The Highest Science ( novel ) The Highest Science , published in 1993 , is the eleventh book in the Virgin New Adventures series . It was written by Gareth Roberts and features the Seventh Doctor and Bernice Summerfield . Publisher ' s summary . " Sakkrat " . Many legends speak of this world , home of an ancient empire destroyed by its own greatest achievement : the Highest Science , the pinnacle of technological discovery . When the TARDIS alerts the Doctor and Bernice to the presence of an enormous temporal fluctuation on a large , green , unremarkable planet , they are not to know of any connection with the legend . But the connection is there , and it will lead them into conflict with the monstrous Chelonian s , with their contempt for human parasites ; into adventure with a group of youngsters whose musical taste has suddenly become dangerously significant ; and will force them to face Sheldukher , the most wanted criminal in the galaxy . Plot . The TARDIS approaches the planet Hogsuum in the year 2680 . The Doctor is in pursuit of a temporal phenomenon called a Fortean flicker , which creates coincidences and pulls people and things from their proper places and times . His research leads him to a 25th - century scholar named Gustav Urnst , with whom Bernice Summerfield is familiar , and who allegedly found and wrote about the fabled planet of Sakkrat . His writings speak of the Highest Science , the pinnacle of Sakkratian technology ; but what it is , no one can say . Urnst himself disappeared before revealing his answers . Could Hogsuum be Sakkrat ? On the planet Vaagon , a Chelonian assault force is mopping up a human colony , when the Fortean flicker transports the Chelonians to Hogsuum . The force ' s commanding general , Fakrid , prematurely delivers a clutch of stillborn eggs , which begins to drive him mad . He sends his troops into battle , where they confront the mysterious " eight twelves " , but they are repelled by intelligent weaponry . At the same time , the TARDIS arrives , and the Doctor and Benny meet a human named Rodomonte . Strangely , he seems to know them , at least by description . Faced with the Chelonian threat , the Doctor sends Benny and Rodomonte away to safety while he stays near the TARDIS . In orbit , another ship arrives , guided by an engineered being called the Cell . It awakens its crew : first , unwilling participants and master thieves Rosheen and Klift , then the psychotic warrior Postine , and then the worst of them all : the expedition ' s leader , the storied criminal Sheldukher . They have been asleep for three hundred years , while the Cell searched for Sakkrat — and now it has found the planet , or so it believes . Sheldukher reasserts control over his crew by prematurely ageing Klift , forcing Rosheen to obey . The Cell can ' t properly scan the surface , but it telepathically contacts the Doctor , who is the first person to ever show kindness to it in its tortured existence . However , its power overwhelms him and knocks him out , and the Chelonians capture him . Benny happens upon a swamp creature that hypnotises its victims . Rodomonte gathers his two friends , Sendei and Molassi , who are behaving oddly ; the trio also came here by way of the Fortean flicker , transported from the Ragasteen Music Festival of 2112 . Sendei goes after Benny , provoking Molassi in the process ; Molassi begins growing progressively more insane and dangerous . Sendei rescues Benny and takes her back to the camp , giving her drinks from a dispenser that they found after arrival . Unknown to them , the drink is from their relative future , but her past ; it is called bubbleshake , and though developed as an appetite suppressant when coupled with a certain medication , by itself it is highly addictive and eventually deadly , with many mental side effects including amnesia and paranoia . As all three men have been drinking it , all of them are beginning to show the effects , with Molassi the most affected . He believes himself to be the Wizard King , adapted from the lyrics of his favourite band — lyrics which , coincidentally , seem to perfectly describe the situation they are all facing . . . As Benny consumes the bubbleshake , she too is affected , and soon forgets herself , the TARDIS , and the Doctor . As the Chelonians move to attack the Eight Twelves , the Doctor intervenes . Bluffing , he persuades the Chelonians to let him deal with the threat . He finds that the “ Eight Twelves ” are twentieth - century humans ; they were on the # 812 bus when they were transported here by the Fortean flicker . Two of their number , Vanessa and Hazel , happened upon the intelligent weapons — also deposited by the flicker — that have heretofore kept them alive . The Doctor gets them behaving in a way that contributes to survival , and goes back to announce their “ destruction ” to the Chelonians . . . only to find that the Chelonians have been monitoring , and know that he deceived them . He is saved , however , when Sheldukher ' s ship lands , and transmits a sonic signal that temporarily disables the Chelonians . Molassi ' s speeder craft carries his group , and Benny , to a ruined city before breaking down . This is the location Molassi , in his madness , has been seeking , and he runs on ahead to a ruined temple . Caught in addiction , he demands more of the bubbleshake , but the dispenser is empty . Enraged , he kills Sendei . At the temple , he meets ghosts , which probe his mind for a certain response , but do not receive it . The ghosts reject him , and give him visions which disillusion him , causing him to commit suicide . Rodomonte , too , is found and probed by the ghosts , and subsequently commits suicide . However , the ghosts get the response they seek from Benny , and let her live . She subsequently passes out inside the city from bubbleshake withdrawal . Sheldukher threatens the Eight Twelves to get the Doctor to lead him to Sakkrat city . The Doctor reluctantly does so , following Urnst ' s cryptic directions , which Sheldukher had never seen , having been in cryo - sleep at its publication . To discourage the Chelonians as he departs , Sheldukher kills four of him ; however , this drives General Fakrid into a frenzy , and he takes his troops to follow Sheldukher to the city , several thousand miles away . As Sheldukher ' s ship lands at the city , the Cell locks everyone inside and tries to destroy the ship and end its own life — and take revenge on Sheldukher in the process — but the Doctor is able to get everyone out , including the Cell . However , the self - destruction leaves them stranded here , far from the TARDIS . The Doctor finds Benny , and manages to repair her mind telepathically , although she will still require medical treatment for the addiction and its effects . She too knows Sheldukher by reputation . Sheldukher sets Postine to hold off the pursuing Chelonians while the others enter the temple . The battle outside brings down part of the structure , trapping Klift ; but he subsequently confronted by the ghosts , and dies . The Doctor seems to recognise the ghosts . Postine manages to mortally wound the general , but dies in the process . Before dying , Fakrid passes command to his First Pilot , Jinkwa , whom he reveals to secretly be his son . Jinkwa , however , is already stressed past breaking , and is just as mad as Fakrid . Benny and Rosheen escape the city , but are caught by the Chelonians , and Rosheen is killed . Benny is transmatted to safety by the ghosts . Jinkwa orders a suicide mission to destroy the city ; two of the three suicide operatives carry out the mission , but are transported beyond the city by the ghosts before they can explode . The third , in an attack of conscience , returns to stop Jinkwa , and detonates near his command vehicle ; however two other vehicles take the explosion instead . The Doctor , Benny , and Sheldukher , with the Cell , pass through a strange chamber , a slow - time conversion chamber , which matches them to the slower passage of time beneath the city . This field of slowed time would protect whatever it encloses , possibly for millions of years . They are attacked by a robotic monster called the Monumental Guardian , but it lets them go after trying to scare them . Sheldukher is then captured by a containment field . Two humanoid genetic Constructs approach the group , and demand that they return Project FXX Q84 . . . also known as the Cell . Finally the Doctor explains . Three hundred years prior , Sheldukher stole the embryonic Cell from a horrific research world called Checkley ' s World , planning to use it to find Sakkrat . When Sheldukher vanished , the controlling firm of Checkley ' s World created a plan to trap him and recover the Cell , which had the power to become the greatest mind in existence . They altered the planet Hogsuum to more perfectly match Sakkrat ' s description , and created the various guardians and traps in order to lure in Sheldukher and recover the cell . However , the slow - time chamber ' s control globe became faulty , creating the Fortean flicker . The Doctor makes his way to the control globe and shuts off the faulty circuit , ending the flicker ; however , shutting down the rest of the system proves impossible . Sheldukher overcomes that problem , however , when he cannot handle the truth , and kills himself ; but he is wearing a powerful explosive on a deadman switch and a timer , and in fifteen minutes it will vaporise everything for a thousand miles around . The Doctor and Benny flee try to flee via the facility ' s emergency transmat , and are attacked by the Monumental Guardian along the way ; they escape seconds before the explosive detonates . The Doctor and Benny materialise near the TARDIS , only to find the Chelonians about to wipe out the Eight Twelves using a lethal Zarathion gas . Using the facility ' s control globe , he freezes the area in slow time , saving the lives of all the survivors , but leaving them as a problem to be worked out another day ; he cannot enter the slow - time field , as it would kill him at this level . With Benny , he returns to the TARDIS . Inside , he administers the antidote to the bubbleshake , and she slowly recovers over several days ; when she is fully recovered , he celebrates by taking her to 1935 Earth , for a meeting with Virginia Woolf , or — failing that — a night at the theatre . As they exit the TARDIS , they fail to see that it is behaving oddly ; and later , they find that it has moved itself to another spot nearby . In the theatre , they watch the show before getting bored and leaving for other worlds , without realising that Gustav Urnst , the lost scholar , is there , having been displaced by the Fortean flicker to this historic time . Urnst watches them go , and muses on their existence as travellers from the future .