The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams [12]
Zaphod Beeblebrox entered the foyer. He strode up to the insect receptionist.
“Okay,” he said, “where’s Zarniwoop? Get me Zarniwoop.”
“Excuse me, sir?” said the insect icily. It did not care to be addressed in this manner.
“Zarniwoop. Get him, right? Get him now.”
“Well, sir,” snapped the fragile little creature, “if you could be a little cool about it….”
“Look,” said Zaphod, “I’m up to here with cool, okay? I am so amazingly cool you could keep a side of meat in me for a month. I am so hip I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis. Now will you move before I blow it?”
“Well, if you’d let me explain, sir,” said the insect, tapping the most petulant of all the tentacles at its disposal, “I’m afraid that isn’t possible right now as Mr. Zarniwoop is on an intergalactic cruise.”
Hell, thought Zaphod.
“When’s he going to be back?” he said.
“Back, sir? He’s in his office.”
Zaphod paused while he tried to sort this particular thought out in his mind. He didn’t succeed.
“This cat’s on an intergalactic cruise… in his office?” He leaned forward and gripped the tapping tentacle.
“Listen, three eyes,” he said, “don’t you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.”
“Well, just who do you think you are, honey?” flounced the insect, quivering its wings in rage. “Zaphod Beeblebrox or something?”
“Count the heads,” said Zaphod in a low rasp.
The insect blinked at him. It blinked at him again.
“You are Zaphod Beeblebrox?” it squeaked.
“Yeah,” said Zaphod, “but don’t shout it out or they’ll all want one.”
“The Zaphod Beeblebrox?”
“No, just a Zaphod Beeblebrox; didn’t you hear I come in six packs?”
The insect rattled its tentacles together in agitation.
“But, sir,” it squealed, “I just heard on the sub-ether radio report. It said you were dead….”
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Zaphod, “I just haven’t stopped moving yet. Now. Where do I find Zarniwoop?”
“Well, sir, his office is on the fifteenth floor, but—”
“But he’s on an intergalactic cruise, yeah, yeah, how do I get to him?”
“The newly installed Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporters are in the far corner, sir. But, sir…”
Zaphod was turning to go. He turned back.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Can I ask you why you want to see Mr. Zarniwoop?”
“Yeah,” said Zaphod, who was unclear on this point himself, “I told myself I had to.”
“Come again, sir?”
Zaphod leaned forward, conspiratorially.
“I just materialized out of thin air in one of your cafés,” he said, “as a result of an argument with the ghost of my great-grandfather. No sooner had I got there than my former self, the one that operated on my brain, popped into my head and said ‘Go see Zarniwoop.’ I have never heard of the cat. That is all I know. That and the fact that I’ve got to find the man who rules the Universe.”
He winked.
“Mr. Beeblebrox, sir,” said the insect in awed wonder, “you’re so weird you should be in movies.”
“Yeah,” said Zaphod patting the thing on a glittering pink wing, “and you, baby, should be in real life.”
The insect paused for a moment to recover from its agitation and then reached out a tentacle to answer a ringing phone.
A metal hand restrained it.
“Excuse me,” said the owner of the metal hand in a voice that would have made an insect of a more sentimental disposition collapse in tears.
This was not such an insect, and it couldn’t stand robots.
“Yes, sir,” it snapped, “can I help you?”
“I doubt it,” said Marvin.
“Well, in that case, if you’ll just excuse me….” Six of the phones were now ringing. A million things awaited the insect’s attention.
“No one can help me,” intoned Marvin.
“Yes, sir, well…”
“Not that anyone’s tried of course.” The restraining metal hand fell limply by Marvin’s side. His head hung forward very slightly.
“Is that so,” the insect said tartly.
“Hardly worth anyone’s while to help a menial robot, is it?”
“I’m sorry, sir, if…”
“I mean, where’s the percentage in being kind or helpful to a robot if it doesn’t have any gratitude circuits?”
“And you don’t have any?