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.'