“You’re a bunch of raving nutters,” he opined.
The tide of opinion started to turn against him. What had started out as excellent entertainment had now, in the crowd’s view, deteriorated into mere abuse, and since this abuse was in the main directed at them they wearied of it.
Sensing this shift in the wind, the marketing girl turned on him.
“Is it perhaps in order,” she demanded, “to inquire what you’ve been doing all these months then? You and that other interloper have been missing since the day we arrived.”
“We’ve been on a journey,” said Ford, “We went to try and find out something about this planet.”
“Oh,” said the girl archly, “doesn’t sound very productive to me.”
“No? Well have I got news for you, my love. We have discovered this planet’s future.”
He continued.“It doesn’t matter a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys what you all choose to do from now on. Burn down the forests, anything, it won’t make a scrap of difference. Your future history has already happened. Two million years you’ve got and that’s it. At the end of that time your race will be dead, gone and good riddance to you. Remember that, two million years!”
The crowd muttered to itself in annoyance. People as rich as they had suddenly become shouldn’t be obliged to listen to this sort of gibberish. Perhaps they could tip the fellow a leaf or two and he would go away.
They didn’t need to bother. Ford was already stalking out of the clearing, pausing only to shake his head at Number Two who was already firing his Kill-O-Zap gun into some neighbouring trees.
He turned back once.
“Two million years!” he said and laughed.
“Well,” said the Captain with a soothing smile, “still time for a few more baths. Could someone pass me the sponge? I just dropped it over the side.”