“Beneath a Steel Sky” *
A.k.a.
“Mummy, my Planet’s Gone Rusty!”
Cast: The Professor, Pirx the pilot, Theodora.
The Professor wants to get away and he and Theodora argue about where the best place is to go. As the Tardis is in flight, the shielding starts to depolarise, due to a massive magnetic signature. They are in the middle of nowhere and no-time, and rematerilise on a planet made of iron named Ferrujn. They land in a scrubby park, and into trouble. Spelled T.R.U.B.I.L.
The locals are converging on the park, waving placards, and shouting at one another. The Professor sees an opportunity for a rumble and wades straight in. Theodora cones face to face with a protestor and is accosted. All the population wear clothing made of meshed steel, and her pretty dress and hat has caused a secondary disturbance.
The protest seems to be over this scrubby bit of land. There is one group who’d like it preserved as the last green area on Ferrujn and the other group want to build on it, to provide essential public buildings and accommodation. However, several of the protestors decide that the Professor’s and Theodora’s outfits are worth a lot more money, and therefore interest than some stupid plot of land. A couple of dozen give chase, and the three crew members scurry off down narrow alleys. The Professor ducks into a shop doorway, and barges past the surprised shop owner. He makes a trade and emerges to blend with the crowd. The shopkeeper is seen booking a flight on the nearest space shuttle to the moon.
The others manage to avoid the crowd, and soon they too have traded with the Professor’s shopkeeper, who is later seen cancelling the lunar trip, and booking a tour of the galaxy, as soon as spacecraft are invented on Ferrujn.
The crew decide to visit some of the more touristy places on the planet, the museum of alien artefacts and the hall of records. On the way they are jumped by a gang of toughs eager to get their hands on some non-ferrous loot, one of which is mad with Ferrosis, a kind of a kind of psychosis brought on by over-iron-rich-blood, and the fact that there are no more empty spaces on the planet.
They manage to knock out the psychotic and trap one of the others in a dustbin while pounding him and the dustbin for information. They take the Ferrosis sufferer to a local hospital, and offer help with finding a cure.
They visit the hall of records, but find out that there is a pass system to get in. They go to the Museum of alien artefacts and find that it is full of old junk that a passing megafreighter has dumped before going into hyperspace. Anything non-ferrous is rare as clean-space-rangers-underwear on this planet. They donate a couple of copper coins to the curator, who manages to blag them a pass for the hall of records.
The hall of records is full of books. The place is a 10-miles-to-a-side square pyramid, full of metallic books. The books themselves are made of steel leaves, all embossed with the wisdom of centuries. They decide to go and see the Theocrat of Ferrujn, only to find that once again it is like an audience with the Pope, you can’t just turn up on spec. So they go back to the Tardis and turn up on spec.
The Theocrat is full of woes. He has just signed away the last clear space on the planet, wiping out a lovely green park to make way for a building site. (except for a patch underneath the Tardis.) He seems to have no solution, the planet’s citizens need space to live and they need space to cultivate food. The oceans are all but covered over, and even the famous Ferrujnian Brawling fish is dying out. They have built their buildings as high as they dare, and still the population grows and demand grows with it.
Brawling fish.
Just then, a shadow in the crowd of advisors makes a swift getaway. The Tardis crew give chase, but to no avail. They ask the advisors who the figure was, to find that it was the Chief librarian of the hall of records, who is by all accounts a reclusive and rather shadowy figure. He has been chief for over half a century, and rarely ventures beyond the building.
The crew decide to pay the hall of records one last visit, and they scout about a bit until they spot a hidden doorway behind a false shelf of books. They find it very secure, but not to a determined Theodora. Beyond the door is just a blank wall, and a pretty solid one at that. They are then accosted by security, who ask the politely to leave. The Professor invites them to a taste of his martial arts, and they slump down senseless. The crew manage to hide the body in a service passage between isles, and discover another solid blank wall. There is a feint energy signature here , and they decide that this impenetrable cube inside the hall of records is another Tardis. But how do you break into a Tardis?
The Professor and Mme Bouviour go back to their Tardis. Theodora stays behind to study the Tardis in the library, and to look through the records and histories of the planet. The Professor’s Tardis is surrounded by supplies ready for construction on the last open space on Ferrujn. They gain access and look at their scanners. There definitely is something nearby with a Tardis like signature.
Theodora is perusing the books, and discovers that there is much more history here than there should be. Admittedly there are large gaps, and some minor details are incorrect, but for a time unaware civilisation, who are only just coming around to space flight theories, there is a awful lot of galactic history buried away in the hall of records. She goes back to the impenetrable force fields in the service corridor, and ponders. She tries a few more things, and is surprised to hear and sense the familiar Tardis dematerialisation signature. The force field has vanished! Back in the Professor’s Tardis Mme Bouviour has spotted an ominous flashing “What’s that flashing?”
The Professor checks the flashing and finds that not only has the force-field vanished, but the entire hall of records has too. Realising that the entire hall of records is a Tardis, and that the mysterious room was just a room in the internal architecture, the Professor decides, quite out of character to rescue Theodora, and to Materialise his Tardis right inside the other. (disguised as a Grecian Urn) He manages a perfect microjump to the other Tardis, which is simply hovering in the vortex. Around the console of the other Tardis is a old-looking fellow with a beard, and steel clothing…..The chief Librarian!
The Gallifreyan at the controls declines to introduce himself, and they decline to ask. He hints that his title is “The Chronicler.” The Professor is all for torturing him to make him put back the Ferrujn Hall of records. Theodora has meantime got lost as the Tardis reconfigures itself. After careful consideration and a quick analysis of the block-transfer algorithm she waits for the supposed console room to come around to the next door. She bursts through just as the Professor is about to make a dramatic end to the chronicler.
After a few testy moments, the Professor decides to calm down, and Theodora and Mme Bouviour manage to convince the Chronicler that the best thing they can do is to archive the hall of records onto microfiche and to use the vacated space for a hydroponics farm, and bio-dome. The Chronicler argues that this would be meddling in the affairs of an alien planet, but the other Gallifreyans overrule him, and point out that without their help, the planet is headed for self-destruction.
In the ensuing argument, the Chronicler points out that there is little of worth on this rusty planet, and scorns the decoration of the Professor’s Tardis. They then argue all about great artworks of the universe, and Theodora in error renames the “Mona Lisa” to “The Jeremy Clarkson”
The Chronicler threatens them with the Theocrat, little realising that the Theocrat is on their side in principle, and so they don’t put up much of a fight to go back to the palace. When the two Tardises rematerialise, disguised as Grecian Urns, the Theocrat is distraught. Not at the amount that the Grecian Earns, but that the Hall of records has vanished. He wants to lock up the crew of the Tardis, (Grand Theft Architecture?) for stealing the building. They assure him that the 10 mile-to-a-side millions-of-volume hall of records is in fact inside one of these Urns. They have to prove it of course, and manage to convince him that transferring the records into a more portable form is the best way of saving the planet. The Chronicler is overruled, and they submit basic plans for the bio-factory for the space left behind. They leave some basic chemicals, and organic food samples from which the Ferrujnians can grow culture(s) and decide that it is time to leave.
The Chronicler is not sorry to see them go, his life’s work is all on microfiche, and his Tardis is a Grecian Urn. He leaves in a huff, with an ominous “We’ll meet again….”
