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Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic
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And then it happened.It was one of those ironic moments that fitted perfectly into Leovinus's current architectural style, and it gave The Journalist his first piece of hard evidence that corners had indeed been cut during the construction of the Starship Titanic.Scraliontis had, of course, been the main instigator of the plan to reduce the construction costs of the Starship. It had become clear that the whole project could never break even - let alone go into profit. It was, in fact, heading for total enormous financial disaster. His and Brobostigon's reputations and personal fortunes were both on the line. There was only one clean, simple, rational solution - and that was to scuttle the ship, and claim the insurance.The ship was, of course, already heavily insured, and Scraliontis made sure that those policies were beefed-up and that all moneys repayable were routed through companies owned by himself and Brobostigon. Construction costs had to be cut to the bone, and building restricted to the merely cosmetic. He had, unbeknownst to Leovinus, instructed contractors to halve and then quarter the specifications of any number of elements on board.One of the materials that had been severely cut back was the metal employed in the barrier-rail surrounding the Great Central Well. 'After all,' Scraliontis had remarked, 'there aren't going to be any passengers to lean on it so why make it unnecessarily strong?'The reason, he now realized, was that it might not be a passenger who leant on it; it might actually be the project accountant who, in a moment of forgetfulness, whilst under assault from a parrot, leant back against it. But the realization came too late. Scraliontis heard the feeble metal crack and next moment found himself falling backwards into the abyss.By the time the horrified Journalist had made it to the broken rail, and looked down, Scraliontis was a tiny figure - still no more than a third of the way down the Great Central Well - turning gently in circles, waving his arms and shouting up ever more faintly: 'Bloody parrots!'
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Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic
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|
And then it happened.It was one of those ironic moments that fitted perfectly into Leovinus's current architectural style, and it gave The Journalist his first piece of hard evidence that corners had indeed been cut during the construction of the Starship Titanic.Scraliontis had, of course, been the main instigator of the plan to reduce the construction costs of the Starship. It had become clear that the whole project could never break even - let alone go into profit. It was, in fact, heading for total enormous financial disaster. His and Brobostigon's reputations and personal fortunes were both on the line. There was only one clean, simple, rational solution - and that was to scuttle the ship, and claim the insurance.The ship was, of course, already heavily insured, and Scraliontis made sure that those policies were beefed-up and that all moneys repayable were routed through companies owned by himself and Brobostigon. Construction costs had to be cut to the bone, and building restricted to the merely cosmetic. He had, unbeknownst to Leovinus, instructed contractors to halve and then quarter the specifications of any number of elements on board.One of the materials that had been severely cut back was the metal employed in the barrier-rail surrounding the Great Central Well. 'After all,' Scraliontis had remarked, 'there aren't going to be any passengers to lean on it so why make it unnecessarily strong?'The reason, he now realized, was that it might not be a passenger who leant on it; it might actually be the project accountant who, in a moment of forgetfulness, whilst under assault from a parrot, leant back against it. But the realization came too late. Scraliontis heard the feeble metal crack and next moment found himself falling backwards into the abyss.By the time the horrified Journalist had made it to the broken rail, and looked down, Scraliontis was a tiny figure - still no more than a third of the way down the Great Central Well - turning gently in circles, waving his arms and shouting up ever more faintly: 'Bloody parrots!'
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