The Flight of the Sun God (audio story)
The Flight of the Sun God was an audiobook in the Audio Originals series from BBC Audio featuring the Sixth Doctor. It was read by Nicola Bryant.
Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]
The TARDIS lands aboard the Sun God, a vast spaceship carrying executives from a powerful 35th Century energy company. Peri is menaced by deadly cat-like robots, whilst the Doctor discovers that Spalding Revere, the company's founder, has set the ship on course for the heart of a sun. Spalding's last wish is to take his acolytes with him to the afterlife, and unless the Doctor can intervene he and Peri will be going with them.
Tensions and in-fighting grow among the staff. Peri meets Brian, whose half-man/half-insect body has a terrible significance to Spalding's plan. As the Sun God continues on its final mission, time is running out for them all...
Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Doctor and Peri arrive aboard the sphinx-shaped Sun God in the Metellus Cluster in the 35th century and examine the metal hieroglyphs on the walls, some of which the Doctor recognises as belonging in the tomb of Seti. Looking at facts and figures on a monitor, the Doctor realises that something is wrong, but a group of robot cats arrive before he can elaborate and are interested only in Peri. He sends her back into the TARDIS for her safety and warns the board of executives of Sun God Intergalactic that the spaceship is flying into the heart of Magnox Major, a sun. This, Warren, Lorraine and Fletnix explain, is the point as the ship's function is to draw off energy.
Duncan, head of security, arrests the Doctor for being a stowaway and, in his cell, the Doctor watches an informative video presented by the Egypt-loving CEO Spalding Revere. The board come to believe that the Doctor is Revere in disguise as part of the Boss in Disguise vidprogramme and release him, although he does not understand why he has been let out and why he is suddenly being treated so differently. He warns them that the Sun God is actually being pulled towards Tyresus Minor and asks to speak to technical executive Brian, only to learn that he has been missing for several days. He then has Fletnix, Head of Customer Services and a Salamandrel, escort him to the navigational computer in Revere's sanctum.
Peri tries to leave the TARDIS when the robot cats fail to move, but they immediately target her and she returns inside. On the TARDIS scanner, she sees a man with a sack over his head and a mechanical voice get rid of the cats and ask her to come out, introducing himself as Brian. She steps outside and gets him to remove the sack, revealing that, although he is human, his head is now that of a beetle and he believes that Revere has used a mandatory implant to cause this. They are forced to flee when the cats attack and block the way into the TARDIS and Brian takes Peri to his hideout from which they enter the ducts to the solar vents.
The Doctor and Fletnix find Revere close to death inside a medical chamber resembling a sarcophagus, clutching a crook and flail like a pharaoh. He wakes up and plays a video in which he explains how the Sun God's navigation will direct it into Tyresus Minor once his heart stops as he is suffering from Grine's disease and intends to join the gods, whose number he counts himself amongst. His employees are to die so that they might serve him after death. Fletnix begs Revere to put a stop to his plan and shakes him, accidentally causing his heart to stop, and the ship sets its course for Tyresus Minor with the life pods jettisoned and the TARDIS inaccessible thanks to fire doors.
Warren, Duncan and Lorraine decide to activate the solar harvester to render Tyresus Minor harmless despite the Doctor pointing out that this will destroy the fifteen nearby planets as they do not have the time to place them in a warp sleeve. The plan fails, however, as Revere has prevented its activation as the Doctor suspected. Warren, Duncan and Lorraine's heads turns into those of a crocodile, dog and bird respectively and the Doctor sends them to the conference rooms in the lift before Peri and Brian join him and Fletnix from the solar vents. The robot cats enter and target Peri once more, but Brian grows wings and flies her out of the way so that they can all escape to the sanctum.
The Doctor makes Peri enter the sarcophagus and attaches electrodes which link her heart to the navigational computer as she is the only human aboard now that the executives have become part-animal. The robot cats have been attempting to inject her with an implant so that she too would become non-human and thus unable to take Revere's place. Although the computer knows that Revere is dead, the Doctor convinces it that Revere had resurrected himself with his divine powers and the executives, made human once more thanks to the Doctor reprogramming the cats and implants, take turns in the sarcophagus as the ship heads to Magnox Major.
The Doctor reprograms the computer to recognise Fletnix as the new owner of Sun God Intergalactic on the condition that she works in the interests of the environment. He and Peri head back to the TARDIS and Peri vetoes the possibility of him keeping one of the robot cats.
Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
- According to the Doctor, some pyramids on Earth were built by aliens. Most of them were vapourised by the Egyptian Tourist Board because of the Great Galactic Copyright Wars in the 23rd century.
- The Doctor uses his torch.
- Some of the hieroglyphs come from the tomb of Seti in the 1st century BC.
- Duncan is Head of Security.
- Fletnix is Head of Customer Services. She is a Salamandrel from the Shindle Cluster.
- The Sun God is owned by Sun God Intergalactic.
- Warren is Head of Planetary Sales.
- Lorraine is Head of Marketing.
- Lorraine believes that Fletnix is only on the board of executives because of positive discrimination.
- The Doctor has always had a soft spot for cats.
- The Doctor has a clockwork mouse in his pocket.
- "Here Comes the Sun" is a song sung by George Harrison.
- Boss in Disguise is a documentary show on Alpha Beta 12.
- Brian is the technical executive.
- Brian has read Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis.
- Brian owns a palm pad.
- Brian makes himself a translation machine.
- The Doctor has been meaning to make himself a new sonic screwdriver for some time.
- The Doctor has a crowbar in his pocket.
- Revere has Grine's disease.
- Brian has a machete.
- Revere wrote The Craft of the Deal.
Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The story was reissued in the audio anthology Tales of Time and Space.
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor half expected to be interrogated using a mind probe. (TV: Day of the Daleks, Frontier in Space, etc.)
- When the Doctor thinks he is about to die he says, "I've had good innings." He would later echo these words before his actual death and regeneration into his Seventh incarnation. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death)
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Official The Flight of the Sun God page at Penguin Books
