Zoe Thorne: The Gelth

The Unquiet Dead

The Gelth

The Gelth, Gwyneth: [during the séance, the Gelth come through] Pity us. Pity the Gelth. There is so little time. Help us.
The Doctor: What do you want us to do?
The Gelth, Gwyneth: The rift. Take the girl to the rift. Make the bridge.
The Doctor: What for?
The Gelth, Gwyneth: We are so very few. The last of our kind. We face extinction.
The Doctor: Why? What happened?
The Gelth, Gwyneth: Once we had a physical form like you. But then the War came.
Charles Dickens: War? What war?
The Gelth, Gwyneth: The Time War. The whole universe convulsed. The Time War raged, invisible to smaller species but devastating to higher forms. Our bodies wasted away. We're trapped in this gaseous state.
The Doctor: So, that's why you need the corpses.
The Gelth, Gwyneth: We want to stand tall, to feel the sunlight, to live again. We need a physical form and your dead are abandoned. They go to waste. Give them to us.
Rose Tyler: But we can't!
The Doctor: Why not?
Rose Tyler: It's... I mean, it's not...
The Doctor: Not decent? Not polite? It could save their lives.
The Gelth, Gwyneth: Open the rift. Let the Gelth through. We're dying. Help us... Pity the Gelth!
[the Gelth vanish]

The Gelth: The bridge is open. We descend.
[Suddenly, the figure becomes demonic. The gas turns from blue to red]
The Gelth: The Gelth will come through in force.
Charles Dickens: You said that you were *few* in number!
The Gelth: A few billion. And all of us in need of corpses.
[the dead bodies, possessed by the Gelth, begin to rise]
Gabriel Sneed: Gwyneth! Stop this! Listen to your master! This has gone far enough. Stop dabbling, child, leave these things alone. I beg of you...
Rose Tyler: Mr. Sneed! Get back!
[But it's too late. A corpse strangles Sneed from behind, holding him still to let a Gelth fill his body through the mouth. The Doctor and Rose leap back, and when Sneed looks up again, it is through his blank, dead eyes]
The Doctor: I think it's gone a little bit wrong.
Gabriel Sneed, The Gelth: I have joined the legions of the Gelth. Come. March with us.
Charles Dickens: No!
[the corpses start advancing on the Doctor and Rose]
Gabriel Sneed, The Gelth: We need bodies. All of you. Dead. The human race. Dead.
The Doctor: Gwyneth, stop them! Send them back! Now!
The Gelth: Three more bodies. Make them vessels for the Gelth.
Charles Dickens: I - I can't! I'm sorry!
[the Doctor and Rose spot the dungeon door and lock themselves into it]