3
The Tricia McMillan who was native to this Earth, and who had never been artificially sustained in the H2G2-2’s construct, had an idea.
‘I will talk to them, dear,’ she said to the girl who was possibly her unborn daughter from what was periodically another dimension. ‘The Grebulons listen to me. I’m something of a pin-up for them.’
And she was gone down the hallway, seconds before the hallway itself was gone, frittered by the beams like confetti in the wind.
Arthur was too numb to be horrified. Instead, he experienced a strange, prickling jealousy.
At least Tricia died with some sense of purpose. She found an answer to her question that was not bloody forty-two. All I can do is sit here and be helpless.
Arthur felt a sense of disbelief that he had come to know well in his Galaxy-traveller phase. He had often secretly suspected that he was insane. There was no Heart of Gold, no Zaphod Beeblebrox and certainly not a Deep Thought. As for the planet-building Magratheans – patently ridiculous. More ridiculous even than the talking mice who were supposed to rule the planet.
‘S’cuse me, guv’nor,’ said a rat, skirting Arthur’s foot.
‘Sorry, mate,’ muttered Arthur, automatically raising his shoe.
It was all insanity. And he was being observed somewhere by a cluster of undergraduates who were doubtless hung-over from the previous night’s rugger celebrations and couldn’t give a toss about Patient Dent’s delusions.
If they don’t give a toss, why should I?
Behind him, the Gent’s door splintered and flew over his head. Moments later, very suspect water began seeping through the seat of his trousers.
Ford chuckled. ‘It’s true what they say. It does always flow downhill.’
‘Do you think we should make a run for it?’
‘Run where? The whole planet’s going up, my friend. Our running days are over. And those guys are out of hitchhiking range.’ Ford rummaged in the satchel around his neck and pulled out what looked like a roll-up cigarette. ‘Ahhhh,’ he sighed happily. ‘I’ve been saving this.’
Arthur was delighted to have something to be interested in. ‘What is that?’
Ford squinted at him. ‘That’s more sarcasm, is it?’
‘No. It’s a genuine question born of ignorance.’
‘Well, in that case, happy to enlighten you, buddy. It’s a cigarette.’
‘Oh.’ Arthur felt his interest waning.
‘But not just any cigarette,’ continued Ford, holding the roll-up as though it were a grail of the rather holy kind.
‘Got a wide-bore death ray inside it?’
‘Course not.’
‘How about a matter transporter?’
‘You know, that would be useful. But no.’
‘So, it’s just strands of tobacco wrapped in paper, then?’
‘Tobacco? Paper? Honestly, Arthur, you humans only use ten per cent of your brains, and you fill that fraction with tea-related information. This is a Falian albino marsh worm. Deceased obviously. Spends its life absorbing hallucinogenic gas from the vents. Then dies and turns stiff-ish.’
Arthur glanced upwards. A death ray had just sliced off the top floor, without even slowing down. A rather large airplane pinwheeled through the patch of sky above and Arthur fancied he could hear someone singing ‘Kumbaya’.
‘Is this a long story? Only I imagine our minutes are numbered. And the number is a single number. Between one and three maybe.’
‘No, nearly at the good bit. Hitchhikers call these joysticks. One puff and you feel blissfully happy. Love everybody, forgive your enemies, all that stuff. Two puffs make you curious about just about everything, including the horrible death that is probably coming your way for you to have lit this baby in the first place. This is going to be great, you tell yourself. I am about to experience an energy shift to a new plane of existence. What will it be like? Will I make new friends? Do they have beer?’
‘Third puff?’ asked Arthur, fulfilling his role in the storytelling partnership.
Ford rummaged in his satchel for a light. ‘After the third puff, your brain explodes and you feel a little peckish.’
‘Ah,’ said Arthur, wondering how many hitchhikers had expired before they figured out the third puff thing.
‘Here we go,’ said Ford, pulling out a plastic lighter with the legend THE DOMAIN OF THE KING in blinking lights on the shaft. ‘One puff or two?’
Arthur had never been much of a smoker. Whenever he tried a cigarette, he felt so guilty about what he was doing to the lungs his parents gave him that it made him feel quite ill. Once, at a teenage party, Arthur did attempt to lounge about on the patio toying with a Silk Cut Blue, but ended throwing up on the hostess in an effort to not throw up on her chihuahua. He still shuddered at the memory and looked around to see if anyone from that party was pointing at him.
‘Not for me, thanks. Dicky tummy.’
‘Okay, pal,’ said Ford, sparking the lighter. ‘Blissful happiness, here I come.’
‘I’ll say so long now then, Ford. I wouldn’t have missed a minute.’
‘Really?’
‘No. Not really. There were a few minutes I could have done without.’
The minute when Fenchurch disappeared, for example.
Ford had taken a single puff from the joystick when a giant jelly cactus popped into existence in the centre of the lobby. It wobbled for a moment, then turned into a huge bloodshot eye. The eye cast itself wildly about the room, then rolled back and became a quartet of Pom Pom Squids, playing thousands of kazoos in perfect harmony.
‘Beautiful,’ said Ford, wiping a tear from his eye. ‘That makes me so… There aren’t the words.’
The squids hit a high note then disappeared in a flurry of rainbow-gilded bubbles, which popped musically to become a white spaceship, a glittering teardrop with a few celery stalk fins.
‘The Heart of Gold,’ breathed Arthur. ‘You have got to be joking.’
Guide Note: This spaceship was so essentially cool that one look at its brochure could skip a teenage male a couple of decades into the future, straight into the middle of his own mid-life crisis. The Heart of Gold was powered both by conventional engines and the revolutionary Infinite Improbability Drive, which allowed the ship to be everywhere at once until it decided which where it wanted to be. Coincidences, déjà vu and increased amounts of junk mail were all side effects of the Heart of Gold’s unconventional drive field.
Ford ground the tip of the joystick on the sole of his shoe, then popped the cigarette into his satchel. He jumped to his feet. ‘Let’s go, Arthur. Don’t look so surprised. The Earth gets destroyed and we get rescued by Zaphod. That’s the way it always goes, give or take a few details and half a dozen light years. What a trip. A cosmic trip.’
‘So why the joystick?’
‘One puff only, my man. Blissfully happy. I find it helps before a reunion with Zaphod.’
Arthur stumbled down the steps. ‘But what about Tricia? Isn’t she supposed to come with us?’
‘Hey, Trillian is the same person. Fate can only take one of everyone. Be happy for Tricia, she’s on another plane. Pure energy. Can’t you see the colours?’
Arthur scowled. ‘The green death-ray colours? Yes, I can see those. I would prefer to see them from a great distance, so can we please get out of here?’
‘Absolutely, Arthur. If we don’t go soon, my froody shoes will be ruined. Although the blue one might turn a nice shade of purple, which would make me enormously happy.’
Arthur gently shepherded Random towards the glowing white ship. ‘Come on. We need to leave now.’
‘Fertle,’ mumbled the girl. ‘I want my Fertle.’
‘I want my Fertle!’ chuckled Ford, playfully tickling Trillian. ‘Catchy, isn’t it?’
The white spaceship shuddered and a door opened smoothly, telescoping to the ground. Zaphod Beeblebrox, Galactic President, interplanetary fugitive and committed self-serving entrepreneur, appeared in the doorway, planetsized ego shining through his bright eyes, golden hair bouncing in shoulder-length curls. Very outer-ring, but he carried it off well.
‘Okay, let me get this straight,’ Zaphod said, tapping his temples. ‘Hello, Earthlings. I have once again come to save you.’ Then he seemed to notice the on-going planet destruction unfolding before him. ‘Hold on just a minute. This isn’t Ireland!’
Ford ran up the gangplank to embrace his semi-cousin.
‘Zaphod! I am so happy to see you.’
Zaphod blinked. ‘Happy to see me? You must be smoking something.’
They piled into the Heart of Gold and zipped up to a couple of hundred feet, employing the ship’s Dodge-O-Matic program to evade the death beams until the Infinite Improbability Drive was powered up, to blast them wherever it was they expected never to be.
Ford Prefect was the only one of the ship’s occupants who had thought to look down, and he saw a forlorn-looking H2G2-2 hovering beside Club Beta’s single remaining chandelier. It casually dodged a buzzing death ray and then, with a why bother shrug, collapsed in on itself like an origami bird being folded by invisible hands until all that was left was a diamond of blackness that zipped around the roofless hall, decapitated a rat out of sheer badness, then winked out of all existences in all times.
Good riddance, thought Ford, and went in search of a drink.
Had Ford not gone in search of a drink, he might have seen a tall, thirty-ish man, wearing a dressing gown and slippers, stumble into Club Beta, clutching his towel. The man barely had time to glance skywards in confused wonderment before an emerald death ray blasted him and his ginger companion to atoms.
Guide Note: This was one of the many deaths of Arthur Dent, now that one Arthur had managed to break the cosmic pattern and skip dimensions to be rescued. The pattern unravelled for the rest and they were picked off one by one, by improbable accidents hurriedly cobbled together by a ticked-off Fate.
One Arthur was electrocuted by malfunctioning headphones as he produced a local radio show discussing recent UFO sightings in the area (cosmic black humour).
A second Arthur woke up one morning convinced that he could fly, and no amount of persuasion could prevent him from scaling a radio tower and hurling himself off.
A third was crushed by a buffadozer during a protest to save his house. The buffadozer did not suffer any physical damage but was traumatized by the event and went on to sue the council, specifically naming a certain Mr Prosser in the suit. Prosser was subsequently given the axe.
Yet another Arthur was drowned in a freak rainstorm shortly after giving the two fingers to a truck driver who had cut him off on the motorway.
The list is almost endless. Suffice it to say, without cataloguing every single one of the various deaths, misadventure or adventure, accidental (or on purpose), occidental, dental, mental, rental, retail, foetal, faecal or decal (smothered by cling-film), to name but a few, that only one Arthur Dent survived in any dimension after the final, once and for all, no-tricky-loophole destruction of Earth. The same is true of both Ford Prefect and Trillian, but not Random or Zaphod, who were sticking to their pan-dimensional roles well enough to earn gold stars.
Related Reading:
Someone’s Out to Get Me by Arthur Dent, 2803
He Believed He Could Fly by Mrs A. Dent, 1107
The last remaining Arthur Dent sat in his usual place on the floor of the Heart of Gold’s flight deck, bumping his head repeatedly on a familiar shelf, and yet he did not feel comforted. It may have been the green death rays flashing past the view screens, or it may have been that somewhere, deep in his primal essence, in the stardust that made up his atoms, Arthur realized that he was the last Arthur Dent in the Universe. Truly alone in the magnitude of stuff.
All Arthur could have verbalized was that he missed his towel and would have paid a large sum of money to have somebody with soft bosoms hug him and tell him that things were going to be all right.
Trillian and Random were pretty depressed by the whole destruction of their home planet thing too and huddled together underneath the refrigerator. Ford Prefect, however, was positively ebullient, thanks to the single puff on his petrified worm.
‘This is great!’ he enthused, clapping Zaphod on the shoulder. ‘Look at those death beams. Did you ever think you would live to see a Grebulon death lattice from the inside?’
‘Grebulons, wow. Those guys are vicious,’ responded his cousin with equal enthusiasm (Zaphod was basically a one-puff man all the time). ‘What a light show. Do you remember those thermonuclear warheads at Magrathea?’
‘I do,’ said Ford fondly. ‘They were something. Foxy beggars, with their little jinks and turns, but we shook ’em.’
‘We sure did, cousin. And we’re going to shake these Grebu-guys too.’
Trillian winced as a ray scorched the spaceship’s port fin. ‘Can we just get out of here?’
Zaphod spun like a disco dancer and shot Trillian with two finger guns. ‘Pow pow, cutie. Miss me? Bet you did… so would I.’
‘Later, Zaphod. Can the ship take us to safety?’
‘Not so simple. We can’t shoot through the lattice without being sliced up like Halitoxican party grevlova. We have to let the Improbability Drive run a few numbers and get its head around the problem.’
‘The computer has a head now?’
Zaphod danced a little Betelgeusean foreplay jig. ‘Finally someone makes a head comment. I was starting to think you guys were all on the joysticks.’
‘Sorry, Zaphod,’ Arthur snapped. ‘We’re a little distracted by impending violent death.’
‘Sure, the computer’s got a head,’ continued Zaphod, ignoring Arthur’s thread of the conversation. ‘Come on, people. Don’t you notice anything different about me?’
They got it at the same time.
‘Goosnargh,’ said Ford.
‘What the…’ said Trillian.
‘Blooming’eck,’ said Arthur, sounding a little like a Cockney rat.
Zaphod Beeblebrox had, perched rakishly on his shoulders, a single head.
Guide Note: Zaphod Beeblebrox’s two heads and three arms have become as much a part of Galaxy lore as the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast’s cranial spigot, or Eccentrica Gallumbits’s third breast. And though Zaphod claims to have had his third arm fitted to improve his chances at ski-boxing, many media pundits believe that the arm was actually fitted so that the President could simultaneously fondle all of Eccentrica’s mammaries. This attention to erotic detail resulted in Miss Gallumbits referring to Zaphod in Street Walkie-Talkie Weekly as the ‘The best bang since the Big One’, a quote which was worth at least half a billion votes in the presidential election and twice as many daily hits on the private members’ section of the Zaphod Confidential Sub-Etha site.
The origin of Zaphod’s second head is shrouded in mystery and seems to be the one thing the President is reluctant to discuss with the media, other than to claim that two heads are better than none, a comment which was taken as a direct jibe by Counsellor Spinalé Trunco of the Headless Horsemen tribe of Jaglan Beta. Zaphod’s response to this accusation was, ‘Of course it’s a jibe, baby. Dude’s got zero heads. Come on!’ Early images do represent Zaphod with two heads, but in many shots they do not appear to be identical. In fact, in one vidcap, which has famously come to be known as the ‘I’m With Stupid’ shot, Zaphod’s left head appears to be that of a sallow female, attempting to bite the right head’s ear. A Betelgeusean woman later surfaced, claiming to be the original owner of the ‘sallow female’ head. Loolu Softhands told Beebleblog that ‘Zaphod wanted us to be together, like, all the time, so we conjoined. After a couple of months he found out that he liked the two-headed thing more than he liked me. So we went out for a few Blasters one night and I woke up back on my own body. Bastard.’
Zaphod has never refuted Miss Softhands’s story, leading to speculation that his second head is a narcissistic affectation, an allegation President Beeblebrox claims not to understand.
Related Reading:
Head to Head with Mr President by Loolu Softhands
It’s Just One Boob After Another by Eccentrica Gallumbits
Ford embraced his cousin.
‘You finally took it off,’ he said, while simultaneously chewing his lip, which is not easy. ‘Removing a head sounds like the action of an imbecile, but for some reason I am totally in favour of it.’
Arthur knew the reason. His friend was still riding the worm.
‘Are you sure that was a great idea, Zaphod? Didn’t that head do stuff?’
Zaphod raised a single finger, the way a person might if they were about to make a significant announcement. ‘Shut your mouth, monkey. I am talking to my cousin.’
‘I thought we were past that, Zaphod. Haven’t we been through enough?’
Zaphod reared backwards. ‘Oh. Hey, Arthur. Is that you, buddy? My other head had better eyesight. Plus I didn’t recognize you without the pool garment.’
‘Dressing gown.’
‘Whatever. Important information only at this point, I think. Death rays and so forth.’
‘Is it important that we know where your other head is?’ shouted Arthur, keeping his syntax as stripped back as possible.
Zaphod clapped his hands. ‘Oh, yeah. Yessir. You are all going to love this.’
He crab-danced to the low crescent bank of computer controls. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, give him a big hand because your lives are in his hands.’
‘Death rays!’ howled Arthur, as the Dodge-O-Matic sent the ship into a tight pirouette. ‘Can we get on with it?’
Ford cradled Arthur’s cheeks in his palms. ‘Life is about moments, Arthur,’ he said seriously. ‘That’s the secret. Moments are longer than you think. If you add up all the good moments, then, you know – it’s, like, ages.’
It really infuriated Arthur that there might be something in that reasoning.
‘Very well, Ford. Do you think it might be possible for the ladies to see Zaphod’s other head?’
‘Don’t patronize us,’ said Random.
‘Of course not, sweetie.’
‘Screw you.’
Zaphod stamped a silver boot heel. ‘Can we get back to my moment? The head, remember?’ He tapped a short, sequential code into the computer.
‘Not much of a code, is it?’ commented Arthur. ‘One two three?’
Zaphod scowled at him. ‘Eyesight and numbers. I am s-o-o-o bad at life’s minor things. I’m more of a forward-thrusting, back-lit, great-discovery-making champion of the boudoir. Head number two takes care of the little-man stuff. Or as I call him… Left Brain, because he was on the left, and he’s the brainy one.’
‘Show us the head!’ shouted Arthur.
Zaphod thumbed a red button and a crystal sphere emerged from a bucket of gel in the console, rising smoothly to float at a median eye level.
‘The gel is full of things, you know,’ Zaphod explained with standard vagueness. ‘Stuff that’s good for the things that need to be done.’
‘Please shut up, brother,’ said Zaphod’s second head, which rested on a cushion of wires and fuses inside the sphere. ‘You’re embarrassing yourself. And me.’
Left Brain resembled Zaphod almost exactly, apart from some styling differences. Where the Galactic President was flamboyantly highlighted and may or may not have been wearing eyeliner, Left Brain’s hair was close-cropped with a severe parting and his eyes shone with laser-sharp intelligence and strength of purpose.
‘The gel is an electrolytic compound that feeds my organic cells and powers the anti-grav field around the sphere.’
‘And the speakers, LB,’ said Zaphod. ‘A man’s gotta have sounds.’
‘Yes, ZB,’ sighed Left Brain. ‘The speakers. Now don’t you have someone to wink at in the mirror?’
Zaphod leaned heavily on the console. ‘Some days I think maybe separating was a mistake. But since Left Brain took over the ship from Eddie, we haven’t exploded once. Not one time. And the causing wars thing is way down. That’s good, right?’
‘Now that the ship is not being run by my imbecilic predecessor, our life expectancy has risen by eight hundred per cent.’
Random, a politician, nodded appreciatively at the statistic.
Arthur rapped on the sphere. ‘Hello… Zaphod… Left Brain. Are you driving the ship? Can you get us out of here?’
‘Please don’t touch the glass, Earthman. You have no idea how many times I have to spin around in the gel to get smears off.’
‘Sorry.’
‘To answer your questions: I am currently interfacing with the Dodge-O-Matic program so that we can avoid the Grebulon death rays. Their lattice is closing as we speak, so the sooner we engage the Improbability Drive, the better.’
‘How soon is that likely to be?’
‘In ninety seconds. Several minutes before the death rays can possibly destroy the ship.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
Left Brain did not appreciate the question. ‘You’re new here and we’ve just met, so I’m going to explain this. I am the ship, the ship is me. There is no mis-information.’
‘New? I’ve been here before, mate. And we have met, only the last time…’
‘I was still attached to Zaphod, the idiot.’
‘Wohoo!’ yelled Zaphod. ‘He nailed you there, Arty. Don’t go toe to toe with this guy.’
‘Subjugated by his raucous personality,’ continued Left Brain. ‘Dominated by his irrepressible hedonism.’
‘I warned you, Earthman. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Left Brain will skin you alive and make fritters with the shavings.’
Left Brain swivelled, focussing his gaze on Zaphod. ‘This shiftless monkey kept me locked inside my own head until I planted the separation idea during a drunken binge. Zaphod is such a gobemouche that he actually believes the notion was his own.’
Zaphod’s eyes clouded. ‘Gobemouche? Say what now?’
Although Arthur was worried about the ramifications of the heads’ sibling rivalry, or split personality, or whatever the correct medical term might be, he decided to choke down his misgivings for Random’s sake. They were saved, after all. Random was safe and that was all that mattered. Arthur knew from experience that losing his home planet would crush his spirit in the near future, possibly around teatime when there was no tea, or perhaps following a particularly beautiful holo-sunset, but for now he was determined to put on a brave face for his daughter.
‘Okay, everyone,’ he said, his voice as bright and hollow as a light bulb. ‘Emergency over for the moment. Why don’t we all strap ourselves in for an Improbability jaunt.’ He chuckled. ‘We all know how wacky they are.’
Random patted the spot on her chest where Fertle used to be. ‘Wacky, Arthur? Wacky? You’re not fooling anyone. And that was the most forced chuckle I have ever heard, Arthur. You’ll never be half the man my husband was.’
And once again, everything is my fault, thought Arthur. Maybe I should fake being cheerful more often, then perhaps people would fall for it.
‘I don’t suppose this computer has learned to make tea?’
A red light flashed on Left Brain’s dome. ‘Stop talking now, Earthman. The word “tea” has been flagged. The last time you asked for “tea”, you backed up the entire system during an alert.’
Another forced chuckle from Arthur, followed by a little shuffle and a quick exit to the viewing gallery. ‘I’m just going to check the death-ray lattice thing. See how we’re getting on. Can I get anyone anything?’
No one bothered to reply.
Guide Note: ‘Can I get anyone anything?’ is a standard get-out-of-room-quick card and can be played whenever uncomfortable circumstances, ranging from mild embarrassment to major impending doom, are fast approaching. Most cultures have a variation on the ‘can I get anyone anything’ comment and they are so obviously rhetorical that they barely merit a question mark. Betelgeuseans ask: ‘Did anyone hear a plopping sound? Like a tennis ball into a bowl of custard? Anyone? I better go check it out.’ The Jatravartid version is: ‘Did someone hear the door crystal? I bet it’s Poople. Late as usual. I better go and let him in before he fills his handkerchief.’
To Arthur’s relief, no one broke interstellar protocol by actually asking for something and he was able to sneak off to the viewing gallery and pretend he was back on his beach.
Ford rapped his knuckles on the console, listening to the ‘bong’. ‘I’d forgotten that bong, Zaph. You know, noises and things. You forget all about them then experience them again and remember how important they are to you. Then you wonder where all the memories were all that time you weren’t thinking about them.’
Zaphod had no trouble tuning into this wavelength. ‘I always thought my memories were across the hallway in head number two. And, if I needed them, head number two just beamed them across.’
‘Wow. That is, like, it. Like the essence of what I’m trying to communicate. Did you guys, like, look in each other’s eyes, you know, when he was shooting the memories across?’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Left Brain, bobbing a little in spite of his gyroscopic field. ‘His theory is ridiculous. We both have a cortex.’
Ford danced around the sphere, cradling it like a crystal ball. ‘Yeah, but you have the big brain. You’re the smart one hooked up to the Infinite Improbability Drive?’
Left Brain could not contain a little satisfied smirk. ‘That is true. I control the drive. It is part of me now. I feel its every uncertainty.’
Ford’s eyes were glazed, but still intelligent. ‘So, explain to me how I was expecting you.’
Left Brain froze in mid-glide. ‘What?’
‘Yep. That’s right, smarty-pants-less. I knew you guys would show up.’
‘That’s ridiculous. How could you know? The odds that the only person in the Universe who could rescue you would turn up exactly when you needed him was one hundred and fifty billion to one against. Acceptable odds for the Drive.’
Ford begged to differ. ‘Depends how you cal-cu-late, mate.’
‘There is only one way to calculate,’ said Left Brain stiffly.
‘Oh, no,’ said Ford in the tone of one who has spent far too many hours in cheap hotels with no credits for the Boob-O-Whooper and is forced to read his own guide book. ‘There are many ways to calculate. The Vl’hurgs’ entire mathematical system was based on entrails.’
Guide Note: This is not entirely true. Dried velohound penis was also involved.
‘And I myself,’ continued Ford in a voice so superior it would have caused single-cell life forms to accelerate their evolution so that they could use their fab new opposable thumbs to pick up a rock and beat him to death, ‘I myself base most of my calculations on emotions.’
‘Emotions!’ spluttered Left Brain all over the inside of his own bowl. ‘Emotions? How can you afford to have only one head and still be so stupid?’
‘I like being stupid. You see things clearly. Being stupid is like squinting through the sunlight.’
Each statement rocked Left Brain’s sphere like a slap from a wet towel. ‘Sunlight? What are you saying? Stupidity is ignorance and darkness.’
‘So you planned to come here? These are the coordinates you selected?’
‘No,’ admitted Left Brain. ‘The exact spot had already been destroyed, so the Drive moved us to safety.’
‘So out of all the spots in the Universe, the ship brings us here.’
‘Coincidence. Backwash from the Improbability Drive.’
‘This is more than coincidence. Zaphod comes to the rescue of his favourite cousin. How unlikely is that? It’s happened before near enough to this very same planet. One more time and it’s a pattern. And the last time I checked, patterns are not very improbable.’
Another Guide Note: This last was a lie, as Ford Prefect had never once checked the probability of patterns. Ford rarely checked anything apart from how full his glass was and general froodiness levels. He once paid a month’s salary for a froody detector which only worked if the operator’s own froodiness was sufficient to power it. Ford tried it once in the bathroom, then forced it into the trash compacter along with the receipt.
Left Brain rocked back on his x-axis. ‘Yes, it is true that patterns are not good models for improbability.’
‘Generally true?’
‘Generally.’
‘Generally doesn’t sound very improbable. Doesn’t sound very zenzizenzizenzic to one against. Sounds more like even money to me.’
‘Y-yes,’ stammered Left Brain. ‘You make a good point.’
‘Are you sweating, man? Can robot heads sweat now?’
Left Brain was indeed perspiring profusely. Little spider-bots emerged from the sphere’s collar, feasting on the moisture drops.
‘I am not a robot,’ protested Left Brain.
‘Hey, you’re floating in a glass bubble, hooked up to a computer. Spiders coming out of your neck. The last time I checked, those things all scream robot.’
Guide Note: Again, no checking. Total buffa-biscuit.
‘Although,’ mused Ford, stroking close to his chin, ‘the total cock-up of the Improbability Drive is very organic being territory.’
‘Total cock-up,’ said Left Brain nervously. ‘You really think so?’
‘Absolutely. But let’s dwell on that later, and at great length, to much embarrassment for one of us. Now, how about you fire up that Drive and send us somewhere that actually is improbable.’
Left Brain’s dome light pulsed a sickly green and streams of numbers flashed across the glass. ‘Improbable? But how to calculate? How to… Everything I believe in. Numbers are fallible? Can that be true? Can it?’
Ford was beginning to sober up. ‘Hey, buddy. Forget it. I’m just twisting your pormwrangler. Tell him, Zaphod.’
Zaphod draped an arm around his cousin’s shoulders. ‘It’s true, buddy. You’ve been wrangled by the best. Ford here once made a Voondonian grand high friar attack him with incense sticks.’
‘For a bet,’ said Ford, who wouldn’t like people to believe that he went around incensing incensed friars for no reason.
Left Brain was in some distress. ‘The computer sings to me of numbers, but you… You two buffa-biscuit heads with your buffa-puckey!’
‘Hey, less of the buffa,’ said Ford, injured. ‘I’m just trying to bond. You know, impress you with my offbeat intellectualism.’
‘It’s just all… It’s just too… Numbers. Emotions. Zark!’
And then Left Brain went into a loop. A very short loop. One word, over and over.
‘Zark… Zark… Zark…’
Zaphod’s third arm popped out from underneath his ruffled silk shirt, slapping Ford on the crown of his head.
‘Idiot. You froze him.’
‘You kept the arm, then.’
Zaphod tucked his spare hand across his chest into the left pocket of his spray-on trousers.
Guide Note: Not a euphemism. Zaphod bought a pants sprayer on Port Sesefron that promised to ‘reach those hard to reach places’. After the first application, Zaphod turned the power down a bit. There was a special nozzle for pockets.
‘I mostly use the third arm for ceremonial stuff. Stick a purple sleeve on, and, hey presto, it’s a sash.’
Ford flapped his lips, unimpressed by Left Brain. ‘It didn’t take much to freeze him. You should have waited for version 2.0.’
Trillian strapped herself into a luxurious Tilt-O-Chair beside Random, who was sulking hard enough to feed a family of Cyphroles for five hundred years.
‘Why aren’t we somewhere else, Zaphod? I can still see death rays.’
Zaphod betrayed his cousin with a thumb jerk. ‘Ask Ford im-perfect. He froze the ship.’
Arthur chose this moment to stroll back on to the bridge. ‘Froze the ship? Did you say froze the ship?’
Arthur’s old memories were reasserting themselves by the second and, to his chagrin, he found them not entirely dissimilar to the new ones.
I miss being surprised, he realized. These days I go straight from calm to terrified.
‘What is your problem, Ford?’ he asked. ‘Are you wired somehow to screw things up?’
‘He’s wired, not me,’ said Ford, pointing to Left Brain, who was now bobbling against the ceiling like an escaped balloon.
Arthur sensed that something was missing on the bridge.
‘I don’t know what it is,’ he said, testing the air with his fingers. ‘But something was here a second ago and now it’s gone.’
Zaphod was delighted to have some relevant information. ‘Let me fill you in on that, Earthman. When the Dodge-O-Matic is activated, the computer paints the walls with an off-white light. Phototherapeutic brain-calming stuff.’
‘And the light is off.’
‘Badabingo!’
Guide Note: Badabingo is a board game played by lifers on the prison moon in orbit around Blagulon Kappa. A game for up to a hundred players, the object being to get all your little horsies around the board and back to their stables, at which point a six is needed before you can twist off the horsies’ heads. Once the last horsey is beheaded, the leader jumps to his feet and shouts ‘Badabingo’. After that, it is up to him to stay alive until the riot squad arrive.
‘Which means the Dodge-O-Matic is also off.’
‘Green stick in the green hole, boy.’
Another Guide Note: The ‘green stick in the green hole’ cry is a reference to a simple matching game used in the very special Adult Ed. classes on Betelgeuse Five where President Beeblebrox grew up. A Striteraxian equivalent would be: ‘You display inordinate pride for someone who has completed a task which could have been performed by a lesser primate in a shorter time.’ The Armorfiends were never very good at references, but they were quite excellent at getting to the point. Usually the point would be made of toughened steel and coated with venom.
‘Which means we can be diced into cubes by that death-ray lattice thing, just like the entire planet.’
Zaphod snorted like this was the craziest thing he had ever heard. ‘The Earth ain’t going to be diced, Arty. Those death rays will superheat the surface and totally vaporize the entire planet. Any second now.’
‘That’s comforting. What about us?’
‘Oh, yeah. The lattice has already figured out how to box us in. We’re gonna be diced. No doubt about that. Green stick and all that. I was just beginning to take ownership of this haircut too.’
Arthur pressed his face to the porthole. Outside, in space, the green rays sliced soundlessly through the blackness, vast emerald pendulums, boiling the planet below where they touched. As the rays swung closer, Arthur saw that they were comprised of pulsating bars, crackling with internal lightning.
A really fat, evil one was swinging inexorably their way.
My daughter is going to die, he realized. And that really upsets me. I bet it’s Thursday.
He pulled his face away from the glass with a soft pop. ‘There must be something we can do? We’re not beaten yet, are we?’
Ford was waggling his joystick under Zaphod’s nose. ‘Do you think that if I have another puff now, that would constitute a second puff, or another first puff?’
‘Couldn’t we somehow jump-start Left Brain?’
Zaphod frowned. ‘Tricky one, cousin-o-mine. Maybe if I have a puff, the answer will come to me.’
Arthur found that his surprise gland was alive and functioning after all.
‘Don’t you care that we are all about to die? How can you not care?’
Ford winked at him. ‘In a spot like this, Arthur, what does it benefit a man to care?’
‘I don’t know, Ford. I truly do not. But I have a daughter there, in that seat. That’s what I know.’
There was a knock at the door.
‘Get that, would you, Earthman?’ said Zaphod.
Arthur was kind enough to provide both a delayed reaction and a double take for the entertainment of the Betelgeuseans.
‘You get it. It’s your… arkkkkk!’
‘You’re funny, buddy!’ howled Ford, punching his shoulder. ‘Didn’t I tell you, cousin? I’ve been telling you for years. Arthur is a riot.’
‘Did you hear that?,’ whispered Arthur, afraid to hope too loudly. ‘Can there be someone at the door, in space?’
The knock sounded again, a booming boing that made Arthur feel as though he were inside a belfry.
‘Don’t worry about the boing thing,’ said Zaphod. ‘It’s just a recording. I can set it to ding-dong if you like. Or a pootle-tink bird, my favourite.’
Green light glowed through the porthole. The window began to bubble.
‘Open the door!’ yelled Arthur, waving his arms for emphasis. ‘Open it quickly.’
‘I can’t,’ said Zaphod, not seeming too upset. ‘Little Ix broke the ship. Remember?’
Trillian stroked Random’s hair once, then crossed the bridge to the emergency hatch.
‘Improbability? You want improbability? You two idiots staying alive this long, now that’s improbable.’
She reached into what seemed to be a solid panel and pulled out a crank.
‘Emergency manual handle. Remember?’
‘Hey, sugar. It’s not my ship. I just stole it.’
Arthur grabbed the handle and cranked until the sweat dripped down his jaw line. This did not take as long as one might imagine, as the Grebulon rays’ proximity was turning the drifting Heart of Gold into a very effective cauldron.
‘Come on, Arthur,’ urged Trillian. ‘Come on.’
Arthur opened his mouth to argue that he was coming on as fast as he could and could she please give him a break as he had spent the last century or so on a beach taking no strenuous exercise whatsoever and where the hell did she get off dropping his surprise teenage daughter on Lamuella then zipping off to cover a war that never happened? Arthur was about to say all of this, then thought that maybe he would crank harder instead.
Surprisingly, just thinking these things made him feel a little better.
Arthur’s cranking powered a small plasma cell that sent a charge through the hatch and excited the molecules sufficiently to precipitate a phase transition, turning the portal to a gas.
‘Now, you see, that’s not what I thought was going to happen at all,’ puffed Arthur.
A tall green humanoid alien stood in the airlock, wringing his fingers. He was an impressive specimen, if your criteria for being impressed included developed musculature, wide intelligent brow, dark, tortured eyes and a suit so sharp that just thinking about it could give a person a migraine.
‘Babel fish?’ said the alien in cultured, but slightly testy tones. ‘Please tell me Babel fish.’
Zaphod threw his hands in the air. ‘Babel fish all round.’
‘Oh, thank Zarquon,’ said the alien, stepping inside. ‘Honestly, if I had to go through one more room full of grunts and blank stares… What is it with people? Just buy a dozen fish and let them breed.’
‘People are so cheap,’ agreed Zaphod.
The alien stopped in his tracks. ‘What? No. It couldn’t be?’
Zaphod flicked back a sheaf of hair. ‘Yes it is, baby.’
‘Zaphod Beeblebrox? Galactic President Beeblebrox?’
‘Alive and procreating, sir.’
‘I do not believe it. Well, this is a turn-up for the files. You pull over in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy and who do you find bobbing around in the atmosphere but…’
‘Zaphod Beeblebrox,’ completed Arthur, eager to move things along. ‘Listen, I hate to be a worry-wart, but those death rays are getting awfully close. That big one in particular.’
The green alien ignored him. ‘Mr President. I’ve wanted to say something to you for a very long time. I’ve prepared something. Can you spare a second? You would really be doing me a favour.’
Zaphod took a step back, just in case the alien could not see every inch of him.
Guide Note: Technically, there were no aliens on the ship, just space travellers. As soon as the ‘alien’s’ identity is revealed we can abandon that classification.
‘Of course you may say a few words. My colleagues would be honoured. I am naturally too important to feel honoured, but I would be mildly amused.’
The alien bowed slightly, reached into his suit jacket for a wafer computer, located a text file and cleared his throat.
‘You, Mr President…’ he began.
‘Yes, proceed.’
‘You, Mr President…’
‘Old news, move on.’
‘You, Mr President, are the most philosophunculistic, moronic, steatopygic excuse for a politician that it has ever been my good fortune to not vote for, and if I thought for one second that this crappy Universe deserved any better, then I would pay, out of my own pocket, you understand, to have you assassinated.’
Zaphod half caught the last insulting term. ‘Steato–what?’
‘Steatopygic. Fat arsed.’
‘Fat arsed!’ gasped Zaphod, pawing at his own lips. ‘Fat arsed?’
Arthur’s memories were still coming back, so it took him a second even with such well-phrased stimuli.
‘I know you. You’re the guy with the insults.’
The alien took a photo of Arthur with his computer, then searched for a match in his files.
‘Ah, yes. Arthur Philip Dent. Jerk and complete arsehole. I’ve done you already, my records tell me.’
Zaphod rested his hands on his knees. ‘Fat arsed. I feel faint.’
Guide Note: This ‘alien’, it can now be revealed, was Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, who became immortal due to an accident involving a particle accelerator and an unwillingness to sacrifice two of his elastic bands. It must be pointed out that elastic bands held a special significance to Wowbagger as, in his culture, elastic bands are religious symbols representing the circuitous and elastic nature of the god Pollyphill-Ah. After his accident, the Arch Promonate of the Church of C&E proclaimed that Wowbagger’s newfound immortality was a definite sign to the faithful. Wowbagger proclaimed that it was a definite pain in the arse and it had put him right off elastic bands. After several millennia wallowing in sulky boredom, Wowbagger set himself the challenge of visiting every occupied world in the Universe to sample their indigenous beers. This was the beginning of what historians call his amber period, during which Wowbagger put on a lot of weight and discovered a talent for insulting people. One morning, Wowbagger realized, after his morning retch, that he actually enjoyed insultingpeople more than drinking beer, and so decided to switch challenges in mid-stream. His new task, he determined, would be to insult every single sentient being in the Universe in alphabetical order. Because Wowbagger was such a good-looking guy, and his spaceship had such distinctive lines, the media soon got wind of his quest, and Wowbagger would land on a planet to discover the entire population lined up, in alphabetical order, screaming to be insulted, which kind of took the good out of it for him.
‘You came through the death-ray lattice?’ asked Arthur urgently. ‘In your ship?’
Wowbagger shrugged. ‘Of course. My ship is made of dark matter and powered by dark energy. These Grebulons operate with mere baryonic materials. They can’t understand my ship, never mind stop it.’
‘Can you shut them down? The beams?’
Wowbagger pocketed his wafer computer. ‘No. They are loose in real space. The Earth is doomed, which is a pity, as there are many people left to insult on your planet. But at least I got Beeblebrox, eh? Out of order, true, but you make exceptions for his calibre of idiot. So, not a total disaster of a day.’ Wowbagger rubbed his hands briskly. ‘Anyway. A pleasure to meet you all; probably won’t be the next time.’
Trillian switched on her reporter’s smile. ‘Mr Wowbagger. Trillian Astra. We met on New Betel. You were kind enough to give me five minutes.’
‘Ah, yes. New Betel. I’d just done the king, hadn’t I? Called him a festering pustule. That was a bit of a low period for me. Everything was festering or septic.’
‘Maybe you read my article in WooHoo?’
‘I never read press. You start believing it, you see. Look at Beeblebrox there. He actually believes that he’s some froody superstar, instead of the philosophunculistic bumpkin that he actually is.’
Zaphod was just pulling himself together from fat arsed when the bumpkin comment socked him in the gut.
‘Bumpkin? Ooooh. What… You monster.’
Trillian persisted. ‘I wonder, could you give us a lift? Just as far as the next planet.’
‘Impossible,’ snapped Wowbagger. ‘I travel through dark space. Mortals are not supposed to see dark space, it affects them.’
‘We’re prepared to take that risk. We wouldn’t be any trouble.’
Wowbagger raised an eyebrow. ‘Beeblebrox wouldn’t be any trouble? I doubt that. He’s a fugitive from someone or other, isn’t he?’
Trillian hoisted Zaphod erect. ‘The President will behave himself. Won’t you, Zaphod?’
Zaphod mumbled something.
‘See? He said will do.’
‘I thought he said kill you.’
Arthur bobbed in front of Zaphod, trying to catch his rolling eyes. ‘You didn’t say that, mate. Did you? No. Because that would be insane, right? Threatening to kill the one person who could save our lives.’
Zaphod drew himself erect, breath growling deep in his throat. ‘He called me a fat-arsed bumpkin. I cannot allow him to live.’
‘Oh, crap,’ said Ford.
Wowbagger’s mood shifted from polite boredom to impolite boredom. ‘Don’t you think people have tried to kill me before? In my line of work, I attract enemies like a flaybooz attracts lint.’
Random sobbed into her fists.
‘I keep track of my pursuers for my own amusement. Currently I am being chased by over a hundred bounty hunters, sixteen government vessels, a few unmanned Smart-O-Missiles and half a dozen wannabe immortals who would love to eat my heart and steal my powers. If only it were that easy. I long for death, I crave it the way this idiot craves publicity. I have been alive long enough to realize that there is no such thing as perfect love. That’s too long.’
‘I could kill you,’ said Zaphod. ‘I’ve got some juice in this Universe. I know people who know stuff. Did you ever go a few rounds with the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast?’
Wowbagger snorted. ‘That old bag of bolts? I hope you can do better than that.’
Arthur cupped his hands around his face and peered though the porthole. The beam was almost upon them now. Arthur thought he could hear a whine of energy, though he knew that was impossible.
I probably can’t hear the screams of the dying, either, he thought.
‘Trillian,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘I really think it would be rather a good thing if Zaphod stopped talking. Do we have any stun guns?’
Zaphod was only getting started. ‘I can do better. You ever take a shot from a spiderwitch?’
‘I have, actually. I mix them into my cocktails. No adverse effects.’
‘What about a plasma axe? Those things will split your atoms for you.’
‘Not my atoms. I was hit with four of those so-called unshatterable axes by a band of Silastic mercenaries after I called one of their mothers a hurst-toting mawg face. Guess what? They shattered.’
‘I know a guy who can get me six ounces of Consolium. You hold that in your armpit for five minutes and the job is done, baby.’
Wowbagger was losing what modicum of interest he had in the conversation. ‘Consolium is a myth, Beeblebrox. Spare me your fatuous tale-spinning.’
‘I know gods!’ said Zaphod desperately. ‘Other immortals. I bet they could cut you down to size.’
The death ray loomed huge now, causing the ship to vibrate, seeming to slice through space as it passed.
‘Trillian!’ called Arthur.
‘Please, Mr Wowbagger.’
‘You know gods?’ asked the green immortal, reluctantly intrigued. ‘You are actually acquainted with real gods? Class A?’
‘I have Thor’s address right here on my communicator. One word from me and you’re hammered.’
‘Gods have tried to kill me before.’
‘How did that go?’
‘Oh shut up, Beeblebrox.’
‘Never a major god, I’ll bet,’ said Zaphod. ‘Never a class A.’
Wowbagger nodded thoughtfully. ‘No, never a class A. I’ve never had much time for those major supreme beings. Tosspots, every one of them. But surely a blow from Thor’s legendary hammer, Mj?llnir, would be enough to put my lights out. You can arrange this, Beeblebrox?’
‘I’m the only one who can.’
‘It’s true,’ said Ford. ‘Old Red Beard and Zaphod go way back.’
Arthur could see nothing but green.
And so I lose my daughter again. How much heartbreak can one man bear?
Wowbagger pressed a button on his wafer computer. ‘You had better not be spiralling my sinkhole.’
Zaphod hooked a thumb into his sash/fake arm. ‘This is no spoof. You called me a fat-arsed bumpkin. This is a matter of honour.’
Wowbagger spoke tersely into his computer. ‘Extend the shield,’ he said.
A white glow crackled across the porthole and the death ray passed harmlessly over them.