Rights (short story)
Rights was the twelfth short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips. It was written by Paul Grice. It featured the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith.
Summary
The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane are on Farrash, posing as the Earth delegates to the Farrash Future Ratification. The people of Farrash are slowing dying out, due to a change in solar radiation. This is slowly causing the people to become sterile. Different factions on the planet are doing research to save the population. One group, supported by the Leader, is aborting the foetuses of volunteers and will use the brain matter to animate metal bodies. The Farrashians have dozens of legs, and only their brains can perform the complex motions required to make the legs function and move.
Sarah and the Doctor get caught in a protest by another faction, and become separated. Sarah is rescued by a group led by Fraal. Sarah is horrified to learn that Fraal's group is performing experiments on animals. Fraal expects Sarah to support her at the committee meeting, as she thinks the Doctor will support the Leader.
The Doctor, meanwhile, questions the Leader and the Chief Clinician about their experimentation.
Sarah and the Doctor are reunited at the meeting. The different factions argue back and forth, but the meeting turns to disaster when one group tries to demonstrate its twenty-foot-tall robot Farrashian. The machine goes out of control, causing damage, injury, and death. In the mayhem, the Leader is killed.
After order is restored, the Doctor suggests to the Chief Clinician and the Deputy Leader that all groups work together to solve their problems.
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