Tell me, it urged, of the speech you once made, I long to hear it.
It was received very badly, said Marvin, for a variety of reasons. I delivered it, he added, pausing to make an awkward humping sort of gesture with his not-exactly-good arm, but his arm which was better than the other one which was dishearteningly welded to his left side, over there, about a mile distance.
He was pointing as well as he could manage, and he obviously wanted to make it totally clear that this was as well as he could manage, through the mist, over the reeds, to a part of the marsh which looked exactly the same as every other part of the marsh.
There, he repeated. I was somewhat of a celebrity at the time.
Excitement gripped the mattress. It had never heard of speeches being delivered on Squornshellous Zeta, and certainly not by celebrities. Water spattered off it as a thrill glurried across its back.
It did something which mattresses very rarely bother to do. Summoning every bit of its strength, it reared its oblong body, heaved it up into the air and held it quivering there for a few seconds whilst it peered through the mist over the reeds at the part of the marsh which Marvin had indicated, observing, without disappointment, that it was exactly the same as every other part of the marsh. The effort was too much, and it flodged back into its pool, deluging Marvin with smelly mud, moss and weeds.
I was a celebrity, droned the robot sadly, for a short while on account of my miraculous and bitterly resented escape from a fate almost as good as death in the heart of a blazing sun. You can guess from my condition, he added, how narrow my escape was. I was rescued by a scrap-metal merchant, imagine that. Here I am, brain the size of… never mind.
He trudged savagely for a few seconds.
He it was who fixed me up with this leg. Hateful, isn’t it? He sold me to a Mind Zoo. I was the star exhibit. I had to sit on a box and tell my story whilst people told me to cheer up and think positive. “Give us a grin, little robot,” they would shout at me, “give us a little chuckle.” I would explain to them that to get my face to grin wold take a good couple of hours in a workshop with a wrench, and that went down very well.
The speech, urged the mattress. I long to hear of the speech you gave in the marshes.
There was a bridge built across the marshes. A cyberstructured hyperbridge, hundreds of miles in length, to carry ion-buggies and freighters over the swamp.
A bridge? quirruled the mattress. Here in the swamp?
A bridge, confirmed Marvin, here in the swamp. It was going to revitalize the economy of the Squornshellous System. They spent the entire economy of the Squornshellous System building it. They asked me to open it. Poor fools.
It began to rain a little, a fine spray slid through the mist.
I stood on the platform. For hundreds of miles in front of me, and hundreds of miles behind me, the bridge stretched.
Did it glitter? enthused the mattress.
It glittered.