The Restaurant at the End of the Universe [38]
Ford thanked the waiter for his kind indulgence, attempted to tug his forelock, missed by six inches and slid under the table.
"Mr Zaphod Beeblebrox?" inquired the waiter.
"Er, yeah?" said Zaphod, glancing up from his third steak.
"There is a phone call for you."
"Hey, what?"
"A phone call, sir."
"For me? Here? Hey, but who knows where I am?"
One of his minds raced. The other dawdled lovingly over the food it was still shovelling in.
"Excuse me if I carry on, won't you?" said his eating head and carried on.
There were now so many people after him he'd lost count. He shouldn't have made such a conspicuous entrance. Hell, why not though, he thought. How do you know you're having fun if there's no one watching you have it?
"Maybe someone here tipped off the Galactic Police," said Trillian. "Everyone saw you come in."
"You mean they want to arrest me over the phone?" said Zaphod, "Could be. I'm a pretty dangerous dude when I'm concerned."
"Yeah," said a voice from under the table, "you go to pieces so fast people get hit by the shrapnel."
"Hey, what is this, Judgment Day?" snapped Zaphod.
"Do we get to see that as well?" asked Arthur nervously.
"I'm in no hurry," muttered Zaphod, "OK, so who's the cat on the phone?" He kicked Ford. "Hey get up there, kid," he said to him, "I may need you."
"I am not," said the waiter, "personally acquainted with the metal gentlemen in question, sir ..."
"Metal?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you say metal?"
"Yes, sir. I said that I am not personally acquainted with the metal gentleman in question ..."
"OK, carry on."
"But I am informed that he has been awaiting your return for a considerable number of millennia. It seems you left here somewhat precipitately."
"Left here?" said Zaphod, "are you being strange? We only just arrived here."
"Indeed, sir," persisted the waiter doggedly, "but before you arrived here, sir, I understand that you left here."
Zaphod tried this in one brain, then in the other.
"You're saying," he said, "that before we arrived here, we left here?"
This is going to be a long night, thought the waiter.
"Precisely, sir," he said.
"Put your analyst on danger money, baby," advised Zaphod.
"No, wait a minute," said Ford, emerging above table level again, "where exactly is here?"
"To be absolutely exact sir, it is Frogstar World B."
"But we just left there," protested Zaphod, "we left there and came to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe."
"Yes, sir," said the waiter, feeling that he was now into the home stretch and running well, "the one was constructed on the ruins of the other."
"Oh," said Arthur brightly, "you mean we've travelled in time but not in space."
"Listen you semi-evolved simian," cut in Zaphod, "go climb a tree will you?"
Arthur bristled.
"Go bang your heads together four-eyes," he advised Zaphod.
"No, no," the waiter said to Zaphod, "your monkey has got it right, sir."
Arthur stuttered in fury and said nothing apposite, or indeed coherent.
"You jumped forward ... I believe five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years whilst staying in exactly the same place," explained the waiter. He smiled. He had a wonderful feeling that he had finally won through against what had seemed to be insuperable odds.
"That's it!" said Zaphod, "I got it. I told the computer to send us to the nearest place to eat, that's exactly what it did. Give or take five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years, we never moved. Neat."
They all agreed this was very neat.
"But who," said Zaphod, "is the cat on the phone?"
"Whatever happened to Marvin?" said Trillian.
Zaphod clapped his hands to his heads.
"The Paranoid Android! I left him moping about on Frogstar B."
"When was this?"
"Well, er, five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years ago I suppose," said Zaphod, "Hey, er, hand me the rap-rod, Plate Captain."
The little waiter's eyebrows wandered about his forehead in confusion.
"I beg your pardon, sir?" he said.
"The phone, waiter," said Zaphod, grabbing it off him. "Shee,