The Garden of Storms (audio story)

In pursuit of Abby and Zara, Leela pilots the TARDIS to the eye of a violent storm in time. Yet she and the Doctor find themselves in an idyllic garden city, the people contented and happy. They soon discover that this bliss comes at a terrible cost, and that Abby and Zara are determined to put things right...so how can Leela and the Doctor stop them?

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

Having sent various messages to the Doctor which went ignored, Leela tricks him by crashing a spaceship into a nestworld of the Ashona Bats and calling for his help. Abby and Zara have killed and absorbed the Grace and threaten all of time, but the Doctor refuses to help Leela persuade them to destroy themselves. She puts the coordinates into the TARDIS, telling him that he will change his mind once he sees what they have done, and they fly into a time storm.

The TARDIS lands in a garden on a small, tranquil world in the eye of the storm where a feast is held in honour of the Doctor and Leela's arrival, after which they Leela is to be sacrificed due to her visible age. Abby and Zara use their powers to make the Doctor and Leela unnoticeable and get them back to the TARDIS, being able to sense it, but Leela suggests that the two girls and the Doctor catch up. The four of them go to a party where Abby and Zara explain that people over the age of forty are killed here for the good of the economy and that they are trying to get rid of the practice and altering the timeline whenever they fail.

Leela sees a smoke creature drawing energy from Brody, a man with feelings for Zara, and the others come to notice it as well. When Brody wonders if he is feeling tired because something is wrong with the juice he is drinking, unaware that he has aged two years, Abby and Zara use their powers to stop him from causing a panic. Zeeb, whose fortieth birthday party it is, is taken away by the Tributaries to be executed, but the Doctor objects and claims that they have made a mistake. Although the Tributaries check, the Doctor stirs up the party guests to fight to keep Zeeb alive.

A smoke creature draws on Leela's energy until she tears it apart with her mental power. She senses its hunger and fury and how it is feeding on the chaos that the Doctor has caused, which ends when he is knocked down. The Tributaries scan him and Abby and find that they are 900 and several thousand years old respectively, so they take them away with Zeeb to the Termination Centre. The Doctor and Abby escape, Zeeb refusing to join them, and head back to the party where Brody tells them that Leela and Zara have allowed themselves to be arrested.

Leela, Zara and Zeeb enter the final room at the centre and find a death ray. Zeeb is killed and the dust left behind is eaten by the Smoke. The Doctor, Abby and the party guests arrive to save them, but Brody is killed by the Smoke when he attempts to destroy the death ray machine. Abby and Zara use their powers to teleport themselves, the Doctor and Leela away, but Leela, believing that they were going to alter time, stops Abby and is left behind with her. The Smoke says that it will feed on them.