Dear Diary (continued),

The force of the explosion tore through us as no explosion had ever torn through us before. I’d been near some quite big explosions and the man John said he’d caused some pretty large ones in his career as a mineralogist but nothing had ever been quite as this one was. Fingers didn’t express an opinion as he didn’t feel it was his place so to do and Carol Richmond was much too busy being atomised to say anything objective what so ever.

I was aware, almost immediately, that I was somewhere else. It felt like an endless void and, since I could see neither end nor substance, I decided to adopt that as a high level executive summary with appropriate footnotes.

"Dammit, Butch, I’m a mineralogist not Zero-G tennis ball player. I need minerals beneath my feet or I start to feel light headed. Dammit, you can imagine how I feel with absolutely nothing beneath my feet. Dizzy is only the half of it."

"Do you think we’re…?" began Carol Richmond.

"What?" I asked.

"You know…"

"What?" I said again.

"I don’t like to say."

"Well why did you begin the sentence then?" I will never understand women.

"Dammit, Butch, my fiancé who I will marry when we get back to the Earth in the 28th century means are we dead? As I’m a mineralogist not a theological doctor I can’t say and neither can you because you’re not either. Dammit, Carol, why ask him? He won’t know."

"We are aren’t we – we’re dead" she sighed.

"We cannot be dead" said Fingers quietly. "I am aware that certain primitive cultures have concepts of pseudo-life following death but the scientific evidence proves this is not the case. Death is followed by decomposition and nothing more."

"Dammit, Fingers, I can’t tell if you’re trying to cheer me up or make me sad. On the one hand, being buried means mingling with minerals in a way even I have not yet achieved but on the other hand I don’t want to die without first having married Carol Richmond with all the trimmings, if you know what I mean."

"It certainly gives the impression that we’re not dead" I said. I’d chosen to do "The Four P’s of Inter-Personal Communication Strategies" instead of "Deconstructing Faith – A Beginner’s Guide to Interacting With Superstitious Aliens" at the University of Central City and knew little of spiritual matters. I felt for my pulse and when it boom-boomed as it had always done I felt reasonably confident that I was alive. Human resource policies meant I wasn’t allowed to check the wrists of the man John or Carol Richmond for a pulse so I suggested they do it for themselves. Both reported things were all present and correct.

"So where do you think we are?" asked Carol Richmond.

"I should say we have slipped into a vortex between realities as a result of that explosion" I said.

"The devices I attached to our legs were modified telemat garters" explained Fingers. "The radiation blast caused by the ship exploding has overcharged the garters. I hoped they would absorb just enough radioactive atom power to emit us back to the Pioneer – I hard wired the co-ordinates into our garters and not the Nazi Captain’s. But with too many atoms overwhelming the telemat crystals we have been shunted into a no-where place outside space and time."

"Exactly" I added, taking control of the situation.

"Dammit, Butch, things weren’t so hot in the real world but even a bad situation is better than no situation at all. Unless of course it is a really bad situation in which case all bets are off."

"Fingers, is there any way you can reverse the polarity of the telemat garters and get us out of here?" asked Carol Richmond.

"I could try – I’d need a screwdriver though."

"Here is a screwdriver" I said, my foot banging against something on the mist drenched floor.

"But that is exactly the sort of screwdriver I need" gasped Fingers. "I know of 145 different screwdrivers and of all of them, this is the correct one. I am speechless."

"Dammit, dwarf, you can’t be speechless if you’re talking. Don’t be sloppy."

"Sorry, Mr John" muttered Fingers. I sensed that his self-confidence might be in need of a boost so I paid him the first compliment that sprang to mind.

"Have you lost weight?" I asked.

"Dammit, Butch, we’re floating in a logically impossible void where matter doesn’t exist properly. Of course he’s lost weight – we all have. I could probably toss you in the air with my bare hands if I wanted to."

"Please don’t."

"I don’t want to."

"Good."

"It’s a bit odd though isn’t it" said Carol. "Fingers finding exactly the right screwdriver."

"Yes" I agreed. "With 145 possible screwdrivers and only one actual screwdriver, the odds against it must be… must be…" I thought quickly. "A thousand to one at least."

"Dammit, Butch, I’m a mineralogist not a doer of brainteasers and mind benders but I think your maths might’s got a bit astray there."

"Nonsense" I told him. "If I had a marker pen and flip…" I paused as a marker pen was suddenly in my hand. "…chart" I added. Suddenly there was a flip chart behind me. Carol and the Man John goggled. Fingers didn’t display any human emotion as he is an alien and therefore different. I’m sure his facial expressions are as valid and diverse as ours but to my untrained eyes his face was as a rubber mask, unmoving save for the occasional breath or word.

"Dammit, Butch, that’s one heck of a trick. It puts Carol’s rabbit-out-of-a-hat routine in the shade."

"I’m up to six rabbits or eight doves" she murmured. "But I would like to know how you did it."

"I… I…" I began. "I… have no idea."

"I think" began Fingers, "we are in a realm where the normal rules of physics no longer apply."