– And when the trial continued, - he said in a weeping whisper, - they asked Prak a most unfortunate thing. They asked him, - he paused and shivered, - to tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth. Only, don’t you see?
He suddenly hoisted himself up on to his elbows again and shouted at them.
– They’d given him much too much of the drug!
He collapsed again, moaning quietly.
– Much too much too much too much too…
The group gathered round his bedside glanced at each other. There were goose pimples on backs.
– What happened? - said Zaphod at last.
– Oh, he told it all right, - said the man savagely, - for all I know he’s still telling it now. Strange, terrible things… terrible, terrible! - he screamed.
They tried to calm him, but he struggled to his elbows again.
– Terrible things, incomprehensible things, - he shouted, - things that would drive a man mad!
He stared wildly at them.
– Or in my case, - he said, - half-mad. I’m a journalist.
– You mean, - said Arthur quietly, - that you are used to confronting the truth?
– No, - said the man with a puzzled frown. - I mean that I made an excuse and left early.
He collapsed into a coma from which he recovered only once and briefly.
On that one occasion, they discovered from him the following:
When it became clear that Prak could not be stopped, that here was truth in its absolute and final form, the court was cleared.
Not only cleared, it was sealed up, with Prak still in it. Steel walls were erected around it, and, just to be on the safe side, barbed wire, electric fences, crocodile swamps and three major armies were installed, so that no one would ever have to hear Prak speak.
– That’s a pity, - said Arthur. - I’d like to hear what he had to say. Presumably he would know what the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer is. It’s always bothered me that we never found out.
– Think of a number, - said the computer, - any number.
Arthur told the computer the telephone number of King’s Cross railway station passenger inquiries, on the grounds that it must have some function, and this might turn out to be it.
The computer injected the number into the ship’s reconstituted Improbability Drive.
In Relativity, Matter tells Space how to curve, and Space tells Matter how to move.
The
The courtroom was an austere place, a large dark chamber, clearly designed for Justice rather than, for instance, for Pleasure. You wouldn’t hold a dinner party here - at least, not a successful one. The decor would get your guests down.
The ceilings were high, vaulted and very dark. Shadows lurked there with grim determination. The panelling for the walls and benches, the cladding of the heavy pillars, all were carved from the darkest and most severe trees in the fearsome Forest of Arglebard. The massive black Podium of Justice which dominated the centre of the chamber was a monster of gravity. If a sunbeam had ever managed to slink this far into the Justice complex of Argabuthon it would have turned around and slunk straight back out again.
Arthur and Trillian were the first in, whilst Ford and Zaphod bravely kept a watch on their rear.
At first it seemed totally dark and deserted. their footsteps echoed hollowly round the chamber. This seemed curious. All the defences were still in position and operative around the outside of the building, they had run scan checks. Therefore, they had assumed, the truth-telling must still be going on.
But there was nothing.
Then, as their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, they spotted a dull red glow in a corner, and behind the glow a live shadow. They swung a torch round on to it.
Prak was lounging on a bench, smoking a listless cigarette.
– Hi, - he said, with a little half-wave. His voice echoed through the chamber. He was a little man with scraggy hair. He sat with his shoulders hunched forward and his head and knees kept jiggling. He took a drag of his cigarette.
They stared at him.
– What’s going on? - said Trillian.
– Nothing, - said the man and jiggled his shoulders.
Arthur shone his torch full on Prak’s face.
– We thought, - he said, - that you were meant to be telling the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth.
– Oh, that, - said Prak. - Yeah. I was. I finished. There’s not nearly as much of it as people imagine. Some of it’s pretty funny, though.
He suddenly exploded in about three seconds of manical laughter and stopped again. he sat there, jiggling his head and knees. He dragged on his cigarette with a strange half-smile.
Ford and Zaphod came forward out of the shadows.
– Tell us about it, - said Ford.
– Oh, I can’t remember any of it now, - said Prak. - I thought of writing some of it down, but first I couldn’t find a pencil, and then I thought, why bother?
There was a long silence, during which they thought they could feel the Universe age a little. Prak stared into the torchlight.
– None of it? - said Arthur at last. - You can remember none of it?
– No. Except most of the good bits were about frogs, I remember that.
Suddenly he was hooting with laughter again and stamping his feet on the ground.
– You would not believe some of the things about frogs, - he gasped.
– Come on let’s go and find ourselves a frog. Boy, will I ever see them in a new light! - He leapt to his feet and did a tiny little dance. Then he stopped and took a long drag at his cigarette.
– Let’s find a frog I can laugh at, - he said simply. - Anyway, who are you guys?
– We came to find you, - said Trillian, deliberately not keeping the disappointment out of her voice. - My name is Trillian.
Prak jiggled his head.
– Ford Prefect, - said Ford Prefect with a shrug.
Prak jiggled his head.
– And I, - said Zaphod, when he judged that the silence was once again deep enough to allow an announcement of such gravity to be tossed in lightly, - am Zaphod Beeblebrox.
Prak jiggled his head.
– Who’s this guy? - said Prak jiggling his shoulder at Arthur, who
was standing silent for a moment, lost in disappointed thoughts.
– Me? - said Arthur. - Oh, my name’s Arthur Dent.
Prak’s eyes popped out of his head.
– No kidding? - he yelped. - You are Arthur Dent? The Arthur Dent?
He staggered backwards, clutching his stomach and convulsed with fresh paroxysms of laughter.
– Hey, just think of meeting you! - he gasped. - Boy, - he shouted, - you are the most… wow, you just leave the frogs standing! - he howled and screamed with laughter. He fell over backwards on to the bench. He hollered and yelled in hysterics. He cried with laughter, he kicked his legs in the air, he beat his chest. Gradually he subsided, panting. He looked at them. He looked at Arthur. He fell back again howling with laughter. Eventually he fell asleep.
Arthur stood there with his lips twitching whilst the others carried Prak comatose on to the ship.
– Before we picked up Prak, - said Arthur, - I was going to leave. I still want to, and I think I should do so as soon as possible.
The others nodded in silence, a silence which was only slightly undermined by the heavily muffled and distant sound of hysterical laughter which came drifting from Prak’s cabin at the farthest end of the ship.
