Ford looked around. They were standing in a long curving corridor which stretched out of sight in both directions. The outer steel wall – which was painted in that sickly shade of pale green which they use in schools, hospitals and mental asylums to keep the inmates subdued – curved over the tops of their heads where it met the inner perpendicular wall which, oddly enough was covered in dark brown hessian wall weave. The floor was of dark green ribbed rubber.
Ford moved over to a very thick dark transparent panel set in the outer wall. It was several layers deep, yet through it he could see pinpoints of distant stars.
“I think we’re in a spaceship of some kind,” he said.
Down the corridor came the sound of a dull stomping throb.
“Trillian?” called Arthur nervously, “Zaphod?”
Ford shrugged.
“Nowhere about,” he said, “I’ve looked. They could be anywhere. An unprogrammed teleport can throw you light years in any direction. Judging by the way I feel I should think we’ve travelled a very long way indeed.”
“How do you feel?”
“Bad.”
“Do you think they’re…”
“Where they are, how they are, there’s no way we can know and no way we can do anything about it. Do what I do.”
“What?”
“Don’t think about it.”
Arthur turned this thought over in his mind, reluctantly saw the wisdom of it, tucked it up and put it away. He took a deep breath.
“Footsteps!” exclaimed Ford suddenly.
“Where?”