Part XLVI With Headscarf and Hasselblad in the Glens
Of course it was the wildest folly on the part of the engineer and the
MarkVI, if indeed they were the real powers in the sorry scenario
enfolding before me, to allow an alarmist public media probe like
myself to have access, and what is more in manual mode, to the
controls of an intergalactic craft of the power and sophistication of the
LUCA. Even at the best of times, and that means in charge of some
prosaically plantigrade terrestrial vehicle running smoothly over
durably surfaced roads, I have encountered a number of spatial
complexities that I have been unable to unravel to my advantage and
which have terminated with surprisingly massive damage, even at
very low velocities, to the exterior of my vehicle and to a variety of
unexpected stationary objects. On account of my known history of
accidental encounters, fortunately none of them was known to have
resulted in a fatality, I feel that it was exceedingly rash of the MarkVI
to have issued instructions while actually at the live controls of an
exceedingly powerful space vessel, without stipulating exactly what
was required of me. For when I was told to pull, I naturally assumed
that what I should pull was what I had recently been pulling and that,
in the same manner, the MarkVI was pulling on exactly the same
instrument of control that she had been pulling on earlier when we
had slowed the LUCA's acceleration sufficiently to place ourselves
centrally to the plasma pod. And our brilliant success in that
operation, which had culminated in my stylish depression of the rudist
master button, had given me the confidence of a competition tango
dancer who has begun to believe that the first prize is within his grasp
and who, at a crucial moment, turns from his partner expecting her to
follow suit, only to find himself embracing thin air. I had wrong handed
myself! I had grasped the wrong control! I had somehow executed a
manoeuvre the very opposite of what the MarkVI was demanding of
me, and by so doing I had managed to jeopardise the entire mission.
The immediate, and most noticeable result of my error, was that the
control room was plunged into darkness - except for a pin point glow
that I was later able to identify as the engineer's emergency reading
light. Even the instruments lost their illumination and, of course,
though why I should say this when all the events I was involved in at
this catastrophic moment were so unusual and so foreign to me, we
lost all visual connexion. Then, worse than darkness, we began to
