10
The word went out to the sentient beings of Nano that there was some major aggravation about to kick off in Tyropolis and it would probably be best to steer clear until the earth stopped shaking. Which, of course, meant that everyone made their way immediately to the scorched meadow on the outskirts of the town, except Nickles Adare, an ex-mayor of New York who was locked in a Cong treatment room on enforced detox.
The pootle-tink birds were among the first to arrive, having the advantage of sensitive primary feathers, which their leader, Perko St Waring Speckle, used to steer a borrowed minibus. Perko stopped the bus by driving it into the ditch and then sent two of his flock to keep places at the fence, while the rest of them went in search of dairy-free cappuccinos.
The personal trainers arrived next, racing across the fields in diamond formation, seemingly untroubled by the mid-afternoon sun. Having cleared the fields, they jogged along the road, each with a bicycle on one shoulder and a beautician on the other.
‘Shouldn’t you be riding that thing?’ Arthur commented to a bulging young man who happened to warm down beside him.
‘Oh, grow up,’ snapped the trainer and stalked off, leaving Arthur bewildered.
Thor was limbering up in the scorched meadow, throwing a few shapes and making sure his leggings were securely secured. He felt nervous. Truth be told, though it probably never would be – especially to Zaphod – he felt terrified. This was his first public display since that damnable video had aired, which thankfully no one here seemed to have seen. As far as these people were concerned, he was a first-class god who had never dabbled in rockstardom or candid movies. He had a chance to make a good impression here. Something he could build on.
If I do well today, Thor realized, it could go a long way to restoring my reputation. I really hope this immortal plays along and doesn’t die too quickly. A god killing a non-god can seem a little unsympathetic if it isn’t played just so.
There was quite a crowd gathered and the atmosphere seemed very festive. The younger pootle-tinks were plucking dead tail feathers and helicoptering them down on the field while a caffeine-hyped squad of veterans were doing flyovers, complete with synchronized loops and stunt dips.
The trainers were forming a human pyramid on the crisped fringe of grass, while the kind-hearted beauticians were consoling the desperate residents of Tyropolis and Cong, most of whom had long since forgotten how to beautify themselves.
‘It’s my hair,’ one elderly lady wailed. ‘I pointed the hot blowy thing at it, but still it won’t change colour.’
‘And these nails,’ said another. ‘They just keep growing. Every day it’s the same. Come back, Jasmin. Please come back.’
Buckeye Brown had a baleful glare triangle going on. First he looked down at his shoes, then over at Buff Orpington and finally at a tall, tanned man sporting red trunks and flip-flops with an emergency whistle clamped between his teeth.
Head and shoulders above these people stood the Thunder God.
I can bring these mortals together, thought Thor. One god. One faith. The more people that believe in me, the more I can charge. And I bet one of those girls could do a nice beard braiding. No sooner had this happy thought formed in his mind than the old insecurity came flooding back. It’s going to be a disaster. The Sub-Etha people hate me. No matter how sensitively I kill this immortal fellow, all they’re going to see is the negative. Thor shrugged. I may as well get a few braids in, it might lift my spirits.
On the far side of the scorched circle, Wowbagger was feeling lightheaded and giddy. The moment had finally arrived when he could kiss this corporeal realm goodbye and good riddance. Several lifetimes’ of suffering were almost at an end.
I think this guy could do it, thought Wowbagger. I’ll get him a little riled up with some choice comments and he’ll hit me with the big piledriver.
Thor certainly looked as though he was up to the job. Power came off him in waves and he was shooting practise lightning bolts at a bunch of volunteer cows who were providing moo-ving targets.
He’s the one. I can feel it.
But there was an uncomfortable thorn in Bowerick Wowbagger’s moment of celebration. The Earth woman, Trillian Astra, had changed him.
My heart pistons are pumping like crazy. I’m off my food. I have zero interest in insulting people. It’s almost as if I have a virus, but I don’t get viruses.
Wowbagger knew what had happened. The dark space had taken a speck of attraction and amplified it until it seemed to him that he was in love.
Is that what happened, really? Couldn’t I just be lucky for once? For a change?
Doubtful.
The lady in question was standing by the fence, arguing with her daughter. Also, remember, Bowerick old man, if you take the woman, you take the child too.
And, surprisingly enough, that didn’t bother him too much.
There’s always the tube, though Trillian wasn’t so impressed with that solution the last time.
Wowbagger waved across the meadow and Trillian waved back.
Waving. I can’t even remember the last time I waved at someone.
Trillian finished the row by turning her back on Random and stomping across the field, her high heels puncturing the earth with each footfall.
‘That girl,’ she said, punching Wowbagger’s forearm. ‘She knows how to get me going.’
‘What’s she saying now?’
Trillian’s face was pale, except for two apple-red spots on her cheeks. ‘Anything she knows I won’t want to hear.’
‘It’s just the dark space talking. It will pass.’
‘I don’t think so. Random hates me and everything I love. I think if I had ever loved Arthur, she would hate him too.’
‘You never loved him?’
‘No. I just felt I was getting old and his were the only human swimmers available.’
‘I see.’
‘I left her before. I didn’t really mean to, it just happened. So she hates me for that.’
‘Surely, she doesn’t hate you?’
Trillian nodded sharply. ‘She does. She says that I made her miserable. And if she can’t have a husband, why should I…’
And then Trillian decided to stop speaking, half a sentence too late.
Wowbagger coughed once in surprise, then had to cough several more times to cover for himself.
‘I’ve scared you?’
‘No. Not at all. Can I presume you were referring to me as potential husband material?’
There were tears in Trillian’s eyes. ‘Yes, but it was just talk. You’ve dreamed about this moment for so long and I have nothing to offer you but hardship. This life is for Random, I’ve promised her. You go ahead and kill yourself, don’t worry about me.’
‘It sounds selfish when you put it like that.’
Trillian wiped her cheeks. ‘No, I understand perfectly. You’ve had a terrible time being immortal in that wonderful ship of yours. Drinking beer and insulting people, not to mention being incredibly handsome and charming. It’s been hell for you, I realize that.’
‘You make it sound glamorous.’
‘Wasn’t it? I seem to recall you being linked to several starlets.’
‘That was just physical. Those females meant nothing to me.’
This is historically the third worst things to say to a female of any species.
‘They meant nothing? Why not?’
Wowbagger spread his arms. ‘How could they? Even as we mated, they were growing old.’
There’s number two.
Trillian’s eyes flashed. ‘Growing old. We all grow old, Bowerick. Believe it or not, I’m growing old too.’
Wowbagger realized that his lack of intimate communication over the years was doing wonders to increase his chances of dying alone in the very immediate future.
‘You may be growing old,’ he said desperately, ‘but you have years left before you’re too old to reproduce.’
And there’s number one. Badabingo. Green stick in the green hole.
Zaphod and Ford were reunited in a flurry of complicated Betelgeusean ritual handshakes that neither of them could ever remember past the second under-arm squelch.
Ford abracadabra’d a couple of sea-dragon’s eggs from his satchel and mixed them both a cocktail.
‘I love opera,’ he said, when the effects had worn off. ‘It goes so well with drinks. A pity we didn’t have some blood sludge to nibble on.’
Zaphod smacked his lips. ‘Blood sludge. That takes me back. You remember that implement?’
‘I do remember it.’
‘And the thing with the curvy end?’
‘Wow. That was one hell of a froody retreat. Monks. Who knew.’
They sat on a patch of springy grass that had escaped Thor’s lightning display, watching the pootle-tink birds soar overhead.
‘Are they supposed to lay eggs in mid-air?’ wondered Zaphod. ‘Seems a little devil-may-care.’
‘Those birds lay a lot of eggs. They’re just trying to keep the population down.’
Arthur strode across the meadow, intent on interrupting the soirée with some pertinent information, something most Betelgeuseans don’t like to deal with on a daily basis in case it spoils their mood.
Guide Note: Betelgeuseans have been known to ignore reality completely, especially if they happen to be holding a drink of the alcoholic kind, more especially if there are novelty ice cubes in the drink which can clink hypnotically and make the most urgent impending disaster seem trivial. It is a little known cosmic irony that the Praxibetel communities on Betelgeuse Seven were enjoying the precog Pantheoh’s opera The Great Collapsing Hrung Disaster when the real Hrung Disaster actually occurred. Only Ford Prefect’s father survived because he had snuck away from his work colleagues to try to pick up a better signal on his Guide in order to follow Last Behemoth Standing. The Hrung in question had little to say about his collapse apart from he had decided to give up interpretive dance and he was sorry for the inconvenience.
‘Vogons,’ said Arthur, flapping a hand vaguely towards the skies. ‘There are Vogons on the way.’
Zaphod seemed about as concerned about Vogons as a Bugblatter Beast would be concerned about Beastblatter Bugs.
‘Don’t worry about it, ape man. Enjoy the moment.’
‘Don’t worry about it?’ Arthur spluttered. ‘Didn’t you see what they did to the Earth? Don’t you remember those death rays?’
Zaphod’s smile was so condescending that it would have earned him five years in an Ashowvian prison.
Guide Note: On the continent of Ashowvia everyone is so highly strung that facial expressions and intonations have had to be regulated. The Twenty-Year Kowtow border conflict was sparked off by a raised eyebrow, which later turned out to have been plucked that way, giving rise to the Ashowvian sayings: ‘Think before you pluck’, ‘Irresponsible plucking costs lives’ and ‘Pluck one pluck all’.
‘The Grebulons destroyed the Earth,’ said Zaphod, ‘not the Vogons. It’s complicated – I don’t expect you to understand.’
‘Complicated? How is it complicated?’
‘It’s complicated for a monkey. Not for an evolved being.’
Arthur wiggled his fingers. ‘I’m evolved. I’ve got thumbs, see?’
‘Thumbs?’ Zaphod snorted. ‘If that’s all there was to evolution, thermoles would rule the Galaxy.’
‘Thermoles,’ said Ford. ‘Eight thumbs, great at opening jars, but about as many brain cells as blood sludge.’
‘Remember that blood sludge? I got barley and maybe garlic.’
‘That’s what I thought. Definitely barley.’
Arthur’s hands shook before him, as though he was playing an invisible accordion.
‘Vogons! Hello? The Vogons are coming!’
‘Yes, we know,’ said Zaphod. ‘But they have to jump through some pretty bendy space to get here. By my calculations they won’t make it for a couple of centuries, if they make it all.’
‘Centuries? Are you sure?’
‘Of course. Relax, Arthur.’
If Ford hadn’t been drinking, the phrase ‘by my calculations’ coming out of the mouth on this particular head of Zaphod’s might have set a few warning lights flashing, but the sun was warm, there were pretty girls everywhere and Ford did not want the image of a dribbling Vogon in his head to destroy the mood.
Arthur, on the other hand, had never met a good mood he couldn’t puncture.
‘You seem very mellow, Zaphod. Aren’t you supposed to be upset?’
‘Why should I be upset? Thor is back on the books and I am about to relaunch his career. Things are so great I may just turn a freeze ray on myself to preserve my froodiness for future generations.’
‘What about the fat arse thing?’
‘What fat arse thing?’
‘Wowbagger was calling you Fat Arse, remember? That’s what got us started on this whole thing.’
Zaphod’s eyes wobbled in their sockets as he cast his mind back.
‘Nope. I’m not getting anything. Fat Arse, you say? He never did.’
In spite of all his experience with Zaphod, Arthur was flabbergasted. ‘You don’t remember, Zaphod? What are you even doing here?’
Zaphod patted Arthur’s shoulder. ‘I go with the moment,’ he said, adopting the wise tone he saved for what he believed to be special moments in other people’s lives. ‘Don’t try to understand me, just be grateful that you felt the warmth of Zaphod Beeblebrox’s aura on your wonderstruck face.’
Arthur’s face did not seem particularly wonderstruck. ‘Whatever, Zaphod. But he called you Fat Arse, take my word for it.’
‘Once? More than once?’
‘Several times.’
Zaphod jumped to his feet. ‘Right. Time to get this party started. More than eight times, would you say?’
‘Maybe twelve. At least ten.’
Zaphod strode across the scorched earth. ‘Thor. Thor, old friend. Ready to make a new video?’
I should have smoked, thought Wowbagger. Why not? All this time trying to stay in shape while simultaneously hiring a succession of idiots to rub me out. That’s a little bit of a contradiction there, Bowerick old boy. Perhaps there’s a part of you that wants to live.
Bowerick rubbed his suddenly itchy nose, thinking that it would be nice to have these epiphanies before setting up a death match with one of the Aesir.
Wowbagger stood alone on one diagonal of the scorched X, waiting for Thor to extricate himself from his manager, a group of statesmen, several admiring trainers and a girl who seemed to be braiding his beard.
‘Come on,’ he called. ‘I don’t have all day.’
‘Why not?’ a pootle-tink bird called from the fence. ‘I thought you were immortal.’
This got a big laugh so Wowbagger decided to nip it in the bud. When dealing with a heckler, go for the deeply personal had always been his motto.
‘You have some stains on your tail feathers there, birdie. You a bed wetter?’
The other birds laughed hard enough to bring on a bout of spontaneous egg laying and the target bird shot him such an evil look that Wowbagger was glad he would be dead in a few minutes.
Finally, Thor seemed to be finished with his ringside business and lifted himself from the head of Mj?llnir, on which he had been perched.
Here we go. About time too.
The Thunder God was a huge specimen, at least four times Wowbagger’s height, but not slow or ungainly. Thor moved as though he was being careful not to break stuff with every step.
I am probably the only person here not afraid of this guy, Wowbagger thought, but then amended that thought to: I am probably the only person here besides Beeblebrox who is not afraid of this guy. Beeblebrox probably thinks he could win this fight.
Then a funny thing happened. With every step Thor took across the scorched earth, he seemed to grow smaller.
Heat haze, thought Wowbagger. It must be.
It was not. Thor was actually shrinking and by the time he reached the X’s intersection the Thunder God was too short to be allowed on most fairground rides.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’
Wowbagger blinked. ‘Me, I think. From your perspective.’
Thor patted his own tiny body. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘Zaphod’s idea. If I just come out here and crush you, how’s that going to make me look? Like a bully, that’s how. This way, for any cameras pointed at us, I look like a giant-killer, which is a much better angle, according to Zaphod, and he knows media.’ The god frowned. ‘Though he does make the occasional mistake.’
Wowbagger felt a buzz of anticipation behind his eyes. ‘So, what happens? I kneel down, I suppose, and then you clobber me?’
Thor was almost affronted. ‘What? No, no. That wouldn’t work. That’s an execution. We have to give these people a show. And not just these people. Eventually this is going to filter through to the entire Sub-Etha.’
‘The Sub-Etha. I never watch it.’
‘Never?’
‘No. It’s all junk. Give me a classic movie any day.’
‘I wish everyone was like you, but they’re not. These days, in this Universe, careers are made and broken on the Sub-Etha.’
‘But you’re a god, what do you need with a career?’
Thor stroked his beard plait, which he probably was not aware had a few beads braided through it. ‘That’s a good question, but I know the answer because we did this in circle time, after my breakdown. Gods have god-sized egos, so we need a lot of love to stay healthy. You see those gods going around blighting crops and drying up rivers? Those guys don’t get loved. It’s a cycle, you know. You have no idea how depressed gods can get. One minute we’re adored, the next despised. I’ve been in the troughs, believe me.’
Guide Note: Loki the Trickster once used his hypnotic charm to convince the Aesir that he had decided to mend his ways and set up shop as a brainologist to the gods. His client list quickly grew as relieved divinities flooded to his door, eager to be regressed and find out why the hell they were so attracted to unicorns and so forth. Thor himself was actually feeling much better and beginning to develop real affection for his brother when he discovered that Loki had done a deal with WooHoo magazine and sessions were being serialized. To make matters worse, Loki had considered Thor’s sessions a bit dull and so had added in a lot more weeping, incontinence pants and an Eccentrica Gallumbits fixation.
Wowbagger nodded thoughtfully to convey the impression that he was prepared to care, but really he was only prepared to nod.
‘That’s great. I understand the whole thing now. A cycle. Right. So, should we wrestle for a while?’
Thor glanced over his shoulders, worried that someone would tumble to the rigged nature of the showdown. ‘A bit of chat first. You stole my ship, blah blah blah. Then you strike the first blow. I pretend to be injured, maybe limp a little. A little back and forth. Then BOOM on the temple and the fat lady has well and truly sung, my friend.’
‘Which fat lady?’
‘Oh, nothing. It’s a Valkyrie expression.’
Wowbagger glanced at the sidelines. There were tears on Trillian’s face, but she was not taking one step to stop proceedings.
‘Okay, little man. It was me. I stole your ship.’
Thor drew a sharp breath, puffing out his tiny chest, trying not to look mortified by the script he was supposed to stick to. ‘You! My father gave me that interstellar longship, which I named after my beloved goat.’ (While broadcasting the thought: I hated that bucket of slime, which is why I sold it to a guy in a bar.)
‘Yes, I did steal it and I’d do it again.’
‘Oh, you would, would you? I may be a benevolent god, evil giant, but I can only forgive so much.’
Enough of this dire cabinotage, thought Wowbagger (cabinotage being a word he had picked up while preparing his global insult for the soap opera planet Sunny View, where the entire world was a television set with eighteen satellite suns for three-shift daylight shooting). Let’s speed things up a bit.
‘Cut the buffa-biscuit, you preposterous little Viking. Your daddy hates you, and your mommy pretends you’re someone else’s son.’
Thor involuntarily shrank an inch. This wasn’t in the script.
‘What? What did you say?’
Wowbagger ploughed on. ‘Everyone knows it. Thor the drunk, they call you. I think you should have stayed at the bar.’
A small thundercloud suddenly appeared overhead, spitting white lightning.
‘You stole my longship, evil giant,’ spluttered Thor, thinking: I’m spluttering. Gods shouldn’t splutter. This is a disaster; they’re going to hate me.
‘Sure. Whatever you say. And another thing everyone knows: you detest mortals.’
‘I do not… What? That was my father’s ship. Remember the longship?’
‘You think mortals are second-class individuals. You wouldn’t wipe your boot with a mortal.’
Thor grew taller, much taller. ‘Yes, I would.’
‘You would wipe your boot with a mortal?’
There were a couple of boos from the audience, maybe a hiss.
‘Yes. I mean no. I don’t know, maybe if my boot was dirty.’
Wowbagger tapped his chin. ‘And did I hear something about a video…’
That was as far as he got, because suddenly Thor was looming over him with Mj?llnir raised to strike.
What happened to back and forth? wondered Wowbagger, then the hammer came down so fast it blurred, crashing into his head with a noise like a meteor impacting on a field of ice.
Goodbye, Trillian, thought Wowbagger, then he was driven bodily fifty feet straight down into his grave.
Thor was in two minds about his performance. The up-and-over swing always made good television, but it was a pity he couldn’t have dragged it out a little longer. What choice did he have? The green guy was just about to mention the video and then the various browsers would have tagged the comment and before you know it everyone’s linked back to the old site.
He was about to turn to Zaphod to check his manager’s reaction when he picked up a faint thought from about fifty feet below his feet. And the thought was either:
Shark eye knothead
or
Zark. I’m not dead.
Zaphod whistled the first bar of ‘Blinko in the Baybox’, an old Betelgeusean epic shanty concerning a prickled mollusc and his time spent in captivity.
‘Whaddya think, Ford? Did he do enough?’
Ford whistled the second bar back at him. ‘I don’t know. I never felt like there was a threat. There was no drama.’
‘You’re right. It was all over too quickly.’ Zaphod looked around. ‘I wonder if there is anyone else in the market for a hammer in the head.’
Thor jogged across the field. ‘What do you think? Nice up-and-over, wasn’t it? I lost my temper a bit though, let the green guy rile me up. Don’t worry, Zaph, it won’t happen next time.’
‘Next time?’
‘Yes, next time. The green guy isn’t dead.’
‘What? Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure. He’s climbing out of that hole now, thinking nasty thoughts.’
‘How much did you give him?’
‘I don’t know, maybe fifty per cent, something like that.’
Zaphod whistled another few notes of ‘Blinko’. ‘Fifty? Really? Did anyone ever survive that before?’
‘No one that didn’t have a seat at the long table.’
Zaphod beckoned to his client to shrink himself down a little. ‘Tell me, Thor, honestly, can you finish Wowbagger off? Can you do it?’
Thor hunkered down. ‘Zaph, I can finish off this entire planet with seventy-five per cent.’ He stretched his rotator cuff. ‘You might want to move everyone back a little though.’
Wowbagger crabbed one elbow out of a crack in the earth.
My suit is ruined, he thought. And that big ape didn’t even break the skin.
Trillian felt broken. Her soul had been split by the hammer blow and she would never be the same.
We had one day together and it was the most important day of my life.
Had she done the right thing, Trillian wondered. Could she even pretend to herself that she had made the right choice?
Beside her, Random was perched on the fence, busily taking no notice of her mother’s sacrifice.
‘Hmmph,’ she grunted suddenly. ‘The bugger is still alive. I knew it.’
For only the third time in her life, Trillian Astra fainted.
A vast cone-shaped ship of white alloy poked through the nebula, its once-smooth fuselage pockmarked by two centuries of space debris impact. No more than one tenth of its eight hundred tripropellant rockets were functioning and there was barely enough life support to keep the crew breathing. The fresh food supply was utterly exhausted and there had been nothing but recycled fluids to drink for several months.
The entire crew was fatigued and starving. Their morale was low and none of them had ever known a home besides this gigantic ship they were contracted to voyage in until their mission was finally complete.
The captain, a once corpulent giant of a man, had shrunk to scarecrow proportions, but he was a hero to his people. His eyes flashed green fire when the day’s work was good, and deep red when a duty was neglected or an officer mistreated his men. The crew loved him and would follow him into hell if need be.
His name was Eddon Cho and today was the day when he could finally complete the mission entrusted to him by his father, and maybe live a little of his own life.
‘Navigator, tell me again,’ he called across the bridge to young Vishnal Li Senz, only seventeen and already an excellent pilot.
‘We’re here, Captain. There can be no doubt about it. The orbit is a little weird but the air is breathable.’
Cho nodded. It was just as well, because once they landed, they wouldn’t be taking off again, ever.
‘Very well, take us down. Careful with the compensator and send any extra spark of power we have to the Verifyer.’
Li Senz swallowed. ‘The Verifyer? My god. Are you certain, Captain?’
‘I’m certain,’ Eddon Cho responded grimly. ‘We only get one shot at this. Now take us down.’
Li Senz cracked his knuckles, then wrapped his fingers around the manual control.
‘May the Unbreakable Guarantee protect us,’ he said.
Around the ship, his prayer was echoed by over two thousand souls.
*
On the surface of Nano, the crowd was feeling a little cheated. Perko St Waring Speckle was showing a new and not altogether attractive side of his personality after a few coffees and a build-up of anticipat-o-acid in his wings.
‘Is that it?’ he called. ‘Is that the entire show? Lame-o. Pathetic.’
Hillman Hunter was none too impressed either.
‘I mean, it was a good hit, that up-and-over action, but the cheesers’ guy is getting back up. What good is that to me?’
Buff Orpington had tears on his cheeks. ‘He’ll do it all right. Just you wait and see. Thor is just warming up, that’s all. Working out the kinks.’
‘He’d better work them out fast, or we’ll all be adoring the big Cheese.’
The surface chatter was abruptly halted by the sight of nearly a hundred spiralling rings of light descending through the atmosphere. The rings incrementally revealed themselves to be the rear engines of a gargantuan ship which eased itself earthwards, shedding shield panels as it dropped. Several of the engines sparked and burned out, dropping the ship in erratic jolts until it finally touched down in a nearby lake, flash-boiling it to a misty shroud.
‘Oooh,’ said Ford Prefect. ‘Spooky.’
There was almost complete silence for several moments until a slender robot arm, muscled with power cables, popped from a hatch in the strange ship’s belly. At the tip of the arm was a blinking sensor that moved rapidly towards the crowd, quickly circumventing the cows hoping for a meat-eater.
Further and further the arm went, telescoping from the body of the ship, over Wowbagger’s head, through Thor’s legs, dodging away from Zaphod, who made a lunge for it. Stopping finally in front of Random.
‘Random Dent?’ it asked in a real robotic voice, back from when robots were robots and didn’t have personalities of their own.
Random stood her ground. ‘Erm… Yes. I guess.’
A hollow opened on the probe’s tip. ‘Spit, please.’
Random dropped a bubble of saliva into the hollow, which immediately bathed it with a series of lasers. After several moments, a green light winked on.
‘Identity confirmed. Here is your package and thank you for purchasing with uBid.’
An envelope dropped from the robot arm into Random’s waiting hand.
‘Thank you,’ she said in a small, guilty voice.
‘Enjoy your product,’ said the probe. ‘And if you have any complaints, please feel free to write them on a bumpy log then hammer said log into your auditory canal.’ The probe swivelled back towards the ship. ‘Mission complete,’ it said. ‘That’s the last one.’
There was a muffled cheer from inside the gigantic ship, then its structure slumped and began the slow process of falling apart.
Random was young and her lungs were full of concentrated dark matter and so, without considering all the possible consequences, she tore open the envelope and ran along the fence to where Thor was patiently enduring a little pep talk from Hillman Hunter.
‘Put these on your hammer,’ she said, interrupting the Nanite leader.
The Thunder God frowned. ‘I thought I heard something. Sort of a squeak squeak squeaky squeak.’
‘Down here!’ shouted Random.
Thor bent over, elbows on knees. ‘Oh, look. A little girl. Oh, my gods, are you a fan? Do you want an autograph, is that it? I don’t usually do school appearances, but I could make an exception.’
Random wasted a second fuming, then: ‘Listen to me, weatherman. I researched immortals on the Sub-Etha, and out of the thousands of hits I found on the topic there was not a single tested and confirmed method of killing one.’
Zaphod chuckled. ‘But this is Thor, girly. You can’t test and confirm him. He’s the big time, big as he wants to be.’
‘Hmm, okay. Well, he is going to look big-time stupid in front of all these people when he can’t kill the green man.’
‘That’s not going to happen,’ said Thor, without much conviction.
‘It won’t happen if you put these on the head of your hammer.’
‘Nothing goes on the hammer, kid. Mj?llnir stays pure.’
Random spoke slowly, so the Thunder God would get the picture. ‘I did manage to find a theory by a little-known scientist on an unregarded world that said that an immortal can only be killed by an object that has come from the same transformational event.’
Even Zaphod could follow that. ‘So, what did transform Wowbagger?’
‘He fell into a particle accelerator trying to retrieve a couple of elastic bands. Bands that I bought on uBid from the high priest of the Temple of Wowbagger.’
Thor reached out a finger and thumb.
‘Why don’t I put those bands on my hammer?’ he said.
Bowerick Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was feeling a little light-headed and it was a feeling he relished, as it reminded him of when he was mortal. He dragged himself from the crack in the earth and lay gasping in crisped curls of grass as the uBid ship fell to pieces behind him.
More intrigue, he thought. I can’t say that today hasn’t been interesting.
As he lay there prostrated in the dirt, thinking as usual about himself and his now unlikely death, he saw that there was someone else on the ground.
Trillian.
And this was the moment when Wowbagger knew for sure that he was in love, because at that moment he stopped thinking about how Trillian related to him and started to think about Trillian herself.
Is she harmed? What’s happened?
Wowbagger shook off his wooziness and jumped to his feet.
‘I’m coming!’ he called, leaning into a run. ‘I’m coming.’
A shadow fell across Wowbagger’s face. Something mountainous obscured his view of Trillian.
‘Time for the big one,’ said Thor, bending over, so his head appeared bizarrely upside-down.
How does his helmet stay on? wondered Wowbagger.
Then Mj?llnir hit him with such injurious force that it sent him straight into the stratosphere.
Arthur was deep in conversation with a pootle-tink bird when he saw Trillian keel over.
‘No,’ he was explaining. ‘The game is called cricket. A wicket is made up of stumps and uprights… Oh, good lord.’
‘Come on,’ said the bird. ‘It’s very confusing. So when a person runs, it’s called a run?’
But the oh, good lord was not directed at the bird; rather it was blurted involuntarily as Trillian fainted dead away. Arthur dropped the soya yogurt he had been enjoying and raced along the fence to where Trillian lay, unmoving.
This is disgraceful, he fumed. Her own daughter, our own daughter, is walking away. What has happened to Random? That child needs to be taken in hand.
This last was a statement oft repeated in the Dent household when Arthur was a boy. His father trotted it out at every opportunity, whenever Arthur strayed even minutely into proscribed behaviour. The taking in hand generally involved a stern talking to, which invariably featured the Second World War, garden sheds, philately and upper lips of the stiff kind. At the end of each lecture, young Arthur had been allowed a nip from his father’s brandy flask, just to put hair on his chest. So whenever Arthur thought about these disciplinary chats he felt sad, then merry, then sleepy, then woke up with a headache.
Arthur knelt beside Trillian and awkwardly cradled her head in the crook of one elbow.
‘There, there,’ he said. ‘If you can hear me, Trillian, I just want you to know that you look great. I know ladies spend a lot of time worrying how their outfits look, in car crash situations and so on.’
Giving comfort to females had never been one of Arthur Dent’s strong suits. In fact if comfort giving had been an actual advertised position, Arthur would never have made it past the first interview, especially if there had been a practical exam.
Guide Note: For the past three decades of real time, the human Arthur Dent had made his life infinitely more miserable than it needed to be by displaying a spectacular ability to say the right thing but at the wrong time. When Arthur Dent’s best friend from university, Jason Kingsley, had been dumped after three years by the love of his life, Stacey Hempton, Arthur assured him that he would not be lonely for long, as slappers like Stacey were easy to come by in any disco. When his Irish Aunt Maedhbhdhb (pronounced Hilda) had received a lethal blow from a falling church gargoyle, Arthur had whispered in her ear: ‘At least the cigarettes won’t kill you now, eh, Aunty?’ Arthur’s tactlessness is only surpassed by that of Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox, who once presented PeeBee Anjay, the gelatinous king of Shivers City, with a leopardskin thong as a birthday present.
Arthur poked Trillian’s cheek with a finger.
‘Trillian,’ he said, softly but urgently. ‘Come on. Wake up.’ She did not respond, so Arthur thought back to the first-aid afternoon course he had been required to attend by the BBC. As far as he could recollect, most of the afternoon had been spent changing the plug on a coffee machine, but hadn’t there been some demonstration involving a plastic dummy with balloons for lungs? Mouth to mouth?
Arthur had no idea if what he was about to clumsily attempt was the correct course of action, but nevertheless it cheered him a little to have a course of action to attempt.
He placed Trillian’s head on the soft grass and leaned over her.
‘You gotta pinch the nose and tilt the head back,’ said a voice from behind his shoulder. It was the bird he had been talking to.
I met this bird downtown, thought Arthur, choking down a hysterical giggle.
He parted Trillian’s lips with his thumb and took a deep breath.
I’m nervous. Why am I nervous?
‘Go on, man. Do it!’
This bird was really pushy.
Arthur bobbed a little, then dived in. Their lips locked and Arthur sealed the corners with his thumbs, then blew. There was no reaction initially; it felt to Arthur like he was blowing into a tunnel. Then Trillian’s arms came up around his neck and she kissed him passionately.
What? Unexpected. Once upon a time this kiss would have been a dream come true.
Arthur pulled back and saw that Trillian’s eyes were open and glassy with tears.
‘Arthur… I thought…’
And Arthur immediately understood. ‘It’s Wowbagger. You love him.’
Once, this realization would have shattered Arthur’s world, if he’d had a world to shatter, but now all he felt was a deep empathy for Trillian, who was about to lose her love as he had lost his.
‘Yes, I do love him,’ said Trillian, nodding, and the motion set rivulets of tears flowing down her cheeks. ‘Something happened in dark space to speed up the falling in love process. Where is he?’
Arthur glanced into the scorched meadow just in time to see Wowbagger begin his ascent to the stratosphere. And being well aware of his record of tactlessness, Arthur tried to say something non-specific. ‘Oh… He’s around. You rest here, I’ll go and get him.’
Random watched Wowbagger shoot off into the sky, but the sight did not fill her with a sense of triumph as she had believed it would. In fact, she felt that in some tiny way she herself might be a little responsible for the friction that had existed between them. This feeling soon passed and the triumph came flooding in.
That’s right, you green freak. Off you go to the afterlife.
tiny voice: How could you? Green freak? You fought for equality for all species throughout the Galaxy. How little it takes to strip away your veneer.
Shut up, thought Random. You’re not real. You never happened and, anyway, the green freak kissed my mother.
Up and up Wowbagger went, flailing all the way, until he disappeared altogether.
And that’s what happens when you put Random Dent in a tube.
Arthur appeared before her, arms crossed, body language shouting ‘I am not happy’.
‘What did you do, Random?’
Random crossed her own arms. ‘Nothing. What are you talking about?’
‘You gave Thor something, I saw you. And suddenly he’s able to hurt Wowbagger. So I’m going to ask you again: What did you do?’
Random was not about to be broken that easily. ‘And I’m going to tell you again: I didn’t do anything.’
‘What is it, Random? Do you want to punish your mother, is that it?’
‘No.’
‘Why are you doing this to her? Can’t you see she’s in love with that Wowbagger person? You may not like it, but that’s the way it is.’
‘You’re right. I don’t like it.’
‘So you’re helping Thor.’
Random was stony-faced. ‘I’m way over here. How could I be helping Thor?’
Arthur tried another tack. ‘Weren’t you in love, Random? Don’t you remember how that felt?’
Random jerked back as though slapped, and her hand flew instinctively to her chest, to the spot where her beloved Fertle used to nestle.
‘Yes, I remember love. My love is gone, so why should she be happy?’
‘You’re doing this because Trillian left you?’
‘Yes, she left me, but I succeeded in spite of her. All those years slaving in a clerk’s office, working my way up. But I did it.’
Arthur gripped his daughter’s shoulder and stared deep into her eyes, past the resonance of dark space, through to the volatile, compassionate girl inside.
‘You didn’t do it. There was no clerk’s office. And Trillian did not desert you for decades, she left you with your father for a week while she went on a job. That’s all she did. Nothing worse than that. You were the one who brought us all to Earth and you were the one who created your own bitter existence. It was all you, Random. So stop being so utterly selfish and tell me how to save that poor man.’
This was a pretty good argument. Random could see that she had underestimated her father.
‘But…’
‘No buts!’ Arthur thundered just like a real dad. ‘Tell me now, young lady.’
Suddenly the dark mist cleared and Random could see the truth of what she was doing. Emotion welled up in her young heart and she admitted her guilt with a tut and rolling of the eyes, which is more than you’d get out of most adolescents.
‘Take a step back, Arthur. You don’t have to be so dramatic about it. Okay, I may have given Thor a couple of elastic bands that Wowbagger is allergic to. Possibly. Is that enough of a confession for you, Arthur, or should I fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness?’
Arthur was rather enjoying the rush of paternal power. ‘You, young lady,’ he said, ‘can call me “Daddy”. For at least ten more years.’
Charged with success, Arthur strode manfully to the centre of the scorched X, where Zaphod was massaging Thor’s shoulder.
I cannot believe I’m about to do this again, he thought, but not too loudly in case his legs heard and turned him round.
‘I haven’t really hit someone in so long,’ Thor was saying. ‘I should practise, I know, but you get lazy. Nice arc to the swing though, should look great in slo-mo.’
‘Is he dead?’
Thor cocked an ear to the sky. ‘Nope. I can hear him coughing. He’s hurt though, badly. He’s certainly not the man he was. One more whack should definitely do it.’
Ford arrived in the centre at the same time as Arthur.
‘Hey, guys, you know this isn’t really fun any more.’
Thor sighed. ‘You know, I was thinking that. If there was a fight or something, the heroic struggle, but this is just me, the big guy, beating a little guy.’
Arthur folded his arms and gave Zaphod the Daddy look. ‘That’s right, which is why this whole thing stops right now.’
Zaphod stared back. ‘Are we playing a face game? No blinking, is it?’
‘No, Zaphod, this is not a game. You two have had your fun. Now it’s time to end it.’
‘I’d love that,’ said Zaphod. ‘I would honestly, but there’s a lot riding on this fight. Thor’s entire career, my fifteen per cent. I’m afraid Wowbagger has to go.’
‘Don’t forget the Fat Arse thing.’
Arthur was shocked. ‘Ford! Why would you bring that up?’
‘Oh, sorry. That wasn’t helpful, was it?’
Arthur was feeling quite intimidated with Thor’s codpiece throwing a shadow over him, but he persevered.
‘The thing of it is, Zaphod, Mr Thor, the thing is that Trillian has grown fond of Wowbagger, more than fond, in fact. And what sort of father to her daughter would I be if I didn’t try to intervene on his behalf?’
Thor frowned. ‘Why do you look vaguely familiar? Things aren’t usually vaguely familiar to me – I either know them or I don’t.’
Arthur’s legs very much wanted to assume control and run faster than they had since he’d sprinted to stop his mother perusing his special spiral pad with the cut-out photos from the Blue Peter presenters’ annual.
‘We’ve talked before. At a flying party. You tried to pick up a friend of mine.’
‘Pick up? What kind of pick up?’
‘You know the kind where you lift something off the ground?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, not that kind.’
Thor rubbed his forehead as though still hung-over. ‘That explains it. I lost enough brain cells at that party to power the Imperial Government for a century.’ The Thunder God took a step to one side. ‘He’s coming down.’
‘You did your best, Earthman, and I applaud you,’ snapped Zaphod. ‘Now get lost while my client does what he does best.’
‘I can’t walk away, Zaphod,’ said Arthur stubbornly. ‘I could never look Trillian in the eye. And you will never be able to sleep at night if you go ahead with this.’
‘My conscience will be clear.’
‘It’s not your conscience I’d be worried about.’
Zaphod frowned. ‘And what should I be worried about? Spell it out, man. You know I can’t read between the lines.’
‘I would be worried about Trillian hunting me down and planting a spike between my shoulder blades.’
Zaphod shivered. ‘Oooh. She would, wouldn’t she? I can just see it.’ He glanced over at Hillman Hunter on the sidelines. ‘I promised this guy a death. He’s from Earth and you know what those people are like. It’s all about the bloodshed with them.’
‘That is so untrue, Zaphod. We are not all bloodthirsty monsters.’
Zaphod snorted. ‘Oh, no? How come you blew up your entire planet?’
‘We did not blow up our planet! You did it. You aliens!’
‘Now we’re getting somewhere. Now we’re getting down to your issues.’
‘My issues? You’re the one prepared to have someone murdered just because he said you had a fat arse.’
Zaphod paled. ‘He said what?’
Arthur turned to Thor’s knee. ‘And you’re prepared to kill someone just to get a job.’
‘There’s no point talking to me,’ said Thor, tugging his beaded braid. ‘I don’t have any regard for mortal life. As far as I’m concerned, you people are about as important as ants. And not the big scary mutant ants, just the normal little ones. To be honest, I’m far too worried about my own career comeback to care about individual lives.’
‘And, anyway, it’s not actually murder, is it?’ said Zaphod in a tone so patronizing it would have set all of the pink ectoplasm balls hopping in a Full-O-Yourself detector. ‘He wants us to kill him.’
‘Not any more,’ said Arthur.
‘Really? Are you sure?’
Thor took a step back. ‘Why don’t we ask him?’
Wowbagger hit the ground so hard that his immortality leaped out of him like a ghost image, leaving a shattered mortal crammed into a shallow hole in the ground.
‘Ow,’ he said. ‘That’s… Ow… Painkillers anyone?’
Ford pulled a towel from his satchel. ‘Suck on the corner,’ he advised, passing it down. ‘That blue stripe should take some of the sting out of your injuries.’
Thor hefted Mj?llnir. ‘Any last words?’
Wowbagger spat out the towel. ‘The deal’s off. I need to live.’
‘Aha, there, you see,’ said Arthur. ‘He wants to live. You can’t just kill him.’
Thor chuckled and it sounded very much like a large bear clearing its throat, a throat which had recently swallowed several well-fed men.
‘I can’t? Who says I can’t? You?’
Trillian appeared suddenly, barging her way past the men, dropping to her knees by Wowbagger’s crater.
‘No. I say it, you big monster. I love this man, alien, or whatever he is and you are not going to take him from me.’
‘I remember you, vaguely,’ said Thor, but he did not strike. He was astute enough to see the media downside of hammering through a defenceless woman to kill a broken man.
‘Zark, Zaph,’ he groaned. ‘This is a bust. I had my hopes up too.’
Zaphod ground his teeth. There must be some small victory yet to be gleaned from this situation. ‘Well, at least denounce the Cheese.’
Wowbagger coughed and groaned. ‘No problem. I hate cheese.’
I’ll take what I can get, thought Zaphod. He turned to the crowd with his arms raised preacher-high.
‘Wowbagger is defeated,’ he cried. ‘He has renounced the Cheese and embraced Thor as his god.’
Hillman Hunter punched the air and Buff Orpington launched himself into a bunch of Tyromancers and punched everyone he could.
Zaphod relaxed instantly. Good. A riot. Riots always work well for me. I am an agent of Chaos, he thought. And Havoc. Those two gods are the best close harmony singers in the Universe. Maybe I should book them as support to Thor.
Trillian kissed Wowbagger’s brow and wiped the blue glowing blood from his mouth.
‘Are you going to stay with me?’
Wowbagger smiled, but it cost him. ‘For as long as I can. That hammer knocked the immortal right out of me. I may not have much more than half a lifespan left.’
‘That will have to do,’ said Trillian and she beckoned to the father of her child to help her daughter’s stepfather-to-be out of his impact crater.
Random watched all of this from the sidelines, not quite ready to be huggy-wuggy just yet.
Is that the dark matter? she wondered. Or is that me?
This thought worried her for a brief moment, but was soon superseded by the notion that she could probably use the situation to blackmail some really good presents out of Arthur.
Arthur. Definitely not Daddy. Maybe Dad though.
After Trillian and Wowbagger had said a few goodbyes, Thor carried the ex-immortal back to the Tanngrísnir, much to the delight of the ship’s computer.
‘Hey, Thor. I missed you.’
‘Sorry about the computer, folks,’ said Thor sheepishly to the half-dead man in his arms and the young lady clasping the half-dead man’s hand. ‘Dad programmed the ship to adore me and sealed the program with his magic eye, so I could never erase it. That’s the main reason I gave this bucket away. Anyway, what do I need a ship for? I have Mj?llnir.’
‘I’m right here,’ said the computer. ‘I hear what you’re saying, baby. But I forgive you.’
‘Okay,’ said Thor, hurriedly laying Wowbagger on a bed that rose up from the floor to meet him. ‘Leave him in the plasma bed for a week and he should be as healthy as a mortal can be.’
‘Mortal,’ croaked Wowbagger. ‘Are you sure you want that, Trillian?’
Trillian sniffled. ‘I’ll make do.’
‘That’s great,’ said Thor, feeling suddenly claustrophobic. ‘I’ll just leave you two together. I have a banquet to get to – apparently someone put quite a bit of beef on the barbecue. You guys have fun.’
‘No!’ wailed the ship. ‘Don’t leave me!’
‘Gotta fly,’ said the Thunder God and bolted from the ship.
‘N-o-o-o-o-o,’ wailed the computer. ‘N-o-o-o-o-o. Not again.’
Trillian put her degree in astrophysics and her time on the Heart of Gold to good use and quickly bumped the Tanngrísnir into the stratosphere.
Wowbagger was already feeling a little better in his cocoon of healing plasma.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
The answer was simple. ‘Somewhere together.’
Wowbagger laughed, though it cost him. ‘That’s quite romantic. Are you like this all the time?’
‘We’ll find out, won’t we?’ replied Trillian. ‘We have all the time in the world.’
‘No, we don’t actually, but what we do have is precious.’
Trillian rolled her eyes. ‘God, I’m already sick of all this sweet talk.’
‘Me too,’ said Wowbagger. ‘Do you want to go and insult somebody?’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
‘Ever been to the Wavering Wormholes of Stryk Lycombdan Tsing?’
‘No. What are the beings there like?’
‘Jerks. Complete arseholes.’
Trillian ran a search on the Galact-O-Map. ‘Well, then, what are we waiting for?’
She selected the glowing dot on the display and the Tanngrísnir became one with the night sky.