Chapter 10

“At the third stroke it will be one. . . thirty-two. . . and twenty seconds.

“Beep. . . beep. . . beep.”

Ford Prefect suppressed a little giggle of evil satisfaction, realized that he had no reason to suppress it, and laughed out loud, a wicked laugh. He switched the incoming signal through from the Sub-Etha Net to the ship’s hi-fi system, and the odd, rather stilted, sing-song voice spoke out with remarkable clarity round the cabin.

“At the third stroke it will be one. . . thirty-two. . . and thirty seconds.

“Beep. . . beep. . . beep.”

He tweaked the volume up just a little while keeping a careful eye on a rapidly changing table of figures on the ship’s computer display. For the length of time he had in mind, the question of power consumption became significant. He didn’t want a murder on his conscience.

“At the third stroke it will be one. . . thirty-two. . . and forty seconds.

“Beep. . . beep. . . beep.”

He checked around the small ship. He walked down the short corridor.

“At the third stroke. . . ”

He stuck his head into the small, functional, gleaming steel bathroom.

“it will be. . . ”

It sounded fine in there.

He looked into the tiny sleeping quarters.

“. . . one. . . thirty-two. . . ”

It sounded a bit muffled. There was a towel hanging over one of the speakers. He took down the towel.

“. . . and fifty seconds.”

Fine.

He checked out the packed cargo hold, and wasn’t at all satisfied with the sound. There was altogether too much crated junk in the way. He stepped back out and waited for the door to seal. He broke open a closed control panel and pushed the jettison button. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of that before. A whooshing rumbling noise died away quickly into silence. After a pause a slight hiss could be heard again. It stopped.

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