ADAMS, Douglas - Life, the Universe, and Everything

by Life, the Universe

  Poor fools."

  It began to rain a little, a fine spray slid through the mist.

  "I stood on the platform. For hundreds of miles in front of me, and

  hundreds of miles behind me, the bridge stretched."

  "Did it glitter?" enthused the mattress.

  "It glittered."

  "Did it span the miles majestically?"

  "It spanned the miles majestically."

  "Did it stretch like a silver thread far out into the invisible mist?"

  "Yes," said Marvin. "Do you want to hear this story?"

  "I want to hear your speech," said the mattress.

  "This is what I said. I said, `I would like to say that it is a very great

  pleasure, honour and privilege for me to open this bridge, but I can't because

  my lying circuits are all out of commission. I hate and despise you all. I now

  declare this hapless cyberstructure open to the unthinkable abuse of all who

  wantonly cross her.' And I plugged myself into the opening circuits."

  Marvin paused, remembering the moment.

  The mattress flurred and glurried. It flolloped, gupped and willomied,

  doing this last in a particularly floopy way.

  "Voon," it wurfed at last. "And it was a magnificent occasion?"

  "Reasonably magnificent. The entire thousand-mile-long bridge

  spontaneously folded up its glittering spans and sank weeping into the mire,

  taking everybody with it."

  There was a sad and terrible pause at this point in the conversation

  during which a hundred thousand people seemed unexpectedly to say "wop" and a

  team of white robots descended from the sky like dandelion seeds drifting on

  the wind in tight military formation. For a sudden violent moment they were

  all there, in the swamp, wrenching Marvin's false leg off, and then they were

  gone again in their ship, which said "foop".

  "You see the sort of thing I have to contend with?" said Marvin to the

  gobbering mattress.

  Suddenly, a moment later, the robots were back again for another violent

  incident, and this time when they left, the mattress was alone in the swamp.

  He flolloped around in astonishment and alarm. He almost lurgled in fear. He

  reared himself to see over the reeds, but there was nothing to see, just more

  reeds. He listened, but there was no sound on the wind beyond the now familiar

  sound of half-crazed etymologists calling distantly to each other across the

  sullen mire.

  Chapter 10

  The body of Arthur Dent span.

  The Universe shattered into a million glittering fragments around it, and

  each particular shard span silently through the void, reflecting on its silver

  surface some single searing holocaust of fire and destruction.

  And then the blackness behind the Universe exploded, and each particular

  piece of blackness was the furious smoke of hell.

  And the nothingness behind the blackness behind the Universe erupted, and

  behind the nothingness behind the blackness behind the shattered Universe was

  at last the dark figure of an immense man speaking immense words.

  "These, then," said the figure, speaking from an immensely comfortable

  chair, "were the Krikkit Wars, the greatest devastation ever visited upon our

  Galaxy. What you have experienced ..."

  Slartibartfast floated past, waving.

  "It's just a documentary," he called out. "This is not a good bit.

  Terribly sorry, trying to find the rewind control ..."

  "... is what billions of billions of innocent ..."

  "Do not," called out Slartibartfast floating past again, and fiddling

  furiously with the thing that he had stuck into the wall of the Room of

  Informational Illusions and which was in fact still stuck there, "agree to buy

  anything at this point."

  "... people, creatures, your fellow beings ..."

  Music swelled - again, it was immense music, immense chords. And behind

  the man, slowly, three tall pillars began to emerge out of the immensely

  swirling mist.

  "... experienced, lived through - or, more often, failed to live through.

  Think of that, my friends. And let us not forget - and in just a moment I

  shall be able to suggest a way which will help us always to remember - that

  before the Krikkit Wars, the Galaxy was that rare and wonderful thing a happy

  Galaxy!"

  The music was going bananas with immensity at this point.

  "A Happy Galaxy, my friends, as represented by the symbol of the Wikkit

  Gate!"

  The three pillars stood out clearly now, three pillars topped with two

  cross pieces in a way which looked stupefyingly familiar to Arthur's addled

  brain.

  "The three pillars," thundered the man. "The Steel Pillar which

  represented the Strength and Power of the Galaxy!"

  Searchlights seared out and danced crazy dances up and down the pillar on

  the left which was, clearly, made of steel or something very like it. The

  music thumped and bellowed.

  "The Perspex Pillar," announced the man, "representing the forces of

  Science and Reason in the Galaxy!"

  Other searchlights played exotically up and down the righthand,

  transparent pillar creating dazzling patterns within it and a sudden

  inexplicable craving for ice-cream in the stomach of Arthur Dent.

  "And," the thunderous voice continued, "the Wooden Pillar, representing

  ..." and here his voice became just very slightly hoarse with wonderful

  sentiments, "the forces of Nature and Spirituality."

  The lights picked out the central pillar. The music moved bravely up into

  the realms of complete unspeakability.

  "Between them supporting," the voice rolled on, approaching its climax,

  "the Golden Bail of Prosperity and the Silver Bail of Peace!"

  The whole structure was now flooded with dazzling lights, and the music

  had now, fortunately, gone far beyond the limits of the discernible. At the

  top of the three pillars the two brilliantly gleaming bails sat and dazzled.

  There seemed to be girls sitting on top of them, or maybe they were meant to

  be angels. Angels are usually represented as wearing more than that, though.

  Suddenly there was a dramatic hush in what was presumably meant to be the

  Cosmos, and a darkening of the lights.

  "There is not a world," thrilled the man's expert voice, "not a civilized

  world in the Galaxy where this symbol is not revered even today. Even in

  primitive worlds it persists in racial memories. This it was that the forces

  of Krikkit destroyed, and this it is that now locks their world away till the

  end of eternity!"

  And with a flourish, the man produced in his hands a model of the Wikkit

  gate. Scale was terribly hard to judge in this whole extraordinary spectacle,

  but the model looked as if it must have been about three feet high.

  "Not the original key, of course. That, as everyone knows, was destroyed,

  blasted into the ever-whirling eddies of the spacetime continuum and lost for

  ever. This is a remarkable replica, hand-tooled by skilled craftsmen, lovingly

  assembled using ancient craft secrets into a memento you will be proud to own,

  in memory of those who fell, and in tribute to the Galaxy - our Galaxy - which

  they died to defend ..."

  Slartibartfast floated past again at this moment.


  "Found it," he said. "We can lose all this rubbish. Just don't nod, that's

  all."

  "Now, let us bow our heads in payment," intoned the voice, and then said

  it again, much faster and backwards.

  Lights came and went, the pillars disappeared, the man gabled himself

  backwards into nothing, the Universe snappily reassembled itself around them.

  "You get the gist?" said Slartibartfast.

  "I'm astonished," said Arthur, "and bewildered."

  "I was asleep," said Ford, who floated into view at this point. "Did I

  miss anything?"

  They found themselves once again teetering rather rapidly on the edge of

  an agonizingly high cliff. The wind whipped out from their faces and across a

  bay on which the remains of one of the greatest and most powerful space

  battle-fleets ever assembled in the Galaxy was briskly burning itself back

  into existence. The sky was a sullen pink, darkening via a rather curious

  colour to blue and upwards to black. Smoke billowed down out of it at an

  incredible lick.

  Events were now passing back by them almost too quickly to be

  distinguished, and when, a short while later, a huge starbattleship rushed

  away from them as if they'd said "boo", they only just recognized it as the

  point at which they had come in.

  But now things were too rapid, a video-tactile blur which brushed and

  jiggled them through centuries of galactic history, turning, twisting,

  flickering. The sound was a mere thin thrill.

  Periodically through the thickening jumble of events they sensed appalling

  catastrophes, deep horrors, cataclysmic shocks, and these were always

  associated with certain recurring images, the only images which ever stood out

  clearly from the avalance of tumbling history: a wicket gate, a small hard red

  ball, hard white robots, and also something less distinct, something dark and

  cloudy.

  But there was also another sensation which rose clearly out of the

  thrilling passage of time.

  Just as a slow series of clicks when speeded up will lose the definition

  of each individual click and gradually take on the quality of a sustained and

  rising tone, so a series of individual impressions here took on the quality of

  a sustained emotion - and yet not an emotion. If it was an emotion, it was a

  totally emotionless one. It was hatred, implacable hatred. It was cold, not

  like ice is cold, but like a wall is cold. It was impersonal, not as a

  randomly flung fist in a crowd is impersonal, but like a computer-issued

  parking summons is impersonal. And it was deadly - again, not like a bullet or

  a knife is deadly, but like a brick wall across a motorway is deadly.

  And just as a rising tone will change in character and take on harmonics

  as it rises, so again, this emotionless emotion seemed to rise to an

  unbearable if unheard scream and suddenly seemed to be a scream of guilt and

  failure.

  And suddenly it stopped.

  They were left standing on a quiet hilltop on a tranquil evening.

  The sun was setting.

  All around them softly undulating green countryside rolled off gently into

  the distance. Birds sang about what they thought of it all, and the general

  opinion seemed to be good. A little way away could be heard the sound of

  children playing, and a little further away than the apparent source of that

  sound could be seen in the dimming evening light the outlines of a small town.

  The town appeared to consist mostly of fairly low buildings made of white

  stone. The skyline was of gentle pleasing curves.

  The sun had nearly set.

  As if out of nowhere, music began. Slartibartfast tugged at a switch and

  it stopped.

  A voice said, "This ..." Slartibartfast tugged at a switch and it stopped.

  "I will tell you about it," he said quietly.

  The place was peaceful. Arthur felt happy. Even Ford seemed cheerful. They

  walked a short way in the direction of the town, and the Informational

  Illusion of the grass was pleasant and springy under their feet, and the

  Informational Illusion of the flowers smelt sweet and fragrant. Only

  Slartibartfast seemed apprehensive and out of sorts.

  He stopped and looked up.

  It suddenly occurred to Arthur that, coming as this did at the end, so to

  speak, or rather the beginning of all the horror they had just blurredly

  experienced, something nasty must be about to happen. He was distressed to

  think that something nasty could happen to somewhere as idyllic as this. He

  too glanced up. There was nothing in the sky.

  "They're not about to attack here, are they?" he said. He realized that

  this was merely a recording he was walking through, but he still felt alarmed.

  "Nothing is about to attack here," said Slartibartfast in a voice which

  unexpectedly trembled with emotion. "This is where it all started. This is the

  place itself. This is Krikkit."

  He stared up into the sky.

  The sky, from one horizon to another, from east to west, from north to

  south, was utterly and completely black.

  Chapter 11

  Stomp stomp.

  Whirrr.

  "Pleased to be of service."

  "Shut up."

  "Thank you."

  Stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp.

  Whirrr.

  "Thank you for making a simple door very happy."

  "Hope your diodes rot."

  "Thank you. Have a nice day."

  Stomp stomp stomp stomp.

  Whirrr.

  "It is my pleasure to open for you ..."

  "Zark off."

  "... and my satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well

  done."

  "I said zark off."

  "Thank you for listening to this message."

  Stomp stomp stomp stomp.

  "Wop."

  Zaphod stopped stomping. He had been stomping around the Heart of Gold for

  days, and so far no door had said "wop" to him. He was fairly certain that no

  door had said "wop" to him now. It was not the sort of thing doors said. Too

  concise. Furthermore, there were not enough doors. It sounded as if a hundred

  thousand people had said "wop", which puzzled him because he was the only

  person on the ship.

  It was dark. Most of the ship's non-essential systems were closed down. It

  was drifting in a remote area of the Galaxy, deep in the inky blackness of

  space. So which particular hundred thousand people would turn up at this point

  and say a totally unexpected "wop"?

  He looked about him, up the corridor and down the corridor. It was all in

  deep shadow. There were just the very dim pinkish outlines of the doors which

  glowed in the dark and pulsed whenever they spoke, though he had tried every

  way he could think of of stopping them.

  The lights were off so that his heads could avoid looking at each other,

  because neither of them was currently a particularly engaging sight, and nor

  had they been since he had made the error of looking into his soul.

  It had indeed been an error. It had been late one night - of course.

  It had been a difficult day - of course.

  There had been soulful music playing on the ship's sound system - of

  course.

  And he had, of course, been slightly dru
nk.

  In other words, all the usual conditions which bring on a bout of soul+

  searching had applied, but it had, nevertheless, clearly been an error.

  Standing now, silent and alone in the dark corridor he remembered the

  moment and shivered. His one head looked one way and his other the other and

  each decided that the other was the way to go.

  He listened but could hear nothing.

  All there had been was the "wop".

  It seemed an awfully long way to bring an awfully large number of people

  just to say one word.

  He started nervously to edge his way in the direction of the bridge. There

  at least he would feel in control. He stopped again. The way he was feeling he

  didn't think he was an awfully good person to be in control.

  The first shock of that moment, thinking back, had been discovering that

  he actually had a soul.

  In fact he'd always more or less assumed that he had one as he had a full

  complement of everything else, and indeed two of somethings, but suddenly

  actually to encounter the thing lurking there deep within him had giving him a

  severe jolt.

  And then to discover (this was the second shock) that it wasn't the

  totally wonderful object which he felt a man in his position had a natural

  right to expect had jolted him again.

  Then he had thought about what his position actually was and the renewed

  shock had nearly made him spill his drink. He drained it quickly before

  anything serious happened to it. He then had another quick one to follow the

  first one down and check that it was all right.

  "Freedom," he said aloud.

  Trillian came on to the bridge at that point and said several enthusiastic

  things on the subject of freedom.

  "I can't cope with it," he said darkly, and sent a third drink down to see

  why the second hadn't yet reported on the condition of the first. He looked

  uncertainly at both of her and preferred the one on the right.

  He poured a drink down his other throat with the plan that it would head

  the previous one off at the pass, join forces with it, and together they would

  get the second to pull itself together. Then all three would go off in search

  of the first, give it a good talking to and maybe a bit of a sing as well.

  He felt uncertain as to whether the fourth drink had understood all that,

  so he sent down a fifth to explain the plan more fully and a sixth for moral