"Following the official rejection of his theory that Martians colonised this Earth five million years ago by proxy," "Professor Bernard Quatermass receives startling confirmation of it." "The drill operator Sladden is found to have run from the excavation at Knightsbridge possessed by frightful visions and poltergeist outbreaks which grip him even in the church where he takes refuge." "Convinced that these are Martian faculties implanted in Man's ancestors and still capable of being dangerously stirred up by the great hull in the pit," "Quatermass carries out tests there." "Through Dr Roney's optic encephalograph and the susceptible mind of Barbara Judd are stored images obtained of a race purge on ancient Mars." "But this evidence is rejected as the record of mere hallucination." "And that night, people are admitted to the excavation." "Press and television representatives." "Even as Quatermass challenges Colonel Breen's official statement, a violent electrical discharge breaks out in the hull." "A technician laying a power cable there has been electrocuted." "What do you think?" "Artificial respiration?" "That's no use." "He's burnt up." "Well, we'd better get an ambulance for this chap." "Higgins!" " I couldn't help him, I couldn't!" " It's all right!" " You said he fell?" " Yes, it's slippery in there." " He was just fixing the junction box..." " It was an accident." " It may not have been." " Quatermass!" " What do you mean?" " There was nothing I could have done..." "All right, I believe you!" " Switch on again as soon as you're ready!" " No, wait." " I've got to get some light." " Cut the cable into the hull." "Kill number two!" "Oh!" "What did you see?" "Inside there." "It's glowing!" "But I was sure." "It... it was before the lights came on again, but perhaps that's it." "It's too bright now to see!" " You shouldn't have come here." "Potter!" " I don't want to go!" " Get her out of this." "Can you do that?" " I think I can if..." "Keep back!" "The cable's disconnected now." "It's all right." "I think not." "Breen, get these people away from here quickly." "No." "Just because there's been an accident..." "An accident?" "Here?" "My name is Quatermass." "If that means anything to you, take my advice." "Leave this place now." "I think there may be grave danger." " What do you mean?" " Danger of what?" "Let's go where the professor can give us a full statement, anywhere away from here." "Hurry!" "One moment!" "If you want to leave, that's entirely your own affair." "But the official arrangements will go on as planned." "Do as I said." "Get out!" "Do you mind turning round this way, sir?" "Face the cameras?" "Thank you very much." "Breen, release these people." "Cancel it for the present at least!" "Precisely on what grounds, Professor?" "I think there may be some new activity starting in that thing." "What reason have you to believe that?" "Something else you can't prove?" "You're a tired man and you need a long rest." "That's not just my view either." "Colonel Breen, we shall be doing the live television broadcast in about five minutes." "Just hold it there." "We shall carry on as rehearsed." "Unless you might like to include the professor for a few questions?" " What?" " It might be a good idea, sir." "Do you agree, sir?" "Would you mind just stepping this way, so we can get a balance?" "Thank you very much." ""Gazette!" "Gazette!"" "Here you are, guv'nor." "Thank you." ""Gazette!" "Gazette!"" "Thank you, guv'nor. "Gazette!" They're on telly in a couple of minutes. "Gazette!"" "In a few moments, we hope to take you to Hobbs Lane in Knightsbridge to see something of the remarkable missile discovered there recently and to hear an official account of the..." "It's only a couple of blocks away." "Why have we got to see it on that thing?" " Do you believe in these Martians?" " Be your age, kiddie." "Of course, of course, 29!" "No, it's just a ruddy great Jerry buzz-bomb, that's all." "You listen to me." "I know." "I was in the Ruhr when the war finished." "It's on now." "What?" "All right, quick!" "Good evening." "I'm standing just beside the missile which has been so much discussed..." "I've been..." "Colonel Breen, I think perhaps you ought to..." "I'm terribly sorry, but something seems to have gone wrong." "I think perhaps I'd better..." "Won't let you see for yourself and then they go and muck it up!" " Funny noises." " Vision on sound." "That's all." " Have another?" " Yes, I will." " Two more." " Arthur..." "They were running." "Those men down there." "Colonel!" "Colonel Breen!" "Professor!" "Pack up!" "Get out, all of you!" "Do you hear?" "Get out!" "Fullalove!" "Come and help me!" " Don't you feel it?" " I've got to get some more pictures." "Breen, Breen, get away from here!" "We must make a report, a report." "Let me go!" "Let me go back!" "Quatermass!" " It's no use." "I can't do anything with it." " Let's go." "Damn!" "There was some boxing on after this." "We'll have one more, then we'll go on to Millie's." " I say, are you OK?" " Oh, I feel a bit dizzy." "I don't know, I..." "You're hungry, I expect." "You'll get some grub at Millie's." "Say what you like about Millie..." "Oh!" "Give me a drink!" "Quick!" "Whisky, anything!" "I just got caught in it out there." "What's the matter with you all?" "Don't you know?" " Know what?" " All those people running." "Must've been an explosion or something." "I could hear..." "Give me another." "Yes." "Yes, there must be hundreds out here." "Do you feel up to moving?" "Aaaagh!" " It went off as if it was in here." " I don't see nothing!" "It's like the noise down the street!" " What is it, Arthur?" " I don't know, I'm sure." "Don't say it's vision on sound, for God's sake!" "Quatermass!" "Quatermass, don't you know me?" " Roney!" " That's better." "Can I leave you a second?" "Every last bottle broken." "There's still some in this one." "No way to serve decent whisky, but we're out of... out of mugs." "Here!" "Get that into you." " You stopped me." " That's right, I stopped you." "You were being dragged along." "Were they people?" "I was just leaving the museum." "I heard some shouting and police cars." " Don't you feel it?" " What?" "Here." " Anything?" " No." "Perhaps some don't, a few don't." "Fullalove didn't." "It was what I was afraid of." "The thing got a huge intake of energy and..." "Roney, it's the hull itself, the substance of it." "This time... it was almost alive and..." "And then, and then..." "And then you... you can't see this world any more." "Is it like that now?" "No, no." "Better now." "It's quiet." "He's hurt pretty badly." "What was it like in the excavation?" "Was there anybody still there?" "Do you remember?" "Yes." "A few." "Breen." " Got to do something!" " Easy!" "No, no, no." "You have to fight it!" "You see, it's there all the time." "Telephone." "Telephone." "Everybody must know by now." "They'll be taking measures." "I must try." "Aagh!" "As soon as I touched it..." "No good, it's dead now." "I'll go out and see if I can find out..." "No, don't!" "It's changing." "I can feel it." "It's getting stronger!" "Hello?" "Hello, sir, are you there?" "It's Jackson, news editor." "I'm at the office." "Can you hear me now, sir?" "Well, listen, sir, I'm worried about..." "No, there's nothing from the agencies, nothing from anybody, not even the radio." "What, yours, too?" "Everything's going mad." "I can see the street from here." "It's fire engines mostly and some ambulances heading west." "It's bedlam down there." "Huge crowds running wild." "By the way, sir, what about Fullalove?" "James Fullalove." "He's there." "He's at Hobbs Lane where it's all supposed to have started." "What do you want me to do if?" "Aagh!" "Ugh!" "He's in a bad way, poor guy." "We should get him out of here." "Quatermass!" "No!" "Wait!" "Wait!" "Aaaagh!" "Quatermass!" "It's using you, taking you over!" "You've got to go on fighting it, man!" "Can you hear me?" "Think!" "Think, man, think!" "Use your brain, your memory!" "Bernard Quatermass!" "Remember that summer you came down to my place?" "We went fishing and you got that bloody big pike!" "You nearly lost a finger landing him." "His tail caught that little guy that was with us." "What was his name?" "His name!" " Willis." " That's right, Willis." "Knocked him right in, soaked him from head to foot, but we got that pike home." "Weighed 29 pounds, 5 ounces." "It did and I've got it in a case at home." " All right, all right." " Can you hold on now?" "I wanted to kill you." "I could do it without moving." "I knew it." "And I would have done it." " Why?" "Did you know why?" " Yes." "Because..." "Because you're different." "I could feel it." "You're not one of us." "You had to be destroyed, destroyed!" "Don't say any more." "Look, try to keep it out of your mind." "Listen!" "Out there!" "Animals!" "They're killing the animals!" "Not only the animals." "Roney, this is it!" "This is the Wild Hunt!" "This is the image that was in the pit." "This is the compulsion!" " It was a control?" " It must be." "To preserve their colony, kill every mutation away from the fixed pattern, destroy everything that didn't belong to them, every living thing and every object!" "Now it's happening." "Five million years too late!" "Draining the..." "the whole human energy of London... to turn it into a... a Martian colony!" " It can't possibly." "Not after so long..." " Can, can!" "My name is Quatermass, Bernard Quatermass." "Professor, experimental physics." "Director-General, British Rocket Group." "At present... at present engaged..." "I can feel it!" " I see it, see THEM!" " Resist it." "You can!" " I know..." " You must!" "You're needed!" "We've got things to do nobody else can!" "Remember that pike?" " The pike, the pike." " He was hard to take." " I used the..." " Pike..." "It was late afternoon, sunny..." "Come on!" "Come on!" "And now the 4 p.m. news." "Washington..." "Flash!" "Latest reports on the amazing and still unexplained paralysis of London, England." "In the past hour, it seems to have spread to outlying districts." "Power breakdowns have plunged vast areas of the city into total darkness and all contact with the rest of the country has been broken." "Planes have been diverted from London Airport." "However, we are now going to try to get an eye-witness account by boosted radio link from a U.S. freighter now over the stricken city." "Go ahead, pilot." "Go ahead, pilot!" "Hello?" "Hello?" "I'm over central London at this moment, but it's completely unrecognisable, all blacked out." "Except for those fires down there." "Same as in World War II." "I can still see lighted areas out beyond." "They must be 20 or 30 miles away, though." "Hey, one of 'em just blacked out, a whole great patch!" "Did you see that, Joe?" "I guess that means it's still spreading, whatever it is." "I'm taking one last turn around before heading for our diversion field." "Go down and take a closer look." "It's all smoke." "A lot of fires." "Hey, looks like some kind of building went down then." "Big place by the river." "Now there's something... right ahead!" "Look at that, will you?" "I don't know what this is, but it doesn't seem like a fire." "Joe, take over." "There's something..." "What's the matter with you?" "I said take over!" "Aaaagh!" " Roney!" " Who's that?" "Oh, Potter!" "What are you doing here?" "It's all right." "Just my ankle." "Where's Barbara?" " What did it?" " I did." "I had to." "I'd have been killed if I hadn't." "She isn't dead." "I know." "So... that's it?" "The devil." "The horned devil!" "Don't look at it!" "The hull's gone completely." "Mass into energy." "Hovering there like a great fireball!" "Driving men mad!" "What about you?" " I just feel a bit sick." " You're like me, immune." "I guess we're the lucky ones." "I was nearly killed a dozen times getting here." "They seem to pick you out." "He was with me." "It confuses them." " I was going to try and reach the barracks." " You'll never get through." "Mass into energy..." "Electrical energy at a guess." "It's all right, I'm with you." "Ever study legends?" "Then you'd know the devil's traditional enemies - iron and water!" "What are you driving at?" "Legends gave us the first clue." "It may be worth trying again." "If it was possible to fling a mass of steel cable through the middle of it, connected to wet earth, that might make sense, both magical and scientific!" "There's a lot of steel chain outside in the street." "Oh, we thought that was you!" "They saw me." "Then a man came blundering into them." "A blind man with a dog." "Is there enough, do you think?" "Tie it to that pipe." "It should go down to the main sewers." " I'll try it." " No." "It's our only chance." "I'm least likely to be detected." "All right." "Don't get too close." "Throw it as far as you can, right up into that fireball." " I'm going down there." " No!" "Roney!" "Roney!" "Roney..." "Roney!" "That is the full account." "Matthew Roney was a brave man and a friend." "Much more." "For it is with his kind that hope lies." "For they have outgrown the Martian in us." "If another of these things should ever be found, we are armed with knowledge, but we also have knowledge of ourselves and of the ancient, destructive urges in us that grow more deadly as our populations increase and approach in size and complexity those of ancient Mars." "Every war crisis, witch-hunt, race riot, purge... is a reminder and a warning." "We are the Martians." "If we cannot control the inheritance within us, this will be their second dead planet."