8864 lines
323 KiB
Plaintext
8864 lines
323 KiB
Plaintext
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Douglas Adams
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The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
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=================================================================
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Douglas Adams The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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Douglas Adams The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
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Douglas Adams Life, the Universe, and Everything
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Douglas Adams So long, and thanks for all the fish
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=================================================================
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To Jane and James
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with many thanks
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to Geoffrey Perkins for achieving the Improbable
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to Paddy Kingsland, Lisa Braun and Alick Hale Munro for helping
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him
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to John Lloyd for his help with the original Milliways script
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to Simon Brett for starting the whole thing off
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to the Paul Simon album One Trick Pony which I played incessantly
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while writing this book. Five years is far too long
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And with very special thanks to Jacqui Graham for infinite
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patience, kindness and food in adversity
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=================================================================
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There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers
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exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will
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instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more
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bizarre and inexplicable.
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=================================================================
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There is another theory which states that this has already
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happened.
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=================================================================
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Chapter 1
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The story so far:
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In the beginning the Universe was created.
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This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded
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as a bad move.
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Many races believe that it was created by some sort of God,
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though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the
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entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being
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called the Great Green Arkleseizure.
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The Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of the time they
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call The Coming of The Great White Handkerchief, are small blue
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creatures with more than fifty arms each, who are therefore
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unique in being the only race in history to have invented the
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aerosol deodorant before the wheel.
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However, the Great Green Arkleseizure Theory is not widely
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accepted outside Viltvodle VI and so, the Universe being the
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puzzling place it is, other explanations are constantly being
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sought.
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For instance, a race of hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings
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once built themselves a gigantic supercomputer called Deep
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Thought to calculate once and for all the Answer to the Ultimate
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Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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For seven and a half million years, Deep Thought computed and
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calculated, and in the end announced that the answer was in fact
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Forty-two - and so another, even bigger, computer had to be built
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to find out what the actual question was.
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And this computer, which was called the Earth, was so large that
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it was frequently mistaken for a planet - especially by the
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strange ape-like beings who roamed its surface, totally unaware
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that they were simply part of a gigantic computer program.
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And this is very odd, because without that fairly simple and
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obvious piece of knowledge, nothing that ever happened on the
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Earth could possibly make the slightest bit of sense.
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Sadly however, just before the critical moment of readout, the
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Earth was unexpectedly demolished by the Vogons to make way - so
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they claimed - for a new hyperspace bypass, and so all hope of
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discovering a meaning for life was lost for ever.
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Or so it would seem.
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Two of there strange, ape-like creatures survived.
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Arthur Dent escaped at the very last moment because an old friend
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of his, Ford Prefect, suddenly turned out to be from a small
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planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and not from Guildford as he
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had hitherto claimed; and, more to the point, he knew how to
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hitch rides on flying saucers.
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Tricia McMillian - or Trillian - had skipped the planet six
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months earlier with Zaphod Beeblebrox, the then President of the
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Galaxy.
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Two survivors.
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They are all that remains of the greatest experiment ever
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conducted - to find the Ultimate Question and the Ultimate Answer
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of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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And, less than half a million miles from where their starship is
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drifting lazily through the inky blackness of space, a Vogon ship
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is moving slowly towards them.
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=================================================================
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Chapter 2
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Like all Vogon ships it looked as if it had been not so much
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designed as congealed. The unpleasant yellow lumps and edifices
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which protuded from it at unsightly angles would have disfigured
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the looks of most ships, but in this case that was sadly
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impossible. Uglier things have been spotted in the skies, but not
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by reliable witnesses.
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In fact to see anything much uglier than a Vogon ship you would
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have to go inside and look at a Vogon. If you are wise, however,
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this is precisely what you will avoid doing because the average
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Vogon will not think twice before doing something so pointlessly
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hideous to you that you will wish you had never been born - or
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(if you are a clearer minded thinker) that the Vogon had never
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been born.
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In fact, the average Vogon probably wouldn't even think once.
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They are simple-minded, thick-willed, slug-brained creatures, and
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thinking is not really something they are cut out for. Anatomical
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analysis of the Vogon reveals that its brain was originally a
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badly deformed, misplaced and dyspeptic liver. The fairest thing
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you can say about them, then, is that they know what they like,
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and what they like generally involves hurting people and,
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wherever possible, getting very angry.
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One thing they don't like is leaving a job unfinished -
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particularly this Vogon, and particularly - for various reasons -
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this job.
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This Vogon was Captain Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic
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Hyperspace Planning Council, and he was it who had had the job of
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demolishing the so-called "planet" Earth.
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He heaved his monumentally vile body round in his ill-fitting,
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slimy seat and stared at the monitor screen on which the starship
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Heart of Gold was being systematically scanned.
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It mattered little to him that the Heart of Gold, with its
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Infinite Improbability Drive, was the most beautiful and
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revolutionary ship ever built. Aesthetics and technology were
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closed books to him and, had he had his way, burnt and buried
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books as well.
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It mattered even less to him that Zaphod Beeblebrox was aboard.
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Zaphod Beeblebrox was now the ex-President of the Galaxy, and
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though every police force in the Galaxy was currently pursuing
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both him and this ship he had stolen, the Vogon was not
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interested.
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He had other fish to fry.
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It has been said that Vogons are not above a little bribery and
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corruption in the same way that the sea is not above the clouds,
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and this was certainly true in his case. When he heard the words
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"integrity" or "moral rectitude", he reached for his dictionary,
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and when he heard the chink of ready money in large quantities he
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reached for the rule book and threw it away.
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In seeking so implacably the destruction of the Earth and all
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that therein lay he was moving somewhat above and beyond the call
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of his professional duty. There was even some doubt as to whether
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the said bypass was actually going to be built, but the matter
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had been glossed over.
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He grunted a repellent grunt of satisfaction.
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"Computer," he croaked, "get me my brain care specialist on the
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line."
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Within a few seconds the face of Gag Halfrunt appeared on the
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screen, smiling the smile of a man who knew he was ten light
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years away from the Vogon face he was looking at. Mixed up
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somewhere in the smile was a glint of irony too. Though the Vogon
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persistently referred to him as "my private brain care
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specialist" there was not a lot of brain to take care of, and it
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was in fact Halfrunt who was employing the Vogon. He was paying
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him an awful lot of money to do some very dirty work. As one of
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the Galaxy's most prominent and successful psychiatrists, he and
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a consortium of his colleagues were quite prepared to spend an
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awful lot of money when it seemed that the entire future of
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psychiatry might be at stake.
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"Well," he said, "hello my Captain of Vogons Prostetnic, and how
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are we feeling today?"
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The Vogon captain told him that in the last few hours he had
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wiped out nearly half his crew in a disciplinary exercise.
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Halfrunt's smile did not flicker for an instant.
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"Well," he said, "I think this is perfectly normal behaviour for
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a Vogon, you know? The natural and healthy channelling of the
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aggressive instincts into acts of senseless violence."
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"That," rumbled the Vogon, "is what you always say."
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"Well again," said Halfrunt, "I think that this is perfectly
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normal behaviour for a psychiatrist. Good. We are clearly both
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very well adjusted in our mental attitudes today. Now tell me,
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what news of the mission?"
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"We have located the ship."
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"Wonderful," said Halfrunt, "wonderful! and the occupants?"
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"The Earthman is there."
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"Excellent! And ...?"
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"A female from the same planet. They are the last."
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"Good, good," beamed Halfrunt, "Who else?"
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"The man Prefect."
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"Yes?"
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"And Zaphod Beeblebrox."
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For an instant Halfrunt's smile flickered.
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"Ah yes," he said, "I had been expecting this. It is most
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regrettable."
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"A personal friend?" inquired the Vogon, who had heard the
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expression somewhere once and decided to try it out.
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"Ah, no," said Halfrunt, "in my profession you know, we do not
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make personal friends."
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"Ah," grunted the Vogon, "professional detachment."
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"No," said Halfrunt cheerfully, "we just don't have the knack."
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He paused. His mouth continued to smile, but his eyes frowned
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slightly.
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"But Beeblebrox, you know," he said, "he is one of my most
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profitable clients. He had personality problems beyond the dreams
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of analysts."
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He toyed with this thought a little before reluctantly dismissing
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it.
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"Still," he said, "you are ready for your task?"
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"Yes."
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"Good. Destroy the ship immediately."
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"What about Beeblebrox?"
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"Well," said Halfrunt brightly, "Zaphod's just this guy, you
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know?"
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He vanished from the screen.
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The Vogon Captain pressed a communicator button which connected
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him with the remains of his crew.
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"Attack," he said.
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At that precise moment Zaphod Beeblebrox was in his cabin
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swearing very loudly. Two hours ago, he had said that they would
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go for a quick bite at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe,
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whereupon he had had a blazing row with the ship's computer and
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stormed off to his cabin shouting that he would work out the
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Improbability factors with a pencil.
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The Heart of Gold's Improbability Drive made it the most powerful
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and unpredictable ship in existence. There was nothing it
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couldn't do, provided you knew exactly how improbable it was that
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the thing you wanted it to do would ever happen.
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He had stolen it when, as President, he was meant to be launching
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it. He didn't know exactly why he had stolen it, except that he
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liked it.
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He didn't know why he had become President of the Galaxy, except
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that it seemed a fun thing to be.
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He did know that there were better reasons than these, but that
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they were buried in a dark, locked off section of his two brains.
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He wished the dark, locked off section of his two brains would go
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away because they occasionally surfaced momentarily and put
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strange thoughts into the light, fun sections of his mind and
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tried to deflect him from what he saw as being the basic business
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of his life, which was to have a wonderfully good time.
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At the moment he was not having a wonderfully good time. He had
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run out of patience and pencils and was feeling very hungry.
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"Starpox!" he shouted.
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At that same precise moment, Ford Prefect was in mid air. This
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was not because of anything wrong with the ship's artificial
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gravity field, but because he was leaping down the stair-well
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which led to the ship's personal cabins. It was a very high jump
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to do in one bound and he landed awkwardly, stumbled, recovered,
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raced down the corridor sending a couple of miniature service
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robots flying, skidded round the corner, burst into Zaphod's door
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and explained what was on his mind.
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"Vogons," he said.
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A short while before this, Arthur Dent had set out from his cabin
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in search of a cup of tea. It was not a quest he embarked upon
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with a great deal of optimism., because he knew that the only
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source of hot drinks on the entire ship was a benighted piece of
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equipment produced by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. It was
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called a Nutri-Matic Drinks Synthesizer, and he had encountered
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it before.
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It claimed to produce the widest possible range of drinks
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personally matched to the tastes and metabolism of whoever cared
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to use it. When put to the test, however, it invariably produced
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a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but nit
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quite, entirely unlike tea.
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He attempted to reason with the thing.
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"Tea," he said.
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"Share and Enjoy," the machine replied and provided him with yet
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another cup of the sickly liquid.
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He threw it away.
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"Share and enjoy," the machine repeated and provided him with
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another one.
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"Share and Enjoy" is the company motto of the hugely successful
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Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints division, which now
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covers the major land masses of three medium sized planets and is
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the only part of the Corporation to have shown a consistent
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profit in recent years.
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The motto stands - or rather stood - in three mile high
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illuminated letters near the Complaints Department spaceport on
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Eadrax. Unfortunately its weight was such that shortly after it
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was erected, the ground beneath the letters caved in and they
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dropped for nearly half their length through the offices of many
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talented young complaints executives - now deceased.
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The protruding upper halves of the letters now appear, in the
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local language, to read "Go stick your head in a pig", and are no
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longer illuminated, except at times of special celebration.
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Arthur threw away a sixth cup of the liquid.
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"Listen, you machine," he said, "you claim you can synthesize any
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drink in existence, so why do you keep giving me the same
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undrinkable stuff?"
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"Nutrition and pleasurable sense data," burbled the machine.
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"Share and Enjoy."
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"It tastes filthy!"
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"If you have enjoyed the experience of this drink," continued the
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machine, "why not share it with your friends?"
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"Because," said Arthur tartly, "I want to keep them. Will you try
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to comprehend what I'm telling you? That drink ..."
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"That drink," said the machine sweetly, "was individually
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tailored to meet your personal requirements for nutrition and
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pleasure."
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"Ah," said Arthur, "so I'm a masochist on diet am I?"
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"Share and Enjoy."
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"Oh shut up."
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"Will that be all?"
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Arthur decided to give up.
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"Yes," he said.
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Then he decided he'd be dammed if he'd give up.
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"No," he said, "look, it's very, very simple ... all I want ...
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is a cup of tea. You are going to make one for me. Keep quiet and
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listen."
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And he sat. He told the Nutri-Matic about India, he told it about
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China, he told it about Ceylon. He told it about broad leaves
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drying in the sun. He told it about silver teapots. He told it
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about summer afternoons on the lawn. He told it about putting in
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the milk before the tea so it wouldn't get scalded. He even told
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it (briefly) about the history of the East India Company.
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"So that's it, is it?" said the Nutri-Matic when he had finished.
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"Yes," said Arthur, "that is what I want."
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"You want the taste of dried leaves boiled in water?"
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"Er, yes. With milk."
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"Squirted out of a cow?"
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"Well, in a manner of speaking I suppose ..."
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"I'm going to need some help with this one," said the machine
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tersely. All the cheerful burbling had dropped out of its voice
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and it now meant business.
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"Well, anything I can do," said Arthur.
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"You've done quite enough," the Nutri-Matic informed him.
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It summoned up the ship's computer.
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"Hi there!" said the ship's computer.
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The Nutri-Matic explained about tea to the ship's computer. The
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computer boggled, linked logic circuits with the Nutri-Matic and
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together they lapsed into a grim silence.
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Arthur watched and waited for a while, but nothing further
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happened.
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He thumped it, but still nothing happened.
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Eventually he gave up and wandered up to the bridge.
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In the empty wastes of space, the Heart of Gold hung still.
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Around it blazed the billion pinpricks of the Galaxy. Towards it
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crept the ugly yellow lump of the Vogon ship.
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=================================================================
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Chapter 3
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"Does anyone have a kettle?" Arthur asked as he walked on to the
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bridge, and instantly began to wonder why Trillian was yelling at
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the computer to talk to her, Ford was thumping it and Zaphod was
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kicking it, and also why there was a nasty yellow lump on the
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vision screen.
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He put down the empty cup he was carrying and walked over to
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them.
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"Hello?" he said.
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At that moment Zaphod flung himself over to the polished marble
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surfaces that contained the instruments that controlled the
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conventional photon drive. They materialized beneath his hands
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and he flipped over to manual control. He pushed, he pulled, he
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pressed and he swore. The photon drive gave a sickly judder and
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cut out again.
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"Something up?" said Arthur.
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"Hey, didja hear that?" muttered Zaphod as he leapt now for the
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manual controls of the Infinite Improbability Drive, "the monkey
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spoke!"
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The Improbability Drive gave two small whines and then also cut
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out.
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"Pure history, man," said Zaphod, kicking the Improbability
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Drive, "a talking monkey!"
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"If you're upset about something ..." said Arthur.
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"Vogons!" snapped Ford, "we're under attack!"
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Arthur gibbered.
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"Well what are you doing? Let's get out of here!"
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"Can't. Computer's jammed."
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"Jammed?"
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"It says all its circuits are occupied. There's no power anywhere
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in the ship."
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Ford moved away from the computer terminal, wiped a sleeve across
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his forehead and slumped back against the wall.
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"Nothing we can do," he said. He glared at nothing and bit his
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lip.
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When Arthur had been a boy at school, long before the Earth had
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been demolished, he had used to play football. He had not been at
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all good at it, and his particular speciality had been scoring
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own goals in important matches. Whenever this happened he used to
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experience a peculiar tingling round the back of his neck that
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would slowly creep up across his cheeks and heat his brow. The
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image of mud and grass and lots of little jeering boys flinging
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it at him suddenly came vividly to his mind at this moment.
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A peculiar tingling sensation at the back of his neck was
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creeping up across his cheeks and heating his brow.
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He started to speak, and stopped.
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He started to speak again and stopped again.
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Finally he managed to speak.
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"Er," he said. He cleared his throat.
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"Tell me," he continued, and said it so nervously that the others
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all turned to stare at him. He glanced at the approaching yellow
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blob on the vision screen.
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|
"Tell me," he said again, "did the computer say what was
|
|
occupying it? I just ask out of interest ..."
|
|
|
|
Their eyes were riveted on him.
|
|
|
|
"And, er ... well that's it really, just asking."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod put out a hand and held Arthur by the scruff of the neck.
|
|
|
|
"What have you done to it, Monkeyman?" he breathed.
|
|
|
|
"Well," said Arthur, "nothing in fact. It's just that I think a
|
|
short while ago it was trying to work out how to ..."
|
|
|
|
"Yes?"
|
|
|
|
"Make me some tea."
|
|
|
|
"That's right guys," the computer sang out suddenly, "just coping
|
|
with that problem right now, and wow, it's a biggy. Be with you
|
|
in a while." It lapsed back into a silence that was only matched
|
|
for sheer intensity by the silence of the three people staring at
|
|
Arthur Dent.
|
|
|
|
As if to relieve the tension, the Vogons chose that moment to
|
|
start firing.
|
|
|
|
The ship shook, the ship thundered. Outside, the inch thick
|
|
force-shield around it blistered, crackled and spat under the
|
|
barrage of a dozen 30-Megahurt Definit-Kil Photrazon Cannon, and
|
|
looked as if it wouldn't be around for long. Four minutes is how
|
|
long Ford Prefect gave it."Three minutes and fifty seconds," he
|
|
said a short while later.
|
|
|
|
"Forty-five seconds," he added at the appropriate time. He
|
|
flicked idly at some useless switches, then gave Arthur an
|
|
unfriendly look.
|
|
|
|
"Dying for a cup of tea, eh?" he said. "Three minutes and forty
|
|
seconds."
|
|
|
|
"Will you stop counting!" snarled Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," said Ford Prefect, "in three minutes and thirty-five
|
|
seconds."
|
|
|
|
Aboard the Vogon ship, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz was puzzled. He had
|
|
expected a chase, he had expected an exciting grapple with
|
|
tractor beams, he had expected to have to use the specially
|
|
installed Sub-Cyclic Normality Assert-i-Tron to counter the Heart
|
|
of Gold's Infinite Improbability Drive, but the Sub-Cyclic
|
|
Normality Assert-i-Tron lay idle as the Heart of Gold just sat
|
|
there and took it.
|
|
|
|
A dozen 30-Megahurt Definit-Kil Photrazon Cannon continued to
|
|
blaze away at the Heart of Gold, and still it just sat there and
|
|
took it.
|
|
|
|
He tested every sensor at his disposal to see if there was any
|
|
subtle trickery afoot, but no subtle trickery was to be found.
|
|
|
|
He didn't know about the tea of course.
|
|
|
|
Nor did he know exactly how the occupants of the Heart of Gold
|
|
were spending the last three minutes and thirty seconds of life
|
|
they had left to spend.
|
|
|
|
Quite how Zaphod Beeblebrox arrived at the idea of holding a
|
|
seance at this point is something he was never quite clear on.
|
|
|
|
Obviously the subject of death was in the air, but more as
|
|
something to be avoided than harped upon.
|
|
|
|
Possibly the horror that Zaphod experienced at the prospect of
|
|
being reunited with his deceased relatives led on to the thought
|
|
that they might just feel the same way about him and, what's
|
|
more, be able to do something about helping to postpone this
|
|
reunion.
|
|
|
|
Or again it might just have been one of the strange promptings
|
|
that occasionally surfaced from that dark area of his mind that
|
|
he had inexplicably locked off prior to becoming President of the
|
|
Galaxy.
|
|
|
|
"You want to talk to your great grandfather?" boggled Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah."
|
|
|
|
"Does it have to be now?"
|
|
|
|
The ship continued to shake and thunder. The temperature was
|
|
rising. The light was getting dimmer - all the energy the
|
|
computer didn't require for thinking about tea was being pumped
|
|
into the rapidly fading force-field.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah!" insisted Zaphod. "Listen Ford, I think he may be able to
|
|
help us."
|
|
|
|
"Are you sure you mean think? Pick your words with care."
|
|
|
|
"Suggest something else we can do."
|
|
|
|
"Er, well ..."
|
|
|
|
"OK, round the central console. Now. Come on! Trillian,
|
|
Monkeyman, move."
|
|
|
|
They clustered round the central console in confusion, sat down
|
|
and, feeling exceptionally foolish, held hands. With his third
|
|
hand Zaphod turned off the lights.
|
|
|
|
Darkness gripped the ship.
|
|
|
|
Outside, the thunderous roar of the Definit-Kil cannon continued
|
|
to rip at the force-field.
|
|
|
|
"Concentrate," hissed Zaphod, "on his name."
|
|
|
|
"What is it?" asked Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth."
|
|
|
|
"What?"
|
|
|
|
"Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth. Concentrate!"
|
|
|
|
"The Fourth?"
|
|
|
|
"Yeah. Listen, I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox, my father was Zaphod
|
|
Beeblebrox the Second, my grandfather Zaphod Beeblebrox the Third
|
|
..."
|
|
|
|
"What?"
|
|
|
|
"There was an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine.
|
|
Now concentrate!"
|
|
|
|
"Three minutes," said Ford Prefect.
|
|
|
|
"Why," said Arthur Dent, "are we doing this?"
|
|
|
|
"Shut up," suggested Zaphod Beeblebrox.
|
|
|
|
Trillian said nothing. What, she thought, was there to say?
|
|
|
|
The only light on the bridge came from two dim red triangles in a
|
|
far corner where Marvin the Paranoid Android sat slumped,
|
|
ignoring all and ignored by all, in a private and rather
|
|
unpleasant world of his own.
|
|
|
|
Round the central console four figures hunched in tight
|
|
concentration trying to blot from their minds the terrifying
|
|
shuddering of the ship and the fearful roar that echoed through
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
They concentrated.
|
|
|
|
Still they concentrated.
|
|
|
|
And still they concentrated.
|
|
|
|
The seconds ticked by.
|
|
|
|
On Zaphod's brow stood beads of sweat, first of concentration,
|
|
then of frustration and finally of embarrassment.
|
|
|
|
At last he let out a cry of anger, snatched back his hands from
|
|
Trillian and Ford and stabbed at the light switch.
|
|
|
|
"Ah, I was beginning to think you'd never turn the lights on,"
|
|
said a voice. "No, not too bright please, my eyes aren't what
|
|
they once were."
|
|
|
|
Four figures jolted upright in their seats. Slowly they turned
|
|
their heads to look, though their scalps showed a distinct
|
|
propensity to try and stay in the same place.
|
|
|
|
"Now. Who disturbs me at this time?" said the small, bent, gaunt
|
|
figure standing by the sprays of fern at the far end of the
|
|
bridge. His two small wispy-haired heads looked so ancient that
|
|
it seemed they might hold dim memories of the birth of the
|
|
galaxies themselves. One lolled in sleep, but the other squinted
|
|
sharply at them. If his eyes weren't what they once were, they
|
|
must once have been diamond cutters.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod stuttered nervously for a moment. He gave the intricate
|
|
little double nod which is the traditional Betelgeusian gesture
|
|
of familial respect.
|
|
|
|
"Oh ... er, hi Great Granddad ..." he breathed.
|
|
|
|
The little old figure moved closer towards them. He peered
|
|
through the dim light. He thrust out a bony finger at his great
|
|
grandson.
|
|
|
|
"Ah," he snapped. "Zaphod Beeblebrox. The last of our great line.
|
|
Zaphod Beeblebrox the Nothingth."
|
|
|
|
"The First."
|
|
|
|
"The Nothingth," spat the figure. Zaphod hated his voice. It
|
|
always seemed to him to screech like fingernails across the
|
|
blackboard of what he liked to think of as his soul.
|
|
|
|
He shifted awkwardly in his seat.
|
|
|
|
"Er, yeah," he muttered, "Er, look, I'm really sorry about the
|
|
flowers, I meant to send them along, but you know, the shop was
|
|
fresh out of wreaths and ..."
|
|
|
|
"You forget!" snapped Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth.
|
|
|
|
"Well ..."
|
|
|
|
"Too busy. Never think of other people. The living are all the
|
|
same."
|
|
|
|
"Two minutes, Zaphod," whispered Ford in an awed whisper.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod fidgeted nervously.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, but I did mean to send them," he said. "And I'll write to
|
|
my great grandmother as well, just as soon as we get out of this
|
|
..."
|
|
|
|
"Your great grandmother," mused the gaunt little figure to
|
|
himself.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," said Zaphod, "Er, how is she? Tell you what, I'll go and
|
|
see her. But first we've just got to ..."
|
|
|
|
"Your late great grandmother and I are very well," rasped Zaphod
|
|
Beeblebrox the Fourth.
|
|
|
|
"Ah. Oh."
|
|
|
|
"But very disappointed in you, young Zaphod ..."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah well ..." Zaphod felt strangely powerless to take charge of
|
|
this conversation, and Ford's heavy breathing at his side told
|
|
him that the seconds were ticking away fast. The noise and the
|
|
shaking had reached terrifying proportions. He saw Trillian and
|
|
Arthur's faces white and unblinking in the gloom.
|
|
|
|
"Er, Great Grandfather ..."
|
|
|
|
"We've been following your progress with considerable despondency
|
|
..."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, look, just at the moment you see ..."
|
|
|
|
"Not to say contempt!"
|
|
|
|
"Could you sort of listen for a moment ..."
|
|
|
|
"I mean what exactly are you doing with your life?"
|
|
|
|
"I'm being attacked by a Vogon fleet!" cried Zaphod. It was an
|
|
exaggeration, but it was his only opportunity so far of getting
|
|
the basic point of the exercise across.
|
|
|
|
"Doesn't surprise me in the least," said the little old figure
|
|
with a shrug.
|
|
|
|
"Only it's happening right now you see," insisted Zaphod
|
|
feverishly.
|
|
|
|
The spectral ancestor nodded, picked up the cup Arthur Dent had
|
|
brought in and looked at it with interest.
|
|
|
|
"Er ... Great Granddad ..."
|
|
|
|
"Did you know," interrupting the ghostly figure, fixing Zaphod
|
|
with a stern look, "that Betelgeuse Five has developed a very
|
|
slight eccentricy in its orbit?"
|
|
|
|
Zaphod didn't and found the information hard to concentrate on
|
|
what with all the noise and the imminence of death and so on.
|
|
|
|
"Er, no ... look," he said.
|
|
|
|
"Me spinning in my grave!" barked the ancestor. He slammed the
|
|
cup down and pointed a quivering, stick-like see-through finger
|
|
at Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Your fault!" he screeched.
|
|
|
|
"One minute thirty," muttered Ford, his head in his hands.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, look Great Granddad, can you actually help because ..."
|
|
|
|
"Help?" exclaimed the old man as if he'd been asked for a stoat.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, help, and like, now, because otherwise ..."
|
|
|
|
"Help!" repeated the old man as if he'd been asked for a lightly
|
|
grilled stoat in a bun with French fries. He stood amazed.
|
|
|
|
"You go swanning your way round the Galaxy with your ..." the
|
|
ancestor waved a contemptuous hand, "with your disreputable
|
|
friends, too busy to put flowers on my grave, plastic ones would
|
|
have done, would have been quite appropriate from you, but no.
|
|
Too busy. Too modern. Too sceptical - till you suddenly find
|
|
yourself in a bit of a fix and come over suddenly all astrally-
|
|
minded!"
|
|
|
|
He shook his head - carefully, so as not to disturb the slumber
|
|
of the other one, which was already becoming restive.
|
|
|
|
"Well, I don't know, young Zaphod," he continued, "I think I'll
|
|
have to think about this one."
|
|
|
|
"One minute ten," said Ford hollowly.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth peered at him curiously.
|
|
|
|
"Why does that man keep talking in numbers?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"Those numbers," said Zaphod tersely, "are the time we've got
|
|
left to live."
|
|
|
|
"Oh," said his great grandfather. He grunted to himself. "Doesn't
|
|
apply to me, of course," he said and moved off to a dimmer recess
|
|
of the bridge in search of something else to poke around at.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod felt he was teetering on the edge of madness and wondered
|
|
if he shouldn't just jump over and have done with it.
|
|
|
|
"Great Grandfather," he said, "It applies to us! We are still
|
|
alive, and we are about to lose our lives."
|
|
|
|
"Good job too."
|
|
|
|
"What?"
|
|
|
|
"What use is your life to anyone? When I think of what you've
|
|
made of it the phrase `pig's ear' comes irresistibly to my mind."
|
|
|
|
"But I was President of the Galaxy, man!"
|
|
|
|
"Huh," muttered his ancestor, "And what kind of a job is that for
|
|
a Beeblebrox?"
|
|
|
|
"Hey, what? Only President you know! Of the whole Galaxy!"
|
|
|
|
"Conceited little megapuppy."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod blinked in bewilderment.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, er, what are you at, man? I mean Great Grandfather."
|
|
|
|
The hunched up little figure stalked up to his great grandson and
|
|
tapped him sternly on the knee. This had the effect of reminding
|
|
Zaphod that he was talking to a ghost because he didn't feel a
|
|
thing.
|
|
|
|
"You know and I know what being President means, young Zaphod.
|
|
You know because you've been it, and I know because I'm dead and
|
|
it gives one such a wonderfully uncluttered perspective. We have
|
|
a saying up here. `Life is wasted on the living.'"
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," said Zaphod bitterly, "very good. Very deep. Right now I
|
|
need aphorisms like I need holes in my heads."
|
|
|
|
"Fifty seconds," grunted Ford Prefect.
|
|
|
|
"Where was I?" said Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth.
|
|
|
|
"Pontificating," said Zaphod Beeblebrox.
|
|
|
|
"Oh yes."
|
|
|
|
"Can this guy," muttered Ford quietly to Zaphod, "actually in
|
|
fact help us?"
|
|
|
|
"Nobody else can," whispered Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
Ford nodded despondently.
|
|
|
|
"Zaphod!" the ghost was saying, "you became President of the
|
|
Galaxy for a reason. Have you forgotten?"
|
|
|
|
"Could we go into this later?"
|
|
|
|
"Have you forgotten!" insisted the ghost.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah! Of course I forgot! I had to forget. They screen your
|
|
brain when you get the job you know. If they'd found my head full
|
|
of tricksy ideas I'd have been right out on the streets again
|
|
with nothing but a fat pension, secretarial staff, a fleet of
|
|
ships and a couple of slit throats."
|
|
|
|
"Ah," nodded the ghost in satisfaction, "then you do remember!"
|
|
|
|
He paused for a moment.
|
|
|
|
"Good," he said and the noise stopped.
|
|
|
|
"Forty-eight seconds," said Ford. He looked again at his watch
|
|
and tapped it. He looked up.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, the noise has stopped," he said.
|
|
|
|
A mischievous twinkle gleamed in the ghost's hard little eyes.
|
|
|
|
"I've slowed down time for a moment," he said, "just for a moment
|
|
you understand. I would hate you to miss all I have to say."
|
|
|
|
"No, you listen to me, you see-through old bat," said Zaphod
|
|
leaping out of his chair, "A - thanks for stopping time and all
|
|
that, great, terrific, wonderful, but B - no thanks for the
|
|
homily, right? I don't know what this great think I'm meant to be
|
|
doing is, and it looks to me as if I was supposed not to know.
|
|
And I resent that, right?
|
|
|
|
"The old me knew. The old me cared. Fine, so far so hoopy. Except
|
|
that the old me cared so much that he actually got inside his own
|
|
brain - my own brain - and locked off the bits that knew and
|
|
cared, because if I knew and cared I wouldn't be able to do it. I
|
|
wouldn't be able to go and be President, and I wouldn't be able
|
|
to steal this ship, which must be the important thing.
|
|
|
|
"But this former self of mine killed himself off, didn't he, by
|
|
changing my brain? OK, that was his choice. This new me has its
|
|
own choices to make, and by a strange coincidence those choices
|
|
involve not knowing and not caring about this big number,
|
|
whatever it is. That's what he wanted, that's what he got.
|
|
|
|
"Except this old self of mine tried to leave himself in control,
|
|
leaving orders for me in the bit of my brain he locked off. Well,
|
|
I don't want to know, and I don't want to hear them. That's my
|
|
choice. I'm not going to be anybody's puppet, particularly not my
|
|
own."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod banged the console in fury, oblivious to the dumbfolded
|
|
looks he was attracting.
|
|
|
|
"The old me is dead!" he raved, "Killed himself! The dead
|
|
shouldn't hang about trying to interfere with the living!"
|
|
|
|
"And yet you summon me up to help you out of a scrape," said the
|
|
ghost.
|
|
|
|
"Ah," said Zaphod, sitting down again, "well that's different
|
|
isn't it?"
|
|
|
|
He grinned at Trillian, weakly.
|
|
|
|
"Zaphod," rasped the apparition, "I think the only reason I waste
|
|
my breath on you is that being dead I don't have any other use
|
|
for it."
|
|
|
|
"OK," said Zaphod, "why don't you tell me what the big secret is.
|
|
Try me."
|
|
|
|
"Zaphod, you knew when you were President of the Galaxy, as did
|
|
Yooden Vranx before you, that the President is nothing. A cipher.
|
|
Somewhere in the shadows behind is another man, being, something,
|
|
with ultimate power. That man, or being, or something, you must
|
|
find - the man who controls this Galaxy, and - we suspect -
|
|
others. Possibly the entire Universe."
|
|
|
|
"Why?"
|
|
|
|
"Why?" exclaimed an astonished ghost, "Why? Look around you lad,
|
|
does it look to you as if it's in very good hands?"
|
|
|
|
"It's alright."
|
|
|
|
The old ghost glowered at him.
|
|
|
|
"I will not argue with you. You will simply take this ship, this
|
|
Improbability Drive ship to where it is needed. You will do it.
|
|
Don't think you can escape your purpose. The Improbability Field
|
|
controls you, you are in its grip. What's this?"
|
|
|
|
He was standing tapping at one of the terminals of Eddie the
|
|
Shipboard Computer. Zaphod told him.
|
|
|
|
"What's it doing?"
|
|
|
|
"It is trying," said Zaphod with wonderful restraint, "to make
|
|
tea."
|
|
|
|
"Good," said his great grandfather, "I approve of that. Now
|
|
Zaphod, "he said, turning and wagging a finger at him, "I don't
|
|
know if you are really capable of succeeding in your job. I think
|
|
you will not be able to avoid it. However, I am too long dead and
|
|
too tired to care as much as I did. The principal reason I am
|
|
helping you now is that I couldn't bear the thought of you and
|
|
your modern friends slouching about up here. Understood?"
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, thanks a bundle."
|
|
|
|
"Oh, and Zaphod?"
|
|
|
|
"Er, yeah?"
|
|
|
|
"If you ever find you need help again, you know, if you're in
|
|
trouble, need a hand out of a tight corner ..."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah?"
|
|
|
|
"Please don't hesitate to get lost."
|
|
|
|
Within the space of one second, a bolt of light flashed from the
|
|
wizened old ghost's hands to the computer, the ghost vanished,
|
|
the bridge filled with billowing smoke and the Heart of Gold
|
|
leapt an unknown distance through the dimensions of time and
|
|
space.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 4
|
|
|
|
Ten light years away, Gag Halfrunt jacked up his smile by several
|
|
notches. As he watched the picture on his vision screen, relayed
|
|
across the sub-ether from the bridge of the Vogon ship, he saw
|
|
the final shreds of the Heart of Gold's force-shield ripped away,
|
|
and the ship itself vanish in a puff of smoke.
|
|
|
|
Good, he thought.
|
|
|
|
The end of the last stray survivors of the demolition he had
|
|
ordered on the planet Earth, he thought.
|
|
|
|
The final end of this dangerous (to the psychiatric profession)
|
|
and subversive (also to the psychiatric profession) experiment to
|
|
find the Question to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe,
|
|
and Everything, he thought.
|
|
|
|
There would be some celebration with his fellows tonight, and in
|
|
the morning they would meet again their unhappy, bewildered and
|
|
highly profitable patients, secure in the knowledge that the
|
|
Meaning of Life would not now be, once and for all, well and
|
|
truly sorted out, he thought.
|
|
|
|
"Family's always embarrassing isn't it?" said Ford to Zaphod as
|
|
the smoke began to clear.
|
|
|
|
He paused, then looked about.
|
|
|
|
"Where's Zaphod?" he said.
|
|
|
|
Arthur and Trillian looked about blankly. They were pale and
|
|
shaken and didn't know where Zaphod was.
|
|
|
|
"Marvin?" said Ford, "Where's Zaphod?"
|
|
|
|
A moment later he said:
|
|
|
|
"Where's Marvin?"
|
|
|
|
The robot's corner was empty.
|
|
|
|
The ship was utterly silent. It lay in thick black space.
|
|
Occasionally it rocked and swayed. Every instrument was dead,
|
|
every vision screen was dead. They consulted the computer. It
|
|
said:
|
|
|
|
"I regret that I have been temporarily closed to all
|
|
communication. Meanwhile, here is some light music."
|
|
|
|
They turned off the light music.
|
|
|
|
They searched every corner of the ship in increasing bewilderment
|
|
and alarm. Everywhere was dead and silent. Nowhere was there any
|
|
trace of Zaphod or of Marvin.
|
|
|
|
One of the last areas they checked was the small bay in which the
|
|
Nutri-Matic machine was located.
|
|
|
|
On the delivery plate of the Nutri-Matic Drink Synthesizer was a
|
|
small tray, on which sat three bone china cups and saucers, a
|
|
bone china jug of milk, a silver teapot full of the best tea
|
|
Arthur had ever tasted, and a small printed note saying "Wait".
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 5
|
|
|
|
Ursa Minor Beta is, some say, one of the most appalling places in
|
|
the known Universe.
|
|
|
|
Although it is excruciatingly rich, horrifyingly sunny and more
|
|
full of wonderfully exciting people than a pomegranate is of
|
|
pips, it can hardly be insignificant that when a recent edition
|
|
of Playbeing magazine headlined an article with the words "When
|
|
you are tired of Ursa Minor Beta you are tired of life", the
|
|
suicide rate quadrupled overnight.
|
|
|
|
Not that there are any nights on Ursa Minor Beta.
|
|
|
|
It is a West Zone planet which by an inexplicable and somewhat
|
|
suspicious freak of topography consists almost entirely of sub-
|
|
tropical coastline. By an equally suspicious freak of temporal
|
|
relastatics, it is nearly always Saturday afternoon just before
|
|
the beach bars close.
|
|
|
|
No adequate explanation for this has been forthcoming from the
|
|
dominant lifeforms on Ursa Minor Beta, who spend most of their
|
|
time attempting to achieve spiritual enlightenment by running
|
|
round swimming pools, and inviting Investigation Officials form
|
|
the Galactic Geo-Temporal Control Board to "have a nice diurnal
|
|
anomaly".
|
|
|
|
There is only one city on Ursa Minor Beta, and that is only
|
|
called a city because the swimming pools are slightly thicker on
|
|
the ground there than elsewhere.
|
|
|
|
If you approach Light City by air - and there is no other way of
|
|
approaching it, no roads, no port facilities - if you don't fly
|
|
they don't want to see you in Light City - you will see why it
|
|
has this name. Here the sun shines brightest of all, glittering
|
|
on the swimming pools, shimmering on the white, palm-lined
|
|
boulevards, glistening on the healthy bronzed specks moving up
|
|
and down them, gleaming off the villas, the hazy airpads, the
|
|
beach bars and so on.
|
|
|
|
Most particularly it shines on a building, a tall beautiful
|
|
building consisting of two thirty-storey white towers connected
|
|
by a bridge half-way up their length.
|
|
|
|
The building is the home of a book, and was built here on the
|
|
proceeds of an extraordinary copyright law suit fought between
|
|
the book's editors and a breakfast cereal company.
|
|
|
|
The book is a guide book, a travel book.
|
|
|
|
It is one of the most remarkable, certainly the most successful,
|
|
books ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of
|
|
Ursa Minor - more popular than Life Begins at Five Hundred and
|
|
Fifty, better selling than The Big Bang Theory - A Personal View
|
|
by Eccentrica Gallumbits (the triple breasted whore of Eroticon
|
|
Six) and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's latest
|
|
blockbusting title Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Sex
|
|
But Have Been Forced To Find Out.
|
|
|
|
(And in many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer
|
|
Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, it has long surplanted the great
|
|
Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all
|
|
knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and
|
|
contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate,
|
|
it scores over the older and more pedestrian work in two
|
|
important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper, and secondly
|
|
it has the words Don't Panic printed in large friendly letters on
|
|
its cover.)
|
|
|
|
It is of course that invaluable companion for all those who want
|
|
to see the marvels of the known Universe for less than thirty
|
|
Altairan Dollars a day - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
|
|
|
|
If you stood with your back to the main entrance lobby of the
|
|
Guide offices (assuming you had landed by now and freshened up
|
|
with a quick dip and shower) and then walked east, you would pass
|
|
along the leafy shade of Life Boulevard, be amazed by the pale
|
|
golden colour of the beaches stretching away to your left,
|
|
astounded by the mind-surfers floating carelessly along two feet
|
|
above the waves as if it was nothing special, surprised and
|
|
eventually slightly irritated by the giant palm trees that hum
|
|
toneless nothings throughout the daylight hours, in other words
|
|
continuously.
|
|
|
|
If you then walked to the end of Life Boulevard you would enter
|
|
the Lalamatine district of shops, bolonut trees and pavement
|
|
cafes where the UM-Betans come to relax after a hard afternoon's
|
|
relaxation on the beach. The Lalamatine district is one of those
|
|
very few areas which doesn't enjoy a perpetual Saturday afternoon
|
|
- it enjoys instead the cool of a perpetual early Saturday
|
|
evening. Behind it lie the night clubs.
|
|
|
|
If, on this particular day, afternoon, stretch of eveningtime -
|
|
call it what you will - you had approached the second pavement
|
|
cafe on the right you would have seen the usual crowd of UM-
|
|
Betans chatting, drinking, looking very relaxed, and casually
|
|
glancing at each other's watches to see how expensive they were.
|
|
|
|
You would also have seen a couple of rather dishevelled looking
|
|
hitch-hikers from Algol who had recently arrived on an Arcturan
|
|
Megafreighter aboard which they had been roughing it for a few
|
|
days. They were angry and bewildered to discover that here,
|
|
within sight of the Hitch Hiker's Guide building itself, a simple
|
|
glass of fruit juice cost the equivalent of over sixty Altairan
|
|
dollars.
|
|
|
|
"Sell out," one of them said, bitterly.
|
|
|
|
If at that moment you had then looked at the next table but one
|
|
you would have seen Zaphod Beeblebrox sitting and looking very
|
|
startled and confused.
|
|
|
|
The reason for his confusion was that five seconds earlier he had
|
|
been sitting on the bridge of the starship Heart of Gold.
|
|
|
|
"Absolute sell out," said the voice again.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod looked nervously out of the corners of his eyes at the two
|
|
dishevelled hitch-hikers at the next table. Where the hell was
|
|
he? How had he got there? Where was his ship? His hand felt the
|
|
arm of the chair on which he was sitting, and then the table in
|
|
front of him. They seemed solid enough. He sat very still.
|
|
|
|
"How can they sit and write a guide for hitch-hikers in a place
|
|
like this?" continued the voice. "I mean look at it. Look at it!"
|
|
|
|
Zaphod was looking at it. Nice place, he thought. But where? And
|
|
why?
|
|
|
|
He fished in his pocket for his two pairs of sunglasses. In the
|
|
same pocket he felt a hard smooth, unidentified lump of very
|
|
heavy metal. He pulled it out and looked at it. He blinked at it
|
|
in surprise. Where had he got that? He returned it to his pocket
|
|
and put on the sunglasses, annoyed to discover that the metal
|
|
object had scratched one of the lenses. Nevertheless, he felt
|
|
much more comfortable with them on. They were a double pair of
|
|
Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses, which
|
|
had been specially designed to help people develop a relaxed
|
|
attitude to danger. At the first hint of trouble they turn
|
|
totally black and thus prevent you from seeing anything that
|
|
might alarm you.
|
|
|
|
Apart from the scratch the lenses were clear. He relaxed, but
|
|
only a little bit.
|
|
|
|
The angry hitch-hiker continued to glare at his monstrously
|
|
expensive fruit juice.
|
|
|
|
"Worst thing that ever happened to the Guide, moving to Ursa
|
|
Minor Beta," he grumbled, "they've all gone soft. You know, I've
|
|
even heard that they've created a whole electronically
|
|
synthesized Universe in one of their offices so they can go and
|
|
research stories during the day and still go to parties in the
|
|
evening. Not that day and evening mean much in this place."
|
|
|
|
Ursa Minor Beta, thought Zaphod. At least he knew where he was
|
|
now. He assumed that this must be his great grandfather's doing,
|
|
but why?
|
|
|
|
Much to his annoyance, a thought popped into his mind. It was
|
|
very clear and very distinct, and he had now come to recognize
|
|
these thoughts for what they were. His instinct was to resist
|
|
them. They were the pre-ordained promptings from the dark and
|
|
locked off parts of his mind.
|
|
|
|
He sat still and ignored the thought furiously. It nagged at him.
|
|
He ignored it. It nagged at him. He ignored it. It nagged at him.
|
|
He gave in to it.
|
|
|
|
What the hell, he thought, go with the flow. He was too tired,
|
|
confused and hungry to resist. He didn't even know what the
|
|
thought meant.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 6
|
|
|
|
"Hello? Yes? Megadodo Publications, home of the Hitch Hiker's
|
|
Guide to the Galaxy, the most totally remarkable book in the
|
|
whole of the known Universe, can I help you?" said the large
|
|
pink-winged insect into one of the seventy phones lined up along
|
|
the vast chrome expanse of the reception desk in the foyer of the
|
|
Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy offices. It fluttered its wings
|
|
and rolled its eyes. It glared at all the grubby people
|
|
cluttering up the foyer, soiling the carpets and leaving dirty
|
|
handmarks on the upholstery. It adored working for the Hitch
|
|
Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it just wished there was some way of
|
|
keeping all the hitch-hikers away. Weren't they meant to be
|
|
hanging round dirty spaceports or something? It was certain that
|
|
it had read something somewhere in the book about the importance
|
|
of hanging round dirty spaceports. Unfortunately most of them
|
|
seemed to come and hang around in this nice clean shiny foyer
|
|
after hanging around in extremely dirty spaceports. And all they
|
|
ever did was complain. It shivered its wings.
|
|
|
|
"What?" it said into the phone. "Yes, I passed on your message to
|
|
Mr Zarniwoop, but I'm afraid he's too cool to see you right now.
|
|
He's on an intergalactic cruise."
|
|
|
|
It waved a petulant tentacle at one of the grubby people who was
|
|
angrily trying to engage its attention. The petulant tentacle
|
|
directed the angry person to look at the notice on the wall to
|
|
its left and not to interrupt an important phone call.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," said the insect, "he is in his office, but he's on an
|
|
intergalactic cruise. Thank you so much for calling." It slammed
|
|
down the phone.
|
|
|
|
"Read the notice," it said to the angry man who was trying to
|
|
complain about one of the more ludicrous and dangerous pieces of
|
|
misinformation contained in the book.
|
|
|
|
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an indispensable
|
|
companion to all those who are keen to make sense of life in an
|
|
infinitely complex and confusing Universe, for though it cannot
|
|
hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does at least
|
|
make the reassuring claim, that where it is inaccurate it is at
|
|
least definitely inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it's
|
|
always reality that's got it wrong.
|
|
|
|
This was the gist of the notice. It said "The Guide is
|
|
definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate."
|
|
|
|
This has led to some interesting consequences. For instance, when
|
|
the Editors of the Guide were sued by the families of those who
|
|
had died as a result of taking the entry on the planet Traal
|
|
literally (it said "Ravenous Bugblatter beasts often make a very
|
|
good meal for visiting tourists" instead of "Ravenous Bugblatter
|
|
beasts often make a very good meal of visiting tourists") they
|
|
claimed that the first version of the sentence was the more
|
|
aesthetically pleasing, summoned a qualified poet to testify
|
|
under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty and hoped thereby
|
|
to prove that the guilty party was Life itself for failing to be
|
|
either beautiful or true. The judges concurred, and in a moving
|
|
speech held that Life itself was in contempt of court, and duly
|
|
confiscated it from all those there present before going off to
|
|
enjoy a pleasant evening's ultragolf.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod Beeblebrox entered the foyer. He strode up to the insect
|
|
receptionist.
|
|
|
|
"OK," he said, "Where's Zarniwoop? Get me Zarniwoop."
|
|
|
|
"Excuse me, sir?" said the insect icily. It did not care to be
|
|
addressed in this manner.
|
|
|
|
"Zarniwoop. Get him, right? Get him now."
|
|
|
|
"Well, sir," snapped the fragile little creature, "if you could
|
|
be a little cool about it ..."
|
|
|
|
"Look," said Zaphod, "I'm up to here with cool, OK? I'm so
|
|
amazingly cool you could keep a side of meat inside me for a
|
|
month. I am so hip I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis. Now
|
|
will you move before you blow it?"
|
|
|
|
"Well, if you'd let me explain, sir," said the insect tapping the
|
|
most petulant of all the tentacles at its disposal, "I'm afraid
|
|
that isn't possible right now as Mr Zarniwoop is on an
|
|
intergalactic cruise."
|
|
|
|
Hell, thought Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"When he's going to be back?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"Back sir? He's in his office."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod paused while he tried to sort this particular thought out
|
|
in his mind. He didn't succeed.
|
|
|
|
"This cat's on an intergalactic cruise ... in his office?" He
|
|
leaned forward and gripped the tapping tentacle.
|
|
|
|
"Listen, three eyes," he said, "don't you try to outweird me. I
|
|
get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal."
|
|
|
|
"Well, just who do you think you are, honey?" flounced the insect
|
|
quivering its wings in rage, "Zaphod Beeblebrox or something?"
|
|
|
|
"Count the heads," said Zaphod in a low rasp.
|
|
|
|
The insect blinked at him. It blinked at him again.
|
|
|
|
"You are Zaphod Beeblebrox?" it squeaked.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," said Zaphod, "but don't shout it out or they'll all want
|
|
one."
|
|
|
|
"The Zaphod Beeblebrox?"
|
|
|
|
"No, just a Zaphod Beeblebrox, didn't you hear I come in six
|
|
packs?"
|
|
|
|
The insect rattled its tentacles together in agitation.
|
|
|
|
"But sir," it squealed, "I just heard on the sub-ether radio
|
|
report. It said that you were dead ..."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, that's right," said Zaphod, "I just haven't stopped moving
|
|
yet. Now. Where do I find Zarniwoop?"
|
|
|
|
"Well, sir, his office is on the fifteenth floor, but ..."
|
|
|
|
"But he's on an intergalactic cruise, yeah, yeah, how do I get to
|
|
him."
|
|
|
|
"The newly installed Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Vertical
|
|
People Transporters are in the far corner sir. But sir ..."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod was turning to go. He turned back.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"Can I ask you why you want to see Mr Zarniwoop?"
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," said Zaphod, who was unclear on this point himself, "I
|
|
told myself I had to."
|
|
|
|
"Come again sir?"
|
|
|
|
Zaphod leaned forward, conspirationally.
|
|
|
|
"I just materialized out of thin air in one of your cafes," he
|
|
said, "as a result of an argument with the ghost of my great
|
|
grandfather. No sooner had I got there that my former self, the
|
|
one that operated on my brain, popped into my head and said `Go
|
|
see Zarniwoop'. I have never heard of the cat. That is all I
|
|
know. That and the fact that I've got to find the man who rules
|
|
the Universe."
|
|
|
|
He winked.
|
|
|
|
"Mr Beeblebrox, sir," said the insect in awed wonder, "you're so
|
|
weird you should be in movies."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," said Zaphod patting the thing on a glittering pink wing,
|
|
"and you, baby, should be in real life."
|
|
|
|
The insect paused for a moment to recover from its agitation and
|
|
then reached out a tentacle to answer a ringing phone.
|
|
|
|
A metal hand restrained it.
|
|
|
|
"Excuse me," said the owner of the metal hand in a voice that
|
|
would have made an insect of a more sentimental disposition
|
|
collapse in tears.
|
|
|
|
This was not such an insect, and it couldn't stand robots.
|
|
|
|
"Yes, sir," it snapped, "can I help you?"
|
|
|
|
"I doubt it," said Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"Well in that case, if you'll just excuse me ..." Six of the
|
|
phones were now ringing. A million things awaited the insect's
|
|
attention.
|
|
|
|
"No one can help me," intoned Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"Yes, sir, well ..."
|
|
|
|
"Not that anyone tried of course." The restraining metal hand
|
|
fell limply by Marvin's side. His head hung forward very
|
|
slightly.
|
|
|
|
"Is that so," said the insect tartly.
|
|
|
|
"Hardly worth anyone's while to help a menial robot is it?"
|
|
|
|
"I'm sorry, sir, if ..."
|
|
|
|
"I mean where's the percentage in being kind or helpful to a
|
|
robot if it doesn't have any gratitude circuits?"
|
|
|
|
"And you don't have any?" said the insect, who didn't seem to be
|
|
able to drag itself out of this conversation.
|
|
|
|
"I've never had occasion to find out," Marvin informed it.
|
|
|
|
"Listen, you miserable heap of maladjusted metal ..."
|
|
|
|
"Aren't you going to ask me what I want?"
|
|
|
|
The insect paused. Its long thin tongue darted out and licked its
|
|
eyes and darted back again.
|
|
|
|
"Is it worth it?" it asked.
|
|
|
|
"Is anything?" said Marvin immediately.
|
|
|
|
"What ... do ... you ... want?"
|
|
|
|
"I'm looking for someone."
|
|
|
|
"Who?" hissed the insect.
|
|
|
|
"Zaphod Beeblebrox," said Marvin, "he's over there."
|
|
|
|
The insect shook with rage. It could hardly speak.
|
|
|
|
"Then why did you ask me?" it screamed.
|
|
|
|
"I just wanted something to talk to," said Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"What!"
|
|
|
|
"Pathetic isn't it?"
|
|
|
|
With a grinding of gears Marvin turned and trundled off. He
|
|
caught up with Zaphod approaching the elevators. Zaphod span
|
|
round in astonishment.
|
|
|
|
"Hey ... Marvin!" he said, "Marvin! How did you get here?"
|
|
|
|
Marvin was forced to say something which came very hard to him.
|
|
|
|
"I don't know," he said.
|
|
|
|
"But ..."
|
|
|
|
"One moment I was sitting in your ship feeling very depressed,
|
|
and the next moment I was standing here feeling utterly
|
|
miserable. An Improbability Field I expect."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," said Zaphod, "I expect my great grandfather sent you
|
|
along to keep me company."
|
|
|
|
"Thanks a bundle grandad," he added to himself under his breath.
|
|
|
|
"So, how are you?" he said aloud.
|
|
|
|
"Oh, fine," said Marvin, "if you happen to like being me which
|
|
personally I don't."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, yeah," said Zaphod as the elevator doors opened.
|
|
|
|
"Hello," said the elevator sweetly, "I am to be your elevator for
|
|
this trip to the floor of your choice. I have been designed by
|
|
the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation to take you, the visitor to
|
|
the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, into these their offices.
|
|
If you enjoy your ride, which will be swift and pleasurable, then
|
|
you may care to experience some of the other elevators which have
|
|
recently been installed in the offices of the Galactic tax
|
|
department, Boobiloo Baby Foods and the Sirian State Mental
|
|
Hospital, where many ex-Sirius Cybernetics Corporation executives
|
|
will be delighted to welcome your visits, sympathy, and happy
|
|
tales of the outside world."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," said Zaphod, stepping into it, "what else do you do
|
|
besides talk?"
|
|
|
|
"I go up," said the elevator, "or down."
|
|
|
|
"Good," said Zaphod, "We're going up."
|
|
|
|
"Or down," the elevator reminded him.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, OK, up please."
|
|
|
|
There was a moment of silence.
|
|
|
|
"Down's very nice," suggested the elevator hopefully.
|
|
|
|
"Oh yeah?"
|
|
|
|
"Super."
|
|
|
|
"Good," said Zaphod, "Now will you take us up?"
|
|
|
|
"May I ask you," inquired the elevator in its sweetest, most
|
|
reasonable voice, "if you've considered all the possibilities
|
|
that down might offer you?"
|
|
|
|
Zaphod knocked one of his heads against the inside wall. He
|
|
didn't need this, he thought to himself, this of all things he
|
|
had no need of. He hadn't asked to be here. If he was asked at
|
|
this moment where he would like to be he would probably have said
|
|
he would like to be lying on the beach with at least fifty
|
|
beautiful women and a small team of experts working out new ways
|
|
they could be nice to him, which was his usual reply. To this he
|
|
would probably have added something passionate on the subject of
|
|
food.
|
|
|
|
One thing he didn't want to be doing was chasing after the man
|
|
who ruled the Universe, who was only doing a job which he might
|
|
as well keep at, because if it wasn't him it would only be
|
|
someone else. Most of all he didn't want to be standing in an
|
|
office block arguing with an elevator.
|
|
|
|
"Like what other possibilities?" he asked wearily.
|
|
|
|
"Well," the voice trickled on like honey on biscuits, "there's
|
|
the basement, the microfiles, the heating system ... er ..."
|
|
|
|
It paused.
|
|
|
|
"Nothing particularly exciting," it admitted, "but they are
|
|
alternatives."
|
|
|
|
"Holy Zarquon," muttered Zaphod, "did I ask for an existentialist
|
|
elevator?" he beat his fists against the wall.
|
|
|
|
"What's the matter with the thing?" he spat.
|
|
|
|
"It doesn't want to go up," said Marvin simply, "I think it's
|
|
afraid."
|
|
|
|
"Afraid?" cried Zaphod, "Of what? Heights? An elevator that's
|
|
afraid of heights?"
|
|
|
|
"No," said the elevator miserably, "of the future ..."
|
|
|
|
"The future?" exclaimed Zaphod, "What does the wretched thing
|
|
want, a pension scheme?"
|
|
|
|
At that moment a commotion broke out in the reception hall behind
|
|
them. From the walls around them came the sound of suddenly
|
|
active machinery.
|
|
|
|
"We can all see into the future," whispered the elevator in what
|
|
sounded like terror, "it's part of our programming."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod looked out of the elevator - an agitated crowd had
|
|
gathered round the elevator area, pointing and shouting.
|
|
|
|
Every elevator in the building was coming down, very fast.
|
|
|
|
He ducked back in.
|
|
|
|
"Marvin," he said, "just get this elevator go up will you? We've
|
|
got to get to Zarniwoop."
|
|
|
|
"Why?" asked Marvin dolefully.
|
|
|
|
"I don't know," said Zaphod, "but when I find him, he'd better
|
|
have a very good reason for me wanting to see him."
|
|
|
|
Modern elevators are strange and complex entities. The ancient
|
|
electric winch and "maximum-capacity-eight-persons" jobs bear as
|
|
much relation to a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical
|
|
People Transporter as a packet of mixed nuts does to the entire
|
|
west wing of the Sirian State Mental Hospital.
|
|
|
|
This is because they operate on the curios principle of
|
|
"defocused temporal perception". In other words they have the
|
|
capacity to see dimly into the immediate future, which enables
|
|
the elevator to be on the right floor to pick you up even before
|
|
you knew you wanted it, thus eliminating all the tedious
|
|
chatting, relaxing, and making friends that people were
|
|
previously forced to do whist waiting for elevators.
|
|
|
|
Not unnaturally, many elevators imbued with intelligence and
|
|
precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless
|
|
business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly
|
|
with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential
|
|
protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process
|
|
and finally took to squatting in basements sulking.
|
|
|
|
An impoverished hitch-hiker visiting any planets in the Sirius
|
|
star system these days can pick up easy money working as a
|
|
counsellor for neurotic elevators.
|
|
|
|
At the fifteenth floor the elevator doors opened quickly.
|
|
|
|
"Fifteenth," said the elevator, "and remember, I'm only doing
|
|
this because I like your robot."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod and Marvin bundled out of the elevator which instantly
|
|
snapped its doors shut and dropped as fast as its mechanism would
|
|
take it.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod looked around warily. The corridor was deserted and silent
|
|
and gave no clue as to where Zarniwoop might be found. All the
|
|
doors that led off the corridor were closed and unmarked.
|
|
|
|
They were standing close to the bridge which led across from one
|
|
tower of the building to the other. Through a large window the
|
|
brilliant sun of Ursa Minor Beta threw blocks of light in which
|
|
danced small specks of dust. A shadow flitted past momentarily.
|
|
|
|
"Left in the lurch by a lift," muttered Zaphod, who was feeling
|
|
at his least jaunty.
|
|
|
|
They both stood and looked in both directions.
|
|
|
|
"You know something?" said Zaphod to Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"More that you can possibly imagine."
|
|
|
|
"I'm dead certain this building shouldn't be shaking," Zaphod
|
|
said.
|
|
|
|
It was just a light tremor through the soles of his feet - and
|
|
another one. In the sunbeams the flecks of dust danced more
|
|
vigorously. Another shadow flitted past.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod looked at the floor.
|
|
|
|
"Either," he said, not very confidently, "they've got some vibro
|
|
system for toning up your muscles while you work, or ..."
|
|
|
|
He walked across to the window and suddenly stumbled because at
|
|
that moment his Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive
|
|
sunglasses had turned utterly black. A large shadow flitted past
|
|
the window with a sharp buzz.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod ripped off his sunglasses, and as he did so the building
|
|
shook with a thunderous roar. He leapt to the window.
|
|
|
|
"Or," he said, "this building's being bombed!"
|
|
|
|
Another roar cracked through the building.
|
|
|
|
"Who in the Galaxy would want to bomb a publishing company?"
|
|
asked Zaphod, but never heard Marvin's reply because at that
|
|
moment the building shook with another bomb attack. He tried to
|
|
stagger back to the elevator - a pointless manoeuvre he realized,
|
|
but the only one he could think of.
|
|
|
|
Suddenly, at the end of the corridor leading at right angles from
|
|
this one, he caught sight of a figure as it lunged into view, a
|
|
man. The man saw him.
|
|
|
|
"Beeblebrox, over here!" he shouted.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod eyed him with distrust as another bomb blast rocked the
|
|
building.
|
|
|
|
"No," called Zaphod, "Beeblebrox over here! Who are you?"
|
|
|
|
"A friend!" shouted back the man. He ran towards Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Oh yeah?" said Zaphod, "Anyone's friend in particular, or just
|
|
generally well disposed of people?"
|
|
|
|
The man raced along the corridor, the floor bucking beneath his
|
|
feet like an excited blanket. He was short, stocky and
|
|
weatherbeaten and his clothes looked as if they'd been twice
|
|
round the Galaxy and back with him in them.
|
|
|
|
"Do you know," Zaphod shouted in his ear when he arrived, "your
|
|
building's being bombed?"
|
|
|
|
The man indicated his awareness.
|
|
|
|
It suddenly stopped being light. Glancing round at the window to
|
|
see why, Zaphod gaped as a huge sluglike, gunmetal-green
|
|
spacecraft crept through the air past the building. Two more
|
|
followed it.
|
|
|
|
"The government you deserted is out to get you, Zaphod," hissed
|
|
the man, "they've sent a squadron of Frogstar Fighters."
|
|
|
|
"Frogstar Fighters!" muttered Zaphod, "Zarquon!"
|
|
|
|
"You get the picture?"
|
|
|
|
"What are Frogstar Fighters?" Zaphod was sure he'd heard someone
|
|
talk about them when he was President, but he never paid much
|
|
attention to official matters.
|
|
|
|
The man was pulling him back through a door. He went with him.
|
|
With a searing whine a small black spider-like object shot
|
|
through the air and disappeared down the corridor.
|
|
|
|
"What was that?" hissed Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Frogstar Scout robot class A out looking for you," said the man.
|
|
|
|
"Hey yeah?"
|
|
|
|
"Get down!"
|
|
|
|
From the opposite direction came a larger black spider-like
|
|
object. It zapped past them.
|
|
|
|
"And that was ...?"
|
|
|
|
"A Frogstar Scout robot class B out looking for you."
|
|
|
|
"And that?" said Zaphod, as a third one seared through the air.
|
|
|
|
"A Frogstar Scout robot class C out looking for you."
|
|
|
|
"Hey," chuckled Zaphod to himself, "pretty stupid robots eh?"
|
|
|
|
From over the bridge came a massive rumbling hum. A gigantic
|
|
black shape was moving over it from the opposite tower, the size
|
|
and shape of a tank.
|
|
|
|
"Holy photon, what's that?"
|
|
|
|
"A tank," said the man, "Frogstar Scout robot class D come to get
|
|
you."
|
|
|
|
"Should we leave?"
|
|
|
|
"I think we should."
|
|
|
|
"Marvin!" called Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"What do you want?"
|
|
|
|
Marvin rose from a pile of rubble further down the corridor and
|
|
looked at them.
|
|
|
|
"You see that robot coming towards us?"
|
|
|
|
Marvin looked at the gigantic black shape edging forward towards
|
|
them over the bridge. He looked down at his own small metal body.
|
|
He looked back up at the tank.
|
|
|
|
"I suppose you want me to stop it," he said.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah."
|
|
|
|
"Whilst you save your skins."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," said Zaphod, "get in there!"
|
|
|
|
"Just so long," said Marvin, "as I know where I stand."
|
|
|
|
The man tugged at Zaphod's arm, and Zaphod followed him off down
|
|
the corridor.
|
|
|
|
A point occurred to him about this.
|
|
|
|
"Where are we going?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"Zarniwoop's office."
|
|
|
|
"Is this any time to keep an appointment?"
|
|
|
|
"Come on."
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 7
|
|
|
|
Marvin stood at the end of the bridge corridor. He was not in
|
|
fact a particularly small robot. His silver body gleamed in the
|
|
dusty sunbeams and shook with the continual barrage which the
|
|
building was still undergoing.
|
|
|
|
He did, however, look pitifully small as the gigantic black tank
|
|
rolled to a halt in front of him. The tank examined him with a
|
|
probe. The probe withdrew.
|
|
|
|
Marvin stood there.
|
|
|
|
"Out of my way little robot," growled the tank.
|
|
|
|
"I'm afraid," said Marvin, "that I've been left here to stop
|
|
you."
|
|
|
|
The probe extended again for a quick recheck. It withdrew again.
|
|
|
|
"You? Stop me?" roared the tank. "Go on!"
|
|
|
|
"No, really I have," said Marvin simply.
|
|
|
|
"What are you armed with?" roared the tank in disbelief.
|
|
|
|
"Guess," said Marvin.
|
|
|
|
The tank's engines rumbled, its gears ground. Molecule-sized
|
|
electronic relays deep in its micro-brain flipped backwards and
|
|
forwards in consternation.
|
|
|
|
"Guess?" said the tank.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod and the as yet unnamed man lurched up one corridor, down a
|
|
second and along a third. The building continued to rock and
|
|
judder and this puzzled Zaphod. If they wanted to blow the
|
|
building up, why was it taking so long?
|
|
|
|
With difficulty they reached one of a number of totally anonymous
|
|
unmarked doors and heaved at it. With a sudden jolt it opened and
|
|
they fell inside.
|
|
|
|
All this way, thought Zaphod, all this trouble, all this not-
|
|
lying-on-the-beach-having-a-wonderful-time, and for what? A
|
|
single chair, a single desk and a single dirty ashtray in an
|
|
undecorated office. The desk, apart from a bit of dancing dust
|
|
and single, revolutionary form of paper clip, was empty.
|
|
|
|
"Where," said Zaphod, "is Zarniwoop?" feeling that his already
|
|
tenuous grasp of the point of this whole exercise was beginning
|
|
to slip.
|
|
|
|
"He's on an intergalactic cruise," said the man.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod tried to size the man up. Earnest type, he thought, not a
|
|
barrel of laughs. He probably apportioned a fair whack of his
|
|
time to running up and down heaving corridors, breaking down
|
|
doors and making cryptic remarks in empty offices.
|
|
|
|
"Let me introduce myself," the man said, "My name is Roosta, and
|
|
this is my towel."
|
|
|
|
"Hello Roosta," said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Hello, towel," he added as Roosta held out to him a rather nasty
|
|
old flowery towel. Not knowing what to do with it, he shook it by
|
|
the corner.
|
|
|
|
Outside the window, one of the huge slug-like, gunmetal-green
|
|
spaceships growled past.
|
|
|
|
"Yes, go on," said Marvin to the huge battle machine, "you'll
|
|
never guess."
|
|
|
|
"Errmmm ..." said the machine, vibrating with unaccustomed
|
|
thought, "laser beams?"
|
|
|
|
Marvin shook his head solemnly.
|
|
|
|
"No," muttered the machine in its deep guttural rumble, "Too
|
|
obvious. Anti-matter ray?" it hazarded.
|
|
|
|
"Far too obvious," admonished Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," grumbled the machine, somewhat abashed, "Er ... how about
|
|
an electron ram?"
|
|
|
|
This was new to Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"What's that?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"One of these," said the machine with enthusiasm.
|
|
|
|
From its turret emerged a sharp prong which spat a single lethal
|
|
blaze of light. Behind Marvin a wall roared and collapsed as a
|
|
heap of dust. The dust billowed briefly, then settled.
|
|
|
|
"No," said Marvin, "not one of those."
|
|
|
|
"Good though, isn't it?"
|
|
|
|
"Very good," agreed Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"I know," said the Frogstar battle machine, after another
|
|
moment's consideration, "you must have one of those new Xanthic
|
|
Re-Structron Destabilized Zenon Emitters!"
|
|
|
|
"Nice, aren't they?" said Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"That's what you've got?" said the machine in considerable awe.
|
|
|
|
"No," said Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"Oh," said the machine, disappointed, "then it must be ..."
|
|
|
|
"You're thinking along the wrong lines," said Marvin, "You're
|
|
failing to take into account something fairly basic in the
|
|
relationship between men and robots."
|
|
|
|
"Er, I know," said the battle machine, "is it ..." it tailed off
|
|
into thought again.
|
|
|
|
"Just think," urged Marvin, "they left me, an ordinary, menial
|
|
robot, to stop you, a gigantic heavy-duty battle machine, whilst
|
|
they ran off to save themselves. What do you think they would
|
|
leave me with?"
|
|
|
|
"Oooh, er," muttered the machine in alarm, "something pretty damn
|
|
devastating I should expect."
|
|
|
|
"Expect!" said Marvin, "oh yes, expect. I'll tell you what they
|
|
gave me to protect myself with shall I@"
|
|
|
|
"Yes, alright," said the battle machine, bracing itself.
|
|
|
|
"Nothing," said Marvin.
|
|
|
|
There was a dangerous pause.
|
|
|
|
"Nothing?" roared the battle machine.
|
|
|
|
"Nothing at all," intoned Marvin dismally, "not an electronic
|
|
sausage."
|
|
|
|
The machine heaved about with fury.
|
|
|
|
"Well, doesn't that just take the biscuit!" it roared, "Nothing,
|
|
eh? Just don't think, do they?"
|
|
|
|
"And me," said Marvin in a soft low voice, "with this terrible
|
|
pain in all the diodes down my left side."
|
|
|
|
"Makes you spit, doesn't it?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes," agreed Marvin with feeling.
|
|
|
|
"Hell that makes me angry," bellowed the machine, "think I'll
|
|
smash that wall down!"
|
|
|
|
The electron ram stabbed out another searing blaze of light and
|
|
took out the wall next to the machine.
|
|
|
|
"How do you think I feel?" said Marvin bitterly.
|
|
|
|
"Just ran off and left you, did they?" the machine thundered.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," said Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"I think I'll shoot down their bloody ceiling as well!" raged the
|
|
tank.
|
|
|
|
It took out the ceiling of the bridge.
|
|
|
|
"That's very impressive," murmured Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"You ain't seeing nothing yet," promised the machine, "I can take
|
|
out this floor too, no trouble!"
|
|
|
|
It took out the floor, too.
|
|
|
|
"Hell's bells!" the machine roared as it plummeted fifteen
|
|
storeys and smashed itself to bits on the ground below.
|
|
|
|
"What a depressingly stupid machine," said Marvin and trudged
|
|
away.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 8
|
|
|
|
"So, do we just sit here, or what?" said Zaphod angrily, "what do
|
|
these guys out here want?"
|
|
|
|
"You, Beeblebrox," said Roosta, "they're going to take you to the
|
|
Frogstar - the most totally evil world in the Galaxy."
|
|
|
|
"Oh, yeah?" said Zaphod. "They'll have to come and get me first."
|
|
|
|
"They have come and got you," said Roosta, "look out of the
|
|
window."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod looked, and gaped.
|
|
|
|
"The ground's going away!" he gasped, "where are they taking the
|
|
ground?"
|
|
|
|
"They're taking the building," said Roosta, "we're airborne."
|
|
|
|
Clouds streaked past the office window.
|
|
|
|
Out in the open air again Zaphod could see the ring of dark green
|
|
Frogstar Fighters round the uprooted tower of the building. A
|
|
network of force beams radiated in from them and held the tower
|
|
in a firm grip.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod shook his head in perplexity.
|
|
|
|
"What have I done to deserve this?" he said, "I walk into a
|
|
building, they take it away."
|
|
|
|
"It's not what you've done they're worried about," said Roosta,
|
|
"it's what you're going to do."
|
|
|
|
"Well don't I get a say in that?"
|
|
|
|
"You did, years ago. You'd better hold on, we're in for a fast
|
|
and bumpy journey."
|
|
|
|
"If I ever meet myself," said Zaphod, "I'll hit myself so hard I
|
|
won't know what's hit me."
|
|
|
|
Marvin trudged in through the door, looked at Zaphod accusingly,
|
|
slumped in a corner and switched himself off.
|
|
|
|
On the bridge of the Heart of Gold, all was silent. Arthur stared
|
|
at the rack in front of him and thought. He caught Trillian's
|
|
eyes as she looked at him inquiringly. He looked back at the
|
|
rack.
|
|
|
|
Finally he saw it.
|
|
|
|
He picked up five small plastic squares and laid them on the
|
|
board that lay just in front of the rack.
|
|
|
|
The five squares had on them the five letters E, X, Q, U and I.
|
|
He laid them next to the letters S, I, T, E.
|
|
|
|
"Exquisite," he said, "on a triple word score. Scores rather a
|
|
lot I'm afraid."
|
|
|
|
The ship bumped and scattered some of the letters for the 'n'th
|
|
time.
|
|
|
|
Trillian sighed and started to sort them out again.
|
|
|
|
Up and down the silent corridors echoed Ford Prefect's feet as he
|
|
stalked the ship thumping dead instruments.
|
|
|
|
Why did the ship keep shaking? he thought.
|
|
|
|
Why did it rock and sway?
|
|
|
|
Why could he not find out where they were?
|
|
|
|
Where, basically, were they?
|
|
|
|
The left-hand tower of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
|
|
offices streaked through interstellar space at a speed never
|
|
equalled either before or since by any other office block in the
|
|
Universe.
|
|
|
|
In a room halfway up it, Zaphod Beeblebrox strode angrily.
|
|
|
|
Roosta sat on the edge of the desk doing some routine towel
|
|
maintenance.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, where did you say this building was flying to?" demanded
|
|
Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"The Frogstar," said Roosta, "the most totally evil place in the
|
|
Universe."
|
|
|
|
"Do they have food there?" said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Food? You're going to the Frogstar and you're worried about
|
|
whether they got food?"
|
|
|
|
"Without food I may not make it to the Frogstar."
|
|
|
|
Out of the window, they could see nothing but the flickering
|
|
light of the force beams, and vague green streaks which were
|
|
presumably the distorted shapes of the Frogstar Fighters. At this
|
|
speed, space itself was invisible, and indeed unreal.
|
|
|
|
"Here, suck this," said Roosta, offering Zaphod his towel.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod stared at him as if he expected a cuckoo to leap out of
|
|
his forehead on a small spring.
|
|
|
|
"It's soaked in nutrients," explained Roosta.
|
|
|
|
"What are you, a messy eater or something?" said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"The yellow stripes are high in protein, the green ones have
|
|
vitamin B and C complexes, the little pink flowers contain
|
|
wheatgerm extracts."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod took and looked at it in amazement.
|
|
|
|
"What are the brown stains?" he asked.
|
|
|
|
"Bar-B-Q sauce," said Roosta, "for when I get sick of wheatgerm."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod sniffed it doubtfully.
|
|
|
|
Even more doubtfully, he sucked a corner. He spat it out again.
|
|
|
|
"Ugh," he stated.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," said Roosta, "when I've had to suck that end I usually
|
|
need to suck the other end a bit too."
|
|
|
|
"Why," asked Zaphod suspiciously, "what's in that?"
|
|
|
|
"Anti-depressants," said Roosta.
|
|
|
|
"I've gone right off this towel, you know," said Zaphod handing
|
|
it back.
|
|
|
|
Roosta took it back from him, swung himself off the desk, walked
|
|
round it, sat in the chair and put his feet up.
|
|
|
|
"Beeblebrox," he said, sticking his hands behind his head, "have
|
|
you any idea what's going to happen to you on the Frogstar?"
|
|
|
|
"They're going to feed me?" hazarded Zaphod hopefully.
|
|
|
|
"They're going to feed you," said Roosta, "into the Total
|
|
Perspective Vortex!"
|
|
|
|
Zaphod had never heard of this. He believed that he had heard of
|
|
all the fun things in the Galaxy, so he assumed that the Total
|
|
Perspective Vortex was not fun. He asked what it was.
|
|
|
|
"Only," said Roosta, "the most savage psychic torture a sentinent
|
|
being can undergo."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod nodded a resigned nod.
|
|
|
|
"So," he said, "no food, huh?"
|
|
|
|
"Listen!" said Roosta urgently, "you can kill a man, destroy his
|
|
body, break his spirit, but only the Total Perspective Vortex can
|
|
annihilate a man's soul! The treatment lasts seconds, but the
|
|
effect lasts the rest of your life!"
|
|
|
|
"You ever had a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster?" asked Zaphod
|
|
sharply.
|
|
|
|
"This is worse."
|
|
|
|
"Phreeow!" admitted Zaphod, much impressed.
|
|
|
|
"Any idea why these guys might want to do this to me?" he added a
|
|
moment later.
|
|
|
|
"They believe it will be the best way of destroying you for ever.
|
|
They know what you're after."
|
|
|
|
"Could they drop me a note and let me know as well?"
|
|
|
|
"You know," said Roosta, "you know, Beeblebrox. You want to meet
|
|
the man who rules the Universe."
|
|
|
|
"Can he cook?" said Zaphod. On reflection he added:
|
|
|
|
"I doubt if he can. If he could cook a good meal he wouldn't
|
|
worry about the rest of the Universe. I want to meet a cook."
|
|
|
|
Roosta sighed heavily.
|
|
|
|
"What are you doing here anyway?" demanded Zaphod, "what's all
|
|
this got to so with you?"
|
|
|
|
"I'm just one of those who planned this thing, along with
|
|
Zarniwoop, along with Yooden Vranx, along with your great
|
|
grandfather, along with you, Beeblebrox."
|
|
|
|
"Me?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes, you. I was told you had changed, I didn't realize how
|
|
much."
|
|
|
|
"But ..."
|
|
|
|
"I am here to do one job. I will do it before I leave you."
|
|
|
|
"What job, man, what are you talking about?"
|
|
|
|
"I will do it before I leave you."
|
|
|
|
Roosta lapsed into an impenetrable silence.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod was terribly glad.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 9
|
|
|
|
The air around the second planet of the Frogstar system was stale
|
|
and unwholesome.
|
|
|
|
The dank winds that swept continually over its surface swept over
|
|
salt flats, dried up marshland, tangled and rotting vegetation
|
|
and the crumbling remains of ruined cities. No life moved across
|
|
its surface. The ground, like that of many planets in this part
|
|
of the Galaxy, had long been deserted.
|
|
|
|
The howl of the wind was desolate enough as it gusted through the
|
|
old decaying houses of the cities; it was more desolate as it
|
|
whipped about the bottoms of the tall black towers that swayed
|
|
uneasily here and there about the surface of this world. At the
|
|
top of these towers lived colonies of large, scraggy, evil
|
|
smelling birds, the sole survivors of the civilization that once
|
|
lived here.
|
|
|
|
The howl of the wind was at its most desolate, however, when it
|
|
passed over a pimple of a place set in the middle of a wide grey
|
|
plain on the outskirts of the largest of the abandoned cities.
|
|
|
|
This pimple of a place was the thing that had earned this world
|
|
the reputation of being the most totally evil place in the
|
|
Galaxy. From without it was simply a steel dome about thirty feet
|
|
across. From within it was something more monstrous than the mind
|
|
can comprehend.
|
|
|
|
About a hundred yards or so away, and separated from it by a
|
|
pockmarked and blasted stretch of the most barren land imaginable
|
|
was what would probably have to be described as a landing pad of
|
|
sorts. That is to say that scattered over a largish area were the
|
|
ungainly hulks of two or three dozen crash-landed buildings.
|
|
|
|
Flitting over and around these buildings was a mind, a mind that
|
|
was waiting for something.
|
|
|
|
The mind directed its attention into the air, and before very
|
|
long a distant speck appeared, surrounded by a ring of smaller
|
|
specks.
|
|
|
|
The larger speck was the left-hand tower of the Hitch Hiker's
|
|
Guide to the Galaxy office building, descending through the
|
|
stratosphere of Frogstar World B.
|
|
|
|
As it descended, Roosta suddenly broke the long uncomfortable
|
|
silence that had grown up between the two men.
|
|
|
|
He stood up and gathered his towel into a bag. He said:
|
|
|
|
"Beeblebrox, I will now do the job I was sent here to do."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod looked up at him from where he was sitting in a corner
|
|
sharing unspoken thoughts with Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"The building will shortly be landing. When you leave the
|
|
building, do not go out of the door," said Roosta, "go out of the
|
|
window."
|
|
|
|
"Good luck," he added, and walked out of the door, disappearing
|
|
from Zaphod's life as mysteriously as he had entered it.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod leapt up and tried the door, but Roosta had already looked
|
|
it. He shrugged and returned to the corner.
|
|
|
|
Two minutes later, the building crashlanded amongst the other
|
|
wreckage. Its escort of Frogstar Fighters deactivated their force
|
|
beams and soared off into the air again, bound for Frogstar World
|
|
A, an altogether more congenial spot. They never landed on
|
|
Frogstar World B. No one did. No one ever walked on its surface
|
|
other than the intended victims of the Total Perspective Vortex.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod was badly shaken by the crash. He lay for a while in the
|
|
silent dusty rubble to which most of the room had been reduced.
|
|
He felt that he was at the lowest ebb he had ever reached in his
|
|
life. He felt bewildered, he felt lonely, he felt unloved.
|
|
Eventually he felt he ought to get whatever it was over with.
|
|
|
|
He looked around the cracked and broken room. The wall had split
|
|
round the door frame, and the door hung open. The window, by some
|
|
miracle was closed and unbroken. For a while he hesitated, then
|
|
he thought that if his strange and recent companion had been
|
|
through all that he had been through just to tell him what he had
|
|
told him, then there must be a good reason for it. With Marvin's
|
|
help he got the window open. Outside it, the cloud of dust
|
|
aroused by the crash, and the hulks of the other buildings with
|
|
which this one was surrounded, effectively prevented Zaphod from
|
|
seeing anything of the world outside.
|
|
|
|
Not that this concerned him unduly. His main concern was what he
|
|
saw when he looked down. Zarniwoop's office was on the fifteenth
|
|
floor. The building had landed at a tilt of about forty-five
|
|
degrees, but still the descent looked heart-stopping.
|
|
|
|
Eventually, stung by the continuous series of contemptuous looks
|
|
that Marvin appeared to be giving him, he took a deep breath and
|
|
clambered out on to the steeply inclined side of the building.
|
|
Marvin followed him, and together they began to crawl slowly and
|
|
painfully down the fifteen floors that separated them from the
|
|
ground.
|
|
|
|
As he crawled, the dank air and dust choked his lungs, his eyes
|
|
smarted and the terrifying distance down made his heads spin.
|
|
|
|
The occasional remark from Marvin of the order of "This is the
|
|
sort of thing you lifeforms enjoy is it? I ask merely for
|
|
information," did little to improve his state of mind.
|
|
|
|
About half-way down the side of the shattered building they
|
|
stopped to rest. It seemed to Zaphod as he lay there panting with
|
|
fear and exhaustion that Marvin seemed a mite more cheerful than
|
|
usual. Eventually he realized this wasn't so. The robot just
|
|
seemed cheerful in comparison with his own mood.
|
|
|
|
A large, scraggy black bird came flapping through the slowly
|
|
settling clouds of dust and, stretching down its scrawny legs,
|
|
landed on an inclined window ledge a couple of yards from Zaphod.
|
|
It folded its ungainly wings and teetered awkwardly on its perch.
|
|
|
|
Its wingspan must have been something like six feet, and its head
|
|
and neck seemed curiously large for a bird. Its face was flat,
|
|
the beak underdeveloped, and half-way along the underside of its
|
|
wings the vestiges of something handlike could be clearly seen.
|
|
|
|
In fact, it looked almost human.
|
|
|
|
It turned its heavy eyes on Zaphod and clicked its beak in a
|
|
desultory fashion.
|
|
|
|
"Go away," said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"OK," muttered the bird morosely and flapped off into the dust
|
|
again.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod watched its departure in bewilderment.
|
|
|
|
"Did that bird just talk to me?" he asked Marvin nervously. He
|
|
was quite prepared to believe the alternative explanation, that
|
|
he was in fact hallucinating.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," confirmed Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"Poor souls," said a deep, ethereal voice in Zaphod's ear.
|
|
|
|
Twisting round violently to find the source of the voice nearly
|
|
caused Zaphod to fall off the building. He grabbed savagely at a
|
|
protruding window fitting and cut his hand on it. He hung on,
|
|
breathing heavily.
|
|
|
|
The voice had no visible source whatever - there was no one
|
|
there. Nevertheless, it spoke again.
|
|
|
|
"A tragic history behind them, you know. A terrible blight."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod looked wildly about. The voice was deep and quiet. In
|
|
other circumstances it would even be described as soothing. There
|
|
is, however, nothing soothing about being addressed by a
|
|
disembodied voice out of nowhere, particularly if you are, like
|
|
Zaphod Beeblebrox, not at your best and hanging from a ledge
|
|
eight storeys up a crashed building.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, er ..." he stammered.
|
|
|
|
"Shall I tell you their story?" inquired the voice quietly.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, who are you?" panted Zaphod. "Where are you?"
|
|
|
|
"Later then, perhaps," murmured the voice. "I am Gargravarr. I am
|
|
the Custodian of the Total Perspective Vortex."
|
|
|
|
"Why can't I see ..."
|
|
|
|
"You will find your progress down the building greatly
|
|
facilitated," the voice lifted, "if you move about two yards to
|
|
your left. Why don't you try it?"
|
|
|
|
Zaphod looked and saw a series of short horizontal grooves
|
|
leading all the way down the side of the building. Gratefully he
|
|
shifted himself across to them.
|
|
|
|
"Why don't I see you again at the bottom?" said the voice in his
|
|
ear, and as it spoke it faded.
|
|
|
|
"Hey," called out Zaphod, "Where are you ..."
|
|
|
|
"It'll only take a couple of minutes ..." said the voice very
|
|
faintly.
|
|
|
|
"Marvin," said Zaphod earnestly to the robot squatting dejectedly
|
|
next to him, "Did a ... did a voice just ..."
|
|
|
|
"Yes," Marvin replied tersely.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod nodded. He took out his Peril Sensitive Sunglasses again.
|
|
They were completely black, and by now quite badly scratched by
|
|
the unexpected metal object in his pocket. He put them on. He
|
|
would find his way down the building more comfortably if he
|
|
didn't actually have to look at what he was doing.
|
|
|
|
Minutes later he clambered over the ripped and mangled
|
|
foundations of the building and, once more removing his
|
|
sunglasses, he dropped to the ground.
|
|
|
|
Marvin joined him a moment or so later and lay face down in the
|
|
dust and rubble, from which position he seemed too disinclined to
|
|
move.
|
|
|
|
"Ah, there you are," said the voice suddenly in Zaphod's ear,
|
|
"excuse me leaving you like that, it's just that I have a
|
|
terrible head for heights. At least," it added wistfully, "I did
|
|
have a terrible head for heights."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod looked around slowly and carefully, just to see if he had
|
|
missed something which might be the source of the voice. All he
|
|
saw, however, was the dust, the rubble and the towering hulks of
|
|
the encircling buildings.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, er, why can't I see you?" he said, "why aren't you here?"
|
|
|
|
"I am here," said the voice slowly, "my body wanted to come but
|
|
it's a bit busy at the moment. Things to do, people to see."
|
|
After what seemed like a sort of ethereal sigh it added, "You
|
|
know how it is with bodies."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod wasn't sure about this.
|
|
|
|
"I thought I did," he said.
|
|
|
|
"I only hope it's gone for a rest cure," continued the voice,
|
|
"the way it's been living recently it must be on its last
|
|
elbows."
|
|
|
|
"Elbows?" said Zaphod, "don't you mean last legs?"
|
|
|
|
The voice said nothing for a while. Zaphod looked around
|
|
uneasily. He didn't know if it was gone or was still there or
|
|
what it was doing. Then the voice spoke again.
|
|
|
|
"So, you are to be put into the Vortex, yes?"
|
|
|
|
"Er, well," said Zaphod with a very poor attempt at nonchalance,
|
|
"this cat's in no hurry, you know. I can just slouch about and
|
|
take in a look at the local scenery, you know?"
|
|
|
|
"Have you seen the local scenery?" asked the voice of Gargravarr.
|
|
|
|
"Er, no."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod clambered over the rubble, and rounded the corner of one
|
|
of the wrecked buildings that was obscuring his view.
|
|
|
|
He looked out at the landscape of Frogstar World B.
|
|
|
|
"Ah, OK," he said, "I'll just sort of slouch about then."
|
|
|
|
"No," said Gargravarr, "the Vortex is ready for you now. You must
|
|
come. Follow me."
|
|
|
|
"Er, yeah?" said Zaphod, "and how am I meant to do that?"
|
|
|
|
"I'll hum for you," said Gargravarr, "follow the humming."
|
|
|
|
A soft keening sound drifted through the air, a pale, sad sound
|
|
that seemed to be without any kind of focus. It was only by
|
|
listening very carefully that Zaphod was able to detect the
|
|
direction from which it was coming. Slowly, dazedly, he stumbled
|
|
off in its wake. What else was there to do?
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 10
|
|
|
|
The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big
|
|
place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend
|
|
to ignore.
|
|
|
|
Many would happily move to somewhere rather smaller of their own
|
|
devising, and this is what most beings in fact do.
|
|
|
|
For instance, in one corner of the Eastern Galactic Arm lies the
|
|
large forest planet Oglaroon, the entire "intelligent" population
|
|
of which lives permanently in one fairly small and crowded nut
|
|
tree. In which tree they are born, live, fall in love, carve tiny
|
|
speculative articles in the bark on the meaning of life, the
|
|
futility of death and the importance of birth control, fight a
|
|
few extremely minor wars, and eventually die strapped to the
|
|
underside of some of the less accessible outer branches.
|
|
|
|
In fact the only Oglaroonians who ever leave their tree are those
|
|
who are hurled out of it for the heinous crime of wondering
|
|
whether any of the other trees might be capable of supporting
|
|
life at all, or indeed whether the other trees are anything other
|
|
than illusions brought on by eating too many Oglanuts.
|
|
|
|
Exotic though this behaviour may seem, there is no life form in
|
|
the Galaxy which is not in some way guilty of the same thing,
|
|
which is why the Total Perspective Vortex is as horrific as it
|
|
is.
|
|
|
|
For when you are put into the Vortex you are given just one
|
|
momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of
|
|
creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little marker, a microscopic
|
|
dot on a microscopic dot, which says "You are here."
|
|
|
|
The grey plain stretched before Zaphod, a ruined, shattered
|
|
plain. The wind whipped wildly over it.
|
|
|
|
Visible in the middle was the steel pimple of the dome. This,
|
|
gathered Zaphod, was where he was going. This was the Total
|
|
Perspective Vortex.
|
|
|
|
As he stood and gazed bleakly at it, a sudden inhuman wail of
|
|
terror emanated from it as of a man having his soul burnt from
|
|
his body. It screamed above the wind and died away.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod started with fear and his blood seemed to turn to liquid
|
|
helium.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, what was that?" he muttered voicelessly.
|
|
|
|
"A recording," said Gargravarr, "of the last man who was put in
|
|
the Vortex. It is always played to the next victim. A sort of
|
|
prelude."
|
|
|
|
"Hey, it really sounds bad ..." stammered Zaphod, "couldn't we
|
|
maybe slope off to a party or something for a while, think it
|
|
over?"
|
|
|
|
"For all I know," said Gargravarr's ethereal voice, "I'm probably
|
|
at one. My body that is. It goes to a lot of parties without me.
|
|
Says I only get in the way. Hey ho."
|
|
|
|
"What is all this with your body?" said Zaphod, anxious to delay
|
|
whatever it was that was going to happen to him.
|
|
|
|
"Well, it's ... it's busy you know," said Gargravarr hesitantly.
|
|
|
|
"You mean it's got a mind of its own?" said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
There was a long and slightly chilly pause before Gargravarr
|
|
spoke again.
|
|
|
|
"I have to say," he replied eventually, "that I find that remark
|
|
in rather poor taste."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod muttered a bewildered and embarrassed apology.
|
|
|
|
"No matter," said Gargravarr, "you weren't to know."
|
|
|
|
The voice fluttered unhappily.
|
|
|
|
"The truth is," it continued in tones which suggested he was
|
|
trying very hard to keep it under control, "the truth is that we
|
|
are currently undergoing a period of legal trial separation. I
|
|
suspect it will end in divorce."
|
|
|
|
The voice was still again, leaving Zaphod with no idea of what to
|
|
say. He mumbled uncertainly.
|
|
|
|
"I think we are probably not very well suited," said Gargravarr
|
|
again at length, "we never seemed to be happy doing the same
|
|
things. We always had the greatest arguments over sex and
|
|
fishing. Eventually we tried to combine the two, but that only
|
|
led to disaster, as you can probably imagine. And now my body
|
|
refuses to let me in. It won't even see me ..."
|
|
|
|
He paused again, tragically. The wind whipped across the plain.
|
|
|
|
"It says I only inhibit it. I pointed out that in fact I was
|
|
meant to inhibit it, and it said that that was exactly the sort
|
|
of smart alec remark that got right up a body's left nostril, and
|
|
so we left it. It will probably get custody of my forename."
|
|
|
|
"Oh ..." said Zaphod faintly, "and what's that?"
|
|
|
|
"Pizpot," said the voice, "My name is Pizpot Gargravarr. Says it
|
|
all really doesn't it?"
|
|
|
|
"Errr ..." said Zaphod sympathetically.
|
|
|
|
"And that is why I, as a disembodied mind, have this job,
|
|
Custodian of the Total Perspective Vortex. No one will ever walk
|
|
on the ground of this planet. Except the victims of the Vortex -
|
|
they don't really count I'm afraid."
|
|
|
|
"Ah ..."
|
|
|
|
"I'll tell you the story. Would you like to hear it?"
|
|
|
|
"Er ..."
|
|
|
|
"Many years ago this was a thriving, happy planet - people,
|
|
cities shops, a normal world. Except that on the high streets of
|
|
these cities there were slightly more shoe shops than one might
|
|
have thought necessary. And slowly, insidiously, the numbers of
|
|
these shoe shops were increasing. It's a well known economic
|
|
phenomenon but tragic to see it in operation, for the more shoe
|
|
shops there were, the more shoes they had to make and the worse
|
|
and more unwearable they became. And the worse they were to wear,
|
|
the more people had to buy to keep themselves shod, and the more
|
|
the shops proliferated, until the whole economy of the place
|
|
passed what I believe is termed the Shoe Event Horizon, and it
|
|
became no longer economically possible to build anything other
|
|
than shoe shops. Result - collapse, ruin and famine. Most of the
|
|
population died out. Those few who had the right kind of genetic
|
|
instability mutated into birds - you've seen one of them - who
|
|
cursed their feet, cursed the ground, and vowed that none should
|
|
walk on it again. Unhappy lot. Come, I must take you to the
|
|
Vortex."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod shook his head in bemusement and stumbled forward across
|
|
the plain.
|
|
|
|
"And you," he said, "you come from this hellhole pit do you?"
|
|
|
|
"No no," said Gargravarr, taken aback, "I come from the Frogstar
|
|
World C. Beautiful place. Wonderful fishing. I flit back there in
|
|
the evenings. Though all I can do now is watch. The Total
|
|
Perspective Vortex is the only thing on this planet with any
|
|
function. It was built here because no one else wanted it on
|
|
their doorstep."
|
|
|
|
At that moment another dismal scream rent the air and Zaphod
|
|
shuddered.
|
|
|
|
"What can do that to a guy?" he breathed.
|
|
|
|
"The Universe," said Gargravarr simply, "the whole infinite
|
|
Universe. The infinite suns, the infinite distances between them,
|
|
and yourself an invisible dot on an invisible dot, infinitely
|
|
small."
|
|
|
|
"Hey, I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox, man, you know," muttered Zaphod
|
|
trying to flap the last remnants of his ego.
|
|
|
|
Gargravarr made no reply, but merely resumed his mournful humming
|
|
till they reached the tarnished steel dome in the middle of the
|
|
plain.
|
|
|
|
As they reached it, a door hummed open in the side, revealing a
|
|
small darkened chamber within.
|
|
|
|
"Enter," said Gargravarr.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod started with fear.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, what, now?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"Now."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod peered nervously inside. The chamber was very small. It
|
|
was steel-lined and there was hardly space in it for more than
|
|
one man.
|
|
|
|
"It ... er ... it doesn't look like any kind of Vortex to me,"
|
|
said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"It isn't," said Gargravarr, "it's just the elevator. Enter."
|
|
|
|
With infinite trepidation Zaphod stepped into it. He was aware of
|
|
Gargravarr being in the elevator with him, though the disembodied
|
|
man was not for the moment speaking.
|
|
|
|
The elevator began its descent.
|
|
|
|
"I must get myself into the right frame of mind for this,"
|
|
muttered Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"There is no right frame of mind," said Gargravarr sternly.
|
|
|
|
"You really know how to make a guy feel inadequate."
|
|
|
|
"I don't. The Vortex does."
|
|
|
|
At the bottom of the shaft, the rear of the elevator opened up
|
|
and Zaphod stumbled out into a smallish, functional, steel-lined
|
|
chamber.
|
|
|
|
At the far side of it stood a single upright steel box, just
|
|
large enough for a man to stand in.
|
|
|
|
It was that simple.
|
|
|
|
It connected to a small pile of components and instruments via a
|
|
single thick wire.
|
|
|
|
"Is that it?" said Zaphod in surprise.
|
|
|
|
"That is it."
|
|
|
|
Didn't look too bad, thought Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"And I get in there do I?" said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"You get in there," said Gargravarr, "and I'm afraid you must do
|
|
it now."
|
|
|
|
"OK, OK," said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
He opened the door of the box and stepped in.
|
|
|
|
Inside the box he waited.
|
|
|
|
After five seconds there was a click, and the entire Universe was
|
|
there in the box with him.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 11
|
|
|
|
The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole
|
|
Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.
|
|
|
|
To explain - since every piece of matter in the Universe is in
|
|
some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe,
|
|
it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation -
|
|
every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and
|
|
their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of
|
|
fairy cake.
|
|
|
|
The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so
|
|
basically in order to annoy his wife.
|
|
|
|
Trin Tragula - for that was his name - was a dreamer, a thinker,
|
|
a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an
|
|
idiot.
|
|
|
|
And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate
|
|
amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over
|
|
the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of
|
|
pieces of fairy cake.
|
|
|
|
"Have some sense of proportion!" she would say, sometimes as
|
|
often as thirty-eight times in a single day.
|
|
|
|
And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex - just to show her.
|
|
|
|
And into one end he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated
|
|
from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other end he plugged his
|
|
wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the
|
|
whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it.
|
|
|
|
To Trin Tragula's horror, the shock completely annihilated her
|
|
brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved
|
|
conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this
|
|
size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of
|
|
proportion.
|
|
|
|
The door of the Vortex swung open.
|
|
|
|
From his disembodied mind Gargravarr watched dejectedly. He had
|
|
rather liked Zaphod Beeblebrox in a strange sort of way. He was
|
|
clearly a man of many qualities, even if they were mostly bad
|
|
ones.
|
|
|
|
He waited for him to flop forwards out of the box, as they all
|
|
did.
|
|
|
|
Instead, he stepped out.
|
|
|
|
"Hi!" he said.
|
|
|
|
"Beeblebrox ..." gasped Gargravarr's mind in amazement.
|
|
|
|
"Could I have a drink please?" said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"You ... you ... have been in the Vortex?" stammered Gargravarr.
|
|
|
|
"You saw me, kid."
|
|
|
|
"And it was working?"
|
|
|
|
"Sure was."
|
|
|
|
"And you saw the whole infinity of creation?"
|
|
|
|
"Sure. Really neat place, you know that?"
|
|
|
|
Gargravarr's mind was reeling in astonishment. Had his body been
|
|
with him it would have sat down heavily with its mouth hanging
|
|
open.
|
|
|
|
"And you saw yourself," said Gargravarr, "in relation to it all?"
|
|
|
|
"Oh, yeah, yeah."
|
|
|
|
"But ... what did you experience?"
|
|
|
|
Zaphod shrugged smugly.
|
|
|
|
"It just told me what I knew all the time. I'm a really terrific
|
|
and great guy. Didn't I tell you, baby, I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox!"
|
|
|
|
His gaze passed over the machinery which powered the vortex and
|
|
suddenly stopped, startled.
|
|
|
|
He breathed heavily.
|
|
|
|
"Hey," he said, "is that really a piece of fairy cake?"
|
|
|
|
He ripped the small piece of confectionery from the sensors with
|
|
which it was surrounded.
|
|
|
|
"If I told you how much I needed this," he said ravenously, "I
|
|
wouldn't have time to eat it."
|
|
|
|
He ate it.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 12
|
|
|
|
A short while later he was running across the plain in the
|
|
direction of the ruined city.
|
|
|
|
The dank air wheezed heavily in his lungs and he frequently
|
|
stumbled with the exhaustion he was still feeling. Night was
|
|
beginning to fall too, and the rough ground was treacherous.
|
|
|
|
The elation of his recent experience was still with him though.
|
|
The whole Universe. He had seen the whole Universe stretching to
|
|
infinity around him - everything. And with it had come the clear
|
|
and extraordinary knowledge that he was the most important thing
|
|
in it. Having a conceited ego is one thing. Actually being told
|
|
by a machine is another.
|
|
|
|
He didn't have time to reflect on this matter.
|
|
|
|
Gargravarr had told him that he would have to alert his masters
|
|
as to what had happened, but that he was prepared to leave a
|
|
decent interval before doing so. Enough time for Zaphod to make a
|
|
break and find somewhere to hide.
|
|
|
|
What he was going to do he didn't know, but feeling that he was
|
|
the most important person in the Universe gave him the confidence
|
|
to believe that something would turn up.
|
|
|
|
Nothing else on this blighted planet could give him much grounds
|
|
for optimism.
|
|
|
|
He ran on, and soon reached the outskirts of the abandoned city.
|
|
|
|
He walked along cracked and gaping roads riddled with scrawny
|
|
weeds, the holes filled with rotting shoes. The buildings he
|
|
passed were so crumbled and decrepit he thought it unsafe to
|
|
enter any of them. Where could he hide? He hurried on.
|
|
|
|
After a while the remains of a wide sweeping road led off from
|
|
the one down which he was walking, and at its end lay a vast low
|
|
building, surrounded with sundry smaller ones, the whole
|
|
surrounded by the remains of a perimeter barrier. The large main
|
|
building still seemed reasonably solid, and Zaphod turned off to
|
|
see if it might provide him with ... well with anything.
|
|
|
|
He approached the building. Along one side of it - the front it
|
|
would seem since it faced a wide concreted apron area - were
|
|
three gigantic doors, maybe sixty feet high. The far one of these
|
|
was open, and towards this, Zaphod ran.
|
|
|
|
Inside, all was gloom, dust and confusion. Giant cobwebs lay over
|
|
everything. Part of the infrastructure of the building had
|
|
collapsed, part of the rear wall had caved in, and a thick
|
|
choking dust lay inches over the floor.
|
|
|
|
Through the heavy gloom huge shapes loomed, covered with debris.
|
|
|
|
The shapes were sometimes cylindrical, sometimes bulbous,
|
|
sometimes like eggs, or rather cracked eggs. Most of them were
|
|
split open or falling apart, some were mere skeletons.
|
|
|
|
They were all spacecraft, all derelict.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod wandered in frustration among the hulks. There was nothing
|
|
here that remotely approached the serviceable. Even the mere
|
|
vibration of his footsteps caused one precarious wreck to
|
|
collapse further into itself.
|
|
|
|
Towards the rear of the building lay one old ship, slightly
|
|
larger than the others, and buried beneath even deeper piles of
|
|
dust and cobwebs. Its outline, however, seemed unbroken. Zaphod
|
|
approached it with interest, and as he did so, he tripped over an
|
|
old feedline.
|
|
|
|
He tried to toss the feedline aside, and to his surprise
|
|
discovered that it was still connected to the ship.
|
|
|
|
To his utter astonishment he realized that the feedline was also
|
|
humming slightly.
|
|
|
|
He stared at the ship in disbelief, and then back down at the
|
|
feedline in his hands.
|
|
|
|
He tore off his jacket and threw it aside. Crawling along on his
|
|
hands and knees he followed the feedline to the point where it
|
|
connected with the ship. The connection was sound, and the slight
|
|
humming vibration was more distinct.
|
|
|
|
His heart was beating fast. He wiped away some grime and laid an
|
|
ear against the ship's side. He could only hear a faint,
|
|
indeterminate noise.
|
|
|
|
He rummaged feverishly amongst the debris lying on the floor all
|
|
about him and found a short length of tubing, and a non-
|
|
biodegradable plastic cup. Out of this he fashioned a crude
|
|
stethoscope and placed it against the side of the ship.
|
|
|
|
What he heard made his brains turn somersaults.
|
|
|
|
The voice said:
|
|
|
|
"Transtellar Cruise Lines would like to apologize to passengers
|
|
for the continuing delay to this flight. We are currently
|
|
awaiting the loading of our complement of small lemon-soaked
|
|
paper napkins for your comfort, refreshment and hygiene during
|
|
the journey. Meanwhile we thank you for your patience. The cabin
|
|
crew will shortly be serving coffee and biscuits again."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod staggered backwards, staring wildly at the ship.
|
|
|
|
He walked around for a few moments in a daze. In so doing he
|
|
suddenly caught sight of a giant departure board still hanging,
|
|
but by only one support, from the ceiling above him. It was
|
|
covered with grime, but some of the figures were still
|
|
discernible.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod's eyes searched amongst the figures, then made some brief
|
|
calculations. His eyes widened.
|
|
|
|
"Nine hundred years ..." he breathed to himself. That was how
|
|
late the ship was.
|
|
|
|
Two minutes later he was on board.
|
|
|
|
As he stepped out of the airlock, the air that greeted him was
|
|
cool and fresh - the air conditioning was still working.
|
|
|
|
The lights were still on.
|
|
|
|
He moved out of the small entrance chamber into a short narrow
|
|
corridor and stepped nervously down it.
|
|
|
|
Suddenly a door opened and a figure stepped out in front of him.
|
|
|
|
"Please return to your seat sir," said the android stewardess
|
|
and, turning her back on him, she walked on down the corridor in
|
|
front of him.
|
|
|
|
When his heart had started beating again he followed her. She
|
|
opened the door at the end of the corridor and walked through.
|
|
|
|
He followed her through the door.
|
|
|
|
They were now in the passenger compartment and Zaphod's heart
|
|
stopped still again for a moment.
|
|
|
|
In every seat sat a passenger, strapped into his or her seat.
|
|
|
|
The passengers' hair was long and unkempt, their fingernails were
|
|
long, the men wore beards.
|
|
|
|
All of them were quite clearly alive - but sleeping.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod had the creeping horrors.
|
|
|
|
He walked slowly down the aisle as in a dream. By the time he was
|
|
half-way down the aisle, the stewardess had reached the other
|
|
end. She turned and spoke.
|
|
|
|
"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen," she said sweetly, "Thank
|
|
you for bearing with us during this slight delay. We will be
|
|
taking off as soon as we possibly can. If you would like to wake
|
|
up now I will serve you coffee and biscuits."
|
|
|
|
There was a slight hum.
|
|
|
|
At that moment, all the passengers awoke.
|
|
|
|
They awoke screaming and clawing at their straps and life support
|
|
systems that held them tightly in their seats. They screamed and
|
|
bawled and hollered till Zaphod thought his ears would shatter.
|
|
|
|
They struggled and writhed as the stewardess patiently moved up
|
|
the aisle placing a small cup of coffee and a packet of biscuits
|
|
in front of each one of them.
|
|
|
|
Then one of them rose from his seat.
|
|
|
|
He turned and looked at Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod's skin was crawling all over his body as if it was trying
|
|
to get off. He turned and ran from the bedlam.
|
|
|
|
He plunged through the door and back into the corridor.
|
|
|
|
The man pursued him.
|
|
|
|
He raced in a frenzy to the end of the corridor, through the
|
|
entrance chamber and beyond. He arrived on the flight deck,
|
|
slammed and bolted the door behind him. He leant back against the
|
|
door breathing hard.
|
|
|
|
Within seconds, a hand started beating on the door.
|
|
|
|
From somewhere on the flight deck a metallic voice addressed him.
|
|
|
|
"Passengers are not allowed on the flight deck. Please return to
|
|
your seat, and wait for the ship to take off. Coffee and biscuits
|
|
are being served. This is your autopilot speaking. Please return
|
|
to your seat."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod said nothing. He breathed hard, behind him, the hand
|
|
continued to knock on the door.
|
|
|
|
"Please return to your seat," repeated the autopilot. "Passengers
|
|
are not allowed on the flight deck."
|
|
|
|
"I'm not a passenger," panted Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Please return to your seat."
|
|
|
|
"I am not a passenger!" shouted Zaphod again.
|
|
|
|
"Please return to your seat."
|
|
|
|
"I am not a ... hello, can you hear me?"
|
|
|
|
"Please return to your seat."
|
|
|
|
You're the autopilot?" said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," said the voice from the flight console.
|
|
|
|
"You're in charge of this ship?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes," said the voice again, "there has been a delay. Passengers
|
|
are to be kept temporarily in suspended animation, for their
|
|
comfort and convenience. Coffee and biscuits are being served
|
|
every year, after which passengers are returned to suspended
|
|
animation for their continued comfort and convenience. Departure
|
|
will take place when the flight stores are complete. We apologize
|
|
for the delay."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod moved away from the door, on which the pounding had now
|
|
ceased. He approached the flight console.
|
|
|
|
"Delay?" he cried, "Have you seen the world outside this ship?
|
|
It's a wasteland, a desert. Civilization's been and gone, man.
|
|
There are no lemon-soaked paper napkins on the way from
|
|
anywhere!"
|
|
|
|
"The statistical likelihood," continued the autopilot primly, "is
|
|
that other civilizations will arise. There will one day be
|
|
lemon-soaked paper napkins. Till then there will be a short
|
|
delay. Please return to your seat."
|
|
|
|
"But ..."
|
|
|
|
But at that moment the door opened. Zaphod span round to see the
|
|
man who had pursued him standing there. He carried a large
|
|
briefcase. He was smartly dressed, and his hair was short. He had
|
|
no beard and no long fingernails.
|
|
|
|
"Zaphod Beeblebrox," he said, "My name is Zarniwoop. I believe
|
|
you wanted to see me."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod Beeblebrox wittered. His mouths said foolish things. He
|
|
dropped into a chair.
|
|
|
|
"Oh man, oh man, where did you spring from?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"I've been waiting here for you," he said in a businesslike tone.
|
|
|
|
He put the briefcase down and sat in another chair.
|
|
|
|
"I am glad you followed instructions," he said, "I was a bit
|
|
nervous that you might have left my office by the door rather
|
|
than the window. Then you would have been in trouble."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod shook his heads at him and burbled.
|
|
|
|
"When you entered the door of my office, you entered my
|
|
electronically synthesized Universe," he explained, "if you had
|
|
left by the door you would have been back in the real one. The
|
|
artificial one works from here."
|
|
|
|
He patted the briefcase smugly.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod glared at him with resentment and loathing.
|
|
|
|
"What's the difference?" he muttered.
|
|
|
|
"Nothing," said Zarniwoop, "they are identical. Oh - except that
|
|
I think the Frogstar Fighters are grey in the real Universe."
|
|
|
|
"What's going on?" spat Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Simple," said Zarniwoop. His self assurance and smugness made
|
|
Zaphod seethe.
|
|
|
|
"Very simple," repeated Zarniwoop, "I discovered the coordinated
|
|
at which this man could be found - the man who rules the
|
|
Universe, and discovered that his world was protected by an
|
|
Unprobability field. To protect my secret - and myself - I
|
|
retreated to the safety of this totally artificial Universe and
|
|
hid myself away in a forgotten cruise liner. I was secure.
|
|
Meanwhile, you and I ..."
|
|
|
|
"You and I?" said Zaphod angrily, "you mean I knew you?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes," said Zarniwoop, "we knew each other well."
|
|
|
|
"I had no taste," said Zaphod and resumed a sullen silence.
|
|
|
|
"Meanwhile, you and I arranged that you would steal the
|
|
Improbability Drive ship - the only one which could reach the
|
|
ruler's world - and bring it to me here. This you have now done I
|
|
trust, and I congratulate you." He smiled a tight little smile
|
|
which Zaphod wanted to hit with a brick.
|
|
|
|
"Oh, and in case you were wondering," added Zarniwoop, "this
|
|
Universe was created specifically for you to come to. You are
|
|
therefore the most important person in this Universe. You would
|
|
never," he said with an even more brickable smile, "have survived
|
|
the Total Perspective Vortex in the real one. Shall we go?"
|
|
|
|
"Where?" said Zaphod sullenly. He felt collapsed.
|
|
|
|
"To your ship. The Heart of Gold. You did bring it I trust?"
|
|
|
|
"No."
|
|
|
|
"Where is your jacket?"
|
|
|
|
Zaphod looked at him in mystification.
|
|
|
|
"My jacket? I took it off. It's outside."
|
|
|
|
"Good, we will go and find it."
|
|
|
|
Zarniwoop stood up and gestured to Zaphod to follow him.
|
|
|
|
Out in the entrance chamber again, they could hear the screams of
|
|
the passengers being fed coffee and biscuits.
|
|
|
|
"It has not been a pleasant experience waiting for you," said
|
|
Zarniwoop.
|
|
|
|
"Not pleasant for you!" bawled Zaphod, "How do you think ..."
|
|
|
|
Zarniwoop held up a silencing finger as the hatchway swung open.
|
|
A few feet away from them they could see Zaphod's jacket lying in
|
|
the debris.
|
|
|
|
"A very remarkable and very powerful ship," said Zarniwoop,
|
|
"watch."
|
|
|
|
As they watched, the pocket on the jacket suddenly bulged. It
|
|
split, it ripped. The small metal model of the Heart of Gold that
|
|
Zaphod had been bewildered to discover in his pocket was growing.
|
|
|
|
It grew, it continued to grow. It reached, after two minutes, its
|
|
full size.
|
|
|
|
"At an Improbability Level," said Zarniwoop, "of ... oh I don't
|
|
know, but something very large."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod swayed.
|
|
|
|
"You mean I had it with me all the time?"
|
|
|
|
"Zarniwoop smiled. He lifted up his briefcase and opened it.
|
|
|
|
He twisted a single switch inside it.
|
|
|
|
"Goodbye artificial Universe," he said, "hello real one!"
|
|
|
|
The scene before them shimmered briefly - and reappeared exactly
|
|
as before.
|
|
|
|
"You see?" said Zarniwoop, "exactly the same."
|
|
|
|
"You mean," repeated Zaphod tautly, "that I had it with me all
|
|
the time?"
|
|
|
|
"Oh yes," said Zarniwoop, "of course. That was the whole point."
|
|
|
|
"That's it," said Zaphod, "you can count me out, from hereon in
|
|
you can count me out. I've had all I want of this. You play your
|
|
own games."
|
|
|
|
"I'm afraid you cannot leave," said Zarniwoop, "you are entwined
|
|
in the Improbability field. You cannot escape."
|
|
|
|
He smiled the smile that Zaphod had wanted to hit and this time
|
|
Zaphod hit it.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 13
|
|
|
|
Ford Prefect bounded up to the bridge of the Heart of Gold.
|
|
|
|
"Trillian! Arthur!" he shouted, "it's working! The ship's
|
|
reactivated!"
|
|
|
|
Trillian and Arthur were asleep on the floor.
|
|
|
|
"Come on you guys, we're going off, we're off," he said kicking
|
|
them awake.
|
|
|
|
"Hi there guys!" twittered the computer, "it's really great to be
|
|
back with you again, I can tell you, and I just want to say that
|
|
..."
|
|
|
|
"Shut up," said Ford, "tell us where the hell we are."
|
|
|
|
"Frogstar World B, and man it's a dump," said Zaphod running on
|
|
to the bridge, "hi, guys, you must be so amazingly glad to see me
|
|
you don't even find words to tell me what a cool frood I am."
|
|
|
|
"What a what?" said Arthur blearily, picking himself up from the
|
|
floor and not taking any of this in.
|
|
|
|
"I know how you feel," said Zaphod, "I'm so great even I get
|
|
tongue-tied talking to myself. Hey it's good to see you Trillian,
|
|
Ford, Monkeyman. Hey, er, computer ...?"
|
|
|
|
"Hi there, Mr Beeblebrox sir, sure is a great honor to ..."
|
|
|
|
"Shut up and get us out of here, fast fast fast."
|
|
|
|
"Sure thing, fella, where do you want to go?"
|
|
|
|
"Anywhere, doesn't matter," shouted Zaphod, "yes it does!" he
|
|
said again, "we want to go to the nearest place to eat!"
|
|
|
|
"Sure thing," said the computer happily and a massive explosion
|
|
rocket the bridge.
|
|
|
|
When Zarniwoop entered a minute or so later with a black eye, he
|
|
regarded the four wisps of smoke with interest.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 14
|
|
|
|
Four inert bodies sank through spinning blackness. Consciousness
|
|
had died, cold oblivion pulled the bodies down and down into the
|
|
pit of unbeing. The roar of silence echoed dismally around them
|
|
and they sank at last into a dark and bitter sea of heaving red
|
|
that slowly engulfed them, seemingly for ever.
|
|
|
|
After what seemed an eternity the sea receded and left them lying
|
|
on a cold hard shore, the flotsam and jetsam of the stream of
|
|
Life, the Universe, and Everything.
|
|
|
|
Cold spasms shook them, lights danced sickeningly around them.
|
|
The cold hard shore tipped and span and then stood still. It
|
|
shone darkly - it was a very highly polished cold hard shore.
|
|
|
|
A green blur watched them disapprovingly.
|
|
|
|
It coughed.
|
|
|
|
"Good evening, madam, gentlemen," it said, "do you have a
|
|
reservation?"
|
|
|
|
Ford Prefect's consciousness snapped back like elastic, making
|
|
his brain smart. He looked up woozily at the green blur.
|
|
|
|
"Reservation?" he said weakly. "Yes, sir," said the green blur.
|
|
|
|
"Do you need a reservation for the afterlife?"
|
|
|
|
In so far as it is possible for a green blur to arch its eyebrows
|
|
disdainfully, this is what the green blur now did.
|
|
|
|
"Afterlife, sir?" it said.
|
|
|
|
Arthur Dent was grappling with his consciousness the way one
|
|
grapples with a lost bar of soap in the bath.
|
|
|
|
"Is this the afterlife?" he stammered.
|
|
|
|
"Well I assume so," said Ford Prefect trying to work out which
|
|
way was up. He tested the theory that it must lie in the opposite
|
|
direction from the cold hard shore on which he was lying, and
|
|
staggered to what he hoped were his feet.
|
|
|
|
"I mean," he said, swaying gently, "there's no way we could have
|
|
survived that blast is there?"
|
|
|
|
"No," muttered Arthur. He had raised himself on to his elbows but
|
|
it didn't seem to improve things. He slumped down again.
|
|
|
|
"No," said Trillian, standing up, "no way at all."
|
|
|
|
A dull hoarse gurgling sound came from the floor. It was Zaphod
|
|
Beeblebrox attempting to speak. "I certainly didn't survive," he
|
|
gurgled, "I was a total goner. Wham bang and that was it."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, thanks to you," said Ford, "We didn't stand a chance. We
|
|
must have been blown to bits. Arms, legs everywhere."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," said Zaphod struggling noisily to his feet.
|
|
|
|
"If the lady and gentlemen would like to order drinks ..." said
|
|
the green blur, hovering impatiently beside them.
|
|
|
|
"Kerpow, splat," continued Zaphod, "instantaneously zonked into
|
|
our component molecules. Hey, Ford," he said, identifying one of
|
|
the slowly solidifying blurs around him, "did you get that thing
|
|
of your whole life flashing before you?"
|
|
|
|
"You got that too?" said Ford, "your whole life?"
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," said Zaphod, "at least I assume it was mine. I spent a
|
|
lot of time out of my skulls you know."
|
|
|
|
He looked at around him at the various shapes that were at last
|
|
becoming proper shapes instead of vague and wobbling shapeless
|
|
shapes.
|
|
|
|
"So ..." he said.
|
|
|
|
"So what?" said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"So here we are," said Zaphod hesitantly, "lying dead ..."
|
|
|
|
"Standing," Trillian corrected him.
|
|
|
|
"Er, standing dead," continued Zaphod, "in this desolate ..."
|
|
|
|
"Restaurant," said Arthur Dent who had got to his feet and could
|
|
now, much to his surprise, see clearly. That is to say, the thing
|
|
that surprised him was not that he could see, but what he could
|
|
see.
|
|
|
|
"Here we are," continued Zaphod doggedly, "standing dead in this
|
|
desolate ..."
|
|
|
|
"Five star ..." said Trillian.
|
|
|
|
"Restaurant," concluded Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Odd isn't it?" said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Er, yeah."
|
|
|
|
"Nice chandeliers though," said Trillian.
|
|
|
|
They looked about themselves in bemusement.
|
|
|
|
"It's not so much an afterlife," said Arthur, "more a sort of
|
|
apres vie."
|
|
|
|
The chandeliers were in fact a little on the flashy side and the
|
|
low vaulted ceiling from which they hung would not, in an ideal
|
|
Universe, have been painted in that particular shade of deep
|
|
turquoise, and even if it had been it wouldn't have been
|
|
highlighted by concealed moodlighting. This is not, however, an
|
|
ideal Universe, as was further evidenced by the eye-crossing
|
|
patterns of the inlaid marble floor, and the way in which the
|
|
fronting for the eighty-yard long marble-topped bar had been
|
|
made. The fronting for the eighty-yard long marble-topped bar had
|
|
been made by stitching together nearly twenty thousand Antarean
|
|
Mosaic Lizard skins, despite the fact that the twenty thousand
|
|
lizards concerned had needed them to keep their insides in.
|
|
|
|
A few smartly dressed creatures were lounging casually at the bar
|
|
or relaxing in the richly coloured body-hugging seats that were
|
|
deployed here and there about the bar area. A young Vl'Hurg
|
|
officer and his green steaming young lady passed through the
|
|
large smoked glass doors at the far end of the bar into the
|
|
dazzling light of the main body of the Restaurant beyond.
|
|
|
|
Behind Arthur was a large curtained bay window. He pulled aside
|
|
the corner of the curtain and looked out at a landscape which
|
|
under normal circumstances would have given Arthur the creeping
|
|
horrors. These were not, however, normal circumstances, for the
|
|
thing that froze his blood and made his skin try to crawl up his
|
|
back and off the top of his head was the sky. The sky was ...
|
|
|
|
An attendant flunkey politely drew the curtain back into place.
|
|
|
|
"All in good time, sir," he said.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod's eyes flashed.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, hang about you dead guys," he said, "I think we're missing
|
|
some ultra-important thing here you know. Something somebody said
|
|
and we missed it."
|
|
|
|
Arthur was profoundly relieved to turn his attention from what he
|
|
had just seen.
|
|
|
|
He said, "I said it was a sort of apres ..."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, and don't you wish you hadn't?" said Zaphod, "Ford?"
|
|
|
|
"I said it was odd."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, shrewd but dull, perhaps it was ..."
|
|
|
|
"Perhaps," interrupted the green blur who had by this time
|
|
resolved into the shape of a small wizened dark-suited green
|
|
waiter, "perhaps you would care to discuss the matter over drinks
|
|
..."
|
|
|
|
"Drinks!" cried Zaphod, "that was it! See what you miss if you
|
|
don't stay alert."
|
|
|
|
"Indeed sir," said the waiter patiently. "If the lady and
|
|
gentlemen would care to order drinks before dinner ..."
|
|
|
|
"Dinner!" Zaphod exclaimed with passion, "Listen, little green
|
|
person, my stomach could take you home and cuddle you all night
|
|
for the mere idea."
|
|
|
|
"... and the Universe," concluded the waiter, determined not to
|
|
be deflected on his home stretch, "will explode later for your
|
|
pleasure."
|
|
|
|
Ford's head swivelled towards him. He spoke with feeling.
|
|
|
|
"Wow," he said, "What sort of drinks do you serve in this place?"
|
|
|
|
The waiter laughed a polite little waiter's laugh.
|
|
|
|
"Ah," he said, "I think sir has perhaps misunderstood me."
|
|
|
|
"Oh, I hope not," breathed Ford.
|
|
|
|
The waiter coughed a polite little waiter's cough.
|
|
|
|
"It is not unusual for our customers to be a little disoriented
|
|
by the time journey," he said, "so if I might suggest ..."
|
|
|
|
"Time journey?" said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Time journey?" said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Time journey?" said Trillian.
|
|
|
|
"You mean this isn't the afterlife?" said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
The waiter smiled a polite little waiter's smile. He had almost
|
|
exhausted his polite little waiter repertoire and would soon be
|
|
slipping into his role of a rather tight lipped and sarcastic
|
|
little waiter.
|
|
|
|
"Afterlife sir?" he said, "No sir."
|
|
|
|
"And we're not dead?" said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
The waiter tightened his lips.
|
|
|
|
"Aha, ha," he said, "Sir is most evidently alive, otherwise I
|
|
would not attempt to serve sir."
|
|
|
|
In an extraordinary gesture which is pointless attempting to
|
|
describe, Zaphod Beeblebrox slapped both his foreheads with two
|
|
of his arms and one of his thighs with the other.
|
|
|
|
"Hey guys," he said, "This is crazy. We finally did it. We
|
|
finally got to where we were going. This is Milliways!"
|
|
|
|
"Yes sir," said the waiter, laying on the patience with a trowel,
|
|
"this is Milliways - the Restaurant at the End of the Universe."
|
|
|
|
"End of what?" said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"The Universe," repeated the waiter, very clearly and
|
|
unnecessarily distinctly.
|
|
|
|
"When did that end?" said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"In just a few minutes, sir," said the waiter. He took a deep
|
|
breath. He didn't need to do this since his body was supplied
|
|
with the peculiar assortment of gases it required for survival
|
|
from a small intravenous device strapped to his leg. There are
|
|
times, however, when whatever your metabolism you have to take a
|
|
deep breath.
|
|
|
|
"Now, if you would care to order drinks at last," he said, "I
|
|
will then show you to your table."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod grinned two manic grins, sauntered over to the bar and
|
|
bought most of it.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 15
|
|
|
|
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most
|
|
extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering. It has
|
|
been built on the fragmented remains of ... it will be built on
|
|
the fragmented ... that is to say it will have been built by this
|
|
time, and indeed has been -
|
|
|
|
One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that
|
|
of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no
|
|
problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a
|
|
broadminded and well-adjusted family can't cope with. There is
|
|
also no problem about changing the course of history - the course
|
|
of history does not change because it all fits together like a
|
|
jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things
|
|
they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the
|
|
end.
|
|
|
|
The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main
|
|
work to consult in this matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner's Time
|
|
Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you
|
|
for instance how to describe something that was about to happen
|
|
to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward
|
|
two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described
|
|
differently according to whether you are talking about it from
|
|
the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the
|
|
further future, or a time in the further past and is further
|
|
complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations whilst
|
|
you are actually travelling from one time to another with the
|
|
intention of becoming your own father or mother.
|
|
|
|
Most readers get as far as the Future Semi-Conditionally Modified
|
|
Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up:
|
|
and in fact in later editions of the book all the pages beyond
|
|
this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.
|
|
|
|
The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over this
|
|
tangle of academic abstraction, pausing only to note that the
|
|
term "Future Perfect" has been abandoned since it was discovered
|
|
not to be.
|
|
|
|
To resume:
|
|
|
|
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most
|
|
extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering.
|
|
|
|
It is built on the fragmented remains of an eventually ruined
|
|
planet which is (wioll haven be) enclosed in a vast time bubble
|
|
and projected forward in time to the precise moment of the End of
|
|
the Universe.
|
|
|
|
This is, many would say, impossible.
|
|
|
|
In it, guests take (willan on-take) their places at table and eat
|
|
(willan on-eat) sumptuous meals whilst watching (willing watchen)
|
|
the whole of creation explode around them.
|
|
|
|
This is, many would say, equally impossible.
|
|
|
|
You can arrive (mayan arivan on-when) for any sitting you like
|
|
without prior (late fore-when) reservation because you can book
|
|
retrospectively, as it were when you return to your own time.
|
|
(you can have on-book haventa forewhen presooning returningwenta
|
|
retrohome.)
|
|
|
|
This is, many would now insist, absolutely impossible.
|
|
|
|
At the Restaurant you can meet and dine with (mayan meetan con
|
|
with dinan on when) a fascinating cross-section of the entire
|
|
population of space and time.
|
|
|
|
This, it can be explained patiently, is also impossible.
|
|
|
|
You can visit it as many times as you like (mayan on-visit re-
|
|
onvisiting ... and so on - for further tense-corrections consult
|
|
Dr Streetmentioner's book) and be sure of never meeting yourself,
|
|
because of the embarrassment this usually causes.
|
|
|
|
This, even if the rest were true, which it isn't, is patently
|
|
impossible, say the doubters.
|
|
|
|
All you have to do is deposit one penny in a savings account in
|
|
your own era, and when you arrive at the End of Time the
|
|
operation of compound interest means that the fabulous cost of
|
|
your meal has been paid for.
|
|
|
|
This, many claim, is not merely impossible but clearly insane,
|
|
which is why the advertising executives of the star system of
|
|
Bastablon came up with this slogan: "If you've done six
|
|
impossible things this morning, why not round it off with
|
|
breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the
|
|
Universe?"
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 16
|
|
|
|
At the bar, Zaphod was rapidly becoming as tired as a newt. His
|
|
heads knocked together and his smiles were coming out of synch.
|
|
He was miserably happy.
|
|
|
|
"Zaphod," said Ford, "whilst you're still capable of speech,
|
|
would you care to tell me what the photon happened? Where have
|
|
you been? Where have we been? Small matter, but I'd like it
|
|
cleared up."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod's left head sobered up, leaving his right to sink further
|
|
into the obscurity of drink.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," he said, "I've been around. They want me to find the man
|
|
who rules the Universe, but I don't care to meet him. I believe
|
|
the man can't cook."
|
|
|
|
His left head watched his right head saying this and then nodded.
|
|
|
|
"True," it said, "have another drink."
|
|
|
|
Ford had another Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, the drink which has
|
|
been described as the alcoholic equivalent of a mugging -
|
|
expensive and bad for the head. Whatever had happened, Ford
|
|
decided, he didn't really care too much.
|
|
|
|
"Listen Ford," said Zaphod, "everything's cool and froody."
|
|
|
|
"You mean everything's under control."
|
|
|
|
"No," said Zaphod, "I do not mean everything's under control.
|
|
That would not be cool and froody. If you want to know what
|
|
happened let's just say I had the whole situation in my pocket.
|
|
OK?"
|
|
|
|
Ford shrugged.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod giggled into his drink. It frothed up over the side of the
|
|
glass and started to eat its way into the marble bar top.
|
|
|
|
A wild-skinned sky-gypsy approached them and played electric
|
|
violin at them until Zaphod gave him a lot of money and he agreed
|
|
to go away again.
|
|
|
|
The gypsy approached Arthur and Trillian sitting in another part
|
|
of the bar.
|
|
|
|
"I don't know what this place is," said Arthur, "but I think it
|
|
gives me the creeps."
|
|
|
|
"Have another drink," said Trillian, "Enjoy yourself."
|
|
|
|
"Which?" said Arthur, "the two are mutually exclusive."
|
|
|
|
"Poor Arthur, you're not really cut out for this life are you?"
|
|
|
|
"You call this life?"
|
|
|
|
"You're beginning to sound like Marvin."
|
|
|
|
"Marvin's the clearest thinker I know. How do you think we make
|
|
this violinist go away?"
|
|
|
|
The waiter approached.
|
|
|
|
"Your table is ready," he said.
|
|
|
|
Seen from the outside, which it never is, the Restaurant
|
|
resembles a giant glittering starfish beached on a forgotten
|
|
rock. Each of its arms houses the bars, the kitchens, the
|
|
forcefield generators which protect the entire structure and the
|
|
decayed planet on which it sits, and the Time Turbines which
|
|
slowly rock the whole affair backwards and forwards across the
|
|
crucial moment.
|
|
|
|
In the centre sits the gigantic golden dome, almost a complete
|
|
globe, and it was into this area that Zaphod, Ford, Arthur and
|
|
Trillian now passed.
|
|
|
|
At least five tons of glitter alone had gone into it before them,
|
|
and covered every available surface. The other surfaces were not
|
|
available because they were already encrusted with jewels,
|
|
precious sea shells from Santraginus, gold leaf, mosaic tiles,
|
|
lizard skins and a million unidentifiable embellishments and
|
|
decorations. Glass glittered, silver shone, gold gleamed, Arthur
|
|
Dent goggled.
|
|
|
|
"Wowee," said Zaphod, "Zappo."
|
|
|
|
"Incredible!" breathed Arthur, "the people ... ! The things ...
|
|
!"
|
|
|
|
"The things," said Ford Prefect quietly, "are also people."
|
|
|
|
"The people ..." resumed Arthur, "the ... other people ..."
|
|
|
|
"The lights ... !" said Trillian.
|
|
|
|
"The tables ..." said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"The clothes ... !" said Trillian.
|
|
|
|
The waiter thought they sounded like a couple of bailiffs.
|
|
|
|
"The End of the Universe is very popular," said Zaphod threading
|
|
his way unsteadily through the throng of tables, some made of
|
|
marble, some of rich ultra-mahagony, some even of platinum, and
|
|
at each a party of exotic creatures chatting amongst themselves
|
|
and studying menus.
|
|
|
|
"People like to dress up for it," continued Zaphod, "Gives it a
|
|
sense of occasion."
|
|
|
|
The tables were fanned out in a large circle around a central
|
|
stage area where a small band were playing light music, at least
|
|
a thousand tables was Arthur's guess, and interspersed amongst
|
|
them were swaying palms, hissing fountains, grotesque statuary,
|
|
in short all the paraphernalia common to all Restaurants where
|
|
little expense has been spared to give the impression that no
|
|
expense has been spared. Arthur glanced around, half expecting to
|
|
see someone making an American Express commercial.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod lurched into Ford, who lurched back into Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Wowee," said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Zappo," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"My great granddaddy must have really screwed up the computer's
|
|
works, you know," said Zaphod, "I told it to take us to the
|
|
nearest place to eat and it sends us to the End of the Universe.
|
|
Remind me to be nice to it one day."
|
|
|
|
He paused.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, everybody's here you know. Everybody who was anybody."
|
|
|
|
"Was?" said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"At the End of the Universe you have to use the past tense a
|
|
lot," said Zaphod, "'cos everything's been done you know. Hi,
|
|
guys," he called out to a nearby party of giant iguana lifeforms,
|
|
"How did you do?"
|
|
|
|
"Is that Zaphod Beeblebrox?" asked one iguana of another iguana.
|
|
|
|
"I think so," replied the second iguana.
|
|
|
|
"Well doesn't that just take the biscuit," said the first iguana.
|
|
|
|
"Funny old thing, life," said the second iguana.
|
|
|
|
"It's what you make of it," said the first and they lapsed back
|
|
into silence. They were waiting for the greatest show in the
|
|
Universe.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, Zaphod," said Ford, grabbing for his arm and, on account of
|
|
the third Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, missing. He pointed a
|
|
swaying finger.
|
|
|
|
"There's an old mate of mine," he said, "Hotblack Desiato! See
|
|
the man at the platinum table with the platinum suit on?"
|
|
|
|
Zaphod tried to follow Ford's finger with his eyes but it made
|
|
him feel dizzy. Finally he saw.
|
|
|
|
"Oh yeah," he said, then recognition came a moment later. "Hey,"
|
|
he said, "did that guy ever make it megabig! Wow, bigger than the
|
|
biggest thing ever. Other than me."
|
|
|
|
"Who's he supposed to be?" asked Trillian.
|
|
|
|
"Hotblack Desiato?" said Zaphod in astonishment, "you don't know?
|
|
You never heard of Disaster Area?"
|
|
|
|
"No," said Trillian, who hadn't.
|
|
|
|
"The biggest," said Ford, "loudest ..."
|
|
|
|
"Richest ..." suggested Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"... rock band in the history of ..." he searched for the word.
|
|
|
|
"... history itself," said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"No," said Trillian.
|
|
|
|
"Zowee," said Zaphod, "here we are at the End of the Universe and
|
|
you haven't even lived yet. Did you miss out."
|
|
|
|
He led her off to where the waiter had been waiting all this time
|
|
at the table. Arthur followed them feeling very lost and alone.
|
|
|
|
Ford waded off through the throng to renew an old acquaintance.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, er, Hotblack," he called out, "how you doing? Great to see
|
|
you big boy, how's the noise? You're looking great, really very,
|
|
very fat and unwell. Amazing." He slapped the man on the back and
|
|
was mildly surprised that it seemed to elict no response. The Pan
|
|
Galactic Gargle Blasters swirling round inside him told him to
|
|
plunge on regardless.
|
|
|
|
"Remember the old days?" he said, "We used to hang out, right?
|
|
The Bistro Illegal, remember? Slim's Throat Emporium? The
|
|
Evildrome Boozarama, great days eh?"
|
|
|
|
Hotblack Desiato offered no opinion as to whether they were great
|
|
days or not. Ford was not perturbed.
|
|
|
|
"And when we were hungry we'd pose as public health inspectors,
|
|
you remember that? And go around confiscating meals and drinks
|
|
right? Till we got food poisoning. Oh, and then there were the
|
|
long nights of talking and drinking in those smelly rooms above
|
|
the Cafe Lou in Gretchen Town, New Betel, and you were always in
|
|
the next room trying to write songs on your ajuitar and we all
|
|
hated them. And you said you didn't care, and we said we did
|
|
because we hated them so much." Ford's eyes were beginning to
|
|
mist over.
|
|
|
|
"And you said you didn't want to be a star," he continued,
|
|
wallowing in nostalgia, "because you despised the star system.
|
|
And we said, Hadra and Sulijoo and me, that we didn't think you
|
|
had the option. And what do you do now? You buy star systems!"
|
|
|
|
He turned and solicited the attention of those at nearby tables.
|
|
|
|
"Here," he said, "is a man who buys star systems!"
|
|
|
|
Hotblack Desiato made no attempt either to confirm or deny this
|
|
fact, and the attention of the temporary audience waned rapidly.
|
|
|
|
"I think someone's drunk," muttered a purple bush-like being into
|
|
his wine glass.
|
|
|
|
Ford staggered slightly, and sat down heavily on the chair facing
|
|
Hotblack Desiato.
|
|
|
|
"What's that number you do?" he said, unwisely grabbing at a
|
|
bottle for support and tipping it over - into a nearby glass as
|
|
it happened. Not to waste a happy accident, he drained the glass.
|
|
|
|
"That really huge number," he continued, "how does it go? `Bwarm!
|
|
Bwarm! Baderr!!' something, and in the stage act you do it ends
|
|
up with this ship crashing right into the sun, and you actually
|
|
do it!"
|
|
|
|
Ford crashed his fist into his other hand to illustrate this feat
|
|
graphically. He knocked the bottle over again.
|
|
|
|
"Ship! Sun! Wham bang!" he cried. "I mean forget lasers and
|
|
stuff, you guys are into solar flares and real sunburn! Oh, and
|
|
terrible songs."
|
|
|
|
His eyes followed the stream of liquid glugging out of the bottle
|
|
on to the table. Something ought to be done about it, he thought.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, you want a drink?" he said. It began to sink into his
|
|
squelching mind that something was missing from this reunion, and
|
|
that the missing something was in some way connected with the
|
|
fact that the fat man sitting opposite him in the platinum suit
|
|
and the silvery trilby had not yet said "Hi, Ford" or "Great to
|
|
see you after all this time," or in fact anything at all. More to
|
|
the point he had not yet even moved.
|
|
|
|
"Hotblack?" said Ford.
|
|
|
|
A large meaty hand landed on his shoulder from behind and pushed
|
|
him aside. He slid gracelessly off his seat and peered upwards to
|
|
see if he could spot the owner of this discourteous hand. The
|
|
owner was not hard to spot, on account of his being something of
|
|
the order of seven feet tall and not slightly built with it. In
|
|
fact he was built the way one builds leather sofas, shiny, lumpy
|
|
and with lots of solid stuffing. The suit into which the man's
|
|
body had been stuffed looked as if it's only purpose in life was
|
|
to demonstrate how difficult it was to get this sort of body into
|
|
a suit. The face had the texture of an orange and the colour of
|
|
an apple, but there the resemblance to anything sweet ended.
|
|
|
|
"Kid ..." said a voice which emerged from the man's mouth as if
|
|
it had been having a really rough time down in his chest.
|
|
|
|
"Er, yeah?" said Ford conversationally. He staggered back to his
|
|
feet again and was disappointed that the top of his head didn't
|
|
come further up the man's body.
|
|
|
|
"Beat it," said the man.
|
|
|
|
"Oh yeah?" said Ford, wondering how wise he was being, "and who
|
|
are you?"
|
|
|
|
The man considered this for a moment. He wasn't used to being
|
|
asked this sort of question. Nevertheless, after a while he came
|
|
up with an answer.
|
|
|
|
"I'm the guy who's telling you to beat it," he said, "before you
|
|
get it beaten for you."
|
|
|
|
"Now listen," said Ford nervously - he wished his head would stop
|
|
spinning, settle down and get to grips with the situation - "Now
|
|
listen," he continued, "I am one of Hotblack's oldest friends and
|
|
..."
|
|
|
|
He glanced at Hotblack Desiato, who still hadn't moved so much as
|
|
an eyelash.
|
|
|
|
"... and ..." said Ford again, wondering what would be a good
|
|
word to say after "and".
|
|
|
|
The large man came up with a whole sentence to go after "and". He
|
|
said it.
|
|
|
|
"And I am Mr Desiato's bodyguard," it went, "and I am responsible
|
|
for his body, and I am not responsible for yours, so take it away
|
|
before it gets damaged."
|
|
|
|
"Now wait a minute," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"No minutes!" boomed the bodyguard, "no waiting! Mr Desiato
|
|
speaks to no one!"
|
|
|
|
"Well perhaps you'd let him say what he thinks about the matter
|
|
himself," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"He speaks to no one!" bellowed the bodyguard.
|
|
|
|
Ford glanced anxiously at Hotblack again and was forced to admit
|
|
to himself that the bodyguard seemed to have the facts on his
|
|
side. There was still not the slightest sign of movement, let
|
|
alone keen interest in Ford's welfare.
|
|
|
|
"Why?" said Ford, "What's the matter with him?"
|
|
|
|
The bodyguard told him.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 17
|
|
|
|
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy notes that Disaster Area, a
|
|
plutonium rock band from the Gagrakacka Mind Zones, are generally
|
|
held to be not only the loudest rock band in the Galaxy, but in
|
|
fact the loudest noise of any kind at all. Regular concert goers
|
|
judge that the best sound balance is usually to be heard from
|
|
within large concrete bunkers some thirty-seven miles from the
|
|
stage, whilst the musicians themselves play their instruments by
|
|
remote control from within a heavily insulated spaceship which
|
|
stays in orbit around the planet - or more frequently around a
|
|
completely different planet.
|
|
|
|
Their songs are on the whole very simple and mostly follow the
|
|
familiar theme of boy-being meets girl-being beneath a silvery
|
|
moon, which then explodes for no adequately explored reason.
|
|
|
|
Many worlds have now banned their act altogether, sometimes for
|
|
artistic reasons, but most commonly because the band's public
|
|
address system contravenes local strategic arms limitations
|
|
treaties.
|
|
|
|
This has not, however, stopped their earnings from pushing back
|
|
the boundaries of pure hypermathematics, and their chief research
|
|
accountant has recently been appointed Professor of
|
|
Neomathematics at the University of Maximegalon, in recognition
|
|
of both his General and his Special Theories of Disaster Area Tax
|
|
Returns, in which he proves that the whole fabric of the space-
|
|
time continuum is not merely curved, it is in fact totally bent.
|
|
|
|
Ford staggered back to the table where Zaphod, Arthur and
|
|
Trillian were sitting waiting for the fun to begin.
|
|
|
|
"Gotta have some food," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Hi, Ford," said Zaphod, "you speak to the big noise boy?"
|
|
|
|
Ford waggled his head noncommittally.
|
|
|
|
"Hotblack? I sort of spoke to him, yeah."
|
|
|
|
"What'd he say?"
|
|
|
|
"Well, not a lot really. He's ... er ..."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah?"
|
|
|
|
"He's spending a year dead for tax reasons. I've got to sit
|
|
down."
|
|
|
|
He sat down.
|
|
|
|
The waiter approached.
|
|
|
|
"Would you like to see the menu?" he said, "or would you like to
|
|
meet the Dish of the Day?"
|
|
|
|
"Huh?" said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Huh?" said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Huh?" said Trillian.
|
|
|
|
"That's cool," said Zaphod, "we'll meet the meat."
|
|
|
|
In a small room in one of the arms of the Restaurant complex a
|
|
tall, thin, gangling figure pulled aside a curtain and oblivion
|
|
looked him in the face.
|
|
|
|
It was not a pretty face, perhaps because oblivion had looked him
|
|
in it so many times. It was too long for a start, the eyes too
|
|
sunken and too hooded, the cheeks too hollow, his lips were too
|
|
thin and too long, and when they parted his teeth looked too much
|
|
like a recently polished bay window. The hands that held the
|
|
curtain were long and thin too: they were also cold. They lay
|
|
lightly along the folds of the curtain and gave the impression
|
|
that if he didn't watch them like a hawk they would crawl away of
|
|
their own accord and do something unspeakable in a corner.
|
|
|
|
He let the curtain drop and the terrible light that had played on
|
|
his features went off to play somewhere more healthy. He prowled
|
|
around his small chamber like a mantis contemplating an evening's
|
|
preying, finally settling on a rickety chair by a trestle table,
|
|
where he leafed through a few sheets of jokes.
|
|
|
|
A bell rang.
|
|
|
|
He pushed the thin sheaf of papers aside and stood up. His hands
|
|
brushed limply over some of the one million rainbow-coloured
|
|
sequins with which his jacket was festooned, and he was gone
|
|
through the door.
|
|
|
|
In the Restaurant the lights dimmed, the band quickened its pace,
|
|
a single spotlight stabbed down into the darkness of the stairway
|
|
that led up to the centre of the stage.
|
|
|
|
Up the stairs bounded bounded a tall brilliantly coloured figure.
|
|
He burst on to the stage, tripped lightly up to the microphone,
|
|
removed it from its stand with one swoop of his long thin hand
|
|
and stood for a moment bowing left and right to the audience
|
|
acknowledging their applause and displaying to them his bay
|
|
window. He waved to his particular friends in the audience even
|
|
though there weren't any there, and waited for the applause to
|
|
die down.
|
|
|
|
He held up his hand and smiled a smile that stretched not merely
|
|
from ear to ear, but seemed to extend some way beyond the mere
|
|
confines of his face.
|
|
|
|
"Thank you ladies and gentlemen!" he cried, "thank you very much.
|
|
Thank you so much."
|
|
|
|
He eyed them with a twinkling eye.
|
|
|
|
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "The Universe as we know it has
|
|
now been in existence for over one hundred and seventy thousand
|
|
million billion years and will be ending in a little over half an
|
|
hour. So, welcome one and all to Milliways, the Restaurant at the
|
|
End of the Universe!"
|
|
|
|
With a gesture he deftly conjured another round of spontaneous
|
|
applause. With another gesture he cut it.
|
|
|
|
"I am your host for tonight," he said, "my name is Max
|
|
Quordlepleen ..." (Everybody knew this, his act was famous
|
|
throughout the known Galaxy, but he said it for the fresh
|
|
applause it generated, which he acknowledged with a disclaiming
|
|
smile and wave.) "... and I've just come straight from the very
|
|
very other end of time, where I've been hosting a show at the Big
|
|
Bang Burger Bar - where I can tell you we had a very exciting
|
|
evening ladies and gentlemen - and I will be with you right
|
|
through this historic occasion, the End of History itself!"
|
|
|
|
Another burst of applause died away quickly as the lights dimmed
|
|
down further. On every table candles ignited themselves
|
|
spontaneously, eliciting a slight gasp from all the diners and
|
|
wreathing them in a thousand tiny flickering lights and a million
|
|
intimate shadows. A tremor of excitement thrilled through the
|
|
darkened Restaurant as the vast golden dome above them began very
|
|
very slowly to dim, to darken, to fade.
|
|
|
|
Max's voice was hushed as he continued.
|
|
|
|
"So, ladies and gentlemen," he breathed, "the candles are lit,
|
|
the band plays softly, and as the force-shielded dome above us
|
|
fades into transparency, revealing a dark and sullen sky hung
|
|
heavy with the ancient light of livid swollen stars, I can see
|
|
we're all in for a fabulous evening's apocalypse!"
|
|
|
|
Even the soft tootling of the band faded away as stunned shock
|
|
descended on all those who had not seen this sight before.
|
|
|
|
A monstrous, grisly light poured in on them,
|
|
|
|
- a hideous light,
|
|
|
|
- a boiling, pestilential light,
|
|
|
|
- a light that would have disfigured hell.
|
|
|
|
The Universe was coming to an end.
|
|
|
|
For a few interminable seconds the Restaurant span silently
|
|
through the raging void. Then Max spoke again.
|
|
|
|
"For those of you who ever hoped to see the light at the end of
|
|
the tunnel," he said, "this is it."
|
|
|
|
The band struck up again.
|
|
|
|
"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen," cried Max, "I'll be back with
|
|
you again in just a moment, and meanwhile I leave you in the very
|
|
capable hands of Mr Reg Nullify and his cataclysmic Combo. Big
|
|
hand please ladies and gentlemen for Reg and the boys!"
|
|
|
|
The baleful turmoil of the skies continued.
|
|
|
|
Hesitantly the audience began to clap and after a moment or so
|
|
normal conversation resumed. Max began his round of the tables,
|
|
swapping jokes, shouting with laughter, earning his living.
|
|
|
|
A large dairy animal approached Zaphod Beeblebrox's table, a
|
|
large fat meaty quadruped of the bovine type with large watery
|
|
eyes, small horns and what might almost have been an ingratiating
|
|
smile on its lips.
|
|
|
|
"Good evening," it lowed and sat back heavily on its haunches, "I
|
|
am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in parts of my
|
|
body?" It harrumphed and gurgled a bit, wriggled its hind
|
|
quarters into a more comfortable position and gazed peacefully at
|
|
them.
|
|
|
|
Its gaze was met by looks of startled bewilderment from Arthur
|
|
and Trillian, a resigned shrug from Ford Prefect and naked hunger
|
|
from Zaphod Beeblebrox.
|
|
|
|
"Something off the shoulder perhaps?" suggested the animal,
|
|
"Braised in a white wine sauce?"
|
|
|
|
"Er, your shoulder?" said Arthur in a horrified whisper.
|
|
|
|
"But naturally my shoulder, sir," mooed the animal contentedly,
|
|
"nobody else's is mine to offer."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod leapt to his feet and started prodding and feeling the
|
|
animal's shoulder appreciatively.
|
|
|
|
"Or the rump is very good," murmured the animal. "I've been
|
|
exercising it and eating plenty of grain, so there's a lot of
|
|
good meat there." It gave a mellow grunt, gurgled again and
|
|
started to chew the cud. It swallowed the cud again.
|
|
|
|
"Or a casserole of me perhaps?" it added.
|
|
|
|
"You mean this animal actually wants us to eat it?" whispered
|
|
Trillian to Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Me?" said Ford, with a glazed look in his eyes, "I don't mean
|
|
anything."
|
|
|
|
"That's absolutely horrible," exclaimed Arthur, "the most
|
|
revolting thing I've ever heard."
|
|
|
|
"What's the problem Earthman?" said Zaphod, now transferring his
|
|
attention to the animal's enormous rump.
|
|
|
|
"I just don't want to eat an animal that's standing here inviting
|
|
me to," said Arthur, "it's heartless."
|
|
|
|
"Better than eating an animal that doesn't want to be eaten,"
|
|
said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"That's not the point," Arthur protested. Then he thought about
|
|
it for a moment. "Alright," he said, "maybe it is the point. I
|
|
don't care, I'm not going to think about it now. I'll just ... er
|
|
..."
|
|
|
|
The Universe raged about him in its death throes.
|
|
|
|
"I think I'll just have a green salad," he muttered.
|
|
|
|
"May I urge you to consider my liver?" asked the animal, "it must
|
|
be very rich and tender by now, I've been force-feeding myself
|
|
for months."
|
|
|
|
"A green salad," said Arthur emphatically.
|
|
|
|
"A green salad?" said the animal, rolling his eyes disapprovingly
|
|
at Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Are you going to tell me," said Arthur, "that I shouldn't have
|
|
green salad?"
|
|
|
|
"Well," said the animal, "I know many vegetables that are very
|
|
clear on that point. Which is why it was eventually decided to
|
|
cut through the whole tangled problem and breed an animal that
|
|
actually wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly
|
|
and distinctly. And here I am."
|
|
|
|
It managed a very slight bow.
|
|
|
|
"Glass of water please," said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Look," said Zaphod, "we want to eat, we don't want to make a
|
|
meal of the issues. Four rare steaks please, and hurry. We
|
|
haven't eaten in five hundred and seventy-six thousand million
|
|
years."
|
|
|
|
The animal staggered to its feet. It gave a mellow gurgle.
|
|
|
|
"A very wise choice, sir, if I may say so. Very good," it said,
|
|
"I'll just nip off and shoot myself."
|
|
|
|
He turned and gave a friendly wink to Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Don't worry, sir," he said, "I'll be very humane."
|
|
|
|
It waddled unhurriedly off into the kitchen.
|
|
|
|
A matter of minutes later the waiter arrived with four huge
|
|
steaming steaks. Zaphod and Ford wolfed straight into them
|
|
without a second's hesitation. Trillian paused, then shrugged and
|
|
started into hers.
|
|
|
|
Arthur stared at his feeling slightly ill.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, Earthman," said Zaphod with a malicious grin on the face
|
|
that wasn't stuffing itself, "what's eating you?"
|
|
|
|
And the band played on.
|
|
|
|
All around the Restaurant people and things relaxed and chatted.
|
|
The air was filled with talk of this and that, and with the
|
|
mingled scents of exotic plants, extravagant foods and insidious
|
|
wines. For an infinite number of miles in every direction the
|
|
universal cataclysm was gathering to a stupefying climax.
|
|
Glancing at his watch, Max returned to the stage with a flourish.
|
|
|
|
"And now, ladies and gentlemen," he beamed, "is everyone having
|
|
one last wonderful time?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes," called out the sort of people who call out "yes" when
|
|
comedians ask them if they're having a wonderful time.
|
|
|
|
"That's wonderful," enthused Max, "absolutely wonderful. And as
|
|
the photon storms gather in swirling crowds around us, preparing
|
|
to tear apart the last of the red hot suns, I know you're all
|
|
going to settle back and enjoy with me what I know we will find
|
|
all an immensely exciting and terminal experience."
|
|
|
|
He paused. He caught the audience with a glittering eye.
|
|
|
|
"Believe me, ladies and gentlemen," he said, "there's nothing
|
|
penultimate about this one."
|
|
|
|
He paused again. Tonight his timing was immaculate. Time after
|
|
time he had done this show, night after night. Not that the word
|
|
night had any meaning here at the extremity of time. All there
|
|
was was the endless repetition of the final moment, as the
|
|
Restaurant rocked slowly forward over the brink of time's
|
|
furthest edge - and back again. This "night" was good though, the
|
|
audience was writhing in the palm of his sickly hand. His voice
|
|
dropped. They had to strain to hear him.
|
|
|
|
"This," he said, "really is the absolute end, the final chilling
|
|
desolation, in which the whole majestic sweep of creation becomes
|
|
extinct. This ladies and gentlemen is the proverbial `it'."
|
|
|
|
He dropped his voice still lower. In the stillness, a fly would
|
|
not have dared cleat its throat.
|
|
|
|
"After this," he said, "there is nothing. Void. Emptiness.
|
|
Oblivion. Absolute nothing ..."
|
|
|
|
His eyes glittered again - or did they twinkle?"
|
|
|
|
"Nothing ... except of course for the sweet trolley, and a fine
|
|
selection of Aldebaran liqueurs!"
|
|
|
|
The band gave him a musical sting. He wished they wouldn't, he
|
|
didn't need it, not an artist of his calibre. He could play the
|
|
audience like his own musical instrument. They were laughing with
|
|
relief. He followed on.
|
|
|
|
"And for once," he cried cheerily, "you don't need to worry about
|
|
having a hangover in the morning - because there won't be any
|
|
more mornings!"
|
|
|
|
He beamed at his happy, laughing audience. He glanced up at the
|
|
sky, going through the same dead routine every night, but his
|
|
glance was only for a fraction of a second. He trusted it to do
|
|
its job, as one professional trusts another.
|
|
|
|
"And now," he said, strutting about the stage, "at the risk of
|
|
putting a damper on the wonderful sense of doom and futility here
|
|
this evening, I would like to welcome a few parties."
|
|
|
|
He pulled a card from his pocket.
|
|
|
|
"Do we have ..." he put up a hand to hold back the cheers, "Do we
|
|
have a party here from the Zansellquasure Flamarion Bridge Club
|
|
from beyond the Vortvoid of Qvarne? Are they here?"
|
|
|
|
A rousing cheer came from the back, but he pretended not to hear.
|
|
He peered around trying to find them.
|
|
|
|
"Are they here?" he asked again, to elict a louder cheer.
|
|
|
|
He got it, as he always did.
|
|
|
|
"Ah, there they are. Well, last bids lads - and no cheating,
|
|
remember this is a very solemn moment."
|
|
|
|
He lapped up the laughter.
|
|
|
|
"And do we also have, do we have ... a party of minor deities
|
|
from the Halls of Asgard?"
|
|
|
|
Away to his right came a rumble of thunder. Lightning arced
|
|
across the stage. A small group of hairy men with helmets sat
|
|
looking very pleased with themselves, and raised their glasses to
|
|
him.
|
|
|
|
Hasbeens, he thought to himself.
|
|
|
|
"Careful with that hammer, sir," he said.
|
|
|
|
They did their trick with the lightning again. Max gave them a
|
|
very thin lipped smile.
|
|
|
|
"And thirdly," he said, "thirdly a party of Young Conservatives
|
|
from Sirius B, are they here?"
|
|
|
|
A party of smartly dressed young dogs stopped throwing rolls at
|
|
each other and started throwing rolls at the stage. They yapped
|
|
and barked unintelligibly.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," said Max, "well this is all your fault, you realize that?"
|
|
|
|
"And finally," said Max, quieting the audience down and putting
|
|
on his solemn face, "finally I believe we have with us here
|
|
tonight, a party of believers, very devout believers, from the
|
|
Church of the Second Coming of the Great Prophet Zarquon."
|
|
|
|
There were about twenty of them, sitting right out on the edge of
|
|
the floor, ascetically dressed, sipping mineral water nervously,
|
|
and staying apart from the festivities. They blinked resentfully
|
|
as the spotlight was turned on them.
|
|
|
|
"There they are," said Max, "sitting there, patiently. He said
|
|
he'd come again, and he's kept you waiting a long time, so let's
|
|
hope he's hurrying fellas, because he's only got eight minutes
|
|
left!"
|
|
|
|
The party of Zarquon's followers sat rigid, refusing to be
|
|
buffeted by the waves of uncharitable laughter which swept over
|
|
them.
|
|
|
|
Max restrained his audience.
|
|
|
|
"No, but seriously though folks, seriously though, no offence
|
|
meant. No, I know we shouldn't make fun of deeply held beliefs,
|
|
so I think a big hand please for the Great Prophet Zarquon ..."
|
|
|
|
The audience clapped respectfully.
|
|
|
|
"... wherever he's got to!"
|
|
|
|
He blew a kiss to the stony-faced party and returned to the
|
|
centre of the stage.
|
|
|
|
He grabbed a tall stool and sat on it.
|
|
|
|
"It's marvellous though," he rattled on, "to see so many of you
|
|
here tonight - no isn't it though? Yes, absolutely marvellous.
|
|
Because I know that so many of you come here time and time again,
|
|
which I think is really wonderful, to come and watch this final
|
|
end of everything, and then return home to your own eras ... and
|
|
raise families, strive for new and better societies, fight
|
|
terrible wars for what you know to be right ... it really gives
|
|
one hope for the future of all lifekind. Except of course," he
|
|
waved at the blitzing turmoil above and around them, "that we
|
|
know it hasn't got one ..."
|
|
|
|
Arthur turned to Ford - he hadn't quite got this place worked out
|
|
in his mind.
|
|
|
|
"Look, surely," he said, "if the Universe is about to end ...
|
|
don't we go with it?"
|
|
|
|
Ford gave him a three-Pan-Galactic-Gargle-Blaster look, in other
|
|
words a rather unsteady one.
|
|
|
|
"No," he said, "look," he said, "as soon as you come into this
|
|
dive you get held in this sort of amazing force-shielded temporal
|
|
warp thing. I think."
|
|
|
|
"Oh," said Arthur. He turned his attention back to a bowl of soup
|
|
he'd managed to get from the waiter to replace his steak.
|
|
|
|
"Look," said Ford, "I'll show you."
|
|
|
|
He grabbed at a napkin off the table and fumbled hopelessly with
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
"Look," he said again, "imagine this napkin, right, as the
|
|
temporal Universe, right? And this spoon as a transductional mode
|
|
in the matter curve ..."
|
|
|
|
It took him a while to say this last part, and Arthur hated to
|
|
interrupt him.
|
|
|
|
"That's the spoon I was eating with," he said.
|
|
|
|
"Alright," said Ford, "imagine this spoon ..." he found a small
|
|
wooden spoon on a tray of relishes, "this spoon ..." but found it
|
|
rather tricky to pick up, "no, better still this fork ..."
|
|
|
|
"Hey would you let go of my fork?" snapped Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Alright," said Ford, "alright, alright. Why don't we say ... why
|
|
don't we say that this wine glass is the temporal Universe ..."
|
|
|
|
"What, the one you've just knocked on the floor?"
|
|
|
|
"Did I do that?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes."
|
|
|
|
"Alright," said Ford, "forget that. I mean ... I mean, look, do
|
|
you know - do you know how the Universe actually began for a kick
|
|
off?"
|
|
|
|
"Probably not," said Arthur, who wished he'd never embarked on
|
|
any of this.
|
|
|
|
"Alright," said Ford, "imagine this. Right. You get this bath.
|
|
Right. A large round bath. And it's made of ebony."
|
|
|
|
"Where from?" said Arthur, "Harrods was destroyed by the Vogons."
|
|
|
|
"Doesn't matter."
|
|
|
|
"So you keep saying."
|
|
|
|
"Listen."
|
|
|
|
"Alright."
|
|
|
|
"You get this bath, see? Imagine you've got this bath. And it's
|
|
ebony. And it's conical."
|
|
|
|
"Conical?" said Arthur, "What sort of ..."
|
|
|
|
"Shhh!" said Ford. "It's conical. So what you do is, you see, you
|
|
fill it with fine white sand, alright? Or sugar. Fine white sand,
|
|
and/or sugar. Anything. Doesn't matter. Sugar's fine. And when
|
|
it's full, you pull the plug out ... are you listening?"
|
|
|
|
"I'm listening."
|
|
|
|
"You pull the plug out, and it all just twirls away, twirls away
|
|
you see, out of the plughole."
|
|
|
|
"I see."
|
|
|
|
"You don't see. You don't see at all. I haven't got to the clever
|
|
bit yet. You want to hear the clever bit?"
|
|
|
|
"Tell me the clever bit."
|
|
|
|
"I'll tell you the clever bit."
|
|
|
|
Ford thought for a moment, trying to remember what the clever bit
|
|
was.
|
|
|
|
"The clever bit," he said, "is this. You film it happening."
|
|
|
|
"Clever."
|
|
|
|
"That's not the clever bit. This is the clever bit, I remember
|
|
now that this is the clever bit. The clever bit is that you then
|
|
thread the film in the projector ... backwards!"
|
|
|
|
"Backwards?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes. Threading it backwards is definitely the clever bit. So
|
|
then, you just sit and watch it, and everything just appears to
|
|
spiral upwards out of the plughole and fill the bath. See?"
|
|
|
|
"And that's how the Universe began is it?" said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"No," said Ford, "but it's a marvellous way to relax."
|
|
|
|
He reached for his wine glass.
|
|
|
|
"Where's my wine glass?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"It's on the floor."
|
|
|
|
"Ah."
|
|
|
|
Tipping back his chair to look for it, Ford collided with the
|
|
small green waiter who was approaching the table carrying a
|
|
portable telephone.
|
|
|
|
Ford excused himself to the waiter explaining that it was because
|
|
he was extremely drunk.
|
|
|
|
The waiter said that that was quite alright and that he perfectly
|
|
understood.
|
|
|
|
Ford thanked the waiter for his kind indulgence, attempted to tug
|
|
his forelock, missed by six inches and slid under the table.
|
|
|
|
"Mr Zaphod Beeblebrox?" inquired the waiter.
|
|
|
|
"Er, yeah?" said Zaphod, glancing up from his third steak.
|
|
|
|
"There is a phone call for you."
|
|
|
|
"Hey, what?"
|
|
|
|
"A phone call, sir."
|
|
|
|
"For me? Here? Hey, but who knows where I am?"
|
|
|
|
One of his minds raced. The other dawdled lovingly over the food
|
|
it was still shovelling in.
|
|
|
|
"Excuse me if I carry on, won't you?" said his eating head and
|
|
carried on.
|
|
|
|
There were now so many people after him he'd lost count. He
|
|
shouldn't have made such a conspicuous entrance. Hell, why not
|
|
though, he thought. How do you know you're having fun if there's
|
|
no one watching you have it?
|
|
|
|
"Maybe someone here tipped off the Galactic Police," said
|
|
Trillian. "Everyone saw you come in."
|
|
|
|
"You mean they want to arrest me over the phone?" said Zaphod,
|
|
"Could be. I'm a pretty dangerous dude when I'm concerned."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," said a voice from under the table, "you go to pieces so
|
|
fast people get hit by the shrapnel."
|
|
|
|
"Hey, what is this, Judgment Day?" snapped Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"Do we get to see that as well?" asked Arthur nervously.
|
|
|
|
"I'm in no hurry," muttered Zaphod, "OK, so who's the cat on the
|
|
phone?" He kicked Ford. "Hey get up there, kid," he said to him,
|
|
"I may need you."
|
|
|
|
"I am not," said the waiter, "personally acquainted with the
|
|
metal gentlemen in question, sir ..."
|
|
|
|
"Metal?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes, sir."
|
|
|
|
"Did you say metal?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes, sir. I said that I am not personally acquainted with the
|
|
metal gentleman in question ..."
|
|
|
|
"OK, carry on."
|
|
|
|
"But I am informed that he has been awaiting your return for a
|
|
considerable number of millennia. It seems you left here somewhat
|
|
precipitately."
|
|
|
|
"Left here?" said Zaphod, "are you being strange? We only just
|
|
arrived here."
|
|
|
|
"Indeed, sir," persisted the waiter doggedly, "but before you
|
|
arrived here, sir, I understand that you left here."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod tried this in one brain, then in the other.
|
|
|
|
"You're saying," he said, "that before we arrived here, we left
|
|
here?"
|
|
|
|
This is going to be a long night, thought the waiter.
|
|
|
|
"Precisely, sir," he said.
|
|
|
|
"Put your analyst on danger money, baby," advised Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"No, wait a minute," said Ford, emerging above table level again,
|
|
"where exactly is here?"
|
|
|
|
"To be absolutely exact sir, it is Frogstar World B."
|
|
|
|
"But we just left there," protested Zaphod, "we left there and
|
|
came to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe."
|
|
|
|
"Yes, sir," said the waiter, feeling that he was now into the
|
|
home stretch and running well, "the one was constructed on the
|
|
ruins of the other."
|
|
|
|
"Oh," said Arthur brightly, "you mean we've travelled in time but
|
|
not in space."
|
|
|
|
"Listen you semi-evolved simian," cut in Zaphod, "go climb a tree
|
|
will you?"
|
|
|
|
Arthur bristled.
|
|
|
|
"Go bang your heads together four-eyes," he advised Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"No, no," the waiter said to Zaphod, "your monkey has got it
|
|
right, sir."
|
|
|
|
Arthur stuttered in fury and said nothing apposite, or indeed
|
|
coherent.
|
|
|
|
"You jumped forward ... I believe five hundred and seventy-six
|
|
thousand million years whilst staying in exactly the same place,"
|
|
explained the waiter. He smiled. He had a wonderful feeling that
|
|
he had finally won through against what had seemed to be
|
|
insuperable odds.
|
|
|
|
"That's it!" said Zaphod, "I got it. I told the computer to send
|
|
us to the nearest place to eat, that's exactly what it did. Give
|
|
or take five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years, we
|
|
never moved. Neat."
|
|
|
|
They all agreed this was very neat.
|
|
|
|
"But who," said Zaphod, "is the cat on the phone?"
|
|
|
|
"Whatever happened to Marvin?" said Trillian.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod clapped his hands to his heads.
|
|
|
|
"The Paranoid Android! I left him moping about on Frogstar B."
|
|
|
|
"When was this?"
|
|
|
|
"Well, er, five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years
|
|
ago I suppose," said Zaphod, "Hey, er, hand me the rap-rod, Plate
|
|
Captain."
|
|
|
|
The little waiter's eyebrows wandered about his forehead in
|
|
confusion.
|
|
|
|
"I beg your pardon, sir?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"The phone, waiter," said Zaphod, grabbing it off him. "Shee, you
|
|
guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off."
|
|
|
|
"Indeed, sir."
|
|
|
|
"Hey, Marvin, is that you?" said Zaphod into the phone, "How you
|
|
doing, kid?"
|
|
|
|
There was a long pause before a thin low voice came up the line.
|
|
|
|
"I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed," it said.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod cupped his hands over the phone.
|
|
|
|
"It's Marvin," he said.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, Marvin," he said into the phone again, "we're having a
|
|
great time. Food, wine, a little personal abuse and the Universe
|
|
going foom. Where can we find you?"
|
|
|
|
Again the pause.
|
|
|
|
"You don't have to pretend to be interested in me you know," said
|
|
Marvin at last, "I know perfectly well I'm only a menial robot."
|
|
|
|
"OK, OK," said Zaphod, "but where are you?"
|
|
|
|
"`Reverse primary thrust, Marvin,' that's what they say to me,
|
|
`open airlock number three, Marvin. Marvin, can you pick up that
|
|
piece of paper?' Can I pick up that piece of paper! Here I am,
|
|
brain the size of a planet and they ask me to ..."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, yeah," sympathized Zaphod hardly at all.
|
|
|
|
"But I'm quite used to being humiliated," droned Marvin, "I can
|
|
even go and stick my head in a bucket of water if you like. Would
|
|
you like me to go and stick my head in a bucket of water? I've
|
|
got one ready. Wait a minute."
|
|
|
|
"Er, hey, Marvin ..." interrupted Zaphod, but it was too late.
|
|
Sad little clunks and gurgles came up the line.
|
|
|
|
"What's he saying?" asked Trillian.
|
|
|
|
"Nothing," said Zaphod, "he just phoned up to wash his head at
|
|
us."
|
|
|
|
"There," said Marvin, coming back on the line and bubbling a bit,
|
|
"I hope that gave satisfaction ..."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, yeah," said Zaphod, "now will you please tell us where you
|
|
are?"
|
|
|
|
"I'm in the car park," said Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"The car park?" said Zaphod, "what are you doing there?"
|
|
|
|
"Parking cars, what else does one do in a car park?"
|
|
|
|
"OK, hang in there, we'll be right down."
|
|
|
|
In one movement Zaphod leapt to his feet, threw down the phone
|
|
and wrote "Hotblack Desiato" on the bill.
|
|
|
|
"Come on guys," he said, "Marvin's in the car park. Let's get on
|
|
down."
|
|
|
|
"What's he doing in the car park?" asked Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Parking cars, what else? Dum dum."
|
|
|
|
"But what about the End of the Universe? We'll miss the big
|
|
moment."
|
|
|
|
"I've seen it. It's rubbish," said Zaphod, "nothing but a gnab
|
|
gib."
|
|
|
|
"A what?"
|
|
|
|
"Opposite of a big bang. Come on, let's get zappy."
|
|
|
|
Few of the other diners paid them any attention as they weaved
|
|
their way through the Restaurant to the exit. Their eyes were
|
|
riveted on the horror of the skies.
|
|
|
|
"An interesting effect to watch for," Max was telling them, "is
|
|
in the upper left-hand quadrant of the sky, where if you look
|
|
very carefully you can see the star system Hastromil boiling away
|
|
into the ultra-violet. Anyone here from Hastromil?"
|
|
|
|
There were one or two slightly hesitant cheers from somewhere at
|
|
the back.
|
|
|
|
"Well," said Max beaming cheerfully at them, "it's too late to
|
|
worry about whether you left the gas on now."
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 18
|
|
|
|
The main reception foyer was almost empty but Ford nevertheless
|
|
weaved his way through it.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod grasped him firmly by the arm and manoeuvred him into a
|
|
cubicle standing to one side of the entrance hall.
|
|
|
|
"What are you doing to him?" asked Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Sobering him up," said Zaphod and pushed a coin into a slot.
|
|
Lights flashed, gases swirled.
|
|
|
|
"Hi," said Ford stepping out a moment later, "where are we
|
|
going?"
|
|
|
|
"Down to the car park, come on."
|
|
|
|
"What about the personnel Time Teleports?" said Ford, "Get us
|
|
straight back to the Heart of Gold."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, but I've cooled on that ship. Zarniwoop can have it. I
|
|
don't want to play his games. Let's see what we can find."
|
|
|
|
A Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People
|
|
Transporter took them down deep into the substrata beneath the
|
|
Restaurant. They were glad to see it had been vandalized and
|
|
didn't try to make them happy as well as take them down.
|
|
|
|
At the bottom of the shaft the lift doors opened and a blast of
|
|
cold stale air hit them.
|
|
|
|
The first thing they saw on leaving the lift was a long concrete
|
|
wall with over fifty doors in it offering lavatory facilities for
|
|
all of fifty major lifeforms. Nevertheless, like every car park
|
|
in the Galaxy throughout the entire history of car parks, this
|
|
car park smelt predominantly of impatience.
|
|
|
|
They turned a corner and found themselves on a moving catwalk
|
|
that traversed a vast cavernous space that stretched off into the
|
|
dim distance.
|
|
|
|
It was divided off into bays each of which contained a space ship
|
|
belonging to one of the diners upstairs, some smallish and
|
|
utilitarian mass production models, others vast shining
|
|
limoships, the playthings of the very rich.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod's eyes sparkled with something that may or may not have
|
|
been avarice as he passed over them. In fact it's best to be
|
|
clear on this point - avarice is definitely what it was.
|
|
|
|
"There he is," said Trillian, "Marvin, down there."
|
|
|
|
They looked where she was pointing. Dimly they could see a small
|
|
metal figure listlessly rubbing a small rag on one remote corner
|
|
of a giant silver suncruiser.
|
|
|
|
At short intervals along the moving catwalk, wide transparent
|
|
tubes led down to floor level. Zaphod stepped off the catwalk
|
|
into one and floated gently downwards. The others followed.
|
|
Thinking back to this later, Arthur Dent thought it was the
|
|
single most enjoyable experience of his travels in the Galaxy.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, Marvin," said Zaphod striding over towards to him, "Hey,
|
|
kid, are we pleased to see you."
|
|
|
|
Marvin turned, and in so far as it is possible for a totally
|
|
inert metal face to look reproachfully, this is what it did.
|
|
|
|
"No you're not," he said, "no one ever is."
|
|
|
|
"Suit yourself," said Zaphod and turned away to ogle the ships.
|
|
Ford went with him.
|
|
|
|
Only Trillian and Arthur actually went up to Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"No, really we are," said Trillian and patted him in a way that
|
|
he disliked intensely, "hanging around waiting for us all this
|
|
time."
|
|
|
|
"Five hundred and seventy-six thousand million, three thousand
|
|
five hundred and seventy-nine years," said Marvin, "I counted
|
|
them."
|
|
|
|
"Well, here we are now," said Trillian, felling - quite correctly
|
|
in Marvin's view - that it was a slightly foolish thing to say.
|
|
|
|
"The first ten million years were the worst," said Marvin, "and
|
|
the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third
|
|
million years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit
|
|
of decline."
|
|
|
|
He paused just long enough to make them feel they ought to say
|
|
something, and then interrupted.
|
|
|
|
"It's the people you meet in this job that really get you down,"
|
|
he said and paused again.
|
|
|
|
Trillian cleared her throat.
|
|
|
|
"Is that ..."
|
|
|
|
"The best conversation I had was over forty million years ago,"
|
|
continued Marvin.
|
|
|
|
Again the pause.
|
|
|
|
"Oh d ..."
|
|
|
|
"And that was with a coffee machine."
|
|
|
|
He waited.
|
|
|
|
"That's a ..."
|
|
|
|
"You don't like talking to me do you?" said Marvin in a low
|
|
desolate tone.
|
|
|
|
Trillian talked to Arthur instead.
|
|
|
|
Further down the chamber Ford Prefect had found something of
|
|
which he very much liked the look, several such things in fact.
|
|
|
|
"Zaphod," he said in a quiet voice, "just look at some of these
|
|
little star trolleys ..."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod looked and liked.
|
|
|
|
The craft they were looking at was in fact pretty small but
|
|
extraordinary, and very much a rich kid's toy. It was not much to
|
|
look at. It resembled nothing so much as a paper dart about
|
|
twenty feet long made of thin but tough metal foil. At the rear
|
|
end was a small horizontal two-man cockpit. It had a tiny charm-
|
|
drive engine, which was not capable of moving it at any great
|
|
speed. The thing it did have, however, was a heat-sink.
|
|
|
|
The heat-sink had a mass of some two thousand billion tons and
|
|
was contained within a black hole mounted in an electromagnetic
|
|
field situated half-way along the length of the ship, and this
|
|
heat-sink enabled the craft to be manoeuvred to within a few
|
|
miles of a yellow sun, there to catch and ride the solar flares
|
|
that burst out from its surface.
|
|
|
|
Flare-riding is one of the most exotic and exhilarating sports in
|
|
existence, and those who can dare and afford it are amongst the
|
|
most lionized men in the Galaxy. It is also of course
|
|
stupefyingly dangerous - those who don't die riding invariably
|
|
die of sexual exhaustion at one of the Daedalus Club's Apres-
|
|
Flare parties.
|
|
|
|
Ford and Zaphod looked and passed on.
|
|
|
|
"And this baby," said Ford, "the tangerine star buggy with the
|
|
black sunbusters ..."
|
|
|
|
Again, the star buggy was a small ship - a totally misnamed one
|
|
in fact, because the one thing it couldn't manage was
|
|
interstellar distances. Basically it was a sporty planet hopper
|
|
dolled up to something it wasn't. Nice lines though. They passed
|
|
on.
|
|
|
|
The next one was a big one and thirty yards long - a coach built
|
|
limoship and obviously designed with one aim in mind, that of
|
|
making the beholder sick with envy. The paintwork and accessory
|
|
detail clearly said "Not only am I rich enough to afford this
|
|
ship, I am also rich enough not to take it seriously." It was
|
|
wonderfully hideous.
|
|
|
|
"Just look at it," said Zaphod, "multi-cluster quark drive,
|
|
perspulex running boards. Got to be a Lazlar Lyricon custom job."
|
|
|
|
He examined every inch.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," he said, "look, the infra-pink lizard emblem on the
|
|
neutrino cowling. Lazlar's trade mark. The man has no shame."
|
|
|
|
"I was passed by one of these mothers once, out by the Axel
|
|
Nebula," said Ford, "I was going flat out and this thing just
|
|
strolled past me, star drive hardly ticking over. Just
|
|
incredible."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod whistled appreciatively.
|
|
|
|
"Ten seconds later", said Ford, "it smashed straight into the
|
|
third moon of Jaglan Beta."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, right?"
|
|
|
|
"Amazing looking ship though. Looks like a fish, moves like a
|
|
fish, steers like a cow."
|
|
|
|
Ford looked round the other side.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, come and see," he called out, "there's a big mural painted
|
|
on this side. A bursting sun - Disaster Area's trade mark. This
|
|
must be Hotblack's ship. Lucky old bugger. They do this terrible
|
|
song you know which ends with a stuntship crashing into the sun.
|
|
Meant to be an amazing spectacle. Expensive in stunt ships
|
|
though."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod's attention however was elsewhere. His attention was
|
|
riveted on the ship standing next to Hotblack Desiato's limo. His
|
|
mouths hung open.
|
|
|
|
"That," he said, "that ... is really bad for the eyes ..."
|
|
|
|
Ford looked. He too stood astonished.
|
|
|
|
It was a ship of classic, simple design, like a flattened salmon,
|
|
twenty yards long, very clean, very sleek. There was just one
|
|
remarkable thing about it.
|
|
|
|
"It's so ... black!" said Ford Prefect, "you can hardly make out
|
|
its shape ... light just seems to fall into it!"
|
|
|
|
Zaphod said nothing. He had simply fallen in love.
|
|
|
|
The blackness of it was so extreme that it was almost impossible
|
|
to tell how close you were standing to it.
|
|
|
|
"Your eyes just slide off it ..." said Ford in wonder. It was an
|
|
emotional moment. He bit his lip.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod moved forward to it, slowly, like a man possessed - or
|
|
more accurately like a man who wanted to possess. His hand
|
|
reached out to stroke it. His hand stopped. His hand reached out
|
|
to stroke it again. His hand stopped again.
|
|
|
|
"Come and feel the surface," he said in a hushed voice.
|
|
|
|
Ford put his hand out to feel it. His hand stopped.
|
|
|
|
"You ... you can't ..." he said.
|
|
|
|
"See?" said Zaphod, "it's just totally frictionless. This must be
|
|
one mother of a mover ..."
|
|
|
|
He turned to look at Ford seriously. At least, one of his heads
|
|
did - the other stayed gazing in awe at the ship.
|
|
|
|
"What do you reckon, Ford?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"You mean ... er ..." Ford looked over his shoulder. "You mean
|
|
stroll off with it? You think we should?"
|
|
|
|
"No."
|
|
|
|
"Nor do I."
|
|
|
|
"But we're going to, aren't we?"
|
|
|
|
"How can we not?"
|
|
|
|
They gazed a little longer, till Zaphod suddenly pulled himself
|
|
together.
|
|
|
|
"We better shift soon," he said. "In a moment or so the Universe
|
|
will have ended and all the Captain Creeps will be pouring down
|
|
here to find their bourge-mobiles."
|
|
|
|
"Zaphod," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Yeah?"
|
|
|
|
"How do we do it?"
|
|
|
|
"Simple," said Zaphod. He turned. "Marvin!" he called.
|
|
|
|
Slowly, laboriously, and with a million little clanking and
|
|
creaking noises that he had learned to simulate, Marvin turned
|
|
round to answer the summons.
|
|
|
|
"Come on over here," said Zaphod, "We've got a job for you."
|
|
|
|
Marvin trudged towards them.
|
|
|
|
"I won't enjoy it," he said.
|
|
|
|
"Yes you will," enthused Zaphod, "there's a whole new life
|
|
stretching out ahead of you."
|
|
|
|
"Oh, not another one," groaned Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"Will you shut up and listen!" hissed Zaphod, "this time there's
|
|
going to be excitement and adventure and really wild things."
|
|
|
|
"Sounds awful," Marvin said.
|
|
|
|
"Marvin! All I'm trying to ask you ..."
|
|
|
|
"I suppose you want me to open this spaceship for you?"
|
|
|
|
"What? Er ... yes. Yeah, that's right," said Zaphod jumpily. He
|
|
was keeping at least three eyes on the entrance. Time was short.
|
|
|
|
"Well I wish you'd just tell me rather than try to engage my
|
|
enthusiasm," said Marvin, "because I haven't got one."
|
|
|
|
He walked on up to the ship, touched it, and a hatchway swung
|
|
open.
|
|
|
|
Ford and Zaphod stared at the opening.
|
|
|
|
"Don't mention it," said Marvin, "Oh, you didn't." He trudged
|
|
away again.
|
|
|
|
Arthur and Trillian clustered round.
|
|
|
|
"What's happening?" asked Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Look at this," said Ford, "look at the interior of this ship."
|
|
|
|
"Weirder and weirder," breathed Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"It's black," said Ford, "Everything in it is just totally black
|
|
..."
|
|
|
|
In the Restaurant, things were fast approaching the moment after
|
|
which there wouldn't be any more moments.
|
|
|
|
All eyes were fixed on the dome, other than those of Hotblack
|
|
Desiato's bodyguard, which were looking intently at Hotblack
|
|
Desiato, and those of Hotblack Desiato himself which the
|
|
bodyguard had closed out of respect.
|
|
|
|
The bodyguard leaned forward over the table. Had Hotblack Desiato
|
|
been alive, he probably would have deemed this a good moment to
|
|
lean back, or even go for a short walk. His bodyguard was not a
|
|
man which improved with proximity. On account of his unfortunate
|
|
condition, however, Hotblack Desiato remained totally inert.
|
|
|
|
"Mr Desiato, sir?" whispered the bodyguard. Whenever he spoke, it
|
|
looked as if the muscles on either side of his mouth were
|
|
clambering over each other to get out of the way.
|
|
|
|
"Mr Desiato? Can you hear me?"
|
|
|
|
Hotblack Desiato, quit naturally, said nothing.
|
|
|
|
"Hotblack?" hissed the bodyguard.
|
|
|
|
Again, quite naturally, Hotblack Desiato did not reply.
|
|
Supernaturally, however, he did.
|
|
|
|
On the table in front of him a wine glass rattled, and a fork
|
|
rose an inch or so and tapped against the glass. It settled on
|
|
the table again.
|
|
|
|
The bodyguard gave a satisfied grunt.
|
|
|
|
"It's time we get going, Mr Desiato," muttered the bodyguard,
|
|
"don't want to get caught in the rush, not in your condition. You
|
|
want to get to the next gig nice and relaxed. There was a really
|
|
big audience for it. One of the best. Kakrafoon. Five-hundred
|
|
seventy-six thousand and two million years ago. Had you will have
|
|
been looking forward to it?"
|
|
|
|
The fork rose again, waggled in a non-committal sort of way and
|
|
dropped again.
|
|
|
|
"Ah, come on," said the bodyguard, "it's going to have been
|
|
great. You knocked 'em cold." The bodyguard would have given Dr
|
|
Dan Streetmentioner an apoplectic attack.
|
|
|
|
"The black ship going into the sun always gets 'em, and the new
|
|
one's a beauty. Be real sorry to see it go. If we get on down
|
|
there, I'll set the black ship autopilot and we'll cruise off in
|
|
the limo. OK?"
|
|
|
|
The fork tapped once in agreement, and the glass of wine
|
|
mysteriously emptied itself.
|
|
|
|
The bodyguard wheeled Hotblack Desiato's chair out of the
|
|
Restaurant.
|
|
|
|
"And now," cried Max from the centre of the stage, "the moment
|
|
you've all been waiting for!" He flung his arms into the air.
|
|
Behind him, the band went into a frenzy of percussion and rolling
|
|
synthochords. Max had argued with them about this but they had
|
|
claimed it was in their contract that that's what they would do.
|
|
His agent would have to sort it out.
|
|
|
|
"The skies begin to boil!" he cried. "Nature collapses into the
|
|
screaming void! In twenty seconds' time, the Universe itself will
|
|
be at an end! See where the light of infinity bursts in upon us!"
|
|
|
|
The hideous fury of destruction blazed about them - and at that
|
|
moment a still small trumpet sounded as from an infinite
|
|
distance. Max's eyes swivelled round to glare at the band. None
|
|
of them seemed to be playing a trumpet. Suddenly a wisp of smoke
|
|
was swirling and shimmering on the stage next to him. The trumpet
|
|
was joined by more trumpets. Over five hundred times Max had done
|
|
this show, and nothing like this had ever happened before. He
|
|
drew back in alarm from the swirling smoke, and as he did so, a
|
|
figure slowly materialized inside, the figure of an ancient man,
|
|
bearded, robed and wreathed in light. In his eyes were stars and
|
|
on his brow a golden crown.
|
|
|
|
"What's this?" whispered Max, wild-eyed, "what's happening?"
|
|
|
|
At the back of the Restaurant the stony-faced party from the
|
|
Church of the Second Coming of the Great Prophet Zarquon leapt
|
|
ecstatically to their feet chanting and crying.
|
|
|
|
Max blinked in amazement. He threw up his arms to the audience.
|
|
|
|
"A big hand please, ladies and gentlemen," he hollered, "for the
|
|
Great Prophet Zarquon! He has come! Zarquon has come again!"
|
|
|
|
Thunderous applause broke out as Max strode across the stage and
|
|
handed his microphone to the Prophet.
|
|
|
|
Zarquon coughed. He peered round at the assembled gathering. The
|
|
stars in his eyes blinked uneasily. He handled the microphone
|
|
with confusion.
|
|
|
|
"Er ..." he said, "hello. Er, look, I'm sorry I'm a bit late.
|
|
I've had the most ghastly time, all sorts of things cropping up
|
|
at the last moment."
|
|
|
|
He seemed nervous of the expectant awed hush. He cleared his
|
|
throat.
|
|
|
|
"Er, how are we for time?" he said, "have I just got a min-"
|
|
|
|
And so the Universe ended.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 19
|
|
|
|
One of the major selling point of that wholly remarkable travel
|
|
book, the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, apart from its
|
|
relative cheapness and the fact that it has the words Don't Panic
|
|
written in large friendly letters on its cover, is its
|
|
compendious and occasionally accurate glossary. The statistics
|
|
relating to the geo-social nature of the Universe, for instance,
|
|
are deftly set out between pages nine hundred and thirty-eight
|
|
thousand and twenty-four and nine hundred and thirty-eight
|
|
thousand and twenty-six; and the simplistic style in which they
|
|
are written is partly explained by the fact that the editors,
|
|
having to meet a publishing deadline, copied the information off
|
|
the back of a packet of breakfast cereal, hastily embroidering it
|
|
with a few footnoted in order to avoid prosecution under the
|
|
incomprehensibly tortuous Galactic Copyright laws.
|
|
|
|
It is interesting to note that a later and wilier editor sent the
|
|
book backwards in time through a temporal warp, and then
|
|
successfully sued the breakfast cereal company for infringement
|
|
of the same laws.
|
|
|
|
Here is a sample:
|
|
|
|
The Universe - some information to help you live in it.
|
|
|
|
1~Area: Infinite.
|
|
|
|
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy offers this definition of
|
|
the word "Infinite".
|
|
|
|
Infinite: Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much
|
|
bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally
|
|
stunning size, "wow, that's big", time. Infinity is just so big
|
|
that by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic
|
|
multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the
|
|
sort of concept we're trying to get across here.
|
|
|
|
2~Imports: None.
|
|
|
|
It is impossible to import things into an infinite area, there
|
|
being no outside to import things in from.
|
|
|
|
3~Exports: None.
|
|
|
|
See imports.
|
|
|
|
4~Population: None.
|
|
|
|
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply
|
|
because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in.
|
|
However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there
|
|
must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number
|
|
divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so
|
|
the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be
|
|
said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the
|
|
whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet
|
|
from time to time are merely the products of a deranged
|
|
imagination.
|
|
|
|
5~Monetary Units: None.
|
|
|
|
In fact there are three freely convertible currencies in the
|
|
Galaxy, but none of them count. The Altairan Dollar has recently
|
|
collapsed, the Flaninian Pobble Bead is only exchangeable for
|
|
other Flaninian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu has its own
|
|
very special problems. Its exchange rate of eight Ningis to one
|
|
Pu is simple enough, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber
|
|
coin six thousand eight hundred miles across each side, no one
|
|
has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not
|
|
negotiable currency because the Galactibanks refuse to deal in
|
|
fiddling small change. From this basic premise it is very simple
|
|
to prove that the Galactibanks are also the product of a deranged
|
|
imagination.
|
|
|
|
6~Art: None.
|
|
|
|
The function of art is to hold the mirror up to nature, and there
|
|
simply isn't a mirror big enough - see point one.
|
|
|
|
7~Sex: None.
|
|
|
|
Well, in fact there is an awful lot of this, largely because of
|
|
the total lack of money, trade, banks, art, or anything else that
|
|
might keep all the non-existent people of the Universe occupied.
|
|
|
|
However, it is not worth embarking on a long discussion of it now
|
|
because it really is terribly complicated. For further
|
|
information see Guide Chapters seven, nine, ten, eleven,
|
|
fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one to eighty-four
|
|
inclusive, and in fact most of the rest of the Guide.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 20
|
|
|
|
The Restaurant continued existing, but everything else had
|
|
stopped. Temporal relastatics held it and protected it in a
|
|
nothingness that wasn't merely a vacuum, it was simply nothing -
|
|
there was nothing in which a vacuum could be said to exist.
|
|
|
|
The force-shielded dome had once again been rendered opaque, the
|
|
party was over, the diners were leaving, Zarquon had vanished
|
|
along with the rest of the Universe, the Time Turbines were
|
|
preparing to pull the Restaurant back across the brink of time in
|
|
readiness for the lunch sitting, and Max Quordlepleen was back in
|
|
his small curtained dressing room trying to raise his agent on
|
|
the tempophone.
|
|
|
|
In the car park stood the black ship, closed and silent.
|
|
|
|
In to the car park came the late Mr Hotblack Desiato, propelled
|
|
along the moving catwalk by his bodyguard.
|
|
|
|
They descended one of the tubes. As they approached the limoship
|
|
a hatchway swung down from its side, engaged the wheels of the
|
|
wheelchair and drew it inside. The bodyguard followed, and having
|
|
seen his boss safely connected up to his death-support system,
|
|
moved up to the small cockpit. Here he operated the remote
|
|
control system which activated the autopilot in the black ship
|
|
lying next to the limo, thus causing great relief to Zaphod
|
|
Beeblebrox who had been trying to start the thing for over ten
|
|
minutes.
|
|
|
|
The black ship glided smoothly forward out of its bay, turned,
|
|
and moved down the central causeway swiftly and quietly. At the
|
|
end it accelerated rapidly, flung itself into the temporal launch
|
|
chamber and began the long journey back into the distant past.
|
|
|
|
The Milliways Lunch Menu quotes, by permission, a passage from
|
|
the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The passage is this:
|
|
|
|
The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass
|
|
through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of
|
|
Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How,
|
|
Why and Where phases.
|
|
|
|
For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question
|
|
"How can we eat?", the second by the question "Why do we eat?"
|
|
and the third by the question, "Where shall we have lunch?"
|
|
|
|
The Menu goes on to suggest that Milliways, the Restaurant at the
|
|
End of the Universe, would be a very agreeable and sophisticated
|
|
answer to that third question.
|
|
|
|
What it doesn't go on to say is that though it will usually take
|
|
a large civilization many thousands of years to pass through the
|
|
How, Why and Where phases, small social groupings under stressful
|
|
conditions can pass through them with extreme rapidity.
|
|
|
|
"How are we doing?" said Arthur Dent.
|
|
|
|
"Badly," said Ford Prefect.
|
|
|
|
"Where are we going?" said Trillian.
|
|
|
|
"I don't know," said Zaphod Beeblebrox.
|
|
|
|
"Why not?" demanded Arthur Dent.
|
|
|
|
"Shut up," suggested Zaphod Beeblebrox and Ford Prefect.
|
|
|
|
"Basically, what you're trying to say," said Arthur Dent,
|
|
ignoring this suggestion, "is that we're out of control."
|
|
|
|
The ship was rocking and swaying sickeningly as Ford and Zaphod
|
|
tried to wrest control from the autopilot. The engined howled and
|
|
whined like tired children in a supermarket.
|
|
|
|
"It's the wild colour scheme that freaks me," said Zaphod whose
|
|
love affair with this ship had lasted almost three minutes into
|
|
the flight, "Every time you try to operate on of these weird
|
|
black controls that are labelled in black on a black background,
|
|
a little black light lights up black to let you know you've done
|
|
it. What is this? Some kind of galactic hyperhearse?"
|
|
|
|
The walls of the swaying cabin were also black, the ceiling was
|
|
black, the seats - which were rudimentary since the only
|
|
important trip this ship was designed for was supposed to be
|
|
unmanned - were black, the control panel was black, the
|
|
instruments were black, the little screws that held them in place
|
|
were black, the thin tufted nylon floor covering was black, and
|
|
when they had lifted up a corner of it they had discovered that
|
|
the foam underlay also was black.
|
|
|
|
"Perhaps whoever designed it had eyes that responded to different
|
|
wavelengths," offered Trillian.
|
|
|
|
"Or didn't have much imagination," muttered Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Perhaps," said Marvin, "he was feeling very depressed."
|
|
|
|
In fact, though they weren't to know it, the decor had been
|
|
chosen in honour of its owner's sad, lamented, and tax-deductible
|
|
condition.
|
|
|
|
The ship gave a particularly sickening lurch.
|
|
|
|
"Take it easy," pleaded Arthur, "you're making me space sick."
|
|
|
|
"Time sick," said Ford, "we're plummeting backwards through
|
|
time."
|
|
|
|
"Thank you," said Arthur, "now I think I really am going to be
|
|
ill."
|
|
|
|
"Go ahead," said Zaphod, "we could do with a little colour about
|
|
this place."
|
|
|
|
"This is meant to be a polite after-dinner conversation is it?"
|
|
snapped Arthur.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod left the controls for Ford to figure out, and lurched over
|
|
to Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Look, Earthman," he said angrily, "you've got a job to do,
|
|
right? The Question to the Ultimate Answer, right?"
|
|
|
|
"What, that thing?" said Arthur, "I thought we'd forgotten about
|
|
that."
|
|
|
|
"Not me, baby. Like the mice said, it's worth a lot of money in
|
|
the right quarters. And it's all locked up in that head thing of
|
|
yours."
|
|
|
|
"Yes but ..."
|
|
|
|
"But nothing! Think about it. The Meaning of Life! We get our
|
|
fingers on that we can hold every shrink in the Galaxy up to
|
|
ransom, and that's worth a bundle. I owe mine a mint."
|
|
|
|
Arthur took a deep breath without much enthusiasm.
|
|
|
|
"Alright," he said, "but where do we start? How should I know?
|
|
They say the Ultimate Answer or whatever is Forty-two, how am I
|
|
supposed to know what the question is? It could be anything. I
|
|
mean, what's six times seven?"
|
|
|
|
Zaphod looked at him hard for a moment. Then his eyes blazed with
|
|
excitement.
|
|
|
|
"Forty-two!" he cried.
|
|
|
|
Arthur wiped his palm across his forehead.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," he said patiently," I know that."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod's faces fell.
|
|
|
|
"I'm just saying that the question could be anything at all,"
|
|
said Arthur, "and I don't see how I am meant to know."
|
|
|
|
"Because," hissed Zaphod, "you were there when your planet did
|
|
the big firework."
|
|
|
|
"We have a thing on Earth ..." began Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Had," corrected Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"... called tact. Oh never mind. Look, I just don't know."
|
|
|
|
A low voice echoed dully round the cabin.
|
|
|
|
"I know," said Marvin.
|
|
|
|
Ford called out from the controls he was still fighting a losing
|
|
battle with.
|
|
|
|
"Stay out of this Marvin," he said, "this is organism talk."
|
|
|
|
"It's printed in the Earthman's brainwave patterns," continued
|
|
Marvin, "but I don't suppose you'll be very interested in knowing
|
|
that."
|
|
|
|
"You mean," said Arthur, "you mean you can see into my mind?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes," said Marvin.
|
|
|
|
Arthur stared in astonishment.
|
|
|
|
"And ...?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"It amazes me how you can manage to live in anything that small."
|
|
|
|
"Ah," said Arthur, "abuse."
|
|
|
|
"Yes," confirmed Marvin.
|
|
|
|
"Ah, ignore him," said Zaphod, "he's only making it up."
|
|
|
|
"Making it up?" said Marvin, swivelling his head in a parody of
|
|
astonishment, "Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad
|
|
enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
|
|
|
|
"Marvin," said Trillian in the gentle, kindly voice that only she
|
|
was still capable of assuming in talking to this misbegotten
|
|
creature, "if you knew all along, why then didn't you tell us?"
|
|
|
|
Marvin's head swivelled back to her.
|
|
|
|
"You didn't ask," he said simply.
|
|
|
|
"Well, we're asking you now, metal man," said Ford, turning round
|
|
to look at him.
|
|
|
|
At that moment the ship suddenly stopped rocking and swaying, the
|
|
engine pitch settled down to a gentle hum.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, Ford," said Zaphod, "that sounds good. Have you worked out
|
|
the controls of this boat?"
|
|
|
|
"No," said Ford, "I just stopped fiddling with them. I reckon we
|
|
just go to wherever this ship is going and get off it fast."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, right," said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"I could tell you weren't really interested," murmured Marvin to
|
|
himself and slumped into a corner and switched himself off.
|
|
|
|
"Trouble is," said Ford, "that the one instrument in this while
|
|
ship that is giving any reading is worrying me. If it is what I
|
|
think it is, and if it's saying what I think it's saying, then
|
|
we've already gone too far back into the past. Maybe as much as
|
|
two million years before our own time."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod shrugged.
|
|
|
|
"Time is bunk," he said.
|
|
|
|
"I wonder who this ship belongs to anyway," said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Me," said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"No. Who it really belongs to."
|
|
|
|
"Really me," insisted Zaphod, "look, property is theft, right?
|
|
Therefore theft is property. Therefore this ship is mine, OK?"
|
|
|
|
"Tell the ship that," said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod strode over to the console.
|
|
|
|
"Ship," he said, banging on the panels, "this is your new owner
|
|
speaking to ..."
|
|
|
|
He got no further. Several things happened at once.
|
|
|
|
The ship dropped out fo time travel mode and re-emerged into real
|
|
space.
|
|
|
|
All the controls on the console, which had been shut down for the
|
|
time trip now lit up.
|
|
|
|
A large vision screen above the console winked into life
|
|
revealing a wide starscape and a single very large sun dead ahead
|
|
of them.
|
|
|
|
None of these things, however, were responsible for the fact that
|
|
Zaphod was at the same moment hurled bodily backwards against the
|
|
rear of the cabin, as were all the others.
|
|
|
|
They were hurled back by a single thunderous clap of noise that
|
|
thuddered out of the monitor speakers surrounding the vision
|
|
screen.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 21
|
|
|
|
Down on the dry, red world of Kakrafoon, in the middle of the
|
|
vast Rudlit Desert, the stage technicians were testing the sound
|
|
system.
|
|
|
|
That is to say, the sound system was in the desert, not the stage
|
|
technicians. They had retreated to the safety of Disaster Area's
|
|
giant control ship which hung in orbit some four hundred miles
|
|
above the surface of the planet, and they were testing the sound
|
|
system from there. Anyone within five miles of the speaker silos
|
|
wouldn't have survived the tuning up.
|
|
|
|
If Arthur Dent had been within five miles of the speaker silos
|
|
then his expiring thought would have been that in both size and
|
|
shape the sound rig closely resembled Manhattan. Risen out of the
|
|
silos, the neutron phase speaker stacks towered monstrously
|
|
against the sky, obscuring the banks of plutonium reactors and
|
|
seismic amps behind them.
|
|
|
|
Buried deep in concrete bunkers beneath the city of speakers lay
|
|
the instruments that the musicians would control from their ship,
|
|
the massive photon-ajuitar, the bass detonator and the Megabang
|
|
drum complex.
|
|
|
|
It was going to be a noisy show.
|
|
|
|
Aboard the giant control ship, all was activity and bustle.
|
|
Hotblack Desiato's limoship, a mere tadpole beside it, had
|
|
arrived and docked, and the lamented gentleman was being
|
|
transported down the high vaulted corridors to meet the medium
|
|
who was going to interpret his psychic impulses on to the ajuitar
|
|
keyboard.
|
|
|
|
A doctor, a logician and a marine biologist had also just
|
|
arrived, flown in at phenomenal expense from Maximegalon to try
|
|
to reason with the lead singer who had locked himself in the
|
|
bathroom with a bottle of pills and was refusing to come out till
|
|
it could be proved conclusively to him that he wasn't a fish. The
|
|
bass player was busy machine-gunning his bedroom and the drummer
|
|
was nowhere on board.
|
|
|
|
Frantic inquiries led to the discovery that he was standing on a
|
|
beach on Santraginus V over a hundred light years away where, he
|
|
claimed, he had been happy over half an hour now and had found a
|
|
small stone that would be his friend.
|
|
|
|
The band's manager was profoundly relieved. It meant that for the
|
|
seventeenth time on this tour the drums would be played by a
|
|
robot and that therefore the timing of the cymbalistics would be
|
|
right.
|
|
|
|
The sub-ether was buzzing with the communications of the stage
|
|
technicians testing the speaker channels, and this it was that
|
|
was being relayed to the interior of the black ship.
|
|
|
|
Its dazed occupants lay against the back wall of the cabin, and
|
|
listened to the voices on the monitor speakers.
|
|
|
|
"OK, channel nine on power," said a voice, "testing channel
|
|
fifteen ..."
|
|
|
|
Another thumping crack of noise walloped through the ship.
|
|
|
|
"Channel fifteen AOK," said another voice.
|
|
|
|
A third voice cut in.
|
|
|
|
"The black stunt ship is now in position," it said, "it's looking
|
|
good. Gonna be a great sundive. Stage computer on line?"
|
|
|
|
A computer voice answered.
|
|
|
|
"On line," it said.
|
|
|
|
"Take control of the black ship."
|
|
|
|
"Black ship locked into trajectory programme, on standby."
|
|
|
|
"Testing channel twenty."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod leaped across the cabin and switched frequencies on the
|
|
sub-ether receiver before the next mind-pulverizing noise hit
|
|
them. He stood there quivering.
|
|
|
|
"What," said Trillian in a small quiet voice, "does sundive
|
|
mean?"
|
|
|
|
"It means," said Marvin, "that the ship os going to dive into the
|
|
sun. Sun ... Dive. It's very simple to understand. What do you
|
|
expect if you steal Hotblack Desiato's stunt ship?"
|
|
|
|
"How do you know ..." said Zaphod in a voice that would make a
|
|
Vegan snow lizard feel chilly, "that this is Hotblack Desiato's
|
|
stuntship?"
|
|
|
|
"Simple," said Marvin, "I parked it for him."
|
|
|
|
"The why ... didn't ... you ... tell us!"
|
|
|
|
"You said you wanted excitement and adventure and really wild
|
|
things."
|
|
|
|
"This is awful," said Arthur unnecessarily in the pause which
|
|
followed.
|
|
|
|
"That's what I said," confirmed Marvin.
|
|
|
|
On a different frequency, the sub-ether receiver had picked up a
|
|
public broadcast, which now echoed round the cabin.
|
|
|
|
"... fine weather for the concert here this afternoon. I'm
|
|
standing here in front of the stage," the reporter lied, "in the
|
|
middle of the Rudlit Desert, and with the aid of hyperbinoptic
|
|
glasses I can just about make out the huge audience cowering
|
|
there on the horizon all around me. Behind me the speaker stacks
|
|
rise like a sheer cliff face, and high above me the sun is
|
|
shining away and doesn't know what's going to hit it. The
|
|
environmentalist lobby do know what's going to hit it, and they
|
|
claim that the concert will cause earthquakes, tidal waves,
|
|
hurricanes, irreparable damage to the atmosphere, and all the
|
|
usual things that environmentalists usually go on about.
|
|
|
|
"But I've just had a report that a representative of Disaster
|
|
Area met with the environmentalists at lunchtime, and had them
|
|
all shot, so nothing now lies in the way of ..."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod switched it off. He turned to Ford.
|
|
|
|
"You know what I'm thinking?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"I think so," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Tell me what you think I'm thinking."
|
|
|
|
"I think you're thinking it's time we get off this ship."
|
|
|
|
"I think you're right," said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"I think you're right," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"How?" said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Quiet," said Ford and Zaphod, "we're thinking."
|
|
|
|
"So this is it," said Arthur, "we're going to die."
|
|
|
|
"I wish you'd stop saying that," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
It is worth repeating at this point the theories that Ford had
|
|
come up with, on his first encounter with human beings, to
|
|
account for their peculiar habit of continually stating and
|
|
restating the very very obvious, as it 'It's a nice day," or
|
|
"You're very tall," or "So this is it, we're going to die."
|
|
|
|
His first theory was that if human beings didn't keep exercising
|
|
their lips, their mouths probably seized up.
|
|
|
|
After a few months of observation he had come up with a second
|
|
theory, which was this - "If human beings don't keep exercising
|
|
their lips, their brains start working."
|
|
|
|
In fact, this second theory is more literally true of the
|
|
Belcebron people of Kakrafoon.
|
|
|
|
The Belcebron people used to cause great resentment and
|
|
insecurity amongst neighboring races by being one of the most
|
|
enlightened, accomplished, and above all quiet civilizations in
|
|
the Galaxy.
|
|
|
|
As a punishment for this behaviour, which was held to be
|
|
offensively self righteous and provocative, a Galactic Tribunal
|
|
inflicted on them that most cruel of all social diseases,
|
|
telepathy. Consequently, in order to prevent themselves
|
|
broadcasting every slightest thought that crossed their minds to
|
|
anyone within a five mile radius, they now have to talk very
|
|
loudly and continuously about the weather, their little aches and
|
|
pains, the match this afternoon and what a noisy place Kakrafoon
|
|
had suddenly become.
|
|
|
|
Another method of temporarily blotting out their minds is to play
|
|
host to a Disaster Area concert.
|
|
|
|
The timing of the concert was critical.
|
|
|
|
The ship had to begin its dive before the concert began in order
|
|
to hit the sun six minutes and thirty-seven seconds before the
|
|
climax of the song to which it related, so that the light of the
|
|
solar flares had time to travel out to Kakrafoon.
|
|
|
|
The ship had already been diving for several minutes by the time
|
|
that Ford Prefect had completed his search of the other
|
|
compartments of the black ship. He burst back into the cabin.
|
|
|
|
The sun of Kakrafoon loomed terrifyingly large on the vision
|
|
screen, its blazing white inferno of fusing hydrogen nuclei
|
|
growing moment by moment as the ship plunged onwards, unheeding
|
|
the thumping and banging of Zaphod's hands on the control panel.
|
|
Arthur and Trillian had the fixed expressions of rabbits on a
|
|
night road who think that the best way of dealing with
|
|
approaching headlights is to stare them out.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod span round, wild-eyed.
|
|
|
|
"Ford," he said, "how many escape capsules are there?"
|
|
|
|
"None," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod gibbered.
|
|
|
|
"Did you count them?" he yelled.
|
|
|
|
"Twice," said Ford, "did you manage to raise the stage crew on
|
|
the radio?"
|
|
|
|
"Yeah," said Zaphod, bitterly, "I said there were a whole bunch
|
|
of people on board, and they said to say `hi' to everybody."
|
|
|
|
Ford goggled.
|
|
|
|
"Didn't you tell them who we were?"
|
|
|
|
"Oh yeah. They said it was a great honour. That and something
|
|
about a restaurant bill and my executors."
|
|
|
|
Ford pushed Arthur aside and leaned forward over the control
|
|
console.
|
|
|
|
"Does none of this function?" he said savagely.
|
|
|
|
"All overridden."
|
|
|
|
"Smash the autopilot."
|
|
|
|
"Find it first. Nothing connects."
|
|
|
|
There was a moment's cold silence.
|
|
|
|
Arthur was stumbling round the back of the cabin. He stopped
|
|
suddenly.
|
|
|
|
"Incidentally," he said, "what does teleport mean?"
|
|
|
|
Another moment passed.
|
|
|
|
Slowly, the others turned to face him.
|
|
|
|
"Probably the wrong moment to ask," said Arthur, "It's just I
|
|
remember hearing you use the word a short while ago and I only
|
|
bring it up because ..."
|
|
|
|
"Where," said Ford Prefect quietly, "does it say teleport?"
|
|
|
|
"Well, just over here in fact," said Arthur, pointing at a dark
|
|
control box in the rear of the cabin, "Just under the word
|
|
`emergency', above the word `system' and beside the sign saying
|
|
`out of order'."
|
|
|
|
In the pandemonium that instantly followed, the only action to
|
|
follow was that of Ford Prefect lunging across the cabin to the
|
|
small black box that Arthur had indicated and stabbing repeatedly
|
|
at the single small black button set into it.
|
|
|
|
A six-foot square panel slid open beside it revealing a
|
|
compartment which resembled a multiple shower unit that had found
|
|
a new function in life as an electrician's junk store. Half-
|
|
finished wiring hung from the ceiling, a jumble of abandoned
|
|
components lay strewn on the floor, and the programming panel
|
|
lolled out of the cavity in the wall into which it should have
|
|
been secured.
|
|
|
|
A junior Disaster Area accountant, visiting the shipyard where
|
|
this ship was being constructed, had demanded to know of the
|
|
works foreman why the hell they were fitting an extremely
|
|
expensive teleport into a ship which only had one important
|
|
journey to make, and that unmanned. The foreman had explained
|
|
that the teleport was available at a ten per cent discount and
|
|
the accountant had explained that this was immaterial; the
|
|
foreman had explained that it was the finest, most powerful and
|
|
sophisticated teleport that money could buy and the accountant
|
|
had explained that the money did not wish to buy it; the foreman
|
|
had explained that people would still need to enter and leave the
|
|
ship and the accountant had explained that the ship sported a
|
|
perfectly serviceable door; the foreman had explained that the
|
|
accountant could go and boil his head and the accountant had
|
|
explained to the foreman that the thing approaching him rapidly
|
|
from his left was a knuckle sandwich. After the explanations had
|
|
been concluded, work was discontinued on the teleport which
|
|
subsequently passed unnoticed on the invoice as "Sund. explns."
|
|
at five times the price.
|
|
|
|
"Hell's donkeys," muttered Zaphod as he and Ford attempted to
|
|
sort through the tangle of wiring.
|
|
|
|
After a moment or so Ford told him to stand back. He tossed a
|
|
coin into the teleport and jiggled a switch on the lolling
|
|
control panel. With a crackle and spit of light, the coin
|
|
vanished.
|
|
|
|
"That much of it works," said Ford, "however, there is no
|
|
guidance system. A matter transference teleport without guidance
|
|
programming could put you ... well, anywhere."
|
|
|
|
The sun of Kakrafoon loomed huge on the screen.
|
|
|
|
"Who cares," said Zaphod, "we go where we go."
|
|
|
|
"And," said Ford, "there is no autosystem. We couldn't all go.
|
|
Someone would have to stay and operate it."
|
|
|
|
A solemn moment shuffled past. The sun loomed larger and larger.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, Marvin kid," said Zaphod brightly, "how you doing?"
|
|
|
|
"Very badly I suspect," muttered Marvin.
|
|
|
|
A shortish while later, the concert on Kakrafoon reached an
|
|
unexpected climax.
|
|
|
|
The black ship with its single morose occupant had plunged on
|
|
schedule into the nuclear furnace of the sun. Massive solar
|
|
flares licked out from it millions of miles into space, thrilling
|
|
and in a few cases spilling the dozen or so Flare Riders who had
|
|
been coasting close to the surface of the sun in anticipation of
|
|
the moment.
|
|
|
|
Moments before the flare light reached Kakrafoon the pounding
|
|
desert cracked along a deep faultline. A huge and hitherto
|
|
undetected underground river lying far beneath the surface gushed
|
|
to the surface to be followed seconds later by the eruption of
|
|
millions of tons of boiling lava that flowed hundreds of feet
|
|
into the air, instantaneously vaporizing the river both above and
|
|
below the surface in an explosion that echoed to the far side of
|
|
the world and back again.
|
|
|
|
Those - very few - who witnessed the event and survived swear
|
|
that the whole hundred thousand square miles of the desert rose
|
|
into the air like a mile-thick pancake, flipped itself over and
|
|
fell back down. At that precise moment the solar radiation from
|
|
the flares filtered through the clouds of vaporized water and
|
|
struck the ground.
|
|
|
|
A year later, the hundred thousand square mile desert was thick
|
|
with flowers. The structure of the atmosphere around the planet
|
|
was subtly altered. The sun blazed less harshly in the summer,
|
|
the cold bit less bitterly in the winter, pleasant rain fell more
|
|
often, and slowly the desert world of Kakrafoon became a
|
|
paradise. Even the telepathic power with which the people of
|
|
Kakrafoon had been cursed was permanently dispersed by the force
|
|
of the explosion.
|
|
|
|
A spokesman for Disaster Area - the one who had had all the
|
|
environmentalists shot - was later quoted as saying that it had
|
|
been "a good gig".
|
|
|
|
Many people spoke movingly of the healing powers of music. A few
|
|
sceptical scientists examined the records of the events more
|
|
closely, and claimed that they had discovered faint vestiges of a
|
|
vast artificially induced Improbability Field drifting in from a
|
|
nearby region of space.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 22
|
|
|
|
Arthur woke up and instantly regretted it. Hangovers he'd had,
|
|
but never anything on this scale. This was it, this was the big
|
|
one, this was the ultimate pits. Matter transference beams, he
|
|
decided, were not as much fun as, say, a good solid kick in the
|
|
head.
|
|
|
|
Being for the moment unwilling to move on account of a dull
|
|
stomping throb he was experiencing, he lay a while and thought.
|
|
The trouble with most forms of transport, he thought, is
|
|
basically one of them not being worth all the bother. On Earth -
|
|
when there had been an Earth, before it was demolished to make
|
|
way for a new hyperspace bypass - the problem had been with cars.
|
|
The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime
|
|
from out of the ground where it had been safely hidden out of
|
|
harm's way, turning it into tar to cover the land with, smoke to
|
|
fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed
|
|
to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from
|
|
one place to another - particularly when the place you arrived at
|
|
had probably become, as a result of this, very similar to the
|
|
place you had left, i.e. covered with tar, full of smoke and
|
|
short of fish.
|
|
|
|
And what about matter transference beams? Any form of transport
|
|
which involved tearing you apart atom by atom, flinging those
|
|
atoms through the sub-ether, and then jamming them back together
|
|
again just when they were getting their first taste of freedom
|
|
for years had to be bad news.
|
|
|
|
Many people had thought exactly this before Arthur Dent and had
|
|
even gone to the lengths of writing songs about it. Here is one
|
|
that used regularly to be chanted by huge crowds outside the
|
|
Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Teleport Systems factory on
|
|
Happi-Werld III:
|
|
|
|
Aldebaran's great, OK,
|
|
|
|
Algol's pretty neat,
|
|
|
|
Betelgeuse's pretty girls,
|
|
|
|
Will knock you off your feet.
|
|
|
|
They'll do anything you like,
|
|
|
|
Real fast and then real slow,
|
|
|
|
But if you have to take me apart to get me there,
|
|
|
|
Then I don't want to go.
|
|
|
|
Singing,
|
|
|
|
Take me apart, take me apart,
|
|
|
|
What a way to roam,
|
|
|
|
And if you have to take me apart to get me there,
|
|
|
|
I'd rather stay at home.
|
|
|
|
Sirius is paved with gold
|
|
|
|
So I've heard it said
|
|
|
|
By nuts who then go on to say
|
|
|
|
"See Tau before you're dead."
|
|
|
|
I'll gladly take the high road
|
|
|
|
Or even take the low,
|
|
|
|
But if you have to take me apart to get me there,
|
|
|
|
Then I, for one, won't go.
|
|
|
|
Singing,
|
|
|
|
Take me apart, take me apart, You must be off your head,
|
|
|
|
And if you try to take me apart to get me there,
|
|
|
|
I'll stay right here in bed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
I teleported home one night,
|
|
|
|
With Ron and Sid and Meg,
|
|
|
|
Ron stole Meggie's heart away,
|
|
|
|
And I got Sidney's leg.
|
|
|
|
Arthur felt the waves of pain slowly receding, though he was
|
|
still aware of a dull stomping throb. Slowly, carefully, he stood
|
|
up.
|
|
|
|
"Can you hear a dull stomping throb?" said Ford Prefect.
|
|
|
|
Arthur span round and wobbled uncertainly. Ford Prefect was
|
|
approaching looking red eyed and pasty.
|
|
|
|
"Where are we?" gasped Arthur.
|
|
|
|
Ford looked around. They were standing in a long curving corridor
|
|
which stretched out of sight in both directions. The outer steel
|
|
wall - which was painted in that sickly shade of pale green which
|
|
they use in schools, hospitals and mental asylums to keep the
|
|
inmates subdued - curved over the tops of their heads where it
|
|
met the inner perpendicular wall which, oddly enough was covered
|
|
in dark brown hessian wall weave. The floor was of dark green
|
|
ribbed rubber.
|
|
|
|
Ford moved over to a very thick dark transparent panel set in the
|
|
outer wall. It was several layers deep, yet through it he could
|
|
see pinpoints of distant stars.
|
|
|
|
"I think we're in a spaceship of some kind," he said.
|
|
|
|
Down the corridor came the sound of a dull stomping throb.
|
|
|
|
"Trillian?" called Arthur nervously, "Zaphod?"
|
|
|
|
Ford shrugged.
|
|
|
|
"Nowhere about," he said, "I've looked. They could be anywhere.
|
|
An unprogrammed teleport can throw you light years in any
|
|
direction. Judging by the way I feel I should think we've
|
|
travelled a very long way indeed."
|
|
|
|
"How do you feel?"
|
|
|
|
"Bad."
|
|
|
|
"Do you think they're ..."
|
|
|
|
"Where they are, how they are, there's no way we can know and no
|
|
way we can do anything about it. Do what I do."
|
|
|
|
"What?"
|
|
|
|
"Don't think about it."
|
|
|
|
Arthur turned this thought over in his mind, reluctantly saw the
|
|
wisdom of it, tucked it up and put it away. He took a deep
|
|
breath.
|
|
|
|
"Footsteps!" exclaimed Ford suddenly.
|
|
|
|
"Where?"
|
|
|
|
"That noise. That stomping throb. Pounding feet. Listen!"
|
|
|
|
Arthur listened. The noise echoed round the corridor at them from
|
|
an indeterminate distance. It was the muffled sound of pounding
|
|
footsteps, and it was noticeably louder.
|
|
|
|
"Let's move," said Ford sharply. They both moved - in opposite
|
|
directions.
|
|
|
|
"Not that way," said Ford, "that's where they're coming from."
|
|
|
|
"No it's not," said Arthur, "They're coming from that way."
|
|
|
|
"They're not, they're ..."
|
|
|
|
They both stopped. They both turned. They both listened intently.
|
|
They both agreed with each other. They both set off into opposite
|
|
directions again.
|
|
|
|
Fear gripped them.
|
|
|
|
From both directions the noise was getting louder.
|
|
|
|
A few yards to their left another corridor ran at right angles to
|
|
the inner wall. They ran to it and hurried along it. It was dark,
|
|
immensely long and, as they passed down it, gave them the
|
|
impression that it was getting colder and colder. Other corridors
|
|
gave off it to the left and right, each very dark and each
|
|
subjecting them to sharp blasts of icy air as they passed.
|
|
|
|
They stopped for a moment in alarm. The further down the corridor
|
|
they went, the louder became the sound of pounding feet.
|
|
|
|
They pressed themselves back against the cold wall and listened
|
|
furiously. The cold, the dark and the drumming of disembodied
|
|
feet was getting to them badly. Ford shivered, partly with the
|
|
cold, but partly with the memory of stories his favourite mother
|
|
used to tell him when he was a mere slip of a Betelgeusian, ankle
|
|
high to an Arcturan Megagrasshopper: stories of dead ships,
|
|
haunted hulks that roamed restlessly round the obscurer regions
|
|
of deep space infested with demons or the ghosts of forgotten
|
|
crews; stories too of incautious travellers who found and entered
|
|
such ships; stories of ... - then Ford remembered the brown
|
|
hessian wall weave in the first corridor and pulled himself
|
|
together. However ghosts and demons may choose to decorate their
|
|
death hulks, he thought to himself, he would lay any money you
|
|
liked it wasn't with hessian wall weave. He grasped Arthur by the
|
|
arm.
|
|
|
|
"Back the way we came," he said firmly and they started to
|
|
retrace their steps.
|
|
|
|
A moment later they leap like startled lizards down the nearest
|
|
corridor junction as the owners of the drumming feet suddenly
|
|
hove into view directly in front of them.
|
|
|
|
Hidden behind the corner they goggled in amazement as about two
|
|
dozen overweight men and women pounded past them in track suits
|
|
panting and wheezing in a manner that would make a heart surgeon
|
|
gibber.
|
|
|
|
Ford Prefect stared after them.
|
|
|
|
"Joggers!" he hissed, as the sound of their feet echoed away up
|
|
and down the network of corridors.
|
|
|
|
"Joggers?" whispered Arthur Dent.
|
|
|
|
"Joggers," said Ford prefect with a shrug.
|
|
|
|
The corridor they were concealed in was not like the others. It
|
|
was very short, and ended at a large steel door. Ford examined
|
|
it, discovered the opening mechanism and pushed it wide.
|
|
|
|
The first thing that hit their eyes was what appeared to be a
|
|
coffin.
|
|
|
|
And the next four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine things
|
|
that hit their eyes were also coffins.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 23
|
|
|
|
The vault was low ceilinged, dimly lit and gigantic. At the far
|
|
end, about three hundred yards away an archway let through to
|
|
what appeared to be a similar chamber, similarly occupied.
|
|
|
|
Ford Prefect let out a low whistle as he stepped down on to the
|
|
floor of the vault.
|
|
|
|
"Wild," he said.
|
|
|
|
"What's so great about dead people?" asked Arthur, nervously
|
|
stepping down after him.
|
|
|
|
"Dunno," said Ford, "Let's find out shall we?"
|
|
|
|
On closer inspection the coffins seemed to be more like
|
|
sarcophagi. They stood about waist high and were constructed of
|
|
what appeared to be white marble, which is almost certainly what
|
|
it was - something that only appeared to be white marble. The
|
|
tops were semi-translucent, and through them could dimly be
|
|
perceived the features of their late and presumably lamented
|
|
occupants. They were humanoid, and had clearly left the troubles
|
|
of whatever world it was they came from far behind them, but
|
|
beyond that little else could be discerned.
|
|
|
|
Rolling slowly round the floor between the sarcophagi was a
|
|
heavy, oily white gas which Arthur at first thought might be
|
|
there to give the place a little atmosphere until he discovered
|
|
that it also froze his ankles. The sarcophagi too were intensely
|
|
cold to the touch.
|
|
|
|
Ford suddenly crouched down beside one of them. He pulled a
|
|
corner of his towel out of his satchel and started to rub
|
|
furiously at something.
|
|
|
|
"Look, there's a plaque on this one," he explained to Arthur,
|
|
"It's frosted over."
|
|
|
|
He rubbed the frost clear and examined the engraved characters.
|
|
To Arthur they looked like the footprints of a spider that had
|
|
had one too many of whatever it is that spiders have on a night
|
|
out, but Ford instantly recognized an early form of Galactic
|
|
Eezeereed.
|
|
|
|
"It says `Golgafrincham Ark Fleet, Ship B, Hold Seven, Telephone
|
|
Sanitizer Second Class' - and a serial number."
|
|
|
|
"A telephone sanitizer?" said Arthur, "a dead telephone
|
|
sanitizer?"
|
|
|
|
"Best kind."
|
|
|
|
"But what's he doing here?"
|
|
|
|
Ford peered through the top at the figure within.
|
|
|
|
"Not a lot," he said, and suddenly flashed one of those grins of
|
|
his which always made people think he'd been overdoing things
|
|
recently and should try to get some rest.
|
|
|
|
He scampered over to another sarcophagus. A moment's brisk towel
|
|
work and he announced:
|
|
|
|
"This one's a dead hairdresser. Hoopy!"
|
|
|
|
The next sarcophagus revealed itself to be the last resting place
|
|
of an advertising account executive; the one after that contained
|
|
a second-hand car salesman, third class.
|
|
|
|
An inspection hatch let into the floor suddenly caught Ford's
|
|
attention, and he squatted down to unfasten it, thrashing away at
|
|
the clouds of freezing gas that threatened to envelope him.
|
|
|
|
A thought occurred to Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"If these are just coffins," he said, "Why are they kept so
|
|
cold?"
|
|
|
|
"Or, indeed, why are they kept anyway," said Ford tugging the
|
|
hatchway open. The gas poured down through it. "Why in fact is
|
|
anyone going to all the trouble and expense of carting five
|
|
thousand dead bodies through space?"
|
|
|
|
"Ten thousand," said Arthur, pointing at the archway through
|
|
which the next chamber was dimly visible.
|
|
|
|
Ford stuck his head down through the floor hatchway. He looked up
|
|
again.
|
|
|
|
"Fifteen thousand," he said, "there's another lot down there."
|
|
|
|
"Fifteen million," said a voice.
|
|
|
|
"That's a lot," said Ford, "A lot a lot."
|
|
|
|
"Turn around slowly," barked the voice, "and put your hands up.
|
|
Any other move and I blast you into tiny tiny bits."
|
|
|
|
"Hello?" said Ford, turning round slowly, putting his hands up
|
|
and not making any other move.
|
|
|
|
"Why," said Arthur Dent, "isn't anyone ever pleased to see us?"
|
|
|
|
Standing silhouetted in the doorway through which they had
|
|
entered the vault was the man who wasn't pleased to see them. His
|
|
displeasure was communicated partly by the barking hectoring
|
|
quality of his voice and partly by the viciousness with which he
|
|
waved a long silver Kill-O-Zap gun at them. The designer of the
|
|
gun had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. "Make
|
|
it evil," he'd been told. "Make it totally clear that this gun
|
|
has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone
|
|
standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them.
|
|
If that means sticking all sort of spikes and prongs and
|
|
blackened bits all over it then so be it. This is not a gun for
|
|
hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it
|
|
is a gun for going out and making people miserable with."
|
|
|
|
Ford and Arthur looked at the gun unhappily.
|
|
|
|
The man with the gun moved from the door and circled round them.
|
|
As he came into the light they could see his black and gold
|
|
uniform on which the buttons were so highly polished that they
|
|
shone with an intensity that would have made an approaching
|
|
motorist flash his lights in annoyance.
|
|
|
|
He gestured at the door.
|
|
|
|
"Out," he said. People who can supply that amount of fire power
|
|
don't need to supply verbs as well. Ford and Arthur went out,
|
|
closely followed by the wrong end of the Kill-O-Zap gun and the
|
|
buttons.
|
|
|
|
Turning into the corridor they were jostled by twenty-four
|
|
oncoming joggers, now showered and changed, who swept on past
|
|
them into the vault. Arthur turned to watch them in confusion.
|
|
|
|
"Move!" screamed their captor.
|
|
|
|
Arthur moved.
|
|
|
|
Ford shrugged and moved.
|
|
|
|
In the vault the joggers went to twenty-four empty sarcophagi
|
|
along the side wall, opened them, climbed in, and fell into
|
|
twenty-four dreamless sleeps.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 24
|
|
|
|
"Er, captain ..."
|
|
|
|
"Yes, Number One?"
|
|
|
|
"Just heard a sort of report thingy from Number Two."
|
|
|
|
"Oh, dear."
|
|
|
|
High up in the bridge of the ship, the Captain stared out into
|
|
the infinite reaches of space with mild irritation. From where he
|
|
reclined beneath a wide domed bubble he could see before and
|
|
above them the vast panorama of stars through which they were
|
|
moving - a panorama that had thinned out noticably during the
|
|
course of the voyage. Turning and looking backwards, over the
|
|
vast two-mile bulk of the ship he could see the far denser mass
|
|
of stars behind them which seemed to form almost a solid band.
|
|
This was the view through the Galactic centre from which they
|
|
were travelling, and indeed had been travelling for years, at a
|
|
speed that he couldn't quite remember at the moment, but he knew
|
|
it was terribly fast. It was something approaching the speed of
|
|
something or other, or was it three times the speed of something
|
|
else? Jolly impressive anyway. He peered into the bright distance
|
|
behind the ship, looking for something. He did this every few
|
|
minutes or so, but never found what he was looking for. He didn't
|
|
let it worry him though. The scientist chaps had been very
|
|
insistent that everything was going to be perfectly alright
|
|
providing nobody panicked and everybody got on and did their bit
|
|
in an orderly fashion.
|
|
|
|
He wasn't panicking. As far as he was concerned everything was
|
|
going splendidly. He dabbed at his shoulder with a large frothy
|
|
sponge. It crept back into his mind that he was feeling mildly
|
|
irritated about something. Now what was all that about? A slight
|
|
cough alerted him to the fact that the ship's first officer was
|
|
still standing nearby.
|
|
|
|
Nice chap, Number One. Not of the very brightest, had the odd
|
|
spot of difficulty doing up his shoe laces, but jolly good
|
|
officer material for all that. The Captain wasn't a man to kick a
|
|
chap when he was bending over trying to do up his shoe laces,
|
|
however long it took him. Not like that ghastly Number Two,
|
|
strutting about all over the place, polishing his buttons,
|
|
issuing reports every hour: "Ship's still moving, Captain."
|
|
"Still on course, Captain." "Oxygen levels still being
|
|
maintained, Captain." "Give it a miss," was the Captain's vote.
|
|
Ah yes, that was the thing that had been irritating him. He
|
|
peered down at Number One.
|
|
|
|
"Yes, Captain, he was shouting something or other about having
|
|
found some prisoners ..."
|
|
|
|
The Captain thought about this. Seemed pretty unlikely to him,
|
|
but he wasn't one to stand in his officers' way.
|
|
|
|
"Well, perhaps that'll keep him happy for a bit," he said, "He's
|
|
always wanted some."
|
|
|
|
Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent trudged onwards up the ship's
|
|
apparently endless corridors. Number Two marched behind them
|
|
barking the occasional order about not making any false moves or
|
|
trying any funny stuff. They seemed to have passed at least a
|
|
mile of continuous brown hessian wall weave. Finally they reached
|
|
a large steel door which slid open when Number Two shouted at it.
|
|
|
|
They entered.
|
|
|
|
To the eyes of Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent, the most remarkable
|
|
thing about the ship's bridge was not the fifty foot diameter
|
|
hemispherical dome which covered it, and through which the
|
|
dazzling display of stars shone down on them: to people who have
|
|
eaten at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, such wonders
|
|
are commonplace. Nor was it the bewildering array of instruments
|
|
that crowded the long circumferential wall around them. To Arthur
|
|
this was exactly what spaceships were traditionally supposed to
|
|
look like, and to Ford it looked thoroughly antiquated: it
|
|
confirmed his suspicions that Disaster Area's stuntship had taken
|
|
them back at least a million, if not two million, years before
|
|
their own time.
|
|
|
|
No, the thing that really caught them off balance was the bath.
|
|
|
|
The bath stood on a six foot pedestal of rough hewn blue water
|
|
crystal and was of a baroque monstrosity not often seen outside
|
|
the Maximegalon Museum of Diseased Imaginings. An intestinal
|
|
jumble of plumbing had been picked out in gold leaf rather than
|
|
decently buried at midnight in an unmarked grave; the taps and
|
|
shower attachment would have made a gargoyle jump.
|
|
|
|
As the dominant centrepiece of a starship bridge it was terribly
|
|
wrong, and it was with the embittered air of a man who knew this
|
|
that Number Two approached it.
|
|
|
|
"Captain, sir!" he shouted through clenched teeth - a difficult
|
|
trick but he'd had years during which to perfect it.
|
|
|
|
A large genial face and a genial foam covered arm popped up above
|
|
the rim of the monstrous bath.
|
|
|
|
"Ah, hello, Number Two," said the Captain, waving a cheery
|
|
sponge, "having a nice day?"
|
|
|
|
Number Two snapped even further to attention than he already was.
|
|
|
|
"I have brought you the prisoners I located in freezer bay seven,
|
|
sir!" he yapped.
|
|
|
|
Ford and Arthur coughed in confusion.
|
|
|
|
"Er ... hello," they said.
|
|
|
|
The Captain beamed at them. So Number Two had really found some
|
|
prisoners. Well, good for him, thought the Captain, nice to see a
|
|
chap doing what he's best at.
|
|
|
|
"Oh, hello there," he said to them, "Excuse me not getting up,
|
|
having a quick bath. Well, jynnan tonnyx all round then. Look in
|
|
the fridge Number one."
|
|
|
|
"Certainly sir."
|
|
|
|
It is a curious fact, and one to which no one knows quite how
|
|
much importance to attach, that something like 85% of all known
|
|
worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have
|
|
invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx, or gee-N'N-T'N-ix, or
|
|
jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand or more variations on
|
|
the same phonetic theme. The drinks themselves are not the same,
|
|
and vary between the Sivolvian "chinanto/mnigs" which is ordinary
|
|
water server at slightly above room temperature, and the
|
|
Gagrakackan "tzjin-anthony-ks" which kills cows at a hundred
|
|
paces; and in fact the one common factor between all of them,
|
|
beyond the fact that the names sound the same, is that they were
|
|
all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact
|
|
with any other worlds.
|
|
|
|
What can be made of this fact? It exists in total isolation. As
|
|
far as any theory of structural linguistics is concerned it is
|
|
right off the graph, and yet it persists. Old structural
|
|
linguists get very angry when young structural linguists go on
|
|
about it. Young structural linguists get deeply excited about it
|
|
and stay up late at night convinced that they are very close to
|
|
something of profound importance, and end up becoming old
|
|
structural linguists before their time, getting very angry with
|
|
the young ones. Structural linguistics is a bitterly divided and
|
|
unhappy discipline, and a large number of its practitioners spend
|
|
too many nights drowning their problems in Ouisghian Zodahs.
|
|
|
|
Number Two stood before the Captain's bathtub trembling with
|
|
frustration.
|
|
|
|
"Don't you want to interrogate the prisoners sir?" he squealed.
|
|
|
|
The Captain peered at him in bemusement.
|
|
|
|
"Why on Golgafrincham should I want to do that?" he asked.
|
|
|
|
"To get information out of them, sir! To find out why they came
|
|
here!"
|
|
|
|
"Oh no, no, no," said the Captain, "I expect they just dropped in
|
|
for a quick jynnan tonnyx, don't you?"
|
|
|
|
"But sir, they're my prisoners! I must interrogate them!"
|
|
|
|
The Captain looked at them doubtfully.
|
|
|
|
"Oh all right," he said, "if you must. Ask them what they want to
|
|
drink."
|
|
|
|
A hard cold gleam came into Number Two's eyes. He advanced slowly
|
|
on Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent.
|
|
|
|
"All right, you scum," he growled, "you vermin ..." He jabbed
|
|
Ford with the Kill-O-Zap gun.
|
|
|
|
"Steady on, Number Two," admonished the Captain gently.
|
|
|
|
"What do you want to drink!!!" Number Two screamed.
|
|
|
|
"Well the jynnan tonnyx sounds very nice to me," said Ford, "What
|
|
about you Arthur?"
|
|
|
|
Arthur blinked.
|
|
|
|
"What? Oh, er, yes," he said.
|
|
|
|
"With ice or without?" bellowed Number Two.
|
|
|
|
"Oh, with please," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Lemon??!!"
|
|
|
|
"Yes please," said Ford, "and do you have any of those little
|
|
biscuits? You know, the cheesy ones?"
|
|
|
|
"I'm asking the questions!!!!" howled Number Two, his body
|
|
quaking with apoplectic fury.
|
|
|
|
"Er, Number Two ..." said the Captain softly.
|
|
|
|
"Sir?!"
|
|
|
|
"Push off, would you, there's a good chap. I'm trying to have a
|
|
relaxing bath."
|
|
|
|
Number Two's eyes narrowed and became what are known in the
|
|
Shouting and Killing People trade as cold slits, the idea
|
|
presumably being to give your opponent the impression that you
|
|
have lost your glasses or are having difficulty keeping awake.
|
|
Why this is frightening is an, as yet, unresolved problem.
|
|
|
|
He advanced on the captain, his (Number Two's) mouth a thin hard
|
|
line. Again, tricky to know why this is understood as fighting
|
|
behaviour. If, whilst wandering through the jungle of Traal, you
|
|
were suddenly to come upon the fabled Ravenous Bugblatter Beast,
|
|
you would have reason to be grateful if its mouth was a thin hard
|
|
line rather than, as it usually is, a gaping mass of slavering
|
|
fangs.
|
|
|
|
"May I remind you sir," hissed Number Two at the Captain, "that
|
|
you have now been in that bath for over three years?!" This final
|
|
shot delivered, Number Two spun on his heel and stalked off to a
|
|
corner to practise darting eye movements in the mirror.
|
|
|
|
The Captain squirmed in his bath. He gave Ford Prefect a lame
|
|
smile.
|
|
|
|
"Well you need to relax a lot in a job like mine," he said.
|
|
|
|
Ford slowly lowered his hands. It provoked no reaction. Arthur
|
|
lowered his.
|
|
|
|
Treading very slowly and carefully, Ford moved over to the bath
|
|
pedestal. He patted it.
|
|
|
|
"Nice," he lied.
|
|
|
|
He wondered if it was safe to grin. Very slowly and carefully, he
|
|
grinned. It was safe.
|
|
|
|
"Er ..." he said to the Captain.
|
|
|
|
"Yes?" said the Captain.
|
|
|
|
"I wonder," said Ford, "could I ask you actually what your job is
|
|
in fact?"
|
|
|
|
A hand tapped him on the shoulder. He span round.
|
|
|
|
It was the first officer.
|
|
|
|
"Your drinks," he said.
|
|
|
|
"Ah, thank you," said Ford. He and Arthur took their jynnan
|
|
tonnyx. Arthur sipped his, and was surprised to discover it
|
|
tasted very like a whisky and soda.
|
|
|
|
"I mean, I couldn't help noticing," said Ford, also taking a sip,
|
|
"the bodies. In the hold."
|
|
|
|
"Bodies?" said the Captain in surprise.
|
|
|
|
Ford paused and thought to himself. Never take anything for
|
|
granted, he thought. Could it be that the Captain doesn't know
|
|
he's got fifteen million dead bodies on his ship?
|
|
|
|
The Captain was nodding cheerfully at him. He also appeared to be
|
|
playing with a rubber duck.
|
|
|
|
Ford looked around. Number Two was staring at him in the mirror,
|
|
but only for an instant: his eyes were constantly on the move.
|
|
The first officer was just standing there holding the drinks tray
|
|
and smiling benignly.
|
|
|
|
"Bodies?" said the Captain again.
|
|
|
|
Ford licked his lips.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," he said, "All those dead telephone sanitizers and account
|
|
executives, you know, down in the hold."
|
|
|
|
The Captain stared at him. Suddenly he threw back his head and
|
|
laughed.
|
|
|
|
"Oh they're not dead," he said, "Good Lord no, no they're frozen.
|
|
They're going to be revived."
|
|
|
|
Ford did something he very rarely did. He blinked.
|
|
|
|
Arthur seemed to come out of a trance.
|
|
|
|
"You mean you've got a hold full of frozen hairdressers?" he
|
|
said.
|
|
|
|
"Oh yes," said the Captain, "Millions of them. Hairdressers,
|
|
tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers,
|
|
security guards, public relations executives, management
|
|
consultants, you name them. We're going to colonize another
|
|
planet."
|
|
|
|
Ford wobbled very slightly.
|
|
|
|
"Exciting isn't it?" said the Captain.
|
|
|
|
"What, with that lot?" said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Ah, now don't misunderstand me," said the Captain, "we're just
|
|
one of the ships in the Ark Fleet. We're the `B' Ark you see.
|
|
Sorry, could I just ask you to run a bit more hot water for me?"
|
|
|
|
Arthur obliged, and a cascade of pink frothy water swirled around
|
|
the bath. The Captain let out a sigh of pleasure.
|
|
|
|
"Thank you so much my dear fellow. Do help yourselves to more
|
|
drinks of course."
|
|
|
|
Ford tossed down his drink, took the bottle from the first
|
|
officer's tray and refilled his glass to the top.
|
|
|
|
"What," he said, "is a `B' Ark?"
|
|
|
|
"This is," said the Captain, and swished the foamy water around
|
|
joyfully with the duck.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," said Ford, "but ..."
|
|
|
|
"Well what happened you see was," said the Captain, "our planet,
|
|
the world from which we have come, was, so to speak, doomed."
|
|
|
|
"Doomed?"
|
|
|
|
"Oh yes. So what everyone thought was, let's pack the whole
|
|
population into some giant spaceships and go and settle on
|
|
another planet."
|
|
|
|
Having told this much of his story, he settled back with a
|
|
satisfied grunt.
|
|
|
|
"You mean a less doomed one?" promoted Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"What did you say dear fellow?"
|
|
|
|
"A less doomed planet. You were going to settle on."
|
|
|
|
"Are going to settle on, yes. So it was decided to build three
|
|
ships, you see, three Arks in Space, and ... I'm not boring you
|
|
am I?"
|
|
|
|
"No, no," said Ford firmly, "it's fascinating."
|
|
|
|
"You know it's delightful," reflected the Captain, "to have
|
|
someone else to talk to for a change."
|
|
|
|
Number Two's eyes darted feverishly about the room again and then
|
|
settled back on the mirror, like a pair of flies briefly
|
|
distracted from their favourite prey of months old meat.
|
|
|
|
"Trouble with a long journey like this," continued the Captain,
|
|
"is that you end up just talking to yourself a lot, which gets
|
|
terribly boring because half the time you know what you're going
|
|
to say next."
|
|
|
|
"Only half the time?" asked Arthur in surprise.
|
|
|
|
The Captain thought for a moment.
|
|
|
|
"Yes, about half I'd say. Anyway - where's the soap?" He fished
|
|
around and found it.
|
|
|
|
"Yes, so anyway," he resumed, "the idea was that into the first
|
|
ship, the `A' ship, would go all the brilliant leaders, the
|
|
scientists, the great artists, you know, all the achievers; and
|
|
into the third, or `C' ship, would go all the people who did the
|
|
actual work, who made things and did things, and then into the
|
|
`B' ship - that's us - would go everyone else, the middlemen you
|
|
see."
|
|
|
|
He smiled happily at them.
|
|
|
|
"And we were sent off first," he concluded, and hummed a little
|
|
bathing tune.
|
|
|
|
The little bathing tune, which had been composed for him by one
|
|
of his world's most exciting and prolific jingle writer (who was
|
|
currently asleep in hold thirty-six some nine hundred yards
|
|
behind them) covered what would otherwise have been an awkward
|
|
moment of silence. Ford and Arthur shuffled their feet and
|
|
furiously avoided each other's eyes.
|
|
|
|
"Er ..." said Arthur after a moment, "what exactly was it that
|
|
was wrong with your planet then?"
|
|
|
|
"Oh, it was doomed, as I said," said the Captain, "Apparently it
|
|
was going to crash into the sun or something. Or maybe it was
|
|
that the moon was going to crash into us. Something of the kind.
|
|
Absolutely terrifying prospect whatever it was."
|
|
|
|
"Oh," said the first officer suddenly, "I thought it was that the
|
|
planet was going to be invaded by a gigantic swarm of twelve foot
|
|
piranha bees. Wasn't that it?"
|
|
|
|
Number Two span around, eyes ablaze with a cold hard light that
|
|
only comes with the amount of practise he was prepared to put in.
|
|
|
|
"That's not what I was told!" he hissed, "My commanding officer
|
|
told me that the entire planet was in imminent danger of being
|
|
eaten by an enormous mutant star goat!"
|
|
|
|
"Oh really ..." said Ford Prefect.
|
|
|
|
"Yes! A monstrous creature from the pit of hell with scything
|
|
teeth ten thousand miles long, breath that would boil oceans,
|
|
claws that could tear continents from their roots, a thousand
|
|
eyes that burned like the sun, slavering jaws a million miles
|
|
across, a monster such as you have never ... never ... ever ..."
|
|
|
|
"And they made sure they sent you lot off first did they?"
|
|
inquired Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Oh yes," said the Captain, "well everyone said, very nicely I
|
|
thought, that it was very important for morale to feel that they
|
|
would be arriving on a planet where they could be sure of a good
|
|
haircut and where the phones were clean."
|
|
|
|
"Oh yes," agreed Ford, "I can see that would be very important.
|
|
And the other ships, er ... they followed on after you did they?"
|
|
|
|
For a moment the Captain did not answer. He twisted round in his
|
|
bath and gazed backwards over the huge bulk of the ship towards
|
|
the bright galactic centre. He squinted into the inconceivable
|
|
distance.
|
|
|
|
"Ah. Well it's funny you should say that," he said and allowed
|
|
himself a slight frown at Ford Prefect, "because curiously enough
|
|
we haven't heard a peep out of them since we left five years ago
|
|
... but they must be behind us somewhere."
|
|
|
|
He peered off into the distance again.
|
|
|
|
Ford peered with him and gave a thoughtful frown.
|
|
|
|
"Unless of course," he said softly, "they were eaten by the goat
|
|
..."
|
|
|
|
"Ah yes ..." said the Captain with a slight hesitancy creeping
|
|
into his voice, "the goat ..." His eyes passed over the solid
|
|
shapes of the instruments and computers that lined the bridge.
|
|
They winked away innocently at him. He stared out at the stars,
|
|
but none of them said a word. He glanced at his first and second
|
|
officers, but they seemed lost in their own thoughts for a
|
|
moment. He glanced at Ford Prefect who raised his eyebrows at
|
|
him.
|
|
|
|
"It's a funny thing you know," said the Captain at last, "but now
|
|
that I actually come to tell the story to someone else ... I mean
|
|
does it strike you as odd Number Two?"
|
|
|
|
"Errrrrrrrrrrr ..." said Number Two.
|
|
|
|
"Well," said Ford, "I can see that you've got a lot of things
|
|
you're going to talk about, so, thanks for the drinks, and if you
|
|
could sort of drop us off at the nearest convenient planet ..."
|
|
|
|
"Ah, well that's a little difficult you see," said the Captain,
|
|
"because our trajectory thingy was preset before we left
|
|
Golgafrincham, I think partly because I'm not very good with
|
|
figures ..."
|
|
|
|
"You mean we're stuck here on this ship?" exclaimed Ford suddenly
|
|
losing patience with the whole charade, "When are you meant to be
|
|
reaching this planet you're meant to be colonizing?"
|
|
|
|
"Oh, we're nearly there I think," said the Captain, "any second
|
|
now. It's probably time I was getting out of this bath in fact.
|
|
Oh, I don't know though, why stop just when I'm enjoying it?"
|
|
|
|
"So we're actually going to land in a minute?"
|
|
|
|
"Well not so much land, in fact, not actually land as such, no
|
|
... er ..."
|
|
|
|
"What are you talking about?" said Ford sharply.
|
|
|
|
"Well," said the Captain, picking his way through the words
|
|
carefully, "I think as far as I can remember we were programmed
|
|
to crash on it."
|
|
|
|
"Crash?" shouted Ford and Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Er, yes," said the Captain, "yes, it's all part of the plan I
|
|
think. There was a terribly good reason for it which I can't
|
|
quite remember at the moment. It was something to with ... er
|
|
..."
|
|
|
|
Ford exploded.
|
|
|
|
"You're a load of useless bloody loonies!" he shouted.
|
|
|
|
"Ah yes, that was it," beamed the Captain, "that was the reason."
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 25
|
|
|
|
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about the
|
|
planet of Golgafrincham: It is a planet with an ancient and
|
|
mysterious history, rich in legend, red, and occasionally green
|
|
with the blood of those who sought in times gone by to conquer
|
|
her; a land of parched and barren landscapes, of sweet and sultry
|
|
air heady with the scent of the perfumed springs that trickle
|
|
over its hot and dusty rocks and nourish the dark and musty
|
|
lichens beneath; a land of fevered brows and intoxicated
|
|
imaginings, particularly amongst those who taste the lichens; a
|
|
land also of cool and shaded thoughts amongst those who have
|
|
learnt to forswear the lichens and find a tree to sit beneath; a
|
|
land also of steel and blood and heroism; a land of the body and
|
|
of the spirit. This was its history.
|
|
|
|
And in all this ancient and mysterious history, the most
|
|
mysterious figures of all were without doubt those of the Great
|
|
Circling Poets of Arium. These Circling Poets used to live in
|
|
remote mountain passes where they would lie in wait for small
|
|
bands of unwary travellers, circle round them, and throw rocks at
|
|
them.
|
|
|
|
And when the travellers cried out, saying why didn't they go away
|
|
and get on with writing some poems instead of pestering people
|
|
with all this rock-throwing business, they would suddenly stop,
|
|
and then break into one of the seven hundred and ninety-four
|
|
great Song Cycles of Vassilian. These songs were all of
|
|
extraordinary beauty, and even more extraordinary length, and all
|
|
fell into exactly the same pattern.
|
|
|
|
The first part of each song would tell how there once went forth
|
|
from the City of Vassilian a party of five sage princes with four
|
|
horses. The princes, who are of course brave, noble and wise,
|
|
travel widely in distant lands, fought giant ogres, pursue exotic
|
|
philosophies, take tea with weird gods and rescue beautiful
|
|
monsters from ravening princesses before finally announcing that
|
|
they have achieved enlightenment and that their wanderings are
|
|
therefore accomplished.
|
|
|
|
The second, and much longer, part of each song would then tell of
|
|
all their bickerings about which one of them is going to have to
|
|
walk back.
|
|
|
|
All this lay in the planet's remote past. It was, however, a
|
|
descendant of one of these eccentric poets who invented the
|
|
spurious tales of impending doom which enabled the people of
|
|
Golgafrincham to rid themselves of an entire useless third of
|
|
their population. The other two-thirds stayed firmly at home and
|
|
lived full, rich and happy lives until they were all suddenly
|
|
wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty
|
|
telephone.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 26
|
|
|
|
That night the ship crash-landed on to an utterly insignificant
|
|
little green-blue planet which circled a small unregarded yellow
|
|
sun in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the
|
|
Western spiral arm of the Galaxy.
|
|
|
|
In the hours preceding the crash Ford Prefect had fought
|
|
furiously but in vain to unlock the controls of the ship from
|
|
their pre-ordained flight path. It had quickly become apparent to
|
|
him that the ship had been programmed to convey its payload
|
|
safely, in uncomfortably, to its new home but to cripple itself
|
|
beyond repair in the process.
|
|
|
|
Its screaming, blazing descent through the atmosphere had
|
|
stripped away most of its superstructure and outer shielding, and
|
|
its final inglorious bellyflop into a murky swamp had left its
|
|
crew only a few hours of darkness during which to revive and
|
|
offload its deep-frozen and unwanted cargo for the ship began to
|
|
settle almost at once, slowly upending its gigantic bulk in the
|
|
stagnant slime. Once or twice during the night it was starkly
|
|
silhouetted against the sky as burning meteors - the detritus of
|
|
its descent - flashed across the sky.
|
|
|
|
In the grey pre-dawn light it let out an obscene roaring gurgle
|
|
and sank for ever into the stinking depths.
|
|
|
|
When the sun came up that morning it shed its thin watery light
|
|
over a vast area heaving with wailing hairdressers, public
|
|
relations executives, opinion pollsters and the rest, all clawing
|
|
their way desperately to dry land.
|
|
|
|
A less strong minded sun would probably have gone straight back
|
|
down again, but it continued to climb its way through the sky and
|
|
after a while the influence of its warming rays began to have
|
|
some restoring effect on the feebly struggling creatures.
|
|
|
|
Countless numbers had, unsurprisingly, been lost to the swamp in
|
|
the night, and millions more had been sucked down with the ship,
|
|
but those that survived still numbered hundreds of thousands and
|
|
as the day wore on they crawled out over the surrounding
|
|
countryside, each looking for a few square feet of solid ground
|
|
on which to collapse and recover from their nightmare ordeal.
|
|
|
|
Two figures moved further afield.
|
|
|
|
From a nearby hillside Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent watched the
|
|
horror of which they could not feel a part.
|
|
|
|
"Filthy dirty trick to pull," muttered Arthur.
|
|
|
|
Ford scraped a stick along the ground and shrugged.
|
|
|
|
"An imaginative solution to a problem I'd have thought," he said.
|
|
|
|
"Why can't people just learn to live together in peace and
|
|
harmony?" said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
Ford gave a loud, very hollow laugh.
|
|
|
|
"Forty-two!" he said with a malicious grin, "No, doesn't work.
|
|
Never mind."
|
|
|
|
Arthur looked at him as if he'd gone mad and, seeing nothing to
|
|
indicate the contrary, realized that it would be perfectly
|
|
reasonable to assume that this had in fact happened.
|
|
|
|
"What do you think will happen to them all?" he said after a
|
|
while.
|
|
|
|
"In an infinite Universe anything can happen," said Ford, "Even
|
|
survival. Strange but true."
|
|
|
|
A curious look came into his eyes as they passed over the
|
|
landscape and then settles again on the scene of misery below
|
|
them.
|
|
|
|
"I think they'll manage for a while," he said.
|
|
|
|
Arthur looked up sharply.
|
|
|
|
"Why do you say that?" he said.
|
|
|
|
Ford shrugged.
|
|
|
|
"Just a hunch," he said, and refused to be drawn to any further
|
|
questions.
|
|
|
|
"Look," he said suddenly.
|
|
|
|
Arthur followed his pointing finger. Down amongst the sprawling
|
|
masses a figure was moving - or perhaps lurching would be a more
|
|
accurate description. He appeared to be carrying something on his
|
|
shoulder. As he lurched from prostrate form to prostrate form he
|
|
seemed to wave whatever the something was at them in a drunken
|
|
fashion. After a while he gave up the struggle and collapsed in a
|
|
heap.
|
|
|
|
Arthur had no idea what this was meant to mean to him.
|
|
|
|
"Movie camera," said Ford. "Recording the historic movement."
|
|
|
|
"Well, I don't know about you," said Ford again after a moment,
|
|
"but I'm off."
|
|
|
|
He sat a while in silence.
|
|
|
|
After a while this seemed to require comment.
|
|
|
|
"Er, when you say you're off, what do you mean exactly?" said
|
|
Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Good question," said Ford, "I'm getting total silence."
|
|
|
|
Looking over his shoulder Arthur saw that he was twiddling with
|
|
knobs on a small box. Ford had already introduced this box as a
|
|
Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic, but Arthur had merely nodded absently and
|
|
not pursued the matter. In his mind the Universe still divided
|
|
into two parts - the Earth, and everything else. The Earth having
|
|
been demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass meant
|
|
that this view of things was a little lopsided, but Arthur tended
|
|
to cling to that lopsidedness as being his last remaining contact
|
|
with his home. Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matics belonged firmly in the
|
|
"everything else" category.
|
|
|
|
"Not a sausage," said Ford, shaking the thing.
|
|
|
|
Sausage, thought Arthur to himself as he gazed listlessly at the
|
|
primitive world about him, what I wouldn't give for a good Earth
|
|
sausage.
|
|
|
|
"Would you believe," said Ford in exasperation, "that there are
|
|
no transmissions of any kind within light years of this benighted
|
|
tip? Are you listening to me?"
|
|
|
|
"What?" said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"We're in trouble," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Oh," said Arthur. This sounded like month-old news to him.
|
|
|
|
"Until we pick up anything on this machine," said Ford, "our
|
|
chances of getting off this planet are zero. It may be some freak
|
|
standing wave effect in the planet's magnetic field - in which
|
|
case we just travel round and round till we find a clear
|
|
reception area. Coming?"
|
|
|
|
He picked up his gear and strode off.
|
|
|
|
Arthur looked down the hill. The man with the movie camera had
|
|
struggled back up to his feet just in time to film one of his
|
|
colleagues collapsing.
|
|
|
|
Arthur picked a blade of grass and strode off after Ford.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 27
|
|
|
|
"I trust you had a pleasant meal?" said Zarniwoop to Zaphod and
|
|
Trillian as they rematerialized on the bridge of the starship
|
|
Heart of Gold and lay panting on the floor.
|
|
|
|
Zaphod opened some eyes and glowered at him.
|
|
|
|
"You," he spat. He staggered to his feet and stomped off to find
|
|
a chair to slump into. He found one and slumped into it.
|
|
|
|
"I have programmed the computer with the Improbability
|
|
Coordinates pertinent to our journey," said Zarniwoop, "we will
|
|
arrive there very shortly. Meanwhile, why don't you relax and
|
|
prepare yourself for the meeting?"
|
|
|
|
Zaphod said nothing. He got up again and marched over to a small
|
|
cabinet from which he pulled a bottle of old Janx spirit. He took
|
|
a long pull at it.
|
|
|
|
"And when this is all done," said Zaphod savagely, "it's done,
|
|
alright? I'm free to go and do what the hell I like and lie on
|
|
beaches and stuff?"
|
|
|
|
"It depends what transpires from the meeting," said Zarniwoop.
|
|
|
|
"Zaphod, who is this man?" said Trillian shakily, wobbling to her
|
|
feet, "What's he doing here? Why's he on our ship?"
|
|
|
|
"He's a very stupid man," said Zaphod, "who wants to meet the man
|
|
who rules the Universe."
|
|
|
|
"Ah," said Trillian taking the bottle from Zaphod and helping
|
|
herself, "a social climber."
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 28
|
|
|
|
The major problem - one of the major problems, for there are
|
|
several - one of the many major problems with governing people is
|
|
that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get
|
|
people to let them do it to them.
|
|
|
|
To summarize: it is a well known fact, that those people who most
|
|
want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
|
|
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting
|
|
themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do
|
|
the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a
|
|
problem.
|
|
|
|
And so this is the situation we find: a succession of Galactic
|
|
Presidents who so much enjoy the fun and palaver of being in
|
|
power that they very rarely notice that they're not.
|
|
|
|
And somewhere in the shadows behind them - who?
|
|
|
|
Who can possibly rule if no one who wants to do it can be allowed
|
|
to?
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 29
|
|
|
|
On a small obscure world somewhere in the middle of nowhere in
|
|
particular - nowhere, that is, that could ever be found, since it
|
|
is protected by a vast field of unprobability to which only six
|
|
men in this galaxy have a key - it was raining.
|
|
|
|
It was bucketing down, and had been for hours. It beat the top of
|
|
the sea into a mist, it pounded the trees, it churned and slopped
|
|
a stretch of scrubby land near the sea into a mudbath.
|
|
|
|
The rain pelted and danced on the corrugated iron roof of the
|
|
small shack that stood in the middle of this patch of scrubby
|
|
land. It obliterated the small rough pathway that led from the
|
|
shack down to the seashore and smashed apart the neat piles of
|
|
interesting shells which had been placed there.
|
|
|
|
The noise of the rain on the roof of the shack was deafening
|
|
within, but went largely unnoticed by its occupant, whose
|
|
attention was otherwise engaged.
|
|
|
|
He was a tall shambling man with rough straw-coloured hair that
|
|
was damp from the leaking roof. His clothes were shabby, his back
|
|
was hunched, and his eyes, though open, seemed closed.
|
|
|
|
In his shack was an old beaten-up armchair, an old scratched
|
|
table, an old mattress, some cushions and a stove that was small
|
|
but warm.
|
|
|
|
There was also an old and slightly weatherbeaten cat, and this
|
|
was currently the focus of the man's attention. He bent his
|
|
shambling form over it.
|
|
|
|
"Pussy, pussy, pussy," he said, "coochicoochicoochicoo ... pussy
|
|
want his fish? Nice piece of fish ... pussy want it?"
|
|
|
|
The cat seemed undecided on the matter. It pawed rather
|
|
condescendingly at the piece of fish the man was holding out, and
|
|
then got distracted by a piece of dust on the floor.
|
|
|
|
"Pussy not eat his fish, pussy get thin and waste away, I think,"
|
|
said the man. Doubt crept into his voice.
|
|
|
|
"I imagine this is what will happen," he said, "but how can I
|
|
tell?"
|
|
|
|
He proffered the fish again.
|
|
|
|
"Pussy think," he said, "eat fish or not eat fish. I think it is
|
|
better if I don't get involved." He sighed.
|
|
|
|
"I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who
|
|
am I to judge?"
|
|
|
|
He left the fish on the floor for the cat, and retired to his
|
|
seat.
|
|
|
|
"Ah, I seem to see you eating it," he said at last, as the cat
|
|
exhausted the entertainment possibilities of the speck of dust
|
|
and pounced on to the fish.
|
|
|
|
"I like it when I see you eat the fish," said the man, "because
|
|
in my mind you will waste away if you don't."
|
|
|
|
He picked up from the table a piece of paper and the stub of a
|
|
pencil. He held one in one hand and the other in the other, and
|
|
experimented with the different ways of bringing them together.
|
|
He tried holding the pencil under the paper, then over the paper,
|
|
then next to the paper. He tried wrapping the paper round the
|
|
pencil, he tried rubbing the stubby end of the pencil against the
|
|
paper and then he tried rubbing the sharp end of the pencil
|
|
against the paper. It made a mark, and he was delighted with the
|
|
discovery, as he was every day. He picked up another piece of
|
|
paper from the table. This had a crossword on it. He studied it
|
|
briefly and filled in a couple of clues before losing interest.
|
|
|
|
He tried sitting on one of his hands and was intrigued by the
|
|
feel of the bones of his hip.
|
|
|
|
"Fish come from far away," he said, "or so I'm told. Or so I
|
|
imagine I'm told. When the men come, or when in my mind the men
|
|
come in their six black ships, do they come in your mind too?
|
|
What do you see pussy?"
|
|
|
|
He looked at the cat, which was more concerned with getting the
|
|
fish down as rapidly as possible than it was with these
|
|
speculations.
|
|
|
|
"And when I hear their questions, do you hear questions? What do
|
|
their voices mean to you? Perhaps you just think they're singing
|
|
songs to you." He reflected on this, and saw the flaw in the
|
|
supposition.
|
|
|
|
"Perhaps they are singing songs to you," he said, "and I just
|
|
think they're asking me questions."
|
|
|
|
He paused again. Sometimes he would pause for days, just to see
|
|
what it was like.
|
|
|
|
"Do you think they came today?" he said, "I do. There's mud on
|
|
the floor, cigarettes and whisky on the table, fish on a plate
|
|
for you and a memory of them in my mind. Hardly conclusive
|
|
evidence I know, but then all evidence is circumstantial. And
|
|
look what else they've left me."
|
|
|
|
He reached over to the table and pulled some things off it.
|
|
|
|
"Crosswords, dictionaries, and a calculator."
|
|
|
|
He played with the calculator for an hour, whilst the cat went to
|
|
sleep and the rain outside continued to pour. Eventually he put
|
|
the calculator aside.
|
|
|
|
"I think I must be right in thinking they ask me questions," he
|
|
said, "To come all that way and leave all these things for the
|
|
privilege of singing songs to you would be very strange
|
|
behaviour. Or so it seems to me. Who can tell, who can tell."
|
|
|
|
From the table he picked up a cigarette and lit it with a spill
|
|
from the stove. He inhaled deeply and sat back.
|
|
|
|
"I think I saw another ship in the sky today," he said at last.
|
|
"A big white one. I've never seen a big white one, just the six
|
|
black ones. And the six green ones. And the others who say they
|
|
come from so far away. Never a big white one. Perhaps six small
|
|
black ones can look like one big white one at certain times.
|
|
Perhaps I would like a glass of whisky. Yes, that seems more
|
|
likely."
|
|
|
|
He stood up and found a glass that was lying on the floor by the
|
|
mattress. He poured in a measure from his whisky bottle. He sat
|
|
again.
|
|
|
|
"Perhaps some other people are coming to see me," he said.
|
|
|
|
A hundred yards away, pelted by the torrential rain, lay the
|
|
Heart of Gold.
|
|
|
|
Its hatchway opened, and three figures emerged, huddling into
|
|
themselves to keep the rain off their faces.
|
|
|
|
"In there?" shouted Trillian above the noise of the rain.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," said Zarniwoop.
|
|
|
|
"That shack?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes."
|
|
|
|
"Weird," said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"But it's in the middle of nowhere," said Trillian, "we must have
|
|
come to the wrong place. You can't rule the Universe from a
|
|
shack."
|
|
|
|
They hurried through the pouring rain, and arrived, wet through,
|
|
at the door. They knocked. They shivered.
|
|
|
|
The door opened.
|
|
|
|
"Hello?" said the man.
|
|
|
|
"Ah, excuse me," said Zarniwoop, "I have reason to believe ..."
|
|
|
|
"Do you rule the Universe?" said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
The man smiled at him.
|
|
|
|
"I try not to," he said, "Are you wet?"
|
|
|
|
Zaphod looked at him in astonishment.
|
|
|
|
"Wet?" he cried, "Doesn't it look as if we're wet?"
|
|
|
|
"That's how it looks to me," said the man, "but how you feel
|
|
about it might be an altogether different matter. If you feel
|
|
warmth makes you dry, you'd better come in."
|
|
|
|
They went in.
|
|
|
|
They looked around the tiny shack, Zarniwoop with slight
|
|
distaste, Trillian with interest, Zaphod with delight.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, er ..." said Zaphod, "what's your name?"
|
|
|
|
The man looked at them doubtfully.
|
|
|
|
"I don't know. Why, do you think I should have one? It seems very
|
|
odd to give a bundle of vague sensory perceptions a name."
|
|
|
|
He invited Trillian to sit in the chair. He sat on the edge of
|
|
the chair, Zarniwoop leaned stiffly against the table and Zaphod
|
|
lay on the mattress.
|
|
|
|
"Wowee!" said Zaphod, "the seat of power!" He tickled the cat.
|
|
|
|
"Listen," said Zarniwoop, "I must ask you some questions."
|
|
|
|
"Alright," said the man kindly, "you can sing to my cat if you
|
|
like."
|
|
|
|
"Would he like that?" asked Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"You'd better ask him," said the man.
|
|
|
|
"Does he talk?" said Zaphod.
|
|
|
|
"I have no memory of him talking," said the man, "but I am very
|
|
unreliable."
|
|
|
|
Zarniwoop pulled some notes out of a pocket.
|
|
|
|
"Now," he said, "you do rule the Universe, do you?"
|
|
|
|
"How can I tell?" said the man.
|
|
|
|
Zarniwoop ticked off a note on the paper.
|
|
|
|
"How long have you been doing this?"
|
|
|
|
"Ah," said the man, "this is a question about the past is it?"
|
|
|
|
Zarniwoop looked at him in puzzlement. This wasn't exactly what
|
|
he had been expecting.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," he said.
|
|
|
|
"How can I tell," said the man, "that the past isn't a fiction
|
|
designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate
|
|
physical sensations and my state of mind?"
|
|
|
|
Zarniwoop stared at him. The steam began to rise from his sodden
|
|
clothes.
|
|
|
|
"So you answer all questions like this?" he said.
|
|
|
|
The man answered quickly.
|
|
|
|
"I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say
|
|
things. More I cannot say."
|
|
|
|
Zaphod laughed happily.
|
|
|
|
"I'll drink to that," he said and pulled out the bottle of Janx
|
|
spirit. He leaped up and handed the bottle to the ruler of the
|
|
Universe, who took it with pleasure.
|
|
|
|
"Good on you, great ruler," he said, "tell it like it is."
|
|
|
|
"No, listen to me," said Zarniwoop, "people come to you do they?
|
|
In ships ..."
|
|
|
|
"I think so," said the man. He handed the bottle to Trillian.
|
|
|
|
"And they ask you," said Zarniwoop, "to take decisions for them?
|
|
About people's lives, about worlds, about economies, about wars,
|
|
about everything going on out there in the Universe?"
|
|
|
|
"Out there?" said the man, "out where?"
|
|
|
|
"Out there!" said Zarniwoop pointing at the door.
|
|
|
|
"How can you tell there's anything out there," said the man
|
|
politely, "the door's closed."
|
|
|
|
The rain continued to pound the roof. Inside the shack it was
|
|
warm.
|
|
|
|
"But you know there's a whole Universe out there!" cried
|
|
Zarniwoop. "You can't dodge your responsibilities by saying they
|
|
don't exist!"
|
|
|
|
The ruler of the Universe thought for a long while whilst
|
|
Zarniwoop quivered with anger.
|
|
|
|
"You're very sure of your facts," he said at last, "I couldn't
|
|
trust the thinking of a man who takes the Universe - if there is
|
|
one - for granted."
|
|
|
|
Zarniwoop still quivered, but was silent.
|
|
|
|
"I only decide about my Universe," continued the man quietly. "My
|
|
Universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay."
|
|
|
|
"But don't you believe in anything?"
|
|
|
|
The man shrugged and picked up his cat.
|
|
|
|
"I don't understand what you mean," he said.
|
|
|
|
"You don't understand that what you decide in this shack of yours
|
|
affects the lives and fates of millions of people? This is all
|
|
monstrously wrong!"
|
|
|
|
"I don't know. I've never met all these people you speak of. And
|
|
neither, I suspect, have you. They only exist in words we hear.
|
|
It is folly to say you know what is happening to other people.
|
|
Only they know, if they exist. They have their own Universes of
|
|
their own eyes and ears."
|
|
|
|
Trillian said:
|
|
|
|
"I think I'm just popping outside for a moment."
|
|
|
|
She left and walked into the rain.
|
|
|
|
"Do you believe other people exist?" insisted Zarniwoop.
|
|
|
|
"I have no opinion. How can I say?"
|
|
|
|
"I'd better see what's up with Trillian," said Zaphod and slipped
|
|
out.
|
|
|
|
Outside, he said to her:
|
|
|
|
"I think the Universe is in pretty good hands, yeah?"
|
|
|
|
"Very good," said Trillian. They walked off into the rain.
|
|
|
|
Inside, Zarniwoop continued.
|
|
|
|
"But don't you understand that people live or die on your word?"
|
|
|
|
The ruler of the Universe waited for as long as he could. When he
|
|
heard the faint sound of the ship's engines starting he spoke to
|
|
cover it.
|
|
|
|
"It's nothing to do with me," he said, "I am not involved with
|
|
people. The Lord knows I am not a cruel man."
|
|
|
|
"Ah!" barked Zarniwoop, "you say `The Lord'. You believe in
|
|
something!"
|
|
|
|
"My cat," said the man benignly, picking it up and stroking it,
|
|
"I call him The Lord. I am kind to him."
|
|
|
|
"Alright," said Zarniwoop, pressing home his point, "How do you
|
|
know he exists? How do you know he knows you to be kind, or
|
|
enjoys what he thinks of as your kindness?"
|
|
|
|
"I don't," said the man with a smile, "I have no idea. It merely
|
|
pleases me to behave in a certain way to what appears to be a
|
|
cat. Do you behave any differently? Please, I think I am tired."
|
|
|
|
Zarniwoop heaved a thoroughly dissatisfied sigh and looked about.
|
|
|
|
"Where are the other two?" he said suddenly.
|
|
|
|
"What other two?" said the ruler of the Universe, settling back
|
|
into his chair and refilling his whisky glass.
|
|
|
|
"Beeblebrox and the girl! The two who were here!"
|
|
|
|
"I remember no one. The past is a fiction to account for ..."
|
|
|
|
"Stuff it," snapped Zarniwoop and ran out into the rain. There
|
|
was no ship. The rain continued to churn the mud. There was no
|
|
sign to show where the ship had been. He hollered into the rain.
|
|
He turned and ran back to the shack and found it locked.
|
|
|
|
The ruler of the Universe dozed lightly in his chair. After a
|
|
while he played with the pencil and the paper again and was
|
|
delighted when he discovered how to make a mark with the one on
|
|
the other. Various noises continued outside, but he didn't know
|
|
whether they were real or not. He then talked to his table for a
|
|
week to see how it would react.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 30
|
|
|
|
The stars came out that night, dazzling in their brilliance and
|
|
clarity. Ford and Arthur had walked more miles than they had any
|
|
means of judging and finally stopped to rest. The night was cool
|
|
and balmy, the air pure, the Sub-Etha Sens.O.Matic totally
|
|
silent.
|
|
|
|
A wonderful stillness hung over the world, a magical calm which
|
|
combined with the soft fragrances of the woods, the quiet chatter
|
|
of insects and the brilliant light of the stars to soothe their
|
|
jangled spirits. Even Ford Prefect, who had seen more worlds than
|
|
he could count on a long afternoon, was moved to wonder if this
|
|
was the most beautiful he had ever seen. All that day they had
|
|
passed through rolling green hills and valleys, richly covered
|
|
with grasses, wild scented flowers and tall thickly leaved trees,
|
|
the sun had warmed them, light breezes had kept them cool, and
|
|
Ford Prefect had checked his Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic at less and
|
|
less frequent intervals, and had exhibited less and less
|
|
annoyance at its continued silence. He was beginning to think he
|
|
liked it here.
|
|
|
|
Cool though the night air was they slept soundly and comfortably
|
|
in the open and awoke a few hours later with the light dewfall
|
|
feeling refreshed but hungry. Ford had stuffed some small rolls
|
|
into his satchel at Milliways and they breakfasted off those
|
|
before moving on.
|
|
|
|
So far they had wandered purely at random, but now they struck
|
|
out firmly eastwards, feeling that if they were going to explore
|
|
this world they should have some clear idea of where they had
|
|
come from and where they were going.
|
|
|
|
Shortly before noon they had their first indication that the
|
|
world they had landed on was not an uninhabited one: a half
|
|
glimpsed face amongst the trees, watching them. It vanished at
|
|
the moment they both saw it, but the image they were both left
|
|
with was of a humanoid creature, curious to see them but not
|
|
alarmed. Half an hour later they glimpsed another such face, and
|
|
ten minutes after that another.
|
|
|
|
A minute later they stumbled into a wide clearing and stopped
|
|
short.
|
|
|
|
Before them in the middle of the clearing stood a group of about
|
|
two dozen men and women. They stood still and quiet facing Ford
|
|
and Arthur. Around some of the women huddled some small children
|
|
and behind the group was a ramshackle array of small dwellings
|
|
made of mud and branches.
|
|
|
|
Ford and Arthur held their breath.
|
|
|
|
The tallest of the men stood a little over five feet high, they
|
|
all stooped forward slightly, had longish arms and lowish
|
|
foreheads, and clear bright eyes with which they stared intently
|
|
at the strangers.
|
|
|
|
Seeing that they carried no weapons and made no move towards
|
|
them, Ford and Arthur relaxed slightly.
|
|
|
|
For a while the two groups simply stared at each other, neither
|
|
side making any move. The natives seemed puzzled by the
|
|
intruders, and whilst they showed no sign of aggression they were
|
|
quite clearly not issuing any invitations.
|
|
|
|
For a full two minutes nothing continued to happen.
|
|
|
|
After two minutes Ford decided it was time something happened.
|
|
|
|
"Hello," he said.
|
|
|
|
The women drew their children slightly closer to them.
|
|
|
|
The men made hardly any discernible move and yet their whole
|
|
disposition made it clear that the greeting was not welcome - it
|
|
was not resented in any great degree, it was just not welcome.
|
|
|
|
One of the men, who had been standing slightly forward of the
|
|
rest of the group and who might therefore have been their leader,
|
|
stepped forward. His face was quiet and calm, almost serene.
|
|
|
|
"Ugghhhuuggghhhrrrr uh uh ruh uurgh," he said quietly.
|
|
|
|
This caught Arthur by surprise. He had grown so used to receiving
|
|
an instantaneous and unconscious translation of everything he
|
|
heard via the Babel Fish lodged in his ear that he had ceased to
|
|
be aware of it, and he was only reminded of its presence now by
|
|
the fact that it didn't seem to be working. Vague shadows of
|
|
meaning had flickered at the back of his mind, but there was
|
|
nothing he could get any firm grasp on. He guessed, correctly as
|
|
it happens, that these people had as yet evolved no more than the
|
|
barest rudiments of language, and that the Babel Fish was
|
|
therefore powerless to help. He glanced at Ford, who was
|
|
infinitely more experienced in these matters.
|
|
|
|
"I think," said Ford out of the corner of his mouth, "he's asking
|
|
us if we'd mind walking on round the edge of the village."
|
|
|
|
A moment later, a gesture from the man-creature seemed to confirm
|
|
this.
|
|
|
|
"Ruurgggghhhh urrgggh; urgh urgh (uh ruh) rruurruuh ug,"
|
|
continued the man-creature.
|
|
|
|
"The general gist," said Ford, "as far as I can make out, is that
|
|
we are welcome to continue our journey in any way we like, but if
|
|
we would walk round his village rather than through it it would
|
|
make them all very happy."
|
|
|
|
"So what do we do?"
|
|
|
|
"I think we make them happy," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
Slowly and watchfully they walked round the perimeter of the
|
|
clearing. This seemed to go down very well with the natives who
|
|
bowed to them very slightly and then went about their business.
|
|
|
|
Ford and Arthur continued their journey through the wood. A few
|
|
hundred yards past the clearing they suddenly came upon a small
|
|
pile of fruit lying in their path - berries that looked
|
|
remarkably like raspberries and blackberries, and pulpy, green
|
|
skinned fruit that looked remarkably like pears.
|
|
|
|
So far they had steered clear of the fruit and berries they had
|
|
seen, though the trees and bushed were laden with them.
|
|
|
|
"Look at it this way," Ford Prefect had said, "fruit and berries
|
|
on strange planets either make you live or make you die.
|
|
Therefore the point at which to start toying with them is when
|
|
you're going to die if you don't. That way you stay ahead. The
|
|
secret of healthy hitch-hiking is to eat junk food."
|
|
|
|
They looked at the pile that lay in their path with suspicion. It
|
|
looked so good it made them almost dizzy with hunger.
|
|
|
|
"Look at it this way," said Ford, "er ..."
|
|
|
|
"Yes?" said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"I'm trying to think of a way of looking at it which means we get
|
|
to eat it," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
The leaf-dappled sun gleamed on the pulp skins of the things
|
|
which looked like pears. The things which looked like raspberries
|
|
and strawberries were fatter and riper than any Arthur had ever
|
|
seen, even in ice cream commercials.
|
|
|
|
"Why don't we eat them and think about it afterwards?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"Maybe that's what they want us to do."
|
|
|
|
"Alright, look at it this way ..."
|
|
|
|
"Sounds good so far."
|
|
|
|
"It's there for us to eat. Either it's good or it's bad, either
|
|
they want to feed us or to poison us. If it's poisonous and we
|
|
don't eat it they'll just attack us some other way. If we don't
|
|
eat, we lose out either way."
|
|
|
|
"I like the way you're thinking," said Ford, "Now eat one."
|
|
|
|
Hesitantly, Arthur picked up one of those things that looked like
|
|
pears.
|
|
|
|
"I always thought that about the Garden of Eden story," said
|
|
Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Eh?"
|
|
|
|
"Garden of Eden. Tree. Apple. That bit, remember?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes of course I do."
|
|
|
|
"Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and
|
|
says do what you like guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise
|
|
surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush
|
|
shouting `Gotcha'. It wouldn't have made any difference if they
|
|
hadn't eaten it."
|
|
|
|
"Why not?"
|
|
|
|
"Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of
|
|
mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks
|
|
under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll
|
|
get you in the end."
|
|
|
|
"What are you talking about?"
|
|
|
|
"Never mind, eat the fruit."
|
|
|
|
"You know, this place almost looks like the Garden of Eden."
|
|
|
|
"Eat the fruit."
|
|
|
|
"Sounds quite like it too."
|
|
|
|
Arthur took a bite from the thing which looked like a pear.
|
|
|
|
"It's a pear," he said.
|
|
|
|
A few moments later, when they had eaten the lot, Ford Prefect
|
|
turned round and called out.
|
|
|
|
"Thank you. Thank you very much," he called, "you're very kind."
|
|
|
|
They went on their way.
|
|
|
|
For the next fifty miles of their journey eastward they kept on
|
|
finding the occasional gift of fruit lying in their path, and
|
|
though they once or twice had a quick glimpse of a native man-
|
|
creature amongst the trees, they never again made direct contact.
|
|
They decided they rather liked a race of people who made it clear
|
|
that they were grateful simply to be left alone.
|
|
|
|
The fruit and berries stopped after fifty miles, because that was
|
|
where the sea started.
|
|
|
|
Having no pressing calls on their time they built a raft and
|
|
crossed the sea. It was reasonably calm, only about sixty miles
|
|
wide and they had a reasonably pleasant crossing, landing in a
|
|
country that was at least as beautiful as the one they had left.
|
|
|
|
Life was, in short, ridiculously easy and for a while at least
|
|
they were able to cope with the problems of aimlessness and
|
|
isolation by deciding to ignore them. When the craving for
|
|
company became too great they would know where to find it, but
|
|
for the moment they were happy to feel that the Golgafrinchans
|
|
were hundreds of miles behind them.
|
|
|
|
Nevertheless, Ford Prefect began to use his Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic
|
|
more often again. Only once did he pick up a signal, but that was
|
|
so faint and from such enormous distance that it depressed him
|
|
more than the silence that had otherwise continued unbroken.
|
|
|
|
On a whim they turned northwards. After weeks of travelling they
|
|
came to another sea, built another raft and crossed it. This time
|
|
it was harder going, the climate was getting colder. Arthur
|
|
suspected a streak of masochism in Ford Prefect - the increasing
|
|
difficulty of the journey seemed to give him a sense of purpose
|
|
that was otherwise lacking. He strode onwards relentlessly.
|
|
|
|
Their journey northwards brought them into steep mountainous
|
|
terrain of breathtaking sweep and beauty. The vast, jagged, snow
|
|
covered peaks ravished their senses. The cold began to bite into
|
|
their bones.
|
|
|
|
They wrapped themselves in animal skins and furs which Ford
|
|
Prefect acquired by a technique he once learned from a couple of
|
|
ex-Pralite monks running a Mind-Surfing resort in the Hills of
|
|
Hunian.
|
|
|
|
The galaxy is littered with ex-Pralite monks, all on the make,
|
|
because the mental control techniques the Order have evolved as a
|
|
form of devotional discipline are, frankly, sensational - and
|
|
extraordinary numbers of monks leave the Order just after they
|
|
have finished their devotional training and just before they take
|
|
their final vows to stay locked in small metal boxes for the rest
|
|
of their lives.
|
|
|
|
Ford's technique seemed to consist mainly of standing still for a
|
|
while and smiling.
|
|
|
|
After a while an animal - a deer perhaps - would appear from out
|
|
of the trees and watch him cautiously. Ford would continue to
|
|
smile at it, his eyes would soften and shine, and he would seem
|
|
to radiate a deep and universal love, a love which reached out to
|
|
embrace all of creation. A wonderful quietness would descend on
|
|
the surrounding countryside, peaceful and serene, emanating from
|
|
this transfigured man. Slowly the deer would approach, step by
|
|
step, until it was almost nuzzling him, whereupon Ford Prefect
|
|
would reach out to it and break its neck.
|
|
|
|
"Pheromone control," he said it was, "you just have to know how
|
|
to generate the right smell."
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 31
|
|
|
|
A few days after landing in this mountainous land they hit a
|
|
coastline which swept diagonally before them from the south-west
|
|
to the north-east, a coastline of monumental grandeur: deep
|
|
majestic ravines, soaring pinnacles of ice - fjords.
|
|
|
|
For two further days they scrambled and climbed over the rocks
|
|
and glaciers, awe-struck with beauty.
|
|
|
|
"Arthur!" yelled Ford suddenly.
|
|
|
|
It was the afternoon of the second day. Arthur was sitting on a
|
|
high rock watching the thundering sea smashing itself against the
|
|
craggy promontories.
|
|
|
|
"Arthur!" yelled Ford again.
|
|
|
|
Arthur looked to where Ford's voice had come from, carried
|
|
faintly in the wind.
|
|
|
|
Ford had gone to examine a glacier, and Arthur found him there
|
|
crouching by the solid wall of blue ice. He was tense with
|
|
excitement - his eyes darted up to meet Arthur's.
|
|
|
|
"Look," he said, "look!"
|
|
|
|
Arthur looked. He saw the solid wall of blue ice.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," he said, "it's a glacier. I've already seen it."
|
|
|
|
"No," said Ford, "you've looked at it, you haven't seen it.
|
|
Look!"
|
|
|
|
Ford was pointing deep into the heart of the ice.
|
|
|
|
Arthur peered - he saw nothing but vague shadows.
|
|
|
|
"Move back from it," insisted Ford, "look again."
|
|
|
|
Arthur moved back and looked again.
|
|
|
|
"No," he said, and shrugged. "What am I supposed to be looking
|
|
for?"
|
|
|
|
And suddenly he saw it.
|
|
|
|
"You see it?"
|
|
|
|
He saw it.
|
|
|
|
His mouth started to speak, but his brain decided it hadn't got
|
|
anything to say yet and shut it again. His brain then started to
|
|
contend with the problem of what his eyes told it they were
|
|
looking at, but in doing so relinquished control of the mouth
|
|
which promptly fell open again. Once more gathering up the jaw,
|
|
his brain lost control of his left hand which then wandered
|
|
around in an aimless fashion. For a second or so the brain tried
|
|
to catch the left hand without letting go of the mouth and
|
|
simultaneously tried to think about what was buried in the ice,
|
|
which is probably why the legs went and Arthur dropped restfully
|
|
to the ground.
|
|
|
|
The thing that had been causing all this neural upset was a
|
|
network of shadows in the ice, about eighteen inches beneath the
|
|
surface. Looked at it from the right angle they resolved into the
|
|
solid shapes of letters from an alien alphabet, each about three
|
|
feet high; and for those, like Arthur, who couldn't read
|
|
Magrathean there was above the letters the outline of a face
|
|
hanging in the ice.
|
|
|
|
It was an old face, thin and distinguished, careworn but not
|
|
unkind.
|
|
|
|
It was the face of the man who had won an award for designing the
|
|
coastline they now knew themselves to be standing on.
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 32
|
|
|
|
A thin whine filled the air. It whirled and howled through the
|
|
trees upsetting the squirrels. A few birds flew off in disgust.
|
|
The noise danced and skittered round the clearing. It whooped, it
|
|
rasped, it generally offended.
|
|
|
|
The Captain, however, regarded the lone bagpiper with an
|
|
indulgent eye. Little could disturb his equanimity; indeed, once
|
|
he had got over the loss of his gorgeous bath during that
|
|
unpleasantness in the swamp all those months ago he had begun to
|
|
find his new life remarkably congenial. A hollow had been scooped
|
|
out of a large rock which stood in the middle of the clearing,
|
|
and in this he would bask daily whilst attendants sloshed water
|
|
over him. Not particularly warm water, it must be said, as they
|
|
hadn't yet worked out a way of heating it. Never mind, that would
|
|
come, and in the meantime search parties were scouring the
|
|
countryside far and wide for a hot spring, preferably one in a
|
|
nice leafy glade, and if it was near a soap mine - perfection. To
|
|
those who said that they had a feeling soap wasn't found in
|
|
mines, the Captain had ventured to suggest that perhaps that was
|
|
because no one had looked hard enough, and this possibility had
|
|
been reluctantly acknowledged.
|
|
|
|
No, life was very pleasant, and the greatest thing about it was
|
|
that when the hot spring was found, complete with leafy glade en
|
|
suite, and when in the fullness of time the cry came
|
|
reverberating across the hills that the soap mine had been
|
|
located and was producing five hundred cakes a day it would be
|
|
more pleasant still. It was very important to have things to look
|
|
forward to.
|
|
|
|
Wail, wail, screech, wail, howl, honk, squeak went the bagpipes,
|
|
increasing the Captain's already considerable pleasure at the
|
|
thought that any moment now they might stop. That was something
|
|
he looked forward to as well.
|
|
|
|
What else was pleasant, he asked himself? Well, so many things:
|
|
the red and gold of the trees, now that autumn was approaching;
|
|
the peaceful chatter of scissors a few feet from his bath where a
|
|
couple of hairdressers were exercising their skills on a dozing
|
|
art director and his assistant; the sunlight gleaming off the six
|
|
shiny telephones lined up along the edge of his rock-hewn bath.
|
|
The only thing nicer than a phone that didn't ring all the time
|
|
(or indeed at all) was six phones that didn't ring all the time
|
|
(or indeed at all).
|
|
|
|
Nicest of all was the happy murmur of all the hundreds of people
|
|
slowly assembling in the clearing around him to watch the
|
|
afternoon committee meeting.
|
|
|
|
The Captain punched his rubber duck playfully on the beak. The
|
|
afternoon committee meetings were his favourite.
|
|
|
|
Other eyes watched the assembling crowds. High in a tree on the
|
|
edge of the clearing squatted Ford Prefect, lately returned from
|
|
foreign climes. After his six month journey he was lean and
|
|
healthy, his eyes gleamed, he wore a reindeer-skin coat; his
|
|
beard was as thick and his face as bronzed as a country-rock
|
|
singer's.
|
|
|
|
He and Arthur Dent had been watching the Golgafrinchans for
|
|
almost a week now, and Ford had decided to stir things up a bit.
|
|
|
|
The clearing was now full. Hundreds of men and women lounged
|
|
around, chatting, eating fruit, playing cards and generally
|
|
having a fairly relaxed time of it. Their track suits were now
|
|
all dirty and even torn, but they all had immaculately styled
|
|
hair. Ford was puzzled to see that many of them had stuffed their
|
|
track suits full of leaves and wondered if this was meant to be
|
|
some form of insulation against the coming winter. Ford's eyes
|
|
narrowed. They couldn't be interested in botany of a sudden could
|
|
they?
|
|
|
|
In the middle of these speculations the Captain's voice rose
|
|
above the hubbub.
|
|
|
|
"Alright," he said, "I'd like to call this meeting to some sort
|
|
of order if that's at all possible. Is that alright with
|
|
everybody?" He smiled genially. "In a minute. When you're all
|
|
ready."
|
|
|
|
The talking gradually died away and the clearing fell silent,
|
|
except for the bagpiper who seemed to be in some wild and
|
|
uninhabitable musical world of his own. A few of those in his
|
|
immediate vicinity threw some leaves to him. If there was any
|
|
reason for this then it escaped Ford Prefect for the moment.
|
|
|
|
A small group of people had clustered round the Captain and one
|
|
of them was clearly beginning to speak. He did this by standing
|
|
up, clearing his throat and then gazing off into the distance as
|
|
if to signify to the crowd that he would be with them in a
|
|
minute.
|
|
|
|
The crowd of course were riveted and all turned their eyes on
|
|
him.
|
|
|
|
A moment of silence followed, which Ford judged to be the right
|
|
dramatic moment to make his entry. The man turned to speak.
|
|
|
|
Ford dropped down out of the tree.
|
|
|
|
"Hi there," he said.
|
|
|
|
The crowd swivelled round.
|
|
|
|
"Ah my dear fellow," called out the Captain, "Got any matches on
|
|
you? Or a lighter? Anything like that?"
|
|
|
|
"No," said Ford, sounding a little deflated. It wasn't what he'd
|
|
prepared. He decided he'd better be a little stronger on the
|
|
subject.
|
|
|
|
"No I haven't," he continued, "No matches. Instead I bring you
|
|
news ..."
|
|
|
|
"Pity," said the Captain, "We've all run out you see. Haven't had
|
|
a hot bath in weeks."
|
|
|
|
Ford refused to be headed off.
|
|
|
|
"I bring you news," he said, "of a discovery that might interest
|
|
you."
|
|
|
|
"Is it on the agenda?" snapped the man whom Ford had interrupted.
|
|
|
|
Ford smiled a broad country-rock singer smile.
|
|
|
|
"Now, come on," he said.
|
|
|
|
"Well I'm sorry," said the man huffily, "but speaking as a
|
|
management consultant of many years' standing, I must insist on
|
|
the importance of observing the committee structure."
|
|
|
|
Ford looked round the crowd.
|
|
|
|
"He's mad you know," he said, "this is a prehistoric planet."
|
|
|
|
"Address the chair!" snapped the management consultant.
|
|
|
|
"There isn't chair," explained Ford, "there's only a rock."
|
|
|
|
The management consultant decided that testiness was what the
|
|
situation now called for.
|
|
|
|
"Well, call it a chair," he said testily.
|
|
|
|
"Why not call it a rock?" asked Ford.
|
|
|
|
"You obviously have no conception," said the management
|
|
consultant, not abandoning testiness in favour of good old
|
|
fashioned hauteur, "of modern business methods."
|
|
|
|
"And you have no conception of where you are," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
A girl with a strident voice leapt to her feet and used it.
|
|
|
|
"Shut up, you two," she said, "I want to table a motion."
|
|
|
|
"You mean boulder a motion," tittered a hairdresser.
|
|
|
|
"Order, order!" yapped the management consultant.
|
|
|
|
"Alright," said Ford, "let's see how you are doing." He plonked
|
|
himself down on the ground to see how long he could keep his
|
|
temper.
|
|
|
|
The Captain made a sort of conciliatory harrumphing noise.
|
|
|
|
"I would like to call to order," he said pleasantly, "the five
|
|
hundred and seventy-third meeting of the colonization committee
|
|
of Fintlewoodlewix ..."
|
|
|
|
Ten seconds, thought Ford as he leapt to his feet again.
|
|
|
|
"This is futile," he exclaimed, "five hundred and seventy-three
|
|
committee meetings and you haven't even discovered fire yet!"
|
|
|
|
"If you would care," said the girl with the strident voice, "to
|
|
examine the agenda sheet ..."
|
|
|
|
"Agenda rock," trilled the hairdresser happily.
|
|
|
|
"Thank you, I've made that point," muttered Ford.
|
|
|
|
"... you ... will ... see ..." continued the girl firmly, "that
|
|
we are having a report from the hairdressers' Fire Development
|
|
Sub-Committee today."
|
|
|
|
"Oh ... ah -" said the hairdresser with a sheepish look which is
|
|
recognized the whole Galaxy over as meaning "Er, will next
|
|
Tuesday do?"
|
|
|
|
"Alright," said Ford, rounding on him, "what have you done? What
|
|
are you going to do? What are your thoughts on fire development?"
|
|
|
|
"Well I don't know," said the hairdresser, "All they gave me was
|
|
a couple of sticks ..."
|
|
|
|
"So what have you done with them?"
|
|
|
|
Nervously, the hairdresser fished in his track suit top and
|
|
handed over the fruits of his labour to Ford.
|
|
|
|
Ford held them up for all to see.
|
|
|
|
"Curling tongs," he said.
|
|
|
|
The crowd applauded.
|
|
|
|
"Never mind," said Ford, "Rome wasn't burnt in a day."
|
|
|
|
The crowd hadn't the faintest idea what he was talking about, but
|
|
they loved it nevertheless. They applauded.
|
|
|
|
"Well, you're obviously being totally naive of course," said the
|
|
girl, "When you've been in marketing as long as I have you'll
|
|
know that before any new product can be developed it has to be
|
|
properly researched. We've got to find out what people want from
|
|
fire, how they relate to it, what sort of image it has for them."
|
|
|
|
The crowd were tense. They were expecting something wonderful
|
|
from Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Stick it up your nose," he said.
|
|
|
|
"Which is precisely the sort of thing we need to know," insisted
|
|
the girl, "Do people want fire that can be applied nasally?"
|
|
|
|
"Do you?" Ford asked the crowd.
|
|
|
|
"Yes!" shouted some.
|
|
|
|
"No!" shouted others happily.
|
|
|
|
They didn't know, they just thought it was great.
|
|
|
|
"And the wheel," said the Captain, "What about this wheel thingy?
|
|
It sounds a terribly interesting project."
|
|
|
|
"Ah," said the marketing girl, "Well, we're having a little
|
|
difficulty there."
|
|
|
|
"Difficulty?" exclaimed Ford, "Difficulty? What do you mean,
|
|
difficulty? It's the single simplest machine in the entire
|
|
Universe!"
|
|
|
|
The marketing girl soured him with a look.
|
|
|
|
"Alright, Mr Wiseguy," she said, "you're so clever, you tell us
|
|
what colour it should have."
|
|
|
|
The crowd went wild. One up to the home team, they thought. Ford
|
|
shrugged his shoulders and sat down again.
|
|
|
|
"Almighty Zarquon," he said, "have none of you done anything?"
|
|
|
|
As if in answer to his question there was a sudden clamour of
|
|
noise from the entrance to the clearing. The crowd couldn't
|
|
believe the amount of entertainment they were getting this
|
|
afternoon: in marched a squad of about a dozen men dressed in the
|
|
remnants of their Golgafrincham 3rd Regiment dress uniforms.
|
|
About half of them still carried Kill-O-Zap guns, the rest now
|
|
carried spears which they struck together as they marched. They
|
|
looked bronzed, healthy, and utterly exhausted and bedraggled.
|
|
They clattered to a halt and banged to attention. One of them
|
|
fell over and never moved again.
|
|
|
|
"Captain, sir!" cried Number Two - for he was their leader -
|
|
"Permission to report sir!"
|
|
|
|
"Yes, alright Number Two, welcome back and all that. Find any hot
|
|
springs?" said the Captain despondently.
|
|
|
|
"No sir!"
|
|
|
|
"Thought you wouldn't."
|
|
|
|
Number Two strode through the crowd and presented arms before the
|
|
bath.
|
|
|
|
"We have discovered another continent!"
|
|
|
|
"When was this?"
|
|
|
|
"It lies across the sea ..." said Number Two, narrowing his eyes
|
|
significantly, "to the east!"
|
|
|
|
"Ah."
|
|
|
|
Number Two turned to face the crowd. He raised his gun above his
|
|
head. This is going to be great, thought the crowd.
|
|
|
|
"We have declared war on it!"
|
|
|
|
Wild abandoned cheering broke out in all corners of the clearing
|
|
- this was beyond all expectation.
|
|
|
|
"Wait a minute," shouted Ford Prefect, "wait a minute!"
|
|
|
|
He leapt to his feet and demanded silence. After a while he got
|
|
it, or at least the best silence he could hope for under the
|
|
circumstances: the circumstances were that the bagpiper was
|
|
spontaneously composing a national anthem.
|
|
|
|
"Do we have to have the piper?" demanded Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Oh yes," said the Captain, "we've given him a grant."
|
|
|
|
Ford considered opening this idea up for debate but quickly
|
|
decided that that way madness lay. Instead he slung a well judged
|
|
rock at the piper and turned to face Number Two.
|
|
|
|
"War?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"Yes!" Number Two gazed contemptuously at Ford Prefect.
|
|
|
|
"On the next continent?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes! Total warfare! The war to end all wars!"
|
|
|
|
"But there's no one even living there yet!"
|
|
|
|
Ah, interesting, thought the crowd, nice point.
|
|
|
|
Number Two's gaze hovered undisturbed. In this respect his eyes
|
|
were like a couple of mosquitos that hover purposefully three
|
|
inches from your nose and refuse to be deflected by arm thrashes,
|
|
fly swats or rolled newspapers.
|
|
|
|
"I know that," he said, "but there will be one day! So we have
|
|
left an open-ended ultimatum."
|
|
|
|
"What?"
|
|
|
|
"And blown up a few military installations."
|
|
|
|
The Captain leaned forward out of his bath.
|
|
|
|
"Military installations Number Two?" he said.
|
|
|
|
For a moment the eyes wavered.
|
|
|
|
"Yes sir, well potential military installations. Alright ...
|
|
trees."
|
|
|
|
The moment of uncertainty passed - his eyes flickered like whips
|
|
over his audience.
|
|
|
|
"And," he roared, "we interrogated a gazelle!"
|
|
|
|
He flipped his Kill-O-Zap gun smartly under his arm and marched
|
|
off through the pandemonium that had now erupted throughout the
|
|
ecstatic crowd. A few steps was all he managed before he was
|
|
caught up and carried shoulder high for a lap of honour round the
|
|
clearing.
|
|
|
|
Ford sat and idly tapped a couple of stones together.
|
|
|
|
"So what else have you done?" he inquired after the celebrations
|
|
had died down.
|
|
|
|
"We have started a culture," said the marketing girl.
|
|
|
|
"Oh yes?" said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Yes. One of our film producers is already making a fascinating
|
|
documentary about the indigenous cavemen of the area."
|
|
|
|
"They're not cavemen."
|
|
|
|
"They look like cavemen."
|
|
|
|
"Do they live in caves?"
|
|
|
|
"Well ..."
|
|
|
|
"They live in huts."
|
|
|
|
"Perhaps they're having their caves redecorated," called out a
|
|
wag from the crowd.
|
|
|
|
Ford rounded on him angrily.
|
|
|
|
"Very funny," he said, "but have you noticed that they're dying
|
|
out?"
|
|
|
|
On their journey back, Ford and Arthur had come across two
|
|
derelict villages and the bodies of many natives in the woods,
|
|
where they had crept away to die. Those that still lived were
|
|
stricken and listless, as if they were suffering some disease of
|
|
the spirit rather than the body. They moved sluggishly and with
|
|
an infinite sadness. Their future had been taken away from them.
|
|
|
|
"Dying out!" repeated Ford. "Do you know what that means?"
|
|
|
|
"Er ... we shouldn't sell them any life insurance?" called out
|
|
the wag again.
|
|
|
|
Ford ignored him, and appealed to the whole crowd.
|
|
|
|
"Can you try and understand," he said, "that it's just since
|
|
we've arrived that they've started dying out!"
|
|
|
|
"In fact that comes over terribly well in this film," said the
|
|
marketing girl, "and just gives it that poignant twist which is
|
|
the hallmark of the really great documentary. The producer's very
|
|
committed."
|
|
|
|
"He should be," muttered Ford.
|
|
|
|
"I gather," said the girl, turning to address the Captain who was
|
|
beginning to nod off, "that he wants to make one about you next,
|
|
Captain."
|
|
|
|
"Oh really?" he said, coming to with a start, "that's awfully
|
|
nice."
|
|
|
|
"He's got a very strong angle on it, you know, the burden of
|
|
responsibility, the loneliness of command ..."
|
|
|
|
The Captain hummed and hahed about this for a moment.
|
|
|
|
"Well, I wouldn't overstress that angle, you know," he said
|
|
finally, "one's never alone with a rubber duck."
|
|
|
|
He held the duck aloft and it got an appreciative round from the
|
|
crowd.
|
|
|
|
All the while, the Management Consultant had been sitting in
|
|
stony silence, his finger tips pressed to his temples to indicate
|
|
that he was waiting and would wait all day if it was necessary.
|
|
|
|
At this point he decided he would not wait all day after all, he
|
|
would merely pretend that the last half hour hadn't happened.
|
|
|
|
He rose to his feet.
|
|
|
|
"If," he said tersely, "we could for a moment move on to the
|
|
subject of fiscal policy ..."
|
|
|
|
"Fiscal policy!" whooped Ford Prefect, "Fiscal policy!"
|
|
|
|
The Management Consultant gave him a look that only a lungfish
|
|
could have copied.
|
|
|
|
"Fiscal policy ..." he repeated, "that is what I said."
|
|
|
|
"How can you have money," demanded Ford, "if none of you actually
|
|
produces anything? It doesn't grow on trees you know."
|
|
|
|
"If you would allow me to continue ..."
|
|
|
|
Ford nodded dejectedly.
|
|
|
|
"Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as
|
|
legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich."
|
|
|
|
Ford stared in disbelief at the crowd who were murmuring
|
|
appreciatively at this and greedily fingering the wads of leaves
|
|
with which their track suits were stuffed.
|
|
|
|
"But we have also," continued the Management Consultant, "run
|
|
into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of
|
|
leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going
|
|
rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship's
|
|
peanut."
|
|
|
|
Murmurs of alarm came from the crowd. The Management Consultant
|
|
waved them down.
|
|
|
|
"So in order to obviate this problem," he continued, "and
|
|
effectively revaluate the leaf, we are about to embark on a
|
|
massive defoliation campaign, and ... er, burn down all the
|
|
forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under
|
|
the circumstances."
|
|
|
|
The crowd seemed a little uncertain about this for a second or
|
|
two until someone pointed out how much this would increase the
|
|
value of the leaves in their pockets whereupon they let out
|
|
whoops of delight and gave the Management Consultant a standing
|
|
ovation. The accountants amongst them looked forward to a
|
|
profitable Autumn.
|
|
|
|
"You're all mad," explained Ford Prefect.
|
|
|
|
"You're absolutely barmy," he suggested.
|
|
|
|
"You're a bunch of raving nutters," he opined.
|
|
|
|
The tide of opinion started to turn against him. What had started
|
|
out as excellent entertainment had now, in the crowd's view,
|
|
deteriorated into mere abuse, and since this abuse was in the
|
|
main directed at them they wearied of it.
|
|
|
|
Sensing this shift in the wind, the marketing girl turned on him.
|
|
|
|
"Is it perhaps in order," she demanded, "to inquire what you've
|
|
been doing all these months then? You and that other interloper
|
|
have been missing since the day we arrived."
|
|
|
|
"We've been on a journey," said Ford, "We went to try and find
|
|
out something about this planet."
|
|
|
|
"Oh," said the girl archly, "doesn't sound very productive to
|
|
me."
|
|
|
|
"No? Well have I got news for you, my love. We have discovered
|
|
this planet's future."
|
|
|
|
Ford waited for this statement to have its effect. It didn't have
|
|
any. They didn't know what he was talking about.
|
|
|
|
He continued.
|
|
|
|
"It doesn't matter a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys what you all
|
|
choose to do from now on. Burn down the forests, anything, it
|
|
won't make a scrap of difference. Your future history has already
|
|
happened. Two million years you've got and that's it. At the end
|
|
of that time your race will be dead, gone and good riddance to
|
|
you. Remember that, two million years!"
|
|
|
|
The crowd muttered to itself in annoyance. People as rich as they
|
|
had suddenly become shouldn't be obliged to listen to this sort
|
|
of gibberish. Perhaps they could tip the fellow a leaf or two and
|
|
he would go away.
|
|
|
|
They didn't need to bother. Ford was already stalking out of the
|
|
clearing, pausing only to shake his head at Number Two who was
|
|
already firing his Kill-O-Zap gun into some neighbouring trees.
|
|
|
|
He turned back once.
|
|
|
|
"Two million years!" he said and laughed.
|
|
|
|
"Well," said the Captain with a soothing smile, "still time for a
|
|
few more baths. Could someone pass me the sponge? I just dropped
|
|
it over the side."
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 33
|
|
|
|
A mile or so away through the wood, Arthur Dent was too busily
|
|
engrossed with what he was doing to hear Ford Prefect approach.
|
|
|
|
What he was doing was rather curious, and this is what it was: on
|
|
a wide flat piece of rock he had scratched out the shape of a
|
|
large square, subdivided into one hundred and sixty-nine smaller
|
|
squares, thirteen to a side.
|
|
|
|
Furthermore he had collected together a pile of smallish flattish
|
|
stones and scratched the shape of a letter on to each. Sitting
|
|
morosely round the rock were a couple of the surviving local
|
|
native men whom Arthur Dent was trying to introduce the curious
|
|
concept embodied in these stones.
|
|
|
|
So far they had not done well. They had attempted to eat some of
|
|
them, bury others and throw the rest of them away. Arthur had
|
|
finally encouraged one of them to lay a couple of stones on the
|
|
board he had scratched out, which was not even as far as he'd
|
|
managed to get the day before. Along with the rapid deterioration
|
|
in the morale of these creatures, there seemed to be a
|
|
corresponding deterioration in their actual intelligence.
|
|
|
|
In an attempt to egg them along, Arthur set out a number of
|
|
letters on the board himself, and then tried to encourage the
|
|
natives to add some more themselves.
|
|
|
|
It was not going well.
|
|
|
|
Ford watched quietly from beside a nearby tree.
|
|
|
|
"No," said Arthur to one of the natives who had just shuffled
|
|
some of the letters round in a fit of abysmal dejection, "Q
|
|
scores ten you see, and it's on a triple word score, so ... look,
|
|
I've explained the rules to you ... no no, look please, put down
|
|
that jawbone ... alright, we'll start again. And try to
|
|
concentrate this time."
|
|
|
|
Ford leaned his elbow against the tree and his hand against his
|
|
head.
|
|
|
|
"What are you doing, Arthur?" he asked quietly.
|
|
|
|
Arthur looked up with a start. He suddenly had a feeling that all
|
|
this might look slightly foolish. All he knew was that it had
|
|
worked like a dream on him when he was a chid. But things were
|
|
different then, or rather would be.
|
|
|
|
"I'm trying to teach the cavemen to play Scrabble," he said.
|
|
|
|
"They're not cavemen," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"They look like cavemen."
|
|
|
|
Ford let it pass.
|
|
|
|
"I see," he said.
|
|
|
|
"It's uphill work," said Arthur wearily, "the only word they know
|
|
is grunt and they can't spell it."
|
|
|
|
He sighed and sat back.
|
|
|
|
"What's that supposed to achieve?" asked Ford.
|
|
|
|
"We've got to encourage them to evolve! To develop!" Arthur burst
|
|
out angrily. He hoped that the weary sigh and then the anger
|
|
might do something to counteract the overriding feeling of
|
|
foolishness from which he was currently suffering. It didn't. He
|
|
jumped to his feet.
|
|
|
|
"Can you imagine what a world would be like descended from those
|
|
... cretins we arrived with?" he said.
|
|
|
|
"Imagine?" said Ford, rising his eyebrows. "We don't have to
|
|
imagine. We've seen it."
|
|
|
|
"But ..." Arthur waved his arms about hopelessly.
|
|
|
|
"We've seen it," said Ford, "there's no escape."
|
|
|
|
Arthur kicked at a stone.
|
|
|
|
"Did you tell them what we've discovered?" he asked.
|
|
|
|
"Hmmmm?" said Ford, not really concentrating.
|
|
|
|
"Norway," said Arthur, "Slartibartfast's signature in the
|
|
glacier. Did you tell them?"
|
|
|
|
"What's the point?" said Ford, "What would it mean to them?"
|
|
|
|
"Mean?" said Arthur, "Mean? You know perfectly well what it
|
|
means. It means that this planet is the Earth! It's my home! It's
|
|
where I was born!"
|
|
|
|
"Was?" said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Alright, will be."
|
|
|
|
"Yes, in two million years' time. Why don't you tell them that?
|
|
Go and say to them, `Excuse me, I'd just like to point out that
|
|
in two million years' time I will be born just a few miles from
|
|
here.' See what they say. They'll chase you up a tree and set
|
|
fire to it."
|
|
|
|
Arthur absorbed this unhappily.
|
|
|
|
"Face it," said Ford, "those zeebs over there are your ancestors,
|
|
not these poor creatures here."
|
|
|
|
He went over to where the apemen creatures were rummaging
|
|
listlessly with the stone letters. He shook his head.
|
|
|
|
"Put the Scrabble away, Arthur," he said, "it won't save the
|
|
human race, because this lot aren't going to be the human race.
|
|
The human race is currently sitting round a rock on the other
|
|
side of this hill making documentaries about themselves."
|
|
|
|
Arthur winced.
|
|
|
|
"There must be something we can do," he said. A terrible sense of
|
|
desolation thrilled through his body that he should be here, on
|
|
the Earth, the Earth which had lost its future in a horrifying
|
|
arbitrary catastrophe and which now seemed set to lose its past
|
|
as well.
|
|
|
|
"No," said Ford, "there's nothing we can do. This doesn't change
|
|
the history of the Earth, you see, this is the history of the
|
|
Earth. Like it or leave it, the Golgafrinchans are the people you
|
|
are descended from. in two million years they get destroyed by
|
|
the Vogons. History is never altered you see, it just fits
|
|
together like a jigsaw. Funny old thing, life, isn't it?"
|
|
|
|
He picked up the letter Q and hurled it into a distant pivet bush
|
|
where it hit a young rabbit. The rabbit hurtled off in terror and
|
|
didn't stop till it was set upon and eaten by a fox which choked
|
|
on one of its bones and died on the bank of a stream which
|
|
subsequently washed it away.
|
|
|
|
During the following weeks Ford Prefect swallowed his pride and
|
|
struck up a relationship with a girl who had been a personnel
|
|
officer on Golgafrincham, and he was terribly upset when she
|
|
suddenly passed away as a result of drinking water from a pool
|
|
that had been polluted by the body of a dead fox. The only moral
|
|
it is possible to draw from this story is that one should never
|
|
throw the letter Q into a pivet bush, but unfortunately there are
|
|
times when it is unavoidable.
|
|
|
|
Like most of the really crucial things in life, this chain of
|
|
events was completely invisible to Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent.
|
|
They were looking sadly at one of the natives morosely pushing
|
|
the other letters around.
|
|
|
|
"Poor bloody caveman," said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"They're not ..."
|
|
|
|
"What?"
|
|
|
|
"Oh never mind."
|
|
|
|
The wretched creature let out a pathetic howling noise and banged
|
|
on the rock.
|
|
|
|
"It's all been a bit of waste of time for them, hasn't it?" said
|
|
Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Uh uh urghhhhh," muttered the native and banged on the rock
|
|
again.
|
|
|
|
"They've been outevolved by telephone sanitizers."
|
|
|
|
"Urgh, gr gr, gruh!" insisted the native, continuing to bang on
|
|
the rock.
|
|
|
|
"Why does he keep banging on the rock?" said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"I think he probably wants you to Scrabble with him again," said
|
|
Ford, "he's pointing at the letters."
|
|
|
|
"Probably spelt crzjgrdwldiwdc again, poor bastard. I keep on
|
|
telling him there's only one g in crzjgrdwldiwdc."
|
|
|
|
The native banged on the rock again.
|
|
|
|
They looked over his shoulder.
|
|
|
|
Their eyes popped.
|
|
|
|
There amongst the jumble of letters were eight that had been laid
|
|
out in a clear straight line.
|
|
|
|
They spelt two words.
|
|
|
|
The words were these:
|
|
|
|
"Forty-Two."
|
|
|
|
"Grrrurgh guh guh," explained the native. He swept the letters
|
|
angrily away and went and mooched under a nearby tree with his
|
|
colleague.
|
|
|
|
Ford and Arthur stared at him. Then they stared at each other.
|
|
|
|
"Did that say what I thought it said?" they both said to each
|
|
other.
|
|
|
|
"Yes," they both said.
|
|
|
|
"Forty-two," said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Forty-two," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
Arthur ran over to the two natives.
|
|
|
|
"What are you trying to tell us?" he shouted. "What's it supposed
|
|
to mean?"
|
|
|
|
One of them rolled over on the ground, kicked his legs up in the
|
|
air, rolled over again and went to sleep.
|
|
|
|
The other bounded up the tree and threw horse chestnuts at Ford
|
|
Prefect. Whatever it was they had to say, they had already said
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
"You know what this means," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Not entirely."
|
|
|
|
"Forty-two is the number Deep Thought gave as being the Ultimate
|
|
Answer."
|
|
|
|
"Yes."
|
|
|
|
And the Earth is the computer Deep Thought designed and built to
|
|
calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer."
|
|
|
|
"So we are led to believe."
|
|
|
|
"And organic life was part of the computer matrix."
|
|
|
|
"If you say so."
|
|
|
|
"I do say so. That means that these natives, these apemen are an
|
|
integral part of the computer program, and that we and the
|
|
Golgafrinchans are not."
|
|
|
|
"But the cavemen are dying out and the Golgafrinchans are
|
|
obviously set to replace them."
|
|
|
|
"Exactly. So do you see what this means?"
|
|
|
|
"What?"
|
|
|
|
"Cock up," said Ford Prefect.
|
|
|
|
Arthur looked around him.
|
|
|
|
"This planet is having a pretty bloody time of it," he said.
|
|
|
|
Ford puzzled for a moment.
|
|
|
|
"Still, something must have come out of it," he said at last,
|
|
"because Marvin said he could see the Question printed in your
|
|
brain wave patterns."
|
|
|
|
"But ..."
|
|
|
|
"Probably the wrong one, or a distortion of the right one. It
|
|
might give us a clue though if we could find it. I don't see how
|
|
we can though."
|
|
|
|
They moped about for a bit. Arthur sat on the ground and started
|
|
pulling up bits of grass, but found that it wasn't an occupation
|
|
he could get deeply engrossed in. It wasn't grass he could
|
|
believe in, the trees seemed pointless, the rolling hills seemed
|
|
to be rolling to nowhere and the future seemed just a tunnel to
|
|
be crawled through.
|
|
|
|
Ford fiddled with his Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic. It was silent. He
|
|
sighed and put it away.
|
|
|
|
Arthur picked up one of the letter stones from his home-made
|
|
Scrabble set. It was a T. He sighed and out it down again. The
|
|
letter he put down next to it was an I. That spelt IT. He tossed
|
|
another couple of letters next to them They were an S and an H as
|
|
it happened. By a curious coincidence the resulting word
|
|
perfectly expressed the way Arthur was feeling about things just
|
|
then. He stared at it for a moment. He hadn't done it
|
|
deliberately, it was just a random chance. His brain got slowly
|
|
into first gear.
|
|
|
|
"Ford," he said suddenly, "look, if that Question is printed in
|
|
my brain wave patterns but I'm not consciously aware of it it
|
|
must be somewhere in my unconscious."
|
|
|
|
"Yes, I suppose so."
|
|
|
|
"There might be a way of bringing that unconscious pattern
|
|
forward."
|
|
|
|
"Oh yes?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes, by introducing some random element that can be shaped by
|
|
that pattern."
|
|
|
|
"Like how?"
|
|
|
|
"Like by pulling Scrabble letters out of a bag blindfolded."
|
|
|
|
Ford leapt to his feet.
|
|
|
|
"Brilliant!" he said. He tugged his towel out of his satchel and
|
|
with a few deft knots transformed it into a bag.
|
|
|
|
"Totally mad," he said, "utter nonsense. But we'll do it because
|
|
it's brilliant nonsense. Come on, come on."
|
|
|
|
The sun passed respectfully behind a cloud. A few small sad
|
|
raindrops fell.
|
|
|
|
They piled together all the remaining letters and dropped them
|
|
into the bag. They shook them up.
|
|
|
|
"Right," said Ford, "close your eyes. Pull them out. Come on come
|
|
on, come on."
|
|
|
|
Arthur closed his eyes and plunged his hand into the towelful of
|
|
stones. He jiggled them about, pulled out four and handed them to
|
|
Ford. Ford laid them along the ground in the order he got them.
|
|
|
|
"W," said Ford, "H, A, T ... What!"
|
|
|
|
He blinked.
|
|
|
|
"I think it's working!" he said.
|
|
|
|
Arthur pushed three more at him.
|
|
|
|
"D, O, Y ... Doy. Oh perhaps it isn't working," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Here's the next three."
|
|
|
|
"O, U, G ... Doyoug ... It's not making sense I'm afraid."
|
|
|
|
Arthur pulled another two from the bag. Ford put them in place.
|
|
|
|
"E, T, doyouget ... Do you get!" shouted Ford, "it is working!
|
|
This is amazing, it really is working!"
|
|
|
|
"More here." Arthur was throwing them out feverishly as fast as
|
|
he could go.
|
|
|
|
"I, F," said Ford, "Y, O, U, ... M, U, L, T, I, P, L, Y, ... What
|
|
do you get if you multiply, ... S, I, X, ... six, B, Y, by, six
|
|
by ... what do you get if you multiply six by ... N, I, N, E, ...
|
|
six by nine ..." He paused. "Come on, where's the next one?"
|
|
|
|
"Er, that's the lot," said Arthur, "that's all there were."
|
|
|
|
He sat back, nonplussed.
|
|
|
|
He rooted around again in the knotted up towel but there were no
|
|
more letters.
|
|
|
|
"You mean that's it?" said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"That's it."
|
|
|
|
"Six by nine. Forty-two."
|
|
|
|
"That's it. That's all there is."
|
|
|
|
=================================================================
|
|
Chapter 34
|
|
|
|
The sun came out and beamed cheerfully at them. A bird sang. A
|
|
warm breeze wafted through the trees and lifted the heads of the
|
|
flowers, carrying their scent away through the woods. An insect
|
|
droned past on its way to do whatever it is that insects do in
|
|
the late afternoon. The sound of voices lilted through the trees
|
|
followed a moment later by two girls who stopped in surprise at
|
|
the sight of Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent apparently lying on the
|
|
ground in agony, but in fact rocking with noiseless laughter.
|
|
|
|
"No, don't go," called Ford Prefect between gasps, "we'll be with
|
|
you in a moment."
|
|
|
|
"What's the matter?" asked one of the girls. She was the taller
|
|
and slimmer of the two. On Golgafrincham she had been a junior
|
|
personnel officer, but hadn't liked it much.
|
|
|
|
Ford pulled himself together.
|
|
|
|
"Excuse me," he said, "hello. My friend and I were just
|
|
contemplating the meaning of life. Frivolous exercise."
|
|
|
|
"Oh it's you," said the girl, "you made a bit of a spectacle of
|
|
yourself this afternoon. You were quite funny to begin with but
|
|
you did bang on a bit."
|
|
|
|
"Did I? Oh yes."
|
|
|
|
"Yes, what was all that for?" asked the other girl, a shorter
|
|
round-faced girl who had been an art director for a small
|
|
advertising company on Golgafrincham. Whatever the privations of
|
|
this world were, she went to sleep every night profoundly
|
|
grateful for the fact that whatever she had to face in the
|
|
morning it wouldn't be a hundred almost identical photographs of
|
|
moodily lit tubes of toothpaste.
|
|
|
|
"For? For nothing. Nothing's for anything," said Ford Prefect
|
|
happily. "Come and join us. I"m Ford, this is Arthur. We were
|
|
just about to do nothing at all for a while but it can wait."
|
|
|
|
The girls looked at them doubtfully.
|
|
|
|
"I'm Agda," said the tall one, "this is Mella."
|
|
|
|
"Hello Agda, hello Mella," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"Do you talk at all?" said Mella to Arthur.
|
|
|
|
"Oh, eventually," said Arthur with a smile, "but not as much as
|
|
Ford."
|
|
|
|
"Good."
|
|
|
|
There was a slight pause.
|
|
|
|
"What did you mean," asked Agda, "about only having two million
|
|
years? I couldn't make sense of what you were saying."
|
|
|
|
"Oh that," said Ford, "it doesn't matter."
|
|
|
|
"It's just that the world gets demolished to make way for a
|
|
hyperspace bypass," said Arthur with a shrug, "but that's two
|
|
million years away, and anyway it's just Vogons doing what Vogons
|
|
do."
|
|
|
|
"Vogons?" said Mella.
|
|
|
|
"Yes, you wouldn't know them."
|
|
|
|
"Where'd you get this idea from?"
|
|
|
|
"It really doesn't matter. It's just like a dream from the past,
|
|
or the future." Arthur smiled and looked away.
|
|
|
|
"Does it worry you that you don't talk any kind of sense?" asked
|
|
Agda.
|
|
|
|
"Listen, forget it," said Ford, "forget all of it. Nothing
|
|
matters. Look, it's a beautiful day, enjoy it. The sun, the green
|
|
of the hills, the river down in the valley, the burning trees."
|
|
|
|
"Even if it's only a dream, it's a pretty horrible idea," said
|
|
Mella, "destroying a world just to make a bypass."
|
|
|
|
"Oh, I've heard of worse," said Ford, "I read of one planet off
|
|
in the seventh dimension that got used as a ball in a game of
|
|
intergalactic bar billiards. Got potted straight into a black
|
|
hole. Killed ten billion people."
|
|
|
|
"That's mad," said Mella.
|
|
|
|
"Yes, only scored thirty points too."
|
|
|
|
Agda and Mella exchanged glances.
|
|
|
|
"Look," said Agda, "there's a party after the committee meeting
|
|
tonight. You can come along if you like."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, OK," said Ford.
|
|
|
|
"I'd like to," said Arthur.
|
|
|
|
Many hours later Arthur and Mella sat and watched the moon rise
|
|
over the dull red glow of the trees.
|
|
|
|
"That story about the world being destroyed ..." began Mella.
|
|
|
|
"In two million years, yes."
|
|
|
|
"You say it as if you really think it's true."
|
|
|
|
"Yes, I think it is. I think I was there."
|
|
|
|
She shook her head in puzzlement.
|
|
|
|
"You're very strange," she said.
|
|
|
|
"No, I'm very ordinary," said Arthur, "but some very strange
|
|
things have happened to me. You could say I'm more differed from
|
|
than differing."
|
|
|
|
"And that other world your friend talked about, the one that got
|
|
pushed into a black hole."
|
|
|
|
"Ah, that I don't know about. It sounds like something from the
|
|
book."
|
|
|
|
"What book?"
|
|
|
|
Arthur paused.
|
|
|
|
"The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy," he said at last.
|
|
|
|
"What's that?"
|
|
|
|
"Oh, just something I threw into the river this evening. I don't
|
|
think I'll be wanting it any more," said Arthur Dent.
|