respects, the most obvious of which was the colourful arrangement of
parts of the ship’s late lamented Navigation Officer over the floor,
walls and ceiling, and especially over the lower half of his, Zaphod’s,
suit. The effect of this was so astoundingly nasty that we shall not be
referring to again at any point in this narrative – other than to record
briefly the fact that it caused Zaphod to throw up inside his suit,
which he therefore removed and swapped, after suitable headgear
modifications, with the empty one. Unfortunately the stench of the fetid
air in the ship, followed by the sight of his own suit walking around
casually draped in rotting intestines was enough to make him throw up in
the other suit as well, which was a problem that he and the suit would
simply have to live with.
There. All done. No more nastiness.
At least, no more of that particular nastiness.
The owner of the screaming face had calmed down very slightly now and
was bubbling away incoherently in a large tank of yellow liquid – an
emergency suspension tank.
“It was crazy,” he babbled, “crazy! I told him we could always try
the lobster on the way back, but he was crazy. Obsessed! Do you ever get
like that about lobster? Because I don’t. Seems to me it’s all rubbery
and fiddly to eat, and not that much taste, well I mean is there? I
infinitely prefer scallops, and said so. Oh Zarquon, I said so!”
Zaphod stared at this extraordinary apparition, flailing in its tank.
The man was attached to all kinds of life-support tubes, and his voice
was bubbling out of speakers that echoed insanely round the ship,
returning as haunting echoes from deep and distant corridors.
“That was where I went wrong” the madman yelled, “I actually said
that I preferred scallops and he said it was because I hadn’t had real
lobster like they did where his ancestors came from, which was here, and
he’d prove it. He said it was no problem, he said the lobster here was
worth a whole journey, let alone the small diversion it would take to
get here, and he swore he could handle the ship in the atmosphere, but
it was madness, madness!” he screamed, and paused with his eyes rolling,
as if the word had rung some kind of bell in his mind, “The ship went
right out of control! I couldn’t believe what we were doing and just to
prove a point about lobster which is really so overrated as a food, I’m
sorry to go on about lobsters so much, I’ll try and stop in a minute,
but they’ve been on my mind so much for the months I’ve been in this
tank, can you imagine what it’s like to be stuck in a ship with the same
guys for months eating junk food when all one guy will talk about is
lobster and then spend six months floating by yourself in a tank
thinking about it. I promise I will try and shut up about the lobsters,
I really will. Lobsters, lobsters, lobsters – enough! I think I’m the
only survivor. I’m the only one who managed to get to an emergency tank
before we went down. I sent out the Mayday and then we hit. It’s a
disaster isn’t it? A total disaster, and all because the guy liked
lobsters. How much sense am I making? It’s really hard for me to tell.”
He gazed at them beseechingly, and his mind seemed to sway slowly back
down to earth like a falling leaf . He blinked and looked at them oddly
like a monkey peering at a strange fish. He scrabbled curiously with his
wrinkled up fingers at the glass side of the tank. Tiny, thick yellow
bubbles loosed themselves from his mouth and nose, caught briefly in his
swab of hair and strayed on upwards.
“Oh Zarquon, oh heavens,” he mumbled pathetically to himself, “I’ve
been found. I’ve been rescued…”
“Well,” said one of the officials, briskly, “you’ve been found at
least.” He strode over to the main computer bank in the middle of the
chamber and started checking quickly through the ship’s main monitor