Chapter 40 Chapter Forty

Not much more to say. It was once known as Frannox's Infinity Light, before the discovery of Cycorthaquin's Gray United, with Cycorsaquin's Gray United just ahead of it.There is a star called Chas in the gray joint fiefdom of Saiko Saquin, and there is a planet called Prielutan in its orbit, and the planet is the continent of Servenbiopstri, and The Continent of Serven Beopstree is where Arthur and Fenchurch arrived with a little exhaustion after their journey. They came at last to the Great Red Plain of Lars in the Continent of Servenbiopstri, which borders the south of the Quintalus Quazga Mountains, according to what Porak said before his death , they could find God's last message to his creation written in thirty-foot-high letters of fire on the far side of the mountains.

According to Porak, if Arthur remembered correctly, the place was guarded by Rajstik Fanchashere of Lob, as it turned out to be.It was a little man in a strange hat who sold them a ticket. "Keep left," he said, "keep left." Then he hurried past them in a small scooter and walked away. They realized they weren't the first to pass by, as the trail to the left of the Great Plains looked frequented and dotted with kiosks.At a kiosk they bought a box of fudge that had been baked in a cave in the mountains with the same fire as the letters of God's last message to his creation.They bought some postcards at another kiosk.The lettering had been blurred with an airbrush tool, "in order not to spoil the 'big surprise,'" the back of the postcard read.

"Do you know what that message is?" they asked the wizened little woman behind the kiosk. "Oh yes," she cried happily, "oh yes." She waved them off. Every twenty miles or so there was a small stone hut with showers and washing facilities, but the journey was hard, and the high sun baked the great red plains, which rippled slightly from the heat. "Is it possible," Arthur asked from one of the larger kiosks, "to rent a little electric car? Like the ones driven by Rajastic Fanchashere?" "Electric cars," said a little woman buying ice cream, "are ungodly."

"Okay, that's easy," Fenchurch said. "We're not very religious. I'm just interested." "Then you should go back now," said the little woman sternly, and when they protested, she sold two "Last Message" sunhats and one with Lars's Red Great Plains as their backdrop. Tight hug pictures to them. They drank some soda in the shade of the kiosk, then trudged out into the sun again. "We're out of cream," Fenchurch said after walking a few miles, "we can get it at the next kiosk, or we can go back to the previous kiosk, which is closer, but then we have to put this Walk the road all over again.”

They stared ahead at the distant black dot gleaming in the steaming heat; they looked back.They decided to move on. Then they discovered that not only were they not the first to take this path, but they were not the only ones who were doing it. Somewhere in front of them, a clumsy little shadow was moving its body pitifully on the ground, staggering slowly and laboriously, half rubbing and half crawling forward. It was moving so slowly that it didn't take long for them to catch up and see that the thing was made of old, cracked, twisted metal. It groaned as they approached, tipping over in the hot dust.

"So long," it moaned, "so long. And pain, and so much, and so much pain for such a long time. If it was just one of them, I should be able to handle it. Two together I can There is really no other way. Oh hello, it's you again." "Marvin?" screamed Arthur, crouching down beside it. "Is that you?" "You're always going to be like this," moaned the old shell of the robot, "asking some super smart questions, aren't you?" "What is this?" Fenchurch knelt down behind Arthur, grabbed his arm, and asked vigilantly.

"An old friend," said Arthur, "I..." "Friend!" the robot muttered miserably.The word dissipated with a crackle, and a few flecks of rust fell from its mouth, "Excuse me for trying to remember what this word means. My memory bank isn't what it used to be, you know. All trillions Words that haven't been used in years have been placed in secondary storage backups. Ah, found it." The robot's flattened head closed upwards, as if thinking. "Well," he said, "what a strange concept." He thought for a while. "No," he said at last, "I don't think I've ever met one like that. Sorry, I can't help you."

He slid miserably on one knee in the dust, then struggled to prop himself up on his twisted elbow. "Is there any final service you might want me to do?" he asked in a hollow click. "Want me to pick you up a piece of paper? Or want me," he went on, "to open a door ?” His head resting on his rusty neck creaked and turned, appearing to scan the distant sky. "Looks like there's no door around right now," he said, "but I'm sure someone will fix one if we wait long enough. Then," he turned slowly to look at Arthur, "I I can open the door for you. I'm very used to waiting, you know."

"Arthur," Finchitch whispered sternly in his ear, "you never told me that. What did you do to the poor thing?" "Nothing," Arthur declared sadly, "he's always been like this..." "Ha!" snapped Marvin. "Ha!" he repeated. "You know forever? You're no better than me now because of life organizations like yours that keep sending me through time to do silly little tasks." Robots that are thirty-seven times older than the universe itself, say 'forever'? Be careful and retract your words," he coughed. "Use your brains."

He coughed and pulled forward, then continued. "Leave me," he said, "and go on. Leave me here to writhe in agony. My days are at last at last. My way is almost done. I wish," he said, "with a broken fingers waved goodbye to them,—finally it's over. It's time. Here I am, brain capacity..." They picked him up on either side, ignoring his feeble protests and insults.The metal on his body was so hot that they almost blistered their hands, but he was surprisingly light, just hanging limply on their arms. They carried him along the road that turned left on the Lars Red Great Plain to the Quintulus Quozgar Mountains that surrounded the front.

Arthur tries to explain to Finchitch, but is always interrupted by Marvin's outbursts of grief. At one kiosk, they wanted to see if they could get Marvin some spare parts, but Marvin wanted none. "I'm all spare parts," he murmured. "Leave me alone!" he moaned. "Every part of me," he wailed, "has been replaced at least fifty times, . . . except for . . . " He looked imperceptibly pleased.He shook his head between them, trying to remember, "Do you remember, when you first met me," he finally said to Arthur, "I was sent on that brain-training mission, which was Take you to the bridge? Did I tell you all the diodes on my left side hurt like hell? I asked them to change them, but they never changed?" He paused for a moment without continuing.They supported him on both sides, and the sun above seemed to never move from its nest, let alone set. "See if you can guess," Marvin said, noticing that his pause had grown awkward, "what part of me hasn't been replaced? Come on, see if you can guess?" "Ouch," he went on, "ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch." They reached the last few kiosks at last and set Marvin down in the shadows.Fenchurch bought some clasps for Russell, and those clasps were inlaid with small polished stones. Picked up below the flame letters of the final message. On the counter Arthur was flipping through a small shelf of devotional pamphlets, meditations on the meaning of the message. "Ready?" he asked Finchitch, who nodded. They set Marvin up on both sides. They rounded the foot of Quintulus Quozgal until they reached the message written in flaming letters on the top of the mountain.On a big rock facing the message, a small viewing platform is surrounded by a guardrail, and the view there is very good.There was also a paid small telescope to look at each letter carefully, but no one ever used it, because the letters were burnt in the divine light from heaven, and if viewed through a telescope, it would seriously damage the retina and optic nerve. They watched God's final message in awe, slowly filled with an indescribably great peace and ultimate, utter understanding. Finchchi sighed. "Yes," she said, "that's it." They stared at the message for ten minutes before they noticed that Marvin, slumped over their shoulders, was in trouble.The robot's head could no longer be raised to see the message.They held his head up, but he complained that his visual circuits were almost completely broken. They found a coin and helped him to the telescope.He complained and insulted them, but they helped him read each letter in turn, the first letter was "w" and the second was "e".Then there is a blank space (this is the first word we, "we").Then came an "a", followed by a "p", an "o", and an "l". Marvin stopped for a while to rest. After a while they came and showed him "o", "g", "i", "s" and "e" (this is the second word apologize, which means "sorry"). The next two words are "for", and "the".The last word was rather long, and Marvin had to rest for a while before continuing. The word begins with an "i", followed by an "n" and a "c".Then came an "o" and an "n", followed by a "v", an "e", another "n", and an "i". Resting one last time, Marvin mustered his last strength to finish. He sees "e", "n", "c", and finally the last letter "e" (the word is inconvenience, "inconvenience". The whole message is We apologize for the inconvenience, "We apologize for the inconvenience." Sorry for the inconvenience."), then wobbled and fell on their arms. "I think," he finally whispered through his rusty, rattling chest, "I feel good about this." The light in his eyes went out for the last time, forever. Luckily, there's a kiosk nearby where you can rent an electric scooter from the guy with the green wings.