The Stars Our Contamination (short story)

The Stars Our Contamination was the twenty-second short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: The Ghosts of Christmas. It was written by Steven Savile. It featured the Sixth Doctor and Peri. The title is probably a play on Alfred Bester's classic science fiction novel The Stars My Destination, published as Tiger, Tiger in the UK.

Summary
After three days of unusually heavy rain, New York City is flooded and thousands of citizens are infected. Survivors have taken refuse in the taller buildings.

One man is part of a group of twenty-one survivors who work in a tall office building. They are avoiding the infected, who infect or kill anyone they find. Some of the survivors are killed when they try to find supplies.

After three days, the remaining survivors decide to climb down the elevator shaft, as the infected have taken to the stairs. Several of the survivors make it to the ground floor, though some of them fell to their deaths. Outside, the survivors encounter a girl named Peri and rescue her from an infected man. They take to the sewers, which are infested with rats. While there, they hear a message from the Doctor, who promises that the infection is curable and he is working on the cure.

After three days in the sewer, the survivors head for daylight and try to get out of the city. They are ambushed as they sleep, and several, including the man who is leading the group, become infected. They follow Peri to a blue box in the park.

The man wakes in what he thinks is a hospital. He meets the Doctor, who tells him he is infected. The Doctor has a cure, but it will only cure a small fraction of the infected. He asks the man to hold out as long as possible, so that the Doctor can refine the cure.

After twelve days, the infected are finally cured. The man heads for home, hoping to find his wife and daughter alive.

Characters

 * Sixth Doctor
 * Peri
 * Man
 * Usmanov
 * Kroenke
 * Gretchen
 * Levy
 * Pettersson
 * Carlson
 * Holdstock
 * Bachman
 * Coupland
 * Campbell
 * Williams
 * Block
 * Bruen
 * Anderson
 * McBain
 * Tyler

Continuity
to be added