Doctor Who_ The Twin Dilemma - Eric Saward [50]
[serve] no useful function, except when he [speaks]. Then he
[gesticulates] with them, prodding the air to emphasis a special point.’ He has ‘large rolls of fat that [cover] his body’; therefore,
‘everything [wobbles] as he [moves]. So instead of a neat, mincing gait, he [appears] to undulate, like a large beached walrus, desperately struggling to regain the sea.’ His ‘face, what there [is]
of it, [is] humanoid in form. As he [does] not have a neck, head or shoulders, the features [have] grown where what would have been the underside of a normal slug’s jaw. As though to add to the peculiarity of a gastropod with a human face, the features [are]
covered in a thin membrane.’ This makes him look like he’s
‘swallowed someone and that the face of the victim [is] protruding through the skin covering his gullet.’
LIEUTENANT HUGO LANG: He’s ‘a tall, slim, good-looking man in his twenties. He…graduated top of his year from Star Fighter pilot school’. The Doctor knows that he is ‘lazy and immature.’
Romulus and Remus: They are ‘twelve year old identical twins’
who take ‘enormous pleasure’ from their parents’ inability to tell them apart. Although they are mathematical geniuses, ‘in many ways they [are] dumb.’ For instance, ‘it…required several psychologists and a battery of complex tests to establish the evidence’ that they achieved any ‘emotional maturation’, and this feature is so lacking that they will ‘forever remain immature mischief-makers with the mathematical ability to destroy the universe.’
THE CHAMBERLAIN: His name is Slarn.
ARCHIE SYLVEST: He’s ‘a tall man with a grey, matted thatch of hair that [won’t] lie neatly however much it [is] combed. His face [is] florid and his waist thick from drinking too much Voxnic’, but that’s okay, because both girth and Voxnic are very chic this season. He loves his wife, but that doesn’t stop him
‘drinking too much Voxnic with computer programmer Vestal Smith, a person of deep warmth, deep personal understanding and even deeper blue eyes.’ He ‘[wallows] in the company of his students’ and ‘[revels] in the respect shown by his fellow lecturers’. In fact, the only thing that scares him are his sons! He desperately wants to kill them, which his psychiatrist feels is quite normal. He even goes so far to suggest to Archie that he plan out the perfect murder in his head, which will either allow him to find a calm, positive, non-violent solution to his problem, or give him the means to kill his kids and get away with it.
NIMO SYLVEST: Wife of Archie. Instead of becoming an alcoholic, she covers her fear with ‘the accumulation of academic degrees.’ Even she, however, is starting ‘to wonder whether embarking on a fifth Ph.D [is] really a worthwhile way for a grown-up person to spend their time.’
THE SYLVEST FAMILY: They live in No. 25 on Lydall Street, as part of ‘the only Georgian terrace left standing in the metropolis.’ The entire family is composed of mathematical geniuses – Professor Archie Sylvest, his wife Nimo, and their twin sons, Romulus and Remus.
THE SECTOMS: This is the particular variant of gastropod Mestor represents. They are legendary on Jaconda as ‘slugs the size of men…capable of devouring forests, destroying meadows and reducing to desert once fertile land. Not only [do] they support a massive appetite, but also a brain and cunning equal to any intelligence in the universe.
MOSTEN ACID: It ‘doesn’t burn or corrode, but ages whatever is immersed in it by a unique process of dehydration.’ It was discovered by ‘Professor Vinny Mosten…when on an expedition to the planet Senile Nine.’ Mosten was a chemist ‘who was visiting the planet to authenticate a recent priceless discovery of Senilian vases and figurines.’ He revealed that the artefacts were really
‘modern copies, carefully aged’ –which, when put on auction as authentic, would have formed part of the Senilians’ plan to bring a more steady cash flow into their slowing economy. Mosten went on to find the source of the ageing technique, and called a press conference to publicise the