Doctor Who: Planet of Fire
Read Doctor Who: Planet of Fire Online
Authors: Peter Grimwade,British Broadcasting Corporation
Tags: #Science-Fiction:Doctor Who
The Doctor is enjoying the sun on a holiday island – but things are soon hotter than he bargained for...
The young American Perpugilliam Brown brings to the TARDIS a mysterious object that her archaeologist stepfather has found in a sunken wreck. Kamelion, the Doctor’s robot friend of a thousand disguises, reacts to the object totally unexpectedly, with bewildering consequences for the TARDIS crew.
For Kamelion sends the Doctor and his friends to Sarn, a terrifyingly beautiful planet of fire.
This strange world provides the key to Turlough’s secret past – and once again the Doctor is pitted against the wily Master.
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Science Fiction/TV tie-in
DOCTOR WHO
PLANET OF FIRE
Based on the BBC television serial by Peter Grimwade by arrangement with the British Broadcasting Corporation
PETER GRIMWADE
Number 93 in the
Doctor Who Library
published by
The Paperback Division of
W. H. Allen & Co. Ltd
A Target Book
Published in 1985
By the Paperback Division of
W.H. Allen & Co. PLC
44 Hill Street, London W1X 8LB
First Published in Great Britain by
W.H. Allen & Co. PLC, 1984
Novelisation copyright © Peter Grimwade 1984
Original script copyright © Peter Grimwade 1984
’Doctor Who’ series copyright © British Broadcasting Corporation 1984
The BBC producer of
Planet of Fire
was John Nathan-Turner,
the director was Fiona Cumming.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Anchor Brendon Ltd, Tiptree, Essex
ISBN 0 426 19908 1
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or covet other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
1
The full fury of the storm hit the ship as it rounded the headland. Huge waves commandeered the trireme while gale-force winds strained against the efforts of the oarsmen to reach the land. Driving rain obscured the shore as Captain Antigonas tried to gauge the distance to the island harbour. They had shipped a lot of water and the vessel would need to be lightened if they were to reach dry land.
The order was given to jettison the cargo.
The rich merchant Dimitrios instantly forgot his terror and nausea as he saw his treasures brought up from the hold. The marble statue was the heaviest single item so that would be the first to go. Six sailors grabbed hold of the carved figure, shrouded in sail cloth and splinted with strips of wood, whereupon an enraged Dimitrios rushed forward to protect the precious crate, with as much devotion as if the sculptured boy was his own son.
As the fat Rhodian fought with the crewmen, an enormous wave all but turned the boat on its end. The mariners grabbed whatever handholds they could while the cargo rolled to the lowered side of the deck. Unevenly ballasted, the ship was slow in righting itself and the sea poured in.
The Captain ordered the slaves to be released, for now it was every man for himself. As the halt-drowned oarsmen struggled up from the flooded galleys, An tigonas offered a desperate prayer to Poseidon that he would live to see his homeland again. The next wave rolled right across the boat, yet still Dimitrios clung to his marble statue.
The Captain marvelled that a man should care more for a work of art than his own life. He peered closer at the stone image. Rough handling had torn part of the canvas away, revealing the head and shoulders of a young man–quite miraculously lifelike (and more likely to survive the clay than his mortal shipmates).
By now several mariners were struggling in the water, some clinging to barrels, others striking out for the shore.
But Dimitrios continued to embrace the marble boy, as if it were a lover. Then, as the ship rolled sideways, man and gilded kouros slid from the deck and plummeted to the ocean bed.
The storm hit the ship as it came into the gravitational pull of Sarn.
It was many years since any Trion vessel had landed on the planet, but the homing beacon was still in perfect working order as Captain Grulen programmed the flight computer for a fully automated re-entry through the atmosphere.
Grulen was looking forward to seeing Sarn. Several generations of his mother’s family, so it was said, had lived there until the volcanos started getting over-active and the settlers came scuttling back to Trion from their colonial paradise, to complain endlessly about the climate and general short-comings of life on the home planet. (Not that Captain Grulen would be so unwise as to boast of any family connection with the Old Colonials.) It must have been a surge of volcanic activity that caused the sudden magnetic storm. Whatever the reason, the navigational instruments took on a life of their own and the computer, deprived of accurate data, allowed their ship to enter the atmosphere of Sarn at the wrong attitude.
Within minutes, the ship was shaking violentlyand the outer skin of the hull had heated almost beyond tolerance.
The co-pilot tried to warn Trion Control, but with so much interference, radio contact was impossible and he could do no more than release the emergency data beacons.
Captain Grulen switched to manual operation and the ship swung slowly back into the right alignment for entry, but even with the retro-engines on full power, he knew they could never achieve a safe landing speed. He ordered the security quarters to be opened, for it was only right that the prisoners should take their chances with the crew.
There was no panic amongst Captain Grulen’s special passengers. Faced with the daily prospect of execution, they had prepared themselves for death. One of the older men turned to the child beside him, sleeping peacefully in his mother’s arms. He smiled and took his wife’s hand in his. If this was the end, they would face it together and with dignity. His only concern was for someone far away on the Earth. What was to become, he wondered sadly, of Vislor Turlough?
2
It was ridiculous, thought Turlough, that he should be so depressed. After all, the girl had been argumentative, tactless, interfering, brainless and with a voice that could strip paint. Perhaps it was just having no one to fight with, but he missed Tegan dreadfully!
So did the Doctor. He had grown accustomed to the humour, the courage and the sheer optimism of his Australian companion. They had parted friends, but she had been repulsed by the violence of his conflict with the Daleks, as if the horror brought by Davros’s evil creations was somehow his own fault. He thought how easy it would be to stand back from the horrors of the Universe like the other Time Lords. Maybe he should do just that. After all, what good had his interference ever achieved? Even with Daleks! He turned to Turlough. ‘I sometimes think those mutated misfits will terrorise the Universe for the rest of time.’
Turlough crawled from under the TARDIS console where he had been checking the stabilisers. ‘Doctor, you’re becoming obsessed.’
‘Exactly,’ repeated the Doctor. ‘Obsessed and depressed.’
Turlough frowned. He had never seen the Doctor look so sad before. He decided to cheer him up. ‘What we both need is a holiday,’ he announced.
The Doctors spirits sank even lower at the idea.
‘It could be fun.’
‘Fun!’ shouted the Doctor, who viewed the prospect of a vacation as only marginally less calamitous than the eruption of Krakatoa. ‘There was precious little fun when I went on holiday to Brighton. Unutterable chaos ensued.’
But Brighton was not at all what Turlough had in mind.
Brighton, he imagined, would be just like Weston-super-Mare, where he had gone one wet half-term from Brendon School with his friend Ibbotson. He remembered how they had sat in Mr Ibbotson’s Volvo, stared out at the windswept promenade, drunk tea from a thermos and eaten Mrs Ibbotson’s weeping lettuce sandwiches.
Ibbotson, of course, had been sick on the way back to school. If they were going to have a holiday on Earth–
which was, after all, the Doctor’s favourite planet–it would.
Turlough decided, be on some paradise island. ‘Do you the world of good,’ he declared, scanning the TARDIS data bank for a likely destination.
‘All right, Turlough,’ replied the Doctor defiantly. ‘I’ll show you what holidays are like!’ He began to set some co-ordinates. ‘Only don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
As if on cue, a violent scream came from the inner TARDIS. Though of no human pitch or timbre, it was undoubtedly the sound of some creature in terrible pain.
The Doctor and Turlough rushed down the corridor from the control room. The dreadful wailing grew louder as they approached the door of Kamelion’s room. The Doctor had quite forgotten about the robot from Xeriphas, the former ally of the Master, who could assume more disguises than the evil Time Lord himself. It was some time now since Kamelion had declared himself the Doctor’s obedient servant and taken up residence in the TARDIS. But the obsequious automaton had none of the cheerful loyalty of K9 and the Doctor always felt uncomfortable in the presence of this tin-pot Jeeves.
The Doctor pulled open the door to reveal Kamelion lying spreadeagled on the floor, his silver limbs tense against some unseen assault on his nervous system. There was a shining aura around his metal body as if he was about to use his metamorphic powers to transform into a living creature. His speech transducer continued its agonised screaming. ‘Help me...! Pain!’
For a moment the Doctor and Turlough just watched the tortured robot, unsure how to help. Then Turlough spotted the umbilical cord sneaking from the machine’s torso to a junction box on the wall. Kamelion had connected himself to the TARDIS computer. Perhaps some feedback from the vast data system of the TARDIS
had caused this derangement in the robot’s own brain.
Turlough leaned forward to break the link.
‘No!’ shouted the Doctor. ‘We need the computer to stop the spasming. Go and programme an alpha rhythm.’
‘Help, Doctor!’ pleaded Kamelion.
‘It’s all right, Kamelion. Help’s on the way,’ comforted the Doctor as Turlough raced back down the corridor to the accompaniment of further cries from the robot’s quarters.
The demented caterwauling gradually gave way to the soothing oscillation of an alpha rhythm as Turlough, back in the control room, followed the Doctor’s instructions.
Kamelion began to relax. He started to mutter deliriously.