“You didn’t ask,” he said simply.
“Well, we’re asking you now, metal man,” said Ford, turning round to look at him.
At that moment the ship suddenly stopped rocking and swaying, the engine pitch settled down to a gentle hum.
“Hey, Ford,” said Zaphod, “that sounds good. Have you worked out the controls of this boat?”
“No,” said Ford, “I just stopped fiddling with them. I reckon we just go to wherever this ship is going and get off it fast.”
“Yeah, right,” said Zaphod.
“I could tell you weren’t really interested,” murmured Marvin to himself and slumped into a corner and switched himself off.
“Trouble is,” said Ford, “that the one instrument in this while ship that is giving any reading is worrying me. If it is what I think it is, and if it’s saying what I think it’s saying, then we’ve already gone too far back into the past. Maybe as much as two million years before our own time.”
Zaphod shrugged.
“Time is bunk,” he said.
“I wonder who this ship belongs to anyway,” said Arthur.
“Me,” said Zaphod.
“No. Who it really belongs to.”
“Really me,” insisted Zaphod, “look, property is theft, right? Therefore theft is property. Therefore this ship is mine, OK?”
“Tell the ship that,” said Arthur.
Zaphod strode over to the console.
“Ship,” he said, banging on the panels, “this is your new owner speaking to…”
He got no further. Several things happened at once.
The ship dropped out of time travel mode and re-emerged into real space.
All the controls on the console, which had been shut down for the time trip now lit up.
A large vision screen above the console winked into life revealing a wide starscape and a single very large sun dead ahead of them.
None of these things, however, were responsible for the fact that Zaphod was at the same moment hurled bodily backwards against the rear of the cabin, as were all the others.
They were hurled back by a single thunderous clap of noise that thuddered out of the monitor speakers surrounding the vision screen.