Story: Alan Barnes Pencils: Martin Geraghty
Inks: Robin Smith Lettering: Elitta Fell
Editors: Gary Gillatt & Scott Gray

left: Marquez carrying Crivello

Synopsis:
Izzy, believing the Doctor dead and with him her way home, is crying. The Doctor, however, is still alive and suspended in the plasma.

Meanwhile, Leng has a technician set up a device that will direct the travelers to him if they attempt to transport.

The Doctor surprises Izzy by climbing out of the plasma cauldron and comments that although he was in there for minutes, it felt like years. Marquez, holding Crivello, tells of how the scientist built the cauldron to be a new sun, but it became a living being. The organism was cold in temperature and needed direction, so Crivello tried to commune with it and it aged him 60 years.

The Doctor angers when he realizes they wanted him to become a conduit through which the star could achieve fusion and launch, as a time traveler would be unscathed by its compressed time. He says he's no interpreter, but the plasma is effected and changes form to a large, fiery humanoid. Marquez encourages the Doctor to talk with it, but doing so causes the cauldron to boil over.

They escape by transmat and are captured by the soldiers' teleportation director. Leng wants the treasure inside the Keep, but the Doctor points out the explosion bursting upwards from it. Crivello explains that he did it for the remaining humans and the Doctor suggests they follow it with their ships.

The Doctor and Izzy depart.

Later, Crivello reflects on the new hope for the human race when Marquez rudely snaps his neck and tosses the body over a cliff. The mood shifts to forthcoming doom.

Comments:
The idea of a living sun needing instructions to launch and offering hope to Earth's remaining humans is a splendid idea. Another nice touch was Izzy's despair at losing the Doctor and fear that she'd be stranded in the 51st century. There are, however, unanswered questions about this story, such as how the Doctor was summoned and why Marquez killed Crivello. These issues are explored again in Fire and Brimstone.

The inks are once again superb, especially in the final panels when Marquez shows his dark side and hurls his master's body from the cliff.

Other Features This Issue:
Cliffhangers; The John Nathan-Turner Memoirs, Chapter 13; Wendy Padbury interview; Graham Williams interview, Part 2; Daleks comic strip - Return of the Elders, Part 1; Archive: The Trial of a Time Lord - Parts 5 to 8.