A skull that was found in volcanic sediment 12 million years old sits in the lab of scientists. One is a palaeontologist named Adam Colby, who is working with Thea Ransome. Thea has run a potassium argon test. Colby cannot accept the fact that the skull which he calls "Useless" could have been buried under volcanic rock 8 million years before he could have existed. Maximilian Stael comes into the room and tells Colby that Dr. Fendelman, the one in charge, wants the report. Colby called Stael Maxie and tells him to end the day with a smile, before smiling himself. Their building-old house is in the Fetch Priory, close to the village of Fetchborough.

Outside, in the forest at night, a man hiker with a flashlight, hears birds and sees fog. He starts to whistle.

Stael enters the room where Dr. Fendelman works with high tech equipment. They begin phase one power and move up to phase two. As they do, in the other room, behind Thea, who sits at her desk, the skull begins to pulsate with power. She hears it and turns to it. She moves over to it. Fendelman switches to main computer control. He orders the full power on up sequence and Stael obeys. In front of Thea, the skull begins to take on her features... her face is in the skull.

Outside, the hiker is running for his life from an unseen thing. The power outside builds. The hiker cannot run any further. An alien form seems to enter Thea's mind's eye and she holds her head and falls...the hiker falls, screaming as something comes at him.

With her hair up, Leela pets K9, mentioned Professor Marius would not be very pleased. She asks the Doctor if HE will be alright. The Doctor refers to K9 as it but Leela protests: she can call the metal dog a he; the Doctor calls the TARDIS a she. The Doctor covers K9's ears, telling Leela he is not sure he will be alright. It is clear to Leela, who refers to herself at least once, in first person, that the Doctor cannot control this old machine. The Doctor asks her to repeat it. She does but he tells her he heard her; to which Leela asks why he wanted her to repeat it. He tells her there is not one piece of equipment or part of her that he hasn't repaired or changed at some point. Leela tells him not to cry about it. He is in complete and constant control of her. The TARDIS shakes. Leela asks if he is in complete control of her. Leela panics, telling the TARDIS she meant no disrespect and could have been wrong. Someone is using a sonic time scan. They are being dragged towards a relative continuum displacement zone -- a hole in time. The Doctor turns it and tells the old girl she is wonderful. Leela asks if she can really understand what they say. He explains the TARDIS generates a low intensity telepathic field and primitive thoughts like Leela's appeal to her. "That's odd," he says. "What my thought patterns?" Leela asks. Not able to calculate the coordinates, The Doctor has to trace the scan back to its source. Leela asks if that is to destroy it? To stop it from being used otherwise it can cause a direct continuum implosion and destroy the planet it is originating from. "Oh no, not there," the Doctor finds it is Earth and tells Leela her ancestors have the ability for self destruction that borders on genius. Leela tells him she does not like the way he keeps talking about her ancestors. "I like your new dress," he tells her and she thanks him.

Thea reads the paper the next morning. Fendelman and Stael are with her, both having worked all night. Thea remembered it was Max Stael's turn to make breakfast. Colby is out exercising Leaky the yellow dog. Leaky has found the dead hiker. Fendelman tells Thea that Colby's reconstruction of the skull was perfect. Thea tells him that she is a chronology technician. Colby comes in and alerts them to a corpse. Fendelman asks what sort. "A dead one," Colby says and explains it is not someone they know. He didn't die easily. Max tells them it is never easy to die. Fendelman does not want to call the police. Colby wonders if Fendelman is breeding vultures in his lab. The man must have been terrified when he died. Fendelman tells them these woods are supposed to be haunted. If they alert the public to this, there will be newspaper people and publicity. They attract enough lunatics already without attention. Colby's work he says will effect how man sees himself and that will earn Colby a noble prize. When Adam recovers, Fendelman suggests they arrange for the body to be found someplace else. Thea feels that is illegal. Quietly, he tells Max to get on the radio to London to tell Hartman he wants the best security men here and he wants Max to do a post mortem on the body.

In the TARDIS, Leela picks up the hat stand and helps the Doctor with his scarf and hat. "Come on then," Leela says. "No, no, no," the Doctor said, "The one who leads says come on. Come on." Outside, the Doctor asks a herd of cows about the time scanner but he comes to the conclusion that the cows do not know anything about the time scanner. He thinks the exercise will do them good -- it is a beautiful day.

Fendelman can get a visual representation of the owner of the skull. Max returns to him and tells him there is a small blister on the base of the man's neck but that couldn't have killed him. All indications are that this man died recently but the body is decomposing already... falling apart. All the energy has been removed, all the binding forces have been removed and all that remains is a husk. Fendelman tells Max to dispose of the body and nobody must know of it.

Leela calls the Doctor as he lays down under a tree. A church bell rings. He finds an old man is there and being held by Leela, who has her knife at his neck. This man is a farmer and is named Ted Moss. Leela tells him that his council (he was sent by the Council of Burgess) should choose their warriors more carefully. Then she realizes he is not a warrior and was not sneaking up on them. He tells the Doctor about the scientists. He thinks Leela has escaped from somewhere and when the Doctor offers a jelly baby, he thinks the Doctor has escaped from someplace also. He asks, "You both have escaped from somewhere, haven't you?" "Frequently," the Doctor admits. A foreigner named Fendelman is supposed to be one of the richest men in the world, made his money in electronics.

A security team leader named Harry Mitchell will not allow an old woman, named Mrs. Martha Tyler into the kitchen. He calls her a loony old trout. Thea arrives and protests his treatment of the old lady. So does Colby. Tyler tells them Mitchell will be sorry sooner or later or later or sooner. She tells Thea and Colby she will return later and they should tell Dr. Fendelman that. Thea and Colby find out about the tighter security now. Colby goes to talk to Fendelman about the guards and new restrictions about coming and going. Looking, Colby finds all the equipment of Fendelman. Data from these computers lead Fendelman to the excavation sites in Kenya. He explains this to Colby when he finds Colby has found the computers. The real work of the machine is to begin. Ten years ago when Fendelman was working on the missile guidance system, he noticed a sonic shadow, a vibration.

Leela and the Doctor hide from guards, outside the gate. The Doctor looks up from the trees and spits out some leaf. Leela suggests that she will kill the guard but he stops her. There is also a dog with the guard. He tells her she must stop attacking people: it will get them into trouble. Leela tells him not to worry, she will protect him. He is incredulous at this. They will circle around the back.

Colby tells Thea that Fendelman is crazy as a bedbug. Fendelman believes he can see into the past with the machine. Colby tells her that because Fendelman can pervert the laws of the land he do the same to the laws of physics. Thea reminds him of the dead man. Fendelman told Colby the machine only works after dark. Thea thinks maybe due to solar disruption. He was one of the foremost geniuses in electronics until he became interested in the origin of man.

It seems darker now and night time. The Doctor and Leela trek through the darker back woods. They start for the house.

Thea knocks on the door to Fendelman's lab and when no one answers, she goes inside and turns the machine on. Unknown to her, the skull begins pulsating again. In the woods, the Doctor tells Leela to stay close to him but she's already off, exploring on her own and at the house already, past a guard, her knife out. "She's done it again," the Doctor says.

Leela ducks aside; the Doctor commands his legs to run and they do! Leela knocks down the farmer Moss but another man, younger, comes in behind Leela, just as she was threatening to make that shot Moss's last. He makes her put the rifle down that she confiscated from Moss. He asks Leela to explain what she is doing in his Gran's cottage. The skull stops glowing but Thea seems in a trance, even when Colby arrives. He notices almost at once.

The security officer Mitchell is sitting drinking tea when he hears a strange sound slithering outside the window of the house. The door opens and nothing comes in. But Colby hears his dying screams. He slaps Thea awake and they head for the kitchen where they find the security man dead, the same expression as the other body. Thea checks the blister on the back of the neck. Adam asks how she can be so dispassionate. Thea starts to get another signal from the skull and calls to him. Before Adam can touch her, the Doctor comes in and demands that he not touch her... twice. He asks how many deaths there have been. Thea's whole body glows with energy and strange worm like slug like monsters seem to fill the space where exists...at the same time. Two of the things, which vanish. The Doctor tells Adam the things look like embryo Fendahleen, creatures from his own mythology, which were supposed to have perished when the Fifth Planet broke up. To survive about 12 million years, its energy reserves must be enormous. There are four thousand million people on Earth now but in a year there will be just one. Adam asks, "What are you? Some kind of wandering Armageddon peddler?"

Fendelman, Stael, and other guards come in. The Doctor starts acquainting himself with them and giving them instructions about Thea and the skull but a revolver is pointed at his face. Fendelman orders him taken away. The Doctor asks if this is the way he treats all his houseguest. Taken away, the Doctor warns that Thea needs help. Max Stael finds the body. Adam will call the police and he takes Thea.

The Doctor is tossed into a large storage room, ranting that there isn't time for all this. He takes out his sonic screwdriver.

Jack Tyler, Martha's grandson, the man who stopped Leela, tells Moss he wouldn't recognize the truth if he fell over it. Jack finds Leela's story far fetched. Moss manhandles Leela and she elbows him. She tells Jack she must go now. Jack tells Moss to leave even though Moss tells him that Martha (Mother Tyler) has something for him that he paid good money for. Moss leaves, telling Leela he will see her later. She tells him to get some practice first. After Moss goes, Jack tells Leela he fears his good old girl gran is involved with something Moss and some of the others from the village are involved in. Mother Tyler is into the old ways, the old religion. Leela explains about the time scan and the implosion it would cause. Jack calls Leela a teller of whoppers. Leela kneels next to his chair, happy at this. She goes on about the Doctor, who can be difficult sometimes but she says the Doctor great knowledge and gentleness...

The Doctor kicks boxes around the closet he is locked in. He throws his sonic screwdriver down. He does not seem able to open the locked door. But suddenly he hears a click and the door opens. He shuts the light and leaves.

Adam and Thea discuss their situation. Adam has always been ambitious: his weakness. Fendelman offered Adam unlimited funds. Thea tells him to phone the police. He tries but finds the line disconnected. As in cut off. He goes over their situation, "The place is surrounded by guards, we're beset by a wandering lunatic, and we have a pair of corpses on our hands." They are trapped. Thea thinks it was planned but not by Fendelman, he was just part of it. Fendelman was just doing what was planned for him. She tells him to ask her who planned it. She says, "I did." He calls Thea as sane as anyone here except... he stops himself from saying it. He takes her out of the room, leaving the skull in darkness.

After confronting Fendelman, Adam tells him, "You must think my head zips up the back." Adam thinks Fendelman is mad. Fendelman tells him if that is so, he should be humoured. He makes Adam sit down. He believes the skull is extra terrestrial. Colby makes fun of this: the skull is exactly like that of modern man but it is 12 million years old. Colby says, "You think we're all aliens."

In the cottage, Jack and Leela prepare to leave to find the Doctor but Leela hears a sound. They open the door to find Martha on the other side, very shocked.

The Doctor sneaks around the hallways as Max and Moss talk, Max angry that Moss came here, as Moss prepares to leave. Their "friends" are waiting for the word. When the time comes, they must have 12 in the coven. Moss tells him that 13 be the number. Max tells himself that that place, the 13th is for the one that kills.

Fendelman is sure man did not originate or evolve on Earth. With the scanner, he has traced what he believes to be the moment of death of the skull of this alien traveller. At that moment there is a surge of power: an inpouring of energy, as though to store energy in a large concentration. He thinks that power is stored in the skull. Max and Fendelman have been doing experiments in secret for some time. Adam Colby thanks him. The mysterious intruder said something about x-rays. Thea excuses herself to go lie down. Fendelman thinks the intruder has been spying on him: the Doctor. Fendelman takes Colby to show him what he found with the X-rays... and he takes the gun.

Leela tells the old woman to drink, it will warm her. Jack tries to get through to her. Leela tells him it is because she does not want to remember that she is like this. Leela pets her and tells her she is safe. Something called her in her mind, she saw it in her mind. It was hungry for her soul. It wants everything. No life left, she says. She yells for help, "Help us!" Leela tells Jack she must find the Doctor and runs out, telling him to stay with the old woman.

The x-ray shows a pentagram in the skull -- part of the bone structure itself, a form of neural relay where the energy is stored. For as long as man can remember, the pentagram has been a symbol for mystical energy and power. Applied advanced technology can release the energy in the neural circuit -- to form a beacon to bring others back. Mankind will then meet its destiny.

Night outside, Leela chops the back of a guard and he falls.

Thea goes to the closet and calls to him, asking if the "intruder" is there. She knows she needs help. Thea goes back into the computer room where she sees the x ray of the skull and the pentagram. She starts to hear the sound again and the feeling in her mind continues. She holds her head. Max comes in and sees this. Thea tells him he frightened her, "Do you have to creep about like that?" He apologizes and asks what she is doing here. She was looking for the stranger. She thinks he can help her. Max knows the stranger has escaped. Max tells her it is too late for all the meddling fools. Max backs her into the room and chloroforms her--she is the key to his power, the chosen one. She passes out.

Leela is looking for the Doctor and checking the manor. She hears him scream and rushes into the room he is in. He tells her not to touch him and she kicked the chair out from under him. He falls on top of her and she tells him he is very heavy. She is happy she just saved his life and insists she just followed her feeling. The thing is becoming a metraction generator, using appropriate material to recreate itself. It grows and exists by death. It absorbs the soul and eats life itself. Leela explains about the old woman Martha Tyler. He is surprised she is still alive. The skull is indestructible. Risking that Fendelman had already used up the 100 hours that will bring the thing to life, the Doctor asks Leela to take him to the old woman.

Fendelman explains the log to Colby. Colby asks him why evidence of alien origins were not found before. Fendelman tells him they were not looking and didn't have the right machinery. He also quotes the Chinese proverb, "A journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step." He still believes this experiment will recreate man's origins.

Max, in some dark basement, has Thea tied up at the wrists and she is on the floor. He wakes her up. He tells her she is the medium to which this ancient power is focused and gives her shot with a needle. The scanner awoke the power. Through her, he will control and conjure the power of the ages. He leaves and she calls him a fool but he hears her and claims he will be a god.

The Doctor with a cowboy like hat on, and Leela arrive at the Tyler's shack and attempt to wake up Mrs. Tyler. The Doctor orders Jack to make some tea and fruitcake. When Jack leaves, the Doctor tries to wake up the old woman using tea. Leela mentions the fruitcake. Max enters Colby and Fendelman's lab and pulls a gun on them, ordering them to turn off the scanner. Max tells Fendelman he has an industrial relations problem. Max also picks up Fendelman's discarded gun. When Fendelman refuses to turn off the scanner, Colby does it but Max tells him to shut up or he will kill him. Colby calls him Maxie and tells Fendelman that Max is not known for his sense of humour. Max tells them he will enjoy having them worship him.

In the shack, Jack arrives as the Doctor is talking about baking a fruitcake. The Doctor tells Leela it is too late, Mrs. Tyler is slipping away. They stand but she wakes up and tells him that is not the way to make a fruitcake. She notices the best china and wants the fishcake. The Doctor tells her that she was slipping away and he needed something normal to bring her back from her psychic shock and back to reality. The Doctor tries to get Jack to tell her he means to help. Telepathy and precognition is normal for anyone who spent their childhood near a time fissure--a weakness in the fabric of time and space---every haunted place has one. That is why they are haunted. This one must be very large. It's a time distortion. It also affected the names around here: Fetchborough, Fetch. Mrs. Tyler asks him how he knows so much and he tells her he reads a lot. The Doctor asks Jack to keep an eye on the priory and it could be dangerous. He has to know who comes and goes. He will be back with Leela by tomorrow sundown. Mrs. Tyler gives Leela a charm of protection that she cast for Ted but it is too late for him. When the pair leave, Mrs. Tyler tells Jack that she saw the figure the Doctor spoke of in a dream: it was a woman.

Colby and Fendelman are tied to support poles in the basement. Max has been planning this since Mrs. Tyler's visions came true. Max tells him the grimoires do not impress him. Mrs Tyler's paranormal gifts and the race memory she draws on were sign posts on the road to power. Colby asks him to spare them the after dinner speech. Max looks forward to his terror. Fendelman trusted him but Colby didn't. In Fendelman's absence, the security guards are to take their instructions from Max.

In the TARDIS in transit, the Doctor tells Leela the 5th planet is 107 million miles out and 12 million years back. Leela asks if the thing is from the planet but the Doctor tells her it came from it a long time ago long before her species evolved on Earth. She asks how it came to Earth. He seems stumped..but it used enormous stock pile of power to jump project itself across space... humans speak of astral projection, travelling psychically to other planets... déjà vu... it could be a race memory.

Morning: a van arrives at the manor, watched by Jack. Max's followers including Moss.

Leela wakes up on the floor of the console room and nearly stabs the returning Doctor with her knife when he surprised her. He tells her to put that thing away and be glad her people never discovered guns -- they would have awoken one day with a start and destroyed themselves. The Doctor kicks the data bank cards he had carried in. There is no record of the 5th planet. All info is recorded by the meticulous Time Lords...you have to when you lived as long as the Time Lords have. The Doctor opens the scanner screen and sees the green glow of a time loop which only the Time Lords can do. The planet is caught in a time loop..all memory of the planet erased by the loop... a circle of time, making records invisible. Leela calls it very clever but he calls it criminal. He hopes they are not too far around the time loop, they've been on a wild goose chase and they have to get back.

Mrs. Tyler casts tarot cards and gets a card that shows the tower struck by lightning. Jack returns, his hat on, and tells her the Doctor is not back yet. Martha tells him never trust a man who wears a hat. Grand dad wore one and she calls grand dad a wicked ole soul too. Jack tells her he wears one; she tells him she gave it to him and that's why it is different. He won't take a charm from her right away and she tells them it is Lamas Eve. Most people believe and that would make it true. He finally takes the charm. She kisses him. She asks him for two cartridges and he asks if she is going rabbeting. She fills them with salts...the best protection. They have to get up to the priory mansion. They don't want them meddling in things they don't understand.

The followers in robes and Max prepare. Max links the old skull up to the scanner. Thea is on the floor in the middle of a pentagram.

Leela tells the Doctor they are going to be late. He yells but apologizes. He wonders where the Fendahl is going to get all that power. He hits the console and she asks if he hurt himself. He knows the power is the skull absorbing the energy being released from scanner being damaged by the time fissure. Leela tells him he cannot think of everything. He asks her he can't? He was frightened by a mythological horror from childhood, too frightened to think clearly. Leela tuts tut tuts him.

Max's followers including what looks like a child or a midget, bow, ignoring Fendelman's pleas. Colby tells Fendelman to shut up and let Max electrocute himself. Night: Leela and the Doctor have arrived and trek though the forest.

Colby continues to warn Fendelman to shut up or Max will plunge him into death. Fendelman, man of the Fendahl -- he was being used as were all his ancestors and mankind. Jack enters the manor with his grandmother. No one seems to be upstairs. They hear a shot from the cellar, there are cellars all under here not used for a long time. Mrs Tyler suffers some kind of attack.

Max has shot Fendelman in the head. Colby calls him a murdering lunatic.

The Doctor and Leela enter the gate through the fog.

Max begins his ceremony. Mrs. Tyler hurt her foot. She and Jack see the scanner.

Thea's hands come undone and she is in some kind of trance. The pentagram around her glows red.

Mrs. Tyler knows something is coming. It's the Doctor and Leela. Jack says, "Damn, I'm glad to see you. You're not a moment too soon."

Mrs Tyler says, "No, a moment too late!"

The Doctor is still able to move and he takes the rifle from Jack, explaining the Fendahleen is psychotelekinetic and can control their muscles psycho kinetically. He tells them to shut their eyes and concentrate on their legs and when he shouts to run to run. He shoots the rock salt at the thing but Leela still yells that she can't move her legs. Jack pulls her and Mrs Tyler away as the Doctor yells, "Run! Run for your life!"

In the pentagram Thea becomes the Fendahl Core -- a Medusa like golden entity with flowing robes and almost concrete hard, huge eyes within which are vertical rectangular pupils. It also has circular writhing hair. Her upper body floats until she is standing horizontally. Colby is watching as she points at Moss who yells at her not to. The power from her finger transforms him into a Fendahleen baby. Without emotion, the thing that was Thea points at the others and begins turning them into Fendahleen also.

In a new hall, the Doctor tells the others, "Well done, well done, that sort of control's almost impossible to break." While the skull was restructuring Thea's brain, the pure energy created the Fendahleen, the same thing that killed Mitchell and the hiker. He sees a wire which goes down to the cellar. The Doctor tells Jack to stay here with his grandma, he and Leela are going to the cellar. Jack puts his arm around his gran, the old woman telling him, "You know, Jack, there's gonna come a time when I'll be too old for this sorta thing."

Colby is trying not to watch as Thea continues her transforming. The Doctor and Leela sneak into the smoky cellar, Leela with her knife out and ready. Leela cuts Colby free, and the Doctor tells Leela to get him out of here as soon as she can but not to look at Thea's eyes. As Leela takes him out, Colby yells at Max to get out but Leela yells at him to get out with her. She pushes him out. The Doctor grabs Max from behind to free him but looks at his eyes and realizes Max has seen Thea's eyes -- it's too late for him. Max asks for the gun--not for firing at Thea but for himself. The Doctor gets it off the mantle of a fireplace and, as his scarf seems to get caught on something, tugs it, and gives the gun to Max, "I'm sorry." Max thanks him as the Doctor leaves, hearing a gun shot.

In the hall, after spotting Fendahleen everywhere, Leela and Colby join Jack and Mrs. Tyler, where Colby blames Mrs Tyler, calling her a stupid old witch. She just tells Jack (whom she calls John) that Colby is just afraid like the rest of them. Colby starts to tell off Jack but Leela yells at him with her knife, "Listen, you nearly got us all killed down there now be quiet or you'll get yourself killed up here!" She runs to check for the Doctor, who arrives and tells her to put her knife away. The Doctor goes to Colby, "You almost got us killed down there." Colby says, "Ahh, it has been mentioned." The Doctor asks Mrs. Tyler to listen and see what's down there. She tells them it is getting darker slowly. They go back to the Fendahleen the Doctor killed with the salt. He calls it beautiful, which surprises Colby: sodium chloride kills it affecting the conductivity and throwing the overall electrical balance preventing the disruption of localizing the osmotic pressure. Probably the origin of throwing salt over your shoulder.

Followed by the other four, the Doctor runs to the scanner and saves the planet, but cannot kill all the Fendahl. Leela tells him that good marksmanship is not a matter of luck but the Fendahleen he killed was just isolated and not very powerful, and he shot it in the throat. What is in the cellar is much more powerful. It is a gestalt, a group creature made of separate parts it can come together to make a totally new thing as Colby explains to Jack. Jack tells Colby the Doctor reads a lot. According to the legends of Gallifrey and the superstitions of Earth there are 12 Fendahleen and the core, Max killed himself and the Doctor killed one. They can still stop the completion. He needs rock salt, table salt. Mrs. Tyler gives him the salt from the charms she gave Jack and Leela, "Mrs Tyler, you're wonderful!" They give it to the Doctor, who sends them off, Mrs Tyler to get salt, Jack to shoot another Fendahleen if he sees any and fix cartridges.

Fendahleen babies congregate around the skull.

Colby tries to swallow all the Doctor has told him: about 12 million years ago on a nameless planet, evolution went down a blind alley and natural selection turned back on itself and a creature evolved which prospered by absorbing all energy wavelengths of life itself including that of its own kind. The Time Lords destroyed the entire planet and hid it for posterity. He tells Colby they are not supposed to do that sort of thing.

In the hall, Leela hears something and warns Jack.

Colby figures when the Time Lords acted it was too late, the Fendahl had already come to Earth and the Doctor adds that the Fendahl probably took in Mars on the way through, buried and not killed. The Doctor tells him that the Fendahl is death, how do you kill death? The Doctor is working on a device as he talks, the energy amassed by the Fendahl was stored in the skull and dissipated slowly as a biotransmutation field. Any appropriate life form that came within the field was altered so that it ultimately evolved into something the Fendahl could use. He isn't saying it created man but it developed man's evolution.

Leela has correctly heard a Fendahleen in the hallway.

The Doctor tells Colby this might explain the dark side of man's nature. Just a theory which Colby tells him is a pretty wild one. The Doctor smiles, "It's more fun that way."

Thea and a Fendahleen materialize at the end of the hallway. Jack is looking at them but cannot fire the rifle. Leela karate chops him down and closes her eyes, grabbing the rifle.

The Doctor offers an alternate explanation: the Fendahl fed into the RNA of certain individuals the instincts and compulsions for the need to recreate the Fendahl -- fed to the generations to people like Fendelman. On the other hand, the Doctor tells him it could all just be a coincidence. They hear a shot and the Doctor sends Colby to help Mrs. Tyler with the salt. Leela has shot and killed another Fendahleen. The Fendahl Core -- Thea -- appears back in the cellar. The Doctor finds Leela and Jack on the floor but they get up. He holds and tells her that good marksmanship is not a matter of luck, then unceremoniously drops her, "Come on!" Her smile fades and she follows him. So does Jack.

The Doctor gets all the salt Mrs Tyler can lay her hands on. The Doctor says, "Right. Battle stations." He sends the Tylers back to the cottage. Colby asks where they are going and tells them, when Mrs Tyler claims he should catch them up, that he will probably overtake them. Colby gives the Doctor a lead lined box and will give the Doctor and Leela time to get down to the cellar before he can switch on the scanner. That should confuse things long enough for them to grab the skull and get away. The Doctor instructs him to switch it on for only two minutes and then for him to go: the Doctor has rigged the scanner into a controlled implosion -- big enough to blow this place to atoms three minutes after Colby shuts off the scanner. Leela asks why they cannot leave the skull here: it can just pop up again and start the whole thing over again. The Doctor exits, Leela follows but before she does, she kisses Colby on the cheek, "Good luck." Colby shuts the door but the Doctor opens it again quickly. This makes Colby jump but the Doctor reminds him to give them three minutes but puts up four fingers.

Armed with salt, the Doctor and Leela make their way to the cellar for the skull, facing a Fendahleen which Leela hurls salt at. He tells her to save some for later but she tells him not to worry. With a glove on, the Doctor gets the skull away from the two baby Fendahleen and puts it in the lead lined box.

Colby switches the scanner off and runs out.

Leela and the Doctor exit the cellar, Leela hurling salt over her shoulder at the Fendahl. They run into a hall where the ghostly image of the Fendahl Core rises over them and raises her arms. Leela holds the Doctor's scarf and they proceed past her, throwing all their rock salt and other salts, eyes closed. Thea appears on the mantel place and then the stairs, finally on the pentagram. The form spirals out of control.

Outside, the Doctor and Leela become separated but he tells her to run.

Under a table, Jack tells gran to keep her head down. Colby runs in and joins them, hugging Mrs Tyler and Jack puts his arm around Colby. The implosion blows inward and the manor blows up as the Doctor and Leela run and finally dive for cover under a low hanging tree branch. The Doctor tells Leela that vanishing priories leave a lot of explaining to do. She asks about the others and he tells her they are probably at Mrs Tyler's right now having tea and eating plump cake with her best china.

The trio are under the table. Jack tells granny to put the kettle on.