9

The moment the ship took off, Dan felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. This was, of course, simply the result of the incredible G-Force that was being exerted upon his body. But Dan, who had no idea that the ship had taken off, merely thought that he was getting nervous. The sinking feeling in the stomach was quickly followed by a draining of blood from the brain, leading to momentary light-headedness, followed by total black-out.

If he hadn't just blacked-out, Dan would have noticed that the take-off had affected Lucy and Nettle in an identical way - even though none of them knew what was happening.

'Nothing to be alarmed about, sir, madam and thing.' The polite robot seemed to be addressing this last to the now comatose Nettle. 'A perfectly routine take-off. You life-forms have a good snooze while us machines get on with running the ship.' The Doorbot, itself, then blacked out and lay in a tidy heap, while the ship accelerated at speeds far beyond its original specifications, towards an unknown quarter of the InterGalactic Space-Time Continuum.

The robots on board must have recovered consciousness before the human beings. Nettle found herself undressed and tucked up in bed in a tiny cabin about the size of her flat back in Harringay.

Apart from the size, everything about the place was unfamiliar. The sheets on the bed were made of some material that felt like silk but much thicker and heavier. The mug holding the toothbrush bore a picture of an elderly Egyptian opera singer - or at least that's who it looked like to Nettle. She'd once received a postcard of an elderly Egyptian opera singer, and had kept it in a drawer. The toothbrush itself was rather weird, since it kept ducking its head and brushing its own handle - rather like a bird preening itself.

Opposite the bed was a television on which a snowstorm seemed to be the only entertainment. Nettle picked up the remote, aimed it at the TV and started pressing buttons. A cocktail cabinet rose out of the floor; a Dustbot scuttled out of the clothes cupboard, picked up an invisible speck of dust, squeaked, 'Thank you for appreciating a clean environment!' and hurried back out of sight again; the door opened; the lights went on and off but the TV resolutely refused to show any programme other than the snow-storm.

'Alt! Hi! I'm glad to see you have found your Personal Electronic Thingie, please keep it with you at all times since it is your communication with the Starship Titanic. Welcome aboard.' Nettle found herself apparently being addressed by the standard lamp that stood in the corner of the cabin. She instinctively pulled the sheets up to cover her breasts.

'Wowee! I don't blame you keeping those babies to yourself!' exclaimed the standard lamp.

'Will you turn around while I get dressed!' said Nettle. The lamp turned around obediently. It was the same on the other side. 'Will you please go away?' she said.

'Hey! That'd be groovy! I've had it up to here with standing around in this cabin anyway!' The standard lamp walked smartly towards the door. 'Oh by the way,' it said breezily, 'I'm your Bellbot. Anything you want - just ask me. I'll be standing outside. Wow! It's great to get a change of scenery!' And it closed the door.

'I'm sure that robot's not meant to behave like that,' said Nettle to herself, as she threw on her clothes and examined the thing she had mistaken for the TV remote control. On it were a variety of buttons. One of them had an icon of the Bellbot on it so she pressed it and the door reopened and the Bellbot peered in.

'Wowzeee! You look terrific in that Gap T-shirt!' it exclaimed.

'Will you please refrain from making personal comments!' said Nettle rather crossly.

'Shit! No offence, man!' The Bellbot seemed genuinely hurt. 'What can I do for you?'

'Firstly I want to meet up with my colleagues. Secondly I think we probably would like to know how to get off this ship.'

'Hot dog!' The Beilbot snapped its fingers with a metallic ping. 'You mean there are more hot little numbers like you around?'

'You are behaving most impolitely for an android!'

Nettle knew how to address a robot 'Would you please keep your personal comments to yourself or otherwise I will have you reported - and you know what that'll mean.'

The Bellbot froze to the spot. 'Hey, man! I'm a genuine "personality transfer" bot. It's my character!'

'Well I don't like it. And you're here to serve me so just stop it at once.'

The robot went all sulky. 'All right! Don't go on about it.'

'Do you know where my friends are?'

'Adjoining rooms?' suggested the Bellbot.

Nettle was out of her cabin in a moment. Every door along the narrow corridor, that curved round and out of vision, had writing on it.

'What's this say?' she asked. By way of answer the robot produced a pair of spectacles and offered them to Nettle. Nettle hesitated, then put them on.

'Translatorspecs,' explained the Bellbot unhappily.

Nettle could now see that every door had a name:

'Hyacinth', 'Jasmine', 'Delphinium' and so on.

'How tacky,' murmured Nettle and she started knocking on 'Cauliflower'. After a dozen or so vain attempts on various flora, she turned on the Bellbot which was walking quietly behind her with its hands folded behind its back. 'Look! Do you or do you not know where my friends are?'

'I do not,' said the robot.

'Do you or do you not know how I can go about finding them?' Nettle was phrasing her questions carefully.

'I do,' said the Bellbot after some thought.

'Then tell me how,' said Nettle, 'Guest list,' announced the robot. 'And where is that?'

'Deskbot - Embarkation Lobby - Embarkation Floor,' replied the bot.

'Can't I just ring from my room?'

'Not from the Super Galactic Traveller Class Suites, no.'

'Then show me the way to the Embarkation Lobby,' said Nettle.

'Ah!' replied the Bellbot, 'I'm afraid I can't leave this deck, but if you go along to the lifts, the Liftbot will take care of all your vertical transportation requirements, and then a Doorbot will escort you round the Embarkation Lobby.'

Nettle sighed. She could already tell that travelling Super Galactic Class was not going to be glamorous.

Lucy came to her senses to hear a loud knocking sound. She sat up and looked around an unfamiliar room. It was tiny, cramped and had a hideous lampstand in one corner. The television wasn't working properly and the colour scheme was a ghastly pink. There was a constant grinding sound coming from underneath the floor and besides that there was this wretched knocking on what she now began to recognize as the door.

'Lucy!' Lucy now realized there was a voice accompanying the knocking. 'Open the door!' It was Dan,

'How?'

'You've got a little remote control thingie - use that,' shouted Dan.

After a bit of fumbling she managed to get the door open, and there was Dan, standing in a dingy corridor running his fingers through his hair like he always did.

'Thank God you're 0K!' He smiled that mile-wide smile of his, and Lucy flung herself at him as if she were drowning.

'What happened?' she cried.

'We're going to find out.' Thank goodness he sounded more confident than he felt.

'We're in that spaceship, aren't we?' Lucy wished she didn't sound so unconfident - because now she had Dan there, she really felt everything was going to be all right.

'Let's find Nettle and get out of this thing as fast as possible,' said Dan. 'Apparently we can only locate other passengers by going up to the Embarkation Lobby. You'd think a thing this sophisticated would have room-to-room telephones!'

The lift entrance in the Super Galactic Traveller Class offered no view of the Central Well. But once you stepped into the lift, the sudden sheer vastness of the Well took you by surprise. Lucy and Dan found themselves speechless.