The Heat-Seekers (short story)

The Heat-Seekers
Doctor:	[[doctor::Fourth Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Harry Sullivan Sarah Jane Smith
Main setting:	Dead Sea, Earth, Stone Age
Key crew
Writer:	Andrew Lowes
Release details
Printed in:	Doctor Who Magazine 117

Summary

Olag was one of the lucky few to be allowed to hunt while his tribe were held as slaves by the "melters-of-rock" who had arrived in their metal ships that were now drilling down through the rock, ever forward towards the centre of the Earth, forcing his people to work the mines by their new masters, ape-like creatures who carried "thundersticks" that sent bolts of light capable of melting rock itself except that Olag manages to steal a "thunderstick" from one of the creatures when it is buried in a cave collapse like so many of his people he runs further into the tunnels and encounters three more strangers (the Fourth Doctor, and his travelling companions Harry Sullivan and Sarah Jane Smith) who have a huge energy pattern on the scale of Hiroshima in 1945, so the Doctor has arrived to investigate with the TARDIS arriving in the tunnels, pausing to greet Olag and hiding from the invaders, which the Doctor recognises as Ronans from the planet Ronos - believed to be an extinct species from a world destroyed when the Ronans decided to drill to the heart of their own planet as it moved further away from the sun and became increasingly colder; This small band of survivors sought to do the same to the Earth in order to warm it up and had chosen the Dead Sea location, as one of the narrowest points in the Earths crust. except that Ronos was a dry world and the Ronans were allergic to salt water, so Olag uses the stolen "thunderstick", a laser-type weapon to weaken the tunnels and cause the Dead Sea to flood the tunnels, the Ronans are driven deepen through the caves which were then flooded as the Sea drained, even though The Sea fed by the River Jordan would soon fill up again, making the Doctor, Having parted the waters, recall the first time that was done, in the Red Sea, by Moses ...

Named Characters

• Doctor
• Harry Sullivan
• Sarah Jane Smith
• Olag

References

• The Doctor recalls witnessing the energy imprint of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
• Harry Sullivan seems able to operate the TARDIS well enough to "programme the commands" to compute the the outside atmospheric conditions.
• On a previous visit (a bit later), to the Dead Sea, the Doctor had helped develop a permenant ink for writing the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Notes

• This short story was the runner-up in the Under 15 Category in a competition run by Doctor Who Magazine in 1986 and printed in DWM 117.
• Written by reader Andrew Lowes aged 10, the story ran to nearly three pages and was illustrated by regular magazine artist John Ridgway, who donated the artwork as part of the prize that included a Sevans Dalek kit.

Continuity

• The TARDIS is able to show on its scanner its destination, which can be zoomed in.

Timeline

• This story takes place after
• This story takes place before