The Guardian of the Solar System (audio story): Difference between revisions

In the past, the officer locks the travellers into an accessment cell. While Steven tends to the fatigued Doctor, Sara stands by the door, worrying that the prison guards may find out who they are, kill them and bring the taranium back to Chen. The officer comes back, and takes Sara away in another cell, where a man is waiting: it's [[doctorwho:Bret_Vyon|Bret Vyon]], Sara's brother. Sara hugs him, relieved, while Bret wonders at her presence here: she should be on Venus, he said, on a six-months posting duty. Sara recalls that she was, a year before her meeting with the Doctor and Bret's death, and understands they have travelled back in time. She tries to tell him the reason why she is here, but Bret doesn't believe her, and instead assumes she has been given a secret assignment she can't share with him. Eventually, Sara confirms his assumption, resigning to the fact that she can't change things, and that what will later happen to Bret is already fixed to happen.  

In the present, Sara tells Robert she slipped away from the guard and went to retrieve the Doctor and Steven. On finding they did escape, she quickly figured out where they went, and ran to prevent them from destroying the Clock, thinking that, if they did so, this will change history.  

In the past, the Doctor and Steven climb down, until the bottom end of the great pendulum, and start looking for a weak link. Steven notices that the old men are actually doing that too: they are trying to stop the Clock, to no effect. However, the Doctor insists that he, with his intelligence, should succeed where they fail. What neither he or Steven understand is that this is exactly how the Clock works: hope of escaping traps the old men inside it, it is the food on which the machine feeds.  

In the present, Sara blames herself for what happened afterwards: Chen's betrayal, the war with the Daleks, the death of her brother. She never had any choice, she angrily protests: she was ever, ever just a cog in the machine, playing a predetermined part. Robert replied she freed the old men from the clock, she saved the Doctor and Steven, she gave her life to the Clock as she did later in the house and with the colonists. All the stories she told him are about her sacrifice to save someone else, so that they could go free. Sara says this is not why she did it: she was tired of fighting, tired of being free from the order and impositions she had been given all her life. All she wished was to be free, at least once in her life, but every time there was no choice, she never had any choice - and that's why she shot Bret, without even questioning orders. It was her duty. She had no choice.

* ''[[Home Truths (audio story)|Home Truths]] ''established that Sara stopped counting after 1000 years, implying she's been in the house for longer. This story makes it a flat 1000 years since that adventure.  

* This story is set between episodes seven and eight of [[The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)|''The Daleks' Master Plan'']].  

* This story was originally released on CD and download only.  

* This story is told from Sara's perspetive.  

* Sara refers to her visits to [[Liverpool]] (before it was flooded) on [[25 December]] [[1965]] ([[TV]]: ''[[The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)|The Daleks' Master Plan]]'') and [[Mars]] before it was colonised by [[human|humanity]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Little Drummer Boy (short story)|The Little Drummer Boy]]'') She also mentions an "ancient right gold cricket", of uncertain reference.