ARTHUR: (Effort . . . He is just finishing climbing up a tall pole) Hallo . . . hallo? Old man – on top of the next pole – hallo?
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: Go away, I’m ignoring you.
ARTHUR: (Still out of breath) But this is the fifth pole I’ve climbed – will you please stay in one place?
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: I’ll meditate where I want—
FX: Whoosh. The old man shifts to another pole.
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: (Now on opposite side – slightly further away) So there.
ARTHUR: How are you doing that?
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: None of your business.
ARTHUR: Please don’t make me climb another one.
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: You should be careful climbing these poles. You could fall off and kill yourself, if you tried.
ARTHUR: Oh, no, I have it on good authority that I won’t die until I have been to Stavromula Beta and – this isn’t Stavromula Beta, is it?
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: No.
ARTHUR: Good.
FX: Whoosh. The old man shifts to another poles several times, during:
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: Goodbye.
ARTHUR: How do you do that?!
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: You think I’m going to tell you just like that what it took me forty springs, summers and autumns of sitting on top of successive poles to work out?
ARTHUR: What about winter?
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: What about winter?
ARTHUR: Don’t you sit on the pole in the winter?
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: Just because I sit up a pole for most of my life doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I go south in the winter. Got a beach house. Overlooking the beach. Sit on the chimney stack.
FX: Smelly Photocopier Woman distantly swatting flies, under:
ARTHUR: Do you have any advice for a traveller?
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: Yes. Get a beach house. Gives you somewhere to go. Look – see her, down there?
ARTHUR: Yes. I consulted her, as a matter of fact.
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: Fat lot she knows. I got the beach house because she turned it down. What advice did she give you?
ARTHUR: Do exactly the opposite of everything she’s done.
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: In other words, get a beach house.
ARTHUR: I suppose so. Any other advice?
FX: Whoosh. The old man shifts to another pole.
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: A beach house doesn’t even have to be on the beach. Though the best ones are. We all like to congregate at boundary conditions.
ARTHUR: Really?
FX: Whoosh. The old man shifts to another pole.
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: Where land meets water. Where earth meets air. Where body meets mind.
FX: Whoosh. The old man shifts to another pole.
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: Where space meets time. We like to be on one side, and look at the other—
FX: Whoosh. The old man shifts to another pole.
ARTHUR: Please stop!
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: Can’t take it, huh? You come to me for advice, but you can’t cope with anything you don’t recognize. Hmmm. So we’ll have to tell you something you already know but make it sound like news, eh? Business as usual, then. Where you from, boy?
ARTHUR: Tell you what. You’re a seer. Why don’t you tell me?
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: You come from the Earth. One of them.
ARTHUR: One of them?
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: I can’t tell you any more.
ARTHUR: But I’ve come all this way.
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because you know what you know. Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you.
ARTHUR: Hang on, can I write this down?
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: You can pick it up by the bucketload at the spaceport. They’ve got racks of the stuff.
ARTHUR: (Pulling out brochure) Um – it says in the brochure that I can have a special prayer, individually tailored to me and my special needs.
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: Oh, all right. Here’s a prayer for you. Ahem. (Quickly) ‘Lord, Lord, Lord . . .’ – it’s best to put that bit in, just in case. You can never be too sure – ‘Protect me from knowing what I don’t need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don’t know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.’ For me, read him. That’s it.
ARTHUR: Um – thank you . . .
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: Oh! And there’s another prayer that goes with it, that’s very important.
ARTHUR: OK.
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: It goes, ‘Lord, Lord, Lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer. Amen.’
ARTHUR: Thank you.
OLD MAN ON THE POLE: Now I suggest you get the next flight off this planet. Goodbye.
FX: Swoosh-pop!
ARTHUR: . . . Uh? Where—? (Yells) How did you do THAT?
INT. – CORRIDORS OF THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE BUILDING
FX: Ford and Colin making their way through doors, under:
COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: Even in my highly delighted condition I have to say that it is taking all my energy to pump the slightest bonhomie whatsoever into the doors in these lower reaches of the building.
FX: Swiping card frantically. Buzzer indicates negative.
ACCOUNTANCY DEPT DOOR: InfiniDim Enterprises Hitchhiker’s Guide Accountancy Department. No Admittance. Not Even To Authorized Personnel. You are wasting your time here. Go away. Now.
FORD PREFECT: Infinidim Enterprises . . . What happened to beach shirts and that Ol’ Janx Spirit? Unf!
FX: He kicks the door, which opens with a grunt.
COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: Oooh! How did you do that?
FORD PREFECT: (Moving off into room) Mixture of pleasure and pain. Never fails.
INT. – HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE – ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT
FX: Hum of computers under:
THE VOICE: If you are listening to this on planet Earth then: (a) Good luck to you. There is an awful lot of stuff you don’t know anything about. In your case, the consequences of not knowing the stuff are particularly terrible, but then, hey, that’s just the way the cookie gets completely stomped on and obliterated. (b) Don’t imagine you know what a computer terminal is. A computer terminal is not some television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about.
If one were to gain access to the nerve centre of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – in other words, its Accounting Computer – by, say, using a stolen Ident-i-Eeze card, one would discover a bank of terminals lining the walls of a minus-tenth-floor room in its basement. These are portals onto every aspect of the Guide’s operations, and any order, say, to disallow a researcher’s expenses, is input on a virtual level. Using a headset equipped with sensory deceptors the operator will find themself in a universe once only accessed from a single office on the fifth floor of the building, but which now has expanded in every conceivable way.
FX: Whoosh. Windy alien feel.
FORD PREFECT: Wow . . .
THE VOICE: It is a universe of densely enfolded worlds; of wild topographies, towering mountain peaks, heart-stopping ravines; of moons shattering off into sea horses; hurtful blurting crevices; silently heaving oceans and bottomless, hurtling, hooping funts. And in a valley below the ledge on its tallest mountain where Ford Prefect finds himself clinging, stands a single shack on a deserted seashore.
FORD PREFECT: . . . and I thought accountancy was boring. Think, Ford . . . it’s a simulated reality. You can snap back out of it at any moment—
FX: Whoosh. Interior Accountancy Dept again. Computers.
COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: Are you quite all right, Mr Prefect?
FORD PREFECT: Quite all
right. Just checking—
FX: Whoosh. Windy cloudscape again.
FORD PREFECT: OK. This must be a four-dimensional topological model of the Guide’s financial systems I am in, and somebody or something will very shortly want to know why. And here they come.
FX: Flock of accountancy creatures flap up to him.
COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: (Slightly muffled, from beyond) What is happening, Mr Prefect, sir?
FORD PREFECT: I’m being inspected by the virtual accountancy creatures . . . steely-eyed, pencil-moustached, with wings . . . and carrying laser guns . . .
COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: (Muffled) I am happy virtual guns cannot hurt you.
FORD PREFECT: I’m not sure this universe is as virtual as it looks . . .
ACCOUNTANCY BIRDS: Who are you? What do you want? What are you doing here? What is your authorization? Why haven’t you gone?
FORD PREFECT: Here, boys. My Ident-i-Eeze card.
FX: Laser scanners read the card. A beat, then:
ACCOUNTANCY BIRDS: (Obsequious, in unison) Nice to see you, Mr Vann Harl. Is there anything we can do for you?
FORD PREFECT: Certainly there is. Clear all expenses for Ford Prefect, Betelgeuse Five Sector. Retrospectively. And allow this Dine-O-Charge card all privileges, with roaming. Got the number?
ACCOUNTANCY BIRDS: Yes, sir/Immediately, sir/Without delay/It’s done.
FX: They flap away again.
FORD PREFECT: (Sighs) I wish I’d thought of this before.
ZAPHOD: (Off, yells) Ford! You’re back!
FORD PREFECT: Zaphod?! What the zark are you doing here?
ZAPHOD: (Climbs up to join him) Where’s Dent? This is really important! On a scale of one to ten: thirteen! I know what’s going on!
FORD PREFECT: Zaphod, if that were true then I’ve lost just about every bet I’ve ever made with myself. What do you mean, I’m back?
ZAPHOD: You don’t remember? Last time you were here?
FORD PREFECT: This is eerily familiar to a conversation I had with a barman in Han Dold City.
ZAPHOD: So your memory is out of synch with yourself too? Hoopy! That’s why I came back to the Guide Building. Trillian said I was dreaming or drunk when I was last here. And you know what I found out?
FORD PREFECT: Drunk is better?
ZAPHOD: Gargravarr, my psychiatrist, the Presidency, the Krikkit robots – it was all a front! The Vogons set it all up. And this guy’s been controlling it all from here, at the Hitchhiker’s Guide.
FORD PREFECT: Which guy?
ZAPHOD: Zarniwoop. Vann Harl! He’s a Vogon! A plastic-surgery’d, liposucked, fake-tanned, business-suited Vogon Boss! The Big Cheese with a Side Order of Jewelled Crab!
FORD PREFECT: But why would the Vogons want to take over The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?
ZAPHOD: Their paperwork was backing up. Every time they thought they had destroyed a planet in a Plural Zone, it reappeared. They need to stop the whole bureaucracy imploding so they had to develop a way to bridge the zones, so they can impose the system on all available realities. Some aquatic mammals from Earth gave them the idea. Dent’s an aquatic mammal, isn’t he?
FORD PREFECT: He likes taking baths, but I don’t think he’s much of a physicist.
ZAPHOD: You’ve heard of the Total Perspective Vortex, right?
FORD PREFECT: I’ve heard you boast you were the only person to survive it.
ZAPHOD: Yeah, well, I am – in a way. But it isn’t just a torture machine, frood, it’s dimensional-bridging software – and this was the prototype. Ford, that Krikkit War was a cheap sideshow! The Vogons put pieces of the Wikkit Gate into the space-time continuum to distract everybody while they used the technology here to shrink the Total Perspective Vortex into a portable unit. It’s the next generation Hitchhiker’s Guide! And it’s got the voice of those Lintilla chicks!
FORD PREFECT: What Lintilla chicks?
ZAPHOD: Duh! Never mind! It’s scary and sexy beyond anything. Except maybe riding a Fuorlornis Fire Dragon naked. No, it’s worse than that. You can’t rub cream on this baby. Look, you have to find the new package and get it out of the Hitchhiker’s Building.
FORD PREFECT: Me? Why can’t you do it?
ZAPHOD: Dude, I’ve just spent virtual months in a virtual shack with virtually the most boring man in the universe and his actually smelly virtual cat! I need a very real and very large Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster! Inside me! Now!
INT. – SPACE LINER
FX: In-flight video.
Music: Dramatic sting, ends, then:
GANGSTA You ain’t goin’ no furtha, bitch! Only Zarquon gonna save you now!
FX: Zap gun fired – female scream.
Music stab: Into toothpaste commercial jingle.
VOICE OVER: This program is brought to you by Kleen-O-Dent, the toothpaste with Atomic Whitener!
AD CHORUS: Glow in the dark
Bright as a Sun
Kleen-O-Dent’s
For everyone.
AD VOICE: Now with vibrating nano-foam!
VOICE OVER: And later on Home Brain Box:
Music: Slushy strings (under Arthur/Stewardess chat).
PATIENT: Oh, Doctor Fernando, tell me I am young again . . .
DOCTOR: As young and as beautiful as the day I first built you, Amanda.
PATIENT: Take me in your arms.
DOCTOR: I can’t . . . there are rules.
PATIENT: Where love is concerned, there are no rules . . . kiss me . . .
Music swells.
VOICE OVER: Android Love returns after the watershed. And now we return you to Blondes And Bullets On Betelgeuse Five . . .
FX: Hail of gunfire, attenuated in sound as Arthur pulls off in-flight earpieces . . .
ARTHUR: Not again . . . Excuse me?
STEWARDESS: Yes, sir? Can I get you something? Paper napkin?
ARTHUR: No, er – is that the only movie channel on this flight?
STEWARDESS: We’re just coming up to the Lamuella hyperspace jump point, sir. After that we pick up Fardwarx Fictional News and Think Vid.
FX: Muted ‘bing-bong!’
CAPTAIN: (Distort, over tannoy) Crew to seats for hyperjump in thirty seconds.
STEWARDESS: Oh, you’ll want to fasten your seat belt, sir.
ARTHUR: Done. Just going to fasten this one too.
STEWARDESS: Er – yes – we were wondering – why you booked two seats when you only needed one?
ARTHUR: I always do on interstellar flights. In about fifteen seconds I’m hoping for a miracle. Shouldn’t you find your seat?
STEWARDESS: (Going off) Yes – er, yes, of course . . .
CAPTAIN: (Distorted) Three – two – one—
FX: Alarms, swooshes, ninety-seven different hyperspace points at once, then screaming panic.
CAPTAIN: Ah, folks, we seem to have hit a major glitch in hyperspace – for those of you who have not given up addictive substances – smoke ’em if you got ’em . . .
OMNES: (Screams)
INT. – HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE – CORRIDOR
FX: Ford and Colin rushing along it.
COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: But, Mr Prefect, I still don’t understand what you did inside the Accounts computer in only three minutes and thirty seconds . . .
FORD PREFECT: Oh, the job only took thirty seconds. Then two minutes to find out what’s going on from my cousin. Then another minute to reverse-engineer evidence of my visit by programming in the sort of mental blocks that otherwise perfectly normal people develop when elected to high political office. Elevator!
FX: Ding! Elevator bell.
LIFT: Hallo. I am to be your Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter taking you, the visitor to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—
FORD PREFECT: Enough already! Floor 23 and step on it.
LIFT: Hmm. Seems to be a popular floor today. (Starts to sing quietly)
Share and Enjoy
Share and Enjoy
Journe
y through life
With a plastic boy
Or girl by your side—
FORD PREFECT: Popular floor? That doesn’t sound good.
LIFT: I’ll sound however you want, sir. Perhaps you’d like me to sing some more— (Sings, cut off below)
Let your pal be your guide
And when it breaks down
Or starts to annoy
Or grinds when it moves
And gives you no joy
Cos it’s eaten your hat
Or had sex with your cat
Bled oil on your floor
Or ripped off your door
You get to the point
You can’t stand any more
Bring it to us, we won’t give a fig
We’ll tell you ‘Go stick your head in a pig—’
COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: (Over song) May I ask what joy you discovered from your cousin, Ford, sir?
FORD PREFECT: Oh, mostly that he’s very, very bored. So I hitched him a lift to the nearest bar with my electronic Thumb. The rest I’ll keep to myself for now. Just in case you get caught and reprogrammed again.
COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: Inspired thinking, I am humbled by it.
FORD PREFECT: Colin, shut this thing up.
COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: And a privilege it is to do so! I will hack into its circuits—
FX: Colin accessing circuits, under:
LIFT: Warning, if you are disconnecting my higher brain function you should know that, like all Sirius Cybernetics Happy People Transporters, I can see into the future, and I must warn you – BZT.
COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: Voice circuit deactivated.
FX: Lift rising, under:
FORD PREFECT: Ah, pity. It was finally going to say something useful.
FX: Ding! Lift slows, stops, door opens.
INT. – HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE – CORRIDOR
FX: Ford and Colin exit the lift.
FORD PREFECT: OK . . . the nanobots have rebuilt the Editor’s door again. When I break through, you cover me. The drinks trolley may have gone but I saw a sofa, so I’ll duck behind that. If Zarniwoop is still unconscious, all well and good, we just put back his Ident-i-Eeze and leave. If not, we play it by ear while you think of something. After three. Ready?
COLIN THE SECURITY ROBOT: Three!
FORD PREFECT: What? Oh, yeah—
FX: Ford runs at the door, smashing through it:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Further Radio Scripts Page 33