the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy #03

7/27/2019 The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy #03

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The Hitchhikers Guide tothe Galaxy #03

5On the planet earth man has alwaysassumed that he was more intelligent

than dolphins because he had achievedso much the wheel, new york, warsand so onWhile all the dolphins had ever donewas muck about in the water and have agood timeCuriously enough, the dolphins hadlong known of the impendingdestruction of the planet earth and leftshortly before the vogons arrivedSo long, and thanks for all the fish!

In fact there was only one species moreintelligent than dolphinsand they spent a lot of their time inresearch labs conducting frighten inglyelegant and subtle experiments on man

7-6What the hell happened?Well, I was just saying something aboutthe improbability drive switch overhereBut where are we?

Exactly where we were I think.Magrathea! Wow! Then what happenedto the missiles?They seem to have turned into a bowl ofpetunias and a very surprised lookingwhaleAt an improbability factor of eightmillion seven hundred and sixty seventhousand on hundred and twenty eight to one against.

Good thinking, earthman! Turn on theimprobability drive for a secondwithout the proofing screens.Hey, kid, you just saved our lives youknow that?Well, it was nothing really Was it?oh, well, forget it, then.


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Computer, take us in to land.ButI said, forget it.And soAre we taking that manically depressed

robot with usOh, marvin, the paranoid androidyeah, well take him.

8You think youve got problems.What are you supposed to do if you area manically depressed robot?Im fifty thousand times moreintelligent than you, and even I dontknow the answer.It gives me a headache just trying to

think down to your level.Hey, guys my white mice haveescaped!Nuts to your white mice trillian, wevegot a planet to explore!Computer!Good afternoon, boys.Its the computer. I discovered it had anemergency back-up personality.Now this is going to be your first day ona new planet. So wrap up nice and

warmand no playing with any naughty bug-eyed monsters okay?This is fantastic!Desolate hole if you ask me I couldhave more fun in a pan of cat litter.

9You dont understand ford, this is thefirst time Ive stood on the surface ofanother planetAn alien world!

PityIts such a dump though.Come on. I think hes found some-thing.I suppose theres no point us trying tobury it?Come on, Ive found a way in. thewhales impact cracked open an


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underground passagethe entrance to magrathea, where noman has trod for five million years.Life loathe it or ignore it, you cantlike it!

According to legend the magratheanslived most of their lives undergroundWhys that? Did the surface become toopolluted or overpopulated?No, they just didnt like it very much.

10Zaphod, are you sure you know whatyoure doing? Weve been attacked oncealready.Hmmmm.Hey, earthman. Could you stay with the

robot and keep guard this end?But you saidJust for safety, okay?Well, I hope you all have a reallymiserable time.Dont worry They will.There, what did I tell you? The signs ofan inhabited planet.Magrathea.Hey, zaphod

11have you any idea what these strangesymbols are?Yeah I think theyre strange symbolsof some kind.Look, zaphod, you Reckon this ismagrathea We heard the message, right?Okay, so Ive bought the fact that itsmagrathea but how in the galaxy didyou find it?

I mean, you didnt just look it up in astar atlas?!Research. Government archives.Detective work. A few lucky guesses.Easy.Like what?And then you stole the heart of goldto come and look for it.


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I stole it to look for lots of things.I dont know!What?Why not?I dont know what Im looking for!

Er, I think its because if I knew, Iwouldnt be able to look for them.Are you crazy?Its a possibility I havent ruled out.Urrggghhhh.Gassssss.

12 The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy is avery unevenly edited book and containsmany passages that simply seemed likea good idea at the time.

One of these relates the experiences ofone veet voojagiga brilliant academic, who, after anight spent drinking pan galacticgargle blasters with zaphodbeeblebrox became increasingly obsessed withthe problem of what had happened toall the biros hed bought over the pastfew years.After visiting all the major centers of

biro loss in the galaxy, veet came upwith a quaint theory that caught thepublic imagination

13somewhere in the cosmos, he said,along with all the planets inhabited byhumanoids, reptiloids, fishoids,walking treeoids, etceterawas a planet totally given over tobiroid life forms.And it was to this planet that all

unattended biros would make theirway slipping away quietly throughwormholes in space.

All this was fine and good until one day,veet voojagig claimed to have foundthis planet and to have worked therefor a while for a family of cheap green


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to be dead or something Dead? Good gracious me, no. we havebut slept through the economicrecession.Economic recession?

16We built planets, you know Yes, Id sort of gatheredFive million years ago the galacticeconomy collapsed. The recessioncame, and we decided to sleep throughit.Is that robot yours?Robot? Its more like an electronicsulking machine.No, Im mine.

Bring it.On second thought leave it here.Late?Great things are afoot. Come with menow, or you will be late.What is your name, human?DentArthur dent. Why?Lateas in the late dent Arthur dent.Its a sort of threat you see Ive beentold they can be very effective.

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All right, where are we going?Deep into the bowels of the planetwhere our race is being revived fromits five- million- year slumber.Er, excuse me but what is your name?My name?My name is slartibartfast!Slartibartfast?I said it wasnt important!Now, brace yourself, earthman. Thechamber we are about to enter does not

literally exist within our planetits a vast tract of hyperspace. It maydisturb youit scares the willies out ofme. Now, hold tight.

19-18Welcome to our factory floor this is where we make most of ourplanets.


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The earth!Well, the Earth Mark two, in fact. Weremaking a copy from our originalblueprints.Are you trying to tell me you

originally made the earth?Oh, yesDid you ever go to a place calledNorway?No, I didnt.Pity. That was one of mine. Won anaward, you know. Lovely crinkly edges.I was most upset to hear of itsdestruction.You were upset!

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Yes. Another five minutes and itwouldnt have mattered so much.Shocking cook-up. The mice werefurious.So were the cats and dogs and dockbilled platypuses, I expect!Look, would it save a lot of time if I justgave up and went mad now?Ah, yes, but they hadnt paid for it, yousee, had they?Earthman, your planet was

commissioned, paid for, and run by themice.It was destroyed five minutes beforethe completion of the purpose forwhich it was built And now weve got to build anotherone.Mice?

21Look, are we talking about little whitefurry things with a cheese fixation, andwomen standing on tables, screaming,in early sixties sit coms?Earthman, its hard to follow yourmode of speech. I have been asleepinside magrathea for five million years


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and know little of these early sixties sit-coms of which you speakthese creatures you call mice aremerely protrusion into our dimensionof vast hyper intelligent, pan-

dimensional beingsthe whole business and the squeakingis just a fronttheyve been experimenting on you,Im afraid.Ahh, no, youve got it wrong. We usedto do the experiments on themReally?Yes, they were of ten used in behavioralresearch. We set them all sorts of tests,learning to ring bells run round mazes,

and things22 from our observations of theirbehavior, we were able to learn al sortsof things about our own.Such subtlety, one has to admire it How better to disguise their realnatures, and how better to guide yourthinking, suddenly running round themaze the wrong wayWhat?

Eating the wrong bit of cheese,unexpectedly dropping dead ofmyxomatosisif finely calculated, the cumulativeeffect is enormous.You see, earthman, your planet andpeople have formed the matrix of anorganic computer running a ten millionyear program.

I think Id better tell you the whole

story it may take a little time.Time is not currently one of myproblems.

23And soSorry about the mess.A diode blew in one of our life-supportcomputers. We tried to revive our


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Thought I dont think youre going tolike it.Doesnt matter. Give it to us.We must know it! Now!All right. But youre really not going to

like itThe answer to the great question Yes!of life, the universe, and everythinkYes!IsYes!!!

27Forty tow! Is that all youve got toshow for seven and a half millionyears work?

I checked it very thoroughly and itsdefinitely the answer.Hang em!Rubbish!We want our money back!Booo!I think the problem, to be quite honestwith you, is that youve never actuallyknown what the question is.But it was the great question of life, theuniverse, and everything!

Help! Help!But what actually is it?Well, you know its just everything.Well, cant you just tell us the question?Exactly! So once you do know what thequestion actually is, youll know whatthe answer means.But can you do it ?The ultimate question of life, theuniverse, and everything?tricky.

No!28

But Ill tell you who can.Who? Tell us!I speak of none but the computer that isto come after me. A computer I willdesign, one of such complexity that


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organic life itself shall form part of itsoperational matrix.You will take on new forms and godown in to the computer to navigate itsten million year program!

And this computer shall be calledWhat a dull name.The earth!End of tape.

29Zaphod wake up!Whats the matter with the ground?Its gold!Stop talking. Its hard enough trying tosleep, anyway.Dont get excited. Its only a catalog.

A who?Somebody came and put us in theirplanet catalog to keep us busy till theywere ready to deal with us.This is all sens-o-tape.You wake me from my own perfectlygood dream to show me somebodyelses?We didnt wake you earlier.Some people like the oddest things.That planet was knee deep in fish.

And before that we had platinum. A bitdull.What ever your tastes, magrathea cancater to you!We are not proud!Yuch!The mice will see you now.

30So there you have it. Deep thoughtdesigned the earth we built it, and youlived on it.

And the vogons came and destroyed itfive minutes before the program wascompleted?Ten million years of planning and workgone just like that! Well, theresbureaucracy for you.You know all this explains a lot ofthings


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all my life Ive had this strange,unaccountable feeling that somethingwas going on in the world, somethingbig something sinister and no one

would tell me what it was.Everyone?Oh. No thats just perfectly normalparanoia. Everyone in the universe hasthat.If everyone has it, perhaps it meanssomething! Perhaps somewhere outsidethe universe we knowMaybe. How cares? Im old and tired. Ijust design coastlines. I got an awardfor Norway, you know.

31 In this replacement earth, theyve givenme Africa to work on.And of course, I go and do it withfjords. Then they tell me its notequatorial enough!Oh, what does it matter! Come now its time for you to meet the mice.Your arrival on this planet has causedmuch excitement and is being hailed asthe third most improbable event in the

history of the universe!Really? What were the first two?Oh, probably just coincidences.I seem to be having tremendousdifficulty with my lifestyle.It is well known that careless talk costslivesI seem to be having tremendousdifficulty with my lifestyle.But the full scale of the problem is notalways appreciated

for instance, at the very momentArthur dent said, I seem to be havingtremendous difficulty with my lifestylea freak worm hole opened up in thefabric of the space time continuum

32sending his words back in to a distantgalaxy where two strange and warlike


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leaders sat around the negotiatingtable, poised on the brink of a frightfulinterstellar battleAre you going to take back what yousaid about my mother?

I seem to be having tremendousdifficulty with my lifestyle.Raaaaaaggghhhhh!Huh?Unfortunately, in the vlhurg tonguethis was the most dreadful insultimaginable and there was nothing forit but to wage terrible war for centuries.Eventually, after a few thousand years,their galaxy was decimated and theyrealized the whole thing was a ghastly

mistake33 the two opposing battle fleets settledtheir differences to launch a joint attackon our own galaxy now positivelyidentified as the source of the offendingremark.For thousands of years the mighty shipsplied their way across the empty wastesof space and finally attacked the firstplanet they came across

the earth where, due to a terriblemiscalculation of scale, the entire battlefleet was accidentally swallowed by asmall dog.Those who study the complex interplayof cause and effect in the history of theuniverse say this sort of thing goes onall the time.

34And so.

Arthur! Youre safe!Am I? oh, good!What about you?Well, our hosts have been gassing us,zapping our minds, and being generallyweird. And now theyve given us this tomake up for it.Here, have some vegan rhino cutlet.


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Hosts? What hosts?Ugh! There are mice on the table!Oh! Sorry. I wasnt quite prepared forthisLet me introduce you. Arthur, this is

benji mouse and Frankie mouse.But arent theyHi!Yes. Theyre the mice I brought with mefrom earth!Huh-mmmm. Excuse meOher, very well. Ill just go and get onwith some of my fjords then.Yes. Thank you, slartibartfast. You maygo.

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That wont be necessary. We wont beneeding the new earth any longernow that weve found a native of theplanet who was there seconds before itwas destroyed.Well, take a skiing holiday before youdismantle them!Skiing holiday! Those glaciers areworks of art!Yes, Thank you, slartibartfast. That willbe all.

Goodbye, earthman. Hope the lifestylecomes together.Now earth creature, to business!As you know, we have been runningyour planet for the last ten millionyears in order to find this wretchedultimate question.To be brutally honest, were sick todeath of the whole thing.And the prospect of doing it all overagain on account of those whinnet-

ridden vogons gives us the screamingheebie jeebies!By chance, Frankie and I left the planetfor a quick holiday and have sincemanipulated our way back tomagratheaWhich is the gateway back to our owndimension, see?


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37No, no, no.Its the brain we want to buy!What!?I thought you said you could read itelectronically?Oh, yes but wed have to get it outfirst. Its got to be prepared.Treated.Diced!No thank you!

Well, who would miss it? It couldalways be replaced if you think itsimportant.Yes, a simple electronic one wouldsuffice.

38A simple one!Yeah. Youd just have to program it tosay what? and I dont understand.

And wheres the tea? whod know thedifference?What?See what I mean?Zaphod!Ow!Id notice the difference!No, you wouldnt. youd be


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programmed not to.Sorry, mice, I dont think weve got adeal.Dont we?!I rather think have to have a deal

39 Emergency! Emergency! Hostile shiphas landed on the planet! Armedintruders in section 8a! defensestations! Defense stations!Damnation! All that fuss over twopounds of earthling brain!The only thing we can do now is fake aquestion, invent one that will soundplausible.How about: whats yellow and

dangerous?No, no good. Doesnt fit the answer.All right, what about: what do you get ifyou multiply six by seven?No. too literal. Too factual. Wouldntsustain the punters interest.Heres a thoughtHow many roads must a man walkdown?Thats it!It sounds very significant without

actually tying you down to meaning any thing at all.Yeah, thatll fox me!How many roads must a man walkdown? Forty-tow! Excellent!Frankie, baby weve got it made!

40ElsewhereCome onThe coast is clear.I say we go

This way!Tch-ooowwOkay, beeblebrox, hold it right there.Weve got you covered!You want to try a guess, ford?Cops!Okay this way.

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Tch-oowww!We dont wanna shoot you, beeblebrox!Suits me fine!Hey, theyre shooting at us! I thoughtthey said they didnt want to do that!

Hey! I thought you said you didnt wantto shoot us!It isnt easy being a cop!Well, surely thats his problem?What did he say?He said it isnt easy being a cop!Id have thought so.

42 Hey, listen! Weve got enough problemsof our own without having you shootingat us

so if you could avoid laying yourproblems on us as well, I think wed allfind it easier to cope!Now see here, guy, youre not dealingwith any dumb two-bit trigger-pumping morons with low hairlines,little piggy eyes, and no conversationwere a couple of intelligent, caringguys that youd probably like if you metsocially!I dont go around gratuitously shooting

people and then bragging about itafterwards in seedy space- rangersbars, like some cops I could mentionI go around shooting peoplegratuitously and then I agonize about itafterwards for hours to my girlfriend!Yeah, and I write novels!Though I havent had any of thempublished yet, so I better warn youIm in a me-e-e-e-e-e an mood!Who are these guys?

Dun no, but I think I preferred it whenthey were shooting!

43 So are you going to come quietlyor are you going to let us blast youout?Which would you prefer?You still down there?


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Yes, were still here.We didnt enjoy doing that at all!Yeah, we could tell!Now, listen up, beeblebrox, and listengood!

Why?Because its going to be very intelligentand quite interesting and humane!Either you all give yourselves up nowand let us beat you up a bitthough not very much, of course,because were firmly opposed toneedless violenceor we blow up this entire planetand possibly one or two others wenoticed on the way out here!

44But thats crazy! You wouldnt do that!Oh, yes we wouldwouldnt we?Oh, yes, wed have to no question.But why?Because theres some things you haveto do even if you are an enlightened,liberal cop who knows all aboutsensitivity and everything!I just dont believe these guys!

Shall we shoot them again for a bit?Yeah why not?

45UurrgghhhhWhat happened?They stopped shooting.Thudd thuddWhat were those thuds?Dunno. Id better take a look.Isnt anyone going to say, no, you cant let me go instead?

Huh?Its okay theyre dead.

47They were from blagulon kappamethane breathers. They depended ontheir spacesuits for their survival in thisatmosphere.


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His life-support computer seems tohave blown up!Wow! Those things are totally fail- safe,linked through the sub-etha directly tothe ships main computer.

Lets get shot of this hole. If whateverIm supposed to be looking for is hereI dont want it.Yeah, come on ford, lets split.I only have to talk to somebody andthey begin to hate me. Even robots hateme. If you just ignore me, I expect Ishall probably go away.You talked to it? What do you mean?That ship hated me.And what happened?

Simple. I got very bored and depressed,so I plugged myself in to its externalcomputer feed and explained to it, atgreat lengths, my view of the universe.It committed suicide.

47Later that night, on board the heart ofgold

The history of every major galacticcivilization tends to pass through threedistinct and recognizable phasesthose are survival inquiry andsophistication. Other wise known as thehow, why and where phases.The first phase is characterized by thequestion how can we eat?and the second by why do we eat?and the third by where shall we havelunch?

Hey, earthman? You hungry?Er, yes, Zaphod a little puckish, Isuppose.Okay, baby, hold tightwell take in aquick bite at the restaurant at the endof the universe!To be continued!


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the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy #03

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