find all this disgusting.
Yes, I do.
If life is to go on, homo sapiens, that is,
we have to do these things.
What are you doing it for?
I can't tell you, not yet.
Now...
You sent a message you wanted to see me.
Are you a refugee or what?
I could offer you a job helping me here,
but I don't think you'd take it, would you?
- No, I wouldn't.
- Oh, pity, I could do with some help.
Scorpio. Scorpio, this is Dayna, come in, please.
Tarrant, respond, please.
I can't help you, either.
The animals smashed my transmitter system
when they broke out.
All I've got left is my intercom.
Anyway...
tell me about yourself.
Well, I'm one of a small group
fighting the Federation.
We've got a base, we're gathering equipment
and looking for allies.
We're also trying to recruit experts.
Specialists in relevant fields.
- Relevant to what?
- The eventual destruction of the Federation.
Relevant to war, in fact.
Possibly.
Unless the Federation have become pacifists,
it has to be war.
If they were pacifists, the problem wouldn't exist.
And it is a problem for which you see yourselves
as the solution.
We are led by a man called Avon.
He thinks we need someone like you.
We'll be going into radioactive areas
from time to time and that is your field.
- Or it was.
- It still is.
Avon thinks it might also be possible
to use genetic engineering techniques
to synthesise a drug we need.
- For what?
- Protection.
Against the pacification drug the Federation use.
I once worked for the Federation.
- Did you?
- Yes.
And I liked their proposition
even less than I like yours.
Of course...
if you wanted to stay on your own,
that would be different.
Would it?
Yes.
You know it would.
What is all that?
One of our pursuit units engaged
an unidentified planet-hopper.
They refused to obey
a stand-and-be-searched order
and the pursuit commander opened fire.
Why all the interest?
What's one civilian cargo ship more or less?
It turned out to be more than
just an ordinary cargo ship.
They estimated its initial acceleration
at time distort 12.
Plasma bolts slowed it up, but not by much.
That planet-hopper left our pursuit ships for dead.
- Did they give chase?
- They lost it.
Around here.
Where did they first see it?
Here, in the region of Bucol Two.
What do we know about that planet?
Intelligence appraisal.
It's out of date, Commissioner Sleer.
- It's from before the Galactic War.
- Never mind, what does it say?
"Bucol Two's planet was abandoned
after mineral deposits were exhausted.
"Not used again until six years before the war."
When it was used for what?
Doesn't say, just a footnote, "Refer code W secret.
"Planet designated an experimental area,
budget 20 million credits,
"security code double-X."
Any more?
"Scientific experimental area developed further
during the war but the work was then abandoned."
At which point presumably
the planet was abandoned too.
Never presume anything, Captain.
As I recall, code double-X means
nothing is recorded.
Well, there's certainly nothing down here
about the work they were doing.
And there won't be anything anywhere else,
but they were there on Bucol Two
towards the end of the war.
And they spent 20 million credits
on whatever it was.
A new weapon?
Does it give any other information?
The names of the principal scientific officers,
anything at all?
Gives the name "Justin", nothing else.
A planet-hopper that can outrun a pursuit unit,
hovering over a useless planet
that has been abandoned since the war.
Set a course for Bucol Two.
(All screaming)
How could I admire you doing this?
You came here expecting more?
A young love resurrected?
Ah, well...
perhaps I'd better tell you one or two things,
then I might not seem such an ogre to you.
I don't think anything you could tell me
would change my mind.
I think it could.
You don't think I built this laboratory complex
on my own, do you?
I was the head
of a Federation