENNER: Scanners Twelve and Fourteen are not registering anything.
DUGEEN: (doing his belt up) Well, they were all right when I left them.
FENNER: They're not now.
DUGEEN: (presses some buttons) They're still functioning.
THAWN: Then why aren't we getting an image?
DUGEEN: Because, because something is blotting them out. Look, I'll try a transverse. There.
(The image changes - horizontal lines become horizontal lines showing texture, a familiar-looking squid-like shape.)
FENNER: What do you make of that?
DUGEEN: Well, that's what's covering the scanners. It's probably just a mass of sediment thrown up when the lake bed moved.
THAWN: That's what I saw.
FENNER: No, those scanners are four hundred yards apart!
THAWN: I tell you that is what I saw! That thing is alive!

[EXT. Swamp]

DOCTOR: I told them they had their figures wrong, but, of course, I didn't know about Kroll then.
ROMANA: What are you talking about?
DOCTOR: The refinery. There can't be enough sediment in that place to produce the volume of methane they claim to have found, so where's it coming from?
ROMANA: Kroll.
DOCTOR: What?
ROMANA: Yes. If a thing that size takes a nap every couple of centuries, its feeding processes must continue independently, probably through its tentacles.
DOCTOR: Yes. And Thawn's men vanished while they were taking methane samples, drilling into the sediment.
ROMANA: Like prodding a sleeping tiger.
DOCTOR: Yes. Right. Got it! The refinery's heat exchangers must have raised the lake temperature by several degrees already-
ROMANA: Doctor?
DOCTOR: And the noise of their orbit shot is rousing Kroll!
ROMANA: Doctor?
DOCTOR: What?
ROMANA: We've got company.
(They are now in the settlement, with its grass tipis and are approached by several SWAMPIES.)

[EXT. Settlement]

(RANQUIN and two others approach.)
DOCTOR: What? Well, you'd better introduce me.
ROMANA: As what?
DOCTOR: Oh, I don't know. As a wise and wonderful person who wants to help. Don't exaggerate.
ROMANA: (clears throat) This is, erm-
RANQUIN: (calmly but authoritatively) Seize them.
DOCTOR: I told you not to exaggerate.
(ROHM-DUTT is marched past.)
DOCTOR: Who's that?
ROMANA: Rohm-Dutt, a popular figure in these parts about an hour ago.
DOCTOR: Ah.
SKART: Soon, dry-foot, you will wish you had died on the stone of blood.
RANQUIN: Guard the dry-foots, Varlik. No harm must come to them.
(SWAMPIES lead the two time travellers away.)
RANQUIN: (holding his hand up) I will talk to Kroll, and he will tell me by which of the seven holy rituals they must meet death.

[INT. Control room]

FENNER: Those depth charges are not going to make much impression on that creature, not unless you hit a vital spot first time, and you can't guarantee that.
THAWN: We've got nothing else. Can you think of a better way of killing it?
FENNER: Thawn, we've been here months, and this is the first time we've ever set eyes on this creature. Now, surely, if it were hostile, we'd have known of it before.
THAWN: I've seen it! It's hostile!
FENNER: All right. All I'm saying is that those depth charges will only provoke it.
DUGEEN: Director!
THAWN: What?
DUGEEN: (at the scanners) This thing's moving again.
FENNER: Is it coming this way?
DUGEEN: Well, it's coming closer, but not directly towards us.
THAWN: Well, this station isn't designed for torsional stresses, not like an ocean refinery.
DUGEEN: It's stopped again now.
FENNER: Then perhaps it might feed on the bottom. It's moving along the lake bed.
THAWN: I'm not interested in its feeding habits, Fenner, unless they happen to include us!
FENNER: Look, if it feeds and lives in the water, then maybe we could poison it by dropping cobalt around it.
THAWN: Radiation? Harg, how long would that take?
HARG: Impossible to say, sir. That size, it could be tough enough to withstand a massive dose.
THAWN: I still favour depth charges. I'll go and check how many we've got. (He leaves.)
DUGEEN: Well, if Thawn wants to depth-charge it, he's going to get us all killed.

[EXT. Swampie settlement]

ROMANA: I didn't like the bit about death according to one of the seven holy rituals.
DOCTOR: No. Probably the usual things - fire, water, hanging upside down over a pit of vipers.
ROMANA: That's only three.
(In a quick cut to the refinery's pump room, HARG opens a panel in the pipe along the wall and uses a dipstick to measure something. He hears a sound like waves, then whalesong mixed with low-pitched growling. HARG pauses and puts an ear to the panel.)
ROHM-DUTT: (sotto) Varlik? Help me.
VARLIK: You're a traitor.
ROHM-DUTT: (sotto) Now listen, now listen, Varlik. We're good friends, you and I, huh? Now, I, I've got a lot of money back in Delta Magna. A lot of money, and I-
VARLIK: Mmm, it's your greed that's brought you to this, Rohm-Dutt. You betrayed the people of the lakes. You brought us weapons that were old and rotten.
ROHM-DUTT: No, I told you - they had to be cleaned.
VARLIK: We examined them. The barrels are bent, the metal corroded. You thought you'd be safely away from here before we tried to use them.
ROHM-DUTT: No, it's not true, Varlik. I bought them in good faith. Now, let me explain to Ranquin, I-
VARLIK: There's nothing to explain. We heard you call out to the leader of the dry-foots. Do you think we're fools?
ROHM-DUTT: I was confused! I mean, the sight of Kroll-
VARLIK: It was a plot! You bought us rotten weapons so that we'd enter into a battle that we couldn't win. Oh no, you cheated us, Rohm-Dutt, just as the dry-foots have always cheated our people.
DOCTOR: You see? The weight of history's against you.
ROHM-DUTT: Ah, what do you know of it?
DOCTOR: I know a rogue when I see a rogue, and I've no desire to die in the company of a rogue. Have you any desire to die in the company of a rogue?
ROMANA: I'd rather not die at all.
DOCTOR: I know that feeling.

[INT. Control room]

FENNER: (bored) It hasn't moved for fifteen minutes.
DUGEEN: (intent) There's movement on the edge. Rising and falling regularly. Could be its breathing organs.
(We hear a scream as we cut to a tentacle erupting through the pipe next to HARG.)
DUGEEN: (as alarms sound) The pump chamber!

[EXT. Settlement]

DOCTOR: Here comes the verdict.
RANQUIN: (approaching with a small group) The Great One (raises his hand) condemns the prisoners to die by the seventh holy ritual of the Old Book.
DOCTOR: (whispers) Seven's my lucky number.
RANQUIN: Take them to the place of execution.
ROHM-DUTT: Ranquin, wait.
RANQUIN: Silence!
DOCTOR: Wasting his breath.
ROMANA: I want to know why we're being executed.
RANQUIN: (gestures to ROHM-DUTT) This one knows what he has done. You, dry-foot, have aroused the wrath of the Great One by denying him his promised victim.
DOCTOR: He's not the Great One. He's the Insignificant One. If you're going to have someone imitate Kroll, it ought to be more convincing.
RANQUIN: When the servants of Kroll appear in his guise, they are part of him, doing as he bids them.
ROMANA: They're simply keeping a myth alive. None of you here has ever seen Kroll. You weren't even born at the time of the third manifestation.
VARLIK: Kroll rose before us at dawn today. We were waiting to kill the dry-foots when the Great One appeared and drove them away.
DOCTOR: What?
(There is a quick cut as DUGEEN and FENNER run toward the pump room.)
RANQUIN: Enough talk. Take them away.
DOCTOR: So Kroll's on the move. I've less time than I thought.

[INT. Pump room]

(As HARG struggles, a tentacle wraps itself around him. When DUGEEN and FENNER arrive, they see his legs enter the pipe. We hear squealing sounds over the alarms. Something near the pipes is emitting smoke.)
FENNER: Harg!

The above notes, transcription, etc. by Anna Shefl

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