The Cold Equations was the twelfth and final story of the fifth series of The Companion Chronicles, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Simon Guerrier and featured Peter Purves as the First Doctor and Steven Taylor and Tom Allen as Oliver Harper.
Publisher's summary[]
In the remnant of a shattered satellite, far above the ruined planet Earth, Steven Taylor and Oliver Harper are dying. As time runs out, they face their pasts... and a secret long kept is revealed.
The borrowed time is elapsing, and they realise they are facing an enemy that cannot be defeated. The cold, hard facts of science.
Plot[]
The Impassable Sky (1)[]
In a spaceship, Steven and Oliver are about to die. Air is running out, the Doctor cannot come to rescue them, and every word they exchange consumes oxygen, hastening their end. Oliver tries to keep some hope alive, but Steven is already resigned: he learned in pilot school how unforgiving space can be. He then asks Oliver to confess what he has done, what crime he was trying to escape from. Oliver agrees.
Shortly before, the Doctor, Steven and Oliver (on his first trip) had landed on a spaceship in the middle of what looked like a botanical garden. Outside the ship's windows is a blue planet surrounded by a cloud of what Steven recognises as space debris, all that remains of a civilisation. It is a dangerous situation: if badly impacted, those wrecks could trigger an explosive chain reaction that would also destroy the ship they are on; fortunately, the ship seems to have been calibrated just right to stay in orbit. The Doctor concludes that yes, this ship is probably a museum, but his thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of three uniformed aliens belonging to the Kallian species (humanoids with fiery red skin). The three are brought before their leader, Odgar, and watch with amazement and a little fear as the Kallians eject the TARDIS from their ship: the spaceship has thrown their ship off balance, and they can only proceed safely through the debris by ejecting it. The TARDIS, however, lands on one of the debris without exploding, thanks to the Kallians' highly advanced mathematical skills, which have calculated its path exactly. Odgar has not thrown them overboard because he suspects they are competitors: he is the leader of an archaeological/commercial expedition that recovers and resells this debris. The Doctor does not refuse, but reveals that Steven and Oliver are Odgar's real rivals, if anything, as human beings: the planet below is, in fact, the Earth. Odgar has Steven and Oliver scanned to verify the Doctor's claim, and yes, Steven and Oliver are human, although Odgar does not believe they can have any connection with those who still live on Earth.
They live a life barely above subsistence level and cannot have any connection with the great civilisation that has influenced entire planets. Odgar's attitude upsets Steven and Oliver, especially when Odgar, for the reasons mentioned above, claims that he has not made any agreement with the humans remaining on Earth regarding the debris.
They are still protesting when Odgar searches for their names in a general database and, to the Doctor's shock (still unaware of the mark he will leave on history), it turns out that the three are registered as fugitive prisoners for various crimes, from a planetoid called Grace Alone. Oliver protests that they have never been there, but it is clear to the Doctor that this will happen in the future; the Time Lord therefore asks that the three of them be judged by humans. Odgar refuses, and Oliver launches into another tirade, but stops when a machine begins to print out his file: his crime is written on it, as is his escape from the police, and Oliver proceeds to tear it up, much to Steven's anger. The argument is interrupted by the satellite's manoeuvre to dock with a debris ship containing various materials, apparently carried out successfully and with great precision. Oliver, in an attempt to prevent them from being handed over to the space police, offers Odgar their help: as humans, they can identify the objects on board the debris and explain their use. Odgar accepts, and Oliver begins to identify various objects that are brought out of the ship by robots that are in every way similar to humans, much to the irritation of Steven, who realises that he is seeing the remains of the Earth Empire he knew and lived in, and thus the ruin of his time.
The work is interrupted when an Earth woman, who has infiltrated the ship disguised as a robot, pulls out a gun and threatens Steven, asking him why they sent the plague to their world. Steven and Oliver manage to disarm her, partly because the woman is malnourished and tired, but they still believe her story of children falling asleep and never waking up. The Doctor asks Odgar about it, and he admits that yes, the Callians have spread a pathogen on the planet to reduce the population and facilitate operations. The Doctor, Steven and Oliver are about to start protesting again, but the Doctor notices a communication device hidden by the woman (named Abaya) in the ship, which allowed her to send a message to Earth to explain the reason for the plague. Suddenly, everyone realises the problem: the communicator is powered partly by the planet and partly by the satellite, which means that it takes energy from both, and that the Callians' calculations have been distorted, so that now not only is the satellite moving away from the planet's orbit, but it is on a collision course with its own excavator vehicle. Everyone rushes to the control room to rectify the error, but it is too late: the satellite collides with the vehicle, its hull gives way, the Doctor, Ogdar, Abaya and the others are sucked out into space, and only Steven and Oliver manage to cling on in time to remain in the deserted control room.
The Cold Equations (2)[]
The ship's emergency hatches activate, and Steven and Oliver find themselves locked in a detached section of the Kallian ship. The Doctor contacts them via radio: he, Odgar, Abaya and others have managed to save themselves by climbing into the excavator vehicle, and are now assessing their situation. There is another Kallian ship behind the Moon, but at their current speed it would take three days to reach the area. The Doctor's party only has enough oxygen for two days, Steven and Oliver even less. Racking his brains for a solution, Oliver asks if they can try to get to the TARDIS, which is actually not far away, still clinging to the debris on which it had landed earlier. The Doctor says it's impossible, but Steven and Oliver are in sight; however, their trajectory must be precise to avoid an explosion or the TARDIS being pushed away (plus, Steven points out that he doesn't have a key to to get in). With Oliver's help, Steven dismantles a control panel and, after positioning the ship outside on the wall in the void, begins to manoeuvre it by hand using his knowledge as a space pilot. Under his guidance, the ship reaches the TARDIS and collides with it, apparently pushing it away; in reality, Steven has calculated the trajectory so well that the TARDIS bounces back and heads straight towards the Doctor. The pilot sacrificed his life, and Oliver's, to save the Doctor and the others; he believes that in the current situation, it is impossible for the Doctor to reach the TARDIS and then rescue them before he and Oliver run out of oxygen.
Oliver finally confesses his guilt to Steven: he is homosexual, which is a crime in the era he comes from. Steven laughs: in the future he comes from, homophobia is an old and outdated concept, seen as a characteristic of a primitive society. He tells the banker of the future that yes, they have made some progress, but there are still wars, and admits that for some time he has felt as if, in his travels with the Doctor, his days are numbered (a feeling heightened by the many losses in the recent clash with the Daleks). The oxygen is running out, and the two are growing weaker, when the Doctor's voice comes over the radio: they have been found, and the Doctor has managed to calculate the right course in time to save them.
Days later, with Steven still recovering, Oliver recounts what happened in the following days. Steven's piloting skills impressed Ogdar, who re-evaluated humans, and Oliver negotiated the division of the debris and wreckage of the Earth Empire between the expedition and the humans inhabiting the planet (with the assistance of the Doctor, who is more knowledgeable about galactic law) . Oliver also considered staying there, but then realised that no, he still wants to travel, he wants to see more of the universe; it is too early to stop. When the Doctor arrives, Oliver is about to reveal his secret, but the Doctor stops him, saying that he already knows: he has looked at Oliver's file in the future, and besides, Oliver has nothing to justify. Furthermore, Steven was officially considered a deserter in his time (since he never rejoined his unit) and he is an exile fugitive from his planet, so all three are criminals in some way – and there is still the matter of the Sola Grazia planetoid, where the three were registered as prisoners. Well, now that Steven seems to be feeling better, perhaps the three of them can go and see for themselves why and how they were detained there, suggests the Doctor...
Cast[]
Characters[]
- First Doctor
- Steven Taylor
- Oliver Harper
- Odgar
- Abaya
Crew[]
- Cover Art - Simon Holub
- Director - Lisa Bowerman
- Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
- Music and Sound Design - Richard Fox and Lauren Yason @ FoxYason Studios
- Producer - David Richardson
- Script Editor - Jacqueline Rayner
- Writer - Simon Guerrier
Worldbuilding[]
- This is Oliver's first trip in the TARDIS.
- Remembering how the titular time machine traveled in the 1960 film The Time Machine, Oliver assumes the TARDIS stays put spatially. He is therefore surprised to step out into the space station, having expected to see Shoreditch in the "time of the dinosaurs" or the 21st century.
- Oliver compares the experience of seeing the future to Dan Dare.
- Oliver learned trigonometry in school.
- Callions are tall, twitchy humanoids with reddish skin, compared by Steven to fire and sunsets, and thick, sandy hair. Canny, good with details, and exacting in any deal, they were often encountered by Steven at trading posts.
- Long after the fall of its many empires, the Earth is a desolate place whose remaining population survive through lives of sustenance. It is orbited by a mass of space junk navigated by scavengers, like those of the True Jank Callion Empire, to claim what treasures lay on the surface.
- Radio waves carry in space.
- Steven retrieves the TARDIS by thinking in 6 dimensional codes, like trying to "catch a ball."
- Periapsis refers to an object's orbit.
Textless cover art
Notes[]
- This audio drama was recorded on 13 September 2010 at the Moat Studios.
- In the special features, writer Simon Guerrier cites inspiration for Oliver's character and experience of homosexuality in the 1960s from the 1961 film Victim, about a homosexual man on the run from the law, and the television series Mad Men, which featured a gay character.
- This story is set between The Daleks' Master Plan and The Massacre.
- This story is told from Steven and Oliver's perspective.
Continuity[]
- Oliver Harper reveals to Steven that he was on the run from the law for engaging in homosexual practices. (AUDIO: The Perpetual Bond)
- The Sixth Doctor would visit Earth again during a technological dark age, by that time known as Ravalox. (TV: The Mysterious Planet) In addition, the Doctor and Steven's recently deceased friend Sara Kingdom had her mind copied by the House on Ely during one of their travels, and she would end up regaining her corporeality during a dark age on Earth as well. (AUDIO: Home Truths, The Drowned World, The Guardian of the Solar System)
- The Doctor mocks Oliver's assumption that the TARDIS would travel in time, not space. In his eighth regeneration, the TARDIS, healing from the damage it suffered during AUDIO: Day of the Master, was constrained this way for a time. (AUDIO: Dead Time, UNIT Dating, Baker Street Irregulars, The Long Way Round)
External links[]
- Official The Cold Equations page at bigfinish.com
