From: ira2p@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Iain Robert Asplin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho
Subject: Survival  plot synopsis   *SPOILERS!*
Date: 22 Jul 92 21:44:03 GMT
Distribution: rec.arts.drwho, Perivale
Organization: University of Virginia

And on now to this week's true synopsis, possibly my favorite Seventh Doctor
story of all,  "Survival."
This one really doesn't need much novel-leaning at all, but should I find a
place where I think a peek at the book is appropriate, I will of course
denote the section with (* *) as usual.


SPOILERS!

meow.




SURVIVAL
by Rona Munro
PART ONE


The scene is a street in a suburb of London, a suburb by the name of Perivale.
The street is very quiet.  No traffic at all, just a man and his car, 
a sponge, soap and water.  The young man is sudsing up the front half of the
car, paying close attention to the bonnet (hood).  
On a wall lining the street, a black-furred cat observes the car washer.
A woman leans out the window of the house the man's car sits in front of,
the man's mother in fact, who tells him his dinner's on the table.  He
tells her he's heard, and rubs down his car a little faster now.
On the wall lining the street, the black-furred cat bares its teeth and
growls an unquiet, whispery growl.  
Our view changes to that of the cat's, a large translucent glowing orange
vertical shading now on our vision, as though seen through the cat's eyes.
Together, we and the cat observe the car-washer below.
A wind blows up, ruffling the man's hair.  He leans his head back from his
work, and we see his mouth say the words "Oh my God!" but the sounds are
drowned out by the ascending noise of a strange and unnatural wind.
The wind and fear blow across the man's face as he stumbles backwards,
stepping into the bucket of soap water, splashing the contents all over
the pavement.  The man still clutches the sponge as he still stumbles
further backwards, up the street, backing away from something we cannot
see but which is clearly larger than he is by the way his head still looks
up in fear and the way his body stays crouched low as if afraid to fully
stand up for fear of hitting the something large that is now making him
stumble to a complete stop in a heap on the blacktop of the street.
We see him and this time slightly hear him cry "No!" as the large
something reaches him, as the wind reaches a fantastic climax.
A brilliant flash of light seems to appear from within the man himself,
with a tremendous zap-blast sound accompanying the flash.  It clears
in an instant, and in the same instant, the street also becomes clear.
The wind is gone, the man is gone, the street is silent.
The only sign of what happened is the soapy water slowly flowing towards a
storm drain in the side of the street....

....and a running cat.  The black, furry cat runs along the fence, leaping
from it where it comes to an end at the end of the block, and as it leaps
to the ground, so too does the Doctor's Police Box TARDIS leap down to
the real world with its customary wheeze and groan, though short this time,
its final thud being heard after just two gyrations.
Ace steps out the door, the Doctor following her and listening to her
complaint that he had to pick a Sunday.  "You bring me back to boredom
capital of the universe, and you pick the one day of the week you can't
even find a decent television programme."  As the Doctor pockets his
TARDIS key, he reminds her they've come at her request, and he follows
her down the street, near a half-washed car and an overturned pail.
Ace tells him she just wanted to see what the old gang were up to, that
he could have dropped her uptown and she could have phoned.  They didn't
hav to have a guided tour.  The Doctor bends down an uprights the 
soap pail, and raises his hat in greeting to a rather worried looking
woman standing on the sidewalk near the car.  Ace tells him to come on,
and slowly he strolls to her side.  "What's so terrible about Perivale?"
he asks her.  "Nothing ever happens here."

A cat's angry meow rouses an elderly woman from her house.  She opens a
window near a bit of shaking shrubbery, and she tells the wretched cat
to get out of her garden.  "Shoo!" she bitterly spits at it.

The Doctor and Ace stroll on an open field of grass, a park of Perivale
on a hill overlooking the surrounding suburbs.  
Ace askshow long its been since she was last here.  He tells her she's
been away for as long as she thinks she has, a little exasperatedly,
as though this were a question he had answered many times before and
just wished everyone automatically knew the answer so that he would never
have to say it again.  He asks if they have any particular reason for
coming to this place, and Ace tells him they're there because it's SUnday,
and some of the gang always come up here on a Sunday.  "What for?" asks
the Doctor.  "Oh, I don't know, light a fire," replies Ace, "muck
about, you know...."  The Doctor yawns.  "I told you it was dull,"
Ace reminds him.   He smiles and tells her he's sure he'll find something
to interest him.  Ace begins to out-loud think about her friend's habits
now, that perhaps they don't come up here anymore, as the Doctor bends
down to look at something that's interested him, a crushed tin can.
"There's nobody around is there?" she asks him, "nothing but tin cans
and stray cats..."
"...and horses," completes the Doctor as he runs the tip of his umbrella
round the edges of a hoof-imprint in the grass and soil near where he
crouched to examine the crushed can.  "Horses?" questions Ace, "In
Perivale?"  She turns and starts slowly down the hill, saying "Don't
be stupid," almost to herself, as the Doctor holds the can in is hand
and ponders.

Four young boys of about eight to ten years of age playfully toss an
American football to each other underneath the shade of a large tree on
the edge of the park.  From underneath the brush peer the eyes of a
black and furry cat...

...."Show me."  The two words are a softly spoken command from a figure
in darkness.  We can see only the shadowy outline of a face, and two
eyes, glowing yellow as they stare into space...
....into the eyes of the cat....we watch with him through the eyes of
the animal as it follows the movements of the four boys....
"No," sighs the man in darkness, "No sport for you here...."

Sport has also finished for the four boys, as they leave the small knoll
and run down a hill past some map-stands and a pay telephone.
Ace and the Doctor are there, the former hanging up the phone,
disappointed.  "No one home," she tells the Doctor.  "Hmm," he responds.
"Are you really fed up?" she asks him.  He looks at his umbrella handle
and hmms again, as if to partly say yes.  "Do you mind if I just try down
at the Youth Club?" she asks him.  The Doctor says yes with another litte
"hmm."  They set off, and so too does the black cat, scurrying across the
clearing and back into the brush.

Ace leads the Doctor to a glass door to a small brick building, where he
slides ahead and holds the door open for her.  As she enters the Youth
Club, she looks around in surprise as there seems to be no one here.
"Where is everyone?" she asks no one in particular.  She tells the Doctor
they used to have a coffee bar here by the wall where now only a notice
board hangs.  He passes her by and moves toward another door, while
she continues to ask the building where everyone is.  He hears sounds of
people behind the door, opens it, peeks through, opens it wider, calls
to Ace, and points her into another room with his umbrella.

This other room is a large traning room/gymnasium with wrestling mats
pasted on the walls and the floors, and gymnastic equipments such as
hanging rings and horses mounted across the room.  A crowd of teenage
boys, most of them very muscular, encircle one large mat on the other
side of the room, cheering and goading on two contesting wrestlers.
Ace and the Doctor step a few feet into the room and watch as one of
the wrestlers has his fellow locked up in the air, from where he could
easily pin the other onto the mat, but he's stopped.
"Well go on, go on lad, what are you waiting for?!?" demans a middle-aged
balding man dressed in military fatigues, clearly in charge of the groupp
The young man shouts that he's already beaten the other boy.  
"Oh you thinkwe're playing games do you?" yells the man, "Let's pretend
eh?  Is that it?  Is that what you're gonna do to some villain, some
mugger, help him up, dust him down, shake hands?!  GO ON!"
The "winning" boy pounds the loser's into the mat, making Ace and the
Doctor frown, and the class' teacher exclaim "that's better!"
The boys around them applaud for a second, a clearly ritual applause
after every little match, and the losing boy crawls to his feet.
Their instructor takes the boy's head in his hands, looks in his eyes
and asks if he's sure he's OK.  The boy says he is.  The teacher
smiles and tells him to go get cleaned up.  He turns to follow the
boy's path out the room with his eyes, and then sees the Doctor and Ace.
He tells them he'll be with them in a moment, and the Doctor gives him 
a small doff of his hat in return.  
The instructor tells his class to all shake hands and he'll see them all
next week.  They group together, shaking hands as thy slug sweaty clothes
on their backs and head for the exit behind the Doctor and Ace.  
Only one boy waits behind, the "winner," and the instructor looks him
over.  The boy angrily tells him he'd already beaten the other boy,
and moves towards the exit himself, but as he passes the  man, the man
stops the boy, jabbing a stiff index finger into the boy's yellow jersey.
"You think I'm pushing you too hard?  Pushing you too hard am I?"
He circles the boy and starts jabbing him back towards the exit with his
finger.  "You ever hear of survival of the fittest son?  Ever heard of
that?  Life's not a game son.  I'm teaching you the art of survival.
I'm teaching you to fight back.  What happens when life starts pushing 
you around sonny?  What are you gonna do then?!?"  
The boy raises an angry fist as if to strike the instructor, but the
man catches his arm in mid-air and smiles at his pupil.  He laughs
and tells him that's better.  He takes the boy's head in his hands,
looks him in the eye, and asks him if he's OK.  The boy smiles at him
and says he's alright, calling the man "Sarge."  The Sergeant tells
him this is good and sends the boy off.  
The Sergeant paces over to an exercise bike where his green sergeant's
uniform's jacket lies, near the Doctor, who addresses the sergeant.
"Survival of the fittest.  Rather a glib generalization, don't you
think?  Survival for what mister..."
"Sergeant," he completes, "Paterson.  You show me a better way of surviving
and I'll give it a go."  He begins buttoning his jacket, the Doctor turns
to Ace with that look on his face again, and strolls out of the gym.
Ace approaches Paterson and asks him where everyone else is.  Everyone
who used to hang around this place on a Sunday when it was the only 
place to get out of the house and out of the weather.  
The Doctor is now in the outside lobby, and although he can hear their
conversation he isn't really listening.  He stops and stands and thinks
next to a poster for the musical "Cats."  In the other room, we can
hear Paterson telling Ace that it's now self-defense every Sunday,
and he doesn't know what happened to the waste.
He asks Ace if he knows her from somewhere, and she smiles nervously,
saying she doesn't think so.  He then realizes who she is and says
he remembers the police letting her off with a warning.  
The Doctor approaches the glass door, and leans down to take a look
at something as we hear Ace tell Paterson that she's only looking
for her friends.  Paterson tells her she won't have much luck.
The Doctor is gazing now into the deep yellow eyes of a black and furry
cat, sitting just outside the door, and it's gazing back into his eyes...
It's mouth opens, baring its teeth, and it whispers a hiss at him,
we see through its eyes...we see the Doctor leaning on his umbrella
peering into the cat......

and with us see the eyes of a dark and shadowy face, the eyes glowing
yellow, and voice breathing a growl like...."Ahhhhh......."

The sound of Paterson and Ace coming into the lobby area from the gym door
draws the Doctor to his feet and his attention behind his shoulder.
Paterson is telling Ace that he thinks most of her kind have moved on.
she asks him where, and he spits it back at her, saying she probably
has a better idea than he does.  "Where have you been hiding yourself?"
"Around," she tells him.  "Your Mum had you listed as a missing person,"
he scolds her, "and you don't give a toss do you?  I don't know, four
kids gone missing just this week..vanished into thin air."  the Doctor pays 
closer attention to this last sentecne, as Paterson goes on to lecture
Ace.
It's the parents I feel sorry for," he tells Ace, "It doesn't cost much to phone
love, ten pence that's all."  
A very dangerous look clouds Ace's face.  She takes firmer hold of the
jacket slung over her back, and steps to the door, telling the Doctor
to come on.  AS she opens the door, the black cat takes flight,
scurrying back into the tall grass, the Doctor's eyes following it as far
as they can in the restriction of the window frame.  Paterson steps up
behind him, his look on Ace, and his arm on the Doctor's shoulder,
pulling him to face him.  "I wouldn't be that age again if they paid me,
would you?"  "I can't remember," replies the Doctor, "It's too long ago."

Paterson walks out the door, the Doctor following out the door but then
turning to look for signs of the cat.  "What a world to be young again
in eh?" comments Paterson as he unchains his bicycle from a rack.
"I reckon the only thing you can do is to teach them to fight, that
way they'll fight or go under, and half of 'em go under 'round here
anyway."  The Doctor turns away from the grass and back to Paterson
as Paterson calls an undefined group of young people "wasters."
The Doctor asks Paterson if the town has a problem with stray cats.
Paterson says he wouldn't know, that's hardly a priority around here.
He freed his bicycle from its rack and begins mounting it as Ace once
again tells the Doctor to come on.  "Doctor, eh?" asks the Sergeant.
He notices the Doctor's body and tells him he's not in the best of shape
himself.  If he wants to build himself up, he teaches a class here at
the Youth Club Monday nights for the older men.  The Doctor ignores the
offer, turns away and says he has to go and see a man about a cat.
He walks ahead, Ace joining him as he reaches the tree she was leaning
on in wait for him, and Paterson shouting to them to remember to keep
fit and to learn self-defense.  "One finger can be a deadly weapon!"
The Doctor and Ace ignore him, but a black cat in the grass near theiir
feet does not ignore them, it follows them with its head, baring its
teeth as they pass....

LOCAL WOMAN STILL MISSING!  POLICE ABANDON HOPE!  so reads the headline
marker on a newsstand for the Gazette on the sidewalk of Perivale's
"High Street."  Ace is telling the Doctor how everything still looks the
same; dead.  She and her friends were the only life there ever was around
here.  She spots a cafe on the street, turns and smiles to the Doctor,
saying she should have tried in this place first.  She tells him she'll
be back in a sec, but again the Doctor seems to only half-listen to
her, as he studies the headline on the newsstand.  He turns his head
to his left, sees a small food market, and steps inside the shop door.

Muzak insults ours and the Doctor's ears as the little alien steps into
the food market.  He turns a wire grocery basket over in his hand, 
wondering what he should do with it.  He puts it down as he sees the
area of interest he wants, and the muzak fades into the background of
a conversation between two men at opposite ends of the store.
Near the entrance stands a bulky man in his thirties with a brown
mustache reading a newspaper and leaning against a till counter whilst
his friend/employee/partner stands at the other end of the aisle with 
a marking gun in his hand, pricing groceries on the shelf before his
also slightly roly-poly thirtyish body and paler, wider, mustacheless
face.  "You think I wanna do it?" he tells the man at the counter.
The man responds that he doesnt wanna do it either.  He doesn't really
like giving up his one day of rest to come in here and stand behind a
cash register.  "Standing behind a till all day can do your back in,"
warns the marking-man, "I saw something about that on the news the other
night."  Mustache-man reminds his friend that all these other shops are
open today too, and asks where'd they'd be if they didn't join in.
Both leave their respective sides of the store and meet in the middle,
where the Doctor stands between them regarding the cat food section
of the aisle.  The man with the m arking gun asks the Doctor if he can help
him, and the Doctor says yes and asks which one he thinks they'd prefer.
The man with the mustache asks him what he means, and the Doctor clarifies
that he's looking for the brand of cat food that their feline friends would
find particularly irrestible.  The marking man shows him a can and tells
him that if he believes the advertisers, these ones are the ones preferred
by your cat connousier.  "While these ones," chimes in his friend with
a different can, "have the taste that all cat owners who really care put
in a dish."  "While these ones," says the marking gun man again with another
can, placing this can in the Doctor's rapdly filling arms, "have the smell
that drives a tabby cat wild."  "No, that's an aftershave ad," corrects
his mustached friend.  "Is it?" asks the marker man, and the mustached
man thinks again that perhaps it's for cars.  
The Doctor is looking very confused between them, looking for an answer,
and the man with the marker gives it when he tells him his "Tiger"
prefers cheese.  The Doctor's face brightens and he walks down the aisle
toward some coolers and the dairy section.  
The mustache man smiles at his friend and starts telling him a joke-story,
"There are these two blokes in a tent right..."  "You've got another one
for me haven't you?" interrupts the marker man, and the mustached man
smiles and resumes,"...and they're in the jungle.  Suddenly they hear
this terrible noise, outside the tent, this terrible roaring noise.
The onle bloke turns to the other one and says 'Did you hear that?'
'What?' 'I said did you hear that?  That was a lion!'"
The Doctor, after shaking some packets of cheese by his ear, turns back
to the two men at this point in their conversation with that "look"
in his eyes, and he slowly put purposefully walks back to the two men,
looking carefully.  The mustached man continues his story, "And the
other bloke, he doesn't say anything, he just starts putting on his
running shoes.  The one bloke bloke turns to the other one and says,
'What are you doing?  You can't outrun a lion!'  The other bloke
turns to him and he says, 'I don't have to outrun the lion!'"
Both men smile and laugh, and then the marking gun man stops laughing
with a confused lok on his face, saying he doesn't get it.
The Doctor, standing behind them now and looking into one of the
shelves full of cans and jars, provides the explanation.
"He doesn't have to outrun the lion.  Only his friend.  Then the lion
catches up with his friend and eats him.  The strong survive.  The
weak are killed.  The law of the jungle."  "Oh, yes, very clever,"
says the marking gun man a little petutantly.  "Yes, very clever,"
agrees the Doctor, "If you don't mind losing your friend."
Both men stand behind the Doctor now, but we realize we aren't watching
them as we were, we are again looking through the deep red/yellow eyes
of a black and furry cat, looking through the cans on the shelf at
the Doctor, who questions, "But what happens when the next lion turns up?"
And as the man with the mustache asks "What next lion?" the Doctor
points into the shelf, and the cat leaps into the aisle with a loud
meow, onto the floor, and out the door of the store.  
The two men stand back, surprised, but the Doctor is not, and he turns
and steps out of the store, telling the men that they'd better get their
rnning shoes on.

Outside the shop, Ace sits with her head resting on her hands at a table, a
depressing Sunday look on her face.  The Doctor stpes out of the shop,
peeking his head over his armsful of cat foods and cheese, asking Ace
if she's found her friends.  "No one even remembers them," she says,
her head bobbing up as her jaw moves up.  
The man with the mustache follows the Doctor out of the store with a slightly
angry look on his face.  The Doctor says he's sure he's forgotten something.
the man reaches the Doctor and tells him he's forgotten something.
the Doctor looks hopefully at the man, waiting for the answer, and when
the man holds out his outstretched hand for the money the Doctor hasn't
yet paid, the Doctor looks down disappointedly as that isn't the answer.
He steps to Ace's table, where he sees a pile of coins.  She tells him
she got "lucky" on a fruit machine.  "Lucky?" he doubts, and she excuses
herself saying all those machines are fixed anyway.

The marking-gun man has traded his marking gun for a torch (flashlight)
and is searching the darkness of a back room with the light beam
and whistling for his cat "Tiger."  The beam lights up something, and
a disgusted look smears the man's features.  He shouts for Len, and
the man with the mustache comes in the back room asking what the matter
is.  The other bloke turns to him and he says, "Something's eaten Tiger."
On the floor, in the glow of the torch, lies the mangled and bloody corpse
of a dead and mostly-eaten cat....

Coins clink and crash together inside a metal can held by a vacant-looking
dark-haired girl in her late teens.  "Ange!" shouts Ace from across the
street, and Ace crosses the street in a rush to talk with the first
friend she's managed to meet today.  The Doctor follows at his own pace,
and looks around at anything but Ace and Ange as they talk.
Ange first asks who the Doctor is, and Ace says he's a friend of hers.
Ange asks if Ace is back to see her family, and Ace says a slightly
surprised "No," as if this were the last thing on her mind.  "So what
are you doing here?" asks Ange, "You were well out of this dump."
Ace says she came back just to see her old friends and catch up a bit.
She asks where everyone else is.   Like Jay.  Ange says she's not sure,
she thinks he moved over west someplace and is doing window cleaning
or something like that.  That's what she's heard.  "Flo?" asks Ace,
and Ange says she married Darth.  Ace laughs, "Darth Vader the brain-dead
plumber?  Flo?"  Ange smiles and notes how that makes you think.  
Ace asks about Shreela, and Ange says she's gone.  Ace asks about Midge,
and Ange says he's gone too.  Ace aks what she means by gone and Ange 
says they're just gone.  Vanished.  "People don't just vanish,"
disbelieves Ace.  Ange reminds her that she did, but Ace says that's
different.  She asks, "So, when did they go?"  Ange says last month,
well, no, Midge and Stevie went last month.  Shreela went last week
and they had to scrape her Mum off the ceiling.  Ange remarks that
one's funny as she had always thought Shreela got on well with her family.
Ace agrees that it just doesn't make sense.  Ange tells her her theory,
that it's the work of UFOs arriving to whisk them off and do experiments
on them like people do with animals.  
Ange shakes her coin can and tells Ace to give her ten pence then for the
charity she's collecting for.  Ace pulls a small coin out of her jacket
pocket and slots it inside the can.  Ange turns and shakes the can in
front of the Doctor's face.  He looks up at ANge like this is the first
time he's seen her, and takes the can and regards it in his hand and
ponders out loud, "Not a very efficient way to hunt is it?  All that
noise and pantomime just to slaughter one little animal."  He hands
the can back to Ange and continues his thoughts, "No, if you're going
to hunt, you stalk your prey.  You observe it, and then you don't kill too 
many.  You cover your tracks, so you don't leave a smell."
He sniffs the air and asks, "Can you smell that?"
Ange's nasal voice replies she can't because of her hayfever.  Concern
crosses Ace's face as she asks the Doctor if something is going on here.
He turns his back to her as he says he's not sure.  He takes a can of
cat foodout of the sack he's now carrying, taps it on his lips and 
asks himself the question, "When is a cat not a cat?"  he answers it
too, "When it builds its own cat-flap!"  "Bait, Ace, bait..."
and he begins walking down the street.  Ace shouts for him to wait up,
waves goodbye to Ange, and starts running after him.

"Show me.   Show me!"  commands the unseen, dark face.  At first the
man's eyes are a normal blue, but then they begin to glow yellow
as he again sees through the eyes of another, another cat...

A black and furry cat stands on a wall and watches the yellow-jerseyed
young man from Paterson's self-defense class jogging down the street.

"Yes, he'll do very well," says the man.

The young man jogs into the middle of the vacant street, and stops as
he sees something, and a wind blows through his hair.  He looks in
fear at something standing higher above him, and tries to stumble away
up the street.  Like the car-washer before him, he falls..a light
explodes from within him, a noise punctuates the air, and when the
flash disappears in an instant, the street is quiet.  The wind is
gone, the man is gone, and the street is empty.

"I can't believe he said that you know," says Ace as she follows the
Doctor up a sidewalk.  "T.A. twit.  I reckon that was well out of order.
Ten pence."  As Ace insults Paterson, the Doctor stops in the sidewalk,
and puts a bowl on the ground, also digging out some of his cans of
cat food, and he realizes what he forgot back at the store.
"Tin opener," he mutters.  "I mean even if I could have phoned,"
continues Ace, "which I couldn't really, do you think anyone would have
listened to me?"  The Doctor holds out his hand to Ace and repeats
"Tin opener!" loud enough for her to hear this time.  She reaches into
a pocket and pulls out just such a device, and puts it into his hand.
He then uses it to begin opening one of the tins of cat food.
"Professor?" she asks, "Are you listening to me?"
"Quiet Ace," he tells her, "I'm concentrating!"  He opens one of the cans,
and begins pouring the food into the bowl.  
Ace walks up the street, shaking her head at the Doctor's activities,
without the faintest idea of what he's on about, turns her head, and
continues up the street.
The Doctor finishes filling the bowl, and leaves it and the empty cans
to sit on the sidewalk.  He then goes behind a fence on the property
of the house he's set up in front of, and hides, watching his bowl
of cat food.  
A small cat comes to the bowl a few seconds later, but this is a different
colored cat, a white and brown one, and the Doctor mutters that this isn't
the one he's after.  
He is in the garden of the woman we saw shooing away cats earlier, and
she knocks on her window and mouths something like "You go away!"
at the Doctor.  He turns and says "Quiet!" then goes back to his little
trap, to watch the normal cat run away.  He looks up and doesn't see
any others in sight, then sits down to wait again.

Ace sits on a slowly spinning merry-go-round in a playground, looking
depressed.  She sees a black and furry cat sitting next to a set of
swings nearby, and she walks over to it, picking it up in her arms,
petting it and sitting down in one of the tire-seat swings.
The cat looks at us, showing us glowing yellow eyes and baring its
teeth and hissing, and it leaps from Ace's lap onto the ground.
A wind starts blowing up behind Ace, she stands and turns to look at
its source, and hears a sudden zapping noise.
A horse's loud neigh bears down on Ace, a horse with a saddle and a rider.
Ace looks admiringly at the horse and the rider and mouths "Wow!"
Ace gets a close look at the rider when it leans toward her, it seems
to be humanoid in form, covered in yellow and black fur, as with a 
cheetah, its hands end in four digits, its face like a cat's with glowing
yellow-green eyes, andrazor-sharp teeth that it bares from its mouth
as it leans and growls at Ace.   
Ace realizes this creatrure isn't friendly, and she runs.  First onto
the merry-go-round, the cheetah creature following easily and quickly
on its steed.  Ace runs across the merry-go-round and up onto a 
slippery slide, jumping from the top of this, down and across to another
slide, down from ths as the cheetah chases, and inside a large dome
of a jungle gym.  The cheetah circles it, the sound of the rushing wind
nearing but not reaching a climax.  "Doctor!" shouts Ace at the top of her
lungs.

A dog has found the Doctor's bait and is happily eating the food.
The Doctor tries to shoo it away from behind the fence, and then he
hears Ace's cries.  He picks up himself and his umbrella and runs
up the street.

"Doctor!" shouts Ace again.  The cheetah continues to circle the gym,
and Ace waits for it to get on one side before she darts out the other
side of the gym.  The cheetah takes chase on its horse, swiftly
gaining ground on the less mobile Ace.  It has almost caught up with her
when she turns round to face it, and as the Cheetah nears, the wind
reaches a peak, and with a zapping sound, a flash of light appears
from Ace herself.....

...and she's off.  The light receded back inside her, and she looks 
around at a very strange and clearly alien landscape.  The ground is
barren, like a desert of rock with only a few bits of bushes growing
here and there.  The sky is what really marks this place, however, it
is a deep shade of pinkish red.  
Ace looks round quickly, then stumbles down this hill she's landed on,
falling into the dusty ground at its base.

The Doctor reaches the playground and finds only a swinging swing to
show that Ace was ever there.  The Doctor looks around and talks to
himself and the unseen ACe, "So, they've taken you away to their planet.
But I'll find you," he promsises.

Deep, billowing clouds rent the pink sky above this alien world, whilst
a volcano issues blue smoke high into the air.  
Ace picks herself slowly up and looks something, a dead body.
She approaches and sees it to be a young man with a sponge in his hand,
his corpse being eaten by two black and furry cats.
Ace looks up with a look on her face that people get when they want to
throw up, but her own survival takes precedence over her disgust when
she hears a roar from up the hill.  There stands the cheetah on its
horse.  It howls again, and kicks its horse into action, pursuing ACe
down the  hill, both resuming their chase...

The Doctor returns to his little trap and finds a small and black and
furry cat nibbling at the cat food in the bowl.  The Doctor sneaks
up to it very gently and slowly, ready to grab the back of its neck,
whispering "Got you!" as he reaches for it, and something grabs the
back of his neck, a hand belonging to Sergeant Paterson.  "Got you!"
he yells, scaring off the cat.  "Now what do you think you're up to?"
"Sergeant!" cries the Doctor as he tries to wriggle out of Paterson's
grasp.  "I've had complaints," says Paterson.  "What's that got to do
with you?" asks the Doctor, and Paterson explains he's part of the
neighborhood watch.  The Doctor tells him he's got no time for that as
he's got to catch that cat.  "Don't be stupid and don't get yourse;f
into real trouble!" says Paterson, and the Doctor finally has enough,
placing his finger on Paterson's forehead above his nose and exerting
his mind-stun trick.  Paterson falls to the sidewalk, the Doctor looks
at his finger, says "One finger can be a deadly weapon," and sets off
in a chase after the cat.

Ace is the chasee in a chase on another world.  The cheetah with its
horse is closing the gab between Ace and itself very easily, and it gives
a few triumphant howls into the air.  Ace's legs give out from under her,
the cheetah creature dismounts and slowly stalks up to Ace, its paws
outstretched.  "Get away from here!" they both hear and both turn to
see the yellow-jerseyed young self-defense student creeping out from
the underbrush and trying to draw the cheetah's attention.  It works,
only too well, and the cheetah runs to the boy instead, tackling him,
and clawing him until he is dead, the boy unable to defend himself except
with a couple of cries of pain.  Ace looks on helplessly and looks for
a weapon to use against the creature, picking up a large rock out of the
sand.  The cheetah runs toward Ace, and before Ace can strike it, it 
knocks her down and runs past her, remounting its horse.  Ace watches as
the cheetah walks its horse over to the dead boy's body, leans over
and picks him up off the ground, laying him across its horse.  It looks
down at Ace but does not attack and rides off, slowly, back up a hill.
"Ace!" whispers a voice.  Ace looks into the underbrush and sees the
face of someone she recognizes, "Shreela!"  Ace runs to her side,
and Shreela tells her she shouldn't have run, because they always go
for you if you run.  Ace takes Shreela's dark-skinned hand, and follows
the young woman in tattered clothes into the underbrush behind her.

The Doctor is crouched on all fours, crawling toward a set of metal 
garbage cans, telling his quarry to just come out and talk about this
sensibly.  The black and furry cat leaps out of the garbage cans
and down the alley, the Doctor getting up and pursuing it.  Paterson
appears on his biccyle at the other end of the alley, telling the
Doctor to stop and come back to him, then setting off in pursuit
of the Doctor on his bicycle.

Shreela leads Ace into a small camp where two young men sit in front
of a small fire.  Both's clothes are just as torn and tattered as
Shreela's.  Ace recognizes the older boy, calling him "Midge!"
She asks if Stevie is here too, and Shreela says he was.
"Stevie?" laughs Midge, "He's cat food isn't he?"  The other boy
laughs nervously, a near-insanity kind of look in his eyes.
Midge introduces him as Derek, who's been here three weeks and is
doing quite well since he's only got flesh wounds.
"This is well I'm here," says Ace, "You need sorting out, you lot."

The small and black and furry cat sits on a street wall, and the Doctor
catches up to it.  He climbs up on the wall behind it and crawls
slowly toward it.   He reaches its neck, nearly grabs hold again,
when Sergeant Paterson grabs his ankle.  The Doctor kicks against
his grasp, telling him to get off, when the black cat leaps from
the wall, the zap-light flashing, the Doctor and Paterson falling....

....into another world.  
"You stupid..." snarls the Doctor angrily at Paterson laying next
to him.  A growl alerts them both and they look to see a cheetah-like
person growling at them there in the barren and dusty yellow soil 
beneath the pinkish red clouds in this alien sky.
"where the hell are we?" asks Paterson.  
"Shut up," orders the Doctor, "and we may survive."
They slowly get to their feet, and take stock of their surroundings.
They stand in a flat region of rocky desert surrounded by small hills,
surrounded by a circle of cheetah creatures.  The cheetah creatures,
at least a dozen of them, probably more, slowly close on them and drive
them backwards, back towards where two tents made of animal hide
stand.  Clearly, they are being driven to the nearest tent, and the Doctor
turns and uses his umbrella to push aside the flap of the tent, to
allow the weird alien light inside....
...where it lights the face of a man, a man with a round and saturnine
	face, with dark slicked hair, a dark moustache lining his
	mouth, and blue, lively or deathly eyes that glow yellow
	as he speaks.
		"Why Doctor," says the MASTER.
	the Doctor returns his look with an angry snarl forming on his
	face, as the Master completes his greeting,...
		"What an unexpected pleasure."


END PART ONE


The Doctor
SYLVESTER McCOY
Ace
SOPHIE ALDRED
The Master
ANTHONY AINLEY
Paterson
JULIAN HOLLOWAY
Karra
LISA BOWERMAN
Harvey 			Len
GARETH HALE		NORMAN PACE
Midge			Shreela
WILLIAM BARTON		SAKUNTALA RAMANEE
Derek			Stuart
DAVID JOHN		SEAN OLIVER
Ange			Woman
KATE EADON		KATHLEEN BIDMEAD

Title Music Composed by	Theme Arrangement
RON GRAINER		KEFF McCULLOCH
Incidental Music
DOMINIC GLYNN
Special Sound
DICK MILLS

Production Manager	Production Assistant
GARY DOWNIE		VALERIE WHISTON
Assistant Floor Managers
STEPHEN DARWOOD		LEIGH POOLE
Visual Effects Designer	Video Effects
MALCOLM JAMES		DAVE CHAPMAN
Vision Mixer		Graphic Designer
SUSAN BRINCAT		OLIVER ELMES
Properties Buyer	Engineering Manager
NICK BARNETT		BRIAN JONES
OB Cameramen
PAUL HARDING		ALAN JESSOP
Videotape Editor	Lighting
HUGH PARSON		IAN DOW
Sound
LES MOWBRAY		SCOTT TALBOTT
Costume Designer	Make-Up Designer
KEN TREW		JOAN STRIBLING

Script Editor
ANDREW CARTMEL
Production Associate
JUNE COLLINS
Designer
NICK SOMERVILLE
Producer
JOHN NATHAN-TURNER
Director
ALAN WAREING

episode copyright BBC-Tv  MCMLXXXIX

this synopsis by Steven.K.Manfred@uwrf.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho