Prequel: The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Sequel: Life, The Universe And Everything
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move
In fact to see anything much uglier than a Vogon ship you would have to go inside it and look at a Vogon. If you are wise, however, this is precisely what you will avoid doing because the average Vogon will not think twice before doing something so pointlessly hideous to you that you will wish you had never been born – or (if you are a clearer minded thinker) that the Vogon had never been born. In fact, the average Vogon probably wouldn’t even think once.
It mattered little to him that the Heart of Gold, with its Infinite Improbability Drive, was the most beautiful and revolutionary ship ever built. Aesthetics and technology were closed books to him and, had he had his way, burnt and buried books as well
It has been said that Vogons are not above a little bribery and corruption in the same way that the sea is not above the clouds, and this was certainly true in his case. When he heard the words ‘integrity’ or ‘moral rectitude’ he reached for his dictionary, and when he heard the chink of ready money in large quantities he reached for the rule book and threw it away.
‘…in my profession, you know, we do not make personal friends.’ ‘Ah,’ grunted the Vogon, ‘professional detachment.’ ‘No,’ said Halfrunt cheerfully, ‘we just don’t have the knack
When Arthur had been a boy at school, long before the Earth had been demolished, he had used to play football. He had not been at all good at it, and his particular speciality had been scoring own goals in important matches. Whenever this happened he used to experience a peculiar tingling round the back of his neck that would slowly creep up across his cheeks and heat his brow. The image of mud and grass and lots of little jeering boys flinging it at him suddenly came vividly to his mind at this moment. A peculiar tingling sensation at the back of his neck was creeping up across his cheeks and heating his brow. He started to speak, and stopped. He started to speak again and stopped again. Finally he managed to speak. ‘Er,’ he said. He cleared his throat. ‘Tell me,’ he continued, and said it so nervously that the others all turned to stare at him. He glanced at the approaching yellow blob on the vision screen. ‘Tell me,’ he said again, ‘did the computer say what was occupying it? I just ask out of interest …’ Their eyes were riveted on him. ‘And, er … well that’s it really, just asking.’ Zaphod put out a hand and held Arthur by the scruff of the neck. ‘What have you done to it, Monkeyman?’ he breathed. ‘Well,’ said Arthur, ‘nothing in fact. It’s just that I think a short while ago it was trying to work out how to …’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Make me some tea.’ ‘That’s right, guys,’ the computer sang out suddenly, ‘just coping with that problem right now, and wow, it’s a biggy. Be with you in a while.’ It lapsed back into a silence that was only matched for sheer intensity by the silence of the three people staring at Arthur Dent. As if to relieve the tension, the Vogons chose that moment to start firing.
The ship shook, the ship thundered. Outside, the inch-thick force-shield around it blistered, crackled and spat under the barrage of a dozen 30-Megahurt Definit-Kil Photrazon Cannon, and looked as if it wouldn’t be around for long. Four minutes is how long Ford Prefect gave it. ‘Three minutes and fifty seconds,’ he said a short while later. ‘Forty-five seconds,’ he added at the appropriate time. He flicked idly at some useless switches, then gave Arthur an unfriendly look. ‘Dying for a cup of tea, eh?’ he said. ‘Three minutes and forty seconds.’ ‘Will you stop counting!’ snarled Zaphod. ‘Yes,’ said Ford Prefect, ‘in three minutes and thirty-five seconds.’
Quite how Zaphod Beeblebrox arrived at the idea of holding a seance at this point is something he was never quite clear on. Obviously the subject of death was in the air, but more as something to be avoided than harped upon. Possibly the horror that Zaphod experienced at the prospect of being reunited with his deceased relatives led on to the thought that they might just feel the same way about him and, what’s more, be able to do something about helping to postpone this reunion.
Listen, I’m Zaphod Beeblebrox, my father was Zaphod Beeblebrox the Second, my grandfather Zaphod Beeblebrox the Third …’ ‘What?’ ‘There was an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine. Now concentrate!’ ‘Three minutes,’ said Ford Prefect.
Life is wasted on the living
‘Oh, and Zaphod?’ ‘Er, yeah?’ ‘If you ever find you need help again, you know, if you’re in trouble, need a hand out of a tight corner …’ ‘Yeah?’ ‘Please don’t hesitate to get lost.’
Ursa Minor Beta is, some say, one of the most appalling places in the known Universe. Although it is excruciatingly rich, horrifyingly sunny and more full of wonderfully exciting people than a pomegranate is of pips, it can hardly be insignificant that when a recent edition of Playbeing magazine headlined an article with the words ‘When you are tired of Ursa Minor Beta you are tired of life’, the suicide rate there quadrupled overnight. Not that there are any nights on Ursa Minor Beta.
Yes, I passed on your message to Mr Zarniwoop, but I’m afraid he’s too cool to see you right now. He’s on an intergalactic cruise.’
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is an indispensable companion to all those who are keen to make sense of life in an infinitely complex and confusing Universe, for though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does at least make the reassuring claim that where it is inaccurate it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it’s always reality that’s got it wrong.
‘The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.’
when the Editors of the Guide were sued by the families of those who had died as a result of taking the entry on the planet Traal literally (it said ‘Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal for visiting tourists’ instead of ‘Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal of visiting tourists’) they claimed that the first version of the sentence was the more aesthetically pleasing, summoned a qualified poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty and hoped thereby to prove that the guilty party in this case was Life itself for failing to be either beautiful or true. The judges concurred, and in a moving speech held that Life itself was in contempt of court, and duly confiscated it from all those there present before going off to enjoy a pleasant evening’s ultragolf.
So, how are you?’ he said aloud. ‘Oh, fine,’ said Marvin, ‘if you happen to like being me which personally I don’t
what else do you do besides talk?’ ‘I go up,’ said the elevator, ‘or down.’ ‘Good,’ said Zaphod. ‘We’re going up.’ ‘Or down,’ the elevator reminded him. ‘Yeah, OK, up, please.’ There was a moment of silence. ‘Down’s very nice,’ suggested the elevator hopefully. ‘Oh yeah?’ ‘Super.’ ‘Good,’ said Zaphod. ‘Now will you take us up?’ ‘May I ask you,’ enquired the elevator in its sweetest, most reasonable voice, ‘if you’ve considered all the possibilities that down might offer you?’ Zaphod knocked one of his heads against the inside wall. He didn’t need this, he thought to himself, this of all things he had no need of. He hadn’t asked to be here. If he was asked at this moment where he would like to be he would probably have said he would like to be lying on the beach with at least fifty beautiful women and a small team of experts working out new ways they could be nice to him, which was his usual reply. To this he would probably have added something passionate on the subject of food. One thing he didn’t want to be doing was chasing after the man who ruled the Universe, who was only doing a job which he might as well keep at, because if it wasn’t him it would only be someone else. Most of all he didn’t want to be standing in an office block arguing with an elevator. ‘Like what other possibilities?’ he said wearily. ‘Well,’ the voice trickled on like honey on biscuits, ‘there’s the basement, the microfiles, the heating system … er …’ It paused. ‘Nothing particularly exciting,’ it admitted, ‘but they are alternatives.’ ‘Holy Zarquon,’ muttered Zaphod, ‘did I ask for an existential elevator?’ He beat his fists against the wall. ‘What’s the matter with the thing?’ he spat. ‘It doesn’t want to go up,’ said Marvin simply. ‘I think it’s afraid.’ ‘Afraid?’ cried Zaphod. ‘Of what? Heights? An elevator that’s afraid of heights?’
Modern elevators are strange and complex entities. The ancient electric winch and ‘maximum capacity eight persons’ jobs bear as much relation to a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter as a packet of mixed nuts does to the entire west wing of the Sirian State Mental Hospital. This is because they operate on the curious principle of ‘defocused temporal perception’. In other words they have the capacity to see dimly into the immediate future, which enables the elevator to be on the right floor to pick you up even before you knew you wanted it, thus eliminating all the tedious chatting, relaxing, and making friends that people were previously forced to do whilst waiting for elevators.
many elevators imbued with intelligence and precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process and finally took to squatting in basements sulking.
Beeblebrox, over here!’ he shouted. Zaphod eyed him with distrust as another bomb blast rocked the building. ‘No,’ called Zaphod, ‘Beeblebrox over here! Who are you?
Who are you?’ ‘A friend!’ shouted back the man. He ran towards Zaphod. ‘Oh yeah?’ said Zaphod. ‘Anyone’s friend in particular, or just generally well-disposed to people?’
Hell that makes me angry,’ bellowed the machine. ‘Think I’ll smash that wall down!’ The electron ram stabbed out another searing blaze of light and took out the wall next to the machine. ‘How do you think I feel?’ said Marvin bitterly. ‘Just ran off and left you, did they?’ the machine thundered. ‘Yes,’ said Marvin. ‘I think I’ll shoot down their bloody ceiling as well!’ raged the tank. It took out the ceiling of the bridge. ‘That’s very impressive,’ murmured Marvin. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet,’ promised the machine, ‘I can take out this floor too, no trouble!’ It took out the floor too. ‘Hell’s bells!’ the machine roared as it plummeted fifteen storeys and smashed itself to bits on the ground below. ‘What a depressingly stupid machine,’ said Marvin and trudged away.
look out of the window.’ Zaphod looked, and gaped. ‘The ground’s going away!’ he gasped. ‘Where are they taking the ground?’ ‘They’re taking the building,’ said Roosta, ‘we’re airborne.’
‘Hey, er, why can’t I see you?’ he said. ‘Why aren’t you here?’ ‘I am here,’ said the voice slowly. ‘My body wanted to come but it’s a bit busy at the moment. Things to do, people to see.’ After what seemed like a sort of ethereal sigh it added, ‘You know how it is with bodies.’ Zaphod wasn’t sure about this. ‘I thought I did,’ he said. ‘I only hope it’s gone in for a rest cure,’ continued the voice, ‘the way it’s been living recently it must be on its last elbows.’
The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore. Many would happily move to somewhere rather smaller of their own devising, and this is what most beings in fact do. For instance, in one corner of the Eastern Galactic Arm lies the large forest planet Oglaroon, the entire ‘intelligent’ population of which lives permanently in one fairly small and crowded nut tree. In which tree they are born, live, fall in love, carve tiny speculative articles in the bark on the meaning of life, the futility of death and the importance of birth control, fight a few extremely minor wars, and eventually die strapped to the underside of some of the less accessible outer branches. In fact the only Oglaroonians who ever leave their tree are those who are hurled out of it for the heinous crime of wondering whether any of the other trees might be capable of supporting life at all, or indeed whether the other trees are anything other than illusions brought on by eating too many Oglanuts. Exotic though this behaviour may seem, there is no life form in the Galaxy which is not in some way guilty of the same thing, which is why the Total Perspective Vortex is as horrific as it is. For when you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little marker, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, ‘You are here.’
He smiled the smile that Zaphod had wanted to hit and this time Zaphod hit it.
One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can’t cope with. There is also no problem about changing the course of history – the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end. The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner’s Time Traveller’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past, and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own mother or father.
At the bar, Zaphod was rapidly becoming as tired as a newt. His heads knocked together and his smiles were coming out of synch. He was miserably happy
Ford had another Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, the drink which has been described as the alcoholic equivalent of a mugging – expensive and bad for the head
Glass glittered, silver shone, gold gleamed, Arthur Dent goggled. ‘Wowee,’ said Zaphod. ‘Zappo.’ ‘Incredible!’ breathed Arthur. ‘The people … ! The things … !’ ‘The things,’ said Ford Prefect quietly, ‘are also people.’ ‘The people …’ resumed Arthur, ‘the … other people …’ ‘The lights … !’ said Trillian. ‘The tables … !’ said Arthur. ‘The clothes … !’ said Trillian. The waiter thought they sounded like a couple of bailiffs
Their songs are on the whole very simple and mostly follow the familiar theme of boy-being meets girl-being beneath a silvery moon, which then explodes for no adequately explored reason. Many worlds have now banned their act altogether, sometimes for artistic reasons, but most commonly because the band’s public address system contravenes local strategic arms limitations treaties.
‘And now, ladies and gentlemen,’ he beamed, ‘is everyone having one last wonderful time?’ ‘Yes,’ called out the sort of people who call out ‘yes’ when comedians ask them if they’re having a wonderful time.
He turned to look at Ford seriously. At least, one of his heads did – the other stayed gazing in awe at the ship. ‘What do you reckon, Ford?’ he said. ‘You mean … er …’ Ford looked over his shoulder. ‘You mean stroll off with it? You think we should?’ ‘No.’ ‘Nor do I.’ ‘But we’re going to, aren’t we.’ ‘How can we not?’
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
‘You mean,’ said Arthur, ‘you mean you can see into my mind?’ ‘Yes,’ said Marvin. Arthur stared in astonishment. ‘And … ?’ he said. ‘It amazes me how you can manage to live in anything that small.’
‘I wonder who this ship belongs to anyway,’ said Arthur. ‘Me,’ said Zaphod. ‘No. Who it really belongs to.’ ‘Really me,’ insisted Zaphod. ‘Look, property is theft, right? Therefore theft is property. Therefore this ship is mine, OK?’
He turned to Ford. ‘You know what I’m thinking?’ he said. ‘I think so,’ said Ford. ‘Tell me what you think I’m thinking.’ ‘I think you’re thinking it’s time we got off this ship.’ ‘I think you’re right,’ said Zaphod. ‘I think you’re right,’ said Ford. ‘How?’ said Arthur. ‘Quiet,’ said Ford and Zaphod, ‘we’re thinking.’ ‘So this is it,’ said Arthur, ‘we’re going to die.’ ‘I wish you’d stop saying that,’ said Ford.
It is worth repeating at this point the theories that Ford had come up with, on his first encounter with human beings, to account for their peculiar habit of continually stating and restating the very very obvious, as in ‘It’s a nice day,’ or ‘You’re very tall,’ or ‘So this is it, we’re going to die.’ His first theory was that if human beings didn’t keep exercising their lips, their mouths probably seized up. After a few months of observation he had come up with a second theory, which was this – if human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, their brains start working.
Arthur woke up and instantly regretted it.
Trouble with a long journey like this,’ continued the captain, ‘is that you end up just talking to yourself a lot, which gets terribly boring because half the time you know what you’re going to say next.’ ‘Only half the time?’ asked Arthur in surprise. The captain thought for a moment. ‘Yes, about half I’d say. Anyway – where’s the soap?’ He fished around and found it.
‘I think as far as I can remember we were programmed to crash on it.’ ‘Crash?’ shouted Ford and Arthur. ‘Er, yes,’ said the captain, ‘yes, it’s all part of the plan, I think. There was a terribly good reason for it which I can’t quite remember at the moment. It was something to do with … er …’ Ford exploded. ‘You’re a load of useless bloody loonies!’ he shouted. ‘Ah yes, that was it,’ beamed the captain, ‘that was the reason.’
Arthur looked at him as if he’d gone mad and, seeing nothing to indicate to the contrary, realized that it would be perfectly reasonable to assume that this had in fact happened.
He paused again. Sometimes he would pause for days, just to see what it was like
He picked up the letter Q and hurled it into a distant privet bush where it hit a young rabbit. The rabbit hurtled off in terror and didn’t stop till it was set upon and eaten by a fox which choked on one of its bones and died on the bank of a stream which subsequently washed it away. During the following weeks Ford Prefect swallowed his pride and struck up a relationship with a girl who had been a personnel officer on Golgafrincham, and he was terribly upset when she suddenly passed away as a result of drinking water from a pool that had been polluted by the body of a dead fox. The only moral it is possible to draw from this story is that one should never throw the letter Q into a privet bush, but unfortunately there are times when it is unavoidable.