Fate of The Jdica finally sees them reaching Snowdonia in the ice age. The first part of the story, with the space age tent with all the amenities, was a lot of fun to write. I do a fair bit of camping and hiking, and these are the little improvements I would like to make to that hobby. Instant flat back hot drinks, thermal tents, even the flat pack chemical toilet would take the pain out of it.

But there would be no story without an adventure, and the main part of the story is a rather harrowing tale.

Yes, the Jdica ARE a thinly veiled science fiction version of he Jews, persecuted by the Nazis. The stories of how they were thrown out of their jobs and homes and schools, put into transports and then taken to the prison habitat which The Doctor and his friends found in ice age Earth is obviously an allegory of the clearance of Jews from occupied Europe and the ‘Final Solution’. There was no question about that. I was deliberately aiming to draw that comparison. Because science fiction is supposed to hold up a mirror to real life, and an analogy of Nazi atrocities needs telling every so often.

The stunt with the punishment cube and the portaloo was always going to go in there. How to work it took a little bit of effort. Even with a robot guard to break the fall, The Doctor risked injury. But he would never shirk a little risk.

What to do with the Jdica was a problem I puzzled over, as well as The Doctor. I originally considered him leaving them there in Snowdonia before Human beings arrived in the valley. But there were various complications to that. For one, a technological people who would have an effect on the indigenous prehistoric population would not do. THEN I remembered the students of Rhekan IV, starting out their new lives, and The Doctor’s promise to return to see how Ric was getting on. They could accommodate the Jdica. A happy ending and a satisfying conclusion to both stories.