Volume 2 - The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe Read online

  “Hey, Earthman,” said Zaphod with a malicious grin on the face that wasn’t stuffing itself, “what’s eating you?”

  And the band played on.

  All around the Restaurant people and things relaxed and chatted. The air was filled with talk of this and that, and with the mingled scents of exotic plants, extravagant foods and insidious wines. For an infinite number of miles in every direction the universal cataclysm was gathering to a stupefying climax. Glancing at his watch, Max returned to the stage with a flourish.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen,” he beamed, “is everyone having one last wonderful time?”

  “Yes,” called out the sort of people who call out “yes” when comedians ask them if they’re having a wonderful time.

  “That’s wonderful,” enthused Max, “absolutely wonderful. And as the photon storms gather in swirling crowds around us, preparing to tear apart the last of the red hot suns, I know you’re all going to settle back and enjoy with me what I know we will all find an immensely exciting and terminal experience.”

  He paused. He caught the audience with a glittering eye.

  “Believe me, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “there is nothing penultimate about this one.”

  He paused again. Tonight his timing was immaculate. Time after time he had done this show, night after night. Not that the word night had any meaning here at the extremity of time. All there was was the endless repetition of the final moment, as the Restaurant rocked slowly forward over the brink of time’s farthest edge—and back again. This “night” was good though, the audience was writhing in the palm of his sickly hand. His voice dropped. They had to strain to hear him.

  “This,” he said, “really is the absolute end, the final chilling desolation, in which the whole majestic sweep of creation becomes extinct. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the proverbial ‘it.’ ”

  He dropped his voice still lower. In the stillness, a fly would not have dared clear its throat.

  “After this,” he said, “there is nothing. Void. Emptiness. Oblivion. Absolute nothing.…”

  His eyes glittered again—or did they twinkle?

  “Nothing … except, of course, for the desserts and a fine selection of Aldebaran liqueurs!”

  The band gave him a music sting. He wished they wouldn’t, he didn’t need it, not an artist of his caliber. He could play the audience like his own musical instrument. They were laughing with relief. He followed on.

  “And for once,” he cried cheerily, “you don’t need to worry about having a hangover in the morning—because there won’t be any more mornings!”

  He beamed at his happy, laughing audience. He glanced up at the sky, going through the same death routine every night, but his glance was only for a fraction of a second. He trusted it to do its job, as one professional trusts another.

  “And now,” he said, strutting about the stage, “at the risk of putting a damper on the wonderful sense of doom and futility here this evening, I would like to welcome a few parties.”

  He pulled a card from his pocket.

  “Do we have”—he put up a hand to hold back the cheers—“Do we have a party here from the Zansellquasure Flamarion Bridge Club from beyond the Vortvoid of Qvarne? Are they here?”

  A rousing cheer came from the back, but he pretended not to hear. He peered around trying to find them.

  “Are they here?” he asked again, to elicit a louder cheer.

  He got it, as he always did.

  “Ah, there they are. Well, last bids, lads—and no cheating, remember this is a very solemn moment.”

  He lapped up the laughter.

  “And do we also have, do we have … a party of minor deities from the Halls of Asgard?”

  Away to his right came a rumble of thunder. Lightning arced across the stage. A small group of hairy men with helmets sat looking very pleased with themselves, and raised their glasses to him.

  Has-beens, he thought to himself.

  “Careful with that hammer, sir,” he said.

  They did their trick with the lightning again. Max gave them a very thin-lipped smile.

  “And thirdly,” he said, “thirdly a party of Young Conservatives from Sirius B, are they here?”

  A party of smartly dressed young dogs stopped throwing rolls at each other and started throwing rolls at the stage. They yapped and barked unintelligibly.

  “Yes,” said Max, “well, this is all your fault, you realize that?”

  “And finally,” said Max, quieting the audience down and putting on his solemn face, “finally I believe we have with us here tonight, a party of believers, very devout believers, from the Church of the Second Coming of the Great Prophet Zarquon.”

  There were about twenty of them, sitting right out on the edge of the floor, ascetically dressed, sipping mineral water nervously and staying apart from the festivities. They blinked resentfully as the spotlight was turned on them.

  “There they are,” said Max, “sitting there, patiently. He said he’d come again, and he’s kept you waiting a long time, so let’s hope he’s hurrying fellas, because he’s only got eight minutes left!”

  The party of Zarquon’s followers sat rigid, refusing to be buffeted by the waves of uncharitable laughter which swept over them.

  Max restrained his audience.

  “No, but seriously though, folks, seriously though, no offense meant. No, I know we shouldn’t make fun of deeply held beliefs, so I think a big hand please for the Great Prophet Zarquon …”

  The audience clapped respectfully.

  “ … wherever he’s gone to!”

  He blew a kiss to the stony-faced party and returned to the center of the stage.

  He grabbed a tall stool and sat on it.

  “It’s marvelous though,” he rattled on, “to see so many of you here tonight—no, isn’t it though? Yes, absolutely marvelous. Because I know that so many of you come here time and time again, which I think is really wonderful, to come and watch this final end of everything, and then return home to your own eras … and raise families, strive for new and better societies, fight terrible wars for what you know to be right.… It really gives one hope for the future of all lifekind. Except of course”—he waved at the blitzing turmoil above and around them—“that we know it hasn’t got one.…”

  Arthur turned to Ford—he hadn’t quite got this place worked out in his mind.

  “Look, surely,” he said, “if the Universe is about to end … don’t we go with it?”

  Ford gave him a three-Pan-Galactic-Gargle-Blaster look, in other words a rather unsteady one.

  “No,” he said, “look,” he said, “as soon as you come into this dive you get held in this sort of amazing force-shielded temporal warp thing. I think.”

  “Oh,” said Arthur. He turned his attention back to a bowl of soup he’d managed to get from the waiter to replace his steak.

  “Look,” said Ford. “I’ll show you.”

  He grabbed at a napkin off the table and fumbled hopelessly with it.

  “Look,” he said again, “imagine this napkin, right, as the temporal Universe, right? And this spoon as a transductional mode in the matter curve …”

  It took him a while to say this last part, and Arthur hated to interrupt him.

  “That’s the spoon I was eating with,” he said.

  “All right,” said Ford, “imagine this spoon”—he found a small wooden spoon on a tray of relishes—“this spoon”—but found it rather tricky to pick up—“no, better still this fork.…”

  “Hey, would you let go of my fork?” snapped Zaphod.

  “All right,” said Ford, “all right, all right. Why don’t we say … why don’t we say that this wineglass is the temporal Universe.…”

  “What, the one you’ve just knocked on the floor?”

  “Did I do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right,” said Ford, “forget that. I mean … I mean, look, do you know—do you know how the Universe a
ctually began for a kick off?”

  “Probably not,” said Arthur, who wished he’d never embarked on any of this.

  “All right,” said Ford, “imagine this. Right. You get this bath. Right. A large round bath. And it’s made of ebony.”

  “Where from?” said Arthur. “Harrods was destroyed by the Vogons.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  “Listen.”

  “All right.”

  “You get this bath, see? Imagine you’ve got this bath. And it’s ebony. And it’s conical.”

  “Conical?” said Arthur. “What sort of …”

  “Shhh!” said Ford. “It’s conical. So what you do is, you see, you fill it with fine white sand, all right? Or sugar. Fine white sand, and/or sugar. Anything. Doesn’t matter. Sugar’s fine. And when it’s full, you pull the plug out … are you listening?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You pull the plug out, and it all just twirls away, twirls away you see, out of the plughole.”

  “I see.”

  “You don’t see. You don’t see at all. I haven’t got to the clever bit yet. You want to hear the clever bit?”

  “Tell me the clever bit.”

  “I’ll tell you the clever bit.”

  Ford thought for a moment, trying to remember what the clever bit was.

  “The clever bit,” he said, “is this. You film it happening.”

  “Clever,” agreed Arthur.

  “You get a movie camera, and you film it happening.”

  “Clever.”

  “That’s not the clever bit. This is the clever bit, I remember now that this is the clever bit. The clever bit is that you then thread the film in the projector … backward!”

  “Backward?”

  “Yes. Threading it backward is definitely the clever bit. So then, you just sit and watch it, and everything just appears to spiral upward out of the plughole and fill the bath. See?”

  “And that’s how the Universe began, is it?” said Arthur.

  “No,” said Ford, “but it’s a marvelous way to relax.”

  He reached for his wineglass.

  “Where’s my wineglass?” he said.

  “It’s on the floor.”

  “Ah.”

  Tipping back his chair to look for it, Ford collided with the small green waiter who was approaching the table carrying a portable telephone.

  Ford excused himself to the waiter explaining that it was because he was extemely drunk.

  The waiter said that that was quite all right and that he perfectly understood.

  Ford thanked the waiter for his kind indulgence, attempted to tug his forelock, missed by six inches and slid under the table.

  “Mr. Zaphod Beeblebrox?” inquired the waiter.

  “Er, yeah?” said Zaphod, glancing up from his third steak.

  “There is a phone call for you.”

  “Hey, what?”

  “A phone call, sir.”

  “For me? Here? Hey, but who knows where I am?”

  One of his minds raced. The other dawdled lovingly over the food it was still shoveling in.

  “Excuse me if I carry on, won’t you?” said his eating head and carried on.

  There were now so many people after him he’d lost count. He shouldn’t have made such a conspicuous entrance. Hell, why not though, he thought. How do you know you’re having fun if there’s no one watching you have it?

  “Maybe somebody here tipped off the Galactic Police,” said Trillian. “Everyone saw you come in.”

  “You mean they want to arrest me over the phone?” said Zaphod. “Could be. I’m a pretty dangerous dude when I’m cornered.”

  “Yeah,” said the voice from under the table, “you go to pieces so fast people get hit by the shrapnel.”

  “Hey, what is this, Judgment Day?” snapped Zaphod.

  “Do we get to see that as well?” asked Arthur nervously.

  “I’m in no hurry,” muttered Zaphod. “Okay, so who’s the cat on the phone?” He kicked Ford. “Hey, get up there, kid,” he said to him. “I may need you.”

  “I am not,” said the waiter, “personally acquainted with the metal gentleman in question, sir.…”

  “Metal?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you say metal?”

  “Yes, sir. I said that I am not personally acquainted with the metal gentleman in question.…”

  “Okay, carry on.”

  “But I am informed that he has been awaiting your return for a considerable number of millennia. It seems you left here somewhat precipitately.”

  “Left here?” said Zaphod. “Are you being strange? We only just arrived here.”

  “Indeed, sir,” persisted the waiter doggedly, “but before you arrived here, sir, I understand that you left here.”

  Zaphod tried this in one brain, then in the other.

  “You’re saying,” he said, “that before we arrived here, we left here?”

  This is going to be a long night, thought the waiter.

  “Precisely, sir,” he said.

  “Put your analyst on danger money, baby,” advised Zaphod.

  “No, wait a minute,” said Ford, emerging above table level again, “where exactly is here?”

  “To be absolutely exact, sir, it is Frogstar World B.”

  “But we just left there,” protested Zaphod. “We left there and came to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the waiter, feeling that he was now into the home stretch and running well, “the one was constructed on the ruins of the other.”

  “Oh,” said Arthur brightly, “you mean we’ve traveled in time but not in space.”

  “Listen, you semievolved simian,” cut in Zaphod, “go climb a tree will you?”

  Arthur bristled.

  “Go bang your heads together, four-eyes,” he advised Zaphod.

  “No, no,” the waiter said to Zaphod, “your monkey has got it right, sir.”

  Arthur stuttered in fury and said nothing apposite, or indeed coherent.

  “You jumped forward … I believe five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years while staying in exactly the same place,” explained the waiter. He smiled. He had a wonderful feeling that he had finally won though against what had seemed to be insuperable odds.

  “That’s it!” said Zaphod. “I got it. I told the computer to send us to the nearest place to eat, that’s exactly what it did. Give or take five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years or whatever, we never moved. Neat.”

  They all agreed this was very neat.

  “But who,” said Zaphod, “is the cat on the phone?”

  “Whatever happened to Marvin?” said Trillian.

  Zaphod clapped his hands to his heads.

  “The Paranoid Android! I left him moping about on Frogstar World B.”

  “When was this?”

  “Well, er, five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years ago I suppose,” said Zaphod. “Hey, er, hand me the raprod, Plate Captain.”

  The little waiter’s eyebrows wandered about his forehead in confusion.

  “I beg your pardon, sir?” he said.

  “The phone, waiter,” said Zaphod, grabbing it off him. “Shee, you guys are so unhip it’s a wonder your bums don’t fall off.”

  “Indeed, sir.”

  “Hey, Marvin, is that you?” said Zaphod into the phone. “How you doing, kid?”

  There was a long pause before a thin low voice came up the line.

  Zaphod cupped his hand over the phone.

  “It’s Marvin,” he said.

  “Hey, Marvin,” he said into the phone again, “we’re having a great time. Food, wine, a little personal abuse and the Universe going foom. Where can we find you?”

  Again the pause.

  “You don’t have to pretend to be interested in me you know,” said Marvin at last. “I know perfectly well I’m only a menial robot.�
��

  “Okay, okay,” said Zaphod, “but where are you?”

  “ ‘Reverse primary thrust, Marvin,’ that’s what they say to me, ‘open airlock number three, Marvin. Marvin, can you pick up that piece of paper?’ Can I pick up that piece of paper! Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to …”

  “Yeah, yeah,” sympathized Zaphod hardly at all.

  “But I’m quite used to being humiliated,” droned Marvin, “I can even go and stick my head in a bucket of water if you like. Would you like me to go and stick my head in a bucket of water? I’ve got one ready. Wait a minute.”

  “Er, hey, Marvin …” interrupted Zaphod, but it was too late. Sad little clunks and gurgles came up the line.

  “What’s he saying?” asked Trillian.

  “Nothing,” said Zaphod, “he just phoned up to wash his head at us.”

  “There,” said Marvin, coming back on the line and bubbling a bit, “I hope that gave satisfaction.…”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Zaphod, “now will you please tell us where you are?”

  “I’m in the parking lot,” said Marvin.

  “The parking lot?” said Zaphod. “What are you doing there?”

  “Parking cars, what else does one do/in a parking lot?”

  “Okay, hang in there, we’ll be right down.”

  In one movement Zaphod leaped to his feet, threw down the phone and wrote “Hotblack Desiato” on the bill.

  “Come on, guys,” he said, “Marvin’s in the parking lot. Let’s get on down.”

  “What’s he doing in the parking lot?” asked Arthur.

  “Parking cars, what else? Dum dum.”

  “But what about the End of the Universe? We’ll miss the big moment.”

  “I’ve seen it. It’s rubbish,” said Zaphod, “nothing but a gnab gib.”

  “A what?”

  “Opposite of a big bang. Come on, let’s get zappy.”

  Few of the other diners paid them any attention as they weaved their way through the Restaurant to the exit. Their eyes were riveted on the horror of the skies.

  “An interesting effect to watch for,” Max was telling them, “is in the upper left-hand quadrant of the sky, where if you look very carefully you can see the star system Hastromil boiling away into the ultraviolet. Anyone here from Hastromil?”

  There were one or two slightly hesitant cheers from somewhere at the back.