CHAPTER 29

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got fed up and put us in their planet catalogue to keep us busy till they were ready to deal with us. This is all Sens-O-Tape.”

Zaphod stared at him bitterly.

“Ah, shit,” he said, “you wake me up from my own perfectly good dream to show me somebody else’s.” He sat down in a huff.

“What’s that series of valleys over there?” he said.

“Hallmark,” said Ford. “We had a look.”

“We didn’t wake you earlier,” said Trillian. “The last planet was knee deep in fish.”

“Fish?”

“Some people like the oddest things.”

“And before that,” said Ford, “we had platinum. Bit dull. We thought you’d like to see this one though.”

Seas of light glared at them in one solid blaze wherever they looked.

“Very pretty,” said Zaphod petulantly.

In the sky a huge green catalogue number appeared. It flickered and changed, and when they looked around again so had the land. As with one voice they all went, “Yuch.”

The sea was purple. The beach they were on was composed of tiny yellow and green pebbles – presumably terribly precious stones. The mountains in the distance seemed soft and undulating with red peaks. Nearby stood a solid silver beach table with a frilly mauve parasol and silver tassles. In the sky a huge sign appeared, replacing the catalogue number. It said, Whatever your tastes, Magrathea can cater for you. We are not proud. And five hundred entirely naked women dropped out of the sky on parachutes.

In a moment the scene vanished and left them in a springtime meadow full of cows.

“Ow!” said Zaphod. “My brains!”

“You want to talk about it?” said Ford.

“Yeah, OK,” said Zaphod, and all three sat down and ignored the scenes that came and went around them.

“I figure this,” said Zaphod. “Whatever happened to my mind, I did it. And I did it in such a way that it wouldn’t be detected by the government screening tests. And I wasn’t to know anything about it myself. Pretty crazy, right?”

The other two nodded in agreement.

“So I reckon, what’s so secret that I can’t let anybody know I know it, not the Galactic Government, not even myself? And the answer is I don’t know. Obviously. But I put a few things together and I can begin to guess. When did I decide to run for President? Shortly after the death of President Yooden Vranx. You remember Yooden, Ford?”

“Yeah,” said Ford, “he was that guy we met when we were kids, the Arcturan captain. He was a gas. He gave us conkers when you bust your 116