Really Wild Things

Chapter 30

In an enormous starship called the Share and Enjoy orbiting a distant star, Halalax sat in a large chair overlooking the Central Control room. The chair was very large, but not very comfortable, which was just fine with Halalax. It was a chair designed to threaten from and be threatening in. For that, the chair did its job very well. The purpose of the chair was not to sit in but to perch on the edge of, menacingly, while he watched his minions scurry about at his bidding.

Halalax felt that last bit was lacking somewhat. The minions, also known as employees of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, did scurry but not as well as he would have cared for. The Employee Handbook specifically defined scurrying as moving quickly with darting movements, preferably with a hunched back and one's hands clasped or wrining. He saw several hunched backs, but not much hand wringing. Halalax would have to address that at the next team meeting.

He oversaw the complex operations to find and recover the Chronological Correcting Fluid. It wasn't strictly a Human Relations issue, but the Corporation had appointed him to oversee the operation because of the delicacy involved. Halalax had been given one of the most powerful battleships the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation had at its disposal, along with a squadron of Aggressive Sales Representatives.

Halalax quite fancied working with the Aggressive Sales Representatives. They knew how to get things done. He wished he had access to them more often. Certainly his job would be a lot easier with a platoon of heavily armed warriors at his side. No one would be taking extended breaks or forgetting to punch their time cards on his watch then.

He had no illusions of his role in the Corporation; Halalax was a realist first and a bureaucrat second. He had worked his way up the career ladder for many years, followed The Employee Handbook with a rigidity that caused the Handbook's authors to advise him to lighten up, but knew he was first and foremost, a Human Resources manager. Hardly one of the higher profile jobs in the Corporation like the Cybernetic Matrix Calculators or the Complaints Department Incinerator Supervisor, but that was all right with Halalax. The pay was good and the job rewarding. Halalax had assumed he would never rise beyond that level.

But his encounter with Joon Plinx and Ford Prefect changed all that. It seemed that the operation to recover the Chronological Correcting Fluid was so secret that just being in contact with the two employees made Halalax part of the conspiracy. Basically, there was no one else that the Corporation trusted to do it, which suited Halalax just fine. Halalax had access to the full complement of the Corporation's resources and financial support. At this moment, recovering the Chronological Correcting Fluid was the top priority of the Corporation.

And Halalax had failed.

Halalax flicked his paper clip.

It was impossible. During its initial construction, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation had installed a Sub-Etha tracking device aboard the Heart of Gold. There was nowhere in the Universe the ship could go where the Corporation wouldn't find it. Yet it was gone, vanished, despite the Corporation's most advanced scanners and best efforts.

The Corporation's research into Zaphod Beeblebrox had concluded that he was an idiot savant, hardly worth their attention. Yet somehow Beeblebrox had managed to make the Heart of Gold invisible to their detection. It seemed impossible that Beeblebrox could even locate the Sub-Etha tracking device, much less disable it, but somehow that seemed to be the case. Halalax had watched as the Heart of Gold vanished in front of them. At first, he had assumed they had destroyed it, but sensors indicated no debris. The ship had simply gone missing. Halalax had to admit that Zaphod had to be rather more clever than they had given him credit for to pull off a trick like that.

One of the Sensory Technicians approached Halalax. "Sir, we've picked up the signal. It's the Heart of Gold. It's in orbit around a planet in a distant asteroid field."

Halalax leaned forward in his chair. He pointed his paper clip at the screen. "Show me."

The Technician tapped keys. Coordinates flashed on the screen.

Halalax squinted at the coordinates. "Isn't that where Veet Voojagig said they had that biro planet?"

"What?"

"Nothing. Just something I read in Zaphod Beeblebrox's file." Halalax stepped down from his elevated position. "Prepare the ship for hyperspace. I want to be at that planet within the hour."