The Snows of Terror

Hello Doctor,

We’ve still seen no sight of you in Millennius. Where can you be hiding?

I believe Barbara left off as we arrived in the snowy region of Marinus. We soon lost consciousness in the cold, and would have died had Altos not convinced a local trapper, Vasor, to rescue us and bring us to his cabin. Of course, we were unaware of Altos’ involvement until later. It seems he had lost track of Susan and Sabetha and had left us in Vasor’s care while he went to find them.

Barbara woke first, and I woke with her gently massaging my hands to alleviate frost bite. I bartered my travel dial away for some more appropriate clothes and set off in search of the others, leaving Barbara in Vasor’s care.

I found Altos soon enough, but also quickly realized that the bag of provisions Vasor had provided me contained raw meat, which I believe he counted on to draw the wolves in the area to attack me. I threw the bag away, and realising Vasor was not to be trusted, urged Altos to hurry with me back to the cabin.

I suspect I made it just in time. Barbara had apparently found Sabetha’s chain and confronted Vasor. Altos and I forced him to take us to where he had left Susan and Sabetha in a cave in the mountains.

We finally found the girls deep in the caves when Vasor severed the rope bridge that would bring us back out.

Inside we found the third key frozen in a block of ice surrounded by a group of three knights who were equally as frozen in their positions. We set the heat from the volcanic spring to work on melting the ice and set about fixing the bridge. Unfortunately, in addition to freeing the key the heat also re-animated the ice-knights and we had to fend them off as we sought to escape the mountain.

We succeeded, obviously, and now here we are in Millennius anxious to rendezvous with you, but you are nowhere to be found. I’ve followed up on a lead to the fourth key, however, and am on my way to the vault where I believe it is kept. Hopefully, I’ll be able to recover and catch you up soon, so we can return the keys to Arbitan as quickly as possible.

-Ian Chesterton

Based upon the teleplay by Terry Nation, first broadcast on BBC 2nd May 1964