Starship Titanic Read online

  How can she let him treat her like that, thought Lucy to herself, but said: 'When are you going to sign the final release forms for the company, Dan?'

  'Oh er... I'm not sure...' Dan seemed suddenly nervous. 'I don't think Nigel's got them yet...'

  'The forms should be waiting for us back at the hotel,' said Nigel before Lucy could explode. Exploding was a reaction to Nigel which she found increasingly natural. However, in this case, the fuse was lit, but would keep burning until they got back to the hotel and found that (surprise! surprise!) the release forms hadn't arrived after all and that that damned delivery company had let Nigel down yet again. Poor Nigel! He always had some excuse or other.

  They turned the lights off in the empty house and made their way across the drive in the darkness. Above them, the stars filled the cold night sky with astonishing clarity.

  'Why hasn't Nettle turned the car round?' A twitch of irritation gave Nigel's suavity a razor-edge.

  When they got to the car, they found Nettie squinting through the lens of a single-reflex Minolta that she had placed on its roof.

  'What on earth d'you think you're doing, Bozo?' When Nigel sounded playful he was always at his most dangerous.

  'Sh!' said Nettle. 'I'm taking a photo of the house. Don't jog the car.'

  'I don't know whether you've noticed, Einstein...' there was sheer joy in Nigel's voice. He loved ridiculing his girlfriends. 'But it's night.'

  ''Sright!' replied Nettle, not moving her blonde head so much as a millimetre. 'I'm taking a photo called "Dan and Lucy's Hotel Beneath the Stars". It'll look great in the album! Maybe you'll frame it and hang it in the entrance hall?'

  'You can't take photos at night unless you've got a flash, Dumbbell.' Nigel opened the car door.

  'Hey! You've jogged it!' Nettle screamed out.

  'Get in, Brainbox, I'll drive,' said Nigel.

  'I guess it was long enough,' said Nettle to Dan. 'Terrific,' said Dan.

  They were all just about to get in the car, when a sudden wind swept across the rectory lawn and the trees blew almost as if a hurricane had hit them - except that they blew in all directions.

  'Jesus!' exclaimed Dan, gripping the side of the car, 'What was that?'

  'Look!' breathed Lucy. She was pointing up in the sky. 'A falling star!'

  'Make a wish!' shouted Nettle.

  'Holy Moly!' growled Nigel, who was the sort of person who had always preferred Captain Marvel to Superman. 'Will you look at that?!'

  Above them, a most extraordinary thing was happening. A ring of cloud had suddenly formed immediately overhead and then spread out - like a nuclear explosion - until the entire sky was covered by a broiling layer of evil-looking cloud. Nigel went weak at the knees; Lucy shuddered; Dan felt his stomach jump and Nettle simply gaped.

  But there was more to come.

  The four Earth-folk heard a ghostly roar, as if of seas beating on a distant shore that lies beyond the horizon of thought, and then hugely, magnificently, and without warning a vast metallic prong descended from the cloud and sliced their elegant former Victorian rectory (with planning permission for commercial development) in two.

  Nigel gaped; Lucy gaped; Dan gaped.

  'Terrific!' murmured Nettle.

  There was no other noise save the wind rushing crazily around in the trees as if it were looking for a place to hide, and the occasional thud of filling masonry, as bits of the rectory that had not already been dislodged by the thing crashed to the ground.

  The thing was shiny and vertical and it stretched up into the clouds as if it always had. It was so huge - so present - that it seemed to have a perfect right to be there. As they watched, a small pin-point of light descended down the side of the thing and disappeared into the ruined house. Then it went up again.

  The swirling clouds, meanwhile, had begun to diminish, and by the time the pin-point of light started to descend for the second time, the clouds had cleared to reveal the full, awesome vastness of the thing. The wide blade or prong that had buried itself in the house stretched up and up almost a mile into the sky and there it seemed to widen out into an immense metallic body - rather like a gigantic submarine.

  'It's a spaceship,' murmured Nettle, and she began to walk towards it as if mesmerized, her camera dangling forgotten from her wrist. Suddenly the pin-point of light shot up again.

  'Don't! Nettle! Come back!' Dan yelled.

  But Lucy was already racing after Nettle. So Dan raced after Lucy. Nigel, in the meantime, tried his best to help by hiding under the steering wheel.

  'Don't go near it!' said Dan,

  'Nettle!' Lucy was pulling her arm, trying to head her back to the car. 'We... we... don't know what it is!'

  'It's wonderful...' murmured Nettle. Something in Nettle's tone made all three of them look up at the great thing and stop whatever it was they were doing. Confronted by something so immense, so beyond their experience or imagination, anything they did suddenly seemed irrelevant - pointless.

  The pin-point of light had descended into the house for the second time, and there was now a glow coming from the hallway. As the three of them brought their eyes back down to earth, they froze: a shadow had appeared on the window of the front door.

  'There's something coming!' Dan could feel his knees beginning to quiver. Lucy pulled at Nettle's arm. But Nettle edged forward - as if eager to greet whatever it was that was even now opening the front door of the destroyed vicarage ..

  'Aggggh!' screamed Lucy as the thing emerged into the starlight.

  'Good evening to you, unknown life-forms,' said the thing. 'The proprietors of Starlight Travel Inc. would like to apologize for any inconvenience you may have suffered due to the inadvertent emergency parking of their vehicle.'

  'Arrrrghhh! Aaaaaaarggghhh!' Lucy was by now screaming incredibly well. Nigel was covering his ears and trying to get even further under the steering wheel of the car.

  'It's all right, Lucy!' Dan was trying to calm her down.

  'Arrrrghhh! Aaaaaagghhhh! Arrrrrgggghhhhh!' Lucy was not about to be calmed down by anybody. She was confronted by an Alien From Outer Space, and she was jolly well going to have a good scream.

  'Sh!' said Nettie. 'It's talking to us!'

  'Quite,' said the Thing From Outer Space. 'By way of apology, may we have the pleasure of offering you a free cruise on board our Starship?'

  'Perhaps another day...' said Dan.

  'Aaaaaaaarrrrgggh! Arrrgh! Aaaaah! Aaaggghhhh!' continued Lucy.

  'Yes!' cried Nettle. 'I'd love to!'

  'Come with me, madam,' said the Thing From Outer Space and turned smartly back into the ruined house.

  'Well? Come on!' said Nettle. 'What a hoot!' And before either Lucy or Dan could stop her, she had followed it through the front door.

  Dan hesitated, and then realized he had no choice; before Lucy could start screaming again, he was racing after Nettle, and Lucy found herself racing after Dan.

  The Thing was standing by an illuminated porch and they could now see that it appeared to be nothing more frightening than a smartly dressed robot wearing headphones, who bowed politely to them and apologized for having to invite them into the service elevator.

  'Please do not be alarmed,' it said in a soothing voice. 'I can assure you that the Starship Titanic is the most luxurious and technologically advanced Inter-Galactic Starship ever built, and every state room has hot and cold running water and colour TV.'

  It bowed again and ushered them in, and somehow or other - neither Dan nor Lucy nor Nettle could later quite explain why - they all three found themselves climbing the steps into the elevator. Before they knew what was happening, the steps had retracted up behind them and the robot had flicked a switch.

  'I apologize once again for having to bring you in by the service elevator,' remarked the robot, 'entrance to the Starship is normally at Embarkation Level.'

  'Hey!' exclaimed Dan. 'How come you speak English?' Dan felt better now he'd found something concrete to quest
ion.

  'I beg your pardon, but I am not speaking... what did you say - "English"? All robotic functions on this ship are equipped with infra-violet translation sensors which automatically scan the brain-impulses of passengers for language patterns. These patterns are then rearranged inside your heads so that you can understand and speak intelligibly whilst on the ship. You are actually speaking and understanding Blerontinian. Pretty convenient for writers of science fiction - uh?'

  Dan wasn't sure what to make of this last remark -was the robot implying that he was nothing more than a figment of some writer's mind and that this whole thing was not really happening? However, before he could think any further along these lines, his mind was overwhelmed by the fantastic situation in which they now found themselves: they were speeding vertically up the vast keel towards the main body of the Starship, a mile above the surface of the Earth.

  Nigel stabbed out a number on his mobile, and called halfheartedly out of the car window: 'Dan? Lucy? Nettle?' But his voice barely reached the crumbled brickwork of the ruined house.

  The next moment he heard a ghostly roar - like seas beating on a far-off shore.

  'Hello?' said his mobile. 'Oxford Police Station. Can I help you?'

  Nigel didn't reply. He was too busy watching the vast unbelievable thing as it rose up into the air again and disappeared towards the Milky Way.

  'Hello? This is Oxford Police Station,' insisted his mobile phone. 'Who is this?'

  Nigel looked at the smashed Victorian rectory, and the driveway where his friends had stood a few moments ago, and replaced his mobile on its cradle. 'It didn't happen,' he murmured to himself. 'It didn't happen.'

  You might have thought there was a tinge of relief in the way his shoulders relaxed, but of course you would have dismissed such an idea as total fantasy.

  In any case, at that same moment, Nigel suddenly became very unrelaxed again. In fact, he very nearly jumped out of his Armani trousers; he certainly hit his head on the roof of the car. 'Ouch!' he yelled. An old man with a flowing white beard was sitting quietly in the passenger seat; there were tears in his eyes and one of his eyebrows was just about to fall off.

  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.

  'Huh!' said the Liftbot. 'If sir, madam or thing would care to give some indication of their vertical traveling requirements I might be able to get on with my job - such as it is.'