Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of
the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an
utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life
forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are
a pretty neat idea.
* * *
In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of
people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move.
* * *
Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A
to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very
fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are
often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people
from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B
that so many people from point A are so keen to get there. They often wish
that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they
wanted to be.
* * *
``Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.''
``Very deep,'' said Arthur, ``you should send that in to the
Reader's Digest. They've got a page for people like you.''
* * *
One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to
understand about human beings was their habit of continually stating and
repeating the obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh
dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright? At
first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If
human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths
probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he
abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on
exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a
while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical and
decided he quite liked human beings after all, but he always remained
desperately worried about the terrible number of things they didn't know
about.
* * *
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
* * *
``If I asked you where the hell we were,'' said Arthur weakly,
``would I regret it?''
Ford stood up. ``We're safe,'' he said.
``Oh good,'' said Arthur.
``We're in a small galley cabin,'' said Ford, ``in one of the
spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.''
``Ah,'' said Arthur, ``this is obviously some strange usage of the
word safe that I wasn't previously aware of.''
* * *
``The Babel fish,'' said The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
quietly, ``is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing
in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy not from its carrier but
from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from
this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the
mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious
thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres
of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is
that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand
anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you
actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your
mind by your Babel fish.
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so
mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some
thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the
non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove that I
exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am
nothing.'
`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It
could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore,
by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
`Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly
vanished in a puff of logic.
`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove
that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
* * *
Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe.
The second worst is that of the Azagoths of Kria. During a
recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem `Ode To
A Small Lump of Green Putty I Found In My Armpit One Midsummer Morning'
four of his audience died of internal haemorrhaging, and the President of
the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own
legs off. Grunthos is reported to have been ``disappointed'' by the poem's
reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his twelve-book epic
entitled My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles when his own major intestine, in a
desperate attempt to save life and civilization, leapt straight up through
his neck and throttled his brain.
The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator Paula
Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England in the destruction
of the planet Earth.
Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz smiled very slowly. This was done not so
much for effect as because he was trying to remember the sequence of
muscle movements. He had had a terribly therapeutic yell at his prisoners
and was now feeling quite relaxed and ready for a little callousness.
The prisoners sat in Poetry Appreciation Chairs - strapped in.
Vogons suffered no illusions as to the regard their works were generally
held in. Their early attempts at composition had been part of bludgeoning
insistence that they be accepted as a properly evolved and cultured race,
but now the only thing that kept them going was sheer bloodymindedness.
The sweat stood out cold on Ford Prefect's brow, and slid round
the electrodes strapped to his temples. These were attached to a battery
of electronic equipment - imagery intensifiers, rhythmic modulators,
alliterative residulators and simile dumpers - all designed to heighten
the experience of the poem and make sure that not a single nuance of the
poet's thought was lost.
Arthur Dent sat and quivered. He had no idea what he was in for,
but he knew that he hadn't liked anything that had happened so far and
didn't think things were likely to change.
The Vogon began to read - a fetid little passage of his own
devising.
``Oh frettled gruntbuggly ...'' he began. Spasms wracked Ford's
body - this was worse than ever he'd been prepared for.
`` ... thy micturations are to me/ As plurdled gabbleblotchits on
a lurgid bee.''
``Aaaaaaarggggghhhhhh!'' went Ford Prefect, wrenching his head
back as lumps of pain thumped through it. He could dimly see beside him
Arthur lolling and rolling in his seat. He clenched his teeth.
``Groop I implore thee,'' continued the merciless Vogon, ``my
foonting turlingdromes.''
His voice was rising to a horrible pitch of impassioned stridency.
``And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,/ Or I will rend
thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!''
``Nnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyuuuuuuurrrrrrrggggggghhhhh!'' cried Ford
Prefect and threw one final spasm as the electronic enhancement of the
last line caught him full blast across the temples. He went limp.
Arthur lolled.
``Now Earthlings ...'' whirred the Vogon (he didn't know that Ford
Prefect was in fact from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and
wouldn't have cared if he had) ``I present you with a simple choice!
Either die in the vacuum of space, or ...'' he paused for melodramatic
effect, ``tell me how good you thought my poem was!''
He threw himself backwards into a huge leathery bat-shaped seat
and watched them. He did the smile again.
Ford was rasping for breath. He rolled his dusty tongue round his
parched mouth and moaned.
Arthur said brightly: ``Actually I quite liked it.''
Ford turned and gaped. Here was an approach that had quite simply
not occurred to him.
The Vogon raised a surprised eyebrow that effectively obscured his
nose and was therefore no bad thing.
``Oh good ...'' he whirred, in considerable astonishment.
``Oh yes,'' said Arthur, ``I thought that some of the metaphysical
imagery was really particularly effective.''
Ford continued to stare at him, slowly organizing his thoughts
around this totally new concept. Were they really going to be able to
bareface their way out of this?
``Yes, do continue ...'' invited the Vogon.
``Oh ... and er ... interesting rhythmic devices too,'' continued
Arthur, ``which seemed to counterpoint the ... er ... er ...'' He
floundered.
Ford leaped to his rescue, hazarding ``counterpoint the surrealism
of the underlying metaphor of the ... er ...'' He floundered too, but
Arthur was ready again.
`` ... humanity of the ...''
``Vogonity,'' Ford hissed at him.
``Ah yes, Vogonity (sorry) of the poet's compassionate soul,''
Arthur felt he was on a home stretch now, ``which contrives through the
medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come
to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other,'' (he was reaching
a triumphant crescendo ...) ``and one is left with a profound and vivid
insight into ... into ... er ...'' (... which suddenly gave out on him.)
Ford leaped in with the coup de grace:
``Into whatever it was the poem was about!'' he yelled. Out of the
corner of his mouth: ``Well done, Arthur, that was very good.''
The Vogon perused them. For a moment his embittered racial soul
had been touched, but he thought no - too little too late. His voice took
on the quality of a cat snagging brushed nylon.
``So what you're saying is that I write poetry because underneath
my mean callous heartless exterior I really just want to be loved,'' he
said. He paused. ``Is that right?''
Ford laughed a nervous laugh. ``Well I mean yes,'' he said,
``don't we all, deep down, you know ... er ...''
The Vogon stood up.
``No, well you're completely wrong,'' he said, ``I just write
poetry to throw my mean callous heartless exterior into sharp relief. I'm
going to throw you off the ship anyway. Guard! Take the prisoners to
number three airlock and throw them out!''
* * *
``You know,'' said Arthur, ``it's at times like this, when I'm
trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of
asphyxication in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my
mother told me when I was young.''
``Why, what did she tell you?''
``I don't know, I didn't listen.''
* * *
``Arthur!'' he said, ``this is fantastic! We've been picked up by
a ship powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive! This is incredible! I
heard rumors about it before! They were all officially denied, but they
must have done it! They've built the Improbability Drive! Arthur, this is
... Arthur? What's happening?''
Arthur had jammed himself against the door to the cubicle, trying
to hold it closed, but it was ill fitting. Tiny furry little hands were
squeezing themselves through the cracks, their fingers were inkstained;
tiny voices chattered insanely.
Arthur looked up.
``Ford!'' he said, ``there's an infinite number of monkeys outside
who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out.''
* * *
The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability
by simply hooking the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain
to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer
(say a nice hot cup of tea) were of course well understood --- and such
generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the
molecules in the hostess's undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to
the left, in accordance with the Theory of Indeterminacy.
Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand
for this --- partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly
because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties.
Another thing they couldn't stand was the perpetual failure they
encountered in trying to construct a machine which could generate the
infinite improbability field needed to flip a spaceship across the
mind-paralysing distances between the furthest stars, and in the end they
grumpily announced that such a machine was virtually impossible.
Then, one day, a student who had been left to sweep up the lab
after a particularly unsuccessful party found himself reasoning this way:
If, he thought to himself, such a machine is a virtual
impossibility, then it must logically be a finite improbability. So all I
have to do in order to make one is to work out exactly how improbable it
is, feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give it a
fresh cup of really hot tea ... and turn it on!
He did this, and was rather startled to discover that he had
managed to create the long sought after golden Infinite Improbability
generator out of thin air.
It startled him even more when just after he was awarded the
Galactic Institute's Prize for Extreme Cleverness he got lynched by a
rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the
one thing they really couldn't stand was a smartass.
* * *
One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her
relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him
pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to
be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else
to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact
that he actually didn't understand what was going on, and really being
genuinely stupid. He was renowned for being amazingly clever and quite
clearly was so --- but not all the time, which obviously worried him,
hence the act. He proffered people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous.
This above all appeared to Trillian to be genuinely stupid, but she could
no longer be bothered to argue about it.
* * *
``We've met,'' said Arthur sharply.
When you're cruising down the road in the fast lane and you lazily
sail past a few hard driving cars and are feeling pretty pleased with
yourself and then accidentally change down from fourth to first instead of
third thus making your engine leap out of your bonnet in a rather ugly
mess, it tends to throw you off your stride in much the same way that this
remark threw Ford Prefect off his.
* * *
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.
* * *
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 ...
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.
* * *
``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,'' 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.''
* * *
``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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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 tranquillity this equation can
result in considerable stress, ulcers and even death.
* * *
``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.
* * *