Naturally something as powerful as a Black Hole needed very careful handling and had to be surrounded by incredible safety precautions. Unfortunately, safety was one thing that neither Scraliontis nor Brobostigon had first in their minds, when they began to reduce the specifications for the construction of the ship.

'There won't be anybody in the Engine Room,' explained Scraliontis, when even Brobostigon had queried the wisdom of reducing the Incredibly Strong Glass Company's spec for the window into the Black Hole.

'But you know what Black Holes are like...'

Actually Scraliontis didn't; he was an accountant and not an engineer. In any case Black Hole technology was a brand new concept straight out of Leovinus's brain. Just take Leovinus's lowest parameter for the glass shield!' he snapped. 'We can't afford any more.'

It was Nettie who discovered the problem thus caused by Scraliontis's cost-cutting, as she climbed the ladder, looking for the phone to the Captain's Bridge. The force of the Black Hole had simply plucked her off the ladder and absorbed her through the Incredibly Strong Glass Company's below-spec window.

Once in the Black Hole, she had begun to spin around for - as far as her body was concerned - hundreds of years, travelling millions of light years round in tiny circles. Fortunately, she still had her Personal Electronic Thingie on her, and this had dutifully clocked up all the miles she travelled.

Nettie herself didn't know how she had escaped. In fact, she had been thrown clear of the Black Hole, when The Journalist had short-circuited the Deskbot Nettie was, miraculously, still alive, and - even more miraculously - still had the presence of mind to realize that she had accumulated millions of light years of Space Miles - enough to get them all free upgrades to First Class.