Written by Barry Letts, directed by Brian Lighthill.
Transcribed by Nicola Mody
(c) 1998 by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Series created by Terry Nation. This is a dialogue transcript for research purposes and is not for sale under any circumstances. Transcript and format (c) 2002 by Nicola Mody
Part 2 (back to Part 1)
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
[Scorpio] |
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VILA |
[eating] Does that mean we’ve given up? |
|
AVON |
Do you have to speak with your mouth full? |
|
VILA |
I’m not—I’m not going through another hyper-jump with an empty stomach. Have we given up? That’s all I’m asking. |
|
SOOLIN |
Mission aborted, yes. I’m beginning to think we should never have agreed to it in the first place. |
|
TARRANT |
No...no...no! |
|
DAYNA |
He’s coming round. |
|
TARRANT |
Ah...ah... |
|
DAYNA |
It’s all right, you’re back on board. |
|
TARRANT |
Where...what...what happened? |
|
AVON |
Thanks to your habitual arrogance, you nearly finished the lot of us. |
|
TARRANT |
What? |
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DAYNA |
You forgot your bracelet, Tarrant. |
|
TARRANT |
Ah. |
|
AVON |
And we’re not clear yet. Slave, report. |
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SLAVE |
One minute ten seconds to hyper-position, master. No sign of pursuit. |
|
AVON |
That’s odd. Orac? |
|
ORAC |
Still no indication of Federation activity in the vicinity of the planet. However, as I attempted to explain before, should they disable all electronic activity, they would be invisible to me. |
|
AVON |
Oh, that’s a great help. |
|
TARRANT |
I’m sorry. |
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DAYNA |
No, don’t try to get up. |
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TARRANT |
I’m all right. |
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DAYNA |
You might have to take it easy for a while. |
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TARRANT |
I tell you, I’m all right! I just...I just need a drink. Where are we going? |
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DAYNA |
Back to base. |
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SLAVE |
Ten seconds to hyper-jump. Ten...nine...eight... |
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TARRANT |
Stop the countdown! Back! All of you, over there! |
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SOOLIN |
Tarrant! |
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TARRANT |
You heard me, move! |
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VILA |
Oy, watch it! |
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TARRANT |
This is no joke. If I didn’t need you all, you’d be dead. Now do as I say. |
|
AVON |
[quietly] Do it. |
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SOOLIN |
What’s all this about? |
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AVON |
Isn’t it obvious? |
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SOOLIN |
What? Oh, yes, of course. |
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DAYNA |
Servalan. |
|
AVON |
Precisely. |
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VILA |
What are you talking about? |
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AVON |
Just do as he says. |
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TARRANT |
That’s better. Slave, execute hyper-jump, time distort ten, coordinates 7720 6294 8462 6133. |
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SLAVE |
Er, yes, sir. Ten seconds to hyper-jump. Ten...nine...eight... |
|
AVON |
So where are you taking us? |
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SLAVE |
...six...five...four... |
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TARRANT |
We’re paying a visit to Doctor Rossum. We’re going to Kapeka. |
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SLAVE |
...three...two...one...zero. |
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[Scorpio enters hyperspace] |
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VILA |
[strained] You might have let me finish my breakfast... |
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AVON |
Now what? Are you intending to hold that gun on us for the whole of the journey to—where was it? Kapeka? |
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TARRANT |
What...I...I don’t know what...what one holding me but... |
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DAYNA |
He’s going to pass out. |
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[Tarrant drops the gun] |
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AVON |
Soolin, get the gun! |
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SOOLIN |
Right! |
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DAYNA |
It’s all right. Just take it gently. You’ll be fine. |
|
TARRANT |
What...what’s going on? |
|
AVON |
You tell us. You pulled the gun on us. |
|
TARRANT |
I know... I know I did. But why did I do it? I just...felt that I had to, like voices in my— |
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SOOLIN |
But not any more? |
|
TARRANT |
No, I...no. |
|
VILA |
You’d better sit down before you fall down. |
|
AVON |
Well away from the guns, if you don’t mind. |
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TARRANT |
But I wouldn’t... I don’t get it. |
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SOOLIN |
It sounds to me like a post-hypnotic suggestion. You were out cold when we picked you up from Syndexia. Maybe you were in a hypnotic trance. What did Servalan do to you? |
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VILA |
Does it really matter? The point is that we can turn round and go home now. |
|
AVON |
How do you suggest that we turn round when all directions are the same? |
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VILA |
Eh? |
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DAYNA |
He means that we’re going to Kapeka whether we like it or not. Once we’re out of hyperspace we can talk about going home. |
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AVON |
If that’s what we decide. Servalan must have a very good reason for wanting to send us to Kapeka. I’d like to know what that reason is. If she hypnotised Tarrant— |
|
ORAC |
My programming makes it impossible for me not to interrupt. |
|
AVON |
What is it, Orac? |
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ORAC |
I took the precaution of logging on to the main computer of Syndexia, as is my wont. I would suggest that the one who calls himself Tarrant was not hypnotised, but had a syndeton nanochip implanted in his hypothalamus— |
|
TARRANT |
What! |
|
AVON |
Quiet! |
|
ORAC |
—which placed him under the telepathic control of this Servalan. Her purpose— |
|
TARRANT |
Hang on a minute! If that’s the case, why isn’t Servalan still controlling me? |
|
ORAC |
I should have thought that that would be clear to the meanest intelligence. |
|
TARRANT |
Obviously not. Tell me! |
|
ORAC |
The syndeton in the nanochip provides a hyper-channel between the two brains. Once one of them is in hyperspace, the channel vanishes into the void. And so too do Servalan’s thought directions, which will be similarly dissipated and diffused— |
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VILA |
Yeah, got it! You mean like when you’re three years old, peeing in the bath? |
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ORAC |
One moment... That experience does not appear in my memory banks. |
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VILA |
Well, you see, you need to have a— |
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DAYNA |
Vila, shut up! Orac, you were about to tell us why we’re being sent to Kapeka. |
|
ORAC |
It is probable that what is sought is the outcome of the research upon which Doctor Rossum was engaged at the time he escaped from Syndexia and set himself up on Kapeka. |
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AVON |
Ah. And what was that? |
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ORAC |
A development of the simple syndeton nanochip to make possible the connection of any number of separate brains, and join them to one network coordinated by a central computer which would effectively be controlled by the one to whose neural network the total complex was tuned. |
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VILA |
Um, do you think you could run through that again at a gentle trot? I lost you halfway down the back straight. |
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AVON |
Don’t you see, it would be a gestalt. |
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VILA |
That rings a bell. |
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SOOLIN |
I should think it does. |
|
VILA |
Yeah, but what is it? |
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TARRANT |
A whole that’s more than just the sum of its parts, like...like an ant’s nest. |
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AVON |
No wonder Servalan’s after it. All the different individual brains would just become offshoots of hers. |
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VILA |
I rather fancy the idea of Servalan as a queen ant. I wouldn’t give her eggs to my goldfish though. |
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SOOLIN |
But where do we come in? |
|
AVON |
Where indeed? Orac! |
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ORAC |
Unfortunately, with Servalan’s plan, there is a major— |
|
SLAVE |
[at the same time] Ten seconds to hyper-jump. Ten...nine...eight... [he continues to count down during the following] |
|
ORAC |
I have not finished my explanation. It would be most unlike— |
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AVON |
Careful, Orac |
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ORAC |
You should be cognisant of the fact that— |
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[Avon removes his key] |
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SLAVE |
...two...one. |
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[Scorpio leaves hyperspace] |
|
VILA |
Give us a chance! Ohhhh... |
|
AVON |
Right. Back to base, or do we pay our respects to Doctor Rossum? |
|
TARRANT |
I’m afraid you have no choice. |
|
AVON |
What do you mean? |
|
TARRANT |
If you don’t do as I say, I shall depressurise the ship. |
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THE WOMEN |
Oh. |
|
AVON |
Servalan. She’s got here first. |
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TARRANT |
She has. Soolin? Give me that gun. Slowly. Now back away. |
|
SOOLIN |
OK? |
|
TARRANT |
Thank you. |
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[Titan] |
|
SERVALAN |
Commander. |
|
MODNITZ |
Yes, commissioner. |
|
SERVALAN |
Keep them in your sights. If I give the word, terminate them. Vledka. |
|
VLEDKA |
Yes...commissioner? |
|
SERVALAN |
Open a communication link |
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[Scorpio] |
|
TARRANT |
Orac was quite correct. We’re going down to get hold of Doctor Rossum’s new process. If it still exists. |
|
AVON |
What do you mean? |
|
DAYNA |
Why can’t she go herself? |
|
SERVALAN |
[over comms] Scorpio. Do you hear me? |
|
AVON |
Servalan. What do you want from us? |
|
SERVALAN |
I want the pleasure of knowing that you are fully aware of what is in store for you. You heard what your friend Tarrant said. |
|
AVON |
Why can’t you go down yourself? |
|
SERVALAN |
Why should you believe me if I told you? Ask your own computer. Slave. Tell them. |
|
SLAVE |
Negative. Unauthorised order. |
|
SERVALAN |
Tarrant. |
|
TARRANT |
Tell them, Slave. |
|
SLAVE |
Sir? |
|
TARRANT |
Give us a first landing report on this planet. |
|
SLAVE |
Yes, sir. The planet Kapeka: Earth-type, .87 mass, atmosphere nitrogen-based, 24% oxygen and no fractions inimical to human life. Largely temperate climate with adequate rainfall to support— |
|
SERVALAN |
Quite a little paradise, wouldn’t you say? Why don’t you have a look at it? |
|
AVON |
Slave? Show us. |
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SLAVE |
Yes, master. [he does] |
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DAYNA |
It’s on fire! |
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SERVALAN |
Not quite. |
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TARRANT |
Tell us why Kapeka looks like that, Slave. |
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SLAVE |
Er, yes, sir. The whole planet is intensely radioactive. To descend below stratosphere level would be fatal. |
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VILA |
Oh, great. |
|
AVON |
I see. |
|
SERVALAN |
Why this should be, nobody knows. Presumably some sort of nuclear disaster. Doctor Rossum is probably dead by now. |
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SOOLIN |
What what’s the point of sending us down if he’s dead? |
|
SERVALAN |
Ahh, well. The results of his experiments, the records, may still exist, and the information that Tarrant could find for me should enable me to obtain unassailable control of the Federation. And even if he fails, I shall be able to go to bed tonight with the amusing—no, the delectable thought that you are all going to die a very nasty death. Good bye. |
|
|
[she closes comms] |
|
SOOLIN |
As charming as ever. |
|
TARRANT |
Slave, initiate landing countdown. |
|
SLAVE |
Yes, sir. |
|
AVON |
That order is countermanded. Abort the countdown. |
|
SLAVE |
Yes, master. |
|
TARRANT |
Do it! |
|
AVON |
No! |
|
SLAVE |
Er, deeply sorry, master, but if I’m subjected to contradictory orders, my stability governor will cease to function. |