‘Dunno.’ Dorothy gave her an apologetic shrug. ‘Bigger on the inside? Come on, we’d better get up to the control cabin. The Squidget is pretty intuitive when it comes to our technology, but it does occasionally get some of the fine details wrong.’

Will shot her a look. ‘The fine details?’

‘Yeah. When I first got it, I hooked it up to one of my motorbike engines. Worked pretty well, but it got confused as to which control was the brake and which was the throttle. Made for an interesting test drive.’

‘Great.’ Will sighed. ‘I’m the one who has to drive this thing, remember?’

‘All the interface connections look pretty good to me,’ said Sam looking up from her laptop. ‘But we should do a full diagnostic check of the controls before we go any further.’

‘Agreed,’ said Will firmly.

The three of them re-entered the lift and ascended the final 20 feet to the probe’s nose-cone, ducking in through the airlock and squeezing into the cabin. The slick, vine-like tendrils from the Squidget were visible everywhere, integrating themselves with Virgil’s control systems.

Will swung himself into the centre of the three padded seats, Sam sliding into the seat next to him and they began to run through the diagnostic checks. Knowing better than to try and assist on a process with which she had no experience, Dorothy stood to one side, watching as the two of them went through what was obviously a well-rehearsed routine. They worked well together, calmly anticipating what the other was about to do, responding to instructions quickly and without fuss. They made a good team. She supposed that they were an equally well-matched couple.

As if aware that she was thinking about him, Will suddenly turned and looked straight at her. Dorothy felt her cheeks flush, but Will was too hyped-up to notice, his eyes wide with excitement.

‘It’s incredible, Dot, this thing of yours has managed to hook itself in to every one of our systems. It even seems to be capable of taking direct instruction from the flight computer.’

‘So it’s got the brakes and throttle the right way round this time?’

Sam nodded. ‘You said that the Squidget was intuitive; well I’d go further than that. It seems to understand the fundamental basics of this vehicle so well that I’d go so far as to suggest that it has some mild empathic or telepathic ability.’

‘Intuition,’ Dorothy said.

‘Well, I’m basing that on observations of—’

‘I was talking about the Squidget. Might just be highly intuitive.’ Dorothy clapped her hands together in anticipation. ‘Anyway. If everyone’s happy that things are in working order, let’s get going.’

‘Now, hold on just one minute,’ said Sam firmly. ‘You’re a 50-year-old woman who has never been into space before.’

Dorothy gave Will a cool glance. ‘So when he talked about me, it was about my age?’