The Heat-Seekers (short story)

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. His people were being forced to work the mines by their new masters, ape-like creatures who carried "thundersticks" that sent bolts of light capable of melting rock itself. When 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). Having spotted a huge energy pattern on the scale of Hiroshima in 1945, the Doctor has arrived to investigate with the TARDIS arriving in the tunnels. Greeting Olag and hiding from the invaders, the Doctor recognises them 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 choosen the Dead Sea location, as one of the narrowest points in the Earths crust. Unfortunately Ronos was a dry world and the Ronans were allergic to salt water. Using 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. The Sea fed by the River Jordan would soon fill up again. Having parted the waters the Doctor recalls the first time that was done, in the Red Sea, by Moses ...

Named Characters

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 3 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