The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide Part 38

"I'm in the car park," said Marvin.

"The car park?" said Zaphod, "what are you doing there?"

"Parking cars, what else does one do in a car park?"

"OK, hang in there, we'll be right down."

In one movement Zaphod leapt to his feet, threw down the phone and wrote "Hotblack Desiato" on the bill.

"Come on guys," he said, "Marvin's in the car park. Let's get on down."

"What's he doing in the car park?" asked Arthur.

"Parking cars, what else? Dum dum."

"But what about the End of the Universe? We'll miss the big moment."

"I've seen it. It's rubbish," said Zaphod, "nothing but a gnab gib."

"A what?"

"Opposite of a big bang. Come on, let's get zappy."

Few of the other diners paid them any attention as they weaved their way through the Restaurant to the exit. Their eyes were riveted on the horror of the skies.

"An interesting effect to watch for," Max was telling them, "is in the upper left-hand quadrant of the sky, where if you look very carefully you can see the star system Hastromil boiling away into the ultra-violet. Anyone here from Hastromil?"

There were one or two slightly hesitant cheers from somewhere at the back.

"Well," said Max beaming cheerfully at them, "it's too late to worry about whether you left the gas on now."

Chapter 18.

The main reception foyer was almost empty but Ford nevertheless weaved his way through it.

Zaphod grasped him firmly by the arm and manoeuvred him into a cubicle standing to one side of the entrance hall.

"What are you doing to him?" asked Arthur.

"Sobering him up," said Zaphod and pushed a coin into a slot. Lights flashed, gases swirled.

"Hi," said Ford stepping out a moment later, "where are we going?"

"Down to the car park, come on."

"What about the personnel Time Teleports?" said Ford, "Get us straight back to the Heart of Gold."

"Yeah, but I've cooled on that s.h.i.+p. Zarniwoop can have it. I don't want to play his games. Let's see what we can find."

A Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter took them down deep into the substrata beneath the Restaurant. They were glad to see it had been vandalized and didn't try to make them happy as well as take them down.

At the bottom of the shaft the lift doors opened and a blast of cold stale air hit them.

The first thing they saw on leaving the lift was a long concrete wall with over fifty doors in it offering lavatory facilities for all of fifty major lifeforms. Nevertheless, like every car park in the Galaxy throughout the entire history of car parks, this car park smelt predominantly of impatience.

They turned a corner and found themselves on a moving catwalk that traversed a vast cavernous s.p.a.ce that stretched off into the dim distance.

It was divided off into bays each of which contained a s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p belonging to one of the diners upstairs, some smallish and utilitarian ma.s.s production models, others vast s.h.i.+ning limos.h.i.+ps, the playthings of the very rich.

Zaphod's eyes sparkled with something that may or may not have been avarice as he pa.s.sed over them. In fact it's best to be clear on this point-avarice is definitely what it was.

"There he is," said Trillian, "Marvin, down there."

They looked where she was pointing. Dimly they could see a small metal figure listlessly rubbing a small rag on one remote corner of a giant silver suncruiser.

At short intervals along the moving catwalk, wide transparent tubes led down to floor level. Zaphod stepped off the catwalk into one and floated gently downwards. The others followed. Thinking back to this later, Arthur Dent thought it was the single most enjoyable experience of his travels in the Galaxy.

"Hey, Marvin," said Zaphod striding over towards to him, "Hey, kid, are we pleased to see you."

Marvin turned, and in so far as it is possible for a totally inert metal face to look reproachfully, this is what it did.

"No you're not," he said, "no one ever is."

"Suit yourself," said Zaphod and turned away to ogle the s.h.i.+ps. Ford went with him.

Only Trillian and Arthur actually went up to Marvin.

"No, really we are," said Trillian and patted him in a way that he disliked intensely, "hanging around waiting for us all this time."

"Five hundred and seventy-six thousand million, three thousand five hundred and seventy-nine years," said Marvin, "I counted them."

"Well, here we are now," said Trillian, felling-quite correctly in Marvin's view-that it was a slightly foolish thing to say.

"The first ten million years were the worst," said Marvin, "and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third million years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of decline."

He paused just long enough to make them feel they ought to say something, and then interrupted.

"It's the people you meet in this job that really get you down," he said and paused again.

Trillian cleared her throat.

"Is that..."

"The best conversation I had was over forty million years ago," continued Marvin.

Again the pause.

"Oh d..."

"And that was with a coffee machine."

He waited.

"That's a..."

"You don't like talking to me do you?" said Marvin in a low desolate tone.

Trillian talked to Arthur instead.

Further down the chamber Ford Prefect had found something of which he very much liked the look, several such things in fact.

"Zaphod," he said in a quiet voice, "just look at some of these little star trolleys..."

Zaphod looked and liked.

The craft they were looking at was in fact pretty small but extraordinary, and very much a rich kid's toy. It was not much to look at. It resembled nothing so much as a paper dart about twenty feet long made of thin but tough metal foil. At the rear end was a small horizontal two-man c.o.c.kpit. It had a tiny charm-drive engine, which was not capable of moving it at any great speed. The thing it did have, however, was a heat-sink.

The heat-sink had a ma.s.s of some two thousand billion tons and was contained within a black hole mounted in an electromagnetic field situated half-way along the length of the s.h.i.+p, and this heat-sink enabled the craft to be manoeuvred to within a few miles of a yellow sun, there to catch and ride the solar flares that burst out from its surface.

Flare-riding is one of the most exotic and exhilarating sports in existence, and those who can dare and afford it are amongst the most lionized men in the Galaxy. It is also of course stupefyingly dangerous-those who don't die riding invariably die of s.e.xual exhaustion at one of the Daedalus Club's Aprs-Flare parties.

Ford and Zaphod looked and pa.s.sed on.

"And this baby," said Ford, "the tangerine star buggy with the black sunbusters..."

Again, the star buggy was a small s.h.i.+p-a totally misnamed one in fact, because the one thing it couldn't manage was interstellar distances. Basically it was a sporty planet hopper dolled up to something it wasn't. Nice lines though. They pa.s.sed on.

The next one was a big one and thirty yards long-a coach built limos.h.i.+p and obviously designed with one aim in mind, that of making the beholder sick with envy. The paintwork and accessory detail clearly said "Not only am I rich enough to afford this s.h.i.+p, I am also rich enough not to take it seriously." It was wonderfully hideous.

"Just look at it," said Zaphod, "multi-cl.u.s.ter quark drive, perspulex running boards. Got to be a Lazlar Lyricon custom job."

He examined every inch.

"Yes," he said, "look, the infra-pink lizard emblem on the neutrino cowling. Lazlar's trade mark. The man has no shame."

"I was pa.s.sed by one of these mothers once, out by the Axel Nebula," said Ford, "I was going flat out and this thing just strolled past me, star drive hardly ticking over. Just incredible."

Zaphod whistled appreciatively.

"Ten seconds later", said Ford, "it smashed straight into the third moon of Jaglan Beta."

"Yeah, right?"

"Amazing looking s.h.i.+p though. Looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a cow."

Ford looked round the other side.

"Hey, come and see," he called out, "there's a big mural painted on this side. A bursting sun-Disaster Area's trade mark. This must be Hotblack's s.h.i.+p. Lucky old b.u.g.g.e.r. They do this terrible song you know which ends with a stunts.h.i.+p cras.h.i.+ng into the sun. Meant to be an amazing spectacle. Expensive in stunt s.h.i.+ps though."

Zaphod's attention however was elsewhere. His attention was riveted on the s.h.i.+p standing next to Hotblack Desiato's limo. His mouths hung open.

"That," he said, "that... is really bad for the eyes..."

Ford looked. He too stood astonished.

It was a s.h.i.+p of cla.s.sic, simple design, like a flattened salmon, twenty yards long, very clean, very sleek. There was just one remarkable thing about it.

"It's so... black!" said Ford Prefect, "you can hardly make out its shape... light just seems to fall into it!"

Zaphod said nothing. He had simply fallen in love.

The blackness of it was so extreme that it was almost impossible to tell how close you were standing to it.

"Your eyes just slide off it..." said Ford in wonder. It was an emotional moment. He bit his lip.

Zaphod moved forward to it, slowly, like a man possessed-or more accurately like a man who wanted to possess. His hand reached out to stroke it. His hand stopped. His hand reached out to stroke it again. His hand stopped again.

"Come and feel the surface," he said in a hushed voice.

Ford put his hand out to feel it. His hand stopped.

"You... you can't..." he said.

"See?" said Zaphod, "it's just totally frictionless. This must be one mother of a mover..."

He turned to look at Ford seriously. At least, one of his heads did-the other stayed gazing in awe at the s.h.i.+p.

"What do you reckon, Ford?" he said.

"You mean... er..." Ford looked over his shoulder. "You mean stroll off with it? You think we should?"

"No."

"Nor do I."

"But we're going to, aren't we?"

"How can we not?"

They gazed a little longer, till Zaphod suddenly pulled himself together.

"We better s.h.i.+ft soon," he said. "In a moment or so the Universe will have ended and all the Captain Creeps will be pouring down here to find their bourge-mobiles."