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DOCTOR WHO
THE POWER OF KROLL

Written by
Robert Holmes

Part Three

(Overlap from 'It hasn't moved for fifteen minutes')

[INT. Pump room]

FENNER: Shut down the main flow valve!
(THAWN enters as DUGEEN begins turning a valve wheel beside the ladder. The men run to the breached pipe.)
THAWN: What's going on in here?
FENNER: Harg has just been sucked out by the monster!
DUGEEN: One of the creature's tentacles was right inside the main pipeline.
FENNER: He was doing a manual inspectro, then we heard screams.
DUGEEN: Careful. He just crushed the life out of him. Look at this - eighty-gauge colodian just ripped to cardboard.
FENNER: We're abandoning the station.
THAWN: In no circumstances!
DUGEEN: But it was-
THAWN: Not while I am director here!
DUGEEN: It was just a tentacle, sir, the equivalent of one of my fingers. Imagine what's going to happen if that creature decides to attack us!
THAWN: We've put far too much into this project to abandon it now. There's only one thing to do. That is to find this creature and, and kill it before it kills us.
FENNER: I've got a broken pipeline. That doesn't give us much time, does it?
THAWN: Well, use a secondary line and pump to half capacity until you've fixed it.

[INT. Temple of Kroll]

(We move from a shot of clouds gathering for a storm, to a SWAMPIE making sure the vines tying ROMANA and ROHM-DUTT to a pallet are properly in place. The DOCTOR is there too, under guard.)
DOCTOR: (looking up) I don't remember that last night. Early Samoan influen-?
(He lies on the pallet at least vaguely of his own accord.)
DOCTOR: (musing while being tied up) Interesting how traces of old cultures survive, isn't it?
ROMANA: I'm rather more interested in surviving myself.
DOCTOR: Well, that's understandable at your age. Still, I prefer it to Gothic Perpendicular.
ROHM-DUTT: Varlik. Varlik? What is this seventh ritual?
VARLIK: It is the slowest of all.
ROMANA: I knew it.
VARLIK: I tried to persuade Ranquin that only Rohm-Dutt deserved to be punished by the seventh ritual and that you others should die by the first. That's very easy. They just throw you down the pit and drop rocks on you.
ROMANA: Oh, thank you. It's nice to know who your friends are.
VARLIK: Ranquin says that your crimes are too serious. Kroll will only be appeased by extending your death agonies.
DOCTOR: You know, that window's quite out of place. It's not in character at all.
ROMANA: Will you stop babbling about the architecture? We're having a serious conversation about death.
DOCTOR: Well, architecture's quite a serious subject. Skart, where did that window come from?
SKART: What window?
(We are shown a large round window at the top of the room.)
DOCTOR: What? What? That window up there.
VARLIK: It was brought from Delta Magna when the temple was first built.
DOCTOR: I'd have sacked him.
ROMANA: Who?
DOCTOR: The architect.
ROMANA: Look, are you trying to take my mind off something? Because you're almost succeeding.
DOCTOR: Did I tell you about the time I was a child...?
ROMANA: I don't want to hear it.
DOCTOR: It was a question about-
ROMANA: I don't want to hear! (sighs) How long does this take?
VARLIK: To die? Depends on the sun.
ROHM-DUTT: Skart? Skart, what has the sun got to do with it?
SKART: As the creepers dry, it shortens them. It pulls the plank.
DOCTOR: Ah! And snaps our spines. How ingenious. Now I know the purpose of the window.
ROMANA: You'll be able to die happy, won't you?
DOCTOR: What is? What?
VARLIK: I'm sorry this has to happen, but if Kroll's not appeased, he will not help the People of the Lakes.
DOCTOR: Well, he didn't do much for you last time, did he, killing the high priest and swallowing the symbol of power?
RANQUIN: (entering) Is all prepared?
VARLIK: All is prepared.
RANQUIN: Great Kroll. Great Kroll, defender and saviour, these despoilers and profaners of the temple are condemned to die according to the seventh holy ritual of the Old Book. May their torments avert thy wrath from the People of the Lakes, thy only true followers and believers, O most powerful one. So let it be. (he lights two torches) Before your deaths, if you have anything to say to the servant of Kroll, let it be said.
DOCTOR: Why don't you just let the whole thing drop, Ranquin? You've made your point.
RANQUIN: Foolish levity. Leave. (The other SWAMPIES do so, while he and VARLIK remain.)
DOCTOR: Oh, you're not leaving. Aren't you going to stay and watch?
RANQUIN: We're not savages. Suffering is unpleasant to witness.
DOCTOR: It's even more unpleasant to experience. Ranquin, what was the secret of Kroll's power?
(RANQUIN waves VARLIK out and comes to the DOCTOR's side.)
RANQUIN: What do you know of that, dry-foot?
DOCTOR: I've read about it somewhere.
RANQUIN: Kroll had the power of the symbol. He sees all.
DOCTOR: Yes, I know Kroll has it now, but what was it?
RANQUIN: The symbol was a holy relic brought here by our ancestors at the time of the settlement.
DOCTOR: Yes, but what was the power?
RANQUIN: He who holds the symbol can see the future. The power revealed how the dry-foots would destroy Delta Magna with their fighting and their greed and the evil of their great cities. That is why my people came to settle here.
DOCTOR: Your people were evicted from their homeland, Ranquin. You had no choice.
RANQUIN: What do these questions matter to you who are already dying?
DOCTOR: I like to get things straightened out.
ROMANA: Must you use expressions like that?
RANQUIN: Your mind is bent, dry-foot. It's well that you die.
DOCTOR: (to ROMANA) He's got narrow little eyes. You can't hypnotise people with narrow little eyes.
(RANQUIN leaves.)
ROMANA: Oh, that's what you were trying to do.
DOCTOR: Yes. Trying to persuade him to untie us, our only chance.
ROHM-DUTT: How long have we got?
DOCTOR: I don't know the contraction rates of creeper, or the breaking point of bones and ligament.
ROHM-DUTT: I can feel it dragging already.
DOCTOR: Sorry you didn't stay on Delta Magna now, eh? Who paid you to bring the natives guns?
ROHM-DUTT: Thawn. He wanted an excuse to wipe 'em out.
DOCTOR: And who do they think brought them?
ROHM-DUTT: I told them the guns were sent by the Sons of Earth. Hmm, I got a signed receipt too, for Thawn to, to use to discredit them.
DOCTOR: Why the Sons of Earth?
ROHM-DUTT: Do you have to keep asking questions at a time like this now?
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no, shh. Why did Thawn want to discredit the Sons of Earth?
ROHM-DUTT: They're a crank organisation. They support these primitives. They want Thawn's company to pull out.
ROMANA: Why do they call themselves the Sons of Earth? Not that I care very much.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no, that's a very good questions. After all, none of them can ever have seen the Earth.
ROHM-DUTT: Mother Earth, they call it. They believe colonising the planets is a mistake. They want us all to return to the Earth and starve. Oh! Oh! My ankles are breaking!
DOCTOR: Imagination.
(We are shown the round window again.)

[INT. Refinery control room]

THAWN: What's its estimated distance?
DUGEEN: It's six hundred yards.
THAWN: Six...? From the end of its tentacles, that makes it... It must be nearly a mile across!
DUGEEN: Not far off. The central mass is a quarter of a mile in diameter by about a hundred and forty feet high.
THAWN: That radar doesn't show enough detail.
DUGEEN: I've counted thirty tentacles on one side alone.
FENNER: (entering) Well? Anything fresh?
THAWN: It still hasn't moved.
DUGEEN: Probably doesn't need to move much. We were just trying to decide what it'd look like out of the water.
FENNER: Very big and very ugly. What do you think it looks like? The pump chamber's clear now, if you want to start the furnace.
THAWN: Good. I want you to fix that pipeline as soon as possible, but killing this creature's got to be our first priority.
FENNER: These depth charges of yours, how many do you intend to use?
THAWN: Thirty-five. It should be enough, but delivery is the main problem. We've got to hit it with a cluster all at the same time.
FENNER: That's why you've got to go dangerously near.
THAWN: Exactly.
DUGEEN: It might help if you knew exactly what it was. There's nothing like it on Delta Magna.
THAWN: I suppose we could always send to Delta Magna for a missile strike.
FENNER: No, because it'd take at least eight hours for it to arrive. If we showed them the target position now, it would certainly have moved by the time the strike arrived.
THAWN: Yeah, it would have to be a low-intensity strike as well. Otherwise, we should all get the blast.
FENNER: These depth charges of yours, what if we packed them into a separate tank, floated it over, and then sank it when it was directly over the creature?
DUGEEN: How would you fire the depth charges?
FENNER: Pressure detonators. That's easy enough.
THAWN: Yes, but how would you sink the tank onto the right place?
FENNER: Fix a small charge to the bottom of the tank and then fire it by remote control.
THAWN: But with pressure detonators, the whole lot would go up so you're back to square one.
FENNER: All right, that's more or less what I said at the beginning. It's too dangerous!
DUGEEN: We're getting a mega-head building up, if anybody's interested.
FENNER: Oh, that's all we need. Anybody want a drink? (He walks off.)
THAWN: Put the conductors up. (He rises.)
DUGEEN: Right. By the speed this one's forming, it's going to be a daddy.
(More lightning rods rise, and the evening storm gathers in intensity. Lightning forks across the sky.)

[INT. Temple of Kroll]

(The creepers are drying as predicted, and the planks holding the prisoners' limbs are being pulled away from their bodies, stretching them. We hear squeaking.)
ROMANA: I can't breathe.
DOCTOR: Don't give up. Don't give up. How are you doing, Rohm-Dutt?
ROHM-DUTT: Oh! Oh! My back's breaking.
DOCTOR: Stretching's good for the spine. Well, up to a point.
ROMANA: I think I'm past the point.
(We hear thunder.)
DOCTOR: I think we're in for a storm.
ROMANA: Oh, no.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no. Electrical storms on planetary satellites can be quite spectacular.
ROMANA: What a pity we can't sit up and watch it.
DOCTOR: Ha, ha. Just relax your muscles.
ROMANA: It's not my muscles I can't relax. It's my vertebrae. They feel like beads on a piece of - ah! - elastic.

[EXT. Swampie settlement]

VARLIK: They are not from the refinery, Ranquin.
RANQUIN: They are dry-foots.
VARLIK: Well, so are the Sons of Earth, and we need their support on Delta Magna.
RANQUIN: We no longer need their support, Varlik. We have Kroll. (He raises his hand.)
VARLIK: Do we? I begin to wonder.
(Lightning strikes, and the rain begins to fall on them.)
RANQUIN: Have a care, Varlik. Kroll is our god and protector.
VARLIK: Kroll killed Mensch. Is that protection? If he's our god, why has he attacked us in the past?
RANQUIN: He punishes us when we displease him, and he punishes those who displease his servants, Varlik.
(The group disperse.)

[INT. Refinery control room]

(The men watch the rain pour down, both through the window and on the scanner.)
DUGEEN: Here it comes.
FENNER: Yes. As you said, it looks like a really big daddy.
DUGEEN: The rain's so solid, it's just blotting everything out on these scanners.
THAWN: Put the lightning conductors up. We're going to need them.
FENNER: All checked. Okay.
THAWN: All hatches battened?
FENNER: Every single one, all secured.
DUGEEN: Here we go.
(There are nearly simultaneous thunder and lightning.)
FENNER: Now hold tight, because there's going to be more.
THAWN: Let's hope any damage that creature did hasn't caused any structural weaknesses.
DUGEEN: Right. If this wind gets inside, it could blow us all apart.
FENNER: Just listen to that rain. I pity anybody out in that lot.

[INT. Temple of Kroll]

DOCTOR: What we need are hailstones big as bricks.
(The window can be seen to be leaking. The DOCTOR screams at a rather inhuman pitch.)
ROMANA: It's not that bad yet.
DOCTOR: I'll try a pitch higher.
ROMANA: What?
(He does so. The window glass shatters, and rain pours in.)
DOCTOR: (laughing) Nellie Melba's party piece, though she could only do it with wine glasses.
ROMANA: The tension! It's easing already.
DOCTOR: Come on. Pull, Rohm-Dutt, pull! We've got to stretch these creepers while they're still wet. Come on, pull! Pull! Another foot. Come on! Come on! You too, Romana, pull. Pull! Pull!
(They succeed in stretching the creepers enough that they can bend their limbs. The DOCTOR frees his hands.)
DOCTOR: There you are. Now you all know what it's like to be within an inch of death.
ROMANA: Doctor.
DOCTOR: Patience, patience. Another minute won't hurt.
(He pulls the pin from the stock at their feet.)
DOCTOR: Feet out!
(He uses a penknife from his boot to cut the others' hands free.)
DOCTOR: Come on.
ROMANA: That's funny, my nose has stopped itching. All the time I was tied up-
DOCTOR: This is no time to start talking about noses.
ROMANA: Yes, I know, but it's just that it's a textbook example of displacement anxiety.
DOCTOR: Listen, if it's an anxiety you want, look. The storm will be easing shortly and the Swampies will be coming out from under their umbrellas. Let's get out of here. Come on!

[INT. Refinery control room]

DUGEEN: The mega-head's breaking up. It's dropped four points already on the Diemster scale.
FENNER: A few billion volts in that one.
DUGEEN: Do you know, it touched force Twenty. It's the worst I've seen.
THAWN: It does happen to be the season for storms, Dugeen.
DUGEEN: Anyone out on the baygule wouldn't have stood a chance.
FENNER: There's not likely to be anyone out on the baygule, is there? Not with the jemima prowling around.
DUGEEN: Which it is. Look. It's heading for the shore. Going fast too, at about six knots.
THAWN: Right, you keep tracking it, because I want a very good look at that thing when it does surface.
DUGEEN: Right.

[INT. Temple of Kroll]

SKART: They've gone! The sacrifices have gone! Come quickly!
VARLIK: Kroll has been here.
SKART: No, it's not possible. There would have been more damage.
RANQUIN: Someone must have helped them. They could not have freed themselves.
VARLIK: Yes, well, nobody here would help them.
RANQUIN: Are you sure of that, Varlik?
VARLIK: What?
RANQUIN: You argued they should be freed. You were the one who wanted to stop the ritual of Kroll.
VARLIK: I asked you to stop the ritual, Ranquin. That's all I did. I swear that.
RANQUIN: By the powers that I hold, I shall learn the truth. But if the dry-foots are not found and sacrificed according to the holy ritual, then all my people will suffer the anger of Kroll!
SKART: They cannot have gone far, Ranquin. No dry-foot knows the secret paths through the swamps.
RANQUIN: Go after them, and find them!

[EXT. Swamp]

(The DOCTOR runs through tall swamp grasses, with ROMANA and ROHM-DUTT not far behind. They're on relatively dry land, especially in view of the recent storm. SWAMPIES run in pursuit. The escapees slow to tread gingerly.)
ROMANA: Can't we go any faster? They're gaining on us.
DOCTOR: One slip here and you're up to your neck. Next bit of firm ground's there. We'll have to jump.
ROMANA: Are you sure?
DOCTOR: Well, there's no other way of getting across.
ROMANA: I mean, are you sure it's firm?
DOCTOR: No. Here.
(He hands her his hat and scarf, then jumps across, just making it.)

[INT. Refinery control room]

THAWN: It still hasn't shown up. Where is it?
FENNER: It's gone right off the screen now.
DUGEEN: Just ploughed straight on. It must be somewhere under the swamp by now.
THAWN: Well, can't you get a track on it?
DUGEEN: At a viscosity level of forty per cent solids, this box goes blind.
FENNER: You know, the incredible thing is it didn't even slow down. It seems to be able to move as easily through swamp as through water. It was on a bearing of ninety-seven degrees. Hmm. Do you know where that's taking it?
THAWN: Where?
FENNER: Straight to the settlement.
DUGEEN: That could just be a coincidence, Fenner.
FENNER: Oh, yes, it could have headed off in any direction. It so happens it's heading for the settlement, so the Swampies have some problems.
DUGEEN: How could it possibly know there's anything there? That settlement's two miles away.
FENNER: How did it know that Harg was in the pump chamber? It seems to have a highly sensitive mechanism for detecting food.
THAWN: (laughs) In which case, the Swampies most certainly do have some problems.
FENNER: You know, I don't particularly like the Swampies, but I can't say I really hate them.
THAWN: Oh, I don't hate them, Fenner. I just want them removed permanently. I spent many years persuading the company to back this project, and now that we're on the verge of success, I'm not going to be stopped by lily-livered sentimentalists wailing about the fate of a few primitive savages.

[EXT. Swamp]

(The SWAMPIES run through the area where the escapees have just been. They are up ahead meanwhile, walking through tall grasses and wildflowers.)
DOCTOR: Not much further now.
ROMANA: What's that?
DOCTOR: Shhh. We're being hunted.
ROMANA: Hunted?
DOCTOR: Freeze. Don't even move an eyebrow.
(We see bubbles in the open water nearby. A clump of reeds is sucked into the mud with a slurping sound. ROHM-DUTT bolts. We hear him scream, and we and the DOCTOR and ROMANA then see a green tentacle dragging him away.)
ROMANA: Horrible.
DOCTOR: Well, I told him not to move. It hunts by surface vibrations. Primarily a vegetarian, of course, but over the years it's learnt that anything that moves is wholesome.
(They now hear rustling rather than growly megasquid noises.)
ROMANA: What's that?
DOCTOR: Come on.
(We see the SWAMPIES tracking them. The pair reach the canoe from the refinery and head across the water.)
ROMANA: (looking back to see the SWAMPIES on the shores) Doctor!
DOCTOR: Hold tight.
ROMANA: Look!
(Behind them, the SWAMPIES are heading into the water. Ahead of them, Kroll has risen above the water. The SWAMPIES begin fleeing.)
DOCTOR: Freeze.
(We see a tentacle-wrapped SWAMPIE dragged into the water, and we hear much screaming.)

The above notes, transcription, etc. by Anna Shefl

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