Deceit ( novel ) Deceit was the thirteenth novel in the Virgin New Adventures series . It was written by Peter Darvill - Evans and released in 1993 . It features the Seventh Doctor , Ace and Bernice . This was the first novel to crossover elements of " Doctor Who Magazine ' s " comic stories with the novel range . The events of " Nemesis of the Daleks " are directly referenced . Publisher ' s summary . " " Take Arcadia apart if you have to . " " The middle of the twenty - fifth century . The Second Dalek War is drawing to an untidy close . Earth ' s Office of External Operation is trying to extend its influence over the corporation s that have controlled human - occupied space since man first ventured to the stars . Agent Isabelle Defries is leading one expedition . Among her barely - controllable squad is an explosives expert who calls herself Ace . Their destination : Arcadia . A non - technological paradise ? A living laboratory for a centuries - long experiment ? Fuel for a super - being ? Even when Ace and Benny discover the truth , the Doctor refuses to listen to them . Nothing is what it seems to be . Plot . In an unknown location , an ageing man named Bertrand links with a vast , telepathic presence . The presence concludes that , although the war between Earth and the Daleks will soon end in a victory for Earth , the end of the war will mean an early end to the presence ' s experiments . As such they are accelerating the pace . Bertrand is too old and frail to continue serving as the presence ' s link to the real world , and must train his successor ; but when his successor forcefully displaces him , he dies before he can do so . In dying , he is unable to join the presence in its immortality . Near the end of the Dalek Wars of the twenty - fourth and twenty - fifth centuries , Earth is consolidating its grip on the colonies which were formerly managed by interstellar corporations . One such is Arcadia , owned and heavily guarded by the Spinward Corporation . Earth ' s Office of External Operations is certain something illegal is going on ; and when an expedition fails to return , their suspicions are reinforced . Agent Isabelle Defries is dispatched to the system with a shipload of auxiliary troops — troops long ago drafted in from the security forces of various corporations — to find out what is going on , and to put a stop to it . One of her Auxies is not who she claims to be , and Defries soon meets her : a young woman , an explosives expert , calling herself Ace . Unwilling to waste resources , she leaves Ace free , but monitors her . Ace learns of a secret weapon on the ship : a cryofrozen Dalek Killer named Abslom Daak . It ' s a name she remembers from the TARDIS databanks ; and she knows how Daak will one day die , far from Arcadia . Determined to keep him alive to preserve that future , she forges a link with Daak , and wakes him up a day early . Meanwhile , the hypercube that the Doctor once left with her opens , connecting her to the TARDIS and the Doctor for the first time in three years from her perspective . She finds the Doctor in the Zero Room , where he has finally managed to isolate the infection that has afflicted the TARDIS — and by extension , him — since leaving Tir na n - Óg . With her help , he is able to at last purge the infection , restoring himself and the TARDIS to normal . As Ace withdraws , he sets the TARDIS to land on Arcadia , where Ace is headed . Upon landing , Benny — who has been trapped in the console room , unaware of the Doctor ' s work — exits the TARDIS and explores the rather pastoral world . Arcadia is an agricultural planet with a population living at a medieval level of technology and culture . An apprentice scribe named Francis has found forbidden books , which spoke of other worlds , and which stated that humans on those worlds live for many decades — unlike the Arcadians , who all die young , around the age of thirty . He is accosted in his prince ' s palace by a Humble Counsellor , a hooded and robed figure from the fortress of Landfall , who tells him he must go to Landfall to become a master scribe . The Counsellor then tells the Prince that outsiders are coming from another world , carrying a plague , and must be killed . Francies goes out with his lover , Christina , and tells her what he has heard ; shortly thereafter , she dies , apparently of natural causes . However , her younger sister , Elaine , witnesses her death , and sees that her brain is removed by a Counsellor . Elaine subsequently goes mad from shock ; it is determined that she will go to Landfall for treatment . Elsewhere , a young woman named Britta , an employee of the Spinward Corporation , arrives on the corporation ' s monitoring station for Arcadia . Shortly thereafter she is taken in by the station commander , Lacuna , who has an odd telepathic connection to an unseen being called Pool . She is manipulated by Lacuna to do terrible things for Pool ' s enjoyment , as Pool has no sensory input of its own . She becomes addicted to this warped relationship . Defries ' ship , the " Admiral Raistrick " , nears the planet shortly after Daak is defrosted . The crew finds that the system ' s asteroid belt has been manipulated to resemble enormous tortured faces . They are attacked by the image of a woman ' s face , and the ship is crushed ; Daak manages to get Ace , Defries , and Johannsen , the head of the Auxies , into a lifepod . The pod crashes on Arcadia . Meanwhile , Benny makes her way to the nearest town , Beaufort , but is captured as a potential plague carrier . She is taken to a quiet manor owned by the father of Elaine and Christina , Gerald Delahaye . In a cell , she meets Elaine , who is nearly catatonic ; the child responds to Benny ' s kindness , and begins to make jumbled statements about Christina ' s murder . However , Gerald gives them both to the Counsellors for transport — or transmat , as it turns out — to Landfall . The Doctor exits the TARDIS sometime later , and meets Francis on the road to Landfall . As they walk , Pool sends Counsellors to bring the TARDIS to the station . The Doctor realises that Arcadia has been terraformed , but now its terraforming is breaking down , and the native life is reasserting itself . He and Francis are captured by Counsellors , which the Doctor recognises as a bizarre type of android . He realises that he may be indirectly responsible for what is happening here . They are reunited with Benny and Elaine at Landfall , then transmatted to the space station . The Doctor explains that his previous efforts to help the Earth by interfering with the Butler Institute may have caused all this ; had he not interfered , Butler may not have gone on to become one of the parent companies of the Spinward Corporation , and Arcadia may never have happened . Meanwhile , Defries ' group fights their way into Landfall , noting that it is the corporation ' s original forward base on the planet . Johannsen is killed in the battle against the Counsellors . Nevertheless , Lacuna secretly allows them to infiltrate the base and capture a shuttle , which takes them to the space station as well . The Doctor and his group encounter Lacuna and Britta , and Lacuna introduces them to Pool . Pool is the telepathic presence holding the system together ; it is composed of the brains of the Spinward Corporation ' s executives , with the addition of hundreds of pieces of brain matter from generations of Arcadians , all contained in a literal pool around control centre of the station . Lacuna ' s claims were true ; she provides a sensory and interface link to Pool , which on its own is deprived of sensation . As such , she also controls the system . The Doctor realises that Pool is capable of Block Transfer Computation , the same mathematical technique by which TARDISes create their outer shells — a form of math that can create matter . Pool ' s goal is to create an entire universe , one of pure thought , in which it can exist forever . However , the Doctor analyses the plan and finds it doomed to failure ; although the planned destruction of the Arcadian System will provide power , it won ' t be enough , and at any rate Pool has become mad and can no longer handle enough calculation . As Defries ' team arrives , Lacuna tries to kill Defries , considering her unnecessary . The Doctor intervenes telepathically , saving the woman ' s life . While Lacuna is distracted , Benny slips away and meets with them , then fills them in on what is happening . She goes with them to locate and destroy Pool . Finding the pool of brain matter , Daak prepares to sacrifice himself to blow it up ; but the Doctor contacts Ace and persuades her to stop him , so that his timeline will not be damaged . This saves Daak ' s life , but saves Pool ' s as well . The group is captured and brought to Lacuna . Pool , it seems , wants the TARDIS . It has gathered enough from the minds of Benny and Ace — the Doctor ' s thoughts being shielded — to know that it can provide Pool with the power and space it needs to create its universe of thought . To persuade the Doctor , it intends to kill his companions one by one , beginning with Ace . As it deploys a force field to crush her , Daak leaps in to save her — and Ace inadvertantly kills him , in an attempt to blow up the control panel . Although she is freed , she can ' t save him from death . The Doctor reluctantly agrees to let Pool into the TARDIS ; but how ? Benny recalls a conversation with the Doctor about a data port under the console ; the thoughts are picked up by Pool , who orders Lacuna to connect him manually to the socket . She does so , and Pool converts its consciousness to software , then makes the jump to the TARDIS ; with only limited memory available , it is unable to send a copy , but transfers the original . Instantly it is trapped inside the tertiary console , which the Doctor had moved to the Zero Room for the purpose of removing the TARDIS infection . Trapped in the Zero Room , Pool is disconnected from the rest of the universe , and can harm no one . Benny realises her conversation with the Doctor never happened ; he planted the memory in her mind so as to give Pool the final push it needed . The station begins to break apart , as Pool is no longer there to maintain the Block Transfer Computations ; Britta takes Lacuna to an escape pod . The Doctor , Benny , Ace , Defries , Elaine , and Francis escape in the TARDIS . The Doctor returns to Arcadia to release Francis and Elaine , and spends some time informing the various rulers that they are on their own now , and further , that they are facing environmental changes as the terraforming breaks down . He takes Defries and Ace to a Spacefleet outpost to report back to the Office of External Operations . Ace , however , decides to rejoin him in the TARDIS , much to Benny ' s consternation and the Doctor ' s concern . He then ejects the Zero Room into the Vortex ; however , unknown to him , Pool is alive and well , and plotting revenge . Meanwhile , Ace realises that Daak was a clone of the original Abslom Daak ; therefore his timeline was never in danger . Once again , the Doctor has used her . She continues to be distrustful of him — but then , why is she really here ?