"What!" shouted Ford. "You'll have to remind me," said Zaphod. "I've a terrible memory for species." "It was at a party," pursued Arthur. "Yeah, well I doubt that," said Zaphod. "Cool it will you Arthur!" demanded Ford. 1 1 2 / D O U G L A S A D A M S Arthur would not be deterred. "A party six months ago. On Earth ... England ..." Zaphod shook his head with a tight-lipped smile.

"London," insisted Arthur, "Islington." "Oh," said Zaphod with a guilty start, "that party." This wasn't fair on Ford at all. He looked backwards and forwards between Arthur and Zaphod. "What?" he said to Zaphod. "You don't mean to say you've been on that miserable planet as well do you?" "No, of course not," said Zaphod breezily. "Well, I may have just dropped in briefly, you know, on my way somewhere ..." "But I was stuck there for fifteen years!" "Well I didn't know that did I?" "But what were you doing there?" "Looking about, you know." "He gatecrashed a party," persisted Arthur, trembling with anger, "a fancy dress party ..." "It would have to be, wouldn't it?" said Ford. "At this party," persisted Arthur, "was a girl ... oh well, look it doesn't matter now. The whole place has gone up in smoke anyway ..." "I wish you'd stop sulking about that bloody planet," said Ford. "Who was the lady?" T H E H I T C H H I K E R ' S G U I D E T O T H E G A L A X Y / 1 1 3

"Oh just somebody. Well alright, I wasn't doing very well with her. I'd been trying all evening. Hell, she was something though. Beautiful, charming, devastatingly intelligent, at last I'd got her to myself for a bit and was plying her with a bit of talk when this friend of yours barges up and says Hey doll, is this guy boring you? Why don't you talk to me instead? I'm from a different planet." I never saw her again."

"Zaphod?" exclaimed Ford. "Yes," said Arthur, glaring at him and trying not to feel foolish. "He only had the two arms and the one head and he called himself Phil, but ..." "But you must admit he did turn out to be from another planet," said Trillian wandering into sight at the other end of the bridge. She gave Arthur a pleasant smile which settled on him like a ton of bricks and then turned her attention to the ship's controls again. There was silence for a few seconds, and then out of the scrambled mess of Arthur's brain crawled some words. "Tricia McMillian?" he said. "What are you doing here?" "Same as you," she said, "I hitched a lift. After all with a degree in Maths and another in astrophysics what else was there to do? It was either that or the dole queue again on Monday." "Infinity minus one," chattered the computer, "Improbability sum now complete." Zaphod looked about him, at Ford, at Arthur, and then at Trillian. 1 1 4 / D O U G L A S A D A M S