concerned it is right off the graph, and yet it persists. Old structural linguists get very angry when young structural linguists go on about it. Young structural linguists get deeply excited about it and stay up late at night convinced that they are very close to something of profound importance, and end up becoming old structural linguists before their time, getting very angry with the young ones. Structural linguistics is a bitterly divided and unhappy discipline, and a large number of its practitioners spend too many nights drowning their problems in Ouisghian Zodahs.
Number Two stood before the Captain's bathtub trembling with frustration.
“Don't you want to interrogate the prisoners sir?” he squealed.
The Captain peered at him in bemusement.
“Why on Golgafrincham should I want to do that?” he asked.
“To get information out of them, sir! To find out why they came here!”
“Oh no, no, no,” said the Captain, “I expect they just dropped in for a quick jynnan tonnyx, don't you?”
“But sir, they're my prisoners! I must interrogate them!”
The Captain looked at them doubtfully.
“Oh all right,” he said, “if you must. Ask them what they want to drink.”
A hard cold gleam came into Number Two's eyes. He advanced slowly on Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent.
“All right, you scum,” he growled, “you vermin…” He jabbed Ford with the Kill-O-Zap gun.
“Steady on, Number Two,” admonished the Captain gently.
“What do you want to drink!!!” Number Two screamed.
“Well the jynnan tonnyx sounds very nice to me,” said Ford, “What about you Arthur?”
Arthur blinked.
“What? Oh, er, yes,” he said.
“With ice or without?” bellowed Number Two.
“Oh, with please,” said Ford.
“Lemon??!!”
“Yes please,” said Ford, “and do you have any of those little biscuits? You know, the cheesy ones?”
“I'm asking the questions!!!!” howled Number Two, his body quaking with apoplectic fury.
“Er, Number Two…” said the Captain softly.
“Sir?!”
“Push off, would you, there's a good chap. I'm trying to have a relaxing bath.”
Number Two's eyes narrowed and became what are known in the Shouting and Killing People trade as cold slits, the idea presumably being to give your opponent the impression that you have lost your glasses or are having difficulty keeping awake. Why this is frightening is an, as yet, unresolved problem.
He advanced on the captain, his (Number Two's) mouth a thin hard line. Again, tricky to know why this is understood as fighting behaviour. If, whilst wandering through the jungle of Traal, you were suddenly to come upon the fabled Ravenous Bugblatter Beast, you would have reason to be grateful if its mouth was a thin hard line rather than, as it usually is, a gaping mass of slavering fangs.
“May I remind you sir,” hissed Number Two at the Captain, “that you have now been in that bath for over three years?!” This final shot delivered, Number Two spun on his heel and stalked off to a corner to practise darting eye movements in the mirror.
The Captain squirmed in his bath. He gave Ford Prefect a lame smile.
“Well you need to relax a lot in a job like mine,” he said.
Ford slowly lowered his hands. It provoked no reaction. Arthur lowered his.
Treading very slowly and carefully, Ford moved over to the bath pedestal. He patted it.
“Nice,” he lied.
He wondered if it was safe to grin. Very slowly and carefully, he grinned. It was safe.
“Er…” he said to the Captain.
“Yes?” said the Captain.
“I wonder,” said Ford, “could I ask you actually what your job is in fact?”
A hand tapped him on the shoulder. He span round.
It was the first officer.
“Your drinks,” he said.
“Ah, thank you,” said Ford. He and Arthur took their jynnan tonnyx. Arthur sipped his, and was surprised to discover it tasted very like a whisky and soda.
“I mean, I couldn't help noticing,” said Ford, also taking a sip, “the bodies. In the hold.”
“Bodies?” said the Captain in surprise.
Ford paused and thought to himself. Never take anything for granted, he thought. Could it be that the Captain doesn't know he's got fifteen million dead bodies on his ship?
The Captain was nodding cheerfully at him. He also appeared to be playing with a rubber duck.
Ford looked around. Number Two was staring at him in the mirror, but only for an instant: his eyes were constantly on the move. The first officer was just standing there holding the drinks tray and smiling benignly.
“Bodies?” said the Captain again.
Ford licked his lips.
“Yes,” he said, “All those dead telephone sanitizers and account executives, you know, down in the hold.”
The Captain stared at him. Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed.
“Oh they're not dead,” he said, “Good Lord no, no they're frozen. They're going to be revived.”
Ford did something he very rarely did. He blinked.
Arthur seemed to come out of a trance.
“You mean you've got a hold full of frozen hairdressers?” he said.
“Oh yes,” said the Captain, “Millions of them. Hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives, management consultants, you name them. We're going to colonize another planet.”
Ford wobbled very slightly.
“Exciting isn't it?” said the Captain.
“What, with that lot?” said Arthur.
“Ah, now don't misunderstand me,” said the Captain, “we're just one of the ships in the Ark Fleet. We're the `B' Ark you see. Sorry, could I just ask you to run a bit more hot water for me?”
Arthur obliged, and a cascade of pink frothy water swirled around the bath. The Captain let out a sigh of pleasure.
“Thank you so much my dear fellow. Do help yourselves to more drinks of course.”
Ford tossed down his drink, took the bottle from the first officer's tray and refilled his glass to the top.
“What,” he said, “is a `B' Ark?”
“This is,” said the Captain, and swished the foamy water around joyfully with the duck.
“Yes,” said Ford, “but…”
“Well what happened you see was,” said the Captain, “our planet, the world from which we have come, was, so to speak, doomed.”
“Doomed?”
“Oh yes. So what everyone thought was, let's pack the whole population into some giant spaceships and go and settle on another planet.”
Having told this much of his story, he settled back with a satisfied grunt.
“You mean a less doomed one?” promoted Arthur.
“What did you say dear fellow?”
“A less doomed planet. You were going to settle on.”
“Are going to settle on, yes. So it was decided to build three ships, you see, three Arks in Space, and… I'm not boring you am I?”
“No, no,” said Ford firmly, “it's fascinating.”
“You know it's delightful,” reflected the Captain, “to have someone else to talk to for a change.”
Number Two's eyes darted feverishly about the room again and then settled back on the mirror, like a pair
