I think a lot about Meteors

noetic (adj.)

"pertaining to, performed by, or originating in the intellect," 1650s, from Greek noētikos "intelligent," from noēsis "a perception, intelligence, thought" (see noesis). 

Related: Noetical (1640s).

noesis (n.)

"intellect, intelligence," 1820, from Greek noēsis "intelligence, thought," from noein "to see, perceive, have mental perception," from noos "mind, thought" which is of uncertain origin.

( Leela has just helped to transfer The Flag — The TARDIS hatstand — back to the main control room )

LEELA: 

We've never been 

in here before!

DOCTOR: 

You've never been 

in here before. 

LEELA: 

What is it? 

DOCTOR: 

Number Two control room — 

 been closed for redecoration. 

I Don't Like The Colour.

LEELA: 

White isn't a colour. 

DOCTOR:

 That's The Trouble 

with Computers. 

Always Think in Black and White. 

No aquamarines, no blues, 

no imagination. 

(The time rotor stops.) 

LEELA:

Have we stopped? 

DOCTOR: 

No, we haven't stopped. 

(The viewscreen opens.) 

LEELA: 

Have we materialised? 

DOCTOR: 

Yes. 

LEELA: 

Where? 

DOCTOR: 

Solar System, between 

Jupiter and Saturn. 

About 5000 AD. 

5000 AD? 

We're still in the time of your ancestors. 

LEELA: 

Ancestors? 

DOCTOR: 

Yes. That was the year of the great breakout. 

LEELA: 

The great what?

DOCTOR: 

Mmm. When your forefathers went 

leapfrogging across the solar system 

on their way to the stars. 

Asteroid belt's probably teeming with them now. 

New Frontiersmen, Pioneers 

waiting to spread across The Galaxy 

like a tidal wave. 

Or a disease. 

LEELA:

Why 'disease'? 

I thought you 

liked Humanity?

DOCTOR: 

Oh, I do, I do. 

Some of my best 

friends are humans. 

But when they get together in great numbers, 

other lifeforms sometimes suffer.

(Andred tries to activate the scanner.)

 

ANDRED: 

It's jammed.

 

DOCTOR:

Yes. And it's going to stay jammed until the invaders have gone. 

You see, while I'm in here, 

they can't touch me, 

and they can't read my thoughts.

 

ANDRED: 
You mean, They can Travel along any form 
of broadcast wavelength?
 
Tom : 
Yes, and materialise at the end of it. 
But until They do materialise, 
I can't identify their planet of origin 

and time-loop it.

 

ANDRED: 
But You have access to 

The Greatest Source 
of Knowledge in The Universe.

 

Tom : 
Well, I do talk to myself 

sometimes, yes.
 

ANDRED: 
I mean, The Matrix.

 

DOCTOR: 
Oh. Oh, that old thing. 
Yeah. There's a problem there. 
I've been under a bit of a strain recently. 
You see, The Matrix has 
been invaded.

 

ANDRED: 

The Matrix has been invaded?

 

DOCTOR: 

Yes.

 

ANDRED : 

Why haven't you explained this to 

The Supreme Council?

 

DOCTOR: 
Shush. 
Because They can read thoughts. 
Even encephalographic patterns. 
That's why I've plugged K9 
into The Matrix instead of Me --
He's got no brains, you see.
 Sorry about that, K9.

 

ANDRED: 
Can you Trust A Machine?
 
DOCTOR: 
This one I can --
He's My Second-Best Friend.

Ultron: 

[as Natasha becomes conscious] 

I wasn't sure you'd wake up. 

I hoped you would, 

I wanted to show you something. 

I don't have 

anyone else. 

I think a lot about meteors, 

the •purity• of them. 

!BOOM! 

The End, start again. 

The World made clean for The New Man to rebuild. 

I was meant to be new. 

I was meant to be beautiful. 

The World would've looked to the sky 

and seen Hope, seen Mercy. 

Instead they'll look up in horror because of YOU. 

You've wounded me. 

I give you full marks for that. 

But, like The Man says, 

"What doesn't kill me…" 

[a much bigger, all-vibranium body of Ultron's rips the previous one in two.] 

"…just makes me stronger." 

[he locks Natasha in a cell]

[Titan base]

LOWE: Drop your weapons. I'm arresting you. All of you! 

(The three spacemen spin round. Lowe kills Silvey then runs. He hides behind a door labelled Kryogenics Sexshun. Safran and Meeker follow him.) 

SAFRAN: 

Close the door. Turn off the oxygen supply. 

(The Doctor briefly looks out of the Tardis, goes back inside then comes out again a few moments later. Leela follows slowly, knife ready.) 

DOCTOR: 

Nobody around. Not a soul. 

(The Doctor sounds a duck call.) 

DOCTOR: 

Anyone home? 

LEELA: 

Doctor, look. 

(They go to Silvey's body.) 

DOCTOR: 

Disregard mayday. 

He said disregard mayday. Why? 

LEELA: 

It is still warm. 

DOCTOR: 

Don't be gruesome. 

LEELA: 

I am a hunter. 

DOCTOR: 

You're a savage. 

LEELA: 

Perhaps. I'm not ashamed of what I am 

and I tell you, Doctor, 

I can smell danger. 

DOCTOR: 

What did you say? 

LEELA: 

I said, I can smell danger. 

DOCTOR: 

Evil again? 

LEELA: 

Everywhere. In this place. 

DOCTOR: 

We'd better find it before it finds us. 

LEELA: 

Right. 

DOCTOR: 

Stay here. 

LEELA: 

I'm no coward. 

(The Doctor moves off. Leela runs in another direction. The Doctor returns, walking backwards.) 

DOCTOR: 

Now listen, whatever happens. 

(He realises she has already gone, and leaves.)

[Base control]

SAFRAN: 

Set temperature and humidity rate 

for optimum breeding conditions. 

MEEKER: 

Set temperature and humidity rate 

for optimum breeding conditions. 

(The Doctor enters.) 

DOCTOR: 

Excuse me, you don't know me. 

Let me introduce myself. 

SAFRAN: 

There is no need. 

We are preparing the hives now. 

DOCTOR: 

People call me the D...

Hives? 

SAFRAN: 

For the nucleus which you carry within you. 

DOCTOR: 

Are you all right? 

I answered your mayday. 

(Safran and Meeker turn, and the Doctor sees the silver growths on their faces. He backs away a little.) 

SAFRAN: 

You answered the call? 

DOCTOR: 

That's right, that's right. 

Has someone been hurt?

SAFRAN: 

It is of no consequence. 

The physical envelope is of no importance. 

MEEKER: 

Of no importance. 

DOCTOR: 

What do you mean, of no importance? 

I just found a dead body out there. 

(Energy passes between Meeker and the Doctor.) 

MEEKER: 

Now that you have arrived. 

DOCTOR: 

I have arrived. 

SAFRAN: 

All that matters is that the reject should be destroyed. 

DOCTOR: 

Reject should be destroyed. 

SAFRAN: 

And breeding begin. 

DOCTOR: 

And breeding from my nucleus begin. 

(Leela finds the Kryogenics door and opens it. Lowe topples out, covered in ice. She drags him away. Meanwhile, Safran gives the Doctor his weapon.) 

DOCTOR: 

Leela The Reject will not suspect me. 

SAFRAN: 

One of us will follow. 

DOCTOR: 

That is not necessary. 

SAFRAN: 

The nucleus within you must not be harmed. 

MEEKER: 

Must not be harmed. 

DOCTOR: 

Very well. 

(The Doctor and Meeker leave.)

[Mess]

(Leela gives the recovering Lowe a hot drink.) 

LOWE: 

Who are you? 

LEELA: 

We answered your mayday. 

LOWE: 

They tried to kill me. The relief crew. 

They're insane. They've already killed these poor devils. 

LEELA: 

But why? Are they your enemies? 

LOWE: 

No. I know them. At least, I thought I did. 

But they've changed. 

LEELA: How changed? 

LOWE: Their eyes, their manner, their whole behaviour is different. One of them said something. 

LEELA: What? 

LOWE: 

Their purpose. 

"This place will be suitable for our purpose. 

For our purpose", whatever that is. 

LEELA: The Doctor will know. He'll be here soon.

[Titan base]

DOCTOR: 

Leela? Leela, where are you?

[Mess]

LEELA: 

That's him. That's The Doctor. 

LOWE: 

No, wait. 

It could be a trap, if they've caught him. 

LEELA: 

What are we going to do? 

LOWE: 

Hide. 

(Leela stands beside the door and Lowe picks up his weapon.) 

DOCTOR [OC]: 

Don't worry, Leela, it's only me. Listen to me, Leela. 

There's nothing wrong with this place. 

It's most suitable. 

It's a good place. 

A good place.

[Titan base]

DOCTOR: 

Come on, Leela. I'm waiting. 

Please leave me. Please. 

I can't do it. I can't do it. 

MEEKER: 

Think of the purpose. 

She is a reject. She must die. 

DOCTOR: I can't. 

MEEKER: 

Think of the purpose! 

DOCTOR: 

I can't. 

MEEKER: 

The purpose is all important! 

(Lowe knocks over a plant.) 

DOCTOR: 

The reject is here. 

(They walk to the Mess door.) 

MEEKER: 

Stay. The nucleus does not wish to be harmed. 

I shall destroy her. 

DOCTOR: 

Yes. Kill her. Kill her.

[Mess]

(Meeker enters and shoots the gun out of Lowe's hand. Leela throws her knife into his back. Meeker falls over a chair. Leela grabs her knife back and runs out, also carrying a gun.) 

LOWE: 

Meeker, this purpose, what is it? 

(Energy transfers from Meeker to Lowe, then he dies. Lowe runs after Leela.)

[Titan base]

LOWE: 

Leave it to me. 

I know this place. 

(Lowe runs off. The Doctor comes up behind Leela, holding a gun in his very hairy hand.)

Part Two

[Titan base]

NUCLEUS [OC]: 

Destroy. The Reject must be destroyed. 

Kill. Kill. 

DOCTOR [OC]: 

I can't. I won't. 

NUCLEUS [OC]: 

You must. 

DOCTOR: 

Leela. 

LEELA: 

Doctor! 

(She turns and sees the gun.) 

DOCTOR: 

Leela, I can't stop it. 

(Leela ducks as he fires.) 

DOCTOR: 

Got to fight it. 

Got to fight it. 

(The Doctor curls up into a ball.) 

LEELA: 

Doctor, what's wrong? 

(He lets go of the gun, and the long silver hairs on his hand disappear.) 

LEELA: 

Doctor, what was all that? 

DOCTOR: 

I'm fighting for my mind. 

Whatever it was that attacked Safran and the others is also affecting me. 

LEELA: 

Why not me? 

DOCTOR: 

Perhaps because...Oh! 

I can feel it gathering strength to attack again. 

LEELA: 

The Evil One? 

DOCTOR: 

Some kind of organism that attacks 

the mind, the intelligence. 

It's trying to take me over, Leela. 

It's trying to change me. 

LEELA: 

No, Doctor, please. 

DOCTOR: 

I need help. 

I must withdraw into myself, save strength. 

(The Doctor becomes very still.) 

LEELA: 

Why not me?

[Titan base airlock]

(Safran has just pressed the button when Lowe comes round the corner. Safran draws his gun.) 

LOWE: 

No, wait. 

Contact has been made. 

(Lowe has the silver scales around his eyes.) 

LOWE: 

We are one, Safran. 

SAFRAN: 

Then why pursue me? 

LOWE: 

For The Purpose. 

The Doctor has not yet succumbed to 

The Power of The Nucleus. 

You will prepare the tanks for incubation. 

They do not suspect me yet. 

I will stay with them to guard The Nucleus 

and to destroy the reject. 

(Leela is running along the corridor. Lowe snatches a pair of goggles from Safran and puts them on.) 

LOWE: 

Give me those. Get down! 

LEELA: 

Did you get him? 

LOWE: 

Yes, but he almost got me. 

My eyes caught a flash from his blaster. 

LEELA: 

Come with me. 

The Doctor's ill, very ill. 

He told me to get help.

LOWE: 

But there are no facilities here. 

LEELA: 

Well, where, then? 

(Lowe and Leela leave, and Safran gets up again.)

[Titan base]

(The Doctor is still sitting very still. The Nucleus speaks inside Lowe's head.) 

NUCLEUS [OC]: 

You must protect The Host. 

LOWE: 

The nearest place is the Centre for Alien Biomorphology. 

But that's in the asteroid belt. 

LEELA: 

We'll take the TARDIS. 

Doctor, we're taking you somewhere to get help, 

but we need the TARDIS. 

Now, where are we going? 

LOWE: 

The Bi-Al Foundation, 

asteroid K four zero six seven. 

LEELA: 

What are the coordinates? 

Doctor, what are the coordinates? 

DOCTOR: 

Vector one nine, 

quadrant three. 

Seven four three. 

LEELA: 

Seven four three.

(They help him up.) 

DOCTOR: 

Eight zero zero.

[Bi-Al Foundation]

The asteroid has been completely hollowed out, and has lots of groups of windows in its surface. 

There is also a Red Cross logo, a tall antenna and a space ambulance on a landing pad. 

Inside, a patient swathed in gold foil has been strapped to a gurney and is being wheeled away down a corridor on level 2X. 

It is The Doctor. 

He is put inside a frosted compartment in the wall, 

the attendant presses a button and leaves. 

At the reception desk, 

Leela is checking him in. 

The TARDIS is neatly parked nearby, next to a potted palm.

WOMAN: 

Patient's name? 

LEELA: 

Er, just The Doctor. 

WOMAN: 

Place of origin? 

LEELA: 

Gallifrey. 

WOMAN: 

Ireland? 

LEELA: 

Oh, I expect so. 

WOMAN: 

Thank you, that's all we need for now. 

LEELA: 

But where is he? 

WOMAN: 

Level X4, Isolation, 

being datalysed. 

LEELA: 

Being what? 

WOMAN: 

Datalysed. 

Treatment is already underway. 

Are you next of kin? 

LEELA: 

Oh, no. Er, yes. 

I don't know. I expect so. 

(Lowe enters, wearing the goggles of course.) 

LOWE: 

Where's The Doctor?

 

LEELA: 

They've taken him away to level X4. 

LOWE: 

X4? 

WOMAN: 

Isolation. 

What's your trouble? 

LOWE: 

Blaster flash. 

Accident. 

WOMAN: 

Eye section straight through. 

They'll deal with you there. 

LOWE: (to Leela) 

I'll find you later. 

(Lowe leaves.) 

LEELA: 

Can I be with the Doctor? 

WOMAN: 

Not until Professor Marius 

has had a chance to examine him. 

LEELA: 

Marius? 

WOMAN: 

He's our specialist in extraterrestrial pathological endomorphisms. 

LEELA: Oh. 

WOMAN: 

Wait over there, please.

[Isolation ward]

(A wild-haired man takes a paper readout from a mobile computer built in the shape of a dog, and turns to his assistant. He speaks with a teutonic accent.) 

MARIUS: 

Blithering idiots, the pair of you. 

This man is in a self-induced coma. 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the fellow. 

Oh, look at him. 

(The Doctor is lying on the examination table.) 

MARIUS: 

He's probably one of those good-for-nothing spaceniks. 

Now, why have I been sent for? 

Tell me that. Why? 

Complete and utter waste of time. 

(The dog-computer is producing another printout from its 'muzzle'.)

PARSONS: 

Excuse me, sir. 

MARIUS: 

What, what, what, what, what? 

PARSONS: 

K9 indicates that the, The Patient 

is not a member of The Human Race!

MARIUS: 

Nonsense. 

PARSONS: 

Well, see for yourself.

Look, Two Hearts. 

Symbiotic, self-renewing 

cell structure. 

MARIUS: 

Is this right, K9? 

K9: (for it is he) 

Affirmative, Master. 

MARIUS: 

Is he now. Point of origin? 

K9: 

Beyond the solar system. 

MARIUS: 

Thank you, K9. 

K9: 

Master. 

MARIUS: 

Nurse, let's get an encephalograph out on him, hmm? 

(The Doctor is slid underneath a scanning device. K9 beeps.) 

MARIUS: 

Well, well, what is it? 

K9: 

Unidentified viral type infection with noetic characteristics, 

at present seated in the mind-brain interface 

and therefore having no ascertainable mass or structure, master. 

MARIUS: 

Interesting. Most interesting. 

It isn't every night that we come up with a brand new infection, is it, Parsons? 

PARSONS: 

No, sir. 

(The Doctor sits up.) 

DOCTOR: 

Hello. 

MARIUS: 

Good evening. 

DOCTOR: 

Find anything? 

MARIUS: 

Not yet, my boy, 

but we will, we will. 

(Marius lies the Doctor back down again. An image of the Doctor's head comes up on the scanner.) 

MARIUS: 

Ah, Doctor, I see. 

DOCTOR: 

Yes. What have you found? 

MARIUS: 

Cataleptic trance? 

DOCTOR: 

Yes. 

MARIUS: 

Self-induced. 

DOCTOR: 

Yes. 

MARIUS: 

Ha. Why? 

DOCTOR: 

Self-preservation. 

Whatever it is I'm suffering from 

seems to thrive on intellectual activity. 

MARIUS: 

Oh, I see. 

You mean that the harder you think, 

the more of a grip it seems to take? 

DOCTOR: 

Yes. Non-thinking is the only way to shake it off, 

but I can't stay mindless for eternity, can I.

MARIUS: 

Oh, no, I take your point, I take your point. 

Now my computer here, he's —

DOCTOR: 

Ah. Hello. 

K9: 

Hello. 

DOCTOR: 

How are you? 

MARIUS: 

Well, he seems to think that it's noetic in character, 

that means it's only detectable during consciousness. 

DOCTOR: 

I know what noetic means. 

MARIUS: 

I'm sorry. 

DOCTOR: 

Mind-brain interface. 

MARIUS: 

Well, if it exists. 

DOCTOR: 

But of course. 

How stupid. 

That's why it attacked The 

TARDIS Computer first. 

It was showing the greatest 

amount of mental activity. 

I was just idling, so to speak. 

MARIUS: 

When was this? 

DOCTOR: 

When we were first attacked.

We were on our way to Titan. 

I assumed it was just a static build-up. 

Then when I checked The Computer, 

it jumped into my mind, 

and that explains why Leela was —

MARIUS: 

Hmm? 

DOCTOR: 

Why Leela was unaffected. 

Have you met Leela? 

MARIUS: 

No. 

DOCTOR: 

She's all Instinct and Intuition. 

MARIUS: 

Oh. 

DOCTOR:

That's why The Virus rejected her. 

Of course. I begin to see it all now. 

MARIUS: 

Well, it's possible, it's possible. 

Was anyone else exposed to it? 

DOCTOR: 

Yes. The entire crew on Titan. 

Well, one exception. 

The Supervisor, man called Lowe. 

K9: 

Supervisor Lowe has been 

seen in The Eye Section. 

MARIUS: 

Are you sure? 

K9: 

Affirmative. 

(The Doctor goes back into his coma.) 

MARIUS: 

Are you sure that he was the, oh. 

Oh dear, he's gone again. 

I want him kept under 

constant observation. 

See to it, K9. 

Full monitoring. 

K9: 

Affirmative, Master.