The Tomorrow People

Glip:
This planet is a closed world, you know. Officially we have no right to be there.

Yagon:
So that's why we agreed to pay you three times the normal rate plus a thousand marlics and no questions asked.

Glip:
I could lose my license.

Yagon:
You should have thought of that before you took the job, shouldn't you?

Cantor:
Yes, you should have thought of that before. It's too late now.

Yagon:
Don't repeat everything I say, Cantor.

Yagon:
If we don't land, you don't get paid, not a single marlic.

Cantor:
Perhaps I can bring a little PRESSURE to bear.

Yagon:
No-no, Cantor. No need to use violence. At least not yet.

Andrew Forbes:
It's not fair. I STILL haven't had a chance to go off into space.

John:
Yes, well, remind me sometime when we haven't got an emergency and I'll take you, okay?

Glip:
What is there on that dump of a planet that's worth so much to you?

Yagon:
I suppose it's time you both knew. Have you ever heard of barlamin?

Glip:
Barlamin?

Cantor:
Barlamin?

Yagon:
[to Cantor] Don't repeat every word I say.

Glip:
Yes, I've heard of it, but is there really such a thing?

Yagon:
Yes, there is. It's very rare but it does exist. And WHY do you think you never see it? Because the Galactic Federation destroys every deposit they can find. Barlamin is the only known matter in the universe that can drain them of their special powers. Barlamin - quite harmless to us, but super beings fear it more than death itself.

Glip:
So, where do you want me to put you down?

Yagon:
Mm, there. Somewhere in that area there. A place they call Loch Ness. It seems the Kaltons put a fierce plascadron in the lake to scare away the natives. For all I know, it may still be there.

Yagon:
Shut up, Cantor, and stop drinking the glando.

Glip:
And when you've got this barlamin, what you going to do with it?

Yagon:
I intend to incorporate it into a photonic explosion. The galaxy will be flooded with barlamin radiation.

Cantor:
Every super being in the galaxy will instantly lose their special powers.

Glip:
Yes, I like it. It will certainly bring them down a peg or two.

Cantor:
Tumbling down. Without their special powers, they'll be helpless, less than beggars.

Yagon:
The galaxy will belong to real people once more - people like us, Glip.

Hsui Tai:
I thought, in Scotland, it was the ladies who must wear the trousers.

Bruce Forbes:
No-no-no, you don't have to wear anything.

Hsui Tai:
[merrily] Really? How interesting!

Bruce Forbes:
No. Perhaps I put that badly. Um, what I mean is you... you can wear anything you like.

Yagon:
Candor.

Cantor:
Hm.

Yagon:
We were wearing the wrong clothes.

Cantor:
Aye?

Yagon:
Did you not notice that, first the boy who greeted us and now that man, have both been wearing skirts. Only the girl was dressed in trousers. No wonder they react strangely to us. According to their customs, we're dressed in female clothing. We must computer-weave the local style.

Cantor:
I wonder what they wear underneath.

Bruce Forbes:
Shouldn't we be hearing the ghost by now?

Andrew Forbes:
Yes.

Bruce Forbes:
Then why keep us waiting?

Andrew Forbes:
I'm trying, Dad, but I can't make everyone have a hallucination. It won't happen.

Bruce Forbes:
What's a matter, son.

Andrew Forbes:
Don't know.

Bruce Forbes:
Well, have you lost your powers?

Andrew Forbes:
I think so.

Andrew Forbes:
I've lost the power.

Bruce Forbes:
What d'you mean?

Andrew Forbes:
I'm not a Tomorrow Person anymore, Dad. All my powers have left me.

Bruce Forbes:
Very well. The good Lord giveth and maybe He also has good reason to take away.

Bruce Forbes:
Um, will you be taking lunch here, do you know?

Yagon:
[at a loss] Lunch?

Bruce Forbes:
Ay, lunch. Uh, food.

Yagon:
[understanding] Oh, ah, uh, um, we will see where we are for lunch.

Bruce Forbes:
Ay, well should you find yourselves BACK here, gentlemen, we have a very nice set menu.

Yagon:
[trying hard to seem normal] Oh, oh, "set menu," my favorite food!

Andrew Forbes:
[about Yagon and Cantor] They're not tourists, or ghost hunters. I want to know what they're doing here.

Cantor:
That man's wearing trousers today and my legs are FREEZING in this skirt!

Yagon:
Quiet! So are mine. Come on.

Yagon:
Look how helpless they are without their special powers, all weak and trembling with fear.

Cantor:
The barlamin didn't knock her out, though.

Yagon:
Mm, it often doesn't, just reduces them almost to jelly when they feel their special powers drain away from them.

Glip:
The Feds'll be swarming all over here as soon as those three are missed.

Yagon:
Which is why, Glip, we mean to blow up the ship

Glip:
Blow up the ship?

Yagon:
Mm. Well, you agree that the most practical way to distribute the barlamin around the universe is with a photonic explosion of some magnitude.

Glip:
Well, yes.

Yagon:
And the engine of the ship can easily be turned into a powerful photonic bomb.

Glip:
I won't agree to it!

Cantor:
[brandishing a gun] I think I can persuade you.

Yagon:
Whether you agree or not is of very little consequence.

Tim:
I'm sorry, caller. Lines are engaged. Please try again later.

Andrew Forbes:
TIM, is that you?

Tim:
ANDREW! What're you doing using the telephone!

Glip:
You're mad, Yagon, mad!

Cantor:
Mm, better than being dead though, like you soon will be.

Yagon:
The main drive reactor's been altered to fold back in on itself. It'll run critical and explode five minutes after it's activated. When it blows, the barlamin will blast almost instantly to every part of the galaxy, and that, my super being chums, will be the end of your special powers forever.

Cantor:
Oh, not that you'll miss them, 'cause you'll be blasted to every corner of the galaxy as well.

Yagon:
Why, if it isn't the boy from the little hotel where we left the time bomb.

Andrew Forbes:
What bomb. Where is it?

Yagon:
Put down those nasty stun guns and I'll tell you all about it. Come on. Give 'em to me.

[Andrew and Hsui Tai reluctantly hand over their stun guns]

Yagon:
Ha-ha, you Feds are gullible. THERE'S NO BOMB!

Dr. Gail Mayer:
Get one thing straight, mister. We're not cranks. We don't go seeing ghosts one minute and monsters the next. We're serious scientists.

Andrew Forbes:
Angus, if you don't let me out, I'll summon up a ghost to haunt you.

Bruce Forbes:
That's not my son in there, Angus. That's a devil in human form who's taken the shape of Andrew. I don't know what he's done to him. It conjures up tortured spirits from beyond the gave. It's evil. Evil! It's got to be destroyed! I'll beat it out of the lad!

Bruce Forbes:
My God! He can call up a whole army of ghosts.

John:
No, they look too real to be ghosts. I'm gonna try something.

Mike:
What?

John:
I think they're hallucinatiions. He's one of us and he's playing tricks with our minds and making us see things. Well, two can play at that game.

Bruce Forbes:
Angus! What on Earth's going on?

Angus MacDuff:
Ghost. A headless ghost. Save me, Mr. Forbes, save me.

Bruce Forbes:
There's no ghost, Angus. You're drunk, that's all. You been drinking your employer's whiskey, and now your own guilty conscious is punishing you.

Mike:
As, uh... as no one feels like going back to bed, let's all swap nightmare stories. Mine was a hideous Highlander brandishing a sword. What was yours?

John:
That's incredible, Mike. It seems as if you and I had the same dream, as near as can be.

Elizabeth:
Not just you two. "A hideous headless Highlander" just about describes my dream as well. How 'bout you, Hsui Tai?

Hsui Tai:
A man... without a head... and carrying a sword and... wearing a skirt.

Mike:
Snap.

John:
Well, sixty-four thousand dollar question: Why should we all have the same dream at the same time?

Mike:
Well, why shouldn't we have? We're all telepathic. Maybe that's one of the drawbacks: we all get each other's bad dreams.

John:
No, Mike. We've had each other's dreams before but never each other's nightmares.

John:
The ability of people to delude themselves is one of the wonders of the age.

Mike:
Oh, what's the matter with you? Can't you take a joke?

John:
A joke, yes; a lapful of hot coffee, no.

Bruce Forbes:
It was you, Andrew, wasn't it? You used your Devil-given powers to conjure up this monster.

Andrew Forbes:
But they were going to have to leave at the end of the week if they didn't see some sign of the kelpie before then.

Bruce Forbes:
I thought we'd agreed there'd be no more of this.

Andrew Forbes:
But I was trying to save us from having to sell the castle.

Bruce Forbes:
Sell it? I'd rather sell it a hundred times over. I'd sooner pull it down stone by stone than have you lose your soul to the powers of darkness! The Devil's already got hold of your will, boy. You can't help yourself any longer! You're gonna have to be punished, boy! God'll punish you!

Andrew Forbes:
[terrified] Dad, please!

[Mike is wearing Nazi gear]

John:
You're not going out dressed like that.

Michael Bell:
Like this? Well, what's wrong with it?

John:
Those clothes, they're disgusting.

Michael Bell:
Well, it's just a fashion, that's all. It's harmless. Lots of kids wear it.

John:
I don't care what lots of kids do. They're not Tomorrow People.

John:
Do you know who Hitler is?

Michael Bell:
Hitler's dead.

John:
No, no, Mike, no. Hitler isn't dead. Hitler is Neebor from the planet Vashir, a galatic, shape-changing psychopath. The Federation police have been onto him for hundreds of years. And no one knows where he really is, Mike, but one thing's for sure - he didn't die in any bunker at the end of World War II.

Michael Bell:
Look, if I've been infected in some way with rotten genes, well, can't something be done about it? Can I be cured? I don't want to be a Nazi! And all those other kids, I'm sure they don't either!

TIM:
Look carefully, Mike. See Hitler as he really is. See him in his proper shape, the galatic criminal Neebor. Look, Mike, look!

Hitler:
Young peoples of the world, I have come back to lead you! Your fathers have told you many lies about me!

Michael Bell:
Well, pardon my ignorance - if it's showing - but what's "genetic engineering?"

John:
Well, genes - no, Mike, not the sort you wear...

John:
You mean you got the Galactic Trig to set up an 800 light year transporter beam just because you changed your mind?

Tyso:
I wanted to see me Mum.

John:
Tim, are you sure you're not putting two and two together and making five?

TIM:
I am not in the habit of making inaccurate calculations.

John:
You managed to burn the toast.

Prof. Cawston:
Saps, who are they?

Elizabeth 'Liz' M'Bundo:
It's a bit insulting, really. It's our way of refering to Homo sapiens. Saps, you know.

Prof. Cawston:
Oh, I see. You see yourselves as Homo superior then?

John:
Well, I don't know about superior, but we are undoubtedly the next stage of human evolution, after Homo sapiens that is.

[last lines]

Sergei-KGB Man:
So! You are S.I.S teleporter!

Michael Bell:
[knocked out] Ugh!

John:
[seeing Mike and Hsui Tai in their new jumpsuits] Yes, well, you don't look all that special to me.

Mike:
It's not what they look like. It's what they feel like.

Hsui Tai:
It's very comfortable.

Mike:
In the future, I won't want to wear anything else.

Mike:
We call ourselves The Tomorrow People, but really you lot is just a bunch of stick-in-the-muds. Here we have the clothes of tomorrow today. Well, we should be the FIRST to wear it, not the last.

Mike:
I reckon this one will suit John fine.

Hsui Tai:
Do you think that he will be pleased to get a bubbleskin?

Mike:
No, but he'll grow very attached to it once he puts it on, and then he'll be like us.

Mike:
We're sorry about what happened earlier.

Hsui Tai:
We were very rude.

Mike:
To make up for it, we bought you a present - a bubbleskin jumpsuit of your own, John.

Hsui Tai:
It was not easy. The shop sells them as soon as they get them in.

Hsui Tai:
We like our bubbleskin suits. Bubbleskin suits like us.

Mike:
They wouldn't like it if we took them off.

Hsui Tai:
That is right. They would not be happy anymore.

Tim:
They are known as Bolboids, and they're a kind of parasite.

Andrew:
What, a creature that lives on other creatures?

John:
Yes, Andrew.

Tim:
They latch onto the native species, wrap themselves around them, and slowly digest them.

Mike:
And that's what they're doing to us. Ew.

Tim:
It is a process which takes several months. They always start with whichever is the most advanced form of life on the planet, then they work their way down the scale, latching onto different life forms until they have stripped the planet bare.

Mike:
We gotta help her.

Bolboid:
Absorb!

John:
Don't be stupid. We're helping her by keeping out of it.

Mike:
John, you should be congratulated.

John:
D'oh, no, no. I-I think we should all be.

Mike:
No, I meant for your generosity. Well, I'll never ever again say that you're mean. Well, after all, who else could say they've given something of theirs personally to everyone else in the world. Mind you, it was a stinking cold, but it's a start, eh?

Mike:
What are you grinning at?

John:
I see you've got your Chinese drag on.

Mike:
These are my godly robes. Speak to me like that and you'll be cast into a bottomless pit, mate.

John:
[playing a strategy game] Hey, that's not fair!

Carol:
What's not fair?

John:
You're trying to read my mind! I felt you!

Carol:
Oh, now, I wouldn't do a thing like that.

John:
[dourly] Not much.

Stephen:
Where's Lefty?

Ginge:
Visiting his poor, old mum. Who'd a thought he had one, eh?

Rabowski:
Hyperspace is still the best place to hide.

Jedikiah:
Hide?

Rabowski:
From the Galactic Police, amongst others.

Jedikiah:
Why?

Rabowski:
A slight embarrassment a few years ago when one of my adventures caused the destruction of a small planet and all its inhabitants.

Jedikiah:
ALL its inhabitants?

Rabowski:
A mere ten billion. It was altogether my fault anyway but one gets blamed.

Peter:
You say you're from the twentieth century on Earth. I just don't believe you.

Carol:
You learned history?

Peter:
Of course. The study of the past is my job.

Carol:
You've never heard of The Tomorrow People?

Peter:
No. Wait a minute. The first telepaths called themselves that.

Carol:
Well, why are you so surprised?

Peter:
But the records show that The Tomorrow People didn't start to emerge until the twenty-first century.

Carol:
Of course the records don't show us. Really, we have to keep our existence secret, otherwise the homo sapiens - saps - would just wipe us out.

Peter:
Yes. You're part of the underground movement, one of the very first. You stayed in hiding until the Great Emergence.

Carol:
If you say so.

Peter:
You're one of our remote ancestors. For all we know, you may be the mother of an entire line of Tomorrow People. If you're harmed in any way, thousands... perhaps millions of our people will simply never have existed. The whole time patterns will be upset.

Rabowski:
The Tomorrow People - what is your connection with them?

Jedikiah:
I've met them before.

Rabowski:
Before I met you?

Jedikiah:
Yes. It was their fault that I lost five hundred years. They'll have to pay for that.

Carol:
But why do the Time Lanes need guardians?

Peter:
Well, when they were first discovered, people kept plaunting back in time, changing history. There was chaos, so some sort of order had be enforced.

Jedikiah:
Silence! You will be spoken to as you deserve, as a sniveling, spineless example of a species that should have been extinct centuries ago.

Stephen:
But how does one move from hyperspace in the present to hyperspace in the future?

Tim:
By the fourth dimensional drift.

Ginge:
[recalling Jedikiah] Well, he said that this here hyperspace is everywhere and nowhere and... Oh, I don't know. I can't remember. I didn't understand it anyway.

Stephen:
"Everywhere and nowhere, that fragment of time that isn't time that lies between the end of one micro-second and the beginning of the next, that space that isn't space that lies between the curving dimensions of eternity."

Ginge:
That's it. That's what he said exactly. How do YOU know?

Stephen:
I was THERE. I remember it perfectly. The dimension that makes star travel possible and time travel possible.

Rabowski:
Blue blood runs in MY veins.

Carol:
The result of too much inbreeding. I might have guessed.

Jedikiah:
I have to remain here to operate the Time Key.

Rabowski:
I could do that. I'll stay here. You take Coffi and the Medusa.

Jedikiah:
So you can cut off the time arch and leave me stranded in the twentieth century? Hm. No, Rabowski, YOU must go, but think just for one moment of the importance of your mission.

Rabowski:
To capture a few kids and bring 'em back here for you to slaughter?

Jedikiah:
Rabowski, what's the universe like out there, the universe that has driven you into the empty exile of hyperspace?

Rabowski:
I told you before. It's full of those damn telepaths.

Jedikiah:
Exactly. But supposing it wasn't.

Rabowski:
What d'you mean? It is, and that is an irrevocable fact.

Jedikiah:
You're telling me earlier how delicate the time balance is, how easily upset. Supposing it could be upset so that there WERE no telepaths?

Rabowski:
A universe of men.

Jedikiah:
Just think about it. Men to be your friends, men to be your enemies, no more loneliness, no more exile.

Rabowski:
How different my life would have been.

Jedikiah:
Exactly. Go down the Time Lanes, my friend, and strangle the development of the Earth's telepaths at the very root. Bring me the Tomorrow People and you will be a man amongst men.

Jedikiah:
I sent you for telepaths. Can't you tell the difference between telepaths and these sub-creatures?

Rabowski:
You are talking about men - MEN, like me!

Jedikiah:
Yes. No wonder your species is almost extinct.

Ginge:
[Describing the Medusa creature] King Kong! Dracula! The Works!

Ginge:
[Holding a sword] Action Stations!

Carol:
Now, I want you to do something. Just try and relax and imagine that your mind is a fist, a great big fist clenched tight. Now, let it open... slowly... No, don't let any other thoughts come into your head. Just think of the fist opening very slowly, like a flower.

Stephen:
I can feel it! Right here, inside my head! What's happening?

Carol:
You're becoming one of us!

Stephen:
Who's "us"?

Carol:
The Tomorrow People.

Carol:
As you know, Homo sapiens - that is, ordinary man - evolved over many thousands of years, from being primitive ape-like creatures until he became man as we know him.

Stephen:
Like you and me?

Carol:
Well, no, not like you and me. We're different. We're Homo superior, but we don't like to call ourselves that so we call ourselves the Tomorrow People.

Carol:
...The development of man hasn't just suddenly stopped. It's going on all the time, but in the last hundred years, everything has speeded up. The world has changed out of all recognition, and human beings have changed with it.

Carol:
You see, we are Man's only hope of survival. We're peaceful. We can't wage wars. And we can't kill... well, not deliberately anyway.

Ginge:
Afternoon, Miss.

Carol:
Just a minute. What do you think you're doing?

Ginge:
[referring to Stephen] A surgery, Miss. He's wanted in the operating theater. They're going to perform an acute stephacocominamary.

Carol:
I don't believe you! Who are you?

Ginge:
[pulls out a stun gun] Haven't we introduced ourself? I'm Dr. Jekyll and this is my very good friend, Mr. Hyde.

Carol:
This is a closed world. No aliens are supposed to come here.

John:
My dad's not supposed to park on a double yellow line but he does.

John:
Carol, what do we know about Stephen?

Carol:
Oh, John, you don't think he's one of THOSE, do you?

Jedikiah:
"Stupid" is a word which is inadequate to describe my assessment of your intelligence!

Jedikiah:
You are nothing! *Less* than nothing!

John:
There IS a cyclops involved with Jedikiah somehow, though how or why I just don't know.

Tim:
What will happen to other Tomorrow People if you all get killed?

Stephen:
What other Tomorrow People? I thought there were only four of us.

Tim:
There are at the moment. I mean the thousands who have not yet broken out. When they do, they will need your help.

John:
Well, they'll manage somehow. I did.

Cyclops:
I don't expect help from humans. Your planet has an evil reputation throughout the galaxy.

Carol:
The Earth?

Cyclops:
Yes. That is why so few space travelers from other planets visit you. You are always at war.

Stephen:
You're no better. You're the history of war. We even fought your parents.

Cyclops:
That is what you have been taught. It is incorrect. Humans interpret events only in terms of violence.

John:
Well, what about Odysseus? The legend says that the cyclops Polythemus tried to kill him.

Cyclops:
The human version again. The official log of that expedition to Earth tells it somewhat differently.

Cyclops:
Intergalactic records are not for humans to read, not until you are advanced enough to be recognized. We have tried to advance you, but every time an ambassador from space is sent to Earth, he is slain.

Carol:
Isn't it funny how sophisticated their technology is and yet... yet none of them broke out into being telepaths.

Tim:
There are many such races throughout the universe. Some go telepathic, some do not. Your own species, Man, could still go either way. It's up to you.

Captain:
Great storytellers are Sula and Flyn, and they never tell the truth when a lie will do.

General Papa Minn:
I already am supreme ruler of Earth. It's just that some countries are too stupid to realize me.

Tim:
All we know is that one side at least is not telling the truth.

Thing:
I SAID it would be stupid to hit the planet at full speed. It was all I could do to adjust the artificial gravity and save you from the worst effects of the g-forces during deceleration.

Spidron:
Your incompetent police know nothing about me!

[last line of the series]

Timus:
No, not members of the old Federation but members of a vigorous NEW Federation, which from now on will look to young people like yourselves for guidance.

John:
I wonder if all those people who are desperate to have a close encounter of some kind have ever really thought about what it might mean.

Hsui Tai:
What do you mean, John?

John:
Just think what happened to the African Negro and the American Indian when they came into contact with the Europeans who had more advanced technology. Well, the Blacks were sold into slavery and the Indians almost wiped out.

Sorson General:
Honorable ambassador, please forgive me. I mean no disrespect, but I have to say the Galactic Federation is a herd of bleating sheep, and we and the Thargons are wolves. That battle we have just seen was being fought within the solar system of a closed world in Galactic Federation controlled space. You can not even protect your own territory and enforce your own laws to protect a closed world. The Galactic Federation barks loudly, but it is an old mongrel with no teeth. Now, if your honors will excuse me, I have a war to win.

American President:
What was it the first man on the moon said? "One small step for Man, one giant leap for Mankind." Now it's time to meet the neighbors.

Morgan Evans:
Well, we're on our way. Gosh, I wonder what we're gonna say when we meet 'em. I mean, what do you say to an alien? "Take me to your leader?"

Dave Ricardo:
"Dr. Livingston, I presume."

Morgan Evans:
Yeah. Maybe just... "Howdy, neighbor."

[the Thargons blow up]

John:
They did bring it on themselves.

Mike:
Yeah. Yeah, I suppose that's true.

American President:
I get the impression from what ya tell me that they sorta look down on us mere Earth-bound mortals in a way that might just get up in my nose if ever I meet them.

Sorson General:
You must know, we arrived only just in time to save your world from annihilation by the Thargons; however, we can not guarantee to always be here in sufficient strength to defeat any future attacks.

John:
[addressing the Galactic Trig] You empty-headed morons. Oh, you look very fine in your ceremonial robes. I'm sure you all think you're very important talking and squeaking and dickering or whatever it is you do all day long. Just as long as you don't have to take any decisions and have to take the consequences of your actions, you're perfectly happy. You make me sick.

Hsui Tai:
Oh, Mike, what are we going to do?

Mike:
Well, try not to let the barlamin affect you too much, Hsui Tai. Well, it only affects our special powers, but we can still do all the other things we could do before.

Hsui Tai:
We can't jaunt. We can't contact the others telepathically.

Mike:
And out there, the saps are getting ready to drag our world into a war. It's a war that will almost certainly destroy it and everything on Earth.

Galactic Tim:
The Earth-man John is charged with contempt of the Galactic Federation. Until his case has been heard, he must remain in detention.

Morgan Evans:
Now, listen, you lunkheads, whoever you are! If you clunks don't let John go, we're gonna blast you out of space!

Galactic Tim:
Is that a threat?

Morgan Evans:
You better believe it is.

Galactic Tim:
Wait, please.