The other two nodded in agreement.
'So I reckon, what's so secret that I can't let anybody know I know it, not the Galactic Government, not even myself? And the answer is I don't know. Obviously. But I put a few things together and I can begin to guess. When did I decide to run for President? Shortly after the death of President Yooden Vranx. You remember Yooden, Ford?'
'Yeah,' said Ford, 'he was that guy we met when we were kids, the Arcturan captain. He was a gas. He gave us conkers when you bust your way into his megafreighter. Said you were the most amazing kid he'd ever met.'
'What's all this?' said Trillian.
'Ancient history,' said Ford, 'when we were kids together on Betelgeuse. The Arcturan megafreighters used to carry most of the bulky trade between the Galactic Centre and the outlying regions. The Betelgeuse trading scouts used to find the markets and the Arcturans would supply them. There was a lot of trouble with space pirates before they were wiped out in the Dordellis wars, and the megafreighters had to be equipped with the most fantastic defence shields known to Galactic science. They were real brutes of ships, and huge. In orbit round a planet they would eclipse the sun.
'One day, young Zaphod here decides to raid one. On a tri-jet scooter designed for stratosphere work, a mere kid. I mean forget it, it was crazier than a mad monkey. I went along for the ride because I'd got some very safe money on him not doing it, and didn't want him coming back with fake evidence. So what happens? We got in his tri-jet which he had souped up into something totally other, crossed three parsecs in a matter of weeks, bust our way into a megafreighter I still don't know how, marched on to the bridge waving toy pistols and demanded conkers. A wilder thing I have not known. Lost me a year's pocket money. For what? Conkers.'
'The captain was this really amazing guy, Yooden Vranx,' said Zaphod. 'He gave us food, booze—stuff from really weird parts of the Galaxy—lots of conkers of course, and we had just the most incredible time. Then he teleported us back. Into the maximum security wing of Betelgeuse state prison. He was a cool guy. Went on to become President of the Galaxy.'
Zaphod paused.
The scene around them was currently plunged into gloom. Dark mists swirled round them and elephantine shapes lurked indistinctly in the shadows. The air was occasionally rent with the sounds of illusory beings murdering other illusory beings. Presumably enough people must have liked this sort of thing to make it a paying proposition.
'Ford,' said Zaphod quietly.
'Yeah?'
'Just before Yooden died he came to see me.'
'What? You never told me.'
'No.'
'What did he say? What did he come to see you about?'
'He told me about the Heart of Gold. It was his idea that I should steal it.'
'His idea?'
'Yeah,' said Zaphod, 'and the only possible way of stealing it was to be at the launching ceremony.'
Ford gaped at him in astonishment for a moment, and then roared with laughter.
'Are you telling me,' he said, 'that you set yourself up to become President of the Galaxy just to steal that ship?'
'That's it,' said Zaphod with the sort of grin that would get most people locked away in a room with soft walls.
'But why?' said Ford. 'What's so important about having it?'
'Dunno,' said Zaphod, 'I think if I'd consciously known what was so important about it and what I would need it for it would have showed up on the brain screening tests and I would never have passed. I think Yooden told me a lot of things that are still locked away.'
'So you think you went and mucked about inside your own brain as a result of Yooden talking to you?'
'He was a hell of a talker.'
'Yeah, but Zaphod old mate, you want to look after yourself you know.'
Zaphod shrugged.
'I mean, don't you have any inkling of the reasons for all this?' asked Ford.
Zaphod thought hard about this and doubts seemed to cross his minds.
'No,' he said at last, 'I don't seem to be letting myself into any of my secrets. Still,' he added on further reflection, 'I can understand that. I wouldn't trust myself further than I could spit a rat.'
A moment later, the last planet in the catalogue vanished from beneath them and the solid world resolved itself again.
They were sitting in a plush waiting room full of glass-top tables and design awards.
A tall Magrathean man was standing in front of them.
'The mice will see you now,' he said.
Chapter 30
'So there you have it,' said Slartibartfast, making a feeble and perfunctory attempt to clear away some of the appalling mess of his study. He picked up a paper from the top of a pile, but then couldn't think of anywhere else to put it, so he put it back on top of the original pile which promptly fell over. 'Deep Thought designed the Earth, we built it and you lived on it.'
'And the Vogons came and destroyed it five minutes before the program was completed,' added Arthur, not unbitterly.
'Yes,' said the old man, pausing to gaze hopelessly round the room. 'Ten million years of planning and work gone just like that. Ten million years, Earthman… can you conceive of that kind of time span? A galactic civilization could grow from a single worm five times over in that time. Gone.' He paused.
'Well that's bureaucracy for you,' he added.
'You know,' said Arthur thoughtfully, 'all this explains a lot of things. All through my life I've had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was.'
'No,' said the old man, 'that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.'
'Everyone?' said Arthur. 'Well, if everyone has that perhaps it means something! Perhaps somewhere outside the Universe we know…'
'Maybe. Who cares?' said Slartibartfast before Arthur got too excited. 'Perhaps I'm old and tired,' he continued, 'but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway.'
He rummaged around in a pile of debris and pulled out a large perspex block with his name on it and a model of Norway moulded into it.
'Where's the sense in that?' he said. 'None that I've been able to make out. I've been doing fjords in all my life. For a fleeting moment they become fashionable and I get a major award.'
He turned it over in his hands with a shrug and tossed it aside carelessly, but not so carelessly that it didn't land on something soft.
'In this replacement Earth we're building they've given me Africa to do and of course I'm doing it with all fjords again because I happen to like them, and I'm old fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely baroque feel to a continent. And they tell me it's not equatorial enough. Equatorial!' He gave a hollow laugh. 'What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day.'
