The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (27 page)

Modern elevators are strange and complex entities. The ancient electric winch and “maximum-capacity-eight-persons” jobs bear as much relation to a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter as a packet of mixed nuts does to the entire west wing of the Sirian State Mental Hospital.

This is because they operate on the curious principle of “defocused temporal perception.” In other words they have the capacity to see dimly into the immediate future, which enables the elevator to be on the right floor to pick you up even before you knew you wanted it, thus eliminating all the tedious chatting, relaxing and making friends that people were previously forced to do while waiting for elevators.

Not unnaturally, many elevators imbued with intelligence and precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process and finally took to squatting in basements sulking.

An impoverished hitchhiker visiting any planets in the Sirius star system these days can pick up easy money working as a counselor for neurotic elevators.

At the fifteenth floor the elevator doors snapped open quickly.

“Fifteenth,” said the elevator, “and remember, I’m only doing this because I like your robot.”

Zaphod and Marvin bundled out of the elevator which instantly snapped its doors shut and dropped as fast as its mechanism would take it.

Zaphod looked around warily. The corridor was deserted and silent and gave no clue as to where Zarniwoop might be found. All the doors that let off the corridor were closed and unmarked.

They were standing close to the bridge which led across from one tower of the building to the other. Through a large window the brilliant sun of Ursa Minor Beta threw blocks of light in which danced small specks of dust. A shadow flitted past momentarily.

“Left in the lurch by a lift,” muttered Zaphod, who was feeling at his least jaunty.

They both stood and looked in both directions.

“You know something?” said Zaphod to Marvin.

“More than you can possibly imagine.”

“I’m dead certain this building shouldn’t be shaking,” Zaphod said.

It was just a light tremor through the soles of his feet—and another one. In the sunbeams the flecks of dust danced more vigorously. Another shadow flitted past.

Zaphod looked at the floor.

“Either,” he said, not very confidently, “they’ve got some vibro system for toning up your muscles while you work, or …”

He walked across to the window and suddenly stumbled because at that moment his Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses had turned utterly black. A large shadow flitted past the window with a sharp buzz.

Zaphod ripped off his sunglasses, and as he did so the building shook with a thunderous roar. He leaped to the window.

“Or,” he said, “this building’s being bombed!”

Another roar cracked through the building.

“Who in the Galaxy would want to bomb a publishing company?” asked Zaphod, but never heard Marvin’s reply because at that moment the building shook with another bomb attack. He tried to stagger back to the elevator—a pointless maneuver he realized, but the only one he could think of.

Suddenly, at the end of a corridor leading at right angles from this one, he caught sight of a figure as it lunged into view, a man. The man saw him.

“Beeblebrox, over here!” he shouted.

Zaphod eyed him with distrust as another bomb blast rocked the building.

“No,” called Zaphod. “Beeblebrox over here! Who are you?”

“A friend!” shouted back the man. He ran toward Zaphod.

“Oh yeah?” said Zaphod. “Anyone’s friend in particular, or just generally well-disposed to people?”

The man raced along the corridor, the floor bucking beneath his feet like an excited blanket. He was short, stocky and weatherbeaten and his clothes looked as if they’d been twice around the Galaxy and back with him in them.

“Do you know,” Zaphod shouted in his ear when he arrived, “your building’s being bombed?”

The man indicated his awareness.

It suddenly stopped being light. Glancing round at the window to see why, Zaphod gaped as a huge sluglike, gunmetal-green spacecraft crept through the air past the building. Two more followed it.

“The government you deserted is out to get you, Zaphod,” hissed the man. “They’ve sent a squadron of Frogstar Fighters.”

“Frogstar Fighters!” muttered Zaphod. “Zarquon!”

“You get the picture?”

“What are Frogstar Fighters?” Zaphod was sure he’d heard someone talk about them when he was President, but he never paid much attention to official matters.

The man was pulling him back through a door. He went with him.

With a searing whine a small black spiderlike object shot through the air and disappeared down the corridor.

“What was that?” hissed Zaphod.

“Frogstar Scout robot class A out looking for you,” said the man.

“Hey, yeah?”

“Get down!”

From the opposite direction came a larger black spiderlike object. It zapped past them.

“And that was …?”

“A Frogstar Scout robot class B out looking for you.”

“And that?” said Zaphod, as a third one seared through the air.

“A Frogstar Scout robot class C out looking for you.”

“Hey,” chuckled Zaphod to himself, “pretty stupid robots, eh?”

From over the bridge came a massive rumbling hum. A gigantic black shape was moving over it from the opposite tower, the size and shape of a tank.

“Holy photon, what’s that?” breathed Zaphod.

“A tank,” said the man. “Frogstar Scout robot class D come to get you.”

“Should we leave?”

“I think we should.”

“Marvin!” called Zaphod.

“What do you want?”

Marvin rose from a pile of rubble farther down the corridor and looked at them.

“You see that robot coming toward us?”

Marvin looked at the gigantic black shape edging forward toward them over the bridge. He looked down at his own small metal body. He looked back up at the tank.

“I suppose you want me to stop it,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“While you save your skins.” “Yeah,” said Zaphod, “get in there!”

“Just so long,” said Marvin, “as I know where I stand.”

The man tugged at Zaphod’s arm, and Zaphod followed him off down the corridor.

A point occurred to him about this.

“Where are we going?” he said.

“Zarniwoop’s office.”

“Is this any time to keep an appointment?”

“Come on.”

M
arvin stood at the end of the bridge corridor. He was not in fact a particularly small robot. His silver body gleamed in the dusty sunbeams and shook with the continual barrage which the building was still undergoing.

He did, however, look pitifully small as the gigantic black tank rolled to a halt in front of him. The tank examined him with a probe. The probe withdrew.

Marvin stood there.

“Out of my way little robot,” growled the tank.

“I’m afraid,” said Marvin, “that I’ve been left here to stop you.”

The probe extended again for a quick recheck. It withdrew again.

“You? Stop me?” roared the tank. “Go on!”

“No, really I have,” said Marvin simply.

“What are you armed with?” roared the tank in disbelief.

“Guess,” said Marvin.

The tank’s engines rumbled, its gears ground. Molecule-size electronic relays deep in its microbrain flipped backward and forward in consternation.

“Guess?” said the tank.

Zaphod and the as yet unnamed man lurched up one corridor, down a second and along a third. The building continued to rock and shudder and this puzzled Zaphod. If they wanted to blow the bulding up, why was it taking so long?

With difficulty they reached one of a number of totally anonymous unmarked doors and heaved at it. With a sudden jolt it opened and they fell inside.

All this way, thought Zaphod, all this trouble, all this not-lying-on-the-beach-having-a-wonderful-time, and for what? A single chair, a single desk and a single dirty ashtray in an undecorated office. The desk, apart from a bit of dancing dust and single, revolutionary new form of paper clip, was empty.

“Where,” said Zaphod, “is Zarniwoop?” feeling that his already tenuous
grasp of the point of this whole exercise was beginning to slip.

“He’s on an intergalactic cruise,” said the man.

Zaphod tried to size the man up. Earnest type, he thought, not a barrel of laughs. He probably apportioned a fair whack of his time to running up and down heaving corridors, breaking down doors and making cryptic remarks in empty offices.

“Let me introduce myself,” the man said. “My name is Roosta, and this is my towel.”

“Hello Roosta,” said Zaphod.

“Hello, towel,” he added as Roosta held out to him a rather nasty old flowery towel. Not knowing what to do with it, he shook it by the corner.

Outside the window, one of the huge sluglike, gunmetal-green spaceships growled past.

“Yes, go on,” said Marvin to the huge battle machine, “you’ll never guess.”

“Errrmmm …” said the machine, vibrating with unaccustomed thought, “laser beams?”

Marvin shook his head solemnly.

“No,” muttered the machine in its deep guttural rumble. “Too obvious. Antimatter ray?” it hazarded.

“Far too obvious,” admonished Marvin.

“Yes,” grumbled the machine, somewhat abashed. “Er … how about an electron ram?”

This was new to Marvin.

“What’s that?” he said.

“One of these,” said the machine with enthusiasm.

From its turret emerged a sharp prong which spat a single lethal blaze of light. Behind Marvin a wall roared and collapsed as a heap of dust. The dust billowed briefly, then settled.

“No,” said Marvin, “not one of those.”

“Good though, isn’t it?”

“Very good,” agreed Marvin.

“I know,” said the Frogstar battle machine, after another moment’s consideration, “you must have one of those new Xanthic Restructron Destabilized Zenon Emitters!”

“Nice, aren’t they?” said Marvin.

“That’s what you’ve got?” said the machine in considerable awe.

“No,” said Marvin.

“Oh,” said the machine, disappointed, “then it must be …”

“You’re thinking along the wrong lines,” said Marvin. “You’re failing to take into account something fairly basic in the relationship between men and robots.”

“Er, I know,” said the battle machine, “is it …?” It trailed off into thought again.

“Just think,” urged Marvin, “they left me, an ordinary, menial robot, to stop you, a gigantic heavy-duty battle machine, while they ran off to save themselves. What do you think they would leave me with?”

“Oooh, er,” muttered the machine in alarm, “something pretty damn devastating I should expect.”

“Expect!” said Marvin. “Oh yes, expect. I’ll tell you what they gave me to protect myself with, shall I?”

“Yes, all right,” said the battle machine, bracing itself.

“Nothing,” said Marvin.

There was a dangerous pause.

“Nothing?”
roared the battle machine.

“Nothing at all,” intoned Marvin dismally, “not an electronic sausage.”

The machine heaved about with fury.

“Well, doesn’t that just take the biscuit!” it roared. “Nothing, eh? Just don’t think, do they?”

“And me,” said Marvin in a soft low voice, “with this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side.”

“Makes you spit, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” agreed Marvin with feeling.

“Hell, that makes me angry,” bellowed the machine. “Think I’ll smash that wall down!”

The electron ram stabbed out another searing blaze of light and took out the wall next to the machine.

“How do you think I feel?” said Marvin bitterly.

“Just ran off and left you, did they?” the machine thundered.

“Yes,” said Marvin.

“I think I’ll shoot down their bloody ceiling as well!” raged the tank.

It took out the ceiling of the bridge.

“That’s very impressive,” murmured Marvin.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” promised the machine. “I can take out this floor too, no trouble!”

It took out the floor too.

“Hell’s bells!” the machine roared as it plummeted fifteen stories and smashed itself to bits on the ground below.

“What a depressingly stupid machine,” said Marvin and trudged away.

S
o, do we just sit here, or what?” said Zaphod angrily; “what do these guys out here want?”

“You, Beeblebrox,” said Roosta. “They’re going to take you to the Frogstar—the most totally evil world in the Galaxy.”

“Oh yeah?” said Zaphod. “They’ll have to come and get me first.”

“They have come and got you,” said Roosta. “Look out the window.”

Zaphod looked, and gaped.

“The ground’s going away!” he gasped. “Where are they taking the ground?”

“They’re taking the building,” said Roosta. “We’re airborne.”

Clouds streaked past the office window.

Out in the open air again Zaphod could see the ring of dark green Frogstar Fighters around the uprooted tower of the building. A network of force beams radiated in from them and held the tower in a firm grip.

Zaphod shook his head in perplexity.

“What have I done to deserve this?” he said. “I walk into a building, they take it away.”

“It’s not what you’ve done they’re worried about,” said Roosta, “it’s what you’re going to do.”

“Well don’t I get a say in that?”

“You did, years ago. You’d better hold on, we’re in for a fast and bumpy journey.”

“If I ever meet myself,” said Zaphod, “I’ll hit myself so hard I won’t know what’s hit me.”

Marvin trudged in through the door, looked at Zaphod accusingly, slumped in a corner and switched himself off.

On the bridge of the
Heart of Gold
, all was silent. Arthur stared at the rack in front of him and thought. He caught Trillian’s eyes as she looked at him inquiringly. He looked back at the rack.