Ford stayed, and went to examine the Blagulon ship. As he walked, he nearly tripped over an inert steel figure lying face down in the cold dust.
"Marvin!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing?"
"Don't feel you have to take any notice of me, please," came a muffled drone.
"But how are you, metalman?" said Ford.
"Very depressed."
"What's up?"
"I don't know," said Marvin, "I've never been there."
"Why," said Ford, squatting down beside him and shivering, "are you lying face down in the dust?"
"It's a very effective way of being wretched," said Marvin. "Don't pretend you want to talk to me, I know you hate me."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do, everybody does. It's part of the shape of the Universe. I only have to talk to somebody and they begin to hate me. Even robots hate me. If you just ignore me I expect I shall probably go away."
He jacked himself up to his feet and stood resolutely facing the opposite direction.
"That ship hated me," he said dejectedly, indicating the policecraft.
"That ship?" said Ford in sudden excitement. "What happened to it? Do you know?"
"It hated me because I talked to it."
"You
talked to it?" exclaimed Ford. "What do you mean you talked to it?"
"Simple. I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself in to its external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the Universe to it," said Marvin.
"And what happened?" pressed Ford.
"It committed suicide," said Marvin, and stalked off back to the Heart of Gold.