The Scream of the Shalka
A BBC Webcast for the 40th Anniversary. Original Airdate: 13 Nov 2003.
Starring Richard E Grant as the Doctor.
Part Five - Escape to Danger
[Woods]
(The crowd has gathered around Alison's forehead Shalka. It screams and they all moan with pain.)
JOE: Whatever happens, Ali, remember I,
ALISON: I know.
(The crowd starts moving, except Max.)
MAX: Looks like we're moving.
PERSON: Alison!
ALISON: I can't do anything to stop it. But we can still shout, right? Everyone, shout for help. Help!
JOE: Help! Help us!
ALISON: Help us, please!
JOE: Help!
(Everyone there starts shouting for help.)
[Warehouse]
(A lot of shipping containers are piled on top of each other. A small port-a-cabin in the middle of them, flanked by a couple of men. The crowd approaches the fence.)
CROWD: Help!
MAN: Is it one of those rave things? What do they want to get in here for?
CARETAKER: We're locked up for the weekend. Go away. There's nothing here.
MAX: Please, just run. They're making us do this.
MAN: Get back. Get back. Call the police.
CARETAKER: Get off the fence. Get off the fence. Get away.
MAX: Stop me. Somebody stop me.
CARETAKER: Get off the fence! No,
(Max strangles the Caretaker.)
WOMAN: Help!
(Around the world, similar scenes occur. Russia is probably the creepiest as, for some reason, all the Russians look like zombies.)
[Woods]
(The crowd stops as the TARDIS materialises.)
[TARDIS]
(The TARDIS is filled with soldiers. Once again, they're all in tactical gear.)
GREAVES: Bigger on the inside, did you see?
KENNET: I did indeed, Greaves.
(The doors open, revealing the crowd outside. The soldiers charge outside, firing their guns into the air.)
[Woods]
KENNET: Don't fire unless you have to!
DOCTOR: Alison! Alison!
(He spots her and her worm.)
DOCTOR: Alison!
(Joe appears at her side.)
JOE: Doctor, I'm sorry, I can't help myself.
DOCTOR: I know, Joe, I know.
(He punches Joe, and then shakes his fist.)
DOCTOR: Oh! Alison, what have they done to you?
(Soldiers continue shooting into the air.)
GREAVES: We'll shoot if we have to.
MAX: It's not us doing this. Please!
(The crowd approach a lone soldier shooting into the sky.)
KENNET: Hold your fire! Hold your fire! Doctor! Doctor!
(The worm screeches.)
DOCTOR: This is the conduit. They're using it to control these people. It's living off Alison's body.
(He grabs her forehead.)
DOCTOR: This I will not allow.
(It screeches louder as he presses down on her forehead, trying to pop it out. Finally after a brief struggle, he pulls it out. The crowd falls silent. The Doctor faints.)
KENNET: Doctor?
(He wakes up and sees Kennet and Alison looking down at him.)
ALISON: I can't find a pulse.
DOCTOR: And with so many to choose from.
(The worm is now in a jar.)
DOCTOR: That's two-one to me in the game of, "I thought you were dead, Doctor!" Didn't shoot anyone then? Jolly good! Well done!
KENNET: About time we had some luck.
DOCTOR: About time we made our own. Why are the Shalka still controlling these people? What's so special about some dull, old warehouse?
GREAVES: Sir, it's just come over the RT. It's not just this place.
[Army HQ]
(There was computer screen showing the World. The Doctor is stood in front of one. Kennet is looking at a smaller one.)
KENNET: 26 communities have been mobilised worldwide. There may be others we're eve not aware of.
DOCTOR: They're arranging themselves precisely around the planet. Do you have a map of them all, a global projection?
GREAVES: Give us a second.
DOCTOR: If you get a satellite photo of that part of Siberia, you'll find control people there too.
(Sure enough, a photo of Shalka controlled people appears on the screen. More zombie Russians.)
GREAVES: Something coming in, sir. China, live from an American satellite.
(Chinese controlled Shalka people.)
KENNET: They're just standing still.
DOCTOR: We have to stop the populations reaching their destinations. We have to try and coordinate the armed forces in these places.
GREAVES: The Chinese have started shooting.
KENNET: Doctor, eventually this will be the story everywhere.
DOCTOR: The Shalka will protect them. But they can afford to lose a lot of slaves. I doubt the loss of Alison's whole community will make any difference to their plan.
(Turns out, Alison and Joe are also there.)
ALISON: Which is?
DOCTOR: You both still have sore throats, haven't you?
GREAVES: And so have I, in case you've forgotten.
JOE: So did a lot of people. Loads of patients with it for weeks now.
DOCTOR: They're using humans to transmit the screams. They've been sub-sonically training you up while you've been under the influence.
ALISON: But what for?
DOCTOR: Your vocal cords have evolved in this atmosphere. Theirs haven't.
(He releases some gas into the room. Everyone starts coughing.)
DOCTOR: The Shalka's preferred atmosphere, kinda thing you get deep inside a planet rather than on the surface. That's what our captured Shalka got Greaves to make. A chemical reaction caused by severe agitation at the molecular level. The scream forms the nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere into the more complex compounds the Shalka like.
ALISON: Why can't the Shalka do that themselves?
DOCTOR: This is the fast-track invasion plan. Get you to do it for them. They've been waiting these three weeks until they could activate all their slaves at once. Each led by someone like Alison with a Shalka in their head.
KENNET: This new atmosphere,
DOCTOR: You won't be able to breathe it. And I doubt it will absorb solar radiation either. The weather's about to become our biggest enemy. The Shalka will be able to move freely on the surface in the chaos, finishing off the survivors.
KENNET: How long have we got?
DOCTOR: the atmosphere's a sensitive system. Given this many release sites, Once the slaves start screaming, perhaps an hour.
(Around the world, the slaves are screaming.)
KENNET: Regret to say it, Doctor, but we have to bomb these people. Or at least eliminate the people with the Shalka in their heads.
DOCTOR: Could all the governments in the world be persuaded to do that within the hour?
KENNET: Doubtful. No time. What else can we do?
DOCTOR: Oh, I can think of so many things, Major. But, for the moment, you'll have to trust me. And her.
JOE: What?
DOCTOR: Homo sapiens has minutes to live. I have to engage the Shalka and I can't do it without you. So, no pressure.
ALISON: Just show me what I have to do.
KENNET: Doctor, I don't think,
DOCTOR: No time, Major.
JOE: Alison, please.
ALISON: Go on, Joe. Ask me to stay with you. In the circumstances, are you really gonna do that? Are you?
(Joe backs off.)
JOE: No.
ALISON: We can talk when I get back.
JOE: Go. Go on. Save the world.
DOCTOR: One hour. Alison, come on.
GREAVES: I'll go and see to the troops, sir.
(He looks at Joe.)
You, come with me.
KENNET: Good luck, Doctor. And Godspeed.
(The TARDIS dematerialises.)
(Russian Shalka slaves are screaming. Shalka emerge from beneath the ground. Two planes fly towards them and are quickly destroyed by the Shalka.)
[TARDIS]
(The Master is stood in front of the console. Alison is near it. The Doctor is nowhere in sight.)
MASTER: Ah, you remind me of all the others. Horrifyingly.
ALISON: What's that supposed to mean? Who are you anyway?
MASTER: I am the Master.
(A lift bell dings and the Doctor enters the console room.)
MASTER: And you will,
(The Doctor suddenly appears.)
DOCTOR: Evening.
MASTER: Come to like me, when you get to know me, my dear Miss Cheney.
DOCTOR: Peace to you all, I've just been in a state of extreme meditation in readiness for what I must do. Hard to clear your mind of all its baggage in five minutes, but, there.
(He vocalises, badly.)
DOCTOR: What do you think?
ALISON: Um,
MASTER: Just a touch flat.
DOCTOR: I learnt to do that under Dame Neville.
MASTER: Oh, don't worry. One would never guess.
ALISON: What are you two going on about? I thought this was serious.
DOCTOR: Serious? Alison, this is me being deadly serious.
[Shalka Lair]
(The TARDIS materialises near to the Prime. The Doctor and Alison leave the TARDIS.)
ALISON: Isn't the Master coming with us?
DOCTOR: No. He can't leave the TARDIS. You know, without so many Shalka around, you can really see the architecture. You see that spiral on the roof?
ALISON: Oh yeah. Very Gaudi.
DOCTOR: Now there was a man who knew a thing or two about string. Lucky I was there when he ran out. You're a very informed barmaid.
ALISON: I gave up a degree in history to live with Joe.
(The Prime finally approaches.)
PRIME: Doctor, see the technology you command. And yet you distract, you de-emphasis, you talk. I think that's all you can do.
DOCTOR: My, you sound happy.
PRIME: In a few moments, we will add this world to the Shalka Confederacy.
DOCTOR: Ah, yes. Your empire of a billion worlds. I have a horrible idea that now I know where that is.
PRIME: I think not, Doctor.
DOCTOR: I used the TARDIS to search for recent meteor debris. Plus traces of radiation that would suggest a miniature wormhole. You seek out worlds that are in ecological trouble, and then you pounce on them with one of these things.
PRIME: We take the weakest of the herd. Soltox, Duprest, Valtanus.
DOCTOR: Dead worlds, lost civilisations, History says they destroy themselves.
PRIME: They did most of the damage, then we finished them off. Billions of Shalka live there now. Underground. Not getting into ridiculous wars, like lesser creatures. We inhabit 80% of the worlds of the universe. Those you regard as dead.
DOCTOR: So you're it. The great limiting factor of the cosmos. The death principle. If cultures wander down an ecological cul-de-sac, you grab them by the throat and throttle them.
PRIME: And when the Earth's original atmosphere has been stripped away and raw radiation has cleansed the surface, millions of our kind will arrive through the warp gate and live off pure volcanic energy.
[Office]
(Kennet is on the phone.)
KENNET: Yes, I know its chaos out there! Its chaos out here.
(A window shatters.)
KENNET: What the,Just get me through to someone in the Cabinet Office! I don't care. Anyone!
(Another window shatters.)
KENNET: Ah!
[Shalka Lair]
DOCTOR: This is why I was sent here. In all my travels as a Time Lord, I never saw it. You're not Predators, you're Death Incarnate.
[Office]
(Kennet is still on the phone.)
KENNET: Hello?
(Thunder strike)
KENNET: Hello? Blast!
(Greaves walks into his office.)
GREAVES: Sir,Get away from the windows, sir. The Sun, its hard radiation.
(The sun comes out, brightening up the office.)
KENNET: Oh, the, the ozone layer's been stripped away. We need to organise the men. Get some kind of protection.
GREAVES: Protection? I think it's a bit late for that, sir. This is the end of the world.
(Various scenes of disaster and Shalka slaves screaming.)
[Shalka Lair]
(The Prime sheds her "earth-skin", revealing a giant slug-like form.)
PRIME: Call us death if you wish, Time Lord, for we bring extinction to the entire human race.