Chapter 37 Chapter Thirty-Seven

For three days and three nights, the gigantic silver robot straddled the ruins of Knightsbridge in amazement, rocking gently to and fro, trying to make sense of something. Government representatives came to meet it, spitting journalists asked each other over the airwaves what they thought of it in their vans, and bombers came and made some weak attacks on it—but no lizards showed up.It slowly scans across the field of vision. It is at its most spectacular at night, when the powerful beam of light from the TV station has shrouded it, and it has been doing nothing. It thought and thought and finally came to a conclusion.

It will send out its own robot servants. He should have thought of this sooner, but it still had some problems then. One afternoon, the tiny flying robot burst out of the hatch screaming like a terrifying cloud of metal.They roam around, attacking some things frantically and defending others. One of them finally found some lizards in a pet store, and he immediately began to protect the store for democracy, but his protection was so brutal that not many things survived in that place. Things came to a turning point when a fleet of these crackling and flying whistles discovered the zoo in Regent's Park, particularly the reptile house.

These flying drills and chainsaws learned to be cautious from their previous mistakes in the pet store. They brought some relatively fat iguanas to meet the giant silver robot, so it tried to have high-end talks with these lizards. In the end the robot announced that despite their full and frank exchange of views, the talks broke down, the lizards were sent back, and the robot was looking for a place to vacation, which for some reason it chose Bournemouth. Ford Prefect, who was watching TV, nodded, smiled, and ordered another glass of beer. Preparations for its departure began immediately.

Those flying toolboxes spent all day and all night whistling, beam-sawing, drilling, and charring something, and by morning a gigantic moving platform had shockingly emerged , began to roll west along the road, and the robot stood on it. It crawled westward, buzzing around with its robotic servants and helicopters, and some newcomers, in what looked like a strange carnival, across the land at last to Bournemouth, where the robot slowed down. Slowly off the transport system, to lie on the beach for ten days. Of course, it was the most exciting thing that ever happened at Bournemouth. Around the specially designated and guarded robot leisure area, there are huge crowds every day, and people are trying to see what it is doing.

It does nothing.It just fell on the beach.Some are lying on their stomachs indecently. One night, a reporter for a local newspaper managed to do what no one else in the world had ever done before, and was to have a succinct conversation with a robot servant who was watching the perimeter. This is really an amazing breakthrough. "I think it should have a story," the reporter said through the chain cordon with a cigarette in his mouth, "but it should also have a localized interview angle. I have a little one with a few questions here." The list," he continued, fumbling in the inside pocket of his clothes, "maybe you can let him, it, whatever you want to call him, take a moment to answer."

The flying ratchet chisel said it would see what it could do, and flew away screaming. No reply. Oddly enough, though, the questions on that paper did more or less coincide with the questions that were being thought in the giant, tried-and-true, industrial-quality circuits in the robot's brain.Those questions are: "How does it feel to be a robot?" "How does it feel to be from outer space?" and "Do you like Bournemouth?" Things started to get organized early the next day, and a few days later it was clear: the robot was going to leave here never to come.

"The question is," Fenchurch said to Ford, "can you get us on board?" Ford looked frantically at his watch. "I have some very important things left to do, and I'm going to get them done," he announced.