Sick Building (novel)

Sick Building was the seventeenth novel released in the BBC New Series Adventures series. It was written by Paul Magrs and featured the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones.

The characters of Barbra and Toaster introduced in this novel would later become recurring characters in the Iris Wildthyme and Lost on Mars series. Servo-furnishings would put up in various other works by Magrs.

Publisher's summary
Tiermann's World: a planet covered in wintry woods and roamed by sabre-toothed tigers and other savage beasts. The Doctor is here to warn Professor Tiermann, his wife and their son that a terrible danger is on its way.

The Tiermanns live in luxury, in a fantastic, futuristic, fully-automated Dreamhome, under an impenetrable force shield. But that won't protect them from the Voracious Craw. A gigantic and extremely hungry alien creature is heading remorselessly towards their home. When it gets there everything will be devoured.

Can they get away in time? With the force shield cracking up, and the Dreamhome itself deciding who should or should not leave, things are looking desperate...

Plot
A bleeding sabre-toothed tiger flees through a frozen woods, trying to escape an unknown predator. Most of the woods’ creatures have already fled, and she’s starving because of the lack of prey. When she reaches a glade she’s stopped by an alien sound. The TARDIS materialises, and she can smell The Doctor and Martha inside. Hunger growing, she waits for them to step out of the blue box.

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor tells Martha they’re arriving on Tiermann’s World, a planet named after its sole inhabitants. He tells Martha that a Voracious Craw has arrived on the planet and begun devouring everything in its path, and estimates they have 36 hours to rescue the Tiermanns. When the TARDIS lands the console instruments begin making unusual noises. The Doctor explains that the TARDIS doesn’t like being too close to a Craw, as they can cause strange and debilitating effects. The Doctor and Martha then step out of the TARDIS and find themselves face-to-face with the hungry tiger.

A teenage boy carrying camera equipment walks between the Doctor and the tiger without noticing. Martha grabs him and pulls him to safety as the Doctor runs, calling out for the tiger to follow him. As Martha gets the boy to his feet they both see the Doctor talking to the tiger, looking into its eyes. The tiger appears calm, as if mesmerised. The Doctor tells her to see to her cubs, and she disappears into the woods. The boy then introduces himself as Solin Tiermann. He says that he lives in the Dreamhome, a house under a protective dome, with his parents. They are the only inhabitants of the planet. As Solin leads the Doctor and Martha to the Dreamhome, he explains that his father has sensed the oncoming danger, and says they must evacuate the planet very soon. Solin reveals that he disobeyed his father’s wishes by leaving the dome to take photographs of his home planet, and explains that usually they would send ”the staff” outside the dome for anything they may need.

When they reach the dome, the Doctor and Martha see that the ground inside its force shields is lush with spring grass and daisies. Solin enters a code into a keypad, and a doorway opens within the forcefield. They all step through, and find the climate inside much more hospitable. Suddenly an alarm begins to blare, and to Solin’s horror holes begin to appear all over the force shield. Solin is distraught, blaming himself for breaking it, but the Doctor tries to reassure him that he is not responsible, since Voracious Craws precede their attacks with waves of electronic interference, which is likely what has disabled the Dreamhome’s shields. The Doctor tries and fails to fix the shields with his sonic screwdriver. Suddenly, Martha spots a lawn mower and a water cooler moving across the lawn towards them. Solin explains that these are the staff – two Servo-furnishing units dispatched by the Dreamhome’s living computer to fix the problem. As the robots get to work, Ernest Tiermann emerges from the Dreamhome and shouts at Solin, demanding to know what he’s done. Solin flinches as his father yells. As Mr Tiermann approaches, the Doctor offers to take the blame for damaging the forcefields. The Doctor explains to Ernest that he and Martha detected humans on the planet and have come to rescue them, and as many non-human lifeforms as possible, from immanent danger. The Servo-furnishing robots finish repairing the force shields and Ernest sighs with relief. He tells Solin he will be punished for his misadventures, then invites the Doctor and Martha into his home. Martha quietly tells Solin that his father doesn’t seem much fun, and Solin replies that he’s got a lot on his mind, and that leaving the Dreamhome will “break his heart”.

The inside of the Dreamhome is immaculate. As the Doctor and humans walk through, Servo-furnishing robots dust and polish behind them. Ernest leads them to the drawing room, and tells Solin to inform his mother of their unexpected guests. Ernest introduces Walter, a Servo-furnishing drinks cabinet, and boasts about how he became rich from inventing Servo-furnishings. When Ernest ridicules his wife and son for being attached to the Servo-furnishing robots the Doctor suggests he has a “narrow, heartless philosophy”. Ernest dismisses this, saying they will have time to debate the issue after they’ve evacuated the planet. Ernest then takes his guests to their rooms, insisting they change clothes and prepare for dinner. As they get ready, a frustrated Doctor complains of Ernest’s pomposity, and calls his Servo-furnishings cheap and tacky. One Servo-furnishing, as it finishes helping Martha get dressed, seems to glare at the Doctor before it leaves the rooms.

At dinner the Doctor and Martha meet Amanda, Ernest’s wife, who sits quietly while her husband boasts about his inventions. He tells his guests about the spaceship he designed, and informs them he plans to fly to nearby Spaceport Antelope Slash Nitelite before the Craw arrives. The Doctor baits Ernest throughout the meal, accusing him of having boring taste and of wanting to hide from the world in his well-curated bubble. Ernest responds by suggesting the Doctor is jealous of his luxurious lifestyle, and takes offence to the Doctor’s suggestion that he would gamble with his family’s safety by not leaving in a hurry. During this exchange, Martha notices a Servo-furnishing hovering next to Amanda, which appears to be eating her food for her. Solin whispers to Martha, asking her to join him on the balcony before the dessert course. On the balcony, Solin explains that his mother is very shy, and only eats food when she’s alone. He also attempts to defend his father, saying he’s especially sensitive to his way of life being criticised because he’s nervous about it coming to an end. He then tells Martha that he finds her attractive and wants to kiss her. Martha, stunned by Solin’s under-developed social skills, tells Solin to shut up and says he’s “just a kid”. Solin, embarrassed and angry, returns to the house and excuses himself from the dinner. Martha returns for desert, where they all eat in awkward silence.

The family retires to bed, but the Doctor and Martha stay awake in their conjoined rooms. The Doctor guesses that Solin confessed his crush on Martha and begins teasing her. Thinking about how sheltered Solin is, and how strange Amanda seemed, the Doctor wonders how they will fare in the outside world. Martha then goes to bed, but the Doctor stays up. A Servo-furnishing named Stirpeek enters his room, and Doctor asks if it can leave his windows open. The Servo appears to be taken aback, but obliges the Doctor’s request. The Doctor tells Stirpeek he wants to walk the grounds of the house at night, and that he does not wish to be disturbed. He then heads out onto the veranda, jumps down to the lawn, and approaches the force shield dome to investigate it. He plans to sneak out and retrieve the TARDIS, to save it from the approaching Craw. Inside the house, a group of Servo robots watch him very carefully. The Doctor finds a pillar box containing a keypad, and uses his sonic to open a door in the forcefield. Suddenly he hears Stirpeek shouting for him to desist. Stirpeek shoots the Doctor with a laser, knocking him to the ground. As alarms go off inside the Dreamhome, waking its inhabitants, a circle of Servo robots gathers around him. Stirpeek informs the Doctor that he has broken a fundamental rule of the Dreamhome, and that all Servos have been instructed to punish anyone who breaks these rules. As a final threat, he informs the Doctor that they are fully authorised to kill.

The robots take the Doctor back into the Dreamhome, where he is confronted by the Tiermanns. Ernest becomes suspicious of the Doctor, noting how he arrived at the same time as the Craw, and doesn’t believe that the Doctor was tampering with the forceshields in order to retrieve his TARDIS. The Doctor insists that the forceshields are fluctuating on and off due to the Craw, but Ernest does not believe this either. He orders the robots to put the Doctor in the cellar on level minus thirty-nine, and they drag him into an elevator. Martha tells Ernest he’s making a mistake but he shouts her down, telling her she’s lucky not to be down there with him. He says the Dreamhome will be watching her, and that if she attempts to remove the Doctor from the basement she will be put down there too. Amanda touches Martha’s arm in support, before following her husband back to bed.

Martha and Solin then talk in the Dreamhome kitchen, where Solin reassures her that the Servo-furnishings won’t hurt her, and that he thinks his father is wrong about the Doctor. Later that night, when the house is quiet, Martha sneaks out of her room and heads to the lift. She presses the button for level minus thirty-nine, but the lift does not respond. Stirpeek, who has been following Martha silently, tells her that the lift will not respond to her, and escorts her back to her room.

In the morning, Martha gets ready quickly and heads out of her room to find the house buzzing with activity as the Tiermanns and their staff prepare to leave. Solin asks his mother if Martha and the Doctor will be joining them on the spaceship as they evacuate, and Amanda dodges the question. She then begins to cry. When she stops, she tells Solin to trust his father, and gestures towards the window. Solin and Martha look out to see Ernest and some Servo-furnishing robots pouring petrol onto a pile of wood, which they have placed around the perimeter of the Dreamhome. Amanda explains that they’re going to make a ring of fire to keep predators out while the forceshields are malfunctioning. Ernest lights a match, throws it, and the whole thing goes up in flames. Martha feels panic growing inside her, believing Ernest to be mad. A Servo-furnishing robot then appears and instructs Solin to take his pills, to calm his nerves. Solin refuses and the robot insists. Solin then knocks the pills onto the floor, and the robot moves towards him, grabbing the air with its claw. When Martha says they should get out of the room the robot turns to her, insisting that she should take her pills too. Solin realises that the robot is malfunctioning due to the Craw’s growing proximity, and he and Martha flee the room. Solin shows Martha a monitor screen, where Dreamhome cameras display images of the surrounding area. Far in the distance they see the Craw, rapidly approaching. They both knew would reach the Dreamhome that night.

On level minus thirty-nine, the Doctor finds that the elevator seems impervious to his sonic screwdriver. He looks around the basement, and comes across a bulky vending machine. When he puts a coin in to get some crisps the machine coughs into life, and introduces itself as Barbara. The Doctor asks Barbara for some crisps, saying he doesn’t have the right currency, and Barabara obligingly drops three bags of crisps and a can of pop. The Doctor explains that Ernest has made him a prisoner in the basement, and that he and Barbara need to escape. Barbara asks if her friend can escape with them, and takes the Doctor to meet him. On the way, she tells the Doctor that she knows the Voracious Craw is coming as the Dreamhome has been talking about it for days, and isn’t happy with the Tiermann’s plans. Barbara then introduces the Doctor to her friend Toaster, who is a Servo-furnishing sun bed. The Doctor repairs Toaster with his sonic, and the sun bed is able to walk again. Toaster tells the Doctor that they will need to go down one more level before they can head up to the top, down to level minus forty, to meet the Domovoi.

Martha confronts Ernest after overhearing him tell Amanda he plans to leave the Doctor to meet his demise in the basement. She and Solin tell him the Servo-furnishings are malfunctioning just like the forceshields, and before he can respond Amanda screams from the kitchen. Solin reaches her first, and finds her backed into a corner as every appliance in the room is operating by itself. She is hysterical, and Ernest shouts in vain to get them to stop. As Solin reassures his mother, Martha sees something moving in the flames outside the house. A large bear-like creature with an ivory horn emerges from the flames and fixes its eyes on Martha, Solin and Amanda.

As Barbara and Toaster struggle down the stairs to level minus forty, they explain to the Doctor that the Domovoi is the central computer controlling the Dreamhome. She can take control of individual Servo-furnishings if she wishes, but rarely chooses to do so. The Domovoi has been spying on Ernest, and is upset that he intends to abandon all of his Servo-furnishings to the Voracious Craw. Barbara mentions that the Domovoi is Ernest’s finest creation, and the thought of her dying is also driving Ernest insane.

The horned bear roars, and throws itself against the kitchen windows. Ernest, refusing to run away, orders his Servo-furnishings to kill the creature. The horned bear breaks through the giant kitchen window and enters the room. A vegetable-cleaning robot tries to attack it but is crushed instantly. The tablet-giving robot and the dishwasher then follow suit, being destroyed by the horned bear. Ernest, beginning to panic, looks around for his wife and son. He sees they’ve run away and left him to face the creature alone.

The Doctor enters a torch-lit chamber on level minus forty. Barbara warns him that the Domovoi is very powerful, and that he should approach her with due reverence. The Doctor ignores this and marches into her room, where he sees a large fireplace with strange green flames. Barbara introduces the fire as the Domovoi, the heart and hearth of the home. The flames swell and dart about the room as the Domovoi interrogates the Doctor. The Doctor tells her he can rescue all the Servo-furnishings from the Dreamhome with his ship, and the Domovoi agrees to send him, Barbara and Toaster back to the surface in the elevator. As the trio depart the Domovoi begins laughing hysterically, and the Doctor worries that the Dreamhome may be starting to lose its mind.

Ernest has re-joined Martha, Solin and Amanda in the drawing room, and sealed the room off with metal shutters. Solin says they need to get to their spaceship on the roof, and his father agrees. The family watch their home being trashed on the Dreamhome monitors as Walter the drinks cabinet guards the door. Ernest tells Amanda that they will have to abandon all their belongings and leave. Cooly, Amanda challenges him, asking if he’s going to abandon Martha’s friend in the basement too. Ernest snaps back, saying his loss of the Servo-furnishings means more to him than losing “a saboteur” means to Amanda. Walter’s eyes begin to glow red, and his body begins to tremble. Solin asks his father if he will abandon Martha too, and Ernest reluctantly says she can board the spaceship with them. Just them Martha jumps up and points at the screen – the Doctor has arrived in the main house, and bounds out of the elevator with Barbara and Toaster in tow. He turns a corner and comes face to face with the horned bear.

Stalling for time, the Doctor sings to the bear and it seems to listen. He abruptly tells Barbara to head to the kitchen and get as much meat as she can from the food computer. Barbara returns with a huge pile of meat and leaves it for the horned bear to eat. With the creature distracted, they head to the drawing room and Ernest begrudgingly lets them inside. The Doctor is reunited with Martha, who catches him up on what has happened in his absence. He then confronts Ernest, who becomes furious when the Doctor reveals he’s spoken to the Domovoi. The Domovoi then emerges in a ball of flame from the lift shaft, and speaks to the Tiermanns directly through the Dreamhome monitors. Ernest makes his case – he wants to save his family, and doesn’t have space on his ship for all of the Servo-furnishings, so his decision to abandon them is logical. The Domovoi responds with an equally logical proposition – she was created to serve and look after the Tiermanns, and can’t do that if they leave, so the seals the Dreamhome and traps them inside. The Domovoi then laughs at her maniacal plan before disappearing.

In a rage, Ernest declares war on the Dreamhome, shouting that he will never let a machine decide his fate. Walter, approaching Ernest from behind, begins throwing one glass bottle after another at his creator, who falls to the floor. The Doctor and Solin wrestle Walter away while Martha springs into action, helping Ernest up while asking Amanda to bring her things to staunch his cuts with. Toaster then approaches Walter and blinds him with a flash of UV light, causing him to short-circuit and collapse.

Ernest is patched up, and decides to make a hole in the ceiling in order to reach the spaceship on the roof. Before he can put his plan to action the room begins to tilt. The floor falls out from under the drawing room and everyone is plunged into a room several storeys below. The Doctor theorises that the Domovoi is trying to bury them in the Dreamhome, or showing them that she’s in control.

After Martha prompts him, Ernest reveals that the Dreamhome has a secret room, not known to the Domovoi, from which he can detach her consciousness from the Dreamhome and bypass her operating systems. The Domovoi then appears on a crackling screen, and warns that Dreamhome occupants that if they try and reach this room she will stop them, and that she will be watching every move they make. She then seals the doors to the room they’ve landed in, and the Doctor cannot re-open the door since the approaching Craw is disrupting his sonic screwdriver. Before panic can take over the group, Barbara invites everyone to have some crisps and pop. While they pause and take stock, the Doctor notices the room getting hotter. The heat grows rapidly, and begins to overwhelm the group. The Doctor works out the Domovoi’s plan – she doesn’t want to kill the Dreamhome inhabitants but incapacitate them, and make them dependent on her service. The plastic floor begins to melt. The Doctor commands Ernest to show them the way out, and Ernest wrenches open a ventilation shaft in the floor. Once everyone’s through, Ernest tells the Doctor that the Domovoi’s override room is on level minus twenty. Not trusting the lift, they decide to take the emergency stairs. Amanda becomes delirious from the heat and stress. As they reach the stairs and leave the Domovoi’s sight her voice comes over a loudspeaker – she sounds desperate, pleading for them to stay in her sight and let her take care of them. Amanda stops, exhausted, and Barbara hoists her onto her back to carry her down the stairs. Suddenly the Doctor yells for the group to stop, and they hear a chopping sound, like helicopter blades, moving towards them from further down the stairs. A group of drone-like robots with glowing red eyes, oversized mouths, and sets of large rotating teeth, emerge from the depths of the Dreamhome. Ernest explains that they are Sukkazz, flying vacuum cleaners. They worked together to create a cyclone-like effect in the stairs, pelting everyone with strong winds. One of the Sukkazz lifts Amanda from Barbara’s back, and she passes out. Solin chases up the stairs after her, and is quickly lifted up by another of the Sukkazz. Ernest fears they are being taken to the Dust Chamber, a vast hall filled with all the dust the Sukkazz have ever collected, where they will surely suffocate. The Doctor and Ernest decide the best chance to save Amanda and Solin is to get to the override room before the Sukkazz reach the Dust Chamber, and they race down the remaining four storeys. As they run, nobody notices Barbara’s eyes begin to glow red.

Solin wakes to find himself suspended above the stairwell, unable to free himself from the Sukkazz without falling to his death. The Sukkazz then take him and his mother down a large tunnel and into the Dust Chamber. Solin yells, telling his mother to take a deep breath, before they are both tossed into the chamber.

The Doctor, Ernest, Martha, Toaster and Barbara cram into the tiny override room. Ernest explains that the override will not shut the Domovoi down, but will confuse and debilitate her for a short amount of time. Before Ernest can press the button Barbara shrieks, and warns everyone to get back, saying that the Domovoi is gaining control of her mind. Suddenly Barbara jabs Ernest’s wounded side with her arm, causing him to collapse onto the floor. The Domovoi speaks through Barbara: “You must stay here! You will die with us inside the Dreamhome!”.

Solin and Amanda cover their mouths and noses, holding their breath, as they float inside the chamber. Taking his mothers arm, Solin propels himself towards the now-sealed entrance to the chamber.

Barbara stands in front of the override button as the Doctor tries to reason with her by appealing to Barbara herself, not acknowledging the Domovoi’s presence. He tells her that he is her friend, and Toaster is her friend, and promises to get her and the other Servo-furnishings safely to spaceport Antelope Slash Nitelite. He tells her she still has free will. Barbara summons all the strength she has and hits the override button. The air goes still. The Doctor checks the room’s instrument panels and confirms that the Domovoi has gone into a state of shock and is temporarily offline. Toaster congratulates a newly de-possessed Barbara as everyone makes their way back up the stairs to free Solin and Amanda.

The low-gravity effect of the Dust Chamber disappears, and Solin and Amanda crash to the floor. The dust settles, no longer airborne, and the pair can safely breathe. They climb up to the chamber door and Solin opens it, telling his mother that they won’t die on his father’s world. Amanda smiles. She then apologises to Solin for letting his father bring him up in an artificial world, sheltered from real life. The pair then agree to escape the Dreamhome together. They reach the elevator shaft and find the lift is moving towards their level. Solin guesses that Ernest and the others have successfully disabled the Domovoi. The lift arrives, and Solin and Amanda see everyone else is standing inside. Ernest, stooping in pain, tells his wife and son to get in the elevator with him and take it to the rooftop. As they travel upwards, Ernest bemoans the loss of his greatest invention. The Doctor tells him to cheer up, and Ernest snaps back that the Doctor has clearly never lost anything important to him. When Ernest claims that the Doctor will never know what it feels like to see your home destroyed the Doctor glares at him, deathly quiet, and Ernest shrinks into the corner of the lift. After a long silence the lift reaches level plus one – the roof – and the doors slide open.

The group steps out onto the roof and sees malfunctioning Servo-furnishings moving aimlessly around the Dreamhome grounds. The fire wall is burnt to embers, and the forceshields are still flickering off and on. Ernest thanks the Doctor, then begins to board his spaceship. Martha tells the Doctor he’s about to abandon them, but the Doctor just laughs. He and Martha then look across the roof to see Solin and Amanda arguing with Ernest, refusing to board the ship unless Ernest lets their rescuers aboard. The Doctor, Martha, Barbara and Toaster stroll over. Barbara yells at Ernest, calling him a “horrible old man”. Ernest laughs, then feigns an apology to the Doctor, saying there is only room aboard for his family, and that he has to put family first. The Doctor smiles back. Just then Solin exits the ship, saying he would rather die with his friends than survive with his family. Amanda grabs him, trying to make him stay. Ernest then turns and punches Solin in the face, knocking him to the ground. The Doctor races towards them, but before he can reach the ship Ernest and Amanda have dragged the boy aboard. The ship lifts into the air, and Ernest yells a triumphant goodbye to the Doctor as the entry ramp seals shut. The Doctor promises Ernest that he will regret his decision.

Martha asks the Doctor if he has a plan – his plan is to make a mad dash for the TARDIS. Barbara suddenly yells that the Domovoi is back online. They all look up to see the forceshields growing in strength as the Domovoi restores them, in an attempt to prevent the Tiermanns’ ship from fully taking off. The Doctor tells everyone to run for it while the Domovoi is pre-occupied.

Aboard the ship, Ernest struggles to keep the straining ship in the air. The Domovoi has cast the Dreamhome’s forceshields around the ship, and is attempting to pull it out of the sky with a tractor beam. Amanda squeezes her son’s arm, as if to say goodbye. She then walks up to her husband and tells him to stop trying to escape. He grabs her, and accuses her of being taken over by the Domovoi. Amanda almost believes him. Suddenly she breaks free of his grasp and throws herself into the ship’s control panel. It bursts into sparks and flames. Amanda is dead, and the ship begins to fall.

As the Doctor, Martha, Barbara and Toaster reach the edge of the Dreamhome grounds they hear a growing noise from above. They look up and see the Tiermanns’ ship plummeting back towards Earth. The group runs as fast as they can towards the treeline to escape the blast. The explosion knocks them to the ground. The Doctor and Martha get to their feet and rush towards the wreckage, hoping to rescue any of the Tiermanns who may have survived. As they reach the blast crater they see Solin climb out from the broken ship. He collapses in the Doctor’s arms. Ernest then climbs out of the ship with Amanda’s body in his arms. He tells nobody to touch her, and begins carrying her towards the Dreamhome. As he passes, the Doctor and Martha see that half of her face has collapsed, and inside her head is full of circuitry. Martha asks the Doctor if Amanda is a robot, and the Doctor replies that she wasn’t always – Ernest had been upgrading her, making her more in the way he wanted her to be. The Doctor tells Martha to get Solin to the TARDIS. She pleads with him to leave Ernest, not to follow him into the Dreamhome, but the Doctor insists that it’s worth trying to save Ernest one more time.

Ernest lays Amanda’s body on a chaise lounge, and watches on the monitors as the Voracious Craw makes its way into the Dreamhome’s valley. It's just a few hours away. The Doctor enters and urges Ernest to leave his home behind and save himself, for the sake of his son. Ernest refuses, saying he can’t imagine rebuilding his life in the way he once had it. At that the Doctor departs, racing after the others. Ernest calls out for his Servo-furnishings, but they have abandoned him. He then talks to the Domovoi, who says it seems fitting that they should perish together. Ernest refuses to sit and wait for the Craw, and tells the Domovoi he will fight her to the death. The Domovoi agrees, and re-animates Amanda’s shattered body. Amanda staggers towards her husband, telling him she loves him. Ernest screams, but refuses to let the Domovoi win. He begins to fight Amanda.

The Doctor leads the Dreamhome survivors through the forest. He estimates that the Craw will reach them at midnight, and darkness is beginning to set in. A swarm of giant albino bats passes overhead. Since most of the forest fauna have evacuated, the bats are hungry, and choose the Dreamhome survivors to be their prey. Solin has an idea, and asks Toaster to blind the bats with bright UV light. Toaster tells everyone to hide behind a fallen log. The bats begin clawing at Toaster. He releases the brightest UV flash he can, and the forest turns searing white for a few seconds. As the survivors’ eyesight returns, they see the bats confused, flying aimlessly, or fleeing in the opposite direction. The group cheers Toaster, calling him a hero, before the Doctor urges them to press on towards the TARDIS.

After more walking Barbara stops. Her joints are freezing up. She tells the others to continue without her, but the Doctor insists she won’t be left behind. Solin glares at the Doctor, remembering how he was unable to save his mother. Eventually the group comes across the TARDIS and the Doctor is delighted to see she is safe. He leads everyone inside. Barbara asks if they can take the ship back to the Dreamhome to rescue the other Servo-furnishings, and Solin asks if they can rescue his father. The Doctor insists that everyone drink some of Barbara’s fizzy pop, and then reveals a plan he’s formulated: he will materialise the TARDIS in space and use it as bait to lure the Voracious Craw off-course, saving the Dreamhome. The plan is not well received. Toaster then asks the Doctor to return to the Dreamhome and rescue the Domovoi. The Doctor notices Toaster’s eyes are glowing red, and that the Domovoi is speaking through him. The Doctor refuses to rescue the Domovoi, and so the Domovoi, using Toaster’s body, grabs Solin and holds a shard of broken glass up to his throat.

In the hours since the survivors had left the Dreamhome, Ernest had fed his wife’s reanimated corpse to the waste disposal, and fought off the Sukkazz, a parquet floor, curtains, antique furniture, and had bludgeoned Stirpeek to death. He had blown up large sections of the house, and the Domovoi had blown up devices Ernest got too close to. Ernest is now lying on the floor, bleeding, with the house burning around him.

The Doctor shows Toaster how close the Voracious Craw has come to the Dreamhome, and refuses to go back to save the Domovoi. The Domovoi then threatens to slit Solin’s throat, and the Doctor calls her bluff. Toaster keeps the shard pressed on Solin’s neck as Solin pleads with the Doctor not to give in to the Domovoi’s demands, saying she would try to take over the TARDIS. The Doctor flicks a switch and the TARDIS takes flight.

Ernest watches as the TARDIS materialises inside his house. The Doctor steps out, followed by everyone else. Toaster is still holding Solin, and the Domovoi cautions the Doctor not to do anything without telling her first. Ernest, seeing his son in danger, jumps to his feet and races towards Toaster. He commands the Domovoi to let his son go, telling her that it’s him she should be fighting. Toaster then lets go of Solin before suddenly bursting into flames. The flames are green, and the Doctor realises the Domovoi has overridden Toaster and manifested herself in the room. Ernest and the Domovoi reaffirm their intentions to fight unto the death. The Doctor stares out of the window in horror, and everyone in the room turns to look with him. The Craw is visible in the distance, and all the land and trees in front of it are being sucked into the air and into its mouth.

Toaster, aflame and possessed by the Domovoi, dives onto Ernest and pins him to the ground. In a final burst of UV light toaster burns and charrs Ernest, leaving him dead on the ground. The Domovoi goes dormant. Toaster then collapses and dies, and Barbara kneels at his side.

The Doctor then announces that the TARDIS, being so close to the Craw, is too tired and destabilised for them to escape in. He decides that instead of fleeing they must stop the oncoming Craw. He once again insists that everyone drink some of Barbara’s fizzy pop. He downs some himself and begins jumping, explaining that he’s trying to fizz the pop up inside him. He tells Solin to activate the Dreamhome’s speaker system, and tells Martha they still have around twenty minutes before the Craw reaches them. Solin returns with a microphone, which the Doctor hands to Barbara and instructs her to point towards the group. The Doctor then tells everyone, on the count of three, to burp as loudly as they can. After they’ve recorded a minute of burping sounds, the Doctor asks Barbara to play them on a loop from the Dreamhome’s speakers. The recording plays out so loudly that the whole house begins to vibrate. When the sounds reach the approaching Craw it suddenly pauses, closing its mouth. To the Doctor’s delight, the Craw begins backing up slowly, before turning around and leaving completely. The Doctor watches until he is sure the Craw has left the planet’s atmosphere.

The Doctor explains that the burping sound fooled the Craw into thinking another, larger Craw was already feeding on this planet. After Barbara and Solin have said their goodbyes to the Dreamhome they return to the Doctor and Martha. Barbara has scanned the house and found no surviving traces of the Domovoi. The Doctor then drops her and Solin off on Spaceport Antelope Slash Nine.

The sabretooth tiger returns to the valley she fled from, with her cubs safe in tow. She feels elated to be back in her home, and to know that the humans who once occupied it have left.

Characters

 * Tenth Doctor
 * Martha Jones
 * Professor Ernest Tiermann
 * Amanda Tiermann
 * Solin Tiermann

Robots

 * Domovoi
 * Toaster
 * Barbara
 * Walter
 * Stirpeek

Continuity

 * The vending machine, Barbara, would later appear in the Iris Wildthyme and the Celestial Omnibus story The Dreadful Flap and the Iris Wildthyme novel Enter Wildthyme, both also by Paul Magrs.
 * The Doctor mentions that he once tamed a savage beast by singing lullabies to it. (TV: The Monster of Peladon)
 * Martha mentions being stuck on the Moon with the Judoon, (TV: Smith and Jones) caught in a gridlock in the year five billion and fifty-three, (TV: Gridlock) and just about plunged into the heart of a living sun. (TV: 42)
 * The Doctor mentions the dead forests of Skaro after the neutron bomb. (TV: The Daleks)

Audiobook

 * This novel was released as an audiobook on 3 March 2008 by BBC Audio and read by Will Thorp.