Shadow of Death (audio story)

 was the second release of the Destiny of the Doctor audio series, produced by Big Finish Productions for AudioGO.

Publisher's summary
Following an emergency landing, the TARDIS arrives on a remote world orbiting a peculiar star – a pulsar which exerts an enormous gravitational force, strong enough to warp time.

On further exploration the Doctor and his friends, Jamie and Zoe, discover a human outpost on the planet surface, inhabited by scientists who are there to study an ancient city. The city is apparently abandoned, but the scientists are at a loss to explain what happened to its sophisticated alien architects.

The Doctor discovers that something dark, silent and deadly is also present on the world - and it is slowly closing in on the human intruders...

Plot
The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe find themselves on a planet orbiting a pulsar in the year 2724. The pulsar’s gravitational pulses are strong enough to the drag the TARDIS out of its flight, leading it to be at least temporarily stuck on the planet.

Things are not as they seem. They find themselves inside an ancient and yet oddly functional city. A quick exploration takes the travelers onto the surface, where they find several human corpses…and oddly, they seem to have been aged to death where they stand. In fact, at first they’re mistaken for statues. The Doctor and his companions are quickly captured by more humans, who prove to be part of a galactic survey expedition, led by Dr. Sophie Topolovic. Although there is mutual suspicion at first, it quickly turns to an alliance of necessity when it becomes clear that they are not alone. A shadowy being—or possibly more than one—is also roaming the corridors of the empty city; and its touch is death, in the same manner as that of the corpses on the surface.

After much misdirection and danger—both from the shadow and from the gravitational pulses—the Doctor finds himself isolated, and attempts to get to the TARDIS and escape the city, then recover his friends. However, he is stopped by an odd visitation. The Eleventh Doctor, from far in his personal future, makes psychic contact with him; he sees the Eleventh Doctor’s image and that of his psychic paper, which spells out written instructions. He must not only save himself and the others, but must also save the survey team’s work; it will be vital in the future. Resigned, he forgoes the TARDIS and returns to the control room to save the data…and is captured by the shadows.

Hours later, the Doctor rejoins Jamie and the others. He explains that the shadows are the indigenous, intelligent species of this world; he refers to them as the Quiet Ones. He explains that their world was once a rogue planet, without a star; Jamie compares them and their situation to the Cybermen of Mondas, which was also a sort of rogue planet. The Doctor states that their world was captured by the pulsar; to protect themselves, they transformed themselves into a non-corporeal form which exists at a much higher rate of time than humans. The deaths were unintentional, caused by the colliding of different time zones; they were attempting to make contact, not kill. The problem, it seems, is the noise the humans make; the Quiet Ones are highly sensitive to sound, and need a quiet environment to live. All they really wanted, it seems, was to get the humans to “keep it down”. The Doctor has brokered a truce which will allow the research to continue.

Jamie, however, realizes something is amiss. He asks why the Doctor was not killed when touched; the Doctor attributes it to his relationship with time, which is different from that of the humans. Still, he has aged a bit; and under pressure, he reveals that while Jamie and Zoe only experienced a few hours on the planet, for him, it was a few years.

Cast

 * Jamie McCrimmon - Frazer Hines
 * Sophie Topolovic - Evie Dawnay

Continuity

 * Jamie was 22 years old when he first met the Doctor in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746. (TV: The Highlanders)
 * Jamie recalls walking on the Moon in 2070. (TV: The Moonbase)
 * Jamie compares the Quiet Ones to the Cybermen. (TV: The Moonbase, The Tomb of the Cybermen)
 * The Doctor mentions that Jamie referred to aeroplanes as "flying beasties" during their visit to Gatwick Airport on 20 July 1966. (TV: The Faceless Ones)
 * The Doctor refers to the Hostile Action Displacement System. (TV: The Krotons) As the Doctor explains to Zoe what the HADS does, this implies the story takes place prior to The Krotons.