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GHOST LIGHT
by Marc Platt
PART THREE

The door opens and from out the dark lift steps Control, still in filthy
rags but now with a clearly human lower face at least.  
Josiah looks at it with hatred and spits hateful words at it, "Control,
quintessence of wickedness...corruption incarnate..."
"Thank you for trusting me Control," says the Doctor.
"My half greeingement done now," snarls Control, "What you desiring...
in the Darkness you shall find it!" says the now distinctly female Control
as she points a greasy hand into the black interior of the lift.
"DON'T LET IT OUT!!!" screams Josiah as he rushes in blind panic to the
doors and slams them shut, but he is thrown away immediately by something
like a huge electrical charge.
"Too late!" snarls Control....
...and the Doctor looks at the lift and speaks one word of summoning...
"Light?!?"
And the lift doors slam open and a brilliant, bright,
LIGHT
a huge yellow sun of a light erupts from within the chamber
and floods the room, forcing Gwendoline to turn her eyes away 
and Ace to wince at the intensity.....

yet the Doctor still stares directly into the blast of pure,ellow
				
LIGHT.

As the blare of light still shines radiantly out the lift door, a figure
appears, a human figure, a tall large-framed man with dark, curly hair
and wearing shining golden robes.  The look on his face is more one of
confusion or even total disinterest rather than anger.
However even this look is enough to scare Josiah who turns and runs, crying
out the word "Light!" as he and his maids flee up the staircase.
The Doctor shouts for Josiah to come back to no avail and then turns to
the angel-man to introduce himself.  He begins to explain that he is
the Doctor and this is his friend Ace and that he hopes he slept well then
discontinues as he realizes the shining, glowing angelic man isn't listening
and is instead half-walking, half-gliding away from the lift and across
the hall towards the drawing room door.
Inspector MacKenzie asks the Doctor what the devil this thing is.
Ace says, "It's an angel, stupid."
The Doctor clarifies this and says, "That's just its shape on Earth.
It's called Light, and it's come to survey life here."
Ace tells MacKenzie, "It's crashed out in its stolen spaceship in the
basement."
And the Doctor continues, "While it slept, the Survey got out of control."
The short, ragged female creature steps up and says, "Control is me!"
And the Doctor looks up to the head of the stairs where the inhabitor of
the house stands observing as he says, "And the Survey is Josiah."
"And now Light's come to sort out the muddle," says Ace.
As Ace says this, Josiah nudges one of his maids to step down the stairs
to attack the Light creature with a revolver....
The Doctor tells MacKenzie that waking Light up was his idea.
"And who are you?" asks MacKenzie of the Doctor.
"I wouldn't want to confuse you," he replies.
Control suddenly grabs the Doctor's arm and reminds him of their agreement,
that the Doctor promised Control freeness.
The Light creature suddenly speaks in a high-pitched, almost sing-songy
voice, "Control!"
Control recoils behind the Doctor as though for protection and pleads with
the Doctor to kill Light now.
Light seems to ignore what she says and simply asks how long he has been
asleep.  He then looks down at his arms and body and asks why he has
naturalized in this form, (human). 
Before anyone can answer, the maid stepping slowly down the stairs with
her revolver catches Light's attention.   He looks at her, over her, and
into her, into her very being, her very soul, her very structure, and
with the power of his mind destroys her being in an electric blue fire
that seems to erupt from her body itself. 
Like a rag doll, her body falls to the ground, all the while Light having
ignored the Doctor's protests for him to stop, and now the Doctor steps
forward and shouts that this was unnecessary.
Light seems to agree somewhat, saying that it was wasteful.
He turns his head up to Josiah and the other maids and tells them none
of their weapons work.  Josiah commands, "Withdraw!" to his retinue who
follow his lead as he flees.
The Doctor tells Light they'll talk.
Twilight falls over the house of Gabriel Chase.....

Whilst inside in the drawing room, the Doctor speaks with Light,
or rather to Light.
The Doctor is walking frustratedly into the drawing room, trying to tell
Light that this is Earth, and asks how many more times he'll have to tell
him this.  He looks behind him wondering why Light isn't following,
in fact only Ace has.  The Doctor asks where Light has got to now when 
a sudden flash of yellow lightning and a sound like a thunderclap
flash and blow through the room from near the window.
The Doctor and Ace turn to see Light suddenly standing before them,
whilst behind them the doors silently close...
Ace asks how Light moves so fast and the Doctor tells her he travels at
the speed of thought.
"Earth," speaks Light in his odd, alien falsetto, "Why mention that
wretched planet to me?"
"If you don't like it then bug off!" shouts Ace at him.  
She freezes in her tracks when Lspeaks again, as she remembers the
man she is shouting at is also glowing with a dangerous-looking yellow
aura.
Light tells them he once spent centuries on Earth faithfully cataloging
all the species there.  "Every organism from the smallest insect to the
largest ichthyosaur, but no sooner had I finished, then it all started
changing!"
The Doctor extends a finger from the hand on which his head rests as he
sits in a large padded chair and says, "That's life." 
Light once again calls for Control, the doors to the drawing room swing
open of their own accord, and the filthy-ragged Control creature looks
inside in something like shame, but something more like fear.  MacKenzie
also peers inside, clutching his notebook ready to take down evidence.
Light's voice is now decidedly and dangerously deeper as he rhetorically
asks Control, "How many more millenia must I suffer your company?"
His voice lightens again as he asks Control if this is indeed Earth.
Control ignores the question and protests that she wants her freeness,
she wants to be a Ladylike.  She shakes her hand at the seated Doctor
and says he promised this to her.  
Light says her freeness was not the Doctor's to give.
Ace looks down at the Doctor, a little disappointed at him since he is once
again manipulating people for the sake of the plan, and she asks if he
did indeed promise this.  
he looks a little ashamed as he protests that things ran away with themselves.
"Control too!" shouts Control, "Run away!"
She turns and runs out the room, with Light looking after her as though
he were going to chase or stop her, but before he does anything, the Doctor
stands and blocks the doorway with his body, pleading with Light to give
her a break, and telling him she's not his real troublemaker.
"You are interfering," accuses Light of the Doctor.
The Doctor raises a hand and a fearful and yet powerful look comes across
his face as if he were either summoning up some great force at his command
or defending himself from some sort of mental attack from Light.
He adds words to his looks: "Yes, just like you, only I didn't get caught
napping!!  Why don't you just forget the survey Light?  AND GO?!?!?!"
Bright yellow flashes of light and gusts of wind flash across the room,
Ace, and the Doctor's face, and when they've cleared in the same instant
they came, Light is not there, where he was.
Ace asks if Light has gone.
The Doctor relaxes a little and seems to listen to the house and the walls
around him.
After a short moment, he answers Ace, "No."

Josiah Samuel Smith, (*known to Light and Control better as Survey*)
has retired to the relative safety of Gabriel Chase's upper observatory.
He looks over his hypnotically-controlled minions, his maids, Gwendoline,
and Mrs. Pritchard.  Also present are Nimrod and Redvers Fenn-Cooper.
Josiah smiles at them with his new teeth and gentlemanly face and tells
them all that absolutely nothing will delay his plans for the Empire.
"With luck, Light and the Doctor will be at each other's throats before
they even notice," he promises them all and hopes to himself.
He looks down at his ward and tells Gwendoline that it is time for Miss
Ace to leave them.
Gwendoline rocks to and fro in a rocking horse and tells her Uncle that
she's sure Ace will enjoy Java once she gets there.
Her "Uncle" picks her up off the horse and stand her on the floor and
promises Gwendoline that she'll not enjoy it half as much as Gwendoline
will enjoy sending her there.....

Full night has fallen over the house now, but soft yellow light pours
out its windows....

.. in a dark hallway of the second story where there are no windows,
sounds of a tropical night creep from out the walls, the twitters of
insects and the cries of strange birds as though they were foraging for
food under the floorboards.
Control steps out into the hallway, and we can see her powers of evolution
are more refined and stronger than are Josiah's, for her head has completely
changed now into a perfect Victorian Lady's, even down to the curled,
long locks of blonde hair.  Her rags even seem to be evolving, as we
can now see some sort of violet dress under the upper layers of rags.
Perhaps this is why she is the Control, and Josiah the Survey.
She also seems to leave no husks, unlike Josiah.  Perhaps Josiah's husks
are left behind so that Light could examine them, comparing them to
what the Survey now would become and how each compares to the middle
ground of Control.....
Control bends over to the floor and picks up one of the crawling insects
and eats it, its exoskeleton crunching between her teeth.  Clearly
she still has a way to go before she becomes a Lady.
She hears a sound behind her and slowly turns in slight fear, but relaxes
a little when she sees it isn't Light or Survey, but rather Redvers
Fenn-Cooper.  He kneels down beside her and offers her what he holds in
his hands, strings of beads.  
"You like them?" he asks her, "You take."
She snatches out a hand and grabs the strings and looks the beads over.
"Now we trade words," says the great international explorer.

"This is not Earth, it cannot be," puzzles Light.  He stands in the
main entrance hall, looking at rapidly-scrolling hieroglyphics appearing
on the stained glass window above the stairs, absorbing the data they
provide and not wanting to believe it.
One of the night maids emerges from the dining room carrying a silver
dinner set.  She hesitates at the sight of Light, but does not run as
he sees her and gives her a command for her to come nearer to him,
for he needs her assistance.
She steps slowly forward until she meets him, where he then stares down
into her eyes with a fiery look, causing her to slowly crumple to the
ground....

The Doctor and Ace step slowly down the main hallway in the second floor.
From downstairs they hear a clattering sound of metal on wood, and Ace
asks what the sound was.
The Doctor looks up for a moment and tells her it was just their imaginations.
Ace looks around and notes aloud that there is no sign of Control.
She also looks a little apprehensive, and she tells the Doctor as much
when she notes how weird the place feels right now, that everything seems
to be coming alive.
The Doctor agrees with her and explains this as the effect of the energy
from Light's ship.  "Invigorating, isn't it?" asks the Doctor.
Ace snaps a quick no, and sensing that he's touching on a sore point, 
the Doctor quickly asks her what the feeling reminds her of.
She looks about to blast a full steam of insults at him, so he revokes
te quetion and assures her that he knows that whatever happened here in
a hundred years time is none of his business.
"I thought this was a haunted house," says Ace.
"It is," he tells her.
She doesn't like the all-knowing look on his face, that he still thinks
this is the same thing she felt in the house in 1983, so she tells him,
"I was only 13!"
"Of course," he admits.
"I got frightened that's all!" she insists.
He takes something from his pullover pocket and dangles the stringed
object in front of her face.
"The TARDIS key," he says, "You could always wait for me there."
"That's the easy way out," she replies.  
He flips the key back into his pocket and tells her to come on then.
She has turned to look opposite the way he now walks away and speaks
as though she thinks he's still behind her, which he isn't.
She stands transfixed by *something* as she says, "Doctor, have you ever
had one of those nightmares, where you couldn't move?"
She manages to turn around and call for the Doctor, and she sees she is
alone, alone but for the calls of strange birds.
She looks up at the walls and hears the mounted stuffed animals calling to
her.  She looks another way and hears every animal in the hallway,
every growl, every roar, every cricket, every sound as if the entire
London zoo were attacking her.
A red light darkens the corridor further, and Ace falls to her knees.
She calls out to the animals, "You're all dead!  You're all dead!"
And she calls to the future and her past, and tells *them*, "It wasn't
my fault!  I'm not guilty!  I couldn't help it...."
She kneels weeping on the ground as the blue strobing light of a police
car approaches and its siren grows nearer.....
The lights, the sounds, all fade away from the huddled form of Ace as
a real person enters the hallway behind her.
The feet of the person are covered by a long, dark Victorian gown,
leading up to the aristocratic features of Gwendoline Pritchard.
"Ace, my dear," she tells the girl beneath her, "I want you to come away,
some away with me to Java!"

Control and Redvers Fenn-Cooper sit in a bedroom somewhere in the upper
floors.  Control is trying on ladies' hats whilst seated in front of a
large mirror.  
Redvers tells her the handsomemest woman he ever saw was daughter to a
N'tamba chief, but she had a bone through her nose and ate her cousin
for breakfast.
"Will Control be Ladylike?" she asks him, "Want it so much."
Redvers rises from the canopied bed behind her and leans over her chair,
talking to her reflection in the mirror, and telling her when this hunt
is over, he'll make her the finest Ladylike in the Empire.
The Doctor suddenly enters the room through the open door and asks Control
if she's having fun.
She turns and leaps from her chair, shouting, "You!  You come taking away
Control's freeness!"
The Doctor whispers to her to try and calm her, and tells her he's here
to help her and to ask for her help.
"No help!  It's mine!" she shouts at him, "You won't take it!"
She leaps onto the bed, runs across it and jumps straight through the
glass of the second story window.
The Doctor crosses to the window and looks down into the dark night,
calling for Control to come back.  When she doesn't answer, he promises
her she won't get far.
"Of course," interjects Redvers, "if she was a real Lady, I wouldn't be
in her boudoir."
The Doctor cries out that things are getting out of control, and even he
can't play this many games at once.
"Then help me," implored Redvers, "Help me with my hunt!"
The Doctor tells him he hasn't time for this, but Redvers goes on anyway,
and tells him he's hunting the rarest creature in the world, the
Crowned Saxe-Coburg!  He hands the Doctor a small picture, bearing 
Queen Victoria's face with target-hairs printed on top of it.
"Really?" asks the Doctor, "Who's sponsoring the expedition?  Josiah Samuel
Smith?"
"When I find it, I shall shoot," promises Redvers Fenn-Cooper happily.

Gwendoline chases Ace down a corridor, Ace clearly out in front, but
she balks when she finds her way barred by one of the young night maids.
"Come on Ace, I don't want to hurt you," goads Gwendoline.
Ace opens a door on her left side and tries to get into the room beyond,
but Gwendoline grabs hold of her.
"You mean it'll be painless?" jokes Ace as she pulls herself and Gwendoline
inside the small room in a heap on the ground where the two wrestle
as Gwendoline tries to fix her handkerchief full of chloroform onto Ace's
nose and mouth.

The Doctor and Redvers pass outside this room in the hallway outside,
the night maid outside hurriedly shutting the door and curtesying at their
approach so that they know not what happens inside.
Redvers is telling the Doctor that hunting the Crowned Saxe-Coburg isn't
easy, but a good hunter always knows the signs.
"Like a Royal Invitation to Buckingham Palace?" asks the Doctor, "Why
else do you think Josiah has kept you alive so long Redvers?"
Redvers asks the Doctor if he'd like to join his expedition, but the
Doctor replies that he doesn't want to yet, because he has to find Ace.

Ace and Gwendoline continue to wrestle on the floor, but Ace gets the
better of Gwen and rises towards the door.
"Come here you little brat!" shouts Gwendoline to her unwilling subject
as she leaps on Ace.
Ace shouts for Gwendoline to get off her as she kicks backwards at
Gwendoline.  At this moment, Control climbs in through the open window
and looks with some surprise at the fight inside.
Ace shouts for help from Control, but Control seems to ignore this as she
just walks to the door and tosses the two wrestlers aside like rag dolls
and opens the door.  This has a fortuitous effect for Ace as Gwendoline
drops the chloroform and is floored in the bargain.  Ace runs out the
door after Control, and once outside throws the night maid inside with
Gwendoline, locking them both in.

Nimrod enters the main entrance hall from the drawing room and looks on
at Light's activities.  Light is currently bent over the dead body of
the night maid he stared into earlier.  He turns as he hears or otherwise
senses Nimrod's entry, and we see that he is holding the dismembered
right arm of the girl, its end red with blood.
Light tells Nimrod he wanted to see how "it," the girl, worked, so he
dismantled it, but now he needs another specimen.
"Sir, you are Light!" announces Nimrod proudly, "Long ago my people
worshipped you as the Burning One!"
Light looks at Nimrod and recognizes him, saying that Nimrod was the
last specimen he took up from the extinct Neanderthal race from Earth.
Nimrod confirms his memory, and Light goes on to congratulate the
Neanderthals for knowing when to stop evolving.  A thought occurs and
he asks who released Nimrod from his quarantine cubicle.
"Mister Josiah sir, I am in his service," answers Nimrod.
Light looks into the air, holds out a finger and entices molecules and
microbes into sparkling visibility like small glowing gnats about his
finger.  Light looks at the microbes he's made visible, and snarls that
they're evolving even as he speaks.  He is furious that his entire
catalog of the planet's life is worthless, that centuries of his work
is wasted.
The door from the drawing room opens and Inspector MacKenzie enters the
hall, smiling at both Nimrod and Light and asking if either of them knows
where the Doctor is, adding that this place is like a madhouse
Light looks at him with a new vision for the Inspector and perhaps for
more than him and tells MacKenzie, "If we don't want things to change,
we make sure that they cannot!"
He stares down into MacKenzie's very brain....
..and MacKenzie falls back against the wall, his eyeballs turning up and
inward to show only their whites.....

Ace finds Control back in the bedroom, hiding beneath the bedcovers.
Control tells Ace to leave her alone and go away.
"Am I still Ratkin?" asks Ace.
Control starts to bawl like a baby, which Ace doesn't really care for so
she consoles Control telling her everything's alright and that she didn't
mean it.  
Control looks up from beneath the covers and tells Ace she hates the world.
"Hate freeness, it bites!  Ran away into big, empty nothing!  Sky flew
away to nothing!  Want to hide from big, open emptiness world."
"It's this house," tells Ace, "When you're a kid, you smash things you hate,
but what do I do if it keeps coming back?"
Control complains, "World only changing for him!  Now he's Josiah!  Big
man now!  Leaving Control behind...  Control no Ladylike!" and she starts
whining loudly again, until Ace cuts in and tells her to cut the whinging.
She tells Control she's gotta fight back and beat Josiah at his own game.
Control looks at Ace in curiosity....

Gwendoline and the maid trapped with her at last succeed in bashing down
the door to the alcove room Ace had locked them in, and Gwendoline rushes
down the hallway in search of Ace...

Ace stands behind Control in front of the mirror in the bedroom, teaching
Control Ace's brand of manners and proper speech.
"Go on try again," says Ace, "The rain in Spain, falls mainly down the drain!"
Control begins to repeat this with a very posh accent indeed when
Gwendoline steps into the room with a wicked smile on her face, and she
says, "There you are, Ace my dear!"  
Ace backs away behind the bed, but Gwnedoline launches herself at her and
pulls her onto the bed where the two renew their wrestling match.
Ace shouts for Control to help, and Control steps over to them but is
uncertain what to do, and even asks if this is a new game and if she is
next to play.  
The noise attracts Redvers Fenn-Cooper and the Doctor into the room.
"The natives are restless tonight," says Fenn-Cooper as he grabs Gwendoline
and pulls her apart from Ace. 
As he does so, the Doctor looks down at something on the floor which he
picks up, and we can see it is a small brass locket.  He opens it and
looks inside, and then shows what's inside to Gwendoline.
He asks her who this reminds her of, and shows her the pictures of herself
and her mother lining the insides of the locket.  She stares at it in
disbelief and a new look of self-awareness comes across her face as her
hypnosis slowly fades off.
The Doctor diagnoses her with a severe trauma.  As Gwendoline stops 
struggling, he says he could forgive her arranging all those trips to
Java... and Redvers interrupts reminding him that she was hypnotized...
and the Doctor completes his sentence with "if she hadn't enjoyed them
so much."
Ace tells her Professor that Control has got a few things to show Josiah,
and as the Doctor looks, Control holds up her arms proudly with a lady's
fan held in one hand and says with an upper class English accent,
"No longer hiding!"  
"Good," pronounces the Doctor, "Just in time for dinner."
And he holds out an arm in offer to escort Control to the dining room.
Gabriel Chase still stands like a house haunted in the night....

In the dining room, Josiah Samuel Smith checks his gold pocket watch and
puts it away again in his pocket with disgust and impatience.
Behind him, his party of expected guests slowly enters behind him,
the Doctor, Ace, Redvers, and Control, although Control is hardly expected
by Josiah or wanted.  As she walks in ahead of the others, (the Doctor
letting the Lady go first) the Doctor warns Ace not to have any soup.
Josiah tells the Doctor to, "Get that creature out of here!  Get it out!"
Ace tells Control to go ahead and knock Josiah dead.  
Control looks down her nose at Josiah across the table and tells him,
"Control has her Freeness now, Squire!"
"What's this?" asks Josiah, "Where's Gwendoline?"
"Better orf without you, Guv'nor!" replies Control.
Josiah looks with anger at the Doctor and tells him he may have won this
move, but he will not suffer this creature at his table.
Redvers admonishes him from his stance behind Josiah and tells him that
this is no way to behave in front of the Ladylike.
Ace reminds "Jungle Jim" that she's here too.
"No one hurting Control," boasts the evolved Lady, "Not in gutter now."
As the Doctor begins to take his seat at table opposite Josiah, he
asks "Who was it said Earthmen never invite their ancestors round to dinner?"
Before the Doctor sits down, he suddenly remembers something and 
straightens up again, turning to the vacant-faced Lady Pritchard standing
impassively behing him. 
He asks her if she's seen what he holds out in front her face now, the
locket belonging to Gwendoline containing pictures of both the daughter
and the mother....
Lady Pritchard looks at her own image and her mesmerization subsides,
and she begins to weep as the Doctor comments how she and Sir George must
have been very happy once, before the cuckoo invaded their nest....
She clutches her face and tears and rushes out of the room to find herself
and to find her lost daughter...
Josiah calls after her that she's not dismissed, but Redvers tells him
to let her go, since the lionness always protects her cubs.
Ace begins to finger the ladel of the soup bowl until the Doctor tells
her once again not to have any.
Josiah leans forward and looks into the Doctor's eyes.  A beetle is seen
crawling the tablecloth beneath him, and as Josiah tells the Doctor that
there can be no escape for him, he squashes the bug with his open palm.
The Doctor tells him nonchalantly that he knew it was a trap since he
walked into it, then points at an empty chair and points out that Josiah's
guest of honour seems to have let him down.
"Light will come," promises Josiah.

Lady Pritchard finds a confused-looking Gwendoline in the bedroom.
"Gwendoline?" asks her mother, and Gwendoline looks up in relief at her
mother's face, recognizing it for the first time in two years, 
"Momma?" she asks in disbelief.  "Gwendoline!" smiles Mrs. Pritchard,
and Gwendoline smiles in return, and they come together and embrace.
Lady Pritchard remembers how happy they were once, and asks if Gwendoline
can remember ridingwith her father, riding on behind their carraige
with  the dogs barking, until he went away...to Java.
She looks down at Gwendoline with regret and says she sent him there.
Gwendoline looks up at her momma and says she thought she was lost.
Her mother tells her she is, that they both are.  
And Gwendoline asks her momma what they have done...
Thunder and lightning flashes with the speed of thought in the room,
and the golden-auraed angelic form of Light is now there, looking with
hatred at the two of them for what they've just done.
"You changed!" he accuses, "Like the rest of this verminous planet
you adapted to your situation to survive, well...you'll never change
again...."
He looks at them, and so too does a new visitor from the outside hallway.
Nimrod enters the bedroom and watches with sadness as the two women freeze
their expressions, freeze their bodies, and freeze for all time into
literal solid blocks of stone, a statue where the living once sat....
"They never harmed you," protests Nimrod.
Light looks at him with a crazed look on his face, and he tells the
Neanderthal that he's decided Earth's future.
Yellow light flashes again and wind gusts in an instant in the room
and Light is gone.  
Nimrod looks with sadness at the intertwined statues of Lady Pritchard
and Gwendoline, and their truly dead forms look at nothing evermore.....

The Doctor stirs his tea and asks Josiah to tell him about his plan
to assassinate Queen Victoria.  "Your what?" asks Ace in surprise.
Josiah asks the Doctor who he's been talking to, and the Doctor answers to
himself mostly.  
Josiah lets them know his thoughts (*and his program as the Survey Agent
to evolve into the highest life form on the planet*), "the British Empire
is an anarchic mess, there's no clear directive from the throne.
No discipline.  Result?  Confusion, wastage!  I can provide a new order!"
He punctuates his words with a kitchen-knife clenched in his fist,
"Wealth, prosperity!"
The Doctor looks with no impression whatsoever and repeats Josiah's words
that he's heard so often before with mock patriotism and self-importance,
"Confusion, wastage, tyranny, burnt toast!  Till All the Atlas is Pink!"
And he hums a few notes of Rule Britannia as he salutes Josiah with two fingers.
"But," remarks the Doctor, "it isn't your invitation to Buckingham Palace."
Josiah looks with new worry over at Redvers and asks with Redvers' name
what the Doctor's talking about.
Redvers stands and circles Control's chair, telling everyone he is allowed
to take a guest.  He holds out an invitation to Control, and she looks
with appreciation at the envelope before her, saying "Control proper
Ladylike now, out to dinner!  Take Control to see Queen Lady."
Josiah smiles, trying to control himself as he stands and steps to Redvers
side.  "Redvers, we agreed," he reminds Redvers, "We hunt the Crowned
Saxe-Coburg together!" 
"I gave up on Redvers long ago," replies the explorer, "All he ever talks
about is himself."  He gives Control the envelope, but Josiah reaches
for it too.  She holds it out away from his reach and shouts to him that
it's hers or she'll burn it.
"You basest of creatures!" spits Josiah, stepping back across the room
as though to gather strength, "You dare defy me?  I'm a man of property!"
"Then I burn whole house up!" promises Control, and she steps to the
fireplace, holding the invitation over the flames in threat to end Josiah's
plan once and for all, but....
..Ace cries out to Control not to do this, because it's what she herself
did.  "In 1983?" asks the Doctor, "Ace you didn't tell me that."
She spits at him with hurting words that he's not her probation officer
and doesn't have to know everything.  She tells him it was because of 
the house which was full of evil and hate left by Josiah, so she
burnt the whole house down.  "I had to."
"It is wickedness," judges Control, and she tosses the invitation envelope
in the fireplace, and Josiah scrables uselessly at the fireplace, trying
to rescue the already incinerated invitation to Buckingham Palace,
his desire to rule the Empire up in smoke and down in ashes.
The Doctor looks on at the ruined Survey creature, and says that Josiah
only wanted to take over an Empire...."at least he didn't want to destroy
the world...."
Light flashes into the room and looks over its population with a deep,
lined smile...
The Doctor points to the devastated Josiah and says he thinks he's solved
Light's problem for him.
"There's only one solution to Earth," speaks Light, "I was going to reduce
it to this...."  and he lowers a long finger into the soup bowl, and
we can now see that a fine brass pocket-watch lies inside the bowl.
Ace recognizes the owner, and the soup that Light is now licking off
his finger, and realizes that the soup and the owner are one in the same,
and she backs away with revulsion.
"So you started with Inspector MacKenzie," says the Doctor softly.
Josiah is now standing once again, behind the Doctor beside the wall,
and he jokes, "The Cream of Scotland Yard."
The Doctor looks at the soup bowl and talks of the broth inside,
"Primordial soup.  The most precious substance in the Universe from which
all life springs."
Light regards the taste of the soup and dismisses it as merely sugars,
proteins, and amino acids.  Then he tells them the flaw in his original
plan, that this soup would soon start to evolve again, so he's decided
to stop the change here.   
"All organic life will be eradicated in the firestorm."
"When this world is destroyed, no more change,
"no more evolution, no more life.....
"No more amendments to my catalog..."
"But you evolve too Light," remarks the Doctor.
"Nonsense," denies Light.
"Of course you do," says the Doctor, "You change, you adapt, all the time.
Your attitude, your place, your mind, I mean, look at you now, you're no
longer your original shape."
The Doctor turns and pushes open the doors to the kitchen, and tells Light,
"And I don't think much of your catalog, it's full of gaps."
"All organic life is recorded!" insists Light.
As the Doctor steps into the kitchen, he begins listing life forms Light
never heard of...
"You missed the dragons, the bandersnatchers...."

......."and the slimy toads, and the Crowned Saxe-Coburg," he completes
as he enters the main hall via the kitchens, and he points a finger at
the opposite side of the hall where he expects Light to appear, and
he is correct, for Light flashes into the hall where he points..
"Where are these items?" demands Light.
"I can't think how you missed them," says the Doctor as Light pours over
hieroglyph data on the stained glass window above. Light calls for Control,
but the Doctor informs him that she's no use to him now as she's evolved
as well.
"No, all slipping away," denies Light.
"All is change, "All is movement," says the Doctor, "Tell me Light, haven't
you just changed your location?"
"Not yet," says Light dangerously.
"What't the matter Light, *changed* your mind?"
"You are endlessly agitating, unceasingly mischievous, WILL YOU NEVER STOP?"
"I suppose I could," replies the Doctor, "It would make a *change*."
Nimrod enters from the kitchen area, and Light looks toward him for relief.
"Nimrod, I can rely on you.  Assist me now," he pleads.
"I'm sorry sir," says Nimrod, "but my allegiance is to this planet."
He places his hand on his chest and proclaims this planet to be "my 
birthright!"
Light cries out in desperation, "Everything's changing!
"Nothing remains the same!"
"Even remains change," fires the Doctor, "It's this planet, it can't help
itself!"
Light looks at the rapidly-spinning flow of data on the window and makes
a promise to himself to satisfy his own pathetically narrow and
bureaucratic mind.
"I will not change!" he growls and his aura starts to fade, his skin greys
and starts to harden into stone......
"No...change..." he stammers.........
"Dead!...........Zero..............."
And the face of Light hardens into eternal rigidity, to go along nicely
with his conservative claptrap of a mind.
Ace enters the room and watches the final solidification of Light's entire
body, as the Doctor delivers a eulogy.
"Subject for catalog, file under: Imagination Comma Lack Of."
Nimrod steps to the Doctor's side and tells him that Light instigated the
Firestorm programme some time prior to dinner.
The Doctor notes this with interest as Ace asks what that means.
And the Doctor tells her it means a very big explosion, very soon.

Thunder and lightning clap overhead of the dark house of Gabriel Chase...

...And beneath the house, the stolen spaceship pulses with energy and light.
The old husks of Josiah stand immobile in one corner with no one to control
them.  The Doctor, Ace, Nimrod, Control, and Redvers all run inside from
the passageway to the lift.
Ace looks around at the wildly flashing controls and panels and asks the
Doctor is the way they stop it is the same way they did before at the
altar-console.  The Doctor tells her to stop as she advances toward said
altar, and she protests that the ship will nuke Earth.  He tells her
to look, and so she does to see Control, Nimrod, and Redvers Fenn-Cooper
watching a series of hieroglyphs on the left wall.
"Fine time to watch a video," spits Ace.  
The Doctor asks her how this ship travels, and she replies at the "speed
of thought?"  "It's alive," says the Doctor.
...and as he pronounces the life of the ship, Josiah creeps up behind
them with plans of death, holding a revolver in his hand.
The Doctor remarks that although Light's gone, the ship survives along
with a new crew, waving at the three in front of the screen.
Suddenly Josiah grabs Ace in a pin-lock and holds the barrel of his gun
to her temple, and he shouts to the Doctor to turn off the power,
whilst Ace tells this scumbag to get off her.
"I'll have my Empire yet," promises Josiah.
The Doctor runs to the altar-panel, but finds it impossible to raise
any of the crystal rods out of the console, and he tells Josiah that
the ship doesn't want him to have his Empire so it seems.
Redvers steps forward and tells him that there's a place for him here
on the ship, and then Control takes control
"Stop!" she orders her Survey Agent, "Get back where you belong!"
And with the thoughts of the Control, the Survey ends, as the two husks'
heads explode, and Josiah is racked with pain in his own head.
Ace pulls free as Josiah falls to the floor.
"There go the rungs in his evolutionary ladder," concludes the Doctor,
watching with fascination.  Ace challenges the pathetic man on the ground
to go on and evolve his way out of this one.
Control pulls one of her own old chains off the floor and wraps it around
Josiah's neck like a leash. He speaks, but not like a Victorian gentleman,
but rather like Control once did, "No way up now.  No changing!"
Control looks down on him like a noblewoman of charity and giving,
and tells him, "You are the most unhappy creature, I shall look after you!"
"They've swapped over," observes Ace.
Nimrod steps over to the desk and tells them both that they all have
work to do, with entries and amendments to revise to complete the catalog.
"No nukes then?" asks Ace, "Isn't it gonna explode?"
"Explode or fly," says the Doctor, "I mean after all it is a spaceship."
"The energy will be redeployed for our departure sir," announces Nimrod.
Redvers Fenn-Cooper looks over a book of star charts he found in the
Victorian desk, and cries with joy, "Redvers has the whole Universe
to explore now!  New horizons, wondrous beasts, light-years from Zanzibar!"
Control looks over a page of a written text, part of the catalog, and
she tells the Doctor, "Something tells me you are not in our catalog,
nor will you ever be!"
"You're busy," notes the Doctor, taking Ace's arm in his, and bids them
goodbye with "Must fly!"
The Doctor and Ace stroll out of the spaceship as Redvers and Nimrod say
goodbye.
Outside in the tunnel, Ace worries that they have to get clear for takeoff.
"Takeoff?" asks the Doctor as he looks over his shoulder into the spaceship...
..which isn't there.  A saucer-shaped brick chamber, a clearly normal
Victorain foundation opens before them now.
"They've gone," says the Doctor as he leads Ace into the lift, "Like a
passing thought!"
He closes the door to the lift, smiles and completes, "As long as their
minds don't wander!"

The stone figure of Light rocks slowly back and forth, with bolts of electric
blue fire extending from his frozen outstretched arms.  Data still pours
over the stained glass window screen as the lift arrives and the Doctor
and Ace step out and shield their eyes.
A bright white light screams out from Light's former body, and when it
clears, he is gone, and the lights in the window fade slowly away...
"He's dispersed," says the Doctor.
"Forever?" asks Ace.
"The house will remember," he replies.
The Doctor steps to the hatstand and removes his umbrella, hanging its
question mark handle on his wrist, and then he picks off his hat, and
flips it neatly onto his head.
"Just the Ghost," he continues, "With an evil memory lingering.
'The dark secret after the candle it out.'"
Ace sits herself gently down at the base of the stairs and says,
"I felt it here in a hundred years time."
The Time Lord opens the door to the grandfather clock, and restarts the
pendulum, as he says Light was, "An evil older than time itself."
"So I burnt the house down," says Ace.
The Doctor steps to her side, leans over the handle of his brolly, and
asks her is she has any regrets about that.
"Yes," she says.
"Yes?" he asks.
"I wish I'd blown it up instead," she answers.
"Wicked!says the Doctor.

END PART THREE

The Doctor
SYLVESTER McCOY
Ace
SOPHIE ALDRED
Josiah
IAN HOGG
Mrs. Pritchard
SYLVIA SYMS
Redvers Fenn-Cooper
MICHAEL COCHRANE
Control
SHARON DUCE
Gwendoline		Reverend Ernest Matthews
KATHARINE SCHLESINGER	JOHN NETTLETON
Nimrod			Mrs. Grose
CARL FORGIONE		BRENDA KEMPNER

Title Music Composed by		Theme Arrangement
RON GRAINER			KEFF McCULLOCH
Incidental Music
MARK AYRES
Special Sound
DICK MILLS

Production Manager	Production Assistant
GARY DOWNIE		VALERIE WHISTON
Assistant Floor Manager
STEPHEN GARWOOD
Visual Effects Designer	Video Effects
MALCOLM JAMES		DAVE CHAPMAN
Vision Mixer		Graphic Designer
SUSAN BRINCAT		OLIVER ELMES
Technical Co-Ordinator	Camera Supervisor
RICHARD WILSON		SPENSER PAYNE
Properties Buyer	Engineering Manager
NICK BARNETT		BRIAN JONES
Videotape Editor	
HUGH PARSON
Lighting		Sound
HENRY BARBER		SCOTT TALBOTT   KEITH BOWDEN
Costume Designer	Make-Up Designer
KEN TREW		JOAN STRIBLING

Script Editor
ANDREW CARTMEL
Production Assistant
JUNE COLLINS
Designer
NICK SOMERVILLE
Producer
JOHN NATHAN-TURNER
Director
ALAN WAREING

episode copyright  BBC-Tv, MCMLXXXIX

this synopsis by Steven Manfred
synopsis copyright 1992 
you may copy this all you like if it is not for reasons of profit