Dan hurried back from the Engine Room to find that Nettie had disappeared. Where he'd left her there was now a glass case filled with purple gas.

'Nettie!' he cried, banging his fists on the glass, but with no effect. He looked all round the thing, but was unable to find any off switch or any way he could prise the thing off her - if indeed Nettle was in there.

After nearly fifteen minutes of futile effort, he suddenly remembered he'd need to speak to the bomb again. So he rushed back to the Engine Room as fast as he could.

Meanwhile, The Journalist was still trying to put his hand back up Lucy's pinstripe power-suit skirt.

'You see, we're just not used to casual sex,' he was assuring her. 'Blerontlnian women make such a fuss about it. You know... they want presents and they want to be treated nice and taken out to expensive restaurants and all that sort of crap. To meet a woman like you is just great! Let's do it again!'

'You said twice and you can think straight!' objected Lucy, who was trying to focus her mind on what seemed to her more pressing problems.

Yeah, but a hand-job doesn't really count. Anyway, us Blerontinian males'll say anything when we're aroused.'

'Sixty-three... sixty-two... sixty-one...' said the bomb.

'Hey! Bomb! Just what d'you think you're doing?' Lucy suddenly remembered what she was meant to be doing.

'Pardon? Sixty...' said the bomb.

'I said: Bomb! What the hell d'you think you're doing?'

'Don't talk to me! Don't talk to me! This is a tricky bit! Forty-nine... no! Fifty-nine... I mean eight... damn! damn! There I go again, losing concentration. It's all your fault! Recommencing countdown. One thousand...'

'And I'm aroused now,' said The Journalist.

It was at that moment that Dan burst into the Engine Room. He found the alien, whom he'd already taken an agreeably violent dislike to, kneeling behind Lucy, apparently rubbing himself up against her back.

Lucy shot to her feet. 'Dan !' she exclaimed. 'Thank God you didn't get blown up!'