Play With a Tiger and Other Plays

DOCTOR: Stop.

[The MEDICAL ATTENDANTS stop with the stretcher at the Door. All this group press up close, almost touching the Door. The DOCTOR hangs back a little, but he is being drawn slowly forward.]

GUARDIAN: In the name of the Door I command you to disarm.

FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: Silly old fools. Scared. Like a lot of sheep.

SECRETARY: Not sheep. Ship. Scared like a lot of ship. Ship, plural of sheep.

SECOND LOW-LEVELLER: What’s a sheep anyway? What’s it matter?

SECRETARY: It matters very much. We must preserve standards. When we do eventually leave this Underplace and go out again, into Outside, then we’ll need to know these things.

FOURTH LOW-LEVELLER: We don’t even know what the Door is for. It’s just there.

[He rushes over and kicks the Door on the altar.]

THIRD LOW-LEVELLER: There, you see? Nothing happens. [He kicks the Door too. Stands defying it.] Go on, punish me then!

FOURTH PRECEPT: ‘A singing Door, That’s the time … ’

[He walks into the blaze of the Door and disappears. The others of that group follow, the MEDICAL ATTENDANTS taking the stretcher through last.]

DOCTOR: I must be mad!

[He goes into the Door like the others. A couple of people rush across from the left, ignoring the procession, going straight to the Door.]

THESE SHOUT: Are we too late?

[They jump into the light and vanish.]

FOURTH LOW-LEVELLER: Did you see that? Did you?

[He rushes across and jumps into the light. FIRST LOW-LEVELLER does the same. One of the GUARDS goes after him. But are we imagining it, or is the light slightly less, the deep note a little higher and fainter?]

GUARDIAN [he has noticed nothing]: As Guardian of the Door, I command you, finally, to submit to me.

CHAIRMAN: As Exalted Chairman I order you to give yourselves up.

GUARDIAN’S ASSISTANT: According to Regulation 37d you have no alternative but to disarm.

SECOND LOW-LEVELLER: Silly old ships.

[He throws his grenade at the computer. It explodes in smoke and flying fragments. There is indiscriminate scuffling, shouting.

The Door is now fading rapidly, and the sound is nearly back to its normal low humming.

Order is being restored over by the altar. SECOND and THIRD LOW-LEVELLERS are disarmed and under arrest. A delegate lies dead.]

CHAIRMAN: That’s over. We didn’t allow ourselves to be intimidated.

GUARDIAN: I’m delighted to see that my authority still has force. And now I must make a plea for clemency.

CHAIRMAN: Of course, they were misguided, that’s all. And perhaps we were not without faults ourselves. We are perhaps too ignorant of what goes on in the Levels below 50.

DELEGATES: Hear, hear.

CHAIRMAN: I move that we appoint a commission to investigate ways and means to strengthen our ties with the levels below 50.

ASSISTANT TO GUARDIAN: But where are the other two Low-Levellers?

DELEGATE: When it came to the point, they got scared!

CHAIRMAN: Doctor, take these two young people into your care, will you? I am sure you don’t mind a couple of extra patients … Where is the Doctor? Where have they all gone?

A DELEGATE: I saw them all run through the light. I mean, through the Door. They ran through the singing … I saw them.

CHAIRMAN: You saw what?

THIS DELEGATE: I saw them. I saw what happened. They’ve escaped! They’ve got out. They’ve left this Underplace for Outside! [He runs to the Door and beats his hands on it, trying to press himself through.] They are free, I tell you. Free, free, free!

CHAIRMAN: Guard, take this poor man to the hospital … where’s the other guard? Oh never mind. And the two Low-Levellers as well.

[GUARD takes this DELEGATE, and two LOW-LEVELLERS out left.]

THIS DELEGATE: But I did see it. I did. Oh why was I such a fool? Why did I forget? … [he recites as he is pulled out of sight]

‘If you miss the place and time,

The Door again will sing and shine.’

THE DELEGATE WITH THE FATHER: That’s not how that goes. It should go like this:

‘The song was sung,

The moment’s gone,

Light and sound together came,

Those who did not catch the time,

Must watch until it comes again.’

THE DELEGATE WITH THE GRANDFATHER: That’s not the way my grandfather knew it … He said it should go like …

CHAIRMAN: Another time, please. Is everyone ready now?

[He takes his place beside the GUARDIAN. The ASSISTANT TO THE GUARDIAN hands them both garlands, hangs more around their necks. Some music starts up.]