Minuet in Hell (audio story)

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Minuet in Hell was the nineteenth monthly Doctor Who audio story produced by Big Finish Productions. This was the first audio story to feature Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart played by Nicholas Courtney opposite Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor. It was the second Big Finish audio story that Nicholas Courtney had reprised his role as the Brigadier. The first was in 2000 opposite Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor in The Spectre of Lanyon Moor.

Publisher's summary

The twenty-first century has just begun, and Malebolgia is enjoying its status as the newest state in America. After his successful involvement with Scotland's devolution, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart has been invited over to Malebolgia to offer some of his experiences and expertise.

There he encounters the charismatic Brigham Elisha Dashwood III, an evangelical statesman running for Governor who may not be quite as clean-cut and wholesome as he makes out. One of Dashwood's other roles in society is as patron of a new medical institute, concentrating on curing the ills of the human mind. One of the patients there interests the Brigadier — someone who claims he travels through space and time in something called a TARDIS.

Charley, however, has more than a few problems of her own. Amnesiac, she is working as a hostess at the local chapter of the Hell Fire Club, populated by local dignitaries who have summoned forth the demon Marchosias. And the leader of the Club? None other than Dashwood, who seems determined to achieve congressional power by the most malevolent means at his disposal...

Plot

Part 1

"The legends of Gallifrey speak of a world where everything is horror. Horror and pain. A world from where there is no escape from the creatures who crawl on the crust of the land..." At last, the Doctor has come to his own personal Hell; and there can be no escape...

Under the guidance of TV evangelist Brigham Elisha Dashwood, Malebolgia will soon become the fifty-first state of the Union. Dashwood and his cronies have been celebrating at the Hellfire Club, and as those cronies include several prominent officials and businessmen -- who believe that they have seen Dashwood summon Lucifer himself -- Dashwood should have little trouble maintaining his hold on power in the new state. Elsewhere, a new arrival is having a far less pleasant time of it; he's locked up in a lunatic asylum, where he's been keeping his irritated cellmate awake with his insane babbling about the planet Gallifrey. The madman's cellmate claims to be a British journalist, but the madman himself can't remember who is, how he got here, or why he's so concerned for somebody called Charley... Charley herself is in a dormitory which she is apparently expected to share with a number of other girls; however, she has no idea how she came to be here. The chirpy young Becky Lee Kowalczyck explains that the girls were all picked up by some men in a big blue bus and brought here. Unlike the dazed Charley, Becky Lee tried to run for it, at least until they started to shoot at her. Dashwood's associate Dale Pargeter arrives and introduces herself to the girls as their new Superior Mistress; they have been arrested for vagrancy, and thus have no rights. However, they have been given a chance to serve the community. In return for food, shelter, and clothing of sorts, they are now to serve as hostesses in an exclusive gentlemen's club. Their official job title will be "pretty little satin-bottoms". Pargeter will not administer punishment for any transgressions -- that will be up to the discretion of the club members. As Pargeter leaves the girls to rest up for their first night's work, Charley tries to remember how she got here, and remembers arriving in town with a friend -- a doctor. The next day, journalists and other interested parties arrive to tour Dashwood's new Laboratory of Alternative Mentalities, where world experts in mental illness use advanced technology to cure their patients. Dashwood's inaugural speech is greeted with wild enthusiasm from most of the crowd, who can barely contain their desire to elect him governor of Malebolgia on the spot. There is, however, one dissenting voice -- former Senator Waldo Pickering, who attended the rally in the hope that someone might try to assassinate his rival. Dashwood generously invites Pickering along on the tour, as well as their state's distinguished guest Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart; the former Brigadier recently advised on the creation of a new Parliament for Scotland, and he has been invited to Malebolgia to give the new state the benefit of his experience. In the Institute, the tour party meets Doctor Dale Pargeter, who shows them the well-adjusted recipients of her care, and the device which cured them; the PSI-859 psionic matrix facsimile regenerator. Before today, neurosurgery carried with it the risk that the heat and light of the operating theatre would traumatise the living brain, causing even worse damage; but with the PSI machine, doctors can transfer the thoughts and memories of a patient into digital storage, operate on the empty brain, and then replace the mind with no harm done. Pickering and Lethbridge-Stewart note that Dashwood seems to understand the machine's workings surprisingly well... The tour is about to wind up when Pickering interrupts, demanding to know where they keep the real patients. Pargeter reluctantly shows the tour party to the "Corridor", where the patients who have yet to undergo treatment are locked up. One of the patients, "John Doe", was brought in just last night, but he seems calm and lucid now; he claims to be Gideon Crane, a reporter for the London Torch, and although he's not quite sure what happened to him last night he can vaguely recall a loud noise and a tall wooden blue box. And he sees that Lethbridge-Stewart understands what he's saying. Pargeter promises to look into Crane's story, to Pickering's disgust; Crane was found running mad on the streets, howling at the moon, and Pargeter's ready to let him go already? Whatever happened to good old-fashioned punishment? Lethbridge-Stewart shouts the senator down with the voice of authority, but as Pickering storms off, the commotion disturbs another nameless patient. This one was brought in with Crane, and to avoid confusion he has been named "Zebidiah Doe". Zebidiah also has a British accent, with a slight Scouse tinge; and he also seems to recognise Lethbridge-Stewart and consider him a friend. But he's far more disoriented and confused than Crane, and he claims to have a friend from the 1930s who isn't supposed to be alive now. Pargeter discourages Lethbridge-Stewart from talking directly to the patient, and leaves Crane to try to talk sense into his cellmate. She and Lethbridge-Stewart leave, ignoring Zebidiah's desperate pleas. He's sure that there's something terribly wrong with his heart. They aren't supposed to beat on the right side of the body, are they? Dashwood is upset by the turn the tour has taken, but Lethbridge-Stewart takes the blame for the unfortunate disturbance in the Corridor. However, he believes that Pickering may have a point; he isn't entirely satisfied with what he's seen today, either. As Lethbridge-Stewart leaves, Dashwood reveals to Pargeter that he's tried to look into their visitor's background, and has found nothing at all. He's right to be suspicious, for Lethbridge-Stewart is in fact on an undercover mission to investigate the use of the PSI machine, and he doesn't like what he's seen so far. But when he reports his suspicions to his superiors, he is told not to take any action without positive evidence of the machine's misuse. Becky Lee, Charley and the other girls have been given new clothing, but not very much of it. Charley still can't remember her own name or how she came to be in this town, but she remembers English history well enough to understand that this is a recreation of the original Hellfire Club from the 1760s. This must be a watered-down version, however; devil worship and orgies surely can't take place in this age, can they? The "pretty little satin-bottoms" enter the club for their first night, and the wildness and raunchiness are music to Dashwood's ears; he is quite taken with Charley, in particular. But he fears that Lethbridge-Stewart is the type to go snooping where he isn't wanted, and therefore sends Pargeter back to the Institute to keep an eye out for him. Dashwood's TV show is being broadcast, and as the taped evangelist begs the American people to send in their cash contributions for the starving children, the real beneficiaries of the Dashwood Charitable Trust prepare to summon the forces of Hell. And somewhere else entirely, the denizens of Hell are waiting for the call... Gideon manages to convince Pargeter that he is sane after all, and agrees to help her with his fellow inmate Zebidiah. The time has come for Zebidiah to go under the PSI machine; his mind will be taken out of his body, and Pargeter will give him a prefrontal lobotomy to remove the aggressive instincts which left him raving the previous night, destroying property and howling at the moon. As Zebidiah weakly struggles against his bonds, Gideon finds himself strangely drawn to the PSI machine and the copy of Zebidiah's brainwaves; there's something familiar at the corner of his mind, something about a blue box and his home on the planet Gallifrey... As Crane nears the machine, Pargeter activates it, drawing out Zebidiah's psychic matrix -- and to her shock, the machine instantly overloads, lashing out at both Crane and Zebidiah with raw psychic feedback.

Part 2

Once again, Gideon and Zebidiah are plunged into madness. Demonic voices and laughter echo in Zebidiah's head, as does the voice of his friend Charley; but he can't find her, and in his panic he flees from the Institute, making it all the way to a familiar alley nearby. There, he is reunited with Lethbridge-Stewart, who has indeed returned to the area and is surprised to see the mental patient he saw earlier, wandering the streets and babbling of demons. Zebidiah remembers that this man has fought demons before -- and he's about to do it again, for as he tries to calm Zebidiah down, demons fly out of the shadows and attack them. Zebidiah is too weak to run far, and soon the demons trap him and Lethbridge-Stewart in a dead end... Becky Lee and Charley see Dashwood leaving the club, but before they can investigate they are confronted by a club member -- and when Charley rebuffs his advances, he pulls out a whip with which to punish her. But Becky Lee suddenly begins chanting in an Eastern European dialect, and all hell breaks loose as invisible forces sweep through the club, flinging about the club members and knocking them out. The terrified "satin-bottoms" flee to freedom, and Becky Lee tells the astonished Charley that she has the power to turn her enemies' fears against them. Charley fetches their proper clothing while Becky Lee searches the ruins of the club and finds something rather interesting -- a hidden camcorder. She and Charley then flee to safety, and as they run, Charley finally remembers her last name; perhaps her other memories will return if she doesn't struggle for them. In the meantime, Becky Lee identifies herself as the American representative of the Order of Saint Peter, which was founded to fight supernatural evil in Eastern Europe. When two Polish priests followed a vampire to the States in 1976, one of them remained to found an American chapter, and Becky Lee is his daughter. Now she's taking Charley to the one man in this town who can help her; her grandfather, Waldo Pickering. Pargeter calls Dashwood to the Institute to report Zebidiah's escape. He's quite upset by her failure, and reveals that he's already set the forces of Hell on Zebidiah's tail to prevent him from getting word of what really goes on here to the outside. But when Pargeter reveals that it was Zebidiah's psychic matrix which overloaded the PSI machine, Dashwood realises, just as she had, that Zebidiah can't be fully human. He therefore summons the demon Marchosias again and orders him to call off his brethren. The demons pursuing Zebidiah and Lethbridge-Stewart thus vanish into thin air just as they're about to tear their prey apart. Lethbridge-Stewart needs time to think, and decides to take the poor, mad Zebidiah back to the one place where he'll be safe -- and Zebidiah is too disoriented to prevent the well-meaning Lethbridge-Stewart from returning him to the Institute. As the orderlies return the protesting Zebidiah to his cell, Lethbridge-Stewart requests an inquiry into his escape, and promises (if that's the word) to return the next day to check up on Zebidiah's condition. He then returns to his room at the inn to report on the appearance of demonic creatures, but to his frustration, his superiors take no interest and order him to concentrate on the job in hand. Pickering may consider the Order of St Peter to be utter nonsense, but he's delighted to see his granddaughter again -- and he's even more delighted when she shows him the tape she took from the Hellfire Club. Charley is fascinated by the moving pictures on the television screen, which reminds her vaguely of the "scanner" in a place she once knew. Becky Lee and Pickering realise that this tape was to be used as blackmail against the officials cavorting in the club -- and when Charley and Becky Lee describe the man in charge, Pickering recognises Dashwood at once. While the girls catch up on some much-needed sleep, Pickering goes to Dashwood's home to confront him with the tape; Dashwood himself may not appear, but he and Pickering both know that if the tape goes public, the people who appear on it will fall all over themselves to blame Dashwood. In exchange for keeping the tape private, Pickering demands that Dashwood withdraw from the gubernatorial race, and endorse Pickering's own campaign. Dashwood concedes gracefully, and hospitably offers Pickering a cup of coffee... with a little something extra in it. Pickering realises too late that he's underestimated Dashwood's ambition -- and that he can no longer move his body. He's about to pay a much longer visit to the Institute... The next morning, Dashwood summons the members of the Hellfire Club to the Institute to address the crisis. He believes that the disturbances they experienced last night are somehow related -- that they are under attack by forces unknown. His followers pledge absolute loyalty to him, and he uses the strength of their emotion to summon Marchosias; he has another task for the demon, and a new home for him. Pickering is slowly recovering from the drug Dashwood gave him, but he is still unable to resist as Pargeter straps him into the PSI machine and removes his mind from his body... so that Marchosias can take up residence within. Still adjusting to its new body, Marchosias returns to Pickering's home... Becky Lee and Charley have woken, and as Becky Lee prepares breakfast, Charley realises that all of her memories have returned. Becky Lee isn't quite sure what to make of Charley's claim to have been on the airship R101 when it crashed in 1930; neither is Charley, who can feel the flames in her memory and yet knows that she escaped. Nevertheless, it appears that her friend the Doctor can help them sort out what's going on, and when Becky Lee's grandfather apparently returns, she asks him if he knows of any new British arrivals in town. He recalls meeting a man named Lethbridge-Stewart, and Becky Lee sets off to find out if Lethbridge-Stewart is this doctor friend of Charley's. Charley herself is still tired, and she returns to the guest room to sleep -- quite unaware that she's now alone in the house with Marchosias, who still has some time to spare before his big announcement, and who intends to spend it enjoying himself... Zebidiah awakens to find that both he and Crane are back in the cells. Zebidiah's memories seem to be returning, but the backlash from the PSI machine has jumbled them all up -- and in any case, Crane claims that they're all nonsense. Or does Zebidiah really expect Crane to believe that his cellmate is an alien traveller through time and space? The adoption of a professional title such as "Doctor" is a common psychosis amongst schizophrenics... Any sane person would have done what Gideon has done -- acted calmly and rationally to convince Pargeter that he was not mad after all. Surely a Time Lord, far superior to the run-of-the-mill human, would have done the same. Zebidiah rejects Crane's claims that his memories are delusional, but he can't reject the fact that Crane knows more about those memories than Zebidiah himself. Crane knows all about the TARDIS, and about the Doctor's companions -- Charley, Sam, Evelyn, Nyssa, all the way back to dear Susan. And there's a very good reason for that. If Crane is to be believed, then poor, mad Zebidiah isn't the Doctor at all. It's Gideon Crane.

Part 3

Charley is just starting to drop off again when Pickering smashes through the door of the guest room. It's quite clear that this is not really Waldo Pickering, and Charley thus leaps through the window and flees. Marchosias chooses not to pursue her, as he isn't sure how far he can strain this body's heart before it gives out. Charley, lost and alone and dressed only in a flimsy nightgown, realises that she still can't remember where the TARDIS landed; her only hope of finding it is to return to the Hellfire Club and try to retrace her steps. Becky Lee contacts Lethbridge-Stewart, and after some initial confusion they sort out that he is not Charley Pollard's friend -- but that he has seen demons in the area. He takes Becky Lee to the alley, where she finds sulfurous deposits on the wall and spots a weird blue box hidden some ways down the alleyway. Lethbridge-Stewart fails to see it, as he's more interested in Becky Lee's talk of demons. She tells him her story, including Dale Pargeter's role in the Hellfire Club, and he admits to her that he's been sent undercover by the United Nations to investigate the use of the PSI machine; the British Doomwatch organisation fears that it could be used to edit people's memories before returning them to their heads. Becky Lee then tells Lethbridge-Stewart that Charley's friend is a doctor, and when he learns that Charley claimed to be from the 1930s he gets a very good idea who this Doctor might be. The other day, at the Institute, he met a man who seemed to be hinting at his true identity; a man who claimed to be a journalist named Gideon Crane... Zebidiah still believes himself to be the Doctor, but Crane plausibly explains that he invented the story of being a British journalist because he knew the doctors would never release him if he claimed to be a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He tells Zebidiah just how the real Doctor and Charley ended up in this predicament; it started after they left Venice, when the Doctor planned to visit his American friend Grace but decided to release Ramsay back into the Time Vortex first. Charley was disappointed to see her pet leave, but the Doctor knew that Ramsay was still feral; his apparently tame disposition was only due to his recent illness. Indeed, as they materialised at the epicentre of the Time Vortex, Ramsay suddenly attacked Charley. The Doctor couldn't tell her why this was happening; how could he admit that she was supposed to be dead, and that Ramsay could sense the web of Time fracturing all around her? The Doctor lured Ramsay to the doors and had Charley open them, expelling Ramsay back into the Vortex -- but as the vortisaur was sucked out of the TARDIS it fed on the time distortion surrounding it, and temporal feedback caused serious damage to the TARDIS console. The Doctor directed Charley to engage the emergency materialisation circuits to escape -- but as the TARDIS materialised, a man's face appeared on the scanner and the Doctor collapsed in agony. That's all Gideon Crane can remember before waking up in the Institute, but he believes that he knows what happened next. The damage to the TARDIS affected its symbiotic link with the Doctor, scrambling his mind -- and causing the symbiotic nuclei to latch onto the man who was standing in the alley, answering a call of nature, when the TARDIS materialised. As a result, the Doctor's memories flooded into this man, driving them both mad. Now only one question remains; which of them, Gideon Crane or Zebidiah Doe, is the real Doctor, and which is the ersatz copy? Dashwood is confident in his success; now that he's dealt with Pickering, tonight's telethon is sure to sweep him to victory. He has decided to keep Pickering's mind in storage; the former senator may be insufferable, but he's politically shrewd, and Dashwood wants to have access to that experience. Meanwhile, Pargeter has arranged for a number of catatonic patients to be shipped to the Institute; tonight, she will put Zebidiah back under the PSI machine and take out his memory in stages, putting a bit into each patient and then moving on to the next. She is growing weary, however, and wonders when she and Dashwood will next be able to spend time together. He assures her that he'll make time once this is all over. As she goes, Marchosias emerges from the shadows, amused by what he's seen -- Dashwood's clandestine relationship with Pargeter hardly befits a man allegedly of the cloth. Dashwood tires of his demon's taunting and dismisses him; soon he will have no need for either the lovesick Pargeter or the insolent Marchosias... Charley returns to the Hellfire Club, but she is recaptured by Pargeter and Marchosias before she can take a good look around. Pargeter fails to recognise her, and sends her to join the new girls, who are to replace the ones who escaped last night. But when she shows them to Dashwood, he recognises Charley at once, and orders Pargeter to prepare her for Costume 17. To Pargeter's horror, Marchosias informs her that this is the dress intended for the Queen of Hell; it appears that Dashwood intends to take Charley as his bride. Enraged, Pargeter storms off to confront Dashwood, but he insists that Marchosias is lying; after all, he is a demon. Dashwood claims that the "Queen of Hell" routine is a ceremony to summon Lucifer; Charley is to be Lucifer's bride, not Dashwood's. Mollified, Pargeter returns to the Institute to deal with Zebidiah. Meanwhile, Charley reluctantly dresses in a spiked, red leather costume while the gloating Marchosias watches; she has little choice, for demons may prefer raw emotions as food but Marchosias is perfectly willing to investigate what human flesh tastes like should Charley disobey. She's starting to realise, however, that all this talk of demons and Hellfire is just to keep Dashwood satisfied. Marchosias comes from somewhere else entirely... Zebidiah still believes himself to be the Doctor, even though he can't answer Crane's questions about his past life. The Doctor's memories are jumbled up in both their brains, and when the PSI machine tried and failed to absorb the Doctor's psychic matrix from Zebidiah's brain, the energy backlash fed back into Crane's mind as well, causing him to suffer a momentary relapse. Zebidiah realises that the PSI machine must have recorded the mangled matrix of the Doctor's and the real Gideon Crane's memories -- and if they can get back under the machine together and transfer the recorded matrix back into their minds, the residue of the Doctor's existing matrix will be reinforced, restoring his memories and sanity. But when Pargeter returns, she refuses to listen to Zebidiah, and instead she has her orderlies take him -- and him alone -- back to the PSI unit. As Becky Lee and Lethbridge-Stewart return to the Institute, Becky Lee tells her new ally that some Satanist clubs in Europe use digital technology to channel the emotions of thier followers and summon the forces of darkness, and Lethbridge-Stewart realises that this also implicates the Dashwood Institute and the PSI machine in the affairs of the Hellfire Club. Upon arriving at the Institute, Lethbridge-Stewart distracts the bored security guard while Becky Lee tries to slip and and rescue the Doctor; however, Pargeter gets wind of Lethbridge-Stewart's arrival and intercepts him at the doors. He claims to have returned to see Zebidiah, but she in turn claims that Zebidiah is too heavily sedated to see visitors. As the security guard ushers Lethbridge-Stewart out, they see Senator Pickering on the news; he has apparently announced his intention to withdraw from the gubernatorial race, and now Dashwood stands unopposed. Becky Lee finds her way to the Corridor, where Crane identifies himself to her as the Doctor. He is delighted to learn that Charley is all right (as far as Becky Lee knows), and together, he and Becky Lee come up with a plan to help him escape. The cell doors can be operated from Pargeter's laboratory, but it won't do Crane any good to emerge from his cell while there are still guards all over the place; they need to get the building evacuated first. Meanwhile, Pargeter returns to the laboratory, where Zebidiah is confused to find a number of catatonic patients strapped down with him. He tries to explain to Pargeter what has happened to him and Crane, but she doesn't listen; instead, she connects him to the PSI machine once again, and as he continues to protest in vain, she switches on... The Hellfire Club is back in session. Soon Dashwood will broadcast a political rallying cry live to prime-time America, and with Pickering out of the running, nothing will stand in his way. Soon he will be governor of Malebolgia, and from there he will move on to the White House. But first, to celebrate his victory, he has Charley brought in. As she totters into the room on her spiked heels, Dashwood operates a hand-held device called a trans-D, and Charley is sucked through a dimensional interface to Hell. There, a demon will take over her body, to become Dashwood's queen.

Part 4

A lot is happening in the Dashwood Institute. Pargeter connects Zebidiah to the PSI machine, switches on, and then leaves to take care of other business as Zebidiah's psychic matrix is transferred in stages to the catatonic patients. When it's done, the patients awake, each of them believing themselves to be the Doctor. Meanwhile, Becky Lee trips a fire alarm, and in the confusion, Gideon slips out of his cell and returns to the laboratory. In the confusion, Pargeter finds Marchosias, who informs her that the fire alarm is false -- and that Dashwood has betrayed her and married Charley. As the furious Pargeter sets off to confront Dashwood, Becky Lee arrives, but this time she realises that the soul in Pickering's body isn't that of her grandfather at all. The realisation comes a bit too late, and Marchosias knocks her out and prepares to have some fun with her. Charley finds herself in Hell, or its equivalent -- but the demons surrounding her unexpectedly draw back, rejecting her. They cannot draw sustenance from one who is already dead. Charley is catapulted back into her own body, and the shock knocks her out. At first Dashwood assumes that her frail human form has been unable to stand the strain of demonic possession, but when she awakens he realises that she is still herself. Lethbridge-Stewart then arrives to rescue her, and when Dashwood quotes the Bible at him to defend his actions Lethbridge-Stewart points out an error in his theology. Dashwood admits that he doesn't know much about the Bible, but he knows enough to gross a fortune from America's prime-time viewing public -- and now that he has used that fortune to become the governor of his very own state, the White House is only a short step away. Soon he will rule the United States, and with the PSI machine, he will fill the minds of his followers with a demonic army which is his to command. At that moment the furious Pargeter bursts in, and Lethbridge-Stewart and Charley take the opportunity to escape. Dashwood angrily drives Pargeter out while he prepares for his broadcast. Crane enters the PSI lab to find Zebidiah weak and disoriented, and apparently willing at last to believe that Crane is the Doctor after all. Now all they have to do is sort out Zebidiah's memories. Zebidiah's psychic matrix is spread too thinly amongst the catatonic patients, and Crane thus adds his own mind to the mix in order to jump-start the process -- but Zebidiah then grabs him and prevents him from disconnecting. Zebidiah may not have all of his memories, but he still has his wits -- and he's noticed that when the patients took on his memories, they all believed themselves to be the Doctor. Crane and the other patients pass out as the Doctor's psychic matrix is drawn out of them, and finally goes back where it belongs. The anonymous "Zebidiah Doe" is the Doctor again at last, and when Lethbridge-Stewart and Charley arrive, he's delighted to see them both. Becky Lee awakens to find that Marchosias has chained her up in the Hellfire Club's "torture room" -- which is about to get a thorough working-out, as Marchosias has no fears which Becky Lee can turn against him. Pargeter bursts in, demanding that Marchosias do something to stop Dashwood, but she's brimming with hate and that's the best meal Marchosias has had all day. He can sense the fear in her mind -- her fear of the "satin-bottoms", the beautiful and perfectly formed girls who represent everything the dumpy, unattractive Pargeter feels that she isn't. She hates and fears them, and in her mind she'd love to whip them herself until they are ugly and disfigured, taking away the enemy and leaving Dashwood to her alone. Marchosias encourages Pargeter to take her rage and turn it against Becky Lee, and Becky Lee has no choice but to defend herself by turning Pargeter's fears against her. It only takes a few psychic whiplashes before Pargeter's heart gives out, and then Marchosias can turn his attention back to the tear-stricken and emotionally defenseless Becky Lee... The Doctor fears that he may have gone too far and erased Crane's memories as well as his own; fortunately, this is not the case, and when Crane awakens he knows just who he really is. As he had claimed, he's a journalist for the London Torch -- and like Lethbridge-Stewart, he's here undercover to investigate the use of the PSI machine. He informs Lethbridge-Stewart that his U.N. superiors have already been bought out by Dashwood, which is why they didn't respond to his reports. The Doctor rewires the PSI machine to remote-broadcast all of the stolen psyches back where they came from, and to his surprise, Crane realises that he can follow what the Doctor is doing. There's still a little of the Doctor in Crane's mind, and he is thus able to operate the machine while the others deal with Dashwood. The memories soon start to fade, but they last long enough for Crane to send Pickering's mind back where it belongs -- evicting Marchosias from the senator's body just as he's about to lay into Becky Lee with a chainsaw. Gideon then sets about sabotaging the PSI machine so Dashwood can never use it again. The Doctor, Charley and Lethbridge-Stewart arrive at the studio to find Dashwood and his floor manager Scott preparing for the live broadcast. Lethbridge-Stewart collapses as he enters; he is no longer as young as he used to be, and the hot studio lights seem to be too much for his heart to take after all his recent exertions. Dashwood doesn't want the bad publicity of a distinguished foreign visitor dying of a heart attack in his studio, and Scott thus takes the obviously unwell Lethbridge-Stewart up to the control room to watch the broadcast. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Charley confront Dashwood, who seems to hold all the cards; he proudly informs them that nobody will believe the word of a lunatic like the Doctor against Dashwood, and that most of the viewing public are too stupid to understand what he'd been telling them anyway. Tonight's broadcast will signal the beginning of a coup more powerful than the world has seen since Nuremburg. Or so Dashwood thinks until he finally notices Scott frantically trying to get his attention from the control booth; while pretending to suffer from another heart attack, Lethbridge-Stewart "accidentally" stumbled against the control panel and switched on Dashwood's microphone. Dashwood has just broadcast his real attitudes and intentions live on national TV. The money has stopped coming in, and all of his previous political connections are going to avoid him like the plague. His career, in short, is over. Dashwood concedes defeat gracefully -- for he hasn't actually broken any laws, as far as anyone can prove, and he intends to be far away from here before the police can begin to investigate his activities at the Institute and Hellfire Club. But Becky Lee and Pickering are waiting for him outside, with the trans-D they found in the Hellfire Club; they've already been to see the sheriff, who became very co-operative when Pickering showed him a certain video. The Doctor, Charley and Lethbridge-Stewart then arrive, distracting Becky Lee just long enough for Dashwood to grab the trans-D from her and flee; anybody who tries to stop him will find themselves on a one-way journey to Hell. At this point, it occurs to Charley that if Marchosias is no longer in Pickering's body, he must have gone somewhere else. And they've left Gideon alone with the PSI machine... The Doctor, Charley and Lethbridge-Stewart rush back to the Institute, arriving in time to save Gideon from Marchosias -- and Dashwood, who intends to use the PSI machine to transfer his mind into a demon body and become a lord of Hell. But Marchosias has wasted too much time on him already, and refuses to help him any more. The Doctor reveals that Marchosias is not a demon, but a gestalt Psionovore -- one of a race of beings which live in the dust of comets, and feed on people's negative emotions. The emotions generated in the Hellfire Club were strong enough to draw the Psionovores to Earth, and they supplied Dashwood with their technology in order to stir things up and feed further. Dashwood has always believed that his ancestor Francis, who created the original Hellfire Club, was in regular contact with demons -- but the Doctor knows that the original club was just an excuse for Francis and his friends to get drunk, and that the rumours of Satanic ceremonies were put about by Francis' political enemies and reinforced by centuries of sensationalistic writing. It appears that he's getting through to Dashwood, for Marchosias is feeding on some powerful source of negative emotional energy -- but Dashwood insists that it isn't from him, and at this point Gideon manages to point out that he's set the PSI machine to overload and explode. As the Doctor and his friends flee, Dashwood fires the trans-D at his enemies, ignoring the Doctor's and Marchosias' warnings -- and the dimensional flux caused by its proximity to the overloading PSI machine sweeps up everything and everyone remaining in the laboratory. The Doctor and his friends escape, but Dashwood and Marchosias are cast back to the realm of the Psionovores -- along with the trans-D, the PSI machine, and, less fortunately, the catatonic patients who remained in the lab. The police arrive, summoned by Becky Lee and Pickering, and Gideon departs to help them with their inquiries -- and, after pausing for a brief reunion with his old friend Lethbridge-Stewart, the Doctor departs with Charley before the authorities can confuse matters by trying to question him. Once back in the TARDIS, however, Charley raises an awkward question; when she went to the Psionovores' realm, they told her she was already dead. The Doctor uncomfortably dismisses this claim as nonsense, and offers to take Charley on a tour of the Croesus Nebula. It's a beautiful Universe out there, and he wants her to see it all.

Cast

References

Gallifrey

  • Hell is mentioned in the legends of Gallifrey.

Individuals

Organisations

Notes

Illustration by Lee Sullivan from DWM 303.
  • Minuet in Hell is a remake of the Audio Visuals audio drama of the same name with various aspects from Lear's other Audio Visuals works The Cloud of Fear and Planet of Lies incorporated into the new script.
  • Part one of this story was voted Most Popular Episode of 2001 by the cast and crew of Big Finish.
  • The date for this story was identified as 2003 in AUDIO: Neverland.
  • This story marks the first meeting between the Eighth Doctor and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
  • This audio drama was recorded on 19 May and 2 July 2000 at studios in Bristol.
  • An illustrated preview of this story appeared in DWM 303 illustrated by Lee Sullivan.
  • This story foreshadows the Fifth Doctor and Turlough's encounter with werewolves in Brazil in 2080, as depicted in AUDIO: Loups-Garoux, which was released one month later.

Continuity

External links

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