'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.

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.