Part 1 (2/2)
”A female from the same planet. They are the last.”
”Good, good,” beamed Halfrunt, ”Who else?”
”The man Prefect.”
”Yes?”
”And Zaphod Beeblebrox.”
For an instant Halfrunt's smile flickered.
”Ah yes,” he said, ”I had been expecting this. It is most regrettable.”
”A personal friend?” inquired the Vogon, who had heard the expression somewhere once and decided to try it out.
”Ah, no,” said Halfrunt, ”in my profession you know, we do not make personal friends.”
”Ah,” grunted the Vogon, ”professional detachment.”
”No,” said Halfrunt cheerfully, ”we just don't have the knack.”
He paused. His mouth continued to smile, but his eyes frowned slightly.
”But Beeblebrox, you know,” he said, ”he is one of my most profitable clients. He had personality problems beyond the dreams of a.n.a.lysts.”
He toyed with this thought a little before reluctantly dismissing it.
”Still,” he said, ”you are ready for your task?”
”Yes.”
”Good. Destroy the s.h.i.+p immediately.”
”What about Beeblebrox?”
”Well,” said Halfrunt brightly, ”Zaphod's just this guy, you know?”
He vanished from the screen.
The Vogon Captain pressed a communicator b.u.t.ton which connected him with the remains of his crew.
”Attack,” he said.
At that precise moment Zaphod Beeblebrox was in his cabin swearing very loudly. Two hours ago, he had said that they would go for a quick bite at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, whereupon he had had a blazing row with the s.h.i.+p's computer and stormed off to his cabin shouting that he would work out the Improbability factors with a pencil.
The Heart of Gold's Improbability Drive made it the most powerful and unpredictable s.h.i.+p in existence. There was nothing it couldn't do, provided you knew exactly how improbable it was that the thing you wanted it to do would ever happen.
He had stolen it when, as President, he was meant to be launching it. He didn't know exactly why he had stolen it, except that he liked it.
He didn't know why he had become President of the Galaxy, except that it seemed a fun thing to be.
He did know that there were better reasons than these, but that they were buried in a dark, locked off section of his two brains. He wished the dark, locked off section of his two brains would go away because they occasionally surfaced momentarily and put strange thoughts into the light, fun sections of his mind and tried to deflect him from what he saw as being the basic business of his life, which was to have a wonderfully good time.
At the moment he was not having a wonderfully good time. He had run out of patience and pencils and was feeling very hungry.
”Starpox!” he shouted.
At that same precise moment, Ford Prefect was in mid air. This was not because of anything wrong with the s.h.i.+p's artificial gravity field, but because he was leaping down the stair-well which led to the s.h.i.+p's personal cabins. It was a very high jump to do in one bound and he landed awkwardly, stumbled, recovered, raced down the corridor sending a couple of miniature service robots flying, skidded round the corner, burst into Zaphod's door and explained what was on his mind.
”Vogons,” he said.
A short while before this, Arthur Dent had set out from his cabin in search of a cup of tea. It was not a quest he embarked upon with a great deal of optimism., because he knew that the only source of hot drinks on the entire s.h.i.+p was a benighted piece of equipment produced by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. It was called a Nutri-Matic Drinks Synthesizer, and he had encountered it before.
It claimed to produce the widest possible range of drinks personally matched to the tastes and metabolism of whoever cared to use it. When put to the test, however, it invariably produced a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but nit quite, entirely unlike tea.
He attempted to reason with the thing.
”Tea,” he said.
”Share and Enjoy,” the machine replied and provided him with yet another cup of the sickly liquid.
He threw it away.
”Share and enjoy,” the machine repeated and provided him with another one.
”Share and Enjoy” is the company motto of the hugely successful Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints division, which now covers the major land ma.s.ses of three medium sized planets and is the only part of the Corporation to have shown a consistent profit in recent years.
The motto stands or rather stood in three mile high illuminated letters near the Complaints Department s.p.a.ceport on Eadrax. Unfortunately its weight was such that shortly after it was erected, the ground beneath the letters caved in and they dropped for nearly half their length through the offices of many talented young complaints executives now deceased.
The protruding upper halves of the letters now appear, in the local language, to read ”Go stick your head in a pig”, and are no longer illuminated, except at times of special celebration.
Arthur threw away a sixth cup of the liquid.
”Listen, you machine,” he said, ”you claim you can synthesize any drink in existence, so why do you keep giving me the same undrinkable stuff?”
”Nutrition and pleasurable sense data,” burbled the machine.
”Share and Enjoy.”
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