CHAPTER 31

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“I thought you said you could just read his brain electronically,” protested Ford.

“Oh yes,” said Frankie, “but we’d have to get it out first. It’s got to be prepared.”

“Treated,” said Benji.

“Diced.”

“Thank you,” shouted Arthur, tipping up his chair and backing away from the table in horror.

“It could always be replaced,” said Benji reasonably, “if you think it’s important.”

“Yes, an electronic brain,” said Frankie, “a simple one would suffice.”

“A simple one!” wailed Arthur.

“Yeah,” said Zaphod with a sudden evil grin, “you’d just have to program it to say What? and I don’t understand and Where’s the tea? – who’d know the difference?”

“What?” cried Arthur, backing away still further.

“See what I mean?” said Zaphod and howled with pain because of something that Trillian did at that moment.

“I’d notice the difference,” said Arthur.

“No you wouldn’t,” said Frankie mouse, “you’d be programmed not to.”

Ford made for the door.

“Look, I’m sorry, mice old lads,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve got a deal.”

“I rather think we have to have a deal,” said the mice in chorus, all the charm vanishing fro their piping little voices in an instant. With a tiny whining shriek their two glass transports lifted themselves off the table, and swung through the air towards Arthur, who stumbled further backwards into a blind corner, utterly unable to cope or think of anything. Trillian grabbed him desperately by the arm and tried to drag him towards the door, which Ford and Zaphod were struggling to open, but Arthur was dead weight – he seemed hypnotized by the airborne rodents swooping towards him.

She screamed at him, but he just gaped.

With one more yank, Ford and Zaphod got the door open. On the other side of it was a small pack of rather ugly men who they could only assume were the heavy mob of Magrathea. Not only were they ugly themselves, but the medical equipment they carried with them was also far from pretty. They charged.

So – Arthur was about to have his head cut open, Trillian was unable to help him, and Ford and Zaphod were about to be set upon by several thugs a great deal heavier and more sharply armed than they were. All in all it was extremely fortunate that at that moment every alarm on the planet burst into an earsplitting din.

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