We demand, yelled Vroomfondel, that demarcation may or may not be the problem!
You just let the machines get on with the adding up, warned Majikthise, and well take care of the eternal verities thank you very much. You want to check your legal position you do mate. Under law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and were straight out of a job arent we? I mean whats the use of our sitting up half the night arguing that there may or may not be a God if this machine only goes and gives us his bleeding phone number the next morning?
Thats right! shouted Vroomfondel, we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!
Suddenly a stentorian voice boomed across the room.
Might I make an observation at this point? inquired Deep Thought.
Well go on strike! yelled Vroomfondel.
Thats
right! agreed Majikthise. Youll have a national Philosophers strike on your hands!
The hum level in the room suddenly increased as several ancillary bass driver units, mounted in sedately carved and varnished cabinet speakers around the room, cut in to give Deep Thoughts voice a little more power.
All I wanted to say, bellowed the computer, is that my circuits are now irrevocably committed to calculating the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything he paused and satisfied himself that he now had everyones attention, before continuing more quietly, but the programme will take me a little while to run.
Fook glanced impatiently at his watch.
How long? he said.
Seven and a half million years, said Deep Thought.
Lunkwill and Fook blinked at each other.
Seven and a half million years! they cried in chorus.
Yes, declaimed Deep Thought, I said Id have to think about it, didnt I? And it occurs to me that running a programme like this is bound to create an enormous amount of popular publicity for the whole area of philosophy in general. Everyones going to have their own theories about what answer Im eventually to come up with, and who better to capitalize on that media market than you yourself? So long as you can keep disagreeing with each other violently enough and slagging each other off in the popular press, you can keep yourself on the gravy train for life. How does that sound?
The two philosophers gaped at him.
Bloody hell, said Majikthise, now that is what I call thinking. Here Vroomfondel, why do we never think of things like that?
Dunno, said Vroomfondel in an awed whisper, think our brains must be too highly trained Majikthise.
So saying, they turned on their heels and walked out of the door and into a lifestyle beyond their wildest dreams.
Chapter 26
That is but the first half of the story Earthman, said the old man. If you would care to discover what happened seven and a half millions later, on the great day of the Answer, allow me to invite you to my study where you can experience the events yourself on our Sens-O-Tape records. That is unless you would care to take a quick stroll on the surface of New Earth. Its only half completed Im afraidwe havent even finished burying the artificial dinosaur skeletons in the crust yet, then we have the Tertiary and Quarternary Periods of the Cenozoic Era to lay down, and
No thank you, said Arthur, it wouldnt be quite the same.
No, said Slartibartfast, it wont be, and he turned the aircar round and headed back towards the mind-numbing wall.
Chapter 27
Terribly unfortunate, he said, a diode blew in one of the life-support computers. When we tried to revive our cleaning staff we discovered theyd been dead for nearly thirty thousand years. Whos going to clear away the bodies, thats what I want to know. Look why dont you sit yourself down over there and let me plug you in?
He gestured Arthur towards a chair which looked as if it had been made out of the rib cage of a stegosaurus.
It was made out of the rib cage of a stegosaurus, explained the old man as he pottered about fishing bits of wire out from under tottering piles of paper and drawing instruments. Here, he said, hold these, and passed a couple of stripped wire end to Arthur.
The instant he took hold of them a bird flew straight through him.
He was suspended in mid-air and totally invisible to himself. Beneath him was a pretty treelined city square, and all around it as far as the eye could see were white concrete buildings of airy spacious design but somewhat the worse for wearmany were cracked and stained with rain. Today however the sun was shining, a fresh breeze danced lightly through the trees, and the odd sensation that all the buildings were quietly humming was probably caused by the fact that the square and all the streets around it were thronged with cheerful excited people. Somewhere a band was playing, brightly coloured flags were fluttering in the breeze and the spirit of carnival was in the air.
Arthur felt extraordinarily lonely stuck up in the air above it all without so much as a body to his name, but before he had time to reflect on this a voice rang out across the square and called for everyones attention.