Starship Titanic

30

Dan and Lucy had had a miserable time of it. They had traipsed around the Oxfordshire countryside with a growing feeling of helplessness. Nobody had seen any old man with a white beard. Nobody had heard of aliens arriving from outer space. Nobody wanted to know either. Such things didn't happen in Oxfordshire.

Finally they retraced their steps to the hotel where they had all been staying. Here again they had drawn a blank. Yes, Nigel had checked out that day. No, he had not had anybody with him. No. No old man with a white beard had checked in. Nothing. Zero.

They sat over a miserable cup of coffee and Dan looked blankly at Lucy. She suddenly seemed so far away from him. Wasn't that what she had always said about him? That he had seemed so far away? He tried to think of all the things that had made them feel dose in the past... and yet everything he thought of now appeared like a figment of his imagination. Like Lucy's enthusiasm for turning the old rectory into a hotel... In a way, he thought, their whole relationship had probably come out of his imagination. He had dreamed the whole thing up and now he was waking up - nothing remained between them. Not even bitterness.

Lucy watched Dan brooding over his coffee and wondered if he would be all right. She felt guilty. She felt she'd let him down. But now she had discovered that there was a part of her that had been asleep, all the time she had been with Dan, she knew there was no turning back the clock. It was as if she herself had created the bond between them - a bond that protected her from other, stronger, more frightening feelings that she was capable of - but a bond that did not otherwise exist.

Lucy put her hand on Dan's. 'I'm sorry,' she said. To her surprise, Dan looked up and smiled. 'We've been a good team,' he said. 'We've helped each other to get to where we are, and now I guess we're ready to move right on.'

Lucy leaned across and kissed him lightly, and at that very moment, Nettie, The Journalist and Leovinus walked in the door.

By the time they had persuaded the Oxford constabulary that Leovinus was not an illegal immigrant (even though technically speaking he was) it was well after half past one o'clock. By the time Nettie had been able to shower off all the intoxicating Yassaccan perfume, it was half past two. And by the time they had found Lucy and Dan, the deadline was well past. They all slumped in front of their coffees and nobody said a word, until Nettie suddenly looked up.

Listen!' said Nettie. 'It's no good us all just sitting here like burnt toast. I know there's not much point, but I suggest we go back to where we left the Starship in orbit - just in case - they may have left something - or somebody may have got left behind - or - I don't know what. All I know is I won't be happy until I've seen it's not there.'

'You are so charming, dear lady,' said Leovinus, 'and possess such a fine mind.' It would hard to say who was more jealous - Lucy or Dan. Neither of them said a word however and there followed a short argument about the futileness of doing what Nettie had suggested, which seemed about to segue into a discussion about the futility of existence itself, until Nettie cut it short. 'Well I'm going. Will you take me, The?'

Strangely enough they all felt more cheerful as they took off in the tiny landing craft. The illusion of doing something, no matter how useless, is always good for the psyche. They roared up into the stratosphere and there, with the Earth rolling beneath them - a wonderful ball of real life - they suddenly saw another, even more wonderful sight. An astonishing sight. A sight that made them cheer and shout and kiss each other.

And Dan found himself kissing Nettie and being kissed back by Nettie and then kissing Nettie again and then she was kissing old Leovinus and Dan reminded himself that she had rejected him before and there was no point in being hurt again... And then he suddenly remembered the sight - the wonderful sight that had made them all cheer and start kissing each other in the first place: over the Earth's glowing blue and white shoulder heaved the immense and fabulous shape of the Starship Titanic!

'Of course!' yelled Nettie. 'We're idiots! Captain Bolfass said we had half a day but he was talking about Dormillion days!' She checked her watch. 'We've still got twenty minutes to go!'

Leovinus gazed into her beautiful face. Her eyelids fluttered, and slowly she opened her lovely eyes and gazed back at him. He had slipped the missing cerebral artery - the central intelligence core - into Titania's brain as gently as he could. He knew the shudder of life that would run through her would bring both joy and pain, as unused neurons and dormant cybernetic pathways pulsed into new life.

'Titania!' whispered the old man. 'I still love you.'

Nettie, Dan and the others gasped as the beautiful creature raised her head off the floor, leant up on one elbow, and then - her hair spilling around her shoulders - rose majestically, powerfully and sat as she had always been designed to sit, with her chin resting thoughtfully upon her hand. Titania had come to life and the Starship Titanic was finally complete.

At once Nettie felt a change in the Starship - as if a powerful and benign presence were watching over them all - a presence that was hugely intelligent, kind, wise, caring, serene, warm... Nettie squeezed Dan's hand.

'Dan,' she said. 'Would you kiss me again?'

And that, really, is the end of the story. Captain Bolfass, Lucy and The Journalist were able to disarm the bomb as soon as Titania came to life - much to the bomb's relief; it had never really wanted to explode.

The grateful Yassaccans offered Dan, Nettie, Lucy and The Journalist shares in the Starship as a reward for their part in saving it. They also invited Lucy and Dan to run it as a hotel.

Dan bowed out gracefully; he wanted to stay on Earth, he said, and so Lucy and The Journalist became the proprietors of the Starship Titanic Hotel Inc. - the most hugely successful luxury holiday enterprise in the entire Galaxy - and one which put the Yassaccan economy back on its feet within the first year of operation.

The Yassaccans returned to their peaceful, prosperous way of life and craftsmanship, and celebrated the Starship with a full-scale statue (in superb detail - inside and out) in the main square of Yassaccanda.

Lucy and The Journalist were married, with elaborate ceremonies both here on Earth and on Blerontin. He wrote up his story and it became the scoop of the century, and made him so much money that he was able to give up journalism entirely and devote himself to more useful things. Being no longer a journalist, of course, also meant that he was able to tell Lucy his true name, which turned out to be 'Tiddlepuss'. So she called him Tiddles and that suited Lucy just fine. But he would never ever tell her what 'Lucy' meant in Blerontinian.

Leovinus got over his momentary passion for Nettie, which had been partly brought on by his recent self-examination and also by the intoxicating effects of her perfume. He spent an increasing amount of time chatting to Titania in her private chamber. He knew she wasn't real but then he had begun to think that perhaps he was too old for reality anyway. The Greatest Genius The Galaxy Had Ever Known regained a certain amount of his old self-confidence, but friends and admirers found him humbler and more sensitive to the needs of others. Perhaps it was Titania's influence. Perhaps it was the fact that his eyebrows had grown back.

The good Captain Bolfass, on the other hand, never really got over his infatuation for Nettie, although his wife bought him herbal remedies and embrocations for the purpose. But the thought of Nettie kept him going in the dark watches of space, and enriched his declining years with a golden glow of tragic devotion. In fact there were a great many Yassaccans who felt the same way about Nettie. The Yassaccans, you see, were the sort of people who could recognize a hugely intelligent, kind, wise, caring, serene, and warm being when they met one for real.

Nettie herself couldn't believe her luck when Lucy went off and married The Journalist. She immediately felt free to propose to Dan, and he couldn't believe his luck either. The two of them became not only lovers but best friends. Nettie took a degree in Higher Mathematics, and was able to help old Leovinus on some of his later works. She made so much money out of this that she and Dan were able to rebuild the old rectory and turn it into a relaxed family hotel specializing in Central Galactic cuisine. In the entrance hall, visiting Yassaccan parents would point out to their children the famous framed photograph which bore the inscription:

'Dan and Nettie's Hotel Beneath The Stars'.

And the parrot? The parrot probably came out best of all - in parrot terms. It had, in fact, been acting as an undercover agent for the Yassaccans all along. It had been smuggled on board the Starship Titanic before the removal to Blerontin. The parrot had performed heroically, risking life and feathers, to get reports of the scandalously shoddy construction of the Starship back to Yassacca. It had, in fact been the source of all the rumours that had been circulating. When the parrot eventually returned to its hometown on Yassacca, it was given a special golden perch and a medal, specially created for it as the first parrot on Yassacca to be decorated for bravery and service to the planet.

It was also given a lifetime supply of millet seed and pistachio nuts. It mated shortly after and became the proud mother of four baby parrots whom it named Dan, Nettie, Lucy and The.