“One moment I was sitting in your ship feeling very depressed, and the next moment I was standing here feeling utterly miserable. An Improbability Field I expect.”
“Yeah,” said Zaphod, “I expect my great grandfather sent you along to keep me company.”
“Thanks a bundle, grandad,” he added to himself under his breath.
“So, how are you?” he said aloud.
“Oh, fine,” said Marvin, “if you happen to like being me which personally I don’t.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Zaphod as the elevator doors opened.
“Hello,” said the elevator sweetly, “I am to be your elevator for this trip to the floor of your choice. I have been designed by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation to take you, the visitor to The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, into these their offices. If you enjoy your ride, which will be swift and pleasurable, then you may care to experience some of the other elevators which have recently been installed in the offices of the Galactic tax department, Boobiloo Baby Foods and the Sirian State Mental Hospital, where many ex-Sirius Cybernetics Corporation executives will be delighted to welcome your visits, sympathy, and happy tales of the outside world.”
“Yeah,” said Zaphod, stepping into it, “what else do you do besides talk?”
“I go up,” said the elevator, “or down.”
“Good,” said Zaphod, “We’re going up.”
“Or down,” the elevator reminded him.
“Yeah, OK, up please.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Down’s very nice,” suggested the elevator hopefully.
“Oh yeah?”
“Super.”
“Good,” said Zaphod, “Now will you take us up?”
“May I ask you,” inquired the elevator in its sweetest, most reasonable voice, “if you’ve considered all the possibilities that down might offer you?”
Zaphod knocked one of his heads against the inside wall. He didn’t need this, he thought to himself, this of all things he had no need of. He hadn’t asked to be here. If he was asked at this moment where he would like to be he would probably have said he would like to be lying on the beach with at least fifty beautiful women and a small team of experts working out new ways they could be nice to him, which was his usual reply. To this he would probably have added something passionate on the subject of food.
One thing he didn’t want to be doing was chasing after the man who ruled the Universe, who was only doing a job which he might as well keep at, because if it wasn’t him it would only be someone else. Most of all he didn’t want to be standing in an office block arguing with an elevator.
“Like what other possibilities?” he asked wearily.
“Well,” the voice trickled on like honey on biscuits, “there’s the basement, the microfiles, the heating system… er…”
It paused.