“You go swanning your way round the Galaxy with your…” the ancestor waved a contemptuous hand, “with your disreputable friends, too busy to put flowers on my grave, plastic ones would have done, would have been quite appropriate from you, but no. Too busy. Too modern. Too sceptical – till you suddenly find yourself in a bit of a fix and come over suddenly all astrally-minded!”
He shook his head – carefully, so as not to disturb the slumber of the other one, which was already becoming restive.
“Well, I don’t know, young Zaphod,” he continued, “I think I’ll have to think about this one.”
“One minute ten,” said Ford hollowly.
Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth peered at him curiously.
“Why does that man keep talking in numbers?” he said.
“Those numbers,” said Zaphod tersely, “are the time we’ve got left to live.”
“Oh,” said his great grandfather. He grunted to himself. “Doesn’t apply to me, of course,” he said and moved off to a dimmer recess of the bridge in search of something else to poke around at.
Zaphod felt he was teetering on the edge of madness and wondered if he shouldn’t just jump over and have done with it.
“Great Grandfather,” he said, “It applies to us! We are still alive, and we are about to lose our lives.”
“Good job too.”