John Wood

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe become victims of piracy when they materialise on a space beacon, minutes before it is blown to pieces. So begins their quest to be reunited with the TARDIS, whilst treading perilously across the paths of the Interstella Space Corps and a gang of murderous bandits. The eccentric prospector Milo Clancey gives the travellers passage in his ageing spaceship, but the old man is himself the focus of Space Corps investigations. Could he possibly be behind the destruction and salvage of so many beacons in the sector? What is the position of Madeleine Issigri, who runs her father's mining corporation on the planet Ta — and how might a locked room provide the answer to this mystery?

The Doctor and his companions are pursued through time and space by the Daleks on the desert planet Aridius and beyond.

On the planet Vortis, the Doctor and his companions aid the butterfly-like Menoptra in their battle against the parasitic Animus and its mind-controlled minions, the ant-like Zarbi.

When the TARDIS arrives on the plains of Asia Minor not far from the besieged city of Troy, the Doctor is hailed by Achilles as the mighty god Zeus and taken to the Greek camp. He meets Agamemnon and Odysseus. Forced to admit he is a mere mortal — albeit a traveller in space and time — he is given two days to devise a scheme to capture Troy. Steven and Vicki, meanwhile, have been taken prisoner by the Trojans. Vicki, believed to possess supernatural powers, is given two days to banish the Greeks to prove she is not a spy.

Professor Monty Lafcado, haunted by the memory of his late mother, sets out to construct a mighty computer in his basement, much to the concern of his friend, Dr Pugh.

The travellers arrive in a strange domain presided over by the Celestial Toymaker — an enigmatic, immortal entity who forces them to play a series of games, failure at which will render them his playthings for all eternity.