“Come on!” Yelled Trillian, seeing the robots closing in.
Zaphod grabbed Ford’s arm.
“Let’s stand and fight these guys, impress the chicks,” said Zaphod. “I feel like mashing some metal.” Zaphod flexed his sinews.
Ford was so stunned he stopped running.
“What are they doing?” Asked Bolo.
“I wish I knew,” said Trillian.
“I know,” said Marvin. He looked at Bolo and Trillian then went back to looking at Ford and Zaphod.
“Well do you think you could tell us then,” said Trillian, trying to remain patient.
“They are lifeforms.”
Trillian waited.
“That isn’t much help, Marvin,” said Bolo.
“Look,” said Marvin, summing up every monotony circuit to help convey his message. “Since 97.6667% of activities undertaken by lifeforms are stupid and or pointless, the law of averages says that whatever they are doing is probably stupid and or pointless.”
“Thanks, Marvin.”
Marvin was, of course, right. Not only were Ford and Zaphod unarmed, they were also well on their way to being legless.
“What the hell are you doing?” Asked Arthur as he approached the defiant duo.
“Standing our ground,” said Ford.
“But that’s insane,” said Arthur, stopping. Fenchurch had no intention of stopping and every intention of breaking the 100 metres record.
“We can beat these metallic morons,” said Zaphod.
“If you stay here they’ll become metallic murderers,” pleaded Arthur.
“Arthur, if you can’t stand the heat, go and join the women,” said Ford.
“If I had any sense I would,” sighed Arthur and turned to face the oncoming robots.
This stunned the robots. It wasn’t in the rules and as there was no umpire handy to consult, they were stumped. They muttered amongst themselves then one stepped forward.
“How do you do,” he started, in a perfect English accent. “My name is Jeremy and my colleagues have very kindly voted me spokesman.
“Howdy, Germy, ” said Zaphod.
“Er, howdy to you, too. Now, we are a bit perplexed to say the least by your actions. We have been programmed to kill you, not our choice you see, and we were having quite a jolly time chasing you and that.”
“Spiffing fun, wasn’t it old chap,” chirped Ford.
“Yes, very exhilarating. But it would be very unsporting of us to kill you in cold blood.”
“I’ll say!” Shouted one robot from the back.
“Well they say the chase is better than the catch,” said Arthur.
“You are so right,” said Jeremy.
“Well guys,” said Zaphod, holding his arms out. “You’ve been so nice about all this, we’ll give you a break. We’ll go to our ship, take off and then you can come and chase us. All this running is bad for the legs.”
“Hear, hear!” Shouted the robots.
“Sounds like a grand idea to me,” said Jeremy.
“Okay then, that’s settled,” said Ford. “Give us five minutes to get a head start then it’s ‘Tally-Ho’ away you go!”
This started Jeremy off, leading the robots in ‘three cheers for the lads’ and Arthur thinking that they still hadn’t quite got the programming right at the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
“Look at those schmucks,” said Zaphod as they turned to the Heart of Gold. “We’ll improb out of here and they won’t know where to start looking.”
They got back to the ship, with Ford and Arthur congratulating each other and Zaphod congratulating himself. The girls tried to compete by telling the guys how stupid they had been.
“Okay computer, get us out of this wretched place,” said Zaphod as he arrived at the bridge.
“Hi guys,” enthused Eddie.”Great to see you again. I’m sorry I can’t get you out of this, but I’m sure we are going to have a great time instead.”
“What are you talking about, computer?” Asked Ford. “Use the improbability drive and get us out before some very sporting robots tear us limb from limb.”
“Well, there’s the problem,” said Eddie. “the improbability drive isn’t working, some clown pulled a wire on it. Anyone fancy a game of Charades? I’m not too good at acting them out but I’m a whizz at guessing them.”
“Swutting mechanics,” growled Zaphod.
“Did they pull the wire?” Asked Frod.
“No, I did,” admitted Zaphod. “But that’s not the point.”