Starship Titanic

20

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.