There to meet with a small slug, it beeped, of the genus ARth-Urp-Hil-Ipdenu.
I believe, it added, after a slight pause during which it beeped, that you had decided to call it a brainless prat.
Wowbagger grunted. He watched the majesty of creation outside his window for a moment or two.
I think I’ll take a nap, he said, and then added, what network areas are we going to be passing through in the next few hours?
The computer beeped.
Cosmovid, Thinkpix and Home Brain Box, it said, and beeped.
Any movies I haven’t seen thirty thousand times already?
No.
Uh.
There’s Angst in Space. You’ve only seen that thirty-three thousand five hundred and seventeen times.
Wake me for the second reel.
The computer beeped.
Sleep well, it said.
The ship fled on through the night.
Meanwhile, on Earth, it began to pour with rain and Arthur Dent sat in his cave and had one of the most truly rotten evenings of his entire life, thinking of things he could have said to the alien and swatting flies, who also had a rotten evening.
The next day he made himself a pouch out of rabbit skin because he thought it would be useful to keep things in.