'Well, you know, it's just Everything… Everything…' offered Phouchg weakly.
'Exactly!' said Deep Thought. 'So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means.'
'Oh terrific,' muttered Phouchg flinging aside his notebook and wiping away a tiny tear.
'Look, alright, alright,' said Loonquawl, 'can you just please tell us the Question?'
'The Ultimate Question?'
'Yes!'
'Of Life, the Universe, and Everything?'
'Yes!'
Deep Thought pondered this for a moment.
'Tricky,' he said.
'But can you do it?' cried Loonquawl.
Deep Thought pondered this for another long moment.
Finally: 'No,' he said firmly.
Both men collapsed on to their chairs in despair.
'But I'll tell you who can,' said Deep Thought.
They both looked up sharply.
'Who?' 'Tell us!'
Suddenly Arthur began to feel his apparently non-existent scalp begin to crawl as he found himself moving slowly but inexorably forward towards the console, but it was only a dramatic zoom on the part of whoever had made the recording he assumed.
'I speak of none other than the computer that is to come after me,' intoned Deep Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory tones. 'A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate—and yet I will design it for you. A computer which can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program! Yes! I shall design this computer for you. And I shall name it also unto you. And it shall be called… The Earth.'
Phouchg gaped at Deep Thought.
'What a dull name,' he said and great incisions appeared down the length of his body. Loonquawl too suddenly sustained horrific gashed from nowhere. The Computer console blotched and cracked, the walls flickered and crumbled and the room crashed upwards into its own ceiling…
Slartibartfast was standing in front of Arthur holding the two wires.
'End of the tape,' he explained.
Chapter 29
'Zaphod! Wake up!'
'Mmmmmwwwwwerrrrr?'
'Hey come on, wake up.'
'Just let me stick to what I'm good at, yeah?' muttered Zaphod and rolled away from the voice back to sleep.
'Do you want me to kick you?' said Ford.
'Would it give you a lot of pleasure?' said Zaphod, blearily.
'No.'
'Nor me. So what's the point? Stop bugging me.' Zaphod curled himself up.
'He got a double dose of the gas,' said Trillian looking down at him, 'two windpipes.'
'And stop talking,' said Zaphod, 'it's hard enough trying to sleep anyway. What's the matter with the ground? It's all cold and hard.'
'It's gold,' said Ford.
With an amazingly balletic movement Zaphod was standing and scanning the horizon, because that was how far the gold ground stretched in every direction, perfectly smooth and solid. It gleamed like… it's impossible to say what it gleamed like because nothing in the Universe gleams in quite the same way that a planet of solid gold does.
'Who put all that there?' yelped Zaphod, goggle-eyed.
'Don't get excited,' said Ford, 'it's only a catalogue.'
'A who?'
'A catalogue,' said Trillian, 'an illusion.'
'How can you say that?' cried Zaphod, falling to his hands and knees and staring at the ground. He poked it and prodded it with his fingernail. It was very heavy and very slightly soft—he could mark it with his fingernail. It was very yellow and very shiny, and when he breathed on it his breath evaporated off it in that very peculiar and special way that breath evaporates off solid gold.
'Trillian and I came round a while ago,' said Ford. 'We shouted and yelled till somebody came and then carried on shouting and yelling till they got fed up and put us in their planet catalogue to keep us busy till they were ready to deal with us. This is all Sens-O-Tape.'
Zaphod stared at him bitterly.
'Ah, shit,' he said, 'you wake me up from my own perfectly good dream to show me somebody else's.' He sat down in a huff.
'What's that series of valleys over there?' he said.
'Hallmark,' said Ford. 'We had a look.'
'We didn't wake you earlier,' said Trillian. 'The last planet was knee deep in fish.'
'Fish?'
'Some people like the oddest things.'
'And before that,' said Ford, 'we had platinum. Bit dull. We thought you'd like to see this one though.'
Seas of light glared at them in one solid blaze wherever they looked.
'Very pretty,' said Zaphod petulantly.
In the sky a huge green catalogue number appeared. It flickered and changed, and when they looked around again so had the land.
As with one voice they all went, 'Yuch.'
The sea was purple. The beach they were on was composed of tiny yellow and green pebbles—presumably terribly precious stones. The mountains in the distance seemed soft and undulating with red peaks. Nearby stood a solid silver beach table with a frilly mauve parasol and silver tassles.
In the sky a huge sign appeared, replacing the catalogue number. It said, Whatever your tastes, Magrathea can cater for you. We are not proud.
And five hundred entirely naked women dropped out of the sky on parachutes.
In a moment the scene vanished and left them in a springtime meadow full of cows.
'Ow!' said Zaphod. 'My brains!'
'You want to talk about it?' said Ford.
'Yeah, OK,' said Zaphod, and all three sat down and ignored the scenes that came and went around them.
'I figure this,' said Zaphod. 'Whatever happened to my mind, I did it. And I did it in such a way that it wouldn't be detected by the government screening tests. And I wasn't to know anything about it myself. Pretty crazy, right?'
