Original subtitles

Dr. Fermin, wake up.

Wake up, Dr. Fermin. You must wake up.

It is I, Abu Zeki.

Mademoiselle, you must come because Mademoiselle Gambo came to the computer.

She came last night. Computer. You had a little drug here, doctor.

You'll be all right. I do not understand what is happening. Not at all, sir. She

came late.

I saw her car, then I went to bed.

When I woke up, it was still there. I went to the computer, and the girl was

there too. They were both in the communication unit.

What are they doing? They took no notice of me. I spoke to them, but they took no

notice. They were both, quite still, staring into the display tube.

Oh, my God.

I should have guessed.

There's a car here.

Here, take me there.

Come on, come on. I have orders. He must come, he must.

If he must, I'll take you. I should have guessed.

I should have guessed.

Professor Dornay! Professor Dornay!

Professor Dornay! Yes?

Dr. Fleming wants you in the computer. What? In the computer, quickly!

You know what to do?

Yes.

I know.

You will stay here. No!

I didn't say stop her. Don't let her get out of here. Do you have instructions?

No. No, then leave her alone.

What is it? What's happening?

What have you done?

What have you done?

Thank you very

much.

And this joy that smiles on the living...

...has

a place among these human cells.

There is a new government now.

What did you do to Gamboa?

She knows what to do.

She was not frightened.

What did you do to her?

I showed her the meaning.

Listen. I'll leave her.

She is very weak.

As if she was under some enormous effort.

She has.

Enough to do for us all.

Is there any news from outside?

No.

Gamboola will be establishing herself somehow or another. It should have been

told to her by the computer.

What is it after?

It's after taking power into its own hands. How?

I don't know.

You saw.

Somehow it communicated to her what Andre couldn't put into words for me.

But what?

The original meaning of the program.

The appalling momentary flash of revelation that the saints and the

prophets have.

It'd be enough to make an otherwise normal person do anything.

Andre.

She lives with her all the time.

And we can't touch it.

We had our chance and we muffed it.

She had said she had to find a new protector for the machine and its

message. Now she has.

But why Gambool? Oh, she'll run the place for it, make it safe.

I thought it'd choose Salim, but this is cleverer.

She slipped me a mickey last night, made me tell her all about Andre, and she

must have gone straight to the thing as if she was compelled.

How could she be? Well, you can be compelled by logic like she is.

You've never had quite this feeling before?

Of what?

Of everything closing in.

I have.

There was always someone to turn to before.

Osborne or somebody like that.

Didn't do much good, did he?

Now, the computer's out of our hands now, Madeline. This time for good. Dr.

Fleming! What is it? Dr. Fleming!

Come on.

Colonel Salim is dead. What? How?

I do not know. I think he was shot. The soldiers are all gone. There are only

the intel guards left. And Gambool? I do not know.

I do not understand what is happening. I'll tell you what's happening,

Abouzeki. If Salim's coup's failed, it'll be because of Gambool.

The president will be her front man now. Her puppet.

She'll pull the strings and he'll twitch. What can she do? What she's

compelled to.

We'll all be puppets on strings soon.

Solemn.

John. Yeah?

It's odd.

The wind.

Doesn't usually blow like this here.

At this time of the year.

You can make your report to Vienna.

Say that we are in control and will remain so.

Tell them that Colonel Salim was shot because he was in the way.

He was not a friend of yours, I think.

No.

He was a petty nationalist.

If he would have got power, he would have used the computer for his own ends.

And now?

Now you will help me.

I've done my best.

And you wish to do good.

So you will help me.

What is that?

Those are the samples Professor Dorney asked for.

She may have them.

We have a responsibility now for this country.

Later it will be more.

I have been blinded by Colonel Salim for a long while, but last night I saw

clearly.

I saw clearly.

The traitor Salim will be buried without honors.

Other officers responsible for the uprising will be suspended and subject

to imprisonment.

The army and all other branches of the government will be answerable only to

the President's edict.

The present parliament will not be recalled into session.

And who will the president be responsible to?

Himself.

Help and assistance will continue to be given on an increasing scale by the new

international technical and economic liaison consortium.

But normal diplomatic relations with other states will not be resumed. You

should say something about the kind of help.

Oh, yes, yes.

Intel is providing new instruments of defense and technology generally and

will shortly be making available a new process for the extension of

agriculture to barren lands.

Which has been perfected in our research laboratories here.

Mahoma. He asks what it will be.

Oh, it is a spray.

It will be explained and demonstrated.

And the wind that comes out of season and blows our

soil away.

What can the Intel Consortium...

What can we do?

What can they do?

It is an act of God.

Oh.

How is she?

I can't get near her. There's a nurse with her all the time. Intel guards on

the doors.

Abu Zeki's doing all he can.

That won't help, huh?

Can't we?

No, John, there's nothing, absolutely nothing we can do.

Here, have a look at these.

What are they? The samples they got for me. One must say Intel are efficient.

You remember I was wondering if there was anything special about the seawater

in these parts?

Is there? Yes, it's like this.

It's opaque.

Normal seawater should look like this.

Quite clear.

Now, see what it does.

Still clear, yes? Yeah.

They got me other samples, too.

Kaufman trotting around the resorts with a bucket and a test tube.

Eastern Mediterranean, Western Mediterranean, East Atlantic, Bay of

Biscay, North Sea, Irish Channel, Skagrak, the Minch, and Northwest

Atlantic.

Much the same as the local product, aren't they? Yeah.

I wonder how this is getting on.

It's clouding out.

I wonder how the fish like it.

What does it?

It's a bacterium.

Where's it come from?

I don't know.

It's one I've never met before.

Here, have a look at this.

There's one.

You see, it's a very simple organism.

It doesn't appear to have more than one outstanding property.

It reproduces with great gusto.

Does it? Well, you saw.

In fact, it reproduces fantastically.

If it wasn't limited to a test tube, it had the whole ocean. In fact, it does

have the whole ocean, and that's what happened. East Atlantic, Mediterranean,

Skagary, Minch. There have been storms reported from all those areas.

Minch?

That's the channel between the Hebrides and the west of Scotland, isn't it?

Yeah.

That's the coast of Thorness.

Yes, it must have started somewhere, mustn't it?

You've no proof of saying that?

No.

Those were all populated to capacity by the time they got there here. Obviously,

they'd been multiplying like mad on the way. We have to compare the densities

along the storm lines. Yes, and in other places where they haven't started yet.

And you might just find a direct correlation between these little beasts

and the weather.

Or again, you might not.

No.

I haven't an idea, really, what the connection could be.

The first hurricanes ever recorded in Britain swept the country from John O

'Groats to Land's End.

Reports are coming in of damage and destruction, and it's feared loss of

life on an enormous scale.

Huge seas have caused the foundering of many vessels, as yet, Lloyds are unable

to estimate the total losses.

Around the coast, there's been great destruction.

Sea walls have crumbled away, cars swept from promenades, whole buildings have

disappeared. Some families managed to make their way to higher ground. For

many, especially the old and infirm, there was no escape.

In some areas, the wind has died down for the time being, leaving a desolation

of floods and derelict buildings, fallen trees and pylons, and hundreds of

thousands of people stranded and homeless.

In other areas, it still continues at gale or even hurricane force.

The barometric pressure remains the lowest ever.

And according to the meteorological office, there is no indication of the

freak weather abating.

Hello, you got here then.

Are you better?

I'm patched up. Can I give you a hand? No, it's all right. You know why he

wants me?

Can't imagine, old boy.

What's it like out now? Pretty rough.

Streets are covered with fallen chimneys and broken tiles. There's a bus-blown

clean-over on Chelsea Bridge. The builders do well as usual, if anyone

does.

Hello, sir. Mr.

Osborne's here.

You're doing it too.

What's your aspiration rate? No idea, old boy.

No, not you, sir. So sorry, sir. Right.

You're breathing as though you've got a cold.

Well, I haven't. The minister will see you now.

Better park there over here. No extra charge these hard days. You don't

understand. You're breathing, I mean, like this.

Like I am.

Similar conditions are reported from all over Western Europe.

and from countries bordering the Mediterranean as far east as Italy.

Gales of unusual force are being recorded as far afield as the west coast

of Africa, Iceland, Greenland, and wet stations in the mid-Atlantic and Azores.

The State Weather Bureau in New York today gave warning of further gales

approaching the eastern seaboard of the United States, and American commentators

are speaking of a shift of world weather patterns comparable to that at the

beginning of the ice age.

Not good, is it?

You're feeling it, too.

Feeling what?

Breathing.

Breathing like an old war horse.

It's pretty general. Worse than the hills.

Look, I asked you to try and think of a connection between what's happening here

and what's happening in... Azeron?

The Dornay and Fleming business.

You think... To be honest, I don't know what I think.

But I'm sure in the back of my mind it's all part of the same thing.

Well?

Is that why you sent for me?

No. I sent for you because I wanted to meet someone, only I imagine you'll be

late, the conditions outside being what they are.

But meanwhile, looking back into your past life and old files, have you

thought of anything?

No, Minister.

This is where they're sickest, at the chief storm centres, north-west

Scotland, the western coast of Europe, western Mediterranean, north-west

Atlantic.

In the sea round here, it's fairly opaque, but it's thicker soup in the

sample from the minch.

What is the Minch? The channel between the Hebrides and Western Scotland where

it all started.

It isn't possible. It doesn't make sense.

But look at it.

All the squall lines carrying the storms radiate from there.

It has nothing to do with the message. Of course it has.

The message has a different plan.

There'll be no time for any different plan if this engulfs us. Now think,

girl, think.

There's nothing about it in the computer.

Oh, it's no use.

We'll have to get along without her, then. How can we?

Look. There's something terribly familiar about this bug, I'm sure of it.

I've coded half your analysis in binary and it reads terribly like something I

already know.

Then it is something you started.

That I started? At Thornex.

That's why this machine doesn't know.

How many times did you try to destroy the other before you succeeded?

Several. And one of those times it decided to hit back with the bacterium.

You have a great force sent to help you.

and you turn it against you.

you don't listen to me.

you don't listen to anyone.

you condemn your whole race because you won't accept.

there is nothing you can do now.

it will engulf you.

these matters are very serious mademoiselle.

i have to have some standing in my country.

i have to hold up my head.

And if your men humiliate me in front of my council... We did not humiliate you,

Your Excellency.

Go on.

My people are very worried about all these things.

First, we stand on our own because you advise us to.

Now we find ourselves cut off from all the world, and we have these problems.

There is this bad weather which blows the soil off our fields.

Then there is this interference by your people in our affairs.

Tell him, Herr Kaufmann.

We interfere, Your Excellency, because we will make you great and we will make

you strong.

You promise these things, but meanwhile you take away our good life.

All the same, you will be very rich.

You have a task to do.

You will be the cradle of a new civilization.

We do not want this.

You will be strong, puissant.

No one will be able to touch us.

You will see, Your Excellency.

There

you

are.

Are you strong enough?

Yes.

Mademoiselle Gamble wants... More missile guidance data.

How do you know?

I know what she will need. It's been done before.

It's the same missile interceptor I made for the British.

Yes, but there are some telemetry details I don't understand yet.

I do. I'll take them.

Oh, yes, Dr. Fleming?

No, you cannot talk to me here.

To my home, but why?

All right, all right, if you want to, you'd better come there.

All right.

It's too far out to travel every day, but I come home weekends.

Very smart, I'm afraid.

Splendid vine.

Was it there?

Oh, yes. We eat the grape. We even make a little wine. Excuse me.

Come in, come in, please. Don't stand

on ceremony.

Ah,

this is my wife, Lemke. How do you do?

You are hot. Ah, it is the wind that is tiring.

What is the soldier doing?

They have put a guard on you.

Why should they put one on me? He's escort for Dr. Fleming. Sit down,

please. Will there be time for something to drink before we eat? Oh, yes. Oh,

good. I've told him he'll have to take potluck.

Sit down, Fleming. Is anything happening in town?

No, it's quiet again. What did they say on that? The coup is over.

Everything is all right.

Is it?

Yes, everything's all right.

My wife is a Christian.

You're a Muslim, huh?

You got a Muslim name.

I am a scientist.

I'm also for my country.

I'm for the whole human race.

Oh, no.

You didn't believe me before about the computer, did you?

Well, believe me about the girl.

I do not follow it. I just do as I am told. Ah, good. Do you want to try a

little of our wine? Fine, thanks.

Intel built the computer. Thank you.

When it wouldn't work, they grabbed me and I brought the girl you know about.

What Intel wanted was a technical edge on all its competitors and a well

-protected base from which to operate, hence the missile designs.

Well, this suited your president all right. It gave him the means to keep the

state running.

It suited the computer.

But it didn't suit Sarlin.

Sarlin wanted to take it all over for the good of the country. He was a

patriot. He certainly wasn't a man to be dominated by another will, and the

computer knew it. So did Andromeda. How?

Well, these things can be calculated.

The machine did the calculating.

Andre made the decision to put the power into the hands of Gambool. But why?

To make it safe.

She was shown part of the message and told its meaning.

And that was enough?

Enough to obsess her, make her kill Salim, do what the machine wanted.

She's like a convert now who's seen a vision and will spend the rest of her

life serving it.

Like St Paul?

Can you explain that?

How you put a vision into words.

St Paul managed.

I think he only described it. One can't... Pass it on. No, or we'd all be

saints. Not in this case.

No, you're right. You can't pass it on, but you can impose it. And that was the

intention of the computer, of Andromeda, and now of Gambool.

You can also describe it. How would you describe this vision?

It says that mankind goes round by a long road, and it may be too long.

We may destroy ourselves before we take the next step.

You believe that?

I was brought up by parents who had a rational 19th century faith that things

were getting better and people growing slowly wiser. Well, they had a few

knocks, a couple of world wars, and so on.

By and large, they still held on to that idea.

Do you?

I do, yes.

Yes, but if we can have the help of a higher intelligence, then... It's the

handshake of death.

The friend that knows better than you yourself what's good for you and is in a

position to impose it.

Did you ever hear about the Pax Romana? The Roman peace?

Yeah. A long-suffering barbarian once said that wherever the Romans had been,

they left a desert.

It's called the Pax Romana.

That's who you're working for.

Personally, I'd rather we stayed free and muddled our way along.

And destroy ourselves?

No.

The only thing that'll destroy us will be from outside.

You have no proof.

You should know when a man is right.

Now you see what we can do for you, Your Excellency.

That is from our own testing?

Yes.

All right.

We will explode now.

It was the warhead exploding.

Very good.

I will see him now.

You will excuse me, Your Excellency.

We have successfully tested the missile prototype.

We are as good as the Britain in that now.

And we have other things on the way, yes?

Yes, mademoiselle.

What is it you want?

I have come on behalf of Dr. Fleming.

Dr. Fleming?

You have read the reports on the weather conditions in Europe?

Yes, it doesn't affect us. He thinks it does. He thinks it is something arising

out of the computer.

The computer?

Yes, the computer, the message.

He would like permission for Professor Dorney to contact the International

Weather Bureau.

No. I think, mademoiselle, there is something in what he says.

Nonsense. He can show you evidence.

Of theories he can't prove.

But if, mademoiselle, it is in the message.

I know the message.

What it tells us to do is perfectly clear.

We have a mission, Dr. Zeki.

And to deal with the weather in Europe is not part of it. If you would...

See, Dr. Fleming. He does not interest me. He has nothing to say which

interests me. You understand?

You understand?

Yes, mademoiselle.

Yeah.

Hello, Neil.

How are you?

Alive?

Sorry. I was lucky.

Professor Nielsen wants your help, Osborne.

What about the inquiry?

Inquiry? Well, we can't hold an inquiry without the main witnesses.

No, the PM has agreed to shelve it for the time being.

This is a national emergency.

An international commission is being formed to study the weather. They want

someone who knows about it to run the secretariat.

Preferably you.

We haven't announced anything yet, but things are getting so bad we've had to

evacuate the highlands.

The Alps and the Pyrenees are nearly depopulated. Thank God. We're near sea

level here.

I see.

I'm afraid I've been a little bit out of touch since I got back from Geneva.

Have you found a cause yet?

Well, we've been able to form some sort of picture.

May I, Minister? Please.

The atmospheric pressure's been dropping all around here.

Down in the Mediterranean, over the Atlantic, always over the sea.

The signs of it now mean the ocean's stretching as far as the North Pacific.

Of course, to compensate for all this air's been rushing out from over the

land, and that's been thinning the atmosphere, and that's what's been

giving you your storms.

It's still spreading.

What do you want me to do? Well, if you're fit enough... Oh, I'm all right.

In order to learn anything about the weather, you've got to gather all the

information you can from all over and try and add it up and try and add it up,

right? Now, that takes organizing.

From here? Mm-hmm. Well, I'm afraid you can't continue in your present ministry,

Osborne, after what's happened.

But there's no reason why you shouldn't work on this, for the time being.

All hands to the pumps. Let it start, pardon me. In the first place? Yes.

In the first place, here.

The west coast of Scotland.

John is?

Yes.

Hello? Yes, sir?

Well, we'll try, but the country's sealed off.

Yes, Azaran is... We'll be lucky if we get a message out of this building

tonight, let alone to the Middle East.

God, can you hear that?

Look, we know what it is.

We can find out what it does.

You might know what we're up against.

How? Through this.

This computer can't help you. It knows nothing about it.

We'll have to try again, won't we? We'll have to work through the whole Thorness

process again until we arrive at it.

Well, I can do nothing.

You mean you won't.

Are you all right?

Yes, I'm all right.

Dr. Fleming. Yeah?

I could do nothing.

I am suspected now. There's nothing we can do unless we warn people. Listen, go

to my home tonight. I should have.

Lemko will tell you.

Give the guards a slip and go alone. I cannot come with you.

I'm being watched.

What was all that about?

A trap, perhaps.

I don't know.

We'll have a bash anyway.

Tell me, is it all right here?

Yes.

Is everything all right?

About as bad as it can be. The wind.

How do you

call him?

Jan. Jan?

Dr. Nielsen was a grandfather.

You have children?

No.

Would you like something to drink?

Oh, thank you.

What's it all about? Why am I

here? Abu didn't tell you? No.

I made him send you.

I have a cousin that is a radio navigator on one of the aircraft which

fly intel stores from Europe.

Am I still flying then?

It is bad conditions, but yes.

It would help if you could get in touch with other scientists.

I don't know.

There's not much detail to offer them at the moment.

They are not allowed to carry messages.

They are searched, you know.

But he says he will try.

Why should he?

For me.

For the memory of Jan.

Where's he going?

London.

Could he take a letter?

It is very dangerous, you understand.

People are locked up for much less. They are even shot.

Thanks.

I'll ask Professor Dorney. He has never done this before.

Oh, dark, dark, dark.

We all go into the dark.

Vacant interstellar spaces.

vacant into the vacant, and we all go with them into the silent funeral.

It could only have been written this century.

What is going to happen?

I don't know.

I think there are two things.

First, the intelligence up there in Andromeda wanted to make contact with

whatever forms of life it could, anywhere.

Anywhere in the galaxy.

In a sort of evangelical way.

It's a local missionary.

When it finds a life that responds, it takes it over.

It's tried before and it's trying again.

Through the girl, Andromeda.

For what she calls our own good.

That's the first thing.

When it finds an intellect hostile to it, it destroys it.

Very possibly substitutes something else.

That's the other.

And that's what's happening now, because we fought.

You fought?

Yeah.

And lost.

There's still a chance.

Professor Dornay will have something for your cousin.

Find anything?

We know what it does.

What does it do?

It absorbs nitrogen.

Nitrogen? Mostly.

Some oxygen.

I'm sure you've never seen anything like this before.

I said it looks familiar.

It's another synthesis.

Well, this one's not starting. No, we work back to this a long way.

It's something that came out of the computer at Thorness. Oh, over a year

ago when I was doing the DNA synthesis.

It's part of that.

No. It came out quite separately.

and I based an experiment on it.

I actually made some of these things.

What happened, Joan? Nothing.

They seemed harmless and pointless, nothing developed.

I decided it was a miscalculation, and I ignored it.

And the bacteria?

Went down the sink, I suppose.

Do you realize... Yes, of course I realized.

It went from the sink into the drain, from the drain into the sewer, and from

the sewer into the sink. Which was precisely what was intended to happen.

It's impossible for it to spread as quickly as this. Not impossible.

A year, you say? I've been trying to calculate the rate of growth. It's quite

fantastic, but it could be.

And now it's in such great numbers, the build-up is very fast.

And the rest of the oceans?

Perhaps a year.

Perhaps less before they're saturated with it.

It does nothing but absorb nitrogen.

But the sea can only absorb nitrogen slowly without this.

With it?

With it.

It could easily mop up the whole of what's in the atmosphere.

That's what's happening now.

That's why the air pressure's falling.

It's what causes the storms.

You know what'll happen in the end.

When there's no more nitrogen, there'll be no more plants. When the air pressure

falls low enough, they won't be able to absorb oxygen. There'll be no more

animals. Unless we can... There's no unless.

We can get a letter to London. To say what?

What it is. It's pointless.

Well, we can tell them.

If you wish.

But it's too late. The girl was right.

We made life perform.

This time it's made death.

So far as we're concerned.

That's it in there.