"Planet From Nowhere" Translated Into Modern English

(The TARDIS materializes in a barren desert under a starry sky. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria emerge.)

JAMIE: Och, wonderful. We’re in the middle of nowhere!

(The Doctor tastes some of the sand.)

DOCTOR: Ugh. Very salty.

VICTORIA: What does that tell us?

DOCTOR: I’m not sure. But look at this valley around us? Very salty. Perhaps there was once an ocean here, a long time ago. Either that or tides got so bored when they went out they never came back…

VICTORIA: That’s odd. It’s night time but almost as bright as day.

DOCTOR: Yes, this planet is too far away from that star for proper sunshine. And there aren’t many other stars to be seen, are there?

JAMIE: Well, we must be in a place with not many stars.

DOCTOR: Yes, which means we must be in one of the voids between galaxies.

VICTORIA: But how can it be between galaxies if there are planets and suns?

DOCTOR: Planets? Who said anything about planets? I don’t see any other planets except this one, and that big star is so far away it might actually be the light from a whole galaxy. Which means we’re not in a solar system, just on a single planet drifting through space.

VICTORIA: But where did it come from? And where’s it going?

DOCTOR: I haven’t the faintest idea, Victoria. It’s probably been travelling for millions of years already…

JAMIE: Och, how do you know for sure?

DOCTOR: Don’t bother me, Jamie, I’m thinking. Let’s do a little bit of exploring…

VICTORIA: If the seas have dried up, then this whole continent was probably underwater. There won’t be anything to find, will there?

JAMIE: Hey! Look over there!

(Jamie points down to the valley below, where a dark metal building emerges from the sand.)

VICTORIA: There’s no other buildings.

DOCTOR: It was probably at the bottom of the ocean before the seas dried up. There are quite few worlds where cities are built under the water.

VICTORIA: But it’s not a city, it’s just one building. Why built only one building on the seabed and nothing else?

DOCTOR: No reason at all. Except…

JAMIE: Except what?

DOCTOR: Except if they built a lot of buildings here and that just happens to be the only one still standing.

JAMIE: What’s so special about that one building?

DOCTOR: Only one way to find out…

***

(A vast cathedral vault. Light streams down from stained glass windows onto glass coffin-like cases stacked three-high in central aisles. Each one contains a bald man or woman in a robe and bare feet. At the far end of the cathedral is a massive ankh-shaped totem and an altar of broken black rocks. The metal door at the other end opens and the TARDIS crew enter.)

JAMIE: Doctor, look…

VICTORIA: There must be hundreds, maybe thousands of them!

JAMIE: Aye. And they’re all dead.

DOCTOR: Are you sure?

JAMIE: Look at them! They’re all cold and stiff!

VICTORIA: My word, this is spooky! Just how long do you think they’ve been lying here?

DOCTOR: Ever since this rogue planet began its runaway journey from its proper sun, I suppose.

JAMIE: Millions of years, you mean? How come they’re not all bones now, eh? That’s what I’d like to know.

DOCTOR: Yes. Unless they’re not dead.

JAMIE: What? Will you just look at them? They’re nae breathing!

DOCTOR: That doesn’t mean they’re dead, Jamie. They could be frozen between heartbeats, in suspended animation!

VICTORIA: You mean like the Cybermen were in their tombs?

DOCTOR: Precisely, Victoria. A tomb where the people aren’t dead. And if they’re in suspension, there must be a way to revive them…

(Jamie wanders up the altar and looks at the ankh.)

JAMIE: Could it be here, Doctor?

VICTORIA: What is that? Is it like a cross?

DOCTOR: In a way, Victoria. It’s an ankh, a symbol from Ancient Egypt. It’s the symbol for life itself.

VICTORIA: Then if this is a cathedral then these people must have been worshippers of life.

JAMIE: They worship it by not being alive? Och, that’s daft.

DOCTOR: Well, obviously they’ve been waiting for someone like us to come along and wake them up. If only there was a clue as to how?

(Victoria screams and points at the floor by the altar at a grey ashy skeletal outline.)

JAMIE: Victoria! What is it?

VICTORIA: It’s a skeleton! Or, well, at least it was – it’s turned to dust, but you can see it was once a person!

DOCTOR: Yes, yes, I think you’re right, Victoria.

VICTORIA: Oh, please, Doctor! Let’s just leave this awful place and get back into the TARDIS!

DOCTOR: Now, now, Victoria. There’s nothing to worry about. That poor fellow must have died thousands upon thousands of years ago – if anything did happen to him in the distant past, I doubt we’re in any danger now.

JAMIE: Aye, but what happened to him? Why wasn’t he in the coffins like everyone else?

DOCTOR: Well, only the people in the coffins can know that. We just have to wake them up. Look at the ankh. The symbol of life – a sign of life, hmm? I think that’s clue, don’t you? Yes, there’s not a bit of corrosion on this at all. Yes… and here’s a lever, see? It’s pointing to the altar and that symbol.

VICTORIA: Is that Egyptian too?

DOCTOR: Yes, the symbol for peace or, or rest. Now if I twist the lever from the symbol of rest to the symbol of life…

VICTORIA: No, Doctor, wait!

DOCTOR: What’s wrong, Victoria?

VICTORIA: That skeleton… it’s lying right in front of the lever. Do you think it was someone who tried to do what you’re doing now?

JAMIE: Aye, she’s right. What if it’s a trap?

DOCTOR: Let’s find out!

(The Doctor twists the lever to point to the ankh. A low hum fills the whole cathedral and the humans in the glass cases immediately blind and wake up. A dirge-like wail is heard as the humans emerge from the cases and stand up, staring at the TARDIS crew with glassy eyes.)

JAMIE: Doctor…

(The humans drop to their knees in worship.)

VICTORIA: It’s like they think we’re gods…

DOCTOR: Yes. This won’t do at all. No, we’ve got to stop this right away.

(The Doctor steps from the altar and the humans retreat in fear.)

DOCTOR: It’s all right. We’re not going to hurt you.

LEADER: You… you are the gods we never believed in! Oh, woe to us who did not believe! Have you come to destroy us?

DOCTOR: Oh nonsense! My friends and I are travelers. We arrived on your world and found you sleeping in those glass cases, so we woke you up. That’s all. There’s nothing to worry about.

LEADER: How… how long have we been sleeping, stranger?

DOCTOR: How should I know? We’ve only just landed, we don’t even know what this planet is called?

LEADER: Axal. That is what we call our world, ever since our star went nova and we were hurled into outer space.

DOCTOR: Ah, I guessed as much. Didn’t I, Jamie?

JAMIE: Aye. (to the Leader) There are barely any stars outside now.

DOCTOR: Yes, your world is almost out of the galaxy entirely.

LEADER: We’re in the void? (growing angry) Then why did you wake us up? Why couldn’t you leave us in peace? You’re not gods! You’re demons!

DOCTOR: Pah! I thought you people worshiped life!

LEADER: We do! We acknowledge the great law of nature that all life wishes to destroy other life, and resist that with all our strength to please the Life God!

DOCTOR: I doubt your god will be pleased to see you skulk away the ages unconscious in your coffins! You obviously have all the food and air you need to survive on this planet, void or not. Why would you deliberately put yourselves into stasis? And surely this can’t be all of you?

LEADER: All the Salonians were laid down to sleep in our great temple! The whole population of the Western Hemisphere of Axal lie here, sealed into our caskets for the long sleep – to sleep forever if necessary.

VICTORIA: By why did you want to be asleep?

LEADER: To escape the great retribution, of course!

DOCTOR: What retribution?

LEADER: The wrath of the Life God! We sinned against life and rather than face his anger.

VICTORIA: But what is your sin? Who did you hurt if you’re the only people on your world?

LEADER: We are not the only people on Axal, child! The Eastern Hemisphere is held by the Colonians. We went to war with them, the greatest war of all time! We defeated our enemies, we crushed them!

JAMIE: If you won, why are you hiding?

LEADER: I… I cannot remember. We have been in our dreamless sleep for so long the memories have faded. But we defeated the Colonians, I remember that. We were the victors. Not one of those crude infidels even saw the edges of our great city!

JAMIE: What great city?

LEADER: The most wonderful marvel of the modern age, of course! Did you not notice this mighty tower is in the centre of it? Are you so dull-witted?

JAMIE: Hey, now, we’ve actually been outside and seen your world!

VICTORIA: Yes, it certainly isn’t any sort of marvelous city!

LEADER: Degenerates. Come, my people, let us show them our majesty!

(The leader strides to the exit. The rest follow him.)

***

(The leader steps from the tomb and looks at the desert outside, dumbstruck. The other humans are horrified as well. The leader has tears in his eyes.)

LEADER: Is it all… is it all like this?

DOCTOR: As far as we’ve seen, yes. There’s not a thing standing for miles in any direction.

JAMIE: What happened to this city of theirs, Doctor?

DOCTOR: Time, Jamie. After millions of years of erosion, the buildings just crumbled away to nothing.

JAMIE: Then why is this place still standing?

LEADER: (grim) This temple is built of impervious metal, the very atoms compacted until nothing in this universe can destroy it.

JAMIE: Pity you clever-clogs didn’t build the rest of your city out it then, isn’t it?

DOCTOR: Well, in fairness, not many architects plan to outlast eternity…

LEADER: Lies!

DOCTOR: I beg your pardon?

LEADER: Our city was not eroded! You strangers have only been on our world an hour, how can you be sure that a million years have passed?

JAMIE: Well, where is your blessed city, then?

VICTORIA: Yes, just what happened if it wasn’t worn away by time, hmm?

LEADER: It was destroyed! By our enemies, those Colonian animals!

JAMIE: You said you defeated them!

LEADER: We did, but those dastardly Colonians must have rebuilt their forces! When we laid down in our caskets, they came back and destroyed our great city while we slept! And they would have gone unpunished were it not for you to awaken us! I thank you, strangers. Now we can see justice done. (to the humans) We shall begin retaliation against those brutes at once!

(The humans re-enter the cathedral.)

DOCTOR: Oh dear. I think we might have just started a war.

VICTORIA: Do you think these Colonians really destroyed the city, Doctor?

DOCTOR: I… Well, I’m not sure. But I’m certain we’re many tens of thousands of years after the fact. The people currently living in the east probably don’t even know there were Salonions on this planet, it’d be like dinosaurs suddenly waking up and attacking modern man! They certainly won’t be prepared to defend themselves…

JAMIE: Defend themselves from what? These daft Sassenachs only have the clothes they stand in – how are they going to fight a war on the other side of this planet, eh?

DOCTOR: I don’t know, Jamie. But I have a horrible feeling they have a plan. Come on.

(They hurry inside.)

***

(Inside the cathedral, the humans are marching in file down behind the ankh altar. The leader watches them enter, arms folded, as the Doctor approaches.)

DOCTOR: Now, wait a minute, old chap! We three came here to help people, not trigger a war…

LEADER: You would side with those who came and obliterated our lovely hemisphere?

DOCTOR: I’ve told you! No one destroyed anyone! It was just thousands of years of age and decay, the millennia you’ve spent sleeping away in your caskets – goodness, what did you expect to happen after all this time you’ve been in suspended animation, mm?

LEADER: We have not been asleep long enough if the Colonian infidels are still active. You are a stranger, you don’t understand the level of their depravity. Your optimism is wasted on them. We are already loading our war rockets. The automatic machinery is still in full working order.

DOCTOR: You know, for a worshipper of the Life Principle, you certainly have an odd way of behaving! Look at you, you’re eager to re-start a war your own god considers a sin!

LEADER: We are merely retaliating! The Colonians will be punished for their crimes! We will make of their lands a desert like the one outside, we will level their city as they leveled ours!

DOCTOR: But that’s madness! If both hemispheres are destroyed, then Axal will be left totally dead!

(The leader ignores him and follows the others down the steps.)

DOCTOR: Oh, my word, what have I done! I should have left these wretched warmongers asleep!

VICTORIA: If they won’t listen to us, what can we do?

JAMIE: Aye, well standing around here can’t help. Come on!

(They hurry down the steps.)

***

(The trio reach the bottom of the steps. Ahead are a row of machines and control panels, and beyond them rows of gleaming rockets aimed upwards. Cradles of torpedoes are being operated. The Doctor looks around in utter horror.)

DOCTOR: It’s a rocket silo! These maniac have built nuclear warheads into their tomb!

JAMIE: Why do that? They were going to sleep forever, weren’t they?

DOCTOR: Yes, on top of enough weaponry to blow this whole planet apart five times over!

VICTORIA: I wonder what the Colonians are like, if these people think they’re monsters…

(The leader crosses to meet them.)

LEADER: Ah, good. You will come with me in the lead passenger craft.

DOCTOR: Oh. Oh, good, you’re actually going to talk to the Colonians before you start firing missiles?

LEADER: Not at all. But it is not enough to merely activate the launch sequence. We shall see their punishment carried out with our own eyes. We will watch their corrupted mockery of a society burn away into dust the way they destroyed us!

DOCTOR: But they didn’t destroy you! Not a single one of your people were harmed!

VICTORIA: Yes, you were all safe in here, fast asleep!

LEADER: You think Colonian incompetence equates to mercy?

JAMIE: If you destroy the Colonians, then that’s murder! That must be a sin to your god! To any god!

LEADER: They sinned first! Sinners are punished!

DOCTOR: Unless they’re cowards like you, and go into suspended animation! You admitted you’re sinners!

LEADER: We are more sinned against – and we will have our revenge! Bring them!

(The leader strides off. Humans take the TARDIS crew by force and shove them after the leader.)

***

(The control room of a large passenger cruiser. Skeletal heaps of dust lie on the floor and crunch under the feet of the humans as they enter.)

LEADER: What is this?

JAMIE: More dead bodies. See, they’d been dead so long they just turned to dust!

VICTORIA: Like the one up in the cathedral.

LEADER: That was the bravest of us. He pressed the lever to activated the suspension cabinets and remained alone in the temple to die.

VICTORIA: Then who were these people?

LEADER: I… I don’t know. Obviously they were murdered by the Colonians.

DOCTOR: If they attacked your temple while you were sleeping, why didn’t they kill you all, hmm? It doesn’t make sense! Either they showed your people mercy, or else they weren’t here at all.

LEADER: Be quiet, stranger. The Colonians are mindless brutes, unable to grasp our technology. They probably tried and failed to harm us as we slept and when that failed, they tried to destroy our city!

DOCTOR: You have absolutely no proof of this!

LEADER: We do not need proof! Stay silent, all of you. We are launching… now.

(The cruiser shudders around them.)

***

(A circular hole irises open in the desert near the cathedral and the cruiser flies up into the dark sky.)

***

LEADER: Head due north. Prepare the cobalt bombs for launching. They gave excellent results last time.

DOCTOR: Last time? You used cobalt bombs on the Colonians and they weren’t defeated?

(The leader frowns.)

LEADER: I… They must have had some defense.

VICTORIA: But you said you had excellent results.

LEADER: Yes. I did.

DOCTOR: Just how did you defeat the Colonians?

LEADER: I do not recall. The memories are still vague.

VICTORIA: Well, obviously if you fired a load of missiles at them last time didn’t work. Why would it now, hundreds of years later? They’ll be more advanced than you, won’t they?

JAMIE: Aye, you and your people haven’t invented anything for a million years.

LEADER: The Colonians are lazy beasts, incapable of true progress!

DOCTOR: So why have you been fighting wars with them? Surely they wouldn’t be able to withstand any of your might and power, would they?

(The leader shakes his head.)

LEADER: I have had enough of this disruptive talk. Be silent. Or you will be punished like the Colonians!

(The time travelers sit on a couch and whisper.)

JAMIE: Yon man’s mad. Maybe he’s been asleep so long his brains have curdled.

DOCTOR: Maybe, Jamie. But these Salonians were bloodthirsty fiends and I’ve doomed everyone on the eastern hemisphere of this planet by waking them up.

VICTORIA: Doctor, you didn’t know…

DOCTOR: No, and I didn’t think. Just like the Cybermen, these monsters should have stayed frozen! I’m responsible for what’s about to happen, and imagine what these maniacs will do once they’ve destroyed the Colonians? I doubt they’ll be happy. They’ll look for someone else to destroy.

PILOT: Approaching eastern continent.

LEADER: Excellent! Increase speed!

(A brighter light shines through the windows.)

VICTORIA: What’s that light, Doctor? Where’s it coming from?

JAMIE: Aye, is that sun getting closer to the planet?

DOCTOR: No…

(They rise and join the leader at the viewports. Outside is a flat plain of gleaming crystal.)

JAMIE: What’s that? The ground, it’s shining like a mirror!

VICTORIA: Is it frozen?

PILOT: No. All the temperature and humidity readings are correct.

DOCTOR: The whole landscape… it’s glass. Like the surface of a gigantic marble. No cracks, no breaks. Just glass.

(Victoria turns to leader, who looks totally shocked.)

VICTORIA: Was the Eastern Hemisphere always like this?

LEADER: No… There were buildings and hills and mountains and rivers… now there’s nothing. Not even soil.

DOCTOR: And no sign of your enemies, the Colonians.

LEADER: They… they must be hiding! They’re hiding from us!

DOCTOR: Where? Look at that landscape down there! It’s just a round lump of glass, totally inhospitable!

LEADER: Then the Colonians have fled Axal!

JAMIE: How? You said they were stupid beasties – did they have spaceships?

LEADER: …no… but… but they must have built them while we slept.

VICTORIA: So you admit it’s been a long time? Long enough for the Colonians to develop their own science?

LEADER: (shakes head) No, no, no. They destroyed us, then fled our world!

DOCTOR: They didn’t.

LEADER: Do you have proof, stranger?

DOCTOR: Oh, you actually want proof, now, do you? Well, look out the window at all the proof you need. That whole continent was turned to glass – the result of a saturation attack of cobalt bombs. Thousands upon thousands of your cobalt bombs that performed excellently!

VICTORIA: You mean… you mean, the Salonians did this?

DOCTOR: Of course they did. This fellow himself said they’d attacked the Eastern Hemisphere, and we saw how much firepower they had in just one tower of their city. And there is the question of what they did that was so terrible they all chose to place themselves in suspended animation in the first place.

LEADER: (in a quiet voice) He is right. In the long, long sleep, we had forgotten.

DOCTOR: That war you spoke of. You didn’t defeat the Colonians, you obliterated them.

LEADER: We pressed the buttons and this was the result. We sent this very cruiser to confirm the success of the multiple strike. They returned… and then they shot themselves.

JAMIE: They’re the ones who were dust on the floor?

LEADER: (nods) The rest of us never saw it. Not like this. Not even the sleep could have blotted this sight out. And none of us dared go and see for ourselves a sight that drove Salonians to kill themselves.

DOCTOR: And when you realized just what your cobalt bombs had done…

LEADER: We have committed a sin so unforgivable, we were too fearful to ever face our god.

DOCTOR: And at the same time you were all too ashamed to live with what you’d done.

LEADER: The suspended animation caskets were prepared as a war measure, to preserve us if the Colonians ever achieved the upper hand. We… we chose not to live and not to die. We slept, until the last rad was gone and our great city was less than dust. We slept so long we could forget what we’d done.

DOCTOR: Until I woke you up.

LEADER: Yes.

(There is a long silence.)

LEADER: Reverse coordinates. We are returning to the temple. Stand down all weaponry.

***

(The cruiser swoops over the glinting glass horizon and back the way it came.)

***

(The humans, looking haunted and miserable, are marching up from behind the altar and climbing into their glass caskets. The Leader holds a small handgun, contemplating it. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria stand nearby as the humans return to their coffins.)

JAMIE: You’re just going to go to sleep again?

LEADER: There is nothing left to us. We destroyed the Eastern Hemisphere and the Western has died in the eons we have been drifting through space. We cannot survive out on the surface for long. Maybe in one day, millions more years from now, we shall finally find a new sun to call home. Someone else will come here and wake us up and we might start again.

VICTORIA: But if you forget all this while you are asleep, when you wake up you’ll blame the Colonians!

LEADER: Perhaps. Perhaps next time we will have slept so long we won’t even remember them.

DOCTOR: They say those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

(The leader indicates all the people now safely in their caskets.)

LEADER: And history is repeating itself exactly, just as it did all those weary centuries ago.

DOCTOR: Yes. Jamie, Victoria, you go back to the TARDIS. I’ll join you soon.

VICTORIA: Is there nothing we can do for them, Doctor?

DOCTOR: Perhaps. But you two best head off now.

VICTORIA: Doctor…

DOCTOR: Jamie, please take her out of here!

JAMIE: Aye, I will, Doctor. Come on, Victoria.

(Jamie takes her arm and leads her out the doors. The Doctor turns the Leader.)

DOCTOR: Someone has to stay behind to activate the suspended animation systems.

LEADER: I know. It was a brave man who did it before.

DOCTOR: Brave? They condemned themselves to a long, lonely death. All your technology could work out a simple timer, I’m sure. But I woke you all up, I can put you to sleep again. Why don’t you just climb back into your casket and…

LEADER: No. I will do it.

(The leader reaches out and turns the lever from the ankh to the altar. There is a low hum.)

LEADER: Who knows what they will find when next they awake?

DOCTOR: If indeed they ever do wake up again.

LEADER: True.

DOCTOR: And what happens to you?

LEADER: I said, it is a brave man who is willing to do this. To die and face the Life God. I authorized the attack on the Colonians. It was my decision. I do not deserve the escape my people have chosen.

DOCTOR: You don’t have to do this.

LEADER: Oh, Doctor. I do.

DOCTOR: I can’t say how your god will punish you for what you’ve done, but he’s more likely to be lenient if you and the rest of the Salonians at least tried to make amends for what they did. What good are you doing hiding from life and death?

LEADER: Perhaps we are ensuring we harm no one else.

(A long pause.)

LEADER: You should go. Leave Axal to its fate.

DOCTOR: You could come with us.

(The leader holds up the gun and shakes his head.)

LEADER: Please.

DOCTOR: I suppose it’s more choice than the Colonians were given. One last thing.

LEADER: Yes?

DOCTOR: Your world, Axal. It wasn’t always called that, was it?

LEADER: I honestly can’t remember. Goodbye, stranger.

DOCTOR: Goodbye. And good luck.

(The Doctor turns and leaves. The leader kneels before the ankh, then puts the gun barrel in his mouth.)

***

(Outside, the Doctor is trudging up the hill towards the TARDIS. Jamie and Victoria are waiting outside. There is the muffled sound of a gunshot, then silence.)

JAMIE: What was that?

DOCTOR: (innocent) What was what? Come on, let’s leave this unhappy planet.

***

(They enter the TARDIS. The Doctor closes the doors and starts operating controls.)

VICTORIA: Doctor…

DOCTOR: Mmm?

VICTORIA: There’s one thing that’s puzzled me. Those symbols in the cathedral – they were the same as the ones in Ancient Egypt. They even mean the same thing. How could the Salonians know about them?

JAMIE: Och, it’s probably just a coincidence. Squiggly lines are the same all over time and space.

VICTORIA: And if it isn’t?

JAMIE: Well… (shrugs) I dunno. How can it be Ancient Egypt?

VICTORIA: Because… this is Earth, isn’t it?

JAMIE: Yon Salonian chief said it was called Axal!

VICTORIA: But if we’re millions of years into the future, why shouldn’t the name have changed?

JAMIE: It never has before!

VICTORIA: Well, maybe we’ve never been so far into the future before!

JAMIE: Tell her she’s wrong, Doctor.

DOCTOR: Is she, Jamie? One day, Earth’s sun will become a nova. Who’s to say the explosion won’t cast Earth far into space until it drifts into the void between galaxies, that the people living rename it Axal? Who’s to say that even in the fact of that cosmic disaster, human beings still can’t live in peace and finally destroy every living thing in a nuclear war?

VICTORIA: You mean, the Salonians…

DOCTOR: …are descended from some branch of humanity? Well, they looked rather human, didn’t they? And as Victoria said, they used Egyptian symbols?

VICTORIA: But those people, they’re so sad and lonely and they ruined everything!

(The Doctor sighs and then brightens.)

DOCTOR: Well, then, Victoria, perhaps I’m just being a foolish old man babbling nonsense. Like Jamie said, it’s all a complete coincidence. I’m sure Earth and mankind have a tremendous future, and we can safely assume they can look after themselves. In the meantime, let’s just get away from this haunted place as fast as we can.

(He dematerializes the TARDIS.)

***

(The TARDIS vanishes from the desert. The noise of its engines echoes in the cathedral as the humans sleep in the casket and the corpse of the leader lies by the altar. Axal drifts off into the darkness and is eventually lost in the silent dark.)