Tap (audio story)
Tap was the first story of the audio anthology The Christmas Collection.
Publisher's summary
Bernice has a spooky story to tell about her expedition to a junk world where, looking for archaeological treasures buried in the garbage, her team disturb remnants of an old culture that, perhaps, should have been left to rot...
Plot
At St Oscar's, Benny decides to follow an Earth tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas and tells the faculty about an adventure she had years ago on Rikadell, a junk world where the season changes every three days.
Benny is the most junior member of an expedition to Rikadell, where Professor Alaman hopes to find Vashar game disks dumped there by the Pentakians. After they manage to dig a number of them out from the rubbish, they take them to a refuse services outpost for analysis and, during the night, Benny has a nightmare about the oppressive corridors of the outpost. Meldon recharges the disks with a solar lamp over the next day and Benny has a good night's sleep until she is awoken by Meldon's scream.
Benny recounts how Meldon told her that something had touched him with its long fingers. When questioned, she says that she remembers exactly what he said because she took notes later and was entirely sober. She continues with the story.
After calming down, Meldon explains that he found the disks building tremendous power and decided to monitor them. He fell asleep in his chair and was awoken by a stranger matching the description of a Vashar tapping him, making him scream and go for help. Benny does not dismiss the story as being due to sleep deprivation due to him having small bruises where he claims the stranger touched him, but the group soon moves on and the disks are soon ready for use. Emru uses one and experiences a simulation of the Vashar homeworld.
to be completed
Characters
References
- During a Christmas holiday on St Oscar's University, Benny tells a story from one of her expeditions to her students.
- Rikadell is located in the Pentak system.
- Pentakians come from Pentak. They are blue-skinned and have four eyes and white moustaches.
- Professor Alaman is an archaeologist, Gwin a geophysicist, Meldon a tech expert and Emru, a cyber-linguist.
- The Vashar disappeared over two centuries ago. It is believed that they might have transcended to another level of being or were wiped out after trying to convert their sun into psionic energy. They had wide heads, giant eyes, long arms, squat bodies and short legs.
- The Vashar produced game disks.
Notes
to be added
Continuity
- Benny mentions Heaven, which she says would be a much longer story. (PROSE: Love and War)
External links
- Official Tap page at bigfinish.com
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