‘All right… All right…’ Dan was trying to work himself round to ‘Decisive Mode’. ‘It’s vital we all stick together. Go and get Nettie, while I try and sort this mess out.’
‘But if I go and get Nettie, we won’t all be sticking together.’ Lucy’s rational streak tended to obtrude whenever Dan was in ‘Decisive Mode’.
‘All right! I’ll go and get her.’
‘That’s the same thing! Anyway, why are you so worried about Nettie?’
‘I’m not! I just think we all ought to keep together in case one of us needs help.’
‘Like what sort of help do we give if we’re all running out of air and freezing to death?’
‘All right! Don’t go and look for Nettie! But what are we going to do?’
Dan sounded so desperate – so forlorn – and yet, oddly, Lucy preferred it to ‘Decisive Mode’,
‘I’ll see if I can find a supply of oxygen. You get us up to First Class!’
‘But that’s still not “sticking together”!’ moaned Dan.
‘I never said we should stick together. That was your idea,’ said Lucy. Then she put her arms round Dan and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. ‘Cheer up, Second Class Traveller! I’m sure we’re going to be all right!’ And with that she had gone, and Dan suddenly felt terribly alone.
So alone… he felt he could pick his loneliness up in his hands and hug it… but even as he felt this, he realized it wasn’t the absence of Lucy that made him feel empty inside. There was something else.
12
Lucy had a good brain even though she had lived all her life in LA. Despite the continual exposure to carbon monoxide and people from the film industry, she had remained smart. She had trained as a lawyer and was well regarded in the firm where she practised. Her speciality was entertainment law, but she still liked to use that brain of her, and here was a good opportunity.
‘Where would they keep the oxygen equipment?’ She actually said it aloud as she paced round the loggia at the top of the Central Well. ‘Got it!’ Suddenly she knew exactly where to look. God! It was so great to be bright! She’d always thanked her stars that she hadn’t been born a busty bimbo like some people she could think of.
‘A department store,’ she told herself, ‘would have a plan of the store by the elevators… So…’ And sure enough there it was! By the elevators – even though this wasn’t a department store. She pressed a small button and a large area of the floor lit up displaying the plan of the Starship Titanic. What’s more she could zoom in and out with a second control. This was better than anything they had at Macy’s.
Lucy slipped on her translatorspecs and read: ‘Medical Centre’. That was where she’d find oxygen. And without waiting to take advantage of any of the special offers the plan of the ship assured Second Class Passengers they would be delighted with, she hurried towards the Starship’s Medical Centre.
The Medical Centre of the Starship Titanic took up a whole 400-yard section of the main hull – under the Embarkation Level. It was dazzlingly new and clean and it said: ‘Hello, and welcome to the Medical Centre of the Starship Titanic. A place to enjoy and savour the Good Things of Life while you still have it – not just somewhere to be sick in. We guarantee you will feel no pain once you have placed your credit card in our Card Care Machine.’
‘Jesus!’ thought Lucy, ‘could they do with a new copy-writer!’ Her breathing was all the time becoming a little more difficult, and it was noticeably colder. She looked around for anything that might resemble an oxygen cylinder and suddenly froze in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature.
Unlike the rest of the ship, the Medical Centre was not unpopulated. There were two people – or were they people? There were two figures on the floor, and one of them was looking straight at her. Lucy stared back. Somehow she knew, without a shadow of doubt, that he was not human. He looked human enough, but there was a curious ‘otherness’ about him. It was intangible subtle… intriguing… Then she noticed he had the most beautiful orange eyes…