Starship Titanic

'They're all video games!' Lucy felt righteously indignant. 'They aren't controls at all!'

As a matter of fact, the entire Captain's Bridge was little more than a high-class amusement arcade. It had been designed specifically to keep the Captain of the Starship Titanic amused during the tedium of long inter-galactic flights, in a spacecraft that was almost entirely automated and self-running. It was, after all, Titania - at the heart of the ship's intelligence - who was far more capable of taking decisions and issuing orders than any mere living creature.

'So?' said Dan.

'So...' said Lucy. 'I suppose we'd better find out how to fly this baby ourselves and point her Earthwards.'

'So - what was going on between you and that that thing...'

'He's not a "thing" - he's just a perfectly ordinary alien and there was nothing going on.'

'He had his hands on your tits!'

'No he did not!' Lucy couldn't stand Dan at moments like this. Why couldn't he give her room? Why did he try and twist everything? What mattered was them: Lucy and Dan.

'What matters is us,' said Lucy, taking her cue from the previous sentence. 'You and me.'

'You and me and any other life-form you can get it off with!' retorted Dan.

'Jesus! Dan! You are so unpleasant!'

'I'm merely stating the facts.'

'Well, if you really want to know the facts: I never made love to Jurgen Zenzendorf.'

'I wasn't talking about Jurgen Zenzendorf!' Trust Lucy, thought Dan, to bring up another case that she could defend instead of the one they were actually talking about. 'I never even suspected you of going to bed with Jurgen Zenzendorf. I mean Jurgen was an asshole.'

'He was not! That's typical of you to denigrate my friends just because you're unbelievably, maniacally jealous!' Lucy was firing on all cylinders. Dan beat a hasty retreat.

'OK! OK! I accept what you say about Jurgen! He was a nice guy! I liked him. I liked his moth collection. I liked his mother. Jurgen was GREAT.'

'OrJimmy Clarke!'

'Ah! Now I know you're lying!'

'HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT!'

'Jimmy Clarke told me himself you'd been to bed together.'

'He's a lying bastard! Anyway! That was before I knew you! I don't want to talk about any of this!'

'Then why d'you start it?' Lucy was now yelling at the top of her voice. Dan found his drive to do whatever it was he'd previously felt driven to do shrivel into a limp rag of confusion. He'd actually forgotten what they had started arguing about.

'Oh, Dan!' Lucy threw her arms round him. 'Why are you always so far away?'

'I'm here, Lucy!'

'But I never seem to get through to you. I love you.'

'And I love you,' replied Dan, and he kissed her, and she felt how far away he really was.

'Oh, Dan, let's get married,' she said.

'Oh, sure. We're on an alien spaceship - God knows how many light years from Earth and you want to organize a wedding.'

'You know what I mean,' she said.

'It's no good rushing these things.'

'Dan, we've been living together for thirteen years! We can't ever rush anything now!'

'Let's get the hotel up and running, and then we can talk about it,' said Dan sensibly, 'You do like the rectory?'

'Of course I do. I'm crazy about it.'

'Except that it doesn't exist any more.'

'We'll get it rebuilt - Nigel got a great deal on selling off Top Ten Travel. We'll rebuild it - better than it was - and make it the best little hotel in the goddamned world'

'If we ever get back.'

'If we ever get back,' agreed Dan.

They looked round at the so-called 'Captain's Bridge' with its library, its video collection, its chess boards and cards tables, its jacuzzi, billiard tables, cinema complex and gym, and they wondered how the hell they were ever going to find out how to control something that didn't appear to have any controls in the first place.

'Lucy,' said Dan.

'Oh! Don't start again! He wasn't doing anything!'

'I wasn't talking about that,' replied Dan.

'Good!' retorted Lucy. One point scored.

'You know this video game that seems to be based on the Starship itself?'

'Uh-huh?' Lucy was staring out of the windows above the console of games.

'Well, it's sort of changing.'

'I know this is stupid...' said Lucy. 'But you don't suppose that computer game isn't a computer game?'

'You mean - might it be an actual display showing those things coming towards us?' By now, Dan was also looking out of the window. A squadron of small, clumsy-looking spacecraft were hurting towards the Starship. Dan checked. Their movements correlated exactly to the motion of the spacecraft on the video display,

'Oh my God!' murmured Lucy. 'We're being attacked!'

At that moment, The Journalist suddenly burst onto the Captain's Bridge.

'The ship's on automatic!' he panted. 'But the central intelligence core is missing some of its parts. We can't control the ship unless we can locate all the missing bits of the system and get them back into place!'

'Too late!' said Lucy and nodded out of the window. The Starship was now entirely surrounded by the smaller spacecraft.

The Journalist muttered: 'Holy Pangalin!'

A voice suddenly boomed over the ship's loudspeaker system: 'You are surrounded. Give up at once or we open fire!'

'Quick!' yelled Dan, pushing The Journalist over to the console. 'How do we give up at once?'

'I haven't the slightest idea,' returned The Journalist.

'If you refuse to give up, we shall open fire in thirty seconds,' said the voice from the enemy spacefleet.

'WE GIVE UP!' yelled Lucy, but her voice merely echoed round the Captain's Bridge.

'DO SOMETHING!' screamed Dan.

'I told you! The ship's missing essential bits! I don't know what to do!' The Journalist was flipping controls as fast as he could but to little effect.

'Since you refuse to co-operate...' boomed the voice.

'WE'LL CO-OPERATE! JUST GIVE US A CHANCE!'

Lucy had climbed onto the console and was waving her arms at the spaceships in a desperate attempt to attract their attention.

'... since you refuse to co-operate you give us no choice but to open fire,'

The space outside the Starship suddenly exploded in light and a terrific noise battered the mighty hull - deafening those inside. Lucy fell off the console and Dan and The Journalist both dived for the floor, where they lay trembling with their hands over their ears.

There was then a pause.

The voice boomed over the loudspeaker again: 'Do you surrender?'

'YES! YES! WE SURRENDER!' screamed all three occupants of the Captain's Bridge.

'Very well! You leave us no choice!'

Another almighty din broke out around the Starship, and this time they could feel it shudder with the impact of the explosions outside. Then there was silence. The smaller spacecraft edged in a little closer.

Then the voice was booming out again. 'Look! We don't want to damage the Starship, but if you refuse to co-operate you will leave us no choice.'

The Journalist had by this time found a sort of microphone. He pushed a switch and bellowed into it.

'STOP! STOP! WE SURRENDER! STOP!' His voice deafened everybody on board the Starship Titanic, but elsewhere there was a terrible silence. Then they heard the enemy for the last time:

'We shall hold you responsible for any damage done to the Starship!'

With that a wave of the smaller spacecraft peeled off from the main fleet and swooped towards them. Points of light spattered out from their guns and the sound of ripping metal shook the great Starship.

'Oh my God!' screamed Lucy.