Death-Dealer (audio story)
Death-Dealer, also known as The Death-Dealer, was a 2010 Big Finish audio short story read by Louise Jameson and featuring Leela and the Fourth Doctor.
Summary
On an arid market world, not dissimilar to a middle-eastern bazaar on Earth, the Doctor treats Leela to a day of shopping. She struggles to understand the fundamentals of commerce, but then spots a weapon that appeals to her. Paying the merchant, Jason, she examines her new toy. Soon, however, she is slain by Jason's knife. The Doctor discovers her dead body and demands answers. A local policeman explains that no laws have been transgressed; Leela has bought a legal death experience. Soon, she springs back to life. Jason explains that the knife's edge contained not only a fast acting poison, but also restorative microscopic robots. Whole again, Leela returns to the TARDIS with the Doctor, musing on the newfound appreciation she has for life, now that she has died. The Doctor, having come back from the dead himself, can appreciate her point.
Characters
- Fourth Doctor
- Leela
- Jason, a "lizard-man" who is the titular Death-Dealer
- A policeman
References
- Leela has no concept of money. The unit of currency on the unnamed world is the credit.
- The Doctor wonders if the market world sells jelly babies.
- Red-skinned "lizard people"
- Leela brandishes threatens Jason with a janus thorn to his throat.
- The "microscopic healer robots" which restore Leela to life are not actually called nanogenes, but they work in exactly the same way.
- The Doctor hints that Leela's return from death has some commonality with regeneration.
Notes
- Though advertised on the Big Finish website, the CD jacket, and elsewhere as Death-Dealer, Louise Jameson clearly calls the story The Death-Dealer when she begins her reading.
- The story employs a limited third person perspective, focused mostly on Leela, except for the period of time she is dead.
- At least one inhabitant of the world is a red-skinned "lizard-man" named Jason. Neither the name of his species or his his home world is ever given.
Continuity
to be added
Timeline
There are no definitive clues within the story as to when it might be set. However, because Leela has no concept of money at all, it would seem logical to place this story before The Sunmakers. Her liberal use of janus thorns might also suggest an early placement for this story, but Leela never definitively relinquished janus thorns. Thus, this story can only safely be said to occur sometime between The Face of Evil and The Sunmakers
External links
to be added
