The Very Dark Thing (audio story)

The Very Dark Thing was the third story in The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield box set The Unbound Universe.

Publisher's summary
Tramatz is an idyllic world – the rivers hum to themselves, unicorns prance through the emerald forests, and, at the very corner of your eye, is a horrible secret.

Plot
With the Empire of Tramatz burning, Captain Idratz and Aramatz activate a device that they never thought they would have to. Five years later, Fleet Admiral Effenish of Combined Ninth Fleet arrives above Tramatz, a world of singing rivers, talking skies and unicorns, and asks the people below to surrender. She receives no response and begins bombarding the planet.

The Doctor is camping out near a village on Tramatz and speaks with Megatz, who is aware that the rivers, skies and unicorns are strange and does not understand why nobody talks about them. Benny tracks him down several weeks after he came to save the planet from the very dark thing and is brought up to speed, but she cannot understand why she is the only one able to hear Effenish's demands for surrender and threats to drop reaper bombs. Similarly, only Benny and the Doctor are able to see the very big, very dark thing, which has always been here, until they point it out to Magatz.

As the very dark thing is in the corner of one's eye, Benny and the Doctor do not know how to reach it. Benny hears Effenish making planetfall and, when a unicorn approaches, the Doctor asks her to talk to it and believes that it is a representation of a war machine. Benny and Magatz follow the unicorn whilst the Doctor goes to find and reason with Effenish, whose entire attack squad is humming along with the river. The Doctor finds her after she has primed the reaper bombs and saves her from a unicorn; she does not accept that the Tramatzians could not hear her and, after bringing her squad to their senses by firing her gun, she returns to her ship.

Benny explains to Magatz how there was a Great War which disrupted the universe and admits that the Tramatzians were the "bad guys". The unicorn leads them to an underground research facility where the Tramatzians built weapons which wiped planets from history during the war as well as one that they used to disrupt reality on Tramatz when the war got closer. They see echoes of Idratz and Aramatz, Magatz's parents, launch the bomb which caused the disruption.

Although Colonel Neave is eager to activate the bombs, Effenish wants to give the Tramatzians one last chance. Magatz switches the weapon off rather than using it on the fleet and contacts Effenish, explaining that they could not hear her and apologising. Effenish accepts the apology and orders that the Combined Ninth Fleet returns home, although Neave does not agree and has to be hit by Sergeant Gallario. With the weapon deactivated, the Tramatzians are able to understand what they did during the war. The gravity is still intermittent and unicorns still exist because, the Doctor says, the universe can be strange.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * The Doctor - David Warner
 * Megatz - Kerry Gooderson
 * Fleet Admiral Effenish - Deirdre Mullins
 * Colonel Neave - George Blagden
 * Gallario - Richard Earl
 * Aramatz - Aaron Neil
 * Idratz - Laura Doddington

Continuity

 * Benny mentions Ace, saying that she would be proud of her calling a unicorn "Dobbin". The two were recently travelling together with the Seventh Doctor. (AUDIO: The Lights of Skaro, etc.)