8

‘We’re going to put the bathroom here and the door over there,’ said Dan.

‘It’s terrific,’ said Nettie. ‘But I thought the bathroom was going to be there and the door was going to be over here?’ said Lucy.

Why did he always get it so wrong? Dan always made the effort and yet - no matter how hard he tried - the things he and Lucy had discussed only the day before entirely eluded him or came out all garbled.

‘That’s what I meant,’ said Dan.

‘It’s terrific,’ said Nettle. ‘But, I have to tell you something…’

She was interrupted by Nigel, who was sniffing around the cellar. ‘You can smell the centuries of vinous pleasure oozing from the very brickwork!’ he shouted up.

‘The place is only a hundred and eighty years old!’ Lucy shouted back down.

‘It was built as a rectory,’ Dan murmured to Nettie.

‘Mmm, terrific,’ said Nettle. ‘But, look, Dan…’

‘You’re not kidding!’ Dan felt the enthusiasm welling up from deep inside him the way it always did when he needed it to. ‘We’re going to have the restaurant here, on the right as you come in - not your nouvelle cuisine but state-of-the-art Californian. And here there’ll be a bar.’

Lucy gave him a withering look, but mercifully she didn’t correct him. Oh yes - now he remembered - the restaurant was going to be on the left; it had started off on the right, then they’d changed it to the left, then they’d changed it back to the right again, but then Lucy had pointed out that the kitchen would be better on the other side so they’d gone back to the left. How the hell was he supposed to remember anyway?

‘Terrific,’ said Nettie. ‘But look…’ Her voice trailed off as Nigel reappeared. Nettle looked adorable in her simple Gap T-shirt that didn’t quite cover her midriff and hand-knitted waistcoat. Nigel put his arm round her.

‘Like what you see?’ he asked.

‘Mmmm,’ said Dan.

‘I mean the house,’ said Nigel. Dan couldn’t stand that effortless, slimy superiority that his business partner could turn on and off like a hosepipe of cold water. No wait a minute! Make that ‘a business partner’. The Top Ten Travel Company was no more. They had just sold it for what seemed to Dan a ridiculously satisfactory amount of money.

‘It’s just what Lucy and I have always dreamed of, isn’t it, Buttercup?’ Dan said. Lucy hated it when he called her pet names in public, but she had never told him, so she blamed herself. She could see he thought she liked it, and the minor deception had been going on for so long now that she couldn’t see how she could possibly tell him. How long had they been together? It must be all of thirteen years - in fact since the very early days of the Top Ten Travel Co., when Nigel had chatted her up in a bar in Santa Monica and introduced her to his business partner.

Lucy had originally been strongly attracted by the suave Englishman, but as they’d all got to know each other she found Dan, the quiet East Coast University man, more real and more understandable. In fact, the more they got to know each other, the more she wondered why on earth nobody could see at first glance what a complete sleazeball Nigel was.

‘We’re going to call it The Watergate Hotel,’ said Dan.

‘Won’t that put off Republicans who still want to bug each other?’ asked Nettle.

Nigel patted her tight bottom. ‘Go and turn the car around, there’s a good girl,’ he said. And Nettle trotted off on her high heels down the steps of the elegant early Victorian rectory, into the night.

How can she let him treat her like that, thought Lucy to herself, but said: ‘When are you going to sign the final release forms for the company, Dan?’

‘Oh er… I’m not sure…’ Dan seemed suddenly nervous. ‘I don’t think Nigel’s got them yet…’

‘The forms should be waiting for us back at the hotel,’ said Nigel before Lucy could explode. Exploding was a reaction to Nigel which she found increasingly natural. However, in this case, the fuse was lit, but would keep burning until they got back to the hotel and found that (surprise! surprise!) the release forms hadn’t arrived after all and that that damned delivery company had let Nigel down yet again. Poor Nigel! He always had some excuse or other.

They turned the lights off in the empty house and made their way across the drive in the darkness. Above them, the stars filled the cold night sky with astonishing clarity.

‘Why hasn’t Nettle turned the car round?’ A twitch of irritation gave Nigel’s suavity a razor-edge.

When they got to the car, they found Nettie squinting through the lens of a single-reflex Minolta that she had placed on its roof.

‘What on earth d’you think you’re doing, Bozo?’ When Nigel sounded playful he was always at his most dangerous.

‘Sh!’ said Nettle. ‘I’m taking a photo of the house. Don’t jog the car.’

‘I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, Einstein…’ there was sheer joy in Nigel’s voice. He loved ridiculing his girlfriends. ‘But it’s night.’

”Sright!’ replied Nettle, not moving her blonde head so much as a millimetre. ‘I’m taking a photo called “Dan and Lucy’s Hotel Beneath the Stars”. It’ll look great in the album! Maybe you’ll frame it and hang it in the entrance hall?’

‘You can’t take photos at night unless you’ve got a flash, Dumbbell.’ Nigel opened the car door.

‘Hey! You’ve jogged it!’ Nettle screamed out.

‘Get in, Brainbox, I’ll drive,’ said Nigel.

‘I guess it was long enough,’ said Nettle to Dan. ‘Terrific,’ said Dan.

They were all just about to get in the car, when a sudden wind swept across the rectory lawn and the trees blew almost as if a hurricane had hit them - except that they blew in all directions.

‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Dan, gripping the side of the car, ‘What was that?’

‘Look!’ breathed Lucy. She was pointing up in the sky. ‘A falling star!’

‘Make a wish!’ shouted Nettle.

‘Holy Moly!’ growled Nigel, who was the sort of person who had always preferred Captain Marvel to Superman. ‘Will you look at that?!’

Above them, a most extraordinary thing was happening. A ring of cloud had suddenly formed immediately overhead and then spread out - like a nuclear explosion - until the entire sky was covered by a broiling layer of evil-looking cloud. Nigel went weak at the knees; Lucy shuddered; Dan felt his stomach jump and Nettle simply gaped.

But there was more to come.

The four Earth-folk heard a ghostly roar, as if of seas beating on a distant shore that lies beyond the horizon of thought, and then hugely, magnificently, and without warning a vast metallic prong descended from the cloud and sliced their elegant former Victorian rectory (with planning permission for commercial development) in two.

Nigel gaped; Lucy gaped; Dan gaped.

‘Terrific!’ murmured Nettle.

There was no other noise save the wind rushing crazily around in the trees as if it were looking for a place to hide, and the occasional thud of filling masonry, as bits of the rectory that had not already been dislodged by the thing crashed to the ground.

The thing was shiny and vertical and it stretched up into the clouds as if it always had. It was so huge - so present - that it seemed to have a perfect right to be there. As they watched, a small pin-point of light descended down the side of the thing and disappeared into the ruined house. Then it went up again.

The swirling clouds, meanwhile, had begun to diminish, and by the time the pin-point of light started to descend for the second time, the clouds had cleared to reveal the full, awesome vastness of the thing. The wide blade or prong that had buried itself in the house stretched up and up almost a mile into the sky and there it seemed to widen out into an immense metallic body - rather like a gigantic submarine.

‘It’s a spaceship,’ murmured Nettle, and she began to walk towards it as if mesmerized, her camera dangling forgotten from her wrist. Suddenly the pin-point of light shot up again.

‘Don’t! Nettle! Come back!’ Dan yelled.

But Lucy was already racing after Nettle. So Dan raced after Lucy. Nigel, in the meantime, tried his best to help by hiding under the steering wheel.

‘Don’t go near it!’ said Dan,

‘Nettle!’ Lucy was pulling her arm, trying to head her back to the car. ‘We… we… don’t know what it is!’

‘It’s wonderful…’ murmured Nettle. Something in Nettle’s tone made all three of them look up at the great thing and stop whatever it was they were doing. Confronted by something so immense, so beyond their experience or imagination, anything they did suddenly seemed irrelevant - pointless.

The pin-point of light had descended into the house for the second time, and there was now a glow coming from the hallway. As the three of them brought their eyes back down to earth, they froze: a shadow had appeared on the window of the front door.

‘There’s something coming!’ Dan could feel his knees beginning to quiver. Lucy pulled at Nettle’s arm. But Nettle edged forward - as if eager to greet whatever it was that was even now opening the front door of the destroyed vicarage ..

‘Aggggh!’ screamed Lucy as the thing emerged into the starlight.

‘Good evening to you, unknown life-forms,’ said the thing. ‘The proprietors of Starlight Travel Inc. would like to apologize for any inconvenience you may have suffered due to the inadvertent emergency parking of their vehicle.’

‘Arrrrghhh! Aaaaaaarggghhh!’ Lucy was by now screaming incredibly well. Nigel was covering his ears and trying to get even further under the steering wheel of the car.

‘It’s all right, Lucy!’ Dan was trying to calm her down.

‘Arrrrghhh! Aaaaaagghhhh! Arrrrrgggghhhhh!’ Lucy was not about to be calmed down by anybody. She was confronted by an Alien From Outer Space, and she was jolly well going to have a good scream.

‘Sh!’ said Nettie. ‘It’s talking to us!’

‘Quite,’ said the Thing From Outer Space. ‘By way of apology, may we have the pleasure of offering you a free cruise on board our Starship?’

‘Perhaps another day…’ said Dan.

‘Aaaaaaaarrrrgggh! Arrrgh! Aaaaah! Aaaggghhhh!’ continued Lucy.

‘Yes!’ cried Nettle. ‘I’d love to!’

‘Come with me, madam,’ said the Thing From Outer Space and turned smartly back into the ruined house.

‘Well? Come on!’ said Nettle. ‘What a hoot!’ And before either Lucy or Dan could stop her, she had followed it through the front door.

Dan hesitated, and then realized he had no choice; before Lucy could start screaming again, he was racing after Nettle, and Lucy found herself racing after Dan.

The Thing was standing by an illuminated porch and they could now see that it appeared to be nothing more frightening than a smartly dressed robot wearing headphones, who bowed politely to them and apologized for having to invite them into the service elevator.

‘Please do not be alarmed,’ it said in a soothing voice. ‘I can assure you that the Starship Titanic is the most luxurious and technologically advanced InterGalactic Starship ever built, and every state room has hot and cold running water and colour TV.’

It bowed again and ushered them in, and somehow or other - neither Dan nor Lucy nor Nettle could later quite explain why - they all three found themselves climbing the steps into the elevator. Before they knew what was happening, the steps had retracted up behind them and the robot had flicked a switch.

‘I apologize once again for having to bring you in by the service elevator,’ remarked the robot, ‘entrance to the Starship is normally at Embarkation Level.’

‘Hey!’ exclaimed Dan. ‘How come you speak English?’ Dan felt better now he’d found something concrete to question.

‘I beg your pardon, but I am not speaking… what did you say - “English”? All robotic functions on this ship are equipped with infra-violet translation sensors which automatically scan the brain-impulses of passengers for language patterns. These patterns are then rearranged inside your heads so that you can understand and speak intelligibly whilst on the ship. You are actually speaking and understanding Blerontinian. Pretty convenient for writers of science fiction - uh?’

Dan wasn’t sure what to make of this last remark -was the robot implying that he was nothing more than a figment of some writer’s mind and that this whole thing was not really happening? However, before he could think any further along these lines, his mind was overwhelmed by the fantastic situation in which they now found themselves: they were speeding vertically up the vast keel towards the main body of the Starship, a mile above the surface of the Earth.

Nigel stabbed out a number on his mobile, and called halfheartedly out of the car window: ‘Dan? Lucy? Nettle?’ But his voice barely reached the crumbled brickwork of the ruined house.

The next moment he heard a ghostly roar - like seas beating on a far-off shore.

‘Hello?’ said his mobile. ‘Oxford Police Station. Can I help you?’

Nigel didn’t reply. He was too busy watching the vast unbelievable thing as it rose up into the air again and disappeared towards the Milky Way.

‘Hello? This is Oxford Police Station,’ insisted his mobile phone. ‘Who is this?’

Nigel looked at the smashed Victorian rectory, and the driveway where his friends had stood a few moments ago, and replaced his mobile on its cradle. ‘It didn’t happen,’ he murmured to himself. ‘It didn’t happen.’

You might have thought there was a tinge of relief in the way his shoulders relaxed, but of course you would have dismissed such an idea as total fantasy.

In any case, at that same moment, Nigel suddenly became very unrelaxed again. In fact, he very nearly jumped out of his Armani trousers; he certainly hit his head on the roof of the car. ‘Ouch!’ he yelled. An old man with a flowing white beard was sitting quietly in the passenger seat; there were tears in his eyes and one of his eyebrows was just about to fall off.