Read History

2026 | Score: 6.5

A short novella included in my ultimate hitchhikers book, covers a period from before Zaphod Beeblebrox became the public figure he is in the future. Not personally a fan of lobster.

Format: Book

Days: 1

Date: 10/13/2026 -> 10/13/2026

Summary (Spoilers)

Young Zaphod Plays it Safe
Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy #4.5

Young Zaphod Plays it Safe Summary

A large spaceship comes down towards a local sea, exciting the planetary natives. They eventually get bored and return to eating lobster since they have the best lobster in the galaxy. The spaceship eventually dives into the ocean.

The spaceship is owned by Zaphod Beeblebrox as a part of his salvage and really wild stuff corporation. He is accompanied by two members of the Safety and Civil Reassurance Administration who hired him to retrieve another spaceship which crashed here earlier this year. They both claim that nothing dangerous could be spreading its contamination since the ship is foolproof, despite having crashed already.

They descend 2.5k feet into the ocean, and eventually find the split in half the other ship. They cross over in scuba pressure suits to the crashed Starship Billion Year Bunker. Inside they find a dead body which Zaphod explodes by sitting on and a man in an emergency fluid tank. The man in the tank tells them the pilot wanted lobster so made a detour here and crashed, and he barely made it into the emergency fluid tank in time.

Zaphod learns they did have the dangerous Aorist Rods, an energy device that steals energy from the past. It had to be discontinued because the future began stealing energy from the present. There are also several other dangerous resources left on the crashed ship. The most dangerous item however has been cracked open.

Sirius Cybernetics Corporation made Designer People, that are deeply dangerous and capable of anything but won’t be recognized as such by the public. The three most dangerous identical ones were put on this ship to be flown into a star, but one of them escaped in an escape capsule. They learn it was headed towards Earth’s area. This means those planets must be destroyed. I looked it up and the internet says this person is Ronald Reagan. THE END.