The Tears of Isis (audio story)

The Tears of Isis was the fourth and final story in The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield box set The Triumph of Sutekh.

Publisher's summary
Russell Courtland prophesied the world would end on Tuesday. No-one was more surprised than he was when it did.

Plot
All ten members of the Temple of Sutekh have gathered in the Surrey home of their leader, Russell Courtland, who claims that Sutekh will walk the Earth and that the world is going to end today. At the appointed hour, the world ends, which comes as a great surprise to Courtland. Isis no longer believes in herself and blames the Doctor for what has happened.

Benny, the Doctor and Ace arrive on the dead Earth and detect life signs which Benny insists on investigating whilst the Doctor despairs. He and Ace run from skeletons animated by Sutekh whilst Benny finds Courtland's undamaged house and meets the cultists. She tells Courtland and his wife, Susannah, that they are in danger, but they laugh and reveal that they worship Sutekh. Courtland has her escorted to the cellar to be sacrificed. There she meets Alyx, the Courtlands' adopted daughter.

Benny convinces one of the cultists that Sutekh is going to kill them all, so Susannah has him thrown outside to die. Sutekh arrives and begins to devour the cultists whilst Benny and Alyx escape. Afterwards, Sutekh appears to the Doctor, hiding in a ruined chapel whilst Ace looks for Benny. Ace finds her and Alyx and shoots at Sutekh when he appears to them, but the bullets are ineffective and he kills Alyx. When Isis appears, Sutekh kills her and then goes and kills the pleading Courtland and Susannah.

The Doctor joins Benny and Ace and reveals to Sutekh that they are in the 29th century and not the 21st as he intended. The world was destroyed not by Sutekh but by solar flares and the cultists were sent by the Doctor to serve as Sutekh's focal point. Sutekh creates a time storm and pulls the Doctor and himself back in time to the Pyramid of Horus; the two of them are in a loop seemingly without escape. Alyx, who has always had a fragment of Isis within her, is reborn as the new Isis and reaches into the storm, bringing back the Doctor.

Benny realises that it was the Doctor's plan the entire time to trap Sutekh in a loop instead of killing him and believes that his sending the cultists ahead in time to die was cold. She, the Doctor and Ace leave in the TARDIS and Alyx chooses to stay on the dead world, bringing the gift of life with her rain. Birds sing on Earth once again.

Sutekh knows that he is trapped, but, when the years grow weak, he will emerge from the loop and bring his gift to all.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
 * Ace - Sophie Aldred
 * Sutekh - Gabriel Woolf
 * Courtland - Matthew Bates
 * Susannah - Rachel Atkins
 * Alyx - Naomi McDonald
 * Cultist - Guy Adams

Worldbuilding

 * Benny mentions the Saxe-Coburg-Beckhams and says that they were very tacky.
 * Benny does not know how to play croquet.
 * Alyx went to boarding school.
 * Benny compares Courtland to Lord Fauntleroy.
 * Alyx ascends to the title of Isis.
 * Isis mourned Osiris with Nephthys.

Continuity

 * Earth in the 29th century has been vacated due to a rise in solar flares. The Doctor fools Sutekh into believing he has achieved the victory of wiping out humanity by transporting him forward to this time. (TV: The Ark in Space, The Beast Below)