The Doctor realises the Master is planning to tap into the Time Lords' power source to extend his own life, an act that will destroy all Gallifrey.
THE DEADLY ASSASSIN BY: ROBERT HOLMES Part Four Running time: 24:23 [SCENE_BREAK] MASTER: You wistful, you craven-hearted spineless poltroon. You failed me. GOTH: Too, too strong. Too much artron energy. MASTER: Bah. There's only one chance now. GOTH: Master, what are you doing? MASTER: I must trap him in the Matrix. GOTH: No, Master, no. For pity's sake! The connections. You'll kill me. MASTER: I've no time to waste on you. [SCENE_BREAK] ENGIN: The circuits! SPANDRELL: No, you can't! If you cut the power, the Doctor will die in there. ENGIN: But the circuits are blowing. If there's a fire, the whole panatropic net, thousands of brain patterns will be destroyed forever. SPANDRELL: They're not alive. The Doctor is, I hope. ENGIN: It's all right, Spandrell. He's made it. [SCENE_BREAK] MASTER: They've cut the net. He must be out. GOTH: You fiend. Why did I believe in you? MASTER: I'll cheat them yet. I'm not beaten. [SCENE_BREAK] DOCTOR: Do you mind? This is a non-smoking compartment. ENGIN: What? DOCTOR: What? SPANDRELL: How do you feel, Doctor? DOCTOR: Tired. SPANDRELL: Yes, you'd better rest. You took quite a beating in there. DOCTOR: You should see the other fellow. Where is he, by the way? ENGIN: Who? DOCTOR: Goth. SPANDRELL: Did you say Goth, the Chancellor? DOCTOR: Yes. The Master's legman. He's the assassin, Spandrell. SPANDRELL: That's why he wanted a quick execution. DOCTOR: Yes. Yes. That's right. DOCTOR: It was Goth, remember, who ordered my TARDIS to be transducted into the Capitol. He knew I was still inside it. Goth must have his own link with the Matrix. A tap-in. We've got to trace it back to him before he recovers. What's underneath here? ENGIN: Only service ducts. DOCTOR: Is that all? ENGIN: Well, a long way down, vaults and foundations dating from the old time. DOCTOR: Come on, come on. Show me. [SCENE_BREAK] SPANDRELL: Doctor. DOCTOR: The Master. SPANDRELL: Is he dead? DOCTOR: Yes. ENGIN: The Chancellor's still alive. SPANDRELL: Not for long, by the look of him. ENGIN: He must have taken the full shock. GOTH: So, Doctor, you beat us in the end. DOCTOR: Goth. Goth, why did you do it? GOTH: Wanted power. Wanted to be President. DOCTOR: But you would have been. GOTH: President told me I was not his successor. SPANDRELL: So you killed him? GOTH: For him, the Master. His plan. DOCTOR: What was his plan, Goth? GOTH: Met him on Tersurus. He was dying. No more regeneration possible. Promised me share all his knowledge if I bring him to Gallifrey. DOCTOR: Goth? Goth, what was his plan? GOTH: Couldn't fight his mental dominance. Did everything he asked. Sorry now. DOCTOR: Goth, what was ENGIN: It's no use, Doctor. DOCTOR: No answer to a straight question. Typical politician. [SCENE_BREAK] SPANDRELL: It seems clear how it happened. The Master tried to trap the Doctor in the APC net by overloading the neuron fields. Then he collapsed and died, leaving Chancellor Goth still connected into the circuit. BORUSA: Natural causes? SPANDRELL: Yes, sir. His body was extremely emaciated. He had come to the end of his regeneration cycle. BORUSA: No. DOCTOR: No what, Cardinal? BORUSA: The story is not acceptable. This is a very difficult, very delicate position. We must adjust the truth. ENGIN: In what way, Cardinal? BORUSA: In a way that will maintain public confidence in the Time Lords and their leadership. How many people have seen this Master since his death? SPANDRELL: Apart from ourselves, Hildred and the two guards who took the body to the Panopticon vault. BORUSA: Then we shall rely on their silence. We shall change the appearance of the corpse, Castellan. We all know the posthumous effect of a staser bolt. Within the hour, the body will be charred beyond recognition. Our story is going to be that the Master arrived in Gallifrey to assassinate the President, secretly. Before he could escape, Chancellor Goth tracked him down and killed him, unfortunately perishing himself in the exchange of fire. Now that's much better. I can believe that. ENGIN: You're making Goth into a hero? BORUSA: If heroes don't exist, it is necessary to invent them. Good for public morale. ENGIN: And the Doctor's part in all this? BORUSA: Best forgotten. Of course, Doctor, the charge against you will be dropped. DOCTOR: How kind. BORUSA: Conditional on your leaving Gallifrey tonight. DOCTOR: Somehow, Cardinal, I don't want to stay. BORUSA: Good. I believe you know something of the Master's past. DOCTOR: We've bumped into each other from time to time. BORUSA: Then before you leave, you can assist Coordinator Engin to compile a new biog of him. It doesn't have to be entirely accurate. DOCTOR: Like Time Lord history. BORUSA: A few facts, Coordinator, will lend it verisimilitude. We cannot make the Master into a public enemy if there is no data on him. ENGIN: I can have an authentic seeming data extract ready by morning, Cardinal. BORUSA: I'll leave that to you then. Later, Castellan, we must take another look at data security. We cannot have Time Lord DEs simply vanishing from the records. SPANDRELL: I agree, sir. BORUSA: Well, I think that's all. You'll attend immediately to the cosmetic treatment? SPANDRELL: Sorry? BORUSA: The body, Castellan. DOCTOR: Only in mathematics will we find truth. ENGIN: What? DOCTOR: Borusa used to say that during my time at the Academy, and now he's setting out to prove it. [SCENE_BREAK] HILDRED: Over there? HILDRED: Commander Hildred, Sector seven. SPANDRELL (on screen): A little job for you, well within your capacity. Come to the Chancellery. HILDRED: Immediately, Castellan. [SCENE_BREAK] ENGIN: What about his character? DOCTOR: Bad. ENGIN: Oh, Doctor, could you please be a little more specific? DOCTOR: Yes. He was evil, cunning and resourceful. Highly developed powers of ESP and a formidable hypnotist. And the more I think about it, the less likely it seems. ENGIN: What? DOCTOR: Well, that the Master would meekly accept the end of his regeneration cycle. It's not his style at all. ENGIN: But that's something we must all accept, Doctor. DOCTOR: Thank you. Not the Master. No, he had some sort of plan. That's why he came here, Engin. ENGIN: After the twelfth regeneration, there is no plan that will postpone death. DOCTOR: He had a plan. Something to do with Goth becoming the President. What's so special about the President, Engin? ENGIN: Nothing. He's simply an elected Time Lord, usually from some senior position. He holds the symbols of office, but otherwise he's no different from any other Time Lord. DOCTOR: Symbols. ENGIN: Yes. Relics from the old time. The Sash of Rassilon. The Key. DOCTOR: Tell me about Rassilon. ENGIN: Well, it's all in the book of the old time. But there's a modern transgram that's much less difficult. DOCTOR: Could we hear that? ENGIN: You mean now? DOCTOR: Oh! ENGIN: What is it? DOCTOR: Engin, I can feel my hair curling, and that means either it's going to rain or else I'm on to something. [SCENE_BREAK] HILDRED: I understand, Castellan. SPANDRELL: I chose you for this special mission because he's already dead. You are unlikely to miss him. HILDRED: No, sir. SPANDRELL: Right, off you go. Not a word to anyone. HILDRED: Castellan, we found this in the adytum, under the chair where the body was. SPANDRELL: Empty, but enough traces to analyse, no doubt. Thank you, Commander. And report back after you've restructured the Master. [SCENE_BREAK] ENGIN: And today we tend to think of Rassilon as the founder of our modern civilisation. But in his own time he was regarded mainly as an engineer and an architect. And, of course, it was long before we turned aside from the barren road of technology. DOCTOR: Yes, that's all very interesting. Could we hear the transgram? ENGIN: Early history is something of a pet subject. WOMAN (OOV.): And Rassilon journeyed into the black void with a great fleet. Within the void, no light would shine and nothing of that outer nature continue in being, except that which existed within the Sash of Rassilon. DOCTOR: Must be a black hole. ENGIN: What? DOCTOR: Shush. WOMAN (OOV.): Now Rassilon found the Eye of Harmony, which balances all things, that they may neither flux nor wither nor change their state in any measure. And he caused the Eye to be brought to the world of Gallifrey wherein he sealed this beneficence with the Great Key. DOCTOR: What's the Great Key? WOMAN (OOV.): Then the people rejoiced ENGIN: It's an ebonite rod carried by the President on ceremonial occasions. But it's actual function, if it ever had one, is a complete mystery. DOCTOR: Where's it kept? ENGIN: In the Panopticon. There's a display case of relics. DOCTOR: And the Sash of Rassilon, where's that? ENGIN: Oh, that's held by the President. That stays in his possession. DOCTOR: Of course. What a stupendous egotist. ENGIN: Who? DOCTOR: The Master. He'd have destroyed Gallifrey, the Time Lords, everything, just for the sake of his own survival. SPANDRELL: It seems that the Master didn't die from natural causes. DOCTOR: What? SPANDRELL: He killed himself. Careful, it's poison. DOCTOR: Tricophenyladehyde. SPANDRELL: Deadly, no doubt. DOCTOR: No. It's a neural inhibitor. Spandrell, we've been fooled. SPANDRELL: What? DOCTOR: The Master, he's still alive. SPANDRELL: I've just sent Hildred to staser him. [SCENE_BREAK] SPANDRELL: The vault's this way. [SCENE_BREAK] MASTER: Bah. SPANDRELL: Hildred. The Master, he's gone. SPANDRELL: Look. ENGIN: Amazing. DOCTOR: The Master's consumed with hatred. It's his one great weakness. MASTER: Ha. Weakness, Doctor? Hate is strength. DOCTOR: Not in your case. You'd delay an execution to pull the wings off a fly. MASTER: This time, Doctor, the execution will not be delayed. Castellan, I assure you I am not nearly so infirm as I look. Now you, bring me the Sash of Rassilon. Oh yes, Doctor, why else do you think I feigned death? When Goth failed me, it was necessary to more direct means. But the Sash is wasted on our dead friend, don't you think so? Bring it to me! DOCTOR: Don't do it, Engin. MASTER: A stupid remark, Doctor. Resistance is futile now. DOCTOR: Don't give him the Sash, Engin. MASTER: I have suffered long enough from your stupid, stubborn interference in my designs. Now we are coming to the end of our conflict, Doctor. DOCTOR: Why have you brought me here? MASTER: As a scapegoat for the killing of the President. Who else but you, Doctor? So despicably good, so insufferably compassionate. I wanted you to die in ignominious shame and disgrace. MASTER: Now, do as I say, Coordinator, or you'll get the same. MASTER: They're not dead. Stunned. They'll live long enough to see the end of this accursed planet, and for the Doctor to taste the full bitterness of his defeat! DOCTOR: The Sash. Where's the Sash? ENGIN: It's gone. DOCTOR: What? ENGIN: Well, what could I do? It's only of symbolic value anyway. DOCTOR: Engin, that Sash is a technological masterpiece. It protects its wearer from being sucked into a parallel universe. All he needs now is the Great Key and he can regenerate himself and release a force that'll obliterate this entire stellar system. ENGIN: You really mean it? DOCTOR: Well of course I mean it. Don't you realise what Rassilon did? What the Eye of Harmony is? Remember? That which balances all things. It can only be the nucleus of a black hole. SPANDRELL: But the Eye of Harmony is a myth. It no longer exists. DOCTOR: A myth? Spandrell, all the power of the Time Lords devolves from it. Neither flux nor wither nor change their state. Rassilon stabilised all the elements of a black hole and set them in an eternally dynamic equation against the mass of the planet. If the Master interferes, it'll be the end not only of this world, but of a hundred other worlds too. [SCENE_BREAK] MASTER: Rassilon's star, the Eye of Harmony. [SCENE_BREAK] ENGIN: It's no good. We can never move it. DOCTOR: You're right, but we've got to get out of this place. DOCTOR: There's a light up there. Where does that lead, Spandrell? SPANDRELL: The Panopticon. An old service shaft. DOCTOR: Right. ENGIN: It's a hundred feet, Doctor, at least. DOCTOR: Oh, come on, come on, give us a bunk up. ENGIN: What's that? SPANDRELL: If the Doctor's right, the end of the world is approaching. [SCENE_BREAK] MASTER: Rassilon's discovery, all mine. I shall have supreme power over the universe. Master of all matter! Bwhahahaha! MASTER: Doctor, my congratulations. You're just in time for the end. DOCTOR: You're insane. You're insane, do you hear me? You're releasing a force that nothing can stop. MASTER: Take the Rod. You can take it with you to your grave, except that none of you will need a grave. DOCTOR: If you undo that, you'll die as surely as any of us. MASTER: You can do better than that, Doctor. Even in extremis, I wear the Sash of Rassilon. DOCTOR: Yes, and the President was wearing it when he was shot down. The Sash won't protect you. It's damaged. MASTER: You lie. [SCENE_BREAK] BORUSA: Half the city in ruins. Untold damage, countless lives lost. ENGIN: But for the Doctor it could have been much worse. BORUSA: Yes indeed, I am conscious of the debt we owe the Doctor. But Gallifrey has never know such a catastrophe, such devastation. What will we say? DOCTOR: Well, you'll just have to adjust the truth again, Cardinal. What about subsidence owing to a plague of mice? BORUSA: As I believe I told you long ago, Doctor, you will never amount to anything in the galaxy while you retain your propensity for vulgar facetiousness. DOCTOR: Yes, sir. You said that many times, sir. May I go, sir? BORUSA: Certainly you may, preferably with the utmost expedition. Perhaps you will see that the transduction barriers are raised, Castellan. SPANDRELL: Yes, sir. BORUSA: Oh, Doctor? DOCTOR: Sir? BORUSA: Nine out of ten. DOCTOR: Oh. Thank you, sir. [SCENE_BREAK] ENGIN: You know, Doctor, if you wanted to stay, I'm sure any past difficulties could be overlooked. DOCTOR: But I like it out there, thank you very much. SPANDRELL: The barriers are raised, Doctor. DOCTOR: Thank you, Spandrell. ENGIN: It's we who should thank you, Doctor, for destroying the Master. DOCTOR: Well, I didn't actually see him fall, you know. I was quite busy. ENGIN: Oh, but if by some miracle he survived the fall into that chasm, he was dying anyway. DOCTOR: There was a good deal of power coming out of that monolith, and the Sash would have helped him to convert it. SPANDRELL: Are you suggesting he survived? DOCTOR: No, no, I hope not, Spandrell. And there's no one in all the galaxies I'd say that about. The quintessence of evil. Goodbye, Spandrell. SPANDRELL: Goodbye, Doctor. ENGIN: Goodbye, Doctor! DOCTOR: Oh, goodbye, Engin, goodbye. SPANDRELL: Look, the Master. ENGIN: Where do you think they're heading? SPANDRELL: Out into the universe. But, you know, I have a feeling it isn't big enough for the two of them. MASTER: Bwhahahaha!
The Deadly Assassin - part 4