Life, the Universe and Everything Read online

  She let him go and stood back.

  – I want you to do something for me, - she said, and unexpectedly laughed.

  – I want, - she said, and laughed again. She put her hand over her mouth and then said with a straight face, - I want you to take me to your leader, - and she pointed into the War Zones in the sky. She seemed somehow to know that their leader would be there.

  Her laughter seemed to discharge something in the atmosphere. From somewhere at the back of the crowd a single voice started to sing a tune which would have enabled Paul McCartney, had he written it, to buy the world.

  Chapter 30

  Zaphod Beeblebrox crawled bravely along a tunnel, like the hell of a guy he was. He was very confused, but continued crawling doggedly anyway because he was that brave.

  He was confused by something he had just seen, but not half as confused as he was going to be by something he was about to hear, so it would now be best to explain exactly where he was.

  He was in the Robot War Zones many miles above the surface of the planet Krikkit.

  The atmosphere was thin here and relatively unprotected from any rays or anything which space might care to hurl in his direction.

  He had parked the starship Heart of Gold amongst the huge jostling dim hulks that crowded the sky here above Krikkit, and had entered what appeared to be the biggest and most important of the sky buildings, armed with nothing but a Zap gun and something for his headaches.

  He had found himself in a long, wide and badly lit corridor in which he was able to hide until he worked out what he was going to do next. He hid because every now and then one of the Krikkit robots would walk along it, and although he had so far led some kind of charmed life at their hands, it had nevertheless been an extremely painful one, and he had no desire to stretch what he was only half-inclined to call his good fortune.

  He had ducked, at one point, into a room leading off the corridor, and had discovered it to be a huge and, again, dimly lit chamber.

  In fact, it was a museum with just one exhibit - the wreckage of a spacecraft. It was terribly burnt and mangled, and, now that he had caught up with some of the Galactic history he had missed through his failed attempts to have sex with the girl in the cybercubicle next to him at school, he was able to put in an intelligent guess that this was the wrecked spaceship which had drifted through the Dust Cloud all those billions of years ago and started the whole business off.

  But, and this is where he had become confused, there was something not at all right about it.

  It was genuinely wrecked. It was genuinely burnt, but a fairly brief inspection by an experienced eye revealed that it was not a genuine spacecraft. It was as if it was a full-scale model of one - a solid blueprint. In other words it was a very useful thing to have around if you suddenly decided to build a spaceship yourself and didn’t know how to do it. It was not, however, anything that would ever fly anywhere itself.

  He was still puzzling over this - in fact he’d only just started to puzzle over it - when he became aware that a door had slid open in another part of the chamber, and another couple of Krikkit robots had entered, looking a little glum.

  Zaphod did not want to tangle with them and, deciding that just as discretion was the better part of valour so was cowardice the better part of discretion, he valiantly hid himself in a cupboard.

  The cupboard in fact turned out to be the top part of a shaft which led down through an inspection hatch into a wide ventilation tunnel. He led himself down into it and started to crawl along it, which is where we found him.

  He didn’t like it. It was cold, dark and profoundly uncomfortable, and it frightened him. At the first opportunity - which was another shaft a hundred yards further along - he climbed back up out of it.

  This time he emerged into a smaller chamber, which appeared to be a computer intelligence centre. He emerged in a dark narrow space between a large computer bank and the wall.

  He quickly learned that he was not alone in the chamber and started to leave again, when he began to listen with interest to what the other occupants were saying.

  – It’s the robots, sir, - said one voice. - There’s something wrong with them.

  – What, exactly?

  These were the voices of two War Command Krikkiters. All the War Commanders lived up in the sky in the Robot War Zones, and were largely immune to the whimsical doubts and uncertainties which were afflicting their fellows down on the surface of the planet.

  – Well, sir I think it’s just as well that they are being phased out of the war effort, and that we are now going to detonate the supernova bomb. In the very short time since we were released from the envelope.

  – Get to the point.

  – The robots aren’t enjoying it, sir.

  – What?

  – The war, sir, it seems to be getting them down. There’s a certain world-weariness about them, or perhaps I should say Universe-weariness.

  – Well, that’s all right, they’re meant to be helping to destroy it.

  – Yes, well they’re finding it difficult, sir. They are afflicted with a certain lassitude. They’re just finding it hard to get behind the job. They lack oomph.

  – What are you trying to say?

  – Well, I think they’re very depressed about something, sir.

  – What on Krikkit are you talking about?

  – Well, in the few skirmishes they’ve had recently, it seems that they go into battle, raise their weapons to fire and suddenly think, why bother? What, cosmically speaking, is it all about? And they just seem to get a little tired and a little grim.

  – And then what do they do?

  – Er, quadratic equations mostly, sir. Fiendishly difficult ones by all accounts. And then they sulk.

  – Sulk?

  – Yes, sir.

  – Whoever heard of a robot sulking?

  – I don’t know, sir.

  – What was that noise?

  It was the noise of Zaphod leaving with his head spinning.

  Chapter 31

  In a deep well of darkness a crippled robot sat. It had been silent in its metallic darkness for some time. It was cold and damp, but being a robot it was supposed not to be able to notice these things. With an enormous effort of will, however, it did manage to notice them.

  Its brain had been harnessed to the central intelligence core of the Krikkit War Computer. It wasn’t enjoying the experience, and neither was the central intelligence core of the Krikkit War Computer.

  The Krikkit robots which had salvaged this pathetic metal creature from the swamps of Squornshellous Zeta had recognized almost immediately its gigantic intelligence, and the use which this could be to them.

  They hadn’t reckoned with the attendant personality disorders, which the coldness, the darkness, the dampness, the crampedness and the loneliness were doing nothing to decrease.

  It was not happy with its task.

  Apart from anything else, the mere coordination of an entire planet’s military strategy was taking up only a tiny part of its formidable mind, and the rest of it had become extremely bored. Having solved all the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe except his own, three times over, he was severely stuck for something to do, and had taken up composing short dolorous ditties of no tone, or indeed tune. The latest one was a lullaby.

  Marvin droned:

  Now the world has gone to bed,

  Darkness won’t engulf my head,

  I can see by infra-red,

  How I hate the night.

  He paused to gather the artistic and emotional strength to tackle the next verse.

  Now I lay me down to sleep,

  Try to count electric sheep,

  Sweet dream wishes you can keep,

  How I hate the night.

  – Marvin! - hissed a voice.

  His head snapped up, almost dislodging the intricate network of elec
trodes which connected him to the central Krikkit War Computer.

  An inspection hatch had opened and one of a pair of unruly heads was peering through whilst the other kept on jogging it by continually darting to look this way and that extremely nervously.

  – Oh, it’s you, - muttered the robot. - I might have known.

  – Hey, kid, - said Zaphod in astonishment, - was that you singing just then?

  – I am, - Marvin acknowledged bitterly, - in particularly scintillating form at the moment.

  Zaphod poked his head in through the hatchway and looked around.

  – Are you alone? - he said.

  – Yes, - said Marvin. - Wearily I sit here, pain and misery my only companions. And vast intelligence of course. And infinite sorrow. And…

  – Yeah, - said Zaphod. - Hey, what’s your connection with all this?

  – This, - said Marvin, indicating with his less damaged arm all the electrodes which connected him with the Krikkit computer.

  – Then, - said Zaphod awkwardly, - I guess you must have saved my life. Twice.

  – Three times, - said Marvin.

  Zaphod’s head snapped round (his other one was looking hawkishly in entirely the wrong direction) just in time to see the lethal killer robot directly behind him seize up and start to smoke. It staggered backwards and slumped against a wall. It slid down it. It slipped sideways, threw its head back and started to sob inconsolably.

  Zaphod looked back at Marvin.

  – You must have a terrific outlook on life, - he said.

  – Just don’t even ask, - said Marvin.

  – I won’t, - said Zaphod, and didn’t. - Hey look, - he added, - you’re doing a terrific job.

  – Which means, I suppose, - said Marvin, requiring only one ten thousand million billion trillion grillionth part of his mental powers to make this particular logical leap, - that you’re not going to release me or anything like that.

  – Kid, you know I’d love to.

  – But you’re not going to.

  – No.

  – I see.

  – You’re working well.

  – Yes, - said Marvin. - Why stop now just when I’m hating it?

  – I got to find Trillian and the guys. Hey, you any idea where they are? I mean, I just got a planet to choose from. Could take a while.

  – They are very close, - said Marvin dolefully. - You can monitor them from here if you like.

  – I better go get them, - asserted Zaphod. - Er, maybe they need some help, right?

  – Maybe, - said Marvin with unexpected authority in his lugubrious voice, - it would be better if you monitored them from here. That young girl, - he added unexpectedly, - is one of the least benightedly unintelligent life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.

  Zaphod took a moment or two to find his way through this labyrinthine string of negatives and emerged at the other end with surprise.

  – Trillian? - he said. - She’s just a kid. Cute, yeah, but temperamental. You know how it is with women. Or perhaps you don’t. I assume you don’t. If you do I don’t want to hear about it. Plug us in.

  –…totally manipulated.

  – What? - said Zaphod.

  It was Trillian speaking. He turned round.

  The wall against which the Krikkit robot was sobbing had lit up to reveal a scene taking place in some other unknown part of the Krikkit Robot War zones. It seemed to be a council chamber of some kind - Zaphod couldn’t make it out too clearly because of the robot slumped against the screen.

  He tried to move the robot, but it was heavy with its grief and tried to bite him, so he just looked around as best he could.

  – Just think about it, - said Trillian’s voice, - your history is just a series of freakishly improbable events. And I know an improbable event when I see one. Your complete isolation from the Galaxy was freakish for a start. Right out on the very edge with a Dust Cloud around you. It’s a set-up. Obviously.

  Zaphod was mad with frustration because he couldn’t see the screen. The robot’s head was obscuring his view of the people Trillian as talking to, his multi-functional battleclub was obscuring the background, and the elbow of the arm it had pressed tragically against its brow was obscuring Trillian herself.

  – Then, - said Trillian, - this spaceship that crash-landed on your planet. That’s really likely, isn’t it? Have you any idea of what the odds are against a drifting spaceship accidentally intersecting with the orbit of a planet?

  – Hey, - said Zaphod, - she doesn’t know what the zark she’s talking about. I’ve seen that spaceship. It’s a fake. No deal.

  – I thought it might be, - said Marvin from his prison behind Zaphod.

  – Oh yeah, - said Zaphod. - It’s easy for you to say that. I just told you. Anyway, I don’t see what it’s got to do with anything.

  – And especially, - continued Trillian, - the odds against it intersecting with the orbit of the one planet in the Galaxy, or the whole of the Universe as far as I know, that would be totally traumatized to see it. You don’t know what the odds are? Nor do I, they’re that big. Again, it’s a set-up. I wouldn’t be surprised if that spaceship was just a fake.

  Zaphod managed to move the robot’s battleclub. Behind it on the screen were the figures of Ford, Arthur and Slartibartfast who appeared astonished and bewildered by the whole thing.

  – Hey, look, - said Zaphod excitedly. - The guys are doing great. Ra ra ra! Go get ‘em, guys.

  – And what about, - said Trillian, - all this technology you suddenly managed to build for yourselves almost overnight? Most people would take thousands of years to do all that. Someone was feeding you what you needed to know, someone was keeping you at it.

  – I know, I know, - she added in response to an unseen interruption, - I know you didn’t realize it was going on. This is exactly my point. You never realized anything at all. Like this Supernova Bomb.

  – How do you know about that? - said an unseen voice.

  – I just know, - said Trillian. - You expect me to believe that you are bright enough to invent something that brilliant and be too dumb to realize it would take you with it as well? That’s not just stupid, that is spectacularly obtuse.

  – Hey, what’s this bomb thing? - said Zaphod in alarm to Marvin.

  – The supernova bomb? - said Marvin. - It’s a very, very small bomb.

  – Yeah?

  – That would destroy the Universe in toto, - added Marvin. - Good idea, if you ask me. They won’t get it to work, though.

  – Why not, if it’s so brilliant?

  – It’s brilliant, - said Marvin, - they’re not. They got as far as designing it before they were locked in the envelope. They’ve spent the last five years building it. They think they’ve got it right but they haven’t. They’re as stupid as any other organic life form. I hate them.

  Trillian was continuing.

  Zaphod tried to pull the Krikkit robot away by its leg, but it kicked and growled at him, and then quaked with a fresh outburst of sobbing. Then suddenly it slumped over and continued to express its feelings out of everybody’s way on the floor.

  Trillian was standing alone in the middle of the chamber tired out but with fiercely burning eyes.

  Ranged in front of her were the pale-faced and wrinkled Elder Masters of Krikkit, motionless behind their widely curved control desk, staring at her with helpless fear and hatred.

  In front of them, equidistant between their control desk and the middle of the chamber, where Trillian stood, as if on trial, was a slim white pillar about four feet tall. On top of it stood a small white globe, about three, maybe four inches in diameter.

  Beside it stood a Krikkit robot with its multi-functional battleclub.

  – In fact, - explained Trillian, - you are so dumb stupid - (She was sweating. Zaphod felt that this was an unattractive thing for her to be doing at this point) - you are all so dumb stupid that I doubt, I very much doubt, that you’ve been a
ble to build the bomb properly without any help from Hactar for the last five years.

  – Who’s this guy Hactar? - said Zaphod, squaring his shoulders.

  If Marvin replied, Zaphod didn’t hear him. All his attention was concentrated on the screen.

  One of the Elders of Krikkit made a small motion with his hand towards the Krikkit robot. The robot raised his club.

  – There’s nothing I can do, - said Marvin. - It’s on an independent circuit from the others.

  – Wait, - said Trillian.

  The Elder made a small motion. The robot halted. Trillian suddenly seemed very doubtful of her own judgment.

  – How do you know all this? - said Zaphod to Marvin at this point.

  – Computer records, - said Marvin. - I have access.

  – You’re very different, aren’t you, - said Trillian to the Elder Masters, - from your fellow worldlings down on the ground. You’ve spent all your lives up here, unprotected by the atmosphere. You’ve been very vulnerable. The rest of your race is very frightened, you know, they don’t want you to do this. You’re out of touch, why don’t you check up?

  The Krikkit Elder grew impatient. He made a gesture to the robot which was precisely the opposite of the gesture he had last made to it.

  The robot swung its battleclub. It hit the small white globe.

  The small white globe was the supernova bomb.

  It was a very, very small bomb which was designed to bring the entire Universe to an end.

  The supernova bomb flew through the air. It hit the back wall of the council chamber and dented it very badly.

  – So how does she know all this? - said Zaphod.

  Marvin kept a sullen silence.

  – Probably just bluffing, - said Zaphod. - Poor kid, I should never have left her alone.

  Chapter 32

  – Hactar! - called Trillian. - What are you up to?

  There was no reply from the enclosing darkness. Trillian waited, nervously. She was sure that she couldn’t be wrong. She peered into the gloom from which she had been expecting some kind of response. But there was only cold silence.