‘I didn’t kill him!’
Suddenly Lucy saw the murderer in a new light. For a start he wasn’t a murderer. In the second place she noticed he was hurt himself; he seemed to be in some pain as he bent over the body. Perhaps he wasn’t going to rape or kill her either.
‘Haaaa!’ The Journalist gave a yell that made Lucy jump.
‘Have you got it?’ Lucy asked nervously.
‘Shut up!’ said Thejournalist. He had a small piece of paper which he was now stuffing into one of his many pockets (although he didn’t have nearly as many as Scraliontis).
‘Hey! Hey! You can’t leave me here!’ Lucy had gone from abject terror to incensed indignation in less time than most people could go from feeling OK to still feeling OK.
‘I can’t waste time!’ snapped The Journalist. ‘It may go off any second!’ And he made for the door.
‘DON’T LEAVE ME TIED UP IN HERE WITH A DEAD BODY!’ screamed Lucy. Something in her tone of voice – maybe the sheer volume of it – made The Journalist stop. He turned and looked at Lucy, in her power pinstripe, tied to the bed – her black hair falling across her face.
‘Shit!’ he said. The actual Blerontin phrase was:
‘North of Pangalin’ which was a particularly unpleasant suburb of Blerontis, the capital of Blerontin, but the meaning was: ‘Shit!’
He limped over to the bed and untied Lucy.
‘Just don’t get in the way,’ he said.
‘Don’t talk to me like that!’ fired Lucy.
‘Oh! You’re going to be a great help! I can see that!’ replied The Journalist as he set off down the corridor towards the stairs up to the Embarkation Level.
‘Wait!’ Lucy shouted after him. ‘I’ve got to find a supply of oxygen!’
‘Forget it!’
‘But it’s getting hard to breathe!’
‘Not as hard as it will be once we’re tiny fragments floating in space!’ retorted The Journalist.
Lucy was by now running alongside him. ‘You’re an alien, aren’t you?’ she suggested, as they waited for the Doorbot to open the door to the Second Class Area.
‘No,’ replied The Journalist You’re the alien. This is a Blerontinian Starship in case you hadn’t noticed.’
‘Point taken,’ said Lucy. She really wasn’t used to being talked to like this. Dan would never have dared.
‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed as the doors opened and she took in for the first time the majestic sweep of the Grand Axial Canal, Second Class.
‘She plumett-ed
And hit his head
And gave him six pnedes as a tip!’
sang the gondoliers.
‘Ohh!’ The Journalist gasped as he stepped down into the nearest gondola, and missed his footing. Lucy caught him and held him for a moment.
You’re hurt,’ she said.
‘Let’s get on!’ he returned. ‘We have no idea when the bomb is timed to go off.’
Lucy helped him down into the gondola, and the singing stopped.
‘Take us to the Engine Room,’ gasped The Journalist, holding his stomach.
‘Si! Si! Nitrogen-Loathing Respecters of Pressed Veal!’
‘And make it fast.’
‘Si! Si!’
The gondola set off down the Great Canal at no greater speed than any other. Lucy looked across at her former assailant: he was rocking backwards and forwards, hugging himself.
‘Are you cold?’ asked Lucy. She certainly was. But The Journalist didn’t reply; he just gritted his teeth and Lucy suddenly realized he was in real pain.
‘What happened?’ she asked, and touched his arm.
‘That bastard – Scraliontis – stabbed me with a table lamp,’ growled the ex-murderer.
Lucy stifled a laugh. ‘How can you stab someone with a…’
‘It had a sharp end,’ interrupted The Journalist ‘Are you in pain?’ asked Lucy. The Journalist grunted. Lucy leaned towards him and moved his hands away from his stomach. The unfamiliar smell of a being from another world caught her unawares – it was not unpleasant – quite the contrary – but it made her head spin.
‘Leave me alone!’ he growled.
‘Let me look at it!’ Lucy pulled him back onto the pillow and tried to open his clothes, where the congealed blood was thickest. ‘I have no idea how to undo this,’ she said.