Lucy went quiet, and thought about this. A bomb was clearly not good news.
The murderer returned to his victim and continued examining his pockets - of which there were rather a lot. Scraliontis had always been an expensive dresser, and you could always reckon on his suits having more pockets than anyone else's - that being the fashion of the day.
'Suffering supernovae!' thought The Journalist, I've never seen so many pockets!'
'Why are you doing that?' Lucy surprised herself with the steadiness of her voice.
'I'm looking to see if he's got a plan or anything to show where the bomb is,' said The Journalist.
'Why should he have?' asked Lucy.
'Stop asking questions,' snapped The Journalist.
'I just asked why?'
'Because he planted the bomb.'
'Oh,' said Lucy. 'Thank you.' And then thought:
'Why on Earth am I being polite to someone who's just about to kill me? Maybe even rape me first! Or maybe he isn't.' Maybe there were mitigating circumstances. Maybe the Psychopath wasn't a psychopath? Maybe he was a caring family man with a flair for initiating excitement, who was resourceful in danger and yet prepared to submit to the will of a strong and loving woman...
'Is that why you killed him?' Lucy felt surprisingly childish asking the question. 'Because he planted the bomb?'
'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.
'Thought-seal,' he said, and suddenly the garment opened so that Lucy was able to pull it back and reveal The Journalist's gouged flesh.
'Oh! It's nasty!' she said. 'Look!' Suddenly she made a quick movement. The Journalist yelled, and she pulled a large shard of glass from his abdomen. The blood welled up again from the wound.
'I couldn't see it!' he gasped. 'Thanks!' And he held up a small packet. 'Here!' he said.
'Oh! Thank you!' said Lucy, accepting the gift in what she felt was an appropriately grateful way. 'What is it?'
'A plaster,' said The Journalist. 'Stick it on before I bleed to death.'
'A lady she say we ought to sing while passengers are in the gondola and not other way round,' confided the Gondolabot, clearly feeling the need for a bit of small-talk. 'We think something may be seriously wrong.'
'Just get us to the Engine Room!'
13
By the time they had reached the Engine Room, Lucy had managed to convince The Journalist that her name really was Lucy.
'But you know what that means in Blerontin?' The Journalist was in some pain from the laughter. He'd managed to stop at last, and Lucy was feeling a bit piqued.
'No,' she said coldly. 'What does it mean?'
'I can't tell you,' he replied.
'I'd like to know.'
'No no no no no - I just couldn't!'
'What's so funny? Go on, you've got to tell me!'
'Maybe when I know you better - oh! argh! ha ha ha! It hurts!'
'Well, what's your name?' she asked.
'The Journalist,' replied The Journalist.
'That's not a name, that's a job description,' objected Lucy.
The Journalist shrugged. 'On Blerontin news-hacks aren't allowed individual names - it's an ancient law - something to do with avoiding the cult of the personality or something.'
'I can't call you The Journalist!'
'Just call me "The",' he said, and opened the luminous blue doors of the Engine Room.
A quick look inside drew his attention immediately to the small cabinet in the corner. The Journalist strode straight across to it, opened the doors, glanced at the two buttons, and without hesitation pressed the one marked: 'Press To Arm'..
Immediately a flap opened and a large black steel egg with fins rose up out of the top of the cabinet. At the same time a voice boomed out 'You have just activated the SD-96 Full Force Mega-Scuttler - 'A Bomb To Be Proud Of' - created especially for you by the Mega-Scuttler Corporation of Dormillion. This will be a fairly big explosion so please stand well back - about 22,000 miles. Countdown to detonation commencing at once. One thousand... nine hundred and ninety-nine... nine hundred and ninety-eight... nine hundred and ninety-seven.'