page22 (1/2)

Ford stared at hihast Trillian had turned white

"Somebody did that to you?" whispered Ford

"Yeah"

"But have you any idea who? Or why?"

"Why? I can only guess But I do knoho the bastard was"

"You kno do you know?"

"Because they left their initials burnt into the cauterized synapses They left them there for me to see"

Ford stared at hiin to crawl

"Initials? Burnt into your brain?"

"Yeah"

"Well, ere they, for God's sake?"

Zaphod looked at hiain for a moment Then he looked away

"ZB," he said

At that as started to pour into the chamber

"I'll tell you about it later," choked Zaphod as all three passed out

Chapter 21

On the surface of Magrathea Arthur wandered about moodily

Ford had thoughtfully left him his copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to while away the time with He pushed a few buttons at random

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a very unevenly edited book and contains ood idea at the time

One of these (the one Arthur now came across) supposedly relates the experiences of one Veet Voojagig, a quiet young student at the University of Maxi ancient philology, transformational ethics and the wave harht of drinking Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters with Zaphod Beeblebrox, becaly obsessed with the probleht over the past few years

There followed a long period of painstaking research during which he visited all the alaxy and eventually caht the public iination at the ti with all the planets inhabited by hu treeoids and superintelligent shades of the colour blue, there was also a planet entirely given over to biro life forms And it was to this planet that unattended biros would h wormholes in space to a world where they knew they could enjoy a uniquely biroid lifestyle, responding to highly biro-oriented stiood life

And as theories go this was all very fine and pleasant until Veet Voojagig suddenly claimed to have found this planet, and to have worked there for a while driving a lireen retractables, whereupon he was taken away, locked up, wrote a book, and was finally sent into tax exile, which is the usual fate reserved for those who are determined to make a fool of themselves in public

When one day an expedition was sent to the spatial coordinates that Voojagig had claimed for this planet they discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old h he was later discovered to be lying

There did, however, remain the question of both the mysterious 60,000 Altairan dollars paid yearly into his Brantisvogan bank account, and of course Zaphod Beeblebrox's highly profitable second-hand biro business

Arthur read this, and put the book down

The robot still sat there, completely inert

Arthur got up and walked to the top of the crater He walked around the crater He watched two suns set rathea

He went back down into the crater He woke the robot up because even a manically depressed robot is better to talk to than nobody

"Night's falling," he said "Look, robot, the stars are co out"

From the heart of a dark nebula it is possible to see very few stars, and only very faintly, but they were there to be seen

The robot obediently looked at them, then looked back

"I know," he said "Wretched, isn't it?"

"But that sunset! I've never seen anything like it in my wildest drea into space"

"I've seen it," said Marvin "It's rubbish"

"We only ever had the one sun at home," persevered Arthur, "I came from a planet called Earth, you know"

"I know," said Marvin, "you keep going on about it It sounds awful"