Volume 2 - The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe Read Free Page A

attack!”
    Arthur gibbered.
    “Well, what are you doing? Let’s get out of here!”
    “Can’t. Computer’s jammed.”
    “Jammed?”
    “It says all its circuits are occupied. There’s no power anywhere in the ship.”
    Ford moved away from the computer terminal, wiped a sleeve across his forehead and slumped back against the wall.
    “Nothing we can do,” he said. He glared at nothing and bit his lip.
    When Arthur had been a boy at school, long before the Earth had been demolished, he had used to play football. He had not been at all good at it, and his particular speciality had been scoring own goals in important matches. Whenever this happened he used to experience a peculiar tingling round the back of his neck that would slowly creep up across his cheeks and heat his brow. The image of mud and grass and lots of little jeering boys flinging it at him suddenly came vividly to his mind at this moment.
    A peculiar tingling sensation at the back of his neck was creeping up across his cheeks and heating his brow.
    He started to speak, and stopped.
    He started to speak again and stopped again.
    Finally he managed to speak.
    “Er,” he said. He cleared his throat.
    “Tell me,” he continued, and said it so nervously that the others all turned to stare at him. He glanced at the approaching yellow blob on the vision screen.
    “Tell me,” he said again, “did the computer say what was occupying it? I just ask out of interest.…”
    Their eyes were riveted on him.
    “And, er … well, that’s it really, just asking.”
    Zaphod put out a hand and held Arthur by the scruff of the neck.
    “What have you done to it, Monkeyman?” he breathed.
    “Well,” said Arthur, “nothing in fact. It’s just that I think a short while ago it was trying to work out how to …”
    “Yes?”
    “Make some tea.”
    “That’s right, guys,” the computer sang out suddenly, “just coping with that problem right now, and wow, it’s a biggy. Be with you in a while.” It lapsed back into a silence that was only matched for sheer intensity by the silence of the three people staring at Arthur Dent.
    As if to relieve the tension, the Vogons chose that moment to start firing.
    The ship shook, the ship thundered. Outside, the inch thick force shield around it blistered, crackled and spat under the barrage of a dozen 30-Megahurt Definit-Kil Photrazon Cannon, and looked as if it wouldn’t be around for long. Four minutes is how long Ford Prefect gave it. “Three minutes and fifty seconds,” he said a short while later. “Forty-five seconds,” he added at the appropriate time. He flicked idly at some useless switches, then gave Arthur an unfriendly look.
    “Dying for a cup of tea, eh?” he said. “Three minutes and forty seconds.”
    “Will you stop counting!” snarled Zaphod.
    “Yes,” said Ford Prefect, “in three minutes and thirty-five seconds.”
    Aboard the Vogon ship, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz was puzzled. He had expected a chase, he had expected an exciting grapple with tractor beams, he had expected to have to use the specially installed Sub-Cyclic Normality Assert-i-Tron to counter the
Heart of Gold’
s Infinite Improbability Drive; but the Sub-Cyclic Normality Assert-i-Tron lay idle as the
Heart of Gold
just sat there and took it.
    A dozen 30-Megahurt Definit-Kil Photrazon Cannon continued to blaze away at the
Heart of Gold
, and still it just sat there and took it.
    He tested every sensor at his disposal to see if there was any subtle trickery afoot, but no subtle trickery was to be found.
    He didn’t know about the tea of course.
    Nor did he know exactly how the occupants of the
Heart of Gold
were spending the last three minutes and thirty seconds of life they had left to spend.
    Quite how Zaphod Beeblebrox arrived at the idea of holding a seance at this point is something he was never quite clear on.
    Obviously the subject of death was in the air, but more as something to be avoided than harped upon.
    Possibly