Starship Titanic

22

'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.