ADAMS, Douglas - Life, the Universe, and Everything

by Life, the Universe

  Presumably he would know what the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer is.

  It's always bothered me that we never found out."

  "Think of a number," said the computer, " any number."

  Arthur told the computer the telephone number of King's Cross railway

  station passenger inquiries, on the grounds that it must have some function,

  and this might turn out to be it.

  The computer injected the number into the ship's reconstituted

  Improbability Drive.

  In Relativity, Matter tells Space how to curve, and Space tells Matter how

  to move.

  The Heart of Gold told space to get knotted, and parked itself neatly

  within the inner steel perimeter of the Argabuthon Chamber of Law.

  The courtroom was an austere place, a large dark chamber, clearly designed

  for Justice rather than, for instance, for Pleasure. You wouldn't hold a

  dinner party here - at least, not a successful one. The decor would get your

  guests down.

  The ceilings were high, vaulted and very dark. Shadows lurked there with

  grim determination. The panelling for the walls and benches, the cladding of

  the heavy pillars, all were carved from the darkest and most severe trees in

  the fearsome Forest of Arglebard. The massive black Podium of Justice which

  dominated the centre of the chamber was a monster of gravity. If a sunbeam had

  ever managed to slink this far into the Justice complex of Argabuthon it would

  have turned around and slunk straight back out again.

  Arthur and Trillian were the first in, whilst Ford and Zaphod bravely kept

  a watch on their rear.

  At first it seemed totally dark and deserted. their footsteps echoed

  hollowly round the chamber. This seemed curious. All the defences were still

  in position and operative around the outside of the building, they had run

  scan checks. Therefore, they had assumed, the truth-telling must still be

  going on.

  But there was nothing.

  Then, as their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, they spotted a dull

  red glow in a corner, and behind the glow a live shadow. They swung a torch

  round on to it.

  Prak was lounging on a bench, smoking a listless cigarette.

  "Hi," he said, with a little half-wave. His voice echoed through the

  chamber. He was a little man with scraggy hair. He sat with his shoulders

  hunched forward and his head and knees kept jiggling. He took a drag of his

  cigarette.

  They stared at him.

  "What's going on?" said Trillian.

  "Nothing," said the man and jiggled his shoulders.

  Arthur shone his torch full on Prak's face.

  "We thought," he said, "that you were meant to be telling the Truth, the

  Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth."

  "Oh, that," said Prak. "Yeah. I was. I finished. There's not nearly as

  much of it as people imagine. Some of it's pretty funny, though."

  He suddenly exploded in about three seconds of manical laughter and

  stopped again. he sat there, jiggling his head and knees. He dragged on his

  cigarette with a strange half-smile.

  Ford and Zaphod came forward out of the shadows.

  "Tell us about it," said Ford.

  "Oh, I can't remember any of it now," said Prak. "I thought of writing

  some of it down, but first I couldn't find a pencil, and then I thought, why

  bother?"

  There was a long silence, during which they thought they could feel the

  Universe age a little. Prak stared into the torchlight.

  "None of it?" said Arthur at last. "You can remember none of it?"

  "No. Except most of the good bits were about frogs, I remember that."

  Suddenly he was hooting with laughter again and stamping his feet on the

  ground.

  "You would not believe some of the things about frogs," he gasped. "Come

  on let's go and find ourselves a frog. Boy, will I ever see them in a new

  light!" He leapt to his feet and did a tiny little dance. Then he stopped and

  took a long drag at his cigarette.

  "Let's find a frog I can laugh at," he said simply. "Anyway, who are you

  guys?"

  "We came to find you," said Trillian, deliberately not keeping the

  disappointment out of her voice. "My name is Trillian."

  Prak jiggled his head.

  "Ford Prefect," said Ford Prefect with a shrug.

  Prak jiggled his head.

  "And I," said Zaphod, when he judged that the silence was once again deep

  enough to allow an announcement of such gravity to be tossed in lightly, "am

  Zaphod Beeblebrox."

  Prak jiggled his head.

  "Who's this guy?" said Prak jiggling his shoulder at Arthur, who was

  standing silent for a moment, lost in disappointed thoughts.

  "Me?" said Arthur. "Oh, my name's Arthur Dent."

  Prak's eyes popped out of his head.

  "No kidding?" he yelped. "You are Arthur Dent? The Arthur Dent?"

  He staggered backwards, clutching his stomach and convulsed with fresh

  paroxysms o laughter.

  "Hey, just think of meeting you!" he gasped. "Boy," he shouted, "you are

  the most ... wow, you just leave the frogs standing!"

  he howled and screamed with laughter. He fell over backwards on to the

  bench. He hollered and yelled in hysterics. He cried with laughter, he kicked

  his legs in the air, he beat his chest. Gradually he subsided, panting. He

  looked at them. He looked at Arthur. He fell back again howling with laughter.

  Eventually he fell asleep.

  Arthur stood there with his lips twitching whilst the others carried Prak

  comatose on to the ship.

  "Before we picked up Prak," said Arthur, "I was going to leave. I still

  want to, and I think I should do so as soon as possible."

  The others nodded in silence, a silence which was only slightly undermined

  by the heavily muffled and distant sound of hysterical laughter which came

  drifting from Prak's cabin at the farthest end of the ship.

  "We have questioned him," continued Arthur, "or at least, you have

  questioned him - I, as you know, can't go near him - on everything, and he

  doesn't really seem to have anything to contribute. Just the occasional

  snippet, and things I don't want to hear about frogs."

  The others tried not to smirk.

  "Now, I am the first to appreciate a joke," said Arthur and then had to

  wait for the others to stop laughing.

  "I am the first ..." he stopped again. This time he stopped and listened

  to the silence. There actually was silence this time, and it had come very

  suddenly.

  Prak was quiet. For days they had lived with constant manical laughter

  ringing round the ship, only occasionally relieved by short periods of light

  giggling and sleep. Arthur's very soul was clenched with paranoia.

  This was not the silence of sleep. A buzzer sounded. A glance at a board

  told them that the buzzer had been sounded by Prak.

  "He's not well," said Trillian quietly. "The constant laughing is

  completely wrecking his body."

  Arthur's lips twitched but he said nothing.

  "We'd better go and see him," said Trillian.

  Trillian came out of the cabin wearing her serious face.

  "He wants you to go in," she said to Arthur, who was wearing his glum and

  tight-lipped one. He thrus
t his hands deep into his dressing-gown pockets and

  tried to think of something to say which wouldn't sound petty. It seemed

  terribly unfair, but he couldn't.

  "Please," said Trillian.

  He shrugged and went in, taking his glum and tight-lipped face with him,

  despite the reaction this always provoked from Prak.

  He looked down at his tormentor, who was lying quietly on the bed, ashen

  and wasted. His breathing was very shallow. Ford and Zaphod were standing by

  the bed looking awkward.

  "You wanted to ask me something," said Prak in a thin voice and coughed

  slightly.

  Just the cough made Arthur stiffen, but it passed and subsided.

  "How do you know that?" he asked.

  Prak shrugged weakly. "'Cos it's true," he said simply.

  Arthur took the point.

  "Yes," he said at last in rather a strained drawl. "I did have a question.

  Or rather, what I actually have is an Answer. I wanted to know what the

  Question was."

  Prak nodded sympathetically, and Arthur relaxed a little.

  "It's ... well, it's a long story," he said, "but the Question I would

  like to know is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.

  All we know is that the Answer is Forty-Two, which is a little aggravating."

  Prak nodded again.

  "Forty-Two," he said. "Yes, that's right."

  He paused. Shadows of thought and memory crossed his face like the shadows

  of clouds crossing the land.

  "I'm afraid," he said at last, "that the Question and the Answer are

  mutually exclusive. Knowledge of one logically precludes knowledge of the

  other. It is impossible that both can ever be known about the same universe."

  He paused again. Disappointment crept into Arthur's face and snuggled down

  into its accustomed place.

  "Except," said Prak, struggling to sort a thought out, "if it happened, it

  seems that the Question and the Answer would just cancel each other out and

  take the Universe with them, which would then be replaced by something even

  more bizarrely inexplicable. It is possible that this has already happened,"

  he added with a weak smile, "but there is a certain amount of Uncertainty

  about it."

  A little giggle brushed through him.

  Arthur sat down on a stool.

  "Oh well," he said with resignation, "I was just hoping there would be

  some sort of reason."

  "Do you know," said Prak, "the story of the Reason?"

  Arthur said that he didn't, and Prak said that he knew that he didn't.

  He told it.

  One night, he said, a spaceship appeared in the sky of a planet which had

  never seen one before. The planet was Dalforsas, the ship was this one. It

  appeared as a brilliant new star moving silently across the heavens.

  Primitive tribesmen who were sitting huddled on the Cold Hillsides looked

  up from their steaming night-drinks and pointed with trembling fingers,

  swearing that they had seen a sign, a sign from their gods which meant that

  they must now arise at last and go and slay the evil Princes of the Plains.

  In the high turrets of their palaces, the Princes of the Plains looked up

  and saw the shining star, and received it unmistakably as a sign from their

  gods that they must now go and set about the accursed Tribesmen of the Cold

  Hillsides.

  And between them, the Dwellers in the Forest looked up into the sky and

  saw the sigh of the new star, and saw it with fear and apprehension, for

  though they had never seen anything like it before, they too knew precisely

  what it foreshadowed, and they bowed their heads in despair.

  They knew that when the rains came, it was a sign.

  When the rains departed, it was a sign.

  When the winds rose, it was a sign.

  When the winds fell, it was a sign.

  When in the land there was born at midnight of a full moon a goat with

  three heads, that was a sign.

  When in the land there was born at some time in the afternoon a perfectly

  normal cat or pig with no birth complications at all, or even just a child

  with a retrousse nose, that too would often be taken as a sign.

  So there was no doubt at all that a new star in the sky was a sign of a

  particularly spectacular order.

  And each new sign signified the same thing - that the Princes of the

  Plains and the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides were about to beat the hell out

  of each other again.

  This in itself wouldn't be so bad, except that the Princes of the Plains

  and the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides always elected to beat the hell out of

  each other in the Forest, and it was always the Dwellers in the Forest who

  came off worst in these exchanges, though as far as they could see it never

  had anything to do with them.

  And sometimes, after some of the worst of these outrages, the Dwellers in

  the Forest would send a messenger to either the leader of the Princes of the

  Plains or the leader of the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides and demand to know

  the reason for this intolerable behaviour.

  And the leader, whichever one it was, would take the messenger aside and

  explain the Reason to him, slowly and carefully and with great attention to

  the considerable detail involved.

  And the terrible thing was, it was a very good one. It was very clear,

  very rational, and tough. The messenger would hang his head and feel sad and

  foolish that he had not realized what a tough and complex place the real world

  was, and what difficulties and paradoxes had to be embraced if one was to live

  in it.

  "Now do you understand?" the leader would say.

  The messenger would nod dumbly.

  "And you see these battles have to take place?"

  Another dumb nod.

  "And why they have to take place in the forest, and why it is in

  everybody's best interest, the Forest Dwellers included, that they should?"

  "Er ..."

  "In the long run."

  "Er, yes."

  And the messenger did understand the Reason, and he returned to his people

  in the Forest. But as he approached them, as he walked through the Forest and

  amongst the trees, he found that all he could remember of the Reason was how

  terribly clear the argument had seemed. What it actually was he couldn't

  remember at all.

  And this, of course, was a great comfort when next the Tribesmen and the

  Princes came hacking and burning their way through the Forest, killing every

  Forest Dweller in their way.

  Prak paused in his story and coughed pathetically.

  "I was the messenger," he said, "after the battles precipitated by the

  appearance of your ship, which were particularly savage. Many of our people

  died. I thought I could bring the Reason back. I went and was told it by the

  leader of the Princes, but on the way back it slipped and melted away in my

  mind like snow in the sun. That was many years ago, and much has happened

  since then."

  He looked up at Arthur and giggled again very gently.

  "There is one other thing I can remember from the truth drug. Apart from

  the frogs, and that is God's last message to his creation. Would you like to

  hear it?"

  For a moment they didn't know wheth
er to take him seriously.

  "'Strue," he said. "For real. I mean it."

  His chest heaved weakly and he struggled for breath. His head lolled

  slightly.

  "I wasn't very impressed with it when I first knew what it was," he said,

  "but now I think back to how impressed I was by the Prince's Reason, and how

  soon afterwards I couldn't recall it at all, I think it might be a lot more

  helpful. Would you like to know what it is? Would you?"

  They nodded dumbly.

  "I bet you would. If you're that interested I suggest you go and look for

  it. It is written in thirty-foot-high letters of fire on top of the Quentulus

  Quazgar Mountains in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the planet Preliumtarn,

  third out from the sun Zarss in Galactic Sector QQ7 Active J Gamma. It is

  guarded by the Lajestic Vantrashell of Lob."

  There was a long silence following this announcement, which was finally

  broken by Arthur.

  "Sorry, it's where?" he said.

  "It is written," repeated Prak, "in thirty-foot-high letters of fire on

  top of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the

  planet Preliumtarn, third out from the ..."

  "Sorry," said Arthur again, "which mountains?"

  "The Quentulus Quazgar Mountains in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the

  planet ..."

  "Which land was that? I didn't quite catch it."

  "Sevorbeupstry, on the planet ..."

  "Sevorbe-what?"

  "Oh, for heaven's sake," said Prak and died testily.

  In the following days Arthur thought a little about this message, but in

  the end he decided that he was not going to allow himself to be drawn by it,

  and insisted on following his original plan of finding a nice little world

  somewhere to settle down and lead a quiet retired life. Having saved the

  Universe twice in one day he thought that he could take things a little easier

  from now on.

  They dropped him off on the planet Krikkit, which was now once again an

  idyllic pastoral world, even if the songs did occasionally get on his nerves.

  He spent a lot of time flying.

  He learnt to communicate with birds and discovered that their conversation

  was fantastically boring. It was all to do with wind speed, wing spans, power+

  to-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries. Unfortunately, he discovered,

  once you have learnt birdspeak you quickly come to realize that the air is

  full of it the whole time, just inane bird chatter. There is no getting away