It said: "What is this great task for  which  I,  Deep  Thought,  the
second greatest computer in the Universe  of  Time  and  Space  have  been
called into existence?"
     Lunkwill and Fook glanced at each other in surprise.
     "Your task, O Computer..." began Fook.
     "No, wait a minute, this isn't right," said  Lunkwill,  worried.  "We
distinctly designed this computer to be the greatest one  ever  and  we're
not making do with second best. Deep Thought," he addressed the  computer,
"are you not as we designed you to be, the greatest most powerful computer
in all time?"
     "I described myself as the second greatest,"  intoned  Deep  Thought,
"and such I am."
     Another worried look passed between  the  two  programmers.  Lunkwill
cleared his throat.
     "There must be some mistake,"  he  said,  "are  you  not  a  greatest
computer than the Milliard Gargantubrain which can count all the atoms  in
a star in a millisecond?"
     "The Milliard Gargantubrain?"  said  Deep  Thought  with  unconcealed
contempt. "A mere abacus - mention it not."
     "And are you not," said Fook leaning anxiously  forward,  "a  greater
analyst than the Googleplex Star Thinker in the Seventh  Galaxy  of  Light
and Ingenuity which can calculate the  trajectory  of  every  single  dust
particle throughout a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard?"
     "A five-week sand blizzard?" said Deep Thought  haughtily.  "You  ask
this of me who have contemplated the very vectors of the atoms in the  Big
Bang itself? Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."
     The two programmers sat in uncomfortable silence for a  moment.  Then
Lunkwill leaned forward again.
     "But are you not," he said, "a more fiendish disputant than the Great
Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus 12, the Magic  and
Indefatigable?"
     "The Great  Hyperlobic  Omni-Cognate  Neutron  Wrangler,"  said  Deep
Thought thoroughly rolling the r's, "could  talk  all  four  legs  off  an
Arcturan MegaDonkey - but only I could  persuade  it  to  go  for  a  walk
afterwards."
     "Then what," asked Fook, "is the problem?"
     "There is no problem," said Deep  Thought  with  magnificent  ringing
tones. "I am simply the second greatest computer in the Universe of  Space
and Time."
     "But the second?" insisted Lunkwill. "Why  do  you  keep  saying  the
second? You're surely not  thinking  of  the  Multicorticoid  Perspicutron
Titan Muller are you? Or the Pondermatic? Or the..."
     Contemptuous lights flashed across the computer's console.
     "I  spare  not  a  single  unit  of  thought  on   these   cybernetic
simpletons!" he boomed. "I speak of none but the computer that is to  come
after me!"
     Fook was losing patience. He pushed his notebook aside and  muttered,
"I think this is getting needlessly messianic."
     "You know nothing of future time," pronounced Deep Thought, "and  yet
in my teeming circuitry I can  navigate  the  infinite  delta  streams  of
future probability and see that there must one day come a  computer  whose
merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate, but  which  it
will be my fate eventually to design."
     Fook sighed heavily and glanced across to Lunkwill.
     "Can we get on and ask the question?" he said.
     Lunkwill motioned him to wait.
     "What computer is this of which you speak?" he asked.
     "I will speak of it no further  in  this  present  time,"  said  Deep
Thought. "Now. Ask what else of me you will that I may function. Speak."
     They shrugged at each other. Fook composed himself.
     "O Deep Thought Computer," he said, "the task we have designed you to
perform is this. We want you to tell us..." he paused, "...the Answer!"
     "The answer?" said Deep Thought. "The answer to what?"
     "Life!" urged Fook.
     "The Universe!" said Lunkwill.
     "Everything!" they said in chorus.
     Deep Thought paused for a moment's reflection.
     "Tricky," he said finally.
     "But can you do it?"
     Again, a significant pause.
     "Yes," said Deep Thought, "I can do it."
     "There is an answer?" said Fook with breathless excitement."
     "A simple answer?" added Lunkwill.
     "Yes," said Deep Thought. "Life, the Universe, and Everything.  There
is an answer. But," he added, "I'll have to think about it."