Chapter 7 Chapter VII

Marvin stood at this end of the arcade bridge.He's not really a small robot.His silver body glistened in the dusty beams of sunlight, swaying as the building continued to sway. However, he does look pitifully small when the giant black tank pulls up in front of him.The tank extended a detector to check him, then retracted. Marvin was still standing there. "Get out of my way, little robot," Tank rumbled. "I'm afraid," said Marvin, "that they asked me to stay here to stop you." The detector extended again, did a quick recheck, then retracted again. "You? Stop me?" the tank growled. "Go away!"

"No, I really want to stop you." Marvin said succinctly. "Where's your weaponry?" the tank continued to growl suspiciously. "Guess," said Marvin. The tank's engine roared again, the gears turned, and the molecular-sized electronic relays in the microelectronic brain jumped back and forth in amazement. "Guess what?" Tank said. Zaphod and the as-yet-unnamed man hobbled up one corridor, down a second, and were now walking down a third.The building continued to shake and vibrate.Zaphod felt strange.If they really wanted to blow up the building, why did they take so long?

With much difficulty, they came, panting, to one of the many unmarked, anonymous doors.The door jerked open and they fell through. All this travel, Zaphod thought, all this trouble, all this time spent lying on the beach - all wasted, why on earth?A lone chair, a lone desk, and a lone dirty ashtray, there's only so much in this undecorated office.There was nothing on the desktop except dust and a lonely paper clip with a novelty. "Zarniwoop," said Zaphod, "where?" He felt the thread of the whole thing, which he had already grasped, begin to slip from him again. "He's on an intergalactic cruise," the man said.

Zaphod tried to assess the man.Very enthusiastic type, he thought, not kidding.Only this kind of person would go to the trouble of running up and down rickety corridors, breaking into doors, and uttering such incomprehensible nonsense in empty offices. "Introduce yourself," the man said. "My name is Rosta and this is my towel." "Hi, Rosta," said Zaphod. "Hello, towel," he added, as Rosta handed him a rather dirty but gaudy old towel.He didn't know what to do with the towel, so he shook it by a corner. Outside the window, a giant spaceship, slug-shaped and iron-gray and green, rumbled by.

"Yes, let's guess," Marvin said to the gigantic fighting machine. "You'll never guess." "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...)" said the machine, agitated by the way it was not accustomed to thinking. "Laser beams?" Marvin shook his head gravely. "Wouldn't it be this," the machine muttered in a deep throaty voice, "this is too obvious. Antimatter rays?" It wanted to gamble. "Isn't this more obvious?" Marvin reminded it.

"Yes," boomed the machine, feeling a little ashamed. "Um... electronic hammer, right?" For Marvin, this was a novelty. "What's an electronic hammer?" he asked. "Like this," said the machine excitedly. From its turret protruded a spike, firing a deadly beam of light.The wall behind Marvin crumbled and turned into a heap of ashes.The dust billowed for a while before landing. "No," said Marvin, "not of that kind." "But it's a pretty good weapon, isn't it?" "Very good." Marvin agreed. "I see." After a while more consideration, the Frogstar combat machine said, "You must have one of those new-style matter destruction and reconstruction launchers!"

"That's a great weapon, isn't it?" said Marvin. "The one you have really?" the machine asked in a rather awed tone. "No," said Marvin. "Oh," said the machine disappointedly, "then it must be..." "You're thinking in the wrong direction," Marvin said. "You should think more about the relationship between humans and robots. There's something pretty basic about it." "Well, I see," the battle machine said, "is it...?" The voice gradually died down, and it fell into thinking again.

"Think about it," Marvin encouraged it. "They kept me. Let me, an ordinary mechanical servant, stop you, a giant fighting machine with an important mission. And they themselves ran away Fleeing for my life. What do you think they'll leave me?" "Oh, uh, um," the machine murmured alertly, "must be some kind of deadly weapon of destruction. I should have seen that." "Didn't!" said Marvin. "Oh, yes, did. Do you want me to tell you what they gave me to protect myself?" "Yes, that's great." The fighting machine cheered up.

"Nothing," said Marvin. Then there was a dangerous pause. "Nothing?" growled the battle machine. "Nothing at all," Marvin said sadly, drawn out. "Not even an electric sausage." The machine gasped with rage. "Hmph, even if there is an electric sausage, it's better than biscuits!" It continued to growl. "Nothing, huh? They don't think about us at all, do they?" "And me," Marvin whispered feebly, "all the diodes on my lower left side hurt like hell." "So I should throw you away?" "That's what they think," Marvin said sincerely.

"Damn, I'm so angry," roared the machine, "I want to smash that wall into pieces!" As he said that, its electric shock thorn emitted another scorching light, destroying a wall next to it. "Even you are so angry, how do you think I will feel?" Marvin asked bitterly. "That's how they escaped, leaving you alone, did they?" roared the machine. "Yes." Marvin said. "So angry that I want to smash the ceiling!" Tank roared. Said it destroyed the ceiling of the arcade bridge. "It was an eye-opener," Marvin murmured.

"You haven't seen the real thing yet," the machine assured him. "I can even destroy bridge decks, without breaking a sweat!" And then it literally destroys the bridge deck. "Damn it!" roared the machine, plummeting from the fifteenth floor, smashing to pieces on the ground below. "It's a sadly stupid machine." Marvin dropped the sentence and walked away with heavy steps.