'Please, The!' exclaimed Lucy. 'We haven't got time for that now...'

'You started it...' he reminded her. 'Once we're roused, us Blerontinian males tend to be very single- minded.'

'I've met your type before,' said Lucy, trying to push him away.

'Just put your hands on my thing again!' he was whispering in her ear.

'Stop it!' cried Lucy.

'What?' replied the bomb. 'Oh damn! I thought you were talking to me! Now you've made me lose count! Recommencing countdown. One thousand... Nine hundred and ninety-nine...'

'I love you!' said The Journalist. 'You're all I've ever dreamed about.'

'That's it!' exclaimed Lucy. 'We've got to keep talking to the bomb.'

'Please put your hand here...' said The Journalist.

'Listen!' cried Lucy to the bomb. 'Which baseball team won the World Series in nineteen hundred and ninety eight?'

'Nineteen hundred and ninety-seven... nineteen hundred and ninety - now I've told you before about interrupting me while I'm in the middle of a countdown. If you want a bomb you can have a good chatter with, you should have got the Mega-Scuttler Pro which has multi-tasking, speech recognition and general chattering software and therefore makes an altogether more expensive bang. As it is you've got me and I'm doing my best under increasingly trying circumstances.

Recommencing countdown. One thousand... Nine hundred and ninety-nine...'

'You have the most wonderful skin,' moaned The Journalist, biting Lucy quite hard on the eariobe.

'Ouch!' cried Lucy. 'Look, The, you've got to stay here and keep talking to the bomb, while I go up and find the Captain's Bridge.'

'I can't bear to be separated from you!' He clutched at her arm.

'If you don't stay and talk to the bomb we're both going to get blown up!' she replied.

'Just bring me off once more!' pleaded The Journalist. 'I'll be able to think properly then. Honestly! Blerontinian males need to have two orgasms before they can think straight. It's well known!'