After settling things in Kenya with Dr. Klein she takes him up on his offer to travel with him (so better to keep an eye on her).
The story starts out with Dr. Klein giving her Start of Darkness in "Dr. Klein's story"
Part of a trilogy starting in A Thousand Tiny Wings and concludes in The Architects of History.
- Alternate Timeline
- For Science!: The Eighth Doctor claims this is the reason why he's giving Dr. Klein the TARDIS key.
- Giving Radio to the Romans: How the Alternate Timeline nazis got nuclear arms.
- Go-to Alias: The Eighth Doctor goes by "Johann Schmidt".
- Metaphorically True:Dr. Klein: Did you steal the Doctor's body?"Johann Schmidt": Ahaha, yes you could say that.
- Mythology Gag: Dr. Klein enters the TARDIS and goesDr. Klein: You've redecorated!The Doctor: Yes!
- Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Actually defied for the most part; while Hitler obviously approved of the experiments that led to them using lasers to refine uranium and develop the atomic bomb, Klein learns that he actually had most alien technology locked up because he feared the implications of advanced intelligence, Klein only gaining access to the TARDIS and other such technology after Hitler's death.
- Translator Microbes: Dr. Klein mentions having read the "German" Instruction Manual for the TARDIS.
Several short trips later, the Doctor and Dr. Klein step out in a place which Klein is absolutely smitten with, a beautiful starry sky impresses her and the Doctor kills her mood by pointing out that lots of planets have starry skies, and then they're noted by an alien creature roughly the size of a cat ... and looking a bit like a Bottlefly.
They make friends with the local species which Klein names the Vrill, but they're beset upon by bigger, meaner species dubbed the Carrion. Though what seems to be a macrobiological species hunting another, turns out to be hiding ulterior motives of something that isn't Vrill or Carrion...
- Alternative Number System: The Vrill always mention the number of a numerator followed by a denominator. Ie, they're 8 of 8 of 8 (8 of 1 of 8 of one of 8, meaning there should be 512)
- Bavarian Fire Drill: Klein manages to bluff her way into command of a soldier by pretending to be his superior from an off world entity.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Sizing from roughly a cat to the size of cars.
- Call-Back: The Doctor and Klein visited Vulcan. The Doctor had visited there, once before.
- Cliffhanger: Ends with the Doctor in orbit with Jackson (Of "The Winterlack") and Klein off in the TARDIS on her own.
- Death by Materialism: Steffen tries to slip past the Vrill and grab more of the rare nutrients but at that point they don't understand him anymore (a fact he was well aware of). They turn on him and rend him asunder.
- Everyone Calls Them Barkeep: All of the Vrill are identified by their function.
- Gratuitous German: "Lebensraum" suddenly gets thrown in by Klein in normal conversation. Later in the same conversation she drops "Untermensch". For the rest of the story she speaks normal English.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: The Vrill have named them Winterlack though more for the effect than their appearance.
- My Instincts Are Showing: In state of distress the Vrill are slaves to their instincts (and a form of hive mind) and cannot fight their usual reasoning.
- The Nameless: The Vrill have no names until the Doctor names them "Rose" and "Lily".
- Non-Malicious Monster: The Carrion was just a Vrill and was born during a chemical attack, warping his senses and body. It couldn't communicate with the other Vrill, and eventually thought every one aside from him was just an intruder of his nest.
- Noodle Incident: Several trips have taking place between "Dr. Klein's story"
- Starfish Language: The insect aliens communicate through smells. Though Klein picks up different smells because she is a native German speaker, and the Doctor picks up Gallifreyan. Though they don't understand the aliens' names so the Doctor allows Elizabeth to name the new scent "Vrill".
- Title Drop:Steffen: It's survival of the fittest here! We are the Master Race.
