Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Lost Museum (audio story)

Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Lost Museum, or simply The Lost Museum, was the twenty-sixth Bernice Summerfield audio story released by Big Finish Productions. It was the third audio story of the sixth season.

Publisher's summary
January 2606. Trib City is at war with itself. The old dictatorship has been crushed, but the population have turned on each other. The army cannot stop the fighting, nor the ever-mounting casualties. They can merely clean up the mess.

In the midst of all this, Professor Bernice Summerfield and her ex-husband Jason Kane try to assess the damage done to the Trib Museum. The building has been used as a bulwark, and one of the most important collections in the galaxy lies strewn about the floor. Prized relics are missing, and even the kids on the street seem to know more about who took them than the museum's director.

Benny and Jason struggle to find answers amid the farrago, but all they can unearth are more questions.

In a city where no one speaks the same language, in a city with no shared identity but the horrors of its recent past, in a city where nothing can ever be simple, everyone has something to hide.

Plot
Upon arriving in Trib City, Benny and Jason survive a bombing at the spaceport and are taken by General Markwood of the Barampan Free Army to the damaged Trib Museum. Director Enil speaks a language which Jason's translators have difficulty interpreting and Benny attempts to work with her to assess the museum's artefacts ready for repatriation whilst Jason and Markwood take translators to the natives. Benny finds a torture chamber of the old regime and listens to data chips recording the experiments that happened there, later sharing the information with Jason and Markwood, who have survived a bombing which killed several children.

Benny's museum guide is stolen whilst she is in the bath and she and Jason go after the thief, chasing him to a meeting hall where they are surrounded by natives. Markwood saves them by killing the attackers, but Benny loses one of her arms and passes out, waking up back in the museum with Jason to await a spaceship to return them home. She realises that the translators do not always work for Enil because she has been speaking gibberish and she and Jason confront her, accusing her of working for the old regime and leading her to admit that she speaks English. Enil claims that she is working in the interests of the museum and, as the fighting nears the building, Markwood arms everybody.

Markwood is shot and Jason takes him to the torture chamber to make use of the medical equipment. The group eventually run out of ammunition and Benny takes everybody to the Earth exhibit to arm themselves with longbows. Jason modifies the dictionary of the translators, ending the fighting, and artefacts looted from the museum are returned without question. Enil offers Markwood a job as a curator and Benny and Jason leave on their scheduled shuttle.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Jason Kane - Stephen Fewell
 * General Markwood - Stephen Chance
 * Director Enil - Claire Carroll
 * Aliens - Simon Guerrier and Tom Guerrier

Worldbuilding

 * Adrian Wall and Bev Tarrant are having sex.
 * The Trib Museum was built in 1528 CE.
 * Enil speaks Ungumma.
 * The planet Világ is mentioned.
 * When Jason tells Markwood to shoot the canister of anaesthetic, he asks if any of them had seen Jaws.
 * Benny was at the Battle of Agincourt.

Continuity

 * Jason talks about his clones Ken J Aason, Arsenio W Cockshaft and Jonas Neak. (PROSE: Sex Secrets pf the Robot Replicants)
 * Benny refers to her connection with Professor Ovmakh. (PROSE: Misplaced Spring, Mentioning the War)