Douglas Adams - Young Zaphod Plays It Safe

A large flying craft moved swiftly across the surface of anastoundingly beautiful sea. From mid-morning onwards it plied back andforth in great widening arcs, and at last attracted the attention of thelocal islanders, a peaceful, sea-food loving people who gathered on thebeach and squinted up into the blinding sun, trying to see what wasthere.

Any sophisticated knowledgeable person, who had knocked about, seen afew things, would probably have remarked on how much the craft lookedlike a filing cabinet - a large and recently burgled filing cabinetlying on its back with its drawers in the air and flying.

The islanders, whose experience was of a different kind, were insteadstruck by how little it looked like a lobster.

They chattered excitedly about its total lack of claws, its stiffunbendy back, and the fact that it seemed to experience the greatestdifficulty staying on the ground. This last feature seemed particularlyfunny to them. They jumped up and down on the spot a lot to demonstrateto the stupid thing that they themselves found staying on the ground theeasiest thing in the world.

But soon this entertainment began to pall for them. After all, sinceit was perfectly clear to them that the thing was not a lobster, andsince their world was blessed with an abundance of things that werelobsters (a good half a dozen of which were now marching succulently upthe beach towards them) they saw no reason to waste any more time on thething but decided instead to adjourn immediately for a late lobsterlunch.

At that exact moment the craft stopped suddenly in mid-air thenupended itself and plunged headlong into the ocean with a great crash ofspray which sent them shouting into the trees.

When they re-emerged, nervously, a few minutes later, all they wereable to see was a smoothly scarred circle of water and a few gulpingbubbles.

That's odd, they said to each other between mouthfuls of the bestlobster to be had anywhere in the Western Galaxy, that's the second timethat's happened in a year.

The craft which wasn't a lobster dived direct to a depth of twohundred feet, and hung there in the heavy blueness, while vast masses ofwater swayed about it. High above, where the water was magically clear,a brilliant formation of fish flashed away. Below, where the light haddifficulty reaching the colour of the water sank to a dark and savageblue.

Here, at two hundred feet, the sun streamed feebly. A large, silkskinned sea-mammal rolled idly by, inspecting the craft with a kind ofhalf-interest, as if it had half expected to find something of this kindround about here, and then it slid on up and away towards the ripplinglight.

The craft waited here for a minute or two, taking readings, and thendescended another hundred feet. At this depth it was becoming seriouslydark. After a moment or two the internal lights of the craft shut down,and in the second or so that passed before the main external beamssuddenly stabbed out, the only visible light came from a small hazilyilluminated pink sign which read The Beeblebrox Salvage and Really WildStuff Corporation.

The huge beams switched downwards, catching a vast shoal of silverfish, which swiveled away in silent panic.

In the dim control room which extended in a broad bow from thecraft's blunt prow, four heads were gathered round a computer displaythat was analysing the very, very faint and intermittent signals thatemanating from deep on the sea bed.

"That's it," said the owner of one of the heads finally.

"Can we be quite sure?" said the owner of another of the heads.

"One hundred per cent positive," replied the owner of the first head.

"You're one hundred per cent positive that the ship which is crashedon the bottom of this ocean is the ship which you said you were onehundred per cent positive could one hundred per cent positively nevercrash?" said the owner of the two remaining heads. "Hey," he put up twoof his hands, "I'm only asking."

The two officials from the Safety and Civil ReassuranceAdministration responded to this with a very cold stare, but the manwith the odd, or rather the even number of heads, missed it. He flunghimself back on the pilot couch, opened a couple of beers - one forhimself and the other also for himself - stuck his feet on the consoleand said "Hey, baby" through the ultra-glass at a passing fish.

"Mr. Beeblebrox...," began the shorter and less reassuring of the twoofficials in a low voice.

"Yup?" said Zaphod, rapping a suddenly empty can down on some of themore sensitive instruments, "you ready to dive? Let's go."

"Mr. Beeblebrox, let us make one thing perfectly clear..."

"Yeah let's," said Zaphod, "How about this for a start. Why don't youjust tell me what's really on this ship."

"We have told you," said the official. "By-products."

Zaphod exchanged weary glances with himself.

"By-products," he said. "By-products of what?"

"Processes." said the official.

"What processes?"

"Processes that are perfectly safe."

"Santa Zarquana Voostra!" exclaimed both of Zaphod's heads in chorus,"so safe that you have to build a zarking fortress ship to take theby-products to the nearest black hole and tip them in! Only it doesn'tget there because the pilot does a detour - is this right? - to pick upsome lobster...? OK, so the guy is cool, but... I mean own up, this isbarking time, this is major lunch, this is stool approaching criticalmass, this is... this is... total vocabulary failure!"

"Shut up!" his right head yelled at his left, "we're flanging!"

He got a good calming grip on the remaining beer can.

"Listen guys," he resumed after a moment's peace and contemplation.The two officials had said nothing. Conversation at this level was notsomething to which they felt they could aspire. "I just want to know,"insisted Zaphod, "what you're getting me into here."

He stabbed a finger at the intermittent readings trickling over thecomputer screen. They meant nothing to him but he didn't like the lookof them at all. They were all squiggly with lots of long numbers andthings.

"It's breaking up, is that it?" he shouted. "It's got a hold fullepsilonic radiating aorist rods or something that'll fry this wholespace sector for zillions of years back and it's breaking up. Is thatthe story? Is that what we're going down to find? Am I going to come outof that wreck with even more heads?"

"It cannot possibly be a wreck, Mr. Beeblebrox," insisted theofficial, "the ship is guaranteed to be perfectly safe. It cannotpossibly break up"

"Then why are you so keen to go and look at it?"

"We like to look at things that are perfectly safe."

"Freeeooow!"

"Mr. Beeblebrox," said on official, patiently, "may I remind you thatyou have a job to do?"

"Yeah, well maybe I don't feel so keen on doing it all of a sudden.What do you think I am, completely without any moral whatsits, what arethey called, those moral things?"

"Scruples?"

"Scruples, thank you, whatsoever? Well?"

The two officials waited calmly. They coughed slightly to help passthe time. Zaphod sighed a "what is the world coming to" sort of sigh toabsolve himself from all blame, and swung himself round in his seat.

"Ship?" he called.

"Yup?" said the ship.

"Do what I do."

The ship thought about this for a few milliseconds and then, afterdouble checking all the seals on its heavy duty bulkheads, it beganslowly, inexorably, in the hazy blaze of its lights, to sink to thelowest depths.

Five hundred feet.

A thousand.

Two thousand.

Here, at a pressure or nearly seventy atmospheres, in the chillingdepths where no light reaches, nature keeps its most heated imaginings.Two foot long nightmares loomed wildly into the bleaching light, yawned,and vanished back into the blackness.