Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Relics of Jegg-Sau (audio story)
Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Relics of Jegg-Sau, or simply The Relics of Jegg-Sau, was the third story of the fifth season of the Bernice Summerfield series and the first in this season to feature a monster that originated on Doctor Who. Here, the K103 robot, based on the K1 featured in Robot, is reprised by Michael Kilgarriff, the originator of the role in Tom Baker's debut adventure.
Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]
The colonists knew the risks about Jegg-Sau. With a flimsy atmosphere, no mineral wealth and exhausted soil, only the strongest and most determined could hope to make a home there. But with nowhere else to go, they went ahead, allegedly funded by a stock of valuable relics and art treasures stolen from Earth...
But the colony failed. Jegg-Sau was deserted once more, a home only to carrion and rusted dreams. But Bernice Summerfield believes the relics remained, and she's come a long, long way in search of them. What she'll find is that others have reached Jegg-Sau before her. She'll find herself cat's-paw in a dark outpost of frailty and obsession.
And she'll find the robots.
Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]
Sent by Braxiatel to see if relics stolen by Richard Eliot Whitman were left behind on Jegg-Sau as believed, Benny performs a a low-level sweep of the planet and is hit by a rocket fired by Elise, who claims that she was confused and had meant to send up a distress flare. Elise's father, Ethan Kalwell, explains to Benny that he is a mineralogist and was cataloguing Jegg-Sau with his brother a year ago when their ship crashed and his brother died. Since then, he and Elise have been living with K103, a robot constructed in 2058 which helps her send out a distress beacon from her damaged shuttle and destroys it whilst protecting Benny from an aggressive animal.
Whilst Elise gives her a tour, Benny spots a hidden door and is kept from entering by the robot and Kalwell. Kalwell takes Benny to his quarters and shows her his collection of arts treasures found behind the hidden door, refusing to let her see any more and making it clear that he does not wish to leave Jegg-Sau until his survey is complete. She is stopped by the robot when she sneaks through the hidden door at night, despite having seen it outside minutes before, and finds out from Kalwell's papers the next day that there is no mineral wealth on Jegg-Sau.
Benny discovers the robot inside of her shuttle and it tries to forcibly remove her and take her back to the Kalwells' dome to be "corrected", but she is saved and taken to safety by a decrepit-looking Kalwell before the shuttle explodes, having been booby-trapped by the robot to kill anybody who came to Benny's rescue. Kalwell reveals that he and Elise are descended from Professor Kettlewell, creator of the K1, and came to Jegg-Sau to restore Kettlewell's reputation upon learning that the K103 had been in Whitman's collection. They found that the robot had built duplicates of itself to serve the colonists and became hostile when Kalwell asked them to rebuild the crashed shuttle and surrender their treasures. The robots then killed Elise and imprisoned Kalwell before replacing them with duplicates who would never leave them.
The robots capture Benny and assimilate data from her to create a duplicate, but she convinces them to give her a trial period living in the dome. She persuades the duplicates to hold a samurai sword in the collection of treasures and proceeds to use it to destroy the Kalwell duplicate, but Elise's face bleeds when cut by glass, revealing that she was "improved" by the robots and is not a duplicate. She is reunited with her real father before she dies. Red Cross jets arrive to rescue Benny and fight the robot that was in her shuttle, which has grown to a massive size because of the explosion. The robots take control of Kalwell, who is actually another robot, to assist in the fight against the jets.
Benny goes to salvage the treasures before they can be destroyed by the fighting, but she finds that most of them have been corroded or ruined by damp, leaving the robots as some of the only surviving relics. She tries to contact Red Cross with a radio to get them to call off the attack so that she will not fail in her mission. The radio, however, is broken and she shouts, unheard by anybody but herself, for the robots to be spared.
Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
- Robot - Michael Kilgarriff
- Ethan Kalwell - Paul Shelley
- Elise Kalwell - Katherine Holme
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
Communications technology[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Irving Braxiatel had an extra power pack built into the communication panel of Benny's shuttle, given her propensity to get into trouble.
Individuals[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Professor J.P. Kettlewell and his first robot, the Experimental Prototype Robot K1, are mentioned.
- Richard Eliot Whitman, one of the original colonists, kept a journal while on Jegg-Sau. He installed a virtual reality suite which was equipped with a simulation engine. His programme of choice was Pick-Up Bar Babylon, a virtual reality pornography which was made in 2289. His chosen pick-up was named Misty. However, Whitman was still unhappy. He lacked true companionship given that Misty was a simulation.
Languages[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Benny knows several curses in the Ice Warrior language.
Objects[[edit] | [edit source]]
- In addition to K103, other artefacts in the Jegg-Sau auction hub include a 1918 painting by Wyndham Lewis, a Samurai sword dating from the 15th century and Egyptian bowls dating from the 3rd century B.C..
Robots[[edit] | [edit source]]
- K103 was constructed in 2058. Benny describes its design as "retro" and jokingly claims that "you could fit a man inside there." It is designed to operate the Starclimber 3000, which Benny says "takes [her] back to the playground" as it was for children "who couldn't afford a proper bike" by the late 26th century.
Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- This story was inspired by the 224-piece Enemies of Doctor Who jigsaw puzzle released by Whitman Publishing in 1978, showing a whole group of Robots. One of the characters in this story is named Whitman as an in-joke, whereas "Jegg-Sau" sounds similar to "jigsaw." (DWM 412)
- This audio drama was recorded on 4 July 2004.
- This story serves as a sequel to the Doctor Who story Robot, where Michael Kilgarriff portrayed a similar robot.
- This story was originally released on CD. It is now also available as a download.
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Kalwell tells Benny that the original K1 robot grew in size due to its construction from living metal. However, the incident was subsequently covered up by UNIT. (TV: Robot)
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Official The Relics of Jegg-Sau page at bigfinish.com
- The Relics of Jegg-Sau at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
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