No More Lies (audio story)

 was the fifth story, though sixth release part of Big Finish Productions' Eighth Doctor Adventures audio stories that were co-produced with BBC 7. This story featured Vortisaurs, a species that had been introduced in the first series of Big Finish's Eighth Doctor audio stories and had last appeared in Minuet in Hell.

Publisher's summary
What links a disintegrating spaceship to a posh garden party, where a wealthy couple are celebrating their love for each other in style? Gatecrashers the Doctor and Lucie think they know the answer. But they're not the only uninvited guests — ferocious alien warriors riding pterodactyl-like Vortisaurs are about to make their entrance!

Plot
The action begins *in media res* here, both locally (with regard to this story) and in regard to surrounding events. The Doctor and Lucie have for some time been in pursuit of a scientist named Nick Zimmerman. He is trying to steal a time-travel-capable ship from a race called the Meg-Bania, and the Doctor and Lucie are trying to stop him. They materialise on the ship, and seek to trap him, but are interrupted by the intrusion of a menacing race called the Tar-Modowk. The Tar-Modowk live in the time vortex, and feed on temporal energy as stolen from living beings; they also ride on pterodactyl-like creatures of the vortex called Vortisaurs. With that distraction, Zimmerman escapes, funnelling the ship’s time-travel technology into a small escape capsule, and letting the Tar-Modowk destroy all evidence of the ship. The Doctor and Lucie follow him in the TARDIS.

En route, they find the Tar-Modowk trying to escape the vortex at a certain point. Evading them, they land at that point, and find themselves on 2006 Earth—the place Lucie has been trying to return to all along—and, inexplicably, inside a time loop. On investigation, they find that the loop may have been running for hundreds or thousands of cycles—it’s hard to tell.

They locate Nick Zimmerman, but get a shock: He has been here for thirty years, and is now much older. Further, he has settled down, having married a woman named Rachel Davidson, who is now elderly and not well. Rachel, Nick, and Rachel’s brother Gordon are throwing a party on the grounds of their mansion, and the Doctor and Lucie are forced to crash it. They meet Gordon, who suspects them of trouble, but manage to talk their way out of it; Gordon’s momentary disorientation gives them their first clue as to the nature of the time loop. They split up; the Doctor goes to confront Zimmerman, and Lucie goes in search of some record of Zimmerman’s activities, but finds herself instead confronting Rachel in the main house.

Rachel reveals that she knows who Lucie is; Nick has long since told her about the Doctor and Lucie, in anticipation that they would one day arrive. She reveals that she knows his origin, as well, and asserts that it does not stop her from loving him; his guilt, she says, is stronger than any other emotion, and makes an honest man of him.

The Doctor locates Zimmerman, who sits down with him in a summer house on the property to talk. He too asserts that time has changed him, and he treats the Doctor like an old friend, previous grievances notwithstanding. With more discussion, the Doctor becomes aware that the time loop was not imposed from outside, but rather, was established by Zimmerman—and now it has attracted the Tar-Modowk, who will kill everyone there to get what they want. The Doctor asserts that he must break the loop. Zimmerman then changes his demeanour as he remembers more of the past, and threatens to kill the Doctor and Lucie to maintain the loop. He leaves the Doctor in the custody of Gordon, and goes to find Lucie; and he takes the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, which is tracking the Tar-Modowk.

The Tar-Modowk successfully break into the loop and land in the garden. He tracks an elusive signal to a memorial in the garden, and breaks into it. Meanwhile, vortisaurs break into the house where Gordon and the Doctor are waiting; they narrowly escape, and manage to capture a vortisaur from its Tar-Modowk rider, and use it to reach the main house. Zimmerman is already there, but is separated from Lucie and Rachel by the Tar-Modowk. Rachel and Lucie are intercepted…and the Tar-Modowk leader reveals that it is not there primarily for them, but for what was taken from the ship: the heart of the time vessel, now incorporated into Zimmerman’s crashed pod. As the Doctor, Gordon, and Zimmerman all arrive, the creature explains.

Once the Tar-Modowk were not as they are now, but were the relatively peaceful Meg-Bania, the creators and owners of the ship that Zimmerman stole and gutted. Having lived in the vortex for ages, they now spend their time searching for remnants of their previous existence in the real world. Meanwhile, Zimmerman has used the time systems to create the loop, because his beloved Rachel was dying. In this manner, he has kept her alive far longer than she would have otherwise lived, but at the cost of her memories and those of everyone else trapped in the loop—they were all unaware of the repetition. The Doctor and Gordon manage to wrestle the sonic screwdriver back from him, and the Doctor uses it to shut down the machinery, ending the loop, and causing the Tar-Modowk and the vortisaurs to fade back into the vortex. However, the price to be paid is that Rachel will die, as the loop will no longer repeat. Zimmerman must now accept her impending death and make his goodbyes.

Lucie walks back to the TARDIS, but is intercepted and captured by the Headhunter, who has finally caught up with her. A TARDIS dematerialising can be heard; presumably it belongs to the Headhunter. Later, the Doctor returns to his TARDIS, and is momentarily irritated at Lucie for keeping him waiting—until the cloister bell starts to sound. The truth begins to dawn on him…Lucie is gone.

Cast

 * The Doctor – Paul McGann
 * Lucie Miller – Sheridan Smith
 * The Headhunter – Katarina Olsson
 * Nick Zimmerman – Nigel Havers
 * Rachel Zimmerman – Julia McKenzie
 * Gordon Davidson – Tom Chadbon
 * Tar-Modowk Leader – Tim Hudson

Uncredited cast

 * Peter - Nicholas Briggs

Continuity

 * The Doctor mentions that he once had a pet Vortisaur named Ramsay. (AUDIO: Storm Warning)
 * Lucie refers to her aunt Patricia Ryder, whom she recently encountered in Bramlington in 1974. (AUDIO: Horror of Glam Rock)
 * The Headhunter kidnaps Lucie and takes her to Hulbert Logistics on Lonsis in 2006. (AUDIO: Human Resources)