The Trial of a Time Machine (audio story)

The Trial of a Time Machine was the first story in the audio anthology The Seventh Doctor: The New Adventures: Volume One. It was written by Andy Lane and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor, Yasmin Bannerman as Roz Forrester and Travis Oliver as Chris Cwej.

Publisher's summary
After colliding with another time-ship in the vortex, the TARDIS materialises on Thrantas where it is arrested and forced to face trial. While Chris and Roz investigate the crime scene, the Doctor must defend his most loyal companion against a society where guilt has no meaning.

Plot
Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor, Roz and Chris discuss the existence of universal morality, with the Doctor arguing that morality is relative. The TARDIS seems to try to materialise in the same place as something else, knocking them off-course to the old city-world Thrantas full of ancient spaceships. Maratuk and Sydyck arrest the TARDIS for materialising on a restricted arrival pad and displacing another space-time craft and have it moved to a time locked hangar so that the displaced craft can attempt another materialisation.

The Doctor goes with the TARDIS as its legal representative and sends Roz and Chris to find out why the people of Thrantas are comfortable with the idea of self-aware time machines. He tells the prosecutor, Honos, that he will have to interpret for the TARDIS given its inability to communicate and learns of the Magistrum, a computer which decides which crimes will be punished and which benefit the community. They go to the Magistrum Building where the Doctor learns that the Magistrum can send small insect agents to the future to judge the effects of a crime.

Maratuk explains to Roz and Chris that the people of Thrantas place themselves into stasis fields, journey in their ships for millions of years and then use time travel to return, being incapable of faster than light travel and travelling forwards in time. With half of the damaged ship in the present and the other in 10,000 years in the future, Roz and Chris travel with Maratuk and Sydyck to investigate and find only three of the ten stasis pods intact. Maratuk says that the TARDIS will likely be found guilty and its intelligence reduced, just as hers once was after informing on Sydyck for fabricating evidence, the Magistrum deeming her actions detrimental to society.

The Doctor visits the TARDIS and wonders what he will do without it. The trial begins, with Doctor pleading not guilt on the TARDIS's behalf on the charge of the "wilful trespass of a restricted section of a space-time landing field leading to the accidental but catastrophic destruction of a cargo ship". The Doctor objects to the trial continuing given that the police are still gathering evidence and that no witnesses have been warned to attend, but neither of these are required on Thrantas due to the Magistrum's foresight; the Doctor needs to produce evidence to which the Magistrum is not privy, such as the TARDIS's personality and feelings, but he declines.

Roz and Chris search the wreckage and find a strange, incomplete body, but are soon arrested for contaminating the crime scene. Sydyck reasons that the Magistrum will no doubt find them guilty and sentences them to execution, but Maratuk shoots him, claiming it to be an accidental discharge, and tells Roz and Chris to run.

The Doctor refuses to acknowledge the authority of the court due to its method of collecting and evaluating evidence. Honos declares the trial to be complete and the Magistrum finds the TARDIS guilty, sentencing it to be pulled apart and scattered across history by the Tether's time engines. Afterwards, the Doctor breaks into the Magistrum's chamber with reporter Bay Forsetti and finds that it is the last of the Tether and that its insects are the ends of its tentacles. He asks for its help in getting a message to Roz and Chris, telling them exactly where to materialise. Roz and Chris arrive in the chamber, the ship destroying the time lock around the Magistrum. It disappears.

Reunited with the TARDIS, the Doctor wonders whether his ship is with him of its own accord or whether it is enslaved as the Magistrum was. He suggests that Roz and Chris could help the people of Thrantas build a new legal system and that the TARDIS might have brought them there to teach them a lesson after their discussion of ethics.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
 * Roz Forrester - Yasmin Bannerman
 * Chris Cwej - Travis Oliver
 * Maratuk - Liz Sutherland-Lim
 * Sydyck - Vikash Bhai
 * Honos - John Heffernan
 * Forsetti - Mina Anwar

Continuity

 * The Doctor has experienced the TARDIS materialising at the same place as another ship is attempting to land before. (TV: The Pirate Planet)
 * Roz reminds Chris that they are no longer Adjudicators. (PROSE: Original Sin)
 * The Doctor is unable to personally communicate with the TARDIS, and isn't even sure if it feels enslaved to him. It will be some time until he is able to talk to the ship and truly understand its thoughts. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)