Zaphod had continued rambling on about the new guide, the Vogons and the conspiracy of psychiatrists until he lapsed back into sleep.
Slartibartfast teleported back to the Bistromath and returned with a squad of robot labourers to help tidy up the ship and prepare some food.
The trio sat eating in silence, still trying to take in the day's starting sequence of events and, in the main, failing miserably.
Roosta didn’t know what to think of his old friend Zaphod. He’d first met him many years ago when he’d been asked by a man named Zarniwoop to guide him, Zaphod, into the artificial universe that he, Zarniwoop, had created in his office.
Much later they had shared an amusing evening as Zaphod related how that saga had finished with Zarniwoop being abandoned on a planet in the middle of nowhere.
Since then they had kept in touch occasionally and become good friends.
But now it seemed that Zarniwoop might have been one of the radical freethinkers that Halfrunt was trying to stop. Maybe Zaphod had unwittingly helped them. Or maybe not so unwittingly?
Fenchurch also didn’t know what to think of Zaphod. She had heard so many stories about him from Arthur that he had seemed an almost mythical character, larger than life and very definitely alien.
Seeing him lying there in a broken mess made him seem almost human despite the extra body parts.
And what about this trying to warn the Earth bit?
This was an entirely new slant on an event that Arthur and Ford had always sounded bitter about. Mind you, she thought, had Arthur’s bitterness come from the fact that Zaphod had run off with the girl that Arthur was trying to chat up?
What of that girl herself?
She was now the only one of the galaxy-trotting group that Fenchurch had not met. She did not have a clear picture of her at all. Arthur seemed to think she and Zaphod has kicked around together because it was convenient but, today, there had been clear affection in the way Zaphod spoke.
Slartibartfast did not think of Zaphod at all. His thoughts were of a deeper, more cataclysmic nature.
He was very worried about this new “Guide” that Zaphod had been told about. He felt sure its appearance was not purely by chance exactly as he was sure the original appearance of the Heart of Gold was not purely by chance.
Somebody, somewhere was manipulating powerful forces in the universe.
In describing the power of the Guide, Zaphod, and presumably Halfrunt, who Zaphod had found out from originally, had used the term “Temporal Reverse Engineering”.
This was a concept he had had described to him by one of the other members of CanTim some years ago. It was absolutely terrifying but, he had been told, absolutely impossible.
What if it was not impossible, just very, very improbable?
He rose from the table and spoke “I must go to my ship. There are things I must do, people with whom I must speak. I will return when I have the answers I seek.”
“Or at least, I have the questions I must find the answers to…” he added and he pressed his teleport button.
¨
When he returned a few hours later, the bridge was quiet. The others were nowhere to be seen.
“Computer!” he called out, “where are Roosta and the girl?”
“He is in cabin 14, she in 17.” Chimed back Eddie. “Mr Beeblebrox still sleeps in his cabin. I think they are all rather tired.”
“Yes, I imagine they are.”
He thought for a moment. “Let them sleep, we will need all our wits about us if we are to confront the nightmare I think we will tomorrow.”
“Give me external vision screens”
Slartibartfast looked out across the desolate ruins of the planet. If we do not succeed, he thought, how many more planets would look like this?