"Adams, Douglas - Hitchhiker's 02 - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe 1.1b" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Douglas)

"Hello?" he said.

At that moment Zaphod flung himself over to the polished marble
surfaces that contained the instruments that controlled the
conventional photon drive. They materialized beneath his hands
and he flipped over to manual control. He pushed, he pulled, he
pressed and he swore. The photon drive gave a sickly judder and
cut out again.

"Something up?" said Arthur.

"Hey, didja hear that?" muttered Zaphod as he leapt now for the
manual controls of the Infinite Improbability Drive, "the monkey
spoke!"

The Improbability Drive gave two small whines and then also cut
out.

"Pure history, man," said Zaphod, kicking the Improbability
Drive, "a talking monkey!"

"If you're upset about something ..." said Arthur.

"Vogons!" snapped Ford, "we're under attack!"

Arthur gibbered.

"Well what are you doing? Let's get out of here!"

"Can't. Computer's jammed."

"Jammed?"
"It says all its circuits are occupied. There's no power anywhere
in the ship."

Ford moved away from the computer terminal, wiped a sleeve across
his forehead and slumped back against the wall.

"Nothing we can do," he said. He glared at nothing and bit his
lip.

When Arthur had been a boy at school, long before the Earth had
been demolished, he had used to play football. He had not been at
all good at it, and his particular speciality had been scoring
own goals in important matches. Whenever this happened he used to
experience a peculiar tingling round the back of his neck that
would slowly creep up across his cheeks and heat his brow. The
image of mud and grass and lots of little jeering boys flinging
it at him suddenly came vividly to his mind at this moment.