By the time The Journalist had caught up with him, Leovinus was standing on the jetty of an even more extraordinary and beautiful feature of the Starship Titanic: the Grand Axial Canal, Second Class.
From the Central Well of the Starship ran two great canals – one to the fore and one to the aft. These partly had the effect of cooling the engines, but were also elegant recreational facilities. Up and down the canal, gondolas plied their way, the automated gondoliers each singing their own personal selection of Blerontinian folk-songs – but particularly the one about the beautiful young female acrobat who fell in love with a gondolier and gave him six pnedes (approximately one million pounds sterling) as a tip.
Leovinus was doing his from-blank-disbelief-to-cold-fury routine again. The Journalist took note.
‘They are not supposed to sing unless they’ve got passengers!’ Leovinus seemed to be choking as he clambered down into the nearest waiting gondola. The singing immediately stopped.
The Journalist joined him and said: ‘Perhaps they’re doing a test? Reversing everything?’ It was the only thing he could think of that was in any way cheery.
‘Don’t talk pigeon poop!’ snapped Leovinus. He was clearly in no mood to be cheered. ‘Promenade Deck Elevator!’
‘Si! House-proud and Religious Mother of Twins!’ said the automated gondolier. Leovinus flinched, and felt the vein twitching in his thigh.
Leovinus allowed the irritation to mount within himself, as he straightened one of the priceless NO-Art Masterpieces that decorated the elevator lobby.
‘Good day to you, sir, madam or thing. And how may we assist you in your vertical transportation requirements today?’ The Liftbot was half-embedded in the wall of the lift – its free hand rested on the lever that came out of its chest.
‘Just to the Promenade Deck and no back-chat!’ snapped Leovinus. He sometimes regretted the characters that these robots seemed to acquire, but there it was: if the ship’s intelligence were to be allowed emotions – and certainly no one could doubt that Titania had strong emotions – then you had to allow her to choose robot-characters she got on with. It was no good forcing the issue. Although Leovinus had, on occasion, spoken to Titania quite forcibly about some of the characters with whom she surrounded herself. But then Titania was so tolerant, so understanding of people’s failings and mistakes that she could get on with practically anybody. He had made her like that.
The giant Promenade Deck was Leovinus’s particular little favourite. Under its vast transparent canopy, passengers could stroll and marvel at the mind-erupting brilliance of the Galaxy through which they were passing. The vari-spex composition glass, of which the canopy was made, had the effect of intensifying the radiant brightness of the stars, while at the same time making it possible for the observer, by a mere twist of the head, to see – in the detail of a powerful telescope – any particular star that caught his, her or its fancy. Around the perimeter, the pellerator (a sort of horizontal lift of Leovinus’s design) enabled the less active travellers to tour the Deck without stirring an unnecessary muscle.
That was the theory. That was what Leovinus had viewed, with great complacence, on his telepresence and in his Virtual Reality Viewer at home. But that was not what he now saw in front of him. Real Reality was different.
What he now saw was what is referred to architecturally as a ‘shambles’. The vast glass canopy stretched above, as it should, displaying the immense stretches of pink silk sheeting which covered the ship. But below all was confusion. The beautiful polished parquet floor was approximately one tenth beautiful polished parquet floor – the rest was exposed girders and cable-work, gaping holes, protruding wires and polystyrene cups. Where the large, sprawling brasserie for Second Class Passengers should have sprawled, there was only a large, sprawling empty space littered with builders’ rubble and more polystyrene cups. How could this be? They didn’t even use polystyrene cups on Blerontin! And yet there they were! There was no disguising the ghastly, unthinkable fact that the Promenade Deck was not finished – nor likely to be before the launch tomorrow morning.