The Word of Asiries (short story)
The Word of Asiries was the third illustrated short story in the 1968 Doctor Who Annual. It featured the Second Doctor in a solo adventure. It was the only story in the book that did not mention Ben or Polly.
Summary
The Doctor arrives on a planet where it is raining hard. He ventures out into the muck and discovers a couple of hooded figures, who mysteriously say they've been waiting for him. They've mistaken him for Asiries, the representative of the Raymah, the galactic leader. They explain that they are to take him immediately to Qar, the planetary leader. On the trip to the capitol, the Doctor and his party encounter some Tryods, a species of vaguely lupine animals. His travelling companions have little regard for the sanctity of Tryod life, but the Doctor notes some kind of sapience when he watches the way two of them battle each other.
Arriving at the capitol, the Doctor is brought before Qar. She demands that "Asiries" tells her the Raymah's ruling: do they have permission to begin the massacre against the Tryods? It seems that the Tryods are living on extremely valuable land where valuable minerals can be easily extracted. The Doctor tries to give the false answer that the Raymah disapproves of this plan, but word comes through that Asiries has arrived. Naturally, this exposes the Doctor as a fraud, but Qar seems lenient in her punishment. She simply orders he be taken back to the TARDIS and exiled.
The trip back to the Doctor's time ship is more eventful than Qar had implied, however. His escort stops before reaching the TARDIS and adheres him to a cave wall where the Tryods are known to feed. The Doctor is then abandoned, apparently to die. The real Asiries, however, is nearby. He finds the Doctor and sets him free. However the Doctor is his prisoner, because the Raymah has actually agreed with Qar — the massacre of Tryods is to proceed. While they are discussing these matters, Asiries accidentally falls into a spot of bother and requires rescue from the Tryods. The Doctor saves his life. Out of gratitude, he listens to the Doctor's reasons for not exterminating the Tryods. Asiries promises to put Qar's plans on hold while he returns to the Raymah to argue for a modification of his order. He takes the Doctor back to the TARDIS and gives him a stone he had earlier thrown at the Tryod as a memento.
The Doctor takes off in the TARDIS, unable to really appreciate the gift he's been given. When he later examines it, he realises it's paxltt, a substance found on only one planet. He then realises he's been the Tryod's planet before, but much later in that planet's timeline. He remembers now that the Tryods had evolved into the dominant sapient life-form, while the near-Humans had died out. Apparently, the Doctor reasons, Asiries kept his word and successfully prevented the extinction of the Tryods.
Characters
References
to be added
Notes
- Like many early Doctor Who print stories, both comic and prose, the Doctor is referred to as "Doctor Who" or "Dr. Who". The word "doctor" is not even seen as a proper noun here when used on its own to refer to the character.
- Continuing the copy-editing inconsistencies in this volume, "the TARDIS" is here styled, simply, Tardis. Like the time machine in the 1960s Dalek movies, the author chooses to go without an article, and the editor fails to correct him.
- As with other stories in the 1968 annual, the second Doctor refers to Ben and Polly as "my children", or, individually, "my child", "my girl", or "my boy". Uncharacteristic of the Troughton Doctor, this seems to be a hold-over from the Hartnell interpretation; there was simply too little time between when Troughton took over and this annual had to go to print for the annual's editors to understand Troughton's approach to the role.
- As in other illustrated stories throughout the annual, the Doctor is shown here wearing his stovepipe hat. Unlike most of the other stories, though, the text itself makes reference to the hat.
Continuity
- The Doctor is described as having been travelling for "an interminable time" since the last time the TARDIS landed.
- Just as in The Power of the Daleks, the second Doctor assumes the credentials of a representative from a higher government authority in order to put paid to the locals' schemes. The difference here is that he's uncovered as an imposter rather more quickly.
Timeline
Time placement for this story is extremely problematic, as there is no mention of any companions for the Doctor. The lack of positive reference to them means we are free to imagine that this is genuinely a solo second Doctor story, which means it could be placed anywhere there's a natural gap in the televised stories. Because World Distributors depicted the second Doctor as wearing his stovepipe hat, even when travelling with Jamie and Zoe, we can't even say that this story necessarily happens between The Power of the Daleks and The Highlanders. However, conventional wisdom likely holds that this story is set in "table of contents order", thus:
- The Word of Asiries occurs after COMIC: The Tests of Trefus
- The Word of Asiries occurs before PROSE: Only a Matter of Time
