Well, it was telling him something.
It was telling him, as far as he could make out, that he was about to have a very bad month, that things were going to go from bad to worse if he didn’t get a grip on things and start making some positive moves and thinking things out for himself.
It was true. It was very clear from his star chart which he had worked out using his astrology book and the computer program which that nice Tricia McMillan had designed for him to re-triangulate all the appropriate astronomical data. Earth-based astrology had to be entirely recalculated to yield results that were meaningful to the Grebulons here on the tenth planet out on the frozen edges of the solar system.
The recalculations showed absolutely clearly and unamhigu- ously that he was going to have a very bad month indeed, starting with today. Because today Earth was starting to rise into Capricorn, and that, for the Grebulon leader, who showed all the character signs of being a classic Taurus, was very bad indeed.
Now was the time, his horoscope said, for taking positive actions, making tough decisions, seeing what needed to be done and doing it. This was all very difficult for him, but he knew that nobody ever said that doing tough stuff wasn’t tough. The com- puter was already tracking and predicting the second-by-second location of the planet Earth. He ordered the great grey turrets to swivel.
Because all of the Grebulon surveillance equipment was focused on the planet Earth, it failed to spot that there was now another source of data in the solar system.
Its chances of spotting this other source of data – a massive yellow constructor ship – accidentally were practically nil. It was as far from the sun as Rupert was, but almost diametrically opposite, almost hidden by the sun.
Almost.
The massive yellow constructor ship wanted to be able to monitor events on Planet Ten without being spotted itself. It had managed this very successfully.
There were all sorts of other ways in which this ship was diametrically opposite to the Grebulons.
Its leader, its Captain, had a very clear idea of what his purpose was. It was a very simple and plain one and he had been pursuing it in his simple, plain way for a considerable period of time now.
Anyone who knew of his purpose might have said that it was a pointless and ugly one, that it wasn’t the sort of purpose that enhanced a life, put a spring in a person’s step, made birds sing and flowers bloom. Rather the reverse in fact. Absolutely the reverse.
It wasn’t his job to worry about that, though. It was his job to do his job, which was to do his job. If that led to a certain narrowness of vision and circularity of thought then it wasn’t his job to worry about such things. Any such things that came his way were referred to others who had, in turn, other people to refer such things to.
Many, many light years from here, indeed from anywhere, lies the grim and long abandoned planet, Vogsphere. Some- where on a fetid, fog-bound mud bank on this planet there stands, surrounded by the dirty, broken and empty carapaces of the last few jeweled scuttling crabs, a small stone monument which marks the place, where it is thought, the species Vogon Vogonblurtus first arose. On the monument there is carved an arrow which points away into the fog, under which are inscribed in plain, simple letters the words `The buck stops there.’
Deep in the bowels of his unsightly yellow ship, the Vogon Captain grunted as he reached for a slightly faded and dog-eared piece of paper that lay in front of him. A demolition order.
If you were to unravel exactly where the Captain’s job, which was to do his job which was to do his job, actually began, then it all came down at last to this piece of paper that had been issued to him by his immediate superior long ago. The piece of paper had an instruction on it, and his purpose was to carry out that instruction and put a little tick mark in the adjacent box when he had carried it out.