Nettie shook her head. ‘I’m not much cop at astronomy! I’ll get the others up on deck.’
But neither Dan nor Lucy had any more idea than Nettie about the local constellations, and Rodden shook his head wearily at the Earth folks’ ignorance.
But worse was to come.
‘Look!’ Rodden suddenly exclaimed. ‘D’you see that star! There! That must be your Sun!’
And so it proved to be. Within the hour the Starship was slowing down, and they could clearly see the Sun as a tiny disc.
‘And so which of these planets is the Earth?’ It was a simple question Rodden had asked, but it threw the three Earth folk into utter confusion.
‘I think it’s the fourth planet from the Sun,’ ventured Dan.
‘Or is it the third?’ asked Nettie.
‘It’s the second!’ said Lucy.
The Navigational Officer had to excuse himself at this point. He left the Bridge and locked himself in the washroom, where he proceeded to bang his head against the sink unit for several minutes. How could any living creatures be so utterly and abysmally ignorant of their own planet?!
‘Look!’ said Dan. ‘On the outside: Pluto – right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Neptune… Saturn… or is it Jupiter next?’
‘Saturn,’ said Nettie.
‘Saturn… Jupiter… Mars… Earth! So it’s the sixth planet in!’
‘Very good!’ exclaimed Captain Bolfass. ‘Then we are approaching it at this very moment! Stand by to fire retardation rockets and stabilize ship for slow-down! Orbit around Earth to be established in thirty-five edoes time. Landing by small landing craft.’
By the time the Navigational Officer came out of the washroom, the Starship Titanic was in orbit around the Earth.
‘Do the Starship’s windows make everything look red?’ asked Nettie.
‘Maybe it’s the weather,’ said Lucy. The Earth did look extremely red.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Captain Bolfass. ‘It is my privilege to accompany you down to your landing craft. If you would follow me…’
‘Hang on!’ said Nettie. ‘We missed out Uranus! This is Mars!’
The Navigational Officer left the room again. He could feel one of those terrible Yassaccan rages overtaking him. In the washroom, he got out his SD gun and blew his own head off. After which he calmed down and returned to the Bridge.
By this time, they were approaching a blue planet, patched with brown and flecked with white whorls. It was definitely the Earth, and even old Rodden couldn’t help feeling sympathetically towards the three Earth folk as he saw their spirits rise and their hearts beat with pride and wonder at this vision of the planet that had given then life.
As they assembled in the tiny landing spacecraft, Bolfass spoke briefly and unemotionally.
‘We have exactly one day in which to find Leovinus and, hopefully, the Titanic’s missing central intelligence core, and get it back to the ship and into Titania’s brain. But we have less than that. I did not mention this before, but I have to now … We only have half a day, since, if you have not returned by midday, we will have no option but to fly the Starship off to a safe distance and man the life-boats before she explodes. May we all be saved from such a fate. Go! And good luck!’
Nettie took Dan’s hand as he helped her into the landing craft. The Journalist jumped in beside Lucy. ‘Oh, Dan?’ he said. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.’
‘Well – go ahead.’
‘Will you be our best man?’
Dan thought about hitting The Journalist but instead he smiled. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I’ll be glad to.’
‘Great!’ smiled The Journalist. ‘We can have a real Blerontinian White Wedding. You’ll love it.’
Dan raised his eyes heavenwards and Nettie smiled, as the cover of the landing craft was placed over them.
Captain Bolfass retreated to the viewing chamber; the side of the great Starship opened, and the tiny landing craft blasted itself away towards the blue planet.
27
Leovinus was not in a good mood. Despite all the things he was good at – astrophysics, architecture, molecular biology, geophysics, painting, sculpture, mechanical design, physics, anatomy, music, poetry, crystallography, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, philosophy and canape´ arrangement – he’d always been hopeless at languages. Consequently, when he found himself on an alien world, without a translation blister, he was understandably frustrated. Here he was – the Greatest Genius The Galaxy Had Ever Known and he couldn’t even ask these aliens, in their strange blue suits, for a cup of tea.