ADAMS, Douglas - Life, the Universe, and Everything
Page 7
support.
"You're drinking too much," said Trillian.
His heads collided trying to sort out the four of her he could now see
into a whole position. He gave up and looked at the navigation screen and was
astonished to see a quite phenomenal number of stars.
"Excitement and adventure and really wild things," he muttered.
"Look," she said in a sympathetic tone of voice, and sat down near him,
"it's quite understandable that you're going to feel a little aimless for a
bit."
He boggled at her. He had never seen anyone sit on their own lap before.
"Wow," he said. He had another drink.
"You've finished the mission you've been on for years."
"I haven't been on it. I've tried to avoid being on it."
"You've still finished it."
He grunted. There seemed to be a terrific party going on in his stomach.
"I think it finished me," he said. "Here I am, Zaphod Beeblebrox, I can go
anywhere, do anything. I have the greatest ship in the know sky, a girl with
whom things seem to be working out pretty well ..."
"Are they?"
"As far as I can tell I'm not an expert in personal relationships ..."
Trillian raised her eyebrows.
"I am," he added, "one hell of a guy, I can do anything I want only I just
don't have the faintest idea what."
He paused.
"One thing," he further added, "has suddenly ceased to lead to another" -
in contradiction of which he had another drink and slid gracelessly off his
chair.
Whilst he slept it off, Trillian did a little research in the ship's copy
of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It had some advice to offer on
drunkenness.
"Go to it," it said, "and good luck."
It was cross-referenced to the entry concerning the size of the Universe
and ways of coping with that.
Then she found the entry on Han Wavel, an exotic holiday planet, and one
of the wonders of the Galaxy.
Han Wavel is a world which consists largely of fabulous ultraluxury hotels
and casinos, all of which have been formed by the natural erosion of wind and
rain.
The chances of this happening are more or less one to infinity against.
Little is known of how this came about because none of the geophysicists,
probability statisticians, meteoranalysts or bizzarrologists who are so keen
to research it can afford to stay there.
Terrific, thought Trillian to herself, and within a few hours the great
white running-shoe ship was slowly powering down out of the sky beneath a hot
brilliant sun towards a brightly coloured sandy spaceport. The ship was
clearly causing a sensation on the ground, and Trillian was enjoying herself.
She heard Zaphod moving around and whistling somewhere in the ship.
"How are you?" she said over the general intercom.
"Fine," he said brightly, "terribly well."
"Where are you?"
"In the bathroom."
"What are you doing?"
"Staying here."
After an hour or two it became plain that he meant it and the ship
returned to the sky without having once opened its hatchway.
"Heigh ho," said Eddie the Computer.
Trillian nodded patiently, tapped her fingers a couple of times and pushed
the intercom switch.
"I think that enforced fun is probably not what you need at this point."
"Probably not," replied Zaphod from wherever he was.
"I think a bit of physical challenge would help draw you out of yourself."
"Whatever you think, I think," said Zaphod.
"Recreational Impossibilities" was a heading which caught Trillian's eye
when, a short while later, she sat down to flip through the Guide again, and
as the Heart of Gold rushed at improbable speeds in an indeterminate
direction, she sipped a cup of something undrinkable from the Nutrimatic Drink
Dispenser and read about how to fly.
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of
flying.
There is an art, it says, or rather a knack to flying.
The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
Pick a nice day, it suggests, and try it.
The first part is easy.
All it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all
your weight, and the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt.
That is, it's going to hurt if you fail to miss the ground.
Most people fail to miss the ground, and if they are really trying
properly, the likelihood is that they will fail to miss it fairly hard.
Clearly, it's the second point, the missing, which presents the
difficulties.
One problem is that you have to miss the ground accidentally. It's no good
deliberately intending to miss the ground because you won't. You have to have
your attention suddenly distracted by something else when you're halfway
there, so that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about the ground,
or about how much it's going to hurt if you fail to miss it.
It is notoriously difficult to prise your attention away from these three
things during the split second you have at your disposal. Hence most people's
failure, and their eventual disillusionment with this exhilarating and
spectacular sport.
If, however, you are lucky enough to have your attention momentarily
distracted at the crucial moment by, say, a gorgeous pair of legs (tentacles,
pseudopodia, according to phyllum and/or personal inclination) or a bomb going
off in your vicinity, or by suddenly spotting an extremely rare species of
beetle crawling along a nearby twig, then in your astonishment you will miss
the ground completely and remain bobbing just a few inches above it in what
might seem to be a slightly foolish manner.
This is a moment for superb and delicate concentration.
Bob and float, float and bob.
Ignore all considerations of your own weight and simply let yourself waft
higher.
Do not listen to what anybody says to you at this point because they are
unlikely to say anything helpful.
They are most likely to say something along the lines of, "Good God, you
can't possibly be flying!"
It is vitally important not to believe them or they will suddenly be
right.
Waft higher and higher.
Try a few swoops, gentle ones at first, then drift above the treetops
breathing regularly.
Do not wave at anybody.
When you have done this a few times you will find the moment of
distraction rapidly becomes easier and easier to achieve.
You will then learn all sorts of things about how to control your flight,
your speed, your manoeuvrability, and the trick usually lies in not thinking
too hard about whatever you want to do, but just allowing it to happen as if
it was going to anyway.
You will also learn how to land properly, which is something you will
almost certainly cock up, and cock up badly, on your first attempt.
There are private flying clubs you can join which help you achieve the
all-important moment of distraction. They hire people with surprising bodies
or opinions to leap out from behind bushes and exhibi
t and/or explain them at
the crucial moments. Few genuine hitch-hikers will be able to afford to join
these clubs, but some may be able to get temporary employment at them.
Trillian read this longingly, but reluctantly decided that Zaphod wasn't
really in the right frame of mind for attempting to fly, or for walking
through mountains or for trying to get the Brantisvogan Civil Service to
acknowledge a change-of-address card, which were the other things listed under
the heading "Recreational Impossibilities".
Instead, she flew the ship to Allosimanius Syneca, a world of ice, snow,
mind-hurtling beauty and stunning cold. The trek from the snow plains of Liska
to the summit of the Ice Crystal Pyramids of Sastantua is long and gruelling,
even with jet skis and a team of Syneca Snowhounds, but the view from the top,
a view which takes in the Stin Glacier Fields, the shimmering Prism Mountains
and the far ethereal dancing icelights, is one which first freezes the mind
and then slowly releases it to hitherto unexperienced horizons of beauty, and
Trillian, for one, felt that she could do with a bit of having her mind slowly
released to hitherto unexperienced horizons of beauty.
They went into a low orbit.
There lay the silverwhite beauty of Allosimanius Syneca beneath them.
Zaphod stayed in bed with one head stuck under a pillow and the other
doing crosswords till late into the night.
Trillian nodded patiently again, counted to a sufficiently high number,
and told herself that the important thing now was just to get Zaphod talking.
She prepared, by dint of deactivating all the robot kitchen synthomatics,
the most fabulously delicious meal she could contrive - delicately oiled
meals, scented fruits, fragrant cheeses, fine Aldebaran wines.
She carried it through to him and asked if he felt like talking things
through.
"Zark off," said Zaphod.
Trillian nodded patiently to herself, counted to an even higher number,
tossed the tray lightly aside, walked to the transport room and just
teleported herself the hell out of his life.
She didn't even programme any coordinates, she hadn't the faintest idea
where she was going, she just went - a random row of dots flowing through the
Universe.
"Anything," she said to herself as she left, "is better than this."
"Good job too," muttered Zaphod to himself, turned over and failed to go
to sleep.
The next day he restlessly paced the empty corridors of the ship,
pretending not to look for her, though he knew she wasn't there. He ignored
the computer's querulous demands to know just what the hell was going on
around here by fitting a small electronic gag across a pair of its terminals.
After a while he began to turn down the lights. There was nothing to see.
Nothing was about to happen.
Lying in bed one night - and night was now virtually continuous on the
ship - he decided to pull himself together, to get things into some kind of
perspective. He sat up sharply and started to pull clothes on. He decided that
there must be someone in the Universe feeling more wretched, miserable and
forsaken than himself, and he determined to set out and find him.
Halfway to the bridge it occurred to him that it might be Marvin, and he
returned to bed.
It was a few hours later than this, as he stomped disconsolately about the
darkened corridors swearing at cheerful doors, that he heard the "wop" said,
and it made him very nervous.
He leant tensely against the corridor wall and frowned like a man trying
to unbend a corkscrew by telekinesis. He laid his fingertips against the wall
and felt an unusual vibration. And now he could quite clearly hear slight
noises, and could hear where they were coming from - they were coming from the
bridge.
"Computer?" he hissed.
"Mmmm?" said the computer terminal nearest him, equally quietly.
"Is there someone on this ship?"
"Mmmmm," said the computer.
"Who is it?"
Mmmmm mmm mmmmm," said the computer.
"What?"
"Mmmmm mmmm mm mmmmmmmm."
Zaphod buried one of his faces in two of his hands.
"Oh, Zarquon," he muttered to himself. Then he stared up the corridor
towards the entrance to the bridge in the dim distance from which more and
purposeful noises were coming, and in which the gagged terminals were
situated.
"Computer," he hissed again.
"Mmmmm?"
"When I ungag you ..."
"Mmmmm."
"Remind me to punch myself in the mouth."
"Mmmmm mmm?"
"Either one. Now just tell me this. One for yes, two for no. Is it
dangerous?"
"Mmmmm."
"It is?"
"Mmmm."
"You didn't just go `mmmm' twice?"
"Mmmm mmmm."
"Hmmmm."
He inched his way up the corridor as if he would rather be yarding his way
down it, which was true.
He was within two yards of the door to the bridge when he suddenly
realized to his horror that it was going to be nice to him, and he stopped
dead. He hadn't been able to turn off the doors' courtesy voice circuits.
This doorway to the bridge was concealed from view within it because of
the excitingly chunky way in which the bridge had been designed to curve
round, and he had been hoping to enter unobserved.
He leant despondently back against the wall again and said some words
which his other head was quite shocked to hear.
He peered at the dim pink outline of the door, and discovered that in the
darkness of the corridor he could just about make out the Sensor Field which
extended out into the corridor and told the door when there was someone there
for whom it must open and to whom it must make a cheery and pleasant remark.
He pressed himself hard back against the wall and edged himself towards
the door, flattening his chest as much as he possibly could to avoid brushing
against the very, very dim perimeter of the field. He held his breath, and
congratulated himself on having lain in bed sulking for the last few days
rather than trying to work out his feelings on chest expanders in the ship's
gym.
He then realized he was going to have to speak at this point.
He took a series of very shallow breaths, and then said as quickly and as
quietly as he could, "Door, if you can hear me, say so very, very quietly."
Very, very quietly, the door murmured, "I can hear you."
"Good. Now, in a moment, I'm going to ask you to open. When you open I do
not want you to say that you enjoyed it, OK?"
"OK."
"And I don't want you to say to me that I have made a simple door very
happy, or that it is your pleasure to open for me and your satisfaction to
close again with the knowledge of a job well done, OK?"
"OK."
"And I do not want you to ask me to have a nice day, understand?"
"I understand."
"OK," said Zaphod, tensing himself, "open now."
The door slid open quietly. Zaphod slipped quietly through. The door
closed quietly behind him.
"Is that the way you like it,
Mr Beeblebrox?" said the door out loud.
"I want you to imagine," said Zaphod to the group of white robots who
swung round to stare at him at that point, "that I have an extremely powerful
Kill-O-Zap blaster pistol in my hand."
There was an immensely cold and savage silence. The robots regarded him
with hideously dead eyes. They stood very still. There was something intensely
macabre about their appearance, especially to Zaphod who had never seen one
before or even known anything about them. The Krikkit Wars belonged to the
ancient past of the Galaxy, and Zaphod had spent most of his early history
lessons plotting how he was going to have sex with the girl in the
cybercubicle next to him, and since his teaching computer had been an integral
part of this plot it had eventually had all its history circuits wiped and
replaced with an entirely different set of ideas which had then resulted in it
being scrapped and sent to a home for Degenerate Cybermats, whither it was
followed by the girl who had inadvertently fallen deeply in love with the
unfortunate machine, with the result (a) that Zaphod never got near her and
(b) that he missed out on a period of ancient history that would have been of
inestimable value to him at this moment.
He stared at them in shock.
It was impossible to explain why, but their smooth and sleek white bodies
seemed to be the utter embodiment of clean, clinical evil. From their
hideously dead eyes to their powerful lifeless feet, they were clearly the
calculated product of a mind that wanted simply to kill. Zaphod gulped in cold
fear.
They had been dismantling part of the rear bridge wall, and had forced a
passage through some of the vital innards of the ship. Through the tangled
wreckage Zaphod could see, with a further and worse sense of shock, that they
were tunnelling towards the very heart of the ship, the heart of the
Improbability Drive that had been so mysteriously created out of thin air, the
Heart of Gold itself.
The robot closest to him was regarding him in such a way as to suggest
that it was measuring every smallest particle of his body, mind and
capability. And when it spoke, what it said seemed to bear this impression
out. Before going on to what it actually said, it is worth recording at this
point that Zaphod was the first living organic being to hear one of these
creatures speak for something over ten billion years. If he had paid more