25

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.