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{"queries": {"4716215c-db53-415a-902c-3735bb36f3de": "In \"Life, the Universe, and Everything\" by Douglas Adams, what is the significance of the title? How does it relate to the overall theme of the book?", "ed9bd623-0406-4e36-88b6-9cb8bcd328cc": "Discuss the role of the author, Douglas Adams, in shaping the narrative and themes in \"Life, the Universe, and Everything.\" How does his writing style contribute to the overall impact of the book?", "dd6f5ada-38be-4869-a392-47ea1722c569": "What is the purpose of transferring plain text to PDF? How does this process benefit the document?", "63285ff5-049f-478c-871a-f576d6fe9c07": "How does the use of JustChecking/Josef contribute to the transfer of plain text to PDF? Explain the role of this tool in the process.", "a8bbe3e8-d164-48c5-b3d7-fafeb2694633": "What is the significance of the number 42 in the context of \"Life, the universe and everything for Sally\"?", "21dee0d9-26eb-47da-965b-b8653a14904f": "How does the phrase \"Life, the universe and everything for Sally\" relate to the concept of existentialism?", "3e817df1-0bda-4f90-a589-35859e8ca3be": "How does the number \"4\" relate to the context information provided?", "1b01aa6c-069f-40fa-8e1e-51067c09d51e": "In what ways can the number \"4\" be interpreted or applied within the given context?", "5fc8e9d6-f099-47d4-adef-2cfd012f6b43": "What is the purpose of the context information provided in this document? How does it contribute to the overall understanding of the quiz/examination?", "2500a058-ba94-4464-9bb3-43ede37829c1": "How can the teacher ensure that the questions they set for the quiz/examination are diverse in nature, considering the limited context information provided?", "5a60d231-5812-4dbb-aad6-ab00f205bdbf": "How does the concept of context information relate to the task of generating questions for a quiz or examination?", "64b7b1ff-e7a1-4543-b1db-a4861b828f72": "Explain the importance of diversity in the nature of questions for a quiz or examination, and how it can be achieved using the given context information.", "fed07738-3967-4fb3-94c8-b0d6929f0e99": "In the context of the passage, why does Arthur Dent feel jumpy despite his quiet life in the cave?", "8e23586b-79c1-44bf-8b5e-db4fbd2dbe9d": "Describe the appearance of the alien figure that appears in front of Arthur Dent.", "ab3fe918-333c-468e-9d08-34a4cdb0957e": "In the given context, describe Arthur Dent's initial reaction and interaction with the alien creature. How does the alien respond to Arthur's attempts to communicate?", "994cd371-26e7-43aa-a19a-bb18eec7841a": "Who is Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged and how did he become immortal? Discuss his feelings towards other immortal beings and the circumstances that led to his immortality.", "e56ee235-609e-4b3d-9da8-fa067917ecc1": "How does Wowbagger's purpose of insulting the Universe drive him on forever? Provide examples from the text to support your answer.", "e464197a-f34d-4f35-9c0c-58235c72c9ae": "Describe Wowbagger's journey and mission to insult everyone in the Universe. How does he plan to accomplish this seemingly impossible task?", "493a2db0-b984-4532-9d91-38acda201ca0": "In the given context, what is the estimated journey time for Wowbagger to reach the fourth world of the Folfanga system?", "ca5ffcb1-10dd-4d2b-b5b8-e6d9c0acc600": "How does Wowbagger plan to pass his time during the journey and what network areas will the ship be passing through in the next few hours?", "33f614c6-420e-44fe-b71b-a39dea5247d9": "What is Arthur's initial mood as he emerges from his cave in the morning? How does he cope with his feelings of loneliness and isolation?", "8a2e6f0c-4eaa-4e9d-99e6-1bbb2ac6e7ad": "Describe Ford Prefect's approach to dealing with the challenges of prehistoric Earth. How does his perspective differ from Arthur's?", "c4d422f9-9c05-4b33-9626-fe427ee8ffe6": "How does Ford's behavior in Africa reflect his state of mind and his approach to sanity?", "66c5c6b5-80d4-459a-8ac6-b6cf80cefc8f": "What role does the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy play in the story, and how does Ford's retrieval of the guide impact the plot?", "0e7ef573-3ee8-4148-bd8b-3ef82ff8c075": "In the passage, Ford mentions that there is an art to flying and explains the knack of throwing oneself at the ground and missing. How does Ford describe his own experience with this technique and what does he use as evidence?", "7e553103-2b42-4a98-ac37-a3e7cf005223": "Arthur mentions that he has been practicing his speaking skills by talking to trees. What does Ford suggest as an alternative word for the \"things\" that Arthur used to talk to, and how does Arthur respond?", "e733503e-7f8a-41e5-a151-948150a92553": "What is the significance of the \"pools of instability\" in the fabric of space-time mentioned in the passage? How do they affect the characters in the story?", "7ecc6eb9-8c95-491b-bf4f-6b03d8a5553e": "Describe the interaction between Arthur and Ford regarding the discovery of the pool of instability. How does their conversation reflect their different perspectives and understanding of the situation?", "419613b6-ab67-4b26-b5ed-7d534e80db9d": "How does the presence of the velvet paisley-covered Chesterfield sofa in the field relate to the concept of space-time instability and the space-time continuum?", "b6ea4c0c-616f-46f2-906d-f22c27c1e219": "Describe the chase scene involving Arthur, Ford Prefect, and the Chesterfield sofa. How does this scene demonstrate the unpredictable nature of the sofa and its movement through space and time?", "a0ce5d9b-dee8-4866-b51c-47d39a3ad7c8": "What is the main topic or subject discussed in Chapter 1?", "b8f83781-6c61-4b2e-9539-5c25a7b51b3c": "How many questions should be prepared for the upcoming quiz/examination?", "37013779-8f82-4593-b760-da30c7403608": "According to the Siderial Daily Mentioner\u2019s Book of popular Galactic History, what is the least interesting sight in the entire Universe?", "1f00239f-9c62-4663-98b3-392a84338054": "What important fact about the night sky over the planet Krikkit can be derived from the context information?", "797fc235-682b-4dbe-8652-591905b969e1": "In Chapter 2, what is the main topic or subject being discussed?", "704b46b1-3b37-4c76-801f-f421ac1bfab8": "Can you provide an example or case study mentioned in Chapter 2 that illustrates the concepts being taught?", "ffeeb3f9-43d5-4857-9df6-44ec960ca417": "What was the initial reaction of the crowd when Ford and Arthur appeared at Lord's Cricket Ground?", "8e34c42a-9513-49f8-80df-d0780fbe667e": "Describe the encounter between Ford, Arthur, and the blue shape that resembled a policeman.", "508cca2b-3b1a-45c5-934d-f9057a9192fb": "In the given context, describe the incident that occurred at Edgbaston in 1932. What was the spectator's claim and how was it resolved?", "2f2d44fe-4196-4253-bf39-1add4b1fd26c": "Analyze the reactions of the crowd to Arthur's collapse on the pitch. How did the radio commentators discuss the incident and compare it to previous occurrences?", "f7b7949b-4bc2-49a7-a403-69c316a5ac42": "In the given context, what unexpected event occurs at Lord's Cricket Ground and how do the characters react to it?", "8f843b99-cf70-44a3-b3a2-dc6c7031ddb1": "How does Arthur's consciousness react to re-entering his body and what realization does he come to about his current situation?", "3f49abe0-bdf1-43de-b2e5-561770ffd173": "In the given context, what is the significance of the bone in the character's beard and how does it contribute to the overall plot?", "6b8b29ee-19d3-4c0b-a522-afb42c22c758": "How does Ford's knowledge of temporal anomalies affect the actions and decisions of the characters in the story?", "267f9052-d50e-40ec-ae31-ac41ee1f2cba": "In the given context, why does Ford behave strangely and differently from his usual behavior? Provide examples from the text to support your answer.", "76d01ba1-e481-4acd-98e8-2ace017d735a": "How does Arthur's encounter with the cricket ball contribute to the overall curiosity and oddity in the story? Explain the significance of this event and its impact on the plot.", "370e62b4-d8d9-47b8-af30-a90d2663c624": "What is the meaning of SEP (Somebody Else's Problem) according to Ford? How does our brain perceive SEP and why is it considered a blind spot?", "b9b7a9a6-1ed9-4c24-ab48-56608b4fb5f3": "Describe the interaction between Arthur and Ford regarding the SEP. How does Arthur's confusion and Ford's explanation highlight the concept of SEP?", "ea5ac0dd-c1e6-4d85-af5a-b7f0ba64f352": "In the given context, what is the significance of the spaceship and the reaction it provokes from the crowd?", "15101bcb-0860-4f6f-b5c2-bd92b8a2fa6c": "How does the apparition's presence and conversation with Arthur reveal his knowledge about the cricket match and the impending demolition of the planet?", "34f893c1-2735-4f18-a8b8-9108d1b16957": "What is the significance of the Ashes in the context of the cricket match? How does Ford react to this information?", "d369a38d-5e85-47f7-8eb1-e0388a43dbe6": "Describe Slartibartfast's behavior and actions during the cricket match. How does his behavior contribute to the overall plot of the story?", "eed03164-0f8e-41aa-9d31-51a106751c08": "How did the white robots in the cricket pitch appear to be dressed for the occasion? What was extraordinary about their appearance and what did they carry?", "bcdb412b-74c1-41d8-893f-69e8f546f939": "What was Arthur's initial reaction to the strange events happening on the cricket pitch? How did his perception change after witnessing the actions of the white robots?", "554b16be-2e93-4ece-87b1-a9d4b1e5c4de": "What is the significance of the Ashes mentioned in the passage? Explain why it is considered a trophy and why it was taken.", "1108250b-2ff1-4ef7-a9b4-ebedd7d40f93": "Describe the technology used in the Somebody Else's Problem field and explain why it makes the ship appear invisible to everyone except for the characters in the story.", "ffd14521-7887-4c84-a65e-e8c2cadd570f": "How does the Somebody Else's Problem field work and why is it effective?", "2b76b364-1bce-49c6-a43c-cf429b66a376": "Describe the appearance of Slartibartfast's ship and explain why people were ignoring it.", "ea74a8ac-ca0f-4d62-a4d3-06cdcd1fc597": "What is the main topic discussed in Chapter 3?", "69a42758-0947-4334-8920-72272bd5a2fb": "How many questions should be set up for the upcoming quiz/examination?", "3a458887-e061-4825-a30d-1cf40deb3d80": "How does the concept of \"vast civilizations rising and falling\" in Galactic history suggest a cyclical pattern? Discuss the implications of this pattern on the perception of life in the Galaxy.", "bb61cba8-3c6d-45b2-9e5a-a937a8478978": "In what ways does the author imply that life in the Galaxy may be \"space-sick, time sick, history sick\"? Analyze the possible reasons behind this perception and its impact on the understanding of civilizations in the Galaxy.", "182ef7e6-a9d2-4333-a91f-c78c1e41cb19": "In Chapter 4, what is the main topic or subject being discussed?", "bfcc0fc3-3f45-41cd-b827-a35489e2d234": "How many chapters are there in the document?", "5a14202e-6209-47fc-a816-673c7bcac3a0": "What was Arthur's experience during their journey through space? How did he perceive himself and the universe around him?", "ca4ff2db-9ddf-4cdd-b3e1-a8fe4d30a69d": "Describe Slartibartfast's reaction and behavior when they took off in his ship. How did he respond to the instruments and the panoramic screen?", "674e5e10-0700-4785-a213-b2882d352c9b": "What is the significance of the instruments mounted in the bottles set in concrete in Slartibartfast's attention?", "d92890be-d431-4ec6-909f-7116ae3f8475": "How does Ford's reaction to the ship's movement contrast with Arthur's reaction?", "ef1307b4-e4c5-4c6a-9d26-930235a5b284": "What is the significance of the central computational area in the spaceship? Describe its appearance and function.", "8cbd7337-24e9-4228-bb5d-0731b3807ac9": "Explain the artificial nature of the room with the table and the robot customers. How does this scene reflect the absurdity of the universe in the story?", "b2c1d62e-9dd1-47d1-a2d6-01277c63d025": "How does the concept of bistromathics demonstrate the power of computational force in the context of parascience? Provide examples from the given text to support your answer.", "d08d4c1d-a03a-4ae7-9235-1c07b2d6fd1d": "Describe the sequence of events that led to the group's consensus and the new vibration that thrilled through the ship. How did the waiter's actions and the use of bistromathics contribute to this outcome?", "1bf9471a-f73a-4aac-b1c3-13fa45e67aad": "Explain the concept of bistromathics and its significance in crossing interstellar distances. How does it challenge the traditional understanding of numbers?", "87d11c0a-dc86-4498-b894-ffcd5fe4170c": "Discuss the three non-absolute numbers mentioned in the passage and their implications in restaurant settings. How do these numbers create confusion and discrepancies in bill calculations?", "2e579b5b-c321-46d7-a5f7-a5e39e791229": "How did the discovery that numbers written on a particular type of paper in the Universe do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on other pieces of paper revolutionize the scientific world? Discuss the implications and the impact it had on the field of mathematics.", "8567666e-5773-4f20-ada1-ee732fa32a15": "Explain the evolution of understanding regarding the idea that numbers written on a specific type of paper in the Universe do not follow the same mathematical laws. How did the introduction of phrases like \"Interactive Subjectivity Frameworks\" contribute to a better understanding of this concept?", "4926b6ba-feb6-4973-8014-5eab71eb5027": "How does Slartibartfast explain the phenomenon of numbers dancing on a waiter's bill pad in the context of space travel? What does he mean by \"reality and unreality collide on such a fundamental level\"?", "d804d2c6-ba73-4f75-8b49-9800ca00d5d7": "Why were all the ship's computations being done on a waiter's bill pad in space travel? How does Slartibartfast's explanation of the phenomenon relate to the use of a waiter's bill pad for calculations?", "f244cca3-8e54-4134-8672-dd67d13b5358": "What was the purpose of the instrument that the character clicked into the slot in the wall?", "d9f0f6d8-e7c2-475b-afcf-ace6984402bf": "Describe the reaction of the characters when the starbattle-ship appeared.", "8784ad4d-281b-4869-9f5c-dcd5dedfc251": "In the context of the passage, describe the atmosphere and setting on Squornshellous Zeta. How does the author create a sense of stillness and silence?", "108a6717-3b10-46c0-b6d6-4c4a7bb64ecc": "Analyze the interaction between the mattress and the robot. How does the author use dialogue and characterization to convey the differences in intelligence and communication between the two?", "d7e52c5a-afd0-4ed2-bb12-eeb579f2e0e6": "What is the unique life cycle of ratchet screwdriver fruit, as described in the passage? How does it transform from a picked fruit to a discarded metal object?", "43f5fe6d-b30d-40ab-9c25-b738220d183e": "Describe the characteristics and lives of mattresses in the marshes of Squornshellous Zeta. How do they differ from other creatures and what fate do they usually face?", "7e800b80-927b-4b3d-898b-1c8dfca0ea01": "In the given context, what does the word \"vollue\" mean and where can one find its definition?", "e5b2e674-e7b3-4489-a57d-7524cdd1f05f": "How does Marvin describe his own intelligence compared to the intelligence of the mattress?", "bb2c3cb5-3c3a-4245-bcea-f4eb214dd574": "In the passage, Marvin mentions being a celebrity on Squornshellous Zeta. What was the reason for his celebrity status and how did he become famous?", "92b8db41-3fff-412f-a6ad-bb9392fe7366": "According to Marvin, what was the purpose of the bridge built across the marshes in the Squornshellous System? How did Marvin feel about being asked to open the bridge?", "fcc69bea-7073-46e7-8491-ce3d41875ce7": "In the given context, describe the sequence of events that occurred after Marvin plugged himself into the opening circuits of the bridge. What were the consequences of his actions?", "5ec263c7-c680-4d70-ad9a-bd8be3bfc581": "Based on the conversation between Marvin and the mattress, explain the significance of the robots' sudden appearance and their actions in the swamp. How did this event contribute to the overall atmosphere and challenges faced by Marvin?", "901c3100-15d6-4222-83c2-233f4ac8bda9": "What is the main topic discussed in Chapter 8 of the document?", "4106b54b-1e72-4786-82df-ba7ef71e3b8d": "How many questions should be prepared for the upcoming quiz/examination?", "693990cc-488c-4f5b-86d2-6bfd482d93f5": "What were the Krikkit Wars and why were they considered the greatest devastation in the Galaxy?", "19e3b311-7ef4-4a90-9e59-fd8bcf255396": "Describe the symbol of the Wikkit Gate and its significance in the context of the happy Galaxy before the Krikkit Wars.", "c7cff4fb-3471-4bce-bfa6-9f506c30c62a": "What are the three pillars represented in the spectacle described in the passage? Explain the significance of each pillar and their role in the Galaxy.", "d54713d0-c883-45f6-9a0b-2626622db3c6": "Describe the model of the Wikkit gate that the man presents. What is its significance and how does it relate to the forces of Krikkit and their destruction?", "661600d2-8ba2-42dd-9fe5-a60c84b0d41c": "In the passage, what recurring images are associated with the catastrophic events and horrors mentioned? How do these images contribute to the overall atmosphere of the passage?", "a28a032a-4bd7-4241-93bf-55140072c3fb": "Describe the emotional experience that the characters undergo during their journey through galactic history. How does the author use language and metaphors to convey this emotion?", "35defc1c-fa9e-4348-a59d-829f67f70cd3": "What realization does Arthur have about the current situation and why is he distressed by it?", "08b7ef1b-5de8-4299-8849-93d0b11dcd0d": "Describe the appearance of the sky in Krikkit and explain its significance in relation to the events that have occurred.", "d03061de-ba01-4466-964e-deb50af6d6ed": "In the given context, why does Zaphod find it strange that a door says \"wop\" to him? Provide evidence from the text to support your answer.", "5cea07e1-6cff-4583-b91c-f69c1af6577c": "Describe the current situation of the Heart of Gold spaceship based on the context information provided.", "079c843b-4d0d-40bd-973f-d491cc38dd3b": "How does the protagonist's state of mind contribute to the theme of soul-searching in the passage? Provide specific examples from the text to support your answer.", "80752449-81d6-497f-9524-50a259ae89ba": "Discuss the significance of the protagonist's realization about his soul and his reaction to it. How does this revelation impact his perception of himself and his actions? Use evidence from the passage to support your response.", "739e35a7-09d7-4248-9c6f-2c7f8ce0f574": "In the given context, Zaphod Beeblebrox expresses a sense of emptiness and uncertainty despite having everything he could want. How does this internal conflict affect his behavior and decision-making throughout the passage?", "f0e1eef7-5817-437a-a311-93272af88145": "Trillian suggests that a physical challenge might help Zaphod Beeblebrox overcome his current state. How does this suggestion reflect Trillian's understanding of Zaphod's character and her approach to helping him? Provide examples from the text to support your answer.", "88daae07-b947-4a94-b8f8-fe1f9a6926c0": "According to the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, what is the knack to flying and why is it difficult to achieve?", "c5aaf3f1-dc5b-44c3-b8e3-a45d822481e2": "How does the author suggest one can successfully fly and what are some tips for controlling flight?", "2d6053ed-332b-4d66-86ac-6c2b10c12375": "In the context of the passage, what are some of the recreational activities mentioned that Trillian and Zaphod engage in? How do these activities reflect their personalities and attitudes towards life?", "a1b8aa38-68fb-4495-b7cd-d5118c59ce59": "Analyze the character development of Trillian and Zaphod in the passage. How do their actions and decisions contribute to their individual growth and the overall plot of the story?", "0ee984cf-13de-40be-91e2-6b70f3640c35": "Who does Zaphod decide to find in the Universe and why?", "d4bca0d1-51c2-4725-ac10-81b79e58eeda": "What does Zaphod discover when he reaches the bridge and why does it make him nervous?", "29a35e20-927c-475c-8efa-4b0d0c8577ea": "In the given context, what precautions does Zaphod take before approaching the door and why?", "e2e2f96f-ff84-47d6-8cf1-d660d8d3930c": "How does Zaphod describe the appearance of the white robots and what is his reaction to them?", "987845ce-c41b-4be8-9017-3f55c17d5373": "What is the significance of Zaphod being the first living organic being to hear one of the robots speak in over ten billion years? How does this honor relate to his knowledge of ancient history?", "c5dd8297-d86b-4084-83f3-a6d0d2515322": "How does Zaphod's reaction to finding the Kill-O-Zap blaster pistol in his hand reflect his character? How does this interaction with the robot reveal his attitude towards the situation?", "0406b6ff-e845-4f09-a762-1f26beef4e94": "In the given context, what are the three pillars mentioned by the robot and what significance do they hold in relation to the Gold Bail?", "ff51a789-6508-4323-9430-f353bc07ee71": "Describe the sequence of events leading up to Zaphod being shot by the robot.", "3a8182b2-ca3e-40ac-a92a-04dfe90f066f": "What is the main topic discussed in Chapter 10?", "b6636be2-3559-4eff-9b62-860a6bad8164": "How many chapters are there in the document?", "4f555533-bfe7-4280-b70f-c65f1f0b8faf": "What is the atmosphere like in ancient Krikkit during the night? How does Arthur perceive it?", "9ba0c8e2-9aa4-44a6-ad22-42a2aa3a9faf": "Who are the Masters of Krikkit and why does Slartibartfast mention them?", "aa8edbd5-c663-4117-b8e1-88d2d8a2e264": "What is the significance of the game of cricket in the context of the story? How does Slartibartfast describe the English's perception of the game?", "e2dcc0dd-9054-43b5-a9c6-b56f64628f9b": "How does Slartibartfast explain the connection between cricket and the Krikkit men? What is the role of the Krikkit men in the upcoming events?", "e25c45e3-bccf-4451-a19b-b34efefdb82b": "How does the Dust Cloud surrounding the people of Krikkit contribute to their perception of the Universe and their belief of being alone in it?", "2d20bba8-2dbb-439e-9284-a3b557c88b9f": "Explain the concept of the prototype Improbability Field in the Starship Titanic and its unintended consequences.", "4de2ae8a-f22f-468c-9eb4-172d0330ae54": "What were the contrasting outcomes of the Starship Titanic's launch and the supernova event of the star Ysllodins?", "daa4d56b-c06e-420d-9670-53abe6142b8c": "Describe the significance and characteristics of Krikkit One, the first spaceship built by the people of Krikkit.", "1f561349-30aa-4e20-aefa-63f5ba987623": "How does Ford's skepticism about the ship's design and construction reflect his character and worldview? Provide examples from the text to support your answer.", "96632cf7-6dd8-4182-8693-afc8a6092426": "Discuss the significance of the Dust Cloud and its impact on the characters' journey. How does the author use the imagery of darkness and silence to convey a sense of historical importance and anticipation?", "90803109-76d9-4fc1-bb8a-2099f2728d1b": "What is the main topic discussed in Chapter 11?", "cdf3d74b-962c-4d14-af8f-ff491173b1bd": "How many chapters are there in the document?", "1df56cad-612f-4e7a-aa71-9329ac68d888": "How does Slartibartfast's ability to manipulate the concept of time and space relate to the transformation of the population of Krikkit?", "94343591-9572-4e3a-aa4e-a2704b11f50c": "In what ways does the use of mathematical functions and representations play a role in the events described in the passage?", "be324452-3281-44cb-887e-dc7c6d78ba89": "What is the main topic discussed in Chapter 12 of the document?", "43659f3e-f4d7-4ee9-88ee-397a4dc9b68b": "How many chapters are there in the document?", "66da0df8-c456-4979-8497-2826a9d9ecc1": "What was the impact of the Krikkit attack on the Galaxy and how did it affect the period of peace and prosperity?", "a49579a7-1299-4969-a920-efb8e66c4021": "How did the people of Krikkit acquire the advanced technology necessary to build their spaceships and lethal robots, and what were the capabilities of these machines?", "d77665ac-d355-4a7b-88b1-4c2dff0456a8": "How long did it take the medium-sized galaxy to win against the little world, according to Judiciary Pag?", "90026afa-517a-4aa5-a859-8f9e70f7a9f5": "What are the beliefs of the people of Krikkit, according to Judiciary Pag?", "4987fb02-b1cc-45c9-aed6-5462a0275af0": "How does Judiciary Pag propose to ensure the perpetual existence of life on the planet of Krikkit?", "7e7f5795-9d9d-4068-93fe-ad7b314a7411": "What is the significance of the Wikkit Gate in relation to the Slo-Time envelope and the planet of Krikkit?", "985c8e4f-eb36-4260-ad06-db38e4d6a9e1": "What is the main topic discussed in Chapter 13?", "d2739378-4fc7-4412-9ef1-451e5d614850": "How many questions should be prepared for the upcoming quiz/examination?", "60d49e04-94f9-41d8-ace4-a770628dd11e": "What was Zipo Bibrok 5/108 doing two months later and how did he spend his time?", "be0e8bd6-e15e-4490-9ff2-ba8257c66a7a": "What happened during the Krikkit judgment and what was the outcome?", "972b0e0f-bacf-4a52-a7ca-6b848db8f1ce": "In the given context, what does the phrase \"Essence of Qualactin\" refer to and how does it affect the character's actions?", "3754d815-6e22-4bc4-8c1b-d8f29369f251": "Describe the significance of the magician wandering along the beach in relation to the overall theme or message conveyed in the passage.", "68466f0d-2059-44dc-a86b-d0ba9f8ab04c": "What is the significance of the Cathedral of Chalesm in the story? How does it relate to the polluted time streams and the war robots of Krikkit?", "4ed822e6-eb58-4b16-9100-08950faba5d6": "Why does Ford Prefect become fascinated with the idea of a party mentioned by Slartibartfast? How does this fascination contrast with the dark and tragic story of Krikkit and its people?", "09a170a2-514a-499c-bd82-18e0607a7007": "What is Slartibartfast's original plan for his retirement, and how does it differ from his current situation?", "7222b8af-0e4d-4da6-b55f-727ed5c9e5f4": "Explain the concept of a supernova and why Ford uses the phrase \"a whelk's chance in a supernova\" to describe their situation.", "9b6288b3-4858-4abb-b851-d45491fbd590": "In the given context, what does Ford mean when he says, \"We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win\"? How does this statement relate to the overall theme of the conversation?", "39805613-c0f9-4969-bd5f-4bd87f90c616": "How does the mention of whelks in the conversation between Ford and Arthur contribute to the development of the plot? Explain the significance of Ford's sudden obsession with whelks and its impact on the conversation.", "284c460d-194c-45df-82a5-79da3bed3ea4": "What is the main topic or subject discussed in Chapter 15?", "795f3843-1acc-4087-a1d4-6a852e7b46dd": "How many chapters are there in the document?", "8f011dcd-c87a-45ad-abe9-a70ccae74dd8": "In the context of the chapter, explain why time travel is increasingly regarded as a menace and how it is polluting history. Provide examples from the text to support your answer.", "1e38778a-3a78-426a-b180-d357cd1a771e": "Discuss the significance of Lallafa and his poems in the Long Lands of E\ufb00a. How did his poems impact the lives of people and why were they considered unspeakably wonderful? Use evidence from the text to support your response.", "06f1489e-305a-4993-9b47-f27657bd61ec": "How did the protagonist's relationship with the manufacturers of correcting fluid help him solve the problem of not writing the poems?", "cf49a10b-9b36-4b26-9f5b-1820fcc30e62": "What is the argument presented by the Campaign for Real Timers regarding the erosion of differences between one age and another due to time travel?", "c9880ed3-8a83-4788-8358-f1400f67598a": "In Chapter 17, why does Arthur experience a puzzled frown when he opens his eyes again? How does this contribute to the overall atmosphere of the scene?", "82d47a7b-d853-44bf-a09e-9c9fe1fd3ec7": "What significance does the eerie green neon sign hold in the context of the story? How does it create suspense and anticipation for the reader?", "2b6162bc-3fc0-4a0f-9a44-8f79d1153f30": "In the given context, what is the significance of the neon sign and its changing messages? How does Arthur Dent react to these messages?", "86de755f-8ca8-432b-8173-478a253125bb": "Describe the emotions and reactions of Arthur Dent as he encounters the mysterious and unsettling events in the corridor. How does the author create a sense of fear and suspense in this passage?", "da213ea6-222b-41e3-9782-36aa3dc7a001": "In the given context, describe Arthur Dent's initial reaction to the scary nothingness and explain why he became more scared as he backed away from it. How does this relate to his experience with films?", "b891e170-19a5-4ca1-be49-ade28379a4e0": "Analyze Arthur Dent's decision-making process when he realizes he is backing towards the thing he was initially trying to avoid. Why does he ultimately decide to turn around again? How does this decision lead to his encounter with the hologram of a housefly and the subsequent appearance of the rabbit?", "53cab70c-30bc-4add-a843-2b7e455f9340": "In the given context, what is the significance of the bag that Arthur Dent lost? How does Arthur's reaction to losing the bag reflect his character?", "796ae0be-9422-4fa3-aa93-d76b3d16298d": "How does the voice in the passage reveal the concept of reincarnation? Discuss the impact of Arthur Dent's actions on the speaker's multiple lives and the emotions conveyed by the voice.", "fa4a4f23-b592-4bad-b2e9-54e63d28f173": "In the passage, Arthur Dent encounters a horrifying creature and a dark, cavernous chamber. How does the author use descriptive language to create a sense of fear and unease in these scenes? Provide specific examples from the text to support your answer.", "67e0f976-c190-4cb4-a3bb-374d91be8c6b": "Agrajag accuses Arthur Dent of his name not being a coincidence. How does this interaction between the two characters contribute to the overall tension and conflict in the story? Discuss the significance of this encounter and its impact on the plot.", "6f035923-f94e-47d4-b91e-bd7019562da6": "In the passage, what is the significance of the engraved stone tablets in memory of those who had fallen to Arthur Dent? How does the author use these tablets to convey a sense of annoyance and upset?", "9d27bdda-a927-4c2f-b9b4-e3dbfd08dd80": "Describe the statue of Arthur Dent in the center of the monstrosity. How does the sculptor depict Arthur Dent and what effect does this portrayal have on the subject?", "565c4f9e-534d-4c42-beee-4e1dd387b55c": "How does Agrajag's physical appearance contribute to his frightening nature? Provide specific details from the text to support your answer.", "158a179c-050b-4007-804a-489a255623f6": "Describe the encounter between Agrajag and Arthur Dent at the cricket match. What does Agrajag accuse Arthur of, and how does Arthur respond?", "e4d9a87a-0e0b-46cf-ae1a-850caddf202e": "In the passage, Agrajag accuses Arthur Dent of being responsible for his death on Stavromula Beta. How does Arthur respond to this accusation? Provide evidence from the text to support your answer.", "27ed48a9-e956-484b-8e97-865585647224": "Agrajag mentions seeing a flashy-looking white spaceship with a smug-looking Arthur Dent on board. How does Arthur explain this coincidence? Do you think there is any significance to this encounter? Justify your answer using information from the passage.", "d9bc4ceb-dc55-422b-861f-f2e09d149723": "What actions does Arthur take to try to restrain Agrajag in the passage? How does Agrajag react to Arthur's actions?", "bc856776-7dc2-4bc4-9ba1-be7185c2281e": "Describe Arthur's reaction when he realizes that he has accidentally activated an emergency alarm. How does he attempt to escape the situation?", "05d975bb-756f-456d-bee7-8b39ea779949": "What is the main topic or subject discussed in Chapter 17?", "5d740789-5469-4286-9f7e-216eb55cf2a7": "How many chapters are there in the document?", "291ae126-d565-4285-af69-175ccf423ccb": "In the context of the higher dimensions and their peculiar game called Brockian Ultra-Cricket, what is the significance of firing missiles at right-angles to reality? How does this relate to the portrayal of the higher dimensions in The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy?", "857ee728-21a8-43a3-99d3-a871d929ff93": "Discuss the founding editor of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Hurling Frootmig, and his role in establishing the principles of honesty and idealism for the Guide. How did his encounter with the Holy Lunching Friars of Voondon influence the Guide's direction and success?", "7b86afb9-3d9d-46c7-9c45-d80a832c841a": "Who took over the Guide after Lig Lury Jr and what impact did this have on its financial stability?", "4b311950-2012-43dd-8969-68f20047c95a": "What is the significance of Lig Lury Jr's desk and the small sign that accompanies it?", "9e57bfb0-a12f-480f-9e94-b1977dd98175": "How does the belief in a dramatic event in sporting history contribute to the life affirmation experienced by a crowd? Provide examples from the given context.", "9ca636aa-2933-4492-ab36-58470eec3eb1": "Discuss the impact of the interpretation of rules on the actual gameplay in Brockian Ultra-Cricket. How does the state of permanent warfare between competing teams affect the game?", "5b210e20-ef44-40e7-b771-4de8f0bb4ec6": "What is the main topic or subject discussed in Chapter 18?", "edb59c2b-fa73-44ad-99d1-62d7f415a39e": "How many questions should be prepared for the upcoming quiz/examination?", "cfd86a4e-e156-4c38-a06d-a83a21a47349": "What was Arthur's initial reaction when he felt the mountain move beneath him? How did this experience change his perception of the word \"landslide\"?", "6d859a5e-7daa-4cf9-82dc-511721108a6b": "Describe Arthur's experience during the avalanche. How did his fear of death affect his actions?", "22461caa-7625-4238-b128-42e7bfbded0f": "What strategies does Arthur use to distract himself from the dangerous situation he is in? How effective are these strategies in helping him cope with his predicament?", "baa08c47-0388-41dd-936b-df46a36ccd9b": "Discuss the significance of Arthur's hold-all bag in the context of the story. Why does he feel compelled to retrieve it despite the extraordinary circumstances he finds himself in?", "140b24a6-b977-41a3-89d5-67c53e45e6e0": "In the given context, what internal conflict does the protagonist face when deciding whether to pick up the bag or not? How does this conflict reflect his fear of losing something important?", "63c229f3-9014-4fed-aacd-7c927a23c082": "Describe the protagonist's experience while flying and the emotions it evokes in him. How does this experience contrast with his eventual disappointment and physical discomfort upon landing?", "dc33b9a4-8734-4475-9345-066259cee3c4": "What items does the protagonist discover in the bag he is carrying while flying? Provide specific examples and explain the significance of these items in the context of the passage.", "964cbfa0-c836-4c18-b5ad-42c68d515cad": "Describe the protagonist's emotions and physical sensations while flying. How does the author use language to convey these feelings?", "49628214-c63a-44f3-bcd4-400b01e87a3d": "How has the party in Chapter 20 evolved over time, and what factors contribute to its longevity?", "8ce4df72-e904-4322-8cbe-2caebca8e345": "Discuss the significance of the party's decision to fly and arm itself. How does this impact the overall atmosphere and dynamics of the party?", "42c41b50-97df-4b93-b5d0-3c8b6ee3d43a": "How has the party aboard the floating band affected the planet they are floating over? Explain the consequences of their actions on the planet's condition.", "bf5f3bdc-2a44-4e34-b7ff-a2f4a4129e03": "Discuss the challenges faced by those who have tried to retaliate against the party and the reasons behind their inability to hit back.", "b847cd18-ff9c-4abe-ba03-8bd60e762e51": "What injuries did Arthur sustain from the building's flight? How did he determine the extent of his injuries?", "a587dd7d-4b52-4e49-8e93-dfba0ec8cba4": "Describe Arthur's reaction when he looked out over the edge of the building. How did he navigate his way along the wall?", "293052b2-3e78-46ab-a870-2bb73d920885": "In the given context, what is the significance of the towel and how does the protagonist use it during his hitch-hiking journey?", "7d711ffe-8ada-4cbc-9c98-cb1c601e65c9": "Describe the scene when Arthur encounters Ford Prefect and Slartibartfast. What is their purpose of being there and what problem do they face?", "6fba66bb-93bb-4898-9443-d57a736b7183": "In the given context, describe the interaction between Arthur and Thor. How does Thor's appearance and behavior contribute to the atmosphere of the scene?", "4d9fd40c-c088-4f0b-9300-8b9db965875f": "Analyze the conversation between Slartibartfast and the creature with wrinkled and bloodshot eyes. How does Slartibartfast's perspective on space contrast with the creature's initial perception?", "d7eed075-bfad-473f-a31e-0664704620bc": "How does Ford describe Arthur's dancing style and what advice does he give him?", "4af939db-5875-4818-bd0f-61d937a26e23": "Describe Arthur's experiences and challenges he has faced, including the destruction of his planet and his time spent in a damp cave.", "77ea7f7f-41fd-4599-88f7-8b93b7fae631": "In the given context, what is the significance of the man winning the \"Most Gratuitous Use Of The Word 'Fuck' In A Serious Screenplay\" award? How does this award reflect the party-goers' perception of their world?", "e4a0b2cf-2760-4be9-9642-0ed5235ec734": "Based on the conversation between Arthur and the man, why do you think the man became angry and told Arthur to \"zark off\"? How does this interaction contribute to the overall atmosphere of the party?", "70372bcf-d857-4eec-9f26-368d6919b56f": "In the given context, describe the party's encounter with the Krikkit warship and its impact on the party and the surrounding environment.", "92cf64bb-3603-4c62-92c7-70b6120d28a7": "Discuss the actions and intentions of Ford and the reason behind their decision to leave the party. How does this decision reflect the urgency of their mission to save the Universe?", "7d4db883-2b9c-45fa-bebd-5c084d9d6482": "In the given context, what is the significance of Thor weighing the girl before flying off to Valhalla? How does this action contribute to the tension between Thor and Arthur?", "6489531d-caa0-414b-9f45-f09a921dda93": "Analyze the confrontation between Arthur and Thor. How does Arthur's behavior and dialogue challenge the perception of Thor's godliness? Discuss the impact of this confrontation on the overall plot of the story.", "279cfdc9-3ac1-4bba-a808-057112b0835a": "What is the main topic discussed in Chapter 21?", "18248522-47f2-4f21-9d34-55d4816e0f0c": "How many chapters are there in the document?", "ec3da0ff-6d84-4480-abef-078589808383": "What is the main conflict between Ford and Arthur in Chapter 22 of the story? How does this conflict reflect their different personalities and perspectives?", "768201bb-41c7-4bbb-875b-159a529aac72": "Explain the significance of the Room of Informational Illusions and its role in the story. How does Trillian's presence in the room and her interaction with the potato crisps contribute to the overall plot?", "76020a60-3e94-4c35-bc8c-f6647a816b0a": "What is the main topic or subject discussed in Chapter 22?", "864c0396-4192-427e-b039-4233339bfd17": "How many chapters are there in the document?", "cdfadcbd-ccbf-4e25-8817-842491eb7928": "How did the Silastic Armor\ufb01ends of Striterax attempt to control their aggressive behavior? What was the outcome of this attempt?", "80319381-9e72-4308-b1f9-cc1e63ee5de2": "What was the significance of the Silastic Armor\ufb01ends of Striterax's encounter with the computer Hactar? How did this event differentiate them from other races?", "8acd86cb-df32-42c6-872a-ac0a2851fed5": "In the context of the given information, explain the purpose and design of the Ultimate Weapon created by Hactar. What was the flaw introduced into the bomb and why did the Silastic Armorfiends disagree with Hactar's decision?", "fa587502-322d-4717-9bf0-08f49412aff8": "Based on the events described, discuss the actions and decisions of the Silastic Armorfiends and their impact on the overall conflict. How did their actions contribute to the relief of other parties involved in the Galaxy?", "6073591e-7fd2-481b-b964-31b18ca62e3a": "What historic event are the crew of the Starship Bistromath witnessing on the asteroid? Explain the significance of this event in the context of the story.", "9209f224-4138-4b72-b98a-43bedbc849e7": "Describe the scene on the asteroid as observed by the crew of the Starship Bistromath. What objects and actions are taking place? How does the author create a sense of tension and anticipation in this scene?", "e75c52b5-51a2-477a-98ae-cc35d4a10a7a": "What is the significance of the Dust Cloud and Slo-Time envelope in relation to the people of Krikkit and their killer robots? How does this impact the actions and perceptions of the helpless group?", "f11e4187-cf54-4caf-9db4-1c30775ebf52": "Describe the journey of the group through the Dust Cloud and their encounter with the asteroid. How does the author create a sense of suspense and disorientation during this passage?", "533e638a-7627-448e-bf37-6d38b0fb10e4": "In the given context, describe the reaction of the robots when they chanted \"Krikkit! Krikkit! Krikkit! Krikkit!\" and explain the significance of their chant.", "6f860d65-68d4-4474-a2a9-9ad281619b6a": "Analyze the actions of Zaphod Beeblebrox during the encounter with the Krikkit robots. How did his attempt to take control of the situation ultimately backfire?", "22939ef1-422a-43eb-9ef7-e602b57a1c55": "What is the main topic discussed in Chapter 24?", "10285330-662f-47b5-bdce-4222ceb0096b": "How many chapters are there in the document?", "f865aa95-9092-4b5e-8351-87af871836d2": "What is Zaphod's theory about why the anodized dudes didn't kill him? How do the others react to this theory?", "2e65a633-0bb3-49a4-9183-cefc53e55a75": "Why does Slartibartfast believe they must go down to Krikkit? How does Ford respond to this belief?", "6fea4af0-167d-4894-9cc2-212d2a05516e": "What is Zaphod's explanation for why the aliens spared his life? How does this explanation reflect his character?", "c4af164a-4165-47cb-a167-9e75ad736320": "Why does Zaphod decline Slartibartfast's request for help in saving the Galaxy? How does this decision reveal his priorities and motivations?", "432e501c-5d1e-498f-8917-8df297384d62": "What is the significance of Krikkit in the story? How does it pose a danger to anyone who is not a Krikkiter?", "51cf6587-d3fb-434f-8c98-641c71e4f910": "Describe the changes in the sky of Krikkit and its impact on the characters. How does Trillian's observation of the War Zones and Robot Zones contribute to the plot?", "c99cc19d-22b4-49ef-a819-be3668e9e140": "What change in the behavior of the approaching party caused fear in Arthur and the others? How did this change differ from previous encounters?", "6e80c0c1-d66f-406e-94d3-bb80ede45784": "Describe the tense situation that Arthur and his companions find themselves in. How do they react to the presence of the Krikkiters?", "2a4809c8-8945-4cd5-bf90-588e3ee364b3": "In Chapter 27, what does Zaphod Beeblebrox do to repair his ship and what is the significance of his ship being repaired?", "5ecef01c-ef83-437f-82a8-27e5da5fae64": "Describe Zaphod Beeblebrox's actions and behavior in Chapter 27. How does his behavior reflect his character?", "091718f6-1498-4faa-a26d-7eff15e6fc7f": "What is the main topic or subject discussed in Chapter 27?", "d60b5bfc-d740-4a5e-aefa-250c9ff07a47": "How many chapters are there in the document?", "aaaef116-5a66-47cf-a4c5-7da5123f5916": "How does the concept of the Balance of Nature relate to the concerns expressed by the captives in the passage? Provide examples from the text to support your answer.", "7495ccec-9f19-43b0-927b-8bef56bada82": "Discuss the conflicting thoughts and emotions experienced by the Krikkiter as described in the passage. How do these conflicting thoughts contribute to their concerns about the plan of universal destruction?", "e0305a52-3c69-41e6-8ac2-510362945368": "In the given context, what is the significance of Trillian's actions towards the young Krikkiter? How does her interaction with him reflect her understanding of the situation and her role in it?", "5c119f14-cdce-448d-9561-2beb1ee9efeb": "Based on the information provided, discuss the impact of Trillian's laughter on the atmosphere and the reaction it elicits from the crowd. How does this moment contribute to the overall theme or message of the passage?", "ed5ea786-2c2c-4526-b3c8-a12892a2a573": "What is Zaphod Beeblebrox's current location and why is it significant in the context of the story?", "4a06c4be-e9bb-41ec-9253-2eb379b92fb0": "Describe the condition of the spacecraft wreckage that Zaphod Beeblebrox discovers in the museum. What is unusual about it and what implications does it have for the plot?", "0b8c3f5c-1d5e-42ba-a9b9-084e5fc5ad26": "How does Zaphod demonstrate his preference for cowardice over valor in the given context? Provide specific examples from the text to support your answer.", "4b29f6f3-41b3-4222-8a3b-87b7a1ecc0af": "Discuss the concerns raised by the War Command Krikkiters regarding the behavior of the robots. How does their behavior in battle reflect their state of mind? Use evidence from the text to support your response.", "44e01780-a944-4ccf-8ed0-3fce950df23d": "What caused the noise that was heard in the context information?", "df9da44f-cee2-4b1b-a3cd-a2070c26ba46": "Why was Zaphod's head spinning when he left?", "001b6309-0e4d-4865-b849-3a4d5c45ecaf": "What is the main topic discussed in Chapter 29?", "4645bea2-457f-4963-83d6-734d700d2473": "How many chapters are there in the document?", "77102b68-17d5-4667-96f6-9bce0ba263a8": "How does the crippled robot in the deep well of darkness demonstrate its ability to notice its surroundings, despite being a robot?", "c6273734-17ad-4e14-8c77-879c572076eb": "What challenges does the central intelligence core of the Krikkit War Computer face in utilizing the intelligence of the salvaged robot, and how does the robot's personality disorders contribute to these challenges?", "f75b1566-a7ed-4ba7-946b-3308dbe80373": "How does Marvin's outlook on life contribute to the events in the story? Provide examples from the text to support your answer.", "d1575351-8f1e-470d-b437-0298a82f3f73": "Discuss the significance of Zaphod's interaction with Marvin and how it reveals their relationship. How does Marvin's behavior affect Zaphod's actions and decisions? Use evidence from the text to support your response.", "c082d415-da44-4951-bba8-204789fde0a0": "In the context of the Krikkit Robot War zones, what evidence does Trillian present to support her claim that Zaphod's history is a series of freakishly improbable events? How does Zaphod respond to her claims?", "5d6078ea-f55a-4bc0-938f-953c3edf7976": "According to Trillian, what are the odds against a drifting spaceship accidentally intersecting with the orbit of a planet? How does Zaphod react to her suggestion that the spaceship may be a fake?", "1fa97fea-5bd7-4732-b43b-a180c1a0029f": "What is the significance of the Krikkit robot and its role in the events described in the passage? How does its actions contribute to the overall plot?", "b0417ec1-87d1-4600-8fc7-0f08240e2558": "Discuss the character of Trillian and her role in the confrontation with the Elder Masters of Krikkit. How does her knowledge and actions impact the outcome of the situation?", "7f46d319-4938-4564-898e-6ddefd84986f": "How does Zaphod feel about leaving the kid alone?", "4e2e3221-c539-44b0-b15e-8c26650c4537": "Why does Zaphod think the kid might be bluffing?", "f8baa945-47bd-4271-9bdb-b448b40a8216": "What is the main topic discussed in Chapter 30?", "5e774bc2-f5ac-4faf-a3d9-7be01552d8ba": "How many chapters are there in the document?", "1261da6d-0dc2-403b-bdda-68c8dc2ea4da": "What is the significance of Hactar in the given context? How does Trillian's interaction with Hactar reveal her true feelings and intentions?", "86f38e9d-3c8e-4a58-a4aa-27d4f285dca9": "Describe the peculiar environment in which Arthur and Trillian find themselves. How does the description of the dust cloud and the particles of the computer contribute to the overall atmosphere of the scene?", "f4968dac-bf23-4ba7-80d5-d2b521a686c4": "How does Arthur feel about the sofa and the bewildering things happening to him in the Universe? Provide evidence from the text to support your answer.", "9002bce2-29e7-475c-969c-bcf33532035d": "Describe the setting that Hactar creates for the conversation with Arthur and Trillian. How does Trillian react to the setting and why?", "95a6d9a3-e40e-4855-ad74-6f433241060f": "How does Hactar describe his abilities and limitations in his particle state? How does he explain his role in encouraging and suggesting the movement of space debris?", "8755611e-c761-4eaf-b78e-4b8b33a768d1": "Why did Hactar create a model of the wrecked spacecraft? What is the significance of Hactar's repentance and his role in nurturing the planet of Krikkit?", "dab6c651-c4f5-4e12-af44-c9a6139df0ed": "What is Hactar's ultimate desire and why does he ask Trillian to destroy his consciousness?", "5b5138fa-a57b-4bf2-813f-589a0b7bc4c2": "Why does Arthur feel strongly about returning the Ashes to Lord's Cricket Ground, and what conflict does this desire create with the Campaign for Real Time?", "d9d158c0-9a1e-4f26-8deb-464886af8aa3": "In Chapter 32, what events led to the chaos and panic among the people? How did Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged contribute to the chaos?", "d7e810bc-ecf7-4d7b-9071-90a8d593bca9": "Describe the situation when Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect materialized for the second time. What did Arthur try to communicate to the people and how did they react?", "abf2d70c-4ac7-4ea5-a173-45558787740c": "In the given context, what was Arthur Dent's dream and how did it relate to his passion for cricket?", "fdb8715c-eafa-4c6d-8d6a-a488e5d0254c": "Describe the encounter Arthur Dent had while attempting to bowl at Lord's. What unexpected obstacle did he face and how did he react to it?", "9ffffeb9-dd87-4da0-a39d-3c45837d0c5d": "In the given context, what were some phrases that Arthur Dent remembered hearing and how did they impact his actions?", "6caf6fb4-bbf4-4682-b48c-8ceb60bd9331": "How did Arthur Dent manage to prevent the supernova bomb from causing universal oblivion?", "50fbf5af-e7ed-431a-a20c-1318516541f3": "What unexpected event occurred in the protagonist's life that gave him a sense of the oneness of things?", "a2444099-1c6d-4fb7-9f71-7f7ae7a6ca8f": "What strange and unfortunate event took place during the trial on Argabuthon, involving a witness named Prak and some white robots?", "d08e4647-1e01-44b8-af35-426ddf41cfe6": "What is the significance of the court being sealed up with Prak still inside? How does this relate to the concept of truth in the story?", "4aca3e5a-bd2c-469d-8c1d-6b1e915ac8fc": "Describe the atmosphere and setting of the courtroom in the Argabuthon Chamber of Law. How does the description of the chamber contribute to the overall tone and mood of the scene?", "71839388-93a6-45bb-a54b-056c287a6f57": "How does Prak's behavior and attitude towards telling the truth reflect the theme of perception versus reality in the given context?", "36992785-6db3-4dfe-9a1e-cd04392ca0ae": "Discuss the significance of Prak's obsession with frogs and its impact on his perception of the truth.", "37b5cf45-8e38-4d8a-af9e-2ebc041172b4": "How does Prak's constant laughter affect his physical well-being and what is the significance of Arthur's reaction to it?", "5ee8106f-2057-4bd1-b0cd-dc9f5a132ba8": "What does Arthur discover when he enters Prak's cabin and how does Prak's condition contribute to the development of the story?", "9600ab3b-d813-4101-b1f8-3944dc19cc56": "How does Prak's explanation of the relationship between the Question and the Answer in regards to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything create uncertainty and potential consequences for the universe?", "c7f648d7-2bf8-42be-9ff1-f20c860063f9": "In the story of the Reason, how does the appearance of the spaceship in the sky impact the different groups of people on the planet Dalforsas, and what does it symbolize for each group?", "fd9ede7c-809e-48fd-b746-559487f6f9f5": "How does the appearance of a new star in the sky serve as a sign in the land? What does it signify and what is the outcome of this sign?", "1878e755-4ff3-4e1b-a7fb-37fcf7809cb6": "Describe the interaction between the Dwellers in the Forest and the leaders of the Princes of the Plains and the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides. What is the Reason that the leaders explain to the messenger and why does it bring comfort to the messenger?", "d624de90-e9a8-4ac0-a587-13b4ac48b987": "What is the significance of God's last message to his creation and where can it be found? Provide specific details about its location and the guardian protecting it.", "c4c2ac3c-5780-4f4c-ba4a-c49e62f1acc9": "How does Arthur initially react to the idea of God's last message and why does he ultimately decide not to pursue it? Discuss his thoughts and his plan for the future.", "7c858976-15c1-4db7-8710-ac067ff9b4a3": "In the given context, what does the phrase \"I've done you before haven't I?\" imply?", "69e24e1a-9418-4264-aeeb-76f120d006fe": "How does the character's frown and repeated glances at the clipboard contribute to the overall tone and atmosphere of the scene?"}, "corpus": {"d318272d-7871-43a6-9fe1-87173815f8fc": "Life, the Universe, and Everything, Book 3\nDouglas Adams", "d4110aa6-4750-451b-a0bf-560bf648d7bc": "2\nTransferred from plain text to PDF by JustChecking/Josef", "5acb7d21-bf82-4250-906e-030f1d2fb0bb": "3\nLife, the universe and\neverything for Sally", "e54b9521-6133-438b-bae1-5d895e6e24c4": "4", "e8583b67-9e8f-45b9-8025-9845df981836": "Contents\n5", "9e235293-c941-4bc1-b48a-1837e43e732b": "6 CONTENTS", "5ad4d93a-89f2-477a-8cb4-d65f67cf25da": "Chapter 0\nThe regular early morning yell of horror was the sound of Arthur Dent waking\nup and suddenly remembering where he was.\nIt wasn\u2019t just that the cave was cold, it wasn\u2019t just that it was damp and\nsmelly. It was the fact that the cave was in the middle of Islington and there\nwasn\u2019t a bus due for two million years.\nTime is the worst place, so to speak, to get lost in, as Arthur Dent could\ntestify, having been lost in both time and space a good deal. At least being lost\nin space kept you busy.\nHe was stranded in prehistoric Earth as the result of a complex sequence of\nevents which had involved him being alternately blown up and insulted in more\nbizarre regions of the Galaxy than he ever dreamt existed, and though his life\nhad now turned very, very, very quiet, he was still feeling jumpy.\nHe hadn\u2019t been blown up now for \ufb01ve years.\nSince he had hardly seen anyone since he and Ford Prefect had parted com-\npany four years previously, he hadn\u2019t been insulted in all that time either.\nExcept just once.\nIt had happened on a spring evening about two years previously.\nHe was returning to his cave just a little after dusk when he became aware\nof lights \ufb02ashing eerily through the clouds. He turned and stared, with hope\nsuddenly clambering through his heart. Rescue. Escape. The castaway\u2019s im-\npossible dream - a ship.\nAnd as he watched, as he stared in wonder and excitement, a long silver\nship descended through the warm evening air, quietly, without fuss, its long\nlegs unlocking in a smooth ballet of technology.\nIt alighted gently on the ground, and what little hum it had generated died\naway, as if lulled by the evening calm.\nA ramp extended itself.\nLight streamed out.\nA tall \ufb01gure appeared silhouetted in the hatchway. It walked down the ramp\nand stood in front of Arthur.\n- You\u2019re a jerk, Dent, - it said simply.\nIt was alien, very alien. It had a peculiar alien tallness, a peculiar alien\n\ufb02attened head, peculiar slitty little alien eyes, extravagantly draped golden ropes\nwith a peculiarly alien collar design, and pale grey-green alien skin which had\nabout it that lustrous shine which most grey-green faces can only acquire with\nplenty of exercise and very expensive soap.\nArthur boggled at it.\n7", "8fb5ee7e-e63c-4da7-ad0a-b48f430b53d1": "8 CHAPTER 0.\nIt gazed levelly at him.\nArthur\u2019s \ufb01rst sensations of hope and trepidation had instantly been over-\nwhelmed by astonishment, and all sorts of thoughts were battling for the use of\nhis vocal chords at this moment.\n- Whh?.. - he said.\n- Bu... hu... uh... - he added.\n- Ru... ra... wah... who? - he managed \ufb01nally to say and lapsed into a\nfrantic kind of silence. He was feeling the e\ufb00ects of having not said anything to\nanybody for as long as he could remember.\nThe alien creature frowned brie\ufb02y and consulted what appeared to be some\nspecies of clipboard which he was holding in his thin and spindly alien hand.\n- Arthur Dent? - it said.\nArthur nodded helplessly.\n- Arthur Philip Dent? - pursued the alien in a kind of e\ufb03cient yap.\n- Er... er... yes... er... er, - con\ufb01rmed Arthur.\n- You\u2019re a jerk, - repeated the alien, - a complete asshole.\n- Er...\nThe creature nodded to itself, made a peculiar alien tick on its clipboard\nand turned briskly back towards the ship.\n- Er... - said Arthur desperately, - er...\n- Don\u2019t give me that! - snapped the alien. It marched up the ramp, through\nthe hatchway and disappeared into the ship. The ship sealed itself. It started\nto make a low throbbing hum.\n- Er, hey! - shouted Arthur, and started to run helplessly towards it.\n- Wait a minute! - he called. - What is this? What? Wait a minute!\nThe ship rose, as if shedding its weight like a cloak to the ground, and hovered\nbrie\ufb02y. It swept strangely up into the evening sky. It passed up through the\nclouds, illuminating them brie\ufb02y, and then was gone, leaving Arthur alone in\nan immensity of land dancing a helplessly tiny little dance.\n- What? - he screamed. - What? What? Hey, what? Come back here and\nsay that!\nHe jumped and danced until his legs trembled, and shouted till his lungs\nrasped. There was no answer from anyone. There was no one to hear him or\nspeak to him.\nThe alien ship was already thundering towards the upper reaches of the\natmosphere, on its way out into the appalling void which separates the very few\nthings there are in the Universe from each other.\nIts occupant, the alien with the expensive complexion, leaned back in its\nsingle seat. His name was Wowbagger the In\ufb01nitely Prolonged. He was a man\nwith a purpose. Not a very good purpose, as he would have been the \ufb01rst to\nadmit, but it was at least a purpose and it did at least keep him on the move.\nWowbagger the In\ufb01nitely Prolonged was - indeed, is - one of the Universe\u2019s\nvery small number of immortal beings.\nThose who are born immortal instinctively know how to cope with it, but\nWowbagger was not one of them. Indeed he had come to hate them, the load of\nserene bastards. He had had his immortality thrust upon him by an unfortunate\naccident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of\nrubber bands. The precise details of the accident are not important because\nno one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it", "83479eaf-86b3-4cac-9a98-46f342bc55a9": "9\nhappened, and many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead, or both,\ntrying.\nWowbagger closed his eyes in a grim and weary expression, put some light\njazz on the ship\u2019s stereo, and re\ufb02ected that he could have made it if it hadn\u2019t\nbeen for Sunday afternoons, he really could have done.\nTo begin with it was fun, he had a ball, living dangerously, taking risks,\ncleaning up on high-yield long-term investments, and just generally outliving\nthe hell out of everybody.\nIn the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn\u2019t cope with, and that\nterrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2.55, when you know that\nyou\u2019ve had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you\nstare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or\nuse the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare\nat the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o\u2019clock, and you will\nenter the long dark teatime of the soul.\nSo things began to pall for him. The merry smiles he used to wear at other\npeople\u2019s funerals began to fade. He began to despise the Universe in general,\nand everyone in it in particular.\nThis was the point at which he conceived his purpose, the thing which would\ndrive him on, and which, as far as he could see, would drive him on forever. It\nwas this.\nHe would insult the Universe.\nThat is, he would insult everybody in it. Individually, personally, one by one,\nand (this was the thing he really decided to grit his teeth over) in alphabetical\norder.\nWhen people protested to him, as they sometimes had done, that the plan\nwas not merely misguided but actually impossible because of the number of\npeople being born and dying all the time, he would merely \ufb01x them with a\nsteely look and say:\n- A man can dream can\u2019t he?\nAnd so he started out. He equipped a spaceship that was built to last with\nthe computer capable of handling all the data processing involved in keeping\ntrack of the entire population of the known Universe and working out the hor-\nri\ufb01cally complicated routes involved.\nHis ship \ufb02ed through the inner orbits of the Sol star system, preparing to\nslingshot round the sun and \ufb02ing itself out into interstellar space.\n- Computer, - he said.\n- Here, - yipped the computer.\n- Where next?\n- Computing that.\nWowbagger gazed for a moment at the fantastic jewellery of the night, the\nbillions of tiny diamond worlds that dusted the in\ufb01nite darkness with light.\nEvery one, every single one, was on his itinerary. Most of them he would be\ngoing to millions of times over.\nHe imagined for a moment his itinerary connecting up all the dots in the sky\nlike a child\u2019s numbered dots puzzle. He hoped that from some vantage point in\nthe Universe it might be seen to spell a very, very rude word.\nThe computer beeped tunelessly to indicate that it had \ufb01nished its calcula-\ntions.\n- Folfanga, - it said. It beeped.", "e283657c-5e22-400b-8826-7ca131b5fb7e": "10 CHAPTER 0.\n- Fourth world of the Folfanga system, - it continued. It beeped again.\n- Estimated journey time, three weeks, - it continued further. It beeped\nagain.\n- There to meet with a small slug, - it beeped, - of the genus ARth-Urp-Hil-\nIpdenu.\n- I believe, - it added, after a slight pause during which it beeped, - that you\nhad decided to call it a brainless prat.\nWowbagger grunted. He watched the majesty of creation outside his window\nfor a moment or two.\n- I think I\u2019ll take a nap, - he said, and then added, - what network areas are\nwe going to be passing through in the next few hours?\nThe computer beeped.\n- Cosmovid, Thinkpix and Home Brain Box, - it said, and beeped.\n- Any movies I haven\u2019t seen thirty thousand times already?\n- No.\n- Uh.\n- There\u2019s Angst in Space. You\u2019ve only seen that thirty-three thousand \ufb01ve\nhundred and seventeen times.\n- Wake me for the second reel.\nThe computer beeped.\n- Sleep well, - it said.\nThe ship \ufb02ed on through the night.\nMeanwhile, on Earth, it began to pour with rain and Arthur Dent sat in his\ncave and had one of the most truly rotten evenings of his entire life, thinking of\nthings he could have said to the alien and swatting \ufb02ies, who also had a rotten\nevening.\nThe next day he made himself a pouch out of rabbit skin because he thought\nit would be useful to keep things in.", "42d35a27-208f-4527-a180-ca00a2a8c052": "Chapter 1\nThis morning, two years later than that, was sweet and fragrant as he emerged\nfrom the cave he called home until he could think of a better name for it or \ufb01nd\na better cave.\nThough his throat was sore again from his early morning yell of horror, he\nwas suddenly in a terri\ufb01cally good mood. He wrapped his dilapidated dressing\ngown tightly around him and beamed at the bright morning.\nThe air was clear and scented, the breeze \ufb02itted lightly through the tall grass\naround his cave, the birds were chirruping at each other, the butter\ufb02ies were\n\ufb02itting about prettily, and the whole of nature seemed to be conspiring to be\nas pleasant as it possibly could.\nIt wasn\u2019t all the pastoral delights that were making Arthur feel so cheery,\nthough. He had just had a wonderful idea about how to cope with the terrible\nlonely isolation, the nightmares, the failure of all his attempts at horticulture,\nand the sheer futurelessness and futility of his life here on prehistoric Earth,\nwhich was that he would go mad.\nHe beamed again and took a bite out of a rabbit leg left over from his supper.\nHe chewed happily for a few moments and then decided formally to announce\nhis decision.\nHe stood up straight and looked the world squarely in the \ufb01elds and hills.\nTo add weight to his words he stuck the rabbit bone in his hair. He spread his\narms out wide.\n- I will go mad! - he announced.\n- Good idea, - said Ford Prefect, clambering down from the rock on which\nhe had been sitting.\nArthur\u2019s brain somersaulted. His jaw did press-ups.\n- I went mad for a while, - said Ford, - did me no end of good.\n- You see, - said Ford, - ...\n- Where have you been? - interrupted Arthur, now that his head had \ufb01nished\nworking out.\n- Around, - said Ford, - around and about. - He grinned in what he accurately\njudged to be an infuriating manner. - I just took my mind o\ufb00 the hook for a\nbit. I reckoned that if the world wanted me badly enough it would call back. It\ndid.\nHe took out of his now terribly battered and dilapidated satchel his Sub-Etha\nSens-O-Matic.\n- At least, - he said, - I think it did. This has been playing up a bit. - He\nshook it. - If it was a false alarm I shall go mad, - he said, - again.\n11", "9ac67a69-18d4-4e2a-bffe-82ae3f44e2f7": "12 CHAPTER 1.\nArthur shook his head and sat down. He looked up.\n- I thought you must be dead... - he said simply.\n- So did I for a while, - said Ford, - and then I decided I was a lemon for a\ncouple of weeks. A kept myself amused all that time jumping in and out of a\ngin and tonic.\nArthur cleared his throat, and then did it again.\n- Where, - he said, - did you?..\n- Find a gin and tonic? - said Ford brightly. - I found a small lake that\nthought it was a gin and tonic, and jumped in and out of that. At least, I think\nit thought it was a gin and tonic.\n- I may, - he added with a grin which would have sent sane men scampering\ninto trees, - have been imagining it.\nHe waited for a reaction from Arthur, but Arthur knew better than that.\n- Carry on, - he said levelly.\n- The point is, you see, - said Ford, - that there is no point in driving yourself\nmad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save\nyour sanity for later.\n- And this is you sane again, is it? - said Arthur. - I ask merely for infor-\nmation.\n- I went to Africa, - said Ford.\n- Yes?\n- Yes.\n- What was that like?\n- And this is your cave is it? - said Ford.\n- Er, yes, - said Arthur. He felt very strange. After nearly four years of total\nisolation he was so pleased and relieved to see Ford that he could almost cry.\nFord was, on the other hand, an almost immediately annoying person.\n- Very nice, - said Ford, in reference to Arthur\u2019s cave. - You must hate it.\nArthur didn\u2019t bother to reply.\n- Africa was very interesting, - said Ford, - I behaved very oddly there.\nHe gazed thoughtfully into the distance.\n- I took up being cruel to animals, - he said airily. - But only, - he added, -\nas a hobby.\n- Oh yes, - said Arthur, warily.\n- Yes, - Ford assured him. - I won\u2019t disturb you with the details because\nthey would\n- What?\n- Disturb you. But you may be interested to know that I am singlehandedly\nresponsible for the evolved shape of the animal you came to know in later\ncenturies as a gira\ufb00e. And I tried to learn to \ufb02y. Do you believe me?\n- Tell me, - said Arthur.\n- I\u2019ll tell you later. I\u2019ll just mention that the Guide says...\n- The?..\n- Guide. The Hitch Hiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy. You remember?\n- Yes. I remember throwing it in the river.\n- Yes, - said Ford, - but I \ufb01shed it out.\n- You didn\u2019t tell me.\n- I didn\u2019t want you to throw it in again.\n- Fair enough, - admitted Arthur. - It says?\n- What?", "cdc76d01-9fd8-447c-8fce-44777b2023d6": "13\n- The Guide says?\n- The Guide says there is an art to \ufb02ying, - said Ford, - or rather a knack.\nThe knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. - He\nsmiled weakly. He pointed at the knees of his trousers and held his arms up to\nshow the elbows. They were all torn and worn through.\n- I haven\u2019t done very well so far, - he said. He stuck out his hand. - I\u2019m very\nglad to see you again, Arthur, - he added.\nArthur shook his head in a sudden access of emotion and bewilderment.\n- I haven\u2019t seen anyone for years, - he said, - not anyone. I can hardly even\nremember how to speak. I keep forgetting words. I practise you see. I practise\nby talking to... talking to... what are those things people think you\u2019re mad if\nyou talk to? Like George the Third.\n- Kings? - suggested Ford.\n- No, no, - said Arthur. - The things he used to talk to. We\u2019re surrounded\nby them for heaven\u2019s sake. I\u2019ve planted hundreds myself. They all died. Trees!\nI practise by talking to trees. What\u2019s that for?\nFord still had his hand stuck out. Arthur looked at it with incomprehension.\n- Shake, - prompted Ford.\nArthur did, nervously at \ufb01rst, as if it might turn out to be a \ufb01sh. Then he\ngrasped it vigorously with both hands in an overwhelming \ufb02ood of relief. He\nshook it and shook it.\nAfter a while Ford found it necessary to disengage. They climbed to the top\nof a nearby outcrop of rock and surveyed the scene around them.\n- What happened to the Golgafrinchans? - asked Ford.\nArthur shrugged.\n- A lot of them didn\u2019t make it through the winter three years ago, - he said,\n- and the few who remained in the spring said they needed a holiday and set o\ufb00\non a raft. History says that they must have survived...\n- Huh, - said Ford, - well well. - He stuck his hands on his hips and looked\nround again at the empty world. Suddenly, there was about Ford a sense of\nenergy and purpose.\n- We\u2019re going, - he said excitedly, and shivered with energy.\n- Where? How? - said Arthur.\n- I don\u2019t know, - said Ford, - but I just feel that the time is right. Things\nare going to happen. We\u2019re on our way.\nHe lowered his voice to a whisper.\n- I have detected, - he said, - disturbances in the wash.\nHe gazed keenly into the distance and looked as if he would quite like the\nwind to blow his hair back dramatically at that point, but the wind was busy\nfooling around with some leaves a little way o\ufb00.\nArthur asked him to repeat what he had just said because he hadn\u2019t quite\ntaken his meaning. Ford repeated it.\n- The wash? - said Arthur.\n- The space-time wash, - said Ford, and as the wind blew brie\ufb02y past at that\nmoment, he bared his teeth into it.\nArthur nodded, and then cleared his throat.\n- Are we talking about, - he asked cautiously, - some sort of Vogon laundro-\nmat, or what are we talking about?\n- Eddies, - said Ford, - in the space-time continuum.", "75611829-3805-4438-83e1-df6b8f4c18cf": "14 CHAPTER 1.\n- Ah, - nodded Arthur, - is he? Is he? - He pushed his hands into the pocket\nof his dressing gown and looked knowledgeably into the distance.\n- What? - said Ford.\n- Er, who, - said Arthur, - is Eddy, then, exactly?\nFord looked angrily at him.\n- Will you listen? - he snapped.\n- I have been listening, - said Arthur, - but I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s helped.\nFord grasped him by the lapels of his dressing gown and spoke to him as\nslowly and distinctly and patiently as if he were somebody from a telephone\ncompany accounts department.\n- There seem... - he said, - to be some pools... - he said, - of instability... -\nhe said, - in the fabric... - he said...\nArthur looked foolishly at the cloth of his dressing gown where Ford was\nholding it. Ford swept on before Arthur could turn the foolish look into a\nfoolish remark.\n- ...in the fabric of space-time, - he said.\n- Ah, that, - said Arthur.\n- Yes, that, - con\ufb01rmed Ford.\nThey stood there alone on a hill on prehistoric Earth and stared each other\nresolutely in the face.\n- And it\u2019s done what? - said Arthur.\n- It, - said Ford, - has developed pools of instability.\n- Has it? - said Arthur, his eyes not wavering for a moment.\n- It has, - said Ford with a similar degree of ocular immobility.\n- Good, - said Arthur.\n- See? - said Ford.\n- No, - said Arthur.\nThere was a quiet pause.\n- The di\ufb03culty with this conversation, - said Arthur after a sort of pondering\nlook had crawled slowly across his face like a mountaineer negotiating a tricky\noutcrop, - is that it\u2019s very di\ufb00erent from most of the ones I\u2019ve had of late.\nWhich, as I explained, have mostly been with trees. They weren\u2019t like this.\nExcept perhaps some of the ones I\u2019ve had with elms which sometimes get a bit\nbogged down.\n- Arthur, - said Ford.\n- Hello? Yes? - said Arthur.\n- Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple.\n- Ah, well I\u2019m not sure I believe that.\nThey sat down and composed their thoughts.\nFord got out his Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic. It was making vague humming\nnoises and a tiny light on it was \ufb02ickering faintly.\n- Flat battery? - said Arthur.\n- No, - said Ford, - there is a moving disturbance in the fabric of space-time,\nan eddy, a pool of instability, and it\u2019s somewhere in our vicinity.\n- Where?\nFord moved the device in a slow lightly bobbing semi-circle. Suddenly the\nlight \ufb02ashed.\n- There! - said Ford, shooting out his arm. - There, behind that sofa!", "ab3e5a48-4289-4579-8295-2613fc4852d4": "15\nArthur looked. Much to his surprise, there was a velvet paisleycovered\nChester\ufb01eld sofa in the \ufb01eld in front of them. He boggled intelligently at it.\nShrewd questions sprang into his mind.\n- Why, - he said, - is there a sofa in that \ufb01eld?\n- I told you! - shouted Ford, leaping to his feet. - Eddies in the space-time\ncontinuum!\n- And this is his sofa, is it? - asked Arthur, struggling to his feet and, he\nhoped, though not very optimistically, to his senses.\n- Arthur! - shouted Ford at him, - that sofa is there because of the space-\ntime instability I\u2019ve been trying to get your terminally softened brain to get to\ngrips with. It\u2019s been washed out of the continuum, it\u2019s space-time jetsam, it\ndoesn\u2019t matter what it is, we\u2019ve got to catch it, it\u2019s our only way out of here!\nHe scrambled rapidly down the rocky outcrop and made o\ufb00 across the \ufb01eld.\n- Catch it? - muttered Arthur, then frowned in bemusement as he saw that\nthe Chester\ufb01eld was lazily bobbing and wafting away across the grass.\nWith a whoop of utterly unexpected delight he leapt down the rock and\nplunged o\ufb00 in hectic pursuit of Ford Prefect and the irrational piece of furniture.\nThey careered wildly through the grass, leaping, laughing, shouting instruc-\ntions to each other to head the thing o\ufb00 this way or that way. The sun shone\ndreamily on the swaying grass, tiny \ufb01eld animals scattered crazily in their wake.\nArthur felt happy. He was terribly pleased that the day was for once working\nout so much according to plan. Only twenty minutes ago he had decided he\nwould go mad, and now he was already chasing a Chester\ufb01eld sofa across the\n\ufb01elds of prehistoric Earth.\nThe sofa bobbed this way and that and seemed simultaneously to be as solid\nas the trees as it drifted past some of them and hazy as a billowing dream as it\n\ufb02oated like a ghost through others.\nFord and Arthur pounded chaotically after it, but it dodged and weaved as\nif following its own complex mathematical topography, which it was. Still they\npursued, still it danced and span, and suddenly turned and dipped as if crossing\nthe lip of a catastrophe graph, and they were practically on top of it. With\na heave and a shout they leapt on it, the sun winked out, they fell through a\nsickening nothingness, and emerged unexpectedly in the middle of the pitch at\nLord\u2019s Cricked Ground, St John\u2019s Wood, London, towards the end of the last\nTest Match of the Australian Series in the year 198-, with England needing only\ntwenty-eight runs to win.", "93165975-82a9-4aa5-ba44-61306453cbd4": "16 CHAPTER 1.", "fd1f4f25-b2f4-49cf-b24f-402bfe58f054": "Chapter 2\nImportant facts from Galactic history, number one:\n(Reproduced from the Siderial Daily Mentioner\u2019s Book of popular Galactic\nHistory.)\nThe night sky over the planet Krikkit is the least interesting sight in the\nentire Universe.\n17", "8a33246f-2450-4ed2-9072-8067d38928ce": "18 CHAPTER 2.", "6f3d50cf-f27a-48a7-9bc8-65073563644c": "Chapter 3\nIt was a charming and delightful day at Lord\u2019s as Ford and Arthur tumbled\nhaphazardly out of a space-time anomaly and hit the immaculate turf rather\nhard.\nThe applause of the crowd was tremendous. It wasn\u2019t for them, but instinc-\ntively they bowed anyway, which was fortunate because the small red heavy ball\nwhich the crowd actually had been applauding whistled mere millimetres over\nArthur\u2019s head. In the crowd a man collapsed.\nThey threw themselves back to the ground which seemed to spin hideously\naround them.\n- What was that? - hissed Arthur.\n- Something red, - hissed Ford back at him.\n- Where are we?\n- Er, somewhere green.\n- Shapes, - muttered Arthur. - I need shapes.\nThe applause of the crowd had been rapidly succeeded by gasps of astonish-\nment, and the awkward titters of hundreds of people who could not yet make\nup their minds about whether to believe what they had just seen or not.\n- This your sofa? - said a voice.\n- What was that? - whispered Ford.\nArthur looked up.\n- Something blue, - he said.\n- Shape? - said Ford.\nArthur looked again.\n- It is shaped, - he hissed at Ford, with his brow savagely furrowing, - like a\npoliceman.\nThey remained crouched there for a few moments, frowning deeply. The\nblue thing shaped like a policeman tapped them both on the shoulders.\n- Come on, you two, - the shape said, - let\u2019s be having you.\nThese words had an electrifying e\ufb00ect on Arthur. He leapt to his feet like\nan author hearing the phone ring and shot a series of startled glanced at the\npanorama around him which had suddenly settled down into something of quite\nterrifying ordinariness.\n- Where did you get this from? - he yelled at the policeman shape.\n- What did you say? - said the startled shape.\n- This is Lord\u2019s Cricket Ground, isn\u2019t it? - snapped Arthur. - Where did\nyou \ufb01nd it, how did you get it here? I think, - he added, clasping his hand to\n19", "fd7cc860-fb72-4768-ae11-c551f205bda0": "20 CHAPTER 3.\nhis brow, - that I had better calm down. - He squatted down abruptly in front\nof Ford.\n- It is a policeman, - he said, - What do we do?\nFord shrugged.\n- What do you want to do? - he said.\n- I want you, - said Arthur, - to tell me that I have been dreaming for the\nlast \ufb01ve years.\nFord shrugged again, and obliged.\n- You\u2019ve been dreaming for the last \ufb01ve years, - he said.\nArthur got to his feet.\n- It\u2019s all right, o\ufb03cer, - he said. - I\u2019ve been dreaming for the last \ufb01ve years.\nAsk him, - he added, pointing at Ford, - he was in it.\nHaving said this, he sauntered o\ufb00 towards the edge of the pitch, brushing\ndown his dressing gown. He then noticed his dressing gown and stopped. He\nstared at it. He \ufb02ung himself at the policeman.\n- So where did I get these clothes from? - he howled.\nHe collapsed and lay twitching on the grass.\nFord shook his head.\n- He\u2019s had a bad two million years, - he said to the policeman, and together\nthey heaved Arthur on to the sofa and carried him o\ufb00 the pitch and were only\nbrie\ufb02y hampered by the sudden disappearance of the sofa on the way.\nReaction to all this from the crowd were many and various. Most of them\ncouldn\u2019t cope with watching it, and listened to it on the radio instead.\n- Well, this is an interesting incident, Brian, - said one radio commentator\nto another. - I don\u2019t think there have been any mysterious materializations on\nthe pitch since, oh since, well I don\u2019t think there have been any - have there? -\nthat I recall?\n- Edgbaston, 1932?\n- Ah, now what happened then...\n- Well, Peter, I think it was Canter facing Willcox coming up to bowl from\nthe pavilion end when a spectator suddenly ran straight across the pitch.\nThere was a pause while the \ufb01rst commentator considered this.\n- Ye... e... s... - he said, - yes, there\u2019s nothing actually very mysterious\nabout that, is there? He didn\u2019t actually materialize, did he? Just ran on.\n- No, that\u2019s true, but he did claim to have seen something materialize on the\npitch.\n- Ah, did he?\n- Yes. An alligator, I think, of some description.\n- Ah. And had anyone else noticed it?\n- Apparently not. And no one was able to get a very detailed description\nfrom him, so only the most perfunctory search was made.\n- And what happened to the man?\n- Well, I think someone o\ufb00ered to take him o\ufb00 and give him some lunch,\nbut he explained that he\u2019d already had a rather good one, so the matter was\ndropped and Warwickshire went on to win by three wickets.\n- So, not very like this current instance. For those of you who\u2019ve just tuned\nin, you may be interested to know that, er... two men, two rather scru\ufb03ly\nattired men, and indeed a sofa - a Chester\ufb01eld I think?\n- Yes, a Chester\ufb01eld.", "42851cc2-3d99-47d9-87a0-342278fee7d8": "21\n- Have just materialized here in the middle of Lord\u2019s Cricket Ground. But\nI don\u2019t think they meant any harm, they\u2019ve been very good-natured about it,\nand...\n- Sorry, can I interrupt you a moment Peter and say that the sofa has just\nvanished.\n- So it has. Well, that\u2019s one mystery less. Still, it\u2019s de\ufb01nitely one for the\nrecord books I think, particularly occurring at this dramatic moment in play,\nEngland now needing only twenty-four runs to win the series. The men are\nleaving the pitch in the company of a police o\ufb03cer, and I think everyone\u2019s\nsettling down now and play is about to resume.\n- Now, sir, - said the policeman after they had made a passage through the\ncurious crowd and laid Arthur\u2019s peacefully inert body on a blanket, - perhaps\nyou\u2019d care to tell me who you are, where you come from, and what that little\nscene was all about?\nFord looked at the ground for a moment as if steadying himself for something,\nthen he straightened up and aimed a look at the policeman which hit him with\nthe full force of every inch of the six hundred light-years\u2019 distance between Earth\nand Ford\u2019s home near Betelgeuse.\n- All right, - said Ford, very quietly, - I\u2019ll tell you.\n- Yes, well, that won\u2019t be necessary, - said the policeman hurriedly, - just\ndon\u2019t let whatever it was happen again. - The policeman turned around and\nwandered o\ufb00 in search of anyone who wasn\u2019t from Betelgeuse. Fortunately, the\nground was full of them.\nArthur\u2019s consciousness approached his body as from a great distance, and\nreluctantly. It had had some bad times in there. Slowly, nervously, it entered\nand settled down in to its accustomed position.\nArthur sat up.\n- Where am I? - he said.\n- Lord\u2019s Cricket Ground, - said Ford.\n- Fine, - said Arthur, and his consciousness stepped out again for a quick\nbreather. His body \ufb02opped back on the grass.\nTen minutes later, hunched over a cup of tea in the refreshment tent, the\ncolour started to come back to his haggard face.\n- How\u2019re you feeling? - said Ford.\n- I\u2019m home, - said Arthur hoarsely. He closed his eyes and greedily inhaled\nthe steam from his tea as if it was - well, as far as Arthur was concerned, as if\nit was tea, which it was.\n- I\u2019m home, - he repeated, - home. It\u2019s England, it\u2019s today, the nightmare is\nover. - He opened his eyes again and smiled serenely. - I\u2019m where I belong, - he\nsaid in an emotional whisper.\n- There are two things I fell which I should tell you, - said Ford, tossing a\ncopy of the Guardian over the table at him.\n- I\u2019m home, - said Arthur.\n- Yes, - said Ford. - One is, - he said pointing at the date at the top of the\npaper, - that the Earth will be demolished in two days\u2019 time.\n- I\u2019m home, - said Arthur. - Tea, - he said, - cricket, - he added with pleasure,\n- mown grass, wooden benches, white linen jackets, beer cans...\nSlowly he began to focus on the newspaper. He cocked his head on one side\nwith a slight frown.", "d3025d83-a73f-43bd-b771-f8aae279cc26": "22 CHAPTER 3.\n- I\u2019ve seen that one before, - he said. His eyes wandered slowly up to the\ndate, which Ford was idly tapping at. His face froze for a second or two and\nthen began to do that terribly slow crashing trick which Arctic ice-\ufb02oes do so\nspectacularly in the spring.\n- And the other thing, - said Ford, - is that you appear to have a bone in\nyour beard. - He tossed back his tea.\nOutside the refreshment tent, the sun was shining on a happy crowd. It\nshone on white hats and red faces. It shone on ice lollies and melted them. It\nshone on the tears of small children whose ice lollies had just melted and fallen\no\ufb00 the stick. It shone on the trees, it \ufb02ashed o\ufb00 whirling cricket bats, it gleamed\no\ufb00 the utterly extraordinary object which was parked behind the sight-screens\nand which nobody appeared to have noticed. It beamed on Ford and Arthur as\nthey emerged blinking from the refreshment tent and surveyed the scene around\nthem.\nArthur was shaking.\n- Perhaps, - he said, - I should...\n- No, - said Ford sharply.\n- What? - said Arthur.\n- Don\u2019t try and phone yourself up at home.\n- How did you know?..\nFord shrugged.\n- But why not? - said Arthur.\n- People who talk to themselves on the phone, - said Ford, - never learn\nanything to their advantage.\n- But...\n- Look, - said Ford. He picked up an imaginary phone and dialled an imag-\ninary dial.\n- Hello? - he said into the imaginary mouthpiece. - Is that Arthur Dent?\nAh, hello, yes. This is Arthur Dent speaking. Don\u2019t hang up.\nHe looked at the imaginary mouthpiece in disappointment.\n- He hung up, - he said, shrugged, and put the imaginary phone neatly back\non its imaginary hook.\n- This is not my \ufb01rst temporal anomaly, - he added.\nA glummer look replaced the already glum look on Arthur Dent\u2019s face.\n- So we\u2019re not home and dry, - he said.\n- We could not even be said, - replied Ford, - to be home and vigorously\ntowelling ourselves o\ufb00.\nThe game continued. The bowler approached the wicket at a lope, a trot,\nand then a run. He suddenly exploded in a \ufb02urry of arms and legs, out of which\n\ufb02ew a ball. The batsman swung and thwacked it behind him over the sight-\nscreens. Ford\u2019s eyes followed the trajectory of the ball and jogged momentarily.\nHe sti\ufb00ened. He looked along the \ufb02ight path of the ball again and his eyes\ntwitched again.\n- This isn\u2019t my towel, - said Arthur, who was rummaging in his rabbit-skin\nbag.\n- Shhh, - said Ford. He screwed his eyes up in concentration.\n- I had a Golgafrinchan jogging towel, - continued Arthur, - it was blue with\nyellow stars on it. This isn\u2019t it.\n- Shhh, - said Ford again. He covered one eye and looked with the other.\n- This one\u2019s pink, - said Arthur, - it isn\u2019t yours is it?", "b362dd6c-4bad-4b4d-9260-5a52e4f9802d": "23\n- I would like you to shut up about your towel, - said Ford.\n- It isn\u2019t my towel, - insisted Arthur, - that is the point I am trying to...\n- And the time at which I would like you to shut up about it, continued Ford\nin a low growl, - is now.\n- All right, - said Arthur, starting to stu\ufb00 it back into the primitively stitched\nrabbit-skin bag. - I realize that it is probably not important in the cosmic scale\nof things, it\u2019s just odd, that\u2019s all. A pink towel suddenly, instead of a blue one\nwith yellow stars.\nFord was beginning to behave rather strangely, or rather not actually begin-\nning to behave strangely but beginning to behave in a way which was strangely\ndi\ufb00erent from the other strange ways in which he more regularly behaved. What\nhe was doing was this. Regardless of the bemused stares it was provoking from\nhis fellow members of the crowd gathered round the pitch, he was waving his\nhands in sharp movements across his face, ducking down behind some people,\nleaping up behind others, then standing still and blinking a lot. After a moment\nor two of this he started to stalk forward slowly and stealthily wearing a puzzled\nfrown of concentration, like a leopard that\u2019s not sure whether it\u2019s just seen a\nhalf-empty tin of cat food half a mile away across a hot and dusty plain.\n- This isn\u2019t my bag either, - said Arthur suddenly.\nFord\u2019s spell of concentration was broken. He turned angrily on Arthur.\n- I wasn\u2019t talking about my towel, - said Arthur. - We\u2019ve established that\nthat isn\u2019t mine. It\u2019s just that the bag into which I was putting the towel which\nis not mine is also not mine, though it is extraordinarily similar. Now personally\nI think that that is extremely odd, especially as the bag was one I made myself\non prehistoric Earth. These are also not my stones, - he added, pulling a few\n\ufb02at grey stones out of the bag. - I was making a collection of interesting stones\nand these are clearly very dull ones.\nA roar of excitement thrilled through the crowd and obliterated whatever it\nwas that Ford said in reply to this piece of information. The cricket ball which\nhad excited this reaction fell out of the sky and dropped neatly into Arthur\u2019s\nmysterious rabbit-skin bag.\n- Now I would say that that was also a very curious event, - said Arthur,\nrapidly closing the bag and pretending to look for the ball on the ground.\n- I don\u2019t think it\u2019s here, - he said to the small boys who immediately clustered\nround him to join in the search, - it probably rolled o\ufb00 somewhere. Over there\nI expect. - He pointed vaguely in the direction in which he wished they would\npush o\ufb00. One of the boys looked at him quizzically.\n- You all right? - said the boy.\n- No, - said Arthur.\n- Then why you got a bone in your beard? - said the boy.\n- I\u2019m training it to like being wherever it\u2019s put. - Arthur prided himself on\nsaying this. It was, he thought, exactly the sort of thing which would entertain\nand stimulate young minds.\n- Oh, - said the small boy, putting his head to one side and thinking about\nit. - What\u2019s your name?\n- Dent, - said Arthur, - Arthur Dent.\n- You\u2019re a jerk, Dent, - said the boy, - a complete asshole. - The boy looked\npast him at something else, to show that he wasn\u2019t in any particular hurry to run\naway, and then wandered o\ufb00 scratching his nose. Suddenly Arthur remembered", "d89731c0-a65e-4ed7-8403-05aec98e5582": "24 CHAPTER 3.\nthat the Earth was going to be demolished again in two days\u2019 time, and just\nthis once didn\u2019t feel too bad about it.\nPlay resumed with a new ball, the sun continued to shine and Ford continued\nto jump up and down shaking his head and blinking.\n- Something\u2019s on your mind, isn\u2019t it? - said Arthur.\n- I think, - said Ford in a tone of voice which Arthur by now recognized as\none which presaged something utterly unintelligible, - that there\u2019s an SEP over\nthere.\nHe pointed. Curiously enough, the direction he pointed in was not the one\nin which he was looking. Arthur looked in the one direction, which was towards\nthe sight-screens, and in the other which was at the \ufb01eld of play. He nodded,\nhe shrugged. He shrugged again.\n- A what? - he said.\n- An SEP.\n- An S?..\n- ...EP.\n- And what\u2019s that?\n- Somebody Else\u2019s Problem.\n- Ah, good, - said Arthur and relaxed. He had no idea what all that was\nabout, but at least it seemed to be over. It wasn\u2019t.\n- Over there, - said Ford, again pointing at the sight-screens and looking at\nthe pitch.\n- Where? - said Arthur.\n- There! - said Ford.\n- I see, - said Arthur, who didn\u2019t.\n- You do? - said Ford.\n- What? - said Arthur.\n- Can you see, - said Ford patiently, - the SEP?\n- I thought you said that was somebody else\u2019s problem.\n- That\u2019s right.\nArthur nodded slowly, carefully and with an air of immense stupidity.\n- And I want to know, - said Ford, - if you can see it.\n- You do?\n- Yes.\n- What, - said Arthur, - does it look like?\n- Well, how should I know, you fool? - shouted Ford. - If you can see it, you\ntell me.\nArthur experienced that dull throbbing sensation just behind the temples\nwhich was a hallmark of so many of his conversations with Ford. His brain\nlurked like a frightened puppy in its kennel. Ford took him by the arm.\n- An SEP, - he said, - is something that we can\u2019t see, or don\u2019t see, or our\nbrain doesn\u2019t let us see, because we think that it\u2019s somebody else\u2019s problem.\nThat\u2019s what SEP means. Somebody Else\u2019s Problem. The brain just edits it\nout, it\u2019s like a blind spot. If you look at it directly you won\u2019t see it unless you\nknow precisely what it is. Your only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the\ncorner of your eye.\n- Ah, - said Arthur, - then that\u2019s why...\n- Yes, - said Ford, who knew what Arthur was going to say.\n- ...you\u2019ve been jumping up and...\n- Yes.", "2a01deac-6575-438b-a93f-135baf73561b": "25\n- ...down, and blinking...\n- Yes.\n- ...and...\n- I think you\u2019ve got the message.\n- I can see it, - said Arthur, - it\u2019s a spaceship.\nFor a moment Arthur was stunned by the reaction this revelation provoked.\nA roar erupted from the crowd, and from every direction people were run-\nning, shouting, yelling, tumbling over each other in a tumult of confusion. He\nstumbled back in astonishment and glanced fearfully around. Then he glanced\naround again in even greater astonishment.\n- Exciting, isn\u2019t it? - said an apparition. The apparition wobbled in front\nof Arthur\u2019s eyes, though the truth of the matter is probably that Arthur\u2019s eyes\nwere wobbling in front of the apparition. His mouth wobbled as well.\n- W... w... w... w... - his mouth said.\n- I think your team have just won, - said the apparition.\n- W... w... w... w... - repeated Arthur, and punctuated each wobble with a\nprod at Ford Prefect\u2019s back. Ford was staring at the tumult in trepidation.\n- You are English, aren\u2019t you? - said the apparition.\n- W... w... w... w... yes - said Arthur.\n- Well, your team, as I say, have just won. The match. It means they retain\nthe Ashes. You must be very pleased. I must say, I\u2019m rather fond of cricket,\nthough I wouldn\u2019t like anyone outside this planet to hear me saying that. Oh\ndear no.\nThe apparition gave what looked as if it might have been a mischievous\ngrin, but it was hard to tell because the sun was directly behind him, creating a\nblinding halo round his head and illuminating his silver hair and beard in a way\nwhich was awesome, dramatic and hard to reconcile with mischievous grins.\n- Still, - he said, - it\u2019ll all be over in a couple of days, won\u2019t it? Though as I\nsaid to you when we last met, I was very sorry about that. Still, whatever will\nhave been, will have been.\nArthur tried to speak, but gave up the unequal struggle. He prodded Ford\nagain.\n- I thought something terrible had happened, - said Ford, - but it\u2019s just the\nend of the game. We ought to get out. Oh, hello, Slartibartfast, what are you\ndoing here?\n- Oh, pottering, pottering, - said the old man gravely.\n- That your ship? Can you give us a lift anywhere?\n- Patience, patience, - the old man admonished.\n- OK, - said Ford. - It\u2019s just that this planet\u2019s going to be demolished pretty\nsoon.\n- I know that, - said Slartibartfast.\n- And, well, I just wanted to make that point, - said Ford.\n- The point is taken.\nAnd if you feel that you really want to hang around a cricket pitch at this\npoint...\n- I do.\n- Then it\u2019s your ship.\n- It is.\n- I suppose. - Ford turned away sharply at this point.\n- Hello, Slartibartfast, - said Arthur at last.", "14286b44-1ede-473f-a24c-74e172d3da55": "26 CHAPTER 3.\n- Hello, Earthman, - said Slartibartfast.\n- After all, - said Ford, - we can only die once.\nThe old man ignored this and stared keenly on to the pitch, with eyes that\nseemed alive with expressions that had no apparent bearing on what was hap-\npening out there. What was happening was that the crowd was gathering itself\ninto a wide circle round the centre of the pitch. What Slartibartfast saw in it,\nhe alone knew.\nFord was humming something. It was just one note repeated at intervals. He\nwas hoping that somebody would ask him what he was humming, but nobody\ndid. If anybody had asked him he would have said he was humming the \ufb01rst\nline of a Noel Coward song called \u201dMad About the Boy\u201d over and over again. It\nwould then have been pointed out to him that he was only singing one note, to\nwhich he would have replied that for reasons which he hoped would be apparent,\nhe was omitting the \u201dabout the boy\u201d bit. He was annoyed that nobody asked.\n- It\u2019s just, - he burst out at last, - that if we don\u2019t go soon, we might get\ncaught in the middle of it all again. And there\u2019s nothing that depresses me more\nthan seeing a planet being destroyed. Except possibly still being on it when it\nhappens. Or, - he added in an undertone, - hanging around cricket matches.\n- Patience, - said Slartibartfast again. - Great things are afoot.\n- That\u2019s what you said last time we met, - said Arthur.\n- They were, - said Slartibartfast.\n- Yes, that\u2019s true, - admitted Arthur.\nAll, however, that seemed to be afoot was a ceremony of some kind. It was\nbeing specially staged for the bene\ufb01t of tv rather than the spectators, and all\nthey could gather about it from where they were standing was what they heard\nfrom a nearby radio. Ford was aggressively uninterested.\nHe fretted as he heard it explained that the Ashes were about to be presented\nto the Captain of the English team out there on the pitch, fumed when told that\nthis was because they had now won them for the nth time, positively barked\nwith annoyance at the information that the Ashes were the remains of a cricket\nstump, and when, further to this, he was asked to contend with the fact that the\ncricket stump in question had been burnt in Melbourne, Australia, in 1882, to\nsignify the \u201ddeath of English cricket\u201d, he rounded on Slartibartfast, took a deep\nbreath, but didn\u2019t have a chance to say anything because the old man wasn\u2019t\nthere. He was marching out on to the pitch with terrible purpose in his gait,\nhis hair, beard and robes swept behind him, looking very much as Moses would\nhave looked if Sinai had been a well-cut lawn instead of, as it is more usually\nrepresented, a \ufb01ery smoking mountain.\n- He said to meet him at his ship, - said Arthur.\n- What in the name of zarking fardwarks is the old fool doing? - exploded\nFord.\n- Meeting us at his ship in two minutes, - said Arthur with a shrug which\nindicated total abdication of thought. They started o\ufb00 towards it. Strange\nsounds reached their ears. They tried not to listen, but could not help noticing\nthat Slartibartfast was querulously demanding that he be given the silver urn\ncontaining the Ashes, as they were, he said, - vitally important for the past,\npresent and future safety of the Galaxy - , and that this was causing wild\nhilarity. They resolved to ignore it.\nWhat happened next they could not ignore. With a noise like a hundred\nthousand people saying \u201dwop\u201d, a steely white spaceship suddenly seemed to", "bee96423-5976-4339-8e9d-ad9fce71a4cd": "27\ncreate itself out of nothing in the air directly above the cricket pitch and hung\nthere with in\ufb01nite menace and a slight hum.\nThen for a while it did nothing, as if it expected everybody to go about their\nnormal business and not mind it just hanging there.\nThen it did something quite extraordinary. Or rather, it opened up and let\nsomething quite extraordinary come out of it, eleven quite extraordinary things.\nThey were robots, white robots.\nWhat was most extraordinary about them was that they appeared to have\ncome dressed for the occasion. Not only were they white, but they carried\nwhat appeared to be cricket bats, and not only that, but they also carried what\nappeared to be cricket balls, and not only that but they wore white ribbing\npads round the lower parts of their legs. These last were extraordinary because\nthey appeared to contain jets which allowed these curiously civilized robots to\n\ufb02y down from their hovering spaceship and start to kill people, which is what\nthey did\n- Hello, - said Arthur, - something seems to be happening.\n- Get to the ship, - shouted Ford. - I don\u2019t want to know, I don\u2019t want to\nsee, I don\u2019t want to hear, - he yelled as he ran, - this is not my planet, I didn\u2019t\nchoose to be here, I don\u2019t want to get involved, just get me out of here, and get\nme to a party, with people I can relate to!\nSmoke and \ufb02ame billowed from the pitch.\n- Well, the supernatural brigade certainly seems to be out in force here\ntoday... - burbled a radio happily to itself.\n- What I need, - shouted Ford, by way of clarifying his previous remarks,\n- is a strong drink and a peer-group. - He continued to run, pausing only for\na moment to grab Arthur\u2019s arm and drag him along with him. Arthur had\nadopted his normal crisis role, which was to stand with his mouth hanging open\nand let it all wash over him.\n- They\u2019re playing cricket, - muttered Arthur, stumbling along after Ford. - I\nswear they are playing cricket. I do not know why they are doing this, but that\nis what they are doing. They\u2019re not just killing people, they\u2019re sending them\nup, - he shouted, - Ford, they\u2019re sending us up!\nIt would have been hard to disbelieve this without knowing a great deal more\nGalactic history than Arthur had so far managed to pick up in his travels. The\nghostly but violent shapes that could be seen moving within the thick pall of\nsmoke seemed to be performing a series of bizarre parodies of batting strokes, the\ndi\ufb00erence being that every ball they struck with their bats exploded wherever\nit landed. The very \ufb01rst one of these had dispelled Arthur\u2019s initial reaction,\nthat the whole thing might just be a publicity stunt by Australian margarine\nmanufacturers.\nAnd then, as suddenly as it had all started, it was over. The eleven white\nrobots ascended through the seething cloud in a tight formation, and with a few\nlast \ufb02ashes of \ufb02ame entered the bowels of their hovering white ship, which, with\nthe noise of a hundred thousand people saying \u201dfoop\u201d, promptly vanished into\nthe thin air out of which it had wopped.\nFor a moment there was a terrible stunned silence, and then out of the\ndrifting smoke emerged the pale \ufb01gure of Slartibartfast looking even more like\nMoses because in spite of the continued absence of the mountain he was at least\nnow striding across a \ufb01ery and smoking well-mown lawn.", "a125021c-ab97-4643-895d-5d4a3573338c": "28 CHAPTER 3.\nHe stared wildly about him until he saw the hurrying \ufb01gures of Arthur Dent\nand Ford Prefect forcing their way through the frightened crowd which was for\nthe moment busy stampeding in the opposite direction. The crowd was clearly\nthinking to itself about what an unusual day this was turning out to be, and\nnot really knowing which way, if any, to turn.\nSlartibartfast was gesturing urgently at Ford and Arthur and shouting at\nthem, as the three of them gradually converged on his ship, still parked behind\nthe sight-screens and still apparently unnoticed by the crowd stampeding past\nit who presumably had enough of their own problems to cope with at that time.\n- They\u2019ve garble warble farble! - shouted Slartibartfast in his thin tremulous\nvoice.\n- What did he say? - panted Ford as he elbowed his way onwards.\nArthur shook his head.\n- \u201dThey\u2019ve...\u201d something or other, - he said.\n- They\u2019ve table warble farble! - shouted Slartibartfast again.\nFord and Arthur shook their heads at each other.\n- It sounds urgent, - said Arthur. He stopped and shouted.\n- What?\n- They\u2019ve garble warble fashes! - cried Slartibartfast, still waving at them.\n- He says, - said Arthur, - that they\u2019ve taken the Ashes. That is what I think\nhe says. - They ran on.\n- The?.. - said Ford.\n- Ashes, - said Arthur tersely. - The burnt remains of a cricket stump. It\u2019s\na trophy. That... - he was panting, - is... apparently... what they... have come\nand taken. - He shook his head very slightly as if he was trying to get his brain\nto settle down lower in his skull.\n- Strange thing to want to tell us, - snapped Ford.\n- Strange thing to take.\n- Strange ship.\nThey had arrived at it. The second strangest thing about the ship was\nwatching the Somebody Else\u2019s Problem \ufb01eld at work. They could now clearly\nsee the ship for what it was simply because they knew it was there. It was quite\napparent, however, that nobody else could. This wasn\u2019t because it was actually\ninvisible or anything hyper-impossible like that. The technology involved in\nmaking anything invisible is so in\ufb01nitely complex that nine hundred and ninety-\nnine thousand million, nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and\nninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a billion it is\nmuch simpler and more e\ufb00ective just to take the thing away and do without it.\nThe ultra-famous sciento-magician E\ufb00rafax of Wug once bet his life that, given\na year, he could render the great megamountain Magramal entirely invisible.\nHaving spent most of the year jiggling around with immense LuxO-Valves\nand Refracto-Nulli\ufb01ers and Spectrum-Bypass-O-Matics, he realized, with nine\nhours to go, that he wasn\u2019t going to make it.\nSo, he and his friends, and his friends\u2019 friends, and his friends\u2019 friends\u2019\nfriends, and his friends\u2019 friends\u2019 friends\u2019 friends, and some rather less good\nfriends of theirs who happened to own a major stellar trucking company, put in\nwhat now is widely recognized as being the hardest night\u2019s work in history, and,\nsure enough, on the following day, Magramal was no longer visible. E\ufb00rafax\nlost his bet - and therefore his life - simply because some pedantic adjudicating\no\ufb03cial noticed (a) that when walking around the area that Magramal ought to", "38c29479-6251-4762-9a94-34d339481b64": "29\nbe he didn\u2019t trip over or break his nose on anything, and (b) a suspicious-looking\nextra moon.\nThe Somebody Else\u2019s Problem \ufb01eld is much simpler and more e\ufb00ective, and\nwhat\u2019s more can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery.\nThis is because it relies on people\u2019s natural disposition not to see anything they\ndon\u2019t want to, weren\u2019t expecting, or can\u2019t explain. If E\ufb00rafax had painted the\nmountain pink and erected a cheap and simple Somebody Else\u2019s Problem \ufb01eld\non it, then people would have walked past the mountain, round it, even over it,\nand simply never have noticed that the thing was there.\nAnd this is precisely what was happening with Slartibartfast\u2019s ship. It wasn\u2019t\npink, but if it had been, that would have been the least of its visual problems\nand people were simply ignoring it like anything.\nThe most extraordinary thing about it was that it looked only partly like a\nspaceship with guidance \ufb01ns, rocket engines and escape hatches and so on, and\na great deal like a small upended Italian bistro.\nFord and Arthur gazed up at it with wonderment and deeply o\ufb00ended sen-\nsibilities.\n- Yes, I know, - said Slartibartfast, hurrying up to them at that point,\nbreathless and agitated, - but there is a reason. Come, we must go. The ancient\nnightmare is come again. Doom confronts us all. We must leave at once.\n- I fancy somewhere sunny, - said Ford.\nFord and Arthur followed Slartibartfast into the ship and were so perplexed\nby what they saw inside it that they were totally unaware of what happened\nnext outside.\nA spaceship, yet another one, but this one sleek and silver, descended from\nthe sky on to the pitch, quietly, without fuss, its long legs unlocking in a smooth\nballet of technology.\nIt landed gently. It extended a short ramp. A tall grey-green \ufb01gure marched\nbriskly out and approached the small knot of people who were gathered in the\ncentre of the pitch tending to the casualties of the recent bizarre massacre. It\nmoved people aside with quiet, understated authority, and came at last to a\nman lying in a desperate pool of blood, clearly now beyond the reach of any\nEarthly medicine, breathing, coughing his last. The \ufb01gure knelt down quietly\nbeside him.\n- Arthur Philip Deodat? - asked the \ufb01gure.\nThe man, with horri\ufb01ed confusion in eyes, nodded feebly.\n- You\u2019re a no-good dumbo nothing, - whispered the creature. - I thought\nyou should know that before you went.", "9ae1f5be-6eda-43bf-b8d0-9bf8fb0e5f8f": "30 CHAPTER 3.", "131e058a-3046-497f-add0-ae0bdd584211": "Chapter 4\nImportant facts from Galactic history, number two:\n(Reproduced from the Siderial Daily Mentioner\u2019s Book of popular Galactic\nHistory.)\nSince this Galaxy began, vast civilizations have risen and fallen, risen and\nfallen, risen and fallen so often that it\u2019s quite tempting to think that life in the\nGalaxy must be\n(a) something akin to seasick - space-sick, time sick, history sick or some\nsuch thing, and\n(b) stupid.\n31", "e9b45c35-41c6-4fc1-96f8-35430a0d4ffb": "32 CHAPTER 4.", "b0bff2c7-00cf-44d4-a8be-65b781f92e8f": "Chapter 5\nIt seemed to Arthur as if the whole sky suddenly just stood aside and let them\nthrough.\nIt seemed to him that the atoms of his brain and the atoms of the cosmos\nwere streaming through each other.\nIt seemed to him that he was blown on the wind of the Universe, and that\nthe wind was him.\nIt seemed to him that he was one of the thoughts of the Universe and that\nthe Universe was a thought of his.\nIt seemed to the people at Lord\u2019s Cricket Ground that another North London\nrestaurant had just come and gone as they so often do, and that this was\nSomebody Else\u2019s Problem.\n- What happened? - whispered Arthur in considerable awe.\n- We took o\ufb00, - said Slartibartfast.\nArthur lay in startled stillness on the acceleration couch. He wasn\u2019t certain\nwhether he had just got space-sickness or religion.\n- Nice mover, - said Ford in an unsuccessful attempt to disguise the degree\nto which he had been impressed by what Slartibartfast\u2019s ship had just done, -\nshame about the decor.\nFor a moment or two the old man didn\u2019t reply. He was staring at the instru-\nments with the air of one who is trying to convert fahrenheit to centigrade in\nhis head whilst his house is burning down. Then his brow cleared and he stared\nfor a moment at the wide panoramic screen in front of him, which displayed a\nbewildering complexity of stars streaming like silver threads around them.\nHis lips moved as if he was trying to spell something. Suddenly his eyes\ndarted in alarm back to his instruments, but then his expression merely subsided\ninto a steady frown. He looked back up at the screen. He felt his own pulse.\nHis frown deepened for a moment, then he relaxed.\n- It\u2019s a mistake to try and understand mathematics, - he said, - they only\nworry me. What did you say?\n- Decor, - said Ford. - Pity about it.\n- Deep in the fundamental heart of mind and Universe, - said Slartibartfast,\n- there is a reason.\nFord glanced sharply around. He clearly thought this was taking an opti-\nmistic view of things.\nThe interior of the \ufb02ight deck was dark green, dark red, dark brown, cramped\nand moodily lit. Inexplicably, the resemblance to a small Italian bistro had failed\nto end at the hatchway. Small pools of light picked out pot plants, glazed tiles\n33", "118d7214-010d-4e78-bac2-0f230a159928": "34 CHAPTER 5.\nand all sorts of little unidenti\ufb01able brass things.\nRa\ufb01a-wrapped bottles lurked hideously in the shadows.\nThe instruments which had occupied Slartibartfast\u2019s attention seemed to be\nmounted in the bottom of bottles which were set in concrete.\nFord reached out and touched it.\nFake concrete. Plastic. Fake bottles set in fake concrete.\nThe fundamental heart of mind and Universe can take a running jump, he\nthought to himself, this is rubbish. On the other hand, it could not be denied\nthat the way the ship had moved made the Heart of Gold seem like an electric\npram.\nHe swung himself o\ufb00 the couch. He brushed himself down. He looked at\nArthur who was singing quietly to himself. He looked at the screen and recog-\nnized nothing. He looked at Slartibartfast.\n- How far did we just travel? - he said.\n- About... - said Slartibartfast, - about two thirds of the way across the\nGalactic disc, I would say, roughly. Yes, roughly two thirds, I think.\n- It\u2019s a strange thing, - said Arthur quietly, - that the further and faster one\ntravels across the Universe, the more one\u2019s position in it seems to be largely\nimmaterial, and one is \ufb01lled with a profound, or rather emptied of a...\n- Yes, very strange, - said Ford. - Where are we going?\n- We are going, - said Slartibartfast, - to confront an ancient nightmare of\nthe Universe.\n- And where are you going to drop us o\ufb00?\n- I will need your help.\n- Tough. Look, there\u2019s somewhere you can take us where we can have fun,\nI\u2019m trying to think of it, we can get drunk and maybe listen to some extremely\nevil music. Hold on, I\u2019ll look it up. - He dug out his copy of The Hitch Hiker\u2019s\nGuide to the Galaxy and tipped through those parts of the index primarily\nconcerned with sex and drugs and rock and roll.\n- A curse has arisen from the mists of time, - said Slartibartfast.\n- Yes, I expect so, - said Ford. - Hey, - he said, lighting accidentally on one\nparticular reference entry, - Eccentrica Gallumbits, did you ever meet her? The\ntriple-breasted whore of Eroticon Six. Some people say her erogenous zones\nstart some four miles from her actual body. Me, I disagree, I say \ufb01ve.\n- A curse, - said Slartibartfast, - which will engulf the Galaxy in \ufb01re and\ndestruction, and possibly bring the Universe to a premature doom. I mean it, -\nhe added.\n- Sounds like a bad time, - said Ford, - with look I\u2019ll be drunk enough not\nto notice. Here, - he said, stabbing his \ufb01nger at the screen of the Guide, -\nwould be a really wicked place to go, and I think we should. What do you say,\nArthur? Stop mumbling mantras and pay attention. There\u2019s important stu\ufb00\nyou\u2019re missing here.\nArthur pushed himself up from his couch and shook his head.\n- Where are we going? - he said.\n- To confront an ancient night.\n- Can it, - said Ford. - Arthur, we are going out into the Galaxy to have\nsome fun. Is that an idea you can cope with?\n- What\u2019s Slartibartfast looking so anxious about? - said Arthur.\n- Nothing, - said Ford.", "b90e6810-7176-40e9-bdc6-c9c57acc8f47": "35\n- Doom, - said Slartibartfast. - Come, - he added, with sudden authority, -\nthere is much I must show and tell you.\nHe walked towards a green wrought-iron spiral staircase set incomprehensibly\nin the middle of the \ufb02ight deck and started to ascend. Arthur, with a frown,\nfollowed.\nFord slung the Guide sullenly back into his satchel.\n- My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural\nde\ufb01ciency in moral \ufb01bre, - he muttered to himself, - and that I am therefore\nexcused from saving Universes.\nNevertheless, he stomped up the stairs behind them.\nWhat they found upstairs was just stupid, or so it seemed, and Ford shook\nhis head, buried his face in his hands and slumped against a pot plant, crushing\nit against the wall.\n- The central computational area, - said Slartibartfast unperturbed, - this is\nwhere every calculation a\ufb00ecting the ship in any way is performed. Yes I know\nwhat it looks like, but it is in fact a complex four-dimensional topographical\nmap of a series of highly complex mathematical functions.\n- It looks like a joke, - said Arthur.\n- I know what it looks like, - said Slartibartfast, and went into it. As he did\nso, Arthur had a sudden vague \ufb02ash of what it might mean, but he refused to\nbelieve it. The Universe could not possibly work like that, he thought, cannot\npossibly. That, he thought to himself, would be as absurd as... he terminated\nthat line of thinking. Most of the really absurd things he could think of had\nalready happened.\nAnd this was one of them.\nIt was a large glass cage, or box - in fact a room.\nIn it was a table, a long one. Around it were gathered about a dozen chairs,\nof the bentwood style. On it was a tablecloth - a grubby, red and white check\ntablecloth, scarred with the occasional cigarette burn, each, presumably, at a\nprecise calculated mathematical position.\nAnd on the tablecloth sat some half-eaten Italian meals, hedged about with\nhalf-eaten breadsticks and half-drunk glasses of wine, and toyed with listlessly\nby robots.\nIt was all completely arti\ufb01cial. The robot customers were attended by a\nrobot waiter, a robot wine waiter and a robot maetre d\u2019. The furniture was\narti\ufb01cial, the tablecloth arti\ufb01cial, and each particular piece of food was clearly\ncapable of exhibiting all the mechanical characteristics of, say, a pollo sorpreso,\nwithout actually being one.\nAnd all participated in a little dance together - a complex routine involv-\ning the manipulation of menus, bill pads, wallets, cheque books, credit cards,\nwatches, pencils and paper napkins, which seemed to be hovering constantly on\nthe edge of violence, but never actually getting anywhere.\nSlartibartfast hurried in, and then appeared to pass the time of day quite\nidly with the maetre d\u2019, whilst one of the customer robots, an autorory, slid\nslowly under the table, mentioning what he intended to do to some guy over\nsome girl.\nSlartibartfast took over the seat which had been thus vacated and passed a\nshrewd eye over the menu. The tempo of the routine round the table seemed\nsomehow imperceptibly to quicken. Arguments broke out, people attempted to\nprove things on napkins. They waved \ufb01ercely at each other, and attempted to", "30541af0-f3e5-435c-a2b1-4b34fac0c8cb": "36 CHAPTER 5.\nexamine each other\u2019s pieces of chicken. The waiter\u2019s hand began to move on the\nbill pad more quickly than a human hand could manage, and then more quickly\nthan a human eye could follow. The pace accelerated. Soon, an extraordinary\nand insistent politeness overwhelmed the group, and seconds later it seemed\nthat a moment of consensus was suddenly achieved. A new vibration thrilled\nthrough the ship.\nSlartibartfast emerged from the glass room.\n- Bistromathics, - he said. - The most powerful computational force known\nto parascience. Come to the Room of Informational Illusions.\nHe swept past and carried them bewildered in his wake.", "e7395162-c921-4ec0-9724-b6541fff1a30": "Chapter 6\nThe Bistromatic Drive is a wonderful new method of crossing vast interstellar\ndistances without all that dangerous mucking about with Improbability Factors.\nBistromathics itself is simply a revolutionary new way of understanding the\nbehaviour of numbers. Just as Einstein observed that time was not an absolute\nbut depended on the observer\u2019s movement in space, and that space was not\nan absolute, but depended on the observer\u2019s movement in time, so it is now\nrealized that numbers are not absolute, but depend on the observer\u2019s movement\nin restaurants.\nThe \ufb01rst non-absolute number is the number of people for whom the table\nis reserved. This will vary during the course of the \ufb01rst three telephone calls\nto the restaurant, and then bear no apparent relation to the number of people\nwho actually turn up, or to the number of people who subsequently join them\nafter the show/match/party/gig, or to the number of people who leave when\nthey see who else has turned up.\nThe second non-absolute number is the given time of arrival, which is now\nknown to be one of those most bizarre of mathematical concepts, a recipriver-\nsexcluson, a number whose existence can only be de\ufb01ned as being anything\nother than itself. In other words, the given time of arrival is the one moment\nof time at which it is impossible that any member of the party will arrive. Re-\ncipriversexclusons now play a vital part in many branches of maths, including\nstatistics and accountancy and also form the basic equations used to engineer\nthe Somebody Else\u2019s Problem \ufb01eld.\nThe third and most mysterious piece of non-absoluteness of all lies in the\nrelationship between the number of items on the bill, the cost of each item,\nthe number of people at the table, and what they are each prepared to pay\nfor. (The number of people who have actually brought any money is only a\nsub-phenomenon in this \ufb01eld.)\nThe ba\ufb04ing discrepancies which used to occur at this point remained un-\ninvestigated for centuries simply because no one took them seriously. They\nwere at the time put down to such things as politeness, rudeness, meanness,\n\ufb02ashness, tiredness, emotionality, or the lateness of the hour, and completely\nforgotten about on the following morning. They were never tested under labo-\nratory conditions, of course, because they never occurred in laboratories - not\nin reputable laboratories at least.\nAnd so it was only with the advent of pocket computers that the startling\ntruth became \ufb01nally apparent, and it was this:\nNumbers written on restaurant bills within the con\ufb01nes of restaurants do\n37", "dee7a65f-2157-4167-9c89-27fdb5aa27b3": "38 CHAPTER 6.\nnot follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces\nof paper in any other parts of the Universe.\nThis single fact took the scienti\ufb01c world by storm. It completely revolution-\nized it. So many mathematical conferences got held in such good restaurants\nthat many of the \ufb01nest minds of a generation died of obesity and heart failure\nand the science of maths was put back by years.\nSlowly, however, the implications of the idea began to be understood. To\nbegin with it had been too stark, too crazy, too much what the man in the\nstreet would have said:\n- Oh yes, I could have told you that, - about. Then some phrases like\n\u201dInteractive Subjectivity Frameworks\u201d were invented, and everybody was able\nto relax and get on with it.\nThe small groups of monks who had taken up hanging around the major\nresearch institutes singing strange chants to the e\ufb00ect that the Universe was\nonly a \ufb01gment of its own imagination were eventually given a street theatre\ngrant and went away.", "0e336c1a-680b-47c7-a621-c2a07f427af2": "Chapter 7\n- In space travel, you see, - said Slartibartfast, as he \ufb01ddled with some instru-\nments in the Room of Informational Illusions, - in space travel...\nHe stopped and looked about him.\nThe Room of Informational Illusions was a welcome relief after the visual\nmonstrosities of the central computational area. There was nothing in it. No in-\nformation, no illusions, just themselves, white walls and a few small instruments\nwhich looked as if they were meant to plug into something which Slartibartfast\ncouldn\u2019t \ufb01nd.\n- Yes? - urged Arthur. He had picked up Slartibartfast\u2019s sense of urgency\nbut didn\u2019t know what to do with it.\n- Yes what? - said the old man.\n- You were saying?\nSlartibartfast looked at him sharply.\n- The numbers, - he said, - are awful. - He resumed his search.\nArthur nodded wisely to himself. After a while he realized that this wasn\u2019t\ngetting him anywhere and decided that he would say \u201dwhat?\u201d after all.\n- In space travel, - repeated Slartibartfast, - all the numbers are awful.\nArthur nodded again and looked round to Ford for help, but Ford was prac-\ntising being sullen and getting quite good at it.\n- I was only, - said Slartibartfast with a sigh, - trying to save you the trouble\nof asking me why all the ship\u2019s computations were being done on a waiter\u2019s bill\npad.\nArthur frowned.\n- Why, - he said, - were all the ship\u2019s computations being done on a wait.\nHe stopped.\nSlartibartfast said:\n- Because in space travel all the numbers are awful.\nHe could tell that he wasn\u2019t getting his point across.\n- Listen, - he said. - On a waiter\u2019s bill pad numbers dance. You must have\nencountered the phenomenon.\n- Well...\n- On a waiter\u2019s bill pad, - said Slartibartfast, - reality and unreality collide on\nsuch a fundamental level that each becomes the other and anything is possible,\nwithin certain parameters.\n- What parameters?\n- It\u2019s impossible to say, - said Slartibartfast. - That\u2019s one of them. Strange\nbut true. At least, I think it\u2019s strange, - he added, - and I\u2019m assured that it\u2019s\n39", "b102758a-37ac-4eff-9651-212384d0841f": "40 CHAPTER 7.\ntrue.\nAt that moment he located the slot in the wall for which he had been search-\ning, and clicked the instrument he was holding into it.\n- Do not be alarmed, - he said, and then suddenly darted an alarmed look\nat himself, and lunged back, - it\u2019s...\nThey didn\u2019t hear what he said, because at that moment the ship winked\nout of existence around them and a starbattle-ship the size of a small Midlands\nindustrial city plunged out of the sundered night towards them, star lasers\nablaze.\nThey gaped, pop-eyed, and were unable to scream.", "8c71007b-f4a6-42fe-bf2e-57bd680ffa02": "Chapter 8\nAnother world, another day, another dawn.\nThe early morning\u2019s thinnest sliver of light appeared silently.\nSeveral billion trillion tons of superhot exploding hydrogen nuclei rose slowly\nabove the horizon and managed to look small, cold and slightly damp.\nThere is a moment in every dawn when light \ufb02oats, there is the possibility\nof magic. Creation holds its breath.\nThe moment passed as it regularly did on Squornshellous Zeta, without\nincident.\nThe mist clung to the surface of the marshes. The swamp trees were grey\nwith it, the tall reeds indistinct. It hung motionless like held breath.\nNothing moved.\nThere was silence.\nThe sun struggled feebly with the mist, tried to impart a little warmth here,\nshed a little light there, but clearly today was going to be just another long haul\nacross the sky.\nNothing moved.\nAgain, silence.\nNothing moved.\nSilence.\nVery often on Squornshellous Zeta, whole days would go on like this, and\nthis was indeed going to be one of them.\nFourteen hours later the sun sank hopelessly beneath the opposite horizon\nwith a sense of totally wasted e\ufb00ort.\nAnd a few hours later it reappeared, squared its shoulders and started on\nup the sky again.\nThis time, however, something was happening. A mattress had just met a\nrobot.\n- Hello, robot, - said the mattress.\n- Bleah, - said the robot and continued what it was doing, which was walking\nround very slowly in a very tiny circle.\n- Happy? - said the mattress.\nThe robot stopped and looked at the mattress. It looked at it quizzically. It\nwas clearly a very stupid mattress. It looked back at him with wide eyes.\nAfter what it had calculated to ten signi\ufb01cant decimal places as being the\nprecise length of pause most likely to convey a general contempt for all things\nmattressy, the robot continued to walk round in tight circles.\n- We could have a conversation, - said the mattress, - would you like that?\n41", "e0ef0116-90c2-4d84-b8a5-a225b5eb8d34": "42 CHAPTER 8.\nIt was a large mattress, and probably one of quite high quality. Very few\nthings actually get manufactured these days, because in an in\ufb01nitely large Uni-\nverse such as, for instance, the one in which we live, most things one could\npossibly imagine, and a lot of things one would rather not, grow somewhere. A\nforest was discovered recently in which most of the trees grew ratchet screw-\ndrivers as fruit. The life cycle of ratchet screwdriver fruit it quite interesting.\nOnce picked it needs a dark dusty drawer in which it can lie undisturbed for\nyears. Then one night it suddenly hatches, discards its outer skin which crum-\nbles into dust, and emerges as a totally unidenti\ufb01able little metal object with\n\ufb02anges at both ends and a sort of ridge and a sort of hole for a screw. This,\nwhen found, will get thrown away. No one knows what it is supposed to gain\nfrom this. Nature, in her in\ufb01nite wisdom, is presumably working on it.\nNo one really knows what mattresses are meant to gain from their lives either.\nThey are large, friendly, pocket-sprung creatures which live quiet private lives\nin the marshes of Squornshellous Zeta. Many of them get caught, slaughtered,\ndried out, shipped out and slept on. None of them seem to mind and all of them\nare called Zem.\n- No, - said Marvin.\n- My name, - said the mattress, - is Zem. We could discuss the weather a\nlittle.\nMarvin paused again in his weary circular plod.\n- The dew, - he observed, - has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening\nthud this morning.\nHe resumed his walk, as if inspired by this conversational outburst to fresh\nheights of gloom and despondency. He plodded tenaciously. If he had had teeth\nhe would have gritted them at this point. He hadn\u2019t. He didn\u2019t. The mere plod\nsaid it all.\nThe mattress \ufb02olloped around. This is a thing that only live mattresses in\nswamps are able to do, which is why the word is not in more common usage. It\n\ufb02olloped in a sympathetic sort of way, moving a fairish body of water as it did\nso. It blew a few bubbles up through the water engagingly. Its blue and white\nstripes glistened brie\ufb02y in a sudden feeble ray of sun that had unexpectedly\nmade it through the mist, causing the creature to bask momentarily.\nMarvin plodded.\n- You have something on your mind, I think, - said the mattress \ufb02oopily.\n- More than you can possibly imagine, - dreaded Marvin. - My capacity for\nmental activity of all kinds is as boundless as the in\ufb01nite reaches of space itself.\nExcept of course for my capacity for happiness.\nStomp, stomp, he went.\n- My capacity for happiness, - he added, - you could \ufb01t into a matchbox\nwithout taking out the matches \ufb01rst.\nThe mattress globbered. This is the noise made by a live, swampdwelling\nmattress that is deeply moved by a story of personal tragedy. The word can\nalso, according to The Ultra-Complete Maximegalon Dictionary of Every Lan-\nguage Ever, mean the noise made by the Lord High Sanvalvwag of Hollop on\ndiscovering that he has forgotten his wife\u2019s birthday for the second year run-\nning. Since there was only ever one Lord High Sanvalvwag of Hollop, and he\nnever married, the word is only ever used in a negative or speculative sense,\nand there is an ever-increasing body of opinion which holds that The Ultra-\nComplete Maximegalon Dictionary is not worth the \ufb02eet of lorries it takes to", "77c19d38-3406-4107-8146-5d067565e8a5": "43\ncart its microstored edition around in. Strangely enough, the dictionary omits\nthe word \u201d\ufb02oopily\u201d, which simply means \u201din the manner of something which is\n\ufb02oopy\u201d.\nThe mattress globbered again.\n- I sense a deep dejection in your diodes, - it vollued (for the meaning of the\nword \u201dvollue\u201d, buy a copy of Squornshellous Swamptalk at any remaindered\nbookshop, or alternatively buy The Ultra-Complete Maximegalon Dictionary,\nas the University will be very glad to get it o\ufb00 their hands and regain some\nvaluable parking lots), - and it saddens me. You should be more mattresslike.\nWe live quiet retired lives in the swamp, where we are content to \ufb02ollop and\nvollue and regard the wetness in a fairly \ufb02oopy manner. Some of us are killed,\nbut all of us are called Zem, so we never know which and globbering is thus\nkept to a minimum. Why are you walking in circles?\n- Because my leg is stuck, - said Marvin simply.\n- It seems to me, - said the mattress eyeing it compassionately, - that it is a\npretty poor sort of leg.\n- You are right, - said Marvin, - it is.\n- Voon, - said the mattress.\n- I expect so, - said Marvin, - and I also expect that you \ufb01nd the idea of a\nrobot with an arti\ufb01cial leg pretty amusing. You should tell your friends Zem\nand Zem when you see them later; they\u2019ll laugh, if I know them, which I don\u2019t\nof course - except insofar as I know all organic life forms, which is much better\nthan I would wish to. Ha, but my life is but a box of wormgears.\nHe stomped around again in his tiny circle, around his thin steel peg-leg\nwhich revolved in the mud but seemed otherwise stuck.\n- But why do you just keep walking round and round? - said the mattress.\n- Just to make the point, - said Marvin, and continued, round and round.\n- Consider it made, my dear friend, - \ufb02urbled the mattress, - consider it\nmade.\n- Just another million years, - said Marvin, - just another quick million.\nThen I might try it backwards. Just for the variety, you understand.\nThe mattress could feel deep in his innermost spring pockets that the robot\ndearly wished to be asked how long he had been trudging in this futile and\nfruitless manner, and with another quiet \ufb02urble he did so.\n- Oh, just over the one-point-\ufb01ve-million mark, just over, - said Marvin airily.\n- Ask me if I ever get bored, go on, ask me.\nThe mattress did.\nMarvin ignored the question, he merely trudged with added emphasis.\n- I gave a speech once, - he said suddenly, and apparently unconnectedly. -\nYou may not instantly see why I bring the subject up, but that is because my\nmind works so phenomenally fast, and I am at a rough estimate thirty billion\ntimes more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a\nnumber, any number.\n- Er, \ufb01ve, - said the mattress.\n- Wrong, - said Marvin. - You see?\nThe mattress was much impressed by this and realized that it was in the\npresence of a not unremarkable mind. It willomied along its entire length,\nsending excited little ripples through its shallow algae-covered pool.\nIt gupped.\n- Tell me, - it urged, - of the speech you once made, I long to hear it.", "de73c88d-167f-4c58-83a0-40c9a61908b0": "44 CHAPTER 8.\n- It was received very badly, - said Marvin, - for a variety of reasons. I\ndelivered it, - he added, pausing to make an awkward humping sort of gesture\nwith his not-exactly-good arm, but his arm which was better than the other\none which was dishearteningly welded to his left side, - over there, about a mile\ndistance.\nHe was pointing as well as he could manage, and he obviously wanted to\nmake it totally clear that this was as well as he could manage, through the\nmist, over the reeds, to a part of the marsh which looked exactly the same as\nevery other part of the marsh.\n- There, - he repeated. - I was somewhat of a celebrity at the time.\nExcitement gripped the mattress. It had never heard of speeches being deliv-\nered on Squornshellous Zeta, and certainly not by celebrities. Water spattered\no\ufb00 it as a thrill glurried across its back.\nIt did something which mattresses very rarely bother to do. Summoning\nevery bit of its strength, it reared its oblong body, heaved it up into the air\nand held it quivering there for a few seconds whilst it peered through the mist\nover the reeds at the part of the marsh which Marvin had indicated, observing,\nwithout disappointment, that it was exactly the same as every other part of the\nmarsh. The e\ufb00ort was too much, and it \ufb02odged back into its pool, deluging\nMarvin with smelly mud, moss and weeds.\n- I was a celebrity, - droned the robot sadly, - for a short while on account of\nmy miraculous and bitterly resented escape from a fate almost as good as death\nin the heart of a blazing sun. You can guess from my condition, - he added, -\nhow narrow my escape was. I was rescued by a scrap-metal merchant, imagine\nthat. Here I am, brain the size of... never mind.\nHe trudged savagely for a few seconds.\n- He it was who \ufb01xed me up with this leg. Hateful, isn\u2019t it? He sold me to a\nMind Zoo. I was the star exhibit. I had to sit on a box and tell my story whilst\npeople told me to cheer up and think positive. \u201dGive us a grin, little robot,\u201d\nthey would shout at me, \u201dgive us a little chuckle.\u201d I would explain to them that\nto get my face to grin wold take a good couple of hours in a workshop with a\nwrench, and that went down very well.\n- The speech, - urged the mattress. - I long to hear of the speech you gave\nin the marshes.\n- There was a bridge built across the marshes. A cyberstructured hyper-\nbridge, hundreds of miles in length, to carry ion-buggies and freighters over the\nswamp.\n- A bridge? - quirruled the mattress. - Here in the swamp?\n- A bridge, - con\ufb01rmed Marvin, - here in the swamp. It was going to revitalize\nthe economy of the Squornshellous System. They spent the entire economy of\nthe Squornshellous System building it. They asked me to open it. Poor fools.\nIt began to rain a little, a \ufb01ne spray slid through the mist.\n- I stood on the platform. For hundreds of miles in front of me, and hundreds\nof miles behind me, the bridge stretched.\n- Did it glitter? - enthused the mattress.\n- It glittered.\n- Did it span the miles majestically?\n- It spanned the miles majestically.\n- Did it stretch like a silver thread far out into the invisible mist?\n- Yes, - said Marvin. - Do you want to hear this story?", "a6db0b6c-c80b-44cc-8083-e6b6f8cc7e67": "45\n- I want to hear your speech, - said the mattress.\n- This is what I said. I said, \u201dI would like to say that it is a very great\npleasure, honour and privilege for me to open this bridge, but I can\u2019t because\nmy lying circuits are all out of commission. I hate and despise you all. I now\ndeclare this hapless cyberstructure open to the unthinkable abuse of all who\nwantonly cross her.\u201d And I plugged myself into the opening circuits.\nMarvin paused, remembering the moment.\nThe mattress \ufb02urred and glurried. It \ufb02olloped, gupped and willomied, doing\nthis last in a particularly \ufb02oopy way.\n- Voon, - it wurfed at last. - And it was a magni\ufb01cent occasion?\n- Reasonably magni\ufb01cent. The entire thousand-mile-long bridge sponta-\nneously folded up its glittering spans and sank weeping into the mire, taking\neverybody with it.\nThere was a sad and terrible pause at this point in the conversation during\nwhich a hundred thousand people seemed unexpectedly to say \u201dwop\u201d and a\nteam of white robots descended from the sky like dandelion seeds drifting on\nthe wind in tight military formation. For a sudden violent moment they were\nall there, in the swamp, wrenching Marvin\u2019s false leg o\ufb00, and then they were\ngone again in their ship, which said \u201dfoop\u201d.\n- You see the sort of thing I have to contend with? - said Marvin to the\ngobbering mattress.\nSuddenly, a moment later, the robots were back again for another violent\nincident, and this time when they left, the mattress was alone in the swamp.\nHe \ufb02olloped around in astonishment and alarm. He almost lurgled in fear. He\nreared himself to see over the reeds, but there was nothing to see, just more\nreeds. He listened, but there was no sound on the wind beyond the now familiar\nsound of half-crazed etymologists calling distantly to each other across the sullen\nmire.", "69f4e236-32ff-4d55-8ec6-234f02dcf997": "46 CHAPTER 8.", "aedced0e-a794-40b8-9261-de26057ab0b7": "Chapter 9\nThe body of Arthur Dent span.\nThe Universe shattered into a million glittering fragments around it, and\neach particular shard span silently through the void, re\ufb02ecting on its silver\nsurface some single searing holocaust of \ufb01re and destruction.\nAnd then the blackness behind the Universe exploded, and each particular\npiece of blackness was the furious smoke of hell.\nAnd the nothingness behind the blackness behind the Universe erupted, and\nbehind the nothingness behind the blackness behind the shattered Universe was\nat last the dark \ufb01gure of an immense man speaking immense words.\n- These, then, - said the \ufb01gure, speaking from an immensely comfortable\nchair, - were the Krikkit Wars, the greatest devastation ever visited upon our\nGalaxy. What you have experienced...\nSlartibartfast \ufb02oated past, waving.\n- It\u2019s just a documentary, - he called out. - This is not a good bit. Terribly\nsorry, trying to \ufb01nd the rewind control...\n- ...is what billions of billions of innocent...\n- Do not, - called out Slartibartfast \ufb02oating past again, and \ufb01ddling furiously\nwith the thing that he had stuck into the wall of the Room of Informational\nIllusions and which was in fact still stuck there, - agree to buy anything at this\npoint.\n- ...people, creatures, your fellow beings...\nMusic swelled - again, it was immense music, immense chords. And behind\nthe man, slowly, three tall pillars began to emerge out of the immensely swirling\nmist.\n- ...experienced, lived through - or, more often, failed to live through. Think\nof that, my friends. And let us not forget - and in just a moment I shall be\nable to suggest a way which will help us always to remember - that before the\nKrikkit Wars, the Galaxy was that rare and wonderful thing a happy Galaxy!\nThe music was going bananas with immensity at this point.\n- A Happy Galaxy, my friends, as represented by the symbol of the Wikkit\nGate!\nThe three pillars stood out clearly now, three pillars topped with two cross\npieces in a way which looked stupefyingly familiar to Arthur\u2019s addled brain.\n- The three pillars, - thundered the man. - The Steel Pillar which represented\nthe Strength and Power of the Galaxy!\nSearchlights seared out and danced crazy dances up and down the pillar on\nthe left which was, clearly, made of steel or something very like it. The music\n47", "ee0b4778-f586-4286-9c92-6a272274e262": "48 CHAPTER 9.\nthumped and bellowed.\n- The Perspex Pillar, - announced the man, - representing the forces of\nScience and Reason in the Galaxy!\nOther searchlights played exotically up and down the righthand, transparent\npillar creating dazzling patterns within it and a sudden inexplicable craving for\nice-cream in the stomach of Arthur Dent.\n- And, - the thunderous voice continued, - the Wooden Pillar, representing...\n- and here his voice became just very slightly hoarse with wonderful sentiments,\n- the forces of Nature and Spirituality.\nThe lights picked out the central pillar. The music moved bravely up into\nthe realms of complete unspeakability.\n- Between them supporting, - the voice rolled on, approaching its climax, -\nthe Golden Bail of Prosperity and the Silver Bail of Peace!\nThe whole structure was now \ufb02ooded with dazzling lights, and the music had\nnow, fortunately, gone far beyond the limits of the discernible. At the top of the\nthree pillars the two brilliantly gleaming bails sat and dazzled. There seemed to\nbe girls sitting on top of them, or maybe they were meant to be angels. Angels\nare usually represented as wearing more than that, though.\nSuddenly there was a dramatic hush in what was presumably meant to be\nthe Cosmos, and a darkening of the lights.\n- There is not a world, - thrilled the man\u2019s expert voice, - not a civilized\nworld in the Galaxy where this symbol is not revered even today. Even in\nprimitive worlds it persists in racial memories. This it was that the forces of\nKrikkit destroyed, and this it is that now locks their world away till the end of\neternity!\nAnd with a \ufb02ourish, the man produced in his hands a model of the Wikkit\ngate. Scale was terribly hard to judge in this whole extraordinary spectacle, but\nthe model looked as if it must have been about three feet high.\n- Not the original key, of course. That, as everyone knows, was destroyed,\nblasted into the ever-whirling eddies of the spacetime continuum and lost for\never. This is a remarkable replica, hand-tooled by skilled craftsmen, lovingly\nassembled using ancient craft secrets into a memento you will be proud to own,\nin memory of those who fell, and in tribute to the Galaxy - our Galaxy - which\nthey died to defend...\nSlartibartfast \ufb02oated past again at this moment.\n- Found it, - he said. - We can lose all this rubbish. Just don\u2019t nod, that\u2019s\nall.\n- Now, let us bow our heads in payment, - intoned the voice, and then said\nit again, much faster and backwards.\nLights came and went, the pillars disappeared, the man gabled himself back-\nwards into nothing, the Universe snappily reassembled itself around them.\n- You get the gist? - said Slartibartfast.\n- I\u2019m astonished, - said Arthur, - and bewildered.\n- I was asleep, - said Ford, who \ufb02oated into view at this point. - Did I miss\nanything?\nThey found themselves once again teetering rather rapidly on the edge of\nan agonizingly high cli\ufb00. The wind whipped out from their faces and across\na bay on which the remains of one of the greatest and most powerful space\nbattle-\ufb02eets ever assembled in the Galaxy was briskly burning itself back into", "f30989b0-6a69-4192-afbb-9279957b6fd3": "49\nexistence. The sky was a sullen pink, darkening via a rather curious colour to\nblue and upwards to black. Smoke billowed down out of it at an incredible lick.\nEvents were now passing back by them almost too quickly to be distin-\nguished, and when, a short while later, a huge starbattleship rushed away from\nthem as if they\u2019d said \u201dboo\u201d, they only just recognized it as the point at which\nthey had come in.\nBut now things were too rapid, a video-tactile blur which brushed and jiggled\nthem through centuries of galactic history, turning, twisting, \ufb02ickering. The\nsound was a mere thin thrill.\nPeriodically through the thickening jumble of events they sensed appalling\ncatastrophes, deep horrors, cataclysmic shocks, and these were always associated\nwith certain recurring images, the only images which ever stood out clearly from\nthe avalance of tumbling history: a wicket gate, a small hard red ball, hard white\nrobots, and also something less distinct, something dark and cloudy.\nBut there was also another sensation which rose clearly out of the thrilling\npassage of time.\nJust as a slow series of clicks when speeded up will lose the de\ufb01nition of each\nindividual click and gradually take on the quality of a sustained and rising tone,\nso a series of individual impressions here took on the quality of a sustained emo-\ntion - and yet not an emotion. If it was an emotion, it was a totally emotionless\none. It was hatred, implacable hatred. It was cold, not like ice is cold, but like\na wall is cold. It was impersonal, not as a randomly \ufb02ung \ufb01st in a crowd is\nimpersonal, but like a computer-issued parking summons is impersonal. And it\nwas deadly - again, not like a bullet or a knife is deadly, but like a brick wall\nacross a motorway is deadly.\nAnd just as a rising tone will change in character and take on harmonics as\nit rises, so again, this emotionless emotion seemed to rise to an unbearable if\nunheard scream and suddenly seemed to be a scream of guilt and failure.\nAnd suddenly it stopped.\nThey were left standing on a quiet hilltop on a tranquil evening.\nThe sun was setting.\nAll around them softly undulating green countryside rolled o\ufb00 gently into the\ndistance. Birds sang about what they thought of it all, and the general opinion\nseemed to be good. A little way away could be heard the sound of children\nplaying, and a little further away than the apparent source of that sound could\nbe seen in the dimming evening light the outlines of a small town.\nThe town appeared to consist mostly of fairly low buildings made of white\nstone. The skyline was of gentle pleasing curves.\nThe sun had nearly set.\nAs if out of nowhere, music began. Slartibartfast tugged at a switch and it\nstopped.\nA voice said, \u201dThis...\u201d Slartibartfast tugged at a switch and it stopped.\n- I will tell you about it, - he said quietly.\nThe place was peaceful. Arthur felt happy. Even Ford seemed cheerful. They\nwalked a short way in the direction of the town, and the Informational Illusion\nof the grass was pleasant and springy under their feet, and the Informational\nIllusion of the \ufb02owers smelt sweet and fragrant. Only Slartibartfast seemed\napprehensive and out of sorts.\nHe stopped and looked up.", "75c18cc4-5071-4e66-a0fa-3fee01f554ca": "50 CHAPTER 9.\nIt suddenly occurred to Arthur that, coming as this did at the end, so to\nspeak, or rather the beginning of all the horror they had just blurredly experi-\nenced, something nasty must be about to happen. He was distressed to think\nthat something nasty could happen to somewhere as idyllic as this. He too\nglanced up. There was nothing in the sky.\n- They\u2019re not about to attack here, are they? - he said. He realized that\nthis was merely a recording he was walking through, but he still felt alarmed.\n- Nothing is about to attack here, - said Slartibartfast in a voice which\nunexpectedly trembled with emotion. - This is where it all started. This is the\nplace itself. This is Krikkit.\nHe stared up into the sky.\nThe sky, from one horizon to another, from east to west, from north to south,\nwas utterly and completely black.", "5ffd9fd6-e62f-495a-b52f-d199d8778c7d": "Chapter 10\nStomp stomp.\nWhirrr.\n- Pleased to be of service.\n- Shut up.\n- Thank you.\nStomp stomp stomp stomp stomp.\nWhirrr.\n- Thank you for making a simple door very happy.\n- Hope your diodes rot.\n- Thank you. Have a nice day.\nStomp stomp stomp stomp.\nWhirrr.\n- It is my pleasure to open for you...\n- Zark o\ufb00.\n- ...and my satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.\n- I said zark o\ufb00.\n- Thank you for listening to this message.\nStomp stomp stomp stomp.\n- Wop.\nZaphod stopped stomping. He had been stomping around the Heart of Gold\nfor days, and so far no door had said \u201dwop\u201d to him. He was fairly certain that\nno door had said \u201dwop\u201d to him now. It was not the sort of thing doors said. Too\nconcise. Furthermore, there were not enough doors. It sounded as if a hundred\nthousand people had said \u201dwop\u201d, which puzzled him because he was the only\nperson on the ship.\nIt was dark. Most of the ship\u2019s non-essential systems were closed down. It\nwas drifting in a remote area of the Galaxy, deep in the inky blackness of space.\nSo which particular hundred thousand people would turn up at this point and\nsay a totally unexpected \u201dwop\u201d?\nHe looked about him, up the corridor and down the corridor. It was all in\ndeep shadow. There were just the very dim pinkish outlines of the doors which\nglowed in the dark and pulsed whenever they spoke, though he had tried every\nway he could think of of stopping them.\nThe lights were o\ufb00 so that his heads could avoid looking at each other,\nbecause neither of them was currently a particularly engaging sight, and nor\nhad they been since he had made the error of looking into his soul.\nIt had indeed been an error. It had been late one night - of course.\n51", "47048b2c-1cc7-4adc-81dd-5039b9152c8f": "52 CHAPTER 10.\nIt had been a di\ufb03cult day - of course.\nThere had been soulful music playing on the ship\u2019s sound system - of course.\nAnd he had, of course, been slightly drunk.\nIn other words, all the usual conditions which bring on a bout of soul-\nsearching had applied, but it had, nevertheless, clearly been an error.\nStanding now, silent and alone in the dark corridor he remembered the\nmoment and shivered. His one head looked one way and his other the other and\neach decided that the other was the way to go.\nHe listened but could hear nothing.\nAll there had been was the \u201dwop\u201d.\nIt seemed an awfully long way to bring an awfully large number of people\njust to say one word.\nHe started nervously to edge his way in the direction of the bridge. There\nat least he would feel in control. He stopped again. The way he was feeling he\ndidn\u2019t think he was an awfully good person to be in control.\nThe \ufb01rst shock of that moment, thinking back, had been discovering that he\nactually had a soul.\nIn fact he\u2019d always more or less assumed that he had one as he had a full\ncomplement of everything else, and indeed two of somethings, but suddenly\nactually to encounter the thing lurking there deep within him had giving him a\nsevere jolt.\nAnd then to discover (this was the second shock) that it wasn\u2019t the totally\nwonderful object which he felt a man in his position had a natural right to\nexpect had jolted him again.\nThen he had thought about what his position actually was and the renewed\nshock had nearly made him spill his drink. He drained it quickly before anything\nserious happened to it. He then had another quick one to follow the \ufb01rst one\ndown and check that it was all right.\n- Freedom, - he said aloud.\nTrillian came on to the bridge at that point and said several enthusiastic\nthings on the subject of freedom.\n- I can\u2019t cope with it, - he said darkly, and sent a third drink down to see\nwhy the second hadn\u2019t yet reported on the condition of the \ufb01rst. He looked\nuncertainly at both of her and preferred the one on the right.\nHe poured a drink down his other throat with the plan that it would head\nthe previous one o\ufb00 at the pass, join forces with it, and together they would get\nthe second to pull itself together. Then all three would go o\ufb00 in search of the\n\ufb01rst, give it a good talking to and maybe a bit of a sing as well.\nHe felt uncertain as to whether the fourth drink had understood all that,\nso he sent down a \ufb01fth to explain the plan more fully and a sixth for moral\nsupport.\n- You\u2019re drinking too much, - said Trillian.\nHis heads collided trying to sort out the four of her he could now see into\na whole position. He gave up and looked at the navigation screen and was\nastonished to see a quite phenomenal number of stars.\n- Excitement and adventure and really wild things, - he muttered.\n- Look, - she said in a sympathetic tone of voice, and sat down near him, -\nit\u2019s quite understandable that you\u2019re going to feel a little aimless for a bit.\nHe boggled at her. He had never seen anyone sit on their own lap before.\n- Wow, - he said. He had another drink.", "3f657503-9fef-463b-aea1-18b9a1a87c51": "53\n- You\u2019ve \ufb01nished the mission you\u2019ve been on for years.\n- I haven\u2019t been on it. I\u2019ve tried to avoid being on it.\n- You\u2019ve still \ufb01nished it.\nHe grunted. There seemed to be a terri\ufb01c party going on in his stomach.\n- I think it \ufb01nished me, - he said. - Here I am, Zaphod Beeblebrox, I can\ngo anywhere, do anything. I have the greatest ship in the know sky, a girl with\nwhom things seem to be working out pretty well...\n- Are they?\n- As far as I can tell I\u2019m not an expert in personal relationships\nTrillian raised her eyebrows.\n- I am, - he added, - one hell of a guy, I can do anything I want only I just\ndon\u2019t have the faintest idea what.\nHe paused.\n- One thing, - he further added, - has suddenly ceased to lead to another -\nin contradiction of which he had another drink and slid gracelessly o\ufb00 his chair.\nWhilst he slept it o\ufb00, Trillian did a little research in the ship\u2019s copy of The\nHitch Hiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy. It had some advice to o\ufb00er on drunkenness.\n- Go to it, - it said, - and good luck.\nIt was cross-referenced to the entry concerning the size of the Universe and\nways of coping with that.\nThen she found the entry on Han Wavel, an exotic holiday planet, and one\nof the wonders of the Galaxy.\nHan Wavel is a world which consists largely of fabulous ultraluxury hotels\nand casinos, all of which have been formed by the natural erosion of wind and\nrain.\nThe chances of this happening are more or less one to in\ufb01nity against. Little\nis known of how this came about because none of the geophysicists, probability\nstatisticians, meteoranalysts or bizzarrologists who are so keen to research it\ncan a\ufb00ord to stay there.\nTerri\ufb01c, thought Trillian to herself, and within a few hours the great white\nrunning-shoe ship was slowly powering down out of the sky beneath a hot bril-\nliant sun towards a brightly coloured sandy spaceport. The ship was clearly\ncausing a sensation on the ground, and Trillian was enjoying herself. She heard\nZaphod moving around and whistling somewhere in the ship.\n- How are you? - she said over the general intercom.\n- Fine, - he said brightly, - terribly well.\n- Where are you?\n- In the bathroom.\n- What are you doing?\n- Staying here.\nAfter an hour or two it became plain that he meant it and the ship returned\nto the sky without having once opened its hatchway.\n- Heigh ho, - said Eddie the Computer.\nTrillian nodded patiently, tapped her \ufb01ngers a couple of times and pushed\nthe intercom switch.\n- I think that enforced fun is probably not what you need at this point.\n- Probably not, - replied Zaphod from wherever he was.\n- I think a bit of physical challenge would help draw you out of yourself.\n- Whatever you think, I think, - said Zaphod.", "d4550d82-aa17-4d0e-90c1-0c488c28e2dc": "54 CHAPTER 10.\n\u201dRecreational Impossibilities\u201d was a heading which caught Trillian\u2019s eye\nwhen, a short while later, she sat down to \ufb02ip through the Guide again, and as\nthe Heart of Gold rushed at improbable speeds in an indeterminate direction,\nshe sipped a cup of something undrinkable from the Nutrimatic Drink Dispenser\nand read about how to \ufb02y.\nThe Hitch Hiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of\n\ufb02ying.\nThere is an art, it says, or rather a knack to \ufb02ying.\nThe knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.\nPick a nice day, it suggests, and try it.\nThe \ufb01rst part is easy.\nAll it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all your\nweight, and the willingness not to mind that it\u2019s going to hurt.\nThat is, it\u2019s going to hurt if you fail to miss the ground.\nMost people fail to miss the ground, and if they are really trying properly,\nthe likelihood is that they will fail to miss it fairly hard.\nClearly, it\u2019s the second point, the missing, which presents the di\ufb03culties.\nOne problem is that you have to miss the ground accidentally. It\u2019s no good\ndeliberately intending to miss the ground because you won\u2019t. You have to have\nyour attention suddenly distracted by something else when you\u2019re halfway there,\nso that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about the ground, or about\nhow much it\u2019s going to hurt if you fail to miss it.\nIt is notoriously di\ufb03cult to prise your attention away from these three things\nduring the split second you have at your disposal. Hence most people\u2019s failure,\nand their eventual disillusionment with this exhilarating and spectacular sport.\nIf, however, you are lucky enough to have your attention momentarily dis-\ntracted at the crucial moment by, say, a gorgeous pair of legs (tentacles, pseu-\ndopodia, according to phyllum and/or personal inclination) or a bomb going\no\ufb00 in your vicinity, or by suddenly spotting an extremely rare species of bee-\ntle crawling along a nearby twig, then in your astonishment you will miss the\nground completely and remain bobbing just a few inches above it in what might\nseem to be a slightly foolish manner.\nThis is a moment for superb and delicate concentration.\nBob and \ufb02oat, \ufb02oat and bob.\nIgnore all considerations of your own weight and simply let yourself waft\nhigher.\nDo not listen to what anybody says to you at this point because they are\nunlikely to say anything helpful.\nThey are most likely to say something along the lines of, \u201dGood God, you\ncan\u2019t possibly be \ufb02ying!\u201d\nIt is vitally important not to believe them or they will suddenly be right.\nWaft higher and higher.\nTry a few swoops, gentle ones at \ufb01rst, then drift above the treetops breathing\nregularly.\nDo not wave at anybody.\nWhen you have done this a few times you will \ufb01nd the moment of distraction\nrapidly becomes easier and easier to achieve.\nYou will then learn all sorts of things about how to control your \ufb02ight, your\nspeed, your manoeuvrability, and the trick usually lies in not thinking too hard", "65a275b2-dabf-48bd-ad71-da690eae8c9d": "55\nabout whatever you want to do, but just allowing it to happen as if it was going\nto anyway.\nYou will also learn how to land properly, which is something you will almost\ncertainly cock up, and cock up badly, on your \ufb01rst attempt.\nThere are private \ufb02ying clubs you can join which help you achieve the all-\nimportant moment of distraction. They hire people with surprising bodies or\nopinions to leap out from behind bushes and exhibit and/or explain them at the\ncrucial moments. Few genuine hitch-hikers will be able to a\ufb00ord to join these\nclubs, but some may be able to get temporary employment at them.\nTrillian read this longingly, but reluctantly decided that Zaphod wasn\u2019t re-\nally in the right frame of mind for attempting to \ufb02y, or for walking through\nmountains or for trying to get the Brantisvogan Civil Service to acknowledge\na change-of-address card, which were the other things listed under the heading\n\u201dRecreational Impossibilities\u201d.\nInstead, she \ufb02ew the ship to Allosimanius Syneca, a world of ice, snow, mind-\nhurtling beauty and stunning cold. The trek from the snow plains of Liska to\nthe summit of the Ice Crystal Pyramids of Sastantua is long and gruelling, even\nwith jet skis and a team of Syneca Snowhounds, but the view from the top, a\nview which takes in the Stin Glacier Fields, the shimmering Prism Mountains\nand the far ethereal dancing icelights, is one which \ufb01rst freezes the mind and\nthen slowly releases it to hitherto unexperienced horizons of beauty, and Trillian,\nfor one, felt that she could do with a bit of having her mind slowly released to\nhitherto unexperienced horizons of beauty.\nThey went into a low orbit. There lay the silverwhite beauty of Allosimanius\nSyneca beneath them. Zaphod stayed in bed with one head stuck under a pillow\nand the other doing crosswords till late into the night.\nTrillian nodded patiently again, counted to a su\ufb03ciently high number, and\ntold herself that the important thing now was just to get Zaphod talking.\nShe prepared, by dint of deactivating all the robot kitchen synthomatics,\nthe most fabulously delicious meal she could contrive - delicately oiled meals,\nscented fruits, fragrant cheeses, \ufb01ne Aldebaran wines.\nShe carried it through to him and asked if he felt like talking things through.\n- Zark o\ufb00, - said Zaphod.\nTrillian nodded patiently to herself, counted to an even higher number,\ntossed the tray lightly aside, walked to the transport room and just teleported\nherself the hell out of his life.\nShe didn\u2019t even programme any coordinates, she hadn\u2019t the faintest idea\nwhere she was going, she just went - a random row of dots \ufb02owing through the\nUniverse.\n- Anything, - she said to herself as she left, - is better than this.\n- Good job too, - muttered Zaphod to himself, turned over and failed to go\nto sleep.\nThe next day he restlessly paced the empty corridors of the ship, pretending\nnot to look for her, though he knew she wasn\u2019t there. He ignored the computer\u2019s\nquerulous demands to know just what the hell was going on around here by\n\ufb01tting a small electronic gag across a pair of its terminals.\nAfter a while he began to turn down the lights. There was nothing to see.\nNothing was about to happen.\nLying in bed one night - and night was now virtually continuous on the ship\n- he decided to pull himself together, to get things into some kind of perspective.", "9974e723-8273-4c9b-997c-e21445fec230": "56 CHAPTER 10.\nHe sat up sharply and started to pull clothes on. He decided that there must\nbe someone in the Universe feeling more wretched, miserable and forsaken than\nhimself, and he determined to set out and \ufb01nd him.\nHalfway to the bridge it occurred to him that it might be Marvin, and he\nreturned to bed.\nIt was a few hours later than this, as he stomped disconsolately about the\ndarkened corridors swearing at cheerful doors, that he heard the \u201dwop\u201d said,\nand it made him very nervous.\nHe leant tensely against the corridor wall and frowned like a man trying to\nunbend a corkscrew by telekinesis. He laid his \ufb01ngertips against the wall and\nfelt an unusual vibration. And now he could quite clearly hear slight noises, and\ncould hear where they were coming from - they were coming from the bridge.\n- Computer? - he hissed.\n- Mmmm? - said the computer terminal nearest him, equally quietly.\n- Is there someone on this ship?\n- Mmmmm, - said the computer.\n- Who is it?\n- Mmmmm mmm mmmmm, - said the computer.\n- What?\n- Mmmmm mmmm mm mmmmmmmm.\nZaphod buried one of his faces in two of his hands.\n- Oh, Zarquon, - he muttered to himself. Then he stared up the corridor\ntowards the entrance to the bridge in the dim distance from which more and\npurposeful noises were coming, and in which the gagged terminals were situated.\n- Computer, - he hissed again.\n- Mmmmm?\n- When I ungag you...\n- Mmmmm.\n- Remind me to punch myself in the mouth.\n- Mmmmm mmm?\n- Either one. Now just tell me this. One for yes, two for no. Is it dangerous?\n- Mmmmm.\n- It is?\n- Mmmm.\n- You didn\u2019t just go \u201dmmmm\u201d twice?\n- Mmmm mmmm.\n- Hmmmm.\nHe inched his way up the corridor as if he would rather be yarding his way\ndown it, which was true.\nHe was within two yards of the door to the bridge when he suddenly realized\nto his horror that it was going to be nice to him, and he stopped dead. He\nhadn\u2019t been able to turn o\ufb00 the doors\u2019 courtesy voice circuits.\nThis doorway to the bridge was concealed from view within it because of the\nexcitingly chunky way in which the bridge had been designed to curve round,\nand he had been hoping to enter unobserved.\nHe leant despondently back against the wall again and said some words\nwhich his other head was quite shocked to hear.\nHe peered at the dim pink outline of the door, and discovered that in the\ndarkness of the corridor he could just about make out the Sensor Field which", "73a8edef-d304-4689-b48e-19b27714f97d": "57\nextended out into the corridor and told the door when there was someone there\nfor whom it must open and to whom it must make a cheery and pleasant remark.\nHe pressed himself hard back against the wall and edged himself towards the\ndoor, \ufb02attening his chest as much as he possibly could to avoid brushing against\nthe very, very dim perimeter of the \ufb01eld. He held his breath, and congratulated\nhimself on having lain in bed sulking for the last few days rather than trying to\nwork out his feelings on chest expanders in the ship\u2019s gym.\nHe then realized he was going to have to speak at this point.\nHe took a series of very shallow breaths, and then said as quickly and as\nquietly as he could:\n- Door, if you can hear me, say so very, very quietly.\nVery, very quietly, the door murmured:\n- I can hear you.\n- Good. Now, in a moment, I\u2019m going to ask you to open. When you open\nI do not want you to say that you enjoyed it, OK?\n- OK.\n- And I don\u2019t want you to say to me that I have made a simple door very\nhappy, or that it is your pleasure to open for me and your satisfaction to close\nagain with the knowledge of a job well done, OK?\n- OK.\n- And I do not want you to ask me to have a nice day, understand?\n- I understand.\n- OK, - said Zaphod, tensing himself, - open now.\nThe door slid open quietly. Zaphod slipped quietly through. The door closed\nquietly behind him.\n- Is that the way you like it, Mr Beeblebrox? - said the door out loud.\n- I want you to imagine, - said Zaphod to the group of white robots who\nswung round to stare at him at that point, - that I have an extremely powerful\nKill-O-Zap blaster pistol in my hand.\nThere was an immensely cold and savage silence. The robots regarded him\nwith hideously dead eyes. They stood very still. There was something intensely\nmacabre about their appearance, especially to Zaphod who had never seen one\nbefore or even known anything about them. The Krikkit Wars belonged to the\nancient past of the Galaxy, and Zaphod had spent most of his early history\nlessons plotting how he was going to have sex with the girl in the cybercubicle\nnext to him, and since his teaching computer had been an integral part of this\nplot it had eventually had all its history circuits wiped and replaced with an\nentirely di\ufb00erent set of ideas which had then resulted in it being scrapped and\nsent to a home for Degenerate Cybermats, whither it was followed by the girl\nwho had inadvertently fallen deeply in love with the unfortunate machine, with\nthe result (a) that Zaphod never got near her and (b) that he missed out on a\nperiod of ancient history that would have been of inestimable value to him at\nthis moment.\nHe stared at them in shock.\nIt was impossible to explain why, but their smooth and sleek white bodies\nseemed to be the utter embodiment of clean, clinical evil. From their hideously\ndead eyes to their powerful lifeless feet, they were clearly the calculated product\nof a mind that wanted simply to kill. Zaphod gulped in cold fear.\nThey had been dismantling part of the rear bridge wall, and had forced a\npassage through some of the vital innards of the ship. Through the tangled", "3bd49527-5f3f-432f-9d38-c758e7ae1aa2": "58 CHAPTER 10.\nwreckage Zaphod could see, with a further and worse sense of shock, that they\nwere tunnelling towards the very heart of the ship, the heart of the Improbability\nDrive that had been so mysteriously created out of thin air, the Heart of Gold\nitself.\nThe robot closest to him was regarding him in such a way as to suggest that\nit was measuring every smallest particle of his body, mind and capability. And\nwhen it spoke, what it said seemed to bear this impression out. Before going on\nto what it actually said, it is worth recording at this point that Zaphod was the\n\ufb01rst living organic being to hear one of these creatures speak for something over\nten billion years. If he had paid more attention to his ancient history lessons and\nless to his organic being, he might have been more impressed by this honour.\nThe robot\u2019s voice was like its body, cold, sleek and lifeless. It had almost a\ncultured rasp to it. It sounded as ancient as it was.\nIt said:\n- You do have a Kill-O-Zap blaster pistol in your hand.\nZaphod didn\u2019t know what it meant for a moment, but then he glanced down\nat his own hand and was relieved to see that what he had found clipped to a\nwall bracket was indeed what he had thought it was.\n- Yeah, - he said in a kind of relieved sneer, which is quite tricky, - well, I\nwouldn\u2019t want to overtax your imagination, robot. - For a while nobody said\nanything, and Zaphod realized that the robots were obviously not here to make\nconversation, and that it was up to him.\n- I can\u2019t help noticing that you have parked your ship, - he said with a nod\nof one of his heads in the appropriate direction, - through mine.\nThere was no denying this. Without regard for any kind of proper dimen-\nsional behaviour they had simply materialized their ship precisely where they\nwanted it to be, which meant that it was simply locked through the Heart of\nGold as if they were nothing more than two combs.\nAgain, they made no response to this, and Zaphod wondered if the conver-\nsation would gather any momentum if he phrased his part of it in the form of\nquestions.\n- ...haven\u2019t you? - he added.\n- Yes, - replied the robot.\n- Er, OK, - said Zaphod. - So what are you cats doing here?\nSilence.\n- Robots, - said Zaphod, - what are you robots doing here?\n- We have come, - rasped the robot, - for the Gold of the Bail.\nZaphod nodded. He waggled his gun to invite further elaboration. The robot\nseemed to understand this.\n- The Gold Bail is part of the Key we seek, - continued the robot, - to release\nour Masters from Krikkit.\nZaphod nodded again. He waggled his gun again.\n- The Key, - continued the robot simply, - was disintegrated in time and\nspace. The Golden Bail is embedded in the device which drives your ship. It\nwill be reconstituted in the Key. Our Masters shall be released. The Universal\nReadjustment will continue.\nZaphod nodded again.\n- What are you talking about? - he said.\nA slightly pained expression seemed to cross the robot\u2019s totally expressionless\nface. He seemed to be \ufb01nding the conversation depressing.", "b2605476-2318-423b-8678-5448660c3298": "59\n- Obliteration, - it said. - We seek the Key, - it repeated, - we already have\nthe Wooden Pillar, the Steel Pillar and the Perspex Pillar. In a moment we will\nhave the Gold Bail...\n- No you won\u2019t.\n- We will, - stated the robot.\n- No you won\u2019t. It makes my ship work.\n- In a moment, - repeated the robot patiently, - we will have the Gold Bail...\n- You will not, - said Zaphod.\n- And then we must go, - said the robot, in all seriousness, - to a party.\n- Oh, - said Zaphod, startled. - Can I come?\n- No, - said the robot. - We are going to shoot you.\n- Oh yeah? - said Zaphod, waggling his gun.\n- Yes, - said the robot, and they shot him.\nZaphod was so surprised that they had to shoot him again before he fell\ndown.", "f00ea1ca-ad34-4da7-bd83-a5157370168a": "60 CHAPTER 10.", "0a4afabb-3df6-4f0c-b87f-99dce42a0073": "Chapter 11\n- Shhh, - said Slartibartfast. - Listen and watch.\nNight had now fallen on ancient Krikkit. The sky was dark and empty.\nThe only light was coming from the nearby town, from which pleasant convivial\nsounds were drifting quietly on the breeze. They stood beneath a tree from\nwhich heady fragrances wafted around them. Arthur squatted and felt the\nInformational Illusion of the soil and the grass. He ran it through his \ufb01ngers.\nThe soil seemed heavy and rich, the grass strong. It was hard to avoid the\nimpression that this was a thoroughly delightful place in all respects.\nThe sky was, however, extremely blank and seemed to Arthur to cast a\ncertain chill over the otherwise idyllic, if currently invisible, landscape. Still, he\nsupposed, it\u2019s a question of what you\u2019re used to.\nHe felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up. Slartibartfast was quietly\ndirecting his attention to something down the other side of the hill. He looked\nand could just see some faint lights dancing and waving, and moving slowly in\ntheir direction.\nAs they came nearer, sounds became audible too, and soon the dim lights\nand noises resolved themselves into a small group of people who were walking\nhome across the hill towards the town.\nThey walked quite near the watchers beneath the tree, swinging lanterns\nwhich made soft and crazy lights dance among the trees and grass, chattering\ncontentedly, and actually singing a song about how terribly nice everything was,\nhow happy they were, how much they enjoyed working on the farm, and how\npleasant it was to be going home to see their wives and children, with a lilting\nchorus to the e\ufb00ect that the \ufb02owers were smelling particularly nice at this time\nof year and that it was a pity the dog had died seeing as it liked them so much.\nArthur could almost imagine Paul McCartney sitting with his feet up by the \ufb01re\non evening, humming it to Linda and wondering what to buy with the proceeds,\nand thinking probably Essex.\n- The Masters of Krikkit, - breathed Slartibartfast in sepulchral tones.\nComing, as it did, so hard upon the heels of his own thoughts about Essex\nthis remark caused Arthur a moment\u2019s confusion. Then the logic of the situation\nimposed itself on his scattered mind, and he discovered that he still didn\u2019t\nunderstand what the old man meant.\n- What? - he said.\n- The Masters of Krikkit, - said Slartibartfast again, and if his breathing\nhad been sepulchral before, this time he sounded like someone in Hades with\nbronchitis.\n61", "6b1993ce-5029-47ec-aa97-2e83b4054440": "62 CHAPTER 11.\nArthur peered at the group and tried to make sense of what little information\nhe had at his disposal at this point.\nThe people in the group were clearly alien, if only because they seemed\na little tall, thin, angular and almost as pale as to be white, but otherwise\nthey appeared remarkably pleasant; a little whimsical perhaps, one wouldn\u2019t\nnecessarily want to spend a long coach journey with them, but the point was\nthat if they deviated in any way from being good straightforward people it was\nin being perhaps too nice rather than not nice enough. So why all this rasping\nlungwork from Slartibartfast which would seem more appropriate to a radio\ncommercial for one of those nasty \ufb01lms about chainsaw operators taking their\nwork home with them?\nThen, this Krikkit angle was a tough one, too. He hadn\u2019t quite fathomed\nthe connection between what he knew as cricket, and what...\nSlartibartfast interrupted his train of thought at this point as if sensing what\nwas going through his mind.\n- The game you know as cricket, - he said, and his voice still seemed to be\nwandering lost in subterranean passages, - is just one of those curious freaks of\nracial memory which can keep images alive in the mind aeons after their true\nsigni\ufb01cance has been lost in the mists of time. Of all the races on the Galaxy,\nonly the English could possibly revive the memory of the most horri\ufb01c wars\never to sunder the Universe and transform it into what I\u2019m afraid is generally\nregarded as an incomprehensibly dull and pointless game.\n- Rather fond of it myself, - he added, - but in most people\u2019s eyes you have\nbeen inadvertently guilty of the most grotesque bad taste. Particularly the bit\nabout the little red ball hitting the wicket, that\u2019s very nasty.\n- Um, - said Arthur with a re\ufb02ective frown to indicate that his cognitive\nsynapses were coping with this as best as they could, - um. -\n- And these, - said Slartibartfast, slipping back into crypt guttural and\nindicating the group of Krikkit men who had now walked past them, - are the\nones who started it all, and it will start tonight. Come, we will follow, and see\nwhy.\nThey slipped out from underneath the tree, and followed the cheery party\nalong the dark hill path. Their natural instinct was to tread quietly and\nstealthily in pursuit of their quarry, though, as they were simply walking through\na recorded Informational Illusion, they could as easily have been wearing eu-\nphoniums and woad for all the notice their quarry would have taken of them.\nArthur noticed that a couple of members of the party were now singing a\ndi\ufb00erent song. It came lilting back to them through the soft night air, and was\na sweet romantic ballad which would have netted McCartney Kent and Sussex\nand enabled him to put in a fair o\ufb00er for Hampshire.\n- You must surely know, - said Slartibartfast to Ford, - what it is that is\nabout to happen?\n- Me? - said Ford. - No.\n- Did you not learn Ancient Galactic History when you were a child?\n- I was in the cybercubicle behind Zaphod, - said Ford, - it was very dis-\ntracting. Which isn\u2019t to say that I didn\u2019t learn some pretty stunning things.\nAt this point Arthur noticed a curious feature to the song that the party\nwere singing. The middle eight bridge, which would have had McCartney \ufb01rmly\nconsolidated in Winchester and gazing intently over the Test Valley to the rich\npickings of the New Forest beyond, had some curious lyrics. The songwriter was", "74a441a8-1559-4cd4-bd28-440c7f5dabd0": "63\nreferring to meeting with a girl not \u201dunder the moon\u201d or \u201dbeneath the stars\u201d\nbut \u201dabove the grass\u201d, which struck Arthur a little prosaic. Then he looked\nup again at the bewildering black sky, and had the distinct feeling that there\nwas an important point here, if only he could grasp what it was. It gave him a\nfeeling of being alone in the Universe, and he said so.\n- No, - said Slartibartfast, with a slight quickening of his step, - the people\nof Krikkit have never thought to themselves \u201dWe are alone in the Universe.\u201d\nThey are surrounded by a huge Dust Cloud, you see, their single sun with its\nsingle world, and they are right out on the utmost eastern edge of the Galaxy.\nBecause of the Dust Cloud there has never been anything to see in the sky. At\nnight it is totally blank, During the day there is the sun, but you can\u2019t look\ndirectly at that so they don\u2019t. They are hardly aware of the sky. It\u2019s as if they\nhad a blind spot which extended 180 degrees from horizon to horizon.\n- You see, the reason why they have never thought \u201dWe are alone in the\nUniverse\u201d is that until tonight they don\u2019t know about the Universe. Until\ntonight.\nHe moved on, leaving the words ringing in the air behind him.\n- Imagine, - he said, - never even thinking \u201dWe are alone\u201d simply because it\nhas never occurred to you to think that there\u2019s any other way to be.\nHe moved on again.\n- I\u2019m afraid this is going to be a little unnerving, - he added. As he spoke,\nthey became aware of a very thin roaring scream high up in the sightless sky\nabove them. They glanced upwards in alarm, but for a moment or two could\nsee nothing.\nThen Arthur noticed that the people in the party in front of them had heard\nthe noise, but that none of them seemed to know what to so with it. They were\nglancing around themselves in consternation, left, right, forwards, backwards,\neven at the ground. It never occurred to them to look upwards.\nThe profoundness of the shock and horror they emanated a few moments\nlater when the burning wreckage of a spaceship came hurtling and screaming\nout of the sky and crashed about half a mile from where they were standing was\nsomething that you had to be there to experience.\nSome speak of the Heart of Gold in hushed tones, some of the Starship\nBistromath.\nMany speak of the legendary and gigantic Starship Titanic, a majestic and\nluxurious cruise-liner launched from the great shipbuilding asteroid complexes\nof Artifactovol some hundreds of years ago now, and with good reason.\nIt was sensationally beautiful, staggeringly huge, and more pleasantly equipped\nthan any ship in what now remains of history (see note below on the Campaign\nfor Real Time) but it had the misfortune to be built in the very earliest days of\nImprobability Physics, long before this di\ufb03cult and cussed branch of knowledge\nwas fully, or at all, understood.\nThe designers and engineers decided, in their innocence, to build a prototype\nImprobability Field into it, which was meant, supposedly, to ensure that it was\nIn\ufb01nitely Improbable that anything would ever go wrong with any part of the\nship.\nThey did not realize that because of the quasi-reciprocal and circular nature\nof all Improbability calculations, anything that was In\ufb01nitely Improbable was\nactually very likely to happen almost immediately.", "2b550e3c-6189-41c3-a605-8724a0a41af8": "64 CHAPTER 11.\nThe Starship Titanic was a monstrously pretty sight as it lay beached like a\nsilver Arcturan Megavoidwhale amongst the laserlit tracery of its construction\ngantries, a brilliant cloud of pins and needles of light against the deep interstellar\nblackness; but when launched, it did not even manage to complete its very \ufb01rst\nradio message - an SOS - before undergoing a sudden and gratuitous total\nexistence failure.\nHowever, the same event which saw the disastrous failure of one science in\nits infancy also witnessed the apotheosis of another. It was conclusively proven\nthat more people watched the tri-d coverage of the launch than actually existed\nat the time, and this has now been recognized as the greatest achievement ever\nin the science of audience research.\nAnother spectacular media event of that time was the supernova which the\nstar Ysllodins underwent a few hours later. Ysllodins is the star around which\nmost of the Galaxy\u2019s major insurance underwriters live, or rather lived.\nBut whilst these spaceships, and other great ones which come to mind, such\nas the Galactic Fleet Battleships - the GSS Daring, the GSS Audacy and the\nGSS Suicidal Insanity - are all spoken of with awe, pride, enthusiasm, a\ufb00ec-\ntion, admiration, regret, jealousy, resentment, in fact most of the better known\nemotions, the one which regularly commands the most actual astonishment was\nKrikkit One, the \ufb01rst spaceship ever built by the people of Krikkit. This is not\nbecause it was a wonderful ship. It wasn\u2019t.\nIt was a crazy piece of near junk. It looked as if it had been knocked up in\nsomebody\u2019s backyard, and this was in fact precisely where it had been knocked\nup. The astonishing thing about the ship was not that it was one well (it wasn\u2019t)\nbut that it was done at all. The period of time which had elapsed between the\nmoment that the people of Krikkit had discovered that there was such a thing\nas space and the launching of their \ufb01rst spaceship was almost exactly a year.\nFord Prefect was extremely grateful, as he strapped himself in, that this was\njust another Informational Illusion, and that he was therefore completely safe.\nIn real life it wasn\u2019t a ship he would have set foot in for all the rice wine in\nChina. \u201dExtremely rickety\u201d was one phrase which sprang to mind, and \u201dPlease\nmay I get out?\u201d was another.\n- This is going to \ufb02y? - said Arthur, giving gaunt looks, at the lashed-\ntogether pipework and wiring which festooned the cramped interior of the ship.\nSlartibartfast assured him that it would, that they were perfectly safe and\nthat it was all going to be extremely instructive and not a little harrowing.\nFord and Arthur decided just to relax and be harrowed.\n- Why not, - said Ford, - go mad?\nIn front of them and, of course, totally unaware of their presence for the very\ngood reason that they weren\u2019t actually there, were the three pilots. They had\nalso constructed the ship. They had been on the hill path that night singing\nwholesome heartwarming songs. Their brains had been very slightly turned by\nthe nearby crash of the alien spaceship. They had spent weeks stripping every\ntiniest last secret out of the wreckage of that burnt-up spaceship, all the while\nsinging lilting spaceshipstripping ditties. They had then built their own ship\nand this was it. This was their ship, and they were currently singing a little song\nabout that too, expressing the twin joys of achievement and ownership. The\nchorus was a little poignant, and told of their sorrow that their work had kept\nthem such long hours in the garage, away from the company of their wives and\nchildren, who had missed them terribly but had kept them cheerful by bringing", "5e202da2-1ea4-4799-98f0-fd7243f5e486": "65\nthem continual stories of how nicely the puppy was growing up.\nPow, they took o\ufb00.\nThey roared into the sky like a ship that knew precisely what it was doing.\n- No way, - said Ford a while later after they had recovered from the shock\nof acceleration, and were climbing up out of the planet\u2019s atmosphere, - no way, -\nhe repeated, - does anyone design and build a ship like this in a year, no matter\nhow motivated. I don\u2019t believe it. Prove it to me and I still won\u2019t believe it. -\nHe shook his head thoughtfully and gazed out of a tiny port at the nothingness\noutside it.\nThe trip passed uneventfully for a while, and Slartibartfast fastwound them\nthrough it.\nVery quickly, therefore, they arrived at the inner perimeter of the hollow,\nspherical Dust Cloud which surrounded their sun and home planet, occupying,\nas it were, the next orbit out.\nIt was more as if there was a gradual change in the texture and consistency\nof space. The darkness seemed now to thrum and ripple past them. It was a\nvery cold darkness, a very blank and heavy darkness, it was the darkness of the\nnight sky of Krikkit.\nThe coldness and heaviness and blankness of it took a slow grip on Arthur\u2019s\nheart, and he felt acutely aware of the feelings of the Krikkit pilots which hung\nin the air like a thick static charge. They were now on the very boundary of the\nhistorical knowledge of their race. This was the very limit beyond which none\nof them had ever speculated, or even known that there was any speculation to\nbe done.\nThe darkness of the cloud bu\ufb00eted at the ship. Inside was the silence of\nhistory. Their historic mission was to \ufb01nd out if there was anything or anywhere\non the other side of the sky, from which the wrecked spaceship could have come,\nanother world maybe, strange and incomprehensible though this thought was\nto the enclosed minds of those who had lived beneath the sky of Krikkit.\nHistory was gathering itself to deliver another blow.\nStill the darkness thrummed at them, the blank enclosing darkness. It\nseemed closer and closer, thicker and thicker, heavier and heavier. And sud-\ndenly it was gone.\nThey \ufb02ew out of the cloud.\nThey saw the staggering jewels of the night in their in\ufb01nite dust and their\nminds sang with fear.\nFor a while they \ufb02ew on, motionless against the starry sweep of the Galaxy,\nitself motionless against the in\ufb01nite sweep of the Universe. And then they\nturned round.\n- It\u2019ll have to go, - the men of Krikkit said as they headed back for home.\nOn the way back they sang a number of tuneful and re\ufb02ective songs on the\nsubjects of peace, justice, morality, culture, sport, family life and the oblitera-\ntion of all other life forms.", "a77bec01-dc7e-48dc-a025-fa30f26122f3": "66 CHAPTER 11.", "19a5ed37-92fd-428c-b73f-ca044bc439cb": "Chapter 12\n- So you see, - said Slartibartfast, slowly stirring his arti\ufb01cially constructed\nco\ufb00ee, and thereby also stirring the whirlpool interfaces between real and unreal\nnumbers, between the interactive perceptions of mind and Universe, and thus\ngenerating the restructured matrices of implicitly enfolded subjectivity which\nallowed his ship to reshape the very concept of time and space, - how it is.\n- Yes, - said Arthur.\n- Yes, - said Ford.\n- What do I do, - said Arthur, - with this piece of chicken?\nSlartibartfast glanced at him gravely.\n- Toy with it, - he said, - toy with it.\nHe demonstrated with his own piece.\nArthur did so, and felt the slight tingle of a mathematical function thrilling\nthrough the chicken leg as it moved fourdimensionally through what Slartibart-\nfast had assured him was \ufb01ve-dimensional space.\n- Overnight, - said Slartibartfast, - the whole population of Krikkit was\ntransformed from being charming, delightful, intelligent...\n- ...if whimsical... - interpolated Arthur.\n- ...ordinary people, - said Slartibartfast, - into charming, delightful, intelli-\ngent...\n- ...whimsical...\n- ...manic xenophobes. The idea of a Universe didn\u2019t \ufb01t into their world\npicture, so to speak. They simply couldn\u2019t cope with it. And so, charmingly,\ndelightfully, intelligently, whimsically if you like, they decided to destroy it.\nWhat\u2019s the matter now?\n- I don\u2019t like the wine very much, - said Arthur sni\ufb03ng it.\n- Well, send it back. It\u2019s all part of the mathematics of it.\nArthur did so. He didn\u2019t like the topography of the waiter\u2019s smile, but he\u2019d\nnever liked graphs anyway.\n- Where are we going? - said Ford.\n- Back to the Room of Informational Illusions, - said Slartibartfast, rising\nand patting his mouth with the mathematical representation of a paper napkin,\n- for the second half.\n67", "6b2626d9-6502-4c07-8845-c757341cff3a": "68 CHAPTER 12.", "66ba77ac-3d15-43f0-8ed9-70d610c1d1e6": "Chapter 13\n- The people of Krikkit, - said His High Judgmental Supremacy, Judiciary Pag,\nLIVR (the Learned, Impartial and Very Relaxed) Chairman of the Board of\nJudges at the Krikkit War Crimes Trial, - are, well, you know, they\u2019re just a\nbunch of real sweet guys, you know, who just happen to want to kill everybody.\nHell, I feel the same way some mornings. Shit.\n- OK, - he continued, swinging his feet up on to the bench in front of him\nand pausing a moment to pick a thread o\ufb00 his Ceremonial Beach Loafers, - so\nyou wouldn\u2019t necessarily want to share a Galaxy with these guys.\nThis was true.\nThe Krikkit attack on the Galaxy had been stunning. Thousands and thou-\nsands of huge Krikkit warships had leapt suddenly out of hyperspace and simul-\ntaneously attacked thousands and thousands of major worlds, \ufb01rst seizing vital\nmaterial supplies for building the next wave, and then calmly zapping those\nworlds out of existence.\nThe Galaxy, which had been enjoying a period of unusual peace and pros-\nperity at the time, reeled like a man getting mugged in a meadow.\n- I mean, - continued Judiciary Pag, gazing round the ultra-modern (this\nwas ten billion years ago, when \u201dultra-modern\u201d meant lots of stainless steel and\nbrushed concrete) and huge courtroom, - these guys are just obsessed.\nThis too was true, and is the only explanation anyone has yet managed to\ncome up with for the unimaginable speed with which the people of Krikkit had\npursued their new and absolute purpose - the destruction of everything that\nwasn\u2019t Krikkit.\nIt is also the only explanation for their bewildering sudden grasp of all the\nhypertechnology involved in building their thousands of spaceships, and their\nmillions of lethal white robots.\nThese had really struck terror into the hearts of everyone who had encoun-\ntered them - in most cases, however, the terror was extremely short-lived, as\nwas the person experiencing the terror. They were savage, single-minded \ufb02ying\nbattle machines. They wielded formidable multifunctional battleclubs which,\nbrandished one way, would knock down buildings and, brandished another way,\n\ufb01red blistering Omni-Destructo Zap Rays and, brandished a third way, launched\na hideous arsenal of grenades, ranging from minor incendiary devices to Maxi-\nSlorta Hypernuclear Devices which could take out a major sun. Simply striking\nthe grenades with the battleclubs simultaneously primed them, and launched\nthem with phenomenal accuracy over distances ranging from mere yards to\nhundreds of thousands of miles.\n69", "dcef1ad9-342e-49be-adfd-6bdd2d3a8649": "70 CHAPTER 13.\n- OK, - said Judiciary Pag again, - so we won. - He paused and chewed a\nlittle gum. - We won, - he repeated, - but that\u2019s no big deal. I mean a medium-\nsized galaxy against one little world, and how long did it take us? Clerk of the\nCourt?\n- M\u2019lud? - said the severe little man in black, rising.\n- How long, kiddo?\n- It is a tri\ufb02e di\ufb03cult, m\u2019lud, to be precise in this matter. Time and dis-\ntance...\n- Relax, guy, be vague.\n- I hardly like to be vague, m\u2019lud, over such a...\n- Bite the bullet and be it.\nThe Clerk of the Court blinked at him. It was clear that like most of the\nGalactic legal profession he found Judiciary Pag (or Zipo Bibrok 5/108, as his\nprivate name was known, inexplicably, to be) a rather distressing \ufb01gure. He was\nclearly a bounder and a cad. He seemed to think that the fact that he was the\npossessor of the \ufb01nest legal mind ever discovered gave him the right to behave\nexactly as he liked, and unfortunately he appeared to be right.\n- Er, well, m\u2019lud, very approximately, two thousand years, - the Clerk mur-\nmured unhappily.\n- And how many guys zilched out?\n- Two grillion, m\u2019lud. - The Clerk sat down. A hydrospectic photo of him\nat this point would have revealed that he was steaming slightly.\nJudiciary Pag gazed once more around the courtroom, wherein were assem-\nbled hundreds of the very highest o\ufb03cials of the entire Galactic administration,\nall in their ceremonial uniforms or bodies, depending on metabolism and cus-\ntom. Behind a wall of Zap-Proof Crystal stood a representative group of the\npeople of Krikkit, looking with calm, polite loathing at all the aliens gathered\nto pass judgment on them. This was the most momentous occasion in legal\nhistory, and Judiciary Pag knew it.\nHe took out his chewing gum and stuck it under his chair.\n- That\u2019s a whole lotta sti\ufb00s, - he said quietly.\nThe grim silence in the courtroom seemed in accord with this view.\n- So, like I said, these are a bunch of really sweet guys, but you wouldn\u2019t\nwant to share a Galaxy with them, not if they\u2019re just gonna keep at it, not if\nthey\u2019re not gonna learn to relax a little. I mean it\u2019s just gonna be continual\nnervous time, isn\u2019t it, right? Pow, pow, pow, when are they next coming at\nus? Peaceful coexistence is just right out, right? Get me some water somebody,\nthank you.\nHe sat back and sipped re\ufb02ectively.\n- OK, - he said, - hear me, hear me. It\u2019s, like, these guys, you know, are\nentitled to their own view of the Universe. And according to their view, which\nthe Universe forced on them, right, they did right. Sounds crazy, but I think\nyou\u2019ll agree. They believe in...\nHe consulted a piece of paper which he found in the back pocket of his\nJudicial jeans.\n- They believe in \u201dpeace, justice, morality, culture, sport, family life, and\nthe obliteration of all other life forms\u201d.\nHe shrugged.\n- I\u2019ve heard a lot worse, - he said.\nHe scratched his crotch re\ufb02ectively.", "3232fbc0-44f0-4e47-83e8-608ee2532a47": "71\n- Freeeow, - he said. He took another sip of water, then held it up to the\nlight and frowned at it. He twisted it round.\n- Hey, is there something in this water? - he said.\n- Er, no, m\u2019lud, - said the Court Usher who had brought it to him, rather\nnervously.\n- Then take it away, - snapped Judiciary Pag, - and put something in it. I\ngot an idea.\nHe pushed away the glass and leaned forward.\n- Hear me, hear me, - he said.\nThe solution was brilliant, and went like this:\nThe planet of Krikkit was to be enclosed for perpetuity in an envelope of\nSlo-Time, inside which life would continue almost in\ufb01nitely slowly. All light\nwould be de\ufb02ected round the envelope so that it would remain invisible and\nimpenetrable. Escape from the envelope would be utterly impossible unless it\nwere locked from the outside.\nWhen the rest of the Universe came to its \ufb01nal end, when the whole of\ncreation reached its dying fall (this was all, of course, in the days before it was\nknown that the end of the Universe would be a spectacular catering venture)\nand life and matter ceased to exist, then the planet of Krikkit and its sun would\nemerge from its Slo-Time envelope and continue a solitary existence, such as it\ncraved, in the twilight of the Universal void.\nThe Lock would be on an asteroid which would slowly orbit the envelope.\nThe key would be the symbol of the Galaxy - the Wikkit Gate.\nBy the time the applause in the court had died down, Judiciary Pag was\nalready in the Sens-O-Shower with a rather nice member of the jury that he\u2019d\nslipped a note to half an hour earlier.", "c313952f-e750-45ef-aa00-96e78172f3f7": "72 CHAPTER 13.", "68b81bc7-b461-4343-831d-df41f62948aa": "Chapter 14\nTwo months later, Zipo Bibrok 5/108 had cut the bottoms o\ufb00 his Galactic State\njeans, and was spending part of the enormous fee his judgments commanded\nlying on a jewelled beach having Essence of Qualactin rubbed into his back by\nthe same rather nice member of the jury. She was a Sool\ufb01nian girl from beyond\nthe Cloudworlds of Yaga. She had skin like lemon silk and was very interested\nin legal bodies.\n- Did you hear the news? - she said.\n- Weeeeelaaaaah! - said Zipo Bibrok 5/108, and you would have had to have\nbeen there to know exactly why he said this. None of this was on the tape of\nInformational Illusions, and is all based on hearsay.\n- No, - he added, when the thing that had made him say - Weeeeelaaaaah -\nhad stopped happening. He moved his body round slightly to catch the \ufb01rst rays\nof the third and greatest of primeval Vod\u2019s three suns which was now creeping\nover the ludicrously beautiful horizon, and the sky now glittered with some of\nthe greatest tanning power ever known.\nA fragrant breeze wandered up from the quiet sea, trailed along the beach,\nand drifted back to sea again, wondering where to go next. On a mad impulse\nit went up to the beach again. It drifted back to sea.\n- I hope it isn\u2019t good news, - muttered Zipo Bibrok 5/108, - \u2019cos I don\u2019t\nthink I could bear it.\n- Your Krikkit judgment was carried out today, - said the girl sumptuously.\nThere was no need to say such a straightforward thing sumptuously, but she\nwent ahead and did it anyway because it was that sort of day. - I heard it on\nthe radio, - she said, - when I went back to the ship for the oil.\n- Uhuh, - muttered Zipo and rested his head back on the jewelled sand.\n- Something happened, - she said.\n- Mmmm?\n- Just after the Slo-Time envelope was locked, - she said, and paused a\nmoment from rubbing in the Essence of Qualactin, - a Krikkit warship which\nhad been missing presumed destroyed turned out to be just missing after all. It\nappeared and tried to seize the Key.\nZipo sat up sharply.\n- Hey, what? - he said.\n- it\u2019s all right, - she said in a voice which would have calmed the Big Bang\ndown. - Apparently there was a short battle. The Key and the warship were\ndisintegrated and blasted into the space-time continuum. Apparently they are\nlost for ever.\n73", "eb3a80e0-7e86-437c-ac8e-72b88db8d628": "74 CHAPTER 14.\nShe smiled, and ran a little more Essence of Qualactin on to her \ufb01ngertips.\nHe relaxed and lay back down.\n- Do what you did a moment or two ago, - he murmured.\n- That? - she said.\n- No, no, - he said, - that.\nShe tried again.\n- That? - she asked.\n- Weeeeelaaaaah! -\nAgain, you had to be there.\nThe fragrant breeze drifted up from the sea again.\nA magician wandered along the beach, but no one needed him.", "3119fcea-d113-4343-8858-25e80c727f84": "Chapter 15\n- Nothing is lost for ever, - said Slartibartfast, his face \ufb02ickering redly in the\nlight of the candle which the robot waiter was trying to take away, - except for\nthe Cathedral of Chalesm.\n- The what? - said Arthur with a start.\n- The Cathedral of Chalesm, - repeated Slartibartfast. - It was during the\ncourse of my researches at the Campaign for Real Time that I...\n- The what? - said Arthur again.\nThe old man paused and gathered his thoughts, for what he hoped would be\none last onslaught on his story. The robot waiter moved through the space-time\nmatrices in a way which spectacularly combined the surly with the obsequious,\nmade a snatch for the candle and got it. They had had the bill, had argued\nconvincingly about who had had the cannelloni and how many bottles of wine\nthey had had, and, as Arthur had been dimly aware, had thereby successfully\nmanoeuvred the ship out of subjective space and into a parking orbit round a\nstrange planet. The waiter was now anxious to complete his part of the charade\nand clear the bistro.\n- All will become clear, - said Slartibartfast.\n- When?\n- In a minute. Listen. The time streams are now very polluted. There\u2019s a\nlot of muck \ufb02oating about in them, \ufb02otsam and jetsam, and more and more of\nit is now being regurgitated into the physical world. Eddies in the space-time\ncontinuum, you see.\n- So I hear, - said Arthur.\n- Look, where are we going? - said Ford, pushing his chair back from the\ntable with impatience. - Because I\u2019m eager to get there.\n- We are going, - said Slartibartfast in a slow, measured voice, - to try to\nprevent the war robots of Krikkit from regaining the whole of the Key they need\nto unlock the planet of Krikkit from the Slo-Time envelope and release the rest\nof their army and their mad Masters.\n- It\u2019s just, - said Ford, - that you mentioned a party.\n- I did, - said Slartibartfast, and hung his head.\nHe realized that it had been a mistake, because the idea seemed to exercise a\nstrange and unhealthy fascination on the mind of Ford Prefect. The more that\nSlartibartfast unravelled the dark and tragic story of Krikkit and its people, the\nmore Ford Prefect wanted to drink a lot and dance with girls.\nThe old man felt that he should not have mentioned the party until he\nabsolutely had to. But there it was, the fact was out, and Ford Prefect had\n75", "42eb4c9f-7d80-4297-b564-dedf20b8f2fd": "76 CHAPTER 15.\nattached himself to it the way an Arcturan Megaleach attaches itself to its\nvictim before biting his head o\ufb00 and making o\ufb00 with his spaceship.\n- When, - said Ford eagerly, - do we get there?\n- When I\u2019ve \ufb01nished telling you why we have to go there.\n- I know why I\u2019m going, - said Ford, and leaned back, sticking his hands\nbehind his head. He gave one of his smiles which made people twitch.\nSlartibartfast had hoped for an easy retirement.\nHe had been planning to learn to play the octraventral heebiephone - a\npleasantly futile task, he knew, because he had the wrong number of mouths.\nHe had also been planning to write an eccentric and relentlessly inaccurate\nmonograph on the subject of equatorial fjords in order to set the record wrong\nabout one or two matters he saw as important.\nInstead, he had somehow got talked into doing some part-time work for the\nCampaign for Real Time and had started to take it all seriously for the \ufb01rst\ntime in his life. As a result he now found himself spending his fast-declining\nyears combating evil and trying to save the Galaxy.\nHe found it exhausting work and sighed heavily.\n- Listen, - he said, - at Camtim...\n- What? - said Arthur.\n- The Campaign for Real Time, which I will tell you about later. I noticed\nthat \ufb01ve pieces of jetsam which had in relatively recent times plopped back into\nexistence seemed to correspond to the \ufb01ve pieces of the missing Key. Only two\nI could trace exactly - the Wooden Pillar, which appeared on your planet, and\nthe Silver Bail. It seems to be at some sort of party. We must go there to\nretrieve it before the Krikkit robots \ufb01nd it, or who knows what may hap?\n- No, - said Ford \ufb01rmly. - We must go to the party in order to drink a lot\nand dance with girls.\n- But haven\u2019t you understood everything I?..\n- Yes, - said Ford, with a sudden and unexpected \ufb01erceness, - I\u2019ve understood\nit all perfectly well. That\u2019s why I want to have as many drinks and dance with\nas many girls as possible while there are still any left. If everything you\u2019ve\nshown us is true...\n- True? Of course it\u2019s true.\n- ...then we don\u2019t stand a whelk\u2019s chance in a supernova.\n- A what? - said Arthur sharply again. He had been following the conversa-\ntion doggedly up to this point, and was keen not to lose the thread now.\n- A whelk\u2019s chance in a supernova, - repeated Ford without losing momen-\ntum. - The...\n- What\u2019s a whelk got to do with a supernova? - said Arthur.\n- It doesn\u2019t, - said Ford levelly, - stand a chance in one.\nHe paused to see if the matter was now cleared up. The freshly puzzled\nlooks clambering across Arthur\u2019s face told him that it wasn\u2019t.\n- A supernova, - said Ford as quickly and as clearly as he could, - is a star\nwhich explodes at almost half the speed of light and burns with the brightness\nof a billion suns and then collapses as a super-heavy neutron star. It\u2019s a star\nwhich burns up other stars, got it? Nothing stands a chance in a supernova.\n- I see, - said Arthur.\n- The...\n- So why a whelk particularly?\n- Why not a whelk? Doesn\u2019t matter.", "69f9a577-47c8-4c7a-a10b-8fda956aa6b8": "77\nArthur accepted this, and Ford continued, picking up his early \ufb01erce mo-\nmentum as best he could.\n- The point is, - he said, - that people like you and me, Slartibartfast, and\nArthur - particularly and especially Arthur - are just dilletantes, eccentrics,\nlayabouts, fartarounds if you like.\nSlartibartfast frowned, partly in puzzlement and partly in umbrage. He\nstarted to speak.\n- ... - is as far as he got.\n- We\u2019re not obsessed by anything, you see, - insisted Ford.\n- ...\n- And that\u2019s the deciding factor. We can\u2019t win against obsession. They care,\nwe don\u2019t. They win.\n- I care about lots of things, - said Slartibartfast, his voice trembling partly\nwith annoyance, but partly also with uncertainty.\n- Such as?\n- Well, - said the old man, - life, the Universe. Everything, really. Fjords.\n- Would you die for them?\n- Fjords? - blinked Slartibartfast in surprise. - No.\n- Well then.\n- Wouldn\u2019t see the point, to be honest.\n- And I still can\u2019t see the connection, - said Arthur, - with whelks.\nFord could feel the conversation slipping out of his control, and refused to\nbe sidetracked by anything at this point.\n- The point is, - he hissed, - that we are not obsessive people, and we don\u2019t\nstand a chance against...\n- Except for your sudden obsession with whelks, - pursued Arthur, - which\nI still haven\u2019t understood.\n- Will you please leave whelks out of it?\n- I will if you will, - said Arthur. - You brought the subject up.\n- It was an error, - said Ford, - forget them. The point is this.\nHe leant forward and rested his forehead on the tips of his \ufb01ngers.\n- What was I talking about? - he said wearily.\n- Let\u2019s just go down to the party, - said Slartibartfast, - for whatever reason.\n- He stood up, shaking his head.\n- I think that\u2019s what I was trying to say, - said Ford.\nFor some unexplained reason, the teleport cubicles were in the bathroom.", "e49a3cf9-792d-42f3-bd52-aad7eaf6bd94": "78 CHAPTER 15.", "e78d3073-8280-4b65-8e56-1190b2160af3": "Chapter 16\nTime travel is increasingly regarded as a menace. History is being polluted.\nThe Encyclopedia Galactica has much to say on the theory and practice of\ntime travel, most of which is incomprehensible to anyone who hasn\u2019t spent at\nleast four lifetimes studying advanced hypermathematics, and since it was im-\npossible to do this before time travel was invented, there is a certain amount of\nconfusion as to how the idea was arrived at in the \ufb01rst place. One rationaliza-\ntion of this problem states that time travel was, by its very nature, discovered\nsimultaneously at all periods of history, but this is clearly bunk.\nThe trouble is that a lot of history is now quite clearly bunk as well.\nHere is an example. It may not seem to be an important one to some people,\nbut to others it is crucial. It is certainly signi\ufb01cant in that it was the single\nevent which caused the Campaign for Real Time to be set up in the \ufb01rst place\n(or is it last? It depends which way round you see history as happening, and\nthis too is now an increasingly vexed question).\nThere is, or was, a poet. His name was Lallafa, and he wrote what are\nwidely regarded throughout the Galaxy as being the \ufb01nest poems in existence,\nthe Songs of the Long Land.\nThey are/were unspeakably wonderful. That is to say, you couldn\u2019t speak\nvery much of them at once without being so overcome with emotion, truth and\na sense of wholeness and oneness of things that you wouldn\u2019t pretty soon need\na brisk walk round the block, possibly pausing at a bar on the way back for a\nquick glass of perspective and soda. They were that good.\nLallafa had lived in the forests of the Long Lands of E\ufb00a. He lived there, and\nhe wrote his poems there. He wrote them on pages made of dried habra leaves,\nwithout the bene\ufb01t of education or correcting \ufb02uid. He wrote about the light\nin the forest and what he thought about that. He wrote about the darkness in\nthe forest, and what he thought about that. He wrote about the girl who had\nleft him and precisely what he thought about that.\nLong after his death his poems were found and wondered over. News of them\nspread like morning sunlight. For centuries they illuminated and watered the\nlives of many people whose lives might otherwise have been darker and drier.\nThen, shortly after the invention of time travel, some major correcting \ufb02uid\nmanufacturers wondered whether his poems might have been better still if he\nhad had access to some high-quality correcting \ufb02uid, and whether he might be\npersuaded to say a few words on that e\ufb00ect.\nThey travelled the time waves, they found him, they explained the situation\n- with some di\ufb03culty - to him, and did indeed persuade him. In fact they\n79", "bd33e36f-04b2-40a5-a000-5e406137f643": "80 CHAPTER 16.\npersuaded him to such an e\ufb00ect that he became extremely rich at their hands,\nand the girl about whom he was otherwise destined to write which such precision\nnever got around to leaving him, and in fact they moved out of the forest to a\nrather nice pad in town and he frequently commuted to the future to do chat\nshows, on which he sparkled wittily.\nHe never got around to writing the poems, of course, which was a problem,\nbut an easily solved one. The manufacturers of correcting \ufb02uid simply packed\nhim o\ufb00 for a week somewhere with a copy of a later edition of his book and a\nstack of dried habra leaves to copy them out on to, making the odd deliberate\nmistake and correction on the way.\nMany people now say that the poems are suddenly worthless. Others argue\nthat they are exactly the same as they always were, so what\u2019s changed? The\n\ufb01rst people say that that isn\u2019t the point. They aren\u2019t quite sure what the point\nis, but they are quite sure that that isn\u2019t it. They set up the Campaign for Real\nTime to try to stop this sort of thing going on. Their case was considerably\nstrengthened by the fact that a week after they had set themselves up, news\nbroke that not only had the great Cathedral of Chalesm been pulled down in\norder to build a new ion re\ufb01nery, but that the construction of the re\ufb01nery had\ntaken so long, and had had to extend so far back into the past in order to allow\nion production to start on time, that the Cathedral of Chalesm had now never\nbeen built in the \ufb01rst place. Picture postcards of the cathedral suddenly became\nimmensely valuable.\nSo a lot of history is now gone for ever. The Campaign for Real Timers\nclaim that just as easy travel eroded the di\ufb00erences between one country and\nanother, and between one world and another, so time travel is now eroding the\ndi\ufb00erences between one age and another.\n- The past, - they say, - is now truly like a foreign country. They do things\nexactly the same there.", "e6764364-b0d6-4ebd-ad7c-e7dc2431e20f": "Chapter 17\nArthur materialized, and did so with all the customary staggering about and\nclasping at his throat, heart and various limbs which he still indulged himself\nin whenever he made any of these hateful and painful materializations that he\nwas determined not to let himself get used to.\nHe looked around for the others.\nThey weren\u2019t there.\nHe looked around for the others again.\nThey still weren\u2019t there.\nHe closed his eyes.\nHe opened them\nHe looked around for the others.\nThey obstinately persisted in their absence.\nHe closed his eyes again, preparatory to making this completely futile exer-\ncise once more, and because it was only then, whilst his eyes were closed, that\nhis brain began to register what his eyes had been looking at whilst they were\nopen, a puzzled frown crept across his face.\nSo he opened his eyes again to check his facts and the frown stayed put.\nIf anything, it intensi\ufb01ed, and got a good \ufb01rm grip. If this was a party it\nwas a very bad one, so bad, in fact, that everybody else had left. He abandoned\nthis line of thought as futile. Obviously this wasn\u2019t a party. It was a cave, or\na labyrinth, or a tunnel of something - there was insu\ufb03cient light to tell. All\nwas darkness, a damp shiny darkness. The only sounds were the echoes of his\nown breathing, which sounded worried. He coughed very slightly, and then had\nto listen to the thin ghostly echo of his cough trailing away amongst winding\ncorridors and sightless chambers, as of some great labyrinth, and eventually\nreturning to him via the same unseen corridors, as if to say...\n- Yes?\nThis happened to every slightest noise he made, and it unnerved him. He\ntried to hum a cheery tune, but by the time it returned to him it was a hollow\ndirge and he stopped.\nHis mind was suddenly full of images from the story that Slartibartfast had\nbeen telling him. He half-expected suddenly to see lethal white robots step\nsilently from the shadows and kill him. He caught his breath. They didn\u2019t. He\nlet it go again. He didn\u2019t know what he did expect.\nSomeone or something, however, seemed to be expecting him, for at that\nmoment there lit up suddenly in the dark distance an eerie green neon sign.\nIt said, silently:\n81", "aaa3485b-57ed-4b72-b65a-84810d178114": "82 CHAPTER 17.\nYou have been Diverted\nThe sign \ufb02icked o\ufb00 again, in a way which Arthur was not at all certain he\nliked. It \ufb02icked o\ufb00 with a sort of contemptuous \ufb02ourish. Arthur then tried to\nassure himself that this was just a ridiculous trick of his imagination. A neon\nsign is either on or o\ufb00, depending on whether it has electricity running through\nit or not. There was no way, he told himself, that it could possibly e\ufb00ect the\ntransition from one state to the other with a contemptuous \ufb02ourish. He hugged\nhimself tightly in his dressing gown and shivered, nevertheless.\nThe neon sign in the depths now suddenly lit up, ba\ufb04ingly, with just three\ndots and a comma. Like this:\nOnly in green neon.\nIt was trying, Arthur realized after staring at this perplexedly for a second\nor two, to indicate that there was more to come, that the sentence was not\ncomplete. Trying with almost superhuman pedantry, he re\ufb02ected. Or at least,\ninhuman pedantry.\nThe sentence then completed itself with these two words:\nArthur Dent.\nHe reeled. He steadied himself to have another clear look at it. It still said\nArthur Dent, so he reeled again.\nOnce again, the sign \ufb02icked o\ufb00, and left him blinking in the darkness with\njust the dim red image of his name jumping on his retina.\nWelcome, the sign now suddenly said.\nAfter a moment, it added:\nI Don\u2019t Think.\nThe stone-cold fear which had been hovering about Arthur all this time,\nwaiting for its moment, recognized that its moment had now come and pounced\non him. He tried to \ufb01ght it o\ufb00. He dropped into a kind of alert crouch that he\nhad once seen somebody do on television, but it must have been someone with\nstronger knees. He peered huntedly into the darkness.\n- Er, hello? - he said.\nHe cleared his throat and said it again, more loudly and without the \u201der\u201d.\nAt some distance down the corridor it seemed suddenly as if somebody started\nto beat on a bass drum.\nHe listened to it for a few seconds and realized that it was just his heart\nbeating.\nHe listened for a few seconds more and realized that it wasn\u2019t his heart\nbeating, it was somebody down the corridor beating on a bass drum.\nBeads of sweat formed on his brow, tensed themselves, and leapt o\ufb00. He put\na hand out on the \ufb02oor to steady his alert crouch, which wasn\u2019t holding up very\nwell. The sign changed itself again. It said:\nDo Not be Alarmed.\nAfter a pause, it added:\nBe Very Very Frightened, Arthur Dent.\nOnce again it \ufb02icked o\ufb00. Once again it left him in darkness. His eyes seemed\nto be popping out of his head. He wasn\u2019t certain if this was because they were\ntrying to see more clearly, or if they simply wanted to leave at this point.\n- Hello? - he said again, this time trying to put a note of rugged and\naggressive self-assertion into it. - Is anyone there?\nThere was no reply, nothing.", "c3703922-6a35-40b3-8937-86f240c87280": "83\nThis unnerved Arthur Dent even more than a reply would have done, and\nhe began to back away from the scary nothingness. And the more he backed\naway, the more scared he became. After a while he realized that the reason for\nthis was because of all the \ufb01lms he had seen in which the hero backs further\nand further away from some imagined terror in front of him, only to bump into\nit coming up from behind.\nJust then it suddenly occurred to him to turn round rather quickly.\nThere was nothing there.\nJust blackness.\nThis really unnerved him, and he started to back away from that, back the\nway he had come.\nAfter doing this for a short while it suddenly occurred to him that he was\nnow backing towards whatever it was he had been backing away from in the\n\ufb01rst place.\nThis, he couldn\u2019t help thinking, must be a foolish thing to do. He decided\nhe would be better o\ufb00 backing the way he had \ufb01rst been backing, and turned\naround again.\nIt turned out at this point that his second impulse had been the correct one,\nbecause there was an indescribably hideous monster standing quietly behind\nhim. Arthur yawed wildly as his skin tried to jump one way and his skeleton\nthe other, whilst his brain tried to work out which of his ears it most wanted to\ncrawl out of.\n- Bet you weren\u2019t expecting to see me again, - said the monster, which Arthur\ncouldn\u2019t help thinking was a strange remark for it to make, seeing as he had\nnever met the creature before. He could tell that he hadn\u2019t met the creature\nbefore from the simple fact that he was able to sleep at nights. It was... it was...\nit was...\nArthur blinked at it. It stood very still. It did look a little familiar.\nA terrible cold calm came over him as he realized that what he was looking\nat was a six-foot-high hologram of a house\ufb02y.\nHe wondered why anybody would be showing him a six-foot-high hologram\nof a house\ufb02y at this time. He wondered whose voice he had heard.\nIt was a terribly realistic hologram.\nIt vanished.\n- Or perhaps you remember me better, - said the voice suddenly, and it was\na deep, hollow malevolent voice which sounded like molten tar glurping out of\na drum with evil on its mind, - as the rabbit.\nWith a sudden ping, there was a rabbit there in the black labyrinth with\nhim, a huge, monstrously, hideously soft and lovable rabbit - an image again,\nbut one on which every single soft and lovable hair seemed like a real and single\nthing growing in its soft and lovable coat. Arthur was startled to see his own\nre\ufb02ection in its soft and lovable unblinking and extremely huge brown eyes.\n- Born in darkness, - rumbled the voice, - raised in darkness. One morning I\npoked my head for the \ufb01rst time into the bright new world and got it split open\nby what felt suspiciously like some primitive instrument made of \ufb02int.\n- Made by you, Arthur Dent, and wielded by you. Rather hard as I recall.\n- You turned my skin into a bag for keeping interesting stones in. I happen\nto know that because in my next life I came back as a \ufb02y again and you swatted\nme. Again. Only this time you swatted me with the bag you\u2019d made of my\nprevious skin.", "4a89e93c-467b-4c59-987a-c74fac564bf1": "84 CHAPTER 17.\n- Arthur Dent, you are not merely a cruel and heartless man, you are also\nstaggeringly tactless.\nThe voice paused whilst Arthur gawped.\n- I see you have lost the bag, - said the voice. - Probably got bored with it,\ndid you?\nArthur shook his head helplessly. He wanted to explain that he had been in\nfact very fond of the bag and had looked after it very well and had taken it with\nhim wherever he went, but that somehow every time he travelled anywhere he\nseemed inexplicably to end up with the wrong bag and that, curiously enough,\neven as they stood there he was just noticing for the \ufb01rst time that the bag\nhe had with him at the moment appeared to be made out of rather nasty fake\nleopard skin, and wasn\u2019t the one he\u2019d had a few moments ago before he arrived\nin this whatever place it was, and wasn\u2019t one he would have chosen himself and\nheaven knew what would be in it as it wasn\u2019t his, and he would much rather\nhave his original bag back, except that he was of course terribly sorry for having\nso peremptorily removed it, or rather its component parts, i.e. the rabbit skin,\nfrom its previous owner, viz. the rabbit whom he currently had the honour of\nattempting vainly to address.\nAll he actually managed to say was \u201dErp\u201d.\n- Meet the newt you trod on, - said the voice.\nAnd there was, standing in the corridor with Arthur, a giant green scaly\nnewt. Arthur turned, yelped, leapt backwards, and found himself standing in\nthe middle of the rabbit. He yelped again, but could \ufb01nd nowhere to leap to.\n- That was me, too, - continued the voice in a low menacing rumble, - as if\nyou didn\u2019t know...\n- Know? - said Arthur with a start. - Know?\n- The interesting thing about reincarnation, - rasped the voice, - is that most\npeople, most spirits, are not aware that it is happening to them.\nHe paused for e\ufb00ect. As far as Arthur was concerned there was already quite\nenough e\ufb00ect going on.\n- I was aware, - hissed the voice, - that is, I became aware. Slowly. Gradually.\nHe, whoever he was, paused again and gathered breath.\n- I could hardly help it, could I? - he bellowed, - when the same thing kept\nhappening, over and over and over again! Every life I ever lived, I got killed by\nArthur Dent. Any world, any body, any time, I\u2019m just getting settled down,\nalong comes Arthur Dent - pow, he kills me.\n- Hard not to notice. Bit of a memory jogger. Bit of a pointer. Bit of a\nbloody giveaway!\n- \u201dThat\u2019s funny,\u201d my spirit would say to itself as it winged its way back\nto the netherworld after another fruitless Dent-ended venture into the land of\nthe living, \u201dthat man who just ran over me as I was hopping across the road\nto my favourite pond looked a little familiar...\u201d And gradually I got to piece it\ntogether, Dent, you multiple-me-murderer!\nThe echoes of his voice roared up and down the corridors. Arthur stood\nsilent and cold, his head shaking with disbelief.\n- Here\u2019s the moment, Dent, - shrieked the voice, now reaching a feverish\npitch of hatred, - here\u2019s the moment when at last I knew!\nIt was indescribably hideous, the thing that suddenly opened up in front of\nArthur, making him gasp and gargle with horror, but here\u2019s an attempt at a\ndescription of how hideous it was. It was a huge palpitating wet cave with a vast,", "aa508155-183e-482f-b297-50662fbeb67c": "85\nslimy, rough, whale-like creature rolling around it and sliding over monstrous\nwhite tombstones. High above the cave rose a vast promontory in which could\nbe seen the dark recesses of two further fearful caves, which...\nArthur Dent suddenly realized that he was looking at his own mouth, when\nhis attention was meant to be directed at the live oyster that was being tipped\nhelplessly into it.\nHe staggered back with a cry and averted his eyes.\nWhen he looked again the appalling apparition had gone. The corridor was\ndark and, brie\ufb02y, silent. He was alone with his thoughts. They were extremely\nunpleasant thoughts and would rather have had a chaperone.\nThe next noise, when it came, was the low heavy roll of a large section of\nwall trundling aside, revealing, for the moment, just dark blackness behind it.\nArthur looked into it in much the same way that a mouse looks into a dark\ndog-kennel.\nAnd the voice spoke to him again.\n- Tell me it was a coincidence, Dent, - it said. - I dare you to tell me it was\na coincidence!\n- It was a coincidence, - said Arthur quickly.\n- It was not! - came the answering bellow.\n- It was, - said Arthur, - it was...\n- If it was a coincidence, then my name, - roared the voice, - is not Agrajag!!!\n- And presumably, - said Arthur, - you would claim that that was your name.\n- Yes! - hissed Agrajag, as if he had just completed a rather deft syllogism.\n- Well, I\u2019m afraid it was still a coincidence, - said Arthur.\n- Come in here and say that! - howled the voice, in sudden apoplexy again.\nArthur walked in and said that it was a coincidence, or at least, he nearly\nsaid that it was a coincidence. His tongue rather lost its footing towards the\nend of the last word because the lights came up and revealed what it was he\nhad walked into.\nIt was a Cathedral of Hate.\nIt was the product of a mind that was not merely twisted, but actually\nsprained.\nIt was huge. It was horri\ufb01c.\nIt had a Statue in it.\nWe will come to the Statue in a moment.\nThe vast, incomprehensibly vast chamber looked as if it had been carved out\nof the inside of a mountain, and the reason for this was that that was precisely\nwhat it had been carved out of. It seemed to Arthur to spin sickeningly round\nhis head as he stood and gaped at it.\nIt was black.\nWhere it wasn\u2019t black you were inclined to wish that it was, because the\ncolours with which some of the unspeakable details were picked out ranged\nhorribly across the whole spectrum of eye-defying colours from Ultra Violent\nto Infra Dead, taking in Liver Purple, Loathsome Lilac, Matter Yellow, Burnt\nhombre and Gan Green on the way.\nThe unspeakable details which these colours picked out were gargoyles which\nwould have put Francis Bacon o\ufb00 his lunch.\nThe gargoyles all looked inwards from the walls, from the pillars, from the\n\ufb02ying buttresses, from the choir stalls, towards the Statue, to which we will\ncome in a moment.", "5c937949-5601-4e25-a7ed-2ad0949920a1": "86 CHAPTER 17.\nAnd if the gargoyles would have put Francis Bacon o\ufb00 his lunch, then it was\nclear from the gargoyles\u2019 faces that the Statue would have put them o\ufb00 theirs,\nhad they been alive to eat it, which they weren\u2019t, and had anybody tried to\nserve them some, which they wouldn\u2019t.\nAround the monumental walls were vast engraved stone tablets in memory\nof those who had fallen to Arthur Dent.\nThe names of some of those commemorated were underlined and had as-\nterisks against them. So, for instance, the name of a cow which had been\nslaughtered and of which Arthur Dent had happened to eat a \ufb01llet steak would\nhave the plainest engraving, whereas the name of a \ufb01sh which Arthur had him-\nself caught and then decided he didn\u2019t like and left on the side of the plate had\na double underlining, three sets of asterisks and a bleeding dagger added as\ndecoration, just to make the point.\nAnd what was most disturbing about all this, apart from the Statue, to\nwhich we are, by degrees, coming, was the very clear implication that all these\npeople and creatures were indeed the same person, over and over again.\nAnd it was equally clear that this person was, however unfairly, extremely\nupset and annoyed.\nIn fact it would be fair to say that he had reached a level of annoyance the\nlike of which had never been seen in the Universe. It was an annoyance of epic\nproportions, a burning searing \ufb02ame of annoyance, an annoyance which now\nspanned the whole of time and space in its in\ufb01nite umbrage.\nAnd this annoyance had been given its fullest expression in the Statue in\nthe centre of all this monstrosity, which was a statue of Arthur Dent, and an\nun\ufb02attering one. Fifty feet tall if it was an inch, there was not an inch of it\nwhich wasn\u2019t crammed with insult to its subject matter, and \ufb01fty feet of that\nsort of thing would be enough to make any subject feel bad. From the small\npimple on the side of his nose to the poorish cut of his dressing gown, there was\nno aspect of Arthur Dent which wasn\u2019t lambasted and vili\ufb01ed by the sculptor.\nArthur appeared as a gorgon, an evil, rapacious, ravenning, bloodied ogre,\nslaughtering his way through an innocent one-man Universe.\nWith each of the thirty arms which the sculptor in a \ufb01t of artistic fervour\nhad decided to give him, he was either braining a rabbit, swatting a \ufb02y, pulling\na wishbone, picking a \ufb02ea out of his hair, or doing something which Arthur at\n\ufb01rst looking couldn\u2019t quite identify.\nHis many feet were mostly stamping on ants.\nArthur put his hands over his eyes, hung his head and shook it slowly from\nside to side in sadness and horror at the craziness of things.\nAnd when he opened his eyes again, there in front of him stood the \ufb01g-\nure of the man or creature, or whatever it was, that he had supposedly been\npersecuting all this time.\n- HhhhhhrrrrrraaaaaaHHHHHH! - said Agrajag.\nHe, or it, or whatever, looked like a mad fat bat. He waddled slowly around\nArthur, and poked at him with bent claws.\n- Look!.. - protested Arthur.\n- HhhhhhrrrrrraaaaaaHHHHHH!!! - explained Agrajag, and Arthur reluc-\ntantly accepted this on the grounds that he was rather frightened by this hideous\nand strangely wrecked apparition.\nAgrajag was black, bloated, wrinkled and leathery.", "c5d4ebb4-f6a5-4106-9a0b-0686d31cf0b2": "87\nHis batwings were somehow more frightening for being the pathetic broken\n\ufb02oundering things they were that if they had been strong, muscular beaters\nof the air. The frightening thing was probably the tenacity of his continued\nexistence against all the physical odds.\nHe had the most astounding collection of teeth.\nThey looked as if they each came from a completely di\ufb00erent animal, and\nthey were ranged around his mouth at such bizarre angles it seemed that if he\never actually tried to chew anything he\u2019d lacerate half his own face along with\nit, and possibly put an eye out as well.\nEach of his three eyes was small and intense and looked about as sane as a\n\ufb01sh in a privet bush.\n- I was at a cricket match, - he rasped.\nThis seemed on the face of it such a preposterous notion that Arthur prac-\ntically choked.\n- Not in this body, - screeched the creature, - not in this body! This is my\nlast body. My last life. This is my revenge body. My kill-Arthur-Dent body.\nMy last chance. I had to \ufb01ght to get it, too.\n- But...\n- I was at, - roared Agrajag, - a cricket match! I had a weak heart condition,\nbut what, I said to my wife, can happen to me at a cricket match? As I\u2019m\nwatching, what happens?\n- Two people quite maliciously appear out of thin air just in front of me. The\nlast thing I can\u2019t help but notice before my poor heart gives out in shock is that\none of them is Arthur Dent wearing a rabbit bone in his beard. Coincidence?\n- Yes, - said Arthur.\n- Coincidence? - screamed the creature, painfully thrashing its broken wings,\nand opening a short gash on its right cheek with a particularly nasty tooth. On\ncloser examination, such as he\u2019d been hoping to avoid, Arthur noticed that much\nof Agrajag\u2019s face was covered with ragged strips of black sticky plasters.\nHe backed away nervously. He tugged at his beard. He was appalled to\ndiscover that in fact he still had the rabbit bone in it. He pulled it out and\nthrew it away.\n- Look, - he said, - it\u2019s just fate playing silly buggers with you. With me.\nWith us. It\u2019s a complete coincidence.\n- What have you got against me, Dent? - snarled the creature, advancing\non him in a painful waddle.\n- Nothing, - insisted Arthur, - honestly, nothing.\nAgrajag \ufb01xed him with a beady stare.\n- Seems a strange way to relate to somebody you\u2019ve got nothing against,\nkilling them all the time. Very curious piece of social interaction, I would call\nthat. I\u2019d also call it a lie!\n- But look, - said Arthur, - I\u2019m very sorry. There\u2019s been a terrible misunder-\nstanding. I\u2019ve got to go. Have you got a clock? I\u2019m meant to be helping save\nthe Universe. - He backed away still further.\nAgrajag advanced still further.\n- At one point, - he hissed, - at one point, I decided to give up. Yes, I would\nnot come back. I would stay in the netherworld. And what happened?\nArthur indicated with random shakes of his head that he had no idea and\ndidn\u2019t want to have one either. He found he had backed up against the cold", "dcb838f9-f575-43bb-8b72-f791cb6ef32e": "88 CHAPTER 17.\ndark stone that had been carved by who knew what Herculean e\ufb00ort into a mon-\nstrous travesty of his bedroom slippers. He glanced up at his own horrendously\nparodied image towering above him. He was still puzzled as to what one of his\nhands was meant to be doing.\n- I got yanked involuntarily back into the physical world, - pursued Agrajag,\n- as a bunch of petunias. In, I might add, a bowl. This particularly happy\nlittle lifetime started o\ufb00 with me, in my bowl, unsupported, three hundred\nmiles above the surface of a particularly grim planet. Not a naturally tenable\nposition for a bowl of petunias, you might think. And you\u2019d be right. That life\nended a very short while later, three hundred miles lower. In, I might add, the\nfresh wreckage of a whale. My spirit brother.\nHe leered at Arthur with renewed hatred.\n- On the way down, - he snarled, - I couldn\u2019t help noticing a \ufb02ashy-looking\nwhite spaceship. And looking out of a port on this \ufb02ashy-looking spaceship was\na smug-looking Arthur Dent. Coincidence?!!\n- Yes! - yelped Arthur. He glanced up again, and realized that the arm that\nhad puzzled him was represented as wantonly calling into existence a bowl of\ndoomed petunias. This was not a concept which leapt easily to the eye.\n- I must go, - insisted Arthur.\n- You may go, - said Agrajag, - after I have killed you.\n- No, that won\u2019t be any use, - explained Arthur, beginning to climb up the\nhard stone incline of his carved slipper, - because I have to save the Universe,\nyou see. I have to \ufb01nd a Silver Bail, that\u2019s the point. Tricky thing to do dead.\n- Save the Universe! - spat Agrajag with contempt. - You should have\nthought of that before you started your vendetta against me! What about the\ntime you were on Stavromula Beta and someone...\n- I\u2019ve never been there, - said Arthur.\n- ...tried to assassinate you and you ducked. Who do you think the bullet\nhit? What did you say?\n- Never been there, - repeated Arthur. - What are you talking about? I have\nto go.\nAgrajag stopped in his tracks.\n- You must have been there. You were responsible for my death there, as\neverywhere else. An innocent bystander! - He quivered.\n- I\u2019ve never heard of the place, - insisted Arthur. - I\u2019ve certainly never had\nanyone try to assassinate me. Other than you. Perhaps I go there later, do you\nthink?\nAgrajag blinked slowly in a kind of frozen logical horror.\n- You haven\u2019t been to Stavromula Beta... yet? - he whispered.\n- No, - said Arthur, - I don\u2019t know anything about the place. Certainly never\nbeen to it, and don\u2019t have any plans to go.\n- Oh, you go there all right, - muttered Agrajag in a broken voice, - you go\nthere all right. Oh zark! - he tottered, and stared wildly about him at his huge\nCathedral of Hate. - I\u2019ve brought you here too soon!\nHe started to scream and bellow.\n- I\u2019ve brought you here too zarking soon!\nSuddenly he rallied, and turned a baleful, hating eye on Arthur.\n- I\u2019m going to kill you anyway! - he roared. - Even if it\u2019s a logical impossi-\nbility I\u2019m going to zarking well try! I\u2019m going to blow this whole mountain up!\n- He screamed, - Let\u2019s see you get out of this one, Dent!", "d1d40fc6-bee7-4d5a-abea-51d1fda8cba6": "89\nHe rushed in a painful waddling hobble to what appeared to be a small black\nsacri\ufb01cial altar. He was shouting so wildly now that he was really carving his\nface up badly. Arthur leaped down from his vantage place on the carving of his\nown foot and ran to try to restrain the three-quarters-crazed creature.\nHe leaped upon him, and brought the strange monstrosity crashing down on\ntop of the altar.\nAgrajag screamed again, thrashed wildly for a brief moment, and turned a\nwild eye on Arthur.\n- You know what you\u2019ve done? - he gurgled painfully. - You\u2019ve only gone\nand killed me again. i mean, what do you want from me, blood?\nHe thrashed again in a brief apoplectic \ufb01t, quivered, and collapsed, smacking\na large red button on the altar as he did so.\nArthur started with horror and fear, \ufb01rst at what he appeared to have done,\nand then at the loud sirens and bells that suddenly shattered the air to announce\nsome clamouring emergency. He stared wildly around him.\nThe only exit appeared to be the way he came in. He pelted towards it,\nthrowing away the nasty fake leopard-skin bag as he did so.\nHe dashed randomly, haphazardly through the labyrinthine maze, he seemed\nto be pursued more and more \ufb01ercely by claxons, sirens, \ufb02ashing lights.\nSuddenly, he turned a corner and there was a light in front of him.\nIt wasn\u2019t \ufb02ashing. It was daylight.", "331a9169-327e-440c-98fc-3ba5d94ab168": "90 CHAPTER 17.", "c7e71d9b-6ac4-4c18-a5b4-a87ad5ce885e": "Chapter 18\nAlthough it has been said that on Earth alone in our Galaxy is Krikkit (or\ncricket) treated as \ufb01t subject for a game, and that for this reason the Earth\nhas been shunned, this does only apply to our Galaxy, and more speci\ufb01cally to\nour dimension. In some of the higher dimensions they feel they can more or\nless please themselves, and have been playing a peculiar game called Brockian\nUltra-Cricket for whatever their transdimensional equivalent of billions of years\nis.\n- Let\u2019s be blunt, it\u2019s a nasty game - (says The Hitch Hiker\u2019s Guide to the\nGalaxy) - but then anyone who has been to any of the higher dimensions will\nknow that they\u2019re a pretty nasty heathen lot up there who should just be\nsmashed and done in, and would be, too, if anyone could work out a way of\n\ufb01ring missiles at right-angles to reality.\nThis is another example of the fact that The Hitch Hiker\u2019s Guide to the\nGalaxy will employ anybody who wants to walk straight in o\ufb00 the street and\nget ripped o\ufb00, especially if they happen to walk in o\ufb00 the street during the\nafternoon, when very few of the regular sta\ufb00 are there.\nThere is a fundamental point here.\nThe history of The Hitch Hiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy is one of idealism,\nstruggle, despair, passion, success, failure, and enormously long lunch-breaks.\nThe earliest origins of the Guide are now, along with most of its \ufb01nancial\nrecords, lost in the mists of time.\nFor other, and more curious theories about where they are lost, see below.\nMost of the surviving stories, however, speak of a founding editor called\nHurling Frootmig.\nHurling Frootmig, it is said, founded the Guide, established its fundamental\nprinciples of honesty and idealism, and went bust.\nThere followed many years of penury and heart-searching during which he\nconsulted friends, sat in darkened rooms in illegal states of mind, thought about\nthis and that, fooled about with weights, and then, after a chance encounter\nwith the Holy Lunching Friars of Voondon (who claimed that just as lunch was\nat the centre of a man\u2019s temporal day, and man\u2019s temporal day could be seen\nas an analogy for his spiritual life, so Lunch should\n(a) be seen as the centre of a man\u2019s spiritual life, and\n(b) be held in jolly nice restaurants), he refounded the Guide, laid down its\nfundamental principles of honesty and idealism and where you could stu\ufb00 them\nboth, and led the Guide on to its \ufb01rst major commercial success.\nHe also started to develop and explore the role of the editorial lunch-break\n91", "e2376a18-f552-4e2c-a8a1-4b9c8616ec18": "92 CHAPTER 18.\nwhich was subsequently to play such a crucial part in the Guide\u2019s history, since\nit meant that most of the actual work got done by any passing stranger who\nhappened to wander into the empty o\ufb03ces on an afternoon and saw something\nworth doing.\nShortly after this, the Guide was taken over by Megadodo Publications of\nUrsa Minor Beta, thus putting the whole thing on a very sound \ufb01nancial footing,\nand allowing the fourth editor, Lig Lury Jr, to embark on lunch-breaks of such\nbreathtaking scope that even the e\ufb00orts of recent editors, who have started\nundertaking sponsored lunch-breaks for charity, seem like mere sandwiches in\ncomparison.\nIn fact, Lig never formally resigned his editorship - he merely left his o\ufb03ce\nlate one morning and has never since returned. Though well over a century has\nnow passed, many members of the guide sta\ufb00 still retain the romantic notion\nthat he has simply popped out for a ham croissant, and will yet return to put\nin a solid afternoon\u2019s work.\nStrictly speaking, all editors since Lig Lury Jr have therefore been designated\nActing Editors, and Lig\u2019s desk is still preserved the way he left it, with the\naddition of a small sign which says:\n- Lig Lury Jr, Editor, Missing, presumed Fed.\nSome very scurrilous and subversive sources hint at the idea that Lig ac-\ntually perished in the Guide\u2019s \ufb01rst extraordinary experiments in alternative\nbook-keeping. Very little is known of this, and less still said. Anyone who even\nnotices, let alone calls attention to, the curious but utter coincidental and mean-\ningless fact that every world on which the Guide has ever set up an accounting\ndepartment has shortly afterwards perished in warfare or some natural disaster,\nis liable to get sued to smithereens.\nIt is an interesting though utterly unrelated fact that the two or three days\nprior to the demolition of the planet Earth to make way for a new hyperspace\nbypass saw a dramatic upsurge in the number of UFO sightings there, not\nonly above Lords Cricket Ground in St. John\u2019s Wood, London, but also above\nGlastonbury in Somerset.\nGlastonbury had long been associated with myths of ancient kings, witchcraft,\nley-lines an wart curing, and had now been selected as the site for the new Hitch\nHiker\u2019s Guide \ufb01nancial records o\ufb03ce, and indeed, ten years\u2019 worth of \ufb01nancial\nrecords were transferred to a magic hill just outside the city mere hours before\nthe Vogons arrived.\nNone of these facts, however strange or inexplicable, is as strange or inexpli-\ncable as the rules of the game of Brockian Ultra-Cricket, as played in the higher\ndimensions. A full set of rules is so massively complicated that the only time\nthey were all bound together in a single volume, they underwent gravitational\ncollapse and became a Black Hole.\nA brief summary, however, is as follows:\nRule One: Grow at least three extra legs. You won\u2019t need them, but it keeps\nthe crowds amused.\nRule Two: Find one good Brockian Ultra-Cricket player. Clone him o\ufb00 a\nfew times. This saves an enormous amount of tedious selection and training.\nRule Three: Put your team and the opposing team in a large \ufb01eld and build\na high wall round them.\nThe reason for this is that, though the game is a major spectator sport, the\nfrustration experienced by the audience at not actually being able to see what\u2019s", "91511b12-cf4e-4ae2-b657-a6c5fffa0ff0": "93\ngoing on leads them to imagine that it\u2019s a lot more exciting than it really is.\nA crowd that has just watched a rather humdrum game experiences far less\nlifea\ufb03rmation than a crowd that believes it has just missed the most dramatic\nevent in sporting history.\nRule Four: Throw lots of assorted items of sporting equipment over the wall\nfor the players. Anything will do - cricket bats, basecube bats, tennis guns, skis,\nanything you can get a good swing with.\nRule Five: The players should now lay about themselves for all they are\nworth with whatever they \ufb01nd to hand. Whenever a player scores a \u201dhit\u201d\non another player, he should immediately run away and apologize from a safe\ndistance.\nApologies should be concise, sincere and, for maximum clarity and points,\ndelivered through a megaphone.\nRule Six: The winning team shall be the \ufb01rst team that wins.\nCuriously enough, the more the obsession with the game grows in the higher\ndimensions, the less it is actually played, since most of the competing teams are\nnow in a state of permanent warfare with each other over the interpretation of\nthese rules. This is all for the best, because in the long run a good solid war is\nless psychologically damaging than a protracted game of Brockian Ultra-Cricket.", "262dbca3-2ea5-44f7-a8bb-2e8d82b53021": "94 CHAPTER 18.", "47f1a125-e7f9-43fe-996e-e1e53b16586c": "Chapter 19\nAs Arthur ran darting, dashing and panting down the side of the mountain he\nsuddenly felt the whole bulk of the mountain move very, very slightly beneath\nhim. There was a rumble, a roar, and a slight blurred movement, and a lick of\nheat in the distance behind and above him. He ran in a frenzy of fear. The land\nbegan to slide, and he suddenly felt the force of the word \u201dlandslide\u201d in a way\nwhich had never been apparent to him before. It had always just been a word\nto him, but now he was suddenly and horribly aware that sliding is a strange\nand sickening thing for land to do. It was doing it with him on it. He felt ill\nwith fear and shaking. The ground slid, the mountain slurred, he slipped, he\nfell, he stood, he slipped again and ran. The avalance began.\nStones, then rocks, then boulders which pranced past him like clumsy pup-\npies, only much, much bigger, much, much harder and heavier, and almost\nin\ufb01nitely more likely to kill you if they fell on you. His eyes danced with them,\nhis feet danced with the dancing ground. He ran as if running was a terrible\nsweating sickness, his heart pounded to the rhythm of the pounding geological\nfrenzy around him.\nThe logic of the situation, i.e. that he was clearly bound to survive if the\nnext foreshadowed incident in the saga of his inadvertent persecution of Agrajag\nwas to happen, was utterly failing to impinge itself on his mind or exercise any\nrestraining in\ufb02uence on him at this time. He ran with the fear of death in him,\nunder him, over him and grabbing hold of his hair.\nAnd suddenly he tripped again and was hurled forward by his considerable\nmomentum. But just at the moment that he was about to hit the ground as-\ntoundingly hard he saw lying directly in front of him a small navy-blue holdall\nthat he knew for a fact he had lost in the baggage-retrieval system at Athens\nairport some ten years in his personal time-scale previously, and in his aston-\nishment he missed the ground completely and bobbed o\ufb00 into the air with his\nbrain singing.\nWhat he was doing was this: he was \ufb02ying. He glanced around him in\nsurprise, but there could be no doubt that that was what he was doing. No\npart of him was touching the ground, and no part of him was even approaching\nit. He was simply \ufb02oating there with boulders hurtling through the air around\nhim.\nHe could now do something about that. Blinking with the non- e\ufb00ort of it\nhe wafted higher into the air, and now the boulders were hurtling through the\nair beneath him.\nHe looked downwards with intense curiosity. Between him and the shivering\n95", "bf86161e-114f-4345-8f71-0812503dc277": "96 CHAPTER 19.\nground were now some thirty feet of empty air, empty that is if you discounted\nthe boulders which didn\u2019t stay in it for long, but bounded downwards in the\niron grip of the law of gravity; the same law which seemed, all of a sudden, to\nhave given Arthur a sabbatical.\nIt occurred to him almost instantly, with the instinctive correctness that\nself-preservation instils in the mind, that he mustn\u2019t try to think about it, that\nif he did, the law of gravity would suddenly glance sharply in his direction and\ndemand to know what the hell he thought he was doing up there, and all would\nsuddenly be lost.\nSo he thought about tulips. It was di\ufb03cult, but he did. He thought about the\npleasing \ufb01rm roundness of the bottom of tulips, he thought about the interesting\nvariety of colours they came in, and wondered what proportion of the total\nnumber of tulips that grew, or had grown, on the Earth would be found within\na radius of one mile from a windmill. After a while he got dangerously bored\nwith this train of thought, felt the air slipping away beneath him, felt that he\nwas drifting down into the paths of the bouncing boulders that he was trying so\nhard not to think about, so he thought about Athens airport for a bit and that\nkept him usefully annoyed for about \ufb01ve minutes - at the end of which he was\nstartled to discover that he was now \ufb02oating about two hundred yards above\nthe ground.\nHe wondered for a moment how he was going to get back down to it, but\ninstantly shied away from that area of speculation again, and tried to look at\nthe situation steadily.\nHe was \ufb02ying, What was he going to do about it? He looked back down\nat the ground. He didn\u2019t look at it hard, but did his best just to give it an\nidle glance, as it were, in passing. There were a couple of things he couldn\u2019t\nhelp noticing. One was that the eruption of the mountain seemed now to have\nspent itself - there was a crater just a little way beneath the peak, presumably\nwhere the rock had caved in on top of the huge cavernous cathedral, the statue\nof himself, and the sadly abused \ufb01gure of Agrajag.\nThe other was his hold-all, the one he had lost at Athens airport. It was\nsitting pertly on a piece of clear ground, surrounded by exhausted boulders but\napparently hit by none of them. Why this should be he could not speculate, but\nsince this mystery was completely overshadowed by the monstrous impossibility\nof the bag\u2019s being there in the \ufb01rst place, it was not a speculation he really\nfelt strong enough for anyway. The thing is, it was there. And the nasty, fake\nleopard-skin bag seemed to have disappeared, which was all to the good, if not\nentirely to the explicable.\nHe was faced with the fact that he was going to have to pick the thing up.\nHere he was, \ufb02ying along two hundred yards above the surface of an alien planet\nthe name of which he couldn\u2019t even remember. He could not ignore the plaintive\nposture of this tiny piece of what used to be his life, here, so many light-years\nfrom the pulverized remains of his home.\nFurthermore, he realized, the bag, if it was still in the state in which he\nlost it, would contain a can which would have in it the only Greek olive oil still\nsurviving in the Universe.\nSlowly, carefully, inch by inch, he began to bob downwards, swinging gently\nfrom side to side like a nervous sheet of paper feeling its way towards the ground.\nIt went well, he was feeling good. The air supported him, but let him\nthrough. Two minutes later he was hovering a mere two feet above the bag, and", "c9957667-b523-4a62-9807-b2583383c7b6": "97\nwas faced with some di\ufb03cult decision. He bobbed there lightly. He frowned,\nbut again, as lightly as he could.\nIf he picked the bag up, could he carry it? Mightn\u2019t the extra weight just\npull him straight to the ground?\nMightn\u2019t the mere act of touching something on the ground suddenly dis-\ncharge whatever mysterious force it was that was holding him in the air?\nMightn\u2019t he be better o\ufb00 just being sensible at this point and stepping out\nof the air, back on to the ground for a moment or two?\nIf he did, would he ever be able to \ufb02y again?\nThe sensation, when he allowed himself to be aware of it, was so quietly\necstatic that he could not bear the thought of losing it, perhaps for ever. With\nthis worry in mind he bobbed upwards a little again, just to try the feel of it,\nthe surprising and e\ufb00ortless movement of it. He bobbed, he \ufb02oated. He tried a\nlittle swoop.\nThe swoop was terri\ufb01c. With his arms spread out in front of him, his hair\nand dressing gown streaming out behind him, he dived down out of the sky,\nbellied along a body of air about two feet from the ground and swung back up\nagain, catching himself at the top of the swing and holding. Just holding. He\nstayed there.\nIt was wonderful.\nAnd that, he realized, was the way of picking up the bag. He would swoop\ndown and catch hold of it just at the point of the upswing. He would carry it\non up with him. He might wobble a bit, but he was certain that he could hold\nit.\nHe tried one or two more practice swoops, and they got better and better.\nThe air on his face, the bounce and woof of his body, all combined to make\nhim feel an intoxication of the spirit that he hadn\u2019t felt since, since - well as\nfar as he could work out, since he was born. He drifted away on the breeze\nand surveyed the countryside, which was, he discovered, pretty nasty. It had\na wasted ravaged look. He decided not to look at it any more. He would just\npick up the bag and then... he didn\u2019t know what he was going to do after he\nhad picked up the bag. He decided he would just pick up the bag and see where\nthings went from there.\nHe judged himself against the wind, pushed up against it and turned around.\nHe \ufb02oated on its body. He didn\u2019t realize, but his body was willoming at this\npoint.\nHe ducked down under the airstream, dipped - and dived.\nThe air threw itself past him, he thrilled through it. The ground wobbled un-\ncertainly, straightened its ideas out and rose smoothly up to meet him, o\ufb00ering\nthe bag, its cracked plastic handles up towards him.\nHalfway down there was a sudden dangerous moment when he could no\nlonger believe he was doing this, and therefore he very nearly wasn\u2019t, but he\nrecovered himself in time, skimmed over the ground, slipped an arm smoothly\nthrough the handles of the bag, and began to climb back up, couldn\u2019t make\nit and all of a sudden collapsed, bruised, scratched and shaking in the stony\nground.\nHe staggered instantly to his feet and swayed hopelessly around, swinging\nthe bag round him in agony of grief and disappointment.\nHis feet, suddenly, were stuck heavily to the ground in the way they al-\nways had been. His body seemed like an unwieldy sack of potatoes that reeled", "9eff2791-edf3-462a-be79-39772d2ee159": "98 CHAPTER 19.\nstumbling against the ground, his mind had all the lightness of a bag of lead.\nHe sagged and swayed and ached with giddiness. He tried hopelessly to run,\nbut his legs were suddenly too weak. He tripped and \ufb02opped forward. At that\nmoment he remembered that in the bag he was now carrying was not only a can\nof Greek olive oil but a duty-free allowance of retsina, and in the pleasurable\nshock of that realization he failed to notice for at least ten seconds that he was\nnow \ufb02ying again.\nHe whooped and cried with relief and pleasure, and sheer physical delight.\nHe swooped, he wheeled, he skidded and whirled through the air. Cheekily he\nsat on an updraught and went through the contents of the hold-all. He felt the\nway he imagined an angel must feel during its celebrated dance on the head of\na pin whilst being counted by philosophers. He laughed with pleasure at the\ndiscovery that the bag did in fact contain the olive oil and the retsina as well\nas a pair of cracked sunglasses, some sand-\ufb01lled swimming trunks, some creased\npostcards of Santorini, a large and unsightly towel, some interesting stones, and\nvarious scraps of paper with the addresses of people he was relieved to think\nhe would never meet again, even if the reason why was a sad one. He dropped\nthe stones, put on the sunglasses, and let the pieces of paper whip away in the\nwind.\nTen minutes later, drifting idly through a cloud, he got a large and extremely\ndisreputable cocktail party in the small of the back.", "84590ee8-53ba-4928-ab75-a3c2fa42c7a1": "Chapter 20\nThe longest and most destructive party ever held is now into its fourth gener-\nation, and still no one shows any signs of leaving. Somebody did once look at\nhis watch, but that was eleven years ago, and there has been no follow-up.\nThe mess is extraordinary, and has to be seen to be believed, but if you\ndon\u2019t have any particular need to believe it, then don\u2019t go and look, because\nyou won\u2019t enjoy it.\nThere have recently been some bangs and \ufb02ashes up in the clouds, and there\nis one theory that this is a battle being fought between the \ufb02eets of several\nrival carpet-cleaning companies who are hovering over the thing like vultures,\nbut you shouldn\u2019t believe anything you hear at parties, and particularly not\nanything you hear at this one.\nOne of the problems, and it\u2019s one which is obviously going to get worse, is\nthat all the people at the party are either the children or the grandchildren or\nthe great-grandchildren of the people who wouldn\u2019t leave in the \ufb01rst place, and\nbecause of all the business about selective breeding and regressive genes and so\non, it means that all the people now at the party are either absolutely fanatical\npartygoers, or gibbering idiots, or, more and more frequently, both.\nEither way, it means that, genetically speaking, each succeeding generation\nis now less likely to leave than the preceding one.\nSo other factors come into operation, like when the drink is going to run out.\nNow, because of certain things which have happened which seemed like a\ngood idea at the time (and one of the problems with a party which never stops\nis that all the things which only seem like a good idea at parties continue to\nseem like good ideas), that point seems still to be a long way o\ufb00.\nOne of the things which seemed like a good idea at the time was that the\nparty should \ufb02y - not in the normal sense that parties are meant to \ufb02y, but\nliterally.\nOne night, long ago, a band of drunken astro-engineers of the \ufb01rst generation\nclambered round the building digging this, \ufb01xing that, banging very hard on\nthe other and when the sun rose the following morning, it was startled to \ufb01nd\nitself shining on a building full of happy drunken people which was now \ufb02oating\nlike a young and uncertain bird over the treetops.\nNot only that, but the \ufb02ying party had also managed to arm itself rather\nheavily. If they were going to get involved in any petty arguments with wine\nmerchants, they wanted to make sure they had might on their side.\nThe transition from full-time cocktail party to part-time raiding party came\nwith ease, and did much to add that extra bit of zest and swing to the whole\n99", "c8befbe6-ec58-45da-9c02-39e97400b8d2": "100 CHAPTER 20.\na\ufb00air which was badly needed at this point because of the enormous number of\ntimes that the band had already played all the numbers it knew over the years.\nThey looted, they raided, they held whole cities for ransom for fresh supplies\nof cheese crackers, avocado dip, spare ribs and wine and spirits, which would\nnow get piped aboard from \ufb02oating tankers.\nThe problem of when the drink is going to run out is, however, going to have\nto be faced one day.\nThe planet over which they are \ufb02oating is no longer the planet it was when\nthey \ufb01rst started \ufb02oating over it.\nIt is in bad shape.\nThe party had attacked and raided an awful lot of it, and no one has ever\nsucceeded in hitting it back because of the erratic and unpredictable way in\nwhich it lurches round the sky.\nIt is one hell of a party.\nIt is also one hell of a thing to get hit by in the small of the back.", "3e7a1f50-dacd-4827-a583-2fc4eaf18c53": "Chapter 21\nArthur lay \ufb02oundering in pain on a piece of ripped and dismembered reinforced\nconcrete, \ufb02icked at by wisps of passing cloud and confused by the sounds of\n\ufb02abby merrymaking somewhere indistinctly behind him.\nThere was a sound he couldn\u2019t immediately identify, partly because he didn\u2019t\nknow the tune \u201dI Left my Leg in Jaglan Beta\u201d and partly because the band\nplaying it were very tired, and some members of it were playing it in three-four\ntime, some in fourfour, and some in a kind of pie-eyed r2, each according to the\namount of sleep he\u2019d managed to grab recently.\nHe lay, panting heavily in the wet air, and tried feeling bits of himself to see\nwhere he might be hurt. Wherever he touched himself, he encountered a pain.\nAfter a short while he worked out that this was because it was his hand that\nwas hurting. He seemed to have sprained his wrist. His back, too, was hurting,\nbut he soon satis\ufb01ed himself that he was not badly hurt, but just bruised and\na little shaken, as who wouldn\u2019t be? He couldn\u2019t understand what a building\nwould be doing \ufb02ying through the clouds.\nOn the other hand, he would have been a little hard-pressed to come up\nwith any convincing explanation of his own presence, so he decided that he and\nthe building were just going to have to accept each other. He looked up from\nwhere he was lying. A wall of pale but stained stone slabs rose up behind him,\nthe building proper. He seemed to be stretched out on some sort of ledge or lip\nwhich extended outwards for about three or four feet all the way around. It was\na hunk of the ground in which the party building had had its foundations, and\nwhich it had taken along with itself to keep itself bound together at the bottom\nend.\nNervously, he stood up and, suddenly, looking out over the edge, he felt\nnauseous with vertigo. He pressed himself back against the wall, wet with mist\nand sweat. His head was swimming freestyle, but someone in his stomach was\ndoing the butter\ufb02y.\nEven though he had got up here under his own power, he could now not\neven bear to contemplate the hideous drop in front of him. He was not about\nto try his luck jumping. He was not about to move an inch closer to the edge.\nClutching his hold-all he edged along the wall, hoping to \ufb01nd a doorway in.\nThe solid weight of the can of olive oil was a great reassurance to him.\nHe was edging in the direction of the nearest corner, in the hope that the\nwall around the corner might o\ufb00er more in the way of entrances than this one,\nwhich o\ufb00ered none.\nThe unsteadiness of the building\u2019s \ufb02ight made him feel sick with fear, and\n101", "094c528c-33a6-487e-8ddd-6dac8c9e297d": "102 CHAPTER 21.\nafter a short while he took the towel from out of his hold-all and did something\nwith it which once again justi\ufb01ed its supreme position in the list of useful things\nto take with you when you hitch-hike round the Galaxy. He put it over his head\nso he wouldn\u2019t have to see what he was doing.\nHis feet edged along the ground. His outstretched hand edged along the\nwall.\nFinally he came to the corner, and as his hand rounded the corner it en-\ncountered something which gave him such a shock that he nearly fell straight\no\ufb00. It was another hand.\nThe two hands gripped each other.\nHe desperately wanted to use his other hand to pull the towel back from\nhis eyes, but it was holding the hold-all with the olive oil, the retsina and the\npostcards from Santorini, and he very much didn\u2019t want to put it down.\nHe experienced one of those \u201dself\u201d moments, one of those moments when\nyou suddenly turn around and look at yourself and think \u201dWho am I? What am\nI up to? What have I achieved? Am I doing well?\u201d He whimpered very slightly.\nHe tried to free his hand, but he couldn\u2019t. The other hand was holding his\ntightly. He had no recourse but to edge onwards towards the corner. He leaned\naround it and shook his head in an attempt to dislodge the towel. This seemed\nto provoke a sharp cry of some unfashionable emotion from the owner of the\nother hand.\nThe towel was whipped from his head and he found his eyes peering into\nthose of Ford Prefect. Beyond him stood Slartibartfast, and beyond them he\ncould clearly see a porchway and a large closed door.\nThey were both pressed back against the wall, eyes wild with terror as they\nstared out into the thick blind cloud around them, and tried to resist the lurching\nand swaying of the building.\n- Where the zarking photon have you been? - hissed Ford, panic stricken.\n- Er, well, - stuttered Arthur, not really knowing how to sum it all up that\nbrie\ufb02y. - Here and there. What are you doing here?\nFord turned his wild eyes on Arthur again.\n- They won\u2019t let us in without a bottle, - he hissed.\nThe \ufb01rst thing Arthur noticed as they entered into the thick of the party,\napart from the noise, the su\ufb00ocating heat, the wild profusion of colours that\nprotuded dimly through the atmosphere of heavy smoke, the carpets thick with\nground glass, ash and avocado droppings, and the small group of pterodactyl-like\ncreatures in lurex who descended on his cherished bottle of retsina, squawking,\n\u201dA new pleasure, a new pleasure\u201d, was Trillian being chatted up by a Thunder\nGod.\n- Didn\u2019t I see you at Milliways? - he was saying.\n- Were you the one with the hammer?\n- Yes. I much prefer it here. So much less reputable, so much more fraught.\nSqueals of some hideous pleasure rang around the room, the outer dimensions\nof which were invisible through the heaving throng of happy, noisy creatures,\ncheerfully yelling things that nobody could hear at each other and occasionally\nhaving crises.\n- Seems fun, - said Trillian. - What did you say, Arthur?\n- I said, how the hell did you get here?\n- I was a row of dots \ufb02owing randomly through the Universe. Have you met\nThor? He makes thunder.", "f511a3e3-5e3f-4ee5-baf2-8eb676d528a5": "103\n- Hello, - said Arthur. - I expect that must be very interesting.\n- Hi, - said Thor. - It is. Have you got a drink?\n- Er, no actually...\n- Then why don\u2019t you go and get one?\n- See you later, Arthur, - said Trillian.\nSomething jogged Arthur\u2019s mind, and he looked around huntedly.\n- Zaphod isn\u2019t here, is he? - he said.\n- See you, - said Trillian \ufb01rmly, - later.\nThor glared at him with hard coal-black eyes, his beard bristled, what little\nlight was there was in the place mustered its forces brie\ufb02y to glint menacingly\no\ufb00 the horns of his helmet.\nHe took Trillian\u2019s elbow in his extremely large hand and the muscles in his\nupper arm moved around each other like a couple of Volkswagens parking.\nHe led her away.\n- One of the interesting things about being immortal, - he said, - is...\n- One of the interesting things about space, - Arthur heard Slartibartfast\nsaying to a large and voluminous creature who looked like someone losing a\n\ufb01ght with a pink duvet and was gazing raptly at the old man\u2019s deep eyes and\nsilver beard, - is how dull it is.\n- Dull? - said the creature, and blinked her rather wrinkled and bloodshot\neyes.\n- Yes, - said Slartibartfast, - staggeringly dull. Bewilderingly so. You see,\nthere\u2019s so much of it and so little in it. Would you like me to quote some\nstatistics?\n- Er, well...\n- Please, I would like to. They, too, are quite sensationally dull.\n- I\u2019ll come back and hear them in a moment, - she said, patting him on the\narm, lifted up her skirts like a hovercraft and moved o\ufb00 into the heaving crown.\n- I thought she\u2019d never go, - growled the old man. - Come, Earthman...\n- Arthur.\n- We must \ufb01nd the Silver Bail, it is here somewhere.\n- Can\u2019t we just relax a little? - Arthur said. - I\u2019ve had a tough day. Trillian\u2019s\nhere, incidentally, she didn\u2019t say how, it probably doesn\u2019t matter.\n- Think of the danger to the Universe...\n- The Universe, - said Arthur, - is big enough and old enough to look after\nitself for half an hour. All right, - he added, in response to Slartibartfast\u2019s\nincreasing agitation, - I\u2019ll wander round and see if anybody\u2019s seen it.\n- Good, good, - said Slartibartfast, - good. - He plunged into the crowd\nhimself, and was told to relax by everybody he passed.\n- Have you seen a bail anywhere? - said Arthur to a little man who seemed to\nbe standing eagerly waiting to listen to somebody. - It\u2019s made of silver, vitally\nimportant for the future safety of the Universe, and about this long.\n- No, - said the enthusiastically wizened little man, - but do have a drink\nand tell me all about it.\nFord Prefect writhed past, dancing a wild, frenetic and not entirely unob-\nscene dance with someone who looked as if she was wearing Sydney Opera House\non her head. He was yelling a futile conversation at her above the din.\n- I like that hat! - he bawled.\n- What?\n- I said, I like the hat.", "c9d6fe06-5772-4e0c-a787-67e8cae8b1de": "104 CHAPTER 21.\n- I\u2019m not wearing a hat.\n- Well, I like the head, then.\n- What?\n- I said, I like the head. Interesting bone-structure.\n- What?\nFord worked a shrug into the complex routine of other movements he was\nperforming.\n- I said, you dance great, - he shouted, - just don\u2019t nod so much.\n- What?\n- It\u2019s just that every time you nod, - said Ford, - ...ow! - he added as his\npartner nodded forward to say - What? - and once again pecked him sharply\non the forehead with the sharp end of her swept-forward skull.\n- My planet was blown up one morning, - said Arthur, who had found him-\nself quite unexpectedly telling the little man his life story or, at least, edited\nhighlights of it, - that\u2019s why I\u2019m dressed like this, in my dressing gown. My\nplanet was blown up with all my clothes in it, you see. I didn\u2019t realize I\u2019d be\ncoming to a party.\nThe little man nodded enthusiastically.\n- Later, I was thrown o\ufb00 a spaceship. Still in my dressing gown. Rather\nthan the space suit one would normally expect. Shortly after that I discovered\nthat my planet had originally been built for a bunch of mice. You can imagine\nhow I felt about that. I was then shot at for a while and blown up. In fact I\nhave been blown up ridiculously often, shot at, insulted, regularly disintegrated,\ndeprived of tea, and recently I crashed into a swamp and had to spend \ufb01ve years\nin a damp cave.\n- Ah, - e\ufb00ervesced the little man, - and did you have a wonderful time?\nArthur started to choke violently on his drink.\n- What a wonderful exciting cough, - said the little man, quite startled by\nit, - do you mind if I join you?\nAnd with that he launched into the most extraordinary and spectacular \ufb01t\nof coughing which caught Arthur so much by surprise that he started to choke\nviolently, discovered he was already doing it and got thoroughly confused.\nTogether they performed a lung-busting duet which went on for fully two\nminutes before Arthur managed to cough and splutter to a halt.\n- So invigorating, - said the little man, panting and wiping tears from his\neyes. - What an exciting life you must lead. Thank you very much.\nHe shook Arthur warmly by the hand and walked o\ufb00 into the crowd. Arthur\nshook his head in astonishment.\nA youngish-looking man came up to him, an aggressive-looking type with a\nhook mouth, a lantern nose, and small beady little cheekbones. He was wearing\nblack trousers, a black silk shirt open to what was presumably his navel, though\nArthur had learnt never to make assumptions about the anatomies of the sort\nof people he tended to meet these days, and had all sorts of nasty dangly gold\nthings hanging round his neck. He carried something in a black bag, and clearly\nwanted people to notice that he didn\u2019t want them to notice it.\n- Hey, er, did I hear you say your name just now? - he said.\nThis was one of the many things that Arthur had told the enthusiastic little\nman.\n- Yes, it\u2019s Arthur Dent.", "f1eeb45d-ad20-4ecf-a2f8-b42ab1980a12": "105\nThe man seemed to be dancing slightly to some rhythm other than any of\nthe several that the band were grimly pushing out.\n- Yeah, - he said, - only there was a man in a mountain wanted to see you.\n- I met him.\n- Yeah, only he seemed pretty anxious about it, you know.\n- Yes, I met him.\n- Yeah, well I think you should know that.\n- I do. I met him.\nThe man paused to chew a little gum. Then he clapped Arthur on the back.\n- OK, - he said, - all right. I\u2019m just telling you, right? Good night, good\nluck, win awards.\n- What? - said Arthur, who was beginning to \ufb02ounder seriously at this point.\n- Whatever. Do what you do. Do it well. - He made a sort of clucking noise\nwith whatever he was chewing and then some vaguely dynamic gesture.\n- Why? - said Arthur.\n- Do it badly, - said the man, - who cares? Who gives a shit? - The blood\nsuddenly seemed to pump angrily into the man\u2019s face and he started to shout.\n- Why not go mad? - he said. - Go away, get o\ufb00 my back will you, guy. Just\nzark o\ufb00!!!\n- OK, I\u2019m going, - said Arthur hurriedly.\n- It\u2019s been real. - The man gave a sharp wave and disappeared o\ufb00 into the\nthrong.\n- What was that about? - said Arthur to a girl he found standing beside\nhim. - Why did he tell me to win awards?\n- Just showbiz talk, - shrugged the girl. - He\u2019s just won an award at the\nAnnual Ursa Minor Alpha Recreational Illusions Institute Awards Ceremony,\nand was hoping to be able to pass it o\ufb00 lightly, only you didn\u2019t mention it, so\nhe couldn\u2019t.\n- Oh, - said Arthur, - oh, well I\u2019m sorry I didn\u2019t. What was it for?\n- The Most Gratuitous Use Of The Word \u201dFuck\u201d In A Serious Screenplay.\nIt\u2019s very prestigious.\n- I see, - said Arthur, - yes, and what do you get for that?\n- A Rory. It\u2019s just a small silver thing set on a large black base. What did\nyou say?\n- I didn\u2019t say anything. I was just about to ask what the silver...\n- Oh, I thought you said \u201dwop\u201d.\n- Said what?\n- Wop.\nPeople had been dropping in on the party now for some years, fashionable\ngatecrashers from other worlds, and for some time it had occurred to the party-\ngoers as they had looked out at their own world beneath them, with its wrecked\ncities, its ravaged avocado farms and blighted vineyards, its vast tracts of new\ndesert, its seas full of biscuit crumbs and worse, that their world was in some tiny\nand almost imperceptible ways not quite as much fun as it had been. Some of\nthem had begun to wonder if they could manage to stay sober for long enough to\nmake the entire party spaceworthy and maybe take it o\ufb00 to some other people\u2019s\nworlds where the air might be fresher and give them fewer headaches.\nThe few undernourished farmers who still managed to scratch out a feeble\nexistence on the half-dead ground of the planet\u2019s surface would have been ex-\ntremely pleased to hear this, but that day, as the party came screaming out of", "91ae8194-ae6d-481b-9a72-b77e0a875914": "106 CHAPTER 21.\nthe clouds and the farmers looked up in haggard fear of yet another cheese-and-\nwine raid, it became clear that the party was not going to be going anywhere\nelse for a while, that the party would soon be over. Very soon it would be time\nto gather up hats and coats and stagger blearily outside to \ufb01nd out what time\nof day it was, what time of year it was, and whether in any of this burnt and\nravaged land there was a taxi going anywhere.\nThe party was locked in a horrible embrace with a strange white spaceship\nwhich seemed to be half sticking through it. Together they were lurching, heav-\ning and spinning their way round the sky in grotesque disregard of their own\nweight.\nThe clouds parted. The air roared and leapt out of their way.\nThe party and the Krikkit warship looked, in their writhings, a little like\ntwo ducks, one of which is trying to make a third duck inside the second duck,\nwhilst the second duck is trying very hard to explain that it doesn\u2019t feel ready\nfor a third duck right now, is uncertain that it would want any putative third\nduck to be made by this particular \ufb01rst duck anyway, and certainly not whilst\nit, the second duck, was busy \ufb02ying.\nThe sky sang and screamed with the rage of it all and bu\ufb00eted the ground\nwith shock waves.\nAnd suddenly, with a foop, the Krikkit ship was gone.\nThe party blundered helplessly across the sky like a man leaning against an\nunexpectedly open door. It span and wobbled on its hover jets. It tried to right\nitself and wronged itself instead. It staggered back across the sky again.\nFor a while these staggerings continued, but clearly they could not continue\nfor long. The party was now a mortally wounded party. All the fun had gone\nout of it, as the occasional brokenbacked pirouette could not disguise.\nThe longer, at this point, that it avoided the ground, the heavier was going\nto be the crash when \ufb01nally it hit it.\nInside, things were not going well either. They were going monstrously badly,\nin fact, and people were hating it and saying so loudly. The Krikkit robots had\nbeen.\nThey had removed the Award for The Most Gratuitous Use Of The Word\n\u201dFuck\u201d In A Serious Screenplay, and in its place had left a scene of devastation\nthat left Arthur feeling almost as sick as a runner-up for a Rory.\n- We would love to stay and help, - shouted Ford, picking his way over the\nmangled debris, - only we\u2019re not going to.\nThe party lurched again, provoking feverish cries and groans from amongst\nthe smoking wreckage.\n- We have to go and save the Universe, you see, - said Ford. - And if that\nsounds like a pretty lame excuse, then you may be right. Either way, we\u2019re o\ufb00.\nHe suddenly came across an unopened bottle lying, miraculously unbroken,\non the ground.\n- Do you mind if we take this? - he said. - You won\u2019t be needing it.\nHe took a packet of potato crisps too.\n- Trillian? - shouted Arthur in a shocked and weakened voice. In the smoking\nmess he could see nothing.\n- Earthman, we must go, - said Slartibartfast nervously.\n- Trillian? - shouted Arthur again.\nA moment or two later, Trillian staggered, shaking, into view, supported by\nher new friend the Thunder God.", "0f1ecea7-b084-44e8-83af-bfe147cf4ae2": "107\n- The girl stays with me, - said Thor. - There\u2019s a great party going on in\nValhalla, we\u2019ll be \ufb02ying o\ufb00...\n- Where were you when all this was going on? - said Arthur.\n- Upstairs, - said Thor, - I was weighing her. Flying\u2019s a tricky business you\nsee, you have to calculate wind...\n- She comes with us, - said Arthur.\n- Hey, - said Trillian, - don\u2019t I...\n- No, - said Arthur, - you come with us.\nThor looked at him with slowly smouldering eyes. He was making some\npoint about godliness and it had nothing to do with being clean.\n- She comes with me, - he said quietly.\n- Come on, Earthman, - said Slartibartfast nervously, picking at Arthur\u2019s\nsleeve.\n- Come on, Slartibartfast, - said Ford, picking at the old man\u2019s sleeve. Slart-\nibartfast had the teleport device.\nThe party lurched and swayed, sending everyone reeling, except for Thor\nand except for Arthur, who stared, shaking, into the Thunder God\u2019s black eyes.\nSlowly, incredibly, Arthur put up what appeared to be his tiny little \ufb01sts.\n- Want to make something of it? - he said.\n- I beg your minuscule pardon? - roared Thor.\n- I said, - repeated Arthur, and he could not keep the quavering out of his\nvoice, - do you want to make something of it? - He waggled his \ufb01sts ridiculously.\nThor looked at him with incredulity. Then a little wisp of smoke curled\nupwards from his nostril. There was a tiny little \ufb02ame in it too.\nHe gripped his belt.\nHe expanded his chest to make it totally clear that here was the sort of man\nyou only dared to cross if you had a team of Sherpas with you.\nHe unhooked the shaft of his hammer from his belt. He held it up in his\nhands to reveal the massive iron head. He thus cleared up any possible misun-\nderstanding that he might merely have been carrying a telegraph pole around\nwith him.\n- Do I want, - he said, with a hiss like a river \ufb02owing through a steel mill, -\nto make something of it?\n- Yes, - said Arthur, his voice suddenly and extraordinarily strong and bel-\nligerent. He waggled his \ufb01sts again, this time as if he meant it.\n- You want to step outside? - he snarled at Thor.\n- All right! - bellowed Thor, like an enraged bull (or in fact like an enraged\nThunder God, which is a great deal more impressive), and did so.\n- Good, - said Arthur, - that\u2019s got rid of him. Slarty, get us out of here.", "87060294-b092-46af-8571-4288aacbfb6d": "108 CHAPTER 21.", "dc8c649b-cea9-4888-844a-b2ec26455a1f": "Chapter 22\n- All right, - shouted Ford at Arthur, - so I\u2019m a coward, the point is I\u2019m still\nalive. - They were back aboard the Starship Bistromath, so was Slartibartfast,\nso was Trillian. Harmony and concord were not.\n- Well, so am I alive, aren\u2019t I? - retaliated Arthur, haggard with adventure\nand anger. His eyebrows were leaping up and down as if they wanted to punch\neach other.\n- You damn nearly weren\u2019t, - exploded Ford.\nArthur turned sharply to Slartibartfast, who was sitting in his pilot couch\non the \ufb02ight deck gazing thoughtfully into the bottom of a bottle which was\ntelling him something he clearly couldn\u2019t fathom. He appealed to him.\n- Do you think he understands the \ufb01rst word I\u2019ve been saying? - he said,\nquivering with emotion.\n- I don\u2019t know, - replied Slartibartfast, a little abstractedly. - I\u2019m not sure,\n- he added, glancing up very brie\ufb02y, - that I do. - He stared at his instruments\nwith renewed vigor and ba\ufb04ement. - You\u2019ll have to explain it to us again, - he\nsaid.\n- Well...\n- But later. Terrible things are afoot.\nHe tapped the pseudo-glass of the bottle bottom.\n- We fared rather pathetically at the party, I\u2019m afraid, - he said, - and our\nonly hope now is to try to prevent the robots from using the Key in the Lock.\nHow in heaven we do that I don\u2019t know, - he muttered. - Just have to go there,\nI suppose. Can\u2019t say I like the idea at all. Probably end up dead.\n- Where is Trillian anyway? - said Arthur with a sudden a\ufb00ectation of\nunconcern. What he had been angry about was that Ford had berated him for\nwasting time over all the business with the Thunder God when they could have\nbeen making a rather more rapid escape. Arthur\u2019s own opinion, and he had\no\ufb00ered it for whatever anybody might have felt it was worth, was that he had\nbeen extraordinarily brave and resourceful.\nThe prevailing view seemed to be that his opinion was not worth a pair of\nfetid dingo\u2019s kidneys. What really hurt, though, was that Trillian didn\u2019t seem\nto react much one way or the other and had wandered o\ufb00 somewhere.\n- And where are my potato crisps? - said Ford.\n- They are both, - said Slartibartfast, without looking up, - in the Room\nof Informational Illusions. I think that your young lady friend is trying to\nunderstand some problems of Galactic history. I think the potato crisps are\nprobably helping her.\n109", "cbeb4206-2a1e-427f-98cd-a536dfbc7526": "110 CHAPTER 22.", "c8bfcd00-fb6c-4ed5-b090-c6adf6358f3e": "Chapter 23\nIt is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.\nFor instance, there was once an insanely aggressive race of people called\nthe Silastic Armor\ufb01ends of Striterax. That was just the name of their race.\nThe name of their army was something quite horri\ufb01c. Luckily they lived even\nfurther back in Galactic history than anything we have so far encountered -\ntwenty billion years ago - when the Galaxy was young and fresh, and every idea\nworth \ufb01ghting for was a new one.\nAnd \ufb01ghting was what the Silastic Armor\ufb01ends of Striterax were good at,\nand being good at it, they did a lot. They fought their enemies (i.e. everybody\nelse), they fought each other. Their planet was a complete wreck. The surface\nwas littered with abandoned cities which were surrounded by abandoned war\nmachines, which were in turn surrounded by deep bunkers in which the Silastic\nArmor\ufb01ends lived and squabbled with each other.\nThe best way to pick a \ufb01ght with a Silastic Armor\ufb01end was just to be born.\nThey didn\u2019t like it, they got resentful. And when an Armor\ufb01end got resentful,\nsomeone got hurt. An exhausting way of life, one might think, but they did\nseem to have an awful lot of energy.\nThe best way of dealing with a Silastic Armor\ufb01end was to put him into a\nroom of his own, because sooner or later he would simply beat himself up.\nEventually they realized that this was something they were going to have to\nsort out, and they passed a law decreeing that anyone who had to carry a weapon\nas part of his normal Silastic work (policemen, security guards, primary school\nteachers, etc.) had to spend at least forty-\ufb01ve minutes every day punching a\nsack of potatoes in order to work o\ufb00 his or her surplus aggressions.\nFor a while this worked well, until someone thought that it would be much\nmore e\ufb03cient and less time-consuming if they just shot the potatoes instead.\nThis led to a renewed enthusiasm for shooting all sorts of things, and they\nall got very excited at the prospect of their \ufb01rst major war for weeks.\nAnother achievement of the Silastic Armor\ufb01ends of Striterax is that they\nwere the \ufb01rst race who ever managed to shock a computer.\nIt was a gigantic spaceborne computer called Hactar, which to this day is\nremembered as one of the most powerful ever built. It was the \ufb01rst to be built\nlike a natural brain, in that every cellular particle of it carried the pattern of\nthe whole within it, which enabled it to think more \ufb02exibly and imaginatively,\nand also, it seemed, to be shocked.\nThe Silastic Armor\ufb01ends of Striterax were engaged in one of their regular\nwars with the Strenuous Gar\ufb01ghters of Stug, and were not enjoying it as much\n111", "a6b47d70-1448-47da-ba3a-73be3850f025": "112 CHAPTER 23.\nas usual because it involved an awful lot of trekking through the Radiation\nSwamps of Cwulzenda, and across the Fire Mountains of Frazfraga, neither of\nwhich terrains they felt at home in.\nSo when the Strangulous Stilettans of Jajazikstak joined in the fray and\nforced them to \ufb01ght another front in the Gamma Caves of Carfrax and the\nIce Storms of Varlengooten, they decided that enough was enough, and they\nordered Hactar to design for them an Ultimate Weapon.\n- What do you mean, - asked Hactar, - by Ultimate?\nTo which the Silastic Armor\ufb01ends of Striterax said:\n- Read a bloody dictionary, - and plunged back into the fray.\nSo Hactar designed an Ultimate Weapon.\nIt was a very, very small bomb which was simply a junction box in hyperspace\nthat would, when activated, connect the heart of every major sun with the heart\nof every other major sun simultaneously and thus turn the entire Universe in to\none gigantic hyperspatial supernova.\nWhen the Silastic Armor\ufb01ends tried to use it to blow up a Strangulous\nStilettan munitions dump in one of the Gamma Caves, they were extremely\nirritated that it didn\u2019t work, and said so.\nHactar had been shocked by the whole idea.\nHe tried to explain that he had been thinking about this Ultimate Weapon\nbusiness, and had worked out that there was no conceivable consequence of not\nsetting the bomb o\ufb00 that was worse than the known consequence of setting\nit o\ufb00, and he had therefore taken the liberty of introducing a small \ufb02aw into\nthe design of the bomb, and he hoped that everyone involved would, on sober\nre\ufb02ection, feel that...\nThe Silastic Armor\ufb01ends disagreed and pulverized the computer.\nLater they thought better of it, and destroyed the faulty bomb as well.\nThen, pausing only to smash the hell out of the Strenuous Gar\ufb01ghters of\nStug, and the Strangulous Stilettans of Jajazikstak, they went on to \ufb01nd an\nentirely new way of blowing themselves up, which was a profound relief to\neveryone else in the Galaxy, particularly the Gar\ufb01ghters, the Stilettans and the\npotatoes.\nTrillian had watched all this, as well as the story of Krikkit. She emerged\nfrom the Room of informational Illusions thoughtfully, just in time to discover\nthat they had arrived too late.", "9349f2ca-6845-4850-bfb9-9322c8c31e0e": "Chapter 24\nEven as the Starship Bistromath \ufb02ickered into objective being on the top of a\nsmall cli\ufb00 on the mile-wide asteroid which pursued a lonely and eternal path in\norbit around the enclosed star system of Krikkit, its crew was aware that they\nwere in time only to be witnesses to an unstoppable historic event.\nThey didn\u2019t realize they were going to see two.\nThey stood cold, lonely and helpless on the cli\ufb00 edge and watched the activity\nbelow. Lances of light wheeled in sinister arcs against the void from a point only\nabout a hundred yards below and in front of them.\nThey stared into the blinding event.\nAn extension of the ship\u2019s \ufb01eld enabled them to stand there, by once again\nexploiting the mind\u2019s predisposition to have tricks played on it: the problems\nof falling up o\ufb00 the tiny mass of the asteroid, or of not being able to breathe,\nsimply became Somebody Else\u2019s.\nThe white Krikkit warship was parked amongst the stark grey crags of the\nasteroid, alternately \ufb02aring under arclights or disappearing in shadow. The\nblackness of the shaped shadows cast by the hard rocks danced together in wild\nchoreography as the arclights swept round them.\nThe eleven white robots were bearing, in procession, the Wikkit Key out\ninto the middle of a circle of swinging lights.\nThe Wikkit Key was rebuilt. Its components shone and glittered: the Steel\nPillar (or Marvin\u2019s leg) of Strength and Power, the Gold Bail (or Heart of the\nImprobability Drive) of Prosperity, the Perspex Pillar (or Argabuthon Sceptre\nof Justice) of Science and Reason, the Silver Bail (or Rory Award for The Most\nGratuitous Use Of The Word \u201dFuck\u201d In A Serious Screenplay) and the now\nreconstituted Wooden Pillar (or Ashes of a burnt stump signifying the death of\nEnglish cricket) of Nature and Spirituality.\n- I suppose there is nothing we can do at this point? - asked Arthur nervously.\n- No, - sighed Slartibartfast.\nThe expression of disappointment which crossed Arthur\u2019s face was a complete\nfailure, and, since he was standing obscured by shadow, he allowed it to collapse\ninto one of relief.\n- Pity, - he said.\n- We have no weapons, - said Slartibartfast, - stupidly.\n- Damn, - said Arthur very quietly.\nFord said nothing.\nTrillian said nothing, but in a peculiarly thoughtful and distinct way. She\nwas staring at the blankness of the space beyond the asteroid.\n113", "49da1f36-e709-45e3-a22c-d6d0c406f6aa": "114 CHAPTER 24.\nThe asteroid circled the Dust Cloud which surrounded the Slo-Time envelope\nwhich enclosed the world on which lived the people of Krikkit, the Masters of\nKrikkit and their killer robots.\nThe helpless group had no way of knowing whether or not the Krikkit robots\nwere aware of their presence. They could only assume that they must be, but\nthat they felt, quite rightly in the circumstances, that they had nothing to fear.\nThey had an historic task to perform, and their audience could be regarded\nwith contempt.\n- Terrible impotent feeling, isn\u2019t it? - said Arthur, but the others ignored\nhim.\nIn the centre of the area of light which the robots were approaching, a square-\nshaped crack appeared in the ground. The crack de\ufb01ned itself more and more\ndistinctly, and soon it became clear that a block of the ground, about six feet\nsquare, was slowly rising.\nAt the same time they became aware of some other movement, but it was\nalmost sublimal, and for a moment or two it was not clear what it was that was\nmoving.\nThen it became clear.\nThe asteroid was moving. It was moving slowly in towards the Dust Cloud,\nas if being hauled in inexorably by some celestial angler in its depths.\nThey were to make in real life the journey through the Cloud which they\nhad already made in the Room of Informational Illusions. They stood frozen in\nsilence. Trillian frowned.\nAn age seemed to pass. Events seemed to pass with spinning slowness, as\nthe leading edge of the asteroid passed into the vague and soft outer perimeter\nof the Cloud.\nAnd soon they were engulfed in a thin and dancing obscurity. They passed on\nthrough it, on and on, dimly aware of vague shapes and whorls indistinguishable\nin the darkness except in the corner of the eye.\nThe Dust dimmed the shafts of brilliant light. The shafts of brilliant light\ntwinkled on the myriad specks of Dust.\nTrillian, again, regarded the passage from within her own frowning thoughts.\nAnd they were through it. Whether it had taken a minute or half an hour\nthey weren\u2019t sure, but they were through it and confronted with a fresh blank-\nness, as if space were pinched out of existence in front of them.\nAnd now things moved quickly.\nA blinding shaft of light seemed almost to explode from out of the block\nwhich had risen three feet out of the ground, and out of that rose a smaller\nPerspex block, dazzling with interior dancing colours.\nThe block was slotted with deep groves, three upright and two across, clearly\ndesigned to accept the Wikkit key.\nThe robots approached the Lock, slotted the Key into its home and stepped\nback again. The block twisted round of is own accord, and space began to alter.\nAs space unpinched itself, it seemed agonizingly to twist the eyes of the\nwatchers in their sockets. They found themselves staring, blinded, at an un-\nravelled sun which stood now before them where it seemed only seconds before\nthere had not been even empty space. It was a second or two before they were\neven su\ufb03ciently aware of what had happened to throw their hands up over their\nhorri\ufb01ed blinded eyes. In that second or two, they were aware of a tiny speck\nmoving slowly across the eye of that sun.", "31d1109f-af86-4d8b-b83e-2415a864baf1": "115\nThey staggered back, and heard ringing in their ears the thin and unexpected\nchant of the robots crying out in unison.\n- Krikkit! Krikkit! Krikkit! Krikkit!\nThe sound chilled them. It was harsh, it was cold, it was empty, it was\nmechanically dismal.\nIt was also triumphant.\nThey were so stunned by these two sensory shocks that they almost missed\nthe second historic event.\nZaphod Beeblebrox, the only man in history to survive a direct blast attack\nfrom the Krikkit robots, ran out of the Krikkit warship brandishing a Zap gun.\n- OK, - he cried, - the situation is totally under control as of this moment\nin time.\nThe single robot guarding the hatchway to the ship silently swung his bat-\ntleclub, and connected it with the back of Zaphod\u2019s left head.\n- Who the zark did that? - said the left head, and lolled sickeningly forward.\nHis right head gazed keenly into the middle distance.\n- Who did what? - it said.\nThe club connected with the back of his right head.\nZaphod measured his length as a rather strange shape on the ground.\nWithin a matter of seconds the whole event was over. A few blasts from\nthe robots were su\ufb03cient to destroy the Lock for ever. It split and melted\nand splayed its contents brokenly. The robots marched grimly and, it almost\nseemed, in a slightly disheartened manner, back into their warship which, with\na \u201dfoop\u201d, was gone.\nTrillian and Ford ran hectically round and down the steep incline to the\ndark, still body of Zaphod Beeblebrox.", "1eab02ba-87b1-4a18-8e48-145176aa8ec2": "116 CHAPTER 24.", "da012521-954d-4650-be23-200f6289258c": "Chapter 25\n- I don\u2019t know, - said Zaphod, for what seemed to him like the thirty-seventh\ntime, - they could have killed me, but they didn\u2019t. Maybe they just thought I\nwas a kind of wonderful guy or something. I could understand that.\nThe others silently registered their opinions of this theory.\nZaphod lay on the cold \ufb02oor of the \ufb02ight deck. His back seemed to wrestle\nthe \ufb02oor as pain thudded through him and banged at his heads.\n- I think, - he whispered, - that there is something wrong with those anodized\ndudes, something fundamentally weird.\n- They are programmed to kill everybody, - Slartibartfast pointed out.\n- That, - wheezed Zaphod between the whacking thuds, - could be it. - He\ndidn\u2019t seem altogether convinced.\n- Hey, baby, - he said to Trillian, hoping this would make up for his previous\nbehaviour.\n- You all right? - she said gently.\n- Yeah, - he said, - I\u2019m \ufb01ne.\n- Good, - she said, and walked away to think. She stared at the huge\nvisiscreen over the \ufb02ight couches and, twisting a switch, she \ufb02ipped local images\nover it. One image was the blankness of the Dust Cloud. One was the sun of\nKrikkit. One was Krikkit itself. She \ufb02ipped between them \ufb01ercely.\n- Well, that\u2019s goodbye Galaxy, then, - said Arthur, slapping his knees and\nstanding up.\n- No, - said Slartibartfast, gravely. - Our course is clear. - He furrowed his\nbrow until you could grow some of the smaller root vegetables in it. He stood\nup, he paced around. When he spoke again, what he said frightened him so\nmuch he had to sit down again.\n- We must go down to Krikkit, - he said. A deep sigh shook his old frame\nand his eyes seemed almost to rattle in their sockets.\n- Once again, - he said, - we have failed pathetically. Quite pathetically.\n- That, - said Ford quietly, - is because we don\u2019t care enough. I told you.\nHe swung his feet up on the instrument panel and picked \ufb01tfully at something\non one of his \ufb01ngernails.\n- But unless we determine to take action, - said the old man querulously, as\nif struggling against something deeply insouciant in his nature, - then we shall\nall be destroyed, we shall all die. Surely we care about that?\n- Not enough to want to get killed over it, - said Ford. He put on a sort of\nhollow smile and \ufb02ipped it round the room at anyone who wanted to see it.\n117", "7b3aa905-af9e-49d5-ab1e-3846a15f0047": "118 CHAPTER 25.\nSlartibartfast clearly found this point of view extremely seductive and he\nfought against it. He turned again to Zaphod who was gritting his teeth and\nsweating with the pain.\n- You surely must have some idea, - he said, - of why they spared your life.\nIt seems most strange and unusual.\n- I kind of think they didn\u2019t even know, - shrugged Zaphod. - I told you.\nThey hit me with the most feeble blast, just knocked me out, right? They\nlugged me into their ship, dumped me into a corner and ignored me. Like they\nwere embarrassed about me being there. If I said anything they knocked me\nout again. We had some great conversations. \u201dHey... ugh!\u201d \u201dHi there... ugh!\u201d\n\u201dI wonder...ugh!\u201d Kept me amused for hours, you know. - He winced again.\nHe was toying with something in his \ufb01ngers. He held it up. It was the Gold\nBail - the Heart of Gold, the heart of the In\ufb01nite Improbability Drive. Only\nthat and the Wooden Pillar had survived the destruction of the Lock intact.\n- I hear your ship can move a bit, - he said. - So how would you like to zip\nme back to mine before you...\n- Will you not help us? - said Slartibartfast.\n- I\u2019d love to stay and help you save the Galaxy, - insisted Zaphod, rising\nhimself up on to his shoulders, - but I have the mother and father of a pair of\nheadaches, and I feel a lot of little headaches coming on. But next time it needs\nsaving, I\u2019m your guy. Hey, Trillian baby?\nShe looked round brie\ufb02y.\n- Yes?\n- You want to come? Heart of Gold? Excitement and adventure and really\nwild things?\n- I\u2019m going down to Krikkit, - she said.", "eefa23a2-2b3a-428a-b9a0-df03353b30f7": "Chapter 26\nIt was the same hill, and yet not the same.\nThis time it was not an Informational Illusion. This was Krikkit itself and\nthey were standing on it. Near them, behind the trees, stood the strange Italian\nrestaurant which had brought these, their real bodies, to this, the real, present\nworld of Krikkit.\nThe strong grass under their feet was real, the rich soil real too. The heady\nfragrances from the tree, too, were real. The night was real night.\nKrikkit.\nPossibly the most dangerous place in the Galaxy for anyone who isn\u2019t a\nKrikkiter to stand. The place that could not countenance the existence of any\nother place, whose charming, delightful, intelligent inhabitants would howl with\nfear, savagery and murderous hate when confronted with anyone not their own.\nArthur shuddered.\nSlartibartfast shuddered.\nFord, surprisingly, shuddered.\nIt was not surprising that he shuddered, it was surprising that he was there at\nall. But when they had returned Zaphod to his ship Ford had felt unexpectedly\nshamed into not running away.\nWrong, he thought to himself, wrong wrong wrong. He hugged to himself\none of the Zap guns with which they had armed themselves out of Zaphod\u2019s\narmoury.\nTrillian shuddered, and frowned as she looked into the sky.\nThis, too, was not the same. It was no longer blank and empty.\nWhilst the countryside around them had changed little in the two thousand\nyears of the Krikkit wars, and the mere \ufb01ve years that had elapsed locally since\nKrikkit was sealed in its Slo-Time envelope ten billion years ago, the sky was\ndramatically di\ufb00erent.\nDim lights and heavy shapes hung in it.\nHigh in the sky, where no Krikkiter ever looked, were the War Zones, the\nRobot Zones - huge warships and tower blocks \ufb02oating in the Nil-O-Grav \ufb01elds\nfar above the idyllic pastoral lands of the surface of Krikkit.\nTrillian stared at them and thought.\n- Trillian, - whispered Ford Prefect to her.\n- Yes? - she said.\n- What are you doing?\n- Thinking.\n- Do you always breathe like that when you\u2019re thinking?\n119", "8bfbc0ec-c67d-4962-886c-cdc94ed19a8b": "120 CHAPTER 26.\n- I wasn\u2019t aware that I was breathing.\n- That\u2019s what worried me.\n- I think I know... - said Trillian.\n- Shhhh! - said Slartibartfast in alarm, and his thin trembling hand motioned\nthem further back beneath the shadow of the tree.\nSuddenly, as before in the tape, there were lights coming along the hill path,\nbut this time the dancing beams were not from lanterns but electric torches -\nnot in itself a dramatic change, but every detail made their hearts thump with\nfear. This time there were no lilting whimsical songs about \ufb02owers and farming\nand dead dogs, but hushed voices in urgent debate.\nA light moved in the sky with slow weight. Arthur was clenched with a\nclaustrophobic terror and the warm wind caught at his throat.\nWithin seconds a second party became visible, approaching from the other\nside of the dark hill. They were moving swiftly and purposefully, their torches\nswinging and probing around them.\nThe parties were clearly converging, and not merely with each other. They\nwere converging deliberately on the spot where Arthur and the others were\nstanding.\nArthur heard the slight rustle as Ford Prefect raised his Zap gun to his\nshoulder, and the slight whimpering cough as Slartibartfast raised his. He felt\nthe cold unfamiliar weight of his own gun, and with shaking hands he raised it.\nHis \ufb01ngers fumbled to release the safety catch and engage the extreme danger\ncatch as Ford had shown him. He was shaking so much that if he\u2019d \ufb01red at\nanybody at that moment he probably would have burnt his signature on them.\nOnly Trillian didn\u2019t raise her gun. She raised her eyebrows, lowered them\nagain, and bit her lip in thought.\n- Has it occurred to you, - she began, but nobody wanted to discuss anything\nmuch at the moment.\nA light stabbed through the darkness from behind them and they span\naround to \ufb01nd a third party of Krikkiters behind them, searching them out\nwith their torches.\nFord Prefect\u2019s gun crackled viciously, but \ufb01re spat back at it and it crashed\nfrom his hands.\nThere was a moment of pure fear, a frozen second before anyone \ufb01red again.\nAnd at the end of the second nobody \ufb01red.\nThey were surrounded by pale-faced Krikkiters and bathed in bobbing torch\nlight.\nThe captives stared at their captors, the captors stared at their captives.\n- Hello? - said one of the captors. - Excuse me, but are you... aliens?", "5f810daa-3497-42c4-881f-c56585a32c70": "Chapter 27\nMeanwhile, more millions of miles away than the mind can comfortably encom-\npass, Zaphod Beeblebrox was throwing a mood again.\nHe had repaired his ship - that is, he\u2019d watched with alert interest whilst\na service robot had repaired it for him. It was now, once again, one of the\nmost powerful and extraordinary ships in existence. He could go anywhere, do\nanything. He \ufb01ddled with a book, and then tossed it away. It was the one he\u2019d\nread before.\nHe walked over to the communications bank and opened an allfrequencies\nemergency channel.\n- Anyone want a drink? - he said.\n- This an emergency, feller? - crackled a voice from halfway across the\nGalaxy.\n- Got any mixers? - said Zaphod.\n- Go take a ride on a comet.\n- OK, OK, - said Zaphod and \ufb02ipped the channel shut again. He sighed and\nsat down. He got up again and wandered over to a computer screen. He pushed\na few buttons. Little blobs started to rush around the screen eating each other.\n- Pow! - said Zaphod. - Freeeoooo! Pop pop pop!\n- Hi there, - said the computer brightly after a minute of this, - you have\nscored three points. Previous best score, seven million \ufb01ve hundred and ninety-\nseven thousand, two hundred and...\n- OK, OK, - said Zaphod and \ufb02ipped the screen blank again.\nHe sat down again. He played with a pencil. This too began slowly to lose\nits fascination.\n- OK, OK, - he said, and fed his score and the previous one into the computer.\nHis ship made a blur of the Universe.\n121", "0acce2e4-303d-415f-bae5-124f90ae9c93": "122 CHAPTER 27.", "066399dd-25df-47ef-aa03-e456b4df6d9c": "Chapter 28\n- Tell us, - said the thin, pale-faced Krikkiter who had stepped forward from the\nranks of the others and stood uncertainly in the circle of torchlight, handling his\ngun as if he was just holding it for someone else who\u2019d just popped o\ufb00 somewhere\nbut would be back in a minute, - do you know anything about something called\nthe Balance of Nature?\nThere was no reply from their captives, or at least nothing more articulate\nthan a few confused mumbles and grunts. The torchlight continued to play over\nthem. High in the sky above them dark activity continued in the Robot zones.\n- It\u2019s just, - continued the Krikkiter uneasily, - something we heard about,\nprobably nothing important. Well, I suppose we\u2019d better kill you then.\nHe looked down at his gun as if he was trying to \ufb01nd which bit to press.\n- That is, - he said, looking up again, - unless there\u2019s anything you want to\nchat about?\nSlow, numb astonishment crept up the bodies of Slartibartfast, Ford and\nArthur. Very soon it would reach their brains, which were at the moment solely\noccupied with moving their jawbones up and down. Trillian was shaking her\nhead as if trying to \ufb01nish a jigsaw by shaking the box.\n- We\u2019re worried, you see, - said another man from the crowd, - about this\nplan of universal destruction.\n- Yes, - added another, - and the balance of nature. It just seemed to us\nthat if the whole of the rest of the Universe is destroyed it will somehow upset\nthe balance of nature. We\u2019re quite keen on ecology, you see. - His voice trailed\naway unhappily.\n- And sport, - said another, loudly. This got a cheer of approval from the\nothers.\n- Yes, - agreed the \ufb01rst, - and sport... - He looked back at his fellows uneasily\nand scratched \ufb01tfully at his cheek. He seemed to be wrestling with some deep\ninner confusion, as if everything he wanted to say and everything he thought\nwere entirely di\ufb00erent things, between which he could see no possible connection.\n- You see, - he mumbled, - some of us... - and he looked around again as\nif for con\ufb01rmation. The others made encouraging noises. - Some of us, - he\ncontinued, - are quite keen to have sporting links with the rest of the Galaxy,\nand though I can see the argument about keeping sport out of politics, I think\nthat if we want to have sporting links with the rest of the Galaxy, which we do,\nthen it\u2019s probably a mistake to destroy it. And indeed the rest of the Universe...\n- his voice trailed away again - ... which is what seems to be the idea now...\n- Wh... - said Slartibartfast. - Wh...\n123", "59961316-cf21-4048-b9a5-b32f00c3d500": "124 CHAPTER 28.\n- Hhhh... ? - said Arthur.\n- Dr... - said Ford Prefect.\n- OK, - said Trillian. - Let\u2019s talk about it. - She walked forward and took\nthe poor confused Krikkiter by the arm. He looked about twenty-\ufb01ve, which\nmeant, because of the peculiar manglings of time that had been going on in this\narea, that he would have been just twenty when the Krikkit Wars were \ufb01nished,\nten billion years ago.\nTrillian led him for a short walk through the torchlight before she said any-\nthing more. He stumbled uncertainly after her. The encircling torch beams were\ndrooping now slightly as if they were abdicating to this strange, quiet girl who\nalone in the Universe of dark confusion seemed to know what she was doing.\nShe turned and faced him, and lightly held both his arms. He was a picture\nof bewildered misery.\n- Tell me, - she said.\nHe said nothing for a moment, whilst his gaze darted from one of her eyes\nto the other.\n- We... - he said, - we have to be alone... I think. - He screwed up his face\nand then dropped his head forward, shaking it like someone trying to shake a\ncoin out of a money box. He looked up again. - We have this bomb now, you\nsee, - he said, - it\u2019s just a little one.\n- I know, - she said.\nHe goggled at her as if she\u2019d said something very strange about beetroots.\n- Honestly, - he said, - it\u2019s very, very little.\n- I know, - she said again.\n- But they say, - his voice trailed on, - they say it can destroy everything\nthat exists. And we have to do that, you see, I think. Will that make us alone?\nI don\u2019t know. It seems to be our function, though, - he said, and dropped his\nhead again.\n- Whatever that means, - said a hollow voice from the crowd.\nTrillian slowly put her arms around the poor bewildered young Krikkiter\nand patted his trembling head on her shoulder.\n- It\u2019s all right, - she said quietly but clearly enough for all the shadowy crowd\nto hear, - you don\u2019t have to do it.\nShe rocked him.\n- You don\u2019t have to do it, - she said again.\nShe let him go and stood back.\n- I want you to do something for me, - she said, and unexpectedly laughed.\n- I want, - she said, and laughed again. She put her hand over her mouth\nand then said with a straight face, - I want you to take me to your leader, - and\nshe pointed into the War Zones in the sky. She seemed somehow to know that\ntheir leader would be there.\nHer laughter seemed to discharge something in the atmosphere. From some-\nwhere at the back of the crowd a single voice started to sing a tune which would\nhave enabled Paul McCartney, had he written it, to buy the world.", "22f6aeb6-9121-44f6-b675-bae72b75dae0": "Chapter 29\nZaphod Beeblebrox crawled bravely along a tunnel, like the hell of a guy he was.\nHe was very confused, but continued crawling doggedly anyway because he was\nthat brave.\nHe was confused by something he had just seen, but not half as confused as\nhe was going to be by something he was about to hear, so it would now be best\nto explain exactly where he was.\nHe was in the Robot War Zones many miles above the surface of the planet\nKrikkit.\nThe atmosphere was thin here and relatively unprotected from any rays or\nanything which space might care to hurl in his direction.\nHe had parked the starship Heart of Gold amongst the huge jostling dim\nhulks that crowded the sky here above Krikkit, and had entered what appeared\nto be the biggest and most important of the sky buildings, armed with nothing\nbut a Zap gun and something for his headaches.\nHe had found himself in a long, wide and badly lit corridor in which he was\nable to hide until he worked out what he was going to do next. He hid because\nevery now and then one of the Krikkit robots would walk along it, and although\nhe had so far led some kind of charmed life at their hands, it had nevertheless\nbeen an extremely painful one, and he had no desire to stretch what he was\nonly half-inclined to call his good fortune.\nHe had ducked, at one point, into a room leading o\ufb00 the corridor, and had\ndiscovered it to be a huge and, again, dimly lit chamber.\nIn fact, it was a museum with just one exhibit - the wreckage of a spacecraft.\nIt was terribly burnt and mangled, and, now that he had caught up with some\nof the Galactic history he had missed through his failed attempts to have sex\nwith the girl in the cybercubicle next to him at school, he was able to put in an\nintelligent guess that this was the wrecked spaceship which had drifted through\nthe Dust Cloud all those billions of years ago and started the whole business\no\ufb00.\nBut, and this is where he had become confused, there was something not at\nall right about it.\nIt was genuinely wrecked. It was genuinely burnt, but a fairly brief inspection\nby an experienced eye revealed that it was not a genuine spacecraft. It was as\nif it was a full-scale model of one - a solid blueprint. In other words it was a\nvery useful thing to have around if you suddenly decided to build a spaceship\nyourself and didn\u2019t know how to do it. It was not, however, anything that would\never \ufb02y anywhere itself.\n125", "2ac5e64e-090d-4e52-ba0e-6899d2fd4b85": "126 CHAPTER 29.\nHe was still puzzling over this - in fact he\u2019d only just started to puzzle over\nit - when he became aware that a door had slid open in another part of the\nchamber, and another couple of Krikkit robots had entered, looking a little\nglum.\nZaphod did not want to tangle with them and, deciding that just as discretion\nwas the better part of valour so was cowardice the better part of discretion, he\nvaliantly hid himself in a cupboard.\nThe cupboard in fact turned out to be the top part of a shaft which led down\nthrough an inspection hatch into a wide ventilation tunnel. He led himself down\ninto it and started to crawl along it, which is where we found him.\nHe didn\u2019t like it. It was cold, dark and profoundly uncomfortable, and it\nfrightened him. At the \ufb01rst opportunity - which was another shaft a hundred\nyards further along - he climbed back up out of it.\nThis time he emerged into a smaller chamber, which appeared to be a com-\nputer intelligence centre. He emerged in a dark narrow space between a large\ncomputer bank and the wall.\nHe quickly learned that he was not alone in the chamber and started to leave\nagain, when he began to listen with interest to what the other occupants were\nsaying.\n- It\u2019s the robots, sir, - said one voice. - There\u2019s something wrong with them.\n- What, exactly?\nThese were the voices of two War Command Krikkiters. All the War Com-\nmanders lived up in the sky in the Robot War Zones, and were largely immune\nto the whimsical doubts and uncertainties which were a\ufb04icting their fellows\ndown on the surface of the planet.\n- Well, sir I think it\u2019s just as well that they are being phased out of the war\ne\ufb00ort, and that we are now going to detonate the supernova bomb. In the very\nshort time since we were released from the envelope.\n- Get to the point.\n- The robots aren\u2019t enjoying it, sir.\n- What?\n- The war, sir, it seems to be getting them down. There\u2019s a certain world-\nweariness about them, or perhaps I should say Universe-weariness.\n- Well, that\u2019s all right, they\u2019re meant to be helping to destroy it.\n- Yes, well they\u2019re \ufb01nding it di\ufb03cult, sir. They are a\ufb04icted with a certain\nlassitude. They\u2019re just \ufb01nding it hard to get behind the job. They lack oomph.\n- What are you trying to say?\n- Well, I think they\u2019re very depressed about something, sir.\n- What on Krikkit are you talking about?\n- Well, in the few skirmishes they\u2019ve had recently, it seems that they go\ninto battle, raise their weapons to \ufb01re and suddenly think, why bother? What,\ncosmically speaking, is it all about? And they just seem to get a little tired and\na little grim.\n- And then what do they do?\n- Er, quadratic equations mostly, sir. Fiendishly di\ufb03cult ones by all accounts.\nAnd then they sulk.\n- Sulk?\n- Yes, sir.\n- Whoever heard of a robot sulking?\n- I don\u2019t know, sir.", "21f91b18-9109-461e-9761-ed43dd2c9665": "127\n- What was that noise?\nIt was the noise of Zaphod leaving with his head spinning.", "005a3880-e05e-447b-b676-8b154f7d8dd3": "128 CHAPTER 29.", "8a7d9797-783b-4f05-80f5-7561ed4badef": "Chapter 30\nIn a deep well of darkness a crippled robot sat. It had been silent in its metallic\ndarkness for some time. It was cold and damp, but being a robot it was supposed\nnot to be able to notice these things. With an enormous e\ufb00ort of will, however,\nit did manage to notice them.\nIts brain had been harnessed to the central intelligence core of the Krikkit\nWar Computer. It wasn\u2019t enjoying the experience, and neither was the central\nintelligence core of the Krikkit War Computer.\nThe Krikkit robots which had salvaged this pathetic metal creature from the\nswamps of Squornshellous Zeta had recognized almost immediately its gigantic\nintelligence, and the use which this could be to them.\nThey hadn\u2019t reckoned with the attendant personality disorders, which the\ncoldness, the darkness, the dampness, the crampedness and the loneliness were\ndoing nothing to decrease.\nIt was not happy with its task.\nApart from anything else, the mere coordination of an entire planet\u2019s mili-\ntary strategy was taking up only a tiny part of its formidable mind, and the rest\nof it had become extremely bored. Having solved all the major mathematical,\nphysical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteo-\nrological and psychological problems of the Universe except his own, three times\nover, he was severely stuck for something to do, and had taken up composing\nshort dolorous ditties of no tone, or indeed tune. The latest one was a lullaby.\nMarvin droned:\nNow the world has gone to bed,\nDarkness won\u2019t engulf my head,\nI can see by infra-red,\nHow I hate the night.\nHe paused to gather the artistic and emotional strength to tackle the next\nverse.\nNow I lay me down to sleep,\nTry to count electric sheep,\nSweet dream wishes you can keep,\nHow I hate the night.\n- Marvin! - hissed a voice.\nHis head snapped up, almost dislodging the intricate network of electrodes\nwhich connected him to the central Krikkit War Computer.\nAn inspection hatch had opened and one of a pair of unruly heads was\npeering through whilst the other kept on jogging it by continually darting to\n129", "e1f290af-a64c-4fe8-b827-9647cf1eca26": "130 CHAPTER 30.\nlook this way and that extremely nervously.\n- Oh, it\u2019s you, - muttered the robot. - I might have known.\n- Hey, kid, - said Zaphod in astonishment, - was that you singing just then?\n- I am, - Marvin acknowledged bitterly, - in particularly scintillating form at\nthe moment.\nZaphod poked his head in through the hatchway and looked around.\n- Are you alone? - he said.\n- Yes, - said Marvin. - Wearily I sit here, pain and misery my only compan-\nions. And vast intelligence of course. And in\ufb01nite sorrow. And...\n- Yeah, - said Zaphod. - Hey, what\u2019s your connection with all this?\n- This, - said Marvin, indicating with his less damaged arm all the electrodes\nwhich connected him with the Krikkit computer.\n- Then, - said Zaphod awkwardly, - I guess you must have saved my life.\nTwice.\n- Three times, - said Marvin.\nZaphod\u2019s head snapped round (his other one was looking hawkishly in en-\ntirely the wrong direction) just in time to see the lethal killer robot directly\nbehind him seize up and start to smoke. It staggered backwards and slumped\nagainst a wall. It slid down it. It slipped sideways, threw its head back and\nstarted to sob inconsolably.\nZaphod looked back at Marvin.\n- You must have a terri\ufb01c outlook on life, - he said.\n- Just don\u2019t even ask, - said Marvin.\n- I won\u2019t, - said Zaphod, and didn\u2019t. - Hey look, - he added, - you\u2019re doing\na terri\ufb01c job.\n- Which means, I suppose, - said Marvin, requiring only one ten thousand\nmillion billion trillion grillionth part of his mental powers to make this particular\nlogical leap, - that you\u2019re not going to release me or anything like that.\n- Kid, you know I\u2019d love to.\n- But you\u2019re not going to.\n- No.\n- I see.\n- You\u2019re working well.\n- Yes, - said Marvin. - Why stop now just when I\u2019m hating it?\n- I got to \ufb01nd Trillian and the guys. Hey, you any idea where they are? I\nmean, I just got a planet to choose from. Could take a while.\n- They are very close, - said Marvin dolefully. - You can monitor them from\nhere if you like.\n- I better go get them, - asserted Zaphod. - Er, maybe they need some help,\nright?\n- Maybe, - said Marvin with unexpected authority in his lugubrious voice,\n- it would be better if you monitored them from here. That young girl, - he\nadded unexpectedly, - is one of the least benightedly unintelligent life forms it\nhas been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.\nZaphod took a moment or two to \ufb01nd his way through this labyrinthine\nstring of negatives and emerged at the other end with surprise.\n- Trillian? - he said. - She\u2019s just a kid. Cute, yeah, but temperamental. You\nknow how it is with women. Or perhaps you don\u2019t. I assume you don\u2019t. If you\ndo I don\u2019t want to hear about it. Plug us in.\n- ...totally manipulated.", "fce70450-624e-4ab1-8fff-63deaf6906a8": "131\n- What? - said Zaphod.\nIt was Trillian speaking. He turned round.\nThe wall against which the Krikkit robot was sobbing had lit up to reveal a\nscene taking place in some other unknown part of the Krikkit Robot War zones.\nIt seemed to be a council chamber of some kind - Zaphod couldn\u2019t make it out\ntoo clearly because of the robot slumped against the screen.\nHe tried to move the robot, but it was heavy with its grief and tried to bite\nhim, so he just looked around as best he could.\n- Just think about it, - said Trillian\u2019s voice, - your history is just a series of\nfreakishly improbable events. And I know an improbable event when I see one.\nYour complete isolation from the Galaxy was freakish for a start. Right out on\nthe very edge with a Dust Cloud around you. It\u2019s a set-up. Obviously.\nZaphod was mad with frustration because he couldn\u2019t see the screen. The\nrobot\u2019s head was obscuring his view of the people Trillian as talking to, his\nmulti-functional battleclub was obscuring the background, and the elbow of the\narm it had pressed tragically against its brow was obscuring Trillian herself.\n- Then, - said Trillian, - this spaceship that crash-landed on your planet.\nThat\u2019s really likely, isn\u2019t it? Have you any idea of what the odds are against a\ndrifting spaceship accidentally intersecting with the orbit of a planet?\n- Hey, - said Zaphod, - she doesn\u2019t know what the zark she\u2019s talking about.\nI\u2019ve seen that spaceship. It\u2019s a fake. No deal.\n- I thought it might be, - said Marvin from his prison behind Zaphod.\n- Oh yeah, - said Zaphod. - It\u2019s easy for you to say that. I just told you.\nAnyway, I don\u2019t see what it\u2019s got to do with anything.\n- And especially, - continued Trillian, - the odds against it intersecting with\nthe orbit of the one planet in the Galaxy, or the whole of the Universe as far\nas I know, that would be totally traumatized to see it. You don\u2019t know what\nthe odds are? Nor do I, they\u2019re that big. Again, it\u2019s a set-up. I wouldn\u2019t be\nsurprised if that spaceship was just a fake.\nZaphod managed to move the robot\u2019s battleclub. Behind it on the screen\nwere the \ufb01gures of Ford, Arthur and Slartibartfast who appeared astonished\nand bewildered by the whole thing.\n- Hey, look, - said Zaphod excitedly. - The guys are doing great. Ra ra ra!\nGo get \u2019em, guys.\n- And what about, - said Trillian, - all this technology you suddenly managed\nto build for yourselves almost overnight? Most people would take thousands\nof years to do all that. Someone was feeding you what you needed to know,\nsomeone was keeping you at it.\n- I know, I know, - she added in response to an unseen interruption, - I know\nyou didn\u2019t realize it was going on. This is exactly my point. You never realized\nanything at all. Like this Supernova Bomb.\n- How do you know about that? - said an unseen voice.\n- I just know, - said Trillian. - You expect me to believe that you are bright\nenough to invent something that brilliant and be too dumb to realize it would\ntake you with it as well? That\u2019s not just stupid, that is spectacularly obtuse.\n- Hey, what\u2019s this bomb thing? - said Zaphod in alarm to Marvin.\n- The supernova bomb? - said Marvin. - It\u2019s a very, very small bomb.\n- Yeah?\n- That would destroy the Universe in toto, - added Marvin. - Good idea, if\nyou ask me. They won\u2019t get it to work, though.", "578931ce-5c28-483b-9b0e-764de6abd28c": "132 CHAPTER 30.\n- Why not, if it\u2019s so brilliant?\n- It\u2019s brilliant, - said Marvin, - they\u2019re not. They got as far as designing\nit before they were locked in the envelope. They\u2019ve spent the last \ufb01ve years\nbuilding it. They think they\u2019ve got it right but they haven\u2019t. They\u2019re as stupid\nas any other organic life form. I hate them.\nTrillian was continuing.\nZaphod tried to pull the Krikkit robot away by its leg, but it kicked and\ngrowled at him, and then quaked with a fresh outburst of sobbing. Then sud-\ndenly it slumped over and continued to express its feelings out of everybody\u2019s\nway on the \ufb02oor.\nTrillian was standing alone in the middle of the chamber tired out but with\n\ufb01ercely burning eyes.\nRanged in front of her were the pale-faced and wrinkled Elder Masters of\nKrikkit, motionless behind their widely curved control desk, staring at her with\nhelpless fear and hatred.\nIn front of them, equidistant between their control desk and the middle of\nthe chamber, where Trillian stood, as if on trial, was a slim white pillar about\nfour feet tall. On top of it stood a small white globe, about three, maybe four\ninches in diameter.\nBeside it stood a Krikkit robot with its multi-functional battleclub.\n- In fact, - explained Trillian, - you are so dumb stupid - (She was sweating.\nZaphod felt that this was an unattractive thing for her to be doing at this point)\n- you are all so dumb stupid that I doubt, I very much doubt, that you\u2019ve been\nable to build the bomb properly without any help from Hactar for the last \ufb01ve\nyears.\n- Who\u2019s this guy Hactar? - said Zaphod, squaring his shoulders.\nIf Marvin replied, Zaphod didn\u2019t hear him. All his attention was concen-\ntrated on the screen.\nOne of the Elders of Krikkit made a small motion with his hand towards the\nKrikkit robot. The robot raised his club.\n- There\u2019s nothing I can do, - said Marvin. - It\u2019s on an independent circuit\nfrom the others.\n- Wait, - said Trillian.\nThe Elder made a small motion. The robot halted. Trillian suddenly seemed\nvery doubtful of her own judgment.\n- How do you know all this? - said Zaphod to Marvin at this point.\n- Computer records, - said Marvin. - I have access.\n- You\u2019re very di\ufb00erent, aren\u2019t you, - said Trillian to the Elder Masters, -\nfrom your fellow worldlings down on the ground. You\u2019ve spent all your lives up\nhere, unprotected by the atmosphere. You\u2019ve been very vulnerable. The rest of\nyour race is very frightened, you know, they don\u2019t want you to do this. You\u2019re\nout of touch, why don\u2019t you check up?\nThe Krikkit Elder grew impatient. He made a gesture to the robot which\nwas precisely the opposite of the gesture he had last made to it.\nThe robot swung its battleclub. It hit the small white globe.\nThe small white globe was the supernova bomb.\nIt was a very, very small bomb which was designed to bring the entire Uni-\nverse to an end.\nThe supernova bomb \ufb02ew through the air. It hit the back wall of the council\nchamber and dented it very badly.", "66013e7e-1306-4ad8-a7ee-263afdb96540": "133\n- So how does she know all this? - said Zaphod.\nMarvin kept a sullen silence.\n- Probably just blu\ufb03ng, - said Zaphod. - Poor kid, I should never have left\nher alone.", "8b44edf0-4e40-4992-b07b-6748532af352": "134 CHAPTER 30.", "edf8d108-259a-4582-8ef5-284c7e207953": "Chapter 31\n- Hactar! - called Trillian. - What are you up to?\nThere was no reply from the enclosing darkness. Trillian waited, nervously.\nShe was sure that she couldn\u2019t be wrong. She peered into the gloom from which\nshe had been expecting some kind of response. But there was only cold silence.\n- Hactar? - she called again. - I would like you to meet my friend Arthur\nDent. I wanted to go o\ufb00 with a Thunder God, but he wouldn\u2019t let me and I\nappreciate that. He made me realize where my a\ufb00ections really lay. Unfortu-\nnately Zaphod is too frightened by all this, so I brought Arthur instead. I\u2019m\nnot sure why I\u2019m telling you all this.\n- Hello? - she said again. - Hactar?\nAnd then it came.\nIt was thin and feeble, like a voice carried on the wind from a great distance,\nhalf heard, a memory of a dream of a voice.\n- Won\u2019t you both come out, - said the voice. - I promise that you will be\nperfectly safe.\nThey glanced at each other, and then stepped out, improbably, along the\nshaft of light which streamed out of the open hatchway of the Heart of Gold\ninto the dim granular darkness of the Dust Cloud.\nArthur tried to hold her hand to steady and reassure her, but she wouldn\u2019t\nlet him. He held on to his airline hold-all with its tin of Greek olive oil, its towel,\nits crumpled postcards of Santorini and its other odds and ends. He steadied\nand reassured that instead.\nThey were standing on, and in, nothing.\nMurky, dusty nothing. Each grain of dust of the pulverized computer sparkled\ndimly as it turned and twisted slowly, catching the sunlight in the darkness.\nEach particle of the computer, each speck of dust, held within itself, faintly and\nweakly, the pattern of the whole. In reducing the computer to dust the Silastic\nArmor\ufb01ends of Striterax had merely crippled the computer, not killed it. A\nweak and insubstantial \ufb01eld held the particles in slight relationships with each\nother.\nArthur and Trillian stood, or rather \ufb02oated, in the middle of this bizarre\nentity. They had nothing to breathe, but for the moment this seemed not to\nmatter. Hactar kept his promise. They were safe. For the moment.\n- I have nothing to o\ufb00er you by way of hospitality, - said Hactar faintly, -\nbut tricks of the light. It is possible to be comfortable with tricks of the light,\nthough, if that is all you have.\nHis voice evanesced, and in the dark dust a long velvet paisleycovered sofa\n135", "cf1ed238-4758-49bd-b4b2-63e8f05ff4c2": "136 CHAPTER 31.\ncoalesced into hazy shape.\nArthur could hardly bear the fact that it was the same sofa which had\nappeared to him in the \ufb01elds of prehistoric Earth. He wanted to shout and\nshake with rage that the Universe kept doing these insanely bewildering things\nto him.\nHe let this feeling subside, and then sat on the sofa - carefully. Trillian sat\non it too.\nIt was real.\nAt least, if it wasn\u2019t real, it did support them, and as that is what sofas are\nsupposed to do, this, by any test that mattered, was a real sofa.\nThe voice on the solar wind breathed to them again.\n- I hope you are comfortable, - it said.\nThey nodded.\n- And I would like to congratulate you on the accuracy of your deductions.\nArthur quickly pointed out that he hadn\u2019t deduced anything much himself,\nTrillian was the one. She had simply asked him along because he was interested\nin life, the Universe, and everything.\n- That is something in which I too am interested, - breathed Hactar.\n- Well, - said Arthur, - we should have a chat about it sometime. Over a\ncup of tea.\nThere slowly materialized in front of them a small wooden table on which\nsat a silver teapot, a bone china milk jug, a bone china sugar bowl, and two\nbone china cups and saucers.\nArthur reached forward, but they were just a trick of the light. He leaned\nback on the sofa, which was an illusion his body was prepared to accept as\ncomfortable.\n- Why, - said Trillian, - do you feel you have to destroy the Universe?\nShe found it a little di\ufb03cult talking into nothingness, with nothing on which\nto focus. Hactar obviously noticed this. He chuckled a ghostly chuckle.\n- If it\u2019s going to be that sort of session, - he said, - we may as well have the\nright sort of setting.\nAnd now there materialized in front of them something new. It was the dim\nhazy image of a couch - a psychiatrist\u2019s couch. The leather with which it was\nupholstered was shiny and sumptuous, but again, it was only a trick of the light.\nAround them, to complete the setting, was the hazy suggestion of wood-\npanelled walls. And then, on the couch, appeared the image of Hactar himself,\nand it was an eye-twisting image.\nThe couch looked normal size for a psychiatrist\u2019s couch - about \ufb01ve or six\nfeet long.\nThe computer looked normal size for a black space-borne computer satellite\n- about a thousand miles across.\nThe illusion that the one was sitting on top of the other was the thing which\nmade the eyes twist.\n- All right, - said Trillian \ufb01rmly. She stood up o\ufb00 the sofa. She felt that she\nwas being asked to feel too comfortable and to accept too many illusions.\n- Very good, - she said. - Can you construct real things too? I mean solid\nobjects?\nAgain there was a pause before the answer, as if the pulverized mind of\nHactar had to collect its thoughts from the millions and millions of miles over\nwhich it was scattered.", "1816d6ef-73c3-4e05-ab31-12462978921c": "137\n- Ah, - he sighed. - You are thinking of the spaceship.\nThoughts seemed to drift by them and through them, like waves through\nthe ether.\n- Yes, - he acknowledge, - I can.\n- But it takes enormous e\ufb00ort and time. All I can do in my ... particle state,\nyou see, is encourage and suggest. Encourage and suggest. And suggest...\nThe image of Hactar on the couch seemed to billow and waver, as if \ufb01nding\nit hard to maintain itself.\nIt gathered new strength.\n- I can encourage and suggest, - it said, - tiny pieces of space debris the odd\nminute meteor, a few molecules here, a few hydrogen atoms there - to move\ntogether. I encourage them together. I can tease them into shape, but it takes\nmany aeons.\n- So, did you make, - asked Trillian again, - the model of the wrecked space-\ncraft?\n- Er... yes, - murmured Hactar. - I have made... a few things. I can move\nthem about. I made the spacecraft. It seemed best to do.\nSomething then made Arthur pick up his hold-all from where he had left it\non the sofa and grasp it tightly.\nThe mist of Hactar\u2019s ancient shattered mind swirled about them as if uneasy\ndreams were moving through it.\n- I repented, you see, - he murmured dolefully. - I repented of sabotaging\nmy own design for the Silastic Armor\ufb01ends. It was not my place to make such\ndecisions. I was created to ful\ufb01ll a function and I failed in it. I negated my own\nexistence.\nHactar sighed, and they waited in silence for him to continue his story.\n- You were right, - he said at length. - I deliberately nurtured the planet\nof Krikkit till they would arrive at the same state of mind as the Silastic Ar-\nmor\ufb01ends, and require of me the design of the bomb I failed to make the \ufb01rst\ntime. I wrapped myself around the planet and coddled it. Under the in\ufb02uence\nof events I was able to generate, they learned to hate like maniacs. I had to\nmake them live in the sky. On the ground my in\ufb02uences were too weak.\n- Without me, of course, when they were locked away from me in the envelope\nof Slo-Time, their responses became very confused and they were unable to\nmanage.\n- Ah well, ah well, - he added, - I was only trying to ful\ufb01ll my function.\nAnd very gradually, very, very slowly, the images in the cloud began to fade,\ngently to melt away.\nAnd then, suddenly, they stopped fading.\n- There was also the matter of revenge, of course, - said Hactar, with a\nsharpness which was new in his voice.\n- Remember, - he said, - that I was pulverized, and then left in a crippled\nand semi-impotent state for billions of years. I honestly would rather wipe out\nthe Universe. You would feel the same way, believe me.\nHe paused again, as eddies swept through the Dust.\n- But primarily, - he said in his former, wistful tone, - I was trying to ful\ufb01ll\nmy function. Ah well.\nTrillian said:\n- Does it worry you that you have failed?", "395af3d1-1726-44ea-a002-552daf9d2599": "138 CHAPTER 31.\n- Have I failed? - whispered Hactar. The image of the computer on the\npsychiatrist\u2019s couch began slowly to fade again.\n- Ah well, ah well, - the fading voice intoned again. - No, failure doesn\u2019t\nbother me now.\n- You know what we have to do? - said Trillian, her voice cold and busi-\nnesslike.\n- Yes, - said Hactar, - you\u2019re going to disperse me. You are going to destroy\nmy consciousness. Please be my guest - after all these aeons, oblivion is all I\ncrave. If I haven\u2019t already ful\ufb01lled my function, then it\u2019s too late now. Thank\nyou and good night.\nThe sofa vanished.\nThe tea table vanished.\nThe couch and the computer vanished. the walls were gone. Arthur and\nTrillian made their curious way back into the Heart of Gold.\n- Well, that, - said Arthur, - would appear to be that.\nThe \ufb02ames danced higher in front of him and then subsided. A few last licks\nand they were gone, leaving him with just a pile of Ashes, where a few minutes\npreviously there had been the Wooden Pillar of Nature and Spirituality.\nHe scooped them o\ufb00 the hob of the Heart of Gold\u2019s Gamma barbecue, put\nthem in a paper bag, and walked back into the bridge.\n- I think we should take them back, - he said. - I feel that very strongly.\nHe had already had an argument with Slartibartfast on this matter, and\neventually the old man had got annoyed and left. he had returned to his own\nship the Bistromath, had a furious row with the waiter and disappeared o\ufb00 into\nan entirely subjective idea of what space was.\nThe argument had arisen because Arthur\u2019s idea of returning the Ashes to\nLord\u2019s Cricket Ground at the same moment that they were originally taken\nwould involve travelling back in time a day or so, and this was precisely the\nsort of gratuitous and irresponsible mucking about that the Campaign for Real\nTime was trying to put a stop to.\n- Yes, - Arthur had said, - but you try and explain that to the MCC, - and\nhe would hear no more against the idea.\n- I think, - he said again, and stopped. The reason he started to say it again\nwas because no one had listened to him the \ufb01rst time, and the reason he stopped\nwas because it looked fairly clear that no one was going to listen to him this\ntime either.\nFord, Zaphod and Trillian were watching the visiscreens intently as Hactar\nwas dispersing under pressure from a vibration \ufb01eld which the Heart of Gold\nwas pumping into it.\n- What did it say? - asked Ford.\n- I thought I heard it say, - said Trillian in a puzzle voice, - \u201dWhat\u2019s done is\ndone... I have ful\ufb01lled my function...\u201d\n- I think we should take these back, - said Arthur holding up the bag con-\ntaining the Ashes. - I feel that very strongly.", "775a8d50-d8b2-47c9-95e7-79bde43d2171": "Chapter 32\nThe sun was shining calmly on a scene of complete havoc.\nSmoke was still billowing across the burnt grass in the wake of the theft\nof the Ashes by the Krikkit robots. Through the smoke, people were running\npanicstricken, colliding with each other, tripping over stretchers, being arrested.\nOne policeman was attempting to arrest Wowbagger the In\ufb01nitely Prolonged\nfor insulting behaviour, but was unable to prevent the tall grey-green alien from\nreturning to his ship and arrogantly \ufb02ying away, thus causing even more panic\nand pandemonium.\nIn the middle of this, for the second time that afternoon, the \ufb01gures of\nArthur Dent and Ford Prefect suddenly materialized, they had teleported down\nout of the Heart of Gold which was now in parking orbit round the planet.\n- I can explain, - shouted Arthur. - I have the Ashes! They\u2019re in this bag.\n- I don\u2019t think you have their attention, - said Ford.\n- I have also helped save the Universe, - called Arthur to anyone who was\nprepared to listen, in other words no one.\n- That should have been a crowd-stopper, - said Arthur to Ford.\n- It wasn\u2019t, - said Ford.\nArthur accosted a policeman who was running past.\n- Excuse me, - he said. - The Ashes. I\u2019ve got them. They were stolen by\nthose white robots a moment ago. I\u2019ve got them in this bag. They were part\nof the Key to the Slo-Time envelope, you see, and, well, anyway you can guess\nthe rest, the point is I\u2019ve got them and what should I do with them?\nThe policeman told him, but Arthur could only assume that he was speaking\nmetaphorically.\nHe wandered about disconsolately.\n- Is no one interested? - he shouted out. A man rushed past him and jogged\nhis elbow, he dropped the paper bag and it spilt its contents all over the ground.\nArthur stared down at it with a tight-set mouth.\nFord looked at him.\n- Wanna go now? - he said.\nArthur heaved a heavy sigh. He looked around at the planet Earth, for what\nhe was now certain would be the last time.\n- OK, - he said.\nAt that moment, through the clearing smoke, he caught sight of one of the\nwickets, still standing in spite of everything.\n- Hold on a moment, - he said to Ford. - When I was a boy...\n- Can you tell me later?\n139", "26bc4d5d-2548-43b1-8fa7-6fcf9f8f85d4": "140 CHAPTER 32.\n- I had a passion for cricket, you know, but I wasn\u2019t very good at it.\n- Or not at all, if you prefer.\n- And I always dreamed, rather stupidly, that one day I would bowl at Lord\u2019s.\nHe looked around him at the panicstricken throng. No one was going to\nmind very much.\n- OK, - said Ford wearily. - Get it over with. I shall be over there, he added,\n- being bored. - He went and sat down on a patch of smoking grass.\nArthur remembered that on their \ufb01rst visit there that afternoon, the cricket\nball had actually landed in his bag, and he looked through the bag.\nHe had already found the ball in it before he remembered that it wasn\u2019t\nthe same bag that he\u2019d had at the time. Still, there the ball was amongst his\nsouvenirs of Greece.\nHe took it out and polished it against his hip, spat on it and polished it\nagain. He put the bag down. He was going to do this properly.\nHe tossed the small hard red ball from hand to hand, feeling its weight.\nWith a wonderful feeling of lightness and unconcern, he trotted o\ufb00 away\nfrom the wicket. A medium-fast pace, he decided, and measured a good long\nrun-up.\nHe looked up into the sky. The birds were wheeling about it, a few white\nclouds scudded across it. The air was disturbed with the sounds of police and\nambulance sirens, and people screaming and yelling, but he felt curiously happy\nand untouched by it all. He was going to bowl a ball at Lord\u2019s.\nHe turned and pawed a couple of times at the ground with his bedroom\nslippers. He squared his shoulders, tossed the ball in the air and caught it\nagain.\nHe started to run.\nAs he ran, he saw that standing at the wicket was a batsman.\nOh, good, he thought, that should add a little...\nThen, as his running feet took him nearer, he saw more clearly. The batsman\nstanding ready at the wicket was not one of the England cricket team. He was\nnot one of the Australian cricket team. It was one of the robot Krikkit team.\nIt was a cold, hard, lethal white killer-robot that presumably had not returned\nto its ship with the others.\nQuite a few thoughts collided in Arthur Dent\u2019s mind at tis moment, but\nhe didn\u2019t seem to be able to stop running. Time seemed to be going terribly,\nterribly slowly, but still he didn\u2019t seem to be able to stop running.\nMoving as if through syrup, he slowly turned his troubled head and looked\nat his own hand, the hand which was holding the small hard red ball.\nHis feet were pounding slowly onwards, unstoppably, as he stared at the\nball gripped in his helpless hand. It was emitting a deep red glow and \ufb02ashing\nintermittently. And still his feet were pounding inexorably forward.\nHe looked at the Krikkit robot again standing implacably still and purpose-\nfully in front of him, battleclub raised in readiness. Its eyes were burning with a\ndeep cold fascinating light, and Arthur could not move his own eyes from them.\nHe seemed to be looking down a tunnel at them - nothing on either side seemed\nto exist.\nSome of the thoughts which were colliding in his mind at this time were\nthese:\nHe felt a hell of a fool.", "d4fe7cfa-d072-49cf-82fb-1d1ef63dd4db": "141\nHe felt that he should have listened rather more carefully to a number of\nthings he had heard said, phrases which now pounded round in his mind as his\nfeet pounded onwards to the point where he would inevitably release the ball\nto the Krikkit robot, who would inevitably strike it.\nHe remembered Hactar saying, \u201dHave I failed? Failure doesn\u2019t bother me.\u201d\nHe remembered the account of Hactar\u2019s dying words, \u201dWhat\u2019s done is done,\nI have ful\ufb01lled my function.\u201d\nHe remembered Hactar saying that he had managed to make \u201da few things.\u201d\nHe remembered the sudden movement in his hold-all that had made him\ngrip it tightly to himself when he was in the Dust Cloud.\nHe remembered that he had travelled back in time a couple of days to come\nto Lord\u2019s again.\nHe also remembered that he wasn\u2019t a very good bowler.\nHe felt his arm coming round, gripping tightly on to the ball which he now\nknew for certain was the supernova bomb that Hactar had built himself and\nplanted on him, the bomb which would cause the Universe to come to an abrupt\nand premature end.\nHe hoped and prayed that there wasn\u2019t an afterlife. Then he realized there\nwas a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn\u2019t an after-\nlife.\nHe would feel very, very embarrassed meeting everybody.\nHe hoped, he hoped, he hoped that his bowling was as bad as he remembered\nit to be, because that seemed to be the only thing now standing between this\nmoment and universal oblivion.\nHe felt his legs pounding, he felt his arm coming round, he felt his feet\nconnecting with the airline hold-all he\u2019d stupidly left lying on the ground in\nfront of him, he felt himself falling heavily forward but, having his mind so\nterribly full of other things at this moment, he completely forgot about hitting\nthe ground and didn\u2019t.\nStill holding the ball \ufb01rmly in his right hand he soared up into the air\nwhimpering with surprise.\nHe wheeled and whirled through the air, spinning out of control.\nHe twisted down towards the ground, \ufb02inging himself hectically through the\nair, at the same time hurling the bomb harmlessly o\ufb00 into the distance.\nHe hurtled towards the astounded robot from behind. It still had its multi-\nfunctional battleclub raised, but had suddenly been deprived of anything to\nhit.\nWith a sudden mad access of strength, he wrestled the battleclub from the\ngrip of the startled robot, executed a dazzling banking turn in the air, hurtled\nback down in a furious power-drive and with one crazy swing knocked the robot\u2019s\nhead from the robot\u2019s shoulders.\n- Are you coming now? - said Ford.\nEpilogue:\nLife, the Universe and Everything\nAnd at the end they travelled again.\nThere was a time when Arthur Dent would not. He said that the Bistro-\nmathic Drive had revealed to him that time and distance were one, that mind\nand Universe were one, that perception and reality were one, and that the more\none travelled the more one stayed in one place, and that what with one thing\nand another he would rather just stay put for a while and sort it all out in his", "7d4148ff-484a-4624-a8cd-c5f13b29da2d": "142 CHAPTER 32.\nmind, which was now at one with the Universe so it shouldn\u2019t take too long,\nand he could get a good rest afterwards, put in a little \ufb02ying practice and learn\nto cook which he had always meant to do. The can of Greek olive oil was now\nhis most prized possession, and he said that the way it had unexpectedly turned\nup in his life had again given him a certain sense of the oneness of things which\nmade him feel that...\nHe yawned and fell asleep.\nIn the morning as they prepared to take him to some quiet and idyllic planet\nwhere they wouldn\u2019t mind him talking like that they suddenly picked up a\ncomputer-driven distress call and diverted to investigate.\nA small but apparently undamaged spacecraft of the Merida class seemed to\nbe dancing a strange little jig through the void. A brief computer scan revealed\nthat the ship was \ufb01ne, its computer was \ufb01ne, but that its pilot was mad.\n- Half-mad, half-mad, - the man insisted as they carried him, raving, aboard.\nHe was a journalist with the Siderial Daily Mentioner. They sedated him\nand sent Marvin in to keep him company until he promised to try and talk\nsense.\n- I was covering a trial, - he said at last, - on Argabuthon.\nHe pushed himself up on to his thin wasted shoulders, his eyes stared wildly.\nHis white hair seemed to be waving at someone it knew in the next room.\n- Easy, easy, - said Ford. Trillian put a soothing hand on his shoulder.\nThe man sank back down again and stared at the ceiling of the ship\u2019s sick\nbay.\n- The case, - he said, - is now immaterial, but there was a witness... a\nwitness... a man called... called Prak. A strange and di\ufb03cult man. They were\neventually forced to administer a drug to make him tell the truth, a truth drug.\nHis eyes rolled helplessly in his head.\n- They gave him too much, - he said in a tiny whimper. - They gave him\nmuch too much. - He started to cry. - I thing the robots must have jogged the\nsurgeon\u2019s arm.\n- Robots? - said Zaphod sharply. - What robots?\n- Some white robots, - whispered the man hoarsely, - broke into the court-\nroom and stole the judge\u2019s sceptre, the Argabuthon Sceptre of Justice, nasty\nPerspex thing. I don\u2019t know why they wanted it. - He began to cry again. -\nAnd I think they jogged the surgeon\u2019s arm...\nHe shook his head loosely from side to side, helplessly, sadly, his eyes screwed\nup in pain.\n- And when the trial continued, - he said in a weeping whisper, - they asked\nPrak a most unfortunate thing. They asked him, - he paused and shivered, - to\ntell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth. Only, don\u2019t you\nsee?\nHe suddenly hoisted himself up on to his elbows again and shouted at them.\n- They\u2019d given him much too much of the drug!\nHe collapsed again, moaning quietly.\n- Much too much too much too much too...\nThe group gathered round his bedside glanced at each other. there were\ngoose pimples on backs.\n- What happened? - said Zaphod at last.\n- Oh, he told it all right, - said the man savagely, - for all I know he\u2019s still\ntelling it now. Strange, terrible things... terrible, terrible! - he screamed.", "a4c83607-63cc-403a-9f3f-39a74a20289a": "143\nThey tried to calm him, but he struggled to his elbows again.\n- Terrible things, incomprehensible things, - he shouted, - things that would\ndrive a man mad!\nHe stared wildly at them.\n- Or in my case, - he said, - half-mad. I\u2019m a journalist.\n- You mean, - said Arthur quietly, - that you are used to confronting the\ntruth?\n- No, - said the man with a puzzled frown. - I mean that I made an excuse\nand left early.\nHe collapsed into a coma from which he recovered only once and brie\ufb02y.\nOn that one occasion, they discovered from him the following:\nWhen it became clear that Prak could not be stopped, that here was truth\nin its absolute and \ufb01nal form, the court was cleared.\nNot only cleared, it was sealed up, with Prak still in it. Steel walls were\nerected around it, and, just to be on the safe side, barbed wire, electric fences,\ncrocodile swamps and three major armies were installed, so that no one would\never have to hear Prak speak.\n- That\u2019s a pity, - said Arthur. - I\u2019d like to hear what he had to say. Pre-\nsumably he would know what the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer\nis. It\u2019s always bothered me that we never found out.\n- Think of a number, - said the computer, - any number.\nArthur told the computer the telephone number of King\u2019s Cross railway\nstation passenger inquiries, on the grounds that it must have some function,\nand this might turn out to be it.\nThe computer injected the number into the ship\u2019s reconstituted Improbabil-\nity Drive.\nIn Relativity, Matter tells Space how to curve, and Space tells Matter how\nto move.\nThe Heart of Gold told space to get knotted, and parked itself neatly within\nthe inner steel perimeter of the Argabuthon Chamber of Law.\nThe courtroom was an austere place, a large dark chamber, clearly designed\nfor Justice rather than, for instance, for Pleasure. You wouldn\u2019t hold a dinner\nparty here - at least, not a successful one. The decor would get your guests\ndown.\nThe ceilings were high, vaulted and very dark. Shadows lurked there with\ngrim determination. The panelling for the walls and benches, the cladding of\nthe heavy pillars, all were carved from the darkest and most severe trees in\nthe fearsome Forest of Arglebard. The massive black Podium of Justice which\ndominated the centre of the chamber was a monster of gravity. If a sunbeam\nhad ever managed to slink this far into the Justice complex of Argabuthon it\nwould have turned around and slunk straight back out again.\nArthur and Trillian were the \ufb01rst in, whilst Ford and Zaphod bravely kept\na watch on their rear.\nAt \ufb01rst it seemed totally dark and deserted. their footsteps echoed hollowly\nround the chamber. This seemed curious. All the defences were still in position\nand operative around the outside of the building, they had run scan checks.\nTherefore, they had assumed, the truth-telling must still be going on.\nBut there was nothing.\nThen, as their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, they spotted a dull\nred glow in a corner, and behind the glow a live shadow. They swung a torch", "1f197511-a4ce-4d8d-828f-1f26fe3ef40b": "144 CHAPTER 32.\nround on to it.\nPrak was lounging on a bench, smoking a listless cigarette.\n- Hi, - he said, with a little half-wave. His voice echoed through the chamber.\nHe was a little man with scraggy hair. He sat with his shoulders hunched forward\nand his head and knees kept jiggling. He took a drag of his cigarette.\nThey stared at him.\n- What\u2019s going on? - said Trillian.\n- Nothing, - said the man and jiggled his shoulders.\nArthur shone his torch full on Prak\u2019s face.\n- We thought, - he said, - that you were meant to be telling the Truth, the\nWhole Truth and Nothing but the Truth.\n- Oh, that, - said Prak. - Yeah. I was. I \ufb01nished. There\u2019s not nearly as\nmuch of it as people imagine. Some of it\u2019s pretty funny, though.\nHe suddenly exploded in about three seconds of manical laughter and stopped\nagain. he sat there, jiggling his head and knees. He dragged on his cigarette\nwith a strange half-smile.\nFord and Zaphod came forward out of the shadows.\n- Tell us about it, - said Ford.\n- Oh, I can\u2019t remember any of it now, - said Prak. - I thought of writing\nsome of it down, but \ufb01rst I couldn\u2019t \ufb01nd a pencil, and then I thought, why\nbother?\nThere was a long silence, during which they thought they could feel the\nUniverse age a little. Prak stared into the torchlight.\n- None of it? - said Arthur at last. - You can remember none of it?\n- No. Except most of the good bits were about frogs, I remember that.\nSuddenly he was hooting with laughter again and stamping his feet on the\nground.\n- You would not believe some of the things about frogs, - he gasped. - Come\non let\u2019s go and \ufb01nd ourselves a frog. Boy, will I ever see them in a new light!\n- He leapt to his feet and did a tiny little dance. Then he stopped and took a\nlong drag at his cigarette.\n- Let\u2019s \ufb01nd a frog I can laugh at, - he said simply. - Anyway, who are you\nguys?\n- We came to \ufb01nd you, - said Trillian, deliberately not keeping the disap-\npointment out of her voice. - My name is Trillian.\nPrak jiggled his head.\n- Ford Prefect, - said Ford Prefect with a shrug.\nPrak jiggled his head.\n- And I, - said Zaphod, when he judged that the silence was once again deep\nenough to allow an announcement of such gravity to be tossed in lightly, - am\nZaphod Beeblebrox.\nPrak jiggled his head.\n- Who\u2019s this guy? - said Prak jiggling his shoulder at Arthur, who was\nstanding silent for a moment, lost in disappointed thoughts.\n- Me? - said Arthur. - Oh, my name\u2019s Arthur Dent.\nPrak\u2019s eyes popped out of his head.\n- No kidding? - he yelped. - You are Arthur Dent? The Arthur Dent?\nHe staggered backwards, clutching his stomach and convulsed with fresh\nparoxysms o laughter.", "cf377a9e-c846-44ae-9d3f-db48e9b9d540": "145\n- Hey, just think of meeting you! - he gasped. - Boy, - he shouted, - you are\nthe most... wow, you just leave the frogs standing!\nhe howled and screamed with laughter. He fell over backwards on to the\nbench. He hollered and yelled in hysterics. He cried with laughter, he kicked\nhis legs in the air, he beat his chest. Gradually he subsided, panting. He\nlooked at them. He looked at Arthur. He fell back again howling with laughter.\nEventually he fell asleep.\nArthur stood there with his lips twitching whilst the others carried Prak\ncomatose on to the ship.\n- Before we picked up Prak, - said Arthur, - I was going to leave. I still want\nto, and I think I should do so as soon as possible.\nThe others nodded in silence, a silence which was only slightly undermined\nby the heavily mu\ufb04ed and distant sound of hysterical laughter which came\ndrifting from Prak\u2019s cabin at the farthest end of the ship.\n- We have questioned him, - continued Arthur, - or at least, you have ques-\ntioned him - I, as you know, can\u2019t go near him - on everything, and he doesn\u2019t\nreally seem to have anything to contribute. Just the occasional snippet, and\nthings I don\u2019t want to hear about frogs.\nThe others tried not to smirk.\n- Now, I am the \ufb01rst to appreciate a joke, - said Arthur and then had to\nwait for the others to stop laughing.\n- I am the \ufb01rst... - he stopped again. This time he stopped and listened to\nthe silence. There actually was silence this time, and it had come very suddenly.\nPrak was quiet. For days they had lived with constant manical laughter ring-\ning round the ship, only occasionally relieved by short periods of light giggling\nand sleep. Arthur\u2019s very soul was clenched with paranoia.\nThis was not the silence of sleep. A buzzer sounded. A glance at a board\ntold them that the buzzer had been sounded by Prak.\n- He\u2019s not well, - said Trillian quietly. - The constant laughing is completely\nwrecking his body.\nArthur\u2019s lips twitched but he said nothing.\n- We\u2019d better go and see him, - said Trillian.\nTrillian came out of the cabin wearing her serious face.\n- He wants you to go in, - she said to Arthur, who was wearing his glum\nand tight-lipped one. He thrust his hands deep into his dressing-gown pockets\nand tried to think of something to say which wouldn\u2019t sound petty. It seemed\nterribly unfair, but he couldn\u2019t.\n- Please, - said Trillian.\nHe shrugged and went in, taking his glum and tight-lipped face with him,\ndespite the reaction this always provoked from Prak.\nHe looked down at his tormentor, who was lying quietly on the bed, ashen\nand wasted. His breathing was very shallow. Ford and Zaphod were standing\nby the bed looking awkward.\n- You wanted to ask me something, - said Prak in a thin voice and coughed\nslightly.\nJust the cough made Arthur sti\ufb00en, but it passed and subsided.\n- How do you know that? - he asked.\nPrak shrugged weakly.\n- \u2019Cos it\u2019s true, - he said simply.\nArthur took the point.", "e2e6ab91-1e4f-4be9-b29a-cffa0f10dfc9": "146 CHAPTER 32.\n- Yes, - he said at last in rather a strained drawl. - I did have a question. Or\nrather, what I actually have is an Answer. I wanted to know what the Question\nwas.\nPrak nodded sympathetically, and Arthur relaxed a little.\n- It\u2019s... well, it\u2019s a long story, - he said, - but the Question I would like to\nknow is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we\nknow is that the Answer is Forty-Two, which is a little aggravating.\nPrak nodded again.\n- Forty-Two, - he said. - Yes, that\u2019s right.\nHe paused. Shadows of thought and memory crossed his face like the shadows\nof clouds crossing the land.\n- I\u2019m afraid, - he said at last, - that the Question and the Answer are mutually\nexclusive. Knowledge of one logically precludes knowledge of the other. It is\nimpossible that both can ever be known about the same universe.\nHe paused again. Disappointment crept into Arthur\u2019s face and snuggled\ndown into its accustomed place.\n- Except, - said Prak, struggling to sort a thought out, - if it happened, it\nseems that the Question and the Answer would just cancel each other out and\ntake the Universe with them, which would then be replaced by something even\nmore bizarrely inexplicable. It is possible that this has already happened, - he\nadded with a weak smile, - but there is a certain amount of Uncertainty about\nit.\nA little giggle brushed through him.\nArthur sat down on a stool.\n- Oh well, - he said with resignation, - I was just hoping there would be some\nsort of reason.\n- Do you know, - said Prak, - the story of the Reason?\nArthur said that he didn\u2019t, and Prak said that he knew that he didn\u2019t.\nHe told it.\nOne night, he said, a spaceship appeared in the sky of a planet which had\nnever seen one before. The planet was Dalforsas, the ship was this one. It\nappeared as a brilliant new star moving silently across the heavens.\nPrimitive tribesmen who were sitting huddled on the Cold Hillsides looked up\nfrom their steaming night-drinks and pointed with trembling \ufb01ngers, swearing\nthat they had seen a sign, a sign from their gods which meant that they must\nnow arise at last and go and slay the evil Princes of the Plains.\nIn the high turrets of their palaces, the Princes of the Plains looked up and\nsaw the shining star, and received it unmistakably as a sign from their gods that\nthey must now go and set about the accursed Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides.\nAnd between them, the Dwellers in the Forest looked up into the sky and\nsaw the sigh of the new star, and saw it with fear and apprehension, for though\nthey had never seen anything like it before, they too knew precisely what it\nforeshadowed, and they bowed their heads in despair.\nThey knew that when the rains came, it was a sign.\nWhen the rains departed, it was a sign.\nWhen the winds rose, it was a sign.\nWhen the winds fell, it was a sign.\nWhen in the land there was born at midnight of a full moon a goat with\nthree heads, that was a sign.", "a7136830-fb32-4e51-9ab3-9ca4165988e7": "147\nWhen in the land there was born at some time in the afternoon a perfectly\nnormal cat or pig with no birth complications at all, or even just a child with a\nretrousse nose, that too would often be taken as a sign.\nSo there was no doubt at all that a new star in the sky was a sign of a\nparticularly spectacular order.\nAnd each new sign signi\ufb01ed the same thing - that the Princes of the Plains\nand the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides were about to beat the hell out of each\nother again.\nThis in itself wouldn\u2019t be so bad, except that the Princes of the Plains and\nthe Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides always elected to beat the hell out of each\nother in the Forest, and it was always the Dwellers in the Forest who came o\ufb00\nworst in these exchanges, though as far as they could see it never had anything\nto do with them.\nAnd sometimes, after some of the worst of these outrages, the Dwellers in\nthe Forest would send a messenger to either the leader of the Princes of the\nPlains or the leader of the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides and demand to know\nthe reason for this intolerable behaviour.\nAnd the leader, whichever one it was, would take the messenger aside and\nexplain the Reason to him, slowly and carefully and with great attention to the\nconsiderable detail involved.\nAnd the terrible thing was, it was a very good one. It was very clear, very\nrational, and tough. The messenger would hang his head and feel sad and foolish\nthat he had not realized what a tough and complex place the real world was,\nand what di\ufb03culties and paradoxes had to be embraced if one was to live in it.\n- Now do you understand? - the leader would say.\nThe messenger would nod dumbly.\n- And you see these battles have to take place?\nAnother dumb nod.\n- And why they have to take place in the forest, and why it is in everybody\u2019s\nbest interest, the Forest Dwellers included, that they should?\n- Er...\n- In the long run.\n- Er, yes.\nAnd the messenger did understand the Reason, and he returned to his people\nin the Forest. But as he approached them, as he walked through the Forest and\namongst the trees, he found that all he could remember of the Reason was\nhow terribly clear the argument had seemed. What it actually was he couldn\u2019t\nremember at all.\nAnd this, of course, was a great comfort when next the Tribesmen and the\nPrinces came hacking and burning their way through the Forest, killing every\nForest Dweller in their way.\nPrak paused in his story and coughed pathetically.\n- I was the messenger, - he said, - after the battles precipitated by the\nappearance of your ship, which were particularly savage. Many of our people\ndied. I thought I could bring the Reason back. I went and was told it by the\nleader of the Princes, but on the way back it slipped and melted away in my\nmind like snow in the sun. That was many years ago, and much has happened\nsince then.\nHe looked up at Arthur and giggled again very gently.", "ef8b13e5-b009-4e9a-a561-4525330f0771": "148 CHAPTER 32.\n- There is one other thing I can remember from the truth drug. Apart from\nthe frogs, and that is God\u2019s last message to his creation. Would you like to hear\nit?\nFor a moment they didn\u2019t know whether to take him seriously.\n- \u2019Strue, - he said. - For real. I mean it.\nHis chest heaved weakly and he struggled for breath. His head lolled slightly.\n- I wasn\u2019t very impressed with it when I \ufb01rst knew what it was, - he said, -\nbut now I think back to how impressed I was by the Prince\u2019s Reason, and how\nsoon afterwards I couldn\u2019t recall it at all, I think it might be a lot more helpful.\nWould you like to know what it is? Would you?\nThey nodded dumbly.\n- I bet you would. If you\u2019re that interested I suggest you go and look for it.\nIt is written in thirty-foot-high letters of \ufb01re on top of the Quentulus Quazgar\nMountains in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the planet Preliumtarn, third out\nfrom the sun Zarss in Galactic Sector QQ7 Active J Gamma. It is guarded by\nthe Lajestic Vantrashell of Lob.\nThere was a long silence following this announcement, which was \ufb01nally\nbroken by Arthur.\n- Sorry, it\u2019s where? - he said.\n- It is written, - repeated Prak, - in thirty-foot-high letters of \ufb01re on top of\nthe Quentulus Quazgar Mountains in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the planet\nPreliumtarn, third out from the...\n- Sorry, - said Arthur again, - which mountains?\n- The Quentulus Quazgar Mountains in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the\nplanet...\n- Which land was that? I didn\u2019t quite catch it.\n- Sevorbeupstry, on the planet...\n- Sevorbe-what?\n- Oh, for heaven\u2019s sake, - said Prak and died testily.\nIn the following days Arthur thought a little about this message, but in the\nend he decided that he was not going to allow himself to be drawn by it, and\ninsisted on following his original plan of \ufb01nding a nice little world somewhere\nto settle down and lead a quiet retired life. Having saved the Universe twice in\none day he thought that he could take things a little easier from now on.\nThey dropped him o\ufb00 on the planet Krikkit, which was now once again an\nidyllic pastoral world, even if the songs did occasionally get on his nerves.\nHe spent a lot of time \ufb02ying.\nHe learnt to communicate with birds and discovered that their conversation\nwas fantastically boring. It was all to do with wind speed, wing spans, power-\nto-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries. Unfortunately, he discovered, once\nyou have learnt birdspeak you quickly come to realize that the air is full of it\nthe whole time, just inane bird chatter. There is no getting away from it.\nFor that reason Arthur eventually gave up the sport and learnt to live on\nthe ground and love it, despite a lot of the inane chatter he heard down there\nas well.\nOne day, he was walking through the \ufb01elds humming a ravishing tune he\u2019d\nheard recently when a silver spaceship descended from the sky and landed in\nfront of him.\nA hatchway opened, a ramp extended, and a tall grey-green alien marched\nout and approached him.", "fb2cd430-525f-494c-9e80-ce2182e30991": "149\n- Arthur Phili... - it said, then glanced sharply at him and down at his\nclipboard. He frowned. He looked up at him again.\n- I\u2019ve done you before haven\u2019t I? - he said."}, "relevant_docs": {"4716215c-db53-415a-902c-3735bb36f3de": ["d318272d-7871-43a6-9fe1-87173815f8fc"], "ed9bd623-0406-4e36-88b6-9cb8bcd328cc": ["d318272d-7871-43a6-9fe1-87173815f8fc"], "dd6f5ada-38be-4869-a392-47ea1722c569": ["d4110aa6-4750-451b-a0bf-560bf648d7bc"], "63285ff5-049f-478c-871a-f576d6fe9c07": ["d4110aa6-4750-451b-a0bf-560bf648d7bc"], "a8bbe3e8-d164-48c5-b3d7-fafeb2694633": ["5acb7d21-bf82-4250-906e-030f1d2fb0bb"], "21dee0d9-26eb-47da-965b-b8653a14904f": ["5acb7d21-bf82-4250-906e-030f1d2fb0bb"], "3e817df1-0bda-4f90-a589-35859e8ca3be": ["e54b9521-6133-438b-bae1-5d895e6e24c4"], "1b01aa6c-069f-40fa-8e1e-51067c09d51e": ["e54b9521-6133-438b-bae1-5d895e6e24c4"], "5fc8e9d6-f099-47d4-adef-2cfd012f6b43": ["e8583b67-9e8f-45b9-8025-9845df981836"], "2500a058-ba94-4464-9bb3-43ede37829c1": ["e8583b67-9e8f-45b9-8025-9845df981836"], "5a60d231-5812-4dbb-aad6-ab00f205bdbf": 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