This is the 61st novel published by the BBC to feature the 8th Doctor.  His companions are Fitz Kreiner and Anji Kapoor.

This story takes place just after the previous book in the series, Time Zero.  The Doctor and his companions arrive on the planet Selonart to discover that the yacht they landed on has been set to overload its engines and all of the crew have been slaughtered.  They find a "native" named Bloom and they escape just before the creature get them.  The TARDIS is washed overboard so they must use an escape pod.  They, of course, are blamed for the yacht's destruction and are taken into custody.  They escape but, in the getaway, Fitz and Bloom are separated from the Doctor and Anji.

Fitz and Bloom are press ganged onto a ship were Bloom bargains for Fitz's live in exchange for his services to the crew, which include the ability to "feel" the currents in the ocean.  The Doctor leaves Anji to persuade the governor to call of the race, which of course he won't.  The Doctor goes with some special forces to investigate the strange "ice" that has been forming.  They find that this is actually water that all of the molecules have simultaneously decided to take every possible outcome at once (i.e. all of the multiple universes compacted into one).

Sabbath is trying to use this to enable himself to alter the nature of the universe and compact it into the "true" universe.  Instead he is double-crossed by his allies, the Warlocks, and he is taken to their world.  The only outcome of the "ice" on Selonart is that the "natives" become one with the water and with time.

As mysteriously as they had gone off, the tele-sats and comms systems blinked back on-line again.  Swarms of technicians, amongst their ranks stressed technical team leaders unable to deliver on the assurances and hyperbolic promises of their software salesman, overpaid and ignorant IT 'solution providers', apathetic inter-orbital telecom engineers and all the rest, were simultaneously amazed and mightily relieved (for in the Empire, failure to provide adequate thechnical support was a capital crime) when all the lights and noises inexplicably started up again.

A number of conspiracy theories were marketed, most fervently by the software providers themselves.  Clearly, the total and utter failure of all communications systems on and around Selonart couldn't possibly be the fault of hastily written and under-supported software.  It had to be a conspiracy.  Or, more likely, a number of them.

Only the actual participation of the Proudhon Confederation in the race, and the fact that their vessel had been equally stricken by the mysterious failure, had prevented some of the larger Systems Management corporations sending in their space navies to obliterate that handful of self-sufficient and valueless anarchist planets.

Around Selonart, as the angry and frustrated spectators picked up where they had left off with the race, as the bookies and touts wiped the sweat of a million potential voided bets away, as the guests in the inter-orbital hotels stopped panicking (having not unreasonably assumed that their luxury floating palaces were about to drop into Selonart's atmosphere), and lawyers licked their lips ready to begin feeding off the carrion of this disaster, the question became one angry shout from the wealthy and sports-obsessed: who had done this, why, and how much pain could they withstand before they actually died?

As for Governor Marius, gibbering and weeping in his palace, his reaction to the good news was understandable.  He fainted.

Screens flickered back into life as cursing technicians sat and watched.  The palace on Beta Marina, to where the governing party had decamped, was ankle-deep in scribbled and torn paper, for two days the only method of communication apart from talking face to face. Nothing had worked: phones, televisions, computers.  Anything that could be used to transmit a signal had just curled up and died.

Now, beeps and bells and jingles and rings celebrated the rebirth of the stricken colony.  Already the Governor's marketing team were working on methods of turning this into a PR triumph: a race where the unpredictable could still happen, where technology was cutting edge... where excitement was the name of the game.

Even the destruction of the MikronCorps yacht was not necessarily a bad thing.  Well, as long as it could be satisfactorily explained.  As he watched the financial screens, Governor Marius noted with pleasure that the wreck of the vessel had instigated a whole new round of frenzied recalculating and odds-jiggling.  Money throughout the empire was going crazy.  Nothing like a few deaths to add a little spice.  With such a mediated media event as this, boredom and predictability were the worst that could happen.

So, despite the still unexplained blackout, the Governor was in a good mood.  A mere two hours ago he had been expecting the self-termination invitation from Earth; now he could safely hope for a medal.