4
Planetary catastrophes are no big deal. They happen all the time. Expanding stars sterilize the surfaces they once nurtured. Asteroids plough into hydrocarbon oceans. Planets wobble a little out of orbit a few light years too close to a black hole and tip over the event horizon. Ravenous quantum beings devour every last drop of energy on their home worlds before turning on each other.
Guide Note: This last was the subject of a reality show broadcast in the Sirius Tau system called Last Behemoth Standing. Twenty-five thousand cameras were dropped into the atmosphere of Levy Wash, a world ravaged by four colossal free-fl ying creatures, and billions of viewers watched them fight it out for world domination. Unfortunately, Pinky, the voters’ favourite Behemoth, jumped free of Levy Wash’s atmosphere and leapfrogged the camera network’s wireless trail back to the star system’s populated cluster. Pinky stripped three worlds down to the mantle before the federation army froze her with liquid hydrogen. Ratings broke all records for the first two planets, but by number three the audience grew jaded and switched to The Cheeky-Chuu Chronicles, a show featuring a small rainbow bird endowed with super powers by a mysterious bird bath.
Related Reading:
The Worst Idea Ever by Gawn F’zing (ex-network president and current federal penitentiary inmate)
Life Beyond the Beak by Big J Jarood (ex-child star)
Arthur Dent watched his world die for the last time. The porthole frame made the whole event look like it was happening on TV; an early episode of Doctor Who, perhaps, when the special effects were charming but not so sophisticated.
I can almost see the wires, thought Arthur.
The death rays were the fat tubular kind favoured by late-twentieth-century television animators and the Earth itself looked like a football covered in papier maché.
But it is real. Horribly so.
The rays converged on the planet, peeling it like a blue-green apple. Arthur was sure that he saw New Zealand curl away from the Antipodes, a thousand-mile-long tail of steam and debris flowing behind it.
I miss my beach, thought Arthur. I miss not knowing anything for certain.
Soon the planet was engulfed in a roiling cloud of steam and ashes. The death rays converged into a point like the tip of a pencil and, with one mighty push, skewered the unfortunate Earth utterly, rending her from pole to pole.
Not real, thought Arthur, hiding behind his fingers. Not real.
I brought that planet to the stars, thought Random Dent, her eyes blurred with tears. I built the bridges that cured cancer, made poverty history, gave Goldflake their first galactic number-one single. Now it’s all gone. All those people. All that future. My little Fertle.
Trillian closed her eyes. She had seen enough devastation throughout her career to last at least one lifetime. Even Wowbagger’s. A lot of the destruction hadn’t been real, but that didn’t mean she could forget having seen it.
And what did I achieve? With all that Galaxy-trotting reportage? Who was saved or helped?
Nobody.
And who was hurt and lost?
I was. And my daughter.
But even as she thought this, Trillian Astra felt a little itch in her hand where a microphone used to be.
Someone should be covering this, said a tiny, persistent voice inside her. The people need to know.
Vogon Bureaucruiser Class Hyperspace Ship, the Business End
The Vogons were not bad people as such. It was true to say that nobody liked them, and that their inter-personal skills didn’t extend much beyond trying not to spit on the person they were talking to, but they weren’t bad. That is, they would not blast your planet into atoms without the proper paperwork. With the proper paperwork, however, they would travel to the end of the Universe, and to as many parallel ones as necessary, to see the job done. And, to be fair, most of them couldn’t care less if they did spit all over the person they were talking to.
Guide Note: There is actually a documented case of a tiny Jatravartid being drowned during a conversation with a Vogon clerk. The Jatravartid had the temerity to present a petition and claim it was a legal document. During the ensuing coughing fit, the Jatravartid was first stunned by a semi-solid phlegmbule and then quickly submerged.
Related Reading:
Twenty Thousand Games to Play in a Vogon Queue by Magyar Ohnfhunn (written in a Vogon queue)
TTGTPIAVQ II by Magyar Ohnfhunn (written towards the head of the queue)
and
All Vogons are Bastards and Must Die by Magyar Ohnfhunn (written just after the hatch came down on his fingers)
The Vogons are unusual as a race because they exhibit the generic characteristics of doggedness, lack of compassion and a very good ear for exceedingly bad poetry. All Vogons are like this and there are no documented exceptions.
Guide Note: There are rumours of the existence of an underground group of Vogons on an outer Brantisvogon world who call themselves Tru-Heart Vogs. They like to sit in a circle and just say things without first submitting paperwork.
Physically, Vogons are not attractive creatures. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then the beholder won’t be a Vogon, because even Vogons know how ugly they are. A Vogon head resembles nothing more than a giant prune with extra-deep wrinkles for the eyes and mouth. The body is a vast green buttery mound of flesh with too few bones per square foot and too many folds and flaps. The limbs are weak and ineffectual, and seem almost random in their placement. If a disturbed child were given a hard-boiled egg, a raisin and some spaghetti strands to play with, whatever they came up with would look like one Vogon or other.
So if all Vogons are repulsive, bureaucratic sadists, how does one get ahead in their society? It is a matter of being more Vogon-ish than the rest. The Vogons have a word for it. When one of their number distinguishes himself in the ruthless prosecution of his orders, when the man hours and body count are ridiculously disproportionate to the importance of the task, when a Vogon forges ahead where others would have been discouraged by Plural zones, hordes of Silastic Armorfiends or the tears of widows, that Vogon is spoken of in the halls of power as having kroompst.
As in: ‘That Prostetnic Vogon Bierdz, you see what he did to that orphanage? Barely a stick remains. That boy has real kroompst.’
‘Yeah. He’s a kroompster. He’s got kroompst coming out his krimpter.’
Whenever a senior Vogon uses the term kroompst, all others present must respond by throwing up both arms and echoing the word with much enthusiasm and spittle.
The term kroompst could have been invented for Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. In his distinguished career as Fleet Commander, he had never once failed to complete his assigned duties. When the inhabitants of Rigannon V objected to their world being nudged into a wider orbit, with their groundless claims of planet death because of the instantaneous ice age that would surely follow, who had set off a colourful fireworks display in their Aurora Borealis to distract the Rigannonons from the buffer ships coming in from the south? Jeltz, of course. And when the tiny Blue Belle Tweeters had neglected to tick either the yes or no box on the final page in the third volume of their objection to planning permission submission, who was it who had razed their forest habitat in spite of the protestors tied to the trees? Once again, it was Jeltz. And now, in his finest hour, he had with only a single ship at his disposal arranged for all Earths in all parallel Universes to be destroyed by Grebulon death rays, because the last thing interstellar travellers wanted was surprise planets popping out of Plural zones every third trip.
If the planning office had a tough job that needed doing, then Prostetnic Jeltz had the kroompst to get it done. In fact, Jeltz’s photograph hung on the Wall of Kroompst alongside all the bureaucratic greats in Vogon history. Vrunt the Naysayer, Sheergawz the Rubberstamper and, Jeltz’s nemesis, Hoopz the Runaround. And now Jeltz himself. All the photographs were taken from behind as was the tradition in the Hall of Kroompst, wherein stood the Wall of Kroompst.
Jeltz sat in his command chair on the bridge of his ship, the Business End, wondering what epithet would be bestowed on him back in Megabrantis.
Jeltz the Destroyer. That had a ring to it, but it seemed a little random. He rarely destroyed a world without paperwork.
Jeltz the Unswerving. Nice one, but it did make him sound like a race-pod pilot.
Whenever Jeltz played the epithet game, he always came back to his father’s pet name for him: Jeltz the Utter Bastard. That said it all, really. Jeltz remembered one of his own early poems.
‘Utter bastard,’ he said in a voice of distant rumbling thunder.
‘Play thee,
No more,
By the crabby hole.
Lay down thine mallet
And flap flippy floppy arms,
At a world of sun and tight skin.
Learn hate well,
My little Utter Bastard.’
Jeltz felt something collect at the corner of his eye. A speck of dust, he supposed, flicking it away.
Constant Mown, a subordinate, appeared at his shoulder, sporting one of those chin-cup drool-catchers so fashionable among the youngsters.
‘Prostetnic Jeltz?’
‘Obviously, Constant. I wear a name tag to help people find me. It saves time when you are dealing with idiots.’
The subordinate bobbed. ‘Yes, Prostetnic. Of course, sir.’
‘Did you want something, Constant Mown?’
‘You said to inform you when we were ready for hyperspace.’
A contented sigh dribbled from between Jeltz’s lips. Hyperspace. It was said that Vogons only experienced the emotion known as happiness when they were lost in hyperspace. The skin was pulled back, bones pushed together. A person felt almost evolved in hyperspace. There was a lack of control that had a dark deliciousness to it, and there was a small chance that one could end up anywhere, without the proper visa.
‘Very well, Constant. Plot our course through Earth space. Might as well be the first to use the route, now that there is no Earth in the way and no Earthlings left to complain.’
Constant Mown bobbed twice, then froze, head cocked like a confused Squornshellous Zeta mattress.
‘Problem, Mown?’
Mown was reluctant to deliver news of any kind. In his experience, news delivered to superiors invariably ended up being bad news, even if it had seemed good when one opened one’s mouth to deliver it.
‘No, sir. No problem. As you said, there is no Earth…’
Jeltz burbled his pendulous bottom lip. ‘And no Earthlings. The order clearly states that no Earthlings are to be left alive. The Hyperspace Planning Council does not want some displaced humanoids demanding their day in court.’
‘Indeed, Prostetnic. Well said, nice sentence structure.’
Jeltz rubbed his side where the kidney-drain chafed his skin. ‘Are there Earthlings left alive, Constant?’
‘There are rumours of a new colony in the Soulianis nebula,’ admitted Mown, the words leaking out of his face.
Jeltz gurgled for a long moment. ‘Soulianis? Isn’t the mythical Magrathea supposed to be in Soulianis?’
‘Correct, Prostetnic. Well remembered.’
A vein fluttered in one of Jeltz’s eyelids, a manifestation of his annoyance. Another common manifestation was flushing whoever had delivered the annoying news out of an airlock.
‘You said rumours, Constant Mown. What kind of… rumours?’
‘They… the Earthlings… put an advertisement in the WooHoo magazine personals.’
‘An advertisement!’ spluttered Jeltz, offended for some reason. ‘Show me.’
‘Of course, Prostetnic.’
Mown scuttled across to a computer terminal, flexed his fingers, then punched the operator in the tender spot between the shoulder blades until he brought up the appropriate page on-screen.
‘There it is, Prostetnic. The link is dead now – they are not taking any more résumés.’
Jeltz read the advertisement carefully, gargling all the while. ‘Nice of them to provide coordinates,’ he noted. ‘What would you do, Constant? In my place. Would you allow these Earthlings to live? After all, their planet was the main target. Would you follow your orders to the letter and make the long journey to Soulianis to obliterate this colony?’
Mown did not hesitate. ‘We are Vogon, Prostetnic. I cannot even file the paperwork until the Earthlings are dead.’
‘That was the correct response, Mown,’ said Jeltz. ‘Eleven jumps to Soulianis, I think.’
The constant bobbed an affirmative bob. ‘I will program the drive immediately, Prostetnic. We can charge the Unnecessarily Painful Slow Death torpedoes on the trip. Hyperspace static will give them a little extra sting.’
Jeltz nodded approvingly. ‘You, Mown, are an utter bastard.’
Mown tried to salute, flinging a tiny arm across an expansive gullet in the direction of his head.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ he said.
Wowbagger’s Longship, the Tanngrísnir
Arthur Dent woke to the sound of surf on the beach.
Whoosh on the way in, rattle on the way out.
The familiar noises came from below and to the left of his bed. Exactly as they should. The pootle-tink birds were beginning their morning show-off antics, clapping broad wings and singing their slightly risqué songs, hoping to attract the attention of a rainbow-plumed female.
I am home in my beach house. All that other stuff, with the Earth exploding and the green aliens, was all a nightmare. It was nice to see everybody, but why does there always have to be genocide?
Arthur felt a sense of relief and he breathed it in, inflating his lungs, relishing his daily decisions.
Rich Tea or Digestives? Maybe Earl Grey today. Why not.
Arthur lay still, letting his bones warm up. No sudden moves at his age, whatever his age was.
Come to think of it, maybe the dream hadn’t been all bad. He’d fairly raced up the ramp to Zaphod’s ship. Not a single ball joint had popped out of its socket. And the nose hair, he hadn’t missed that.
Maybe I should get a trimmer. Nothing fancy.
No! It starts with nose hair trimmers and the next thing you know there’s a Zylatburger bar on your doorstep. No commerce. No contact.
Arthur opened his eyes and was momentarily relieved to see the interior of his wooden hut, but then he noticed something on the corner of the ceiling. A digital countdown, with words before it. He closed his bad eye, and read the words, which amazingly enough were in English.
Seconds to reality read the words. Then a countdown. Five seconds to reality apparently.
Five… four…
More reality, thought Arthur. Bugger.
At zero the beach was switched off and Fenchurch appeared on Arthur’s ceiling, smiling that off-kilter smile of hers, those arched eyebrows like slashes of oil pastels, blue eyes twinkling.
I can see you, darling. This is real.
But, of course, it was not.
‘Hello,’ said Fenchurch. ‘Welcome to consciousness. If you enjoyed your tailor-made easy-wake experience, please leave the program a feedback star. Would you like to leave a star at this time?’
‘What?’ said Arthur.
‘Would you like to leave a feedback star at this time?’ said the computer, upping the volume a notch.
‘Um… Yes. Have a star. Have two, why not.’
Fenchurch smiled and it was painful to watch. So beautiful.
‘Thank you, Arthur Dent. It has been my pleasure to monitor your dreams.’
And, just like that, she was gone.
Again.
No less painful than the first time.
Reality was a small room on Wowbagger’s longship with grey, interactive walls and a cubicle in the corner. Arthur decided that a hot shower would be extremely nice, but not too long, or he might relax and start thinking about Fenchurch.
Not thinking about Fenchurch was going to be difficult, Arthur realized, as her face appeared on the shower door.
‘I am your chamber’s Body Optimizer,’ said the computer’s interpretation of his dreams. ‘Tell me what you want. Please start your sentence with: I want…’
Simple enough. ‘I want a nice shower,’ said Arthur. ‘And a shave. I want to feel good.’
‘Shower, shave and feel good. Are these the things you want?’
‘Affirmative,’ said Arthur, getting into the spirit of it.
‘Please enter the cubicle, Arthur Dent.’
Arthur unbuttoned his shirt, then had a thought. ‘Fenchurch… Ahmm, computer, could I have a little privacy?’
‘I am the computer. There is no privacy.’
It was ridiculous, Arthur knew. This was not Fenchurch, this was a still shot plucked from his memory.
‘Nevertheless, could you shut your eyes?’
‘I don’t have eyes.’
‘Turn off your cameras then and take the face away.’
‘While you are in the Optimizer only. After that I will resume monitoring.’
‘Knock yourself out,’ said Arthur, dropping his clothes into a hamper, which made a sneezing noise.
‘Holy shit!’ said the computer.
‘What kind of language is that for a computer?’
‘I got this phrase from your memory. Apparently you used it all the time at the BBC.’
‘I had good reason,’ muttered Arthur. ‘Bloody producers.’
‘These clothes have a stink-o-factor of twelve and are carrying several viruses, not to mention the twelve million dust mites, which I just mentioned. Your speech patterns are very strange. At any rate, these garments really have to go.’
‘Wait!’
‘No waiting, Arthur Dent. Those mites could get into my circuits and then where would we be? Floating dead in space, that’s where. Kiss your shorts goodbye.’
The hamper growled and shook slightly as Arthur’s clothes were incinerated.
‘Now, into the cubicle with you. Five minutes and then my cameras are back on.’
Fenchurch’s face disappeared and Arthur stepped tentatively into the stall.
‘No peeking.’
‘Four fifty-nine, Arthur Dent. Four fifty-eight…’
‘Okay. I’m in, I’m in.’ Arthur glanced around. ‘Won’t I need a towel?’
‘Whatever for?’ asked the computer.
Arthur barely had time to wonder what kind of shower he was in before dozens of glowing lasers shot from crystal nodes set into the walls, bathing him in crimson light.
Arthur’s first thought was that he had been lured into a death cubicle, but when he opened his mouth to scream, a laser shot inside and scraped his tongue. He lifted an arm to cover his mouth and another laser trimmed and buffed his fingernails. The laser scrubbing was thorough and not altogether unpleasant once Arthur relaxed and accepted what was happening. Dirt and skin cells were sloughed off and collected by a recycling vacuum in the tray. He selected a hairstyle from a v-catalogue and his scalp tickled as the lasers coiffed his locks.
‘Smile, please, Arthur Dent,’ ordered the computer.
Arthur complied and his teeth were whitened by a jittering beam.
I feel good, Arthur realized. Better than I have in years.
The cloud of skin, hair and grime settled and Arthur stepped from the cubicle to find a suit lying on the bed. As soon as he saw the suit, Arthur cringed. It took him a minute to figure out why.
‘Bugger me,’ he breathed. ‘Eaton House.’
It was his school uniform from preparatory school, complete with striped tie and green cap.
Fenchurch appeared on the wall. ‘Do you feel good, Arthur Dent?’
Arthur covered himself with a handy pillow. ‘Eh… Yes. Yes, I do. Can’t I have something else to wear?’
‘You dreamed of this, Arthur Dent. So I made it in your size. There are no more clothing credits for this cycle. Is there something wrong with these garments?’
Arthur ran his finger along the green jacket’s crimson lapel.
‘No. Nothing wrong, I suppose. It’s just that this is a school uniform.’
‘It is clean.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Free of viruses and dust mites.’
‘Good point, but hardly age appropriate.’
‘And it has nostalgic value. I have helped you to recapture your youth, Arthur Dent. Don’t I get a thank you?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You suppose? Holy shit!’
‘Okay. All right. Thank you.’
Fenchurch was miffed. ‘After all I have done for you. The twenty-twenty vision and the kidney stones.’
‘What?’ said Arthur, alarmed.
‘Didn’t you notice your improved vision? I fixed your retina. Also, my scanners detected a cluster of kidney stones, so I pulverized them.’
Arthur closed his good eye and realized that his other eye was also a good one.
‘That’s amazing. Shouldn’t you have asked?’
‘Should I? Wowbagger allows me independent choice in basic health matters. If you step back into the cubicle, I can return your eye to its original state.’
Arthur blinked and appreciated almost instantly that he enjoyed being able to see properly very much indeed.
‘No. No, Fenchurch. I like this twenty-twenty thing. Thank you very much.’
The computer smiled. ‘You are welcome, Arthur.’
‘And the kidney stones. An entire cluster. That would have been painful, I imagine. So, thanks for that too.’
‘And the clothes?’
‘Perfect,’ said Arthur graciously. ‘If you would just make yourself scarce, I can put them on.’
‘Feedback star?’
‘Go on then.’
‘Thank you, Arthur.’
Fenchurch fizzled out and Arthur put on his school uniform.
Could be worse, he thought. Could be short trousers.
‘Thank you, Fenchurch,’ he whispered.
*
Arthur bumped into Trillian in the corridor.
‘Blimey,’ he said, taken aback. ‘You look fantastic, Trillian.’
‘Really, Arthur?’
Arthur Dent had that particular English personality defect where he dissected any compliment he gave shortly after giving it, effectively hobbling himself.
‘I mean… you always look fantastic. It’s not that you didn’t look fantastic before. You look extra-fantastic now. Mega-fantastic, I suppose I should say, seeing as we’re in space and all that.’
Trillian wore a smart electric-blue trouser suit and wedge boots to her thighs.
‘The computer picked this outfit out of my head. I wore it to interview the President of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. Or rather, I dreamed I wore it, in the construct.’
‘Well, whatever. It suits you.’
‘Plus the computer treated me to a face peel,’ Trillian confided, leaning in close. ‘And balanced out my vitamin and mineral levels. I feel like I could run a marathon.’
‘Me too.’
Trillian tugged the sleeve of Arthur’s jacket. ‘No need to ask where you went to school, then.’
‘Lucky I wasn’t dreaming of the nightclub in Cottington, or I could be wearing shoulder pads right now.’
‘Nice cap, though.’
Arthur hurriedly snatched the hat off his head, stuffing it in a pocket. ‘Didn’t realize I had that on. Habit, I suppose. Have you seen Ford?’
‘I have, actually. He trotted past me on his way to the bridge.’
‘Anything different about him?’
Trillian frowned. ‘His hair did seem unusually shiny. Oh, and it was blue.’
Arthur was not surprised. ‘It was only a matter of time. The computer in your room, what did it look like?’
‘My cat, Copernicus. Imagine that. Very clever trick. How about you?’
Arthur stared through a porthole into the deep and endless blackness of space.
‘Just a computer. No face. It didn’t look like anyone.’
Wowbagger’s sleek, golden, interstellar longship sped silently towards Alpha Centauri, dark matter engines revolving behind it, solar sail fluttering above and the Heart of Gold slung underneath like a baby flaybooz in its parent’s pouch.
Guide Note: Contrary to an almost universal norm, it is the male flaybooz who nurtures the young. A full-grown flaybooz can fit up to fifty young in his pouch, but generally there is only room for a couple, as males like to carry around a small toolkit in case of emergencies, maybe a few beers and a copy of Furballs Quarterly.
Ford Prefect poked around the bridge and was hugely impressed. ‘This is something, Wowbagger. Dark matter. Seventy per cent of the Universe is made of this stuff and we can’t even see it. How do you make a ship from dark matter?’
Wowbagger shrugged. ‘The Tanngrísnir? I bought it from a guy a while back.’
‘That’s it? You bought it from a guy?’
‘He swears he stole it from Thor. The Thunder God? It’s his longship, hence the retro design.’
‘I know who Thor is. I met him at a party once.’
‘Tanngrísnir was one of his goats, apparently. I was going to replace the horned ram figurehead, but I’ve heard that Thor is a bit dim and I was worried that he wouldn’t recognize the ship with a new symbol on the prow. I had hoped that maybe he would come after me, dash my brains out with the big hammer.’
‘Wishful thinking,’ guessed Ford.
‘Looks like it. No sign of him so far.’ Wowbagger leaped from his chair. ‘Look, can you not touch that?’
Random was twiddling a glowing button on a console.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, but meant something entirely different.
‘It’s just that I’ve been on my own for a long time now. I have things just the way I like them. One push on the wrong knob and we could all end up on the outside looking in. Which would be a slight annoyance for me, but a lot more serious for you people.’
‘So what is that button you are so sensitive about?’
‘That is my coffee maker.’
‘What?’
‘It took me decades to get the foam just right.’
‘Oh, for zark’s sake.’
‘Everything is zark with you. You might show a little more gratitude. I just saved your lives.’
‘I didn’t ask you to,’ said Random, eyes blazing beneath her long fringe.
Wowbagger was beginning to regret inviting these people aboard, but the hyperspace jump would have killed them on their own ship. No shields, no buffers, no gyro. They would have been shaken like beads in a rattle; a rattle travelling at incomprehensible speeds, with no fitted safety belts.
‘I am delighted to say, young lady, that I will not be the object of your detestation for much longer.’
‘But I like detesting you,’ said Random sweetly.
Guide Note: Given Random Dent’s instant and irrational hatred of Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, it was inevitable that he would eventually become her stepfather. The well-known actor Angus deBeouf, who played a psychiatrist on the hit show Psych-O-Rama for seven series, postulated that single mothers feel an attraction to males that is proportional to the revulsion their teenagers feel towards that same person. Though not actually a qualified psychiatrist, Mr deBeouf does have four brains and silky hair, so his opinion carries considerable weight, especially among that section of the galactic population that wears slippers in the afternoon.
Related Reading:
The Happy Teen: A Fairy Tale by Jimmy Habrey K.
Trust Me, I Play A Doctor by Angus deBeouf
Wowbagger plucked a face mask from its niche in the wall and strapped it over his nose.
‘I had forgotten what people were like,’ he said, breathing deeply. ‘Use this experience. Take from it the strength to go on.’
‘Do you mind sucking your magic gas after dropping us off?’
Wowbagger replaced the mask. ‘It is not magic gas, oddly dressed child. I bottle the atmosphere from my home world. Full of carbon dioxide and toxic chemicals, but it calms me.’ He smiled broadly to demonstrate his calm. ‘Now please do not touch anything else on my bridge or I will vaporize you on the spot, you odious adolescent. When I was young, teenagers didn’t talk back to their elders or they got a dunking in a bucket of toadstool mandarins.’
‘When was this? Just after the Big Bang?’
‘One more. Just say one more thing. I have some toadstool mandarins around here somewhere.’
‘That bottled atmosphere isn’t working, is it?’
‘No,’ admitted Wowbagger. ‘Actually, it’s giving me a bit of a headache. Or maybe you’re the cause of my headache.’
Random fell back on the old reliable.
‘I hate you!’ she screamed and stormed off to her room, presumably to replicate more black clothing.
‘Don’t feel too badly,’ said Trillian, hurrying after her daughter. ‘She hates everyone.’
Another Guide Note (a little too close to the previous one, but educational): Toadstool mandarins are a form of toxic jellyfish whose tentacles are loaded with entheogenic venom. The effects of a mandarin sting are threefold. The first is a sharp, stinging sensation; the second a nasty red welt, which may fester if not treated with a salve of toadstool mandarin doo-doo. And the third is a bolt of self-awareness, thanks to the entheogens in the venom. Having been stung, a victim’s typical reaction will be something like:
Owww. Zark, that hurts.
Then:
Oh no. Look at this nasty red welt. I’m in the swimsuit competition later.
And finally:
What? I’m a latent misogynist with father issues!
If a person is allergic to mandarin venom, one sting will prompt total self-awareness, leading to either immediate catatonia or a career as a talk-show pundit.
Wowbagger managed to lure the males to the conference table with the promise of a Dragon Slammer, an alcoholic drink so fantastic that it made the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster taste like bilge water. This argument didn’t impress Zaphod much, as he had developed a bit of a bilge water habit during a particularly boring state cruise on the Tranquil Sea of No Surprises Please on the planet Innocuadamis during his inaugural year as President.
They sat around an obsidian table, which glooped and grew as more people pulled up chairs.
‘So, what about this Dragon Slammer, then?’ asked Ford, finger-combing his thick azure locks. ‘Better than a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster? I’ll believe it when I wake in a week on the other side of the Galaxy, with no kidneys, three wives and a tattoo.’
Wowbagger smiled confidently. ‘Oh, I think you’re going to like this one, Mr Prefect. It’s quite special.’
‘Not replicated, I hope. Only the real thing.’
‘But of course.’
A hover tray flitted from the galley and smoothly deposited a crystal tumbler before everyone seated at the table.
Zaphod sniffed the contents of the tumbler. ‘Smells like water to me, partner.’
‘It is water,’ confirmed Wowbagger. ‘Pure mega-mountain spring water from Magramel.’
‘Big deal.’
‘Wait for it, Fat Arse.’
‘There’s no need for that. I’ve already promised to have you killed.’
Wowbagger touched the table, which rippled and produced a bowl of small, speckled eggs.
‘These are sea-dragon eggs. The sea-dragons are a new species of tiny Syngnathidae found in the shallow tropical waters of equatorial Kakrafoon.’
‘Should I be writing this down?’ asked Ford jauntily.
Wowbagger forged ahead. ‘The males hatch every ten years and live for four seconds. When they die, their essence, soul if you will, is released into the water.’
‘I am reluctantly interested,’ said Zaphod. ‘Soul drinking. Sounds wonderfully depraved.’
‘Do as I do,’ instructed Wowbagger.
The green immortal popped an egg into his drink, then waited as an infra-red lamp caressed the tumbler from below. Seconds later the egg became translucent and a small sea-dragon could clearly be seen wiggling around inside it.
‘It’s like a dragon, only from the sea,’ said Zaphod with childlike awe.
The dragon chewed its way from the egg, paddled around awkwardly for a moment or two, then clasped a claw to its heart and began to vibrate. A tiny golden cloud of lightning spread from its heart to permeate the water.
‘Down the hatch,’ said Wowbagger and swallowed the lot.
Ford and Zaphod followed suit and were immediately blown from their seats. They lay spasming on the ground and singing the Meli-Meli scene from Pantheoh’s Hrung Disaster opera in perfect harmony. From a floating diagnostic gel cube in a bank of sensors and wires, Left Brain took the third part.
‘Hmm,’ said Wowbagger. ‘All I ever get is heartburn.’
Arthur decided to give the Dragon Slammer a miss.
Twenty minutes later, Ford and Zaphod were back on their seats, giggling at each other.
‘Very well,’ said Wowbagger, clapping his hands. ‘Fat arse and his baboon have been entertained. Now can we please get down to business?’
Guide Note: The phrase ‘down to business’ is thought to have originated on Chalesm, where industrial espionage was so sophisticated that businessmen were forced to strike major deals down ion mine shafts, underneath tarpaulins, wearing disguises and talking in code through voice boxes. All of which precautions ensured that none of the businessmen had a clue as to what deal they had actually struck. One union representative made a planet-wide announcement that he had secured pensions for all members when he had actually promised to secure his member to a pensioner. The strikes continue.
This sounded a little complicated to Arthur. ‘Business. What business? Aren’t you simply going to drop us off at the nearest spaceport?’
‘Not until you kill me.’
‘Aren’t you immortal?’
‘Were you not listening? Fat Arse promised to kill me.’
‘Come on,’ objected Zaphod. ‘Now you’re just being mean.’
‘I am Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. Being mean is my vocation. Haven’t you figured that out yet?’
Zaphod stood as regally as he possibly could, with the left side of his body still jittering. ‘I promised to kill you and so I shall. Does anyone else hear singing?’
‘Not me,’ said Ford, tipping the dragon eggs into his satchel. ‘Can’t hear a thing. Especially not opera that’s not there.’
‘A Beeblebrox’s word is worth something in this Galaxy. So there’s no need to keep calling me Fat Arse.’
Wowbagger winked at him in a manner so infuriating it could animate rocks. ‘I’m just keeping you motivated, Beeblebrox. I imagine you distract easily.’
‘He does,’ said Ford, chuckling.
‘Hey!’
‘Well, you do. Remember that time with the groon-pole and the bucket of flitter pies? You really should have kept your mind on the job then.’
‘Point taken. Let me hear it again.’
Wowbagger was happy to oblige. ‘Fat Arse.’
‘Okay,’ said Zaphod. ‘I’m ready. Just let me plug Left Brain out of whatever he’s plugged into and I’m ready to go.’
Wowbagger raised a finger. ‘You mean we’re ready to go?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Zaphod, climbing on to the console to reach Left Brain. ‘The gods don’t like visitors. Thor will speak to me because we have history and I’m more stupider than he is. I go to Asgard alone.’
‘I have history with Thor too,’ said Arthur. ‘I stood up to him once and lived.’
‘That doesn’t tend to happen twice,’ said Zaphod. ‘And gods never forget, so you should definitely stay on this ship.’
‘Why not take Trillian?’ suggested Ford. ‘If I remember rightly, Thor took rather a shine to her.’
‘No,’ said Zaphod firmly. ‘Thor’s been a bit moody these past few years. He needs a bit of handling.’
He reached into the cube of shimmering gel and hauled Left Brain free with a slooshy pop.
‘How are you doing, buddy?’ he asked, peeling sensors from Left Brain’s gourd.
‘A little sleepy,’ said Left Brain, blinking rapidly. ‘Do I have to wake up?’
‘I’m afraid so. We need to fly.’
Wowbagger handed him a wafer computer. ‘Keep in touch with this. It’s on a dark energy network. Good anywhere in the Universe. We can rendezvous once you have Thor and please tell him that I was the one who stole his ship, it might give him a little incentive. Don’t make me track you down.’
Zaphod pocketed the computer. ‘Right. I’m all set. All I need is two million credit chips and I’m out of here.’
‘Two million credit chips?’
‘Just thought I’d ask.’
‘Focus, President Steatopygic. Focus.’
Zaphod actually snarled. ‘You are so dead.’
‘Now you’re talking,’ said the green immortal.