Timeless Passages (audio story)
Timeless Passages was the thirtieth Bernice Summerfield audio story released by Big Finish Productions. It was the second story of the seventh season.
Publisher's summary
For years the great Labyrinth of Kerykeion has been home to one of the largest libraries of human incunabula in the galaxy. Here, otherwise lost volumes are all carefully preserved.
From tomorrow, it's under new management.
Professor Bernice Summerfield is sent to acquire some of the rarest books for the Braxiatel Collection before the new corporate owners bulldoze their way in.
She's hoping for a quiet time searching the archives. Some chance. Soon she's investigating a horrible murder, and is caught up in a last-ditch scheme to save the entire library.
There's a vicious, insane killer cyborg on Benny's heels. And then ancient subterranean powers begin to stir...
Plot
With the largest private library of human publications outside of Earth due to be demolished by its new owners, Benny is sent there by Bev to purchase as many items as possible for the Braxiatel Collection. She meets Sam Wolfe, a lawyer for OMD, the company which now owns the planet, as well as his infant daughter, Jean. They are welcomed to the Labyrinth of Kerykeion by the chief librarian, Archie Spool, who claims that Bev contacted the library despite Benny having been told that it was the other way round.
Archie shows the building to Benny and explains that its structure keeps decay at bay, ensuring that the books are not damages by the passage of time, and that this is why OMD have purchased the planet. She meets the librarian Hermione whilst looking through the rarest and most valuable books and asks Archie why he did not accept the Technocult's offer of copying the contents of the library, deducing that he wants Bev to purchase the entire planet and promising to ask her in the morning. Later, Benny is awoken from her sleep by a knock at her door and finds Jean crying in the corridor. She takes him to Sam's room and finds him cut into pieces.
to be completed
Cast
- Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
- Samuel Wolfe - Toby Longworth
- Archibald Spool - Keith Drinkel
- Hermione - Katarina Olsson
References
- Benny and Sam drink wine paid for by Bev.
- Sam works for Omnispatial Mercantile Dynamics.
- Benny leaves her diary at the spaceport.
- Benny featured in several issues of Little Archaeologist.
- Archie wonders if Jean is a paralegal.
- Max works at the library.
- The library's books include:
- The Atrocity Exhibition, published by Doubleday and supposedly pulped.
- The only known extant copy of Gay Bulgaria.
- The Eigenblick Presidency, written by Robert Darlick.
- Aristotle's Poetics Part III: Smokey is the Bandit.
- Benny mentions the Library of Alexandria and the Splendid Biblio-Spiroplex of the Ten Billion Sapiens of Zumos Prime, which was accidentally inhaled by a space aardvark.
- According to Benny, the Technocult could store the entirety of the library on the inside of a ball bearing.
Notes
- This audio drama was recorded on 15 May 2006.
- Archie quotes House of Cards, saying, "You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment."
Continuity
- Benny says that the Nazis did worse things than burn books. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War)
- Benny says that abandonment issues "can really poison the father-daughter relationship." (PROSE: Return of the Living Dad)
- Hermione claims she the reason she doesn't want to hold Jean is because she's not good with babies, but actually it would cause the Blinovitch Limitation Effect. (TV: Day of the Daleks, Mawdryn Undead)
External links
- Official Timeless Passages page at bigfinish.com
- Timeless Passages at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
