The Big Hunt (novel)

The Big Hunt was the sixth novel published by Big Finish Productions as part of their Bernice Summerfield series. It was the first full length novel in the two years since The Glass Prison in 2002. It was author Lance Parkin's second Bernice Summerfield novel. His first was Beige Planet Mars.

Publisher's summary
Professor Bernice Summerfield is enjoying a break. A break from work, a break from the rebuilding of the Braxiatel Collection and a break from Jason, Adrian, and even her beloved Peter.

She feels she's entitled to a bit of downtime. So, why won't anyone leave her alone? Before long, she's being sent off after an old space artefact, only to crash-land on a planet apparently devoid of life. Devoid of life, that is, except for the robotic animals, big game hunters and ruthless corporate administrators of the type she's learned to know and mistrust.

Benny realises that to survive she must join in on what might be the most dangerous "game" she's ever played...

Plot
Following the liberation of the Braxiatel Collection from the control of the Fifth Axis, Benny is asked by Orlean Wolvencroft to find Eagle 11-32, a van Neumann probe sent out from Earth in the 2040s. She accepts the offer and travels to Peturia, hiring the Satespes (a ship), Johannsen (a pilot) and Noele Flynn (a postgraduate). After ten days of searching, Flynn adjusts their model of the flight path and leads them to an Earth-like planet in another star system. They crash due to the gravity distortion and Johannsen sends out a distress call. Due to the possibility of interference by the gravity distortion, Benny works on repairing the ship.

In the night, the ship is attacked and apparently eaten by animals who, strangely, showed no interest in following Benny, Johannsen and Flynn when they flee. They see an air car in the morning, proving that there is other intelligent life on this planet, and find that the animals all seem to be robots. Johannsen is killed when they are attacked by robot wolves; Benny, realising that the wolves were after Johannsen's wrist computer and jewellery, tells Flynn to strip off with her. The wolves leave and Benny wraps up the emergency beacon in a towel before holding it up in the air.

Benny and Flynn are attacked by more wolves at night and are saved by Bellamy and Beardmore, hunters who were using the two strangers as bait to draw the wolves out. Benny and Flynn join them and meet the hunt administrator, Makins, who explains that they are hunting robots which escaped from a Bantu Industries megafreighter which crashed on the planet but have no idea how many there are. He enlists Benny and Flynn's help in return for food and shelter, but Benny wonders for whom the robots were built and why there is no evidence of a crash.

Benny and Beardmore hunt for rock-eating elephants which are attacked by a wolf, which they promptly stampede. Benny looks at the wolf and is unable to find a power source, making her wonder if Makins is indeed telling them the truth. Additionally, she wonders why the hunters were supplied with low-tech weapons when dealing with robots. On another expedition, sabre-toothed tigers wound Beardmore and kill Bellamy before Benny destroys them with Bellamy's gun. She realises that the tigers have adapted from the wolves so as to better kill humans.

At the spaceship, Makins refuses to allow Flynn to look at the robots and threatens to charge her and Benny with industrial espionage for unauthorised meddling with Bantu Industries property. Benny, frustrated with Makins, steals his computer pad and lets Flynn analyse its data. She finds that the robots have been using parts of the Satespes in their "evolution" and that, given that the Satespes had artificial intelligence processors, the robots might gain sentience as a result. Makins has his security guards knock Benny and Flynn out and throw them out of the ship, also throwing out Beardmore when he protests.

Benny and Flynn analyse a robot fish and find that the robots are actually the property of the United Nations Aeronautics and Space Administration and not of Bantu Industries. This indicates that they are products of the Eagle probe that Benny has been sent to find. They are attacked by Bantu guards but are saved when a robot armed with the Satespes laser cannon arrives, allowing them to steal the guards' air car and head to the robots' point of origin. Flynn also finds that Makins' computer pad is low-tech and that he must have armed the hunters with low-tech weapons to keep the robots from adopting them and becoming more dangerous. They find that the robots are maintaining a colony and that it seems that some of the robots left the colony and adapted to the outside world, making them more predatory.

Flynn finds the Eagle probe's CPU and they are attacked by sabre-tooth tigers which Benny realises are the same ones from earlier, patched up by Makins and sent to kill them. Guards attack and Benny and Beardmore are captured by Makins whilst Flynn obeys Benny's order to find safety. Makins reveals that he had dumped them outside of the ship so that he might follow them to the robots' colony and, now that they have served their purpose, they must die. Benny offers to take Makins' last remaining guard, Lendale, to Flynn and tricks him into being killed by a tiger. Beardmore knocks Makins unconscious and Benny takes his gun, destroying the tiger with it. Flynn then emerges and informs Benny that the robots could only have arrived a few years ago rather than the centuries that Benny had assumed.

Benny, Flynn and Beardmore return to the ship with Makins as a hostage. The ship is under attack from the animals, who have hacked into it to make it compatible. The hunters are able to get the ship back into the air but they have lost most of their fuel and the automated defences are attacking them. Wolves are breaking into the armoury and Beardmore decides to detonate the armoury to keep them from assimilating the weapons into their bodies, although this will also kill the hunters inside.

Benny and Makins, who have dropped to a lower level of the ship, climb to the bridge and find that sabre-tooth tigers are tearing it apart. Makins is able to trick one of them into biting into exposed circuitry which destroys itself and all of the other robots on the bridge, after which Benny orders the ship into orbit. Wolvencroft, his right-hand man Mason and a bodyguard transmat aboard from another ship and kill Makins before Wolvencroft reveals that he planned only to take the technology on this planet for himself and had used her mission as a pretext to track her there. When Benny points out that the robots had destroyed the planet's ecology and would do so on other worlds, Wolvencroft dismisses her concerns and says that they can be reprogrammed.

The hunters arrive at the bridge and Wolvencroft offers to buy them out of their contracts and compensate them for their losses, an offer which all of them bar Beardmore accept. The hunters lock Benny, Flynn and Beardmore up, but Beardmore is able to break out and sabotages the ship's hyperdrive, ensuring that Wolvencroft and Daniels cannot transport the robots off-world. Hacking into the transmat, Flynn transports Benny to Wolvencroft's ship where she attempts to activate the emergency ejection systems but learns that Wolvencroft and Daniels are planning on simply towing the hunters' ship rather than herding all of the robots on board.

Benny causes an explosion with her gun to distract the technicians and, when Mason comes to investigate, a robot spider kills him. She activates the ejection system, expelling herself, the hyperdrive, the spider and Mason's remains from the ship. However, Flynn is able to transmat her to safety on the hunters' courier rocket and they escape the star system whilst Wolvencroft's ship is hacked and descends to the planet's surface, stranding them there until help arrives. Benny, Flynn and Beardmore, however, have no intention of telling anybody about the planet and the gravity shockwaves caused by their ship's departure and the explosion of the hyperdrive means that nobody will enter the system for a decade.

Characters

 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Orlean Wolvencroft
 * Johannsen
 * Noele Flynn
 * Makins
 * Beardmore
 * Bellamy
 * Daniels
 * Mason

Organisations

 * UNASA existed in the 2040s.

Vehicles

 * The hunters have aircars.

Robots

 * Makins tells Benny the robots are made by Bantu Industries and are from a megafreighter that crashed.
 * UNASA launched von Neumann probes. These contained robots that when they landed could adapt to local conditions and create a ready-made colony for humans.

Continuity

 * Bantu were first mentioned in PROSE: Another Girl, Another Planet where they were the Bantu Cooperative. They were also mentioned in PROSE: Beige Planet Mars, where they were the Bantu Corporation.
 * Anderson's ship has Kalkravian leather. (PROSE: Cold Fusion, Paydirt, COMIC: Miranda, et al.)