They rolled and kissed each other oblivious to the cold metal floor of the life-boat ramp under their naked flesh. 'Life is so short!' Lucy suddenly grabbed his hand and looked at his watch. It was totally incomprehensible.

'Thirty innims!' 'Is that all?' she yelled.

'Yes!' cried The Journalist. 'Yes!'

'I love yooooou!' cried Lucy.

'Ooooooooh!' echoed The Journalist and the two of them collapsed together as the clock clicked to zero...

They lay there waiting for the forever-ending explosion that would terminate their brief affair. But, unlike the two lovers, it didn't come. 'What's happened?' Lucy was the first to speak. 'I don't know!' said The Journalist. 'I don't know!'

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

At this same moment, Nettie suddenly managed to sit up on the couch on which Dan had placed her, and screamed: 'Oh my God! There's only five minutes before the bomb goes off!'

'Five minutes!' thought Dan. 'This is where, in a cheap novel, the couple - confronted by imminent oblivion - would suddenly make passionate love.'

'You've got to go and talk to it!' she pleaded.

'What?' said Dan.

'I can't explain! Just believe me! It's in the Engine Room! Hurry!'

'What? repeated Dan a bit gormlessly.

'HURRY! THE ENGINE ROOM! SPEAK TO THE BOMB!'

Dan decided that, while gormlessness had its place in the human repertoire of reactions, now was neither the rime nor place for it. He sprinted out of the Beauty Salon (which was, apparently, where they were) and ran down the length of the Grand Axial Canal, trying to ignore the inevitable chorus:

'She threw her arms

Around his charms,

And gave him six pnedes as a tip!'

The first thing he saw, when he burst into the Engine Room, was a large bomb sticking up out of a cabinet. A friendly sort of voice was booming out:

'Fifty-eight... fifty-seven... fifty-six... fifty-five... fifty-four.

Dan couldn't think what to say. After all, he'd never addressed a bomb before. He didn't have a clue what sort of thing it would be interested in.