Mind of Evil Retcon;Doctor Who;Jo Grant;Katy Manning;Third Doctor;Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart;Jon Pertwee;Jeri Massi

Mind of Evil


retcon additions by Jeri Massi

From a story by Terrance Dicks



A retcon is the deliberate retro-fitting of a story to make it fit the canon. The following story is from the televised canon of Doctor Who, with sections added to smooth it out and make it fit better.

NOTE: Anything that appears in indented boldface type is retcon material that I wrote as additional or changed material. The rest of the text is summary of the canonical version of the story.
The story begins with an execution-style enactment of sentence upon a prisoner, Barnham. Isolated in a prison cell under double guard, he must be taken by force, restrained, and hustled away.

The perspective abruptly changes to the Doctor and Jo, speeding in the Doctor's Edwardian roadster towards a bleak and stark castle. This is Stangmoor prison, once a castle that housed a family sympathetic to Charles and the monarchy, now a bleak and isolated prison for criminals hardened beyond rehabilitation. In the retcon, I focus on Jo's view of things:

Still not entirely sure of her welcome with the austere and mercurial Doctor, she did not have much to say on this car trip. She had joined UNIT only that summer---thanks to some discreet wire pulling by her influential uncle, who was a cabinet minister.

But despite her bravery in battling the Autons, she knew she had yet to prove her worth to the Doctor. The sad truth was, she did not know much about chemistry, biology, or electronics. An oscilloscope might as well be a telescope to her. She could not use either. Since their first moments of team work together the previous August, she and the Doctor had fallen into a polite working relationship, punctuated by the Doctor's good natured condescension towards her, which she usually accepted with equal good nature. But she knew she had not yet proved herself to him.

After having their passes and IDs checked carefully by the guards, the Doctor and Jo are admitted. They arrive in time to be witness to the "final treatment" of the prisoner, George Barnham. An attending scientist, Dr. Kettering, rises to address the select group and explains how the Keller machine works. The Doctor keeps interrupting him with questions. Flustered by being shown up as an ignorant fool, Kettering retreats into polite disdain for the oddly dressed Doctor and orders the go-ahead for the treatment. Sedated, Barnham is wheeled in and is connected to a small, upright, cylindrical machine that in its turn is connected to a much larger control panel against the wall. As the power is turned up, Barnham writhes and then screams. The machine is immediately turned off, and Barnham is wheeled out. Kettering pronounces the treatment a success: the machine has removed Barnham's "negative impulses," those stimulations in his brain that prompt him to do evil and violence. According to the theory, he will now be a changed, docile, trainable man. The Doctor interrupts with more questions about the nature of the machine that Kettering cannot answer.

The Doctor and Jo go down to the prison infirmary with the Governor of the prison and Dr. Kettering. There, they learn that Barnham has been reduced to having the mind of a child. He has no memory of who he is or what he has done in life, and he is completely docile. Dr. Summers, the prison physician, is deeply troubled by this development, but Kettering argues that it is better than what Barnham was. The Doctor sides with Summers and declares that the machine is evil. As they are arguing, they are summoned back to the Process chamber where the machine was left. Somebody has been found dead.

They examine the body of the young man found dead in the chamber. An initial examination by the Doctor indicates that the man died of fear.

Meanwhile, as things are developing at Stangmoor, the Brigadier has his hands full at UNIT HQ in London. While preparing for an international peace conference in conjunction with the UN, the Brigadier is accosted by one of the Chinese delegate's aids (Chin Lee), who announces that important papers have been stolen. She accuses the UNIT soldiers of taking bribes. She stalks out to her car, walks past it, and finds a deserted trash bin. She produces the sheaf of papers from under her own tunic and lights it up, then discards it and walks away.
Back at Stangmoor, the Doctor and Kettering finally come to all out war and have a shouting match over the safety of the Keller machine. The Doctor insists that it has been proved dangerous: first in reducing Barnham to an idiot, and then in killing the visiting Mr. Linwood outright. Kettering counters that these charges are fantastic and unproved. The Doctor storms out, and Jo loyally follows, leaving Kettering alone with his machine. As this transpires, things get worse at UNIT when Chin Lee calls the Brigadier with the shocking message that she has discovered the Chinese delegate dead in his suite.

The prisoners at Stangmoor suddenly become anxious and restless and there is a general lock down. Dr. Summers concludes his autopsy of Linwood and announces that it appears that the man had been attacked by rats, even though there are no rats in the prison. Suddenly, Kettering's desperate screams from the Process chamber bring the Doctor, Jo, and Summers to his assistance, but they find him dead, soaking wet, and apparently drowned---in the middle of a dry room. The Doctor blames the machine and insists that it be destroyed. Obviously shaken, the Governor still backs down on this, worried about destroying something so expensive, that has been proved effective in over 100 previous rehabilitations of prisoners.

Meanwhile, in London, the Brigadier takes over the investigation into the death of the Chinese delegate. He questions Chin Lee sharply and discovers that there was a fifteen minute lapse in time between the moment she entered the suite and the time when she reported finding the dead Chinese delegate.

Back at Stangmoor, Summers confirms that Kettering died from drowning, and the Doctor resolutely decides to examine the Keller machine more closely. He shoos Jo out of the Process Chamber, telling her to get background medical info on Kettering and Linwood. She reluctantly leaves him, not wanting to be sent away. As he works alone, the prisoners outside become restless once again and refuse to quiten down. In the Process chamber, the Doctor suddenly finds himself where he has once been before, on the alternative earth, the landscape erupting into an inferno of lava and flames. He is trapped, without his TARDIS, and the eruption of the earth's core cannot be stopped. As fire and molten, liquid rock flow around him, the heat and smoke drive him to the floor.

Just then Jo enters again, to find the Doctor huddled in a corner of the empty room, crying out, with the heavy, electronic pulsing of the machine drowning out both his cries and the frenetic clattering and yelling of the prison inmates. At her appearance, the pulsing subsides, and she runs to the Doctor and recalls him to reality. In my retcon I show that he is annoyed with her for disobeying him and coming back into the room, but her big dark eyes are so concerned for him that he cannot be as severe as he thinks he should be. Nevertheless, he blames this mental attack on the machine and is determined to take it apart.

Just as the Doctor is gruffly sending Jo out again, Mike Yates from UNIT enters, equipped with orders to bring the Doctor back to UNIT at once. The Doctor immediately refuses to leave Stangmoor. There is too much danger from the machine.

It did not help that the young and pretty Jo Grant was looking on. Mike chose not to be diplomatic. He seized the Doctor by the arm.

The Doctor stabs his fingers into the heart meridians along Mike's sternum, practically impaling the young officer on his fingers. The blow paralyzes Mike and cuts off his breath for a moment. The Doctor then releases him. Mike apologizes and then asks the Doctor to come back with him to London. UNIT has the double tasks of trying to move the Thunderbolt missile (a nerve gas missile) out to sea to be destroyed while also policing the UN Peace Conference. With the murder of the Chinese delegate, things are in danger of collapsing. The Doctor reluctantly agrees to go and puts Jo in charge of the room with orders that no one is to enter the Process Chamber, and it is to remained barred and locked until his return.

Her eyes beamed up at him with confidence. He felt a stab of sharp concern at her innocence and tried to be both grim and gentle.

He rested his hands on her shoulders and made his eyes and voice grave. "Jo, you must look out for yourself while I'm gone."

Happy with his concern for her and confident in herself, she nodded. "I'll keep the room locked up, Doctor! I know just what to do. I won't go near that thing!"

The Doctor emphatically repeats his orders and reluctantly leaves her to it.

Meanwhile, in London, Sgt. Benton has been given the assignment to tail Chin Lee. As he does so, it becomes apparent that she knows she is being followed. She turns and sees Benton, then walks on. He is suddenly struck with a headache and fainting spell that stop him cold. He loses her. He returns to HQ and reports to the Brigadier, gets a thorough chewing out for having a fainting spell, and is dismissed just as the Doctor enters with Mike Yates.

Mike Yates gets down to calling in the route of the missile and its escort for the next day, not realizing that the Master has set up a nice little telephone line repair station outside the HQ and is listening to everything. He gets all the details. As the Doctor and Brigadier leave UNIT HQ to interview the replacement for the Chinese delegate, the Master sees them both.
Unaware that they have been spotted by their enemy, the Doctor and the Brigadier hasten to the headquarters of the new Chinese delegate, a man suspicious of them after the death of his predecessor. The Doctor charms the delegate by speaking to him in his native dialect of Chinese. The delegate invites the Doctor to join him later for dinner but remains unimpressed with the Brigadier. Chinese fashion, no real business is discussed during their first visit, much to the Brig's annoyance and the Doctor's amusement.
Meanwhile, at Stangmoor, the untrustworthy trusty, Len Vosper, hides a handgun in the condemned cell, ready for its next inmate, Harry Mailer.

While this bit of prison espionage is going on, Jo visits Barnham in the infirmary. Dr. Summers' diagnosis of Barnham is confirmed. The once ferocious murderer is now a bewildered and gentle giant of a child, with no memory of his previous life. Barnham defers to Jo as a child would and gratefully accepts the candy that she brings him.
Evening descends, and Mailer is moved into the special cell to await his turn for processing. He waits until his guards are engaged in a game of checkers and then pulls the gun out from under the mattress and takes his guards hostage.

Back at UNIT, Yates requisitions Benton for the missile escort, and the Doctor makes a link between Chin Lee and a Chinese girl said to have assisted the mysterious Dr. Keller in installing the Keller machine at Stangmoor. While he and the Brigadier send out a alert for her to be brought in, the girl in question is meeting with the Master in his expensive limo, being bullied and dominated by him and subdued further to his will. He uses an electronic "booster" behind her ear to ensure her submission. Then he sends her on her way to kill the American delegate.
At Stangmoor, Mailer and Vosper's small gang have succeeded in taking over an entire wing before the Governor of the prison has it sealed off and isolated. The prisoners have several hostages, including Jo Grant and Dr. Summers. The Doctor knows nothing of this except that for some reason he is unable to place a call to Stangmoor, but he is distracted from this nuisance by the Brigadier. The Brig tells him that Chin Lee has been seen entering the quarters of the new Chinese delegate. The two of them rush out to investigate.

Under the influence of the Master and the Keller machine, Chin Lee has lured the American delegate to the quarters of the Chinese Delegate. Senator Alcott enters the rooms to be greeted by an enormous Chinese dragon, in the flesh. As it swoops down on him, he suffers a heart attack.

The scene is interrupted when the UNIT people burst into the suite. The illusion of the dragon disappears, and Chin Lee collapses. Alcott has survived the attack, and the Brigadier sends for an ambulance.

The Doctor finds the electronic device affixed to Chin Lee behind her ear. He questions her privately and learns that she was indeed the assistant to Emil Keller at Stangmoor prison when the machine was installed at the prison. He turns Chin Lee over to the Brigadier for further questioning, and they release her, viewing her as a victim of the Master. None of these events are hidden from the Master, as he continues to eavesdrop on telephone conversations at UNIT. The Brigadier discovers that there has been a revolt at the prison and that Jo is being held captive. He relays this news to the Doctor.

Meanwhile, at the prison, Jo and Dr. Summers are held in the condemned cell as hostages, until the slow-witted prisoners realize that they have cut off all communication to the Governor of the prison. They release Summers and send him to the Governor with the directive that they must be released or the hostages will be shot, starting with Jo Grant. Summers pleads with the Governor to give in to their requests, but the Governor refuses to endanger the public at large, even for the hostages.

But at last, as Summers continues to plead, the Governor agrees to talk to the prisoners. Barnham, left alone by the prisoners, wanders into the thick of things and distracts Harry Mailer, who is bullying Jo. Jo seizes the moment to grab Mailer's gun, setting it off. Mailer drops it, and Jo grabs it. Taking advantage of the moment, the prison guards who are being held hostage attack their captors, and the guards just outside the wing burst in through the doors and subdue the revolt.

The Doctor finally gets through to the prison in time to hear that the riot is over, but he leaves at once. Knowing this, the Master gets there ahead of him, posing as Emil Keller. The Master quickly soothes the concerns of the Governor about the Keller machine. He asks to interview Mailer, who is scheduled to be processed next.
Alone in the condemned cell with Mailer, the Master quickly convinces the criminal to work for him and provides him with gas masks, gas pellets, and automatic weapons. They surprise the guards and execute an organized takeover of the wing and then of the entire prison, arming prisoners as they go and shooting down several guards and the Governor, then imprisoning the rest.
In the retcon, I made a slight change here. I wasn't happy that in the original Jo does not know the Master is behind this until well into the next episode. I find this out of character for the Master. Another problem is that in the original, all these supposedly hardened criminals treat Jo as they would a male guard. None of them seem to realize that she's female. I like the fact that sex is not presented in Doctor Who, but it is pushing the limits of credibility to suggest that these dangerous and cold hearted men would not view Jo as a prize of war. So I wrote in the following scene:

Vosper came to the foot of the steps, hauling a young girl by the hair. He looked up at the Master with a leering grin.

"What should I do with this one?" he asked. He pulled Jo's head back in deliberate invitation to the Master. Her eyes widened at sight of him in amazed recognition. The Master burst into a smile, appreciating her amazement and fear.

"She is an old friend of mine, Vosper," he said. "Or should I say the friend of a friend."

At ease, he came down the steps, his dark eyes resting on her thoughtfully. Now that the prisoners were restoring an order of their own, several of them watched, idly leaning over the rails above or wandering up from the halls below.
Jo stiffened and actually shrank closer to Vosper, who shook her head by the hair and made her be still as the Master came closer. But the wily convict noted Jo's fear of the Master. He had seen her open defiance of Mailer earlier, even when Mailer had put a gun to her head. This new fear in her caused him to view the Master with new respect, as well as a certain eagerness concerning Jo herself.

But the Master disappointed his anticipation. The time lord did not so much as touch Jo, only held her eye with his eye. Months ago, he had subjugated her entirely to his will, until the Doctor freed her from the hypnotic domination. But now the Master saw a new hint of steel behind the wide eyes, though they also gave plenty of evidence of uncertainty at the moment.

He smiled down at her. "You must not hurt her, Vosper," he said. "Not until I know how best to use her. After I am finished with her, you may have her if she is still alive and worth anything to you. Put her in the condemned cell."

Unaware that the prison has once again changed hands, the Doctor arrives at Stangmoor and enters unchallenged. Once inside, he is taken captive and brought to the Governor's office, now in the hands of the Master. A minor joust of words takes place, in which the Master reveals that Jo is safely locked up and that he intends to feed her to the machine next if the Doctor resists him at all. But before he can really get down to threatening the Doctor, the Doctor tips the table over onto him and races out to find Jo.
A chase ensues, but the Master arranges for the Doctor to be herded towards the Process Chamber. Once inside, the Doctor is held at gunpoint and then chained into the chair. The Master and Mailer leave him alone with the machine, bolting the door after themselves.
In spite of his superior mental toughness, the Doctor cannot resist the machine, and he soon finds himself in the middle of a melee of daleks, cybermen, and other villains of the universe. But the effect of the Doctor's resistance against the machine is astounding---even to the Master. As the machine masses power to incite the Doctor's fears and devour his mind, it generates waves and waves of fear throughout the prison. The humans are helpless and overwhelmed by it, and the Master himself must fight against waved of fear and resistance to get back inside the Process Chamber and shut down the machine.
By then the Doctor has collapsed in his restraints. One of his hearts has stopped beating. The Master revives him and tries to mock him, but it is apparent that the evil time lord is very shaken at the power of the machine. In his weakness, the Doctor is still coherent and accurately declares that it is not a machine at all, but a living creature imprisoned in a machine, a creature that is attracted to the frequencies of "evil" in the minds of people. The Doctor warns the Master that the creature will destroy him.
Trying to laugh off the warning, the Master has Mailer and Vosper deliver the Doctor into the condemned cell with Jo. They throw him onto the floor and leave. By much pleading and even bullying, Jo convinces Vosper to get the Doctor onto the bed and to retrieve Dr. Summers. Vosper does not return for hours. The following scene appears in the TV series but is omitted from the Target novel, so I wrote the text for it as a retcon. I think it is a crucial part of Jo's characterization, and it also paves the way for some continuity in my retconned version of Claws of Axos.

Jo sat on the hard chair by the cot. "Doctor?" she asked. She took his cold, lax hand in both of hers. "Doctor, can't you hear me?"

But the unconscious time lord did not respond. Up to this point, Jo had been brave and defiant towards her captors. In a crisis, she could let her anger and her strong sense of justice work for her. But alone, with nothing to do but wait, and confronted with the forlorn and beaten figure on the bed, her courage failed her.
"Please Doctor," she whispered, holding his limp hand to her face. "Please, can't you hear me?" Her sudden tears spilled onto his hand. Ashamed of crying but not able to rally her courage, she buried her face in her arms, his hand wound up against her head and shoulder. She gave herself over to tears.

In one of the best scenes in all of the third Doctor era, the Master confronts the Keller machine himself, determined to subdue it by the sheer force of his own strong will. As this apparently fails, and the pulsing around him grows stronger, the Master shuts down all the interface mechanisms into the machine, thus cutting off the creature inside from outside contact. To his horror, the pulsing barely hesitates. Acting independently, the creature now subjects the Master to the thing he fears most: an enormous illusion of the Doctor, a laughing Doctor that points at him and throws its head back in hilarious amusement.
The Master barely escapes, and he bars the door to the Process chamber behind him, swearing to the creature that he will bring it no more minds to feed on until it comes to heel.

Meanwhile, in the condemned cell:

Jo had expected that Vosper would bring Dr. Summers right away. But whether he was delayed or simply resented being ordered around by his captive, Vosper did not return for a couple of hours.

Jo Grant cried her tears alone in the silent cell, the Doctor lost in his coma. But gradually, as her first storm of despair and fear subsided, an odd sense of having heard him speak made her lift her head and look at him again. He remained cold, unconscious, and remote. Yet suddenly a wave of assurance went over her as though he had spoken.

I'm dozing, she told herself, for she was exhausted. But dozing suddenly seemed like a good idea. She still had his arm wound up in her arms, and she settled his hand over her head so that she would wake up if he should stir. She nestled her head into the backs of her hands and the thin covers on the bed. Covered by his open hand resting on her head, she fell very soundly asleep.

This was how Summers found her hours later. Vosper laughed, but Summers gently awakened her and then set about examining the Doctor.

Summers gives a prognosis that the Doctor appears to have been beaten up, both mentally and physically, leaves some pills for him, and is taken out by Vosper. The Doctor awakens briefly, refuses the pill because his metabolism is too different from human metabolism, and slides back into his coma.
Down in the Governor's office, the Master calls Mailer in and shows him a picture of the Thunderbolt missile, which UNIT will be escorting to the coast. They make plans to hijack the missile.
As Vosper returns from locking up the physician, Jo rounds on him and starts demanding food. She is fiercely protective of the Doctor, and she is ready to cite the Master's own directive that the Doctor be kept alive. Vosper sulkily goes off to find some grub.

To Jo's amazement, the instant Vosper exits the cell, the Doctor jumps up, wide awake and pleased with her. He announces that it is time to escape. As day breaks over the prison, Mailer and a group of handpicked and armed henchmen take the prison lorry ("Black Maria") off to lay an ambush for the UNIT escort.
Vosper returns with the food to find that the Doctor and Jo have laid an ambush of their own. Amid high kicks and flying trays, they conk him a few times on the head and knock him out, take his gun, then escape and lock him in the cell.

Their escape is as yet undetected, and they go down to the Governor's office, where they discover the plans for the hijacking of the nerve gas missile. While they try to figure out some way to get a warning out to UNIT, the ambush of the missile is carried off flawlessly. The criminals take the motorcycles and UNIT vehicles and trundle off with the rocket.

Mike Yates, only slightly wounded, finds a discarded UNIT motorcycle with a dead soldier, and takes the motorcycle off in pursuit. He is ultimately captured by the Master's team of merchant soldiers, who are far more professional and able than the prison convicts.
But Yates is able to get a brief message back to HQ. Benton also is among the survivors of the escort, and he describes the Black Maria that he saw driving off. The Brigadier decides to run a cautious check on the prison.
Meanwhile, at the prison, the Doctor explains to Jo what he knows of the creature inside the Keller machine. It survives on energy, and the constant activity of an evil mind is its signal to pounce. Since almost all rational creatures generate some "negative" energy, they are all in danger, but so far it has had a field day with hardened prison convicts. They cannot get out of the prison, and the Doctor does not want to leave anyway without first dealing with the machine. He hands over Vosper's gun to Jo, and they make for the Process Chamber.

By this time, the prisoners have discovered the escape and freed Vosper. Vosper's prison pal Charlie is one step ahead of the Doctor and Jo, thinking that they will go to the Process Chamber. To his amazement, the machine suddenly appears in front of him in the corridor. Operating more efficiently than it did before, it sucks the life out of him almost instantly and then disappears again.

Jo and the Doctor find the body and look inside the Chamber, amazed to find it empty. Mailer and Vosper come up behind them, and the UNIT operatives retreat into the empty room before their captors. The machine materializes out in the hallway right behind Vosper and kills him. Mailer bolts into the room, and the machine materializes right in the center of the room. The Doctor pushes Jo back behind himself, and Mailer hides behind the door. As the pulsing begins, Mailer'' nerve breaks, and he flees. The machine dematerializes, apparently going off in pursuit.

The Doctor and Jo emerge to find Barnham wandering around in his pajamas and robe. They calm him and take him with them, ready to make an escape from the prison and interrupt the ambush on UNIT. Outside, the UNIT helicopter is doing a recce of the prison, and Jo and the Doctor try to wave to it to signal distress, but they are caught by the prisoners, and brought inside, along with Barnham.

Meanwhile, Mailer is furious with the Master and gets a call through to him at his temporary missile base. He wants the Master to return and do something about the machine. As the Master dismisses his demands, Mailer threatens to blow the whistle on him. Grudgingly, the Master agrees to come back.

At UNIT, satisfied that something is amiss at the prison, the Brigadier and his men plan a breaching of the walls of the old castle, relying on the design of the place and the overall lack of skill in the prisoners to hold it.
As these plans are being laid, the Master returns to Stangmoor. He visits the Doctor and Jo in their cell and tries to persuade the Doctor to help him restrain the deadly machine. The Doctr and Jo, still enjoying their sense of solidarity, express their good natured contempt for the master by playing checkers while he is talking. In spite of being patient with this, the Master finally directs Mailer to put a gun to Jo's head, and thus forces the Doctor to agree to help him.
The Doctor creates a heavy inductance coil and throws it like a lasso over the machine, thus inhibiting its signaling and reception of human energy signals. Just getting the coil over the machine requires being exposed to it, and the brief encounter exhausts the Doctor. He is taken back up to the cell and tossed inside, where Jo is waiting. She helps him to the bed. Again, Dicks excised any hint of affection between the two of them, so I put it back in:

"Are you all right, Doctor?" Jo sat beside him, concerned. His face was almost pearly with sweat and weariness. Without thinking, she stroked back his hair from his forehead with an impulsive tenderness. To her surprise, he did not rebuff her. His face was quiet, and he looked at her with sober, wearied eyes.

Deciding to be stubbornly cheerful, she hunts up the bits of their breakfast that they threw around the room during their escape attempt. At first the Doctor wants her to have the food for herself, but Jo insists that they share and share alike, and so they have a curious communion with each other of bread and water.

While these two are sharing a moment of solidarity, the Brigadier, impersonating a delivery man with an enormous lorry full of provisions, shows up at the front gate of the castle. The prisoners, dressed as guards, let him in, and the Trojan Horse ploy works. A platoon of UNIT soldiers emerges from the lorry and begin a furious takeover attempt of the old castle.

Mailer, desperate to escape when he realizes that the Master has already gone and the inexperienced convicts are being shot down, takes the Doctor and Jo hostage. The Target novel renders what happens next one way, but from watching the video of the TV series it looks like things transpire a different way. Here is my retcon to match what I think happens in the show:

"Go on then, you first, then the girl, and then me," Mailer ordered the Doctor. "And remember, I need only one of you to escape."

He shot a glance of smug triumph over Jo's head at the Doctor. The conclusion was obvious. Eventually, Mailer would shoot one of them, even if they both complied with his demands. Two of them would only slow him down when things got dangerous.

They went down the hall and were descending a short flight of metal steps when the Doctor abruptly took a false step so that Jo and Mailer both stepped into him. He flung himself back. Jo, following his lead, threw herself backward into Mailer, falling on him as he fell to the steps. "Now Doctor!" she exclaimed. The Doctor whirled and leaped forward whirled to disarm Mailer.

Few humans had the reflexes that could compete with the Doctor. But Mailer was one who did. The Doctor found the muzzle of the gun in his face. Mailer lay back on the steps, his other arm wrapped around Jo's throat, holding her like a shield.

Before Mailer can shoot the Doctor, the Brigadier comes through a doorway to the side of the steps and shoots Mailer.

UNIT quickly restores order to the prison and takes over temporarily while also attempting to track down the missile. Yates escapes from the Master's thugs at the temporary missile base and relays the location information. The Brigadier wants to bomb the missile site, but the Doctor warns him that the Master can easily over ride fail safes on the missile. At sight of an approaching aircraft, the Master can fire the rocket at London in an instant.
The Keller machine, meanwhile, has figured out how to burn out the inductance coil placed around it. It does so and begins traveling the halls again, materializing long enough to suck the life from guards and prisoners alike. The Doctor and Jo go searching for it, only to be trapped by it. They are saved when Barnham wanders into view. His presence is more effective than the inductance coil. The machine simply shuts down when he is near it.

The Doctor realizes that Barnham, completely bereft of evil impulses, acts as a natural dampener on the creature. He forces Barnham to stay in the Process Chamber with Jo, and Jo ultimately convinces him that there is nothing to fear.

The Doctor attempts to negotiate with the Master via telephone and finally hits upon a plan. He still has the Master's dematerialisation circuit that he stole in Terror of the Autons. He arranges a trade: the circuit for the Thunderbolt missile. The Master tells him to come alone to make the trade. The Doctor puts Barnham, Jo, and the subdued Keller Machine in the back of the prison van and drives out to the missile site.

Once there, he makes a single attempt to reason with the Master, but when this proves useless, he exposes the Master to the Keller machine and pulls Barnham away. Jo pulls Barnham back, and the Doctor runs for the missile controls to set the abort sequence of the warhead. Recovering partially, the Master tries to wrestle the Doctor down into the sphere of the machine's pulsing, but the Doctor breaks away, and he, Jo, and Barnham, run for the clearing on the tarmac where the helicopter will pick them up before the warhead explodes.

But Barnham, seeing the Master left in the power of the Keller machine, turns back to help him. As Barnham nears the machine, its power is dampened. The Master knocks Barnham over, gets into the van, and runs him down, killing him. The Doctor and Jo run to him, but seeing he is dead, the Doctor pulls Jo to the helicopter that is touching down. They escape, climbing above the explosion as the warhead self destructs.

Jo turned from the Doctor, her eyes riveted to the billows of smoke and flames below that had vaporized Barnham's body. Guilt and remorse held her in a kind of horrified fascination at the scene.

"He trusted us!" she exclaimed. "He didn't understand!" She couldn't hear her own voice over the roar of the helicopter, so the Doctor could not hear her. But the trembling through her shoulders as she peered down at the inferno below caught his attention. He caught her shoulder, and she turned at the summons, tears streaming down her face, her eyes filled with grief and horror and self-incrimination.

For a moment, the youth, happiness, and confidence that were a part of Jo were entirely gone. She didn't try to say anything. Suddenly stricken with the awful cost of their battles, she was lost from him, suddenly remote.

She turned her eyes from him back to the smoke below, guilty and overwhelmed. She was wracked by a sudden shuddering and would have put her face in her hands. He suddenly gathered her into his arms and covered her head with his hand. She didn't resist but buried her face against him and wept hard and earnest tears of remorse. There was nothing but the deafening roar of the helicopter, the rushing wind, and the two of them grieving over the entire misadventure.

Back at the prison, Jo and the Doctor both brief the Brigadier on events at the hangar. The prison has been returned to normal under UNIT's occupation. Jo blames herself and the Doctor for Barnham's death. This annoys the Doctor by now, though he recognizes that the need to assign blame is normal, and in my retcon I point out that he is grateful that Jo is already recovering normally from the horrors she has endured. But he quiets her down by returning to his austere self. As she subsides, he softens and offers her coffee and food.
The Master telephones the Doctor from a call box at some unknown location, thanks him for the return of the dematerialisation circuit, and hangs up. There is nothing the Doctor can do about this reminder of his exile except vent his frustrations on the Brigadier by means of a little verbal abuse. But as the Brigadier wants the Doctor to hang around for a bit, he contents himself with a broad smile of satisfaction at knowing that UNIT still has its scientific advisor.
Read The First Doctor Who Story Ever Told, which is my own story that follows this one.
Read the retcon of Claws of Axos, which is next in the original, televised series.
The creature from the Keller machine shows up again in Blood-Dimmed Tide.
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