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22 October 2014

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Doctor Who | Photonovels | Fury from the Deep

Episode Two contact sheet

Victoria is startled by a banging noise, and looks up to see something seeping through the ventilation grille. An ominous heartbeat begins to fill the air. Weed and foam cascade through the opened slats, threatening to engulf her.

As the Doctor and Jamie run to the rescue, Victoria backs away from the grille. The foam-creature retreats, before the Doctor and Jamie ram through the door.

Victoria's Screams

Victoria blusters about a seaweed creature before being questioned by Robson, Van Lutyens and the Chief Engineer. Robson dismisses the girl as hysterical.

The three men investigate the room, which carries the stench of toxic gas, and the Chief Engineer points out that the seals on the oxygen tanks have been broken.

Robson accuses Victoria of sabotage. Jamie rushes to her defence, arguing that she was locked in from the outside.

The Doctor is more interested in the open ventilator shaft.

Van Lutyens deduces that the ventilator was operated by the control outside the room. The saboteur's identity is once more a mystery.

'I feel so dazed,' Maggie Harris tells her concerned husband, who has returned home to check on her wellbeing and collect his missing documents.

She tells him about the seaweed that stung her before she threw it outside. 'It looks alright,' he reassures her, examining her hand. 'What happened?'

'I went to get the file you asked for...' she explains, as her voice begins to trail off, '... put my hand inside, and then...'

Maggie Harris falls silent, as if in a trance.

Seemingly overwhelmed by tiredness, she reclines on the bed as Harris tries to comfort her.

She suddenly snaps awake in his arms. 'Darling!' she exclaims breathlessly, 'Darling!'

Meanwhile, the discarded sprig of seaweed has grown and a huge foam-creature seethes in its place on the veranda. As Harris leaves to fetch a doctor, poisonous fumes emanate from the creature's quivering tendrils.

A racing heartbeat fills the air, and Maggie wakes from her fitful sleep.

Alien heartbeat

The seaweed creature exerts a telepathic influence over Maggie, who climbs downstairs and walks to the kitchen.

She opens the veranda door and looks outside. The alien throbbing and pulsating in her head grows louder and louder.

A horrifying sight confronts her – the seaweed she discarded has grown to enormous proportions.

'No!' she exclaims, covering her eyes before she slams the door.

In the impeller area, the Chief Engineer reports that the pump pressure has dropped again.

'Excuse me,' the Doctor interrupts. 'When I was in the pipe room a short while ago I'm sure I heard a movement coming from inside the pipes... The same as I heard on the beach. A sort of thumping sound.'

'What you heard,' snaps Robson, 'was a mechanical fault.'

'This wasn't a mechanical sound,' replies the Doctor, who suggests turning off the gas until the problem can be investigated. Van Lutyens agrees, but Robson refuses.

'If you let the pressure build up in the pipeline, you'll blow the whole rig sky high,' argues Van Lutyens.
'What do you think it is?' sneers Robson. 'One of these creatures the hysterical girl thought she saw?'

In the communications room a recovered Victoria, together with Jamie, quiz the officer in charge, Price. He tells them that the ESG company supplies gas for the whole of southern England and Wales.

He shows them an illuminated map indicating the relative position of all the rigs under their command. At its centre is the central control rig complex – the operation's nerve centre.

Victoria says it must get very lonely living out at sea. Price tells her that Robson spent four years on one of the earliest rigs without ever going ashore.

With the resident medical officer unavailable, Harris pleads with the Doctor to help his sick wife.

Robson initially refuses, warning Harris that he shouldn't bring his domestic problems into work. When Harris's frustration become obvious, however, he relents and lets the Doctor out of his custody for one hour.

Maggie hears the door bell, and goes to answer it.

Two strangers – one tall and thin, the other short and plump – are standing at the door. The short man speaks in clipped, precise tones, and tells Mrs Harris that they are maintenance controllers. He asks to see her husband, but she explains that he isn't there.

The short man says that they have orders from Chief Robson to carry out a maintenance inspection in her kitchen. Maggie asks them to be quick, as she is feeling unwell.

'My name is Mr Oak,' he says, 'and this is my colleague Mr Quill.' The taller Mr Quill remains silent. Maggie leads them to the kitchen: once the two men are alone, they head for the cooker. 'The bag, Mr Quill...'

The excessive pressure in the feed lines continues to build. 'We'll blow ourselves wide open,' warns the Chief Engineer.

Even when faced with an imminent catastrophe, Robson resolutely refuses to switch off the gas. 'There will not be an explosion,' he calmly intones.

Oak and Quill set to work on the cooker while Maggie rests in the bedroom.

Oak's diseased hand betrays the fact that he has fallen victim to the deadly seaweed. The two men briefly pause and put on gloves to conceal the infection.

Oak switches on the cooker and Quill walks across the kitchen to open the veranda door.

He steps aside, allowing the weed-impregnated foam to seep into the house.

Quill turns away, and joins Oak as they make their way towards the bedroom.

Maggie is combing her hair in the mirror when she sees the reflection of the two men standing behind her. 'What are you doing here?' she asks. 'Is there something you want?'

The two men say nothing, but both open their mouths wide to reveal black teeth and tongues. They exhale a poisonous gas to which Maggie quickly succumbs.

On the beach where the Doctor and his companions first examined the pipe, gas begins to pour out of the safety valve. The resultant re-stabilising of pressure reassures Robson.

When Rig C fails to respond to communications, however, it becomes clear to Van Lutyens that the immediate crisis is far from over.

The Doctor accompanies Harris back to his living quarters, where they discover the unconscious Maggie and the stench of gas. Coughing, they throw open the windows.

Van Lutyens points out that there have been unprecedented pressure variations and that contact has now been lost with two rigs. Robson starts to feel that there is a conspiracy against him.

'I know every nut and bolt on every one of the rigs out there,' says Robson. 'I run this outfit the way I see fit. Is that understood?' He is diverted by a critical emergency.

The impeller is clearly being jammed. Robson and his colleagues watch as it grinds to a halt. 'Well Mr Robson,' says Van Lutyens, 'where do we go from here?'

Alien heartbeat

The Doctor examines Maggie, who is alive and apparently physically unharmed. He deduces that, possibly as a result of the toxic gas, she is in some sort of coma. Furthermore, he explains that the gas isn't natural, but is the toxic kind emitted when Victoria was locked in the oxygen store room.

Harris explains that his wife seemed to have been stung by some kind of seaweed. Victoria nervously points out a sprig of seaweed on the floor nearby, and the Doctor warns Harris not to touch it.

Harris retraces recent events in an attempt to figure out how the seaweed could have got into his missing file.

'Why should anyone want me to get stung by a piece of seaweed?' he wonders. Victoria is uneasy about the seaweed, which she says appears to be able to move...

Van Lutyens becomes increasingly concerned about the jammed impeller and the growing thumping sound in the air. He tells the Chief Engineer that he believes he has located the blockage.

The impeller intake seems to be at fault, and the valve must be checked. They resolve to go to the control room.

The Chief Engineer tells Van Lutyens that he respects Robson, and he can't take any action without clearing it with him first. Van Lutyens is initially furious, but soon apologises and agrees to follow procedure. Robson arrives and they prepare to tackle him on the subject.

The noise from the impeller starts again and the Chief Engineer asks Robson for permission to check for blockages with Van Lutyens. 'Mr Robson,' the Dutchman warns, 'there is something alive in the pipeline.'

Down there in the darkness,' he continues over the din of an alien heartbeat, 'waiting...'

Alien heartbeat

NEXT WEEK:

What is the secret of the pipes?

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