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

They are all that remains of the greatest experiment ever
conducted - to find the Ultimate Question and the Ultimate Answer
of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

And, less than half a million miles from where their starship is
drifting lazily through the inky blackness of space, a Vogon ship
is moving slowly towards them.


Section 1

Like all Vogon ships it looked as if it had been not so much
designed as congealed. The unpleasant yellow lumps and edifices
which protuded from it at unsightly angles would have disfigured
the looks of most ships, but in this case that was sadly
impossible. Uglier things have been spotted in the skies, but not
by reliable witnesses.

In fact to see anything much uglier than a Vogon ship you would
have to go inside and look at a Vogon. If you are wise, however,
this is precisely what you will avoid doing because the average
Vogon will not think twice before doing something so pointlessly
hideous to you that you will wish you had never been born - or
(if you are a clearer minded thinker) that the Vogon had never
been born.

In fact, the average Vogon probably wouldn't even think once.
They are simple-minded, thick-willed, slug-brained creatures, and
thinking is not really something they are cut out for. Anatomical
analysis of the Vogon reveals that its brain was originally a
badly deformed, misplaced and dyspeptic liver. The fairest thing
you can say about them, then, is that they know what they like,
and what they like generally involves hurting people and,
wherever possible, getting very angry.

One thing they don't like is leaving a job unfinished -
particularly this Vogon, and particularly - for various reasons -
this job.

This Vogon was Captain Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic
Hyperspace Planning Council, and he was it who had had the job of
demolishing the so-called "planet" Earth.

He heaved his monumentally vile body round in his ill-fitting,
slimy seat and stared at the monitor screen on which the starship
Heart of Gold was being systematically scanned.

It mattered little to him that the Heart of Gold, with its
Infinite Improbability Drive, was the most beautiful and
revolutionary ship ever built. Aesthetics and technology were