Part 17 (1/2)

'Wall, d.a.m.nit,' he croaked. 'Wall.'

The dragons thought this was hilarious and one of them even pulled a cell phone from under a scale to call his weekend buddies.

'Honestly, you have to see this idiot, Burnie. You remember that guy with the wooden legs? Remember we lit him up like a torch? This guy is even funnier. Get up here now.'

More dragons. Froody.

The beasts' wings dipped inside the atmosphere tube, tugging at Zaphod's clothing with their sharp little claws.

'Come on. This is an official presidential jacket. Don't you lizards know who I am?'

Bifrost jumped with the impact of giant footsteps as Heimdall jogged leisurely along the bridge, grin wider than the crooked Mayor of Optimisia with dental implants who has just won the planetary lotto on his birthday and discovered that his chief love rival from high school was recently cuckolded and that the prosecution's case against him has collapsed.

'You didn't make it,' said the G.o.d, eyes magnified by the orange lenses of his ski goggles.

'Are those prescription?' wondered Zaphod.

'You didn't complete your task, Babblepox.'

'It's Beeblebrox,' shouted the frustrated Galactic President. 'You may not realize this, but every time you misp.r.o.nounce my name I feel bad. I'm a positive kind of person, but for some reason that really hurts. It's not funny.'

'I think it's funny, Feeblejocks,' said Heimdall, using his G.o.dly voice-projection powers to broadcast his comments to the dragons, who chuckled fireb.a.l.l.s and smacked wings. 'What do you think, my beautiful pets?'

'I think it's a buffa-bucket of hilariousness,' answered a red striped alpha male hovering above the bridge, his rear legs dangling, which is harder than it looks. 'If you ask me, boss, misp.r.o.nouncing this mortal's name is as close to...'

More sounds came out of his mouth, but they weren't words as such, just shrieks and a few initial consonants which were probably on their way to being swearwords before the pain blotted out any commands from the dragon's parietal lobe.

'What the...' said Heimdall before his jaw dropped. The red striped alpha had simply burst into plasma flame, taken from behind by some sort of missile.

'Wow,' said Zaphod. 'I've often wondered what would happen if a dragon held its breath.'

Another dragon was. .h.i.t, in the shoulder, sending it spinning towards the surface of the planet, leaking ink blots of blue-black smoke.

'Aren't you going to react?' asked Zaphod. 'Don't you have the whole super-speed reaction thing? Or is that just the major G.o.ds?'

Heimdall was goaded into action.

'Fly, my beauties,' he called. 'Hide on the surface.'

The dragons dropped out of their hovering pattern and scattered for cover as far away as they could get from whatever was attacking their comrades. Fast as the dragons were, many could not outrun the slew of spiralling missiles that were hugging the bend of the planet, breaking from the pack when they locked on to a target.

Heimdall collapsed his horn and put an emergency call in to Helheim.

'Hel? We are under attack here!'

'I know,' said the she-devil. 'Don't worry, I've sent a few dozen sh.e.l.ls your way. Can you see the enemy?'

Heimdall was known for being so alert that he needed no sleep. They used to say in the taverns of Scandinavia that he could see gra.s.s grow and hear a leaf fall on the other side of an ocean. But that was a long time ago, and these days Heimdall often snuck off for a snooze after his latte and had been known to miss the sound of Autumn altogether.

'I don't see them. Just missiles coming up from the southern hemisphere.'

Hel hmmmed. 'The southern hemisphere, you say. Not through the Bifrost arch?'

'Nope. I'm looking at the arch. Up from the south definitely.'

'And you can't see any aliens? Maybe green chaps, with lasers or some such?'

Heimdall squeezed Gjallarhorn's shaft until it squeaked. 'No. No zarking aliens, okay? Just groups of blue torpedoes with pinkish trails. A bit like ours, if I remember.'

'No, no,' said Hel in the tone of a guilty teenager blocking her mother at the door to a bedroom which is full of boys and drugs, stolen jewellery and possibly music playing backwards. 'They couldn't be like ours. Ours have red trails. A light red, some would call it puce.'

Heimdall growled as another of his dragons took a hit. 'I don't care what some would call it. Shoot them down, Hel. Can you do that?'

'Erm, yes. I should think so. The computer has... eh... isolated their frequency, so we should be able to send a self-destruct signal, which I am doing... now.'

The remaining missiles exploded in flashes of pink and electric white, gears and pistons thunking into the ice sh.e.l.l.

'Well done,' said Heimdall, tears of relief on his tanned cheeks. 'Odin shall hear of your labours this day.'

'Will he? Would you? That's marvellous. Of course, I could have destroyed those missiles much sooner had they actually been our our missiles, because I already have those frequencies. So obviously they weren't missiles, because I already have those frequencies. So obviously they weren't our our missiles and why would they be, but in case anyone asks, they weren't. Anyone like Odin, for example. Not ours. Got it?' missiles and why would they be, but in case anyone asks, they weren't. Anyone like Odin, for example. Not ours. Got it?'

Heimdall was about to answer when he noticed that Zaphod Beeblebrox had discovered new reserves of energy and was racing just as fast as he could towards the wall.

If he gets over that wall, I am bound to parlay.

In spite of this truth and the recent losses to his dragon brigade, Heimdall's face was smeared with a grin. Beeblebrox had nearly reached the wall, but nearly nearly was about as much use as a flaybooz in any activity involving thumbs bottle-opening, for example, or playing the lute or perhaps. .h.i.tching a ride. The Betelgeusean may as well have been standing still for all the good it would do him. Nothing could outrun a G.o.d in real s.p.a.ce. Even with one footfall to go, Beeblebrox may as well have been a light year away from the wall, wearing a lead jacket and neutronium boots. was about as much use as a flaybooz in any activity involving thumbs bottle-opening, for example, or playing the lute or perhaps. .h.i.tching a ride. The Betelgeusean may as well have been standing still for all the good it would do him. Nothing could outrun a G.o.d in real s.p.a.ce. Even with one footfall to go, Beeblebrox may as well have been a light year away from the wall, wearing a lead jacket and neutronium boots.

Catch Beeblebrox, Heimdall thought and, before the electrical impulses containing this notion had time to fade, he had Zaphod by the throat and pinned to the wall.

'I don't know what you did to my lovely dragons. Whatever it was, it won't help you now.'

Zaphod felt as though a mammaloid was squatting on his chest. Not a nice vegetarian mammaloid either, who had probably sat down by accident and would lumber off as soon as it heard Zaphod's voice. No, a vicious mutant carnivore mammaloid who had gone against the advice of its parents and the herd in general in making the decision to tenderize its prey with b.u.t.tock bounces before consuming it.

'Stupid mutant mammaloid,' huffed Zaphod, woozy with all the running and CO2 inhalation. inhalation.

Heimdall's grip tightened a knuckle. 'Is that it? Are those the last words of the famous President Needlefrocks?'

Zaphod remembered something. 'I'm not the only one with a nickname, am I?'

The G.o.d twitched nervously. 'What are you talking about?'

'Don't bother denying it. You guys all have, like, a secret pet name. A name of power. Thor told me all about it one night on tour, after an open-air gig in a quarry on Zentalquabula. We were so hammered, you have no idea. I kissed a Silagestrian.'

'Liar,' hissed Heimdall.

Zaphod was hurt. 'I'm not proud of it, but I kissed that Silagestrian all right and and its handler.' its handler.'