RIB

Part six

K dragged the vogon out of the restaurant and into the street. The blubbery alien was still a bit groggy from the effect A's stun gun. K pressed the button on his key fob and the Ford re-appeared.

"Throw him in the back seat," he told J. He and A got in the front seat as J opened the rear door, to find Marvin sleeping.

"Hey, there's a strange looking Robot asleep in the back seat!" J said.

A and K turned around and noticed Marvin. "How the hell did he get in the car?" J asked.

"I think the auto lock button is on the fritz again." K muttered. "At least it looks like nothing was stolen. Still I wonder how this robot even found our car."

"Easy, enough." A said. "His vision extends into the X-Ray spectrum, so the car's invisibility cloak won't work on him."

J gave Marvin a few shakes, and then a punch in the arm. The paranoid android woke up.

"It's not morning yet is it?" Marvin asked looking around. "Just when I was getting to the good part of a really depressing dream you had to wake me up."

"Who are you and where did you come from?" J asked.

"You can address me as Marvin, and we're from somewhere near Betelgeuse I think." Marvin replied. "We were supposed to be hiding out on Wrigley's Pleasure Planet, but Zaphod insisted on programming the flight computer himself. So naturally we ended up on this god forsaken planet. It wouldn't have been so bad if Ex-President Beeblebrox hadn't mis-managed the ships power reserves, so now we're stuck on this rock until the Heart of Gold can regenerate its power core."

"Heart of Gold?" K asked.

"You've never heard of it?" Marvin asked. "Most advanced ship in the Galaxy. It's powered by the prototype Infinite Improbability Drive. So naturally Zaphod stole it. We've been on the run ever since."

"I need to talk with this Zaphod fellow right away." K said. "Do you know where he is?"

"He said something about looking for a party to crash." Marvin answered. "Always leaves me alone to sulk by myself. This time I decided to just go for a walk, I'd rather be alone than listen to the ship's computer play knock knock jokes."

"Maybe I could get Marvin to help me find this Zaphod guy." A said.

"Good idea." K agreed. "J and I will drag the Vogon back to HQ for some more interrogation. He hasn't told us everything, and I think he's lying about the bugs."

Astro helped Marvin get out of the car, and then stuffed the Vogon into the back seat. He had to use all three seat belts to tie down the fat alien. He watched as the car drove off and then turned to Marvin.

"You're not a dumb human, you're a robot." Marvin told Astro. "At last someone I won't have to talk down to"

"Err thanks, I think" Astro replied.

"So I guess we need your help to find Zaphod Beeblebrox." Astro said. "Any ideas?"

"Well I haven't been around him all that long," Marvin said "But he seems to like parties where he can be around lots of attractive female members of humanoid species, and dumb humanoid males. In other words, sleazy nightclubs and bars."

"Well that doesn't help much," Astro sighed. "This city must be full of places like that. I wouldn't know where to start looking."

"A good place to start might be where we parked our ship." Marvin said as he started to walk. "I know which direction Zaphod was heading."

"Good idea." Astro agreed, and he followed Marvin.
They walked a few blocks uptown toward the east side toward Times Square. Sitting on a small island block between Broadway and Seventh Avenue, right next to a statue of George M. Cohan, and looking completely out of place, was a blue and red British police telephone booth.

"That's your ship?" Astro asked.

"I suppose it does look like a bit like something from Gallifrey." Marvin sighed, "But its appearance is only a delusion caused by a residual improbability field."

"So which way did Zaphod go?" Astro asked.

"That way." Marvin pointed north on Broadway. "It shouldn't be too hard to locate him, he's not very particular and doesn't like walking. The first loud nightclub or bar we find will probably be where he's passed out."

Marvin and Astro walked along Broadway. Astro put his hands up to his ears and turned up his hearing.

"What are you doing?" Marvin asked.

"I can increase my hearing by 1000 times." Astro told him. "I'm listening for the sound of a crowd having a good time."

"Only 1000 times?" Marvin said. "My audio receptors can be tuned to 10,000 times that of a humans. Let me give it a try."

Marvin slowly rotated his head.
"That did it." he complained. "I've located Mr. Beeblebrox. I could hear him bragging about his ego. He's in a hotel ball room about two blocks from here. I'll lead the way."