The group gathered round his bedside glanced at each other. There were goose pimples on backs.
What happened? said Zaphod at last.
Oh, he told it all right, said the man savagely, for all I know he’s still telling it now. Strange, terrible things… terrible, terrible! he screamed.
They tried to calm him, but he struggled to his elbows again.
Terrible things, incomprehensible things, he shouted, things that would drive a man mad!
He stared wildly at them.
Or in my case, he said, half-mad. I’m a journalist.
You mean, said Arthur quietly, that you are used to confronting the truth?
No, said the man with a puzzled frown. I mean that I made an excuse and left early.
He collapsed into a coma from which he recovered only once and briefly.
On that one occasion, they discovered from him the following:
When it became clear that Prak could not be stopped, that here was truth in its absolute and final form, the court was cleared.
Not only cleared, it was sealed up, with Prak still in it. Steel walls were erected around it, and, just to be on the safe side, barbed wire, electric fences, crocodile swamps and three major armies were installed, so that no one would ever have to hear Prak speak.
That’s a pity, said Arthur. I’d like to hear what he had to say. Presumably he would know what the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer is. It’s always bothered me that we never found out.
Think of a number, said the computer, any number.
Arthur told the computer the telephone number of King’s Cross railway station passenger inquiries, on the grounds that it must have some function, and this might turn out to be it.
The computer injected the number into the ship’s reconstituted Improbability Drive.
In Relativity, Matter tells Space how to curve, and Space tells Matter how to move. The Heart of Gold told space to get knotted, and parked itself neatly within the inner steel perimeter of the Argabuthon Chamber of Law.
The courtroom was an austere place, a large dark chamber, clearly designed for Justice rather than, for instance, for Pleasure. You wouldn’t hold a dinner party here at least, not a successful one. The decor would get your guests down.
The ceilings were high, vaulted and very dark. Shadows lurked there with grim determination. The panelling for the walls and benches, the cladding of the heavy pillars, all were carved from the darkest and most severe trees in the fearsome Forest of Arglebard. The massive black Podium of Justice which dominated the centre of the chamber was a monster of gravity. If a sunbeam had ever managed to slink this far into the Justice complex of Argabuthon it would have turned around and slunk straight back out again.
Arthur and Trillian were the first in, whilst Ford and Zaphod bravely kept a watch on their rear.
At first it seemed totally dark and deserted. their footsteps echoed hollowly round the chamber. This seemed curious. All the defences were still in position and operative around the outside of the building, they had run scan checks. Therefore, they had assumed, the truth-telling must still be going on.
But there was nothing.