Three

When the deafening roar and the bone-grinding shaking had stopped, and after the last piece of plaster had fallen on his head, Tintin opened his eyes. "Well," he said shakily, "the earth moved for me."

Katarina sat up, blinking dust and gritty debris from her eyes. "We're still alive?"

"I think so. I mean, I'm pretty sure we are."

"Oh."

"I think it was just an earthquake."

"Oh!"

He rolled off her and onto his back before reaching out and rubbing her arm lightly. "Well?" he said, grinning. "I guess we got our lifetime after all."

"Oh!" She smiled at him, but it wasn't a proper smile: her eyes looked panic-stricken and she seemed slightly embarrassed as she pulled away from him. "I'm sorry, Tintin, but I'm just so busy right now."

"What?" he asked, puzzled.

"Y'know, with school and dancing. Besides, the Academy doesn't really let us have boyfriends."

"What?"

She slid off the bed and backed out of the room. "I'm going to go now. But I had a lovely time with you last night."

"Wait, what?" He sat up and stared at her.

"Dinner was just lovely. And you are such a great guy." She picked up her shoes and continued to back away.

"Oh. I see."

"Right. So… Goodbye?"

"Yeah. 'Bye."

He lay back and closed his eyes. A few seconds later he heard the click of the front door as she let herself out. Unbelievable! She lied to get me into bed! And a sad little voice added; And I still didn't manage to get laid.

The bed dipped and creaked as Snowy jumped up beside him and lay down. "At least you love me," Tintin said morosely.

You there! Feed me! Snowy thought.

They lay like that for a few minutes as the radio played on.

– "like to apologise to my wife and Vikki the weathergirl. And I'd like to add that Newshound Dave is a really nice bloke and a joy to work with" –

x

Well, Tintin thought as he ran through the streets, at least the world hasn't ended!

He was on his way to the Observatory again, to see what Professor Phostle had to say about it. So far, every news channel was running with the theory that Phostle's calculations were wrong, and that the meteor had come close to the earth without actually hitting it. But something had crashed to earth: it caused the tremendous earthquake and a mini tsunami. Apparently, the waves in the Atlantic at the moment were remarkably high.

He reached the Observatory and put his finger to on the doorbell, only removing it when the gruff custodian finally opened the door.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the man snapped.

"Did ya hear?" Tintin cried. "We're not dead!" He hugged the man quickly and dashed off shouting; "We're not dead! The end of the world was postponed! Happy days!"

In no time at all he had completed the circuit of public exhibitions and was back the observation deck. He gave a perfunctory knock, opened the door –

– and got a book to the face.

It came out of nowhere, hitting him spine-first on the forehead. "Ow! Holy cow!" He ducked out of the way, holding his aching head as Doctor Lewethwaite tore out of the room. Phostle had an armful of books – voluminous tomes, every one of them – and was throwing them at the retreating scientist with gusto. "You bastard! You complete fool! Carry the six, I told you! I said it! I said, carry the damned six!"

Still rubbing his head, Tintin interrupted him. "What are you talking about?" he asked, astonished. "What did he do?"

"That idiot!" Phostle said with a grimace. "He made a mistake in the calculations. He forgot to carry the bloody six."

"And?"

"And we were out by about 48000 kilometres! Pay attention, lad! The meteor came close, but passed us by. It came and went without destroying us. It would have been such a beautiful, magnificent cataclysm too…" he added sorrowfully.

"Yeah? Well, never mind, Professor, you've got it to look forward to," Tintin said dryly. "What caused the earthquake then?"

"Professor! Professor!" Doctor Lewethwaite returned, shouting excitedly and waving what looked to be a giant barcode printed onto light-weight x-ray film. "Look!" he said, showing the film to Phostle. "It's just been developed. Marvellous, no?"

Phostle took the film and held it up to the light. "Unbelievable," he exclaimed. "Look there!" He waved the film about, pointing to a large group of lines in the centre of the barcode.

"Uranium?" Lewethwaite asked breathlessly.

"Not on your life!" Phostle declared. "By the rings of Saturn! It's prodigious!" He shoved the film at Tintin and began to waltz with Doctor Lewethwaite.

Tintin stared at the barcode. "I don't know what I'm looking at," he said flatly. "It might be prodigious, but it's all Greek to me."

"This is a sensational discovery," Phostle declared with a flourish. "That, my young friend, is a brand new metal! We have just detected a brand new metal! A metal hitherto completely unknown!"

"Oh," said Tintin, completely under-whelmed by the announcement.

"You've heard of the spectroscope, yes?" Phostle asked.

"Er, I don't know. Maybe?"

"It's an instrument that enables us to discover elements in the stars. Elements not yet isolated or found in their natural state here on earth. This is a spectroscopic photograph of the meteor that brushed past us today. Each of these lines and groups of lines is characteristic of a metal. Those lines in the centre represent a metal which exists on the meteor but not on earth. You follow me?"

"Um. I think so."

"I, Decimus Phostle, have discovered a new metal. I shall give my name to it: Phostlite."

"Congratulations, Professor," Tintin said, shaking the Professor's hand. He knew it wouldn't be as easy as Phostle said: at that very moment, hundreds of thousands of scientists at observatories all over the world were having the same thoughts. Without a piece of the metal, the Professor stood very little chance of actually getting it named after him. After all, he was just the guy who inaccurately predicted the end of the world and caused a global panic. The media was going to crucify him over the next few days.

"So what caused the earthquake?" Tintin asked casually. "If the meteor didn't actually collide, that is."

"D'you like sausages?" Phostle asked suddenly.

Tintin frowned. He didn't see the connection between sausages and earthquakes. "Well, yeah, I guess," he said.

"Lewethwaite," Phostle said. The scientist stood to attention. "Go and fetch us some breakfast rolls. I'm bloody starving. We've been up all night," he added to Tintin.

"I think most people have," Tintin replied sardonically. "Half of the city is in the middle of a riot. There's looting all over the place."

"As for the earthquake," Phostle said, ignoring him, "I would imagine it was caused by a small part of the meteor breaking off and crash landing. As soon as we know where it fell, we will be able to" –

"In the Arctic Ocean," Tintin supplied, checking his phone.

"What?"

"I said it landed in the Arctic Ocean," Tintin replied. He showed the professor his phone, and the internet page he had loaded onto it. "It's all over the news," he added. "Haven't you checked the internet yet?"

"No. The computer lab is all the way downstairs."

Doctor Lewethwaite returned, carrying three breakfast rolls and a copy of The Daily Reporter. "Professor," he said, "listen to this: 'The polar station on Cape Morris, Greenland, reports that a meteorite has fallen in the Arctic Ocean. A group of seal-hunters who were out illegally clubbing baby seals saw a ball of fire cross the sky and disappear over the horizon. A few seconds later, the earth shook violently and icebergs around them started to crack.'"

"Oh, damn it all!" Phostle cried. "Bloody ocean!"

"What's wrong?" Tintin asked.

"Sod it all! The waves have engulfed it, that's what's wrong. Which means those show-boaters in the government, with their fancy research grants and their submersible research vehicles, will get their hands on it first."

"Ah. And you lose your phostlite."

"The hell with the phostlite! I've just lost my reputation!" Phostle sat down heavily at the table and put his head in his hands. "Now I'll just be known as that bloke that messed up the end of the world. That meteorite would have saved me."

Tintin pulled Google up on his phone and typed something in. He stared at it for a few seconds, reading carefully, before showing it to the professor. "It didn't sink," he said. "See?"

Phostle looked at the phone. His face started off distraught with the knowledge that he was ruined, but slowly lit up with a gleeful smile.

"It didn't sink!" he shouted. Aeroplanes had already been over the area: the meteor was large enough to be buoyant on the cold waters of the Arctic. Like an iceberg, the majority of it was underwater, but aerial photography proved that it was still there.

"So what happens now?" Tintin asked.

"Now it's a race," Phostle said grimly. "Lewethwaite!" he roared. "Get the Dean on the 'phone! We need money! Tell me, young man," he added, turning back to Tintin, "you wouldn't happen to know anyone with a ship, would you?"

Tintin scratched his chin thoughtfully. "You know what?" he said at last. "I think I do. I have to go, Professor. I need to see a man about a boat."

x

La Bateau Noir was an old pub near the wharf. It wasn't a well-known place, and it certainly wasn't a tourist trap. It was just another old pub – slightly run-down and a bit wore-out – on a dingy side-street. It was a busy little place though, considering its lack of marketing. There were three men outside it, pints in hand while they smoked their cigarettes, and as Tintin pushed the door open he had to stand back to allow two men to leave. Inside, there were a few booths along the wall under the long window, all of which had people sitting in them, and a few more spare parts propped up the bar on bar-stools.

The man Tintin was looking for was sitting the furthest booth from the door. "Hello, Captain," Tintin said with a grin as he slid into the booth.

Captain Haddock, who was tucking into a plate of shepherd's pie, looked up and nodded. He looked well, Tintin decided. He looked a lot better than he used to, that was for sure. The Captain's face had filled out, and he wasn't as pale and pallid as he used to be. He looked healthier. His black hair still stuck up scruffily, though, and he still sported a beard.

"Fancy a pint?" the Captain offered. He signalled to thin, middle-aged woman with a pinched face, who was standing behind the bar.

"Yeah, ok," Tintin said agreeably. It had been a good afternoon. Very productive. The bones of a polar research team had been put together, and Tintin was hoping to go with them. It would certainly be a feather in his professional cap.

"'Nother pint, love," the Captain said when the thin-faced woman finally sidled over to their booth.

Tintin smiled happily at her when she glanced at him, and she looked at him as though he was mad.

"You're happy," the Captain said when she was shuffling back to the bar. "It's been a long time since old Femke's made a young man smile like that."

"I like to smile," Tintin replied. He watched as the Captain took a sip of the pint that had sat beside his plate. "I thought you weren't drinking any more?"

"That?" The Captain looked at his beer. "That's not drink. That's just a pint."

"It's still alcohol."

"Naaah! Get away! A real drink's whisky. Or rum. Even vodka, but that's mainly for the lasses. This is just a pint."

"I'm pretty sure the A.A. doesn't allow beer," Tintin said thoughtfully.

"Oh. That lot. I got kicked out of that." The Captain put his pint down and looked mildly annoyed. "Sour bunch of anthracites."

"What happened?" Tintin sat back and waited for Femke to deposited his pint on the table. He paid her and, after assuring the Captain that he wasn't hungry, gestured for the Captain to explain.

The Captain rolled his eyes. "It was an accident. I didn't think. I just sort of assumed that they were all like me, y'know? That they were giving up the hard stuff, but they could still go out and have a pint afterwards."

"Oh my lord!" Tintin shook his head in despair. "You brought them to a pub?"

"I was being friendly!" the Captain protested. "It was my first time there, so I thought I'd meet a few of them. Get to know them a bit."

"Captain, you can't take alcoholics to the pub!"

"I didn't think they were all alcoholics!"

"They were in an A.A. meeting," Tintin pointed out.

"Yeah. I suppose." The Captain shrugged and went back to his dinner. "Anyway, I found a better one."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. It's the S.S.S."

Tintin thought about it for a moment, half toying with the idea about making a joke about the S.S., but in the end he decided not to bother. "What does it stand for?"

"The Society for Sober Sailors," the Captain supplied. "It's for people like me, who want to give up the hard stuff but can still have a pint every so often."

Tintin shook his head. "Amazing. You've actually managed to find a not-completely-sober sober society. Congratulations, Captain: I think that's actually an achievement."

The Captain wiped his mouth and hands on a napkin and looked pleased. "Thank you very much. I am a pillar of that community."

"I'd say you are. So what are you up to these days?"

The Captain pulled a face. "I was in the bank for most of the day. The cops are releasing the Karaboudjan to me."

"Ah." Tintin's heart sank a little. If the Captain was going straight back onto the Karaboudjan, which was his own ship, he probably wouldn't have the time to go on a jaunt to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. "So you're going back to work?"

"Nope. I don't want to. That ship's been bad luck ever since I got her. How many people have died for that ship?" the Captain asked with a grimace. "No, I couldn't sail her again, knowing she was a drug ship. I'd be haunted."

Tintin brightened up a little. "So what are you going to do?"

"I'm selling her on," the Captain said with a grunt. "I'm selling the whole business. I don't want it any more. Too many bad memories."

"So you're free for the next six months?"

The Captain looked at Tintin suspiciously. There was a look of hopeful expectancy on his face. "Why?" the Captain asked apprehensively.

"There's a polar research expedition coming up, and they need a good captain. Someone who knows the sea and can keep a cool head," Tintin explained.

The Captain looked thoughtful. "Really?" he asked, scratching at his beard. "Hmm. I haven't been near the polar ice caps in ages, mind."

"I don't think they'll care, as long as they get someone who's been there before," Tintin said quickly.

"Let me think about it."

"Don't take too long: we need to leave as soon as possible."

"We?" The Captain looked up sharply. "You're going?"

"Yes!" Tintin gave a bright smile.

"No. Count me out."

"What?" Tintin looked crestfallen. "C'mon, Captain, it'll be fun! Just like old times!"

"I still have nightmares about 'old times'. No."

"But we need you! We need a daring, bold man" –

"No."

– "who can navigate the seas with his eyes closed" –

"No."

– "who laughs in the face of danger" –

"No."

– "and faces insurmountable odds with a cool head!"

"No."

"Aw please? If you don't come," Tintin explained, "it'll just be me with a bunch of really old scientists. It'll be boring."

"You're really not selling this to me," the Captain said. "I'm not going. You're a nice lad, Tintin, but I'm never going anywhere with you again. Bad things happen when you're around."

"You're in the pub with me now," Tintin pointed out.

"Yeah, and I keep waiting for it to explode or something!"

Tintin put his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his fist. "I suppose it's for the best," he said with a sigh. "I mean, it was pretty rough in Bagghar. I don't blame you for being cautious."

"Hmm," said the Captain. "Cautious. Aye."

"I mean, it's not like you're scared or anything."

"Me? Scared! Pah! You bloody wish!"

"And if anyone calls you a coward" –

"Who called me a coward? I'll chin 'em!"

– "You can look them dead in the eye and tell them you were just being cautious."

"I am not afraid," the Captain hissed. He glared at Tintin. "When d'you leave?"

"As soon as we have a captain."

"Then go and get packed." Captain Haddock stood up and put his cap firmly on his head. "You've just got yourself a Captain."

Tintin stood up and held his hand out to his friend. "How's your thirst for adventure, Captain?"

The Captain gave him a look. "Bugger off, will you? Thirst for adventure my arse."

Author's Note: I couldn't do the scene where Tintin realises the meteor wouldn't have sunk: the way I write Snowy, it would have been Tintin explaining to his non-speaking dog about buoyancy v weight, and Snowy thinking things like; "Chicken? Ball? We play now?" It just didn't work (although I must admit it was slightly adorable).

In the original book, when Professor Phostle interrupts Tintin to ask him if he likes Bulls Eyes, it was a quick joke about how scarce certain luxury food-stuffs were at the time (1941 - during World War Two when food was being rationed). The joke didn't work here and wouldn't have made an awful lot of sense, so it was changed to a different joke about being up all night.

To 'chin' someone means to head-butt them.

Herring: You never sign in to comment, so I can't reply to you directly, but I'd like to say that The Shooting Star used to be one of my least favourite Tintin books. Now, however, it's actually one of my favourites. I've been re-reading it obsessively over the last few months, sorting out what scenes need to be changed/language needs to be updated/etc., and where new scenes showing the development of the Captain and Tintin's relationship should be slotted in. The end result means that although the main story will be the same (frantic chase to find the meteor first, while dealing with various acts of sabotage against the Aurora) there will also be a few more laughs on the ship and an ending that is dramatically different from the ending of the original.

Thanks for the reviews, everyone: they're lovely to read in the morning. ;)