‘BLOODY GENIUS!’ screamed the parrot.
‘I ASKED YOU A QUESTION!’ yelled Bolfass. It was also according to Yassaccan tradition that parrots were supposed to answer any questions put to them.
‘Squawk!’ The parrot momentarily forgot its powers of speech.
‘ANSWER MY QUESTION!’
‘SQUAWK!’
The parrot flew off into the shadows at the further end of the chamber.
‘Damn it!’ Boll’ass knew it was bad luck if a parrot ref used to answer your question.
‘I can explain everything,’ Lucy was telling Dan.
‘No! You can’t! You can’t explain ANYTHING!’ screamed Dan. And Lucy suddenly thought: ‘He’s right! He’s absolutely RIGHT!’
‘Perhaps that is your answer!’ It was Nettie who had suddenly stepped forward and taken Captain Bolfass by the arm.
‘Dear lady, it is good of you to trouble yourself with this matter, but I fear the parrot has not given any reply. I am doomed.’
‘Didn’t you tell me that this Starship was designed by some genius?’
‘Leovinus!’ exclaimed The Journalist. ‘He was here on the ship when we crashed on the Earth!’
‘Maybe he has the missing part?’ It was all so clear to Nettie, although she didn’t know why.
Something clicked in The Journalist’s mind. ‘Of course!’ he exclaimed. ‘When he ran off the ship – he was brandishing this glowing silver strip in his hand…’
‘The central core intelligence!’ exclaimed Bolfass.
‘That’s why it isn’t on the ship?’
‘So…’ Captain Bolfass was putting two and two together but rather slowly.
‘In order to get the missing central intelligence core for the ship’s system, we’ve got to find this Leovinus character.’ Nettie had decided to take over the deduction process. ‘Leovinus is on the Earth. But we can’t get to the Earth because we don’t know where it is, and the only way to find out where it is, is to get hold of the missing central intelligence core and refit it into Titania’s brain. Gentlemen. We’re screwed.’
It was then that the docking sirens sounded. The Starship Titanic was preparing itself for landing on the planet of Yassacca.
23
The celebration party was a gloomy affair.
Everyone tried to make the best of it, and kept toasting the Earth folk for their invaluable help in beating off the insurance loss adjustors; several speeches were made extolling the return of the great Starship to its rightful home, but nobody could forget that within a couple of days, the ship would have to be towed off to some distant part of the Galaxy, where it could explode without doing any more harm than destroy itself.
The Yassaccans could see no prospect of recovering their economy. Meanwhile Lucy, Dan and Nettie could see no prospect of ever returning to their own planet. They had each been given translation blisters (like small plasters worn behind the ear) so that they could still communicate now they were away from the influence of the ship’s automatic systems, but that had done little to reconcile them to the prospect of exile on an alien world.
‘But surely’ – Rodden the Navigational Officer had cornered Nettie – ‘you must have some idea of where this “Earth” place is? I mean you must at least know whether it is in the Notional Northern Hemisphere of the Galaxy or the Notional South?’
‘Well… No…’
‘Is it on an outer or an inner arm of the spiral?’
‘I haven’t a clue,’ said Nettie.
Rodden shook his head gloomily – he hated talking to dumb blondes. ‘Well if you really have no idea where you’ve come from, I really can’t get you back there. The only thing that could is the Starship and that can’t remember because its brain’s missing! Seems to be a common complaint…’ he added, unnecessarily, and wandered off, rather to Nettie’s relief.
Nettie looked around at the gloomy party. She felt sad, and yet, there was so much beauty in this gentle world she found herself in. Yassacca! It was a nice name for a start. And she was sure there were worse places… Slough… New Maiden… Basingstoke… Nettie found herself split in two. One part of her was saying:
Come on! Make the best of it! This is home from now on! And the other half was telling her not to give up… that somehow, deep down inside her, she was convinced that she would be able to get them all back to Earth. Nettie felt a bit foolish for feeling so convinced of her own ability, but there it was – she just couldn’t shake the feeling off, though she had no idea why she had it.