Starship Titanic

29

Leovinus had undergone a sea-change.

For a start he had taken off his false eyebrows and stuck them on the wall of his cell, just above the door. But even more importantly he had spent the last week doing something that he had never really done before - certainly not since he was on the verge of becoming an infant prodigy. Seven days in a prison cell, without reading materials, without any ability to communicate with others, and - what's more - without a single admirer, had forced him to take stock of himself. He had spent a week looking back at his life and at the person he had become. And the more he had done this, the more he had become convinced that he had failed. The more he looked into his own soul, the more he realized how far he fell short.

He flinched with acute embarrassment as he remembered that last press conference - how he had revelled in the sycophancy. He curled up with shame as he remembered the answer he had given to that Journalist who had asked if he felt responsible for the collapse of the Yassaccan economy. What had he said? 'His responsibility was towards his Art' or something like that? Now, as he stared round at the bare walls of his cell, he realized that he'd been talking through his bottom. No one could hide behind the pretensions of creativity when people were actually suffering - maybe even dying - because of it.

He remembered the two cub reporters with their lovely smiles and alluring cleavages... How he had felt so superior to them... How he'd believed deep down that no one was good enough for him. Now, the more he looked about himself, in the solitude and misery of his prison cell, he felt he was not good enough for anyone else. The first Blerontinian who walked in through that door, he began to think, would have more right to freedom and happiness than he had. Even that dreadful Gat of Blerontis!

Leovinus had been granted such wonderful gifts - such fabulous, unlimited gifts - and what had he done with them? Had he made anyone else happy? Had he brought prosperity and peace to other worlds? No. As far as Leovinus could see, he had used his gifts almost exclusively for his own self-aggrandizement. Full stop. It was pathetic, now he looked back. Had he been loved? Had he loved?

And here, had you been eavesdropping outside the great man's cell (as indeed Constable Hackett was doing) then you would have heard a terrible groan rise up from the Greatest Genius The Galaxy Had Ever Known, as he remembered how his love and affection had been focussed not on a living creature - not on a wife - not on a lover - not even on a pet snorkling! - but on an agglomeration of wires and neurons, sensors and cybernetic pathways - Titania - his last, his greatest, his absolute obsession!

'But she loves me!' he cried from the depths of his despair.

'But she is not real...' came an answering echo as his thoughts bounced off the bare cell walls. 'You created her!'

This change that overcame Leovinus, in his Oxfordshire prison cell, would be unfortunately powerful ammunition for right-wing politicians who trumpet the beneficial effects of jail. Fortunately, however, it went totally unnoticed by anyone with political clout on Earth.

Leovinus had just reached that point of self-castigation at which he was really beginning to enjoy it, when he was rudely interrupted.

'Visitors for you, Chang!' said Constable Hackett. He had grown rather fond of the old fellow over the past week.

The door was flung open and the dreadful Journalist entered accompanied by an extraordinarily attractive female alien, all the more attractive for being dressed Yassaccan style, in the simple transparent shift with the single motif on the side which indicated that the wearer was unmarried and interested in proposals.

She was also wearing that fabulously expensive Yassaccan scent that was now almost unobtainable on Blerontin.

'My dear friend!' exclaimed Leovinus to The (surprised) Journalist. 'You are far more worthy of freedom and happiness than I!' It was an odd thing to say to the first Blerontinian to walk in through the door, but Leovinus, who had just been thinking he'd never get a chance to say it, said it anyway.

'There's not a moment to lose!' exclaimed the remarkably attractive and remarkably available female alien. 'We've only got an hour left!'

'Have you got it?' cried The Journalist.

'I don't know...' replied Leovinus. 'I am no longer sure what I have got and what I have not. When I look back on my life, I almost feel I have thrown it all away and I have been left with nothing. Dear lady, will you marry me?' Leovinus knew it was considered poor manners not to propose to any young female wearing the specially patterned shift.

'Have you got the central intelligence core? Titania's brain!' interposed The Journalist before Nettie could reply.

'Ah! Alas!' cried the great Leovinus. 'I threw it away! I have no use for her now!' and he turned back to Nettie. 'Dear lady! Do you think you could ever love me?'

'YOU CAN'T HAVE THROWN IT AWAY!' screamed the remarkably attractive and available female alien.

'THINK!' yelled the dreadful Journalist. 'Where did you throw it?'

'What does it matter?' Leovinus had grown a trifle maudlin. This was actually the result of the famous Yassaccan scent which the Yassaccan Prime Minister had given Nettie. Nettie had dabbed a spot on as they waited for the cell door to be opened - it was a nervous reflex prior to meeting the Greatest Genius The Galaxy Had Ever Known. What Nettie was unaware of was that one of the reasons the scent was so famous was because it had an extremely intoxicating effect on Blerontinians. This intoxication was usually so sudden and so strong that the scent had been made illegal on Blerontin, which is, of course, why it was so sought after and so fabulously expensive.

'My dear lady! My life! How I have longed to meet someone as beautiful and intelligent as you!'

The Journalist had now grabbed Leovinus by the lapels of his prison suit. 'WHERE IS TITANIA'S BRAIN?' he yelled.

Leovinus was rapidly deteriorating under the powerful influence of Nettie's scent. 'Ha! Mr Journalisto! See one oh dee crank? Pon flee up and trick?' Leovinus was quoting a Blerontinian nonsense rhyme that was often sung to children at bedtime.

'Salk tense, man!' shouted The Journalist, who had suddenly realized what kind of scent Nettie was wearing. "Svital we know where youze threw th'central telligence core - hic!' Oh no! If he got drunk he wouldn't be able to drive them back to the Starship!

'Nettie!' he screamed. 'Quick! Youze gotter grout of here!'

'Not on your life!' exclaimed Nettie. 'You think you can handle this better just cause you're a man?'

'No... no m not a man ... That is... I'm a Blerontinian...' The Journalist had started giggling. Now Leovinus started too.

'Stop it!' cried Nettie, trying to shake some sense into them. 'How can you laugh? We've got to find the intelligence core! Where is it, Leovinus?' But the more she shook them, the more the Yassaccan scent wafted up from her beautiful body and blew the minds of the two Blerontinians... and they laughed harder and harder until tears were rolling down their cheeks. The Journalist started to sing an old Blerontinian song about a lady acrobat and a news reporter, and then collapsed on the bed.

Finally Nettie gave up in disgust. She stormed out of the cell to find the desk sergeant. Perhaps he had Titania's missing piece in safe custody.

The moment Nettie had gone, The Journalist made a valiant attempt to pull himself together. He managed to stop laughing, with partial success, and, as his head began to clear, he turned on Leovinus and shook him, until the old man regained his senses.

'THINK!' cried The Journalist. 'Even if you've never done anything decent in the whole of your wretched life! Do it now! Remember where you threw the missing bit of Titania's brain?'

This appeal could not have been more calculated to penetrate through to Leovinus's great, though intoxicated, brain. 'The central intelligence core, Titania's cerebral artery... Where did I throw it?'

'Yes! Dammit, man! Where did you throw it?'

'Oh! I know! In the corner... over there... , The Great Man pointed to a corner of the cell. In a flash, The Journalist was there, scrabbling around behind the latrine bucket, and the next moment he suddenly stood up with a glowing silver shard in his hand.

But before he even had time to give a yell of triumph, Nettie appeared at the cell door. 'We're too late!' she announced. 'It appears my watch must have been wrong. According to the police station clock, it's already midday.' And even as she spoke, they heard the BBC's pips from the Superintendent's radio. The Starship Titanic would already be on its way to its graveyard in space.