Chapter 29

“Zaphod! Wake up!”

“Mmmmmwwwwwerrrrr?”

“Hey come on, wake up.”

“Just let me stick to what I’m good at, yeah?” muttered Zaphod and rolled away from the voice back to sleep.

“Do you want me to kick you?” said Ford.

“Would it give you a lot of pleasure?” said Zaphod, blearily.

“No.”

“Nor me. So what’s the point? Stop bugging me.” Zaphod curled himself up.

“He got a double dose of the gas,” said Trillian looking down at him,

“two windpipes.”

“And stop talking,” said Zaphod, “it’s hard enough trying to sleep anyway. What’s the matter with the ground? It’s all cold and hard.”

“It’s gold,” said Ford.

With an amazingly balletic movement Zaphod was standing and scanning the horizon, because that was how far the gold ground stretched in every direction, perfectly smooth and solid. It gleamed like. . . it’s impossible to say what it gleamed like because nothing in the Universe gleams in quite the same way that a planet of solid gold does.

“Who put all that there?” yelped Zaphod, goggle-eyed.

“Don’t get excited,” said Ford, “it’s only a catalogue.”

“A who?”

“A catalogue,” said Trillian, “an illusion.”

“How can you say that?” cried Zaphod, falling to his hands and knees and staring at the ground. He poked it and prodded it with his fingernail. It was very heavy and very slightly soft – he could mark it with his fingernail. It was very yellow and very shiny, and when he breathed on it his breath evaporated off it in that very peculiar and special way that breath evaporates off solid gold.

“Trillian and I came round a while ago,” said Ford. “We shouted and yelled till somebody came and then carried on shouting and yelling till they 115