Whispers of Terror (audio story)

Whispers of Terror
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Peri
Main enemy:	Beth Pernell
Main setting:	Museum of Aural Antiquities
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Justin Richards
Director:	Gary Russell
Producer:	Jason Haigh-Ellery, Gary Russell
Music:	Nicholas Briggs
Sound:	Harvey Summers
Cover by:	James Arnott
Release details
Number of parts:	4
Release number:	3
Release date:	November 1999
Format:	2 CDs 2 cassettes Download
Production code:	6Z/A
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-84435-068-1 (physical) ISBN 978-1-84435-680-5 (digital)
Main Range
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Next →	The Land of the Dead

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Whispers of Terror was the third story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Justin Richards and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown.

Publisher's summary

The Doctor and Peri find themselves in the Museum of Aural Antiquities, where every sound is stored for posterity — from the speeches of Visteen Krane to security service wire taps and interrogation tapes. But they also find an intruder, mysteriously changed recordings, and a dead body.

Before long the Doctor realises that there is more going on than a simple break-in or murder. How can he defeat a creature that is made of pure sound?

Plot

Part one

Following his death during his election campaign, the recordings of acclaimed actor Visteen Krane's speeches are given to the Museum of Aural Antiquities curated by the blind Gantman who is assisted by research student Miles Napton. Amber Dent and Goff Fotherill break in to alter one of Krane's speeches and hear whistling which Fotherill goes to investigate. He hears somebody using Dent's voice and unwittingly trespasses outside the security archive where he is killed by the security system with a lethal charge, something that is reported to Gantman.

The TARDIS lands in the museum and the Doctor and Peri go to explore, although Peri is not especially enthused by the view of a dusty corridor on the scanner. They interrupt Dent as she alters Krane's speech and give chase when she runs away after deleting the change logs, but they come across Fotherill's corpse and are apprehended by Detective Berkeley, who believes them to be guilty of breaking and entering if not murder. Berkeley takes them to Gantman in his office and intends to take them into town to give statements.

The Doctor tells Gantman and Berkeley about his encounter with Dent and recalls that she was listening to a speech including the line "No single man is greater than his policies", one which Gantman, whose sense of hearing and memory has been enhanced by his lack of vision, remembers as "A single man is greater than his policies". Wanting to investigate this possible change as well as Fotherill's death, the Doctor insists that he and Peri stay to investigate and are told that Beth Pernell, Krane's agent who was due to be announced as his running mate, will be arriving soon with Hans Stengard and will be able to confirm what the correct wording is.

Dent searches the museum for Fotherill and hears his voice, which switches to others, repeats a message telling Fotherill to meet her oustide the museum and demands to know its own identity. On their way to receive Pernell and Stengard, Peri and Gantman hear the confused voice and tell the Doctor and Berkeley about it over the radio. The voice keeps saying that "Dent knows" and she screams as it shouts at her to tell it who it is. It cries out.

Part two

Berkeley believes that the voice might have been caused by interference and tells the Doctor that Pernell and Stengard, a producer, are coming to the museum to take recordings for a tribute to Krane. Pernell is unable to say whether the recording has been altered when it is replayed, but Gantman notices that the inflection of a phrase has changed and the Doctor suspects that Pernell might be involved. Dent is soon found running from the voice and has Berkeley puts her in a sound gallery.

The Doctor deduces that the voice is a life form modulating itself as a sound wave and plans to keep it from escaping the soundproof museum by shutting down all communications long enough for them to learn its true nature and intentions. He goes in search of Gantman, who has unscrambled a recording of a message telling Fotherill to meet and assist Dent at the museum and found it to have been made by Pernell, whilst Peri and Berkeley seal the museum. The voice tries to get Peri and Berkeley to reopen the museum's doors by using the Doctor's voice through a radio, but the Doctor returns and the deception becomes clear. It cuts the connection when the Doctor tries to question it.

Stengard stabs Dent to keep her from exposing the fact that she had been assigned to alter recordings for Pernell and leaves his knife with the body to make it look as though she committed suicide, but he refuses to kill anybody else for Pernell. When the Doctor tries to contact Gantman with an intercom, he instead reaches Napton and is told that Gantman is on his way back to them. He and Peri learn from Gantman that Krane died in the museum, near a frequency modulation input linked to an alpha wave condenser, and he realises that Krane has cheated death by becoming a sound wave.

Part three

The Doctor suggests that Krane, whom Purnell tells him shot himself in front of her, might be out for revenge against somebody and he and Peri go looking for his lair by detecting changes in the files. When the computer detects a discrepancy, he traps it on a holographic imaging disc and gets Gantman to give him and Peri a tour of the museum. Stengard discreetly steals and replaces the disc containing Krane and takes it to Pernell, who worries about what Krane could reveal if he got free. The two of them listen to a simulation of the disc rather than the disc itself to interrogate him.

By deleting parts of Krane's waveform and rearranging it, Pernell tortures him to try to learn what he has been doing to the recordings. He repeats a conversation that they had about her elitist attitudes and how he refused to name her his running mate because of her insanity, distressing her. When Peri walks in on Pernell and sees what she is doing, she appeals to Stengard for help, only to learn of his true allegiance and get captured by the pair. Krane replays the scene of his death and Peri releases him from the disc so that she can escape in the confusion, telling the Doctor what has happened and how she has learnt that Pernell intends to broadcast a faked Krane speech.

Gantman checks the speech for the Doctor and confirms that the now-mad Krane has not restored the speech Dent and Fotherill have altered to its original form, leading the Doctor and Peri to deduce that Krane is hiding in the speech so that millions of versions of himself can escape via its broadcast. The Doctor implores Pernell over the radio not to broadcast the speech, which she believes will win her the election, but she refuses and he goes to stop her. Krane, however, attacks his mind and tells him that he is too late to stop transmission.

Part four

The Doctor fails to convince Krane that he would be responsible for Pernell's election if the broadcast goes ahead and confronts Pernell, turning on the intercom to discreetly tell Peri and Gantman to generate a cancellation wave from the file of the speech to kill Krane and prevent his escape. When Stengard realises that no sound is being broadcast, he works to overcome it and the Doctor finds that Krane has not been killed when Krane replays the audio from when he was shot. The Doctor records it and realises that Krane was murdered by Stengard on Pernell's orders.

Stengard is killed when Krane pretends to be the voice of the computer and directs him to pull out a live wire to allow for the broadcast. Gantman finds him and is told by Napton what must have happened, but when the Doctor and Peri arrive and find him on his own they realise that Napton is Krane. Krane has been calmed by the cancellation wave and agrees to help the Doctor, who gives Pernell one last chance to stop her plans. When she refuses, Krane himself delivers a speech in which he denounces Pernell's views as abhorrent and anti-democratic and exposes her role in his death, albeit by misrepresenting exactly what was said.

In truth, the Doctor has been broadcasting his conversation with Pernell in which she admitted killing Krane and showed no sympathy for Stengard, Dent or Fotherill, leading her to flee. The Doctor and Peri return to the TARDIS and promise to return in the future to see how the museum, where Krane claims he will remain, turns out. Without them knowing, Gantman prepares a message ostensibly from Stengard and sends it to Pernell's vehicle with Krane inside. Pernell plays it and crashes her vehicle, which is destroyed.

Cast

• The Doctor - Colin Baker
• Peri - Nicola Bryant
• Amber Dent / Car Computer - Rebecca Jenkins
• Goff Fotherill / Computer Voice - Hylton Collins
• Visteen Krane - Matthew Brenher
• Radio Announcer - Harvey Summers
• Museum Curator Gantman - Peter Miles
• Miles Napton - Mark Trotman
• Detective Berkeley - Nick Scovell
• Hans Stengard - Steffan Boje
• Beth Pernell - Lisa Bowerman
• Answerphone Message - Justin Richards
• Audio Voices - Jacqueline Rayner

Crew

• Cover Art - James Arnott
• Director - Gary Russell
• Executive Producer - Stephen Cole
• Music - Nicholas Briggs
• Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Gary Russell
• Sound Design - Harvey Summers
• Writer - Justin Richards

Worldbuilding

• Carlos Bilton was a president.
• The Doctor quotes Macbeth.

Notes

Original cover art

• This audio drama was recorded on 17 and 18 July 1999 at the Nu Groove Studios, London.
• Oddly, this story doesn't use either the Peter Howell or Dominic Glynn theme tunes associated with the Sixth Doctor's era, but rather the second rendition of the Delia Derbyshire theme tune used from 1967-1980.
• The characters' names come from Justin Richards's Mission: Impossible episode guide.
• Justin Richards explained the Shakespeare-inspired thought process that led to the story: "What if the voice of her conscience that drives Lady Macbeth to suicide were real? Just as her husband actually sees Banquo's ghost, what if she really hears someone whispering to her - driving her quite deliberately to suicide?"
• This is the first main range release to not feature the Fifth Doctor.
• Working titles for the story included The Sound of Fear and Sound Judgement.
• This story was originally released on CD and cassette. It is now available as a download, as well as to stream on Spotify.
• This story is set between Revelation of the Daleks and The Trial of a Time Lord.

Continuity

• Visteen Krane performed in the play The Good Soldiers. (PROSE: Theatre of War ^[+]Loading...["Theatre of War (novel)"])

External links

• Official Whispers of Terror page at bigfinish.com
• Whispers of Terror at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• DisContinuity for Whispers of Terror at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide