CHAPTER 1

TERROR IN SPACE

The police box hung motionless in the star-spangled void, its roof lamp slowly flashing and the glow from its windows being lost in the glittering immensity. The view outside the space-time vessel seemed magical, almost mystical; above all serene. Inside, though, all was far from serene…

Four figures grouped round the central console in the palatial control room: a dark-haired girl apparently in her mid-teens, a man and a woman, each in their thirties, and a white-haired old man whose present sour expression made him look older than his usual apparent sixty-something.

"My dear young man," barked the old man acidly, "if I knew why this has happened I would hardly still be examining my instruments to try and find out, now would I?" The Doctor's attention turned back to his beloved control panel. Ian and Barbara looked at each other in exasperation.

"Oh! I am sick of all this." Ian muttered the words quietly but the Doctor had very acute hearing when it suited him.

"How dare you!" roared the Doctor, his limited patience now exhausted, "You both pushed your way into the ship uninvited. I didn't want you here…"

"You virtually kidnapped us, you old…" interrupted Ian. Barbara started to join in the affray.

"Stop it! Stop it!" shrieked Susan. The old man darted Susan a huffish look and then turned away, sulkily. Ian and Barbara glared at the young girl. Barbara pouted, swung round, and strode away towards the door from the control room that lead to the rest of the vessel's interior. Ian looked from her, back towards Susan. He softened at the sight of Susan's upset face.

"I'm sorry Susan, it's just that…"

"It's just that you have got us into this mess and you are waiting for me to sort it out for you," snorted the Doctor.

"What! I'VE got us into this?" It was Ian's turn to roar. "Why you…how the…what did I have to do with stranding the ship in space?" Ian's face was black with anger.

By way of answer the Doctor spluttered loudly and waved a dismissive hand in Ian's direction, as his own attention returned to the controls. Susan stood, almost in tears as Ian continued to glare at the old man, who was now muttering abstractly to himself as he peered at the meters and wrenched various of the switches back and forth.

For a long moment only the usual warbling humming noise and the quiet chattering of relays could be heard in the control room. The central glass column in the control console stayed obstinately in the raised position, where it had halted nearly half an hour before. Suddenly, a shrill scream had all three of the people by the console looking towards the interior door. The door swung open and Barbara backed slowly into the control room, whimpering and shaking with terror. The source of Barbara's terror began to come into sight - a Dalek!

The Doctor grabbed Susan protectively. The young girl's face was filled with terror. The Doctor's own countenance betrayed a mixture of fear and disbelief. Ian, white-faced and sweating, watched, motionless like the other two. Several more Daleks followed the first followed the first gliding into the TARDIS control room. The still retreating Barbara backed into an ornate, high-backed, chair, one of the antique pieces of furniture cluttering the control room.

"S-i-t!" ordered the first Dalek in its grating metallic voice, still closing on Barbara. She fumbled behind her for the arms of the chair and then slowly lowered herself into it. The other Daleks, six in all, circled around the control room. The Doctor was the first to recover his composure. He stood erect, his head tilted back, giving the impression that he was somehow in charge of the situation.

"How did you get in here?" he demanded.

One Dalek, differing from the rest in that its eye-globe was silver rather than black, swiftly glided towards the Doctor. Susan clung on to the old man ever more tightly.

"Well?" demanded the old man as the Dalek drew to a halt.

"You are an enemy of the Daleks, you will be exterminated," intoned this Dalek in a high-pitched grating voice, "and we will use your time-space vehicle to conquer the Universe."

"Conquer the Universe!" retorted the Doctor in a tone full of mockery, "Exterminate me! Why don't you poor pathetic creatures realise that if you kill me you will never be able to control this vessel, let alone conquer the Universe!" The Dalek's suction cup slowly extended towards the Doctor but the old man's only response was to grip his lapels and harden his defiant stare into the eye globe of the Dalek.

"How did you get in here?" pressed the Doctor.

"You will obey the Daleks," came the only reply.

"Never!"

"You will be persuaded," persisted the Dalek. "We will begin by torturing your companions - to death if necessary".

"They mean nothing to me - I will never help you." The Doctor sounded so convincing that Susan stared at him wide-eyed. Ian also sensed that the old man really did mean what he had said.

"Begin with her," ordered the Dalek, its eye-stalk swivelling towards Barbara.

"No! No!" she whimpered as another Dalek advanced on her, the vicious-looking surgical instruments on the tray carried before it glittering in the light of the control room.

An hour of grizzly horror had passed. Susan lay, sobbing bitterly, on the floor. Ian had been sick and lay trembling near Susan. The Doctor stood, stern-faced but otherwise composed. Barbara had slithered from the chair onto the floor, where she lay in a large pool of her own blood. Her wounds were horrific and her body was partially dismembered.

"The human female is dead," reported a Dalek impassively. The leader Dalek's eye-stalk again swivelled towards the Doctor.

"Now will you obey us?"

"Never! I told you, these people mean nothing to me," retorted the Doctor, indifferently.

"Oh Grandfather!" wailed Susan.

"You callous, selfish…do you want Susan and me to go through what Barbara…" choked Ian.

"You mean Susan and I. Really, your English Chesterton!" With a demented scream Ian sprang to his feet, hands outstretched, and he made a grab for the Doctor's throat.

"Arf…get your hands…grlll." There was a sudden flare of white light and a harsh hissing noise and Ian crumpled to the floor, clutching his legs. The Doctor staggered to the control console. The Dalek leader moved up close to the Doctor, who was now gagging and rubbing one hand on his neck, his other supporting himself against the control panel.

His eyes watering, Ian fought against the stabbing pains in his legs. His mind reeled against the horror of it all. This situation; the Doctor's behaviour; and worst of all poor Barbara screaming and wailing in agony for what seemed like an eternity before her final death. He levered himself into a sitting position. The Dalek had begun to address the Doctor.

"You will torture the young girl yourself."

"Very well, if you insist. Dear me, this is most tiresome, you know." Susan began screaming. "Pull yourself together, girl!" he barked, "Get up!"

Susan choked and spluttered with fear as she slowly raised herself up.

Surely not his own granddaughter…, thought Ian.

"Go and fetch the fly-swat," ordered the Doctor, pointing to the still open interior doorway.

"Oh no, Grandfather, not the fly-swat!"

"Don't argue, child," replied the Doctor.

"Move!" asserted the Dalek, "You will obey!"

Ian thought he must have misheard, it just did not make any sense. He was sure that he was loosing his grip on consciousness.

Susan slowly, nervously, picked her way across the control room. The Dalek eyestalks were all trained on her, swivelling slowly to follow her progress.

A minute later Susan returned. She WAS carrying a fly-swat!

"I'm sorry I was so long Grandfather but the corridor was very long and I had to run down it; but I was very good, I didn't trip and hurt my ankle or anything." The Doctor was beaming with delight.

"Well done my dear child. Ha! Ha! Now give me that." She handed over the fly-swat.

"What is that object?" grated the Dalek leader.

"Hmm, this, oh! Why, my dear chap, don't you know? It's a fly-swat, eh, mmm?"

The Dalek leader's eye-stalk swivelled back to one of the other Daleks in the control room. "F-l-y s-w-a-t?"

"An instrument for exterminating small flying insect pests, called f-l-i-e-s," came the metallic matter-of-fact reply.

"And this is how you use it, er, hmm, hmm!" said the Doctor as he started to rap the fly-swat on the Dalek's dome. The Doctor was beaming and laughing maniacally. Susan was also sniggering. Ian looked on. He was sure that his sanity had left him.

"There are no flies on me," intoned the Dalek. Although he didn't know why, Ian found himself laughing out loud.

"Oh! I wouldn't say that, my dear metallic monstrosity." The Doctor's tone suddenly became serious and stern. "See how you cope with Earth twentieth century music, eh!" The Doctor lunged at a switch on the console and the control room was suddenly filled with loud music and pulsing coloured lights.

"…She loves you, yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" Ian recognised the 'Beatles' tune from his England of 1963. The Daleks started to gyrate in rhythm to the music.

"Hah! Hah! Eh!" triumphed the Doctor.

"Kill him! Exterminate! Exterminate!" raged the Dalek leader, "Eject him from the TARDIS!" Susan screamed and flopped to the floor in a dead faint. The look of triumph on the Doctor's face turned to a look of terror as the music and lights faded away and several Daleks converged on him. They drove the old man, loudly protesting, towards the great double doors. The usual buzzing note accompanied the doors opening. Ian could see the glittering starscape beyond the open portals.

The Doctor sank to his knees and he put his hands together, pleading, "No! Please! No! Kill the others but let me live. No! Argh! No!"

"There are no flies on the Daleks. You will now d-i-e." The suction-cup arms extended and the Doctor was pushed through the doorway. Aghast, Ian watched as the Doctor - his long white hair billowing in the vacuum of space - tumbled slowly over and over, moving off into eternity.

Renewed terror filled Ian's heart and the Daleks turned around and their eye-stalks, and their guns, swivelled to train on him.

"Kill him. E-x-t-e-r-m-i-n-a-t-e!" Ian screwed his eyes shut but a blinding white radiance pierced his eyelids and a terrible burning agony enveloped his very being.

"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

Terror. Confusion. Dislocated thoughts swam around Ian's mind. He began to recognise the dimly lit room in which he laying. It was his bed-quarters aboard the TARDIS. Suddenly the door burst open and Vicki ran in.

"Ian! What happened? What's wrong?"

"What?" Ian was numb with shock, and white-faced and dripping with perspiration. Barbara Wright then ran in to the room, followed by the Doctor.

"Wha…Bab…Doc…?"

Memories rushed back into Ian's mind like the uncontrolled torrent of water in a flash-flood. Susan was left on Earth after the Dalek invasion had been thwarted. Vicki joined the crew after the TARDIS landed on the planet Dido. They had left Vortis a few hours earlier after defeating the evil Animus and liberating its Zarbi slaves, so ending the oppression of the Menoptra.

"My dear boy, what is wrong?" gasped the Doctor trying to get his breath back. Ian stared at the Doctor. The old man's face showed genuine concern.

"That terrible scream…" added Barbara open-endedly.

Ian levered himself to a sitting position.

The Doctor sat on the edge of the bed and looked grimly at Ian. "Dear me, now! You are looking quite unwell. A bad dream, was it, hmm, eh?"

"A terrible nightmare, Doctor - but it seemed so real."

"Yes, well, nightmares often do." Turning to look at the wide-eyed Vicki the Doctor added, "My dear, will you fetch some tranquilliser pills from the medicine chest, and a glass of water for Ian, please?"

Vicki nodded and then quickly left the room on her errand.

"Oh dear me, now, I think that you have been getting a bit overwrought lately, eh? Hmm?" The Doctor beamed a broad smile of friendly concern at Ian.

Ian looked up at Barbara. She tiredly forced a smile that was intended to comfort him. He sighed. "Yes, just a stupid nightmare, I'm sorry everybody. You know, Doctor, I don't think I have got used to all this…you know, our life of travelling with you."

"Yes, I know that dear boy, but I really am trying to get you both home, hmm! Eh?" The Doctor glanced up at Barbara.

She smiled in return, but still looked tired and now rather pale. "Yes, we know Doctor," she said quietly.

The Doctor now seemed to be staring into the far distance, his expression abstract. "But I am afraid we have a little problem to solve at the moment my friends." Ian and Barbara's eyes met, before their gazes turned back to the Doctor. Ian felt the clammy hand of fear grasping into his soul once more.

"You see," continued the old man, "while you were asleep I have been working at the controls because a little while ago some force or phenomena has caused the ship to materialise in space. I can't seem to start the ship going again. At the moment we are, well, er, stranded in space!"

Ian Chesterton's heart pounded with apprehension as he walked into the TARDIS control room. It didn't help to see the exasperated look on the Doctor's face as the old man vigorously worked at the arrays of switches and levers on several of the control console's panels. The glass column in the centre of the console was motionless in the raised position, while the normal engine whine warbled on and the relays plinked and chattered. Vicki and Barbara stood near the Doctor, silently watching him. For Ian the similarity of this situation to that at the beginning of his nightmare was just too close for comfort. He moved to stand by the women.

"No luck then?" his voice was weak.

"You can see that, can't you?" came the terse reply. The Doctor then sighed, straightened himself, and smoothed a hand over his long main of white hair. "Er, no dear boy," added the old man in a softer, almost apologetic, tone while gazing fixedly at the instruments in the central column, "I am afraid some outside influence seems to have the TARDIS in a very powerful grip."

"This is just like my dream," began Ian. He suddenly had three pairs of eyes staring intently at him.

"What?" rasped the Doctor.

"Yes. It started with us just like this. The TARDIS had become stuck in space and we argued."

"Oh, young man! Enough! Enough!" spluttered the Doctor irritably, "A dream is a dream. What we have here is reality. Let us please keep our minds on what is real!" The tension in the Doctor's voice began to escalate into real anger. He sighed heavily and looked back down to the control panel in front of him.

Ian looked away as he tried to control his own irritation. Then he looked back at the old man, "You don't think that the Animus survived do you, Doctor?"

The Doctor looked up. "Ah…"

"But we all saw it destroyed. It can't be alive," chipped in Vicki.

"Well…" began the Doctor again, darting Vicki a huffish look.

"It can't be," echoed Barbara, a rising tension in her voice, "don't be stupid Ian". The Doctor's expression betrayed his irritation. He opened his mouth once more.

"Stupid! Stupid!" retorted Ian, "Why shouldn't…"

It was the Doctor's turn to interrupt. "Well, if anybody is actually interested in what I have to say," blustered the old man, furiously, "no! I don't think the Animus can still be alive. The instruments indicate that we have moved very slightly forward in time, not backwards, so it is no longer alive in this present time." The Doctor's voice was getting louder as his anger began to boil over, "We are, though, in the same region of space as before and so it could just be that there are other creatures like it, here where we are trapped!" An awkward silence fell as the Doctor turned his back on the group and gripped the lapels of his jacket, his face quivering with the efforts of controlling his anger.

A moment later the Doctor walked sharply towards the interior door. He yanked it sharply open, strode through the doorway and loudly slammed the door shut behind him.

"Oh, well done Ian!" snapped Barbara with cold sarcasm in her voice. She then turned away and lent back against the edge of one of the sections of the control console, her arms folded.

"Well, it was you…Oh! What's the use!" Ian threw up his hands in despair and stepped away from the console. Ian's breath hissed through his nose. Vicki moved alongside him and touched his arm gently. He looked sharply at her and then softened.

"How are you feeling now?" she asked.

"Better now, thanks." He forced a brief smile, "But this situation doesn't help. I know that it was just a dream but…"

Ian stopped as he felt Barbara's hand on his shoulder. He looked sharply at her. "I'm sorry, Ian," she said, gently squeezing Ian's shoulder, "I'm a bit tense, too."

All three were startled when the interior door slammed open and the Doctor stood in the doorway, gripping his lapels and with a look of malevolent cunning on his hawkish face.

"Touching! Yes, very touching!" blasted the old man, a note of pure poison in his voice, "I have had a chance to reason this out. One or more of you have sabotaged my ship!" The three others simultaneously burst into a chorus of protestation.

"Hah!" bellowed the old man, "Thought you were clever, didn't you; but I have found you out. Pit your intelligence against mine! Pah! Even combined you could never outwit me!"

"But why?" shouted Ian, "Why should any of us sabotage the ship? For heaven's sake make some sense will you!"

"How dare you!" the Doctor now visibly shook with anger, "Sense! Sense! Sense! You all want to blackmail me! Yes! That is it! Blackmail! Blackmail! You want me to take you back to your own time and place! Blackmail! Eh! Blackmail!"

Vicki and Barbara stood in stunned silence but Ian sprinted across the control room and stood menacingly in front of the Doctor, their fury mirrored in each other's faces. "You accused Barbara and I of that once before. Its no more true now than it was then!"

"Oh! Then why have you drugged Susan? I've just come from her room. She's drugged! Drugged! Drugged!" The Doctor's voice had risen to a screech. Ian stood dumbfounded with shock. He turned slowly to Vicki and Barbara.

"Caught you out haven't I!" triumphed the Doctor. The two women started to approach as Ian turned back to the Doctor.

"But we left Susan on Earth," said Ian incredulously.

"What! I - er, mm." The fury on the Doctor's face evaporated, to be replaced by a look of deep shock. His face flushed red and then became ashen pale all in an instant. "I - I - er – I." He struggled to speak. He looked badly shaken and unsteady on his feet.

"It's alright, Doctor," said Barbara taking hold of one of his arms. She nodded to Vicki and the girl took the other arm.

"Let us help you. Come on." The old man meekly allowed himself to be led to the nearby chair. Ian followed. The Doctor shakily looked from one to the other of his companions as they helped him into his seat. Vicki squatted down to the Doctor's left and Barbara lent over him on his right. Ian stood in front of him. A sheen of sweat glistened across the old man's high forehead.

"Oh dear! I - Oh dear! I - I am so sorry, I …" he began, "I don't know - but - but I saw her - Oh!" the Doctor drew out the large handkerchief that dangled from his jacket pocket, and with it dabbed at his face and brow.

"It's alright Doctor," said Barbara softly. "Don't worry about us. It's you we're worried about."

"What happened?" asked Ian.

"I don't know. I don't know," replied the Doctor, some strength coming back into his voice, "I seemed to, well, imagine that, er, one of you, had caused the ship to halt…and Susan…" The old man paused again closing his eyes for a moment, "I thought she was still with us and I went into her room and, well, er, there she was, or so I thought." The Doctor's expression was one of sorrow now. Barbara took the Doctor's right hand and gently caressed it between her own palms. He darted her a grateful smile. Vicki lent forward and clenched the Doctor's left arm. She also received a tired smile.

"I'm sorry my friends," resumed the Doctor at length, "I don't know what happened but I am sure that I can trust all of you. All of you. I know that."

"It's alright, Doctor" said Ian breaking into a smile of relief, "I think that we have ALL been getting a bit over-wrought, eh?" Barbara nodded and Vicki, looking from one to the other, smiled.

"One thing occurs to me, though…" commented Ian thoughtfully.

"Yes, dear boy?" Just as the Doctor was saying those words, so the usual humming note that pervaded the ship began lowering in pitch. At the same time the lights in the control room dimmed and the glass column in the centre of the control console shuddered down to its rest position. Most of the chattering and plinking noises of the relays also ceased.

"What now?" blurted Ian. The Doctor levered himself up from the chair and the group swiftly moved over to the controls.

"Excuse me, you're in the way," complained the Doctor to Ian as the old man moved sharply around part of the console, his hands flying about the controls. A moment later he stopped, shook his head, and said, "It's no good. It's no good. I don't know. Perhaps the TARDIS is at fault? I don't know. Oh dear!" The Doctor leaned on the edge of the control panel, his exhaustion evident in his demeanor and in his voice.

A short while later Ian and Barbara stopped in the corridor outside Barbara's bedroom. The lights everywhere in the ship were much dimmer than usual, giving it an eerie and foreboding atmosphere. Ian's expression was that of thoughtfulness. Barbara's face showed her deep worry.

"Ian. What is happening to the Doctor?"

"Old age, I suppose. You know how he goes a bit vague at times."

"Oh Ian, it's got to be more than that. I know he can be a bit absent minded at times and sometimes he says odd things, but that's only when he's stressed or concentrating on something."

"Yes," began Ian, nodding and smiling in agreement, "it's like he sometimes loses his grip on the English language."

"But he's never, well, lost his grip on reality, has he?" pressed Barbara.

"I know that but, Barbara, you must have noticed how old age seems to be rapidly catching up with him. I think he is getting past all this time and space travelling."

After a long pause Barbara said softly "But what will become of us if the Doctor is losing his mind?"

"No Vicki, it's too dangerous."

"Oh please, Father. Please! Please! Please! Please! Please!"

The gruff bearded man gave the teenage girl a kindly smile. He sighed. "Alright, I give in." The girl shrieked and started to jump up and down in her excitement.

"But," he added fiercely, "you must do exactly what I say. Exactly! And no larking about. We're not going out to play games, remember. You can help me fix the antenna and then that's it, we both get back inside as quickly as possible."

"OK, yes, thank you, thank you!" she squealed.

It seemed to Vicki that only a very short time, indeed, had passed before she was suited up and with her father in the airlock of their spaceship. She thought ahead to her new life on the planet Astra. Her father's new job sounded very interesting. At least it would be very well paid, and she had heard much that was interesting about the new planet.

"OK, Bennett, reduce the pressure to zero." Her father's words over the microphone interrupted her thoughts.

"Reducing pressure now," came the reply. Vicki heard the drone and chugging of the compressor above the sharp hissing of the air being dragged from the airlock. Vicki peered through her visor at her father. He was intently staring at the air-gauge. Even dressed up in the old-fashioned cumbersome space suit, she thought how proud and magnificent he looked. The noises caused by the air withdrawal grew steadily quieter. A moment later Vicki could hear nothing except the faint electronic hiss over the headphones in her helmet.

"OK. Pressure zero. Open the hatch please."

"Opening." The voices of her father and Bennett now seemed rather 'tinny' and artificial over the headphones. Vicki saw the door in front of her slide open and the airlock illumination dimmed to a very low level at the same time. Vicki could see nothing at first but an endless black void in front of her. Then she could begin to make out a spattering of bright stars, as her eyes began to adjust.

"Vicki, remember the hand-rails are just to the right - your left when you back out - and, for heaven's sake, no messing about!"

"Yes Father," replied Vicki in a rather small voice. She trembled with excitement. Her father turned his back on the void, then he stepped back and moved to the right, his right arm extended and reaching out of the airlock to find the hand-rails. She saw him disappear sideways from view. She heard the blustery noises of his breathing get even louder.

"Phew! OK Vicki, I'm now going to move up towards the antenna. Be careful when you come out. It's quite a shock to suddenly go zero G."

She heard him wheeze again. "OK dear, when you are ready come out but be very careful, now!" Vicki watched as the bright yellow rope tether slithered, snake-like, out of the airlock and upwards.

Vicki moved to the edge of the airlock. She glanced down at her feet on the edge and the yawning chasm that seemed to be below. Her excitement turned to something more resembling fear. She was never very good about heights. She told herself that once she was outside there wouldn't seem to be any sense of height, or of up or down. It didn't help much.

She glanced up again. The sky now seemed to be crowded with bright stars and heavily dusted with much fainter ones. Vicki slowly turned around, so her back was to the starscape. She reached out with her left hand. First she fumbled with the edge of the hatchway, then she felt the smooth outer skin of the spacecraft. She gradually leant to her left while sweeping her hand up and down over the metal skin. Her hand came upon one of the rungs. Leaning some more, she gripped it tightly.

"OK, dear?" she heard her father's voice rather more quietly, and crackly through static, than before.

"Yes. I'm just coming out."

She sidled sideways some more. She had to try twice before her left foot detached itself from the floor of the airlock. Breathing heavily, she felt a wave of fear as her left leg slid out against the outer skin of the spacecraft.

"Yeeeeeeeeei!" As Vicki dragged herself out of the airlock she had the sensation of the ground falling away from under her for an instant. In a moment of panic she felt as if she was falling. Her right hand joined her left, gripping the rung very tightly. Then she dissolved in choking laughter as she felt her body floating free. She felt a little dizzy and sick and she breathed deeply as she forced herself to recover from the shock.

"Are you OK, Vicki?"

"Y-Yes, Yeeee!" she cried, still laughing out of nervousness and shock. Vicki realised that she had closed her eyes tightly. Opening them she felt a wave of nausea as she saw the side wall of the spacecraft curving away from her and the thickly star-dusted Milky Way beyond, looking like a meandering river stretching out far below. She realised that her body was nearly perpendicular to the wall of the spacecraft. She could hear her father chuckling.

Vicki breathed very deeply for a moment and then briskly hand-walked her way up the curving side of the spacecraft. She marvelled at how little effort was needed to move in microgravity. Her father came in sight. He was already working on the complicated-looking antenna and he had his back to her.

She knew she shouldn't but some demon within her urged her on… Reaching her father, Vicki clasped a hand on his shoulder and shouted "Boo!" into her microphone. He let out a yelp and a blue flash erupted from the antenna array. Vicki's laughter quickly died as her father sharply started to float upwards - upwards and away from the ship.

"You stupid child! How could you? Look what you've done!" roared her father, "Now we'll crash into Dido! You stupid child!"

Vicki wailed hysterically. "Oh no! Sorry! I'm sorry! I'll get your tether!" She twisted sideways only to see the unattached end of the yellow rope passing upwards, out of reach. Vicki shrieked as she looked upwards and saw her father floating further and further away.

"What shall I do?" wailed the distraught girl.

"Stupid child! I've less than an hour's air supply left. You're killing me! I'm going to die!"

"What can I do?" implored Vicki, now sobbing.

"Get back inside and get the others to steer the ship and pick me up but hurry. Hurry! Dido will be passing below us in a minute." Her father's voice was getting weaker and more crackly as he was rapidly floating away, "If you're outside then you will be dragged down to the planet!"

Overwhelmed by panic and grief, Vicki started to hand-walk down the rungs towards the hatch. As she got close to it she saw it slide shut.

"Help! Let me in! Help!"

Vicki heard crew member Bennett's voice laughing in her headphones. "Die, brat, and your precious father can die with you!"

The louder Vicki shrieked, the louder Bennett's laughter became. She realised that she had no tether. She looked down and saw the glittering oceans and rugged landmasses of the planet Dido, appearing far below the soles of her feet. Terror welled up inside her as she began to feel the planet's pull.

"No! No! NO! Yieaaaaaaaargh…!" Her grip on the handrails failed and Vicki felt her stomach lurch as she started the long plunge down to the orb of Dido.

"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! EEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" It was Ian Chesterton's voice.

Shaking and crying, Vicki struggled up from her bed and ran towards the door. A moment later she was out in the corridor and then, for the second time in just a few hours, she burst into Ian's bedroom. In the dim light she could see he was once again white-faced and sweating. She crossed to his bed as Barbara arrived at the door.

Ian looked up at them. "It was the same dream again. The same dream…Oh!"

"Alright Ian, alright," comforted Barbara. She glanced at Vicki and then stared fixedly at the girl's pale and tear-soaked face.

"Vicki, what…?"

Vicki broke down into sobs and floods of tears. Ian reached forward and he and Barbara helped the girl to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Oh! What's happening to us?" she wailed, "What's happ - happening to us?"