Death's Head (audio story)

Death's Head is the second audio play in the Kaldor City series. Written by Chris Boucher, it features an investigation into the attempted murder of Chairholder Uvanov.

Publisher's summary
"Taren Capel? The mad god of the robots. He was famous, briefly, but then, weren't we all?"

Someone is spinning a web. Links are forming between one man's need for violence and another's desire for power; a desert ore processing station and a long dead enemy of the state. Someone, maybe everyone, is being manipulated.

Carnell is the obvious culprit, but who is the psychostrategist working for, and what could their motive possibly be?

Kaldor City - Death's Head uses the characters, situations and settings that appear in Chris Boucher's Doctor Who novel Corpse Marker, to tell a complex tale of sex, money and death.

Cast
(in order of appearance)
 * Carnell - Scott Fredericks
 * Sheen - Nicholas Briggs
 * Rov - Robert Lock
 * Rull - Trevor Cooper
 * Cotton - Brian Croucher
 * Landerchild - Peter Miles
 * Strecker - Peter Tuddenham
 * Attendant - David Bickerstaff
 * Uvanov - Russell Hunter
 * Hume - Alistair Lock
 * Iago - Paul Darrow
 * Justina - Patricia Merrick
 * Blayes - Tracy Russell
 * Voice 1 - Fiona Moore
 * Voice 2 - Bruce McGilligan

Individuals

 * Stenton Rull is head of security.
 * Justina is apparently an old friend of Hume. They went to school together. Justina doesn’t consider Hume to be an “old friend”. Hume apparently recommended Justina for the position of Uvanov's executive assistant. In truth, Justina helps Hume get close to Uvanov as he previously he helped her in an attempt to discredit Rull and give her lover, Iago, and by association herself, more power.
 * Iago considers his job title as Uvanov’s 'Security Consultant', rather than 'Personal Bodyguard' as it’s more expensive.
 * Firstmaster Strecker is murdered by Rull, he was shot at close range. Rull killed Strecker as he felt responsible for getting an attendant at the Gentlemen's Oasis into trouble.
 * Sheen and Rov were apparently rebel sympathizers.
 * Taren Capel is known as 'the mad god of the robots'.

Objects

 * Plasma rifles are illegal.
 * Cotton mentions ‘Clunk the Singing Supervoc’.

Blind Heart Desert

 * Stenton Rull was stuck on the edge of the Blind Heart desert at a storm research facility, waiting for the wind to drop, for 5 days.
 * Hume claims the skull he presents to Uvanov is Taren Capel’s. It was apparently found in the Blind Heart desert in an ore vent of one of the storm mines. However this one is thought to be fake.

Allusions

 * "Eat, drink and be merry. For there’s a shack in the sewerpits waiting for all of us." – Landerchild quoting someone.

Continuity

 * The play sets up several ideas that only receive some kind of resolution later in the series, such as the existence of Taren Capel's skull (although the one seen here is a fake) and several clashing schemes and plots that the Topmasters, Carnell and Iago are attempting to put into action.
 * The origin of the skull presented to Uvanov is explained in the story PROSE: Skulduggery where Rull kills a technician who ends up in a morgue where Cotton has an undue influence over the Head of Forensics: the plan is articulated that Cotton should and probably has stripped the flesh from the technician's head and used his skull as the one that Uvanov is presented with.
 * Alternatively, an analysis of the series by author Dale Smith, postulates the simplest explanation, as emphasized by the title of the previous play, is that Cotton simply used the real skull of Taren Capel that was already located in The Company stores. In the next play, AUDIO: Hidden Persuaders, Taren Capel's skull is shown to be have been in the possession of The Company all along.
 * Carnell muses about the existence of an alien grand manipulator whose goals and methods would be unknowable, foreshadowing the emergence of the Fendahl in AUDIO: Checkmate.
 * The attendant whom Rull 'helps' is later revealed, in AUDIO: Hidden Persuaders, to be an agent for The Church of Taren Capel named Manzerak.
 * Uvanov’s previous executive assistant, described here as the one that sold him out, was Cailio Techlan. (PROSE: Corpse Marker)
 * Iago shot Rull in the leg. (AUDIO: Occam's Razor)
 * Uvanov gives instructions to manipulate Blayes into the becoming a rebel leader. (AUDIO: Hidden Persuaders)
 * Iago and Carnell both make reference to a great illusion, Iago also mentions it in AUDIO: Metafiction. In later installments of the series the idea that all in not what it seems becomes an increasingly prominent theme, particularly in AUDIO: The Prisoner:
 * A variation of the following exchange between Blayes and Iago is repeated at the climax of AUDIO: Checkmate:
 * "Nice place you’ve got here." - Blayes
 * "It goes with the job." – Iago