Big Dig (audio story)

Big Dig was the sixty-sixth Bernice Summerfield audio story released by Big Finish Productions. It was the first story of the Missing Persons series.

Publisher's summary
Bernice has been invited to appear on a very special live edition of the archaeology series Big Dig: a programme she grew up with as a girl... which now makes her feel very old. Not as old, however, as the mysterious stone robot she unwittingly uncovers during an excavation on the planet Saravas.

With no other trace of civilisation, this could be the only clue to the Truth of the planet's inhabitants. But when Ruth and Jack start acting strangely, Bernice realises there was a reason things were hidden... and secrets aren't the only things to be buried.

Welcome to the biggest Big Dig ever!

Plot
Accompanied by Ruth and Jack, Benny joins a dig on Saravas as the "dolled-up, token history babe" for a live episode of Big Dig, a daytime archaeology programme presented by Shepton Rothwell. Jimmy Deel, the resident expert, explains that Saravas was once home to an advanced civilisation who shunned the written word, but now only a series of stone pillars and arches remain. The three arches are a temperature gauge and, when the three suns shine through them at once, the planet is roasted.

The dig begins and Benny unearths what seems to be part of a Saravasian space suit, but a carbon dater indicates that it is only three hundred years old. They find a helmet which Shepton puts on and which Jimmy smashes when Shepton suffers what seems to be a claustrophobic attack; however, it reforms each time it is damaged. Shepton feels faint and taunts Benny about how she has lost her mother, her father, Jason, Adrian and Leo and will no doubt lose Peter as well. She repeats afterwards that this is the truth. Shepton tells Ruth that Benny is jealous of her closeness with Jack and wants to move on without her in order to forget Leo. Like Benny, she repeats that this is the truth.

Jimmy takes over as presenter and the team find fifteen of the space suits thanks to Benny working out that they are buried in the shadows of the pillars, indicating that the suns stopped in the sky and they died from starvation or heat. Ruth confronts Benny about her supposed attraction to Jack and is conflicted about whether or not she believes her, even when Jack denies it. Shepton convinces Jimmy to commit suicide by firing a tranq shot into his head and makes Benny, Ruth, Jack and Ronnie Brockman believe that it was because he had not been invited to his daughter's wedding and that they have to continue the show. Shepton returns to the presenting role and Jimmy's body is transmatted to a ship in orbit to be autopsied.

Benny is mystified as to how the team have managed to find twenty-three suits despite numerous digs having taken place at that location in the past. She notices that the suns are setting sooner than they ought to and gets everybody into the shadows of the pillars to avoid being roasted, but none of the tents or objects left in the sunlight are burnt. She then deduces that somebody has been using an artificial projection to make it seem that the suns are setting and that Saravasians died because they roasted in their suits, having been told that they would die if they did not put them on and stand in the shade. When Benny suggests that they pass through the hologram created by the arches, Shepton tries to make her stay, but she rebels and Jack drags Ruth in with him. Shepton and Ronnie follow.

The group enter a tunnel full of suits and notice writing on the wall which Benny believes is English, Ruth believes is Greek and Jack believes is Kadeptian. Shepton is able to make everybody but Benny think that everybody is trying to kill them and they all flee, distrustful of Benny. He then makes Ronnie kill herself by convincing her that she has a fiancé who has got another woman pregnant. Benny finds her body and runs from Shepton before using his own tactic against him and making him tell the truth; the Epoch created Saravas as a facility to assess the impact of truth before constructing new worlds and realities.

The Epoch appear and join Shepton in explaining how they invented Saravas's history and convinced the natives of it to lure Benny to the planet and see if she would accept the reality, which she did not. They will now convince the Saravasians, who live in the caves, that they are already dead and will make everybody listening to Big Dig trust nobody and fight. With the information they were after, the Epoch leave, telling Benny that they will see her again for the final time very soon and that she must choose to forget Saravas or remain there as it is remapped.

Shepton, surplus to the Epoch's requirements, is left to die. To counteract the Epoch's influence, Benny has him tell the listeners that nobody is out to get them and has Vaughan Simmons play his message on a loop. Before she is transmatted to the ship in orbit by Vaughan, Shepton tells her to forget what happened on Saravas. She asks a doctor about her friends, naming only Ronnie, Jimmy and Shepton, and is told that all three of them are dead.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Jack - David Ames
 * Ruth - Ayesha Antoine
 * Shepton Rothwell - Philip Bird
 * Jimmy Deel - Paul Copley
 * Ronnie Brockman - Mimi Ndiweni
 * Vaughan - Brett Underwood
 * Stylist - Peter Sheward
 * Digger - Hamish Steele
 * Doctor Springmore - Seán Carlsen
 * The Epoch - Michael Thomson

Continuity

 * Shepton mentions that Benny graduated from the University of Jaiwan. (PROSE: Genius Loci)
 * Shepton taunts Benny by saying that she had lost Claire Summerfield (PROSE: Love and War), Jason Kane (AUDIO: The End of the World) and Leonidas. (AUDIO: Private Enemy No. 1)