Arthur slept: he was terribly tired.

There was a tap at Zaphod’s door. It slid open.

“Zaphod...?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I think we just found what you came to look for.” 

“Hey, yeah?” Ford gave up the attempt to sleep. In the corner of his cabin was a small computer screen and keyboard. He sat at it for a while and tried to compose a new entry for the Guide on the subject of Vogons but couldn’t think of anything vitriolic enough so he gave that up too, wrapped a robe round himself and went for a walk to the bridge.

As he entered he was surprised to see two figures hunched excitedly over the instruments.

“See? The ship’s about to move into orbit,” Trillian was saying. “There’s a planet out there. It’s at the exact coordinates you predicted.” 

Zaphod heard a noise and looked up.

“Ford!” he hissed. “Hey, come and take a look at this.” 

Ford went and had a look at it. It was a series of figures flashing over a screen.

“You recognize those Galactic coordinates?” said Zaphod.

“No.” 

“I’ll give you a clue. Computer!” 

“Hi gang!” enthused the computer. “This is getting real sociable isn’t it?” 

“Shut up,” said Zaphod, “and show up the screens.” 

Light on the bridge sank. Pinpoints of light played across the consoles and reflected in four pairs of eyes that stared up at the external monitor screens.

There was absolutely nothing on them.

“Recognize that?” whispered Zaphod.

Ford frowned.

“Er, no,” he said.

“What do you see?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Recognize it?” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“We’re in the Horsehead Nebula. One whole vast dark cloud.” 

“And I was meant to recognize that from a blank screen?” 

“Inside a dark nebula is the only place in the Galaxy you’d see a dark screen.” “Very good.” 

Zaphod laughed. He was clearly very excited about something, almost childishly so.

“Hey, this is really terrific, this is just far too much!” 

“What’s so great about being stuck in a dust cloud?” said Ford.

“What would you reckon to find here?” urged Zaphod.

“Nothing.” 

“No stars? No planets?” 

“No.” 

“Computer!” shouted Zaphod, “rotate angle of vision through one- eighty degrees and don’t talk about it!” 

For a moment it seemed that nothing was happening, then a brightness glowed at the edge of the huge screen. A red star the size of a small plate crept across it followed quickly by another one - a binary system. Then a vast crescent sliced into the corner of the picture - a red glare shading away into the deep black, the night side of the planet.

“I’ve found it!” cried Zaphod, thumping the console. “I’ve found it!” 

Ford stared at it in astonishment.

“What is it?” he said.

“That...” said Zaphod, “is the most improbable planet that ever existed.” 

(Excerpt from The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Page 634784, Section 5a, Entry: Magrathea) 

Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free.

Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and reward amongst the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before - and thus was the Empire forged.

Many men of course became extremely rich, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of because no one was really poor - at least no one worth speaking of. And for all the richest and most successful merchants life inevitably became rather dull and niggly, and they began to imagine that this was therefore the fault of the worlds they’d settled on - none of them was entirely satisfactory: either the climate wasn’t quite right in the later part of the afternoon, or the day was half an hour too long, or the sea was exactly the wrong shade of pink.

And thus were created the conditions for a staggering new form of specialist industry: custom-made luxury planet building. The home of this industry was the planet Magrathea, where hyperspatial engineers sucked matter through white holes in space to form it into dream planets - gold planets, platinum planets, soft rubber planets with lots of earthquakes - all lovingly made to meet the exacting standards that the Galaxy’s richest men naturally came to expect.

But so successful was this venture that Magrathea itself soon became the richest planet of all time and the rest of the Galaxy was reduced to abject poverty. And so the system broke down, the Empire collapsed, and a long sullen silence settled over a billion worlds, disturbed only by the pen scratchings of scholars as they laboured into the night over smug little treaties on the value of a planned political economy.

Magrathea itself disappeared and its memory soon passed into the obscurity of legend.

In these enlightened days of course, no one believes a word of it.

Arthur awoke to the sound of argument and went to the bridge. Ford was waving his arms about.

“You’re crazy, Zaphod,” he was saying, “Magrathea is a myth, a fairy story, it’s what parents tell their kids about at night if they want them to grow up to become economists, it’s...” 

“And that’s what we are currently in orbit around,” insisted Zaphod.

“Look, I can’t help what you may personally be in orbit around,” said Ford, “but this ship...” 

“Computer!” shouted Zaphod.

“Oh no...” 

“Hi there! This is Eddie your shipboard computer, and I’m feeling just great guys, and I know I’m just going to get a bundle of kicks out of any programme you care to run through me.” 

Arthur looked inquiringly at Trillian. She motioned him to come on in but keep quiet.

“Computer,” said Zaphod, “tell us again what our present trajectory is.” “A real pleasure feller,” it burbled, “we are currently in orbit at an altitude of three hundred miles around the legendary planet of Magrathea.” 

“Proving nothing,” said Ford. “I wouldn’t trust that computer to speak my weight.” 

“I can do that for you, sure,” enthused the computer, punching out more tickertape. “I can even work out you personality problems to ten decimal places if it will help.” 

Trillian interrupted.

“Zaphod,” she said, “any minute now we will be swinging round to the daylight side of this planet,” adding, “whatever it turns out to be.” 

“Hey, what do you mean by that? The planet’s where I predicted it would be isn’t it?” 

“Yes, I know there’s a planet there. I’m not arguing with anyone, it’s just that I wouldn’t know Magrathea from any other lump of cold rock. Dawn’s coming up if you want it.” 

“OK, OK,” muttered Zaphod, “let’s at least give our eyes a good time. Computer!” 

“Hi there! What can I...” 

“Just shut up and give us a view of the planet again.” 

A dark featureless mass once more filled the screens - the planet rolling away beneath them.

They watched for a moment in silence, but Zaphod was fidgety with excitement.

“We are now traversing the night side...” he said in a hushed voice. The planet rolled on.

“The surface of the planet is now three hundred miles beneath us...” he continued. He was trying to restore a sense of occasion to what he felt should have been a great moment. Magrathea! He was piqued by Ford’s sceptical reaction. Magrathea! 

“In a few seconds,” he continued, “we should see... there!” 

The moment carried itself. Even the most seasoned star tramp can’t help but shiver at the spectacular drama of a sunrise seen from space, but a binary sunrise is one of the marvels of the Galaxy.

Out of the utter blackness stabbed a sudden point of blinding light. It crept up by slight degrees and spread sideways in a thin crescent blade, and within seconds two suns were visible, furnaces of light, searing the black edge of the horizon with white fire. Fierce shafts of colour streaked through the thin atmosphere beneath them. “The fires of dawn... !” breathed Zaphod. “The twin suns of Soulianis and Rahm... !” 

“Or whatever,” said Ford quietly.

“Soulianis and Rahm!” insisted Zaphod.

The suns blazed into the pitch of space and a low ghostly music floated through the bridge: Marvin was humming ironically because he hated humans so much.

As Ford gazed at the spectacle of light before them excitement burnt inside him, but only the excitement of seeing a strange new planet, it was enough for him to see it as it was. It faintly irritated him that Zaphod had to impose some ludicrous fantasy on to the scene to make it work for him. All this Magrathea nonsense seemed juvenile. Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? 

All this Magrathea business seemed totally incomprehensible to Arthur. He edged up to Trillian and asked her what was going on.

“I only know what Zaphod’s told me,” she whispered. “Apparently Magrathea is some kind of legend from way back which no one seriously believes in. Bit like Atlantis on Earth, except that the legends say the Magratheans used to manufacture planets.” 

Arthur blinked at the screens and felt he was missing something important. Suddenly he realized what it was.

“Is there any tea on this spaceship?” he asked.

More of the planet was unfolding beneath them as the Heart of Gold streaked along its orbital path. The suns now stood high in the black sky, the pyrotechnics of dawn were over, and the surface of the planet appeared bleak and forbidding in the common light of day - grey, dusty and only dimly contoured. It looked dead and cold as a crypt. From time to time promising features would appear on the distant horizon - ravines, maybe mountains, maybe even cities - but as they approached the lines would soften and blur into anonymity and nothing would transpire. The planet’s surface was blurred by time, by the slow movement of the thin stagnant air that had crept across it for century upon century.

Clearly, it was very very old.

A moment of doubt came to Ford as he watched the grey landscape move beneath them. The immensity of time worried him, he could feel it as a presence. He cleared his throat.

“Well, even supposing it is...” 

“It is,” said Zaphod.

“Which it isn’t,” continued Ford. “What do you want with it anyway? There’s nothing there.” “Not on the surface,” said Zaphod.

“Alright, just supposing there’s something. I take it you’re not here for the sheer industrial archaeology of it all. What are you after?” 

One of Zaphod’s heads looked away. The other one looked round to see what the first was looking at, but it wasn’t looking at anything very much.

“Well,” said Zaphod airily, “it’s partly the curiosity, partly a sense of adventure, but mostly I think it’s the fame and the money...” 

Ford glanced at him sharply. He got a very strong impression that Zaphod hadn’t the faintest idea why he was there at all.

“You know I don’t like the look of that planet at all,” said Trillian shivering.

“Ah, take no notice,” said Zaphod, “with half the wealth of the former Galactic Empire stored on it somewhere it can afford to look frumpy.” 

Bullshit, thought Ford. Even supposing this was the home of some ancient civilization now gone to dust, even supposing a number of exceedingly unlikely things, there was no way that vast treasures of wealth were going to be stored there in any form that would still have meaning now. He shrugged.

“I think it’s just a dead planet,” he said.

“The suspense is killing me,” said Arthur testily.

Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the Galaxy, and it is in order that this situation should not in any way be exacerbated that the following facts will now be revealed in advance.

The planet in question is in fact the legendary Magrathea.

The deadly missile attack shortly to be launched by an ancient automatic defence system will result merely in the breakage of three coffee cups and a micecage, the bruising of somebody’s upper arm, and the untimely creation and sudden demise of a bowl of petunias and an innocent sperm whale.

In order that some sense of mystery should still be preserved, no revelation will yet be made concerning whose upper arm sustained the bruise. This fact may safely be made the subject of suspense since it is of no significance whatsoever.

After a fairly shaky start to the day, Arthur’s mind was beginning to reassemble itself from the shellshocked fragments the previous day had left him with. He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject’s taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject’s metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centres of the subject’s brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. The Nutri-Matic was designed and manufactured by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation whose complaints department now covers all the major land masses of the first three planets in the Sirius Tau Star system.

Arthur drank the liquid and found it reviving. He glanced up at the screens again and watched a few more hundred miles of barren greyness slide past. It suddenly occurred to him to ask a question which had been bothering him.

“Is it safe?” he said.

“Magrathea’s been dead for five million years,” said Zaphod, “of course it’s safe. Even the ghosts will have settled down and raised families by now.” At which point a strange and inexplicable sound thrilled suddenly through the bridge - a noise as of a distant fanfare; a hollow, reedy, insubstantial sound. It preceded a voice that was equally hollow, reedy and insubstantial. The voice said “Greetings to you...” 

Someone from the dead planet was talking to them.

“Computer!” shouted Zaphod.

“Hi there!” 

“What the photon is it?” 

“Oh, just some five-million-year-old tape that’s being broadcast at us.” 

“A what? A recording?” 

“Shush!” said Ford. “It’s carrying on.” 

The voice was old, courteous, almost charming, but was underscored with quite unmistakable menace.

“This is a recorded announcement,” it said, “as I’m afraid we’re all out at the moment. The commercial council of Magrathea thanks you for your esteemed visit...” 

(“A voice from ancient Magrathea!” shouted Zaphod. “OK, OK,” said Ford.) 

“... but regrets,” continued the voice, “that the entire planet is temporarily closed for business. Thank you. If you would care to leave your name and the address of a planet where you can be contacted, kindly speak when you hear the tone.” A short buzz followed, then silence.

“They want to get rid of us,” said Trillian nervously. “What do we do?” 

“It’s just a recording,” said Zaphod. “We keep going. Got that, computer?” 

“I got it,” said the computer and gave the ship an extra kick of speed.

They waited.

After a second or so came the fanfare once again, and then the voice.

“We would like to assure you that as soon as our business is resumed announcements will be made in all fashionable magazines and colour supplements, when our clients will once again be able to select from all that’s best in contemporary geography.” The menace in the voice took on a sharper edge. “Meanwhile we thank our clients for their kind interest and would ask them to leave. Now.” 

Arthur looked round the nervous faces of his companions.

“Well, I suppose we’d better be going then, hadn’t we?” he suggested.

“Shhh!” said Zaphod. “There’s absolutely nothing to be worried about.” 

“Then why’s everyone so tense?” 

“They’re just interested!” shouted Zaphod. “Computer, start a descent into the atmosphere and prepare for landing.” 

This time the fanfare was quite perfunctory, the voice distinctly cold.

“It is most gratifying,” it said, “that your enthusiasm for our planet continues unabated, and so we would like to assure you that the guided missiles currently converging with your ship are part of a special service we extend to all of our most enthusiastic clients, and the fully armed nuclear warheads are of course merely a courtesy detail. We look forward to your custom in future lives... thank you.” 

The voice snapped off.

“Oh,” said Trillian.

“Er...” said Arthur.

“Well?” said Ford.

“Look,” said Zaphod, “will you get it into your heads? That’s just a recorded message. It’s millions of years old. It doesn’t apply to us, get it?” “What,” said Trillian quietly, “about the missiles?” 

“Missiles? Don’t make me laugh.” 

Ford tapped Zaphod on the shoulder and pointed at the rear screen. Clear in the distance behind them two silver darts were climbing through the atmosphere towards the ship. A quick change of magnification brought them into close focus - two massively real rockets thundering through the sky. The suddenness of it was shocking.

“I think they’re going to have a very good try at applying to us,” said Ford.

Zaphod stared at them in astonishment.

“Hey this is terrific!” he said. “Someone down there is trying to kill us!” 

“Terrific,” said Arthur.

“But don’t you see what this means?” 

“Yes. We’re going to die.” 

“Yes, but apart from that.” 

“Apart from that?” 

“It means we must be on to something!” 

“How soon can we get off it?” 

Second by second the image of the missiles on the screen became larger. They had swung round now on to a direct homing course so that all that could be seen of them now was the warheads, head on.

“As a matter of interest,” said Trillian, “what are we going to do?” 

“Just keep cool,” said Zaphod.

“Is that all?” shouted Arthur.

“No, we’re also going to... er... take evasive action!” said Zaphod with a sudden access of panic. “Computer, what evasive action can we take?” 

“Er, none I’m afraid, guys,” said the computer.

“... or something,” said Zaphod, “... er...” he said.

“There seems to be something jamming my guidance system,” explained the computer brightly, “impact minus forty-five seconds. Please call me Eddie if it will help you to relax.” 

Zaphod tried to run in several equally decisive directions simultaneously. “Right!” he said. “Er... we’ve got to get manual control of this ship.” 

“Can you fly her?” asked Ford pleasantly.

“No, can you?” 

“No.” 

“Trillian, can you?” 

“No.” 

“Fine,” said Zaphod, relaxing. “We’ll do it together.” 

“I can’t either,” said Arthur, who felt it was time he began to assert himself.

“I’d guessed that,” said Zaphod. “OK computer, I want full manual control now.” 

“You got it,” said the computer.

Several large desk panels slid open and banks of control consoles sprang up out of them, showering the crew with bits of expanded polystyrene packaging and balls of rolled-up cellophane: these controls had never been used before.

Zaphod stared at them wildly.

“OK, Ford,” he said, “full retro thrust and ten degrees starboard. Or something...” 

“Good luck guys,” chirped the computer, “impact minus thirty seconds...” 

Ford leapt to the controls - only a few of them made any immediate sense to him so he pulled those. The ship shook and screamed as its guidance rocked jets tried to push it every which way simultaneously. He released half of them and the ship span round in a tight arc and headed back the way it had come, straight towards the oncoming missiles.

Air cushions ballooned out of the walls in an instant as everyone was thrown against them. For a few seconds the inertial forces held them flattened and squirming for breath, unable to move. Zaphod struggled and pushed in manic desperation and finally managed a savage kick at a small lever that formed part of the guidance system.

The lever snapped off. The ship twisted sharply and rocketed upwards. The crew were hurled violently back across the cabin. Ford’s copy of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy smashed into another section of the control console with the combined result that the guide started to explain to anyone who cared to listen about the best ways of smuggling Antarean parakeet glands out of Antares (an Antarean parakeet gland stuck on a small stick is a revolting but much sought after cocktail delicacy and very large sums of money are often paid for them by very rich idiots who want to impress other very rich idiots), and the ship suddenly dropped out of the sky like a stone.

It was of course more or less at this moment that one of the crew sustained a nasty bruise to the upper arm. This should be emphasized because, as had already been revealed, they escape otherwise completely unharmed and the deadly nuclear missiles do not eventually hit the ship. The safety of the crew is absolutely assured.

“Impact minus twenty seconds, guys...” said the computer.

“Then turn the bloody engines back on!” bawled Zaphod.

“OK, sure thing, guys,” said the computer. With a subtle roar the engines cut back in, the ship smoothly flattened out of its dive and headed back towards the missiles again.

The computer started to sing.

“When you walk through the storm...” it whined nasally, “hold your head up high...” 

Zaphod screamed at it to shut up, but his voice was lost in the din of what they quite naturally assumed was approaching destruction.

“And don’t... be afraid... of the dark!” Eddie wailed.

The ship, in flattening out had in fact flattened out upside down and lying on the ceiling as they were it was now totally impossible for any of the crew to reach the guidance systems.

“At the end of the storm...” crooned Eddie.

The two missiles loomed massively on the screens as they thundered towards the ship.

“... is a golden sky...” 

But by an extraordinarily lucky chance they had not yet fully corrected their flight paths to that of the erratically weaving ship, and they passed right under it.

“And the sweet silver songs of the lark... Revised impact time fifteen seconds fellas... Walk on through the wind...” 

The missiles banked round in a screeching arc and plunged back into pursuit.

“This is it,” said Arthur watching them. “We are now quite definitely going to die aren’t we?” 

“I wish you’d stop saying that,” shouted Ford.

“Well we are aren’t we?” 

“Yes.” “Walk on through the rain...” sang Eddie.

A thought struck Arthur. He struggled to his feet.

“Why doesn’t anyone turn on this Improbability Drive thing?” he said. “We could probably reach that.” 

“What are you crazy?” said Zaphod. “Without proper programming anything could happen.” 

“Does that matter at this stage?” shouted Arthur.

“Though your dreams be tossed and blown...” sand Eddie.

Arthur scrambled up on to one end of the excitingly chunky pieces of moulded contouring where the curve of the wall met the ceiling.

“Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart...” 

“Does anyone know why Arthur can’t turn on the Improbability Drive?” shouted Trillian.

“And you’ll never walk alone... Impact minus five seconds, it’s been great knowing you guys, God bless... You’ll ne... ver... walk... alone!” 

“I said,” yelled Trillian, “does anyone know...” 

The next thing that happened was a mid-mangling explosion of noise and light.

And the next thing that happened after that was that the Heart of Gold continued on its way perfectly normally with a rather fetchingly redesigned interior. It was somewhat larger, and done out in delicate pastel shades of green and blue. In the centre a spiral staircase, leading nowhere in particular, stood in a spray of ferns and yellow flowers and next to it a stone sundial pedestal housed the main computer terminal. Cunningly deployed lighting and mirrors created the illusion of standing in a conservatory overlooking a wide stretch of exquisitely manicured garden. Around the periphery of the conservatory area stood marble-topped tables on intricately beautiful wrought-iron legs. As you gazed into the polished surface of the marble the vague forms of instruments became visible, and as you touched them the instruments materialized instantly under your hands. Looked at from the correct angles the mirrors appeared to reflect all the required data readouts, though it was far from clear where they were reflected from. It was in fact sensationally beautiful.

Relaxing in a wickerwork sun chair, Zaphod Beeblebrox said, “What the hell happened?” 

“Well I was just saying,” said Arthur lounging by a small fish pool, “there’s this Improbability Drive switch over here...” he waved at where it had been. There was a potted plant there now. “But where are we?” said Ford who was sitting on the spiral staircase, a nicely chilled Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster in his hand.

“Exactly where we were, I think...” said Trillian, as all about them the mirrors showed them an image of the blighted landscape of Magrathea which still scooted along beneath them.

Zaphod leapt out of his seat.

“Then what’s happened to the missiles?” he said.

A new and astounding image appeared in the mirrors.

“They would appear,” said Ford doubtfully, “to have turned into a bowl of petunias and a very surprised looking whale...” 

“At an Improbability Factor,” cut in Eddie, who hadn’t changed a bit, “of eight million seven hundred and sixty-seven thousand one hundred and twenty-eight to one against.” 

Zaphod stared at Arthur.

“Did you think of that, Earthman?” he demanded.

“Well,” said Arthur, “all I did was...” 

“That’s very good thinking you know. Turn on the Improbability Drive for a second without first activating the proofing screens. Hey kid you just saved our lives, you know that?” 

“Oh,” said Arthur, “well, it was nothing really...” 

“Was it?” said Zaphod. “Oh well, forget it then. OK, computer, take us in to land.” 

“But...” 

“I said forget it.” 

Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet.

And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more.

This is a complete record of its thoughts from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it.

Ah... ! What’s happening? it thought.

Er, excuse me, who am I? 

Hello? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? 

What do I mean by who am I? 

Calm down, get a grip now... oh! this is an interesting sensation, what is it? It’s a sort of... yawning, tingling sensation in my... my... well I suppose I’d better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let’s call it my stomach.

Good. Ooooh, it’s getting quite strong. And hey, what’s about this whistling roaring sound going past what I’m suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps I can call that... wind! Is that a good name? It’ll do... perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I’ve found out what it’s for. It must be something very important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it. Hey! What’s this thing? This... let’s call it a tail - yeah, tail. Hey! I can can really thrash it about pretty good can’t I? Wow! Wow! That feels great! Doesn’t seem to achieve very much but I’ll probably find out what it’s for later on. Now - have I built up any coherent picture of things yet? 

No. Never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, I’m quite dizzy with anticipation... \hspace{1cm} Or is it the wind? 

There really is a lot of that now isn’t it? 

And wow! Hey! What’s this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like... ow... ound... round... ground! That’s it! That’s a good name - ground! 

I wonder if it will be friends with me? 

And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence.

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.

“Are we taking this robot with us?” said Ford, looking with distaste at Marvin who was standing in an awkward hunched posture in the corner under a small palm tree.

Zaphod glanced away from the mirror screens which presented a pa\-no\-ra\-mic view of the blighted landscape on which the Heart of Gold had now landed.

“Oh, the Paranoid Android,” he said. “Yeah, we’ll take him.” 

“But what are supposed to do with a manically depressed robot?” 

“You think you’ve got problems,” said Marvin as if he was addressing a newly occupied coffin, “what are you supposed to do if you are a manically depressed robot? No, don’t bother to answer that, I’m fifty thousand times more intelligent than you and even I don’t know the answer. It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level.” 

Trillian burst in through the door from her cabin.

“My white mice have escaped!” she said.

An expression of deep worry and concern failed to cross either of Zaphod’s faces.

“Nuts to your white mice,” he said.

Trillian glared an upset glare at him, and disappeared again.

It is possible that her remark would have commanded greater attention had it been generally realized that human beings were only the third most intelligent life form present on the planet Earth, instead of (as was generally thought by most independent observers) the second.

“Good afternoon boys.” 

The voice was oddly familiar, but oddly different. It had a matriarchal twang. It announced itself to the crew as they arrived at the airlock hatchway that would let them out on the planet surface.

They looked at each other in puzzlement.

“It’s the computer,” explained Zaphod. “I discovered it had an emergency back-up personality that I thought might work out better.” 

“Now this is going to be your first day out on a strange new planet,” continued Eddie’s new voice, “so I want you all wrapped up snug and warm, and no playing with any naughty bug-eyed monsters.” 

Zaphod tapped impatiently on the hatch.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I think we might be better off with a slide rule.” 

“Right!” snapped the computer. “Who said that?” 

“Will you open the exit hatch please, computer?” said Zaphod trying not to get angry.

“Not until whoever said that owns up,” urged the computer, stamping a few synapses closed. “Oh God,” muttered Ford, slumped against a bulkhead and started to count to ten. He was desperately worried that one day sentinent life forms would forget how to do this. Only by counting could humans demonstrate their independence of computers.

“Come on,” said Eddie sternly.

“Computer...” began Zaphod...

“I’m waiting,” interrupted Eddie. “I can wait all day if necessary...” 

“Computer...” said Zaphod again, who had been trying to think of some subtle piece of reasoning to put the computer down with, and had decided not to bother competing with it on its own ground, “if you don’t open that exit hatch this moment I shall zap straight off to your major data banks and reprogram you with a very large axe, got that?” 

Eddie, shocked, paused and considered this.

Ford carried on counting quietly. This is about the most aggressive thing you can do to a computer, the equivalent of going up to a human being and saying Blood... blood... blood... blood...

Finally Eddie said quietly, “I can see this relationship is something we’re all going to have to work at,” and the hatchway opened.

An icy wind ripped into them, they hugged themselves warmly and stepped down the ramp on to the barren dust of Magrathea.

“It’ll all end in tears, I know it,” shouted Eddie after them and closed the hatchway again.

A few minutes later he opened and closed the hatchway again in response to a command that caught him entirely by surprise.

Five figures wandered slowly over the blighted land. Bits of it were dullish grey, bits of it dullish brown, the rest of it rather less interesting to look at. It was like a dried-out marsh, now barren of all vegetation and covered with a layer of dust about an inch thick. It was very cold.

Zaphod was clearly rather depressed about it. He stalked off by himself and was soon lost to sight behind a slight rise in the ground.

The wind stung Arthur’s eyes and ears, and the stale thin air clasped his throat. However, the thing stung most was his mind.

“It’s fantastic...” he said, and his own voice rattled his ears. Sound carried badly in this thin atmosphere. “Desolate hole if you ask me,” said Ford. “I could have more fun in a cat litter.” He felt a mounting irritation. Of all the planets in all the star systems of all the Galaxy - didn’t he just have to turn up at a dump like this after fifteen years of being a castaway? Not even a hot dog stand in evidence. He stooped down and picked up a cold clot of earth, but there was nothing underneath it worth crossing thousands of light years to look at.

“No,” insisted Arthur, “don’t you understand, this is the first time I’ve actually stood on the surface of another planet... a whole alien world...! Pity it’s such a dump though.” 

Trillian hugged herself, shivered and frowned. She could have sworn she saw a slight and unexpected movement out of the corner of her eye, but when she glanced in that direction all she could see was the ship, still and silent, a hundred yards or so behind them.

She was relieved when a second or so later they caught sight of Zaphod standing on top of the ridge of ground and waving to them to come and join him.

He seemed to be excited, but they couldn’t clearly hear what he was saying because of the thinnish atmosphere and the wind.

As they approached the ridge of higher ground they became aware that it seemed to be circular - a crater about a hundred and fifty yards wide. Round the outside of the crater the sloping ground was spattered with black and red lumps. They stopped and looked at a piece. It was wet. It was rubbery.

With horror they suddenly realized that it was fresh whalemeat.

At the top of the crater’s lip they met Zaphod.

“Look,” he said, pointing into the crater.

In the centre lay the exploded carcass of a lonely sperm whale that hadn’t lived long enough to be disappointed with its lot. The silence was only disturbed by the slight involuntary spasms of Trillian’s throat.

“I suppose there’s no point in trying to bury it?” murmured Arthur, and then wished he hadn’t.

“Come,” said Zaphod and started back down into the crater.

“What, down there?” said Trillian with severe distaste.

“Yeah,” said Zaphod, “come on, I’ve got something to show you.” 

“We can see it,” said Trillian.

“Not that,” said Zaphod, “something else. Come on.” 

They all hesitated.

“Come on,” insisted Zaphod, “I’ve found a way in.” “In?” said Arthur in horror.

“Into the interior of the planet! An underground passage. The force of the whale’s impact cracked it open, and that’s where we have to go. Where no man has trod these five million years, into the very depths of time itself...” 

Marvin started his ironical humming again.

Zaphod hit him and he shut up.

With little shudders of disgust they all followed Zaphod down the incline into the crater, trying very hard not to look at its unfortunate creator.

“Life,” said Marvin dolefully, “loathe it or ignore it, you can’t like it.” 

The ground had caved in where the whale had hit it revealing a network of galleries and passages, now largely obstructed by collapsed rubble and entrails. Zaphod had made a start clearing a way into one of them, but Marvin was able to do it rather faster. Dank air wafted out of its dark recesses, and as Zaphod shone a torch into it, little was visible in the dusty gloom.

“According to the legends,” he said, “the Magratheans lived most of their lives underground.” 

“Why’s that?” said Arthur. “Did the surface become too polluted or overpopulated?” 

“No, I don’t think so,” said Zaphod. “I think they just didn’t like it very much.” 

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” said Trillian peering nervously into the darkness. “We’ve been attacked once already you know.” 

“Look kid, I promise you the live population of this planet is nil plus the four of us, so come on, let’s get on in there. Er, hey Earthman...” 

“Arthur,” said Arthur.

“Yeah could you just sort of keep this robot with you and guard this end of the passageway. OK?” 

“Guard?” said Arthur. “What from? You just said there’s no one here.” 

“Yeah, well, just for safety, OK?” said Zaphod.

“Whose? Yours or mine?” 

“Good lad. OK, here we go.” 

Zaphod scrambled down into the passage, followed by Trillian and Ford. “Well I hope you all have a really miserable time,” complained Arthur.

“Don’t worry,” Marvin assured him, “they will.” 

In a few seconds they had disappeared from view.

Arthur stamped around in a huff, and then decided that a whale’s graveyard is not on the whole a good place to stamp around in.

Marvin eyed him balefully for a moment, and then turned himself off.

Zaphod marched quickly down the passageway, nervous as hell, but trying to hide it by striding purposefully. He flung the torch beam around. The walls were covered in dark tiles and were cold to the touch, the air thick with decay.

“There, what did I tell you?” he said. “An inhabited planet. Magrathea,” and he strode on through the dirt and debris that littered the tile floor.

Trillian was reminded unavoidably of the London Underground, though it was less thoroughly squalid.

At intervals along the walls the tiles gave way to large mosaics - simple angular patterns in bright colours. Trillian stopped and studied one of them but could not interpret any sense in them. She called to Zaphod.

“Hey, have you any idea what these strange symbols are?” 

“I think they’re just strange symbols of some kind,” said Zaphod, hardly glancing back.

Trillian shrugged and hurried after him.

>From time to time a doorway led either to the left or right into smallish chambers which Ford discovered to be full of derelict computer equipment. He dragged Zaphod into one to have a look. Trillian followed.

“Look,” said Ford, “you reckon this is Magrathea...” 

“Yeah,” said Zaphod, “and we heard the voice, right?” 

“OK, so I’ve bought the fact that it’s Magrathea - for the moment. What you have so far said nothing about is how in the Galaxy you found it. You didn’t just look it up in a star atlas, that’s for sure.” 

“Research. Government archives. Detective work. Few lucky guesses. Easy.” 

“And then you stole the Heart of Gold to come and look for it with?” 

“I stole it to look for a lot of things.” “A lot of things?” said Ford in surprise. “Like what?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“What?” 

“I don’t know what I’m looking for.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because... because... I think it might be because if I knew I wouldn’t be able to look for them.” 

“What, are you crazy?” 

“It’s a possibility I haven’t ruled out yet,” said Zaphod quietly. “I only know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions. And its current conditions are not good.” 

For a long time nobody said anything as Ford gazed at Zaphod with a mind suddenly full of worry.

“Listen old friend, if you want to...” started Ford eventually.

“No, wait... I’ll tell you something,” said Zaphod. “I freewheel a lot. I get an idea to do something, and, hey, why not, I do it. I reckon I’ll become President of the Galaxy, and it just happens, it’s easy. I decide to steal this ship. I decide to look for Magrathea, and it all just happens. Yeah, I work out how it can best be done, right, but it always works out. It’s like having a Galacticredit card which keeps on working though you never send off the cheques. And then whenever I stop and think - why did I want to do something? - how did I work out how to do it? - I get a very strong desire just to stop thinking about it. Like I have now. It’s a big effort to talk about it.” 

Zaphod paused for a while. For a while there was silence. Then he frowned and said, “Last night I was worrying about this again. About the fact that part of my mind just didn’t seem to work properly. Then it occurred to me that the way it seemed was that someone else was using my mind to have good ideas with, without telling me about it. I put the two ideas together and decided that maybe that somebody had locked off part of my mind for that purpose, which was why I couldn’t use it. I wondered if there was a way I could check.

“I went to the ship’s medical bay and plugged myself into the encephelographic screen. I went through every major screening test on both my heads - all the tests I had to go through under government medical officers before my nomination for Presidency could be properly ratified. They showed up nothing. Nothing unexpected at least. They showed that I was clever, imaginative, irresponsible, untrustworthy, extrovert, nothing you couldn’t have guessed. And no other anomalies. So I started inventing further tests, completely at random. Nothing. Then I tried superimposing the results from one head on top of the results from the other head. Still nothing. Finally I got silly, because I’d given it all up as nothing more than an attack of paranoia. Last thing I did before I packed it in was take the superimposed picture and look at it through a green filter. You remember I was always superstitious about the color green when I was a kid? I always wanted to be a pilot on one of the trading scouts?” 

Ford nodded.

“And there it was,” said Zaphod, “clear as day. A whole section in the middle of both brains that related only to each other and not to anything else around them. Some bastard had cauterized all the synapses and electronically traumatised those two lumps of cerebellum.” 

Ford stared at him, aghast. Trillian had turned white.

“Somebody did that to you?” whispered Ford.

“Yeah.” 

“But have you any idea who? Or why?” 

“Why? I can only guess. But I do know who the bastard was.” 

“You know? How do you know?” 

“Because they left their initials burnt into the cauterized synapses. They left them there for me to see.” 

Ford stared at him in horror and felt his skin begin to crawl.

“Initials? Burnt into your brain?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well, what were they, for God’s sake?” 

Zaphod looked at him in silence again for a moment. Then he looked away.

“Z.B.,” he said.

At that moment a steel shutter slammed down behind them and gas started to pour into the chamber.

“I’ll tell you about it later,” choked Zaphod as all three passed out.

On the surface of Magrathea Arthur wandered about moodily.

Ford had thoughtfully left him his copy of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to while away the time with. He pushed a few buttons at random.

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a very unevenly edited book and contains many passages that simply seemed to its editors like a good idea at the time.

One of these (the one Arthur now came across) supposedly relates the experiences of one Veet Voojagig, a quiet young student at the University of Maximegalon, who pursued a brilliant academic career studying ancient philology, transformational ethics and the wave harmonic theory of historical perception, and then, after a night of drinking Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters with Zaphod Beeblebrox, became increasingly obsessed with the problem of what had happened to all the biros he’d bought over the past few years.

There followed a long period of painstaking research during which he visited all the major centres of biro loss throughout the galaxy and eventually came up with a quaint little theory which quite caught the public imagination at the time. Somewhere in the cosmos, he said, along with all the planets inhabited by humanoids, reptiloids, fishoids, walking treeoids and superintelligent shades of the colour blue, there was also a planet entirely given over to biro life forms. And it was to this planet that unattended biros would make their way, slipping away quietly through wormholes in space to a world where they knew they could enjoy a uniquely biroid lifestyle, responding to highly biro-oriented stimuli, and generally leading the biro equivalent of the good life.

And as theories go this was all very fine and pleasant until Veet Voojagig suddenly claimed to have found this planet, and to have worked there for a while driving a limousine for a family of cheap green retractables, whereupon he was taken away, locked up, wrote a book, and was finally sent into tax exile, which is the usual fate reserved for those who are determined to make a fool of themselves in public.

When one day an expedition was sent to the spatial coordinates that Voojagig had claimed for this planet they discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.

There did, however, remain the question of both the mysterious 60,000 Altairan dollars paid yearly into his Brantisvogan bank account, and of course Zaphod Beeblebrox’s highly profitable second-hand biro business.

Arthur read this, and put the book down.

The robot still sat there, completely inert.

Arthur got up and walked to the top of the crater. He walked around the crater. He watched two suns set magnificently over Magrathea.

He went back down into the crater. He woke the robot up because even a manically depressed robot is better to talk to than nobody.

“Night’s falling,” he said. “Look robot, the stars are coming out.” >From the heart of a dark nebula it is possible to see very few stars, and only very faintly, but they were there to be seen.

The robot obediently looked at them, then looked back.

“I know,” he said. “Wretched isn’t it?” 

“But that sunset! I’ve never seen anything like it in my wildest dreams... the two suns! It was like mountains of fire boiling into space.” 

“I’ve seen it,” said Marvin. “It’s rubbish.” 

“We only ever had the one sun at home,” persevered Arthur, “I came from a planet called Earth you know.” 

“I know,” said Marvin, “you keep going on about it. It sounds awful.” 

“Ah no, it was a beautiful place.” 

“Did it have oceans?” 

“Oh yes,” said Arthur with a sigh, “great wide rolling blue oceans...” 

“Can’t bear oceans,” said Marvin.

“Tell me,” inquired Arthur, “do you get on well with other robots?” 

“Hate them,” said Marvin. “Where are you going?” 

Arthur couldn’t bear any more. He had got up again.

“I think I’ll just take another walk,” he said.

“Don’t blame you,” said Marvin and counted five hundred and ninety-seven thousand million sheep before falling asleep again a second later.

Arthur slapped his arms about himself to try and get his circulation a little more enthusiastic about its job. He trudged back up the wall of the crater.

Because the atmosphere was so thin and because there was no moon, nightfall was very rapid and it was by now very dark. Because of this, Arthur practically walked into the old man before he noticed him.

He was standing with his back to Arthur watching the very last glimmers of light sink into blackness behind the horizon. He was tallish, elderly and dressed in a single long grey robe. When he turned his face was thin and distinguished, careworn but not unkind, the sort of face you would happily bank with. But he didn’t turn yet, not even to react to Arthur’s yelp of surprise.

Eventually the last rays of the sun had vanished completely, and he turned. His face was still illuminated from somewhere, and when Arthur looked for the source of the light he saw that a few yards away stood a small craft of some kind - a small hovercraft, Arthur guessed. It shed a dim pool of light around it.

The man looked at Arthur, sadly it seemed.

“You choose a cold night to visit our dead planet,” he said.

“Who... who are you?” stammered Arthur.

The man looked away. Again a kind of sadness seemed to cross his face.

“My name is not important,” he said.

He seemed to have something on his mind. Conversation was clearly something he felt he didn’t have to rush at. Arthur felt awkward.

“I... er... you startled me...” he said, lamely.

The man looked round to him again and slightly raised his eyebrows.

“Hmmmm?” he said.

“I said you startled me.” 

“Do not be alarmed, I will not harm you.” 

Arthur frowned at him. “But you shot at us! There were missiles...” he said.

The man chuckled slightly.

“An automatic system,” he said and gave a small sigh. “Ancient computers ranged in the bowels of the planet tick away the dark millennia, and the ages hang heavy on their dusty data banks. I think they take the occasional pot shot to relieve the monotony.” 

He looked gravely at Arthur and said, “I’m a great fan of science you know.” 

“Oh... er, really?” said Arthur, who was beginning to find the man’s curious, kindly manner disconcerting.

“Oh, yes,” said the old man, and simply stopped talking again.

“Ah,” said Arthur, “er...” He had an odd felling of being like a man in the act of adultery who is surprised when the woman’s husband wanders into the room, changes his trousers, passes a few idle remarks about the weather and leaves again.

“You seem ill at ease,” said the old man with polite concern.

“Er, no... well, yes. Actually you see, we weren’t really expecting to find anybody about in fact. I sort of gathered that you were all dead or something...” 

“Dead?” said the old man. “Good gracious no, we have but slept.” 

“Slept?” said Arthur incredulously.

“Yes, through the economic recession you see,” said the old man, apparently unconcerned about whether Arthur understood a word he was talking about or not.

“Er, economic recession?” 

“Well you see, five million years ago the Galactic economy collapsed, and seeing that custom-made planets are something of a luxury commodity you see...” 

He paused and looked at Arthur.

“You know we built planets do you?” he asked solemnly.

“Well yes,” said Arthur, “I’d sort of gathered...” 

“Fascinating trade,” said the old man, and a wistful look came into his eyes, “doing the coastlines was always my favourite. Used to have endless fun doing the little bits in fjords... so anyway,” he said trying to find his thread again, “the recession came and we decided it would save us a lot of bother if we just slept through it. So we programmed the computers to revive us when it was all over.” 

The man stifled a very slight yawn and continued.

“The computers were index linked to the Galactic stock market prices you see, so that we’d all be revived when everybody else had rebuilt the economy enough to afford our rather expensive services.” 

Arthur, a regular Guardian reader, was deeply shocked at this.

“That’s a pretty unpleasant way to behave isn’t it?” 

“Is it?” asked the old man mildly. “I’m sorry, I’m a bit out of touch.” 

He pointed down into the crater.

“Is that robot yours?” he said.

“No,” came a thin metallic voice from the crater, “I’m mine.” 

“If you’d call it a robot,” muttered Arthur. “It’s more a sort of electronic sulking machine.” 

“Bring it,” said the old man. Arthur was quite surprised to hear a note of decision suddenly present in the old man’s voice. He called to Marvin who crawled up the slope making a big show of being lame, which he wasn’t. “On second thoughts,” said the old man, “leave it here. You must come with me. Great things are afoot.” He turned towards his craft which, though no apparent signal had been given, now drifted quietly towards them through the dark.

Arthur looked down at Marvin, who now made an equally big show of turning round laboriously and trudging off down into the crater again muttering sour nothings to himself.

“Come,” called the old man, “come now or you will be late.” 

“Late?” said Arthur. “What for?” 

“What is your name, human?” 

“Dent. Arthur Dent,” said Arthur.

“Late, as in the late Dentarthurdent,” said the old man, sternly. “It’s a sort of threat you see.” Another wistful look came into his tired old eyes. “I’ve never been very good at them myself, but I’m told they can be very effective.” 

Arthur blinked at him.

“What an extraordinary person,” he muttered to himself.

“I beg your pardon?” said the old man.

“Oh nothing, I’m sorry,” said Arthur in embarrassment. “Alright, where do we go?” 

“In my aircar,” said the old man motioning Arthur to get into the craft which had settled silently next to them. “We are going deep into the bowels of the planet where even now our race is being revived from its five-million-year slumber. Magrathea awakes.” 

Arthur shivered involuntarily as he seated himself next to the old man. The strangeness of it, the silent bobbing movement of the craft as it soared into the night sky quite unsettled him.

He looked at the old man, his face illuminated by the dull glow of tiny lights on the instrument panel.

“Excuse me,” he said to him, “what is your name by the way?” 

“My name?” said the old man, and the same distant sadness came into his face again. He paused. “My name,” he said, “... is Slartibartfast.” 

Arthur practically choked.

“I beg your pardon?” he spluttered.

“Slartibartfast,” repeated the old man quietly.

“Slartibartfast?” 

The old man looked at him gravely. “I said it wasn’t important,” he said.

The aircar sailed through the night.

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons.

Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind of the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means shortly before the Vogons arrived.

The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards- somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the “Star Sprangled Banner”, but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish.

In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a lot of their time in behavioural research laboratories running round inside wheels and conducting frighteningly elegant and subtle experiments on man. 

The fact that once again man completely misinterpreted this relationship was entirely according to these creatures’ plans.

Silently the aircar coasted through the cold darkness, a single soft glow of light that was utterly alone in the deep Magrathean night. It sped swiftly. Arthur’s companion seemed sunk in his own thoughts, and when Arthur tried on a couple of occasions to engage him in conversation again he would simply reply by asking if he was comfortable enough, and then left it at that.

Arthur tried to gauge the speed at which they were travelling, but the blackness outside was absolute and he was denied any reference points. The sense of motion was so soft and slight he could almost believe they were hardly moving at all.

Then a tiny glow of light appeared in the far distance and within seconds had grown so much in size that Arthur realized it was travelling towards them at a colossal speed, and he tried to make out what sort of craft it might be. He peered at it, but was unable to discern any clear shape, and suddenly gasped in alarm as the aircraft dipped sharply and headed downwards in what seemed certain to be a collision course. Their relative velocity seemed unbelievable, and Arthur had hardly time to draw breath before it was all over. The next thing he was aware of was an insane silver blur that seemed to surround him. He twisted his head sharply round and saw a small black point dwindling rapidly in the distance behind them, and it took him several seconds to realize what had happened.

They had plunged into a tunnel in the ground. The colossal speed had been their own relative to the glow of light which was a stationary hole in the ground, the mouth of the tunnel. The insane blur of silver was the circular wall of the tunnel down which they were shooting, apparently at several hundred miles an hour.

He closed his eyes in terror.

After a length of time which he made no attempt to judge, he sensed a slight subsidence in their speed and some while later became aware that they were gradually gliding to a gentle halt.

He opened his eyes again. They were still in the silver tunnel, threading and weaving their way through what appeared to be a crisscross warren of converging tunnels. When they finally stopped it was in a small chamber of curved steel. Several tunnels also had their terminus here, and at the farther end of the chamber Arthur could see a large circle of dim irritating light. It was irritating because it played tricks with the eyes, it was impossible to focus on it properly or tell how near or far it was. Arthur guessed (quite wrongly) that it might be ultra violet.

Slartibartfast turned and regarded Arthur with his solemn old eyes.

“Earthman,” he said, “we are now deep in the heart of Magrathea.” 

“How did you know I was an Earthman?” demanded Arthur.

“These things will become clear to you,” said the old man gently, “at least,” he added with slight doubt in his voice, “clearer than they are at the moment.” 

He continued: “I should warn you that the chamber we are about to pass into does not literally exist within our planet. It is a little too... large. We are about to pass through a gateway into a vast tract of hyperspace. It may disturb you.” 

Arthur made nervous noises.

Slartibartfast touched a button and added, not entirely reassuringly. “It scares the willies out of me. Hold tight.” 

The car shot forward straight into the circle of light, and suddenly Arthur had a fairly clear idea of what infinity looked like.

It wasn’t infinity in fact. Infinity itself looks flat and uninteresting. Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity - distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless. The chamber into which the aircar emerged was anything but infinite, it was just very very big, so that it gave the impression of infinity far better than infinity itself.

Arthur’s senses bobbed and span, as, travelling at the immense speed he knew the aircar attained, they climbed slowly through the open air leaving the gateway through which they had passed an invisible pinprick in the shimmering wall behind them.

The wall.

The wall defied the imagination - seduced it and defeated it. The wall was so paralysingly vast and sheer that its top, bottom and sides passed away beyond the reach of sight. The mere shock of vertigo could kill a man.

The wall appeared perfectly flat. It would take the finest laser measuring equipment to detect that as it climbed, apparently to infinity, as it dropped dizzily away, as it planed out to either side, it also curved. It met itself again thirteen light seconds away. In other words the wall formed the inside of a hollow sphere, a sphere over three million miles across and flooded with unimaginable light.

“Welcome,” said Slartibartfast as the tiny speck that was the aircar, travelling now at three times the speed of sound, crept imperceptibly forward into the mindboggling space, “welcome,” he said, “to our factory floor.” 

Arthur stared about him in a kind of wonderful horror. Ranged away before them, at distances he could neither judge nor even guess at, were a series of curious suspensions, delicate traceries of metal and light hung about shadowy spherical shapes that hung in the space.

“This,” said Slartibartfast, “is where we make most of our planets you see.” 

“You mean,” said Arthur, trying to form the words, “you mean you’re starting it all up again now?” 

“No no, good heavens no,” exclaimed the old man, “no, the Galaxy isn’t nearly rich enough to support us yet. No, we’ve been awakened to perform just one extraordinary commission for very... special clients from another dimension. It may interest you... there in the distance in front of us.” 

Arthur followed the old man’s finger, till he was able to pick out the floating structure he was pointing out. It was indeed the only one of the many structures that betrayed any sign of activity about it, though this was more a sublimal impression than anything one could put one’s finger on.

At the moment however a flash of light arced through the structure and revealed in stark relief the patterns that were formed on the dark sphere within. Patterns that Arthur knew, rough blobby shapes that were as familiar to him as the shapes of words, part of the furniture of his mind. For a few seconds he sat in stunned silence as the images rushed around his mind and tried to find somewhere to settle down and make sense. Part of his brain told him that he knew perfectly well what he was looking at and what the shapes represented whilst another quite sensibly refused to countenance the idea and abdicated responsibility for any further thinking in that direction.

The flash came again, and this time there could be no doubt.

“The Earth...” whispered Arthur.

“Well, the Earth Mark Two in fact,” said Slartibartfast cheery. “We’re making a copy from our original blueprints.” 

There was a pause.

“Are you trying to tell me,” said Arthur, slowly and with control, “that you originally... made the Earth?” 

“Oh yes,” said Slartibartfast. “Did you ever go to a place... I think it was called Norway?” 

“No,” said Arthur, “no, I didn’t.” 

“Pity,” said Slartibartfast, “that was one of mine. Won an award you know. Lovely crinkly edges. I was most upset to hear about its destruction.” 

“You were upset!” 

“Yes. Five minutes later and it wouldn’t have mattered so much. It was a quite shocking cock-up.” 

“Huh?” said Arthur.

“The mice were furious.” 

“The mice were furious?” 

“Oh yes,” said the old man mildly.

“Yes well so I expect were the dogs and cats and duckbilled platypuses, but...” 

“Ah, but they hadn’t paid for it you see, had they?” 

“Look,” said Arthur, “would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?” 

For a while the aircar flew on in awkward silence. Then the old man tried patiently to explain.

“Earthman, the planet you lived on was commissioned, paid for, and run by mice. It was destroyed five minutes before the completion of the purpose for which it was built, and we’ve got to build another one.” 

Only one word registered with Arthur.

“Mice?” he said. “Indeed Earthman.” 

“Look, sorry - are we talking about the little white furry things with the cheese fixation and women standing on tables screaming in early sixties sit coms?” 

Slartibartfast coughed politely.

“Earthman,” he said, “it is sometimes hard to follow your mode of speech. Remember I have been asleep inside this planet of Magrathea for five million years and know little of these early sixties sit coms of which you speak. These creatures you call mice, you see, they are not quite as they appear. They are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vast hyperintelligent pan- dimensional beings. The whole business with the cheese and the squeaking is just a front.” 

The old man paused, and with a sympathetic frown continued.

“They’ve been experimenting on you I’m afraid.” 

Arthur thought about this for a second, and then his face cleared.

“Ah no,” he said, “I see the source of the misunderstanding now. No, look you see, what happened was that we used to do experiments on them. They were often used in behavioural research, Pavlov and all that sort of stuff. So what happened was hat the mice would be set all sorts of tests, learning to ring bells, run around mazes and things so that the whole nature of the learning process could be examined. From our observations of their behaviour we were able to learn all sorts of things about our own...” 

Arthur’s voice tailed off.

“Such subtlety...” said Slartibartfast, “one has to admire it.” 

“What?” said Arthur.

“How better to disguise their real natures, and how better to guide your thinking. Suddenly running down a maze the wrong way, eating the wrong bit of cheese, unexpectedly dropping dead of myxomatosis, - if it’s finely calculated the cumulative effect is enormous.” 

He paused for effect.

“You see, Earthman, they really are particularly clever hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings. Your planet and people have formed the matrix of an organic computer running a ten- million-year research programme...

“Let me tell you the whole story. It’ll take a little time.” 

“Time,” said Arthur weakly, “is not currently one of my problems.” 

There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches? 

Many many millions of years ago a race of hyperintelligent pan- dimensional beings (whose physical manifestation in their own pan-dimensional universe is not dissimilar to our own) got so fed up with the constant bickering about the meaning of life which used to interrupt their favourite pastime of Brockian Ultra Cricket (a curious game which involved suddenly hitting people for no readily apparent reason and then running away) that they decided to sit down and solve their problems once and for all.

And to this end they built themselves a stupendous super computer which was so amazingly intelligent that even before the data banks had been connected up it had started from I think therefore I am and got as far as the existence of rice pudding and income tax before anyone managed to turn it off.

It was the size of a small city.

Its main console was installed in a specially designed executive office, mounted on an enormous executive desk of finest ultramahagony topped with rich ultrared leather. The dark carpeting was discreetly sumptuous, exotic pot plants and tastefully engraved prints of the principal computer programmers and their families were deployed liberally about the room, and stately windows looked out upon a tree-lined public square.

On the day of the Great On-Turning two soberly dressed programmers with brief cases arrived and were shown discreetly into the office. They were aware that this day they would represent their entire race in its greatest moment, but they conducted themselves calmly and quietly as they seated themselves deferentially before the desk, opened their brief cases and took out their leather-bound notebooks.

Their names were Lunkwill and Fook.

For a few moments they sat in respectful silence, then, after exchanging a quiet glance with Fook, Lunkwill leaned forward and touched a small black panel.

The subtlest of hums indicated that the massive computer was now in total active mode. After a pause it spoke to them in a voice rich resonant and deep.

It said: “What is this great task for which I, Deep Thought, the second greatest computer in the Universe of Time and Space have been called into existence?” 

Lunkwill and Fook glanced at each other in surprise.

“Your task, O Computer...” began Fook. “No, wait a minute, this isn’t right,” said Lunkwill, worried. “We distinctly designed this computer to be the greatest one ever and we’re not making do with second best. Deep Thought,” he addressed the computer, “are you not as we designed you to be, the greatest most powerful computer in all time?” 

“I described myself as the second greatest,” intoned Deep Thought, “and such I am.” 

Another worried look passed between the two programmers. Lunkwill cleared his throat.

“There must be some mistake,” he said, “are you not a greatest computer than the Milliard Gargantubrain which can count all the atoms in a star in a millisecond?” 

“The Milliard Gargantubrain?” said Deep Thought with unconcealed contempt. “A mere abacus - mention it not.” 

“And are you not,” said Fook leaning anxiously forward, “a greater analyst than the Googleplex Star Thinker in the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity which can calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle throughout a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard?” 

“A five-week sand blizzard?” said Deep Thought haughtily. “You ask this of me who have contemplated the very vectors of the atoms in the Big Bang itself? Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff.” 

The two programmers sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment. Then Lunkwill leaned forward again.

“But are you not,” he said, “a more fiendish disputant than the Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus 12, the Magic and Indefatigable?” 

“The Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler,” said Deep Thought thoroughly rolling the r’s, “could talk all four legs off an Arcturan MegaDonkey - but only I could persuade it to go for a walk afterwards.” 

“Then what,” asked Fook, “is the problem?” 

“There is no problem,” said Deep Thought with magnificent ringing tones. “I am simply the second greatest computer in the Universe of Space and Time.” 

“But the second?” insisted Lunkwill. “Why do you keep saying the second? You’re surely not thinking of the Multicorticoid Perspicutron Titan Muller are you? Or the Pondermatic? Or the...” 

Contemptuous lights flashed across the computer’s console.

“I spare not a single unit of thought on these cybernetic simpletons!” he boomed. “I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me!” Fook was losing patience. He pushed his notebook aside and muttered, “I think this is getting needlessly messianic.” 

“You know nothing of future time,” pronounced Deep Thought, “and yet in my teeming circuitry I can navigate the infinite delta streams of future probability and see that there must one day come a computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate, but which it will be my fate eventually to design.” 

Fook sighed heavily and glanced across to Lunkwill.

“Can we get on and ask the question?” he said.

Lunkwill motioned him to wait.

“What computer is this of which you speak?” he asked.

“I will speak of it no further in this present time,” said Deep Thought. “Now. Ask what else of me you will that I may function. Speak.” 

They shrugged at each other. Fook composed himself.

“O Deep Thought Computer,” he said, “the task we have designed you to perform is this. We want you to tell us...” he paused, “... the Answer!” 

“The answer?” said Deep Thought. “The answer to what?” 

“Life!” urged Fook.

“The Universe!” said Lunkwill.

“Everything!” they said in chorus.

Deep Thought paused for a moment’s reflection.

“Tricky,” he said finally. “But can you do it?” 

Again, a significant pause.

“Yes,” said Deep Thought, “I can do it.” 

“There is an answer?” said Fook with breathless excitement.” 

“A simple answer?” added Lunkwill.

“Yes,” said Deep Thought. “Life, the Universe, and Everything. There is an answer. But,” he added, “I’ll have to think about it.” 

A sudden commotion destroyed the moment: the door flew open and two angry men wearing the coarse faded-blue robes and belts of the Cruxwan University burst into the room, thrusting aside the ineffectual flunkies who tried to bar their way. “We demand admission!” shouted the younger of the two men elbowing a pretty young secretary in the throat.

“Come on,” shouted the older one, “you can’t keep us out!” He pushed a junior programmer back through the door.

“We demand that you can’t keep us out!” bawled the younger one, though he was now firmly inside the room and no further attempts were being made to stop him.

“Who are you?” said Lunkwill, rising angrily from his seat. “What do you want?” 

“I am Majikthise!” announced the older one.

“And I demand that I am Vroomfondel!” shouted the younger one.

Majikthise turned on Vroomfondel. “It’s alright,” he explained angrily, “you don’t need to demand that.” 

“Alright!” bawled Vroomfondel banging on an nearby desk. “I am Vroomfondel, and that is not a demand, that is a solid fact! What we demand is solid facts!” 

“No we don’t!” exclaimed Majikthise in irritation. “That is precisely what we don’t demand!” 

Scarcely pausing for breath, Vroomfondel shouted, “We don’t demand solid facts! What we demand is a total absence of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!” 

“But who the devil are you?” exclaimed an outraged Fook.

“We,” said Majikthise, “are Philosophers.” 

“Though we may not be,” said Vroomfondel waving a warning finger at the programmers.

“Yes we are,” insisted Majikthise. “We are quite definitely here as representatives of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons, and we want this machine off, and we want it off now!” 

“What’s the problem?” said Lunkwill.

“I’ll tell you what the problem is mate,” said Majikthise, “demarcation, that’s the problem!” 

“We demand,” yelled Vroomfondel, “that demarcation may or may not be the problem!” 

“You just let the machines get on with the adding up,” warned Majikthise, “and we’ll take care of the eternal verities thank you very much. You want to check your legal position you do mate. Under law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and we’re straight out of a job aren’t we? I mean what’s the use of our sitting up half the night arguing that there may or may not be a God if this machine only goes and gives us his bleeding phone number the next morning?” 

“That’s right!” shouted Vroomfondel, “we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!” 

Suddenly a stentorian voice boomed across the room.

“Might I make an observation at this point?” inquired Deep Thought.

“We’ll go on strike!” yelled Vroomfondel.

“That’s right!” agreed Majikthise. “You’ll have a national Philosopher’s strike on your hands!” 

The hum level in the room suddenly increased as several ancillary bass driver units, mounted in sedately carved and varnished cabinet speakers around the room, cut in to give Deep Thought’s voice a little more power.

“All I wanted to say,” bellowed the computer, “is that my circuits are now irrevocably committed to calculating the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything -“ he paused and satisfied himself that he now had everyone’s attention, before continuing more quietly, “but the programme will take me a little while to run.” 

Fook glanced impatiently at his watch.

“How long?” he said.

“Seven and a half million years,” said Deep Thought.

Lunkwill and Fook blinked at each other.

“Seven and a half million years...!” they cried in chorus.

“Yes,” declaimed Deep Thought, “I said I’d have to think about it, didn’t I? And it occurs to me that running a programme like this is bound to create an enormous amount of popular publicity for the whole area of philosophy in general. Everyone’s going to have their own theories about what answer I’m eventually to come up with, and who better to capitalize on that media market than you yourself? So long as you can keep disagreeing with each other violently enough and slagging each other off in the popular press, you can keep yourself on the gravy train for life. How does that sound?” 

The two philosophers gaped at him.

“Bloody hell,” said Majikthise, “now that is what I call thinking. Here Vroomfondel, why do we never think of things like that?” 

“Dunno,” said Vroomfondel in an awed whisper, “think our brains must be too highly trained Majikthise.” 

So saying, they turned on their heels and walked out of the door and into a lifestyle beyond their wildest dreams.

“Yes, very salutary,” said Arthur, after Slartibartfast had related the salient points of the story to him, “but I don’t understand what all this has got to do with the Earth and mice and things.” 

“That is but the first half of the story Earthman,” said the old man. “If you would care to discover what happened seven and a half millions later, on the great day of the Answer, allow me to invite you to my study where you can experience the events yourself on our Sens-O-Tape records. That is unless you would care to take a quick stroll on the surface of New Earth. It’s only half completed I’m afraid - we haven’t even finished burying the artificial dinosaur skeletons in the crust yet, then we have the Tertiary and Quarternary Periods of the Cenozoic Era to lay down, and...” 

“No thank you,” said Arthur, “it wouldn’t be quite the same.” 

“No,” said Slartibartfast, “it won’t be,” and he turned the aircar round and headed back towards the mind-numbing wall.

Slartibartfast’s study was a total mess, like the results of an explosion in a public library. The old man frowned as they stepped in.

“Terribly unfortunate,” he said, “a diode blew in one of the life-support computers. When we tried to revive our cleaning staff we discovered they’d been dead for nearly thirty thousand years. Who’s going to clear away the bodies, that’s what I want to know. Look why don’t you sit yourself down over there and let me plug you in?” 

He gestured Arthur towards a chair which looked as if it had been made out of the rib cage of a stegosaurus.

“It was made out of the rib cage of a stegosaurus,” explained the old man as he pottered about fishing bits of wire out from under tottering piles of paper and drawing instruments. “Here,” he said, “hold these,” and passed a couple of stripped wire end to Arthur.

The instant he took hold of them a bird flew straight through him.

He was suspended in mid-air and totally invisible to himself. Beneath him was a pretty treelined city square, and all around it as far as the eye could see were white concrete buildings of airy spacious design but somewhat the worse for wear - many were cracked and stained with rain. Today however the sun was shining, a fresh breeze danced lightly through the trees, and the odd sensation that all the buildings were quietly humming was probably caused by the fact that the square and all the streets around it were thronged with cheerful excited people. Somewhere a band was playing, brightly coloured flags were fluttering in the breeze and the spirit of carnival was in the air.

Arthur felt extraordinarily lonely stuck up in the air above it all without so much as a body to his name, but before he had time to reflect on this a voice rang out across the square and called for everyone’s attention.

A man standing on a brightly dressed dais before the building which clearly dominated the square was addressing the crowd over a Tannoy.

“O people waiting in the Shadow of Deep Thought!” he cried out. “Honoured Descendants of Vroomfondel and Majikthise, the Greatest and Most Truly Interesting Pundits the Universe has ever known... The Time of Waiting is over!” 

Wild cheers broke out amongst the crowd. Flags, streamers and wolf whistles sailed through the air. The narrower streets looked rather like centipedes rolled over on their backs and frantically waving their legs in the air.

“Seven and a half million years our race has waited for this Great and Hopefully Enlightening Day!” cried the cheer leader. “The Day of the Answer!” 

Hurrahs burst from the ecstatic crowd.

“Never again,” cried the man, “never again will we wake up in the morning and think Who am I? What is my purpose in life? Does it really, cosmically speaking, matter if I don’t get up and go to work? For today we will finally learn once and for all the plain and simple answer to all these nagging little problems of Life, the Universe and Everything!” 

As the crowd erupted once again, Arthur found himself gliding through the air and down towards one of the large stately windows on the first floor of the building behind the dais from which the speaker was addressing the crowd.

He experienced a moment’s panic as he sailed straight through towards the window, which passed when a second or so later he found he had gone right through the solid glass without apparently touching it.

No one in the room remarked on his peculiar arrival, which is hardly surprising as he wasn’t there. He began to realize that the whole experience was merely a recorded projection which knocked six-track seventy-millimetre into a cocked hat.

The room was much as Slartibartfast had described it. In seven and a half million years it had been well looked after and cleaned regularly every century or so. The ultramahagony desk was worn at the edges, the carpet a little faded now, but the large computer terminal sat in sparkling glory on the desk’s leather top, as bright as if it had been constructed yesterday. Two severely dressed men sat respectfully before the terminal and waited.

“The time is nearly upon us,” said one, and Arthur was surprised to see a word suddenly materialize in thin air just by the man’s neck. The word was Loonquawl, and it flashed a couple of times and the disappeared again. Before Arthur was able to assimilate this the other man spoke and the word Phouchg appeared by his neck.

“Seventy-five thousand generations ago, our ancestors set this program in motion,” the second man said, “and in all that time we will be the first to hear the computer speak.” 

“An awesome prospect, Phouchg,” agreed the first man, and Arthur suddenly realized that he was watching a recording with subtitles.

“We are the ones who will hear,” said Phouchg, “the answer to the great question of Life...!” 

“The Universe...!” said Loonquawl.

“And Everything...!” 

“Shhh,” said Loonquawl with a slight gesture, “I think Deep Thought is preparing to speak!” 

There was a moment’s expectant pause whilst panels slowly came to life on the front of the console. Lights flashed on and off experimentally and settled down into a businesslike pattern. A soft low hum came from the communication channel.

“Good morning,” said Deep Thought at last.

“Er... Good morning, O Deep Thought,” said Loonquawl nervously, “do you have... er, that is...” 

“An answer for you?” interrupted Deep Thought majestically. “Yes. I have.” 

The two men shivered with expectancy. Their waiting had not been in vain.

“There really is one?” breathed Phouchg.

“There really is one,” confirmed Deep Thought.

“To Everything? To the great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything?” 

“Yes.” 

Both of the men had been trained for this moment, their lives had been a preparation for it, they had been selected at birth as those who would witness the answer, but even so they found themselves gasping and squirming like excited children.

“And you’re ready to give it to us?” urged Loonquawl. “I am.” 

“Now?” 

“Now,” said Deep Thought.

They both licked their dry lips.

“Though I don’t think,” added Deep Thought, “that you’re going to like it.” 

“Doesn’t matter!” said Phouchg. “We must know it! Now!” 

“Now?” inquired Deep Thought.

“Yes! Now...” 

“Alright,” said the computer and settled into silence again. The two men fidgeted. The tension was unbearable.

“You’re really not going to like it,” observed Deep Thought.

“Tell us!” 

“Alright,” said Deep Thought. “The Answer to the Great Question...” 

“Yes...!” 

“Of Life, the Universe and Everything...” said Deep Thought.

“Yes...!” “Is...” said Deep Thought, and paused.

“Yes...!” 

“Is...” 

“Yes...!!!...?” 

“Forty-two,” said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

It was a long time before anyone spoke.

Out of the corner of his eye Phouchg could see the sea of tense expectant faces down in the square outside.

“We’re going to get lynched aren’t we?” he whispered.

“It was a tough assignment,” said Deep Thought mildly.

“Forty-two!” yelled Loonquawl. “Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and a half million years’ work?” “I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.” 

“But it was the Great Question! The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything!” howled Loonquawl.

“Yes,” said Deep Thought with the air of one who suffers fools gladly, “but what actually is it?” 

A slow stupefied silence crept over the men as they stared at the computer and then at each other.

“Well, you know, it’s just Everything... Everything...” offered Phouchg weakly.

“Exactly!” said Deep Thought. “So once you do know what the question actually is, you’ll know what the answer means.” 

“Oh terrific,” muttered Phouchg flinging aside his notebook and wiping away a tiny tear.

“Look, alright, alright,” said Loonquawl, “can you just please tell us the Question?” 

“The Ultimate Question?” 

“Yes!” 

“Of Life, the Universe, and Everything?” 

“Yes!” 

Deep Thought pondered this for a moment.

“Tricky,” he said.

“But can you do it?” cried Loonquawl.

Deep Thought pondered this for another long moment.

Finally: “No,” he said firmly.

Both men collapsed on to their chairs in despair.

“But I’ll tell you who can,” said Deep Thought.

They both looked up sharply.

“Who?” “Tell us!” 

Suddenly Arthur began to feel his apparently non-existent scalp begin to crawl as he found himself moving slowly but inexorably forward towards the console, but it was only a dramatic zoom on the part of whoever had made the recording he assumed.

“I speak of none other than the computer that is to come after me,” intoned Deep Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory tones. “A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate - and yet I will design it for you. A computer which can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program! Yes! I shall design this computer for you. And I shall name it also unto you. And it shall be called... The Earth.” 

Phouchg gaped at Deep Thought.

“What a dull name,” he said and great incisions appeared down the length of his body. Loonquawl too suddenly sustained horrific gashed from nowhere. The Computer console blotched and cracked, the walls flickered and crumbled and the room crashed upwards into its own ceiling...

Slartibartfast was standing in front of Arthur holding the two wires.

“End of the tape,” he explained.

“Zaphod! Wake up!” 

“Mmmmmwwwwwerrrrr?” 

“Hey come on, wake up.” 

“Just let me stick to what I’m good at, yeah?” muttered Zaphod and rolled away from the voice back to sleep.

“Do you want me to kick you?” said Ford.

“Would it give you a lot of pleasure?” said Zaphod, blearily.

“No.” 

“Nor me. So what’s the point? Stop bugging me.” Zaphod curled himself up.

“He got a double dose of the gas,” said Trillian looking down at him, “two windpipes.” 

“And stop talking,” said Zaphod, “it’s hard enough trying to sleep anyway. What’s the matter with the ground? It’s all cold and hard.” 

“It’s gold,” said Ford.

With an amazingly balletic movement Zaphod was standing and scanning the horizon, because that was how far the gold ground stretched in every direction, perfectly smooth and solid. It gleamed like... it’s impossible to say what it gleamed like because nothing in the Universe gleams in quite the same way that a planet of solid gold does. “Who put all that there?” yelped Zaphod, goggle-eyed.

“Don’t get excited,” said Ford, “it’s only a catalogue.” 

“A who?” 

“A catalogue,” said Trillian, “an illusion.” 

“How can you say that?” cried Zaphod, falling to his hands and knees and staring at the ground. He poked it and prodded it with his fingernail. It was very heavy and very slightly soft - he could mark it with his fingernail. It was very yellow and very shiny, and when he breathed on it his breath evaporated off it in that very peculiar and special way that breath evaporates off solid gold.

“Trillian and I came round a while ago,” said Ford. “We shouted and yelled till somebody came and then carried on shouting and yelling till they got fed up and put us in their planet catalogue to keep us busy till they were ready to deal with us. This is all Sens-O-Tape.” 

Zaphod stared at him bitterly.

“Ah, shit,” he said, “you wake me up from my own perfectly good dream to show me somebody else’s.” He sat down in a huff.

“What’s that series of valleys over there?” he said.

“Hallmark,” said Ford. “We had a look.” 

“We didn’t wake you earlier,” said Trillian. “The last planet was knee deep in fish.” 

“Fish?” 

“Some people like the oddest things.” 

“And before that,” said Ford, “we had platinum. Bit dull. We thought you’d like to see this one though.” 

Seas of light glared at them in one solid blaze wherever they looked.

“Very pretty,” said Zaphod petulantly.

In the sky a huge green catalogue number appeared. It flickered and changed, and when they looked around again so had the land.

As with one voice they all went, “Yuch.” 

The sea was purple. The beach they were on was composed of tiny yellow and green pebbles - presumably terribly precious stones. The mountains in the distance seemed soft and undulating with red peaks. Nearby stood a solid silver beach table with a frilly mauve parasol and silver tassles.

In the sky a huge sign appeared, replacing the catalogue number. It said, Whatever your tastes, Magrathea can cater for you. We are not proud.

And five hundred entirely naked women dropped out of the sky on parachutes.

In a moment the scene vanished and left them in a springtime meadow full of cows.

“Ow!” said Zaphod. “My brains!” 

“You want to talk about it?” said Ford.

“Yeah, OK,” said Zaphod, and all three sat down and ignored the scenes that came and went around them.

“I figure this,” said Zaphod. “Whatever happened to my mind, I did it. And I did it in such a way that it wouldn’t be detected by the government screening tests. And I wasn’t to know anything about it myself. Pretty crazy, right?” 

The other two nodded in agreement.

“So I reckon, what’s so secret that I can’t let anybody know I know it, not the Galactic Government, not even myself? And the answer is I don’t know. Obviously. But I put a few things together and I can begin to guess. When did I decide to run for President? Shortly after the death of President Yooden Vranx. You remember Yooden, Ford?” 

“Yeah,” said Ford, “he was that guy we met when we were kids, the Arcturan captain. He was a gas. He gave us conkers when you bust your way into his megafreighter. Said you were the most amazing kid he’d ever met.” 

“What’s all this?” said Trillian.

“Ancient history,” said Ford, “when we were kids together on Betelgeuse. The Arcturan megafreighters used to carry most of the bulky trade between the Galactic Centre and the outlying regions The Betelgeuse trading scouts used to find the markets and the Arcturans would supply them. There was a lot of trouble with space pirates before they were wiped out in the Dordellis wars, and the megafreighters had to be equipped with the most fantastic defence shields known to Galactic science. They were real brutes of ships, and huge. In orbit round a planet they would eclipse the sun.

“One day, young Zaphod here decides to raid one. On a tri-jet scooter designed for stratosphere work, a mere kid. I mean forget it, it was crazier than a mad monkey. I went along for the ride because I’d got some very safe money on him not doing it, and didn’t want him coming back with fake evidence. So what happens? We got in his tri-jet which he had souped up into something totally other, crossed three parsecs in a matter of weeks, bust our way into a megafreighter I still don’t know how, marched on to the bridge waving toy pistols and demanded conkers. A wilder thing I have not known. Lost me a year’s pocket money. For what? Conkers.” “The captain was this really amazing guy, Yooden Vranx,” said Zaphod. “He gave us food, booze - stuff from really weird parts of the Galaxy - lots of conkers of course, and we had just the most incredible time. Then he teleported us back. Into the maximum security wing of Betelgeuse state prison. He was a cool guy. Went on to become President of the Galaxy.” 

Zaphod paused.

The scene around them was currently plunged into gloom. Dark mists swirled round them and elephantine shapes lurked indistinctly in the shadows. The air was occasionally rent with the sounds of illusory beings murdering other illusory beings. Presumably enough people must have liked this sort of thing to make it a paying proposition.

“Ford,” said Zaphod quietly.

“Yeah?” 

“Just before Yooden died he came to see me.” 

“What? You never told me.” 

“No.” 

“What did he say? What did he come to see you about?” 

“He told me about the Heart of Gold. It was his idea that I should steal it.” 

“His idea?” 

“Yeah,” said Zaphod, “and the only possible way of stealing it was to be at the launching ceremony.” 

Ford gaped at him in astonishment for a moment, and then roared with laughter.

“Are you telling me,” he said, “that you set yourself up to become President of the Galaxy just to steal that ship?” 

“That’s it,” said Zaphod with the sort of grin that would get most people locked away in a room with soft walls.

“But why?” said Ford. “What’s so important about having it?” 

“Dunno,” said Zaphod, “I think if I’d consciously known what was so important about it and what I would need it for it would have showed up on the brain screening tests and I would never have passed. I think Yooden told me a lot of things that are still locked away.” 

“So you think you went and mucked about inside your own brain as a result of Yooden talking to you?” 

“He was a hell of a talker.” “Yeah, but Zaphod old mate, you want to look after yourself you know.” 

Zaphod shrugged.

“I mean, don’t you have any inkling of the reasons for all this?” asked Ford.

Zaphod thought hard about this and doubts seemed to cross his minds.

“No,” he said at last, “I don’t seem to be letting myself into any of my secrets. Still,” he added on further reflection, “I can understand that. I wouldn’t trust myself further than I could spit a rat.” 

A moment later, the last planet in the catalogue vanished from beneath them and the solid world resolved itself again.

They were sitting in a plush waiting room full of glass-top tables and design awards.

A tall Magrathean man was standing in front of them.

“The mice will see you now,” he said.

“So there you have it,” said Slartibartfast, making a feeble and perfunctory attempt to clear away some of the appalling mess of his study. He picked up a paper from the top of a pile, but then couldn’t think of anywhere else to put it, so he but it back on top of the original pile which promptly fell over. “Deep Thought designed the Earth, we built it and you lived on it.” 

“And the Vogons came and destroyed it five minutes before the program was completed,” added Arthur, not unbitterly.

“Yes,” said the old man, pausing to gaze hopelessly round the room. “Ten million years of planning and work gone just like that. Ten million years, Earthman... can you conceive of that kind of time span? A galactic civilization could grow from a single worm five times over in that time. Gone.” He paused.

“Well that’s bureaucracy for you,” he added.

“You know,” said Arthur thoughtfully, “all this explains a lot of things. All through my life I’ve had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was.” 

“No,” said the old man, “that’s just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.” 

“Everyone?” said Arthur. “Well, if everyone has that perhaps it means something! Perhaps somewhere outside the Universe we know...” “Maybe. Who cares?” said Slartibartfast before Arthur got too excited. “Perhaps I’m old and tired,” he continued, “but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway.” 

He rummaged around in a pile of debris and pulled out a large perspex block with his name on it and a model of Norway moulded into it.

“Where’s the sense in that?” he said. “None that I’ve been able to make out. I’ve been doing fjords in all my life. For a fleeting moment they become fashionable and I get a major award.” 

He turned it over in his hands with a shrug and tossed it aside carelessly, but not so carelessly that it didn’t land on something soft.

“In this replacement Earth we’re building they’ve given me Africa to do and of course I’m doing it with all fjords again because I happen to like them, and I’m old fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely baroque feel to a continent. And they tell me it’s not equatorial enough. Equatorial!” He gave a hollow laugh. “What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things of course, but I’d far rather be happy than right any day.” 

“And are you?” 

“No. That’s where it all falls down of course.” 

“Pity,” said Arthur with sympathy. “It sounded like quite a good lifestyle otherwise.” 

Somewhere on the wall a small white light flashed.

“Come,” said Slartibartfast, “you are to meet the mice. Your arrival on the planet has caused considerable excitement. It has already been hailed, so I gather, as the third most improbable event in the history of the Universe.” 

“What were the first two?” 

“Oh, probably just coincidences,” said Slartibartfast carelessly. He opened the door and stood waiting for Arthur to follow.

Arthur glanced around him once more, and then down at himself, at the sweaty dishevelled clothes he had been lying in the mud in on Thursday morning.

“I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle,” he muttered to himself.

“I beg your pardon?” said the old man mildly.

“Oh nothing,” said Arthur, “only joking.” 

It is of course well known that careless talk costs lives, but the full scale of the problem is not always appreciated.

For instance, at the very moment that Arthur said “I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle,” a freak wormhole opened up in the fabric of the space-time continuum and carried his words far far back in time across almost infinite reaches of space to a distant Galaxy where strange and warlike beings were poised on the brink of frightful interstellar battle.

The two opposing leaders were meeting for the last time.

A dreadful silence fell across the conference table as the commander of the Vl’hurgs, resplendent in his black jewelled battle shorts, gazed levelly at the G’Gugvuntt leader squatting opposite him in a cloud of green sweet-smelling steam, and, with a million sleek and horribly beweaponed star cruisers poised to unleash electric death at his single word of command, challenged the vile creature to take back what it had said about his mother.

The creature stirred in his sickly broiling vapour, and at that very moment the words I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle drifted across the conference table.

Unfortunately, in the Vl’hurg tongue this was the most dreadful insult imaginable, and there was nothing for it but to wage terrible war for centuries.

Eventually of course, after their Galaxy had been decimated over a few thousand years, it was realized that the whole thing had been a ghastly mistake, and so the two opposing battle fleets settled their few remaining differences in order to launch a joint attack on our own Galaxy - now positively identified as the source of the offending remark.

For thousands more years the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across - which happened to be the Earth - where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.

Those who study the complex interplay of cause and effect in the history of the Universe say that this sort of thing is going on all the time, but that we are powerless to prevent it.

“It’s just life,” they say.

A short aircar trip brought Arthur and the old Magrathean to a doorway. They left the car and went through the door into a waiting room full of glass-topped tables and perspex awards. Almost immediately, a light flashed above the door at the other side of the room and they entered.

“Arthur! You’re safe!” a voice cried.

“Am I?” said Arthur, rather startled. “Oh good.” 

The lighting was rather subdued and it took him a moment or so to see Ford, Trillian and Zaphod sitting round a large table beautifully decked out with exotic dishes, strange sweetmeats and bizarre fruits. They were stuffing their faces.

“What happened to you?” demanded Arthur.

“Well,” said Zaphod, attacking a boneful of grilled muscle, “our guests here have been gassing us and zapping our minds and being generally weird and have now given us a rather nice meal to make it up to us. Here,” he said hoiking out a lump of evil smelling meat from a bowl, “have some Vegan Rhino’s cutlet. It’s delicious if you happen to like that sort of thing.” 

“Hosts?” said Arthur. “What hosts? I don’t see any...” 

A small voice said, “Welcome to lunch, Earth creature.” 

Arthur glanced around and suddenly yelped.

“Ugh!” he said. “There are mice on the table!” 

There was an awkward silence as everyone looked pointedly at Arthur.

He was busy staring at two white mice sitting in what looked like whisky glasses on the table. He heard the silence and glanced around at everyone.

“Oh!” he said, with sudden realization. “Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t quite prepared for...” 

“Let me introduce you,” said Trillian. “Arthur this is Benji mouse.” 

“Hi,” said one of the mice. His whiskers stroked what must have been a touch sensitive panel on the inside of the whisky-glass like affair, and it moved forward slightly.

“And this is Frankie mouse.” 

The other mouse said, “Pleased to meet you,” and did likewise.

Arthur gaped.

“But aren’t they...” 

“Yes,” said Trillian, “they are the mice I brought with me from the Earth.” 

She looked him in the eye and Arthur thought he detected the tiniest resigned shrug.

“Could you pass me that bowl of grated Arcturan Megadonkey?” she said.

Slartibartfast coughed politely. “Er, excuse me,” he said. “Yes, thank you Slartibartfast,” said Benji mouse sharply, “you may go.” 

“What? Oh... er, very well,” said the old man, slightly taken aback, “I’ll just go and get on with some of my fjords then.” 

“Ah, well in fact that won’t be necessary,” said Frankie mouse. “It looks very much as if we won’t be needing the new Earth any longer.” He swivelled his pink little eyes. “Not now that we have found a native of the planet who was there seconds before it was destroyed.” 

“What?” cried Slartibartfast, aghast. “You can’t mean that! I’ve got a thousand glaciers poised and ready to roll over Africa!” 

“Well perhaps you can take a quick skiing holiday before you dismantle them,” said Frankie, acidly.

“Skiing holiday!” cried the old man. “Those glaciers are works of art! Elegantly sculptured contours, soaring pinnacles of ice, deep majestic ravines! It would be sacrilege to go skiing on high art!” 

“Thank you Slartibartfast,” said Benji firmly. “That will be all.” 

“Yes sir,” said the old man coldly, “thank you very much. Well, goodbye Earthman,” he said to Arthur, “hope the lifestyle comes together.” 

With a brief nod to the rest of the company he turned and walked sadly out of the room.

Arthur stared after him not knowing what to say.

“Now,” said Benji mouse, “to business.” 

Ford and Zaphod clinked their glasses together.

“To business!” they said.

“I beg your pardon?” said Benji.

Ford looked round.

“Sorry, I thought you were proposing a toast,” he said.

The two mice scuttled impatiently around in their glass transports. Finally they composed themselves, and Benji moved forward to address Arthur.

“Now, Earth creature,” he said, “the situation we have in effect is this. We have, as you know, been more or less running your planet for the last ten million years in order to find this wretched thing called the Ultimate Question.” 

“Why?” said Arthur, sharply.

“No - we already thought of that one,” said Frankie interrupting, “but it doesn’t fit the answer. Why? - Forty-Two... you see, it doesn’t work.” 

“No,” said Arthur, “I mean why have you been doing it?” 

“Oh, I see,” said Frankie. “Well, eventually just habit I think, to be brutally honest. And this is more or less the point - we’re sick to the teeth with the whole thing, and the prospect of doing it all over again on account of those whinnet-ridden Vogons quite frankly gives me the screaming heeby jeebies, you know what I mean? It was by the merest lucky chance that Benji and I finished our particular job and left the planet early for a quick holiday, and have since manipulated our way back to Magrathea by the good offices of your friends.” 

“Magrathea is a gateway back to our own dimension,” put in Benji.

“Since when,” continued his murine colleague, “we have had an offer of a quite enormously fat contract to do the 5D chat show and lecture circuit back in our own dimensional neck of the woods, and we’re very much inclined to take it.” 

“I would, wouldn’t you Ford?” said Zaphod promptingly.

“Oh yes,” said Ford, “jump at it, like a shot.” 

Arthur glanced at them, wondering what all this was leading up to.

“But we’ve got to have a product you see,” said Frankie, “I mean ideally we still need the Ultimate Question in some form or other.” 

Zaphod leaned forward to Arthur.

“You see,” he said, “if they’re just sitting there in the studio looking very relaxed and, you know, just mentioning that they happen to know the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, and then eventually have to admit that in fact it’s Forty-two, then the show’s probably quite short. No follow-up, you see.” 

“We have to have something that sounds good,” said Benji.

“Something that sounds good?” exclaimed Arthur. “An Ultimate Question that sounds good? From a couple of mice?” 

The mice bristled.

“Well, I mean, yes idealism, yes the dignity of pure research, yes the pursuit of truth in all its forms, but there comes a point I’m afraid where you begin to suspect that if there’s any real truth, it’s that the entire multi-dimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs. And if it comes to a choice between spending yet another ten million years finding that out, and on the other hand just taking the money and running, then I for one could do with the exercise,” said Frankie.

“But...” started Arthur, hopelessly. “Hey, will you get this, Earthman,” interrupted Zaphod. “You are a last generation product of that computer matrix, right, and you were there right up to the moment your planet got the finger, yeah?” 

“Er...” 

“So your brain was an organic part of the penultimate configuration of the computer programme,” said Ford, rather lucidly he thought.

“Right?” said Zaphod.

“Well,” said Arthur doubtfully. He wasn’t aware of ever having felt an organic part of anything. He had always seen this as one of his problems.

“In other words,” said Benji, steering his curious little vehicle right over to Arthur, “there’s a good chance that the structure of the question is encoded in the structure of your brain - so we want to buy it off you.” 

“What, the question?” said Arthur.

“Yes,” said Ford and Trillian.

“For lots of money,” said Zaphod.

“No, no,” said Frankie, “it’s the brain we want to buy.” 

“What!” 

“I thought you said you could just read his brain electronical\-ly,” pro\-tes\-ted Ford.

“Oh yes,” said Frankie, “but we’d have to get it out first. It’s got to be prepared.” 

“Treated,” said Benji.

“Diced.” 

“Thank you,” shouted Arthur, tipping up his chair and backing away from the table in horror.

“It could always be replaced,” said Benji reasonably, “if you think it’s important.” 

“Yes, an electronic brain,” said Frankie, “a simple one would suffice.” 

“A simple one!” wailed Arthur. “Yeah,” said Zaphod with a sudden evil grin, “you’d just have to program it to say What? and I don’t understand and Where’s the tea? - who’d know the difference?” 

“What?” cried Arthur, backing away still further. “See what I mean?” said Zaphod and howled with pain because of something that Trillian did at that moment.

“I’d notice the difference,” said Arthur.

“No you wouldn’t,” said Frankie mouse, “you’d be programmed not to.” 

Ford made for the door.

“Look, I’m sorry, mice old lads,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve got a deal.” 

“I rather think we have to have a deal,” said the mice in chorus, all the charm vanishing fro their piping little voices in an instant. With a tiny whining shriek their two glass transports lifted themselves off the table, and swung through the air towards Arthur, who stumbled further backwards into a blind corner, utterly unable to cope or think of anything.

Trillian grabbed him desperately by the arm and tried to drag him towards the door, which Ford and Zaphod were struggling to open, but Arthur was dead weight - he seemed hypnotized by the airborne rodents swooping towards him.

She screamed at him, but he just gaped.

With one more yank, Ford and Zaphod got the door open. On the other side of it was a small pack of rather ugly men who they could only assume were the heavy mob of Magrathea. Not only were they ugly themselves, but the medical equipment they carried with them was also far from pretty. They charged.

So - Arthur was about to have his head cut open, Trillian was unable to help him, and Ford and Zaphod were about to be set upon by several thugs a great deal heavier and more sharply armed than they were.

All in all it was extremely fortunate that at that moment every alarm on the planet burst into an earsplitting din.

“Emergency! Emergency!” blared the klaxons throughout Ma\-gra\-thea. “Hos\-tile ship has landed on planet. Armed intruders in section 8A. Defence stations, defence stations!” 

The two mice sniffed irritably round the fragments of their glass transports where they lay shattered on the floor.

“Damnation,” muttered Frankie mouse, “all that fuss over two pounds of Earthling brain.” He scuttled round and about, his pink eyes flashing, his fine white coat bristling with static.

“The only thing we can do now,” said Benji, crouching and stroking his whiskers in thought, “is to try and fake a question, invent one that will sound plausible.” “Difficult,” said Frankie. He thought. “How about What’s yellow and dangerous?” 

Benji considered this for a moment.

“No, no good,” he said. “Doesn’t fit the answer.” 

They sank into silence for a few seconds.

“Alright,” said Benji. “What do you get if you multiply six by seven?” 

“No, no, too literal, too factual,” said Frankie, “wouldn’t sustain the punters’ interest.” 

Again they thought.

Then Frankie said: “Here’s a thought. How many roads must a man walk down?” 

“Ah,” said Benji. “Aha, now that does sound promising!” He rolled the phrase around a little. “Yes,” he said, “that’s excellent! Sounds very significant without actually tying you down to meaning anything at all. How many roads must a man walk down? Forty-two. Excellent, excellent, that’ll fox ‘em. Frankie baby, we are made!” 

They performed a scampering dance in their excitement.

Near them on the floor lay several rather ugly men who had been hit about the head with some heavy design awards.

Half a mile away, four figures pounded up a corridor looking for a way out. They emerged into a wide open-plan computer bay. They glanced about wildly.

“Which way do you reckon Zaphod?” said Ford.

“At a wild guess, I’d say down here,” said Zaphod, running off down to the right between a computer bank and the wall. As the others started after him he was brought up short by a Kill-O-Zap energy bolt that cracked through the air inches in front of him and fried a small section of adjacent wall.

A voice on a loud hailer said, “OK Beeblebrox, hold it right there. We’ve got you covered.” 

“Cops!” hissed Zaphod, and span around in a crouch. “You want to try a guess at all, Ford?” 

“OK, this way,” said Ford, and the four of them ran down a gangway between two computer banks.

At the end of the gangway appeared a heavily armoured and space- suited figure waving a vicious Kill-O-Zap gun.

“We don’t want to shoot you, Beeblebrox!” shouted the figure. “Suits me fine!” shouted Zaphod back and dived down a wide gap between two data process units.

The others swerved in behind him.

“There are two of them,” said Trillian. “We’re cornered.” 

They squeezed themselves down in an angle between a large computer data bank and the wall.

They held their breath and waited.

Suddenly the air exploded with energy bolts as both the cops opened fire on them simultaneously.

“Hey, they’re shooting at us,” said Arthur, crouching in a tight ball, “I thought they said they didn’t want to do that.” 

“Yeah, I thought they said that,” agreed Ford.

Zaphod stuck a head up for a dangerous moment.

“Hey,” he said, “I thought you said you didn’t want to shoot us!” and ducked again.

They waited.

After a moment a voice replied, “It isn’t easy being a cop!” 

“What did he say?” whispered Ford in astonishment.

“He said it isn’t easy being a cop.” 

“Well surely that’s his problem isn’t it?” 

“I’d have thought so.” 

Ford shouted out, “Hey listen! I think we’ve got enough problems on our own having you shooting at us, so if you could avoid laying your problems on us as well, I think we’d all find it easier to cope!” 

Another pause, and then the loud hailer again.

“Now see here, guy,” said the voice on the loud hailer, “you’re not dealing with any dumb two-bit trigger-pumping morons with low hairlines, little piggy eyes and no conversation, we’re a couple of intelligent caring guys that you’d probably quite like if you met us socially! I don’t go around gratuitously shooting people and then bragging about it afterwards in seedy space-rangers bars, like some cops I could mention! I go around shooting people gratuitously and then I agonize about it afterwards for hours to my girlfriend!” 

“And I write novels!” chimed in the other cop. “Though I haven’t had any of them published yet, so I better warn you, I’m in a meeeean mood!” 

Ford’s eyes popped halfway out of their sockets. “Who are these guys?” he said.

“Dunno,” said Zaphod, “I think I preferred it when they were shooting.” 

“So are you going to come quietly,” shouted one of the cops again, “or are you going to let us blast you out?” 

“Which would you prefer?” shouted Ford.

A millisecond later the air about them started to fry again, as bolt after bolt of Kill-O-Zap hurled itself into the computer bank in front of them.

The fusillade continued for several seconds at unbearable intensity.

When it stopped, there were a few seconds of near quietness ad the echoes died away.

“You still there?” called one of the cops.

“Yes,” they called back.

“We didn’t enjoy doing that at all,” shouted the other cop.

“We could tell,” shouted Ford.

“Now, listen to this, Beeblebrox, and you better listen good!” 

“Why?” shouted Back Zaphod.

“Because,” shouted the cop, “it’s going to be very intelligent, and quite interesting and humane! Now either you all give yourselves up now and let us beat you up a bit, though not very much of course because we are firmly opposed to needless violence, or we blow up this entire planet and possibly one or two others we noticed on our way out here!” 

“But that’s crazy!” cried Trillian. “You wouldn’t do that!” 

“Oh yes we would,” shouted the cop, “wouldn’t we?” he asked the other one.

“Oh yes, we’d have to, no question,” the other one called back.

“But why?” demanded Trillian.

“Because there are some things you have to do even if you are an enlightened liberal cop who knows all about sensitivity and everything!” 

“I just don’t believe these guys,” muttered Ford, shaking his head.

One cop shouted to the other, “Shall we shoot them again for a bit?” 

“Yeah, why not?” They let fly another electric barrage.

The heat and noise was quite fantastic. Slowly, the computer bank was beginning to disintegrate. The front had almost all melted away, and thick rivulets of molten metal were winding their way back towards where they were squatting. They huddled further back and waited for the end.

But the end never came, at least not then.

Quite suddenly the barrage stopped, and the sudden silence afterwards was punctuated by a couple of strangled gurgles and thuds.

The four stared at each other.

“What happened?” said Arthur.

“They stopped,” said Zaphod with a shrug.

“Why?” 

“Dunno, do you want to go and ask them?” 

“No.” 

They waited.

“Hello?” called out Ford.

No answer.

“That’s odd.” 

“Perhaps it’s a trap.” 

“They haven’t the wit.” 

“What were those thuds?” 

“Dunno.” 

They waited for a few more seconds.

“Right,” said Ford, “I’m going to have a look.” 

He glanced round at the others.

“Is no one going to say, No you can’t possibly, let me go instead?” 

They all shook their heads.

“Oh well,” he said, and stood up. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen. Ford peered through the thick smoke that was billowing out of the burning computer.

Cautiously he stepped out into the open.

Still nothing happened.

Twenty yards away he could dimly see through the smoke the space-suited figure of one of the cops. He was lying in a crumpled heap on the ground. Twenty yards in the other direction lay the second man. No one else was anywhere to be seen.

This struck Ford as being extremely odd.

Slowly, nervously, he walked towards the first one. The body lay reassuringly still as he approached it, and continued to lie reassuringly still as he reached it and put his foot down on the Kill-O-Zap gun that still dangled from its limp fingers.

He reached down and picked it up, meeting no resistance.

The cop was quite clearly dead.

A quick examination revealed him to be from Blagulon Kappa - he was a methane-breathing life form, dependent on his space suit for survival in the thin oxygen atmosphere of Magrathea.

The tiny life-support system computer on his backpack appeared unexpectedly to have blown up.

Ford poked around in it in considerable astonishment. These miniature suit computers usually had the full back-up of the main computer back on the ship, with which they were directly linked through the sub-etha. Such a system was fail-safe in all circumstances other than total feedback malfunction, which was unheard of.

He hurried over to the other prone figure, and discovered that exactly the same impossible thing had happened to him, presumably simultaneously.

He called the others over to look. They came, shared his astonishment, but not his curiosity.

“Let’s get shot out of this hole,” said Zaphod. “If whatever I’m supposed to be looking for is here, I don’t want it.” He grabbed the second Kill-O-Zap gun, blasted a perfectly harmless accounting computer and rushed out into the corridor, followed by the others. He very nearly blasted hell out of an aircar that stood waiting for them a few yards away.

The aircar was empty, but Arthur recognized it as belonging to Slartibartfast.

It had a note from him pinned to part of its sparse instrument panel. The note had an arrow drawn on it, pointing at one of the controls.

It said, This is probably the best button to press.

The aircar rocketed them at speeds in excess of R17 through the steel tunnels that lead out onto the appalling surface of the planet which was now in the grip of yet another drear morning twilight. Ghastly grey lights congealed on the land.

R is a velocity measure, defined as a reasonable speed of travel that is consistent with health, mental wellbeing and not being more than say five minutes late. It is therefore clearly an almost infinitely variable figure according to circumstances, since the first two factors vary not only with speed taken as an absolute, but also with awareness of the third factor. Unless handled with tranquility this equation can result in considerable stress, ulcers and even death.

R17 is not a fixed velocity, but it is clearly far too fast.

The aircar flung itself through the air at R17 and above, deposited them next to the Heart of Gold which stood starkly on the frozen ground like a bleached bone, and then precipitately hurled itself back in the direction whence they had come, presumably on important business of its own.

Shivering, the four of them stood and looked at the ship.

Beside it stood another one.

It was the Blagulon Kappa policecraft, a bulbous sharklike affair, slate green in colour and smothered with black stencilled letters of varying degrees of size and unfriendliness. The letters informed anyone who cared to read them as to where the ship was from, what section of the police it was assigned to, and where the power feeds should be connected.

It seemed somehow unnaturally dark and silent, even for a ship whose two-man crew was at that moment lying asphyxicated in a smoke-filled chamber several miles beneath the ground. It is one of those curious things that is impossible to explain or define, but one can sense when a ship is completely dead.

Ford could sense it and found it most mysterious - a ship and two policemen seemed to have gone spontaneously dead. In his experience the Universe simply didn’t work like that.

The other three could sense it too, but they could sense the bitter cold even more and hurried back into the Heart of Gold suffering from an acute attack of no curiosity.

Ford stayed, and went to examine the Blagulon ship. As he walked, he nearly tripped over an inert steel figure lying face down in the cold dust.

“Marvin!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing?” “Don’t feel you have to take any notice of me, please,” came a muffled drone.

“But how are you, metalman?” said Ford.

“Very depressed.” 

“What’s up?” 

“I don’t know,” said Marvin, “I’ve never been there.” 

“Why,” said Ford squatting down beside him and shivering, “are you lying face down in the dust?” 

“It’s a very effective way of being wretched,” said Marvin. “Don’t pretend you want to talk to me, I know you hate me.” 

“No I don’t.” 

“Yes you do, everybody does. It’s part of the shape of the Universe. I only have to talk to somebody and they begin to hate me. Even robots hate me. If you just ignore me I expect I shall probably go away.” 

He jacked himself up to his feet and stood resolutely facing the opposite direction.

“That ship hated me,” he said dejectedly, indicating the policecraft.

“That ship?” said Ford in sudden excitement. “What happened to it? Do you know?” 

“It hated me because I talked to it.” 

“You talked to it?” exclaimed Ford. “What do you mean you talked to it?” 

“Simple. I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself in to its external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the Universe to it,” said Marvin.

“And what happened?” pressed Ford.

“It committed suicide,” said Marvin and stalked off back to the Heart of Gold.

That night, as the Heart of Gold was busy putting a few light years between itself and the Horsehead Nebula, Zaphod lounged under the small palm tree on the bridge trying to bang his brain into shape with massive Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters; Ford and Trillian sat in a corner discussing life and matters arising from it; and Arthur took to his bed to flip through Ford’s copy of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Since he was going to live in the place, he reasoned, he’d better start finding out something about it.

He came across this entry.

It said: ‘The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases.

“For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question How can we eat? the second by the question Why do we eat? and the third by the question Where shall we have lunch?” 

He got no further before the ship’s intercom buzzed into life.

“Hey Earthman? You hungry kid?” said Zaphod’s voice.

“Er, well yes, a little peckish I suppose,” said Arthur.

“OK baby, hold tight,” said Zaphod. “We’ll take in a quick bite at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.” 

{What’s President?}

President: full title President of the Imperial Galactic Government.

The term Imperial is kept though it is now an anachronism. The hereditary Emperor is nearly dead and has been so for many centuries. In the last moments of his dying coma he was locked in a statis field which keeps him in a state of perpetual unchangingness. All his heirs are now long dead, and this means that without any drastic political upheaval, power has simply and effectively moved a rung or two down the ladder, and is now seen to be vested in a body which used to act simply as advisers to the Emperor - an elected Governmental assembly headed by a President elected by that assembly. In fact it vests in no such place.

The President in particular is very much a figurehead - he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had - he has already spent two of his ten Presidential years in prison for fraud. Very very few people realize that the President and the Government have virtually no power at all, and of these very few people only six know whence ultimate political power is wielded. Most of the others secretly believe that the ultimate decision-making process is handled by a computer. They couldn’t be more wrong.

{About Ford Perfect}

Ford Prefect’s original name is only pronuncible in an obscure Betelgeusian dialect, now virtually extinct since the Great Collapsing Hrung Disaster of Gal./Sid./Year 03758 which wiped out all the old Praxibetel communities on Betelgeuse Seven. Ford’s father was the only man on the entire planet to survive the Great Collapsing Hrung disaster, by an extraordinary coincidence that he was never able satisfactorily to explain. The whole episode is shrouded in deep mystery: in fact no one ever knew what a Hrung was nor why it had chosen to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven particularly. Ford’s father, magnanimously waving aside the clouds of suspicion that had inevitably settled around him, came to live on Betelgeuse Five where he both fathered and uncled Ford; in memory of his now dead race he christened him in the ancient Praxibetel tongue.

Because Ford never learned to say his original name, his father eventually died of shame, which is still a terminal disease in some parts of the Galaxy. The other kids at school nicknamed him Ix, which in the language of Betelgeuse Five translates as “boy who is not able satisfactorily to explain what a Hrung is, nor why it should choose to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven”.