'Decalog 3: Consequences' edited by Andy Lane and Justin Richards

TEN STORIES - SEVEN DOCTORS - ONE CHAIN OF EVENTS

'The consequences of having the Doctor crashing around our universe can be colossal... The Doctor is a time traveller. Never forget that, because it is central to an understanding of what makes him so terribly dangerous. Most of us, in our tiny, individual ways are involved in the writing of history. Only the Doctor is out there rewriting it.'

But even the Doctor may not see the threads that bind the universe together. Perhaps, instead, he cuts right through them. Who knows what events he sets in motion without even realising? Who knows what consequences may come back - or forward - to haunt him?

Ten completely new tales from the universe of Doctor Who. Seven Doctors' lives, inexorably linked in a breathtaking chain of consequences.

As always, the editors have assembled a dazzling array of writing talent, from award-winning TV script writers to acclaimed New Adventures authors. And, as before, there are the usual contributions from talented new writers.

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'...And Eternity in an Hour' by Stephen Bowkett

The Doctor and Jo investigate a time rift near the Alkaris, a planet whose dangerous time storms sweep across the planet causing havoc. During a time storm, the time travellers are separated, and rebels who believe that the Time Lords are responsible for the disaster capture Jo. The Doctor meets Yed-Prior Zaniah, who plans to use the time distortions to cause her people to live out their natural life spans in just one hour, while extending her own so that she will rule them for eternity. However, her experiments have summoned the Cerunnos, a metamorphic creature from the darkest corners of time. Jo helps the rebels to storm the palace, where they detonate an atomic bomb that destroys Zaniah. The Doctor and Jo escape before the explosion, but so does the Cerunnos...

Notes:
*Featuring the Third Doctor and Jo

*Jo knows all about Time Lord trances, which she saw the Doctor use in 'Planet of the Daleks'

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'Moving On' by Peter Anghelides

After an interview with Scott Wojzek, Sarah emerges from his company's Virtual Reality equipment only to suffer from strange hallucinations, and Wojzek later commits suicide. When K-9 starts to deteriorate, Sarah realises she cannot repair him, as the technology will not be invented for centuries. Attempting to ignore the hallucinations and continue her work, Sarah see Wojzek, who reveals that he is the Cerunnos, and has been passing through bodies in an attempt to lure the Doctor to Earth so that he can have his revenge. While under Cerunnos' influence, Sarah sabotaged K-9 and ordered him to send the Doctor a holographic distress. She resists the creature's influence and banishes it from her mind, in the process proving to herself that she is no longer reliant on the Doctor.

Notes:
*Featuring Sarah and K-9

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'Tarnished Image' by Guy Clapperton

The TARDIS arrives on the planet Tarron, during the test of a new holoprobe that enhances old holographic recordings to provide a near-Virtual Reality experience. The leader of Tarron is about to transfer control of the colony to the Azmec Corporation, the creators of the machine, and also the object of the Doctor's suspicions, as he does not think the machine would work as they claim. The Doctor and Dodo are told by a journalist, Crakar Lund, of a number of recent murders that are reminiscent of old cult killings from the colony's earliest days.. The Doctor discovers that the Azmec Corporation is responsible for the murders. It used prototype time-travel technology to transport the original murderer from the past and kill two student scientists that were developing a rival version of the holoprobe; the students would have discovered that the holograph of the leader of Tarron was a fake created from an ancient holographic distress signal. While the enraged population forces the Azmecs from their planet, the Doctor and Dodo leave with the holoprobe head-dress.

Notes:
*Featuring the First Doctor and Dodo

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'Past Reckoning' by Jackie Marshall

Visiting his old friend David Gosthorpe, the Doctor takes Nyssa to Trentillys Castle, only to find it open to tourists, and in a state of disrepair. They meet David's sister, Ellen, who angrily tells the Time Lord that after her brother's encounter with him, he squandered the family fortune attempting to search for lost historical treasures. David only ever found one item, the Jewels of Helen, which Ellen hopes to sell to regain their fortune, but the head-dress is actually an alien artefact that psychically enhances the wearer's appearance, and Ellen is killed in a feedback loop.

Notes:
*Featuring the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa

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'UNITed We Fall' by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Until the Brigadier can justify expenses from previous incursions, the government temporarily suspends UNIT's funding. Summoned by a recall signal, the Doctor arrives, only to discover that the signal was not sent by the Brigadier, but in fact by a terrorist that the Doctor once accidentally exposed, and who now wants revenge. The terrorist has built a bomb using leftover TARDIS equipment stored in UNIT archives, planning to destroy the UN building where the hearing into UNIT is to be held. When police shoot the terrorist, the Doctor finds the bomb and realises that it is capable of destroying the entire Solar System one thousand years ago. He sends the detonator into the future, along with the TARDIS distress circuits that originally summoned him, saving the solar system, and proving to the government bureaucrats that funding for UNIT is indeed necessary.

Notes:
*Featuring the Fourth Doctor and the Brigadier

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'Aliens and Predators' by Colin Brake

The alien race known only as the Other attack the starship Hope, which contains all the treasures of the lost human race. The Doctor receives a distress call that appears to come from his own TARDIS, but when he and his companions arrive, the ship's Guardians misinterpret their arrival and attack them. Forced to defend themselves, Jamie and Zoe destroy all but one of the Guardians. After the Doctor discovers that the Other are the mutated descendants of the human race, the remaining Guardian sets the ship to self-destruct in order to prevent the Other from obtaining the human race's genetic code and abusing it. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe leave with some of the ship's treasures, including the 'Face of Humanity', so that they can take them to safety.

Notes:
*Featuring the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe

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'Fegovy' by Gareth Roberts

The TARDIS detects an energy field emanating from an old space station, to which several spaceships belonging to criminals and warlike species are docked. The Doctor investigates, and discovers that an energy-based creature named Fegovy is auctioning off the priceless 'Face of Humanity', a prize that some of the bidders are willing to kill for. The auction is really a sham and Fegovy, actually an artificial life form programmed to acquire wealth for a group called the Syndicate, has lured the criminals to the station, in order to put them in suspended animation so they can be sold for the bounty. The Doctor realises that Fegovy is carrying out defunct programme, as the Syndicate collapsed centuries ago. He offers to exchange the co-ordinates of Gallifrey in return for the release of Fergovy's prisoners, and they escape before the intelligence discovers the bluff. The natives of New Alexandria decide to abandon their criminal activities, in order to create a library.

Notes:
*Featuring the Sixth Doctor and Mel

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'Continuity Errors' by Steven Moffat

The Doctor takes the TARDIS to the Library of New Alexandria, in order to take out a restricted text detailing the massacre of the Deltheron race during the Drakoid invasion. The Librarian, Andrea, recognises him and angrily refuses, and, after the Time Lord leaves, asks Benny what it is like to travel with the most complex space-time event in the universe. Andrea came to New Alexandria to forget her life, as her daughter Gwen was killed by hostile plants, after which her husband left her. As Andrea's temperament gradually alters, Benny meets the Librarian's husband, who nearly left her, but then reconsidered after he hitched a lift with a cheerful man in a blue lorry with a flashing light on top. The Doctor finally returns and greets his old friend Andrea and her beautiful daughter Gwen, whom the Doctor once saved from hostile plants some years ago. He returns to the Library the book that he took out - a restricted text about the Deltherons' successful defeat of the Drakoid invasion.

Notes:
*Featuring the Seventh Doctor and Benny

*The Doctor is only travelling with Benny, and wearing his question-marked pull-over, so this must occur before 'Deceit'

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'Timevault' by Ben Jeapes

The TARDIS arrives inside a vaultship, whose owners, the Lorq, are a neutral species that keep items in storage for their customers. Some of the ship's passengers have contracted a contagious Anlerrian rash, caused by a faulty batch of the nanotech drug Aesculac, which normally manufactures cures to whatever disease the recipient is suffering from, but which has actually started manufacturing Anlerrian bacteria. After the Doctor cures the plague, Xo'ril, the ship's purser, holds his own son, Ts'ril, hostage and orders the Doctor to use Aesculac to make another type of bacteria. The Doctor surmises that Xo'ril has been possessed by a Crialan, a bacterial life form that was supposedly wiped out by the Time Lords long ago - the surviving bacteria sealed themselves in temporal stasis aboard the vaultship. When the bacteria reproduce using Aesculac and take control the ship, the Doctor escapes and uses the TARDIS to reprogram the ship's stasis generators, accelerating time backwards and forwards, and confusing the Crialans. Their hosts' immune systems recover from shutdown and wipe out the invaders, and the Doctor leaves with Ts'ril in the TARDIS.

Notes:
*Featuring the Fourth Doctor and K-9, and introducing Ts'ril

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'Zeitgeist' by Craig Hinton

The TARDIS is drawn to Heracletus, a planet that the Time Lords have placed in a time loop. The Doctor assumes that they want him to investigate, but when he and Turlough leave the ship, they find themselves in different, alternate, timelines. In a technologically advanced world, the Doctor meets scientist Enryk Ullius, who, aided by an alien ambassador named Ts'ril, has created a chronon stream called the Spline, which he will use to plunder all of time's resources. Turlough meets Ullius, a high priest overseeing the distribution of offerings from the magical Spline, and the Savant, an arrogant alternate version of the Doctor. After both timelines overlap due to an accident, the Doctor realises that the Time Lords set up the time loop to stop the Spline from destroying the fabric of time; a flaw is causing an alternate history to be created after the loop repeats itself, and the Spline is in fact a twisted refraction of the TARDIS. The Doctor locates the real TARDIS and, as he transports himself and Turlough to it before the loop collapses. A rift occurs, which reveals the real planet to be a lifeless wasteland, destroyed by the scientists' failed time-travel experiments.

Notes:
*Featuring the Fifth Doctor and Turlough


Publication Date:
July 1996