Part 10 (2/2)
Zaphod swayed.
”You mean I had it with me all the time?”
”Zarniwoop smiled. He lifted up his briefcase and opened it.
He twisted a single switch inside it.
”Goodbye artificial Universe,” he said, ”h.e.l.lo real one!”
The scene before them s.h.i.+mmered briefly and reappeared exactly as before.
”You see?” said Zarniwoop, ”exactly the same.”
”You mean,” repeated Zaphod tautly, ”that I had it with me all the time?”
”Oh yes,” said Zarniwoop, ”of course. That was the whole point.”
”That's it,” said Zaphod, ”you can count me out, from hereon in you can count me out. I've had all I want of this. You play your own games.”
”I'm afraid you cannot leave,” said Zarniwoop, ”you are entwined in the Improbability field. You cannot escape.”
He smiled the smile that Zaphod had wanted to hit and this time Zaphod hit it.
Chapter 13
Ford Prefect bounded up to the bridge of the Heart of Gold.
”Trillian! Arthur!” he shouted, ”it's working! The s.h.i.+p's reactivated!”
Trillian and Arthur were asleep on the floor.
”Come on you guys, we're going off, we're off,” he said kicking them awake.
”Hi there guys!” twittered the computer, ”it's really great to be back with you again, I can tell you, and I just want to say that ...”
”Shut up,” said Ford, ”tell us where the h.e.l.l we are.”
”Frogstar World B, and man it's a dump,” said Zaphod running on to the bridge, ”hi, guys, you must be so amazingly glad to see me you don't even find words to tell me what a cool frood I am.”
”What a what?” said Arthur blearily, picking himself up from the floor and not taking any of this in.
”I know how you feel,” said Zaphod, ”I'm so great even I get tongue-tied talking to myself. Hey it's good to see you Trillian, Ford, Monkeyman. Hey, er, computer...?”
”Hi there, Mr Beeblebrox sir, sure is a great honor to...”
”Shut up and get us out of here, fast fast fast.”
”Sure thing, fella, where do you want to go?”
”Anywhere, doesn't matter,” shouted Zaphod, ”yes it does!” he said again, ”we want to go to the nearest place to eat!”
”Sure thing,” said the computer happily and a ma.s.sive explosion rocket the bridge.
When Zarniwoop entered a minute or so later with a black eye, he regarded the four wisps of smoke with interest.
Chapter 14
Four inert bodies sank through spinning blackness. Consciousness had died, cold oblivion pulled the bodies down and down into the pit of unbeing. The roar of silence echoed dismally around them and they sank at last into a dark and bitter sea of heaving red that slowly engulfed them, seemingly for ever.
After what seemed an eternity the sea receded and left them lying on a cold hard sh.o.r.e, the flotsam and jetsam of the stream of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Cold spasms shook them, lights danced sickeningly around them. The cold hard sh.o.r.e tipped and span and then stood still. It shone darkly it was a very highly polished cold hard sh.o.r.e.
A green blur watched them disapprovingly.
It coughed.
”Good evening, madam, gentlemen,” it said, ”do you have a reservation?”
Ford Prefect's consciousness snapped back like elastic, making his brain smart. He looked up woozily at the green blur.
”Reservation?” he said weakly. ”Yes, sir,” said the green blur.
”Do you need a reservation for the afterlife?”
In so far as it is possible for a green blur to arch its eyebrows disdainfully, this is what the green blur now did.
”Afterlife, sir?” it said.
Arthur Dent was grappling with his consciousness the way one grapples with a lost bar of soap in the bath.
”Is this the afterlife?” he stammered.
”Well I a.s.sume so,” said Ford Prefect trying to work out which way was up. He tested the theory that it must lie in the opposite direction from the cold hard sh.o.r.e on which he was lying, and staggered to what he hoped were his feet.
”I mean,” he said, swaying gently, ”there's no way we could have survived that blast is there?”
”No,” muttered Arthur. He had raised himself on to his elbows but it didn't seem to improve things. He slumped down again.
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