The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams [16]
With difficulty they reached one of a number of totally anonymous unmarked doors and heaved at it. With a sudden jolt it opened and they fell inside.
All this way, thought Zaphod, all this trouble, all this not-lying-on-the-beach-having-a-wonderful-time, and for what? A single chair, a single desk and a single dirty ashtray in an undecorated office. The desk, apart from a bit of dancing dust and a single, revolutionary new form of paper clip, was empty.
“Where,” said Zaphod, “is Zarniwoop?” feeling that his already tenuous grasp of the point of this whole exercise was beginning to slip.
“He’s on an intergalactic cruise,” said the man.
Zaphod tried to size the man up. Earnest type, he thought, not a barrel of laughs. He probably apportioned a fair whack of his time to running up and down heaving corridors, breaking down doors and making cryptic remarks in empty offices.
“Let me introduce myself,” the man said. “My name is Roosta, and this is my towel.”
“Hello, Roosta,” said Zaphod.
“Hello, towel,” he added as Roosta held out to him a rather nasty old flowery towel. Not knowing what to do with it, he shook it by the corner.
Outside the window, one of the huge sluglike, gun-metal-green spaceships growled past.
“Yes, go on,” said Marvin to the huge battle machine, “you’ll never guess.”
“Errrmmm…” said the machine, vibrating with unaccustomed thought, “laser beams?”
Marvin shook his head solemnly.
“No,” muttered the machine in its deep guttural rumble. “Too obvious. Antimatter ray?” it hazarded.
“Far too obvious,” admonished Marvin.
“Yes,” grumbled the machine, somewhat abashed. “Er… how about an electron ram?”
This was new to Marvin.
“What’s that?” he said.
“One of these,” said the machine with enthusiasm.
From its turret emerged a sharp prong which spat a single lethal blaze of light. Behind Marvin a wall roared and collapsed as a heap of dust. The dust billowed briefly, then settled.
“No,” said Marvin, “not one of those.”
“Good though, isn’t it?”
“Very good,” agreed Marvin.
“I know,” said the Frogstar battle machine, after another moment’s consideration, “you must have one of those new Xanthic Restructron Destabilized Zenon Emitters!”
“Nice, aren’t they?” said Marvin.
“That’s what you’ve got?” said the machine in considerable awe.
“No,” said Marvin.
“Oh,” said the machine, disappointed, “then it must be…”
“You’re thinking along the wrong lines,” said Marvin. “You’re failing to take into account something fairly basic in the relationship between men and robots.”
“Er, I know,” said the battle machine, “is it… ?” it trailed off into thought again.
“Just think,” urged Marvin, “they left me, an ordinary, menial robot, to stop you, a gigantic heavy-duty battle machine, while they ran off to save themselves. What do you think they would leave me with?”
“Oooh, er,” muttered the machine in alarm, “something pretty damn devastating I should expect.”
“Expect!” said Marvin. “Oh yes, expect. I’ll tell you what they gave me to protect myself with, shall I?”
“Yes, all right,” said the battle machine, bracing itself.
“Nothing,” said Marvin.
There was a dangerous pause.
“Nothing?” roared the battle machine.
“Nothing at all,” intoned Marvin dismally, “not an electronic sausage.”
The machine heaved about with fury.
“Well, doesn’t that just take the biscuit!” it roared. “Nothing, eh? Just don’t think, do they?”
“And me,” said Marvin in a soft low voice, “with this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side.”
“Makes you spit, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” agreed Marvin with feeling.
“Hell, that makes me angry,” bellowed the machine. “Think I’ll smash that wall down!”
The electron ram stabbed out another searing blaze of light and took out the wall next to the machine.
“How do you think I feel?” said Marvin bitterly.
“Just ran off and left you, did they?” the machine thundered.
“Yes,” said Marvin.
“I think I’ll shoot down their bloody