Walking to Babylon (audio story)

Walking to Babylon was the third Bernice Summerfield audio drama produced by Big Finish Productions. It was the first in a trilogy of stories known as the "Time Ring Trilogy" whose arc element was the use of Bernice Summerfield and Jason Kane's wedding time rings, given to them when they were married in Happy Endings. Like the previous audio story, this story also features a former Doctor Who television actor, with Elisabeth Sladen playing Ninan-ashtammu.

This story was the first to show photos of the actors on the front cover, with Lisa Bowerman and Elisabeth Sladen both pictured.

Publisher's summary
The Time Ring Trilogy: Part 1

"I'm scared of letting all these people down. At least if I get blown up as well, they can say I died heroically. Assuming I ever existed at all."

The People are one of the most technologically advanced races in the Universe - except in the area of time travel. Professor Bernice Summerfield has a time ring. So does her ex-husband Jason Kane. Trouble is, they're their wedding rings, and they won't work unless they're together.

Benny is surprised when Jason turns up to visit her at St Oscar's, especially when she discovers that he has brought one of the People with him. She should have guessed that her good-for-nothing ex wasn't just interested in her company...

Using the time rings, two People create a Time Path and travel back to ancient Babylon, taking an unwilling Jason with them. Benny has just 48 hours to find them and rescue her errant husband, before the People back in the 26th century send a singularity bomb to destroy the Path - and Babylon.

But someone else has discovered the Path and walked to Babylon - Edwardian time sensitive John Lafayette. And Benny discovers her mission has a complication that she never dreamed of - romance.

Part one
Jason arrives on Dellah with People WiRgo!xue and !Ci!ci-tel, as well as their drone. He takes WiRgo!xue to St Oscar's and introduces him to Benny as a fan of hers, using him to distract her whilst he steals her Time Ring. She goes after him with her chronokinetiscope and finds that he has been used by two People to create a Time Path to Babylon circa 570 BC and been dragged there with them. Oran!ci-zing tells Benny that they intend to send a singularity bomb down the Path to destroy it and maintain their peace with their rivals, but Benny persuades them to let her travel down the Path and shut it down. She has forty-eight hours.

Benny follows John Lafayette, a time sensitive linguist who entered the Path on 12 December 1901, to Ninan-ashtammu's temple and gives him a spare translator so that he too can understand the Babylonians. Ninan agrees to talk to her friends in the local police about Jason, WiRgo!xue and !Ci!ci-tel and Benny and Lafayette look around the city for them without success. In the evening, Ninan hosts a party and tells Benny that Itti-Marduk-balatu, around whom Lafayette can see evidence of time travel, has seen the strange men; they were looking to find good farming land near the city. In the crowd of the new year celebrations, Benny kisses Lafayette to ease his panic and they later have sex.

WiRgo!xue and !Ci!ci-tel learn that Benny has followed them down the Path, which Jason, who is upset at hearing that Benny has kissed another man, told them was a possibility. Jason claims that he is dying of heartbreak and tricks WiRgo!xue into releasing him from his smart rope, allowing him to escape. He finds Benny and Lafayette cornered by locals and is knocked out. Lafayette shoots a man with his pistol and is scanned by the drone, which takes a tissue sample from him. Benny has disappeared.

Part two
Lafayette tells Ninan of Benny's abduction and goes after one of the kidnappers, but not before Ninan gives him the chronokinetiscope which was passed on to Miriam by guards transporting the unconscious Jason. He rescues Benny and is badly wounded, but he insists that Benny put him out of her mind until her mission is complete. The People's drone arrives and uses a suspension field to put Lafayette to sleep to speed up the healing process and, in the morning, Benny tells him the true extent of her mission in Babylon.

Benny and Lafayette visit Itti-Marduk-balatu and track down WiRgo!xue and !Ci!ci-tel, who reveal that their plan is to teach the People hardship by bringing them from their home to Babylon and do not initially believe that the People will send a singularity bomb down the Path. Benny realises that their plan is actually to spark a war between the People and their rivals to warn the People against complacency and the drone finds that Lafayette has stored temporal energy, resulting in its components being aged and degraded when it took a tissue sample from him and !Ci-!ci-tel being aged to death when he touches him.

WiRgo!xue plans to go ahead with the scheme and promises to allow Lafayette to return home in return for Benny's help. She hopes that Lafayette entering the Path will cause it to short-circuit due to his temporal energy, but this is not so and she does not realise that he has the chronokinetiscope. Ninan leaves her temple, which she is forbidden to do, and offers to protect WiRgo!xue in return for him and the drone accompanying her in her exploration of the world. The drone gives Benny and Jason their Time Rings and, after Jason purchases Miriam's freedom, they enter the Path and are thrown through time by the bomb's explosion.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Ninan-ashtammu - Elisabeth Sladen
 * Jason Kane - Stephen Fewell
 * John Lafayette - Barnaby Edwards
 * WiRgo!xue - Nigel Fairs
 * !Ci!ci-tel - Anthony Keetch
 * The Drone - Steven Wickham
 * Miriam - Louise Morell
 * Babylonian Child - Alex Canini

Worldbuilding

 * Benny wakes up with Wolsey. Jason pets him as he leaves.
 * Benny has a chronokinetiscope.
 * Lafayette is a linguist.
 * Wolsey broke Benny's watch.
 * Benny has a translator and gives a spare to Lafayette.
 * Lafayette was part of Robert Koldewey's expedition.
 * Jason is tied up with smart rope.
 * Jason mentions Blackpool, saying it would be cooler there than in Babylon.
 * Lafayette has a pistol.
 * Lafayette eats locusts for breakfast.
 * Miriam is a slave.
 * Benny mentions her vegetarianism.

Continuity

 * The People were introduced in PROSE: The Also People.
 * Benny mentions that the last time she saw Jason was during the business on Ursu. (AUDIO: Beyond the Sun)
 * Benny's expedition to Fields of Aggrazar is mentioned. (AUDIO: Making Myths)