"Young Zaphod Plays It Safe" is a short story by Douglas Adams set in his The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy universe.
[citation needed] The story then appeared (though not always the revised version) in some omnibus editions of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, as well as the Adams retrospective The Salmon of Doubt, and the 2013 anthology The Time Traveler's Almanac.
He guides some bureaucrats to a crashed and sunken spaceship on an unnamed planet that may be leaking some dangerous materials, radioactive, toxic and otherwise hazardous by-products which were destined to be thrown into a black hole.
The story culminates with the revelation that one of the Designer People has escaped and is traveling to Galactic Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, which is where the Earth was located in the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Since this story takes place before Zaphod decides to block off sections of his own brains and run for President of the Galaxy, readers are able to glimpse what his original personality was like.