“He isn’t coming. [heavy sigh] Never thought I’d hear myself say that one. I have to face facts, don’t I? I’ve been a complete bitch. You tried to help me and what did I do? Wrecked everything. Smashed your plates, stole from you (which I don’t do) and hit you over the head. About the only thing I didn’t do was spit at you.”
“You did that last night.”
“I’m sorry. Delayed shock, I guess. And the rest. I owe you an apology. Well a lot really. I would’ve died out there if you hadn’t… Thank you. So… what do I do now?”
“Let me look at your eyes.”
“How do they look?”
“Like the rest of you: beautiful.”
“[Laughs] Flatterer!”
Bit of a mystery here. All I know about Mark Duncan is that he wrote this and three other stories for BBV. This story does lead directly into the next one, also written by Mark Duncan and therefore features some foreshadowing carefully dropped in about Ace’s parents. There’s an entry on TARDIS Wikia which appears to have been written by the author himself or someone who knows him.
+++++
A man called Dorsai is keeping a log. He talks of the apes outside the protective walls; he talks of a recent spaceship crash on the planet where he is and the survivor he saved from the wreckage.
Ace wakes up to find her face covered with a healing mask. She cannot see. When the mask is removed she still cannot see. The man informs her she suffered 20% burns from the crash and that her eyes are being healed. For the time being she is required to leave the dressing on her eyes and is effectively blind. She asks about the professor, but is told there was only one survivor. The other bodies are not human, the Professor was not among them.
Asked of her last memory, Ace explains she was on Markab IV at a marketplace with the Professor. He was trying to buy some crystals when someone rendered her unconscious from behind. The man, Dorsai, tells her she is nowhere near Markab IV, she is in a small house on a remote planet, outside of transmitter range of the space lanes. No-one will be able to find her, she is alone with him.
As Dorsai goes to lay flowers on the graves of the two people he arrived there with, Ace explores the house. There is a computer which can answer basic questions and guides her, vocally, to where the walls and doors are. She is intercepted by Dorsai just before she blunders into the electro-magnetic barrier which keeps the house safe from the dominant species of the planet, the aggressive, dangerous two-metre tall apes. The barrier is strong enough to harm or perhaps even kill her. Ace is very hostile to Dorsai, suspecting him of kidnapping her, holding her captive and other dubious possibilities.
Enough time has passed now for Dorsai to be able to remove Ace’s dressings. As her eyes are uncovered she discovers that… she cannot see. She is actually blind.
By the fifth day with Dorsai, Ace is still not warming to the man she has to cohabit with. She refuses to eat or let him examine her eyes. She doubts his every motive and is not shy of expressing it. Dorsai has been nothing but polite and kind all along and will continue to be so throughout this audio. On being told the computer can make her some replacement clothes she requests that the fatigues she will be issued with have “ACE” on the back.
In an effort to stimulate her memory, Dorsai escorts her to the crash site. Perhaps the spaceship will bring back memories. It does, she remembers being caged like an animal in the zoo, alongside other specimens. She realises she misses the Doctor and imagines hearing his voice calling for her.
Dorsai is aware that the apes, which he calls Tribers, are closing in on their position and they hurry back to the house. Ace’s hostility to Dorsai reduces. A little. He plays the piano, beautifully. He explains that it was a scientific expedition, that the house was constructed from the spaceship parts, even the piano was made from an instrument panel. The two people with him died of natural causes and now he continues the work alone.
Day 7 and Dorsai describes his relationship with his two dead colleagues. They were like parents to him. Asking about her parents, she confesses to hating her alcoholic mother. She had been brought up by her Nan. Suddenly the Tribers attack the barrier. Dorsai explains they periodically attack it, testing for weaknesses, but they will give up eventually. The computer intones that the barrier will only sustain the attack for two hours. The Tribers give up before that time.
Alone in a secure part of the house, Dorsai is performing a “procedure” on a live female Triber. It appears to be nothing more than vivisection.
Later, Dorsai gives Ace a Sensory Stick, a sort of walking stick which can beep as she comes near to objects and walls. With this Ace navigates her way around the house. Later, when Dorsai is out checking his Triber traps Ace interrogates the house computer. It is frustratingly basic, many of the answers she requires are deemed above her security level. Ace secretly gets the computer to make her an interactive map which can speak the distances and locations of the house from the crashed spaceship. She intends to get there by herself.
Dorsai and Ace have a frank discussion where he appears to be psychoanalysing her. He points out she hasn’t seen her friends in years, hates her parents and dotes on the Professor, whom she knows nothing about. He is extremely accurate. She reiterates her faith in the Professor, though. She still believes that he will come and save her.
Ace manages to knock out Dorsai and makes for the spaceship. On the way she walks straight into a bog which is slowly sucking her in. Fortunately Dorsai has recovered and arrives to save her. But then they are attacked by Tribers. There is some scuffling which isn’t clear on audio, but it transpires that Dorsai manages to get her back to the safety of the house and the electro-magnetic barrier.
Dorsai doesn’t understand Ace’s behaviour. Why won’t she trust him? She says she finds him “creepy” and stifling. It is analogous to someone with a crush. She goes to bed.
Ace wakes up to the Professor’s face. “You’re not Ace,” he tells her. He is cruel, taunting her mercilessly, and then… she wakes up. It was just a nightmare. Ace finally breaks down. She accepts that he isn’t coming to rescue her. She apologises to Dorsai, hoping to make the best of it.
Later, Ace jabs some numbers into a door keypad. It transpires she has been systematically trying different codes over the days and finally hits the right one. She enters Dorsai’s private section of the house and listens to his logs. She finds out that he has not been telling her the whole truth. Ripping off the dressings on her eyes she finds she can see. Confronting Dorsai her eyes now make it obvious to her that he is an android. She tells him she’s found her way into his secret room and found the results of his experiment. He admits to gathering data on the apes, carrying on his former colleagues’ experiments. Angrily, Ace tells him to stop his experiments, to release the Tribers. No-one will ever see the results of his research. He has been doing it out of habit.
Urged by her he goes out and unsets the traps. Suddenly the Doctor appears, he’s managed to track her down! Ace says the three of them can now leave together. The Doctor agrees but Dorsai doesn’t. He is a unique individual and he knows he will be disassembled for examination if he is returned to society. Ace tries to make him go but he explains he has free will and will not go. The Doctor has researched the spaceship Dorsai arrived on and points out to Ace that Dorsai has been alone on Markab IV for over a hundred years.
Dorsai says he needs an active mind like Ace’s to keep him stimulated. When she leaves he will not be able to cope, now he has no purpose. Before Ace can stop him he deliberately walks into the electro-magnetic barrier, damaging himself fatally. His neural net is depolarising, not even the Doctor can save him. He dies, leaving a distraught Ace. She buries him next to his colleagues and leaves a message for anyone who might find him, praising him.
She powers down the house computer and turns to the Doctor, weary and upset.
Take me home.
+++++
This is usually where I’d tell you all about the guest cast, but there really are only three actors in this and Sylvester McCoy doesn’t turn up until the end.
Dorsai is played by Miles Richardson, son of Ian Richardson. You would most likely know his father from House of Cards as Francis Urquhart or as Canon Black in Strange. Miles is a chip off the old block, every inch as talented and charismatic as his father. He has a very crisp clear Noel Coward-like accent in this and is utterly sympathetic throughout. He will go on to play the Timelord Braxiatel in the Big Finish audios. A fine actor.
Oh and John Ainsworth who goes back to Pisces and the AudioVisuals provides the voice of the computer. There’s one of those “Don’t call me madam” – “I’m sorry, madam” jokes in here, which is a bit of an unwelcome cliché joke here and sticks out like a sore thumb. Ainsworth is perfectly functional, there’s no lines which could make him stand out of course.
There’s a change of musician for this story, with Harvey Summers providing the music. It starts off very much like the first scene in Alien where they all wake up and goes on to rather lovely piano pieces played by Dorsai. Another great find by Bill Baggs.
The only niggle I have is that one scene in particular, the post production – this time not done by the magnificent Alistair Lock, but by Nicholas Briggs – he goes overboard on the stereo mix. There’s that awkwardness you get where you feel slightly dizzy because the mixer is panning from left to right and back again like crazy. Time to take the headphones off, unfortunately. Other than that it sounds like a convincing jungle planet.
+++++
Essentially what we have here is a character piece, two people trapped together. Very claustrophobic, examining just what exactly makes Ace tick. She claims to have friends but has made no attempt to see them in years. She is angry about her parents, distant from them too. She is alone and Dorsai concludes that she’s in love with the Professor. Ace slaps him down, a bit too close to the truth I think.
It is a talky piece discussing the nature of relationships. The piece where Ace rejects Dorsai, calling him creepy and ever-present while he just keeps saying how beautiful he finds her makes me wonder if these are criticisms that have ever been levelled at the author by a girl! We’ve all had crushes, right? They never work out.
It’s a good story and leads directly into the next one. I would recommend it but it’s not a high point. Definitely not a waste of your time!
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