Mostly Harmless [18]
There was none of that now.
Somebody had been through the place doing some iniquitous kind of taste job on it.
Ford turned sharply into a small alcove, cupped his hand and yanked the flying robot in with him. He squatted down and peered at the burbling cybernaut.
"What's been happening here?' he demanded.
"Oh just the nicest things, sir, just the nicest possible things. Can I sit on your lap, please?"
"No," said Ford, brushing the thing away. It was overjoyed to be spurned in this way and started to bob and burble and swoon. Ford grabbed it again and stuck it firmly in the air a foot in front of his face. It tried to stay where it was put but couldn't help quivering slightly.
"Something's changed, hasn't it?' Ford hissed.
"Oh yes," squealed the little robot, "in the most fabulous and wonderful way. I feel so good about it."
"Well what was it like before, then?"
"Scrumptious."
"But you like the way it's changed?' demanded Ford.
"I like everything," moaned the robot. "Especially when you shout at me like that. Do it again, please."
"Just tell me what's happened!'
"Oh thank you, thank you!"
Ford sighed.
"OK, OK," panted the robot. "The Guide has been taken over. There's a new management. It's all so gorgeous I could just melt. The old management was also fabulous of course, though I'm not sure if I thought so at the time.'
"That was before you had a bit of wire stuck in your head."
"How true. How wonderfully true. How wonderfully, bubblingly, frothingly, burstingly true. What a truly ecstasy-inducingly correct observation."
"What's happened?' insisted Ford. "Who is this new management? When did they take over? I... oh, never mind," he added, as the little robot started to gibbet with uncontrollable joy and rub itself against his knee. "I'll go and find out for myself.'
Ford hurled himself at the door of the editor-in-chief's office, tucked himself into a tight ball as the frame splintered and gave way, rolled rapidly across the floor to where the drinks trolley laden with some of the Galaxy's most potent and expensive beverages habitually stood, seized hold of the trolley and, using it to give himself cover, trundled it and himself across the main exposed part of the office floor to where the valuable and extremely rude statue of Leda and the Octopus stood, and took shelter behind it. Meanwhile the little security robot, entering at chest height, was suicidally delighted to draw gunfire away from Ford.
That, at least, was the plan, and a necessary one. The current editor-in-chief, Stagyar-zil-Doggo, was a dangerously unbalanced man who took a homicidal view of contributing staff turning up in his office without pages of fresh, proofed copy, and had a battery of laser guided guns linked to special scanning devices in the door frame to deter anybody who was merely bringing extremely good reasons why they hadn't written any. Thus was a high level of output maintained.
Unfortunately the drinks trolley wasn't there.
Ford hurled himself desperately sideways and somersaulted towards the statue of Leda and the Octopus, which also wasn't there. He rolled and hurtled around the room in a kind of random panic, tripped, span, hit the window, which fortunately was built to withstand rocket attacks, rebounded, and fell in a bruised and winded heap behind a smart grey crushed leather sofa, which hadn't