Dear Diary

The loss of the consultant John is the least of our worries. Potternob the genie revealed that there was a sting in his tail when he explained the full terms and conditions of our recent deals. I was first alerted to the fact that something was amiss when he began to laugh in a menacing and sinister and unsettling and worrying manner.

"What is amusing you?" I asked. My role as shipboard morale co-ordinating officer requires me to monitor and categorise all forms of amusement on board the Pioneer. Only by accumulating data can we discover the most cost effective ways of inspiring the men (and women) of INNER.

"You foolish humans have just condemned yourself to life in the Sludge Mines of Wafoon."

"In what way?" I asked, recalling advice we were given at the University of Central City which told us never to weaken our bargaining position by overtly admitting that we hadn't the faintest idea what was going on.

"You didn't read the small print in our agreement. In exchange for granting you wishes I now own you and intend to sell you to the sludge miners of Wafoon. You will live and die in those mines."

"But Carol Richmond is a woman" I said nobly.

"That matters not - a dead sludge miner is a dead sludge miner. I care not if one happens to be a female."

"I am a trained manager. I have little experience of manual labour. I would fetch no price at all and Carol Richmond, at most half of that."

Potternob laughed like a hyena and brandished a contract before me. Although I had not signed anything I could see my name upon it in my own hand.

"A psychic signature" he explained "written when you accepted the terms of our bargain."

I had long believed that the subcommittee which had designed the SS Pioneer had made the wrong decision when they opted for a warping engine rather than a legal department. To be able to travel at six times the speed of light is in not, in my opinion, an adequate replacement for a team of learned men who appreciate the finer points of contract law. At the next staff meeting - assuming we aren't all sold into slavery - I will raise the question of whether anyone wants to undertake a correspondence course in basic legal procedures.

"You cannot cage us" I told the genie firmly.

"You are wrong, human, for already one of your kind is in my cage". He snapped his finger and the consultant John, barred like a convict, jerked onto the bridge.

"Dammit, Butch, I'm a freelance mineralogist not a wild animal. I cannot and will not be held against my will by this no good mystical space gypsy."

"Calm yourself, John, we're working on a solution to this minor difficulty" I assured him.

"I could offer to swap my diamond ring for John's freedom" offered Carol Richmond.

"Pah" snorted Potternob, "what would I want with that tawdry band?"

"It's a real diamond" she insisted.

"Ali-ka-shazam!" he exclaimed and the ring turned to paper before our very eyes.

"Dammit, Butch, I'm a freelance mineralogist not a cast member in an amateur production of Cinderella. Things can't just change into other things - that isn't how minerals work."

"But the human mind is so easily convinced" laughed Potternob. "You believed it was a diamond ring so it appeared to be a diamond ring."

"In that case your contract is invalid" I said with inspiration.

"On the contrary - if you read the small print it says that you need only be satisfied with your half of the bargain at the time the contract was psychically signed. Anything which happens subsequently is irrelevant."

"That is despicable" I said firmly.

"Well maybe if you'd hired a legal team instead of insisting on a warping engine you might not have ended up in this mess."

"You mean you can read my mind?" I gasped.

"Only when there is something in it to read" he replied. "You needn't think you could slip a telemat garter onto the consultant John's leg and emit him out of the cage either - my cage is surrounded by an impenetrable energy fence."

"Dammit, Butch, I'm a freelance mineralogist not a goldfish. Either get me out of here or I'll go stir crazy again."

"But any move I make is instantly read by the space genie" I explained.

"Then dammit, Butch, find someone whose mind cannot be read."

I had a feeling the consultant John was trying to give me a hint. Certainly his wildly gesturing body language implied it. I thought about Carol Richmond but Potternob simply laughed.

"That puny female with her mind reading playing card act cannot help you now."

I had a sudden inspiration. I suggested that Carol Richmond show Potternob how her prestidigitatiary skills had advanced and, despite his protestations, she whipped out a pack of cards and tried to deceive him as to which card she was about to secrete in her brassiere. I silently rushed to the stationary cupboard and knocked on the door. A slip of paper was pushed through the keyhole.

"We're all out at the moment. Please leave a message at the bottom of this sheet. Thank you, the lunatics."

I wasn't going to be fooled by their cunning ruse. Unless they had set up some kind of automatic paper-pushing key hole augmentation device they were in that stationary cupboard. I launched myself at the cupboard door and it yielded at the eighth attempt. I landed on the floor with a bump, a fall worsened considerably when some sort of automatic paper-pushing keyhole augmentation device fell from its table and landed on my chest. The cupboard was, as the nursery rhyme told us at the Central City Kindergarten, bare. The question of where the lunatics had gone would have to wait. At the very least it would give us something to ponder during our years of slavery in the sludge mines. I am dictating this final message from my chair on the bridge of the Pioneer. Potternob the space genie has at least given us that courtesy. I would credit him with some honour had he not done so in exchange for Carol Richmond agreeing to tell him how she knew he'd selected the seven of spades.