ADAMS, Douglas - Life, the Universe, and Everything
Page 9
way," he repeated, "does anyone design and build a ship like this in a year,
no matter how motivated. I don't believe it. Prove it to me and I still won't
believe it." He shook his head thoughtfully and gazed out of a tiny port at
the nothingness outside it.
The trip passed uneventfully for a while, and Slartibartfast fastwound
them through it.
Very quickly, therefore, they arrived at the inner perimeter of the
hollow, spherical Dust Cloud which surrounded their sun and home planet,
occupying, as it were, the next orbit out.
It was more as if there was a gradual change in the texture and
consistency of space. The darkness seemed now to thrum and ripple past them.
It was a very cold darkness, a very blank and heavy darkness, it was the
darkness of the night sky of Krikkit.
The coldness and heaviness and blankness of it took a slow grip on
Arthur's heart, and he felt acutely aware of the feelings of the Krikkit
pilots which hung in the air like a thick static charge. They were now on the
very boundary of the historical knowledge of their race. This was the very
limit beyond which none of them had ever speculated, or even known that there
was any speculation to be done.
The darkness of the cloud buffeted at the ship. Inside was the silence of
history. Their historic mission was to find out if there was anything or
anywhere on the other side of the sky, from which the wrecked spaceship could
have come, another world maybe, strange and incomprehensible though this
thought was to the enclosed minds of those who had lived beneath the sky of
Krikkit.
History was gathering itself to deliver another blow.
Still the darkness thrummed at them, the blank enclosing darkness. It
seemed closer and closer, thicker and thicker, heavier and heavier. And
suddenly it was gone.
They flew out of the cloud.
They saw the staggering jewels of the night in their infinite dust and
their minds sang with fear.
For a while they flew on, motionless against the starry sweep of the
Galaxy, itself motionless against the infinite sweep of the Universe. And then
they turned round.
"It'll have to go," the men of Krikkit said as they headed back for home.
On the way back they sang a number of tuneful and reflective songs on the
subjects of peace, justice, morality, culture, sport, family life and the
obliteration of all other life forms.
Chapter 13
"So you see," said Slartibartfast, slowly stirring his artificially
constructed coffee, and thereby also stirring the whirlpool interfaces between
real and unreal numbers, between the interactive perceptions of mind and
Universe, and thus generating the restructured matrices of implicitly enfolded
subjectivity which allowed his ship to reshape the very concept of time and
space, "how it is."
"Yes," said Arthur.
"Yes," said Ford.
"What do I do," said Arthur, "with this piece of chicken?"
Slartibartfast glanced at him gravely.
"Toy with it," he said, "toy with it."
He demonstrated with his own piece.
Arthur did so, and felt the slight tingle of a mathematical function
thrilling through the chicken leg as it moved fourdimensionally through what
Slartibartfast had assured him was five-dimensional space.
"Overnight," said Slartibartfast, "the whole population of Krikkit was
transformed from being charming, delightful, intelligent ..."
"... if whimsical ..." interpolated Arthur.
"... ordinary people," said Slartibartfast, "into charming, delightful,
intelligent ..."
"... whimsical ..."
"... manic xenophobes. The idea of a Universe didn't fit into their world
picture, so to speak. They simply couldn't cope with it. And so, charmingly,
delightfully, intelligently, whimsically if you like, they decided to destroy
it. What's the matter now?"
"I don't like the wine very much," said Arthur sniffing it.
"Well, send it back. It's all part of the mathematics of it."
Arthur did so. He didn't like the topography of the waiter's smile, but
he'd never liked graphs anyway.
"Where are we going?" said Ford.
"Back to the Room of Informational Illusions," said Slartibartfast, rising
and patting his mouth with the mathematical representation of a paper napkin,
"for the second half."
Chapter 14
"The people of Krikkit," said His High Judgmental Supremacy, Judiciary
Pag, LIVR (the Learned, Impartial and Very Relaxed) Chairman of the Board of
Judges at the Krikkit War Crimes Trial, "are, well, you know, they're just a
bunch of real sweet guys, you know, who just happen to want to kill everybody.
Hell, I feel the same way some mornings. Shit.
"OK," he continued, swinging his feet up on to the bench in front of him
and pausing a moment to pick a thread off his Ceremonial Beach Loafers, "so
you wouldn't necessarily want to share a Galaxy with these guys."
This was true.
The Krikkit attack on the Galaxy had been stunning. Thousands and
thousands of huge Krikkit warships had leapt suddenly out of hyperspace and
simultaneously attacked thousands and thousands of major worlds, first seizing
vital material supplies for building the next wave, and then calmly zapping
those worlds out of existence.
The Galaxy, which had been enjoying a period of unusual peace and
prosperity at the time, reeled like a man getting mugged in a meadow.
"I mean," continued Judiciary Pag, gazing round the ultra-modern (this was
ten billion years ago, when "ultra-modern" meant lots of stainless steel and
brushed concrete) and huge courtroom, "these guys are just obsessed."
This too was true, and is the only explanation anyone has yet managed to
come up with for the unimaginable speed with which the people of Krikkit had
pursued their new and absolute purpose - the destruction of everything that
wasn't Krikkit.
It is also the only explanation for their bewildering sudden grasp of all
the hypertechnology involved in building their thousands of spaceships, and
their millions of lethal white robots.
These had really struck terror into the hearts of everyone who had
encountered them - in most cases, however, the terror was extremely short+
lived, as was the person experiencing the terror. They were savage, single+
minded flying battle machines. They wielded formidable multifunctional
battleclubs which, brandished one way, would knock down buildings and,
brandished another way, fired blistering Omni-Destructo Zap Rays and,
brandished a third way, launched a hideous arsenal of grenades, ranging from
minor incendiary devices to Maxi-Slorta Hypernuclear Devices which could take
out a major sun. Simply striking the grenades with the battleclubs
simultaneously primed them, and launched them with phenomenal accuracy over
distances ranging from mere yards to hundreds of thousands of miles.
"OK," said Judiciary Pag again, "so we won." He paused and chewed a little
gum. "We won," he repeated, "but that's no big deal. I mean a medium-sized
galaxy against one little world, and
how long did it take us? Clerk of the
Court?"
"M'lud?" said the severe little man in black, rising.
"How long, kiddo?"
"It is a trifle difficult, m'lud, to be precise in this matter. Time and
distance ..."
"Relax, guy, be vague."
"I hardly like to be vague, m'lud, over such a ..."
"Bite the bullet and be it."
The Clerk of the Court blinked at him. It was clear that like most of the
Galactic legal profession he found Judiciary Pag (or Zipo Bibrok 5 / 108, as
his private name was known, inexplicably, to be) a rather distressing figure.
He was clearly a bounder and a cad. He seemed to think that the fact that he
was the possessor of the finest legal mind ever discovered gave him the right
to behave exactly as he liked, and unfortunately he appeared to be right.
"Er, well, m'lud, very approximately, two thousand years," the Clerk
murmured unhappily.
"And how many guys zilched out?"
"Two grillion, m'lud." The Clerk sat down. A hydrospectic photo of him at
this point would have revealed that he was steaming slightly.
Judiciary Pag gazed once more around the courtroom, wherein were assembled
hundreds of the very highest officials of the entire Galactic administration,
all in their ceremonial uniforms or bodies, depending on metabolism and
custom. Behind a wall of Zap-Proof Crystal stood a representative group of the
people of Krikkit, looking with calm, polite loathing at all the aliens
gathered to pass judgment on them. This was the most momentous occasion in
legal history, and Judiciary Pag knew it.
He took out his chewing gum and stuck it under his chair.
"That's a whole lotta stiffs," he said quietly.
The grim silence in the courtroom seemed in accord with this view.
"So, like I said, these are a bunch of really sweet guys, but you wouldn't
want to share a Galaxy with them, not if they're just gonna keep at it, not if
they're not gonna learn to relax a little. I mean it's just gonna be continual
nervous time, isn't it, right? Pow, pow, pow, when are they next coming at us?
Peaceful coexistence is just right out, right? Get me some water somebody,
thank you."
He sat back and sipped reflectively.
"OK," he said, "hear me, hear me. It's, like, these guys, you know, are
entitled to their own view of the Universe. And according to their view, which
the Universe forced on them, right, they did right. Sounds crazy, but I think
you'll agree. They believe in ..."
He consulted a piece of paper which he found in the back pocket of his
Judicial jeans.
"They believe in `peace, justice, morality, culture, sport, family life,
and the obliteration of all other life forms'."
He shrugged.
"I've heard a lot worse," he said.
He scratched his crotch reflectively.
"Freeeow," he said. He took another sip of water, then held it up to the
light and frowned at it. He twisted it round.
"Hey, is there something in this water?" he said.
"Er, no, m'lud," said the Court Usher who had brought it to him, rather
nervously.
"Then take it away," snapped Judiciary Pag, "and put something in it. I
got an idea."
He pushed away the glass and leaned forward.
"Hear me, hear me," he said.
The solution was brilliant, and went like this:
The planet of Krikkit was to be enclosed for perpetuity in an envelope of
Slo-Time, inside which life would continue almost infinitely slowly. All light
would be deflected round the envelope so that it would remain invisible and
impenetrable. Escape from the envelope would be utterly impossible unless it
were locked from the outside.
When the rest of the Universe came to its final end, when the whole of
creation reached its dying fall (this was all, of course, in the days before
it was known that the end of the Universe would be a spectacular catering
venture) and life and matter ceased to exist, then the planet of Krikkit and
its sun would emerge from its Slo-Time envelope and continue a solitary
existence, such as it craved, in the twilight of the Universal void.
The Lock would be on an asteroid which would slowly orbit the envelope.
The key would be the symbol of the Galaxy - the Wikkit Gate.
By the time the applause in the court had died down, Judiciary Pag was
already in the Sens-O-Shower with a rather nice member of the jury that he'd
slipped a note to half an hour earlier.
Chapter 15
Two months later, Zipo Bibrok 5 / 108 had cut the bottoms off his Galactic
State jeans, and was spending part of the enormous fee his judgments commanded
lying on a jewelled beach having Essence of Qualactin rubbed into his back by
the same rather nice member of the jury. She was a Soolfinian girl from beyond
the Cloudworlds of Yaga. She had skin like lemon silk and was very interested
in legal bodies.
"Did you hear the news?" she said.
"Weeeeelaaaaah!" said Zipo Bibrok 5 / 108, and you would have had to have
been there to know exactly why he said this. None of this was on the tape of
Informational Illusions, and is all based on hearsay.
"No," he added, when the thing that had made him say "Weeeeelaaaaah" had
stopped happening. He moved his body round slightly to catch the first rays of
the third and greatest of primeval Vod's three suns which was now creeping
over the ludicrously beautiful horizon, and the sky now glittered with some of
the greatest tanning power ever known.
A fragrant breeze wandered up from the quiet sea, trailed along the beach,
and drifted back to sea again, wondering where to go next. On a mad impulse it
went up to the beach again. It drifted back to sea.
"I hope it isn't good news," muttered Zipo Bibrok 5 / 108, "'cos I don't
think I could bear it."
"Your Krikkit judgment was carried out today," said the girl sumptuously.
There was no need to say such a straightforward thing sumptuously, but she
went ahead and did it anyway because it was that sort of day. "I heard it on
the radio," she said, "when I went back to the ship for the oil."
"Uhuh," muttered Zipo and rested his head back on the jewelled sand.
"Something happened," she said.
"Mmmm?"
"Just after the Slo-Time envelope was locked," she said, and paused a
moment from rubbing in the Essence of Qualactin, "a Krikkit warship which had
been missing presumed destroyed turned out to be just missing after all. It
appeared and tried to seize the Key."
Zipo sat up sharply.
"Hey, what?" he said.
"it's all right," she said in a voice which would have calmed the Big Bang
down. "Apparently there was a short battle. The Key and the warship were
disintegrated and blasted into the space-time continuum. Apparently they are
lost for ever."
She smiled, and ran a little more Essence of Qualactin on to her
fingertips. He relaxed and lay back down.
"Do what you did a moment or two ago," he murmured.
"That?" she said.
"No, no," he said, "that."
She tried again.
"That?" she asked.
"W
eeeeelaaaaah!"
Again, you had to be there.
The fragrant breeze drifted up from the sea again.
A magician wandered along the beach, but no one needed him.
Chapter 16
"Nothing is lost for ever," said Slartibartfast, his face flickering redly
in the light of the candle which the robot waiter was trying to take away,
"except for the Cathedral of Chalesm."
"The what?" said Arthur with a start.
"The Cathedral of Chalesm," repeated Slartibartfast. "It was during the
course of my researches at the Campaign for Real Time that I ..."
"The what?" said Arthur again.
The old man paused and gathered his thoughts, for what he hoped would be
one last onslaught on his story. The robot waiter moved through the space-time
matrices in a way which spectacularly combined the surly with the obsequious,
made a snatch for the candle and got it. They had had the bill, had argued
convincingly about who had had the cannelloni and how many bottles of wine
they had had, and, as Arthur had been dimly aware, had thereby successfully
manoeuvred the ship out of subjective space and into a parking orbit round a
strange planet. The waiter was now anxious to complete his part of the charade
and clear the bistro.
"All will become clear," said Slartibartfast.
"When?"
"In a minute. Listen. The time streams are now very polluted. There's a
lot of muck floating about in them, flotsam and jetsam, and more and more of
it is now being regurgitated into the physical world. Eddies in the space-time
continuum, you see."
"So I hear," said Arthur.
"Look, where are we going?" said Ford, pushing his chair back from the
table with impatience. "Because I'm eager to get there."
"We are going," said Slartibartfast in a slow, measured voice, "to try to
prevent the war robots of Krikkit from regaining the whole of the Key they
need to unlock the planet of Krikkit from the Slo-Time envelope and release
the rest of their army and their mad Masters."
"It's just," said Ford, "that you mentioned a party."
"I did," said Slartibartfast, and hung his head.
He realized that it had been a mistake, because the idea seemed to
exercise a strange and unhealthy fascination on the mind of Ford Prefect. The
more that Slartibartfast unravelled the dark and tragic story of Krikkit and