Unknown

At this same moment, Nettie suddenly managed to sit up on the couch on which Dan had placed her, and screamed: 'Oh my God! There's only five minutes before the bomb goes off!' 'Five minutes!' thought Dan. 'This is where, in a cheap novel, the couple - confronted by imminent oblivion - would suddenly make passionate love.' 'You've got to go and talk to it!' she pleaded. 'What?' said Dan. 'I can't explain! Just believe me! It's in the Engine Room! Hurry!' 'What? repeated Dan a bit gormlessly. 'HURRY! THE ENGINE ROOM! SPEAK TO THE BOMB!' Dan decided that, while gormlessness had its place in the human repertoire of reactions, now was neither the rime nor place for it. He sprinted out of the Beauty Salon (which was, apparently, where they were) and ran down the length of the Grand Axial Canal, trying to ignore the inevitable chorus:

'She threw her arms Around his charms, And gave him six pnedes as a tip!'

The first thing he saw, when he burst into the Engine Room, was a large bomb sticking up out of a cabinet. A friendly sort of voice was booming out: 'Fifty-eight... fifty-seven... fifty-six... fifty-five... fifty-four. Dan couldn't think what to say. After all, he'd never addressed a bomb before. He didn't have a clue what sort of thing it would be interested in. 'Hello,' he said. 'Fifty-three... fifty-two... hello... fifty-one... fifty...' replied the bomb genially. 'Any chance of you not exploding?' Dan thought he might as well get straight to the point. 'No... forty-eight... forty-seven...' Dan was not the most imaginative of men. He knew it. Lucy knew it. Nigel had known it. He was dedicated, hard-working, loyal, thorough - all those admirable and desirable things for anybody's partner to be. But leaps of the imagination were not his forte. And yet, he had one now. He suddenly knew the one thing that bombs were bound to be interested in. 'Do you really want to do this?' he asked. 'I mean isn't it a bit self-destructive? 'Forty-six... forty-five... Forty - Look! I am just a simple counting and exploding device and am not equipped for philosophical discourse,' replied the bomb. 'Please do not speak to me while I'm counting. Damn! Now you've made me lose my place! You see? Recommencing countdown. One thousand. Nine hundred and ninety-nine. Nine hundred and ninety-eight...' 'Got the sucker!' thought Dan. He checked his watch against the bomb's counting. They had about sixteen minutes before they needed to talk to it again. He turned and raced back to Nettie. As he ran, the thought of Nettie kept riffling his mind like a gambler's hands riffling a deck of cards. God! She was so intelligent! How had she found out the bomb's weakness so quickly? The clarity of her intellect made him feel so ordinary and humble. But then he suddenly remembered how she seemed old and shrivelled: he must have been seeing things! That couldn't have happened to the beautiful, gorgeous Nettie? And yet, it was then that Dan found himself thinking the most curious thought of course, it was terrible if something had happened to Nettie (and what had happened to her?) but, at least now, thought Dan, he might stand a chance with her!

Lucy was putting her clothes on rather hurriedly. The fact that she and The Journalist had not been blown to cosmic dust had severely embarrassed her. In fact, she didn't know where to look. The Journalist was regarding her curiously. 'You do things very differently in your world,' he said, 'Oh?' Lucy tried to pretend that everything was perfectly normal. 'Yes,' he said. 'On Blerontin we have all these absurd rituals we have to go through before having sex. There's a thing called "dating" when a young couple go out for evenings together without necessarily "going the whole way" as we say. Then there's a thing called "the engagement" where rings are exchanged. Finally there's an elaborate ceremony called "a wedding" with a cake and "bridesmaids" and the "best man's speech" - not to mention the "honeymoon"! You wouldn't believe the rigmarole we have to go through in order to make love to each other. I like your Earth way of doing it much better.' 'The bomb still might go off any second!' Lucy reminded him. 'The bomb? Oh! Pangalin! I'd forgotten!' The Journalist thought-sealed his clothes.

As they raced down the Grand Axial Canal, Second Class, they didn't realize that they had missed bumping into Dan on his way back to the Beauty Salon by exactly one eight-hundred and sixty-fourth of a second - which, by an incredible coincidence, was exactly where the bomb had got to in its countdown, when Lucy and The Journalist arrived back in the Engine Room. 'Eight hundred and sixty-four... eight hundred and sixty-three...' said the bomb. 'Why's it only got as far as eight hundred and sixty-three?' wondered Lucy. 'You're beautiful!' replied The Journalist. Lucy became aware that he was still looking at her in a rather odd way, and she suddenly wished he'd concentrate on the problem in hand. 'Maybe it doesn't count when we're out of the room?' she suggested. She pulled her companion out of the door, but as she started to listen, Lucy suddenly felt the alien's hands around her breasts. 'Ohh! Lucy! I can't stop thinking about you!' he murmured as he nuzzled her neck. 'Eight hundred and sixty-two... eight hundred and sixty-one...' continued the bomb even though they were out of the room. That was one theory out of the way, thought Lucy, disentangling herself from The Journalist's embrace. Back in the room, she stared at the bomb and tried to think, but it was hard with an alien sticking his tongue in her ear and saying he loved her more than anything on his world. 'Please, The!' exclaimed Lucy. 'We haven't got time for that now...' 'You started it...' he reminded her. 'Once we're roused, us Blerontinian males tend to be very single-minded.' 'I've met your type before,' said Lucy, trying to push him away. 'Just put your hands on my thing again!' he was whispering in her ear. 'Stop it!' cried Lucy. 'What?' replied the bomb. 'Oh damn! I thought you were talking to me! Now you've made me lose count! Recommencing countdown. One thousand... Nine hundred and ninety-nine...' 'I love you!' said The Journalist. 'You're all I've ever dreamed about.' 'That's it!' exclaimed Lucy. 'We've got to keep talking to the bomb.' 'Please put your hand here...' said The Journalist. 'Listen!' cried Lucy to the bomb. 'Which baseball team won the World Series in nineteen hundred and ninety eight?' 'Nineteen hundred and ninety-seven... nineteen hundred and ninety - now I've told you before about interrupting me while I'm in the middle of a countdown. If you want a bomb you can have a good chatter with, you should have got the Mega-Scuttler Pro which has multi-tasking, speech recognition and general chattering software and therefore makes an altogether more expensive bang. As it is you've got me and I'm doing my best under increasingly trying circumstances.

Recommencing countdown. One thousand... Nine hundred and ninety-nine...' 'You have the most wonderful skin,' moaned The Journalist, biting Lucy quite hard on the eariobe. 'Ouch!' cried Lucy. 'Look, The, you've got to stay here and keep talking to the bomb, while I go up and find the Captain's Bridge.' 'I can't bear to be separated from you!' He clutched at her arm. 'If you don't stay and talk to the bomb we're both going to get blown up!' she replied. 'Just bring me off once more!' pleaded The Journalist. 'I'll be able to think properly then. Honestly! Blerontinian males need to have two orgasms before they can think straight. It's well known!' Lucy sighed; brushed the alien's hair straight and wondered what on earth she'd got herself into...

While Dan had gone to talk to the bomb, the prematurely aged Nettie had taken the opportunity to look around the room in which she found herself. At first she thought it must be some sort of torture chamber or at least an interrogation room. But, once she'd put on her translatorspecs, she realized she was in the ship's Hairdressing Salon and Beauty Parlour. The thumb-screws were actually elaborate nail-clippers, the electric chairs were highly ergonomic sitting structures, and the individual gas chambers were hairdriers. It was obvious once you read the motto over the doorway: 'WELCOME TO THE STARSHIP TITANIC BEAUTY THERAPY AND HAIR CREATIONRY. YOU WILL LEAVE HERE LOVELIER AND YOUNGER.' Nettie put out a wizened finger and pressed the button on the wall beside the couch, which was marked: 'Press for service'. A metal cage on an articulated arm suddenly sprang up over the back of the couch and dangled a few inches in front of her face. At the same time a large glass case began to descend from the ceiling until both she and the couch were encompassed by it. A reassuring voice then said: 'We have assessed your beauty requirements and, whilst recognizing you have a severe problem, we would like to reassure you that there is nothing that you can wish to be done that we cannot accomplish, thanks to the de-aging and re-beautifying techniques pioneered by Dr Leovinus in this machine. Lie back and relax whilst we return you to the bloom of youth. Normally our therapy would require just a few minutes, but in critical cases such as yours a little longer may be necessary. We apologize for the delay.' The next moment, the cage fixed itself over her face and the glass case filled instantly with some purple gas. Nettie was terrified for a second, but then relaxed as the perfumes began to enter her nostrils: erotic perfumes, exotic perfumes - scents she had never imagined, scents of far away and wonder... at the same time the feeling on her face was inexpressibly soft and kindly. She lay back and just hoped that Dan had managed to talk to the bomb.

Dan hurried back from the Engine Room to find that Nettie had disappeared. Where he'd left her there was now a glass case filled with purple gas. 'Nettie!' he cried, banging his fists on the glass, but with no effect. He looked all round the thing, but was unable to find any off switch or any way he could prise the thing off her - if indeed Nettle was in there. After nearly fifteen minutes of futile effort, he suddenly remembered he'd need to speak to the bomb again. So he rushed back to the Engine Room as fast as he could.

Meanwhile, The Journalist was still trying to put his hand back up Lucy's pinstripe power-suit skirt. 'You see, we're just not used to casual sex,' he was assuring her. 'Blerontlnian women make such a fuss about it. You know... they want presents and they want to be treated nice and taken out to expensive restaurants and all that sort of crap. To meet a woman like you is just great! Let's do it again!' 'You said twice and you can think straight!' objected Lucy, who was trying to focus her mind on what seemed to her more pressing problems. Yeah, but a hand-job doesn't really count. Anyway, us Blerontinian males'll say anything when we're aroused.' 'Sixty-three... sixty-two... sixty-one...' said the bomb. 'Hey! Bomb! Just what d'you think you're doing?' Lucy suddenly remembered what she was meant to be doing. 'Pardon? Sixty...' said the bomb. 'I said: Bomb! What the hell d'you think you're doing?' 'Don't talk to me! Don't talk to me! This is a tricky bit! Forty-nine... no! Fifty-nine... I mean eight... damn! damn! There I go again, losing concentration. It's all your fault! Recommencing countdown. One thousand...' 'And I'm aroused now,' said The Journalist. It was at that moment that Dan burst into the Engine Room. He found the alien, whom he'd already taken an agreeably violent dislike to, kneeling behind Lucy, apparently rubbing himself up against her back. Lucy shot to her feet. 'Dan !' she exclaimed. 'Thank God you didn't get blown up!' 'Nine hundred and ninety-six...' said the bomb. 'Am I interrupting something?' Yes!' said the bomb, 'Now I've got to start all over again! One thousand...' Lucy could tell Dan was not in one of his better moods. 'No!' she said. 'We've just discovered how to confuse the bomb.' 'Talk to it,' said Dan. 'Yeah! Nettie found that out.' 'Oh! Of course she would have!' 'Nine hundred and ninety-four...' continued the bomb. 'Earth sexuality seems to be very different from Blerontinian,' observed The Journalist. 'Is it really?' Dan was sizing the alien up, trying to decide which bit to punch first. 'Yes,' said The Journalist, putting his arms round Lucy's waist. 'On Blerontin, males get what we call "jealous", if one male finds another male fondling his girlfriend he can even become extremely violent.' Dan had just decided on the alien's nose as the first point of contact, when Lucy managed to disengage herself from the amorous The Journalist, and ran over to Dan. 'We've got to get off this spaceship as soon as possible. I suggest The, here, stays and talks to the bomb while we go and find the Captain.' 'But, you don't understand...' began The Journalist. Dan decided to hold back his iron fist of retribution for the moment. He would save it for another time. 'I understand only too well,' he replied. 'We've got to make the Captain take us back to Earth now!' And he was off out of the Engine Room and racing back down the Grand Axial Canal towards the front of the ship. 'Look - it was great making love with you,' Lucy said to The Journalist, who was now standing behind her and attempting to fondle her breasts again, 'but we've got to get back to the real world! Our real world.' And she tried to remove his hands from her blouse. 'But Blerontinian males cannot just "turn off" like that!' explained The Journalist. 'We need multiple satisfactions before we can return to a state of equilibrium!' Lucy had attended self-defence classes for two years, when she had just qualified for the law, and had always slightly regretted the fact that she'd never had the chance to put her skills into practice. Consequently it was with some satisfaction that she suddenly realized this was such an opportunity. She decided to use the standard response to the amorous-alien-fondling-you-from-behind assault. It was textbook stuff. She drove her right elbow hard into his stomach. 'Oooouuph!' gasped The Journalist. Then she twizzled half-round, caught his left wrist and threw him over her shoulder onto the Engine Room floor. 'Oooouump!' grunted The Journalist. Lucy spoke to him firmly in her best lawyer-speak: 'You stay here, and keep talking to that bomb! While I go and find the Captain!' Then she was out of the door, racing after Dan. 'You don't understand,' The Journalist called after her, 'there isn't any Captain on this ship!' But Lucy had gone. 'Nine hundred and seventy...' said the bomb. 'You don't know what you're doing!' yelled The Journalist. You're going to need me!' 'Pardon?' replied the bomb. 'I wasn't talking to you!' 'Damn!' said the bomb. 'Recommencing countdown. One thousand... Nine hundred and ninetynine...'

By the time Lucy caught up with Dan, he'd already found his way onto the Captain's Bridge of the Starship Titanic. The main feature of the Bridge was, as The Journalist had tried to point out to them, the distinct lack of anyone or anything who could in any shape or form be referred to as 'Captain'. In fact there was a distinct lack - in any shape or form - of anyone at all. 'Jesus! What do we do now?' murmured Dan, as Lucy clutched onto his arm. Along the length of the Bridge was a row of windows, showing the great black immensity of space and the dazzling arm of the Milky Way along which they were headed. On the console beneath the windows were various display screens, with associated controls. The first screen showed a series of random blocks falling from the top of the screen to the bottom. The second appeared to be some sort of racing track. A third was a shoot-em-up, and the next one along was a game apparently based on the Starship itself. 'They're all video games!' Lucy felt righteously indignant. 'They aren't controls at all!' As a matter of fact, the entire Captain's Bridge was little more than a high-class amusement arcade. It had been designed specifically to keep the Captain of the Starship Titanic amused during the tedium of long inter-galactic flights, in a spacecraft that was almost entirely automated and self-running. It was, after all, Titania - at the heart of the ship's intelligence - who was far more capable of taking decisions and issuing orders than any mere living creature. 'So?' said Dan. 'So...' said Lucy. 'I suppose we'd better find out how to fly this baby ourselves and point her Earthwards.' 'So - what was going on between you and that that thing...' 'He's not a "thing" - he's just a perfectly ordinary alien and there was nothing going on.' 'He had his hands on your tits!' 'No he did not!' Lucy couldn't stand Dan at moments like this. Why couldn't he give her room? Why did he try and twist everything? What mattered was them: Lucy and Dan. 'What matters is us,' said Lucy, taking her cue from the previous sentence. 'You and me.' 'You and me and any other life-form you can get it off with!' retorted Dan. 'Jesus! Dan! You are so unpleasant!' 'I'm merely stating the facts.' 'Well, if you really want to know the facts: I never made love to Jurgen Zenzendorf.' 'I wasn't talking about Jurgen Zenzendorf!' Trust Lucy, thought Dan, to bring up another case that she could defend instead of the one they were actually talking about. 'I never even suspected you of going to bed with Jurgen Zenzendorf. I mean Jurgen was an asshole.' 'He was not! That's typical of you to denigrate my friends just because you're unbelievably, maniacally jealous!' Lucy was firing on all cylinders. Dan beat a hasty retreat. 'OK! OK! I accept what you say about Jurgen! He was a nice guy! I liked him. I liked his moth collection. I liked his mother. Jurgen was GREAT.' 'OrJimmy Clarke!' 'Ah! Now I know you're lying!' 'HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT!' 'Jimmy Clarke told me himself you'd been to bed together.' 'He's a lying bastard! Anyway! That was before I knew you! I don't want to talk about any of this!' 'Then why d'you start it?' Lucy was now yelling at the top of her voice. Dan found his drive to do whatever it was he'd previously felt driven to do shrivel into a limp rag of confusion. He'd actually forgotten what they had started arguing about. 'Oh, Dan!' Lucy threw her arms round him. 'Why are you always so far away?' 'I'm here, Lucy!' 'But I never seem to get through to you. I love you.' 'And I love you,' replied Dan, and he kissed her, and she felt how far away he really was. 'Oh, Dan, let's get married,' she said. 'Oh, sure. We're on an alien spaceship - God knows how many light years from Earth and you want to organize a wedding.' 'You know what I mean,' she said. 'It's no good rushing these things.' 'Dan, we've been living together for thirteen years! We can't ever rush anything now!' 'Let's get the hotel up and running, and then we can talk about it,' said Dan sensibly, 'You do like the rectory?' 'Of course I do. I'm crazy about it.' 'Except that it doesn't exist any more.' 'We'll get it rebuilt - Nigel got a great deal on selling off Top Ten Travel. We'll rebuild it - better than it was - and make it the best little hotel in the goddamned world' 'If we ever get back.' 'If we ever get back,' agreed Dan. They looked round at the so-called 'Captain's Bridge' with its library, its video collection, its chess boards and cards tables, its jacuzzi, billiard tables, cinema complex and gym, and they wondered how the hell they were ever going to find out how to control something that didn't appear to have any controls in the first place. 'Lucy,' said Dan. 'Oh! Don't start again! He wasn't doing anything!' 'I wasn't talking about that,' replied Dan. 'Good!' retorted Lucy. One point scored. 'You know this video game that seems to be based on the Starship itself?' 'Uh-huh?' Lucy was staring out of the windows above the console of games. 'Well, it's sort of changing.' 'I know this is stupid...' said Lucy. 'But you don't suppose that computer game isn't a computer game?' 'You mean - might it be an actual display showing those things coming towards us?' By now, Dan was also looking out of the window. A squadron of small, clumsy-looking spacecraft were hurting towards the Starship. Dan checked. Their movements correlated exactly to the motion of the spacecraft on the video display, 'Oh my God!' murmured Lucy. 'We're being attacked!'

At that moment, The Journalist suddenly burst onto the Captain's Bridge. 'The ship's on automatic!' he panted. 'But the central intelligence core is missing some of its parts. We can't control the ship unless we can locate all the missing bits of the system and get them back into place!' 'Too late!' said Lucy and nodded out of the window. The Starship was now entirely surrounded by the smaller spacecraft. The Journalist muttered: 'Holy Pangalin!' A voice suddenly boomed over the ship's loudspeaker system: 'You are surrounded. Give up at once or we open fire!' 'Quick!' yelled Dan, pushing The Journalist over to the console. 'How do we give up at once?' 'I haven't the slightest idea,' returned The Journalist. 'If you refuse to give up, we shall open fire in thirty seconds,' said the voice from the enemy spacefleet. 'WE GIVE UP!' yelled Lucy, but her voice merely echoed round the Captain's Bridge. 'DO SOMETHING!' screamed Dan. 'I told you! The ship's missing essential bits! I don't know what to do!' The Journalist was flipping controls as fast as he could but to little effect. 'Since you refuse to co-operate...' boomed the voice. 'WE'LL CO-OPERATE! JUST GIVE US A CHANCE!' Lucy had climbed onto the console and was waving her arms at the spaceships in a desperate attempt to attract their attention. '... since you refuse to co-operate you give us no choice but to open fire,' The space outside the Starship suddenly exploded in light and a terrific noise battered the mighty hull - deafening those inside. Lucy fell off the console and Dan and The Journalist both dived for the floor, where they lay trembling with their hands over their ears. There was then a pause. The voice boomed over the loudspeaker again: 'Do you surrender?' 'YES! YES! WE SURRENDER!' screamed all three occupants of the Captain's Bridge. 'Very well! You leave us no choice!' Another almighty din broke out around the Starship, and this time they could feel it shudder with the impact of the explosions outside. Then there was silence. The smaller spacecraft edged in a little closer. Then the voice was booming out again. 'Look! We don't want to damage the Starship, but if you refuse to co-operate you will leave us no choice.' The Journalist had by this time found a sort of microphone. He pushed a switch and bellowed into it. 'STOP! STOP! WE SURRENDER! STOP!' His voice deafened everybody on board the Starship Titanic, but elsewhere there was a terrible silence. Then they heard the enemy for the last time: 'We shall hold you responsible for any damage done to the Starship!' With that a wave of the smaller spacecraft peeled off from the main fleet and swooped towards them. Points of light spattered out from their guns and the sound of ripping metal shook the great Starship. 'Oh my God!' screamed Lucy.

None of them could have told you how long the attack went on for, but it seemed like several lifetimes to the three figures huddled on the Captain's Bridge. The noise, the vibration, the crashing and bucking of the giant Starship went on and on. Lucy found The Journalist had his hands on her breasts, but decided not to say anything. When it was all over, they waited and then stood up, trembling and shaking. The first wave was returning to the main fleet meanwhile a second wave was peeling off. 'Here they come again!' yelled Dan, and he and Lucy ducked down once more beneath the console. But The Journalist remained standing, with a curious expression on his face. Lucy and Dan braced themselves for the gunfire... but it didn't come. Instead there was an odd - rather unmartial - banging on the hull of the ship. 'Yassaccans!' muttered The Journalist. Lucy and Dan both assumed this was another alien expletive, and remained under cover, but then The Journalist nudged Dan and said: 'Look!' Dan cautiously put his head above the console and peered out of the window: the second wave of spaceships had pulled up all around the Starship, and an army of short and stocky space-suited figures were swarming over the hull, hammering and welding as they went. 'What the blazes?' asked Dan. 'They're repairing the damage,' explained The Journalist, Yassaccans are like that! They hate injuring hardware!' 'What about software?' asked Lucy, readjusting her bra. 'We'll need guns!' yelled The Journalist. 'Follow me!' The three of them ran, doubled-up, out of the Captain's Bridge, while the enemy's hammering and welding outside gathered in intensity. Meanwhile the voice boomed out over the loudspeakers again: 'We shall recommence our attack, as soon as the first damage has been repaired! If you do not surrender, we shall board and dispose of everyone we find!' In the crew's quarters, The Journalist discovered an arms cache. He handed out weapons to Dan and Lucy. 'How do we use them?' asked Dan, turning a strange gun over in his hand. It had a short thingy and bulbous side-thingies and a sort of thingy that stuck out and which Dan pushed: a laser beam shot out across the Crew Room and exploded in a fireball at the other end. 'Like that,' explained The Journalist, 'except don't point them at the soft furnishings.' He rushed over to the flaming curtain that Dan had just set on fire and grabbed an extinguisher. 'We can't use these!' cried Lucy. 'Then you'll just have to get used to the idea of being thrown off the ship into deep space. These Yassaccans are not playing games. Here! Dan! Put this on!' He threw Dan a helmet. 'What is it?' asked Dan. 'The Starship has two realities; one is the DataSide and the other is the MatterSide. When the Yassaccans board, they'll try to take over the DataSide as well as the MatterSide. So one of us better be prepared to confront them there!' 'I have no idea what you're talking about,' replied Dan. 'It's a VR helmet - a Virtual Reality helmet. You put it on, you'll be able to explore the DataSide and check whatever the Yassaccans get up to there!' The Journalist was clearly losing patience. 'Just put it on!' shouted Lucy. The noise from the repairs on the hull was getting unbearable. 'What the heck are they doing out there?' exclaimed Dan. 'Just put on the helmet!' cried Lucy. At which Dan did. 'Wow!' he exclaimed. 'I see what you mean! I'm right in the ship... Hey! This is great! I can get into the consoles! Wow! Now I'm running along the wiring! Hey! The circuit-boards are like vast cities! Shit!' The moment he had the helmet on, The Journalist grabbed Lucy and started kissing her as if there were no tomorrow which, he figured, might well be the case. And, as if shed been expecting this all along, Lucy started to kiss him, but then she suddenly pulled back, and glanced anxiously over at Dan, who was climbing some invisible stairs in his Virtual Reality and then turning around and handling invisible objects and letting out delighted yelps. 'Oh don't worry about him!' panted The Journalist. 'He can't hear or see us. We're still MatterSide. He'll be totally absorbed in that thing - it's always the same - first time you put on one of those you're usually off for five or six hours! Let's do it!' But still Lucy pushed him away. 'The Yassaccans are invading the ship!' she protested. 'That's right!' replied The Journalist. 'We've hardly got time to do it before they arrive! Quick!' 'Is that all you can think about!?' groaned Lucy. The Journalist was now nuzzling her neck and sending excited shivers down her spine. 'I told you - once we Blerontinian males get aroused...' 'Arrgh!' Lucy suddenly screamed. 'And what about the bomb?!' Pangalin!' exclaimed The Journalist. 'I'd forgotten about that!' He suddenly whipped a small handset out of one of his many pockets and flipped it on. 'Twenty-five... twenty-four... twenty-three...' The bomb was counting. 'Toothless rabbits!' yelled The Journalist, 'it's nearly there!' 'Twenty-two...' said the bomb. 'Hey! Bomb!' yelled The Journalist into the phone. 'Don't talk to me!' moaned the bomb. 'I'm nearly there.. twenty-three... no, I've done that...' 'We're being invaded!' shouted The Joumalist. 'Twenty-oh... no! Damn! Recommencing countdown. One thousand...' The Journalist flipped the phone off and started kissing Lucy's neck and undoing her suit. 'That was close!' he breathed. 'Whoops! Nearly went down a transistor then!' said Dan. And suddenly Lucy was running her hands all over The Journalist and pulling him down onto the floor. 'You're crazy!' she murmured...

The hammering and banging on the outside of the ship had stopped by the time Lucy and The Journalist had struggled back into their clothes. Dan, who was still scrambling around some unseen obstacles on the DataSide, suddenly yelled out: 'They're in the ship!' The Journalist grabbed as many weapons as he could carry and headed out of the Crew Room. Down at the far end of the Grand Axial Canal he could see short, stocky figures already slipping onto the jetty. The Journalist settled himself behind a large podium, on which one of the braziers burnt, and took aim. As Lucy joined him, he fired and a series of explosions rocked the jetty and sent the invaders diving for cover. The next moment, Lucy felt the air around and above her exploding with light and noise as the Yassaccans returned their fire. 'Hey! This air-duct goes on for ever!' Lucy span round to see that Dan (still in the VR helmet and totally unconscious of anything that was happening MatterSide) had wandered out through the open door of the Crew Room and was now heading straight for the Grand Axial Canal. 'DAN!' she screamed, and ran towards him as his feet reached the edge of the embankment. Immediately there was another explosion of noise and light around them, as the Yassaccans fired again. But Lucy had hold of Dan's sleeve. She managed to twist him round on the very edge of the water and pushed him back towards the Crew Room. The Journalist, meanwhile, was firing as fast as he could in the general direction of the invaders. But by now there was so much smoke neither side could see very much. 'Let's get out of here!' yelled The Journalist and he bundled Lucy after Dan, back into the Crew Room.

'Who set fire to the curtains?' demanded Bolfass the moment he burst into the Crew Room. He nodded, and a couple of Yassaccan repair workers hurried over to replace them. Bolfass had led his Special Assault Group along a back service corridor to the crew's quarters, while Yellin and Assmal led the frontal attack along the main arteries of the Starship. Bolfass loved the finish they had obtained on the service corridor ceiling. It gave him much quiet satisfaction, in the dark of the night, to reflect on the craftsmanship and the high quality of material lavished on even the working areas of the great Starship. 'Never was there another such construction in the entire history of our people,' he used to tell his grandchildren, as they sat around the evening hearth, eating their dumpling stew and snork crackling. 'Even the curtains in the Crew Rooms were woven from the hair of the silky canadil, which lives high up in the Mountains of Merlor, and can only be caught with love and kindness. The hair of the canadil is so fine you must weave it by the light of the moons, for in sunlight it will disappear like snow.' The children loved these tales of craftsmanship and daring feats of engineering. It cut Bolfass to the quick to see how someone could mistreat such workmanship. In fact it made him very cross indeed. At that very moment, a figure wearing a VR helmet stumbled into the room, followed by two others - one of whom was clearly a treacherous Blerontinian. A black rage swallowed Bolfass whole, and the next moment he had swivelled out his SD handgun and blasted the three newcomers to cosmic dust - their bodies exploded in a supernova of entrails and mangled flesh that quickly reached white-heat and, happily, burnt out before they could besmatter or stain the beautifully hand-lacquered walls. Lucy was aware of a violent cacophony of noise and her eyes were whited-out by the most piercing light. She screamed, grabbed onto The Journalist and fell in a faint upon the floor. It was that terrifying. Bolfass grinned and blew away the smoke from his SD handgun. His anger assuaged, he twirled the gun on his finger and slipped it back into its holster. It has to be explained at this point that the Yassaccans were a peace-loving, kindly race - dedicated to craftsmanship and sober industry. Many of them, however, were also prone to blind, blood-lusting rage when confronted by certain things - such as sloppy workmanship or a disregard for fine hand-crafting. In the distant past these rages had led to terrible destruction of life and property, and, since the moods went as quickly as they came, they had also led to unendurable remorse for many thousands of these otherwise benign and caring folk. The Yassaccan scientists had, therefore, developed the SD weapon, which - unlike the sort of hardware that most military scientists come up with - was designed to reduce death and destruction rather than increase it. The Simulated Destruction weapon - or SD gun - gave the user the momentary impression of having wreaked the bloody revenge that his crazed fury craved - without actually doing any damage. It always surprised and stunned the enemy, but that was all. Lucy, not knowing any of this, was more than astonished to find herself still alive enough to hear the leader of the invaders demand: 'You are under arrest! Where are the others?' 'Hey! This is great! I'm going down one of the cybernautic neural pathways! It's like a water-slide! Wheeee Excellent!' exclaimed Dan. 'Take that stupid thing off his head!' snapped Bolfass. The Yassaccans had no time for Virtual Reality exercises. Their business was exclusively MatterSide. Two of the invaders grabbed Dan and yanked the helmet off his head. 'Hey! I was enjoying th-! Jeepers! What's going on?!' said Dan as he experienced SRM - Sudden Return to MatterSide. 'I said: where are the others?' repeated Bolfass. 'There aren't any others,' replied The Journalist, truculently. 'Come on! I wasn't brought up in a Blerontinlan State Nursery!* Who's running this ship?' Bolfass was getting irritated again; he'd just noticed the wretched finish on the mess-tables: the Blerontinian furniture makers had used unseasoned Lintin Pine from Northern Blerontin - an inferior wood which would warp badly after a couple of decades in use... and... by the Falls of Faknik! They hadn't even concealed the end grain with housed joints! In fact, when he looked closer, he could see the tenons were barely haunched - leaving scarcely enough timber at the top of the stile for wedging! Had these people never learned even the most rudimentary basics of the art ofjoinery? Bolfass reached for his SD gun...

- - - - - - * These institutions were infamous for turning out individuals of less than avenge mental agility - possibly owing to the fact that, for generations, Blerontinian Governments had saved money on these establishments by forbidding any teaching to be done in them. - - - - - -

But before he could wreak his terrible and destructive revenge on the perpetrators of this slipshod botch-work a miracle happened. The door of the Crew Room opened and a vision entered - someone so compellingly and so unutterably beautiful that Bolfass fell heavily and permanently in love. His life was never to be the same from that moment forth. He lowered the SD gun and stared in childlike adoration. Nettie, who had just completed her course of rejuvenation in Leovinus's extraordinary beauty parlour, had not only regained her youthful complexion, her body also had returned to its former proportions. In fact, if anything, her waist was just that little bit thinner, her breasts just a tiny bit firmer, the swell of her stomach just a tad more rounded. She looked more lovely than ever for, despite the fresh bloom of youth that had returned to her cheeks, her face was also suffused with the wisdom that comes of having lived for several million years. Old Leovinus certainly knew what he was doing. 'Nettie!' murmured Dan. 'Who d'you say?' asked Bolfass absent-mindedly. 'Hi! Everybody!' said Nettie. 'Supposing we all introduce ourselves? I'm Nettie.' 'Captain Bolfass at your service!' said Bolfass, springing to attention 'And these are Corporals: Yarktak, Edembop, Ragtiliten, Desembo, Luntparger, Forzab, Kakit, Zimwiddy, Duterprat, Kazitinker-Rigipitil, Purzenhakkken, Roofcleetop, Spanglowiddin, Buke-Hammadorf, Bunzlywotter, Brudelhampon, Harzimwodl, Unctimpoter, Golholiwol, Dinseynewt, Tidoloft, Cossimiwip, Onecrocodil, Erldehammerdrat, Inchbewigglit, Sarniliftodft, Buke-Willinujit (he's a half-cousin by marriage of Buke-Hammadorf)...' 'Hi, Nettie!' said one of theYassaccan invaders. 'Barnzipewt,' continued Bolfass, 'Spighalliwiller, Memsiportim, Itkip, Harlorfreytor, Pullijit, Beakelmemsdork, Uppelsaftat, Bukhumster, Rintineagelbun, Bootintuk, Poodalasvan, Sumpcreetorkattelburt...' 'Look! I hate to interrupt,' interrupted The Journalist, 'but there's a bomb on board this ship which is about to go off in...' He switched on the mobile phone. 'Ten... nine ..' counted the bomb. 'Hot shit!' exclaimed The Journalist. 'Silence! Blerontinian Purveyor of Shoddy Goods!' shouted Bolfass, grabbing the mobile phone. 'He's not a Purveyor of Shoddy Goods!' exclaimed Lucy (who, if the truth were told, was a bit hacked off by the reaction to Nettie's entrance). 'Eight...' said the bomb. 'Give me that!' screamed The Journalist, flinging himself at the phone. Bolfass tossed it to Corporal Inchbewigglit. 'Seven...' counted the bomb. 'It's down to seven!' yelled The Journalist. 'Take this Blerontinian Bodger to the cells!' commanded Bolfass, and Corporals Spanglowiddin and Rintineagelbun grabbed The Journalist in a half-nelson and marched him out of the Crew Room. 'Six...' said the bomb, and Corporal Inchbewigglit flicked the mobile phone off. 'These two as well!' Bolfàss was pointing at Lucy and Dan. 'No!' cried Lucy and Dan. 'The bomb!' but they were hustled out. 'Captain Bolfass,' said Nettie in a cool voice. 'There is no time to explain. Please give me the phone.' 'I am afraid I cannot allow you to use it, Nettie,' said Captain Bolfass, 'for security reasons.' 'Such as?' 'You might call for reinforcements.' 'Captain Bolfass, you have my word that there is no one else on this ship, as far as I know. You also have my word that there is a bomb about to blow us all to cosmic dust, unless you give me that phone.' Bolfass hesitated a fraction of a second, and then nodded to Corporal Inchbewigglit. Corporal Inchbewigglit hesitated even less than a fraction of a second and handed the phone to Nettie. Nettie switched it on. 'Two...' said the bomb. 'Oh, bomb!' said Nettie. 'This is Nettie. Remember me?' 'Er... One...' said the bomb. 'How many fours make eight?' 'Er...er...Zeee...' 'No... How many fours make eight?' 'Er... er... Two?' said the bomb. 'How many twos in six?' 'Three...' said the bomb. 'And how many times does three go into twelve?' 'Four...' said the bomb. It paused for a moment and then continued: 'Five... Six... Seven...' 'Phew!' said Nettie. 'That'll buy a bit of time...' 'Why have you put this bomb onto our ship?' demanded Bolfass. 'Your ship?' exclaimed Nettie. 'Why do you sound so surprised?' cried Bolfass. 'Do you think we're not skillful enough to have built such a wonderful thing?' 'Oh no!' replied Nettie. 'I didn't mean anything like that - it's just that you attacked the ship. It didn't seem like you owned it.' 'Of course we own it!' Nettie thought Captain Bolfass appeared a trifle defensive. 'Legally and morally! This ship is our rightful recompense for all the misery and hardship that we have suffered at the hands of the Blerontinians!' 'Look! I don't want to appear stupid...' 'You could never look that, Nettie,' the Captain assured her. 'Thank you...' Nettie felt herself charmed by this short, fair stranger, in whose hands her fate apparently lay. 'But I don't know the background history to all this...' 'And I will be delighted to tell you the whole story, dear lady-' Bolfass gave her deep bow - 'but first it is my unpleasant task to ask you once again: Why have you placed a bomb on this ship?' 'We haven't!' Nettie gave a little laugh that sent the Captain's heart reeling after his wobbly knees. 'We're on this ship by accident...' and she told Bolfass the whole story; how Dan and Lucy were about to turn the old rectory into a hotel, with the money from the Top Ten Travel Agency, and how the Starship had crashed into the house; how they had been invited aboard by a polite robot, and of all the things that had passed on the ship up until the invasion by the good Captain's forces. When she had finished there was a long pause, until Nettie eventually added: 'And that's it... really.' Bolfass seemed to suddenly recollect himself - as if he'd been in a dream while she'd been talking. He jumped to attention, and clicked his heels in a most courteous manner. 'I understand perfectly, dear lady,' he said, bowing and kissing her hand. Captain Bolfass increasingly looked as if he had just stepped out of a Jane Austen novel. 'All we want to do is to get back to Earth,' said Nettie. 'Of course!' Captain Bolfass clicked his heels again, in that way that made Nettie wriggle inside with delight. 'I am entirely at your service. Come!' And Nettie followed the Captain, her high heels clicking on the beautifully laid floor of the work area.

Dan wasn't quite sure why he was surprised to find that there were cells on the Starship Titanic. It made sense in a way, he supposed, and yet they seemed totally out of place amidst all this luxury and elegance. The cell that he and The Journalist had been thrown into was, as cells tend to be, bare and cold. It was also damp, which is certainly what you expect cells to be but a bit surprising on such a technologically advanced vehicle. 'Lucy is such a good flick,' said The Journalist, shaking his head in admiration. 'You are a lucky man!' 'Look,' said Dan, 'I hate to disabuse you, but on Earth our attitude to these sorts of things is not the same as you Blerontinians. You're telling me!' exclaimed The Journalist. 'When Lucy first suggested we have sex I could hardly believe my ears!' 'She did what?' exclaimed Dan. 'Well - we thought that the bomb was going to explode any second and she just kind of... Hey! Come to think of it! D'you think your other friend - what's her name?' 'She suggested... you make love?' 'The blonde one - Nightie!' 'Nettie.' 'D'you think Nettie knows about talking to the bomb?' 'I don't believe Lucy "suggested" you have sex!' replied Dan. 'That was when I first realized how different sexual attitudes must be on your planet!' Dan went a bit quiet. In all the years he had known Lucy, and what was it? oh! it must be all of thirteen years now (probably more since they'd been travelling at the speed of light!) and in all those years he couldn't remember Lucy initiating a single sexual act. In the early years, he would sometimes lie awake at night, waiting to see if she would start, but he finally gave up. She was always perfectly happy to make love - but he had to make the first approach. He'd always assumed that was just how she was. 'Hey! Jailer!' The Journalist was yelling out of the bars. 'The! Is that you?' Lucy's voice came from the cell down the row. 'Lucy!' cried The Journalist. 'Pipes of Pangalin! I want to screw the arse off you!' 'STOP IT!' screamed Dan, and he threw himself at The Journalist. The two of them rolled around the sodden floor of their cell, with Dan punching and kicking and The surprised Journalist trying to defend himself. 'Dan! DAN! Is that you?' Lucy was yelling. She could hear them fighting. 'Stop that! We've got to save our strength! We've got to get out of here!' 'Lucy's right!' The Journalist panted, and suddenly the fight went out of Dan. Suddenly he found himself wondering why he was so jealous. 'Why did you attack me?' asked The Journalist. Dan was just about to explain about the history of sexual mores on Earth, but he stopped himself. 'Look!' he said instead. 'Let's call a truce. Just don't talk about sex for the rest of the day, all right?' 'If you'd rather... But don't worry about me. I'm not shocked by the laxity of your Earth morals...' 'Just shut up about it for a few minutes!' 'OK!' replied The Joumalist. 'Now,' said Dan. 'Suppose you tell me everything you know about this Starship that we're all stuck on, and then maybe together we can figure a way to get off it.' 'Dan! I love you!' shouted Lucy from her cell. 'I love you too!' Dan shouted back. 'Me too!' shouted The Journalist. Dan fought back the urge to hit him and said: 'Tell me what you know.'

And so The Journalist told Dan about how the construction of the Starship Titanic had bankrupted the planet of Yassacca, and how Star-Struct Inc. had then removed the construction work, without paying their debts. He told Dan of the rumours of financial trouble that had dogged the building of the ship on Blerontin, of the suspected shoddy workmanship of the Unmarried Teenage Mothers employed on the work, and how corners had been cut. He told Dan of Leovinus, the architect, engineer, artist, composer and greatest general all-round genius in the Galaxy, and how he had met him on the night before the launch. He told Dan of his meeting with Scraliontis, the accountant, who had told him of the bomb and the plot to scuttle the great Starship and claim the insurance, shortly before plunging to his death after being attacked by a parrot. The Journalist then told Dan how, despite his wounds, he had decided to stow away on board in order to get the great scoop that had always hitherto eluded him in his career as a journalist he'd expose the full story behind the construction of the Starship and, at the same time, give a first hand account of what it was like to be the only passenger on board. (The idea had been to launch the ship on automatic, before flying her to Dormillion, where she was to pick up her first crew and passengers.) The Journalist then told Dan about how the ship had suffered a SMEF (Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure) shortly after launch and how it had crash-landed on some unknown planet in the unexplored backside of the Galaxy. He finally described how, after the crash, he had heard cries coming from one of the curtains in the First Class Dining Room. He had then discovered Leovinus where he had been left for dead by Scraliontis. The Journalist had freed him and then tried to stop the old man from rushing off the ship - but to no avail. Despite his age, Leovinus had overpowered him (The Journalist had still been losing blood at this stage) and - screaming for revenge, waving, a glowing silver shard in his hand and presumably imagining he was still on Blerontin - the great genius had disappeared into the darkness of an alien world... 'Captain Bolfass wants to see you.' Their jailer suddenly cut across the long story. He jangled his keys as he opened the door to the wretched cell, and pulled The Journalist out.

Captain Bolfass had escorted the beautiful Nettie to the Captain's Bridge. There he had invited her to take a little tea and some cinnamon biscuit, while he made the necessary arrangements to fly the great Starship back to the planet Earth. 'Without wishing to sound disrespectful,' he explained to her, 'it is not a planet with which I am familiar - though, of course, it must be the most delightful world, to be the home of someone as lovely and as charming as yourself.' He bowed, and Nettie felt the thrill of being treated like the heroine of Northanger Abbey. 'I am sure you are more than capable of guiding us home,' she said, lowering her eyes. 'Ah! My dear lady!' exclaimed the Captain. 'It is not I who will guide us but the ship itself. The exact location of the planet Earth will have been recorded in the Starship's central intelligence core. Although none of us have any idea of where your planet is to be found, all I have to do is to tell Titania - that is what Leovinus named his cybernautic system - and she will locate it and take us there.' Captain Bolfass pressed a small button on one of the consoles, next to a video game based on a recent Blerontinian film... and that is where the novel suddenly ceased to be one by Jane Austen or even Catherine Cookson. 'Barthfarthinghasts!' exclaimed Bolfass. 'Something's wrong! I'm getting no response!' Nettie, who had felt the Earth and home to be very close indeed - a mere button-push away - now saw it suddenly recede into deep space. 'Captain Bolfass!' Corporal Buke-Willinujit (the cousin by marriage of Corporal Buke-Hammadorf) had just arrived out of breath and nervous. 'The central intelligence core! Someone's removed the vital functions!' Bolfass turned to Yellin, who was busy with one of the shoot-em-up games. 'This is the work of that Blerontinian vandal! Bring him up at once!' By the time The Journalist was thrown at his feet, Bolfass had become quite angry - not as angry as if he had known about the sub-standard materials used for the railing around the Central Well, or if he had known about the scandalous lack of finish in the bilge and rubbish-disposal wastes (where the Unmarried Teenage Mothers had been told not to rub down or even apply any varnish!) - but still pretty angry. 'What have you done to Titania's brain?' he roared. The Journalist stuck his chin out and said: 'I can only give you my name, rank and number.' 'This isn't The Great Escape!' * exclaimed Bolfass, swivelling a light into The Journalist's eyes. 'Tell me what you know! Or I shall let Horst here do his worst!'

- - - - - - * The Great Escape - the name of a famous Blerontin film celebrating the true story of how the cream of the Blerontinian spacefleet, held prisoners in the supposedly impregnable fortress of Drat-Kroner, contrived a mass escape. Oddly enough it also starred Steve McQueen. - - - - - -

'My lips are sealed!' countered The Journalist, turning his head away. 'Very well! You leave me no choice!' snarled Bolfass and he struck The Journalist across the face with his leather glove. 'All right!' said The Journalist. 'I'll tell you anything you want! Anything!' 'Don't you want to be tortured a little more first?' 'No! I'd rather tell you now.' 'Very well! We know you've sabotaged Titania's brain to prevent us returning to Yassacca! Tell us what you've done with the parts!' The Journalist looked surprised. 'Scraliontis didn't tell me about that part of the plot!' 'What plot?' Bolfass secretly admired his Blerontinian adversary for his ability to remain cool under circumstances when a lesser man would have cracked. 'It's a pity,' he thought, 'we aren't fighting this war on the same side. On the other hand, we're not actually fighting a war at all.' Bolfass made an effort to pull himself together. The Journalist then told everything he knew about Scraliontis's and Brobostigon's plot to scuttle the great Starship and claim the insurance. Bolfass listened in white-laced anger. Nettie could see the rage boiling up within him. 'It's not this fellow's fault!' she cried out. Bolfass hesitated - his hand was already on his SD gun - but something in the tone of Nettie's voice stilled the fury inside him. He left his gun alone. 'Scraliontis and Brobostigon were on the ship the night before the launch,' said The Journalist. 'They wouldn't have wanted to attract attention by going in and out of it, so I imagine whatever they took out of the central intelligence system, they'll have hidden somewhere on board.' 'Sounds feasible,' said Assmal, the other Yassaccan commander, who up to this point had been doing fantastically well at the Tetris game. 'Very well!' said Bolfass. 'We will search the ship from prow to keel. Those parts must be found or we will never get Nettie back to her own planet. Indeed, we will find it hard enough to limp back to Yassacca as it is!' 'I think we can make it, Captain!' said Rodden, the navigational engineer. 'We are in the Starius Zone E-D 3278 of the Praxima-Betril Section of the Inner Galaxy. I can get us home by dead reckoning, so long as Assmal can get manual control of the ship's power.' Assmal nodded. 'I have control now of enough functions to be able to steer. But it will be a long trip - several hours at least.' And so, the great Starship Titanic turned its vast bulk in the star-bright darkness of space and began its weary journey back to the planet of Yassacca.

The search for the missing parts of the Starship's brain proved more difficult than anyone could have anticipated. This was mainly owing to the fact that the ship's robots were becoming increasingly eccentric in their behaviour. The Doorbots were beginning to hallucinate - opening the doors for non-existent First Class Passengers' pets and being charming to waste-disposal units. The Liftbots had gone into a permanent decline, convinced that the only way to avoid the end of civilization as they knew it was to eat less protein. The Dustbots kept dashing out from the skirting and depositing on the floor bits of fluff large enough to trip everyone up. But the biggest problem was in the main bar of the ship, where the Barbot was trapped in some strange cyberpsychotic loop, despite the fact that they could all clearly see a piece of Titania's brain amongst the coloured glasses and bottles on the shelf behind him. 'Yes yes sir! Jiff be with you... Cock this tail mix, have you just, sir...' The Barbot veered between the charmingly incomprehensible and belligerently drunk. 'Just give us that piece of cyberware on the shelf there...' tried Corporal Golholiwol. But the Barbot simply bit his nose. 'Ow!' cried Corporal Golholiwol. Every attempt to climb over the bar and get at the object was met with a surprising show of force from the Barbot, and the peace-loving Yassaccans were forced into retreat.

By the time all but one of the missing parts were eventually located, the Starship Titanic was within sight of the planet Yassacca.

Returning home was always the Jailer's favourite thing in life. Soon he would have his feet up beside a blazing hearth. A jug of Old-Fashioned Beer would be in his hand, and his family would be running here and there preparing the evening meal or playing games on the porch in the setting sun. He was therefore whistling a rather jolly tune as he unlocked the cell door and indicated to Dan that he was a free man. Had Dan been more musical, he would have recognized the Jailer's tune as none other than 'Mademoiselle from Armentiers' - a French tune popular during the First World War. The reason why the Jailer came to be whistling it is not unconnected to the smuggling of French champagne to Blerontin via the time-warp previously mentioned. For, if the truth were known, the Jailer was none other than Corporal Pillwiddlipillipitit - the notorious smuggler and leader of the infamous Pillwiddlipillipitit Gang, which was one of the unpleasant manifestations of organized crime that had sprung up since the ruin of the Yassaccan economy. Pillwiddlipillipitit had disguised himself as an ordinary corporal in the Yassaccan spacefleet, in order to reconnoitre the Starship Titanic for possible plunder at a later date. But that is another story. The moment he was free, Dan made a beeline for Lucy, who was standing on the Captain's Bridge with The Journalist and Nettie, watching the great globe of the approaching planet, through the window. 'Lucy!' he whispered. 'Can we go and talk somewhere private?' 'Not now!' Lucy whispered back. 'Look! Isn't that the most amazing sight you've ever seen?' 'It reminds me of your breasts,' murmured The Journalist. Dan fought back an urge to kill The Journalist on the spot, and, instead, grabbed Lucy by the arm and dragged her to the other end of the Bridge. 'You suggested it! He said you did!' Dan was trying to sound more indignant and accusing than plaintive but it was coming out more like a total and utter whinge. 'Dan! It wa sjust a weak moment...' 'Why have you never had any "weak moments" with me? In the thirteen years...' 'Just what the hell are you talking about, Dan? We have a great sex-life - don't we?' Lucy was getting mad at him. 'Well...yes...It's just..' 'You're just so goddamned jealous! You think I'm screwing every man who finds me attractive!' 'I never said that!' As usual, Dan could feel the conversation spiralling out of his control. As it happened, however, he was rescued from the inevitable dialectical humiliation by a remarkable and dangerous turn of events that was to alter the whole course of this story. Bolfass had been pointing out the continents and countries of Yassacca to Nettie. He felt his heart beating fast - partly with the pride he felt in his own world but more because Nettie had taken hold of his arm and was gazing out beside him in wonder and admiration. Bolfass could have practically swooned on the spot. He could smell the scent of that beautiful creature beside him, he could feel the gentle touch of her soft hands upon his arm, and he could feel her heart beating behind her firm breast close against him. Bolfass hardly knew what he was saying. 'And there, dear lady, you can see the Ocean of Summer-Plastering. That is the Land known as Finepottery, oh! And over there, dear lady, if you were to turn your eyes you could see my own country: Carpenters Islands. It is a fine place, peopled by noble craftsmen and technicians of the highest calibre. Or at least... it was before...' Bolfass's voice seemed to crack so that Nettie glanced down at him - his rugged features were clouded by a furrow of sadness. 'Before what, Captain Bolfäss?' Nettie asked softly. 'Ah, Nettie, I don't want to burden you with the problems of our world,' replied the gallant Captain. 'I should like to know.' Nettie took the Captain's hand in hen and stroked it gently, and I think the good Captain would have fainted then and there for sheer pleasure had not a movement around the perimeter of the planet distracted him. 'Rodden! What's that?' Bolfass had suddenly become tense. The Navigational Officer peered into the distant haze around Yassacca. He put his bino-focals to his eyes and an involuntary gasp escaped him. 'Blerontinians!' he murmured. Bolfass grabbed the bino-focals. Yes! He could see clearly a whole fleet of fighter spaceships with Blerontinian registration plates, but no other markings. They were clearly not official Blerontin Space fleet. 'Mercenaries!' muttered Assmal. 'They mean trouble!' said Yellin. 'Quick!' yelled Bolfass, 'Every man to arms! And turn off the SD feature. We shall shoot real ammunition!' There was a buzz amongst the Yassaccans as they leapt into action, grabbing weapons and racing to predetermined positions. The idea of firing real ammunition instead of Simulated Destruction charges was both exciting and terrifying to them. Of course, they had used live ammo when they first attacked the Starship, but that was just against an inanimate object - this time they would he firing at living targets. Naturally they wouldn't aim directly at the enemy, that went without saying, but there would be a lot of exciting repair work to look forward to! Bolfass's face suddenly darkened, and he turned gravely to Nettie. 'Nettie!' he said. 'I am so sorry to do this, and I hope you will be able to forgive me, but I must regretfully ask you and your friends to retire to a safe quarter, whilst we are engaged with the enemy.' While Bolfass had been saying this, the Blerontinian mercenaries had streaked (at just under light-speed) up to the Starship, and had now surrounded it. There must have been fifty or sixty craft - a typical rag-bag assortment of spaceships converted to military use. Such ad-hoc fleets had become a familiar sight in the space-skies around this sector of the Galaxy, ever since the breakdown of economic co-operation between worlds and the destabilisation of the Inter-Galactic Security Council. Suddenly a harsh voice boomed out over the Starship's loudspeaker system: 'This is the official spacefleet of the Magna-Corps Insurance Company of Blerontin. We are acting under licence and according to Blerontinian Law on behalf of the Loss Adjustors appointed to liquidate the remaining assets of the Star-Struct Construction Company, Starship Titanic Holdings Ltd. and Starlight Travel Inc. as per the insurance schedule para 6 sub-section 3. On behalf of the above-named Insurance Company, we hereby repossess this Starship as lawful property of the said Insurance Company. Please leave quietly and in an orderly fashion.' 'Snork piddlers!' yelled Bolfass. He knew how to work the ship's communication systems, and his voice rang round the mercenaries' spacecraft so loudly they could hear it from the Starship. 'We built this ship! We lavished our care and craftsmanship on it without stint and without grudge! We bought the finest materials and ran into debt trying to meet the wonderfully high specifications ordered by Mr Leovinus. We were never paid a penny. Then, when the construction was taken from us, we and our families were faced with poverty and hunger. This ship is ours by every moral right in the Galaxy. What is more we claim it by right of salvage! We found it, and we have brought it hack to its rightful place! Go suck yourselves!' Even as he spoke, four of the mercenary boarding-craft clanged into the side of the Starship. Grappling irons were attached to the hull and the airlocks of the Titanic were broached from the outside. At the same moment the air around the mercenaries burst into light and smoke and noise, as the Yassaccans launched a furious counter-attack.

All this while, Nettie, Dan, Lucy and The Journalist had found themselves back under arrest and being hurried towards the cells by half a dozen agitated Yassaccan guards. They were about halfway along the Grand Axial Canal when an advance patrol of Blerontinian mercenaries suddenly burst out of the Embarkation Lobby and opened fire. The three Earth people and The Journalist threw themselves onto the floor, but the Yassaccans, used as they were to SD weapons, hesitated for a second and in that second they lost it. Corporal Inchbewigglit and Corporal Razitinker-Rigipitil made it to the deck but Corporals Yarktak, Bunzlywotter, Tidoloft and Forzab received direct hits. They clutched their chests and their weapons clattered to the floor. Nettie was the first to throw herself onto one of the fallen weapons and without hesitation she turned it on the mercenaries. Considering she had never even handled a shotgun, back on Earth, Nettie seemed to master the Yassaccan 'blaster' with remarkable ease. It seemed obvious to her where to hold it, and she'd noticed the trigger just below one of the firing chambers. She aimed it, squeezed the trigger, flame blasted out of the barrels and two mercenaries fell to the ground. 'No! No!' yelled Corporal Inchbewigglit in alarm. 'Aim above their heads!' 'Not on your life!' yelled Nettie, and brought down another Blerontinian. By this time Lucy, Dan and The Journalist had each grabbed hold of another of the spare weapons and started blasting away at their attackers. Their Yassaccan guards were clearly shocked. The Blerontinians, for their part, were taken totally by surprise. They were used to standing up to the fury of Yassaccan SD guns, and - in extreme circumstances - they were used to Yassaccans firing over their heads with real weapons. But this was something new! It was also very alarming! The few Blerontinians who remained standing looked at their fallen comrades, they looked back at their adversaries who even now were blasting straight at them, and - without waiting for another volley to hit them - they turned and fled. The Yassaccan guards were flabbergasted. Never, in the history of their nations, had Blerontinians fled before Yassaccan gunfire! Nettie, meanwhile, had raced forwards to the doors of the Embarkation Lobby. There she continued to blast away at the retreating Blerontinians - this time firing above their heads. But the mercenaries were in no mood to stick around to see what she was aiming at - they were already back in the airlock and had slammed the door shut. 'Mind the paintwork!' gasped Corporal Inchbewigglit. 'Well done!' cried Dan, who had just reached Nettie, She was breathing hard and Dan could feel the heat coming off her body as he stood close behind her. Suddenly she span round. 'Oh my God! The bomb!' she exclaimed and pulled the mobile phone from her pocket. 'Two...' said the bomb. 'One... ' 'Hi, bomb! It's Nettie!' 'Hi, Nettie...' 'Are you all right, bomb?' There was silence. For a moment, Dan thought they'd lost it. 'Bomb? Are you there, bomb?' Nettie called into the phone. But still the bomb didn't reply. 'Bomb!' Dan had grabbed the phone. 'Oh! Of course! Let the man do it!' said Nettie. 'Bomb? Are you there?' Dan wasn't listening to Nettie. 'Speak to me!' 'I was speaking to Nettie,' said the bomb in a sulky voice. 'Oh,' said Dan and handed the phone back to Nettie. 'Sorry,' he whispered. 'This is Nettie,' said Nettie into the phone. Again the bomb remained silent. 'Bomb?' she repeated. Again silence. 'Bomb!' a note of urgency had crept into Nettie's voice. 'Speak to me!' Then the bomb spoke... very quietly... 'I'm a Mega-Scuttler...' it said. 'Is that your name?' asked Nettie. 'Yes,' said the bomb. 'I'm a bomb.' 'I know you are,' replied Nettie. 'I like hearing your voice, Nettie,' said the bomb. 'I like hearing yours, bomb,' replied Nettie. 'You're not... just saying that?' 'No, I'm not. For an electronic voice you have a very soft one. It's nice.' For a moment Nettie thought the bomb was crying; 'Won't you start counting down again for me?' 'If you'd really like me to,' said the bomb. 'Yes,' said Nettie. 'Very well,' said the bomb. 'I'll count - just for you, Nettie. But this is the last time. One thousand... Nine hundred and ninety-nine...' Nettie had been so intent upon her purpose of stopping the bomb that she hadn't realized how terrified she'd been, but the next moment she found out, her knees gave way, and she fell into Dan's arms that were suddenly there to catch her.

Bolfass stood on the Captain's Bridge of the Starship Titanic and could not believe his eyes, as he watched the Blerontinian mercenaries beat a retreat into their boarding craft. 'What on Yassacca's going on?' he exclaimed. 'Blerontinians don't just give up like that - they usually fight to our last man!' But, for good measure, he ordered another salvo of space-fire and the blackness around the mercenaries' craft exploded again with light and noise. In less time than it takes for a snork to poop on a plate, the rag-tag flotilla had turned about, and with a blast of white-hot rocketry the loss adjustors' spacefleet disappeared into the stars beyond the beautiful green planet of Yassacca. At that very moment, Dan and Nettie burst onto the Captain's Bridge again. 'You should be in the cells!' snapped Bolfass, 'They shot straight at the enemy!' Corporal Inchbewigglit appeared behind them. 'That's why the mercenaries ran off!' 'We've got to do something about the bomb!' cried Nettie. 'It says this will be its last countdown,' 'That's terrible!' exclaimed Bolfass, looking very grave indeed. 'Yes! It says it will explode this time!' 'You aimed directly at the Blerontinians?' 'Isn't that what you're meant to do?' asked Nettie. 'Not it is not!' exclaimed Bollass. 'We have a strict moral code! My dear lady! I'm sure you didn't mean to actually aim at them?' 'Well of course she did!' Dan was getting a bit short-tempered. 'It was the only way to stop them. What are we going to do about the bomb?' 'They ran off like zippo as soon as they realized Nettie was firing at them!' exclaimed Inchbewigglit enthusiastically. 'I shall have to put you all under arrest!' 'Captain Bolfass,' said Nettie in her most charming voice. 'We are ignorant of your ways on Yassacca, and can only react as Earth people, and on Earth, I'm afraid people aim to kill and maim each other. That's what weapons are for. I don't like it - but that is how it is. We didn't mean to infringe your code of honour - we just tried to save you and the Starship from the loss adjustors. Now listen...' And she flipped on the mobile phone. 'Nine hundred and twenty-two...' The bomb was still counting. 'We've got about thirteen minutes!' 'Very well,' said Bolfass, still stern-faced. 'We shall have to apologize to the Blerontinians.' 'But they were trying to kill you!' exclaimed Nettie. 'That is because they have no moral code that forbids them,' replied Bolfass, with undeniable logic. 'I shall write the letter of apology as soon as I get a spare moment.' 'If we don't do something about the bomb,' exclaimed Dan, 'we're all of us going to be nothing but spare moments!' You are right!' said Bolfass. 'I shall have it defused at once!'

Nettie insisted on being with the bomb while it was defused. 'I feel I owe it to it,' she said, when Dan tried to dissuade her. 'Besides, if it goes off, it doesn't matter whereabouts on the ship any of us are.' The Yassaccan bomb disposal expert agreed, as he put his tool bag down beside the bomb. 'Four hundred and thirty-four...' said the bomb. 'Hi, bomb!' said Nettie. 'Four hundred and thirty-three...' said the bomb. Nettie somehow knew that it was not going to let itself be interrupted. This was the last countdown. 'How are you feeling, bomb?' Nettie asked. 'Please don't talk to it while I'm defusing it,' said the bomb disposal expert. 'It could be dangerous.' 'Have you got enough time?' asked Dan. 'Four hundred and thirty-two...' said the bomb. 'Depends,' said the bomb disposal expert, unscrewing a metal plate from the cabinet 'If it keeps counting at this speed I should be OK, but sometimes on the last countdown they can speed up. This is a 8D-96 Full Force Mega-Scuttler - if it were an 8G or even a 9A we'd be fine. They put a servo-control mechanism in to stop that problem. But with the SD, well... you just never know... Ah! This seems to be all in order...' While he had been talking the bomb disposal expert had removed the metal plate and exposed a dull red button which read: 'DEFUSE THE BOMB'. 'Fortunately on the 8D they still included this automatic defuser - just to make it simple for us bomb disposal experts.' He pressed the button. Immediately the bomb stopped counting. There was a pause. Then a siren went off, the red button saying 'DEFUSE THE BOMB' lit up and started flashing, and a glass cover slid across the button, preventing anyone from touching it. 'Wait a mo... said the bomb disposal expert. 'This doesn't seem to be quite right...' 'Congratulatlons!' said the bomb. You have successfully defused the 8D-96 Full Force Mega-Scuttler. The Mega-Scuttler, however, is linked into the intelligence cybersystem of this starship, and unfortunately that system is currently incomplete. The bomb has therefore gone into Default Mode. Please refer to manual.' 'Where's the manual?!' asked the bomb disposal expert - his voice betraying an edge of what Nettie (although she desperately tried to find a more comforting word) could only categorize as 'panic'. 'You're the bomb disposal expert,' said Dan. Meanwhile Nettie had discovered a small booklet tucked under the bomb cabinet. She riffled through the pages. 'How to preset the timer for cooking large joints!' she read. 'That's the manual for the gas oven!' exclaimed the bomb disposal expert, grabbing it off Nettie and starting to read it avidly. Any technical manual was of interest to a Yassaccan. It was the sort of thing in which they could always find solace and escape - especially when under pressure. Meanwhile Dan and Nettie were scouring the Engine Room for the right booklet. By the time the bomb disposal expert said: 'Look! It has the self-cleaning function!' Dan had found the 'Easy-To-Use Manual for the SD-96 Full Force Mega-Scuttler, Your User-Friendly Bomb' stuffed behind some water pipes. 'The SD-96 Full Force Mega-Scuttler is designed to be the Ultimate User-Friendly Exploding Device,' he read. 'All operations are simple and self explanatory.' 'Give me that!' cried the bomb disposal expert, snatching the manual from Dan's hands. 'Default Mode,' he read. 'Once the bomb has gone into Default Mode, as a result of an incomplete intelligence system on board ship, the following conditions will apply: You will not be able to reach the defuse button. You will not be able to touch the bomb or the bomb cabinet. You will not be able to do anything any more to the bomb. So leave it alone. D'you understand? Good. The SD-96 Full Force Mega-Scuttler will now explode in exactly six Dormillion days from the commencement of Default Mode,' 'Shit!' said Dan. 'Shit!' said Nettie. 'Shit!' said the bomb disposal expert.

'How long is a Dormillion day?' It was Nettie who was first to ask the obvious question. 'Thirty-six Dormillion hours,' said the bomb disposal expert. 'How long's a Dormillion hour?' asked Dan. 'Seventy-eight Dormillion minutes,' said the bomb disposal expert. 'It's about... well... How can I tell you? There's no point of reference.' The three of them thought for some time and were just about to agree that it was impossible to convey any idea of time from one star system to another, when Nettie said: 'Got it!' I won't tell you how she worked it out, but it was pretty clever. If you can't work it out for yourself, you'll have to write to the publishers of this book for a self-explanatory leaflet entitled: 'How Nettie Worked Out The Length Of A Dormillion Day'. 'So... six Dormillion days must be roughly equivalent to ten Earth days!' said Nettie, after a few quick calculations. 'God! Nettie!' said Dan. 'You're so clever. Why didn't I think of that?'

The trio had just reported back to the Bridge of the Starship. 'How do we get it out of Default Mode?' Bolfass was questioning the bomb disposal expert. 'Our only hope is to find the missing central core of the ship's intelligence,' said the bomb disposal expert. 'If we can replace that, then I can probably defuse the bomb. Otherwise it'll blow in six Dormillion days.' Bolfass turned to his assembled crew. 'Men! You hear the seriousness of this situation. Our beloved home of Yassacca has been ruined by the construction of this Starship and the failure of the Blerontinians to honour their debts. We built in good faith. We put our entire way of life at risk to construct the most fabulous and beautiful starcraft the Galaxy has ever seen. The Blerontinians betrayed our trust. The only chance our world has of returning to its former prosperity is by our repossession of the Starship Titanic. If it is blown up by this treacherous bomb, the future of our world is grim indeed. 'Therefore I command you to search this ship again. I know we have scoured every last inch of it, but that missing central intelligence core must be on board somewhere, and we must find it...'

At this moment a scream was heard over the loudspeaker system. 'Lucy!' exclaimed Dan.

I have to explain what had happened to Lucy and The Journalist since the brief exchange of gunfire outside the Embarkation Lobby. The moment Nettie, Dan and Corporal Inchbewigglit ran after the retreating Blerontinians, The Journalist grabbed Lucy and pulled her into a side chamber off the Grand Axial Canal. 'What on Earth are you doing, The!' exclaimed Lucy, although it was pretty obvious that what The Journalist was doing was undoing the buttons of her pinstripe power-suit as fast as he possibly could, whilst at the same time apparently trying to see how far into her ear he could stick his tongue. 'The!' cried Lucy. 'Stop it!' 'No! No! No!' moaned The Journalist. 'Once we Blerontinian males have been aroused by a female, it takes us many many years - sometimes a lifetime - to get de-aroused vis-i-vis that particular female.' 'What are you saying, The?' cried Lucy. 'Marry me, Lucy!' cried The Journalist, burying his face in her now exposed bra. 'Oh yes! Yes! Yes! The!' she cried. 'Squawk!' cried something else. 'We can get engaged and have a white wedding and a wedding cake and Dan can give the best man's speech and we'll have a honeymoon!' exclaimed The Journalist. 'Squawk!' 'Darling The!' cried Lucy, tears in her eyes. 'What am I doing? What am I saying?' Part of Lucy's legal training had suddenly started to reassert itself. It was something on the lines of: don't commit to anything that you may later regret. 'But I'm getting married to Dan! We're going to run a hotel! What was that squawk?' 'Squawk!' said the thing that was squawking. 'It was that!' exclaimed The Journalist, and suddenly a large parrot flew out of the dark recesses of the room and landed on The Journalist's shoulder. It was at that moment that Lucy screamed, and as she screamed, as luck would have it, she had inadvertently put her hand down on one of the ship's intercom buttons, with the result that her scream was relayed all round the Starship Titanic. 'Squawk!' said the parrot. 'Bloody genius!'

Back on the Captain's Bridge Bolfass pricked up his ears. 'What did that parrot say?' 'BLOODY GENIUS!' screamed the parrot over the intercom. 'Parrot!' yelled Captain Bolfass. 'What are you telling us?'

'Bloody genius!' repeated the parrot. 'PARROT!' Bolfass yelled into the intercom. 'We're looking for the missing central intelligence core for Titania's brain - do you know where it is?' There was a silence. 'PARROT!' yelled Bolfass, but Lucy had removed her hand from the intercom button and was now using it to caress The Journalist's face as if his smooth features were a fortune-teller's crystal ball. 'Why's Captain Bolfass so interested in what a parrot says?' Nettie had turned to Corporal Inchbewigglit. 'In Yassaccan tradition,' whispered Corporal Inchbewigglit, 'parrots are the messengers of truth. We have a saying: "From the mouths of babes and parrots".' Lucy, meanwhile, was wondering why she had said yes to everything The Journalist had just suggested. She thought she had probably made a terrible mistake, If only she could see the future in those strange orange-coloured eyes of his. 'You're crazy!' she said. 'Ohhh!' moaned The Journalist, and he chewed her bra-strap with his teeth. 'Ahh!' said Lucy. 'Haaaa!' murmured The Journalist. 'Oh-uh!' replied Lucy. 'Oooooh!' he said. 'Oh! Uh! Ooh!' added Lucy. 'Ya! Ha! Haa?' asked The Journalist. 'Uh!' confirmed Lucy. 'Uh?' asked The Journalist again. 'Uh!' repeated Lucy. 'Uuuuuhh!' The Journalist was almost lost for words at this point. But Lucy carried on the conversation: 'OH!' she sald. 'Ah?' He wondered how she could be so certain. 'AH!' She nodded. She was absolutely certain now. 'AH!' And at that moment the entire company from the Captain's Bridge burst into the side chamber off the Grand Axial Canal, and stood riveted to the spot while they watched a highly qualified lawyer from Wilshire Boulevard and an under-achieving member of the Blerontinian press corps doing the sort of things to each other that give inexpressible delight and pleasure to the participants, but which only tend to provoke ridicule from casual observers, and about which, therefore, I will not go into detail. Suffice it to say that the moment the Bridge party burst into the room, the parrot gave the loudest squawk it had given to date, and Lucy fell off the table onto The Journalist's face. 'LUCY!' exclaimed Dan. 'Parrot!' yelled Bolfäss. 'Where is the missing intelligence core for Titania's brain?' 'Bloody genius!' squawked the parrot. 'Don't talk rubbish!' shouted Bolfass. 'BLOODY GENIUS!' screamed the parrot. 'I ASKED YOU A QUESTION!' yelled Bolfass. It was also according to Yassaccan tradition that parrots were supposed to answer any questions put to them. 'Squawk!' The parrot momentarily forgot its powers of speech. 'ANSWER MY QUESTION!' 'SQUAWK!' The parrot flew off into the shadows at the further end of the chamber. 'Damn it!' Boll'ass knew it was bad luck if a parrot ref used to answer your question. 'I can explain everything,' Lucy was telling Dan. 'No! You can't! You can't explain ANYTHING!' screamed Dan. And Lucy suddenly thought: 'He's right! He's absolutely RIGHT!' 'Perhaps that is your answer!' It was Nettie who had suddenly stepped forward and taken Captain Bolfass by the arm. 'Dear lady, it is good of you to trouble yourself with this matter, but I fear the parrot has not given any reply. I am doomed.' 'Didn't you tell me that this Starship was designed by some genius?' 'Leovinus!' exclaimed The Journalist. 'He was here on the ship when we crashed on the Earth!' 'Maybe he has the missing part?' It was all so clear to Nettie, although she didn't know why. Something clicked in The Journalist's mind. 'Of course!' he exclaimed. 'When he ran off the ship - he was brandishing this glowing silver strip in his hand...' 'The central core intelligence!' exclaimed Bolfass. 'That's why it isn't on the ship?' 'So...' Captain Bolfass was putting two and two together but rather slowly. 'In order to get the missing central intelligence core for the ship's system, we've got to find this Leovinus character.' Nettie had decided to take over the deduction process. 'Leovinus is on the Earth. But we can't get to the Earth because we don't know where it is, and the only way to find out where it is, is to get hold of the missing central intelligence core and refit it into Titania's brain. Gentlemen. We're screwed.'

It was then that the docking sirens sounded. The Starship Titanic was preparing itself for landing on the planet of Yassacca.

The celebration party was a gloomy affair. Everyone tried to make the best of it, and kept toasting the Earth folk for their invaluable help in beating off the insurance loss adjustors; several speeches were made extolling the return of the great Starship to its rightful home, but nobody could forget that within a couple of days, the ship would have to be towed off to some distant part of the Galaxy, where it could explode without doing any more harm than destroy itself. The Yassaccans could see no prospect of recovering their economy. Meanwhile Lucy, Dan and Nettie could see no prospect of ever returning to their own planet. They had each been given translation blisters (like small plasters worn behind the ear) so that they could still communicate now they were away from the influence of the ship's automatic systems, but that had done little to reconcile them to the prospect of exile on an alien world. 'But surely' - Rodden the Navigational Officer had cornered Nettie - 'you must have some idea of where this "Earth" place is? I mean you must at least know whether it is in the Notional Northern Hemisphere of the Galaxy or the Notional South?' 'Well... No...' 'Is it on an outer or an inner arm of the spiral?' 'I haven't a clue,' said Nettie. Rodden shook his head gloomily - he hated talking to dumb blondes. 'Well if you really have no idea where you've come from, I really can't get you back there. The only thing that could is the Starship and that can't remember because its brain's missing! Seems to be a common complaint...' he added, unnecessarily, and wandered off, rather to Nettie's relief. Nettie looked around at the gloomy party. She felt sad, and yet, there was so much beauty in this gentle world she found herself in. Yassacca! It was a nice name for a start. And she was sure there were worse places... Slough... New Maiden... Basingstoke... Nettie found herself split in two. One part of her was saying: Come on! Make the best of it! This is home from now on! And the other half was telling her not to give up... that somehow, deep down inside her, she was convinced that she would be able to get them all back to Earth. Nettie felt a bit foolish for feeling so convinced of her own ability, but there it was - she just couldn't shake the feeling off, though she had no idea why she had it. In the meantime, she tried to enjoy the sad celebration.

The very smell of the snork roasting over open fires seemed sad, as it wafted under the gloomy Yassaccan pines and then mingled with the softer, sadder scents of the night jasmine and the weeping oleanders that crowded Corporal Golholiwol's garden. The Yassaccans took it in turn to host important national events, and it just happened to be Corporal Golholiwol's turn. He had provided seven snorks for roasting, plates of fish and fruit and fresh vegetables from his garden. Unlike the Blerontinians, the Yassaccans took no interest in canape´s and preferred good plain food washed down with plenty of Yassaccan ale and sweet potato wine. The Journalist gloomily thought it all pretty poor fare, but he tried to hide his contempt for the lack of 'fish-paste', tiny chicken vol-au-vents and cocktail sausages on sticks. But, no matter how much Nettie complimented him on his crackling, Corporal Golholiwol refused to emerge from his gloom. 'In the old days,' he explained to Nettie, 'we would have roasted seventy snorks! I would have been able to provide so much fish we could have filled the Ocean of Summer-Plastering! And all the beer and wine... well! It would have flowed from those fountains you see over there in the centre of the garden... ah! These are thin times indeed for Yassacca.' And he gloomily stared into the empty ale mug he held in his hands. Captain Bolfass was also gloomy. He kept trying not to stare at Nettie, who had discarded her Gap T-shirt hand-knitted waistcoat and miniskirt in favour of a simple Yassaccan shift, slit up to the thigh and embroidered at one corner. She looked breathtaking, and the poor Captain's breath was so taken that he sighed and tried to imagine how he could ever have lived without her. 'Who are you mooning over now, Captain Bolläss?' asked his wife. 'Excuse me, my dear,' replied Bolfass, 'it is just that that young Earth woman has stolen my soul with her beauty.' 'Poor dear!' said Mrs Bolfass, taking his hand and stroking it. 'I'm sure you'll get better.' 'Ah!' sighed Captain Bolfass. 'I do hope so... I do hope so...' 'Perhaps you should see Dr Ponkaliwack?' 'No... no. I'll be all right .' sighed the Captain. (On Yassacca, being 'in love' was considered a form of illness.) But the old Yassaccan songs that the band were now playing caused the Captain to sigh again and again and even brought a tear to his eye. They were ancient songs of yearning for better tools and materials, songs of lament for construction projects that were never finished, and songs of regret for the great craftsmen of yesteryear who would never plane nor chisel again.

Lucy found Dan hidden at the far end of the garden, sitting on a low wall under the oleanders, sunk in utter despondency. He held a piece of snork crackling in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. 'Go away!' he said. 'Oh, Dan!' Lucy sat beside him and tried to put her arm around him. 'Let's get married!' 'Married!' exclaimed Dan. 'Huh! After what I saw that alien doing to you?' 'Don't be...' well Lucy wasn't quite sure what she was telling Dan not to be: 'foolish'? 'jealous'? 'sulky'? He had a right to be all those things, and yet... she couldn't help feeling he was overdoing it. 'Dan! We love each other - don't we?' 'I don't know,' replied Dan. 'Do we?' 'Of course we do!' cried Lucy. 'We're going to set up the hotel and run it together and have children. 'No we aren't,' said Dan. 'We can't get back to Earth and even if we could, the hotel's a pile of rubble!' 'But we've got the money from Top Ten Travel!' 'But that doesn't mean we love each other!' 'But we do! We've been together all this time!' Dan stared gloomily at the piece of snork crackling in his hand. Finally he looked at Lucy and said: 'Here comes Nettie.' Nettie had been looking for Lucy and Dan all over the garden. 'May I join the funeral?' she said. Dan nodded and Nettie sat down on the other side of him. Lucy took her hand away from Dan's. 'So,' Nettie began. 'I suppose this is going to be home from now on.' 'You look as if you've made yourself pretty much at home already,' remarked Lucy, who was still wearing her Earth clothes. 'I thought I might as well start getting into the role,' laughed Nettie. 'That is so sensible,' said Dan, to Lucy's intense annoyance. 'Look I don't want to break you two up...' said Nettie, even more to Lucy's intense annoyance. 'but I've got something to tell you... Something I think you ought to know...' Nettie didn't quite know where to begin. 'It's about the rectory... your hotel...' she said. 'It's sad to think we'll never be able to run it after all, Nettie,' Dan sighed into his wine. 'You were never going to be able to run it,' replied Nettie. 'What d'you mean?' Lucy was immediately on the defensive. What was Nettie implying? That they were incompetent or something? 'I don't know whether I should tell you this now... maybe it's pointless... But on the other hand maybe it'll make you feel better...' 'What?' demanded Lucy. She had stood up and folded her arms, in her best courtroom 'How do you dare propose that?' posture. 'Well...' said Nettie, 'Nigel was a shit - we all know that...' 'He was my best friend!' exclaimed Dan. 'Yes... sure...' replied Nettie. 'But he was a shit.' 'You certainly let him treat you like shit!' retorted Lucy. 'That's my problem,' replied Nettie. 'I'm crazy. But that doesn't mean I'm stupid. And although Nigel never discussed any of his business with me, I can tell you he didn't sell Top Ten Travel for anything like the amount he told you he had. That's why you could never get the documentation off him. He actually sold it for peanuts. You'd never have been able to pay off the rectory - let alone set up the hotel.' There was a brief silence, that seemed to get up, stretch its legs and then wander off into the night. 'Huh!' snorted Lucy eventually. 'That doesn't surprise me one little bit!' 'Well! It sure surprises me!' exclaimed Dan. 'How d'you know this, Nettie?' He felt incredibly indignant - probably indignant at Nigel, but for the moment, he was content to be indignant with the messenger. 'Oh...' said Nettie, 'he was so sloppy - he used to leave documents just lying around. He didn't give a shit. I guess he never bothered to talk to me enough to find out that I was bright enough to see what he was up to. I kept trying to tell you - but we never met except with Nigel in tow. It was awful; I could see you heading for disaster.' 'That bastard!' cried Lucy, striding around beneath the oleanders. 'If we ever get back to Earth I'm going to tear his balls off!' 'Well, that's one threat he doesn't have to worry about,' sighed Dan, his depression deepening by the second. Suddenly he felt Nettie's hand on his ann. He turned and looked directly into her eyes and felt his stomach give way. A wave of wonderful helplessness swept over him, as he felt her eyes falling into his. And yet she was saying something else. Dan couldn't make out what it was that Nettie was saying, he was so overcome with her proximity and the way her breasts showed under the translucent muslin of her Yassaccan shift. The next moment, before he regained his senses, she had rushed off in some excitement. Dan turned to Lucy: 'What did she just say?' he managed to ask. 'She just said: "Wait a minute! I've got it! I've got the answer! I knew I would!' replied Lucy. 'Oh!' said Dan. There was a silence. Then he added: 'I'm sorry about the hotel. I know how much it meant to you.' Lucy looked at him in some surprise. 'I was more worried for you. I know you'd staked everything on it.' Dan frowned and took a little swig of his wine. 'That's why I went along with it,' continued Lucy. 'I never really liked the rectory that much. I just couldn't bear for you to be disappointed.' Dan took another little swig of his wine. Then he did something that was so uncharacteristic that it made Lucy jump out of her skin: he threw his glass against one of the oleanders and it shattered into tiny pieces. 'Well,' he said. 'In that case, I guess we've both been fooling ourselves and each other for a long time. I was only so keen because I thought you were.' Lucy was playing with one of the buttons that had come off her pinstripe power-suit during her earlier encounter with The Journalist. 'Maybe that says it all, Dan... Maybe that says it all...'

Dan found Nettie in a state of some agitation. She had just been proposed to by Captain Bolfass, Corporal Inchbewigglit, Corporal Rinfineagelbun, Corporal BukeHammadorf, his half-cousin by marriage, Buke-Willinujit, Buke-Willinujit's father, Corporal Golholiwol, the Yassaccan Prime Minister and several other Yassaccans she did not actually know, on her way across the lawn. The Prime Minister had even given her a bottle of famous Yassaccan scent. 'Only wear it for us Yassaccans, my dear,' he had said and squeezed her bottom. When Dan caught up with her Nettie was desperately looking for her handbag. 'God! You don't think anyone's stolen it, do you?' 'I believe they don't have much crime here on Yassacca,' said Dan. 'There's been all this organized crime since the economy went down the chute,' said Nettie. 'But organized crime isn't going to bother to steal your handbag, Nettie!' Dan was trying to be reassuring. 'I've got to find it!' exclaimed Nettie, her eyes blazing just a few inches away from Dan's, Dan's knees suddenly relaxed their grip on the standing-up situation, and he had to sit down on the nearest tree stump. 'Great grief! That wonderful scent you're wearing!' 'The Prime Groper of Yassacca just gave it to me in more ways than one,' replied Nettie. 'Nettie! I...' Dan didn't really have a clue what he wanted to say. It was as if the scent had wrapped itself around him and wouldn't let go until he told her the truth. 'What?' Nettie was back searching a pile of clothes that various people had dumped over a bed that was standing on the veranda of Corporal Golholiwol's house. 'Nettie I... I think... I m crazy about you!' Dan didn't know quite how it happened, but suddenly he had his arms around Nettie's waist and was kissing the back of her neck. Nettie span round. 'Stop that!' she cried. Dan backed off. 'You're getting married to Lucy! You're going to start a hotel! You're going to have kids and all that sort of thing!' 'Everything's changed!' said Dan. 'We can't go back to Earth. It's all different here!' And he tried to put his arms round her again. But Nettie backed away. 'Now hold on, Romeo!' said Nettie. 'I'm not an emotional doormat for your convenience! Besides! You're going back to Earth! We're all going back to Earth - I hope - just as soon as I find my handbag!' 'What have you got in your handbag? A Concorde ticket home? A pocket rocket?' Dan didn't doubt for a moment that Nettie had the solution if she said she had - he knew that if any one of them had the brains to get them back it would be Nettie. He worshipped her. He admired her. But why couldn't he tell her properly instead of behaving like a sex-crazed halfwit? 'Let's just find it, shall we?' said Nettie. So Dan stopped asking questions and put his mind to looking for the handbag. 'I'm sorry! Are you looking for this?' Corporal Golholiwol was holding up Nettie's handbag. Nettie grabbed it, opened it and started feverishly rummaging through it. Dan looked at Corporal Golholiwol. 'Nettie's got something in it that will help us get back to the Earth.' He hoped Nettie wouldn't hear how like a sex-crazed halfwit he sounded. 'Would it be these?' Corporal Golholiwol held up a package, neatly wrapped in a broad leaf. Nettie snatched it from him, checked its contents and then looked up at the corporal. 'What the blazes do you mean by taking things out of my handbag?' Her eyes were like miniature SD guns. Corporal Golholiwol felt himself disintegrate and splatter all over the veranda. He looked genuinely taken aback. 'Oh dear!' he said. 'Have I done something contrary to your Earth customs? On Yassacca it is traditional for the host to go through his guests' handbags and do little repairs and mending jobs on the contents. 'Well... It's not an Earth custom ..' said Nettie, still furious. 'But... thanks for developing the film for me. That's exactly what I was looking for.' 'It was my pleasure,' said Corporal Golholiwol, gazing adoringly at Nettie. 'Most of the photos seem to have come out OK. I also re-electro-plated your nail scissors, restored several missing teeth to your comb, and re-silvered your little mirror.' 'Why! Thank you so much, Corporal!' Nettie had regained her composure and was searching through the photographs that Golholiwol had developed. Then suddenly she found what she was looking for. 'Here! Look, Dan! It's the rectory! They came out! Those long exposures! Look! THEY CAME OUT!' Dan felt he was a bit out of his depth, but he just said, without enthusiasm: 'Oh, good! It'll be nice to have a souvenir.' Nettie, however, had already spun round and run off towards a group of Yassaccans who were talking gloomily over the roasting snork. 'Rodden!' Nettie called out, and the Navigational Officer turned around. 'Rodden! I've got it! YOU CAN GET US BACK TO EARTH!' Nettie thrust two of the photographs into his hands. He took them unwillingly, not wishing to get involved in any fantasy that this attractive but dim female might have concocted. 'Well!' cried Nettie, hardly able to contain her excitement. 'Look at them! What do you see?' Rodden reluctantly looked down at the photos in his hand, and studied them. 'It's a house... on Earth I assume...' he said slowly. 'A former rectory... by the look of it... with planning permission for commercial use...' 'That's amazing!' exclaimed Nettie. 'How d'you know all that?' The Navigational Officer smiled smugly as he took off his translatorspecs and said: 'It's written on the estate agents' board.' He loved baffling beautiful but not too bright females. 'Oh! Right... Anyway it's the place Dan and Lucy were going to buy before your Starship smashed into it.' 'So?' Rodden was suddenly looking at them with increasing attention. 'How do you suppose these will help you?' 'I took them at night!' cried Nettie excitedly. 'Look at the sky! Especially that one, there! Look!' A broad smile suddenly creased across Rodden's face. 'YOU CAN SEE THE STARS!' cried Nettie. 'My dear young woman,' said Rodden. 'You must forgive me for underestimating your...' 'Easy-over on the flattery!' replied Nettie. 'I don't mind what you thought! The main thing is can you get any co-ordinates on those star patterns that will show where the Earth is? Are there enough stars in the shot?' Rodden was silent for some time. Nettie watched him anxiously, and suddenly Dan, who had joined them by this time, found Nettie's hand in his and she was squeezing it. Rodden stared and stared at the photo. Finally he looked up. 'Theoretically,' he said. 'Yes. It should be a simple questlon of three-dimensional geometry. There is only one place in the galaxy in which the stars will appear in that exact configuration... But I'm not sure this photo will provide enough information...' The Earth folks' hearts sank. The Navigational Officer was clearly trying to let them down gently. Nettie cursed herself; she had allowed her hopes to get too high. She was always doing that - especially with her men. 'But,' the Navigational Officer was continuing. 'I think I could enhance the image - do you have the negative?' 'It's here!' shouted Corporal Golholiwol, 'Then let's see what we can do,' said Rodden. And with that the party suddenly started to seem more cheerful for everybody concerned.

It took two Dormillion days to run the enhanced photos of the night sky on Earth through the Great Astronomical Computer, at the University of Yassaccanda. The Computer went through fifteen trillion billion five hundred thousand million seven thousand four hundred and sixty-nine different comparisons before it finally came up with a star configuration that matched. It was on an outer spiral arm of the Galaxy in a sector that, quite frankly, had always been assumed to be uninhabitable. If Julius Caesar had been given a photograph of Australia and told its exact location on the planet, it would not have seemed so remote as did the Earth to these honest Yassaccans. 'Alas!' said Rodden, the Navigational Officer, 'it will take a long time to reach such a distant place!' Nettie still had hold of Dan's hand. It seemed to Dan that she had permanently held onto his hand since that first discovery of the photos. Of course she hadn't but it was just that Dan only counted himself alive at those moments when she had. But he daren't say anything more to her: he would never use her as 'an emotional doormat' - she could be sure of that. 'We've only four more Dormillion days before the bomb goes off!' Nettie said. 'How long will it take to get to the Earth?' Rodden paused before he spoke. He wanted to be exact. He didn't want to raise forlorn hopes in anyone - least of all himself Finally he said: 'To get to such a remote location would take three Dormillion weeks at best.' Nettie leant her head against Dan's shoulder and burst into tears. It was just too much. The thin edge of hope upon which she had been balancing for the last two days had suddenly given way. Dan put his arm around her and felt the softness of her shoulders. 'Nettie!' he said. 'You'll be all right! You'll make a life here. Yassacca is beautiful!' As beautiful as you, he wanted to add, but dared not. Nettie, meanwhile, held onto Dan's arm as if it were her lifebelt. 'However,' continued Rodden, 'the Starship Titanic is propelled by a totally new and immeasurably more powerful drive. Judging by the time that elapsed since the launch, the crash on Earth and the time when we picked you up, I would say the Starship must be capable of reaching the Earth in perhaps three Dormillion days.' Was it good news or bad news? Three Dormillion days! That would give them barely one day on Earth to find Leovinus and then, assuming he still had it in his possession, get the missing central intelligence core back into Titania's brain. The only thing that was certain was that they must start now.

The first problem, however, was to find Lucy. After her last conversation with Dan, Lucy had been considering her life. She had slipped into a filmy Yassaccan shift and gone for a long walk along the beach at Yassaccanda. The red waves, beating on the blue shore, made the same reassuring sounds that the waves made back home on Topanga beach. But somehow the comfort that brought her didn't make her long for home. Something had changed inside her. Something had died. Something had grown. Lucy was just trying to decide what it was, when Nettie found her. 'Lucy! They've got the co-ordinates of Earth! We're going home! But we've got to hurry!' Nettie had never been one to beat about the bush. 'By the way, you look great in that!' 'Thanks... but...' Lucy was gazing out across the unfamiliar seascape. 'I'm going to stay here,' she said. 'What on earth are you talking about?' exclaimed Nettie. 'We can go home!' 'I don't know where my home is any more,' said Lucy. 'LA? London? Oxfordshire? I used to think it was anywhere that Dan was, but now...' 'What's the matter between you and Dan?' Nettie was genuinely concerned for them, and had been ever since Dan's inexplicable behaviour when she had been looking for her handbag. 'Neither of us wanted the rectory.' Lucy turned and looked at Nettie for the first time. 'What?' exclaimed Nettie. 'It's as simple as that. We must have been fooling each other for years... About all sorts of things. You know I was originally in love with Nigel?' Lucy was letting the sea wash around her bare feet. 'Till you realized what a shit he was?' asked Nettie. 'Not quite... It was more like... How can I describe it? Nigel was English... different... exciting... He made me feel all goose-pimples inside... It was unsettling... Whereas Dan I could understand... Dan was familiar territory where I knew where I was...' 'But Dan's gorgeous!' exclaimed Nettie. 'He's so exciting! So different from the rest of them! From creeps like Nigel!' Lucy looked at Nettie in frank surprise. 'I'm sorry!' Nettie continued. 'I shouldn't talk about Dan like that. I didn't mean anything... Anyway we've got to hurry...' 'Hurry away... run off... I've always done that, Nettie. I've wrapped my emotions up in a nice smart pinstripe suit and then walked away from them. Well, I'm not doing it any longer.' 'But Dan needs you, Lucy! You're a great team!' 'That's what we kept telling each other. We told each other that over and over again until we believed it. But all I know is that I'm a different woman from the woman I've been pretending to be' 'Lucy!' Lucy and Nettie span round. They hadn't heard anyone approaching. 'Lucy! The Starship's about to take off for Earth!' It was The Journalist shouting from the breakwater. 'We've only got a few minutes to make it!' 'We?' murmured Lucy. 'Of course!' exclaimed The Journalist. 'You don't think I'd let you go back on your own... Not now you've said you'll marry me!' 'But,.. The! I'll stay with you here if you want me to!' Lucy had run up to him and was kissing him. 'Uh-uh!' said The Journalist. 'I've got to see this thing through to the end!' And suddenly the three of them were racing along the sands towards the space-port.

The journey back to earth in the Starship Titanic was pretty uneventful for the first hundred and seventeen million million miles. The Doorbots were just as snooty as they always had been, but since Lucy, Nettie, Dan and The Journalist were travelling First Class (VIP Status) all the other bots were unbelievably obsequious to them. The Liftbots gave Dan a surprising account of the Dunkirk evacuation which made it sound like a great victory for the Allied Forces, and the Deskbot asked for Nettie's autograph (nobody was quite sure why until they overheard the Deskbot whisper to one of the Doorbots: 'That's Gloria Stanley, the actress, you know!'). But otherwise routine life on board the Starship ticked over.

Captain Bolfass put a brave face on his hopeless passion for Nettie. And yet, as he told his wife, it had at least given some purpose to his old age - even if that purpose were just to get over it. Nettie for her part was mainly concerned for Dan. He seemed to be raking his separation from Lucy and her wild affair with The Journalist rather badly. He mostly kept to his cabin, and when he ate with them he was generally silent and morose. 'Poor Dan!' Nettie thought to herself. 'He must be going through hell; after all, he and Lucy have been so close for all those years, and now to see her so besotted with another man - and an alien at that!' Lucy and The Journalist also mostly kept to their cabin, but judging from the sounds emanating from behind their closed door, they were not brooding about anything. It sounded as if they might have been playing polo, or doing a bit of water-skiing all mixed in with some pretty serious weight-lifting. All in all it was lucky the state rooms on either side were empty. Even as it was, several pictures fell off the adjoining walls and a stand bearing a pot of Yassaccan lilies mysteriously toppled over. On the third day the great Starship moved into the region of space beyond Proxima Centauri. 'We should locate your star any minute - what d'you call it?' asked Captain Bolfass. 'The Sun,' said Nettie. 'What a beautiful name,' said the gallant Captain, gazing at Nettie's exquisite profile. Nettie nodded. 'It's a beautiful thing.' 'Hmmm,' agreed the Captain dreamily. 'Do you recognize any of the star patterns yet?' asked the Navigational Officer anxiously. It was all very well heading for an unknown destination with such scanty data... but in this case they were all on board a ship that was destined to explode within two days time! The whole venture was crazy, as far as he was concerned, and he had expressed his opinion quite forcibly to Captain Bolfass. Supposing they failed to find the Earth - would they ever find anywhere to land in this remote armpit of the Galaxy? And even if they did, once the Starship had exploded, they would be marooned for well goodness knows how long it would take a rescue fleet to arrive. Nettie shook her head. 'I'm not much cop at astronomy! I'll get the others up on deck.' But neither Dan nor Lucy had any more idea than Nettie about the local constellations, and Rodden shook his head wearily at the Earth folks' ignorance. But worse was to come. 'Look!' Rodden suddenly exclaimed. 'D'you see that star! There! That must be your Sun!' And so it proved to be. Within the hour the Starship was slowing down, and they could clearly see the Sun as a tiny disc. 'And so which of these planets is the Earth?' It was a simple question Rodden had asked, but it threw the three Earth folk into utter confusion. 'I think it's the fourth planet from the Sun,' ventured Dan. 'Or is it the third?' asked Nettie. 'It's the second!' said Lucy. The Navigational Officer had to excuse himself at this point. He left the Bridge and locked himself in the washroom, where he proceeded to bang his head against the sink unit for several minutes. How could any living creatures be so utterly and abysmally ignorant of their own planet?! 'Look!' said Dan. 'On the outside: Pluto - right?' 'Yes.' 'Neptune... Saturn... or is it Jupiter next?' 'Saturn,' said Nettie. 'Saturn... Jupiter... Mars... Earth! So it's the sixth planet in!' 'Very good!' exclaimed Captain Bolfass. 'Then we are approaching it at this very moment! Stand by to fire retardation rockets and stabilize ship for slow-down! Orbit around Earth to be established in thirty-five edoes time. Landing by small landing craft.' By the time the Navigational Officer came out of the washroom, the Starship Titanic was in orbit around the Earth. 'Do the Starship's windows make everything look red?' asked Nettie. 'Maybe it's the weather,' said Lucy. The Earth did look extremely red. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' said Captain Bolfass. 'It is my privilege to accompany you down to your landing craft. If you would follow me...' 'Hang on!' said Nettie. 'We missed out Uranus! This is Mars!' The Navigational Officer left the room again. He could feel one of those terrible Yassaccan rages overtaking him. In the washroom, he got out his SD gun and blew his own head off. After which he calmed down and returned to the Bridge. By this time, they were approaching a blue planet, patched with brown and flecked with white whorls. It was definitely the Earth, and even old Rodden couldn't help feeling sympathetically towards the three Earth folk as he saw their spirits rise and their hearts beat with pride and wonder at this vision of the planet that had given then life. As they assembled in the tiny landing spacecraft, Bolfass spoke briefly and unemotionally. 'We have exactly one day in which to find Leovinus and, hopefully, the Titanic's missing central intelligence core, and get it back to the ship and into Titania's brain. But we have less than that. I did not mention this before, but I have to now ... We only have half a day, since, if you have not returned by midday, we will have no option but to fly the Starship off to a safe distance and man the life-boats before she explodes. May we all be saved from such a fate. Go! And good luck!' Nettie took Dan's hand as he helped her into the landing craft. The Journalist jumped in beside Lucy. 'Oh, Dan?' he said. 'There's something I've been meaning to ask you.' 'Well - go ahead.' 'Will you be our best man?' Dan thought about hitting The Journalist but instead he smiled. 'Yes,' he replied. 'I'll be glad to.' 'Great!' smiled The Journalist. 'We can have a real Blerontinian White Wedding. You'll love it.' Dan raised his eyes heavenwards and Nettie smiled, as the cover of the landing craft was placed over them. Captain Bolfass retreated to the viewing chamber; the side of the great Starship opened, and the tiny landing craft blasted itself away towards the blue planet.

Leovinus was not in a good mood. Despite all the things he was good at - astrophysics, architecture, molecular biology, geophysics, painting, sculpture, mechanical design, physics, anatomy, music, poetry, crystallography, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, philosophy and canape´ arrangement - he'd always been hopeless at languages. Consequently, when he found himself on an alien world, without a translation blister, he was understandably frustrated. Here he was - the Greatest Genius The Galaxy Had Ever Known and he couldn't even ask these aliens, in their strange blue suits, for a cup of tea. 'I definitely think he is, Sarge,' said Constable Hackett. 'What, gay?' asked Sergeant Stroud, who'd noticed the old man's eyebrows were stuck on with toupee tape. 'No, Lebanese,' said the constable. 'Do we know anyone in the Oxford area who speaks Lebanese?' 'Well, it's kind of Arabic, innit?' 'Yes, must be plenty of them in the university.' And so a call was made, and Leovinus shortly found himself confronted by a large man with a nose the shape of Africa who told him in Arabic that his name was Professor Dansak. But to no avail. Leovinus was beginning to lose his temper by now. Not only was no one treating him as you would expect a race of clearly inferior minds to treat the Greatest Genius The Galaxy Has Ever Known, but everyone was treating him as if they actually wanted to get rid of him. 'I hereby charge you with being an illegal immigrant.' Sergeant Stroud was reading from a formal charge-sheet. 'I have to warn you that anything you may say will be held against you and that you will be held in a place of custody until such dine as Her Majesty's Government is able to repatriate you to your own country.' 'Assuming we can find out where that is,' muttered Constable Hackett. Professor Dansak had recommended a Professor Lindstrom, who held the chair in Linguistic Studies. Professor Lindstrom listened carefully to the little that Leovinus was prepared to say to him, and concluded that the elderly gentleman in the white beard and false eyebrows was probably making the language up. 'It bears no resemblance,' said Professor Lindstrom, 'to any of the Judo-European branch of languages. If, indeed, it is a language, I am prepared to state categorically that it has no relation to Uralic, Altaic nor to the Sino-Tibetan language groups. Malayo-Polynesian is not my field, but I would be surprised if it had any affinity there. As for the Eskimo-Aleut and the Paleo-Asiatic I am convinced it is not. I suspect, in short, gentlemen, that you have here a confused old gentleman, talking that widely-spoken language: gobbledygook. He probably ought to be with his family at home or else being cared for in an institution.' Leovinus at this point had decided to treat these inferior beings to a recitation of edited highlights from his recent work, The Laws of Physics, a radical reappraisal of the subject which had turned the entire science on its head. It was, perhaps, the single most important volume ever written in the Galaxy, and merely to hear it again gave the great man a sense of belonging and reminded him that he was an individual of immense importance- no matter how they treated him on this remote and primitive planet.

He was still reciting from his Tenth Law of Thermodynamic Stress, when Sergeant Stroud banged the door of his cell behind him. Leovinus looked around his new environment. His suspicion was that he was not in a hotel. Entry appeared to be regulated by a simple locking device, and defecation appeared to be in a bucket. What a savage world he had got himself stuck on. If only he'd regained consciousness before the Starship crashlanded! But he hadn't. After his fight with Scraliontis, he'd remained unconscious throughout the entire launch, the SMEF (Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure) and the crashlanding on this godforsaken planet, wherever it was. He'd only come to when that wretched journalist had unrolled him from the curtain. Thinking it was still the morning before the launch and that Scraliontis must have returned home to gloat over his evil scheme, Leovinus had commandeered the service lift and charged off out of the Starship screaming for revenge. In the dark he had failed to notice that he was no longer on the launch pad at Blerontis. It was not until he was a good distance from the ship that he heard the sound of the great power-drive coming to life. He had spun round and, to his horror, he had watched his great masterpiece rise up into an alien night sky - leaving him stranded on an unknown, unidentifiable world. In a state of shock, Leovinus opened the door of a small vehicle he happened to find parked nearby, and climbed in. The vehicle was, as it turned out, already occupied by a particularly dim-looking alien who nearly wet himself with terror when confronted by Leovinus. The great man himself was, for the first time in his life, unable to think of anything to say - aware that whatever he did say would not be understandable. He had therefore sat there, without speaking, and allowed the alien to drive him to the present building in which he found himself and which he was increasingly convinced was not a hotel. What a complete and absolute mess. 'FOR GOD'S SAKE! I WANT TO SEE A LAWYER!' Leovinus screamed at the top of his voice, and he rattled the bars of his cell in the time-honoured manner. Sergeant Stroud looked at Constable Hackett and they both shook their heads. He might be a harmless, confused old man, but, as far as they were concerned, it looked better in the station log if he were an illegal immigrant. They'd score a few points with the Home Office if they could get him sent back to somewhere or other... Maybe Chad or Zimbabwe...

Lucy thrilled to the expert way The Journalist brought the landing craft down in what had been the garden of the old rectory. In the darkness, the ruined house looked even more desolate than it had on that fateful night: souvenir hunters had stripped it of everything movable including loose bricks. The plan was to try and pick up Leovinus's trail, starting from the crash site. There was also the possibility that he might still be hanging around hoping that the Starship would return. It was not a bad plan, as such, but as Dan jumped out of the landing craft a loud-hailer crackled across the old rectory lawns and a blinding searchlight hit him full in the face: 'Put your hands above your head! Do not make any sudden movements! You are surrounded by armed police!' They had not reckoned on the Oxfordshire Constabulary, who - flushed with their recent success in capturing an illegal immigrant - had set up a permanent watch around the landing site. Dan instinctively did all the things the loud-hailer had told him not to. He didn't put his hands above his head. He leapt - very suddenly - back into the landing craft and screamed: 'Hit it!' The Journalist fired the engine and the small craft leapt into the air, as a hail of gunfire exploded across the lawn. In a few seconds, the spacecraft had disappeared into the night, and the Oxfordshire Police were left staring at the empty sward. 'Calm down, everyone!' Nettie had taken over, although Lucy was contributing the most volubly to the discussion: 'Aaaarrrgh! Agggh!' She was choosing her words carefully. The Journalist was concentrating on controlling the craft. Dan was shaking. 'OK,' continued Nettie. 'We've got twelve hours to find Leovinus. Our two chances are: one, picking up his trail around here and two, Nigel.' 'Nigel?' Dan's hackles were up - could this wonderful woman be still thinking about that schmuck? 'He's the one person we know was here at the site when Leovinus walked off the ship. He may have seen him - may even know where he is now!' 'Nettie! You're a genius!' said Dan. 'Aaaah! Ooooh!' Lucy added. 'I suggest you and Lucy investigate around here, while The, here, drives me to London to find Nigel.' Nettie had it all worked out. Within a few minutes, the landing craft had deposited Dan and Lucy in a quiet back lane near the hotel where they had been staying, and in another minute, Nettie and The Journalist were heading for the M40.

It began to get light as they approached the motorway. 'We don't want the police picking us up,' Nettie was thinking aloud. 'We'd better pretend we're an ordinary car - a Japanese copy of something Italian maybe. Can you drive this thing just a few inches above the ground?' 'Absolutely!' said The Journalist, and he swung the craft down onto the empty B-road. It took him a few moments to pick up the knack of keeping it steady at such a low altitude, but he was getting it. 'And you'd better cut the speed down just a tad, The,' said Nettie, '180 m.p.h. is a little fast for these bends.' By the time they swung out into the fast lane of the M40, The Journalist had managed to get the craft down to a mere 80 m.p.h. and was giving a pretty good impression of a perfectly ordinary (if flamboyantly designed) motorcar. Nettie just hoped nobody would notice their lack of wheels. Being the rush hour, most drivers weren't looking where they were going, as they crawled their way towards Central London. The finest jam, however, was reserved for the picturesque stretch after the Uxbridge turnoff. There were roadworks, and the rush hour simply ground to a deadening, inevitable halt. 'Purple Pangalin!' exclaimed The Journalist. 'What sort of a transportation system d'you call this? The more popular it is the slower it goes! What genius worked this out?!' He was really quite indignant. 'Well it's inevitable isn't it?' Nettie found herself being surprisingly defensive of her planet's right to have traffic jams. 'Of course it isn't!' exploded The Journalist. 'You have to devise a system that goes faster the more popular it is, so it can cope! It's perfectly obvious!' Nettie was drumming her fingers on the dashboard of the landing craft, and smiling at anyone who happened to give them an odd look. Smiling was always the best way to make them look away. She was also glancing increasingly frequently at her watch. Time was running out. The jam moved an inch nearer London. 'I mean a transportation system with an average speed of just above stationary is not really a transportation system at all!' The Journalist was raving by now. 'It's more like a storage system!' 'OK! Let's do it!' Nettie suddenly sounded decisive. 'I've always fantasized about this!' 'What?' 'Take her up! Nobody's watching!' And sure enough, when The Journalist gunned the spacecraft up into the air and sped over the heads of the preceding traffic, nobody seemed to notice. He set the craft down again in an open space on the other side of the jam. The driver of the car they landed in front of was not a happily married man. He had been mulling over what would happen if his wife never returned from the skiing holiday she was currently enjoying. Perhaps she would run off with the instructor and breed Alpine sheep and serve English teas to walkers in the summer. But then there were the children. He'd have to get them to school every day on his own and he wouldn't be able to stay at the office after hours to chat up that new secretary... At this moment a sporty-looking car suddenly appeared in front of him. Jesus!' he exclaimed, swerving involuntarily, 'I didn't even notice it overtaking! God! The speed some people drive at!' It was only as the sporty car sped away in the fast lane that he noticed it didn't seem to have any wheels. 'Concentrate!' he told himself. 'Otherwise you start seeing things.' Another jam brought them to a resounding halt just as they reached the Westway fly-over. 'Oh no!' groaned Nettie, 'We used to have traffic problems like this on Blerontin,' observed The Journalist 'Several million years ago, before intelligent life developed.' 'Oh shut up!' said Nettie. She couldn't bear self-satisfied aliens who couldn't see any of the good things about Earth. 'This is hopeless. We've only got nine hours left!' 'Where have we got to get to?' 'The Earl's Court Road,' Nettie replied. 'Shall we take the shortcut?' Nettie looked around, There were no police cars as far as she could see, and the woman in the car behind was picking her fingernails. 'Go for it!' she said, and the craft left the fly-over to the amazement of a couple of small children who were on their way to school. 'Look, Mum! That car's flying!' 'Well I never, dear,' said their mother, without taking her eyes off the Hello magazine she was reading. 'Whatever will we see next!'

Nettie and The Journalist swooped low over Notting Hill and effected a landing on the south side of Holland Park. Here they waited for their moment, hopped over a closed gate and filtered into the one-way system around Earl's Court. 'Eight-thirty!' said Nettie, leaping out of the 'car'. 'You stay here! If I know that scumbag Nigel, he'll still be in bed!' She used her door key to get in, and was soon racing up the stairs to Nigel's flat. She let herself in and immediately fell over a broken ironing board that was lying across the doorway. 'Who's that?' called a voice from the bedroom. 'It's me!' yelled Nettie, picking herself up and striding into the bedroom. The young girl with whom Nigel was currently in congress tried to pretend she was merely sitting astride a pile of old laundry. 'Shit! Nettie!' exclaimed Nigel, making an effort to disguise himself as the pile of old laundry in question by pulling all the sheets around himself. 'I thought you'd been abducted by aliens!' 'This is important, Nigel!' Nettie was straight to the point. 'I can explain all this.' Nigel began. You see Nancy here's mother died recently and I've been looking after...' 'Think back, Nigel! After the spaceship took off, did you see anyone?' You mean like going to a psychiatrist?' 'No! No!' Trust Nigel to be only thinking of himself, thought Nettie. 'Did you see an old man with a white beard, hanging around the wreckage?' 'I think I'd better go,' said Nancy, who was actually nineteen but looked younger. 'No! No! Hang on,' said Nigel instinctively. He could see that Nettie had other things on her mind than putting his balls in the toaster, and he half-hoped he might be able to resume what he had been doing, once he'd sorted out whatever it was his ex-girlfriend actually did want of him. 'Did I see what?' Nettie was suddenly overwhelmed by the hopelessness of it all. Here was a whole world - a whole civilization so much more advanced than her own - depending on her eliciting a sensible answer from this creep whom she'd once been in love with. What a hope in hell! She might as well try and teach Turkish to the cat! 'An old man with a white beard? He was in my car. I took him to the police station in Oxford.' It took Nettie a moment to realize that this was exactly the information she had come all this way to extract. The moment she did, Nettie ran to the bed and gave Nigel a smacking kiss on the lips. Then she gave one to Nancy for good measure, and the next minute she was leaping down the stone stairs of the large Victorian mansion two at a time, whooping: 'The! The! The!' 'I think I'd better go,' said Nancy. She was just about to start a degree in Art History.

Leovinus had undergone a sea-change. For a start he had taken off his false eyebrows and stuck them on the wall of his cell, just above the door. But even more importantly he had spent the last week doing something that he had never really done before - certainly not since he was on the verge of becoming an infant prodigy. Seven days in a prison cell, without reading materials, without any ability to communicate with others, and - what's more - without a single admirer, had forced him to take stock of himself. He had spent a week looking back at his life and at the person he had become. And the more he had done this, the more he had become convinced that he had failed. The more he looked into his own soul, the more he realized how far he fell short. He flinched with acute embarrassment as he remembered that last press conference - how he had revelled in the sycophancy. He curled up with shame as he remembered the answer he had given to that Journalist who had asked if he felt responsible for the collapse of the Yassaccan economy. What had he said? 'His responsibility was towards his Art' or something like that? Now, as he stared round at the bare walls of his cell, he realized that he'd been talking through his bottom. No one could hide behind the pretensions of creativity when people were actually suffering - maybe even dying - because of it. He remembered the two cub reporters with their lovely smiles and alluring cleavages... How he had felt so superior to them... How he'd believed deep down that no one was good enough for him. Now, the more he looked about himself, in the solitude and misery of his prison cell, he felt he was not good enough for anyone else. The first Blerontinian who walked in through that door, he began to think, would have more right to freedom and happiness than he had. Even that dreadful Gat of Blerontis! Leovinus had been granted such wonderful gifts - such fabulous, unlimited gifts - and what had he done with them? Had he made anyone else happy? Had he brought prosperity and peace to other worlds? No. As far as Leovinus could see, he had used his gifts almost exclusively for his own self-aggrandizement. Full stop. It was pathetic, now he looked back. Had he been loved? Had he loved? And here, had you been eavesdropping outside the great man's cell (as indeed Constable Hackett was doing) then you would have heard a terrible groan rise up from the Greatest Genius The Galaxy Had Ever Known, as he remembered how his love and affection had been focussed not on a living creature - not on a wife - not on a lover - not even on a pet snorkling! - but on an agglomeration of wires and neurons, sensors and cybernetic pathways - Titania - his last, his greatest, his absolute obsession! 'But she loves me!' he cried from the depths of his despair. 'But she is not real...' came an answering echo as his thoughts bounced off the bare cell walls. 'You created her!' This change that overcame Leovinus, in his Oxfordshire prison cell, would be unfortunately powerful ammunition for right-wing politicians who trumpet the beneficial effects of jail. Fortunately, however, it went totally unnoticed by anyone with political clout on Earth.

Leovinus had just reached that point of self-castigation at which he was really beginning to enjoy it, when he was rudely interrupted. 'Visitors for you, Chang!' said Constable Hackett. He had grown rather fond of the old fellow over the past week. The door was flung open and the dreadful Journalist entered accompanied by an extraordinarily attractive female alien, all the more attractive for being dressed Yassaccan style, in the simple transparent shift with the single motif on the side which indicated that the wearer was unmarried and interested in proposals. She was also wearing that fabulously expensive Yassaccan scent that was now almost unobtainable on Blerontin. 'My dear friend!' exclaimed Leovinus to The (surprised) Journalist. 'You are far more worthy of freedom and happiness than I!' It was an odd thing to say to the first Blerontinian to walk in through the door, but Leovinus, who had just been thinking he'd never get a chance to say it, said it anyway. 'There's not a moment to lose!' exclaimed the remarkably attractive and remarkably available female alien. 'We've only got an hour left!' 'Have you got it?' cried The Journalist. 'I don't know...' replied Leovinus. 'I am no longer sure what I have got and what I have not. When I look back on my life, I almost feel I have thrown it all away and I have been left with nothing. Dear lady, will you marry me?' Leovinus knew it was considered poor manners not to propose to any young female wearing the specially patterned shift. 'Have you got the central intelligence core? Titania's brain!' interposed The Journalist before Nettie could reply. 'Ah! Alas!' cried the great Leovinus. 'I threw it away! I have no use for her now!' and he turned back to Nettie. 'Dear lady! Do you think you could ever love me?' 'YOU CAN'T HAVE THROWN IT AWAY!' screamed the remarkably attractive and available female alien. 'THINK!' yelled the dreadful Journalist. 'Where did you throw it?' 'What does it matter?' Leovinus had grown a trifle maudlin. This was actually the result of the famous Yassaccan scent which the Yassaccan Prime Minister had given Nettie. Nettie had dabbed a spot on as they waited for the cell door to be opened - it was a nervous reflex prior to meeting the Greatest Genius The Galaxy Had Ever Known. What Nettie was unaware of was that one of the reasons the scent was so famous was because it had an extremely intoxicating effect on Blerontinians. This intoxication was usually so sudden and so strong that the scent had been made illegal on Blerontin, which is, of course, why it was so sought after and so fabulously expensive. 'My dear lady! My life! How I have longed to meet someone as beautiful and intelligent as you!' The Journalist had now grabbed Leovinus by the lapels of his prison suit. 'WHERE IS TITANIA'S BRAIN?' he yelled. Leovinus was rapidly deteriorating under the powerful influence of Nettie's scent. 'Ha! Mr Journalisto! See one oh dee crank? Pon flee up and trick?' Leovinus was quoting a Blerontinian nonsense rhyme that was often sung to children at bedtime. 'Salk tense, man!' shouted The Journalist, who had suddenly realized what kind of scent Nettie was wearing. "Svital we know where youze threw th'central telligence core - hic!' Oh no! If he got drunk he wouldn't be able to drive them back to the Starship! 'Nettie!' he screamed. 'Quick! Youze gotter grout of here!' 'Not on your life!' exclaimed Nettie. 'You think you can handle this better just cause you're a man?' 'No... no m not a man ... That is... I'm a Blerontinian...' The Journalist had started giggling. Now Leovinus started too. 'Stop it!' cried Nettie, trying to shake some sense into them. 'How can you laugh? We've got to find the intelligence core! Where is it, Leovinus?' But the more she shook them, the more the Yassaccan scent wafted up from her beautiful body and blew the minds of the two Blerontinians... and they laughed harder and harder until tears were rolling down their cheeks. The Journalist started to sing an old Blerontinian song about a lady acrobat and a news reporter, and then collapsed on the bed. Finally Nettie gave up in disgust. She stormed out of the cell to find the desk sergeant. Perhaps he had Titania's missing piece in safe custody. The moment Nettie had gone, The Journalist made a valiant attempt to pull himself together. He managed to stop laughing, with partial success, and, as his head began to clear, he turned on Leovinus and shook him, until the old man regained his senses. 'THINK!' cried The Journalist. 'Even if you've never done anything decent in the whole of your wretched life! Do it now! Remember where you threw the missing bit of Titania's brain?' This appeal could not have been more calculated to penetrate through to Leovinus's great, though intoxicated, brain. 'The central intelligence core, Titania's cerebral artery... Where did I throw it?' 'Yes! Dammit, man! Where did you throw it?' 'Oh! I know! In the corner... over there... , The Great Man pointed to a corner of the cell. In a flash, The Journalist was there, scrabbling around behind the latrine bucket, and the next moment he suddenly stood up with a glowing silver shard in his hand. But before he even had time to give a yell of triumph, Nettie appeared at the cell door. 'We're too late!' she announced. 'It appears my watch must have been wrong. According to the police station clock, it's already midday.' And even as she spoke, they heard the BBC's pips from the Superintendent's radio. The Starship Titanic would already be on its way to its graveyard in space.

Dan and Lucy had had a miserable time of it. They had traipsed around the Oxfordshire countryside with a growing feeling of helplessness. Nobody had seen any old man with a white beard. Nobody had heard of aliens arriving from outer space. Nobody wanted to know either. Such things didn't happen in Oxfordshire. Finally they retraced their steps to the hotel where they had all been staying. Here again they had drawn a blank. Yes, Nigel had checked out that day. No, he had not had anybody with him. No. No old man with a white beard had checked in. Nothing. Zero. They sat over a miserable cup of coffee and Dan looked blankly at Lucy. She suddenly seemed so far away from him. Wasn't that what she had always said about him? That he had seemed so far away? He tried to think of all the things that had made them feel dose in the past... and yet everything he thought of now appeared like a figment of his imagination. Like Lucy's enthusiasm for turning the old rectory into a hotel... In a way, he thought, their whole relationship had probably come out of his imagination. He had dreamed the whole thing up and now he was waking up - nothing remained between them. Not even bitterness. Lucy watched Dan brooding over his coffee and wondered if he would be all right. She felt guilty. She felt she'd let him down. But now she had discovered that there was a part of her that had been asleep, all the time she had been with Dan, she knew there was no turning back the clock. It was as if she herself had created the bond between them - a bond that protected her from other, stronger, more frightening feelings that she was capable of - but a bond that did not otherwise exist. Lucy put her hand on Dan's. 'I'm sorry,' she said. To her surprise, Dan looked up and smiled. 'We've been a good team,' he said. 'We've helped each other to get to where we are, and now I guess we're ready to move right on.' Lucy leaned across and kissed him lightly, and at that very moment, Nettie, The Journalist and Leovinus walked in the door.

By the time they had persuaded the Oxford constabulary that Leovinus was not an illegal immigrant (even though technically speaking he was) it was well after half past one o'clock. By the time Nettie had been able to shower off all the intoxicating Yassaccan perfume, it was half past two. And by the time they had found Lucy and Dan, the deadline was well past. They all slumped in front of their coffees and nobody said a word, until Nettie suddenly looked up. Listen!' said Nettie. 'It's no good us all just sitting here like burnt toast. I know there's not much point, but I suggest we go back to where we left the Starship in orbit - just in case - they may have left something - or somebody may have got left behind - or - I don't know what. All I know is I won't be happy until I've seen it's not there.' 'You are so charming, dear lady,' said Leovinus, 'and possess such a fine mind.' It would hard to say who was more jealous - Lucy or Dan. Neither of them said a word however and there followed a short argument about the futileness of doing what Nettie had suggested, which seemed about to segue into a discussion about the futility of existence itself, until Nettie cut it short. 'Well I'm going. Will you take me, The?'

Strangely enough they all felt more cheerful as they took off in the tiny landing craft. The illusion of doing something, no matter how useless, is always good for the psyche. They roared up into the stratosphere and there, with the Earth rolling beneath them - a wonderful ball of real life - they suddenly saw another, even more wonderful sight. An astonishing sight. A sight that made them cheer and shout and kiss each other. And Dan found himself kissing Nettie and being kissed back by Nettie and then kissing Nettie again and then she was kissing old Leovinus and Dan reminded himself that she had rejected him before and there was no point in being hurt again... And then he suddenly remembered the sight - the wonderful sight that had made them all cheer and start kissing each other in the first place: over the Earth's glowing blue and white shoulder heaved the immense and fabulous shape of the Starship Titanic! 'Of course!' yelled Nettie. 'We're idiots! Captain Bolfass said we had half a day but he was talking about Dormillion days!' She checked her watch. 'We've still got twenty minutes to go!'

Leovinus gazed into her beautiful face. Her eyelids fluttered, and slowly she opened her lovely eyes and gazed back at him. He had slipped the missing cerebral artery - the central intelligence core - into Titania's brain as gently as he could. He knew the shudder of life that would run through her would bring both joy and pain, as unused neurons and dormant cybernetic pathways pulsed into new life. 'Titania!' whispered the old man. 'I still love you.' Nettie, Dan and the others gasped as the beautiful creature raised her head off the floor, leant up on one elbow, and then - her hair spilling around her shoulders - rose majestically, powerfully and sat as she had always been designed to sit, with her chin resting thoughtfully upon her hand. Titania had come to life and the Starship Titanic was finally complete.

At once Nettie felt a change in the Starship - as if a powerful and benign presence were watching over them all - a presence that was hugely intelligent, kind, wise, caring, serene, warm... Nettie squeezed Dan's hand. 'Dan,' she said. 'Would you kiss me again?'

And that, really, is the end of the story. Captain Bolfass, Lucy and The Journalist were able to disarm the bomb as soon as Titania came to life - much to the bomb's relief; it had never really wanted to explode. The grateful Yassaccans offered Dan, Nettie, Lucy and The Journalist shares in the Starship as a reward for their part in saving it. They also invited Lucy and Dan to run it as a hotel. Dan bowed out gracefully; he wanted to stay on Earth, he said, and so Lucy and The Journalist became the proprietors of the Starship Titanic Hotel Inc. - the most hugely successful luxury holiday enterprise in the entire Galaxy - and one which put the Yassaccan economy back on its feet within the first year of operation. The Yassaccans returned to their peaceful, prosperous way of life and craftsmanship, and celebrated the Starship with a full-scale statue (in superb detail - inside and out) in the main square of Yassaccanda. Lucy and The Journalist were married, with elaborate ceremonies both here on Earth and on Blerontin. He wrote up his story and it became the scoop of the century, and made him so much money that he was able to give up journalism entirely and devote himself to more useful things. Being no longer a journalist, of course, also meant that he was able to tell Lucy his true name, which turned out to be 'Tiddlepuss'. So she called him Tiddles and that suited Lucy just fine. But he would never ever tell her what 'Lucy' meant in Blerontinian. Leovinus got over his momentary passion for Nettie, which had been partly brought on by his recent self-examination and also by the intoxicating effects of her perfume. He spent an increasing amount of time chatting to Titania in her private chamber. He knew she wasn't real but then he had begun to think that perhaps he was too old for reality anyway. The Greatest Genius The Galaxy Had Ever Known regained a certain amount of his old self-confidence, but friends and admirers found him humbler and more sensitive to the needs of others. Perhaps it was Titania's influence. Perhaps it was the fact that his eyebrows had grown back. The good Captain Bolfass, on the other hand, never really got over his infatuation for Nettie, although his wife bought him herbal remedies and embrocations for the purpose. But the thought of Nettie kept him going in the dark watches of space, and enriched his declining years with a golden glow of tragic devotion. In fact there were a great many Yassaccans who felt the same way about Nettie. The Yassaccans, you see, were the sort of people who could recognize a hugely intelligent, kind, wise, caring, serene, and warm being when they met one for real. Nettie herself couldn't believe her luck when Lucy went off and married The Journalist. She immediately felt free to propose to Dan, and he couldn't believe his luck either. The two of them became not only lovers but best friends. Nettie took a degree in Higher Mathematics, and was able to help old Leovinus on some of his later works. She made so much money out of this that she and Dan were able to rebuild the old rectory and turn it into a relaxed family hotel specializing in Central Galactic cuisine. In the entrance hall, visiting Yassaccan parents would point out to their children the famous framed photograph which bore the inscription: 'Dan and Nettie's Hotel Beneath The Stars'. And the parrot? The parrot probably came out best of all - in parrot terms. It had, in fact, been acting as an undercover agent for the Yassaccans all along. It had been smuggled on board the Starship Titanic before the removal to Blerontin. The parrot had performed heroically, risking life and feathers, to get reports of the scandalously shoddy construction of the Starship back to Yassacca. It had, in fact been the source of all the rumours that had been circulating. When the parrot eventually returned to its hometown on Yassacca, it was given a special golden perch and a medal, specially created for it as the first parrot on Yassacca to be decorated for bravery and service to the planet. It was also given a lifetime supply of millet seed and pistachio nuts. It mated shortly after and became the proud mother of four baby parrots whom it named Dan, Nettie, Lucy and The.