26

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.