The Infinity Season (short story)

Summary
Huksley sends her report to Mollit, her contact at UniMedia Franchise Orbital, She returns to her flat on the planet Archimedes, to find the Seventh Doctor. She believes he has been sent by Unimedia to assist her and briefs him on her assignment. She is working on a story about Fountain Corporation's new process to negate the effects of ageing in humans. It is called the Fountain Programme. Huksley's exclusive highlights the fatalities that have recently occurred. They involve madness, frenzy and berserk rages.

Huksley and the Doctor break into Fountain's tower. The Doctor finds evidence of Chronex, a mind expanding drug illegal on most civilised worlds. The drug dulls awareness of time's passage and causes hallucinations, frenzied madness and death.

From the shadows appears a creature - Myskhurr, a Hysk. Huksley produces a snub-gun, fires and the creature falls to the ground.The Doctor explains that the Hysk has been extinct for some nine hundred years. The voice of Mollit is heard pleading for secrecy. Desperate to command the ratings, UniMedia had manufactured a story. The deception is based on the findings of a crashed spacecraft out on the Rim. The hologram and Chronex are part of their grand deception. With her scoop revealed as nothing more than a lie, Huksley turns her back and leaves. An even bigger Infinity Season forms in her brain: of a scandal in the colonies and a tale of unscrupulous media!

Collecting his TARDIS from Huksley's flat the Doctor leaves for Bonjaxx's party.

Named Characters

 * Seventh Doctor
 * Huksley - female reporter for UniMedia
 * Molitt - head of UniMedia

Continuity

 * The Doctor is still attempting to attend Bonjaxx's birthday on Marathea. (COMIC: Echoes of the Mogor!, Invaders from Gantac!, et al)