42.
There was a bridge built across the marshes. A cyberstructured hyperbridge, hundreds of miles in length, to carry ion-buggies and freighters over the swamp."
"A bridge?" quirruled the mattress. "Here in the swamp?"
"A bridge," confirmed Marvin, "here in the swamp. It was going to revitalize the economy of the Squornshellous System. They spent the entire economy of the Squornshellous System building it. They asked me to open it. Poor fools."
It began to rain a little, a fine spray slid through the mist.
"I stood on the platform. For hundreds of miles in front of me, and hundreds of miles behind me, the bridge stretched."
"Did it glitter?" enthused the mattress.
"It glittered."
"Did it span the miles majestically?"
"It spanned the miles majestically."
"Did it stretch like a silver thread far out into the invisible mist?"
"Yes," said Marvin. "Do you want to hear this story?"
"I want to hear your speech," said the mattress.
"This is what I said. I said, "I would like to say that it is a very great pleasure, honour and privilege for me to open this bridge, but I can't because my lying circuits are all out of commission. I hate and despise you all. I now declare this hapless cyberstructure open to the unthinkable abuse of all who wantonly cross her.' And I plugged myself into the opening circuits."
Marvin paused, remembering the moment.
The mattress flurred and glurried. It flolloped, gupped and willomied, doing this last in a particularly floopy way.
"Voon," it wurfed at last. "And it was a magnificent occasion?"
"Reasonably magnificent. The entire thousand-mile-long bridge spontaneously folded up its glittering spans and sank weeping into the mire, taking everybody with it."
erhay.' Andway 
