Part 21 (1/2)

'Not so fast,' said the head, which had now appeared, magnified, on the bathroom door. 'It takes more than disconnecting to cut me off, Hillman Hunter.'

Hillman dropped his trousers in shock, back-pedalling on to the toilet.

'What in the name of all that's sacred?' he gasped. 'How did you do that?'

The head scoffed. 'This? You call this doing something? Here I am ready to hand you the ultimate power trip, and you think throwing a projection on a flat surface with a metal frame is doing something? Hillman, my friend, you are an ignorant pormwrangler. No offence.'

Hillman hadn't been taking offence, until he heard the words 'no offence'. A thought occurred to him.

'Are you from Nano? Is that it? Was I b.l.o.o.d.y right all the time?' Hillman had been selling the Nano line for so long that sometimes he half sold himself.

The head laughed so hard that he was forced to breathe into a paper bag.

'No, you weren't right, stupid monkey. There is no planet Nano.' And then his mouth twitched in a sly grin. 'Not yet, there isn't.'

'Go on,' said Hillman, his nose for a deal completely overriding his profound scepticism.

'I have been looking for an investment on your planet, which won't be around for long, by the way. The Sub-Etha spat out this little compound, and it seems to me that all your elderly rich people would fork over every gold coin they possessed if someone could actually take them to Nano before the Earth explodes. And once they arrived at the mythical Nano, then they would surely need a supreme leader.'

Supreme leader, thought Hillman, and then: This is such a crock of cow s.h.i.+te This is such a crock of cow s.h.i.+te.

Suddenly his Nano's voice whispered to him, as it often did when his life was at an important crossroads: Take heed, Hillers. This fool can do more for you than he knows. The apoxy-lips is coming and it's time to be off this planet Take heed, Hillers. This fool can do more for you than he knows. The apoxy-lips is coming and it's time to be off this planet.

I knew there was an x, thought Hillman. Aloud, he said: 'It would take one bejaysus of a convincing argument for this scam to work.'

The face's grin grew a couple of incisors wider. 'How about a big s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p just appearing out of thin air? Do you think that would persuade the other monkeys?'

Hillman let the monkey comment pa.s.s; this was business, after all. 'Got any robots?'

'I can do better than that,' said Zaphod Beeblebrox, for of course it was he. 'I can get you a floating head.'

Nano So now Hillman Hunter was the big boss on the planetoid, presiding over eighty-seven elderly rich people and their staff. He was wealthy and powerful, but never seemed to have a minute to himself to enjoy it. Retired rich folk, he was quickly finding out, were the most demanding people in the Galaxy. Nothing was ever good enough or ready fast enough. It didn't help that the Magrathean planet builders were dawdling over the snag list, making a big fuss over every detail as if no one had told them that the houses would need roofs or floors.

'You want windows too?' the foreman had said, eyebrows almost taking flight in shock. 'You should've said that six months ago. My boys would've put them in had we only known. If you want windows now we have to hold off on the plumbers, who are already on site by the way. And that won't please the painters, who are in after the plumbers. And some of the painters are married to the plumbers, which will cause tension in the household. And we're short on workplace ma.s.seuses at the moment, so there's going to be some nasty lactic acid build-up in some of my boys' shoulders. At the end of the day, it's your money and your decision. All I'm saying is that you should have said something earlier when it was convenient, instead of throwing the entire project into financial freefall with your wild demands.'

Guide Note: In all of recorded history, there is only one confirmed instance of a builder acceding to a change in the plans without lapsing into histrionics. This happened in the case of Mr Carmen Ghettim, a Betelgeusean auto dealer who sent plan revisions back in time to inform the builder of the changes before the project started. It should be pointed out that Mr Ghettim had the note delivered by a particularly vicious lantern-jawed terrier.

When he wasn't negotiating with builders, Hillman spent his time trying to find a G.o.d suitable to rule the planet, a task which was not proving as enjoyable as he had envisaged. Hillman had imagined himself engaging in philosophical conversations on the nature of happiness, or being wowed by awesome displays of G.o.dly power. Instead he had been forced to grind his way through a sludge of padded resumes in which demi-G.o.ds tried to make themselves sound a lot more significant than they actually were.

Hillman quickly realized that when a G.o.d put in a line on page two about taking a sabbatical for divine contemplation, that actually meant that he had been unemployed for the past ten thousand years. When a G.o.d claimed to have gradual meteorological influence, it simply meant that he looked up the forecast and then claimed to be responsible for whatever weather happened. And if a G.o.d was making a big deal out of his omnipresence, there was a very good chance that he had a twin brother floating around somewhere.

Dross, thought Hillman dolefully. Dross and steamers. Not one nugget of quality. Dross and steamers. Not one nugget of quality.

He was just consigning the latest batch of applications to his desk incinerator when Buff Orpington stuck his head around the door.

'Yep, Buff. Are we set?'

Buff's jowly face wobbled. 'All ready, Hillman. We're of a mind to kick some a.s.s.'

Hillman's mood was not improved by these fighting words.

Kick some a.s.s? Most of the colonists can barely move faster than a slow jog. Any a.s.ses they're going to kick would have to be stationary, soft and low-slung.

The a.s.ses in question were the drooping b.u.t.tocks of Nano's western colonists, who had kidnapped Cong's French chef for religious reasons, the reason being that they were Tyromancers who firmly believed in divination through the medium of semi-congealed cheese, and Jean Claude's signature dish was a heavenly four-cheese quiche with capers and smoked salmon. The Tyromancers were fine with the capers and salmon, but had decided that the cheesy filling was heresy.

The Magratheans warned me things like this might happen, Hillman realized dolefully. Moving planet is the most traumatic thing that can happen to a being, other than being slathered in barbecue sauce and then dropped into a pit with the Bugblatter Beast of Traal, whatever that is. People become fanatical about what they left behind. This Tyromancy started out as a bit of a hobby on Earth but has become a huge obsession on Nano. Aseed Preflux has managed to convert his entire settlement. Moving planet is the most traumatic thing that can happen to a being, other than being slathered in barbecue sauce and then dropped into a pit with the Bugblatter Beast of Traal, whatever that is. People become fanatical about what they left behind. This Tyromancy started out as a bit of a hobby on Earth but has become a huge obsession on Nano. Aseed Preflux has managed to convert his entire settlement.

Hillman followed Buff outside and it occurred to him that from the rear Buff looked like a grizzly bear squashed into plaid trousers and a windbreaker; a stout hairball of a man whose arm hair actually swished in the wind.

In the town square, the troops were lined up ready for inspection, and the line was even worse than Hillman had imagined. There were no staff left, not a single one.

He rounded on Buff Orpington. 'Where are the personal trainers?'

'Gone.'

'Not Lewis?'

'All of them.'

'And the beauty therapists?'

'We haven't seen a beauty therapist for nearly a week. My Cristelle hasn't had a manicure in ten days. She's at her wits' end.'

Hillman was shocked. 'Ten days! That's barbaric. Why didn't someone tell me?'

'You were busy with the interviews. This place is falling apart, Hillman. We have barely half a dozen chefs left for the entire town. People are being forced to ' Buff took a deep breath to steady himself 'cook for themselves.'

Hillman's Irish temper flared. 'We did not pay several enormous fortunes to cook for ourselves. What about contracts? These people all signed contracts.'

Buckeye Brown, a Texan oilman, piped up from the line: 'My guy, Kiko, told me to stick my contract where the sun don't s.h.i.+ne. He said that this is a new world and we should all be equal. He said we were treating the servants like slaves.'

Hillman was appalled. This was what happened without a divinely ordained chain of command.

'This has got to end. First we rebuff the invaders, then we get our staff back from the wild for their own good. How can young, fit people with no business skills hope to survive on this verdant new world, bejaysus?' The 'bejaysus' was almost an afterthought. Hillman was so agitated that he nearly forgot who he was pretending to be.

Buckeye glanced gloomily at the toes of his Ferragamo alligator moccasins, which he was almost certain would scuff in the wild. 'You want us to go into the wild? My daddy told me about it, but I never done been there.'

You never done been to school neither, thought Hillman. 'We're not going into the wild, Mr Brown. Sure, that's a game for the young people. No, we'll tempt those rascals back with Premium Plus Apartments.'

Buff was horrified. 'Not lagoon view Premium Plus?'

'If necessary.'

'With twenty-four-hour concierge service?'

'I doubt it. The concierge's team jumped s.h.i.+p a month ago. We'll have to give the concierges apartments. Maybe gym members.h.i.+ps too.'

'But the concierges can't service themselves,' wailed Buff. 'That's just insanity. Has the world gone mad entirely?'

Like all good salesmen, Hillman was in quick with the solution. 'Robots, laddie. We'll get robots. I hear the Sirius Corporation has service androids with genuine people personalities. It's perfect, what could go wrong?'