‘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.’
‘The Embarkation Lobby, please,’ said Dan.
‘You’re asking me to go up?’
‘Am I?’ asked Dan.
‘The Embarkation Lobby is on the Embarkation Level, sir,’ said the Liftbot in the tone of voice most people would only dream of using to address particularly stupid patches of damp.
‘Then that’s where we’d like to go.’
‘up?’
‘I suppose so.’
The Liftbot fetched up a groan from deep within, and muttered to itself ‘Young people nowadays! Don’t give a tinker’s cuss for them as went through the hell of two world wars that left some of us with one arm and a broken marriage.’
Lucy kicked Dan, as she felt him about to reply. ‘Just take us to the Embarkation Lobby,’ she said in her best Rodeo Drive No Hostages Taken voice that she used when buying antique rugs.
The Liftbot stifled a pathetic sniffle, put its hand to the handle sticking out from its chest and pushed it up with a sigh. The elevator gathered speed and the humans were once again silenced by the spectacular magnificence of the Starship.
Lucy put her hand into Dan’s. In her dreams she had imagined places of such scale and splendour, but she had always known that they belonged strictly to the world of the imagination. And yet here she was – in an interior that matched up to her dreams. The old rectory, which Dan had been so crazy about, looked pretty tawdry compared to this.
She glanced sideways at Dan. She couldn’t guess what he was thinking. She never could.
As they stepped out of the elevator into the loggia at the top of the Great Central Well, they caught sight of a blonde figure in high heels disappearing into the far door. By the time they reached the Embarkation Lobby, they found Nettle apparently deep in conversation with a desk light.
‘This is the Embarkation Lobby, sir and madam.’ A Doorbot had already wheeled over and was gesticulating in front of them in a rather meaningless fashion. ‘As Super Galactic Travellers you are entitled to pass through this lobby but you may not use the seating accommodation or the bathrooms. Super Galactic Class facilities are available on your own decks.’