Point of Entry (audio story)

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Point of Entry was the sixth story in the first series of The Lost Stories, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was adapted by Marc Platt, from the original script by Barbara Clegg, and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown.

Publisher's summary

The 16th Century. Playwright Kit Marlowe is attempting to write Doctor Faustus when a darkness descends on his life, in the cadaverous form of a Spaniard called Velez. The monstrosity is in search of a stone blade that was brought from South America...

After a near-disastrous collision with an asteroid in space, the TARDIS makes an emergency landing in Elizabethan England.

These two events are connected. The Omnim are ready. And the point of entry approaches...

Plot

Part one

Struggling to make any progress with his latest play, Kit Marlowe is visited by Don Lorenzo Velez, whom he had sought out, and is offered a mirror to find whatever it is he desires through astral projection. In return for this, which he intends to use to help him write his new play, he agrees to seek news of a stone blade from the New World which was stolen from a Spanish treasure ship and which Velez claims he will be able to learn of through his friends at court and in Europe.

The Doctor and Peri visit Rogue Asteroid Delta-359XQ2, the latest hazardous cosmic anomaly on their tour, and find that it is acting as an intermediary in the exchange of messages. Deciding to investigate, the Doctor tries to send a signal from the TARDIS and the asteroid changes course, heading straight for the ship. The Doctor loses control and the TARDIS is dragged to a room full of theatrical costumes, one of which Peri puts on to blend in, at the Bell Inn in London in the summer of 1590. They walk around the city and hear one of the voices they heard at the rogue asteroid, a voice which the Doctor believes has used them, so they head back towards the inn.

After seeing Mad Jack in the stocks with his tongue mutilated for stealing bread, the Doctor and Peri take him with them, and they meet Kit and Alys. Kit agrees to help them despite Alys being unwilling. Kit introduces them to his friend Tom and they learn that Velez has been watching them. Kit, unwilling to elaborate on Velez's influence on the writing of Doctor Faustus, departs, and the Doctor leaves Peri and Jack in Tom's care whilst he goes out to investigate, but Jack is discreetly captured by Velez and Iguano. Alys orders Peri and Tom to leave at closing time.

Meanwhile, the Doctor goes to the Tower of London to meet Sir Francis Walsingham, the Lord Privy Seal, and asks him about what mission he has given Kit, whom he has sent on missions of espionage in the past. Sir Francis is suspicious of the Doctor and has him tortured on the rack by Cullum to force him to reveal what he knows of Kit. The Doctor, only mildly inconvenienced by the rack, tells him of his belief that Kit has been seduced by Velez, whom he had been assigned to investigate, with the promise of ungodly powers and knowledge. Sir Francis tells him of the Aztec blade and that a spy has been assigned to watch Kit since his reports stopped. The Doctor offers his own services to find him.

Kit visits the decaying Velez at his home and looks into the mirror again to look for the blade without success. Looking for him and the Doctor, Peri and Tom sneak into Velez's house and find Jack, leaving him behind to rescue later when they hear Kit's voice. They hide in Velez's library of grimoires to eavesdrop as the skeletal Velez explains how he had Iguano transport him to England in a box to track down the blade before a conjunction of powers. Velez senses a presence and declares that he and Iguano must sacrifice Jack as the blade is calling out to him for rescue and the sacrifice will restore him to his full strength. He gives Kit a knife with the hilt of the Aztec blade and orders him to kill Jack.

Peri and Tom are too late to save Jack and watch as Velez is restored to perfect health. Tom attacks Velez so that Peri can grab the blade, but she fails and runs to the Bell Inn to find the Doctor. She hears the sound of the blade's call and Alys experiences pain in her head which makes her violent, attacking Peri until Iguano enters through the tradesman's entrance and takes her back to Velez's home where he and Kit are astral projecting. Whilst the Doctor arrives at the inn to find Peri and speaks with the amnesiac Alys, Iguano forces Peri to look into Velez's mirror and she astral projects, telling herself that she is not dead.

Part two

Peri's mind floats above London with Kit in the astral world and they are joined by Velez, who has been consulting with spirits and learnt that the Aztec blade is being transported to London aboard the Cormorant. She tells Kit not to help Velez, so he keeps her on the astral plane whilst he and Kit return to their bodies and are confronted by the Doctor and Tom. Tom kills Velez, aggrieving Iguano as it was foretold that he would die in Velez's service, and the Doctor uses the mirror, activated by a "spell" memorised by Kit, to go after Peri. He finds that she is being used as a mouthpiece by the Omnim, spirits who projected themselves into Rogue Asteroid Delta-359XQ2 after their planet was shattered.

The Omnim latched onto the TARDIS and sent it to Earth, where a second fragment of their planet landed, as a beacon for them to follow. The blade the Aztecs made from the asteroid was transmitting the energy released by human sacrifices to the Omnim, but it was eventually broken and the hilt found in a vault in Madrid by Velez, whom the Omnim are using to restore the blade so that the human sacrifices can begin again in London. They return Velez to life to continue his mission and he demands Iguano's life to restore him to full health once again. However, Kit comes to Iguano's rescue and kills Velez again, accidentally setting the building aflame.

The Doctor agrees to help the Omnim restore the blade in return for Peri's release and the Omnim leaving Earth for another world and they return to their bodies, which Kit and Tom have managed to pull from the burning house. Kit heads back inside to save the books from the library, however, and Velez makes him swear to get the blade from the Cormorant with the promise of learning how to return from the dead. The house collapses with Velez and Iguano inside, but Kit manages to get out and Iguano throws out a bag containing calculations, an astrolabe and a replica of the Aztec blade which crumbles to dust. Using these, the Doctor plots the asteroid's course to Earth during the lunar eclipse, during which the Omnim will perform an energy transfer and invade.

To convince Captain Garland to hand over the casket containing the blade, Kit and Alys dress Peri up as Queen Elizabeth I. She, the Doctor, Kit and Tom take a rowing boat to the Cormorant where Garland tells them that the ship has been cursed by the Aztec blade and its screams. Peri makes Garland a knight and Kit puts the blade and hilt back together as the eclipse begins, unwittingly cutting himself and allowing the blade to feed on him. Velez briefly appears as a projection, returned to life again after his house burnt down, and Kit jumps from the ship to ensure that nobody can take the weapon from him. Having been tricked by Velez into helping stop the Doctor, Sir Francis arrests Kit at the Bell Inn for practising witchcraft.

Velez claims the blade and Kit is attacked by the Omnim after the Doctor, Peri and Tom arrive. Sir Francis orders his men to arrest Velez, but Velez is taken over by an Omnim which transforms his body into the image of Quetzalcoatl and demands to be worshipped. The Doctor realises that the sound of a ringing bell disrupts the energy transfer and has Alys keep ringing to weaken the Omnim, allowing Kit to take the blade and put it in a casket. The Doctor sends Sir Francis to have every bell in London rung to save England and has Alys place goblets in a circle into which he places the blade; the resulting circuit boosts the power of the blade and feeds back on itself, killing the Omnim when London's bells start to ring.

Rogue Asteroid Delta-359XQ2, the Doctor believes, may have been destroyed, although it was not his intention to wipe out all of the Omnim. The night's events inspire Kit, who writes out the final scenes of Doctor Faustus on his shirt as he is without parchment and includes a line in Latin translating as "Where the philosopher ceases, the Doctor begins". The Doctor, honoured, thanks him.

Cast

Uncredited cast

Worldbuilding

Notes

Interior art illustrating a scene from the story.

Continuity

External links