Dear Diary (continued),

Fingers looked to me for inspiration, leadership and the saving of his life. I looked back with a reassuring angling of the eyebrows.

"Can this little fellow really so skilled in mechanical matters?" asked the captain.

"Oh yes" I enthused, "he really is first class. Well, technically he’s third class because he’s a non-Earth native with less than seven years in the service and he hasn’t passed his fellowship exams – grades five and six – since joining the crew of the Pioneer."

"You would trust him with your life?"

"Of course we would" cried Carol Richmond.

"Dammit, Nazi Captain, I’m a mineralogist not a sappy, misty eyed, soft focus, emotional interest character in a soap opera written by committee and targeted at a lowest common denominator audience such as those made in the twentieth century but now no longer produced because we’re from the twenty eighth century and have higher forms of entertainment, but I have come to regard Fingers as someone I met and would like to meet again. If alcohol wasn’t very likely to kill him I’d buy him 0.56 of a litre of beer."

"Then we will all go to the engine room and this little fellow will get us out of harms way before the Ottoman missile blows us to bits."

"I was about to suggest the same thing" I assured him.

"Your status has been revoked – you are no longer entitled to make suggestions. And if he dies, you all die and you die first. Unless we all do. Am I clear?"

"Yes" I lied.

We made our collective way down shaking corridors to the engine room. It was a strangely cramped room with an eerie red glow coming form the nutronium crystals which powered the great ship.

"Do you know anything about nutronium drives?" asked the captain.

"Not really" I confessed.

"I was talking to the sub… non-human" replied the captain sharply.

"I am skilled in nutronium matters" confirmed Fingers. He took a look at the nutronium drive and sucked a thoughtful tooth.

"I can make a life saving adjustment to the drive but it would be dangerous. Fortunately I have some anti-nutronium radiation detectors in my pocket. He reached within his clothes (which I had never been entirely sure whether they were garments or if his skin looked like that – galactic harassment laws meant I was not able to ask him anything which might be misconstrued as a non-permissible personal approach).

"Give me an anti-nutronium detector… quickly" said the captain, a rising panic in his voice. Obviously in this universe they hadn’t discovered that radiation is in fact a scientific myth perpetuated by the ignorant and those with shares in the lead industry.

Fingers handed him an anti-nutronium detector – which looked remarkably like a telemat garter but which was almost certainly not a telemat garter but simply the product of an unimaginative mind who produced all his gizmos and gadgets along similar aesthetic lines. He passed anti-nutronium detectors to myself, Carol Richmond and the man John before putting one on himself.

Suddenly the ship lurched quite alarmingly – the missile was getting closer with each passing miss. The space Nazi captain banged his head on a beam and was knocked unconscious.

"Quick" I said, "let’s make a run for it."

"And go where?" demanded the man John. "Dammit, Butch, I’m a mineralogist not a performing mouse. I won’t be rushed from place to place with no hope of escape from this endless maze. If we run from here, where will we go?"

"John’s right" said Carol, ganging up on me simply because they were going to get married when they got back to the earth.

"If we wait a moment, my plan will get us away from here" mumbled Fingers.

"Then get on with it" roared John. "I’m not going to die here and now, today. I’ve never been to a zanium mine – I promised my geology teacher that I’d see a zanium mine before I die and I’m a man of my word. Especially when it comes to minerals. Mostly when it comes to minerals actually. I’ve been known to let non-mineral promises pass by unfulfilled."

"Shhh John" shushed Carol Richmond. "Fingers is trying to work."

"I just need to reprogram this circuit here and adjust the frequency of the output modulation computer…"

"This sounds awfully dangerous. I don’t think I can authorise it without a proper risk-analysis matrix. I’m sorry but there are procedures to follow when a captain’s life is at stake."

"We don’t have time for paperwork" cried Carol.

"Dammit, Butch, just give the dwarf the go-ahead" added John.

"I can’t. But I can do something almost as good"

"What’s that?"

"John Manly, I officially appoint you as a deputy risk coordinating analyst on board but not exclusively limited to the SS Pioneer."

"Right."

"Carol Richmond, I officially appoint you as an assistant deputy risk coordinating analyst on board but not exclusively limited to the SS Pioneer. You both have six months to pass your Institute exams and become a certified deputy risk coordinating analyst and certified assistant deputy risk coordinating analyst respectively."

"Captain Maitland…" began Carol.

"This means that we now have a risk quorum and can therefore undertake an emergency risk analysis workshop."

"Dammit, Butch…"

"I’ve finished" said Fingers chirpily.

"Press the damn button, dammit" said John as the ship gave another of its stomach churning lurches.

"Yes, please, press the button" pleaded Carol Richmond.

"I hereby call this risk analysis quorum workshop to order" I began.

"Butch!"

"Captain Maitland!"

"I am skilled in circuit reprogramming – there is no need to be alarmed".

I took the views of my crew on board but still felt the working group was necessary to save our lives correctly.

"I will be chair – Carol, if you could minute, John, you will be official seconder for those points which need seconding."

"Dammit" shouted John. He rushed over to the control panel and thumped the large red button which Fingers had been pointing to for most of the last two minutes. The engines roared like a dinosaur which had something it felt strongly about and we were blasted into atoms by a tidal wave of red nutronium energy.