Here There Be Monsters (audio story)

Here There Be Monsters was the first story of the third series of The Companion Chronicles, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Andy Lane, narrated by Carole Ann Ford and featured the First Doctor, Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright.

This was the first audio story to feature a non-Unbound version of Susan Foreman.

Publisher's summary
A new adventure with the First Doctor as told by his grand-daughter, Susan.

"It was a terrible sound, like someone had just stabbed the universe and it was crying out in pain."

The distant future. The TARDIS, with the Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara aboard, is drawn out of the Vortex and lands aboard the Earth Benchmarking Vessel Nevermore, where Captain Rostrum is navigating by punching holes in the very fabric of space. The Doctor is appalled by this act of vandalism, and fearful that it could unleash monsters from the dark dimensions.

As the benchmarking holes begin to fray, the fate of the universe is at stake. And while the Doctor contemplates a terrible sacrifice, Susan befriends the Nevermore's First Mate — someone she will remember for the rest of her life...

The Hole in Space (1)
Some time after leaving the TARDIS, Susan keeps hearing a voice inside her head, a voice connected to a sound like a thunder. She says that it was when she heard that sound that she knew she had to leave the TARDIS. Wishing to silence the voice, she begins writing down what happened.

The TARDIS is hit by a terrible time-space event, sending it off course. It lands on a spaceship that seems to be filled with vegetal life, but no visible crew: all the rooms the Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara explores are only seemingly occupied by branches and leaves, some of them dead, operating the controls and governing the ship. Eventually, they arrive to the console room, when they meet Rostrum, the captain of the vessel. He is a vegetal-life form genetically created by mankind to govern ships and direct manual operations as they dedicate themselves to more "artistic" and "philosophic" endeavours, and this is his ship, the Earth-Benching-Vessel Nevermore, whose task is to put "benchmarks" for human travel in space, by punching through time and space.

The Doctor is enraged by what he deems as a careless and dangerous meddling with the space-time continuum: it could awake and attract beings from other dimensions, and those could retaliate. A debate between the Doctor and Rostrum starts, and a bored Susan wanders off in the engine room, where she meets the (apparently) human First Mate of the ship. He shares the Doctor's doubts about the advantages and possibile dangers of what Rostrum is doing, and also encourages Susan to think with her own mind, instead of always relying on her grandfather. The sound of an alarm sends Susan back to the control room: a ship appeared in front of them, and it seems to be preparing for attack.

Messages from the Other Side (2)
to be added

Cast

 * Susan Foreman / Rostrum - Carole Ann Ford
 * The First Mate - Stephen Hancock

Continuity

 * Susan refers to her departure from Gallifrey with her grandfather, claiming that she was "an accidental passenger." (PROSE: Lungbarrow; COMIC: Time & Time Again; TV: The Name of the Doctor)
 * Susan has never told her husband David Campbell that she is not human. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
 * Susan wonders if Ian and Barbara ever became a couple. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy; TV: Death of the Doctor)
 * Susan recalls the petrified forest on Skaro and her first encounter with the Daleks. (TV: The Daleks)
 * Susan is beginning to realise she will need to leave the Doctor soon and make her own life. The Doctor is also intending to leave her somewhere safe, as he believes the Time Lords will be after him for changing history. (PROSE: The Time Travellers)
 * The spaceship upon which the TARDIS lands has a jungle in it. Ian suggests that it provides oxygen, similar to the Byzantium's Treeborgs. (TV: Flesh and Stone)
 * Rostrum's appearance is reminiscent of the Animus. (TV: The Web Planet)
 * This is the Doctor's first meeting with live, intelligent vegetation. He would later encounter the Weed creature, (TV: Fury from the Deep) Krynoids, (TV: The Seeds of Doom) the Vervoids, (TV: Terror of the Vervoids) and the Forest of Cheem. (TV: The End of the World)
 * Susan refers to her time at Coal Hill School. (TV: An Unearthly Child)