Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Greatest Shop in the Galaxy (audio story)

Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Greatest Shop in the Galaxy, or simply The Greatest Shop in the Galaxy, was the eleventh Bernice Summerfield audio story produced by Big Finish Productions. This is writer Paul Ebbs' first contribution to the Bernice Summerfield range.

Publisher's summary
Benny is not digging up the car park of the Gigamarket for nothing. Oh no. There's no way that she was there for any other reason than to investigate the famed Latrines of Baladroon. Shoes? She was there to buy shoes? Get outta here!

Monsters? Nah! What would they want with the Greatest Shop in the Galaxy? I mean, come on -- what would monsters like the Borvali want to buy?

Time Anomalies? You need the science fiction section of the book department if you want Time Anomalies, mate.

Everything here is under control. Honest...

Plot
Accompanied by Joseph and a group of dormant Archaeobots, Benny heads to a dig on Baladroon despite Braxiatel's lack of interest as she wishes to shop at the Gigamarket. She tries to use Adrian's credit chip to pay for a copy of Sinister Scratchings, an authority on Baladroonian latrines, but finds that Adrian knows that she has taken it and has amended the spending ceiling to lukewarm. Keelor of the Gigamarket Corporation, a fan of hers, gives her the book as a gift and takes her to the Shoe Canyon.

Joseph begins to glitch, giving the date as nine days prior, and the leather shoes transform back into cows. After Joseph informs her that the credit chip no longer has a spending ceiling, Benny purchases an excessive number of shoes and is chased by a Bovali, a monster which has somehow got through the force wall separating the Human Sector and the Borvali Protectorate and is killing the customers. She finds Keelor and they are saved by soldiers whom Keelor recognises as being from a century ago, with Lieutenant Kerlor Tarband Trantz being his grandfather. Tarband agrees to help them save the customers and engage with the Borvali.

Benny finds that the Gigamarket have bags of humans hanging from the ceiling and have been selling them to the Borvali in another time zone. As there has been a temporal accident, a blanking bomb has been automatically primed and will reduce the Gigamarket to its constituent parts once it detonates. Benny and Keelor attempt to disarm it, but Joggon stops them and holds them at gunpoint, revealing that he anonymously paid Keelor to sabotage the time equipment in order to bring down the Gigamarket's stock prices and allow him to take it over. He joins Keelor in trying to defuse the bomb to protect his business interests, but they find that the explosion is in an irregular time loop.

Not wanting to risk his own life or that of Keelor, whom he deems too important, Joggon forces Benny to approach the bomb and follow Keelor's directions. She makes several attempts, leaving the area just before the explosion repeats itself, and the time loop starts to become unstable. Tarband takes Keelor hostage to blackmail Joggon, but Keelor shoots him and the two of them keep moving in and out of reality due to the grandfather paradox until a Borvali arrives and kills Keelor, meaning that Tarband was never shot. Frustrated and without Keelor to guide her, Benny smashes the computer system, preventing the bomb from going off.

The pleasure centres of Joggon's brain are index linked to the stock market and he dies of pleasure after the stasis shutters lifts and he learns how much the value of the Gigamarket has dropped. Joseph is returned to normal and Benny and Tarband, who must now live in his own future, use the Archaeobots to return the Borvali to their part of the Gigamarket until they can be returned to the Borvali Protectorate. Before Benny leaves, Tarband lets her know that Adrian's credit chip bounced and that her shoes have been impounded.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Joseph the Porter - Steven Wickham
 * Keelor - David Benson
 * Joggon - Toby Longworth
 * Tarband - Steven Allen
 * Borvali Voices - Robert Lock
 * Shopkeeper - Juliet Warner

Worldbuilding

 * Irving Braxiatel is not impressed by the dig on Baladroon.
 * Benny uses Adrian Wall's credit chip.
 * Joggon belongs to the Vorax Corporation.
 * Keelor belongs to the Baladroonian Historical Society.
 * The Gigamarket sells Down Among the Dead Men.
 * Sinister Scratchings by Uthor Madrelian is the foremost authority on Baladroonian latrines.
 * Benny is wearing a blouse.
 * Benny uses "spheres" as an expletive.
 * Due to temporal anomalies some shoes Bernice was looking at turn back into cows.
 * Keelor has an execto belt.
 * Benny says that she has a blister the size of New Orpington.

Continuity

 * Benny has seen time machinery before. (PROSE: Love and War, etc.)