The Dark River (short story)

While using the TARDIS to rescue the Doctor, Tegan and Richard Mace, Adric and Nyssa accidentally travel forward in time to America’s Deep South. Adric tries to save an escaped slave from his master, but is shot in the process, and both are left for dead. After Adric’s enhanced recuperative powers have ensured his swift recovery, he insists they help the slave, James, to get to safety. Together they embark on a trip down the Mississippi River on a stolen raft. After a few day’s progress, the raft is passed by a steamboat carrying the TARDIS on its lower deck; to Adric and Nyssa’s dismay increases the boat’s boiler overheats — the vessel explodes, killing all aboard and sending the TARDIS sinking into the river’s depths. Later, Adric, Nyssa and James are surprised to see a group of men pull the TARDIS from the water and place it on a cart; entranced like zombies, the men capture the trio and take them and their cargo to a large clapboard house. Adric, Nyssa and James meet a thickset man named Doc Ashberry, who claims to know the Doctor from the Time Lord Academy. Doc’s initial hospitality soon gives way to his true intent: his house is his broken TARDIS, and after being stranded for fifty years he wants to swap it for the Doctor’s TARDIS so he can regain his freedom. Nyssa flatly refuses, but Adric offers to recharge Doc’s ship with energy from their TARDIS. Once his ship's power has been restored, Doc agrees to James's request to travel with him, and together they depart in his TARDIS, leaving Doc's assistant Li Cho and his helpers, with control chips in their brains, behind. Inside their TARDIS, Adric and Nyssa work on getting back to the Doctor and Tegan.

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

This story takes place during part 4 of The Visitation when Adric and Nyssa are taking the TARDIS to the Squire's house.

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

Adric remembers when the Doctor planned to flush the Tremas Master out of the TARDIS by landing in the River Thames and opening the doors. (TV: Logopolis)
One of the last scenes has Adric intimate that he is not interested in girls but thinks Nyssa is an amazing girl. This seems to mean, based on Waterhouse's comments about this story, that Adric is wrestling with the fact that he is gay.