'Stop whatever it is you're doing!' shouted Leovinus. 'We appreciate your visit, sir, and hope to see you many times in the future, but if you could just lower your voice a touch, I will show you the exit as soon as...'

'I said: shut up!' Leovinus suddenly turned on the robot, as it made yet another bow in front of him, picked it up and hurled it bodily at Scraliontis.

'May I recommend sir to the fire exit? I think sir will find the plainness of the corridors more suited to his current garb...' remarked the Maitre D'Bot as it hit the accountant full in the face, sending him sprawling. The object Scraliontis had been hiding fell onto the floor with a tinkle - it was the other cerebral artery of Titania's brain! At the same moment, the robot bunt apart on the elegant floor of the restaurant. Scraliontis scrambled to his feet, grabbed one of the robot's legs and charged at Leovinus. The old man side-stepped, picked up the robot's right arm and faced the accountant.

For a few moments the two circled each other. Then Scraliontis opened with a straight thrust into an open line - the robot's leg grazed against Leovinus's shoulder scoring a high outside. Leovinus replied with a simple parry from the fourth position executing a deft circle with the robot's arm that gained him the right to riposte. But Scraliontis was clearly fencing under a different rule book for he went straight to a redoublement regardless of Leovinus's right to riposte. The Great Genius was outraged. He flung the robot's arm at Scraliontis, in an attack that certainly did not figure in any rule book, and closed in for a corps a corps throwing any pretence to duelling etiquette to the wind.

Leovinus now had his hands around Scraliontis's neck. 'Brobostigon!' screamed Scraliontis, 'Help!'

'Rrobostigon's garbage!' The normally kind and mellow face of Leovinus had taken on a evil green hue. This was mainly due to the fact that the lamp of the table on which they were now wrestling was directly under Leovinus's chin.

'He may be garbage,' gasped Scraliontis, 'but he's got a gun!'

'He's dead!' yelled Leovinus, his fingers beginning to tighten on the accountant's neck. If he'd known Brobostigon had had a gun he would have been a bit more careful how he'd treated him.

'Arrrrgh! You're choking me!' screamed Scraliontis.

'I know! That's what I'm trying to do!' Leovinus tried to put some conviction into his voice, but he was finding it extremely difficult to make his fingers actually constrict the accountant's scrawny neck. I suppose you could say that Leovinus just did not have the killer instinct.

Scraliontis, on the other hand, did. As he realized Leovinus was never going to carry through what he was attempting, Scraliontis had tightened his hand around the table lamp - a conventionalized statuette of Titania with her wings providing the illumination. As he felt the great genius's hands falter around his neck, Scraliontis brought his knee up into Leovinus's groin. At the same time, he raised the table lamp and brought it crashing down onto that magnificent cranium that housed Leovinus's magnificent brain.

Leovinus's hands fell from the accountant's neck; he slumped to his knees. Crack! Scraliontis brought the table lamp crashing down onto Leovinus's skull again and again... The extraordinary and superb mind registered all was not right. It blocked out the pain, then realized something truly disastrous had taken place, and wisely decided to abandon all contact with the outside world for the foreseeable future. Leovinus rolled over onto the restaurant floor unconscious, with blood pouring from his head.

Scraliontis stared down at him. God! He'd killed the Great Man!

In a panic, Scraliontis glanced around the First Class Restaurant. Disposing of dead bodies, although not something he'd done before, was the sort of thing his accountant's mind was really good at, and a few moments later he was hurrying out of the First Class Restaurant with a spring in his step. In his panic, however, he had forgotten the little glowing silver shard that now lay on the floor, mingled amongst the remains of the Maître D'Bot.

Leovinus was wrapped securely in one of the great curtains that helped give the First Class Restaurant its ambiance of unadulterated luxury and elegance.

6

While Leovinus had been thus engaged with business matters, The Journalist had been trying to pump information out of the workman who claimed to have come on board to reclaim his parrot.

'Come on!' said The Journalist. 'Nobody's buying that! What are you up to?'

'I have a pet parrot,' said the workman, doggedly sticking to his absurd story. 'I always take it with me when I'm working. I know Mr Leovinus wouldn't allow a bird on board, so I've been keeping it hidden. But when I came back to get it just now, I found that some bastard had opened the door of the cage and it's escaped.'

The Journalist heaved his eyes heavenwards. He was used to hearing cock-and-bull stories but this parrot-and-bastard one didn't even get off the slippery starting-blocks of meretriciousness. 'Look,' he said. 'I'm a journalist. I know when there's something fishy going on, and I know that you're hiding something. I'll cut a deal with you!'

The workman turned on him: 'I'm really very upset! I loved that parrot.'

'You tell me everything you know about the Starship and I'll not tell Star-Struct Inc. about the parrot.'

They had just reached the Central Dome area, and the worker was hurrying through the gallery surrounding the Central Well towards the port Embarkation Lobby.

'Why's the work got so behind? They've been cutting corners, haven't they? Leovinus seemed to be in the dark about it. And all these stories about the financial problems - they're true, aren't they? What's going to happen tomorrow? This ship isn't in a fit state to take off, is it?'

'That's right!' said the worker, as he strode across the Embarkation Lobby. 'Everything you say is true.'

'If you are enjoying your stay on board, why not celebrate with an evening in the Champion Canapé Lounge - featuring canape´s from the All Blerontin Finals for six centuries?' called the Deskbot.

'So?' said The Joumalist.

'So?' said the worker, turning on The Journalist and looking him in the eye for the first time. 'If you see my parrot, give it this.' He pressed a small metal band into The Journalist's hand and disappeared through the main doors. The Journalist looked at the piece of metal in his hand; it bore an address and a phone number, which The Journalist recognized as that of the Yassaccan Embassy in Blerontis.

The Journalist spent the next half hour or so exploring the ship on his own. He discovered more unfinished areas. The starboard Embarkation Lobby, for example, was totally unfinished. Large sections of the Second Class Living Quarters were wanting decorating, some were even without beds. He noted everything down, and returned to the Central Dome, when suddenly a figure came hurtling round the columns of the gallery and collided with him.

'Droot Scraliontis!' he exclaimed.

'I know who I am!' snapped the accountant.

'Just the man I was looking for!' smiled The Journalist.

'Argh!' Scraliontis jumped and his eyes shot guiltily over The Journalist's shoulder as if expecting to see the Homicide Police with their vicious trained rabbits pouring onto the Starship to arrest the murderer of the Greatest Genius the Galaxy Had Ever Known. 'He's not dead! I swear it!'

'Who's not dead?' The Journalist couldn't believe how many juicy stories seemed to be offering themselves up to him tonight - if only he could pin one of them down. 'Who isn't dead?'