You push into the throng of creatures, hoping that one amongst them must be a technician of some kind.

But how to ascertain that? Expecting a robot mechanic to be obvious by a grubby overall and a grease-soaked wrench would be far too much of a stereoty...

Oh, no, wait. There's one.

He's not too far from human norms, in that he's bipedal and wearing clothing*. However, he also appears to have a flaky, granite-like epidermis instead of the skin you'd normally expect on a human, and no hair of any kind. He's noticed you looking and cataloguing his physical features. Best talk to him.

"Um, excuse me. Are you a robot mechanic?" you ask, almost tripping over your tongue.

"Heh! You speak InterGal all funny, y'know?" he responds with a friendliness utterly absent from his expression. "Cool beans, let's scratch each other's back and put the kettle on."

Um.

You look around for help, before TRUDI, the ever-trusty AI on your wrist, blips into action. "By the Machine God, you're useless at making conversation, meatbag."

"Hey, take it easy," you answer, bruised from her tone. "I'm just having a bit of trouble finding the right words with this, um, rock-man."

"Well, he seems to be walking away," TRUDI retorts, "but he's signalling you to follow."

So you do.

He leads you away from the crowd of aliens, and into a plush, quiet room full of people dressed in an identical uniform to his*, all sitting around on a series of mismatched sofas. There must be a dozen technicians here.

Perhaps you should engage one with the urgent news about the cleaning bot? Turn to page 45.

If you think you'd rather make friends with them, turn to page 25.

* The grubby overall, remember? It's blue!