The Tub Full of Cats (audio story)

 was the thirty-fifth Bernice Summerfield audio story released by Big Finish Productions. It was the first story of the eighth season.

Publisher's summary
Negotiations have failed and the Braxiatel Collection now sits within a warzone.

Bernice and Maggie are racing back to the Collection with something that may just help bring an end to all the fighting - or at least protect their home.

That something is a man, Maggie's father and the would-be killer of Bernice's own husband. His name: Irving Braxiatel.

But the Collection is on the far side of the Mim blockade, and there's no possible way they can get through.

They'll just have to do something impossible...

Plot
As the Draconians and the Mim reinforce their blockades, Benny and Maggie prepare to head to the Braxiatel Collection in Gravity's Rainbow with Braxiatel, whom they find has placed himself in a null field in a casket so that his presence aboard the ship goes unnoticed. Autumn Wit Chanticleer, the navigator, informs them that, for tax reasons, the ship legally belongs to the five cats on board. Two days after setting off, Benny manages to wake Braxiatel up and accuses him of hiding from her and Maggie, allowing him to return to his sleep but warning him that Jason and everybody else on the Collection will not be happy to see him.

A week after taking off, Benny and Maggie find a room belonging to an American astronaut. The Mim detect the ship and fire at it, so Chanticleer reduces the ship to a state of non-existence with a de Selby-Matango Filter, protecting it and everybody on board. Braxiatel is attacked by non-physical entities which he confesses he went into the casket to avoid and Chanticleer has the cats, which turn into primal savages in non-existence, fight them off. They return to existence closer to the Collection and, now aware of Braxiatel's presence, Chanticleer makes him pay his fare, apologise for how he has been treating Maggie and clean the cats' litter trays.

The astronaut, Captain Anthony Rogers, appears and explains that he is the anchorite, a living part of the filter who keeps the ship from being lost in non-existence, before refusing to cooperate any longer. He insists that they attack the Draconians and holds Maggie hostage, setting Gravity's Rainbow to ram the flagship and ensure that he dies in a blaze of glory instead of slowly dying as a result of returning to existence after several centuries. He collapses and, with Braxiatel having returned to his casket, Benny and Maggie have to decide which of them will take over as anchorite so that Chanticleer can use the de Selby-Matango Filter to prevent the ship's destruction. Maggie says that they both know which of them it will be.

Rogers dies, believing that Benny was his President, and Gravity's Rainbow arrives on the other side of the blockade. Benny regrets having allowed Maggie to become the anchorite without warning her that she would be unable to return but, on the Collection, Braxiatel tells her that she did what needed to be done. He immediately repairs the malfunctioning weather system with a simple command and makes contact with Maggie, who tells him that, one way or another, Benny will take care of him.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Irving Braxiatel - Miles Richardson
 * Maggie - Sophie-Louise Dann
 * Rogers - Nigel Pegram
 * Chanticleer - Diane Fletcher

Worldbuilding

 * Bev Tarrant has spoken about the crisis on the news, asking both blockades to end.
 * Scampi, Lady Marmalade and Kali Ma are three of the cats.
 * Benny asks Braxiatel if he has read Murder on the Orient Express.
 * Yuri Gagarin is believed to be the first human in space.
 * 2607 AD is year 818 in Earth's Standard Modern Calendar.
 * Rogers says that Braxiatel looks like a eunuch.

Continuity

 * Braxiatel mentions spending the last 1000 or more years living as a stone not under one as Maggie says. (AUDIO: The Empire State)
 * Benny mentions what Brax did on Cantus. (AUDIO: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Crystal of Cantus)