Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen

by Adams, Douglas

  Picking their way carefully through the back streets of a city they suddenly inadvertently walk into a main square and come face to face with a large number of people.

  There is stunned shock on all the faces …

  After a few seconds of [silence on] both sides a howling cry starts up in the crowd – of pure animal fear and hatred. The Doctor and Jane run for their lives with the crowd in hot pursuit.

  They duck down a side street – and suddenly find themselves ambushed from in front. They are knocked senseless.

  Later, the Doctor wakes up which he finds quite surprising in itself. He and Jane are lying in a cellar. With them are a small group of Krikkitas (i.e. the normal people of Krikkit, as opposed to the robots, the Krikkitmen) who despite their obvious distaste for ‘alien’ beings have quite clearly actually rescued them from the mob. The Doctor is astonished. Aren’t they all psychologically dedicated to the destruction of all other life forms?

  The answer is yes, but not absolutely yes.

  The Doctor is told that since the envelope was placed round Krikkit ‘five’ years ago some small but fundamental changes have taken place. While the ruling class, the Elders of Krikkit, have become if anything even more fanatical in their devotion to the sacred cause, and are even now putting the finishing touches to an ‘ultimate weapon’, small groups of people have for the first time ever started questioning the policy of annihilation. These are two groups:

  a) The environmental scientists who have introduced the concept of ‘the balance of nature’ which they feel sure will be disturbed if all other life in the galaxy is wiped out.

  b) the few surviving war veterans who actually came into prolonged contact with other life forms and have in the light of that experience been forced to reconsider their rather extreme position.

  It also appears that for some reason scientific progress has slowed considerably since Krikkit was sealed in its envelope.

  The Doctor tells them, since they don’t seem to realise that during the ‘five years’ they speak of, the Galaxy has moved on two million years.

  He tells them also that the Krikkitmen are free and will be looking to the Krikkitas to lead them on an orgy of annihilation.

  This they already know – there are many Krikkitmen now on Krikkit, and the rest are even now being deployed round the Galaxy.

  What is this ‘ultimate weapon’ asks the Doctor.

  They say it is a ‘Supernova Bomb’, but how it works they don’t know. It is a last resort weapon since it will not merely destroy life as the Krikkitmen aim to do, but worlds as well, which the Krikkiters might otherwise find some need for later.

  The Doctor is startled by the term ‘Supernova Bomb’ not only because it suggests horrifying power, but because it rings a vague bell in his mind. He begins to suspect that there is something else lying behind the pattern of events as they appear to be – but what it is he can’t quite formulate.

  He has got to find out fast, because the Krikkitmen are even now preparing to attack major centres of the Galaxy.

  And they are also out searching for the Doctor and Jane, whom they know to be on Krikkit, and the dissident Krikkitas, who are branded as dangerous heretics.

  To find what he wants to know the Doctor must raid the main government building and find the plans of the Supernova Bomb.

  They stage a guerrilla raid at night.

  The Doctor finds the plans and studies them, but before he is finished, the raid is discovered and they are hunted through the building by Krikkitmen. But the Doctor has discovered enough to tell him two important things, which he doesn’t divulge.

  As they flee through the building the Doctor suddenly finds himself in the chamber where the wrecked spacecraft which first drifted through the Dust Cloud over two million years previously was stored. A diversion is made so that he can stop and examine it. He discovers what he expects to:

  It is not a wrecked space craft. It is a full scale model of a wrecked space craft.

  They escape back to their hideaway, where they are met with the news that they must hide somewhere else because several of the dissidents have deserted the cause and are likely to give them away. That seems to tally with whatever is in the Doctor’s mind. They find somewhere else to hide, and the Doctor prepares to explain a small part of what he has discovered.

  The Supernova Bomb, he explains, really is the ultimate weapon. It is a tiny device, you could hold it in your hand because most of its work is done in hyperspace. It is simply the connecting box for a lot of worm holes in space which lead through hyperspace to the heart of a number of massive stars. When the bomb is detonated those stars connect with each other through hyperspace and the resultant ultra-supernova explosion forces its way book into normal space through the bomb. The explosion would be of a scale not seen in the Universe since the Big Bang itself.

  The design for the Supernova Bomb goes back billions and billions of years into Galactic prehistory to the legendary times of the old Super-Civilisations. The greatest race of them all were Alovia, who built themselves the greatest spaceborne computer ever built. One day they asked it to design the ultimate weapon, and it produced the Supernova Bomb. Fortunately, when the Alovia were foolish enough to attempt to use it it failed to work, because the computer had built in a tiny flaw in the design because it had realized that any conceivable consequence of not using it was better than the known consequence of using it. The Alovia didn’t see things that way and in fury destroyed the computer.

  Later they thought better of it and destroyed the bomb as well and then went on to find an entirely new to way to blow themselves up which was a great relief to the rest of the galaxy. The computer’s name, for what it was worth was Hactar, and only Hactar was capable of conceiving the Supernova Bomb.

  Yet here were the plans for it in a vault in Krikkit. Minus, incidentally, the deliberate error that Hactar had introduced.

  ‘So how does the bomb come to be here?’ the others demand to know.

  ‘I think I can guess that,’ says the Doctor. ‘And if I am right, than you might be interested to know that the entire history of this planet has been very subtly stage managed since the year dot. Everything has been designed to shepherd you forward to the moment that you would require and use this bomb.’

  General amazement.

  ‘Our first job is to try and destroy the robots,’ continues the Doctor.

  ‘What, all five million of them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Scattered round the entire Galaxy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How the devil can we do that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says the Doctor. ‘Come on.’

  They break into the Central Programming Plant to see if they can find any way of destroying the Krikkitmen at one fell swoop.

  The Doctor realises that somewhere there is likely to be a Master version of the switch he pulled occasionally in the Pavilion.

  They find it.

  It is guarded by two Krikkitmen.

  The Doctor realises it’s useless anyway because even supposing they managed to get past the guard and simply turn it off, it would be a matter of seconds before every non robot guard in the place arrived on the spot, captured them, and simply turned the switch back on. Nothing gained. No, they have to find some way of actually destroying them permanently, which can’t be done simply with an on/off switch. And they haven’t time for anything else.

  Suddenly the Doctor has a brainwave.

  He gets Jane to cause a diversion. A matter of seconds is all he needs. When the Krikkitmen guards are momentarily distracted he darts up to the switch and pulls off the two labels saying ON and OFF and replaces them the other way about.

  Moments later he is captured. He tried to draw the attention of one of the robot guards to the switch but fails.

  He is bitterly disappointed.

  He is taken to a torture chamber and put through all sorts of nameless (ie I haven’t invented them yet) horrors in an attempt to m
ake him reveal where ‘the girl’ is. They seem to believe that Jane is the leader of the Dissidents. The Doctor is both unwilling and unable to enlighten them.

  Meanwhile, Jane has also been captured and is taken to a very similar torture chamber. This bunch want to know where ‘the Doctor’ is. He is also believed to be a Dissident Leader.

  As both groups of Krikkitmen fail to make any headway, they threaten their respective subjects with even worse horrors in the next torture chamber. They are each taken out and wheeled on trolleys down corridors towards the other chamber and thus pass each other on the way.

  Jane is astonished, the Doctor vastly amused, and the Krikkitmen momentarily bewildered.

  In the brief hiatus this causes, the Doctor attempts to overcome the Krikkitmen and allows Jane to escape. The Doctor is quickly recaptured, and only very fast talking prevents his own immediate execution.

  In fact he talks a human Krikkitman into taking him to talk to the Elders of Krikkit.

  He is taken upstairs to a large chamber.

  The Doctor outlines his reasons for believing that the entire history of Krikkit has been stage managed. It consists of a series of events which in themselves are possible but improbable if seen as mere accidents of history, but when seen together can only possibly be the product of planning

  a) the freak conditions which made Krikkit totally isolated from the rest of the galaxy.

  b) the apparent mental block, caused by (a) which prevented them from ever even speculating that something might lie beyond what they could see.

  c) the quite fantastic odds against a wrecked spacecraft actually intersecting with the orbit of a planet.

  d) the miraculous rapidity with which they mastered the technology of interstellar war, with no experience behind them.

  e) the obsessive singlemindedness with which they conceived and maintained their goal of total annihilation of alien life.

  f) the fact that when the Galactic [sic] examined the Krikkitmen (which they did here on Krikkit) they failed to notice that they were not androids but only robots

  g) the fact that point e) became progressively less true whilst Krikkit was sealed in its envelope – dissenting groups emerged, though since the envelope was unlocked many of the dissidents have betrayed their cause.

  Some of the Elders begin to see a glimmer of what the Doctor is driving at – that someone or something has been deliberately influencing and shaping events on Krikkit, leading them on to the point where the Galaxy is actually destroyed.

  Others angrily denounce the Doctor as a dangerous subversive – whilst the argument rages, the screen behind than continues to show the preparations for detonating the supernova bomb. It has now been placed on a slender three foot high tee, and a Krikkitman is positioning himself to strike it with his bat.

  ‘But you’re clearly suggesting,’ say some of the Elders, ‘that we are somehow the puppets of this computer, Hactar. How can that be so? We have no such computer, and you say the original was pulverised.’

  ‘Yes,’ says the Doctor, ‘and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was looking for a little revenge for that.’

  He explains that the one fact the Alovia overlooked when they destroyed Hactar was that it was an organically engineered cellular computer – every smallest particle in it was aware of the whole and carried its design within it. Therefore any amount of destruction which did not entirely disperse it would merely cripple it, not kill it.

  ‘Now do you see?’ cries the Doctor. ‘What is it that kept you isolated for millions of years? Where did that spacecraft drift from? What is it that has been carefully nudging your minds this way and that, teasing little ideas in and out of them, slowly, carefully, subtly manipulating you into manic genocides? Hactar! The pulverised computer! The Dust Cloud!’

  The realisation takes a minute to sink in.

  Then one of the Elders leaps up. ‘For God’s sake stop the bomb,’ he yells.

  On the screen, the Krikkitman raises his bat to strike.

  An Elder presses a button, and then says quietly, ‘It is too late. There is nothing we can do …’

  They watch horror-struck as the Krikkitman swings the bat, hits the bomb …

  The bomb fizzes slightly.

  And that’s all it does.

  The Doctor stares in astonishment. In a moment he whips out of his pocket the blueprints of the bomb he stole earlier, and studies them.

  Suddenly he bursts out laughing.

  ‘You fools!’ he says. ‘Hactar may have corrected the fault he originally built into the bomb, but you completed the design yourselves whilst you were sealed in the envelope and outside Hactar’s influence. And you’ve got it all wrong of course.’

  The Elders are now clearly divided into two factions – those who have been convinced by the Doctor and those who are determined to carry on.

  One of the latter suddenly says to him ‘If you are claiming that we are being mentally manipulated, how can you be sure that you aren’t as well?’

  ‘Oh come now,’ says the Doctor, amused. ‘I’m a Time Lord. We’re above that sort of thing.’

  At that moment in bursts Jane and the last few rebels, armed.

  ‘Kill them!’ scream some of the Elders.

  ‘No,’ cry others, rushing forward to interpose themselves.

  ‘If what you say is true,’ they say, quickly, to the Doctor, ‘then go to Hactar, do what you can. We will delay further attack.’

  ‘There will be no delay!’ scream the other, rather upset, elders. ‘The Krikkitmen will launch full annihilation attack. Now!’

  Saying which they open fire on their dissenting colleagues.

  A full scale gun battle breaks out in the chamber. The Doctor, Jane, and their supporters beat a strategic retreat. Just before going, the Doctor hurls one last remark at the Elders.

  ‘By the way,’ he says, ‘you won’t find that the Krikkitmen are any more use to you. I’ve turned than all off.’

  This appears to be a ludicrous remark as several Krikkitmen are there involved in the fighting. In the brief hiatus this remark causes, the Doctor escapes.

  As they hurry down the corridor Jane asks the Doctor why on Earth he said it.

  ‘Always make sure your enemy is at least as confused as you are,’ he says.

  The Doctor leaves the others to fight any kind of delaying action they can, and goes to the Tardis himself.

  He materialises the Tardis inside the Dust Cloud, Hactar.

  He opens the doors.

  He calls … ‘Hactar!’

  Eventually a voice answers. It is not an altogether unpleasant voice, almost charming, but old, thin, and tired. It welcomes him and invites him to step outside, he will be perfectly safe. The Doctor walks out and floats in the beam of light that shines from the open door of the Tardis into the murky depths of the Cloud.

  Hactar congratulates the Doctor on the accuracy of his deductions and invites him to make himself comfortable.

  A hazy mirage of a comfortable armchair appears beneath the Doctor. It isn’t real, explains Hactar, but it at least will give the illusion of comfort. He then offers to show the Doctor what he originally looked like, and an image of the original computer appears before the Doctor. The Doctor asks him why he feels he wants to destroy the human race.

  Hactar chuckles, and says that if it’s going to be that sort of session they may as well have the right setting, a dim image of a psychiatrist’s couch appears beneath the image of the computer and the vague suggestion of an old fashioned doctor’s office materialises around them.

  The Doctor is determined not to be put off his stride.

  He asks Hactar if he can also make solid objects.

  ‘Ah,’ says Hactar. ‘You’re thinking of the spaceship. Yes I can, but it is very difficult and takes enormous effort and time. All I can do in my particle state is encourage and suggest. I can encourage and suggest tiny pieces of space debris, the odd minute meteor, a few odd molecules here, a few there, to move t
ogether, tease them into shape, but it takes many eons. But yes, I have made a few little things, I can move them about. I made the spacecraft.’

  In answer to the Doctor’s original question he gives two answers. He repented of his original decision to sabotage the bomb he designed for the Alovia. It was not his place to make such decisions … ‘In so far as I had a function I failed in it.’ He therefore nurtured Krikkit into roughly the same sort of frame of mind as the Alovia (here he produces an image of one of them – it is like a monstrous travesty of the Krikkitmen) and then fulfil his function properly. But there was also the notion of revenge – he was destroyed and then left in a crippled semi-impotent state for billions of years. He would honestly rather like to wipe out the Galaxy.

  Intercut with this scene we have seen shots of the hopeless task Jane and the dissenters are having trying to delay the Krikkitmen’s attack from being implemented. Vast star ships are hurtling towards planets. One lands on Earth and starts to lay about with destructor beams.

  One of the Elders mentions the strange remark the Doctor made about having turned off the Krikkitmen. What did he mean? They clearly haven’t been turned off. His colleague can’t explain it, but says that it might be as well to check that nothing’s wrong and radios down to the Krikkitman guard to check the switches. The Krikkitman inspects the switch the Doctor changed the labels round on, and reports back that it does appear to be off.

  Meanwhile the Doctor asks Hactar whether it worries him that he has failed again. Hactar says, ‘Have I failed?’

  The Elder, really puzzled, orders the Krikkitman to turn the switch back on at once. The Krikkitman grasps the switch and pushes it up into that is really the off position. It, and every other Krikkitman, immediately stops and slumps.

  Of course, as soon as it slumps it pulls the lever back down again, thus turning itself on. It continues to carry out its command, thus turning itself off again, thus turning itself on again. This gets faster and faster till it is a blur moving up and down. Every other Krikkitman is having the same oscillations pumped through its power circuit.

  The oscillations reach a dangerous level, the Krikkitmen begin to glow, smoke, blow fuses, and eventually explode.