Star Date : The 28th Century

Dear Diary,

I am the bringer of bad news. I’ve drawn up a provisional budget for an exploratory mission to the planet beneath us – which I’ve named Maitlandia for easy reference – and it is simply not possible to justify it on a real cost analysis. The fuel requirement would be astronomical (that’s rather witty – I must remember to use it in the staff meeting) and the molybdenum detector registers nothing. I fear the man John will not be happy about this. I saw him jotting down some coordinates and I noticed a few minutes ago that there are only three sets of keys on the shuttle key board. Ringo’s keys are missing and I am forced to point the finger at the man John. Unless it was our engineer who took them and is planning to make an escape bid for his home planet. Perhaps I ought to point the finger at Fingers. Or possibly co-astronaut Carol Richmond has taken them out of misguided loyalty to the man John. Maybe the lunatics fashioned a long hook and managed to swipe them from the comfort of their locked cupboard. I only have so many fingers and cannot point at everyone at once. Though if I lined everyone up correctly I could probably manage to finger my four chief suspects. Providing they don’t move while I am accusing them. People don’t realise the sort of difficult problems we captains have to grapple with.

Dear Diary,

I’ve put in a request for a maintenance robot to fix one of the hooks on the shuttle key board. Ringo’s hook was loose and the keys had fallen on the floor. It’s a good job I didn’t start pointing fingers or I might have lost the respect of my crew.

Dear Diary,

The staff meeting didn’t go well. I explained the fuel situation to the man John and told him I couldn’t let him take a shuttle craft down to the planet. He told me he wanted to go because it might contain valuable ores. I told him what the molybdenum detector had said and he informed me there were more precious minerals in the universe than just molybdenum. I’ve looked it up in the ship’s database and he is quite right. But I had to hold my position or else look like a weak captain.

"Dammit, Butch, I’m a mineralogist not a penny pinching bean counter!" he snapped.

I told him we would take a vote on it. The man John voted to go down to the planet, Carol Richmond agreed with him out of a misguided sense of loyalty. I voted not to go down to the planet and Fingers wisely agreed with me out of a sense of duty. None of us knew what to do in the event of a tied vote. The man John suggested we find a piece of circular metal with two different designs on and see which side is displayed upwards when it is dropped from a height. Alas we had no such objects as we come from the twenty eighth century and have no need of monetary units. Carol Richmond suggested we ask the lunatics but I rejected that plan as being both unsafe and potentially dangerous. We do not know what sort of state the lunatics are in as there has been no sound from them in several days. The man John pressed the issue and I was forced into conducting a vote. The result was tied at two votes a piece. The man John stormed off the bridge and went back to his cabin to sulk.

Dear Diary,

Events have taken an unexpectedly surprising turn. Carol Richmond and I were taking our watch on the bridge when we received a space telegram from the surface of the planet.

"Dear Captain Maitland stop weather lovely down here stop streets paved with precious jewels stop lots of gold too stop love stop the lunatics".

I asked Carol Richmond what this could possibly mean. She got up and ran over to the lunatics’ cupboard. One firm knock on the door and it swung open. Everything fell into place in an instant.

"They’ve gone down to the planet" I declared.

"But how? Could they have stolen one of our shuttles?" asked Carol Richmond. We rushed down to the shuttle bay and I was appalled to see that Paul was missing. The keys were still hanging from the shuttle key board so they must’ve fashioned a spare set. One look inside their cupboard unearthed a bar of indented soap and a key cutting machine.

"We must go after them" said Carol Richmond.

"We cannot – think of the expense" I began but then I remembered what their space telegram had said. The planet was a rich one after all. The economic potential of visiting Maitlandia was considerable. "On second thoughts, we owe it to the lunatics to make sure they get back to Central City safely" I said nobly.

"Can you fly a shuttle?" she asked. I didn’t like to tell her the truth – that I had persuaded the Academy courses supervisor to let me take "Management, Motivation, Motivational Management and Managing Motivation" instead of "Compulsory Shuttle Flying For Captains".

"Of course I can" I told her, "but the man John is a more experienced pilot. It is only fair that he be given the opportunity."

"I’ll go and tell him at once" she said with typical female enthusiasm.

Have I made the right decision? Will the planet turn out to be as promising a venture as I was lead to believe by three lunatics with obvious criminal tendencies? I also have the difficult task of informing my colleagues that it is only proper that one of us remain aboard the ship in case of problems. We cannot trust Fingers as he is an alien whom we barely know. I am prepared to make the sacrifice and remain safely on board but will the man John be willing to take a woman with him as his co-explorer? As irony would have it, it appears that what I learned in "Management, Motivation, Motivational Management and Managing Motivation" may prove to be more valuable in this instance than rudimentary shuttle piloting skills.