traducers.
Don't concern yourself, Egrorian.
I encourage ambition.
I never conspired against you, I swear it!
Orac, acknowledge my instructions.
- I don't understand.
- Remove the key.
You pathetic fool. That isn't Orac!
- Highness, I asked...
- Look at it! It's just a box of flashing lights!
I warned you about Avon, and he still tricked you.
I will kill you for this.
- So what was that we gave to Egrorian?
- Orac, mark two.
Just a replica I made a few months back.
Contingency planning, Vila,
and the contingency arose.
- But the thing worked.
- Well enough to fool Egrorian, anyway.
It was fitted with a voice box and a relay station
so that the real Orac could run it.
You could have got us killed.
Why didn't you tell me?
I didn't want to make you nervous, Vila.
I was nervous enough for the both of us.
ORAC: The escape velocity of this vehicle
is now confirmed at Mach 15.
And unattainable.
What do you mean, "unattainable"?
Mach 15 is unattainable
on the present flight configuration.
There seems to be some problem with the shuttle.
What kind of problem?
The ellipse of the flight path
is three degrees lower than it should be.
- That's something like a mile!
- Damn.
Something's gone wrong.
That shuttle's not going to make it.
A short-range relay, now I see how they worked it.
- A bit late in the day, Egrorian.
- Not so.
It means that Orac is still on board the shuttle.
We'll be able to recover it after the crash.
- Damaged beyond repair, no doubt.
- Dented possibly.
But the lykenic plaques and tarriel cells
are virtually indestructible.
Fire is the only danger...
- and we've assured that that won't happen.
- How?
The shuttle will run out of fuel
in 20 minutes from now.
It will hit the ground in a marshy area
some 207 miles west of here.
At the calculated impact speed of 390 knots
it will bury itself completely.
There won't be a fire.
And you say both Orac
and the tachyon funnel can survive such a crash?
Yes, even the shuttle will be reusable
after a few repairs.
Avon and Vila won't survive, of course.
They'll be jellified.
- This had better work.
- Have you cleared the governors?
I think so. Try it now.
Switching to manual.
Maximum power on all drives.
Look, Egrorian.
They've broken the auto control
and switched to manual. We've allowed for that.
So, they've realised the danger they're in.
They'd be poor space pilots if they hadn't realised
something was wrong by now.
What a pity we haven't a link with the shuttle.
Yes, it is unfortunate. It's never been necessary.
PINDER: 12.5 minutes, Egrorian.
I should like to be able to see Avon.
What's the position now, Orac?
Escape velocity still unattainable.
Elapsed flight time; 9 minutes.
Remaining flight time; 12 minutes.
- Twelve minutes?
- Fuel.
It's no good.
We're not going to get out of this one.
- Egrorian set us up.
- Yes, but how? How did he do it?
Avon, we're going to die.
Look, we've got to help them, Tarrant,
we must do something!
There's nothing we can do, Dayna, nothing at all.
Couldn't we make an intercept?
In the atmosphere, with a shuttle at full drive?
We have to be stationary for a docking.
Look, I'll go down with the bracelets
and we can teleport back.
Between two fast moving points? It's not possible.
You'd slip out of the beam and be vaporised.
Even assuming we could set up
first-line coordinate, which we couldn't.
- But there must be something we can do.
- Suggest something!
- Go back to close orbit.
- And what will that achieve?
I don't know.
But it can't be any less than we'll achieve
by sitting here.
ORAC: Remaining flight time; 10 minutes.
And another five minutes before we hit.
How do you spend your last 15 minutes?
Working. Working like
we have never worked before, Vila.
It's gravity that is holding us, right?
We haven't enough engine power to lift us free.
We must lighten the load somehow.
We'll have to strip this shuttle down to its frame.
Come on!
-